Thursday A.M. Edition

Thursday September 17, 2009

. . . . .Good morning Wonderland! How are all of you today? Just checking. It's Day 241 of America Held Hostage to the merry band of Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and the wingnuts.

. . . .Since the readership is split evenly down the middle, yes, yesterday's last posting about race did stir up a couple of folks, got them pulled away from listening intently to Alex Jones, breathing heavily in their basements, pulled from their Glenn Beck induced couch stupor.

. . . .Now, there is plenty about this Administration's policies to be highly critical of. The handling of the still-ongoing financial crisis; caving in to Big Pharm and the Health Insurance companies on health care reform and Iraq (which we're not out of yet) and Afghanistan, where the goals and objectives, the policy is still muddled.

. . . .Those are policy issues, and ones which need to be considered carefully, as they will have generational effects, the current attack dog phase that the extreme Right wing, the fringe that now runs the Republican party, where non-elected officials, lunatics like Beck, traitorous pigs like Limbaugh, 5th column hacks like Malkin all speak for the Republican Party, that my friends, that is simply insanity, and has pulled this country into a complete and total breakdown of the political process. Somewhere Abraham Lincoln, the founder of the Republican party, is retching on himself. Jefferson, Adams and Madison have turned their backs in disgust and walked away from what they bled and fought for, and we've shamed their memories, allowing these maniacs, these idiots, these complete fringe lunatics to hijack the Republic's political process and hold it hostage.

. . . .So let me get this straight. When Glenn Beck called the President a "racist", a segment of the population silently raised their arms in triumph, smiled knowingly at their brethren-in-arms and said to themselves "finally, someone is putting that man in his place". When Rush claimed that Colin Powell's opinion was based solely on race, they all forwarded yet another e-mail to their cousins and friends. However. . . .when Jimmy Carter says it about Joe Wilson, they, and their mentors, lords and masters; Beck and Limbaugh, get all tea-bagger insane, spit all in one another's faces shouting and screaming, and then dismiss it. . . . .Oh, that's right, I forgot in wingnut land fact and perspective are meaningless and only one set of paranoid, insane voices rule. . . . .I'm just saying, you know?

. . . .If you've not heard of Sojourners, or Jim Wallis, their founder and the author of a blog called Godspolitics, you should. Sojourners, a Left group, believe it or not, that believes that Christianity and it's precepts, it's inherent morality and ethics are not the exclusive province of the Right or the Republicans. On the overall subject of race, racism and politics, he's written one of the most balanced pieces, one of the most thoughtful, that I've read on this very heated, very covered subject in the last few days. In whole:

Here we go again. Some people raise the issue of race (this time about the ways some other people are talking about or treating the first black president of the United States) and the media goes crazy. "What racism?" many of the pundits cry, "Didn't we just elect this black guy president?" (Implying: "Doesn't that prove that racism is over in America?").

So let's all just take a breath here -- as we always need to do when talking about race in America.

A few simple points:

First, on November 4, 2008, the United States did what only one other country that I know of ever has ever done -- elect a president from a minority race in a country with a different majority race. (Peru is the only other country I can think of to have done that, electing as their president Alberto Fujimori, of Asian ethnicity, in a predominantly Spanish country.) That a still predominantly white U.S. would elect a black man as head of state was stunning to many -- and, I must admit, to me. Frankly, it made me think that the country was better than I thought it was. That historic accomplishment is a sign of great progress and a hope of better things to come for racial equality and justice in the United States.

Second, the majority of Americans, and even of white Americans -- whether they voted for Obama or not -- seemed to feel proud and positive that the nation had finally reached this amazing milestone. Inaugurating Barack Obama on that January 20th Inauguration Day made most Americans feel good about themselves and about their country. The new president's approval rating climbed up to 70 percent in the week after the Inauguration, which obviously meant that even some of those who voted against him were impressed by how he was handling his job at the outset.

Third, there are many people, most of whom voted against Obama, who have basic disagreements with the president on substantive political issues. And to disagree with a black president on policy questions does not mean that you are racist. The people who initially approved of the president's job performance, but now disapprove, did not suddenly turn into racists. And my conservative friends who admire Obama personally but disagree with him politically can hardly be called racists.

But fourth -- and importantly -- there was, and is still, a hard core of racially-motivated white people in this nation who did vote against Obama because he is black, and who virulently oppose him as president because he is black. And that racist core of angry white Americans resides on the extreme political right of U.S. politics. The far-right wing in America has never supported racial equality. Their political representatives voted against both the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts of 1964 and 1965, and most have never repented of it. And, let's be honest, the loudest voices of right-wing talk radio and cable television appeal directly to that core with subtle and not-so-subtle racial messages, as has the right-wing of the Republican Party for many years.

If you were paying attention, you could see signs of that underlying racism at the most heated town meetings this summer. Of course, not everybody who attended, or even was mad about health care or the government at those meetings, is a racist -- most of those people weren't; but some of them clearly are. There were blatant signs of racism at some of the town meetings and, indeed, many signs that carried overtly racial messages.

I see those racial sub-texts in the intensity of the attacks on Obama -- not in the disagreements per se, but in the viciousness of the rhetoric. Racism is often about disrespect, and many African-American citizens are now feeling that the black president in the White House is being disrespected. I also see it in the supporters of the new "birthers" movement, who stir up doubts about Obama's citizenship. I see it in the furor over the president of the United States speaking to the nation's school children about studying and working hard. And, agree with me or not, I saw it in the disrespect shown toward a black president by a white Congressman from the South, whose less than enthusiastic apologies have now turned him into a fund-raising martyr, cheered on by a defiant rebel yell against the man (or is it "boy"?) in the White House.

We have all witnessed or experienced situations where someone has "played the race card" in inappropriate or unfair ways. And racism is not the cause or explanation of every social problem. Nor are legitimately different points of view obvious signs of racism. And President Barack Obama has not played the race card, expecting only to be treated as a man -- not a "black man"-- and to be judged as a president and not as an "African-American president."

But let's be honest. We all know that racism still exists in America today. We know that there is a hard core of our white fellow citizens who simply will not accept their black or brown brothers and sisters -- especially one in the White House. So while we should not call every disagreement an issue of racism, it is time call out the racism that indeed does still exist -- that wounds our soul as a nation, and that obstructs the promise of the United States.

. . . .At least one conservative voice and mind with some sanity and ability to reason and is breaking from his cohorts and standing up and saying something. Rod Dreher, a religious conservative and columnist from Belief.net:

How low will these people go? Look, I think it's important to talk about black male violence, or at least as important as it is to talk about any other important social trend. I don't think we should be squeamish about discussing it in a responsible and fair-minded way, despite what the politically correct say. But good grief, Limbaugh is up to something wicked. He's plainly trying to rally white conservatives into thinking that now that we have a black president, blacks are rising up to attack white kids! Christ have mercy, what is wrong with these people?

I won't have anything to do with it, not even tangentially, which is why I took down the post. I can't see this as anything other than Limbaugh deliberately trying to whip up racial fear and loathing of the president. This goes far, far beyond tough criticism of Obama. Does that man Limbaugh have any idea what rough beast he's calling forth?

. . . . . .Megan McArdle, a conservative columnist over at The Atlantic, in commentary of Dreher's column above:

This is possibly the first time I have ever heard the word "wicked" deployed in a public debate, and boy, is it on target. It is perfectly true that if the races had been reversed, Al Sharpton would probably be out there saying this was a symptom of America's lynching culture, and also perfectly irrelevant. The response to Al Sharpton's antics is not to emulate them. Race-baiting is not a team sport that anyone should want to join. And I assure Limbaugh, from vivid memory, that horrible bullying also took place in Ronald Reagan's America, and every other America since at least 1978.

The only decent thing for me to do now is apologize and note that at the time, I really did not think it was possible for me to like Rush Limbaugh any less. Now I realize that I was mentally excluding all sorts of activities from the realm of the possible, like murdering boatloads of Guatamalan orphans, or this sort of vileness. It won't be the last time I'm wrong, but I certainly hope it's the last time I'm that wrong about talk radio's capacity for socially destructive quasi-populist virulent nonsense.

. . . ..And, one of the most respected, reasoned, well-thought conservative voices in the realm, Andrew Sullivan, on Limbaugh as a vile race-baiter:

Limbaugh will enjoy the scorn. But he's a disgusting opportunist and racist. And his acceptability - indeed total dominance - on the right is one reason decent people will steer clear of the GOP for the foreseeable future. There is no nuance or doubt here. This is a man who wants a race war. Until the GOP throws him out, they deserve oblivion. He's a racist through and through, and if no one on the right stands up to this, they are complicit

. . . .Which is precisely my point, and why I refuse to identify myself as a conservative. Lunatic children of Glenn Beck's, Rush Limbaugh's, and Sean Hannity's ilk have hijacked that philosophical strain of politics, hold the Republican party hostage with their insanity, their treason and their desire to split this country in two and start another civil war. There is guilt by silent assent, and until those of you on the Right start to stand up and silence these lunatics, quit letting them be your leaders and your lords and masters, the voice and face of your movement, then they are who you are, and are your identity. Limbaugh's traitorous, treasonous race-baiting; Beck's unmedicated, drooling, facile, false Mormon 5,000 Year Leap theology that he wishes to replace real religion with is as bad as any tin-foil hat wearing Grays and Reptoids fanatics deep seated belief that the alien bodies are hid at Roswell. Hannity's outright lies and treason, his little pulsing forehead vein and his desire to have his all-white, country club America back is disgusting and vile. This 5th column of media that the Right uses is as bad as anything that Goebbels or Goerring ever put together in their own desire to have their pure, all-white, one religion, quasi-spiritual/political ideology put in place and "save their country". Heil Glenn, Rush and Sean. . . .Heil.

. . . .Because Glenn.....Rush. . . . .this is the path that you've made a very conscious choice to follow, and where it leads is this.. . . .on Tuesday, down in Morrow, Georgia a man beat an Army vet, Tasha Hill, senseless, pummeled her, in public, in front of her 7 year old daughter, in front of a Cracker Barrel restaurant, hurling racial epithets and obscenities at her while beating her.

"The man slung open the door pretty hard and fast and I had to push my daughter out of the way. I turned to the man and I just said, 'Excuse me sir, you need to watch yourself you almost hit my daughter in the face.' And from there it just went downhill," said Hill. At that point, West became enraged and began to beat the victim in front of her 7-year-old daughter, according to police. Hill said she told West she was an Army service member and she did not want any trouble.cWest threw her to the ground and hit her in the head with his fists and feet, police said. During the exchange, witnesses said West could be heard screaming racial slurs towards the victim.

According to Hill's report, and confirmed by many witnesses, West screamed out racial slurs before punching her in the face. "He said, 'You're an fucking black nigger bitch,' is what he said," said Hill.

. . . .At least someone has some sanity in the Deep South, though I expect him to get run out of town before sundown. A Federal Judge (a Bush appointee by the way, just to get that out of the way) in Georgia not only threw Birther queen Orly Tait's lawsuit out of court yesterday, he also handed her a stern warning not to appear in his court again. Tait was representing Capt. Connie Rhodes, and her argument that she should not be deployed to Iraq, since her Commander-in-Chief isn't legitimately in office. (What doesn't she get about the fact that you put the uniform on, you take orders, period?) His judgment, here in part:

"She has presented no credible evidence and has made no reliable factual allegations to support her unsubstantiated, conclusory allegations and conjecture that President Obama is ineligible to serve as President of the United States...

Acknowledging the existence of a document that shows the President was born in Hawaii, Plaintiff alleges that the document 'cannot be verified as genuine, and should be presumed fraudulent.' In further support of her claim, Plaintiff relies upon 'the general opinion in the rest of the world' that 'Barack Hussein Obama has, in essence, slipped through the guardrails to become President.' Moreover, as though the 'general opinion in the rest of the world' were not enough, Plaintiff alleges in her Complaint that according to an 'AOL poll 85% of Americans believe that Obama was not vetted, needs to be vetted and his vital records need to be produced.' Finally, in a remarkable shifting of the traditional legal burden of proof, Plaintiff unashamedly alleges that Defendant has the burden to prove his 'natural born' status. Thus, Plaintiff’s counsel, who champions herself as a defender of liberty and freedom, seeks to use the power of the judiciary to compel a citizen, albeit the President of the United States, to 'prove his innocence' to 'charges' that are based upon conjecture and speculation. Any middle school civics student would readily recognize the irony of abandoning fundamental principles upon which our Country was founded in order to purportedly 'protect and preserve' those very principles ....

Plaintiff’s complaint is not plausible on its face. To the extent that it alleges any 'facts,' the Complaint does not connect those facts to any actual violation of Plaintiff’s individual constitutional rights. Unlike in Alice in Wonderland, simply saying something is so does not make it so."

. . . .Since this lawsuit was heard in Columbus, Georgia, I expect to hear soon that Judge Land was tarred, feathered and run out of town on a rail, or at the very least, a brick thrown through his window anonymously at night, with the note attached telling him that "y'all need to git out of town before sundown".believe that Barack Obama is the Anti-Christ for sure, 15% are "well, maybe . . . ??". Now, wher

. . . .Judge Land further went on to warn Orly Taitz, the Birther Queen who is an attorney, a real estate agent and a dentist (???) that bringing any further frivolous actions in front of his court would result in sanctions for her.

. . . .Orly Taitz looks, and acts like, the demon offspring of Barbie and a French poodle . . . . on meth.

. . . .By recent Gallup poll, 14% of Republicans in New Jersey believe, for absolute certain that Barack Obama is the anti-Christ, 15% are in the "well, maybe. . . .??" category. Where is Tim LaHaye when you need him, hunh?

. . . .Given everything above, those of you on the Right wonder why I can't do anything but laugh at you? Why I can't take anything that spills out your mouth, anything you say seriously? These are your spokespeople; Beck, Limbaugh, Tait. This is who speaks for you, is your voice, your conscience, your philosophy, writ large and out loud. These are the faces you've chosen as your leaders.

. . . .In following the very same tactics, the very same path, that the National Socialist party used in Germany in 1939; by following the same tactics and ploys that Goerring and Goebbels used, the extreme Right will out themselves, will eventually trivialize themselves and people will begin to see them for the cartoonish jokes that they've become, as they marginalize what it means to be an American, and shuffle and slouch foward like the beasts they are in their march towards duplicating the very same "race purity" and "nationalism" and "love of country" that Goerring, Goebbels and the National Socialist party took Germany towards on it's march towards oblivion.

. . . .Now, on the important issues, those issues which have substance and are real, there's plenty to discuss and worry about.

. . . .And let's get straight to Health Care Reform. Now, most of the time, I'll leave Bill O'Reilly out of the equations and accusations, because on occasion, he makes a tremendous amount of sense, and shows real common sense. The real problems with Health Care Reform have been all along plans that did not include a public option. Now, despite my own misgivings about the ability or inability to pay for it right now, it is the only thing, repeat only thing, that can keep health insurance companies honest and force them to keep their premium prices down. On his program, Bill caused jaws to drop when this came out his mouth, proving once again, that Bill Maher is right, that on occasion, Bill O'Reilly can make a lot of sense and isn't afraid to show it:

O'REILLY: The public option now is done. We discussed this, it's not going to happen. But you say that this little marketplace that they're going to set up, whereby the federal government would subsidize insurance for some Americans, that is, in your opinion, a public option?

OWCHARENKO: Well, it has massive new federal regulation. So you don't necessarily need a public option if the federal government is going to control and regulate the type of health insurance that Americans can buy.

O'REILLY: But you know, I want that, Ms. Owcharenko. I want that. I want, not for personally for me, but for working Americans, to have a option, that if they don't like their health insurance, if it's too expensive, they can't afford it, if the government can cobble together a cheaper insurance policy that gives the same benefits, I see that as a plus for the folks.

. . . .Bill isn't stupid, he can see where it all is going, and it's not going to be pretty if Baucus's Senate plan is adopted, and only the health insurance companies will be better off.

. . . .Why? Read this ABC News report on health insurance companies delaying treatment. "They are just playing with my life."

. . . .Or this case from South Carolina, where an insurance company revoked retroactively the insurance policy of a 17-year old who was diagnosed as HIV-positive. As soon as the diagnosis came in, the policy was mysteriously revoked:

Mitchell learned that he had HIV when, while heading to college, he donated blood. Fortis then rescinded his coverage, citing what turned out to be an erroneous note from a nurse in his medical records that indicated that he might have been diagnosed prior to his obtaining his insurance policy.

Before the cancellation of the policy, an underwriter working for Fortis wrote to a committee considering whether or not to rescind his policy: "Technically, we do not have the results of the HIV tests. This is the only entry in the medical records regarding HIV status. Is it sufficient?" The underwriter's concerns were ignored and the rescission went forward.

. . . . .And on another subject that I'm still highly critical of this Administration over, it's handling of Wall Street and the still current, still toxic financial and credit crisis that this nation faces. Here we are a year later, and as the country's joblessness rate rises, as more and more people are out of work, as more companies close, as more homes are foreclosed on, as more and more people go bankrupt, Wall Street is right back at it with credit default swap derivatives, the same instruments that caused the meltdown to begin with:

. . . .Bloomberg:

The cost to protect against a failure by New York-based Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Charlotte, North Carolina-based Bank of America Corp., and 12 of the other biggest derivatives dealers dropped 66 percent in the past six months, according to an index of swaps compiled by Credit Derivatives Research LLC. While the U.S. struggles with the slowest recovery since 1945, the market where investors protect themselves from default and speculate on corporate debt shows confidence is the highest since June 2008.

. . . .I've written a lot about Credit Default Swaps here, if you don't understand them, this explanation may help, from Matt Taibbi. (Published last spring and recapped here then,too)

The CDS was popularized by J.P. Morgan, in particular by a group of young, creative bankers who would later become known as the "Morgan Mafia," as many of them would go on to assume influential positions in the finance world. In 1994, in between booze and games of tennis at a resort in Boca Raton, Florida, the Morgan gang plotted a way to help boost the bank's returns. One of their goals was to find a way to lend more money, while working around regulations that required them to keep a set amount of cash in reserve to back those loans. What they came up with was an early version of the credit-default swap.

In its simplest form, a CDS is just a bet on an outcome. Say Bank A writes a million-dollar mortgage to the Pope for a town house in the West Village. Bank A wants to hedge its mortgage risk in case the Pope can't make his monthly payments, so it buys CDS protection from Bank B, wherein it agrees to pay Bank B a premium of $1,000 a month for five years. In return, Bank B agrees to pay Bank A the full million-dollar value of the Pope's mortgage if he defaults. In theory, Bank A is covered if the Pope goes on a meth binge and loses his job.

When Morgan presented their plans for credit swaps to regulators in the late Nineties, they argued that if they bought CDS protection for enough of the investments in their portfolio, they had effectively moved the risk off their books. Therefore, they argued, they should be allowed to lend more, without keeping more cash in reserve. A whole host of regulators -- from the Federal Reserve to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency -- accepted the argument, and Morgan was allowed to put more money on the street.

. . . . .I'm going to point the obvious out again, and point to Goldman-Sachs as owning the United States Treasury, and the United States, the Fed, and now, every penny on Wall Street, it doesn't matter whether or not the market goes up or melts down, Goldman wins.

. . . .I do this for everyone who's ever walked that lonely road of knowing what they do, what they believe, what they know is right. I do it for everyone who's ever walked that lonely road of faith, hope, love, hate, justice, war and peace.

. . . .I do it because I believe in justice, in all it's forms.

. . . .I do this everyday for the people and kids who are tattoed, pierced and inked and keep getting told to get "into the mainstream". I do this everyday for those guys who wear black that you don't understand, you just know there's something about them, and that when the chips are down, when you have to walk down a dark alley somewhere, and you know what's waiting for you at the end of it, and you can only take one person with you, that's who you want walking with you, because you know you'll come back out alive, and that guy doesn't care what it costs him.

. . . .I do this everyday for the outcasts, the misfits, the ones who don't fit and who will turn their back on you and walk away when you try to make them fit into a mold. I do it everyday for everyone who does it their way, knows that they're paying a high price for it, but the freedom is worth the cost.

. . . . I do this everyday for outlaws, cowboys, renegades, pirates and fallen angels. I do it everyday for the people who understand that rock and roll can save their soul, that redemption can be found in a 3-chord lick from a vintage Les Paul. I do it for the men and women who aren't afraid to turn it all the way up, who keep looking for an 11 setting on a volume knob that only goes to 10, who know that rock and roll's got nothing to do with age.


. . . .If right now, you're doing something you don't want to do, stop it. If you've surrounded yourself with people who want you to do or be something other than who you are, walk away. If you've got people around you who actually let it slip out that they think you "should be doing (fill in the blank here)" and it involves your life, your future, your existence as an individual, walk away, right now, and don't look back. You don't owe anyone anything. Live fearlessly. If the people around you can't accept it, can't accept you as you are, really are, they aren't and weren't friends anyhow.

. . . .Don't march to anyone else's drumbeat, don't drink the Kool-Aid, anyone's. Right, Left, conservative, liberal, Democrat, Republican, Christian, Buddhist, Pagan. Use your own mind, that's why you were given one. Examine, question, do what's right for you first, everything else will fall in place from there, quit looking for the path, you're already on it.

. . . .Come out of the gate each morning with both barrels blazing, pedal-to-metal, full-tilt boogie, all-in and balls-out, what's stopping you? Do you want to live forever? That'd be boring.

. . . .Got your back. somewhere out there in the night

. . . .Kiss your kids, tell the ones you love out loud that you do. Seize the precious moments before they're ripped away from you. This rodeo is a one-way ticket and no one, absolutely no one gets out alive. There aren't a lot of second chances, and we don't get to dictate terms and circumstances of how the ticket gets punched. This ain't no dress rehearsal, and the curtain's gone up, it's real and right now. It's not about yesterday or tomorrow. It's about right fucking here, right fucking now. This, what you're reading, what you're hearing, is the proof, the words, the sounds and the sights of someone changing his own life and his own world and not being afraid to put it out there. What have you done for yourself lately and why are you waiting? Do it now.

The Desolation Angel
from somewhere halfway to Heaven, and just a mile out of Hell