The Loyalty Oath, Redux May 18, 2013

"I pledge Allegiance to the flag
of the United States of America
and to the Republic for which it stands,
one nation under God, indivisible,
with Liberty and Justice for all."

"Ich gelobe Treue auf die Fahne der Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika, auf die Republik, die eine Nation unter Gott ist, vereinigt durch Freiheit und Gerechtigkeit fur alle."

So which is it, the flag or the Republic? Why pledge allegiance to a piece of cloth? If you’re going to swear a loyalty oath shouldn’t it be to the nation, or to its laws or its Constitution? Really, pick one: the gaudy piece of cloth, or the real system of government. Otherwise you’re just bloviating. Sort of like what those people do who drive around with flags flapping on their cars. Most of them couldn’t pass a high school civics test. Oh, wait, high schools don’t teach that useless stuff anymore, do they?

Why ‘and’ flag and Republic ‘for which it stands’? Cut to the chase. The Republic is law and nation and history and Constitution. Flag is cloth. Flag is copout. Love the flag and you don’t have to do anything – you’ll be admired for your ‘patriotism’. Ah, but love the Republic? Yeah, for that you have to fight. You have to get off your ass and wade into the fray; you have to know what you’re actually fighting for; you have to know some real history, not the phonied-up stuff from the Tea Potty and the screeching Republican fakers. You have to actually work at it.

It’s much easier just to mindlessly recite the loyalty oath and look down your nose at those who object to it (that would be me) and smugly diddle your mind with your profound patriotism. That’s what the ‘flag’ reference is all about in the Pledge. It’s a way out for the ignorant, for the lazy, for the fakers.

And of course my old argument still stands, that the Pledge compels silence, compels conformity, and compels Christian religious belief, all of which would have the Founders rolling over in their graves, if not digging their way out and heading to Washington to kick the fat asses of the faux Tea Potty Republican patriots running around befouling the whole thing.

Oh, the German thing up top? Yeah, switch out the States for the Reich and that would have fit well in Hitler’s Germany, don’t ya think? Dolfy was big on loyalty oaths.

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C Street Fellowship Of Christians Supports Rape Of Children December 11, 2012

Jeff Sharlet writes in his new book, “The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power”, about the secretive group that helped cover up Senator John Ensign’s extramarital affair.

A stunning excerpt:

Family leaders consider their political network to be Christ’s avant garde, an elite that transcends not just conventional morality but also earthly laws regulating lobbying. In the Family’s early days, they debated registering as “a lobby for God’s Kingdom.” Instead, founder Abraham Vereide decided that the group could be more effective by working personally with politicians. “The more invisible you can make your organization,” Vereide’s successor, current leader Doug Coe preaches, “the more influence you can have.” That’s true — which is why we have laws requiring lobbyists to identify themselves as such.

But David Coe, Doug Coe’s son and heir apparent, calls himself simply a friend to men such as John Ensign, whom he guided through the coverup of his affair. I met the younger Coe when I lived for several weeks as a member of the Family. He’s a surprising source of counsel, spiritual or otherwise. Attempting to explain what it means to be chosen for leadership like King David was — or Mark Sanford, according to his own estimate — he asked a young man who’d put himself, body and soul, under the Family’s authority, “Let’s say I hear you raped three little girls. What would I think of you?” The man guessed that Coe would probably think that he was a monster. “No,” answered Coe, “I wouldn’t.” Why? Because, as a member of the Family, he’s among what Family leaders refer to as the “new chosen.” If you’re chosen, the normal rules don’t apply.

These are the men that Republican families trust to lead the country out of the moral wilderness those families believe we are in.

Now we have a good idea why the country has been going to hell, with Republicans leading the way. What the hell, if it’s okay by the Republicans to rape children, then it’s okay to invade countries illegally and slaughter foreigners; it’s okay to act like whores for corporations; it’s okay to deny health care to Americans; it’s okay to lie and cheat and deceive to get the government to follow your personal agenda of immoral war and torture and unending imprisonment without charges.

Where will these people take us? Once again, The Lion suggests the answer lies in the words of Jacob Bronowski, particularly when he speaks of arrogance.

Jacob Bronowski,in The Ascent of Man, at the pond in Auschwitz prison camp, squeezing the mud between his fingers…

“It is said that science will dehumanise people and turn them into numbers. That is false, tragically false. Look for yourself. This is the concentration camp and crematorium at Auschwitz. This is where people were turned into numbers. Into this pond were flushed the ashes of some four million people. And that was not done by gas. It was done by arrogance. It was done by dogma. It was done by ignorance. When people believe that they have absolute knowledge, with no test in reality, this is how they behave. This is what men do when they aspire to the knowledge of gods.

“Science is a very human form of knowledge. We are always at the brink of the known, we always feel forward for what is to be hoped. Every judgment in science stands on the edge of error, and is personal. Science is a tribute to what we can know although we are fallible. In the end the words were said by Oliver Cromwell: ‘I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken’.

“I owe it as a scientist to my friend Leo Szilard, I owe it as a human being to the many members of my family who died at Auschwitz, to stand here by the pond as a survivor and a witness. We have to cure ourselves of the itch for absolute knowledge and power. We have to close the distance between the push-button order and the human act. We have to touch people.”

Technorati Tags: Jeff Sharlet, The Family, C Street, John Ensign, Pedophilia, Child Rape, David Coe, Doug Coe, Abraham Vereide, Politics, Jacob Bronowski, Mark Sanford, Religion, Christianity

America the Stupid: The Great American Religion of Ooga Booga December 10, 2012

Here are named some of the leading lights of American governance, all in crucial positions.

James Sensenbrenner, of Wisconsin: Complained about scientific ‘fascism’. Called climate change science an ‘international conspiracy’.

Todd Akin, of Missouri: Speaking of women who have been raped, said, “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”

Paul Broun, of Georgia: At a church banquet not long ago he said, “All that stuff I was taught about evolution and embryology and the Big Bang Theory, all that is lies straight from the pit of Hell.”

Dana Rohrbacher, of California: Speaking of an ancient period of climate change, said, “We don’t know what those other cycles were caused by in the past. Could be dinosaur flatulence, you know, or who knows?”

Randy Neugebauer, of Texas: Sought to pass a resolution that Americans pray ‘to humbly seek fair weather conditions’. That was his response to violent tornadoes and extensive drought.

These men are all members of the American House of Representatives, duly elected by the people of their home districts, and they are all members of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology.

The House Republicans, the people in charge now of the House of Representatives, have appointed to a critical committee dealing with significant issues of the Twenty-First century, in a time of critical need for intelligent, informed, and wide-ranging discussion and action on a number of issues involving science, the Republicans have appointed men from the Stone Age whose greatest ability, aside from getting the ignorant rubes back home to elect them, is to hide in the back of caves mumbling ‘Ooga booga’ while a thunderstorm rages outside.

And just to ice the cake, just to put the cherry on top of the American ice cream sundae, the chairman of the committee, one Ralph Hall, of Texas, has said about climate change, “I’m really more fearful of freezing. And I don’t have any science to prove that. But we have a lot of science that tells us they’re not basing it on real scientific facts.”

This is America, the leader of the free world as the whole world falls down the rabbit hole of massive, global climate heating, on the way to mass extinction, all documented, all researched, all full of facts and intelligence. America, still living in the Stone Age, led by shamans and priests of Ooga Booga.

Remember the names you read here. These are the men your children will curse as they struggle to breathe in a dying world.

Ronald Reagan Redux, America In His Darkness August 23, 2012

It’s evening in America.

Today fewer men and women will go to work than ten years ago.

With banks paying virtually no interest on savings, with a financial sector filled with thieves, hucksters, and con men drawing astronomical salaries as they destroy American’s ability to take care of their families, Americans are more fearful and less secure than ever.

Hundreds of young men and women will marry today, and they can look forward to a nation that values weapons more than education; that values scientific ignorance more than facts and evidence; that values people with money more than people struggling with three jobs to support their families; that sends American jobs overseas to enrich wealthy owners who pay little or nothing in taxes; that gives pride of place to religious superstition and ignorance instead of knowledge and understanding; that seeks to degrade women to the status of farm animals.

It’s evening in America, and under the cover of darkness the forces of wealth, amorality, and ignorance, the forces of forty years of Republican and Conservative political deceit and lies, our country is weaker and worse off than ever.

Ronald Reagan told us it was morning in America and then he started turning out the lights.

Today in America, night is falling and the lights are still going out. Why would we ever want to put Republicans back in power?

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Go look at America’s new hero August 7, 2012

Spinny’s got a thing up about America’s new political hero, the man who will save us from our follies, who has a brain like a steel trap… which pretty much closed a long time ago and can’t be pried open for anything. Take a look: Spinny’s place.

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Why Your Life Sucks As Your Country Goes Down The Tubes July 6, 2012

Wanna see the truth about your politicians? One of the truths anyway. The truth about why you have no voice, why they don’t hear your voice, why your life/job/finances/economy pretty much sucks. Take a look at the Upworthy site.

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Kindergarten Creates Criminals, Says New Hampshire Republican July 4, 2012

No, really, it’s true. The story’s in the Huffington Post. Read the interview.  Bob Kingsbury is a representative in the New Hampshire legislature.

But here’s the interesting part:

Kingsbury’s comments, which came during a meeting of the county’s state lawmakers, have caused a stir, leading both Democratic gubernatorial candidates to say they believe in kindergarten. The Republican candidate for governor, Ovide Lamontagne, declined to address Kingsbury’s comments during a radio interview last week.

No one called this jackass out on his ludicrous comments. Candidates for governor ‘believe in kindergarten’. That’s the best they can come up with. Not ‘Kingsbury’s a loon’. Not ‘Children in those towns drink milk. Therefore milk turns them into criminals.’ Not ‘Kingsbury needs to be removed from office and replaced with someone whose brain still works’.

This assumption that people who make these incredibly stupid remarks shouldn’t be criticized is one of the things that underlies the resurgence of the right wing lunatic fringe that has infested and rotted American politics.

Kingsbury, 86, did acknowledge that other factors can contribute to higher rates of crime and kindergarten classes are just one of them. But he mentioned having read an article showing the impact of moving young children out of London during World War I. "In World War I, London was being bombed by the Germans and they sent the children out of the city," Kingsbury said. "That was a disaster for England."

Right. Better the children should have stayed in London and been blown to bits or exposed to the sight of people being blown to bits. Or spent the whole time cowering in fear of being blown to bits. Of course that would have been better for their development.

"Children go to kindergarten at the point of a gun," Kingsbury said. "Children go to day care and it’s not the same; there is no point of a gun." Kingsbury said he believes that teachers are partially to blame but the rise in crime is not the fault of teachers. Instead he blamed attorneys and the courts for what he called a lack of discipline and rules in schools and for prohibiting teachers from disciplining students as in previous decades.

Awww, all those poor little kids being marched off to school by gun-toting educators. Poor babies.

So state law mandating that children go to school is apparently evil. Perhaps Kingsbury is just pissed because the little tots aren’t available to work in factories?

The old loon may have a point in that discipline is weaker in schools than in the past, but that hardly points to kindergarten as being a breeding ground for rapists and hit men. Or hit tots. But to proclaim that kindergarten causes crime, that’s more than a reach – that’s probably about to become Tea Party dogma.

All this guy has is a possible correlation, not a proven cause and effect. He’s given no consideration to other possible causes, and in fact can’t even state that there is any legitimate cause for the crime rates. He hasn’t asked if crime rate reporting is consistent from county to county, from town to town. He hasn’t asked qualified statisticians to look at the data. He hasn’t examined any other data. He didn’t look for other research. All he’s done is collect some numbers and proclaimed that kindergarten creates criminals. His conclusion is ridiculous on its face and remains ridiculous the more you think about it.

And yet he remains a member of the New Hampshire legislature, giving the Southern loon legislators of places like Tennessee, Alabama, and Texas a run for their money.

Kingsbury represents the kind of shallow, illogical, thoughtless, careless blithering that passes for thinking among todays Republican Tea Party. They don’t believe in science or logic or evidence. They believe what they want to believe, or what they are told to believe by loudmouth ignoramuses like Limbaugh and Hannity and Ingraham et al.

That’s criminal.

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The Crazies Who Want To Rule Us And Why They’re Not Qualified July 3, 2012

Here’s the transcript of an interview by conservative radio jock Laura Ingraham. Your assignment, should you choose to accept it, is to write an essay explaining why Ingraham and the other Conservacrazies, including those already in government, are not fit to be involved in governance at any level, including washing toilets in the local State House. This post will self-destruct in five seconds.

LI: Welcome to our show.

RT: Thank you for inviting me.

LI: You are a minister so I take it you follow the teachings of Jesus.

RT: Yes, that’s true.

LI: If Jesus were here today do you think he would counsel a woman to have an abortion?

RT: Jesus always showed compassion to women. He acted with respect even to the ones who were accused of sexual impropriety. I’m sure Jesus would do the same thing today, and that’s my model.

LI: [Angrily] You didn’t answer my question. So you think Jesus would applaud the murder of millions of innocent children, in the first, second, and third trimester?

RT: We know that abortion existed during the time Jesus was on earth, and for thousands of years before that. If he were opposed to abortion he would have said something about it.

LI: [More angrily] Where do you get the idea that Jesus knew about abortion?

RT: We know that abortion has existed for thousands of years, so I’m confident that Jesus would have been aware. There were many plants used as medicinal abortifacients in that part of the world. And yet his concern was for the way women were being treated.

LI: [Nearly screaming] What part of “Thou shalt not kill” don’t you understand?

RT: The Bible actually says “Thou shalt not murder.” I’m sure you would agree that every ending of a life is not murder.

LI: [Frustrated] Well you have your 40 prayers. I’ll pray for you and this interview is over!

LI: [Hangs up.]

The full story at Religion Dispatches. The comments there are interesting too.

This is a sample of why the Founders insisted on separating religion from the state. And it is a sample of why none of the current crop of Republicans should be allowed anywhere near the White House.

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ACA Upheld by Supreme Court; NPR Obfuscates on The Takeaway June 29, 2012

The Supreme Court did uphold the ACA yesterday, with Chief Justice Roberts voting with the ‘liberals’ to uphold the law on the grounds of tax law rather than on the commerce clause. The consensus of the talking heads is that he did this in order to preserve the appearance of the Court’s integrity, apparently not realizing that all three people who believe the Court actually has any integrity left are locked up in an asylum somewhere in northern Maine.

I still hold that the Republican branch of the court is corrupt and that they have not the best interests of the people. Their interests are political, almost solely political, aimed at increasing the power of the right wing, the so-called conservatives who are rapidly morphing into authoritarians modeling fascism.

Immediately following the ruling the congressional Republicans announced that they would do everything they could to repeal the law, starting with a vote in the House July 11 to repeal, a vote that will undoubtedly succeed, and will do nothing other than set the stage for their assault of lies and deceit for the next four months. They have nothing to offer Americans that would contain the howling rise in health care costs or that would give everyone a fair shot at getting good healthcare. The Republican prescription is to let the insurance companies continue their vile predation on the people. That fellow from Florida, former Representative Alan Grayson, said it best: The Republican health care plan – Don’t get sick, and if you do get sick, die quickly.

That’s pretty much the sort of thinking that Romney uses in his plan for the country. Cut taxes on the wealthy, raise taxes on the middle class and the working poor, cut social and medical programs and benefits, and spend trillions more on the already bloated military. Oh, yeah, and one more thing – pick a fight with Russia, because they’re, you know, the real enemy. There’s no room in the Republican mind for providing for the common good of all the people – just the rich people. So their plan for the first glimmer of a program that moves toward universal health care, which every other advanced society on the planet has in place, is to kill the program – and any number of people who might otherwise live useful, productive lives.

One might expect a serious and useful discussion of this matter on National Public Radio, and perhaps somewhere on NPR such discussion occurs. But not on their morning flagship show.

NPR’s inept morning show, the Takeaway, performed its usual useless stunt of bringing in a liberal supporter and a conservative opponent of the law, letting hostess Celeste Headlee breathlessly bounce them against each other, thus guaranteeing we would hear spin and opinion rather than dispassionate, informed discussion of the facts of the law and the situation. Fortunately her co-host, John Hockenberry, was off today so we didn’t get both barrels of thoughtless, breathless nonsensical broadcasting. I do wish NPR would dump that show and provide some useful news and discussion in its place. The show is a waste of air time and bandwidth, fit for adolescent mindsets at best. With a little bit of effort, just the tiniest bit, the producers could tip the show into a bad parody of shows that parody news shows. The Takeaway is just another reason why the country has tipped into a civil war. It’s only a matter of time until the shouting and name-calling are replaced with bullets, at which point the complete inadequacy of health care in this country will be fully apparent.

Of course the Republicans, mindless and vicious in their pursuit of power and their worship of wealth, would welcome the sort of violence some of their members propose. The Republicans figure they can count on the blithering insanity of Wayne LaPierre’s NRA to provide them with the manpower and the weaponry to fight an actual shooting war, while the Democrats will spend their time blithering nuances and policy distinctions while they’re being lined up in sports arenas to be shot.

Perhaps Headlee and Hockenberry might provide bullet by bullet commentary. Or perhaps they might commentate on cage fights featuring liberals versus conservatives. That’s more their style, seasoned with reading tweets and emails which they pretend are actual useful news.

One can only hope that NPR decides to take them away. Perhaps with a nice severance package that includes health care.

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First They Came For The Little Debbie Snack Cakes And I Did Not Speak Up… June 12, 2012

That was a line on the National Public Radio show Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me, which is probably the most fun you can have with news on radio.

But it brings to mind the original quote, by Martin Niemoller:

“In Germany they came first for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up.”
― Martin Niemöller

A little history: According to the Simon Wiesenthal Center, "Martin Niemoller was a Protestant pastor and head of the anti-Nazi Confessing Church. Arrested for ‘malicious attacks against the state’, he spent seven years in the Dachau and Sachsenhausen [concentration camps. He was] released in 1945 by the Allies."

We might well keep his words in mind these days in the United States. Maybe a little like this:

First they came for the immigrants, and I didn’t speak up because they did dirty jobs I wouldn’t do and they didn’t dress well and, well, they’re really not like us.

They they came for the unions, and I didn’t speak up because I don’t belong to a union and who needs them anyway and you can’t trust those people because a lot of them are immigrants and a lot of them are just people looking for cushy jobs, you know?

Then they came for the firemen, and I didn’t speak up because I’ve got enough money to pay for private fire protection, and public firemen mostly just sit around the fire house playing cards anyway, right?

Then they came for the policemen, and I didn’t speak up because I’ve got private police protection, but we need some public police to keep the lower classes in line.

Then they came for the teachers, and I didn’t speak up because my kids go to private schools, and the public schools are terrible and always whining about money and class size and teacher training, so let them go work for a living at a real job.

Then they came for the public service workers, and I didn’t speak up because they’re a bunch of leeches and I can never get anyone to answer my demands at town hall and they’ve got these huge pensions, you know?

They won’t ever come for me, though, because I’m just like them, a Republican, I’m one of them and I’ve got money.

                                                                   — Willard Mitt Romney

(My apologies to Martin Niemoller, but it’s got to be said again and again, generation after generation, because humans are a stupid species with short memories and shorter attention spans.)

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