The roll-out of the Affordable Care Act has hatched a spasm of obituaries for Obama's second term, and more than a few for Liberalism as We Know It. That's right, Error 404: Ideology Not Found. At best, pundits have surmised that Obama's popularity will never recover. Comparisons between the implementation of insurance exchanges and the Iraq War or Katrina, as infuriating as they are (how many times do we have to say it: Bush lied, people died; website crashed, people complained on Twitter) do suggest that a mid-term catastrophic failure can derail an entire presidential agenda. Charlie Cook, writing in The National Journal, had the most concise rebuttal of this theory: it's way too early to tell. Or, put as a critique of the logic behind the death notices: pundits tend to think that any given political situation is static, but the truth is that a variety of circumstances can change either voters' perspective or the real impact of presidential actions. Here's a few things that could lift Obama out of his slump.
1. Wait until you see the other guy
Obama benefits when he can function in full campaign mode and present an "apples to apples" comparison to voters. When the GOP primary ramps up, he'll get a chance to do this again. His last sustained high in approval came in November 2012; that 56% high-water mark was in the week after the Newtown shootings and many attributed it to a "rally around the flag" surge in patriotism, but the week previous – in the direct aftermath of the elections – it had been at 54%. In fact, Obama sporadic surges throughout 2012 all came after voters were given a chance to think about another specific politician doing the same specific job, most notably after the Democratic and Republican conventions in late summer.
The White House's attempts to push non-ACA stories is clearly an attempt to take advantage of this strength. Whereas the ACA has made it possible for the GOP to simply point at the mess and not necessarily offer solutions, when it comes to immigration reform or foreign policy, Obama has a chance to define himself against an existing set of competing ideas. Think of that situation as judging two applicants for a position: Obama interviews better. Contrast this to what happens when, say, you have two teams on a field playing a penalty-ridden scoreless game (such as during the budget negotiations): spectators are disgusted by both sides. (Some strategists in the GOP seem to believe that such chaos has at least short-term benefits for their side, hence their glee in perpetuating it.)
2. The Republican Party is fighting itself
The GOP's fraught internal battles have fractured it severely, perhaps irreparably (considering that many are asserting the demise of liberalism, I should probably make clear here that I'm sure conservatism will do just fine). While most commentators, including myself, have adopted the shorthand of "The Tea Party versus the establishment", the schisms range across ideological, attitudinal, generational and even regional lines. There is no reason to believe that that the debates will stay civil; indeed, they've already gotten pretty ugly. Some fist fights have broken through at the national level (Rand Paul versus Chris Christie, Ted Cruz versus John McCain, Boehner versus his caucus). Those simmering at the state level threaten party unity just as much, especially the plit in Iowa GOP between a libertarian faction that gained control in 2012 and a legacy cohort that wants to regain the advantage and steer the First-in-the-Nation Caucus to anyone not named Rand Paul. Imagine a primary battle that starts with a drawn-out slugfest among Cruz, Rand and Christie.
In Ohio, Governor John Kaisch, once lauded as a lauded 2016 GOP presidential contender, now faces a barrage of criticism for his embrace of the ACA's Medicaid expansion. As long as the ACA stays symbol of all that's wrong with "big government", the message is damaging. But it could backfire if Kaisch gains re-election (as it looks like he will) using a defense of the Medicaid changes that, with the exception of a single word, could just as easily come from Elizabeth Warren as a Republican: "I think its critical that we're able to help people to help themselves to get them to work. … Conservatism means that you help people so they can help themselves and so they can enter in the economic strength of our country."
3. The success stories from the ACA will come out
The dysfunctional exchange websites have meant that ACA "success stories" – struggling families gaining health insurance they once could not afford – are all but buried, while conservatives push into that void the "horror stories" of relatively affluent self-insured households (on Fox at least, many of the featured case-studies seem to have existing ideological objections to the ACA). As the roll-out has continued, however, the trickle of stories about working-class families breathing easier (and thus contributing to a more robust economy) thanks to the ACA exchanges has gained strength. The numbers will eventual outweigh the anecdotes: Republicans have counted about about one million Californians as among those to whom Obama broke his "if you like it, you can keep it" promise. But it's estimated that about two million residents, including almost all of the holders of those cancelled policies, will receive subsidies to purchase insurance plans that pass the ACA minimum requirements (aka, better plans) that are also ultimately cheaper – even if the premiums are higher, their out-of-pocket expenses will go down thanks to fully covered preventive care, lower deductibles and no penalties for previously existing conditions.
The California numbers reflect analysis that takes into consideration not just cancelled policies but all those who might benefit from subsidies, but even if one sticks to the outcomes for those with cancelled plans, the picture is far from bleak – in North Carolina, 60% of those with cancelled policies will qualify for subsidies; in Florida, 66 percent; in Utah, 84% do. Between five and six million people who do not qualify for the Medicaid expansion and are currently uninsured – arguably the precise demographic for whom the ACA was created – will get subsidies that cancel out entirely the cost of the cheapest policies available, at least one million more Americans than have had their existing policies cancelled. The individual stories of these policy holders exist with or without a functioning federal website, and some reporters have found them, so they will just take longer to get out. But they will get out.
11/29/13
Do you have rights? or does your Boss?
Are for-profit companies persons entitled to First Amendment free religious exercise protections? Should the religious beliefs of the controlling stakeholders of your employing company dictate the healthcare you receive? Does providing healthcare to employees substantially burden a corporation's religious freedom when that healthcare includes contraception coverage? Those are the questions the US supreme court will address in its review of two cases brought by companies who don't want to pay for contraception under Obama's healthcare law. The court's answer could significantly alter the landscape of the American workplace and First Amendment rights forever – quite possibly in dangerous ways. The supreme court is hearing two of the 70 pending cases on the issue, one brought by the conservative Christian owners of a chain craft store with 15,000 employees of various faiths (the Hobby Lobby), and one brought by the Mennonite owners of a wood cabinet company.
No one debates that the owners of these companies have sincerely-held religious beliefs. The question is whether, by mandating that the companies provide healthcare for their employees, the religious beliefs of the company are being violated. On its face, it seems odd to even consider the question seriously. After all, no one is forcing the owners of the company to take contraception or purchase contraception. The belief in question – that certain types of contraception are "abortifacients" – is also far from scientific fact. Also, the company owners issue their employees a pay check and have no say over how the employees spend it; they have no say over the activities their employees participate in on a vacation day. It's certainly not violating the company's religious freedom for an employee to use the money paid to them by the company for a whole series of things that the company owner may find religiously objectionable, including buying contraception.
It's certainly not violating the company's religious freedom for an employee to use a company-issued vacation day to enjoy a whole series of things that the company owner may find religiously objectionable, including, say, a full-day contracepted sex-fest, a trip to Mecca or a pork barbecue. So why is it a problem for employees to use their health insurance for the care they and their doctors agree upon? The cases the supreme court will hear were brought under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), which bars the government from "substantially burden[ing] a person's exercise of religion" unless that burden is justified by a "compelling reason". Free religious exercise is burdened when the government forces an individual to participate in activities that violate their religious beliefs, but not every infringement on religious beliefs is a substantial burden.
As the ACLU points out in their amicus brief to the supreme court, the contraception law doesn't force the owners of the Hobby Lobby craft store to violate their own religious beliefs. It requires them to cover health insurance, which may subsidize someone else's activities that violate the Hobby Lobby owners' religious values – but again, the same could be said for issuing a pay check. By refusing to cover contraception, the Hobby Lobby owners (and the owners of the other companies claiming the healthcare law infringes upon their religious freedom) are in fact using their own religious beliefs to deny benefits to their employees who may not share those beliefs at all.
That's not religious freedom; it's religious tyranny. The company heads bringing these claims want to have it both ways. By incorporating, owners and shareholders create separate entities and are not personally liable for their employees' salaries or health insurance costs – the entire point of incorporating is to create a legal entity separate from the individuals who created it. Yet these owners and shareholders want the court to consider their personal religious beliefs indistinguishable from those of the corporation, and allow those beliefs to dictate the kind of healthcare coverage their employees receive. Never before has the supreme court held that a for-profit corporation, rather than an actual person, has the right under the RFRA to refuse to abide by generally applicable laws and regulations. Doing so opens the door to a slew of issues:
If you work for a Christian Scientist who believes illness should be cured by prayer, are they obligated to cover medical care at all? Should for-profit companies be allowed to refuse to hire or cover healthcare for married women if they believe that it's a woman's religious duty to raise children and stay in the home? If you sincerely believe that Aids is God's punishment for homosexuality and promiscuity – a belief expressed by some of the most prominent members of the Christian right – should your company be able to opt out of covering HIV care for your employees? Since Obama's healthcare law also requires that employee health plans cover vaccinations, which some religious people oppose, should companies be allowed to refuse vaccine coverage for all employees and their dependents? Protecting the religious freedom of individuals is crucial. But at issue here isn't the religious freedom of individuals.
It's the ability of a corporation to dictate what kind of healthcare its employees have covered, under the guise of the stated religious views of the company owners. And don't be fooled; this is more about the current political tides than long-held religious values. The constitutional issues at play here aren't all that grey. But the supreme court's calculus is made more complex simply by virtue of the issue being attached to the controversial Affordable Care Act. Notably, the Hobby Lobby used to have an employee insurance plan that covered the very same birth control methods it now claims violate its religious freedom. It wasn't until the GOP raised a stink about the contraception rules in Obama's healthcare legislation that the Hobby Lobby "re-examined" its insurance policies.
Is the religious belief sincerely held? Probably. But it's as much political and cynical as it is faith-based. Similar cases have been tried in appeals courts and the supreme court itself, but in instances where individuals and not companies claimed a law violated their free exercise of religion. One woman, a Quaker, claimed that federal income taxes violated her religious freedom under the RFRA; the supreme court disagreed. In another case a religiously-affiliated school gave male employees a "head of household" supplement not offered to female employees because, according to their sincerely-held religious views, men should be the family's breadwinner. The fourth circuit held that the supplement violated the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), and that paying female employees in compliance with the FLSA had no impact on the school's "freedom to worship and evangelize as they please". In yet another case, public university students claimed that registration fees violated their rights under the RFRA, since the university's health insurance program covered abortion care. The ninth circuit also rejected the students' claims. Health insurance should be no different. The federal government should have no right to dictate that individuals engage in activities that violate their religious beliefs.
But individuals shouldn't have a right to impose their religious beliefs on their employees and deny them federally-mandated benefits. With any luck, the supreme court will address the root issues of these cases on their merits and in accordance with existing religious freedom jurisprudence. The GOP and the religious right are banking on the opposite: That the conservative and moderate justices, troubled by both Obamacare and the very mention of the word "abortion", will find some convoluted way of justifying religiously-motivated discrimination under the guise of "religious freedom". Do you even know the details of the religious beliefs held by your company's controlling shareholder? Cross your fingers you don't find out the hard way – when they start making healthcare decisions for you and your family.
No one debates that the owners of these companies have sincerely-held religious beliefs. The question is whether, by mandating that the companies provide healthcare for their employees, the religious beliefs of the company are being violated. On its face, it seems odd to even consider the question seriously. After all, no one is forcing the owners of the company to take contraception or purchase contraception. The belief in question – that certain types of contraception are "abortifacients" – is also far from scientific fact. Also, the company owners issue their employees a pay check and have no say over how the employees spend it; they have no say over the activities their employees participate in on a vacation day. It's certainly not violating the company's religious freedom for an employee to use the money paid to them by the company for a whole series of things that the company owner may find religiously objectionable, including buying contraception.
It's certainly not violating the company's religious freedom for an employee to use a company-issued vacation day to enjoy a whole series of things that the company owner may find religiously objectionable, including, say, a full-day contracepted sex-fest, a trip to Mecca or a pork barbecue. So why is it a problem for employees to use their health insurance for the care they and their doctors agree upon? The cases the supreme court will hear were brought under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), which bars the government from "substantially burden[ing] a person's exercise of religion" unless that burden is justified by a "compelling reason". Free religious exercise is burdened when the government forces an individual to participate in activities that violate their religious beliefs, but not every infringement on religious beliefs is a substantial burden.
As the ACLU points out in their amicus brief to the supreme court, the contraception law doesn't force the owners of the Hobby Lobby craft store to violate their own religious beliefs. It requires them to cover health insurance, which may subsidize someone else's activities that violate the Hobby Lobby owners' religious values – but again, the same could be said for issuing a pay check. By refusing to cover contraception, the Hobby Lobby owners (and the owners of the other companies claiming the healthcare law infringes upon their religious freedom) are in fact using their own religious beliefs to deny benefits to their employees who may not share those beliefs at all.
That's not religious freedom; it's religious tyranny. The company heads bringing these claims want to have it both ways. By incorporating, owners and shareholders create separate entities and are not personally liable for their employees' salaries or health insurance costs – the entire point of incorporating is to create a legal entity separate from the individuals who created it. Yet these owners and shareholders want the court to consider their personal religious beliefs indistinguishable from those of the corporation, and allow those beliefs to dictate the kind of healthcare coverage their employees receive. Never before has the supreme court held that a for-profit corporation, rather than an actual person, has the right under the RFRA to refuse to abide by generally applicable laws and regulations. Doing so opens the door to a slew of issues:
If you work for a Christian Scientist who believes illness should be cured by prayer, are they obligated to cover medical care at all? Should for-profit companies be allowed to refuse to hire or cover healthcare for married women if they believe that it's a woman's religious duty to raise children and stay in the home? If you sincerely believe that Aids is God's punishment for homosexuality and promiscuity – a belief expressed by some of the most prominent members of the Christian right – should your company be able to opt out of covering HIV care for your employees? Since Obama's healthcare law also requires that employee health plans cover vaccinations, which some religious people oppose, should companies be allowed to refuse vaccine coverage for all employees and their dependents? Protecting the religious freedom of individuals is crucial. But at issue here isn't the religious freedom of individuals.
It's the ability of a corporation to dictate what kind of healthcare its employees have covered, under the guise of the stated religious views of the company owners. And don't be fooled; this is more about the current political tides than long-held religious values. The constitutional issues at play here aren't all that grey. But the supreme court's calculus is made more complex simply by virtue of the issue being attached to the controversial Affordable Care Act. Notably, the Hobby Lobby used to have an employee insurance plan that covered the very same birth control methods it now claims violate its religious freedom. It wasn't until the GOP raised a stink about the contraception rules in Obama's healthcare legislation that the Hobby Lobby "re-examined" its insurance policies.
Is the religious belief sincerely held? Probably. But it's as much political and cynical as it is faith-based. Similar cases have been tried in appeals courts and the supreme court itself, but in instances where individuals and not companies claimed a law violated their free exercise of religion. One woman, a Quaker, claimed that federal income taxes violated her religious freedom under the RFRA; the supreme court disagreed. In another case a religiously-affiliated school gave male employees a "head of household" supplement not offered to female employees because, according to their sincerely-held religious views, men should be the family's breadwinner. The fourth circuit held that the supplement violated the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), and that paying female employees in compliance with the FLSA had no impact on the school's "freedom to worship and evangelize as they please". In yet another case, public university students claimed that registration fees violated their rights under the RFRA, since the university's health insurance program covered abortion care. The ninth circuit also rejected the students' claims. Health insurance should be no different. The federal government should have no right to dictate that individuals engage in activities that violate their religious beliefs.
But individuals shouldn't have a right to impose their religious beliefs on their employees and deny them federally-mandated benefits. With any luck, the supreme court will address the root issues of these cases on their merits and in accordance with existing religious freedom jurisprudence. The GOP and the religious right are banking on the opposite: That the conservative and moderate justices, troubled by both Obamacare and the very mention of the word "abortion", will find some convoluted way of justifying religiously-motivated discrimination under the guise of "religious freedom". Do you even know the details of the religious beliefs held by your company's controlling shareholder? Cross your fingers you don't find out the hard way – when they start making healthcare decisions for you and your family.
11/27/13
Grateful in the state of Indiana
What you may not know is that I won’t lie to you or for you!
Here in Indiana, the forgotten state, we are are getting to see managers in Elkhart fired from Pizza Hut for not wanting to work their employees on thanksgiving.
We also are getting to watch the state of Indiana kick the poor off of Medicaid and Medicare in solidarity with the same Republicans who closed down the Government over the ACA.
We also get to see the poor denied food stamps and seniors who can only afford an Peanut Butter sandwich for their one meal of the day
Also we watch discrimination in the workplace and in the voting booth and don’t forget those who employers pay not even a living wage
What am I thankful for - all those who speak up and out starting with Pope Francis, I am glad he listened to me!
Indiana a great state to be from-far from!
Here in Indiana, the forgotten state, we are are getting to see managers in Elkhart fired from Pizza Hut for not wanting to work their employees on thanksgiving.
We also are getting to watch the state of Indiana kick the poor off of Medicaid and Medicare in solidarity with the same Republicans who closed down the Government over the ACA.
We also get to see the poor denied food stamps and seniors who can only afford an Peanut Butter sandwich for their one meal of the day
Also we watch discrimination in the workplace and in the voting booth and don’t forget those who employers pay not even a living wage
What am I thankful for - all those who speak up and out starting with Pope Francis, I am glad he listened to me!
Indiana a great state to be from-far from!
11/10/13
How To Be a Polymath
by Steven Mazie Thinking back on the college recommendations I’ve written over the past few weeks, a pattern leaps up: the most successful students, the ones who are the most lively and engaged in class, the most interesting and most dedicated, are never merely great students. They are also utterly devoted to six other pursuits. This used to puzzle me. How can a kid write such detailed and analytically involved nightly reading journals on Augustine and Dante, schedule meetings with me about multiple drafts of her essays, excel in a Dostoevsky seminar, third-semester Calculus and painting and find the time to edit the school newspaper, run the debate club, take photography classes, volunteer at her city councilman’s office, sing in a band and write prize-winning poetry on the side?
I exaggerate, but only slightly. As humbling as it is to write letters for students like these, it’s also enlightening, and it’s not just about the elite few humans who can handle doing more than one thing well. “Our age reveres the specialist,” writes Robert Twigger, “but humans are natural polymaths, at our best when we turn our minds to many things.” It’s not just the youngsters who can join the polymath party:
[T]he pessimistic assumption that learning somehow ‘stops’ when you leave school or university or hit thirty is at odds with the evidence. It appears that a great deal depends on the nucleus basalis, located in the basal forebrain. Among other things, this bit of the brain produces significant amounts of acetylcholine, a neurotransmitter that regulates the rate at which new connections are made between brain cells. This in turn dictates how readily we form memories of various kinds, and how strongly we retain them.
So what’s the trick to letting the acetylcholine flow more abundantly? Twigger again:
AdvertisingPeople as old as 90 who actively acquire new interests that involve learning retain their ability to learn. But if we stop taxing the nucleus basalis, it begins to dry up. In some older people it has been shown to contain no acetylcholine — they have been ‘switched off’ for so long the organ no longer functions. In extreme cases this is considered to be one factor in Alzheimers and other forms of dementia — treated, effectively at first, by artificially raising acetylcholine levels. But simply attempting new things seems to offer health benefits to people who aren’t suffering from Alzheimers. After only short periods of trying, the ability to make new connections develops. And it isn’t just about doing puzzles and crosswords; you really have to try and learn something new.
Trying something new. Hmmmm. What kind of thing? There’s evidence that something as trivial as changing the path you use when you walk home from the subway can rewire your brain for the better. But beyond tweaking your habit trail, there are more meaningful pursuits you might try, or adopt. Two years ago, while on a fellowship that cut my teaching load in half and brought me from New York City to a bucolic liberal arts campus a couple of hours away, I had enough newfound headspace to write a piece for the New York Times and soon thereafter accepted an offer to launch Praxis here at Big Think. I had no idea if I’d be able to keep up the writing while being a dad and a teacher and a runner, but I thought I’d give it a try. The experience has been busy, yes, but manageable, and a few months later I started blogging for The Economist as well. Adding new activities to my plate—not just any activities, but stuff I really enjoyed doing and had some affinity for—seems to have given me a new source of energy, and sometimes when I’m exhausted I’m also, strangely, exhilarated.
Modern capitalist society bears part of the blame for generating generations of “monomaths.” A monomath, in Trigger’s words, is “a person with a narrow mind, a one-track brain, a bore, a super-specialist, an expert with no other interests.” You can’t have a modern economy without some degree of specialization, but taken too far the division of labor turns individuals, in Marx’s words, into automatons, “appendage[s] of the machine.” It’s the price we pay for our species’ relentless progress and ever-increasing gains in productivity:
For as soon as the distribution of labour comes into being, each man has a particular, exclusive sphere of activity, which is forced upon him and from which he cannot escape. He is a hunter, a fisherman, a herdsman, or a critical critic, and must remain so if he does not want to lose his means of livelihood. (from Marx’s German Ideology)
Does this conundrum sound familiar? You can raise your skeptical eyebrows, all my critical critics, about the plausibility or desirability of Marx’s alternative—my students certainly do—but close your eyes and imagine this for a second:
[I]n communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, herdsman or critic. This fixation of social activity, this consolidation of what we ourselves produce into an objective power above us, growing out of our control, thwarting our expectations, bringing to naught our calculations, is one of the chief factors in historical development up till now.
Few of us can dream of becoming such radical polymaths. (And some of us may consider this extreme de-specialization to be nightmarish.) But it undervalues our lives to willingly enter into mindless ruts. If you’re in a rut, at least be aware of the fact, and let it spur you to take some action. Take that sabbatical, if you are lucky enough to get one. Make stuff. Pursue a new interest. Learn a new language. Stop this, start that. Consider career changes, even if you don’t actually make one. Do something new. Come on, it’s good for you.
I exaggerate, but only slightly. As humbling as it is to write letters for students like these, it’s also enlightening, and it’s not just about the elite few humans who can handle doing more than one thing well. “Our age reveres the specialist,” writes Robert Twigger, “but humans are natural polymaths, at our best when we turn our minds to many things.” It’s not just the youngsters who can join the polymath party:
[T]he pessimistic assumption that learning somehow ‘stops’ when you leave school or university or hit thirty is at odds with the evidence. It appears that a great deal depends on the nucleus basalis, located in the basal forebrain. Among other things, this bit of the brain produces significant amounts of acetylcholine, a neurotransmitter that regulates the rate at which new connections are made between brain cells. This in turn dictates how readily we form memories of various kinds, and how strongly we retain them.
So what’s the trick to letting the acetylcholine flow more abundantly? Twigger again:
AdvertisingPeople as old as 90 who actively acquire new interests that involve learning retain their ability to learn. But if we stop taxing the nucleus basalis, it begins to dry up. In some older people it has been shown to contain no acetylcholine — they have been ‘switched off’ for so long the organ no longer functions. In extreme cases this is considered to be one factor in Alzheimers and other forms of dementia — treated, effectively at first, by artificially raising acetylcholine levels. But simply attempting new things seems to offer health benefits to people who aren’t suffering from Alzheimers. After only short periods of trying, the ability to make new connections develops. And it isn’t just about doing puzzles and crosswords; you really have to try and learn something new.
Trying something new. Hmmmm. What kind of thing? There’s evidence that something as trivial as changing the path you use when you walk home from the subway can rewire your brain for the better. But beyond tweaking your habit trail, there are more meaningful pursuits you might try, or adopt. Two years ago, while on a fellowship that cut my teaching load in half and brought me from New York City to a bucolic liberal arts campus a couple of hours away, I had enough newfound headspace to write a piece for the New York Times and soon thereafter accepted an offer to launch Praxis here at Big Think. I had no idea if I’d be able to keep up the writing while being a dad and a teacher and a runner, but I thought I’d give it a try. The experience has been busy, yes, but manageable, and a few months later I started blogging for The Economist as well. Adding new activities to my plate—not just any activities, but stuff I really enjoyed doing and had some affinity for—seems to have given me a new source of energy, and sometimes when I’m exhausted I’m also, strangely, exhilarated.
Modern capitalist society bears part of the blame for generating generations of “monomaths.” A monomath, in Trigger’s words, is “a person with a narrow mind, a one-track brain, a bore, a super-specialist, an expert with no other interests.” You can’t have a modern economy without some degree of specialization, but taken too far the division of labor turns individuals, in Marx’s words, into automatons, “appendage[s] of the machine.” It’s the price we pay for our species’ relentless progress and ever-increasing gains in productivity:
For as soon as the distribution of labour comes into being, each man has a particular, exclusive sphere of activity, which is forced upon him and from which he cannot escape. He is a hunter, a fisherman, a herdsman, or a critical critic, and must remain so if he does not want to lose his means of livelihood. (from Marx’s German Ideology)
Does this conundrum sound familiar? You can raise your skeptical eyebrows, all my critical critics, about the plausibility or desirability of Marx’s alternative—my students certainly do—but close your eyes and imagine this for a second:
[I]n communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, herdsman or critic. This fixation of social activity, this consolidation of what we ourselves produce into an objective power above us, growing out of our control, thwarting our expectations, bringing to naught our calculations, is one of the chief factors in historical development up till now.
Few of us can dream of becoming such radical polymaths. (And some of us may consider this extreme de-specialization to be nightmarish.) But it undervalues our lives to willingly enter into mindless ruts. If you’re in a rut, at least be aware of the fact, and let it spur you to take some action. Take that sabbatical, if you are lucky enough to get one. Make stuff. Pursue a new interest. Learn a new language. Stop this, start that. Consider career changes, even if you don’t actually make one. Do something new. Come on, it’s good for you.
10/25/13
Tea Party Confederate Secessionists unmasked!
been a long time coming, but Tea Baggin' Conferderates Secessionist Slavery Deniers are coming openly out of the closet more and more as time goes on.
There have been numerous examples from South Carolina's (Now) Lt. Governor Glenn McConnell posing with mock-slaves in a Civil War Uniform during the "Southern Experience" event for the National Federation of Republican Women. Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell's Celebration of "Confederate Day", Texas Governor Rick Perry's not-so-veiled threats of secession to the Rand Paul Staffer who called himself the "Confederate Avenger".
[Just as an aside, I have my doubts that McConnell is actually wearing a Southern Uniform, it's Blue and that was the color of the Union Army. Edit: Nope, It's Confederate]
And yet, there's more.
.
Let's not let revisionism discolor what this was really all about. In it's letter of Secession, which was sent immediately after the Election of President Abraham Lincoln, even before he took Office, Texas stated the following:
We hold as undeniable truths that the governments of the various States, and of the confederacy itself, were established exclusively by the white race, for themselves and their posterity; that the African race had no agency in their establishment; that they were rightfully held and regarded as an inferior and dependent race, and in that condition only could their existence in this country be rendered beneficial or tolerable.
That in this free government all white men are and of right ought to be entitled to equal civil and political rights [emphasis in the original]; that the servitude of the African race, as existing in these States, is mutually beneficial to both bond and free, and is abundantly authorized and justified by the experience of mankind, and the revealed will of the Almighty Creator, as recognized by all Christian nations; while the destruction of the existing relations between the two races, as advocated by our sectional enemies, would bring inevitable calamities upon both and desolation upon the fifteen slave-holding states
It was merely the election of a President from a Party that endorsed Abolition, even if that President at the time DID NOT make accomplishing that party of his platform or an agenda item of his administration - that drove the South in a complete overreaction to losing an Election to begin to dismantle the nation State by State.
And now today we see more and more Tea Partiers - while also overreacting to an election they lost - slowly endorsing the legitimacy of a new secession and further - of ABSOLUTE rights of the BUSINESS OWNER over their EMPLOYEES (as well as CLIENTS) in everything from denying them a living wage and working conditions to Dictating Whether they can have access to Preventive Services in their HealthCare, impose llfetime caps, and openly discriminate against those who had the temerity to previously GET SICK.
Apparently Modern Confederate Tea Partiers think the cruelty of that system is just "Fine".
Wither is Freedom then, eh?
In the last few years there have been a rising of Pro-Confederacy Groups who've written such amazing revisionist history such as this.
Southerners have less reason to be loyal to the collective enterprise that is the United States than does any group of citizens. The South was Invaded, laid waste, and conquered when it tried to uphold the original and correct meaning of the Declaration of Independance and the Constitution.
Yeah, right, the South was "Invaded" - so much for those pesky letters of Secesion and that little Ft Sumter thing. Sure.
And this happened merely because they felt they had the economic Right to continue practices such as this.
Slavery was Evil. It was pure Economic Evil. Human Cruelty for Wealth and Profit. The Confederates were trying to Protect and Continue that system of Cruelty, of The THEFT of Freedom, Free Will and Choice for their own enrichment.
But this is what they are, what they've always been. They know it in their hearts, and this is why they truly FEAR - deeply in their bones - an African American President such as Barack Obama. It is beyond their comprehension that he isn't racked with a deep desire for Vengence against Whites.
How could it not be?
It was this type of deep atavistic fear that even affected Barack Obama's own grandmother, Toot. In his book, Dreams from my Father he recounts how his grandmother while working in Texas following WWII had befriended a black janitor, Mr. Reed, who worked in the same building. They had a cordial friendship, yet another - white - secretary working in the building proceeded to angrily scold them both for their familiarity telling Toot she should never, ever "call no Nigger 'Mister'".
Years later in Hawaii, when Barack was a boy living with his grandparents to attend High School in the U.S. while his mother worked overseas, his grandmother encountered a particularly aggressive beggar who frightened her. A black beggar. Despite knowing the character of Barack's father, and of Barack himself - she was still terrified of him because she knew and had seen in Texas the kind of cruel mis-treatment people like him had received. She had a understanding of the righteous anger that that person could potentially feel, and she feared it.
That beggar was not Mr. Reed. But another 20 years later, it very well could have been - and he would have be duly justified in his outrage. Gramps - Toot's husband - angrily scolded her for her reaction to the beggar, his feeling had always been the individuals are individuals not some collective mass of angst, not some open racial sore that refuses to be healed. For all of this, Barack had a ring-side seat. He witnessed both Yin and Yang.
Unlike Toot who was sympathetic to those who suffered from bigotry, identified with their outrage - and recognized it's legitimacy - what the Modern Tea Party-Confederate feels is something worse.
Guilt!
No, not their own personal guilt, but the collective guilt of centuries of cruelty. They constantly try to wipe it away, ignore it, deflect it, disguise it, but it continues to come right back because they in their own heart of hearts simply don't believe that any Nigger should ever, EVER be called "Mr. President".
It's fear driven by that guilt that also drove the Confederates, as it drives the Tea Party, and now- the Republican Party.
So of course, they have to Do Anything Necessary to prevent this cruel retribution from being inflicted on the Good White people... um, I mean the American People. They have to SHUTDOWN THE GOVERNMENT, because that is the limited leverage they have with a majority in the House.
They have to rail that Obamacare is a Complete and Total Failure even as Hundreds of Thousands successfully send in their applications despite initial website glitches, and are finding they can get better care for far less than they were previously spending.
They have to DENY Reality, again and again and again.
Obama was never a Slave. None of his Ancestors, on his father's side, were Slaves. Most of what he knows about what it means to be historically "Black In America" came from his White Grandparents and their experiences during the 40's and the 50's as recounted to him. He has studied Langston Hughes and Baldwin and W.E.B. Debois to better understand the "Black Experience". He lived it within his own skin, in LA whlie attending Occidental College, in New York while working for a Non-Profit, in Chicago working with communities to help incrimentally improve their lives. He's seen it from just about every possible angle, and he's not racked with Anger
He's not driven to seek Devine Retribution against the Ills of the White Race.
ObamaCare is not Punishment for the Wickedness of Long Dead White People. Some of those White people, going all the way back to the Revolutionary War, are his own Ancestors.
Obama is not a Kenyan. Not a Socialist. Not a Muslim. Not a Mau Mau Anti-Colonialist. Not a Fist Pumping Black Power Enthusiast. He's not Mr. Reed, nor is he the Beggar.
He's our American President. He's doing the best he can, under his power, to improve the lives of All American Citizens. As did President Lincoln before him.
Some day the Tea Party-Confederates will learn that lesson. But apparently, not today.
There have been numerous examples from South Carolina's (Now) Lt. Governor Glenn McConnell posing with mock-slaves in a Civil War Uniform during the "Southern Experience" event for the National Federation of Republican Women. Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell's Celebration of "Confederate Day", Texas Governor Rick Perry's not-so-veiled threats of secession to the Rand Paul Staffer who called himself the "Confederate Avenger".
[Just as an aside, I have my doubts that McConnell is actually wearing a Southern Uniform, it's Blue and that was the color of the Union Army. Edit: Nope, It's Confederate]
And yet, there's more.
.
Let's not let revisionism discolor what this was really all about. In it's letter of Secession, which was sent immediately after the Election of President Abraham Lincoln, even before he took Office, Texas stated the following:
We hold as undeniable truths that the governments of the various States, and of the confederacy itself, were established exclusively by the white race, for themselves and their posterity; that the African race had no agency in their establishment; that they were rightfully held and regarded as an inferior and dependent race, and in that condition only could their existence in this country be rendered beneficial or tolerable.
That in this free government all white men are and of right ought to be entitled to equal civil and political rights [emphasis in the original]; that the servitude of the African race, as existing in these States, is mutually beneficial to both bond and free, and is abundantly authorized and justified by the experience of mankind, and the revealed will of the Almighty Creator, as recognized by all Christian nations; while the destruction of the existing relations between the two races, as advocated by our sectional enemies, would bring inevitable calamities upon both and desolation upon the fifteen slave-holding states
It was merely the election of a President from a Party that endorsed Abolition, even if that President at the time DID NOT make accomplishing that party of his platform or an agenda item of his administration - that drove the South in a complete overreaction to losing an Election to begin to dismantle the nation State by State.
And now today we see more and more Tea Partiers - while also overreacting to an election they lost - slowly endorsing the legitimacy of a new secession and further - of ABSOLUTE rights of the BUSINESS OWNER over their EMPLOYEES (as well as CLIENTS) in everything from denying them a living wage and working conditions to Dictating Whether they can have access to Preventive Services in their HealthCare, impose llfetime caps, and openly discriminate against those who had the temerity to previously GET SICK.
Apparently Modern Confederate Tea Partiers think the cruelty of that system is just "Fine".
Wither is Freedom then, eh?
In the last few years there have been a rising of Pro-Confederacy Groups who've written such amazing revisionist history such as this.
Southerners have less reason to be loyal to the collective enterprise that is the United States than does any group of citizens. The South was Invaded, laid waste, and conquered when it tried to uphold the original and correct meaning of the Declaration of Independance and the Constitution.
Yeah, right, the South was "Invaded" - so much for those pesky letters of Secesion and that little Ft Sumter thing. Sure.
And this happened merely because they felt they had the economic Right to continue practices such as this.
Slavery was Evil. It was pure Economic Evil. Human Cruelty for Wealth and Profit. The Confederates were trying to Protect and Continue that system of Cruelty, of The THEFT of Freedom, Free Will and Choice for their own enrichment.
But this is what they are, what they've always been. They know it in their hearts, and this is why they truly FEAR - deeply in their bones - an African American President such as Barack Obama. It is beyond their comprehension that he isn't racked with a deep desire for Vengence against Whites.
How could it not be?
It was this type of deep atavistic fear that even affected Barack Obama's own grandmother, Toot. In his book, Dreams from my Father he recounts how his grandmother while working in Texas following WWII had befriended a black janitor, Mr. Reed, who worked in the same building. They had a cordial friendship, yet another - white - secretary working in the building proceeded to angrily scold them both for their familiarity telling Toot she should never, ever "call no Nigger 'Mister'".
Years later in Hawaii, when Barack was a boy living with his grandparents to attend High School in the U.S. while his mother worked overseas, his grandmother encountered a particularly aggressive beggar who frightened her. A black beggar. Despite knowing the character of Barack's father, and of Barack himself - she was still terrified of him because she knew and had seen in Texas the kind of cruel mis-treatment people like him had received. She had a understanding of the righteous anger that that person could potentially feel, and she feared it.
That beggar was not Mr. Reed. But another 20 years later, it very well could have been - and he would have be duly justified in his outrage. Gramps - Toot's husband - angrily scolded her for her reaction to the beggar, his feeling had always been the individuals are individuals not some collective mass of angst, not some open racial sore that refuses to be healed. For all of this, Barack had a ring-side seat. He witnessed both Yin and Yang.
Unlike Toot who was sympathetic to those who suffered from bigotry, identified with their outrage - and recognized it's legitimacy - what the Modern Tea Party-Confederate feels is something worse.
Guilt!
No, not their own personal guilt, but the collective guilt of centuries of cruelty. They constantly try to wipe it away, ignore it, deflect it, disguise it, but it continues to come right back because they in their own heart of hearts simply don't believe that any Nigger should ever, EVER be called "Mr. President".
It's fear driven by that guilt that also drove the Confederates, as it drives the Tea Party, and now- the Republican Party.
So of course, they have to Do Anything Necessary to prevent this cruel retribution from being inflicted on the Good White people... um, I mean the American People. They have to SHUTDOWN THE GOVERNMENT, because that is the limited leverage they have with a majority in the House.
They have to rail that Obamacare is a Complete and Total Failure even as Hundreds of Thousands successfully send in their applications despite initial website glitches, and are finding they can get better care for far less than they were previously spending.
They have to DENY Reality, again and again and again.
Obama was never a Slave. None of his Ancestors, on his father's side, were Slaves. Most of what he knows about what it means to be historically "Black In America" came from his White Grandparents and their experiences during the 40's and the 50's as recounted to him. He has studied Langston Hughes and Baldwin and W.E.B. Debois to better understand the "Black Experience". He lived it within his own skin, in LA whlie attending Occidental College, in New York while working for a Non-Profit, in Chicago working with communities to help incrimentally improve their lives. He's seen it from just about every possible angle, and he's not racked with Anger
He's not driven to seek Devine Retribution against the Ills of the White Race.
ObamaCare is not Punishment for the Wickedness of Long Dead White People. Some of those White people, going all the way back to the Revolutionary War, are his own Ancestors.
Obama is not a Kenyan. Not a Socialist. Not a Muslim. Not a Mau Mau Anti-Colonialist. Not a Fist Pumping Black Power Enthusiast. He's not Mr. Reed, nor is he the Beggar.
He's our American President. He's doing the best he can, under his power, to improve the lives of All American Citizens. As did President Lincoln before him.
Some day the Tea Party-Confederates will learn that lesson. But apparently, not today.
10/20/13
Someone Finally Informs Sarah Palin That She’s An Idiot, And It’s A Veteran
Sarah Palin can’t take a hint. It’s been six years since she lost her bid to become Vice-President of the United States, and yet she won’t go away. Even though her stupidity has turned off voters to the point where she’ll never again be a candidate for the highest offices in the land, she keeps coming back like a bad rash. You have to wonder if she even understands what most people think about her. Well, during her speech at a Tea Party rally, she was duly informed.
Sarah Palin gets called an idiot during her Tea Party rally speech.
On Sunday, as Palin used military veterans as political pawns during a Tea Party rally speech to protest the closing of war memorials, a member of the audience loudly told her that she’s an idiot. Senator Ted Cruz, Senator Mike Lee, other Tea Party Republicans turned in the direction of the heckler who bravely confronted her. Even Palin paused to look around.
PALIN: “This is a matter of shutdown priorities…”
AUDIENCE MEMBER: “You’re an idiot!”
Military veterans were outraged and scolded Palin and the Tea Party for hijacking the Million Vet March.
Of course, most military veterans saw right through Palin and her rhetoric. After all, the Tea Party had hijacked the ‘Million Veterans March’ that had been organized by veterans. The Tea Party shamelessly used the non-partisan event to attack Democrats. During the rally, veterans scolded Palin as she attempted to accuse President Obama and Democrats of playing political games with them. Many pointed out that Republicans were the ones who caused the shutdown in the first place. However, Tea Party Republicans didn’t give a damn about what veterans actually think. They were too busy using veterans as pawns to shift blame for the government shutdown to Democrats.
The organizers of the march have since expressed their anger about the Tea Party takeover of the event.
“The political agenda put forth by a local organizer in Washington DC was not in alignment with our message,” the ‘Million Vet March’ website stated. “We feel disheartened that some would seek to hijack the narrative for political gain. The core principle is about all Americans honoring Veterans in a peaceful and apolitical manner.”
Sarah Palin is an idiot for using veterans as pawns for political and monetary gain.
‘Apolitical’ means not supporting any political group, even the Tea Party. But Palin and her right-wing cohorts only saw an opportunity to get photo-ops and pretend that all soldiers stand against President Obama and Democrats. Palin also may have seen it as a chance to step into the spotlight to generate interest in her new book. So not only did she use veterans for political gain, she used them for monetary gain as well, which truly makes her the queen idiot of the Tea Party.
PALIN: “…Our vets have proven that they have not been timid, we will not be timid in calling out any who would use our military, our vets, as pawns in a political game.”
Sarah Palin gets called an idiot during her Tea Party rally speech.
On Sunday, as Palin used military veterans as political pawns during a Tea Party rally speech to protest the closing of war memorials, a member of the audience loudly told her that she’s an idiot. Senator Ted Cruz, Senator Mike Lee, other Tea Party Republicans turned in the direction of the heckler who bravely confronted her. Even Palin paused to look around.
PALIN: “This is a matter of shutdown priorities…”
AUDIENCE MEMBER: “You’re an idiot!”
Military veterans were outraged and scolded Palin and the Tea Party for hijacking the Million Vet March.
Of course, most military veterans saw right through Palin and her rhetoric. After all, the Tea Party had hijacked the ‘Million Veterans March’ that had been organized by veterans. The Tea Party shamelessly used the non-partisan event to attack Democrats. During the rally, veterans scolded Palin as she attempted to accuse President Obama and Democrats of playing political games with them. Many pointed out that Republicans were the ones who caused the shutdown in the first place. However, Tea Party Republicans didn’t give a damn about what veterans actually think. They were too busy using veterans as pawns to shift blame for the government shutdown to Democrats.
The organizers of the march have since expressed their anger about the Tea Party takeover of the event.
“The political agenda put forth by a local organizer in Washington DC was not in alignment with our message,” the ‘Million Vet March’ website stated. “We feel disheartened that some would seek to hijack the narrative for political gain. The core principle is about all Americans honoring Veterans in a peaceful and apolitical manner.”
Sarah Palin is an idiot for using veterans as pawns for political and monetary gain.
‘Apolitical’ means not supporting any political group, even the Tea Party. But Palin and her right-wing cohorts only saw an opportunity to get photo-ops and pretend that all soldiers stand against President Obama and Democrats. Palin also may have seen it as a chance to step into the spotlight to generate interest in her new book. So not only did she use veterans for political gain, she used them for monetary gain as well, which truly makes her the queen idiot of the Tea Party.
PALIN: “…Our vets have proven that they have not been timid, we will not be timid in calling out any who would use our military, our vets, as pawns in a political game.”
10/17/13
Ted Cruz owes America 24 Billion Dollars- Pay up!
This is one of those weeks that puts a smile on my face, a song in my heart and a spring in my step. The GOP are crushed and humiliated; Cory Booker wins his Senate race; hostilities break out between Sean Hannity and Ann Coulter; and The Houston Chronicle suffers buyers remorse over Calgary Ted. Could it possibly get even better?
Why, yes...yes, it could.
In an interview with capitalnewyork.com entitled Pete King calls for a Republican war on Ted Cruz, Rep. Pete King (R-N.Y.) vented his feelings about Sen. Ted 'Cruise To Nowhere' Cruz and his thoughtless, irresponsible, preening narcissism.
King complains that the GOP could have bargained for much more than they're getting, if only the House had kept the government open in September.
"Instead we look like the crazies...Shutting down the government, throwing barricades against the White House, and having Ted Cruz reading Dr. Seuss, this is like the theater of the absurd."
More GOP Deathmatch deliciousness below the Boehner Orange Cloud of Tears .
King lays the blame for the GOP's humiliation and nose-dive in the polls at the feet of the freshman senator from Texas, who King believes Republicans need to start targetting.
"I don't mean this in an egotistical way, I'm the only one who's been going after Cruz by name," King told me. "And there's a purpose for that, because this is going to come back again in two or three months, whether it's January 15 or February 7 or whatever, there's going to be a threat of another shutdown.
"And he's going to be coming back, rewriting history, saying, 'We were on the verge of victory back in October, and we could have won if we'd just stayed in there another week.' And he's going to have phone calls being made, and he's going to have town hall meetings. And he's going to have all those support groups out there, threatening to downgrade people on their scorecards and all that stuff."
King is eager to dump the GOP's inept, spiteful and ultimately pointless buffoonery entirely into the lap of Sen. Cruz:
"It was one person who was able to steamroll Congress and unless we target him for what he is, he's going to do it again. So I'm hoping other Republicans will join me and start going after this guy, and say we're not going to let it happen again."
King was unhappy that while GOP leaders like Chris Christie, Scott Walker and Jeb Bush had criticized the GOP's dysfunction, none of them had singled out Cruz for special criticism.
King said the "business community, other people, guys running for president, governors around the country, retired members of Congress, elder statesmen, whoever considers himself to be a leader in the Republican Party should be out there" making the case against Cruz.
The War on Ted Cruz! Yes! Finally: a war I can wholeheartedly support! Please proceed, GOPers...
I have a feeling that 2014 is going to be a good year for us. Stock up on popcorn and watch the GOP destroy itself from within and, with any luck, lose the House.
Send Senator Cruz a bill!
http://www.cruz.senate.gov/contact.cfm
WWW Homepage: http://www.cruz.senate.gov/
Twitter: @SenTedCruz
.
Why, yes...yes, it could.
In an interview with capitalnewyork.com entitled Pete King calls for a Republican war on Ted Cruz, Rep. Pete King (R-N.Y.) vented his feelings about Sen. Ted 'Cruise To Nowhere' Cruz and his thoughtless, irresponsible, preening narcissism.
King complains that the GOP could have bargained for much more than they're getting, if only the House had kept the government open in September.
"Instead we look like the crazies...Shutting down the government, throwing barricades against the White House, and having Ted Cruz reading Dr. Seuss, this is like the theater of the absurd."
More GOP Deathmatch deliciousness below the Boehner Orange Cloud of Tears .
King lays the blame for the GOP's humiliation and nose-dive in the polls at the feet of the freshman senator from Texas, who King believes Republicans need to start targetting.
"I don't mean this in an egotistical way, I'm the only one who's been going after Cruz by name," King told me. "And there's a purpose for that, because this is going to come back again in two or three months, whether it's January 15 or February 7 or whatever, there's going to be a threat of another shutdown.
"And he's going to be coming back, rewriting history, saying, 'We were on the verge of victory back in October, and we could have won if we'd just stayed in there another week.' And he's going to have phone calls being made, and he's going to have town hall meetings. And he's going to have all those support groups out there, threatening to downgrade people on their scorecards and all that stuff."
King is eager to dump the GOP's inept, spiteful and ultimately pointless buffoonery entirely into the lap of Sen. Cruz:
"It was one person who was able to steamroll Congress and unless we target him for what he is, he's going to do it again. So I'm hoping other Republicans will join me and start going after this guy, and say we're not going to let it happen again."
King was unhappy that while GOP leaders like Chris Christie, Scott Walker and Jeb Bush had criticized the GOP's dysfunction, none of them had singled out Cruz for special criticism.
King said the "business community, other people, guys running for president, governors around the country, retired members of Congress, elder statesmen, whoever considers himself to be a leader in the Republican Party should be out there" making the case against Cruz.
The War on Ted Cruz! Yes! Finally: a war I can wholeheartedly support! Please proceed, GOPers...
I have a feeling that 2014 is going to be a good year for us. Stock up on popcorn and watch the GOP destroy itself from within and, with any luck, lose the House.
Send Senator Cruz a bill!
http://www.cruz.senate.gov/contact.cfm
WWW Homepage: http://www.cruz.senate.gov/
Twitter: @SenTedCruz
.
10/16/13
We can't afford the Republican Right
Journalists are understandably captivated by the government shutdown and the looming confrontation over the debt ceiling. Those are certainly dramatic stories. But another, quieter drama has been playing out for years in homes and communities across the country, as millions of jobs and trillions in wealth have been lost to Republican economic folly.
Now the Republicans are doing their best to make things even worse. Their budget stance offends many Americans' sense of morality, since they're asking poor and middle-class Americans to subsidize the luxuries of the wealthy and the profits of powerful corporations.
But in the end the country may reject their ideology for an even simpler reason: We can't afford it anymore.
Millions Left Behind
The story begins with the financial crisis and recession of 2008. Reports say that the incoming Obama Administration reduced its proposed stimulus because it thought Republicans would reject the actual level of spending needed to rescue the economy. The resulting stimulus package saved or created millions of jobs, but the country remained in the grip of an ongoing recession that limited both job creation and wage growth. Further stimulus spending became politically unfeasible after they won the House in 2010.
The result? Wealth inequality has became worse since the crisis. The top 1 percent of American earners saw their income increase by a staggering 32 percent in 2012, even as millions of others remained mired in an ongoing de facto depression. For the first time since they began tracking the numbers a century ago, the wealthiest 10 percent of the country captured more than half its total income.
It didn't have to be this way. A number of jobs proposals were put forward that would have helped the "99 percent" obtain more jobs and strengthen its wage base, including the Economic Policy Institute's "American Jobs Plan" and our own "Citizens' Commission on Jobs, Deficits and America's Economic Future" (from the Institute for America's Future).
These programs would have created jobs and strengthened the economy for everyone, while also enhancing education and funding urgently-needed repairs to the nation's infrastructure. We still need those investments, and they would still create jobs.
Wrong Way Out
Unfortunately spending cuts, not job creation, became the main topic of Washington debate. This misguided fixation became much worse after Republicans recaptured the House in 2010, leading to the 2011 budget showdown and the disastrous cuts which followed.
How damaging were those cuts? Economist Adam Hersh estimated what the jobs figures might have been without the destructive austerity cuts agreed upon after the last showdown with the GOP. U.S. employers would have added more than 260,000 jobs last month, according to Hersh, and the unemployment rate would have fallen below 6 percent. The economy would have added 8.2 million jobs since the end of 2010, 2.4 million jobs than it actually did.
And that's without stimulus spending, solely by avoiding the austerity cuts demanded by Republicans in the last budget confrontation. Add in needed spending on jobs and growth and we would be experiencing a full recovery.
The Ghosts of Republicans Past
Republicans have passed one extremist budget after another since winning the House in 2010. Those budgets, with cuts in the $1.2 trillion range, would have led to catastrophic double-dip recession and major additional job loss had they passed the Senate and been signed into law.
The GOP's budgets would have also had an enormous disruptive effect on society, with cuts to a bewilderingly wide range of programs: Emergency storm warnings. The Small Business Administration. State and local law enforcement.
But even without their extreme budgets, the nation is haunted by the ghosts of past Republican choices. Their 2011 confrontation with the other branches of government cost Americans an estimated $2.4 trillion in household wealth. And while some of that has since been restored, their current actions could cost even more.
Geographically, large chunks of the nation are still mired in unemployment. As economist Heidi Shierholz notes, "There has been very little improvement in the hires rate since its low of the recession in June 2009, four years ago." That's when the hires rate fell dramatically. It has yet to recover. And as Shierholz also explains, "there has been no sustained improvement whatsoever in the hires rate for two years."
Shierholz also observed that, even after four years of recovery, "we're just a fifth of the way out of the hole left by the Great Recession." And yet, instead of debating ways to repair the damage, Republicans are determined to do more harm than ever.
The List of Demands
Democrats have already agreed to the Republicans' original economic demand: an extension of sequestration's spending cuts. Those cuts have cost the nation an estimated 900,000 jobs. But that's not enough for the GOP. Their most famous demand this time around is a delay in implementing Obamacare, although that's by no means their only demand.
Republicans have also demanded a jobs-crushing "balanced budget amendment" and trillions in additional spending cuts. Some of their other ideas are both socially harsh and potentially very damaging to the economy: Environmental deregulation could lead to another costly spill like BP's. Financial deregulation could rob Americans of their savings and lead to another recession, or worse. (Past deregulation on Wall Street cost the US economy an estimated $12.8 trillion, according to a study by Better Markets.)
Even the GOP's call for food stamp cuts will cost people their jobs and reduce the national wealth, by leaving impoverished families even less to spend on the basics of life. (A compendium of their demands can be found here.)
Confrontation's Costs
According to conservative estimates the Republican shutdown is costing the economy $1.6 billion per week, a figure which doesn't include the ripple effect in lost investment and growth. Those ripples could be seen Gallup's consumer confidence figures, which last week took their biggest plunge since Lehman Brothers collapsed and triggered the 2008 global crisis.
Consumer confidence is what drives consumer spending in goods and services -- the kind of spending that creates jobs. Last week's plunge means the Republican shutdown is almost certainly losing American jobs already.In addition, the stock market continues to take a hit as investors worry about economic uncertainty.
And today Republican brinksmanship has pushed the yield for Treasury bonds to their highest point since the height of the crisis in 2008 -- which, in plain English, means that investors are losing confidence is the government's ability to repay its debts. That increases borrowing costs for the government (so much for Republicans' professed concern for lowered spending), and for everyone else as well.
They're right to be concerned. Republicans now seem poised to fire the biggest cannon of all: a debt default. As Bloomberg News reports, that move is seen as "a catastrophe dwarfing Lehman's fall." The International Monetary Fund (IMF) warned that a U.S. default would "seriously damage" the global economy. It "would have major consequences," said the IMF's chief economist, adding: "... it could well be that what is now a recovery would turn into a recession, or even worse." (emphasis ours)
The only people dismissing the harmful effects of a default are the ones who have been wrong all along.
Unaffordable
Democrats haven't been blameless. The president spent far too much time echoing the Republicans' deficit-fixated austerity rhetoric. Senate Democrats could have been tougher. The party could have done more to explain why we need investment in jobs and growth, and how the GOP's financial agenda hurts most Americans.
But those sins seem trivial when compared to the harm Republicans have done, and continue to do, to the national economy. That's the real economic story, and it should be told every day until the GOP is reined in and the nation is restored to economic health.
The Republicans' extremism is morally out of step with Americans. Democrats need to stand firm against it and explain the real story to the American people. But what may hurt Republicans most in the end is cold economic reality. The Republican Right is just too expensive for America.
Now the Republicans are doing their best to make things even worse. Their budget stance offends many Americans' sense of morality, since they're asking poor and middle-class Americans to subsidize the luxuries of the wealthy and the profits of powerful corporations.
But in the end the country may reject their ideology for an even simpler reason: We can't afford it anymore.
Millions Left Behind
The story begins with the financial crisis and recession of 2008. Reports say that the incoming Obama Administration reduced its proposed stimulus because it thought Republicans would reject the actual level of spending needed to rescue the economy. The resulting stimulus package saved or created millions of jobs, but the country remained in the grip of an ongoing recession that limited both job creation and wage growth. Further stimulus spending became politically unfeasible after they won the House in 2010.
The result? Wealth inequality has became worse since the crisis. The top 1 percent of American earners saw their income increase by a staggering 32 percent in 2012, even as millions of others remained mired in an ongoing de facto depression. For the first time since they began tracking the numbers a century ago, the wealthiest 10 percent of the country captured more than half its total income.
It didn't have to be this way. A number of jobs proposals were put forward that would have helped the "99 percent" obtain more jobs and strengthen its wage base, including the Economic Policy Institute's "American Jobs Plan" and our own "Citizens' Commission on Jobs, Deficits and America's Economic Future" (from the Institute for America's Future).
These programs would have created jobs and strengthened the economy for everyone, while also enhancing education and funding urgently-needed repairs to the nation's infrastructure. We still need those investments, and they would still create jobs.
Wrong Way Out
Unfortunately spending cuts, not job creation, became the main topic of Washington debate. This misguided fixation became much worse after Republicans recaptured the House in 2010, leading to the 2011 budget showdown and the disastrous cuts which followed.
How damaging were those cuts? Economist Adam Hersh estimated what the jobs figures might have been without the destructive austerity cuts agreed upon after the last showdown with the GOP. U.S. employers would have added more than 260,000 jobs last month, according to Hersh, and the unemployment rate would have fallen below 6 percent. The economy would have added 8.2 million jobs since the end of 2010, 2.4 million jobs than it actually did.
And that's without stimulus spending, solely by avoiding the austerity cuts demanded by Republicans in the last budget confrontation. Add in needed spending on jobs and growth and we would be experiencing a full recovery.
The Ghosts of Republicans Past
Republicans have passed one extremist budget after another since winning the House in 2010. Those budgets, with cuts in the $1.2 trillion range, would have led to catastrophic double-dip recession and major additional job loss had they passed the Senate and been signed into law.
The GOP's budgets would have also had an enormous disruptive effect on society, with cuts to a bewilderingly wide range of programs: Emergency storm warnings. The Small Business Administration. State and local law enforcement.
But even without their extreme budgets, the nation is haunted by the ghosts of past Republican choices. Their 2011 confrontation with the other branches of government cost Americans an estimated $2.4 trillion in household wealth. And while some of that has since been restored, their current actions could cost even more.
Geographically, large chunks of the nation are still mired in unemployment. As economist Heidi Shierholz notes, "There has been very little improvement in the hires rate since its low of the recession in June 2009, four years ago." That's when the hires rate fell dramatically. It has yet to recover. And as Shierholz also explains, "there has been no sustained improvement whatsoever in the hires rate for two years."
Shierholz also observed that, even after four years of recovery, "we're just a fifth of the way out of the hole left by the Great Recession." And yet, instead of debating ways to repair the damage, Republicans are determined to do more harm than ever.
The List of Demands
Democrats have already agreed to the Republicans' original economic demand: an extension of sequestration's spending cuts. Those cuts have cost the nation an estimated 900,000 jobs. But that's not enough for the GOP. Their most famous demand this time around is a delay in implementing Obamacare, although that's by no means their only demand.
Republicans have also demanded a jobs-crushing "balanced budget amendment" and trillions in additional spending cuts. Some of their other ideas are both socially harsh and potentially very damaging to the economy: Environmental deregulation could lead to another costly spill like BP's. Financial deregulation could rob Americans of their savings and lead to another recession, or worse. (Past deregulation on Wall Street cost the US economy an estimated $12.8 trillion, according to a study by Better Markets.)
Even the GOP's call for food stamp cuts will cost people their jobs and reduce the national wealth, by leaving impoverished families even less to spend on the basics of life. (A compendium of their demands can be found here.)
Confrontation's Costs
According to conservative estimates the Republican shutdown is costing the economy $1.6 billion per week, a figure which doesn't include the ripple effect in lost investment and growth. Those ripples could be seen Gallup's consumer confidence figures, which last week took their biggest plunge since Lehman Brothers collapsed and triggered the 2008 global crisis.
Consumer confidence is what drives consumer spending in goods and services -- the kind of spending that creates jobs. Last week's plunge means the Republican shutdown is almost certainly losing American jobs already.In addition, the stock market continues to take a hit as investors worry about economic uncertainty.
And today Republican brinksmanship has pushed the yield for Treasury bonds to their highest point since the height of the crisis in 2008 -- which, in plain English, means that investors are losing confidence is the government's ability to repay its debts. That increases borrowing costs for the government (so much for Republicans' professed concern for lowered spending), and for everyone else as well.
They're right to be concerned. Republicans now seem poised to fire the biggest cannon of all: a debt default. As Bloomberg News reports, that move is seen as "a catastrophe dwarfing Lehman's fall." The International Monetary Fund (IMF) warned that a U.S. default would "seriously damage" the global economy. It "would have major consequences," said the IMF's chief economist, adding: "... it could well be that what is now a recovery would turn into a recession, or even worse." (emphasis ours)
The only people dismissing the harmful effects of a default are the ones who have been wrong all along.
Unaffordable
Democrats haven't been blameless. The president spent far too much time echoing the Republicans' deficit-fixated austerity rhetoric. Senate Democrats could have been tougher. The party could have done more to explain why we need investment in jobs and growth, and how the GOP's financial agenda hurts most Americans.
But those sins seem trivial when compared to the harm Republicans have done, and continue to do, to the national economy. That's the real economic story, and it should be told every day until the GOP is reined in and the nation is restored to economic health.
The Republicans' extremism is morally out of step with Americans. Democrats need to stand firm against it and explain the real story to the American people. But what may hurt Republicans most in the end is cold economic reality. The Republican Right is just too expensive for America.
10/15/13
The Religious Right Is a Fraud
There's Nothing Christian About Michele Bachmann’s Values
The American right obsesses over abortion and birth control, not helping people. It's different around the globe.
Last week, the nation’s capital was host to Value Voters 2013 Summit, a three-day political conference for predominantly religious conservatives. Among the smattering of social and economic issues at hand, the overall tenor of the Summit focused on eliminating Obamacare, expanding the tangible presence of Christianity through the public arena and military and preventing the proliferation of easily available birth control and abortion. In speeches, lunches and breakout sessions, American’s Christian Right worked out strategies to bring the values of the federal government in line with their preferred Christian ethical dictates, using democracy as their chief tool.
It isn’t unusual for Christians living in democracies to use the vote to express their ethics, and to shape government to do the same. That the moral and ethical preferences of a given society should inform government is a foundational principle of democracy, after all. And American values voters are far from the first Christians to undertake the project of bringing their government’s policies in line with Christian ethics: European Christian parties have aimed to do the same for decades. But between American Christian voters and their European counterparts, a curious departure opens up: while European Christians generally see the anti-poverty mission of Christianity as worthy of political action, the American Christian Right inexplicably cordons off economics from the realm of Christian influence.
By all means, the American Christian Right is willing to leverage government authority to carry out a variety of Christian ethical projects, especially within the arena of family life. Michele Bachmann would make abortion illegal, and Rick Santorum has stated on multiple occasions that he supports laws against homosexual intercourse. But Christian politicians in the United States curtail their interest in making the gospel actionable when it comes to welfare. While the government should see to the moral uprightness of marriage, sex and family, the Value Voters 2013 Summit was notably bereft of talks on living wages, labor rights or basic incomes.
The notable exclusion of poverty from the Christian agenda would doubtlessly puzzle European Christians, whose support of Christian ethical approaches to family life have always been paired with a deep and vigorous concern for the poor. And, unlike their American counterparts, European Christians haven’t been willing to leave poverty up to individual charity or the market to handle. Quite the contrary: Just as public morality is an arena fit for intervention by a Christian-informed government, so too is welfare. Consider the British Christian People’s Alliance 2010 election manifesto, a document intended to explain the imminently Christian party’s policy goals:
“The Christian Peoples Alliance believes that Britain will return to economic prosperity when government chooses instead to put human relationships in right order. This requires power, income and wealth to be redistributed and for greater equality to be achieved. These are deeply spiritual convictions and reflect a Biblical pattern of priorities…By the end of the next Parliament, the CPA will establish the reduction of inequality as a national target, so that the ratios of the incomes of the top 20 per cent are reduced to no more than five and a half times the incomes of the bottom 20 per cent.”
The CPA election manifesto goes on to explain that their aversion to inequality arises from a uniquely Christian concern for the health of human relationships, which suffer under the weight of massive social inequality. Their position on inequality is hardly an anomaly among European Christian parties. In fact, the European Christian Political Movement (ECPM), a confederation of Christian parties from different European nations operating within the European Union, states very similar goals in its own programme:
10/14/13
How House Republicans guaranteed a shutdown: by changing the rules
Here's proof positive that Republicans own this shutdown. How badly did House Republican leadership wanted to shut down the government? Here's how much. They used an unprecedented parliamentary procedure to block any chance that the clean continuing resolution sent to them by the Senate would reach the floor. They did so by changing standing House rules.
Under normal procedure, here's how it would have worked the day it all fell down, September 30. The Senate sent over their clean CR. The House amended it with their anti-Obamacare stuff. The Senate rejected that change, and sent their resolution back. At that point, under normal procedure, any member would have been able to make a motion to bring the Senate bill to the floor. The rule that says they can do it is this:
When the stage of disagreement has been reached on a bill or resolution with House or Senate amendments, a motion to dispose of any amendment shall be privileged.
That means the chambers are deadlocked and any member trying to break the deadlock would be able to do so—would have privilege to do so. Except that in this case, for this continuing resolution only, Republicans changed the rule. They did it on the night of September 30, the eve of the shutdown, in a Rules Committee meeting. The rule change said that any motion to take up the Senate bill "may be offered only by the majority Leader or his designee." Meaning only Eric Cantor or with his approval. Which wasn't going to happen.
"I've never seen this rule used. I'm not even sure they were certain we would have found it," a House Democratic aide told TPM. "This was an overabundance of caution on their part. 'We've got to find every single crack in the dam that water can get through and plug it.'"
Congressional historians agreed that it was highly unusual for the House to reserve such power solely for the leadership.
"I've never heard of anything like that before," Norm Ornstein, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, told TPM.
There was no way John Boehner and Eric Cantor were going to allow a clean funding bill to reach the floor the night before the shutdown. Because they knew that there were plenty of Republicans who would vote for it and it would pass.
House Democrats knew this was happening from the beginning, but unlike the Senate, the minority party in the House has very little power to do anything about abuses like this. They've been doing what they can do, trying to pass a motion to recommit every mini-funding bill the leadership brings up, to replace them with the Senate's clean resolution. But the procedure is arcane and complex and it's easy for the so-called moderate Republicans to pretend like those efforts don't exist, and to not do what they say they want—reopen government with a clean spending bill.
That makes those "moderate" Republicans as complicit in this as their leadership. The entire Republican Party owns this shutdown, completely.
.
Under normal procedure, here's how it would have worked the day it all fell down, September 30. The Senate sent over their clean CR. The House amended it with their anti-Obamacare stuff. The Senate rejected that change, and sent their resolution back. At that point, under normal procedure, any member would have been able to make a motion to bring the Senate bill to the floor. The rule that says they can do it is this:
When the stage of disagreement has been reached on a bill or resolution with House or Senate amendments, a motion to dispose of any amendment shall be privileged.
That means the chambers are deadlocked and any member trying to break the deadlock would be able to do so—would have privilege to do so. Except that in this case, for this continuing resolution only, Republicans changed the rule. They did it on the night of September 30, the eve of the shutdown, in a Rules Committee meeting. The rule change said that any motion to take up the Senate bill "may be offered only by the majority Leader or his designee." Meaning only Eric Cantor or with his approval. Which wasn't going to happen.
"I've never seen this rule used. I'm not even sure they were certain we would have found it," a House Democratic aide told TPM. "This was an overabundance of caution on their part. 'We've got to find every single crack in the dam that water can get through and plug it.'"
Congressional historians agreed that it was highly unusual for the House to reserve such power solely for the leadership.
"I've never heard of anything like that before," Norm Ornstein, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, told TPM.
There was no way John Boehner and Eric Cantor were going to allow a clean funding bill to reach the floor the night before the shutdown. Because they knew that there were plenty of Republicans who would vote for it and it would pass.
House Democrats knew this was happening from the beginning, but unlike the Senate, the minority party in the House has very little power to do anything about abuses like this. They've been doing what they can do, trying to pass a motion to recommit every mini-funding bill the leadership brings up, to replace them with the Senate's clean resolution. But the procedure is arcane and complex and it's easy for the so-called moderate Republicans to pretend like those efforts don't exist, and to not do what they say they want—reopen government with a clean spending bill.
That makes those "moderate" Republicans as complicit in this as their leadership. The entire Republican Party owns this shutdown, completely.
.
10/8/13
You can't fix stupid (Part Deux )
Only the truly child-like can have expected anything else.
In the year of our Lord 2010, the voters of the United States elected the worst Congress in the history of the Republic. There have been Congresses more dilatory. There have been Congresses more irresponsible, though not many of them. There have been lazier Congresses, more vicious Congresses, and Congresses less capable of seeing forests for trees. But there has never been in a single Congress -- or, more precisely, in a single House of the Congress -- a more lethal combination of political ambition, political stupidity, and political vainglory than exists in this one, which has arranged to shut down the federal government because it disapproves of a law passed by a previous Congress, signed by the president, and upheld by the Supreme Court, a law that does nothing more than extend the possibility of health insurance to the millions of Americans who do not presently have it, a law based on a proposal from a conservative think-tank and taken out on the test track in Massachusetts by a Republican governor who also happens to have been the party's 2012 nominee for president of the United States. That is why the government of the United States is, in large measure, closed this morning.
We have elected the people sitting on hold, waiting for their moment on an evening drive-time radio talk show.
We have elected an ungovernable collection of snake-handlers, Bible-bangers, ignorami, bagmen and outright frauds, a collection so ungovernable that it insists the nation be ungovernable, too. We have elected people to govern us who do not believe in government.
We have elected a national legislature in which Louie Gohmert and Michele Bachmann have more power than does the Speaker of the House of Representatives, who has been made a piteous spectacle in the eyes of the country and doesn't seem to mind that at all. We have elected a national legislature in which the true power resides in a cabal of vandals, a nihilistic brigade that believes that its opposition to a bill directing millions of new customers to the nation's insurance companies is the equivalent of standing up to the Nazis in 1938, to the bravery of the passengers on Flight 93 on September 11, 2001, and to Mel Gibson's account of the Scottish Wars of Independence in the 13th Century. We have elected a national legislature that looks into the mirror and sees itself already cast in marble.
We did this. We looked at our great legacy of self-government and we handed ourselves over to the reign of morons.
This is what they came to Washington to do -- to break the government of the United States. It doesn't matter any more whether they're doing it out of pure crackpot ideology, or at the behest of the various sugar daddies that back their campaigns, or at the instigation of their party's mouthbreathing base. It may be any one of those reasons. It may be all of them. The government of the United States, in the first three words of its founding charter, belongs to all of us, and these people have broken it deliberately. The true hell of it, though, is that you could see this coming down through the years, all the way from Ronald Reagan's First Inaugural Address in which government "was" the problem, through Bill Clinton's ameliorative nonsense about the era of big government being "over," through the attempts to make a charlatan like Newt Gingrich into a scholar and an ambitious hack like Paul Ryan into a budget genius, and through all the endless attempts to find "common ground" and a "Third Way." Ultimately, as we all wrapped ourselves in good intentions, a prion disease was eating away at the country's higher functions. One of the ways you can acquire a prion disease is to eat right out of its skull the brains of an infected monkey. We are now seeing the country reeling and jabbering from the effects of the prion disease, but it was during the time of Reagan that the country ate the monkey brains.
What is there to be done? The first and most important thing is to recognize how we came to this pass. Both sides did not do this. Both sides are not to blame. There is no compromise to be had here that will leave the current structure of the government intact. There can be no reward for this behavior. I am less sanguine than are many people that this whole thing will redound to the credit of the Democratic party. For that to happen, the country would have to make a nuanced judgment over who is to blame that, I believe, will be discouraged by the courtier press of the Beltway and that, in any case, the country has not shown itself capable of making. For that to happen, the Democratic party would have to be demonstrably ruthless enough to risk its own political standing to make the point, which the Democratic party never has shown itself capable of doing. With the vandals tucked away in safe, gerrymandered districts, and their control over state governments probably unshaken by events in Washington, there will be no great wave election that sweeps them out of power. I do not see profound political consequences for enough of them to change the character of a Congress gone delusional. The only real consequences will be felt by the millions of people affected by what this Congress has forced upon the nation, which was the whole point all along.
Among other things, the Library Of Congress is closed as a result of what the vandals have done. Padlock study and intellect. Wander aimlessly down the mall among the shuttered monuments to self-government. Find yourself a food truck that serves monkey brains. Eat your fking fill.
In the year of our Lord 2010, the voters of the United States elected the worst Congress in the history of the Republic. There have been Congresses more dilatory. There have been Congresses more irresponsible, though not many of them. There have been lazier Congresses, more vicious Congresses, and Congresses less capable of seeing forests for trees. But there has never been in a single Congress -- or, more precisely, in a single House of the Congress -- a more lethal combination of political ambition, political stupidity, and political vainglory than exists in this one, which has arranged to shut down the federal government because it disapproves of a law passed by a previous Congress, signed by the president, and upheld by the Supreme Court, a law that does nothing more than extend the possibility of health insurance to the millions of Americans who do not presently have it, a law based on a proposal from a conservative think-tank and taken out on the test track in Massachusetts by a Republican governor who also happens to have been the party's 2012 nominee for president of the United States. That is why the government of the United States is, in large measure, closed this morning.
We have elected the people sitting on hold, waiting for their moment on an evening drive-time radio talk show.
We have elected an ungovernable collection of snake-handlers, Bible-bangers, ignorami, bagmen and outright frauds, a collection so ungovernable that it insists the nation be ungovernable, too. We have elected people to govern us who do not believe in government.
We have elected a national legislature in which Louie Gohmert and Michele Bachmann have more power than does the Speaker of the House of Representatives, who has been made a piteous spectacle in the eyes of the country and doesn't seem to mind that at all. We have elected a national legislature in which the true power resides in a cabal of vandals, a nihilistic brigade that believes that its opposition to a bill directing millions of new customers to the nation's insurance companies is the equivalent of standing up to the Nazis in 1938, to the bravery of the passengers on Flight 93 on September 11, 2001, and to Mel Gibson's account of the Scottish Wars of Independence in the 13th Century. We have elected a national legislature that looks into the mirror and sees itself already cast in marble.
We did this. We looked at our great legacy of self-government and we handed ourselves over to the reign of morons.
This is what they came to Washington to do -- to break the government of the United States. It doesn't matter any more whether they're doing it out of pure crackpot ideology, or at the behest of the various sugar daddies that back their campaigns, or at the instigation of their party's mouthbreathing base. It may be any one of those reasons. It may be all of them. The government of the United States, in the first three words of its founding charter, belongs to all of us, and these people have broken it deliberately. The true hell of it, though, is that you could see this coming down through the years, all the way from Ronald Reagan's First Inaugural Address in which government "was" the problem, through Bill Clinton's ameliorative nonsense about the era of big government being "over," through the attempts to make a charlatan like Newt Gingrich into a scholar and an ambitious hack like Paul Ryan into a budget genius, and through all the endless attempts to find "common ground" and a "Third Way." Ultimately, as we all wrapped ourselves in good intentions, a prion disease was eating away at the country's higher functions. One of the ways you can acquire a prion disease is to eat right out of its skull the brains of an infected monkey. We are now seeing the country reeling and jabbering from the effects of the prion disease, but it was during the time of Reagan that the country ate the monkey brains.
What is there to be done? The first and most important thing is to recognize how we came to this pass. Both sides did not do this. Both sides are not to blame. There is no compromise to be had here that will leave the current structure of the government intact. There can be no reward for this behavior. I am less sanguine than are many people that this whole thing will redound to the credit of the Democratic party. For that to happen, the country would have to make a nuanced judgment over who is to blame that, I believe, will be discouraged by the courtier press of the Beltway and that, in any case, the country has not shown itself capable of making. For that to happen, the Democratic party would have to be demonstrably ruthless enough to risk its own political standing to make the point, which the Democratic party never has shown itself capable of doing. With the vandals tucked away in safe, gerrymandered districts, and their control over state governments probably unshaken by events in Washington, there will be no great wave election that sweeps them out of power. I do not see profound political consequences for enough of them to change the character of a Congress gone delusional. The only real consequences will be felt by the millions of people affected by what this Congress has forced upon the nation, which was the whole point all along.
Among other things, the Library Of Congress is closed as a result of what the vandals have done. Padlock study and intellect. Wander aimlessly down the mall among the shuttered monuments to self-government. Find yourself a food truck that serves monkey brains. Eat your fking fill.
10/4/13
In Ireland we used to say "Let's talk a little treason"
Sedition: To write, print, utter or publish, or cause it to be done, or assist in it, any false, scandalous, and malicious writing against the government of the United States, or either House of Congress, or the President, with intent to defame, or bring either into contempt or disrepute, or to excite against either the hatred of the people of the United States, or to stir up sedition, or to excite unlawful combinations against the government, or to resist it, or to aid or encourage hostile designs of foreign nations. Sedition Act of 1798
I am always amazed when certain political preachers make their pronouncements about how they think that God is speaking to them about political issues. However yesterday, when my troubles seemed so far away the radical Christian Dominionist and self proclaimed “Prophet and Apostle” Rick Joyner stunned me. Joyner is one of the leaders of what he and others like C. Peter Wagner call the New Apostolic Reformation which inculcates people to believe that they and they alone are hearing from the Lord and that the task of the church is to rule the earth and if need be judge and destroy those that do not agree with this particular form of Christianity.
Now as most people who really know me know it takes a lot to stun me, even from the right wing political preachers that crowd the airways and cyber space of the United States and the world. I am not a fan of these very non-pastoral and often quite un-Christian political animals who claim to be speaking for God.
Now I am all in favor of freedom of speech and freedom of religion, even for men like the prophet Rick. In fact when I swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States it included defending the rights of irresponsible, hateful and idiotic men like Joyner and others like him no matter what their political or religious persuasion.
But there is a line where what someone says is irresponsible, hateful and idiotic, which mind you are perfectly legal and Constitutional; after all there is nothing prohibiting people from being hate driven fear mongering idiots. That being said there is a time when speech borders or crosses the line into what Federal law, common law and the laws of most western civilized countries which have a Judeo-Christian heritage call “treason” or “sedition.”
I think that yesterday the prophet Rick looked to me like he crossed that line. He said yesterday on his broadcast that in terms of the President Obama that our “only hope is a military takeover, martial law.” Not only that but he continued: “And that the most crucial element of that is who to the martial [sic] is going to be,” he said. “I believe there are noble leaders in our military that love the republic and love everything we stand for. And they could seize the government.”
Now obviously Joyner neither understands the Constitution of the United States, nor knows history our military. The fact is that most of us who have been around any time at all in the military know the history of just how bad military coups are for Republics or Democracies. The fact is that they seldom end well and usually bring about worse conditions than if sensible people took charge and let the political system work as it was designed. The fact that our often badly divided founders understood that there would be times that one faction, party or another would not be happy with the way an election turned out.
I would have linked the video of this absolutely insane, treasonous and seditious video Joyner’s Morningstar ministries have now pulled it. I guess that some clearer headed people, likely his corporate lawyers realized that this was over the line.
I wonder what Joyner and his supporters would say if a religious leader of another faith other than their own uttered such foolishness. I suspect that if there was a Conservative Republican in the White House that they would be calling for the prosecution, conviction, imprisonment or maybe even the execution of such a person who suggested the overthrow of the civil government. But then for such people the irony of this is too rich for them to comprehend.
The sad thing is that this is now par for the course for people like Joyner whose hubris, narcissism and Gnostic understanding of the Christian faith justifies their radicalism and arrogance. I took some time to read Joyner’s comments about this controversy in his “Morningstar Prophetic Bulletin” and it looks to me like he is willing to go even farther in the coming days. Speaking to his disciples he wrote:
“I am very glad for this controversy, even the outrage I have created in some by the Prophetic Perspectives program. To quote King David, “I will yet be more vile” (see II Samuel 6:22 KJV). I don’t enjoy controversy, but I do appreciate it for what it can accomplish. It is not likely that anyone will be able to speak the truth in these times without it. I intend to use the controversy started by that program to delve into more depth on these issues. Therefore, future Prophetic Perspectives programs will likely be even more controversial....”
Sad to say it looks to me like Joyner is looking to collect some cash for his ministry by getting them fired up. Back in the late 1980s and early 1990s I heard Joyner speak and had some of his books. He is very good at deceiving people and ensuring his material well being by doing this kind of thing. He has been doing it for years. In fact he has been castigated by conservative and Fundamentalist Bible Christians for his incredibly shoddy and self serving “revelations.” Hank Handergraaf’s Christian Research Institute even noted that “Joyner leaves us no middle way. Either we treat him as God’s chosen super-prophet for the end-times, or we treat him as a man in the grip of evil deceit and seek to expose him as such.”
While I am not in agreement with Handergraaf on many things I can agree with him on this. Joyner and others like him in the Christian Dominionist movement are not only narcissistic, arrogant and full of hubris but are dangerous not only to those that follow them but to others. Especially those that they decide based on their personal “word from the Lord” are against Jesus.
Honestly this is little different from the way that people like Osama Bin Laden and the Taliban interpret Islam.
Yes if you ask me what Joyner is saying is seditious and borders on treason. However because people are afraid of the religious right in this country no charges will ever be filed. Joyner will get away with this and rake in more cash from those that he leads into disaster, people who swallow his heresy and radicalism hook line and sinker because it fits their world view.
The late associate Justice of the Supreme Court and Chief Prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials wrote: “[I]n our country are evangelists and zealots of many different political, economic and religious persuasions whose fanatical conviction is that all thought is divinely classified into two kinds — that which is their own and that which is false and dangerous.”
Joyner and those like him fit Justice Jackson's description
10/3/13
Christian Dominionism and the Shutdown
“[I]n our country are evangelists and zealots of many different political, economic and religious persuasions whose fanatical conviction is that all thought is divinely classified into two kinds — that which is their own and that which is false and dangerous.” — Justice Robert H Jackson, American Communications Assn. v. Douds, 339 US 382, 438; 70 SCt. 674, 704 (1950)
Well we are in day two of the government shutdown of 2013 with no end in sight. Sadly I have to say that the groups most responsible for this on the Tea Party and Republican Party side of the house are Evangelical Christians and ultra-conservative Catholics. The Evangelical are held in the thrall of Christian Dominionism, or Recontructionism while the conservative Catholics long for the days when their church owned the governments of Europe.
If the shutdown was about pragmatic budgetary considerations I might give the authors of the shutdown some consideration. However, it is not and their leaders have either said it openly or all but said this to be the case.
I am a Christian and a Historian in a small Old Catholic denomination. I am a graduate of a premier Evangelical Protestant Seminary as well several prestigious Universities,where I came to appreciate and revere religious liberty. What I am going to write today may offend some but it has to be said. I believe that the cause of religious liberty, and for that matter the liberty of the Christian Church to be faithful to its call and unencumbered by unseemly political alliances is in danger due to the actions of people that in many cases honestly believe that they are defending religious liberty. Justice Robert Jackson prosecuted the major Nazi War criminals at Nuremberg and was able to view the results of what happened when churches that entered into such alliances.
I back in my days as a more “conservative” Evangelical Christian I attended and unlike conservative Christian TV icon and former governor of Arkansas actually graduated from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth Texas. This was in the days just prior to the Fundamentalist takeover of the seminary and the denomination. It was at Southwestern that I gained a distinct appreciation of and love for the concept of the separation of church and state and the importance of the rights, both civil and religious of non-believers, members of minority religions and others not in the religious majority, or those without power, be it religious, social or economic.
I look at what is going on today, just two days after the shutdown and it appears to me that the most vitriolic bunch pushing the Republican Party and their hapless, soulless and clueless Speaker of the House John Boehner into this are the Tea-vangelicals led by the like of Senator Ted Cruz, whose father Rafael Cruz is a prominent Dominionist pastor who has long been part of the movement to establish what amounts to a Christian Theocracy in the United States.
However, whether people realize it or not we were warned by no less than conservative icon Barry Goldwater about such people.
Yes, I said it. Barry Goldwater. Goldwater was not a fan of the influence of preachers and religious zealots. In fact he warned us about them in very clear words.
My liberal and conservative friends both might be dismayed by this but Barry Goldwater, the man who inspired Ronald Reagan to run for President and who was the conservative bulwark for many years in Washington DC warned us of what would happen when the Religious Right took over the Republican Party. Goldwater said of the types of people that currently dominate the conservative movement, if it can be still called that:
“Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they're sure trying to do so, it’s going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can't and won't compromise. I know, I’ve tried to deal with them.” November, 1994, in John Dean, Conservatives Without Conscience.
Billy Graham, a saint if there ever was one and a man who used his faith to build bridges even while being unabashedly evangelical warned back in 1981 about the current crop of religious conservatives and stand in sharp contrast to the words and actions of Franklin:
“I don't want to see religious bigotry in any form. It would disturb me if there was a wedding between the religious fundamentalists and the political right. The hard right has no interest in religion except to manipulate it.” Parade Magazine February 1, 1981, from Albert J Menendez and Edd Doerr, The Great Quotations on Religious Freedom
What we are seeing today is the expressed manifestation of religious bigotry operating under the guise of defending religious freedom. Likewise it is little different (except in the religion involved) to the Wahhabi Taliban or the the Saudi Arabian state, the Shi’te Hezbollah government in Lebanon or the Mullah’s of Iran.
This ultra-religious intransigence of the Tea-vangelicals is being shown in its ugliness by the brazen acts of Evangelical political and religious leaders during this shutdown. And they wonder why more and more people want nothing to do with the faith that they espouse. If there is any way to lose religious freedom it is to follow this attempt to marry the Christian faith with the American government is not only short sighted but does great damage to the faith and our American liberties.
A host of influential of Evangelical leaders, politicians and even Roman Catholic Bishops have said what they believe religious liberty means to them and it has little in common with the understanding of our founders. It has nothing to do with limited government nor religious liberty. It is the imperial religion of Constantine, dressed up a bit to keep up with the times. It is simply an attempt by these leaders to use the apparatus of the government to support themselves and to establish their specific religion as a state religion with the full legal means to subjugate non-believers or others who do not agree with them.
The whole debate over the Affordable Healthcare Act in the shutdown is a red herring. The actual goal is to achieve a merger of church and state with the Dominionists leading it and dominating what they call the “Seven Mountains” of culture and society. Attempting to delegitimize President Obama through the shutdown and the debt limit is only a tactic in a larger strategy to achieve “dominion” over the United States and the world.
George Truett, the great Southern Baptist Pastor who served as President of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary wrote in his book Baptists and Religious Liberty in 1920 about the decidedly negative effect of when the Church became the State religion:
“Constantine, the Emperor, saw something in the religion of Christ’s people which awakened his interest, and now we see him uniting religion to the state and marching up the marble steps of the Emperor’s palace, with the church robed in purple. Thus and there was begun the most baneful misalliance that ever fettered and cursed a suffering world…. When … Constantine crowned the union of church and state, the church was stamped with the spirit of the Caesars…. The long blighting record of the medieval ages is simply the working out of that idea.”
The late Senator Mark Hatfield a strongly committed Evangelical Christian before it became popular in Washington made this comment concerning those that are now driving this spurious debate:
“As a Christian, there is no other part of the New Right ideology that concerns me more than its self-serving misuse of religious faith. What is at stake here is the very integrity of biblical truth. The New Right, in many cases, is doing nothing less than placing a heretical claim on Christian faith that distorts, confuses, and destroys the opportunity for a biblical understanding of Jesus Christ and of his gospel for millions of people.” quoted in the pamphlet “Christian Reconstruction: God’s Glorious Millennium?” by Paul Thibodeau
The core of the current campaign in the shutdown is the imposition of Christian Dominionism onto the rest of the country. It may reference the Gospel and even certain Christian moral understandings even as it mocks other just as “Biblical” Christian teachings.
Back in 1981 Barry Goldwater said on the Senate Floor “The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. They are trying to force government leaders into following their position 100 percent.”
The leaders of this shutdown movement and their supporters are almost all self-proclaimed Evangelical Christians who represent gerrymandered congressional districts in which they only have to worry about being considered not extreme enough.
Like it or not Goldwater was right about this crowd. They will drive their churches and their political party into the abyss. The fractures in my former party, the Republican Party are becoming more and apparent and neither the Dominionist Preachers, or their allied politicians and pundits can see the end state of their party and for what they think they are fighting.
But then none are so blind as those who will not see. Please do not say that you were not warned.
Well we are in day two of the government shutdown of 2013 with no end in sight. Sadly I have to say that the groups most responsible for this on the Tea Party and Republican Party side of the house are Evangelical Christians and ultra-conservative Catholics. The Evangelical are held in the thrall of Christian Dominionism, or Recontructionism while the conservative Catholics long for the days when their church owned the governments of Europe.
If the shutdown was about pragmatic budgetary considerations I might give the authors of the shutdown some consideration. However, it is not and their leaders have either said it openly or all but said this to be the case.
I am a Christian and a Historian in a small Old Catholic denomination. I am a graduate of a premier Evangelical Protestant Seminary as well several prestigious Universities,where I came to appreciate and revere religious liberty. What I am going to write today may offend some but it has to be said. I believe that the cause of religious liberty, and for that matter the liberty of the Christian Church to be faithful to its call and unencumbered by unseemly political alliances is in danger due to the actions of people that in many cases honestly believe that they are defending religious liberty. Justice Robert Jackson prosecuted the major Nazi War criminals at Nuremberg and was able to view the results of what happened when churches that entered into such alliances.
I back in my days as a more “conservative” Evangelical Christian I attended and unlike conservative Christian TV icon and former governor of Arkansas actually graduated from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth Texas. This was in the days just prior to the Fundamentalist takeover of the seminary and the denomination. It was at Southwestern that I gained a distinct appreciation of and love for the concept of the separation of church and state and the importance of the rights, both civil and religious of non-believers, members of minority religions and others not in the religious majority, or those without power, be it religious, social or economic.
I look at what is going on today, just two days after the shutdown and it appears to me that the most vitriolic bunch pushing the Republican Party and their hapless, soulless and clueless Speaker of the House John Boehner into this are the Tea-vangelicals led by the like of Senator Ted Cruz, whose father Rafael Cruz is a prominent Dominionist pastor who has long been part of the movement to establish what amounts to a Christian Theocracy in the United States.
However, whether people realize it or not we were warned by no less than conservative icon Barry Goldwater about such people.
Yes, I said it. Barry Goldwater. Goldwater was not a fan of the influence of preachers and religious zealots. In fact he warned us about them in very clear words.
My liberal and conservative friends both might be dismayed by this but Barry Goldwater, the man who inspired Ronald Reagan to run for President and who was the conservative bulwark for many years in Washington DC warned us of what would happen when the Religious Right took over the Republican Party. Goldwater said of the types of people that currently dominate the conservative movement, if it can be still called that:
“Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they're sure trying to do so, it’s going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can't and won't compromise. I know, I’ve tried to deal with them.” November, 1994, in John Dean, Conservatives Without Conscience.
Billy Graham, a saint if there ever was one and a man who used his faith to build bridges even while being unabashedly evangelical warned back in 1981 about the current crop of religious conservatives and stand in sharp contrast to the words and actions of Franklin:
“I don't want to see religious bigotry in any form. It would disturb me if there was a wedding between the religious fundamentalists and the political right. The hard right has no interest in religion except to manipulate it.” Parade Magazine February 1, 1981, from Albert J Menendez and Edd Doerr, The Great Quotations on Religious Freedom
What we are seeing today is the expressed manifestation of religious bigotry operating under the guise of defending religious freedom. Likewise it is little different (except in the religion involved) to the Wahhabi Taliban or the the Saudi Arabian state, the Shi’te Hezbollah government in Lebanon or the Mullah’s of Iran.
This ultra-religious intransigence of the Tea-vangelicals is being shown in its ugliness by the brazen acts of Evangelical political and religious leaders during this shutdown. And they wonder why more and more people want nothing to do with the faith that they espouse. If there is any way to lose religious freedom it is to follow this attempt to marry the Christian faith with the American government is not only short sighted but does great damage to the faith and our American liberties.
A host of influential of Evangelical leaders, politicians and even Roman Catholic Bishops have said what they believe religious liberty means to them and it has little in common with the understanding of our founders. It has nothing to do with limited government nor religious liberty. It is the imperial religion of Constantine, dressed up a bit to keep up with the times. It is simply an attempt by these leaders to use the apparatus of the government to support themselves and to establish their specific religion as a state religion with the full legal means to subjugate non-believers or others who do not agree with them.
The whole debate over the Affordable Healthcare Act in the shutdown is a red herring. The actual goal is to achieve a merger of church and state with the Dominionists leading it and dominating what they call the “Seven Mountains” of culture and society. Attempting to delegitimize President Obama through the shutdown and the debt limit is only a tactic in a larger strategy to achieve “dominion” over the United States and the world.
George Truett, the great Southern Baptist Pastor who served as President of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary wrote in his book Baptists and Religious Liberty in 1920 about the decidedly negative effect of when the Church became the State religion:
“Constantine, the Emperor, saw something in the religion of Christ’s people which awakened his interest, and now we see him uniting religion to the state and marching up the marble steps of the Emperor’s palace, with the church robed in purple. Thus and there was begun the most baneful misalliance that ever fettered and cursed a suffering world…. When … Constantine crowned the union of church and state, the church was stamped with the spirit of the Caesars…. The long blighting record of the medieval ages is simply the working out of that idea.”
The late Senator Mark Hatfield a strongly committed Evangelical Christian before it became popular in Washington made this comment concerning those that are now driving this spurious debate:
“As a Christian, there is no other part of the New Right ideology that concerns me more than its self-serving misuse of religious faith. What is at stake here is the very integrity of biblical truth. The New Right, in many cases, is doing nothing less than placing a heretical claim on Christian faith that distorts, confuses, and destroys the opportunity for a biblical understanding of Jesus Christ and of his gospel for millions of people.” quoted in the pamphlet “Christian Reconstruction: God’s Glorious Millennium?” by Paul Thibodeau
The core of the current campaign in the shutdown is the imposition of Christian Dominionism onto the rest of the country. It may reference the Gospel and even certain Christian moral understandings even as it mocks other just as “Biblical” Christian teachings.
Back in 1981 Barry Goldwater said on the Senate Floor “The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. They are trying to force government leaders into following their position 100 percent.”
The leaders of this shutdown movement and their supporters are almost all self-proclaimed Evangelical Christians who represent gerrymandered congressional districts in which they only have to worry about being considered not extreme enough.
Like it or not Goldwater was right about this crowd. They will drive their churches and their political party into the abyss. The fractures in my former party, the Republican Party are becoming more and apparent and neither the Dominionist Preachers, or their allied politicians and pundits can see the end state of their party and for what they think they are fighting.
But then none are so blind as those who will not see. Please do not say that you were not warned.
9/27/13
How are you represented by congress
The National Review has released what they say is the Republican debt limit bill. What is listed is nothing less than an attempt to undo the entire middle class of the United States. Here is what they list as the terms of the bill:
1. Increasing the debt limit until December 2014, rather than for a dollar amount
By moving the debt limit to a date after the elections, the Republicans hope to prevent the debt limit debacle from being used as an election year issue.
2. Delay Obamacare for one year
As with the debt limit change, by moving the implementation of the Affordable Care Act until after the election, then the Republicans can claim it as theirs for the election.
3. Fast track the Ryan Budget tax reforms
Paul Ryan’s tax plan has already been found to cost more than it saved, which would cause the deficit to balloon. This would in turn be blamed on President Obama in the election, undoing his years of deficit reduction.
4. Eliminate the governments ability to regulate energy production, including blocking regulations on coal ash and carbon emissions
Direct attacks against the EPA and Department of Energy. By eliminating their ability to regulate, the Republicans aim to allow companies to continue poisoning our skies, lands, and waters, such as through unfettered fracking. They will sell this as to create jobs, as the damage would not be obvious until after the election.
5. Sets down provisions for the Keystone XL Pipeline, offshore drilling, selling off federal lands for energy exploitation
John Boehner must be thrilled here, as he would personally gain a small fortune. These are, again, election-year mantras they want to use to sell to their otherwise demoralized base.
6. Implement the REINS Act
Paul Ryan’s proposal to overturn the ability of the government to regulate virtually everything. Developed by the Heritage Foundations, the REINS act would require congressional approval on every single regulation proposal. Seat belts in cars? Water that does not have laundry detergent in it? The knowledge of what is inside of our food? All gone in one move.
6. Reform consent decree used by our nations police and military forces
Get rid of those pesky rights. This move would make programs such as stop and frisk national policy. Forget about Miranda, about your lawyer or due process. Once a policeman selects you, they can beat your entire family up, strip search you on the roadside, anything their little hearts desire.
7. Eliminate the ability to regulate the internet, and kill Net Neutrality
If Comcast wants to block your ability to read Addicting Info, under this deal, they can. The GOP aims to eliminate the ability to get facts, information, or to organize by allowing their corporate backers to simply eliminate your ability to surf the net freely.
8. New sequester provisions
The sequester wasn’t good enough for the Republicans, they want to double the damage, slashing every program (except military) and then blame Obama when the economy tanks.
9. Eliminate the Federal Employee retirement pensions
Dedicating your life to the civil service, unless you are elected, will no longer be enough. They seek to steal the pensions of hard-working civil servants, handing them over to the megabanks.
10. Eliminate Dodd Frank
By eliminating the funding to the agencies set up by Dodd Frank, the GOP seeks to allow the big banks to become the unregulated cash machines, hoping it will crash our economy again, just in time for the election.
11. Move the funding for the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau to a line item in the budget appropriations
This allows the GOP to kill the bureau, allowing companies to once more exploit consumers in this country without worry.
12. Restructure the Child Tax Credit
In the guise of fraud prevention, the proposal would slash tax credits for most families while giving new deductions for the wealthiest 1%. By moving the tax credit to the line item deduction, most people would no longer be able to claim the credit. Only the wealthiest would be able to claim it.
13. Eliminate Social Services Block grants
Who needs social services in Republicanland? Get rid of all block grants to the states dealing with social services. This would, of course, eliminate much of the support for anti-poverty programs across the US, and would force a cycle of dependency on social welfare programs.
14. Transition Medicare to a means tested program
Sorry seniors, no Medicare for you unless you make under $25,000 a year. By transitioning it to a means based, rather than a universal system, it would introduce inefficiencies in the program. It would also make it a program which they could then exploit as a wedge issue. They could then force people off of it, until they can finally eliminate it entirely.
Overturn Medicaid tax deductions
This would force Medicaid providers to pay more in taxes. The goal here is to eliminate providers.
15. Eliminate people’s ability to due for damages against corporations, under the guise of “tort reform”
The GOP has pushed this for years. No surprise to witness it here. The goal here is simple, to eliminate corporate accountability in the courtroom. Your product kills millions? No worries at all with this bill in place.
16. Drastically reduce or eliminate Disproportionate Share Hospitals
This would eliminate programs aimed at helping hospitals which serve low-income neighborhoods. Without these programs, many of them would close, which would leave many neighborhoods without any medical treatment options at all.
17. Eliminate the Public Health trust Fund
The last provision of Obamacare which had not yet been eliminated or drastically restructured. With this, they would have completely eliminated Obamacare, causing our national debt to balloon out of control while making the poor pay for it. This plan is not a debt deal, it is an attempt to destroy America. it is not an honest brokered deal, it is a poison pill. Call your congressman today and tell them to get serious about the debt ceiling, and to stop playing politics with our lives. And call the White House and tell him to refuse to let Congress take this country hostage. We will remember this in November.
US Capitol Switchboard: (202) 224-3121
White House Comments: (202) 456-1111
1. Increasing the debt limit until December 2014, rather than for a dollar amount
By moving the debt limit to a date after the elections, the Republicans hope to prevent the debt limit debacle from being used as an election year issue.
2. Delay Obamacare for one year
As with the debt limit change, by moving the implementation of the Affordable Care Act until after the election, then the Republicans can claim it as theirs for the election.
3. Fast track the Ryan Budget tax reforms
Paul Ryan’s tax plan has already been found to cost more than it saved, which would cause the deficit to balloon. This would in turn be blamed on President Obama in the election, undoing his years of deficit reduction.
4. Eliminate the governments ability to regulate energy production, including blocking regulations on coal ash and carbon emissions
Direct attacks against the EPA and Department of Energy. By eliminating their ability to regulate, the Republicans aim to allow companies to continue poisoning our skies, lands, and waters, such as through unfettered fracking. They will sell this as to create jobs, as the damage would not be obvious until after the election.
5. Sets down provisions for the Keystone XL Pipeline, offshore drilling, selling off federal lands for energy exploitation
John Boehner must be thrilled here, as he would personally gain a small fortune. These are, again, election-year mantras they want to use to sell to their otherwise demoralized base.
6. Implement the REINS Act
Paul Ryan’s proposal to overturn the ability of the government to regulate virtually everything. Developed by the Heritage Foundations, the REINS act would require congressional approval on every single regulation proposal. Seat belts in cars? Water that does not have laundry detergent in it? The knowledge of what is inside of our food? All gone in one move.
6. Reform consent decree used by our nations police and military forces
Get rid of those pesky rights. This move would make programs such as stop and frisk national policy. Forget about Miranda, about your lawyer or due process. Once a policeman selects you, they can beat your entire family up, strip search you on the roadside, anything their little hearts desire.
7. Eliminate the ability to regulate the internet, and kill Net Neutrality
If Comcast wants to block your ability to read Addicting Info, under this deal, they can. The GOP aims to eliminate the ability to get facts, information, or to organize by allowing their corporate backers to simply eliminate your ability to surf the net freely.
8. New sequester provisions
The sequester wasn’t good enough for the Republicans, they want to double the damage, slashing every program (except military) and then blame Obama when the economy tanks.
9. Eliminate the Federal Employee retirement pensions
Dedicating your life to the civil service, unless you are elected, will no longer be enough. They seek to steal the pensions of hard-working civil servants, handing them over to the megabanks.
10. Eliminate Dodd Frank
By eliminating the funding to the agencies set up by Dodd Frank, the GOP seeks to allow the big banks to become the unregulated cash machines, hoping it will crash our economy again, just in time for the election.
11. Move the funding for the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau to a line item in the budget appropriations
This allows the GOP to kill the bureau, allowing companies to once more exploit consumers in this country without worry.
12. Restructure the Child Tax Credit
In the guise of fraud prevention, the proposal would slash tax credits for most families while giving new deductions for the wealthiest 1%. By moving the tax credit to the line item deduction, most people would no longer be able to claim the credit. Only the wealthiest would be able to claim it.
13. Eliminate Social Services Block grants
Who needs social services in Republicanland? Get rid of all block grants to the states dealing with social services. This would, of course, eliminate much of the support for anti-poverty programs across the US, and would force a cycle of dependency on social welfare programs.
14. Transition Medicare to a means tested program
Sorry seniors, no Medicare for you unless you make under $25,000 a year. By transitioning it to a means based, rather than a universal system, it would introduce inefficiencies in the program. It would also make it a program which they could then exploit as a wedge issue. They could then force people off of it, until they can finally eliminate it entirely.
Overturn Medicaid tax deductions
This would force Medicaid providers to pay more in taxes. The goal here is to eliminate providers.
15. Eliminate people’s ability to due for damages against corporations, under the guise of “tort reform”
The GOP has pushed this for years. No surprise to witness it here. The goal here is simple, to eliminate corporate accountability in the courtroom. Your product kills millions? No worries at all with this bill in place.
16. Drastically reduce or eliminate Disproportionate Share Hospitals
This would eliminate programs aimed at helping hospitals which serve low-income neighborhoods. Without these programs, many of them would close, which would leave many neighborhoods without any medical treatment options at all.
17. Eliminate the Public Health trust Fund
The last provision of Obamacare which had not yet been eliminated or drastically restructured. With this, they would have completely eliminated Obamacare, causing our national debt to balloon out of control while making the poor pay for it. This plan is not a debt deal, it is an attempt to destroy America. it is not an honest brokered deal, it is a poison pill. Call your congressman today and tell them to get serious about the debt ceiling, and to stop playing politics with our lives. And call the White House and tell him to refuse to let Congress take this country hostage. We will remember this in November.
US Capitol Switchboard: (202) 224-3121
White House Comments: (202) 456-1111
9/25/13
Why we don't need a Theocracy in the United Statesd
Religious Liberty in the Massachusetts Bay Colony…the hanging of the Quakers…a model for the Dominionists
“When the pretended friends of religion lead infidel lives; when they carry religion to market and offer it in exchange for luxuries and honors; when they place it familiarly and constantly in the columns of newspapers, manifestly connected with electioneering purposes, and when they are offering it up as a morning and evening sacrifice of the altar of political party- these men are placing a firebrand to every meeting house and applying a torch to every Bible” Abraham Bishop in an oration at Wallingford CT on 11 March 1801
“See, the problem is, is that Satan has had too much of his way in our society because he has a government! And the only way to overthrow a government is with a government. It won’t happen otherwise.” C. Peter Wagner
Every time that I hear a politician of any party invoke God or quote scripture my stomach turns. In our modern era this really began with Jimmy Carter, for better or worse the man wore his faith proudly. The Southern Baptist Sunday School teacher from Plains Georgia let it all out when he talked about his faith, sin, lust and adultery in a Playboy Magazine interview in 1976.
There was actually nothing wrong with what he said or that he identified himself as a “Born Again Christian.” But it set a precedent and brought a previously apolitical part of the population into the process in a way never seen before. Urged on by politically motivated preachers like Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, John Hagee and James Robison Evangelicals like the young Michelle Bachmann rushed to the polls like flies to a honey trap. Before long posturing political preachers were in the mix and now 35 years later we have radical preachers openly clamoring for a Christian theocracy and brazenly advocating the complete dominion of Christians over all areas of life. The theory is called “Dominionism” or “Seven Mountains” theology. Many of these preachers are openly allied with a number of high profile Republican Presidential candidates in a take no prisoners campaign to destroy their opposition within the Republican party and nationwide.
C. Peter Wagner a Professor of Evangelism at Fuller Seminary in Pasadena California is one of the most prominent proponents of this political theology and he wrote:
“Our theological bedrock is what has been known as Dominion Theology. This means that our divine mandate is to do whatever is necessary, by the power of the Holy Spirit, to retake the dominion of God’s creation which Adam forfeited to Satan in the Garden of Eden. It is nothing less than seeing God’s kingdom coming and His will being done here on earth as it is in heaven.” Letter dated 31 May 2007
Of course by 1980 Carter was tossed aside by his Evangelical supporters like cup of boiled peanuts gone bad as the preachers disappointed with him over the Panama Canal treaty and the economy ditched him and whipped up support for Ronald Reagan. Reagan wiped Carter off of the electoral map like Sherman marching to the sea. When he did the now emboldened preachers pressed for more power. Groups like Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority and Pat Robertson’s Christian Coalition became major supporters and contributors to conservative candidates and politicians as did James Dobson’s Focus on the Family and the American Family Association.
Now Reagan to his credit talked a lot about faith and God but he certainly could not be considered one of the real Evangelical Christian faithful. He was divorced and a sparse attendee of the Mainline Presbyterian Church USA. He was married to a woman who brought mediums into the White House to conduct séances. He cut taxes but raised taxes when he needed to. He withdrew U.S.Forces from Beirut after the Marine barracks was destroyed with the loss of 241 American lives and he became Soviet Premier Gorbachev’s buddy. Before he was President he raised the sales tax in California and signed one of the most liberal and permissive abortion laws in the nation well before the Roe v. Wade decision. In short if he was running in 2011 for the 2012 nomination he would already be out of the race. Since Reagan departed the Presidency the preachers and politicians are aided in their struggle for control by the third member of the Unholy Trinity the pundits.
Now the democrats were and are not above using preachers and scripture for their own purposes. Some seeking to capitalize on the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and other early civil rights pioneers not only used their pulpits to further civil rights which I have no issue with but to promote themselves and a place at the table in the Democratic Party and its policies. Others minsters mainly from liberal denominations used their pulpits to promote all sorts of other agendas that were called liberal, socialist or left wing, even though most had decent scriptural support. However Liberal politicians have used these preachers over the years as brazenly as conservative politicians use Evangelicals, Charismatics and other conservative Christians including Roman Catholics.
Bill Clinton was a master of using scripture in his campaign as well as in enunciating his policies. He got everyone going with his “New Covenant” acceptance speech at the 1992 Democratic Convention which was a masterful speech though it brazenly co-opted a Christian theme as its own. Initially some of the current radical preachers we Clinton backers as the felt that President George H.W. Bush was leading the United States into the New World Order.
What tickles me is that one of the leading Seven Mountain’s “prophets named Paul Cain spoke at my church after the election and said that “God told him that Bill Clinton would be elected and that it was because of Clinton’s “humility.” Joyner wrote in Rick Joyner’s Morningstar Prophetic Bulletin in 1993 “The Lord said that He was giving us a new president who is better than we deserve. He represents a reprieve from a New World Order that the Church is not prepared to face at this time…”
I love it when self appointed prophets catch themselves on their own tangled web of lies. Of course the real reason had nothing to due with the Christian faith but the fact that Cain and his ilk didn’t like George Bush and believed that he was ushering in a “New World Order. This was shameless, but then that is nothing new.
Was in Vietnam surrounded by the North Vietnamese. This made me a very pro-military and anti-Communist. It was because of Carters foreign policy flubs and weakness that I supported Reagan. I was and still am a Christian, but I didn’t vote for Reagan or any other Republican because of their faith or the faith of their opponent. Now I do like it when men and women that I vote for represent the best of their faith and don’t lord it over those that are not of their faith. When I vote I vote the vote for a candidate based on what I see as their qualifications for the office and not their religious views.
Unfortunately there are a number of prominent candidates and their supporters that seem to want Theologian in Chief. Politicians can see that and that pander shamelessly to their religious supporters often to the exclusion of all others. If I want a theocracy I’ll go to Iran or Saudi Arabia thank you, but I don’t and you shouldn’t either unless you are planning to convert. But that is the plan of the Dominionists.
However those pursuing the radical Seven Mountains Dominionism actually want a theocracy will use any party or any President to establish it. Clinton didn’t give it to them so they went to the Republicans. Their rhetoric is scary. Rick Joyner who is one of the big supporters of this movement within the Tea Party and Republican Party said something that should give anyone that has a hankering for religious liberty and liberty of conscious chills. Perry is not simply a ranting nut but a nut that has the ear of viable Presidential candidates. Back in 1996 Joyner wrote about what was going to happen to Christians that didn’t agree with his understanding of his prophecy threatening to change “the very definition of Christianity….for the better….”
“On February 23rd of this year I was shown for the third time that the church was headed for a spiritual civil war … the definition of a complete victory in this war would be the complete overthrow of the accuser of the brethens’ strongholds in the church … this will in fact be one of the most cruel battles the church has ever faced. Like every civil war brother will turn against brother like we have never witnessed in the church before … this battle must be fought. It is an opportunity to drive the accuser out of the church and for the church then to come into unity that would otherwise be impossible … what is coming will be dark. At times Christians almost universally will be loath to even call themselves Christians.Believers and unbelievers alike will think it is the end of Christianity as we know it and it will be through this the very definition of Christianity will be changed for the better.” Morning Star Prophetic Bulletin May 1996
Cindy Jacobs another one of these politically connected prophets made this claim on the internet back in 2000:
“For there is a radical sound that I have issued – there is a sound that has come from heaven, and it even now has come to earth. And the Lord says, these are going to be days where I am going to trouble the enemy through you. These are going to be different days than you have ever known, and I am going to require sacrifice of you that you cannot imagine. I am going to require a sacrifice of your children, says the Lord. And the Lord says, I’m going to shake everything that can be shaken…” and that “There are churches that will be command posts for revolution, and to these command posts I would say, I am going to bring a revolution. Look and see; I am calling radical revolutionaries to the church.” http://www.elijahlist.com/words/display_word/85
If you ask me that is a threat to all Americans. One of Joyner’s friends the late John Wimber who founded the Vineyard Churches said of his neighbors at Calvary Chapel “Calvaryites are sometimes a little too heavily oriented to the written Word.” That is something Wimber criticized Christians that he saw as too heavily oriented to the Bible. Simply being a Bible Christian is not good enough for the Dominionists, theirs is an all or nothing take no prisoners approach that discounts 2000 years of Christian history, theology and tradition in favor of their alleged “words from God.”
This is not about theology or faith at all. It is about power and money. Leading Dominionist C.Peter Wagner wrote: “nine of the components of GAN {Global Apostolic Network} are on my heart, but especially those related to wealth and wealth transfer. I am in touch with 17 potential wealth transfer brokers, some of them expecting release momentarily. It is hard to comprehend, but some of them go to multiple millions, billions, and more. My task is to prepare a high integrity infrastructure for distributing these funds when they begin to flow. Zion Apostolic Network and The Hamilton Group are in place as agencies to carry this out. Our motto is “Sophisticated Philanthropy for Apostolic Distribution.” Letter from Global Harvest Ministries dated August 20, 2007
The original Dominionist was R. J. Rushdoony who was very open in what he believed:
“One faith, one law and one standard of justice did not mean democracy. The heresy of democracy has since then worked havoc in church and state . . . Christianity and democracy are inevitably enemies.” R.J. Rushdoony, The Institutes of Biblical Law p.100
This is the real goal of Rick Perry’s The Response prayer meeting of 2011 and the perverted gospel that these preachers use to get politicians to fulfill their agenda and Perry obliged them well. If it was simply a day of prayer then others that were not Christians would have been welcome. It has been made manifest in now countless examples of political brinksmanship motivated by uncompromising politicians, pundits and preachers who have adopted an almost “Talibanesque” view of life, faith and politics.
Old Abraham Bishop was right; these people are setting fire to every meeting house and putting the torch to every Bible. Unfortunately most of their supporters will either ignore or quash what I and others write about these people. Truth doesn’t matter to them.
I had that happen to me, sometimes even from people that know me of have served at the altar. Facts didn’t matter, all that mattered were the talking points and the agenda. The founders of this country did not as these people say desire anything like this. In fact Thomas Jefferson said “History I believe furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance, of which their political as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purpose.” (letter to Baron von Humboldt, 1813)
God help us all.
“When the pretended friends of religion lead infidel lives; when they carry religion to market and offer it in exchange for luxuries and honors; when they place it familiarly and constantly in the columns of newspapers, manifestly connected with electioneering purposes, and when they are offering it up as a morning and evening sacrifice of the altar of political party- these men are placing a firebrand to every meeting house and applying a torch to every Bible” Abraham Bishop in an oration at Wallingford CT on 11 March 1801
“See, the problem is, is that Satan has had too much of his way in our society because he has a government! And the only way to overthrow a government is with a government. It won’t happen otherwise.” C. Peter Wagner
Every time that I hear a politician of any party invoke God or quote scripture my stomach turns. In our modern era this really began with Jimmy Carter, for better or worse the man wore his faith proudly. The Southern Baptist Sunday School teacher from Plains Georgia let it all out when he talked about his faith, sin, lust and adultery in a Playboy Magazine interview in 1976.
There was actually nothing wrong with what he said or that he identified himself as a “Born Again Christian.” But it set a precedent and brought a previously apolitical part of the population into the process in a way never seen before. Urged on by politically motivated preachers like Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, John Hagee and James Robison Evangelicals like the young Michelle Bachmann rushed to the polls like flies to a honey trap. Before long posturing political preachers were in the mix and now 35 years later we have radical preachers openly clamoring for a Christian theocracy and brazenly advocating the complete dominion of Christians over all areas of life. The theory is called “Dominionism” or “Seven Mountains” theology. Many of these preachers are openly allied with a number of high profile Republican Presidential candidates in a take no prisoners campaign to destroy their opposition within the Republican party and nationwide.
C. Peter Wagner a Professor of Evangelism at Fuller Seminary in Pasadena California is one of the most prominent proponents of this political theology and he wrote:
“Our theological bedrock is what has been known as Dominion Theology. This means that our divine mandate is to do whatever is necessary, by the power of the Holy Spirit, to retake the dominion of God’s creation which Adam forfeited to Satan in the Garden of Eden. It is nothing less than seeing God’s kingdom coming and His will being done here on earth as it is in heaven.” Letter dated 31 May 2007
Of course by 1980 Carter was tossed aside by his Evangelical supporters like cup of boiled peanuts gone bad as the preachers disappointed with him over the Panama Canal treaty and the economy ditched him and whipped up support for Ronald Reagan. Reagan wiped Carter off of the electoral map like Sherman marching to the sea. When he did the now emboldened preachers pressed for more power. Groups like Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority and Pat Robertson’s Christian Coalition became major supporters and contributors to conservative candidates and politicians as did James Dobson’s Focus on the Family and the American Family Association.
Now Reagan to his credit talked a lot about faith and God but he certainly could not be considered one of the real Evangelical Christian faithful. He was divorced and a sparse attendee of the Mainline Presbyterian Church USA. He was married to a woman who brought mediums into the White House to conduct séances. He cut taxes but raised taxes when he needed to. He withdrew U.S.Forces from Beirut after the Marine barracks was destroyed with the loss of 241 American lives and he became Soviet Premier Gorbachev’s buddy. Before he was President he raised the sales tax in California and signed one of the most liberal and permissive abortion laws in the nation well before the Roe v. Wade decision. In short if he was running in 2011 for the 2012 nomination he would already be out of the race. Since Reagan departed the Presidency the preachers and politicians are aided in their struggle for control by the third member of the Unholy Trinity the pundits.
Now the democrats were and are not above using preachers and scripture for their own purposes. Some seeking to capitalize on the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and other early civil rights pioneers not only used their pulpits to further civil rights which I have no issue with but to promote themselves and a place at the table in the Democratic Party and its policies. Others minsters mainly from liberal denominations used their pulpits to promote all sorts of other agendas that were called liberal, socialist or left wing, even though most had decent scriptural support. However Liberal politicians have used these preachers over the years as brazenly as conservative politicians use Evangelicals, Charismatics and other conservative Christians including Roman Catholics.
Bill Clinton was a master of using scripture in his campaign as well as in enunciating his policies. He got everyone going with his “New Covenant” acceptance speech at the 1992 Democratic Convention which was a masterful speech though it brazenly co-opted a Christian theme as its own. Initially some of the current radical preachers we Clinton backers as the felt that President George H.W. Bush was leading the United States into the New World Order.
What tickles me is that one of the leading Seven Mountain’s “prophets named Paul Cain spoke at my church after the election and said that “God told him that Bill Clinton would be elected and that it was because of Clinton’s “humility.” Joyner wrote in Rick Joyner’s Morningstar Prophetic Bulletin in 1993 “The Lord said that He was giving us a new president who is better than we deserve. He represents a reprieve from a New World Order that the Church is not prepared to face at this time…”
I love it when self appointed prophets catch themselves on their own tangled web of lies. Of course the real reason had nothing to due with the Christian faith but the fact that Cain and his ilk didn’t like George Bush and believed that he was ushering in a “New World Order. This was shameless, but then that is nothing new.
Was in Vietnam surrounded by the North Vietnamese. This made me a very pro-military and anti-Communist. It was because of Carters foreign policy flubs and weakness that I supported Reagan. I was and still am a Christian, but I didn’t vote for Reagan or any other Republican because of their faith or the faith of their opponent. Now I do like it when men and women that I vote for represent the best of their faith and don’t lord it over those that are not of their faith. When I vote I vote the vote for a candidate based on what I see as their qualifications for the office and not their religious views.
Unfortunately there are a number of prominent candidates and their supporters that seem to want Theologian in Chief. Politicians can see that and that pander shamelessly to their religious supporters often to the exclusion of all others. If I want a theocracy I’ll go to Iran or Saudi Arabia thank you, but I don’t and you shouldn’t either unless you are planning to convert. But that is the plan of the Dominionists.
However those pursuing the radical Seven Mountains Dominionism actually want a theocracy will use any party or any President to establish it. Clinton didn’t give it to them so they went to the Republicans. Their rhetoric is scary. Rick Joyner who is one of the big supporters of this movement within the Tea Party and Republican Party said something that should give anyone that has a hankering for religious liberty and liberty of conscious chills. Perry is not simply a ranting nut but a nut that has the ear of viable Presidential candidates. Back in 1996 Joyner wrote about what was going to happen to Christians that didn’t agree with his understanding of his prophecy threatening to change “the very definition of Christianity….for the better….”
“On February 23rd of this year I was shown for the third time that the church was headed for a spiritual civil war … the definition of a complete victory in this war would be the complete overthrow of the accuser of the brethens’ strongholds in the church … this will in fact be one of the most cruel battles the church has ever faced. Like every civil war brother will turn against brother like we have never witnessed in the church before … this battle must be fought. It is an opportunity to drive the accuser out of the church and for the church then to come into unity that would otherwise be impossible … what is coming will be dark. At times Christians almost universally will be loath to even call themselves Christians.Believers and unbelievers alike will think it is the end of Christianity as we know it and it will be through this the very definition of Christianity will be changed for the better.” Morning Star Prophetic Bulletin May 1996
Cindy Jacobs another one of these politically connected prophets made this claim on the internet back in 2000:
“For there is a radical sound that I have issued – there is a sound that has come from heaven, and it even now has come to earth. And the Lord says, these are going to be days where I am going to trouble the enemy through you. These are going to be different days than you have ever known, and I am going to require sacrifice of you that you cannot imagine. I am going to require a sacrifice of your children, says the Lord. And the Lord says, I’m going to shake everything that can be shaken…” and that “There are churches that will be command posts for revolution, and to these command posts I would say, I am going to bring a revolution. Look and see; I am calling radical revolutionaries to the church.” http://www.elijahlist.com/words/display_word/85
If you ask me that is a threat to all Americans. One of Joyner’s friends the late John Wimber who founded the Vineyard Churches said of his neighbors at Calvary Chapel “Calvaryites are sometimes a little too heavily oriented to the written Word.” That is something Wimber criticized Christians that he saw as too heavily oriented to the Bible. Simply being a Bible Christian is not good enough for the Dominionists, theirs is an all or nothing take no prisoners approach that discounts 2000 years of Christian history, theology and tradition in favor of their alleged “words from God.”
This is not about theology or faith at all. It is about power and money. Leading Dominionist C.Peter Wagner wrote: “nine of the components of GAN {Global Apostolic Network} are on my heart, but especially those related to wealth and wealth transfer. I am in touch with 17 potential wealth transfer brokers, some of them expecting release momentarily. It is hard to comprehend, but some of them go to multiple millions, billions, and more. My task is to prepare a high integrity infrastructure for distributing these funds when they begin to flow. Zion Apostolic Network and The Hamilton Group are in place as agencies to carry this out. Our motto is “Sophisticated Philanthropy for Apostolic Distribution.” Letter from Global Harvest Ministries dated August 20, 2007
The original Dominionist was R. J. Rushdoony who was very open in what he believed:
“One faith, one law and one standard of justice did not mean democracy. The heresy of democracy has since then worked havoc in church and state . . . Christianity and democracy are inevitably enemies.” R.J. Rushdoony, The Institutes of Biblical Law p.100
This is the real goal of Rick Perry’s The Response prayer meeting of 2011 and the perverted gospel that these preachers use to get politicians to fulfill their agenda and Perry obliged them well. If it was simply a day of prayer then others that were not Christians would have been welcome. It has been made manifest in now countless examples of political brinksmanship motivated by uncompromising politicians, pundits and preachers who have adopted an almost “Talibanesque” view of life, faith and politics.
Old Abraham Bishop was right; these people are setting fire to every meeting house and putting the torch to every Bible. Unfortunately most of their supporters will either ignore or quash what I and others write about these people. Truth doesn’t matter to them.
I had that happen to me, sometimes even from people that know me of have served at the altar. Facts didn’t matter, all that mattered were the talking points and the agenda. The founders of this country did not as these people say desire anything like this. In fact Thomas Jefferson said “History I believe furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance, of which their political as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purpose.” (letter to Baron von Humboldt, 1813)
God help us all.
An open letter from a G.I.
This letter was written on September 19th by an Iraq War veteran named Jason. He fought for our country and came home to an America that has left him feeling disenchanted. Jason wrote the letter in response to Republicans voting to cut $40 billion from the food stamp program this past week. He happens to be one of those who is currently counting on food stamps in order to not go hungry. My name is Jason. I turned 35 less than a week ago. My first job was maintenance work at a public pool when I was 17. I worked 40 hours a week while I was in college. I’ve never gone longer than six months without employment in my life and I just spent the last three years in the military, one of which consisted of a combat tour of Afghanistan. Oh, and I’m now on food stamps. Since June, as a matter of fact.
Why am I on food stamps? The same reason everyone on food stamps is on food stamps: because I would very much enjoy not starving. I mean, if that’s okay with you: Mr. or Mrs. Republican congressman. Mr. or Mrs. Conservative commentator. Mr. or Mrs. “welfare queen” letter-to-the-editor author. Mr. or Mrs. “fiscal conservative, reason-based” libertarian.
I do apologize for burdening you on the checkout line with real-life images of American-style poverty. I know you probably believe the only true starving people in the world have flies buzzing around their eyes while they wallow away, near-lifeless in gutters. Hate to burst the bubble, but those people don’t live in this country. I do. And millions like me.
Millions of people in poverty who fall into three categories. Let’s call them the “lucky” category, since conservatives seem to think people on welfare have hit some sort of jackpot: Those living paycheck to paycheck? They’re a little lucky. Those living unemployment check to unemployment check? They’re a little luckier. Those living 2nd of the month to 2nd of the month? Ding! We’ve hit the jackpot! The 2nd of the month being the time when funds gets electronically deposited onto the EBT card, [at least in NY] for those who’ve never been fortunate enough to hit that $175/month Powerball. I fall into the latter two categories.
But I’ve known people recently — soldiers in the Army — who were in the first and third. They were off fighting in Afghanistan while their wives were at home, buying food at the on-post commissary with food stamps. And nobody bats an eye there, because it’s not uncommon in the military. It’s not uncommon — nor is it shameful. It might be shameful how little service-members are paid, but that’s a separate issue.
The fact remains anyone at a certain income level can find it difficult from time to time to pay for everything. And when you’re poor you learn to make sacrifices. Food shouldn’t be one of them. The whole concept is un-American. People living here, in the greatest country on Earth, with the most abundant resources, should be forced to go hungry because of the intellectual notion of fiscal conservatism and the ideological notion of self-reliance. Are you fucking kidding me?
I didn’t risk my life in Afghanistan so I could come back and watch people go hungry in America. I certainly didn’t risk it so I could come back and go hungry. Anyone who genuinely supports cutting food stamps is not an intellectual or an ideologue — they’re a bully. And nobody likes a bully. Except other bullies.
It’s time for regular Americans to stand up to these bullies. Not cower in the corner, ashamed of needing help. Because if there’s one thing life has taught me, it’s that you never know when you’ll be the one in need.
Why am I on food stamps? The same reason everyone on food stamps is on food stamps: because I would very much enjoy not starving. I mean, if that’s okay with you: Mr. or Mrs. Republican congressman. Mr. or Mrs. Conservative commentator. Mr. or Mrs. “welfare queen” letter-to-the-editor author. Mr. or Mrs. “fiscal conservative, reason-based” libertarian.
I do apologize for burdening you on the checkout line with real-life images of American-style poverty. I know you probably believe the only true starving people in the world have flies buzzing around their eyes while they wallow away, near-lifeless in gutters. Hate to burst the bubble, but those people don’t live in this country. I do. And millions like me.
Millions of people in poverty who fall into three categories. Let’s call them the “lucky” category, since conservatives seem to think people on welfare have hit some sort of jackpot: Those living paycheck to paycheck? They’re a little lucky. Those living unemployment check to unemployment check? They’re a little luckier. Those living 2nd of the month to 2nd of the month? Ding! We’ve hit the jackpot! The 2nd of the month being the time when funds gets electronically deposited onto the EBT card, [at least in NY] for those who’ve never been fortunate enough to hit that $175/month Powerball. I fall into the latter two categories.
But I’ve known people recently — soldiers in the Army — who were in the first and third. They were off fighting in Afghanistan while their wives were at home, buying food at the on-post commissary with food stamps. And nobody bats an eye there, because it’s not uncommon in the military. It’s not uncommon — nor is it shameful. It might be shameful how little service-members are paid, but that’s a separate issue.
The fact remains anyone at a certain income level can find it difficult from time to time to pay for everything. And when you’re poor you learn to make sacrifices. Food shouldn’t be one of them. The whole concept is un-American. People living here, in the greatest country on Earth, with the most abundant resources, should be forced to go hungry because of the intellectual notion of fiscal conservatism and the ideological notion of self-reliance. Are you fucking kidding me?
I didn’t risk my life in Afghanistan so I could come back and watch people go hungry in America. I certainly didn’t risk it so I could come back and go hungry. Anyone who genuinely supports cutting food stamps is not an intellectual or an ideologue — they’re a bully. And nobody likes a bully. Except other bullies.
It’s time for regular Americans to stand up to these bullies. Not cower in the corner, ashamed of needing help. Because if there’s one thing life has taught me, it’s that you never know when you’ll be the one in need.
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