Here we are in the strange, surreal, no-man's-land between Christmas and the start of the New Year, and 2013 is on death row. There will be no last-minute reprieve from our 400-year-old, hatchet-faced governor, nor a last-minute phone call from Amnesty International. 2013 sits in its dank little prison cell, marinating in melancholy, and dejectedly gnawing on its bitter last meal of broken dreams and unfulfilled promises. So, when the prison chaplain shows up at the door with his Big Black Book of Contradictory Nonsense to make one last-ditch effort to redeem the soul of this year before it gets marched off to the electric chair and be plugged into eternity, 2013 will spit in his face with cheerful defiance and blurt out, "Stuff it, Padre! I apologize for NOTHING!" There were some good things in this year, some bright spots of greenery in a desert of bland mediocrity, and we're going to remember some of them:
The WELL, BUTTER MY BISCUITS AND CALL ME SCREWED Award goes to the redoutable Paula Deen. Paula was the nation's Buddha of Bad Eating, the Princess of Pork Belly, the First Lady of Fricasseed Funk, and a Southern-Fried Cracker Queen whose toothy, perfect smile graced dozens of magazines every time I stood in a grocery store checkout line. She was like a lowbrow Martha Stewart, but without all the murderous psychopathic qualities and barely-concealed hatred for the people who buy into her house-of-mirrors media empire. In Paula Deen's world, there was no problem that could not be fixed with a couple of pounds of butter and a big ole mess of possum skracklings, or a hundred other things I would never consider putting in my mouth. Well, maybe except for the problems that will arise from injudiciously dropping the N-word at a court deposition, seemingly tolerating an atmosphere of sexual harrassment at the restaurant she co-owns with her brother Earl "Bubba" Hiers, or letting plans slip out about a "plantation-style" wedding with black waiters in white jackets. Fancy white jackets are apparently one of the many wonderful perks slaves enjoyed during their working vacation, I mean, servitude to white people, if that old Duck Dynasty scumbag is to be believed. For the national media, it was Thanksgiving Day and Paula was the biggest, fattest turkey they had ever layed eyes on, and they went after her with a vengeance usually reserved for mass murderers or child molesters. Paula immediately went on an I-so-sorry tour of morning talk shows and seemed genuinely repenitent for her gaffes. But Our Lady of Perfect Gravy is nothing but resilient, and as recently as this month was spotted cheerfully visiting a bunch of backyard chickens in Savannah. Hang in there, Paula! Redemption is yours for the asking, just don't say the N-word out loud anymore. And yes, I don't mind if I have another one of your delicious crescent dinner rolls.
The CRAP HIT THE FAN, THEN HIT IT AGAIN 90 MINUTES LATER award goes to the movie "Gravity." According to BoxOfficeMojo.com - the Careless Whispers preferred resource for movie statistics - the highest grossing film of 2013 was "Iron Man 3," which earned over $400 million in its US release. Pretty impressive, when you consider that the third installment of a film franchise featuring a second-tier Marvel Comics character can pull down nearly a half-billion dollars worth of scratch. I'm not sure why that is, but I'm thinking it has something to do with the appeal of its star, Robert Downey Jr., who seems to be very talented and a good person, and not as grubby and unkempt as Johnny Depp. But this item truly moves into WTF? territory when you consider that "Iron Man 3" made TWICE as much in foreign release, bringing its total worldwide gross to nearly $1.25 BILLION! Well played, Buena Vista Pictures, for a $200 million investment. It's been a very nice Christmas for you, indeed. I haven't seen 95% of the major movies of 2013, but one I did see and enjoyed very much was "Gravity." This movie had EVERYTHING! Sandra Bullock in her underwear! Authentic looking space hardware! Mind-twisting special effects! George Clooney's GHOST! A cloud of hypersonic satellite debris ripping the crap out of a space station, and then doing it AGAIN ninety minutes later as it circled the earth! Oh, my inner science nerd was having a field day with this movie! A number of other people agreed, because "Gravity" made $254,592,000 domestically and $653,292,000 worldwide, on a production budget of $100 million. Not as much as Robert Downey Jr. in an aluminum jump suit, but still nothing to sneeze at. Contrast, if you will, the number 54 movie of the year, "Ender's Game," based on the novel by homophobic garden gnome Orson Scott Card. That resounding flop of a movie had a worldwide gross of $88 million on a production budget of $110 million, costing Lionsgate Pictures over $20 million, more if you factor in the advertising and promotion money the studio had to spend publicizing that stinker.
The IT'S COMING! IT'S COMING! IT'S... NOT COMING! award for 2013 goes to Comet ISON. We astronomers are a prickly lot. Some might even consider us dour; spending endless nights when normal people are sleeping, freezing to death while peering morosely into tiny glass eyepieces attached to big metal tubes, hoping to spot a dim smear of gray light from an object impossibly far away. People just don't grasp the awe and excitement we feel when we do see that tiny bit of fuzzy light, knowing that it took 50 million years or more to travel to our earthbound retinas and register in our tiny mammalian brains, and that it, in fact, represents an entire galaxy composed of hundreds of billions - if not trillions - of stars, with many billions of planets circling them, and many millions of intelligent civilizations with sentient beings very different from humans, who may be looking right back at us with the exact same sense of astonishment. We get really excited about stuff that happens up in the sky, and a whole lot of stuff does happen. But, ironically, we are bound by our gravitational attachment to Earth, and being able to see many astronomical events depends on exactly where we are on Earth and what time zone we're in.
For instance, by all accounts the most amazing, mind-blowing astro-event you can witness is a total eclipse of the sun, but the path of totality - which is the only place to be, really - is a tiny little strip of land often 50 miles in width or less, and almost always in the most remote, desolate, god-forsaken location possible, such as the Antarctica, sub-Saharan Africa or the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Even if, through the greatest of luck or the most expensive of efforts, you find yourself in the VIP seating section for a solar eclipse, you are still at the mercy of a passing weather front, which can most surely obscure your much-sought-after vantage point and basically ruin your life. I lucked out majorly in May 2012 when I was able to see a very rare annular eclipse of the sun, and I only had to drive 5 hours to northern Arizona, which was totally worth it.
Other celestial events are more widely observable, such as the aurora borealis (or the southern hemisphere counterpart, the aurora australis), but they are best viewed in high latitudes, above 50-60 degrees. Here in Phoenix, at 32 degrees north latitude, we never see the northern lights, and if we did, it would probably mean big trouble, since the earth would have to be blasted with an epic, historic radiation storm to see them down here. Other astronomical sights are very widely viewable, such as meteor storms, or total lunar eclipses, which are visible over entire hemispheres with clear skies. Another such event is a comet. The appearance by Comet Hale-Bopp, a number of years ago, was a world-wide event which sparked huge excitement and interest in these dirty snowballs which cross our path every so often.
When Comet ISON was discovered, immediately the hype started. Portrayed as the incipient "Comet of the Century," lots of people painted vivid word pictures about the "Christmas Comet," which would grace the skies in December, make a close encounter with our sun, and (remember these words ==>) if it survived, would continue on a path which would take it even closer to our planet. It would then put on a spectacular show in January, with some people saying (be still, my heart) that it could be as bright as the full moon. Many astronomers (myself included) dreamed many, many dreams of a brilliant comet hanging suspended in a clear winter twilight sky, gossamer tail extending almost to the horizon, and being there for weeks if not months on end.
Astronomers tracked ISON with pain-staking precision, and the expectations grew faster than the comet did in telescopic photographs. Things started to unravel a bit in September when some Debbie-Downer-type astronomers said ISON wasn't brightening quite fast enough as it plunged through the outer solar system toward the sun. But we didn't care because comets are notorious non-conformists and will do whatever they please, light-curve predictions be damned. We watched in breathless anticipation as satellite-based solar observatories saw ISON cruise in past Mercury, getting bigger and brighter as it approached our central star, finally disappearing in the harsh glare of the sun, an Icarus with white wings soaring into the light and heat.
Now, those three words I asked you earlier to remember: "if it survived"? This is where they come in. ISON swung around our Sun, barely a million miles above its searing surface and then.... broke into a bunch of pieces. Scientists the world over expected to see a big, brilliant cometary body with a long, bright tail sweeping in front of it, but instead saw a small, indistrict bright patch with a tiny tail, which eventually got smaller and smaller until there was nothing but small pieces left. It was officially declared dead a couple of weeks later. Thus, Comet ISON, the "Comet of the Century" became Comet ISON - the DUD of the century, leaving us astronomers severely disappointed and demoralized. But we went right back to scanning the skies in hopes of being the first person to spot the next incoming Great Comet Hope, which would again be granted the mantle of Comet of the Century, and this time maybe will actually fulfill that promise, instead of breaking all our astronomical hearts.
The ALL THINGS MUST END... SOMETIMES BADLY award goes to the series finale of Dexter. The Showtime series finished up its eight-season run earlier this year, not in a blaze of glory, but a resounding THUD, reminiscent of the sound your head makes when it hits the side of the toilet as you rush to puke into it. When it was firing on all cylinders, Dexter was a stylish, intelligent, and well-written tour de force through the labyrinthine mind of a serial killer. His "dark passenger," as he called his murderous alter-ego, alternately surfaced and retreated in the ever-changing facade that Dexter presented to his family, friends and the outside world. But things really derailed for the last season, and in the climatic episode, Dex was shown carrying the dead body of his sister Deborah Morgan out of the hospital in the midst of massive hurricane evacuation through crowds of police and public-safety officers onto his boat, and NO ONE STOPPED HIM. After dumping Deb into the ocean, the last we saw of Dexter was him driving his power boat directly into the swirling maelstrom of the approaching storm. Well, "the last" until he surfaced inexplicably somewhere in the Pacific Northwest, where he labored as the Unhappiest Lumberjack Ever (or stunt double for a post-apocalyptic Bounty paper towel commercial), living in numbing isolation in a dreary, decrepit boarding house, with only his memories of his previous life in Miami. I can't remember another series finale that was so thoroughly and universally condemned and reviled by fans and critics alike, with levels of hateful derision and virulent contempt normally reserved for Republican presidential debates. Sorry things ended so badly for you, Dex, but it could have been worse. You could have been one of your fans.
QUICK TAKES:
TV Shows I Like: Boardwalk Empire,
Homeland, True Blood, Breaking Bad, Live From Daryl's House, Later with
Jools Holland, Real Time with Bill Maher, Sons of Anarchy, The Rachel
Maddow Show, Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell, Nurse Jackie, House of
Cards (on Netflix).
Things I Love: Rabbits, animals in general, my dear friends (both local and Facebook), Brambley Hedge Rabbit Rescue, hiking, secret crushes, sunsets and sunrises, astronomy, sushi, my friend Meme's homemade Chinese Seafood soup, chocolate, writing, photography, artwork, dinners with friends.
Here's hoping 2014 is a turning point for our country, and we can get back to being the great nation we truly are. Sometimes it's very hard to see that potential. I wish there were no unwanted and unloved children and animals, everyone had a decent standard of living and health care, and a decent place to live. I wish people in power weren't so evil and hypocritical and dishonest and deliberately ignorant. I wish people would mind their own damn business and stay out of the lives of others with whom they have no reason to meddle. I hope people continue to turn away from religion and other stifling, suffocating poisons of the human spirit. Most of all, I wish for peace, love and continued health for my friends. I hope I never lose the sense of child-like wonder I feel when I look up into the night sky, or into the eyes of a beloved rabbit. I also hope I never lose my belief in angels and miracles. If I die tomorrow, it will be with the knowledge and satisfaction that I have lived my life exactly as I wanted to live it, and I have no regrets.
Showing posts with label first amendment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label first amendment. Show all posts
Sunday, December 29, 2013
Wednesday, December 25, 2013
2013: The Year In Review (Part 1)
Like the rheumy old geezer you're forced to sit next to in a theater or on a three-hour plane flight, 2013 is coughing, hacking and wheezing its way into the outhouse of history. While not as bizarrely awful as 2012 (and that was due in large part to the presidential election), this year will go down as having more than its share of weird, unsettling and just plain annoying happenings. So, let's take a look back at the crazy quilt of human folly that was 2013 and present some well-deserved awards for galaxy-class stupidity, starting with our premiere award:
The MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING Award: We thought we were going to get through this year without millions of right-wing dimwits getting all whipped up into a frenzied lather over some faux-controversy, like they did with the Chick-Fil-A idiocy last year. You might remember that the COO of C-F-A made some ill-advised comments to religious publications that he was proud of financially supporting some groups that advocated a "traditional definition of marriage" (a.k.a. homophobia and bigotry disguised as piety). When some people suggested we may want to direct our discretionary spending to a restaurant chain that wasn't quite as intolerant and hateful, the conservative sheeple were summoned into action by the right-wing garbage-mongers on Fox News and other pseudo-journalistic bastions of stupidity. What better way to show your innate homophobia than by running down to your local Chick-Fil-A outlet and ordering up a big mess of their nasty fried chicken? Yeah, that'll show those queer-loving liberals - go out and buy a shitload of artery-clogging, greasy animal parts. A lot of people really had no intention of eating what they bought; many of them threw the food away immediately. But gol darn it, they were going to make a STATEMENT and stand up for the First Amendment rights of some idiot who insists on sticking his nose into the lives and business of fellow Americans.
Back to 2013: Fox News tried to get the ball rolling by kicking off their annual "War Against Christmas" pseudo-controversy. When it appeared it wasn't getting enough traction with their easily-distracted-by-shiny-objects viewers, they decided to let slutty Botox abuser Megyn Kelly spew some incomprehensible drivel about Santa Claus only being white or... something? I don't even know. But the shitstorm really spooled up to high gear when the patriarch of a clutch of barnyard animal-human hybrids that appear in some ridiculous reality show called "Duck Dynasty" cut loose with a rambling diatribe in GQ magazine that was pretty stunning and extreme in its stupidity, racism and homophobia. Now I've never seen "Duck Dynasty," nor would I ever consider soiling my brain with whatever genetic-cesspool nonsense those hairy snake-oil salesmen are perpetrating on a dimwitted, gullible American public. I spend my entire life avoiding those kind of people and trying hard to convince myself they don't really exist. But you would really have to be living on some other planet these past couple of weeks to not have heard about this crapfest on nearly every news outlet. The A&E network almost immediately tried to distance itself from the one program on their schedule that was an absolute cash cow, and "suspended" the noxious old fart from his own show. Always eager to show its clout, the right-wing stupidity machine went into overdrive and cast this suspension as a heinous, unwarranted violation of someone's First Amendment Free Speech rights. There's that pesky First Amendment again. It's almost as misused, misquoted and misinterpreted as the Second Amendment.
The right wing loves to shriek like a stuck pig whenever they imagine someone violating their own rights, but gleefully and willingly will try to curtail the rights of any group of people they don't agree with, such as gay people seeking marriage equality or adults seeking to maintain access to a legal birth control procedure. Then you get irrelevant, obsolescent gasbags like the scrawny, brittle, trailer-trash queen Sarah Palin dragging herself out from under some rock and shoving her pinched, ravaged face in front of any camera she can find, forcefully broadcasting her opinions like anyone gives a screaming shit about what she thinks. The ignorant conservative hordes jumped up at their leaders' command and goose-stepped their way down to their local Walmart or Cracker Barrel restaurant and willingly blew their (irony alert) welfare checks on useless crap they really didn't need, just because some media hack told them they were defending some pseudo-celebrity's right to free speech, and snapped up every bit of Duck Dynasty schlocky merchandise they could get their fat, stubby fingers on. It's astonishing to me that those idiots will do whatever their right-wing puppet-masters tell them to do, without a smidgen of critical thought. As long as they see other people like them doing the same thing, they think they are on the right side of things. Adolf Hitler would be so proud.
It's really difficult to understand how this country has changed so much that some repulsive, grubby old scumbag can spout a load of vile, disgusting hatespeech to a national magazine and then have millions of idiots defend his right to call gay people "terrorists" and make astonishingly ignorant statements about how black people were better off under slavery. Twenty years ago someone saying that would be roundly criticized and condemned from every part of the political spectrum. Nowadays, you could come out in favor of child molesters and as long as you managed to sneak in some Bible quotes, you will get people defending you and your right to be an asshole in public.
How did that happen? I think it's the result of a number of things; one of them being the death of civil political discourse and intellectual thinking in this country. The internet and social media have given everyone a global, anonymous platform to expel any and all kinds of hateful, disoriented thinking, with little or no consequence or accountability. The gun lobby has set an example of scorched-earth policy by vehemently opposing even the smallest, most innocuous and toothless tightening of gun laws in this country. Even the slaughter of 20 innocent children in December 2012 meant nothing to them. The only thing they cared about is the fictional "slippery slope" which would surely lead to the government forcibly confiscating everyone's firearms if they banned one assault rifle or extra-capacity ammo clip. Throw in an ignorant, uneducated population that accepts claptrap like that as gospel, and the spineless, cowardly stooges in Congress who are firmly in the back pocket of the gun manufacturers, and you have a great example of neo-fascism knocking at your door disguised as "patriotism."
But I digress. Thankfully, Christmas is providing a welcome (albeit short) relief and distraction from all this small-minded stupidity, but I fear the argument will only be resurrected next month as the new season of that Duck Dynasty trashfest starts up. It seems the conservative parts of the population will put up with absolutely any kind of horrible stupidity and intolerance as long as it's painted with the varnish of "religious expression," which has become the dog whistle to automatically incite the vast unwashed hordes to jump up and do whatever they are told. After all, Jesus is on their side. Or so they think.
The MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING Award: We thought we were going to get through this year without millions of right-wing dimwits getting all whipped up into a frenzied lather over some faux-controversy, like they did with the Chick-Fil-A idiocy last year. You might remember that the COO of C-F-A made some ill-advised comments to religious publications that he was proud of financially supporting some groups that advocated a "traditional definition of marriage" (a.k.a. homophobia and bigotry disguised as piety). When some people suggested we may want to direct our discretionary spending to a restaurant chain that wasn't quite as intolerant and hateful, the conservative sheeple were summoned into action by the right-wing garbage-mongers on Fox News and other pseudo-journalistic bastions of stupidity. What better way to show your innate homophobia than by running down to your local Chick-Fil-A outlet and ordering up a big mess of their nasty fried chicken? Yeah, that'll show those queer-loving liberals - go out and buy a shitload of artery-clogging, greasy animal parts. A lot of people really had no intention of eating what they bought; many of them threw the food away immediately. But gol darn it, they were going to make a STATEMENT and stand up for the First Amendment rights of some idiot who insists on sticking his nose into the lives and business of fellow Americans.
Back to 2013: Fox News tried to get the ball rolling by kicking off their annual "War Against Christmas" pseudo-controversy. When it appeared it wasn't getting enough traction with their easily-distracted-by-shiny-objects viewers, they decided to let slutty Botox abuser Megyn Kelly spew some incomprehensible drivel about Santa Claus only being white or... something? I don't even know. But the shitstorm really spooled up to high gear when the patriarch of a clutch of barnyard animal-human hybrids that appear in some ridiculous reality show called "Duck Dynasty" cut loose with a rambling diatribe in GQ magazine that was pretty stunning and extreme in its stupidity, racism and homophobia. Now I've never seen "Duck Dynasty," nor would I ever consider soiling my brain with whatever genetic-cesspool nonsense those hairy snake-oil salesmen are perpetrating on a dimwitted, gullible American public. I spend my entire life avoiding those kind of people and trying hard to convince myself they don't really exist. But you would really have to be living on some other planet these past couple of weeks to not have heard about this crapfest on nearly every news outlet. The A&E network almost immediately tried to distance itself from the one program on their schedule that was an absolute cash cow, and "suspended" the noxious old fart from his own show. Always eager to show its clout, the right-wing stupidity machine went into overdrive and cast this suspension as a heinous, unwarranted violation of someone's First Amendment Free Speech rights. There's that pesky First Amendment again. It's almost as misused, misquoted and misinterpreted as the Second Amendment.
The right wing loves to shriek like a stuck pig whenever they imagine someone violating their own rights, but gleefully and willingly will try to curtail the rights of any group of people they don't agree with, such as gay people seeking marriage equality or adults seeking to maintain access to a legal birth control procedure. Then you get irrelevant, obsolescent gasbags like the scrawny, brittle, trailer-trash queen Sarah Palin dragging herself out from under some rock and shoving her pinched, ravaged face in front of any camera she can find, forcefully broadcasting her opinions like anyone gives a screaming shit about what she thinks. The ignorant conservative hordes jumped up at their leaders' command and goose-stepped their way down to their local Walmart or Cracker Barrel restaurant and willingly blew their (irony alert) welfare checks on useless crap they really didn't need, just because some media hack told them they were defending some pseudo-celebrity's right to free speech, and snapped up every bit of Duck Dynasty schlocky merchandise they could get their fat, stubby fingers on. It's astonishing to me that those idiots will do whatever their right-wing puppet-masters tell them to do, without a smidgen of critical thought. As long as they see other people like them doing the same thing, they think they are on the right side of things. Adolf Hitler would be so proud.
It's really difficult to understand how this country has changed so much that some repulsive, grubby old scumbag can spout a load of vile, disgusting hatespeech to a national magazine and then have millions of idiots defend his right to call gay people "terrorists" and make astonishingly ignorant statements about how black people were better off under slavery. Twenty years ago someone saying that would be roundly criticized and condemned from every part of the political spectrum. Nowadays, you could come out in favor of child molesters and as long as you managed to sneak in some Bible quotes, you will get people defending you and your right to be an asshole in public.
How did that happen? I think it's the result of a number of things; one of them being the death of civil political discourse and intellectual thinking in this country. The internet and social media have given everyone a global, anonymous platform to expel any and all kinds of hateful, disoriented thinking, with little or no consequence or accountability. The gun lobby has set an example of scorched-earth policy by vehemently opposing even the smallest, most innocuous and toothless tightening of gun laws in this country. Even the slaughter of 20 innocent children in December 2012 meant nothing to them. The only thing they cared about is the fictional "slippery slope" which would surely lead to the government forcibly confiscating everyone's firearms if they banned one assault rifle or extra-capacity ammo clip. Throw in an ignorant, uneducated population that accepts claptrap like that as gospel, and the spineless, cowardly stooges in Congress who are firmly in the back pocket of the gun manufacturers, and you have a great example of neo-fascism knocking at your door disguised as "patriotism."
But I digress. Thankfully, Christmas is providing a welcome (albeit short) relief and distraction from all this small-minded stupidity, but I fear the argument will only be resurrected next month as the new season of that Duck Dynasty trashfest starts up. It seems the conservative parts of the population will put up with absolutely any kind of horrible stupidity and intolerance as long as it's painted with the varnish of "religious expression," which has become the dog whistle to automatically incite the vast unwashed hordes to jump up and do whatever they are told. After all, Jesus is on their side. Or so they think.
Therefore, I give the Much Ado About Nothing Award to Duck Dynasty and their mindless followers for all their spectacular bigotry and ignorance. They have taken the entire country one giant step closer to hell.
Thursday, June 7, 2012
R.I.P. Democracy
It would appear that America's rather fanciful 236-year experiment with democracy is officially over. Once given the backhanded compliment of being the "worst form of government on earth, except for all the others," democracy was nonetheless touted as the best that the human race could come up with, and something to which all nations should aspire. And, when it comes to giving the average citizen a say in what happens to their lives, American democracy could once lay claim to being the best of the best. But something called the Citizens United ruling put an end to that, in dramatic fashion.
Democracy itself has a long and storied history, originating with the ancient Greeks and spreading to many areas of the world since then. It has gone through refinements and tweaking, as all dynamic, living ideas will, but there comes a time when a tweak will turn into something much more toxic and poisonous.
Big news this week was the attempted recall of governor of Wisconsin, Scott Walker. Walker and the other Republican bloodsuckers in that state went on a rampage against public sector unions - you know, representing all those greedy and overpaid teachers, police officers and firefighters - and passed unprecedented legislation to take away their collective bargaining rights, which had been in place for decades. Blaming the unions for being the source of a huge budget deficit, Walker and his stooges decided that the bargaining rights were at the root of everything that ever went wrong anywhere since the beginning of time, and they had to go. People of all types went understandably nuts, and huge protests paralyzed the state capitol daily. The country was treated to the extraordinary spectacle of Democratic state legislators fleeing to a neighboring state to avoid a quorum in the legislature to pass the heinous bill.
All this was a blatant and obvious attempt at union busting, since unions are widely seen as sympathetic to Democrats and a source of campaign funds for them. Republicans hate employee unions, for lots of reasons. They're seen as fighting for annoyances such as fair treatment of workers, equitable wages and benefits, and for taking profit out of the coffers of corporations. Back in the 1950s and 1960s unions had great power, but the advent of the right-to-work movements in states, particular southern states, curtailed that power.
Unions have been on the run for a long time now due to rapidly declining membership and influence, and Republicans smelled blood. They took a gamble on creating a showdown with the unions, and Wisconsin became the crucible for that battle. Recall petitions were signed and an election was scheduled. At first it seemed that Walker would be shown the door in quick fashion, but a little problem cropped up.
It seems that the US Supreme Court ruled on something called the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission in 2010. That ruling stated that "the First Amendment prohibited the government from restricting independent political expenditures by corporations and unions." This meant that corporations and other outside influences, could dump as much money as they wanted into elections to try and sway the outcome. When the ruling came down, the entire country gasped in stunned disbelief at such an outlandish concept - that corporations have a measure of freedom of speech, and that can somehow be transmuted into enormous amounts of money being allowed to pour into an electoral system already choked to death with special-interest dollars. That's like giving a smoker with stage 4 lung cancer a carton of cigarettes and saying, "Enjoy them, there's lots more where they came from!"
Also aided by a ridiculous loophole in Wisconsin law which imposed a $10K upper limit on contributions to the Democratic challenger, Milwaukee mayor Tom Barrett, but not on incumbent Walker, Republican money poured in. The national Republican Reichstag regarded this as a test case, a prelude to the presidential election this fall, and pulled out all the stops to win. The following graphic tells you everything you need to know about the amount of money that poured into that state, and where it came from:
The Wisconsin media was flooded with nonstop advertising, and Republican Z-listers like Nikki Haley, some trollop governor from somewhere who is portrayed as a Tea Party "rising star" (read: amoral famewhore), was dragged in for campaign appearances. The Republican blitzkrieg worked, and Walker won the election 54% to 45%. And therein came the death of democracy.
It is an epically tragic commentary on the political system of this country that, in a very real sense, whoever has the most money wins. Money buys advertising, and with enough of it, opinions can be swayed. It's really sad that so many voters can be influenced by what they see on television or in print, and accept it without one iota of critical thought. Some people believe anything they see on television, and Citizens United just opened up the floodgates for a huge torrent of biased, blatantly prejudiced misinformation to rush in, and the financial backers of this tsunami of bullshit don't even have to tell you who they are.
The Wisconsin recall was only a little glimpse into hell, a tiny preview of the carnage that's going to happen in the upcoming November elections. As a direct result of Citizens United, it's been estimated that the Republican side will raise and spend a billion dollars trying to buy the White House and the Senate. And the gods help us all, they may very well do it.
For democracy to work, it's absolutely critical that those being governed are informed, engaged and fully participating in the process. That's the part that's missing. American voters are by far too lazy, ignorant and uneducated to learn enough about the issues facing them to make intelligent choices. Instead, they choose to let other people tell them what to think and do, and their vote will go for whoever created the slickest and most eye-catching political advertisement. For the vast majority of voters, that is far easier than actually "learning" about the problems they have and "making good choices". Let Rush Limbaugh and the Koch brothers tell you what to do. Just sit back, pop open another brewski, and pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. It will all be over before you know it.
Right after the Citizens United ruling was announced in 2010, I said that in future decades, people will look back at this time and say, "This is where it all started, this is the exact point in time where everything started to go to hell." I believed then and I more firmly believe now, that the Citizens United ruling will go down in history as one of the absolute worst, if not THE worst, Supreme Court ruling ever. The only ways to correct this spectacularly bad ruling is for the Supreme Court to reverse itself in a future case and admit they had made a truly awful, terrible ruling (very unlikely) or for Congress to willingly pass laws turning off the spigot to an unlimited supply of corporate money pouring into their campaigns. Yeah, THAT'LL happen. Citizens United is a stunningly, breathtakingly bad example of how horribly wrong things can go.
I believe the full effect of that ruling in the future will be far, far worse than anything we can imagine today. It will be seen as the day democracy died.
Democracy itself has a long and storied history, originating with the ancient Greeks and spreading to many areas of the world since then. It has gone through refinements and tweaking, as all dynamic, living ideas will, but there comes a time when a tweak will turn into something much more toxic and poisonous.
Big news this week was the attempted recall of governor of Wisconsin, Scott Walker. Walker and the other Republican bloodsuckers in that state went on a rampage against public sector unions - you know, representing all those greedy and overpaid teachers, police officers and firefighters - and passed unprecedented legislation to take away their collective bargaining rights, which had been in place for decades. Blaming the unions for being the source of a huge budget deficit, Walker and his stooges decided that the bargaining rights were at the root of everything that ever went wrong anywhere since the beginning of time, and they had to go. People of all types went understandably nuts, and huge protests paralyzed the state capitol daily. The country was treated to the extraordinary spectacle of Democratic state legislators fleeing to a neighboring state to avoid a quorum in the legislature to pass the heinous bill.
All this was a blatant and obvious attempt at union busting, since unions are widely seen as sympathetic to Democrats and a source of campaign funds for them. Republicans hate employee unions, for lots of reasons. They're seen as fighting for annoyances such as fair treatment of workers, equitable wages and benefits, and for taking profit out of the coffers of corporations. Back in the 1950s and 1960s unions had great power, but the advent of the right-to-work movements in states, particular southern states, curtailed that power.
Unions have been on the run for a long time now due to rapidly declining membership and influence, and Republicans smelled blood. They took a gamble on creating a showdown with the unions, and Wisconsin became the crucible for that battle. Recall petitions were signed and an election was scheduled. At first it seemed that Walker would be shown the door in quick fashion, but a little problem cropped up.
It seems that the US Supreme Court ruled on something called the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission in 2010. That ruling stated that "the First Amendment prohibited the government from restricting independent political expenditures by corporations and unions." This meant that corporations and other outside influences, could dump as much money as they wanted into elections to try and sway the outcome. When the ruling came down, the entire country gasped in stunned disbelief at such an outlandish concept - that corporations have a measure of freedom of speech, and that can somehow be transmuted into enormous amounts of money being allowed to pour into an electoral system already choked to death with special-interest dollars. That's like giving a smoker with stage 4 lung cancer a carton of cigarettes and saying, "Enjoy them, there's lots more where they came from!"
Also aided by a ridiculous loophole in Wisconsin law which imposed a $10K upper limit on contributions to the Democratic challenger, Milwaukee mayor Tom Barrett, but not on incumbent Walker, Republican money poured in. The national Republican Reichstag regarded this as a test case, a prelude to the presidential election this fall, and pulled out all the stops to win. The following graphic tells you everything you need to know about the amount of money that poured into that state, and where it came from:
The Wisconsin media was flooded with nonstop advertising, and Republican Z-listers like Nikki Haley, some trollop governor from somewhere who is portrayed as a Tea Party "rising star" (read: amoral famewhore), was dragged in for campaign appearances. The Republican blitzkrieg worked, and Walker won the election 54% to 45%. And therein came the death of democracy.
It is an epically tragic commentary on the political system of this country that, in a very real sense, whoever has the most money wins. Money buys advertising, and with enough of it, opinions can be swayed. It's really sad that so many voters can be influenced by what they see on television or in print, and accept it without one iota of critical thought. Some people believe anything they see on television, and Citizens United just opened up the floodgates for a huge torrent of biased, blatantly prejudiced misinformation to rush in, and the financial backers of this tsunami of bullshit don't even have to tell you who they are.
The Wisconsin recall was only a little glimpse into hell, a tiny preview of the carnage that's going to happen in the upcoming November elections. As a direct result of Citizens United, it's been estimated that the Republican side will raise and spend a billion dollars trying to buy the White House and the Senate. And the gods help us all, they may very well do it.
For democracy to work, it's absolutely critical that those being governed are informed, engaged and fully participating in the process. That's the part that's missing. American voters are by far too lazy, ignorant and uneducated to learn enough about the issues facing them to make intelligent choices. Instead, they choose to let other people tell them what to think and do, and their vote will go for whoever created the slickest and most eye-catching political advertisement. For the vast majority of voters, that is far easier than actually "learning" about the problems they have and "making good choices". Let Rush Limbaugh and the Koch brothers tell you what to do. Just sit back, pop open another brewski, and pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. It will all be over before you know it.
Right after the Citizens United ruling was announced in 2010, I said that in future decades, people will look back at this time and say, "This is where it all started, this is the exact point in time where everything started to go to hell." I believed then and I more firmly believe now, that the Citizens United ruling will go down in history as one of the absolute worst, if not THE worst, Supreme Court ruling ever. The only ways to correct this spectacularly bad ruling is for the Supreme Court to reverse itself in a future case and admit they had made a truly awful, terrible ruling (very unlikely) or for Congress to willingly pass laws turning off the spigot to an unlimited supply of corporate money pouring into their campaigns. Yeah, THAT'LL happen. Citizens United is a stunningly, breathtakingly bad example of how horribly wrong things can go.
I believe the full effect of that ruling in the future will be far, far worse than anything we can imagine today. It will be seen as the day democracy died.
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
When Free Speech Isn't Free
A couple of days ago was the first Monday in October, the traditional beginning of the new term of the Supreme Court. This court is a bit different from previous terms since there will be three sitting judges who happen to be women - Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. It will be interesting to see how their presence affects the Court and what new viewpoints and fresh ideas they will bring.
It also sounds as if there will be some fascinating cases among the 50 or so already on the docket, with probably two dozen more to come before this term wraps up next February. At least two will deal with the hot-button topics of immigration reform and the death penalty. Our fair state of Arizona figures prominently in two other cases; one involving the use of tax breaks for donations to private scholarships, most of which turn out to be for religious schools (guess which side I am on here). The other is about the legality of our employer-sanction law, which punishes businesses for hiring undocumented workers.
But there are a couple of First Amendment/free speech issues before the Court which may prove to be more than a little sticky. The first involves a California law which seeks to prohibit the sale of violent video games to children. I never play video games so I can't say I have anything to add to the debate. It sounds like another instance of the government trying to step in and take the role the parents should be doing in keeping their little darlings from being exposed to video games with titles like "Extreme Alien Sex Crime Blood Lust III." Exactly where does the role of the government begin in these cases, and what right do they have to limit commercial activity? There are laws which prohibit the sale of pornography to minors; is this similar? This doesn't sound like a big deal, but in most cases like this, it is the precedent that is set which causes the major upheaval.
The other free speech case is much more difficult, it involves the right of members of a batshit-crazy church to protest at military funerals. The Westboro Baptist Church in Kansas has made a very ugly name and reputation for itself by protesting at military funerals in the most obnoxious and offensive way possible, holding up garishly-colored signs that say things like "God Hates America" and "Thank God for Dead Soldiers". They allege that the deaths of soldiers are a direct result of the "tolerance" the United States shows for homosexuals, among other things. Presumably this "tolerance" includes hate-filled voter initiatives like California's Proposition 8, state amendments to ban gay marriage and many other legal moves to codify anti-gay discrimination into law. With tolerance like that, who needs homophobia?
You need only look at a video of these protesters in action to come to the conclusion that they are completely insane. They are so filled with twisted, perverted hatred and bile it is almost interesting, from an anthropological or psychological point of view, to see such incredible pathology on display. They must lead horrible, wretched lives - consumed with evil, anger and viciousness. They almost make Sarah Palin look like Mother Teresa, they are that bad. I think it's safe to say that the vast majority of Americas would agree that no matter what your stand may be on gay rights, men and women who gave their lives in service to their country deserve respect and honor at the very least.
But one of the cornerstones of our society is the concept of free speech; that is, people have a right to express their opinion, no matter how outrageous and loathsome, without fear of sanction. True, the protesters are vile and disgusting and their message is repellent to the extreme, but like it or not, we have to recognize their right to express it. Is there a point where free speech is so outlandish and offensive that it isn't protected by the Bill of Rights? There are some limits on free speech - shouting "Fire" in a crowded movie theater is not protected, and Congress has tried to put limits on flag-burning, but where is the dividing line between offensive and non-offensive speech? Should the toxic antics of these so-called "Christians" be tolerated?
Sadly, the answer is yes. For as much as we hate these people for their lack of respect or anything resembling common decency, we cannot stop them from acting in this way. The Constitution grants us the right to say what we will, as long as it does not directly cause injury to another person, as the movie-theater example above would. The protesters can say what they want to, and even though they make me want to puke every time they appear on television, we as members of a free, democratic society have to just turn away and let them rant and rave. Many organizations such as the ACLU and television and print media associations have come down in favor of the protesters' rights, even though it probably feels like swallowing broken glass.
Such is the conundrum and the cost of "free speech." For speech to be truly free, it must be free for all forms of speech, no matter how disgusting. Someone once said a long time ago, "I may not like what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." Unfortunately, all of us have to do that in this case. But I'm thinking the Bill of Rights and the spirit of this country are strong enough that we can triumph over the horrible, loathsome scumbags that make up the Westboro Baptist Church, and take hope in the belief that there is a special place waiting for all of them in the very lowest depths of hell when they finally die, something that just can't come soon enough.
It also sounds as if there will be some fascinating cases among the 50 or so already on the docket, with probably two dozen more to come before this term wraps up next February. At least two will deal with the hot-button topics of immigration reform and the death penalty. Our fair state of Arizona figures prominently in two other cases; one involving the use of tax breaks for donations to private scholarships, most of which turn out to be for religious schools (guess which side I am on here). The other is about the legality of our employer-sanction law, which punishes businesses for hiring undocumented workers.
But there are a couple of First Amendment/free speech issues before the Court which may prove to be more than a little sticky. The first involves a California law which seeks to prohibit the sale of violent video games to children. I never play video games so I can't say I have anything to add to the debate. It sounds like another instance of the government trying to step in and take the role the parents should be doing in keeping their little darlings from being exposed to video games with titles like "Extreme Alien Sex Crime Blood Lust III." Exactly where does the role of the government begin in these cases, and what right do they have to limit commercial activity? There are laws which prohibit the sale of pornography to minors; is this similar? This doesn't sound like a big deal, but in most cases like this, it is the precedent that is set which causes the major upheaval.
The other free speech case is much more difficult, it involves the right of members of a batshit-crazy church to protest at military funerals. The Westboro Baptist Church in Kansas has made a very ugly name and reputation for itself by protesting at military funerals in the most obnoxious and offensive way possible, holding up garishly-colored signs that say things like "God Hates America" and "Thank God for Dead Soldiers". They allege that the deaths of soldiers are a direct result of the "tolerance" the United States shows for homosexuals, among other things. Presumably this "tolerance" includes hate-filled voter initiatives like California's Proposition 8, state amendments to ban gay marriage and many other legal moves to codify anti-gay discrimination into law. With tolerance like that, who needs homophobia?
You need only look at a video of these protesters in action to come to the conclusion that they are completely insane. They are so filled with twisted, perverted hatred and bile it is almost interesting, from an anthropological or psychological point of view, to see such incredible pathology on display. They must lead horrible, wretched lives - consumed with evil, anger and viciousness. They almost make Sarah Palin look like Mother Teresa, they are that bad. I think it's safe to say that the vast majority of Americas would agree that no matter what your stand may be on gay rights, men and women who gave their lives in service to their country deserve respect and honor at the very least.
But one of the cornerstones of our society is the concept of free speech; that is, people have a right to express their opinion, no matter how outrageous and loathsome, without fear of sanction. True, the protesters are vile and disgusting and their message is repellent to the extreme, but like it or not, we have to recognize their right to express it. Is there a point where free speech is so outlandish and offensive that it isn't protected by the Bill of Rights? There are some limits on free speech - shouting "Fire" in a crowded movie theater is not protected, and Congress has tried to put limits on flag-burning, but where is the dividing line between offensive and non-offensive speech? Should the toxic antics of these so-called "Christians" be tolerated?
Sadly, the answer is yes. For as much as we hate these people for their lack of respect or anything resembling common decency, we cannot stop them from acting in this way. The Constitution grants us the right to say what we will, as long as it does not directly cause injury to another person, as the movie-theater example above would. The protesters can say what they want to, and even though they make me want to puke every time they appear on television, we as members of a free, democratic society have to just turn away and let them rant and rave. Many organizations such as the ACLU and television and print media associations have come down in favor of the protesters' rights, even though it probably feels like swallowing broken glass.
Such is the conundrum and the cost of "free speech." For speech to be truly free, it must be free for all forms of speech, no matter how disgusting. Someone once said a long time ago, "I may not like what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." Unfortunately, all of us have to do that in this case. But I'm thinking the Bill of Rights and the spirit of this country are strong enough that we can triumph over the horrible, loathsome scumbags that make up the Westboro Baptist Church, and take hope in the belief that there is a special place waiting for all of them in the very lowest depths of hell when they finally die, something that just can't come soon enough.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
A Separation Most Vital
Awesome article on Salon.com detailing the many reasons why this country is not a Christian nation, claims of the religious right notwithstanding:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2009/04/14/christian_nation/index.html
The fundamentalist extremists in the country never fail to exceed their own standards of arrogance when it comes to their assertions that the United States is a "Christian" country and anyone who disagrees can GTFO. The occasional mention of "God" and a "Creator" in the Declaration of Independence does not necessarily infer that this country was founded on "Judeo-Christian principles." Religious conservatives harp mercilessly on the fact that the Pledge of Allegiance has the phrase "under God" in it but they don't mention the fact that those words were not in the original Pledge, but rather added to it in 1954, not really that long ago.
The founding fathers back in the 1700s were not a homogeneous bunch of Bible-thumpers. They were a diverse group including Rosicrucians, Freethinkers, Free Masons and others. For the religious conservatives of today to appropriate the history of this country into their own narrow-minded, modernist version of Christianity is wholly invalid and quite an unreasonable stretch. They seem to think they have a monopoly on God and everyone should conform to their own particular brand of delusion. Two principles upon which this country most definitely was founded were religious freedom and a strict separation of church and state. It was no accident that the founding fathers worked so hard to keep religion out of government and government out of religion. The whole purpose of this country's formation was to provide religious freedom to those who had been persecuted by the majority, for their beliefs. And today it's happening all over again.
To insist that the laws of this country be modified to conform to the beliefs of the majority, at the expense of the freedoms of the minorities, is one of the most blatantly treasonous and un-American things that could ever happen.
http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2009/04/14/christian_nation/index.html
The fundamentalist extremists in the country never fail to exceed their own standards of arrogance when it comes to their assertions that the United States is a "Christian" country and anyone who disagrees can GTFO. The occasional mention of "God" and a "Creator" in the Declaration of Independence does not necessarily infer that this country was founded on "Judeo-Christian principles." Religious conservatives harp mercilessly on the fact that the Pledge of Allegiance has the phrase "under God" in it but they don't mention the fact that those words were not in the original Pledge, but rather added to it in 1954, not really that long ago.
The founding fathers back in the 1700s were not a homogeneous bunch of Bible-thumpers. They were a diverse group including Rosicrucians, Freethinkers, Free Masons and others. For the religious conservatives of today to appropriate the history of this country into their own narrow-minded, modernist version of Christianity is wholly invalid and quite an unreasonable stretch. They seem to think they have a monopoly on God and everyone should conform to their own particular brand of delusion. Two principles upon which this country most definitely was founded were religious freedom and a strict separation of church and state. It was no accident that the founding fathers worked so hard to keep religion out of government and government out of religion. The whole purpose of this country's formation was to provide religious freedom to those who had been persecuted by the majority, for their beliefs. And today it's happening all over again.
To insist that the laws of this country be modified to conform to the beliefs of the majority, at the expense of the freedoms of the minorities, is one of the most blatantly treasonous and un-American things that could ever happen.
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