There has been a recent brouhaha over the fact that the new federal healthcare law (Obama-care) mandates that all insurance companies cover the cost of birth control pills. The spin here is that Republican candidates are now decrying this intrusion of religious freedom because even churches will be required to offer employee insurance plans provide this benefit.

So Catholic Churches, an organization that opposes (read: forbids) the use of contraception in any form, will be required to provide birth control pills to their employees at no cost. This is a callous and irresponsible intrusion of the federal government into matters (religious) that they have no business legislating. A speaker at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) thought that anyone advocating this reckless exercise in federal authority should have had parents who used contraception (so that they wouldn’t exist to spread their filthy wrong-headed ideas).

Rick Santorum is even on the record as saying that all contraception is wrong and that, if he is elected president, he will work to outlaw all forms of birth control. see the video

And that’s all good and that’s how Fox News and the GOP are slanting it now. Obama and Obama-care are trying to shove their liberal/gay agenda down the throats of churches and they are evil and wrong.

Unfortunately for them, that whole argument is total crap because the internet exists to do some research.

First off, how much hypocrisy are we dealing with when catholic bishops start screaming about this issue? Quite a lot, even their own parishioners do not listen to this crap. Percentage of American women who use birth control: 98% Percentage of Catholic American women who use birth control: 98%  (98% of women who have sex)

Is this a federal problem? Not really, 28 states currently have laws on the books that already make this a mandatory health insurance benefit. Those state laws were challenged many times but they were repeatedly found to be constitutional and all of them stood up in court. Several of them (8 states) actually require churches to offer this benefit. The federal law exempts churches, but does not exempt church-operated entities like hospitals and schools.

The fact is, this isn’t an overreach of federal authority. Contraception is important because people are going to have sex. Even married people have sex without trying to make more babies, because it is fun. And people who say this is wrong just SAY it is wrong, they still do it.

So, understand that the GOP argument that this is all another instance of Obama trying to take all your rights away, is bullshit. And if this is bullshit, how much of the other stuff coming out of their mouths can you trust?

This site is helpful: http://www.politifact.com/

Private sector job growth from Bush (red) to Obama (blue).

One thing that keeps getting hammered on the by Republican candidates is how crappy Obama has been for job growth in the USA. “He inherited a bad economy, but he has only made it worse” is a common refrain from the right.  Unfortunately, that’s bullshit. And it’s not just a little bit of re-jiggering the numbers to make their case, it’s just an outright lie.

Lie.

Lie.

Lie.

The right is using the same old code phrases that they always do.  It’s the Southern strategy writ large and it comes down to this very easy equation:

The Republican Strategy:

Poor = Minority or Black

There is a huge divide in America right now, and the problem that republican voters have is in understanding that they are on the poor side of that equation right along with the people they fear.  The message they keep pushing is that the world would be much better without all those poor people running around.  And since ‘poor’ is a code word for ‘black or minority’, that resonates with the racial bigotry and hatred so endemic to the Right.

This all works because the LIE makes you feel good if you are white and poor.  The LIE that your problems are caused by poor people and a black president makes you feel like there is someone to blame for your problems.  The trick of the Right is that there IS someone to blame for your problems, but the correct target of your ire is not your fellow poor people.

I want to help Republicans understand that the feeling that you are being stepped on by someone else is totally justified and correct.  The idea you have that the people doing the stepping are other poor people is wrong.

My thanks to the fine folks at Wasthington Monthly for creating that handy bar chart showing private sector job growth during the end of the Bush presidency and the beginning of the Obama administration.  The original article can be found here: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2010_09/025514.php

I would absolutely vote for Stephen Colbert for president . . . or Tom Hanks. Who could say “no” to Tom Hanks for president?

“Fair and Balanced” is right up there with “Freedom through Slavery” and “Ignorance is Strength” as the greatest pieces of doublethink ever devised.  ”Fair and Balanced”, for my non-American friends, is the tag line of the most popular news channel in America, Fox News.  Fox News is able to put the ‘News’ after its name because they broadcast approximately 1 hour of news a day surrounded by a chocolate covering of lies, misdirection, and hatred.

The dividing line between ‘news’ and ‘opinion’ is deliberately blurred to confuse viewers into thinking that the information they are receiving is factual or based on consensual reality.  It isn’t.  Fox News is the brain child and propaganda machine of Roger Ailes, created solely for the stupefaction of American politics.  The brilliance of Roger was in understanding is that a lie, told enough times, can be accepted as a truth and that lie, if told the right way, can be more convincing than the truth.

Terry Pratchett said it best, “A lie can travel around the world while the truth is still getting its boots on.”

I’ll give a specific.

Who leaked the Herman Cain scandal?  Fox News wants people to believe that it was all a left-wing conspiracy, maybe even the Evil President Obama playing his ‘Chicago Style Politics’ games.  But, I have read Herman Cain’s speeches, I have seen him in interviews, I have tried to understand if his policies make any sense.  The truth is that Herman Cain is an idiot.  He’s just some guy trying to raise his speaker fees and accidentally became a viable candidate in the election.

I don’t like how Obama is handling things.  I think if there was a candidate with moral integrity, empathy, and intelligence from *either* party, I would probably choose them over Obama right now.  The fact of the matter is that Herman Cain as a viable Republican candidate does nothing but encourage me to vote for Obama again.

So, who gains by having Herman Cain flame out in scandal and shame?  His competitors in the Republican party stand to gain the most by having Herman out of the way so that the spotlight that remains can more strongly focus on their own candidacy.  Herman originally blamed staffers from those other candidates, probably correctly.

But Fox News does not want the story to be ‘Republican Candidates Undermine Each Other’, and so it pushes its own story of, “Obama’s Chicago Style Politics”.  It says that over and over.  It repeats it in different formats, from different mouths, in ways that look like news and in ways that look like opinion.  Eventually, the lie becomes the story, and everyone just ‘knows’ that the real villain here is Obama.

They ‘know’ a lie and call it ‘truth’.

. . .

Did you watch  As the World Turns?  I have to listen to it while I’m cooking dinner, it’s still on the air here in the Netherlands.  There are always characters in there telling outrageous lies and getting away with it because the lies are clever and subversive.  The lies play on the insecurities and doubts that are endemic to everyone, but amplified for television.

I think the great fascination with that show is that you just want to reach in and yell at the characters.  To tell them the truth, to shake them out of their delusions so that they could be happy or to see the bad guy get his just comeuppance.  I want to leave notes for them in obvious places so that they could step out of the lie they are trapped in.

And it comes to me that this is how I think about my own country.  I moved out of Oakdale and these are my letters against the lies.

Utterly FANTASTIC

She might have been a perfectly lovely person, but I have my doubts.

She may have said some clever and interesting things, but if you live long enough you are bound to get lucky.

But whatever other sterling qualities she might have had, she has led a whole generation of political thinkers to abort our society for their own personal gain.  She has convinced a whole generation of the ultra wealthy that their greed and excess and criminal stupidity is fully justified and OK.

Just read this quote from Ayn:

“Freedom: To ask nothing. To expect nothing. To depend on nothing.”

Objectivism (Ayn’s personal view of how the world should work) only functions within the framework of a society that totally rejects the precepts of Objectivism.  In other words, true Objectivism would have killed off humanity a long time ago because it precludes all of the things that allow us to work together.

You depend on others.

We must depend on each other.

And so when I hear politicians get up on stage and say, with a straight face, that they are “admirers of Ayn Rand’s philosophy”, you should just translate that in your head to, “Fuck You, I’m in this for myself”.

Objectivism is a dead end.  You know what country does Objectivism pretty well right now?  Italy.  A thousand politicians screaming ‘ME!’ instead of a people and a country saying ‘WE!’.  Objectivism means your taxes don’t get paid, your country goes broke, and you bring down the economies of 22 other nations who agreed to work with you.

Of course, America is much bigger and the Objectivism adherents on Wall Street have already triggered much bigger damage and losses for the whole world.

We need a new meme: “Ayn Rand was a crazy bitch”

What does America look like right now?  I have been toying with comparisons with Rome, but there is a comparison much closer to home.  I’m going to paraphrase a description from Wikipedia, can you identify the country and the time period?

The state was nearing bankruptcy and outlays outpaced income. XXXXXXX realized that the country’s extremely regressive tax system subjected the lower classes to a heavy burden, while numerous exemptions existed for the [very rich] and clergy. He argued that the country [lower classes] could not be taxed higher; that tax exemptions for the nobility and clergy must be reduced; and proposed that borrowing more money would solve the country’s fiscal shortages.

The guy in the ‘XXXXX’s failed in getting his reforms passed and the government collapsed less than 3 years later.  And, in time, it became a blood bath with most of the ‘upper’ classes either fleeing the country or beheaded.

Yes, I’m talking about France.  And the fact that the government was broke because of King Louis’ escapades in the 7 years war just put the cherry on the top of this comparison for me.

I know there are differences.  But the fundamental issue at stake now in America are the massive separation between mega rich and everyone else.  When it gets right down to it, what is really the difference between a King and a Koch Brother?  Can you buy an army and a government?

Regulated capitalism works.  But businesses cannot write their own rules (and they do now).  The government must be a reflection of the will of the people, not just the people born with a golden thermometer up their ass.

Watch this TED presentation. Go ahead, I dare you.

Richard Wilkinson: How economic inequality harms societies | Video on TED.com.

What I thought was telling was that the places with the greatest income equality have the highest standards of living for the most people. John F. Kennedy said, “A rising tide lifts all boats”, and this is clearly laid out in the data collected by Richard Wilkinson and his colleagues. The second thing I found provocative in this talk was the fact that income fairness is the most important factor regardless of how that fairness is achieved.

A CEO in Japan making 350 times what the ‘normal’ people make is seen as obscene by that culture.  It is CULTURAL pressure that keeps people on the rails.  In Sweden, it is taxation.

I spoke with my good friend Ron today following the eviction of occupy wall street from Liberty Square in New York and he doesn’t think the revolution will happen yet.  My take on this is that unless the revolution happens now, it will happen within the next 10 years and it will be bloody.

This isn’t about rich versus poor.  This is about some of the rich removing the possibility of a decent living.  How can you move up in society through dint of hard work and intelligence if the cats at the top are changing the rules to make your labor worthless, to take your money through predatory lending, to burden you with tax rates higher than their own?  You cannot.

This is what I hope OWS does.  I hope it raises the awareness of America to the fact that their politicians are for sale and that they have been outbid.

This is audio only, but you need to understand the historical context of Occupy Wall Street and the Populist movement.

Prophetic article calling for the occupation Part 1 – Majority Report – YouTube.