Taking a humorous but analytical look at just about anything in the spirit of Groucho Marx: I wouldn't want to belong to any club that would have me as a member!
I don't know about you, but I find the Burger King "King" with the oversized head creepy. However, I have to admit that ever since the ad agency handling Burger King's account dug him up, the "King" has on occasion provided some very clever commercial fodder, indeed.
My own all-time favorite so far is the one from a few years ago, wherein the King and Darth Vader were standing nose-to-nose, and the only sound was Vader's breathing. What cemented its place in the firmament for me was when a very dear friend suggested it reminded him of the old Saturday Night Live sketch "Quien Es Mas Macho? Fernando Lamas, o Ricardo Montalban?"
There have been any number of lame ads since, but one of the current ones is vying hard for a place in my "best of" list. The Burger King is seen breaking into a corporate headquarters building, stealing the secret recipe for the Egg McMuffin. What makes this ad so great is the voice-over, which says something to the effect that while the Burger King's breakfast sandwich may not be original, "it's only a buck." I snorted my hot tea through my nose, I was laughing so hard.
So, creepy as you are, I salute you, Burger King. Anyone or anything that can poke fun at its own self is not all bad. I just have to remember not to drink anything when a commercial comes on.
Every now and again, I need to be reminded that my lung disease is not the only thing running my life. I just had a "lovely" hospital stay, with tons of tests and lots of blood draws for labs, trouble getting an IV line started, new medicines and disagreements with techs about doctors' orders, all to be reminded that just because I have a chronic and ultimately terminal lung disease, it doesn't mean that some other health problem won't reach up and bite me on my butt.
The upshot? I have been diagnosed with congestive heart failure, and am now taking Lasix and potassium chloride in addition to the pharmacopoeia of other meds I must ingest both for my lung disease and for the side effects of same.
Several states allow race horses which are being given Lasix to race, but New York state is not one of them. I have just lost my chance to run in and win the Belmont Stakes.
I am heartbroken.
Overall, my time in the hospital wasn't bad, considering that I was mentally unprepared for the entire experience. Still, I do have a few standing complaints which may serve as warnings for anyone out there who finds him/herself in similar circumstances. First, be 100% aware of not only what the doctors have ordered, but why. My pulmonologist wanted to get readings of my breathing and oxygenation rates overnight while using my BiPap machine, to make sure my machine was working properly. The respiratory tech who was assigned to set up the test didn't want to use my BiPap, because of "liability issues." I had to explain it to her about 7 times that using the hospital's BiPap would defeat the entire purpose of the test. She STILL didn't want to do it, probably for fear she'd get in trouble somehow. I held my ground, and she eventually either checked with one of her higher-ups, or finally realized I was right. I mean, she had the doctor's order right in front of her, and it specifically said that MY BiPap machine was to be used. Good grief!
If she hadn't done it according to the doctor's order, I'd have been forced to stay an additional overnight, which would not have done my mental health any good, and she probably would have gotten in trouble for not following the doctor's order in the first place.
Second, don't let the nurses gouge you over and over in the attempt to start an IV line. I admit to not being steadfast enough here, mostly because I know I am what they call "a tough stick." I sympathize with the difficulties the RNs have in finding a good place to start an IV on me. But I am learning to say "not only 'NO,' but 'Hell, NO.'" to someone sticking me repeatedly and, upon missing the vein, keeping the needle in and digging around to try to find it. It didn't prevent me from winding up with both arms--and hands--black and blue. But what backbone I exhibited did keep my arms and hands from being abused even worse than they had been. Next time [and there will be one, I know--Ed.], I'm not even going to give them two chances. One try, no digging, and if it fails, I'm going to insist that someone else be called upon to start the IV line.
Third, there are some things that just are not worth getting upset about. Leads and wires and oxygen tubes and phone cords and TV remotes will get tangled up. Live with it, be patient (pun intended), and just untangle them as needed. Fourth, even teaching hospitals are overworked and understaffed, so learn to be proactive. If an alarm on something you're hooked up to goes off, and you know why, AND it's not for a true emergency, turn it off! When I finally did receive an IV, the pump monitoring the rate of infusion clanged horridly once the IV was empty. I waited about a minute, and then, realizing everyone was too busy to drop everything and come for such a minor thing, I just shut it off. The patient in the other bed was happy, I was happy, and the RN on duty was relieved that he had one fewer bit of drudgery to accomplish.
Finally, remember that the hospital is no place to get any rest. Set things up so that you have at least 48 hours after you get home wherein you have to do nothing, so that you can catch up on your sleep and get your mind and attitude recalibrated. Your family will love you for it.
While certain aspects of the right-wing political yowling in this country have made perfect sense to me, other aspects didn't--until I realized something, that is. What I realized is that social studies, or civics [as opposed to straight "history"--Ed.] education seems to have disappeared from our educational system.
When the Tea Partiers, for example, yammer about their rights and freedoms being taken away by an oppressive government, and when idiots like Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich pontificate about the current administration being "the most radical" secular, socialist government in US history, and people take them seriously, what other conclusion can be drawn?
The Tea Partiers have taken the name for their movement in honor of the Boston Tea Party, which I hope even people with virtually no knowledge of American history recognize was a protest against a British imperial tax on tea imposed upon its then-colonies in North America. Fair enough. Empires, almost by definition, are despotic and largely opposed to the will of their subjects. But the Tea Partiers in fact are more like the governments in southern states before and during the US Civil War
The distinction the Tea Partiers have failed to recognize or even acknowledge is that the British government imposed its taxes on its American colonies without the colonials [more precisely, the colonials' representatives--Ed.] being able to vote on the imposition of those taxes in Parliament. The secessionists, on the other hand, were (as they well knew) a minority population in the country as a whole. They HAD representation in the national government. They HAD legal recourse and access to get their opinions known and their voices heard. They HAD a place within that very government they railed against. They just didn't like being on the losing end of the votes.
I remember social studies in junior high and high school. One of its most fundamental teachings was that when people come together to form a government and participate in an attempt to form "a more perfect Union," their obligation under that social contract or social compact is that everyone agrees to accept, peacefully, the outcomes of the votes that go against them, and that their recourse is to work within the system to win enough votes to change the outcome in the future--and unless and until they regain that majority, that they abide by the results they do not like, and peacefully comply with the law. WE all ARE the government. It is not some alien thing being imposed upon us by some distant, evil, nefarious "them" which wants to destroy us and take away "our freedom."
This teaching seems largely to have been lost on members of the Tea Parties and the GOP toadies who further incite them. This teaching is so basic, so fundamental to what being a responsible American citizen is all about, that its failing to have taken hold in the minds and hearts of the Tea Partiers mystifies me. I conclude, therefore, that this teaching is no longer offered in our school systems, and I for one mourn its passing. In the long run, it means the end of what the American dream really constitutes.
And I know that rhetoric often gets heated in the course of the discussion. But I'm not talking about heated rhetoric. I'm talking about people threatening to "take back" what they feel has been "taken away" from them by force of arms or even revolution. I'd have said "or secession," given the proclivity of numbskulls like Texas Governor Rick Perry to resort to that language, but anyone who knows the outcome of the US Civil War should know that secession as an idea is dead. The Confederacy lost. Get over it, already.
What scares me at this point is the increasingly violent stridency with which these allegedly disenfranchised people are pushing their agenda. America, it seems, is for everyone--only so long as everyone is just exactly like them [which is the unstated but essential linchpin of their equation--Ed.]. And they are willing to say they'll shoot people who disagree. Watch very carefully all the pro-gun, pro-Tea Party rallies that have been scheduled to take place near Washington, D.C., on April 19th. The tone of our political discourse is changing in some fundamental--and I use that term deliberately--way. Threats of violence should not be a part of everyday politics, but of late, such threats have become all too common. Two quick examples: I remember a sign at one of the Tea Party rallies. It said "We left our guns at home. This time." Second, a recent political cartoon in the Washington Post may be about to come more literally true than anyone with even half a brain should want. The cartoon depicts the exterior of the US Supreme Court building, with bullets whizzing everywhere all around it, and a speech balloon coming from inside the building [probably from Justice Scalia--Ed.] saying in a self-satisfied tone, "Ah, a robust Second Amendment in action!"
Some days I wake up grumpy . . . and some days, I let him sleep. No, no. Seriously, some days I wake up grumpy, and it usually has something to do with what's on the radio news as I am coming to in the wee hours. This morning, I am beyond grumpy. I am positively curmudgeonly.
NPR's "Weekend Edition Sunday" aired an interview this morning with Fank Newport of Gallup Polls, discussing public reaction to the passage of the health care reform bill. The general tenor of the discussion was that once the bill passed, a plurality of the public indicated support for the bill according to Gallup's own poll from last Monday. Mr. Newport added that even other polls which showed more people didn't like the bill than did like it constituted not "a vast majority of the American people," contrary to GOP talking points, but only a bare plurality of about 3 points [which, I note, statistically is within the margin of error--Ed.].
I have no quarrel with that. I do have a quarrel with the way all the polls discussed seem to have been formatted. If I understand the recap correctly, the polling was to learn the level of support for the bill. But it seems that what was asked was along the lines of "do you support the legislation, yes or no." That is no way to determine support for the bill. The only thing it indicates with any reliability is whether someone supports what s/he thinks the bill entails, and due to the months and months and months of negative spin spewed out by right-wing talking heads, what people think the bill entails and what the bill actually does are two very, very different things.
The only legitimate way to measure public support for the bill is to ask a series of questions about each key provision of the bill, to wit: do you support or oppose ending the ability of health insurers to deny coverage for "pre-existing conditions"? Do you support or oppose ending the ability of health insurers to drop your coverage if you get sick? Do you support or oppose allowing families to carry their adult children on their parents' policies until those children reach the age of 26? Do you support or oppose eliminating the so-called "doughnut hole" in Medicare's Part D prescription drug coverage? Do you support or oppose reducing the federal budget deficit by billions of dollars over the course of the next 10 years, as the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office has determined this bill will do?
I could go on, but I'll spare you. I will say that I am aware that the way I've phrased some of the questions I listed may not be "value-neutral." But I do not claim to be a pollster. I do think a pollster worth his or her salt could frame the questions in a valid value-neutral way. My point is not about the framing of specific questions in any event. My point is about the way to get the most accurate snapshot possible of the public's true opinions about the legislation, by asking questions about each of its provisions as opposed to asking a meaningless question about the bill as a whole.
Heck, even the overly broad question about the bill as a whole would be instructive IF there had been follow-up questions to determine what people actually think is in the bill in the first place. Without those follow-ups, the poll as it stands is meaningless. Anyone can take its results and twist them into whatever shape suits one's purposes, just as the CPA in the classic joke said "What do you want it to be?" when he was asked "What's two plus two?"
Mark Twain was right: there are three kinds of lies. Lies, damned lies, and statistics.
Yes, that's the punch line to the old joke about recognizing "the last act of a desperate man." I hope that will be history's take on the continued uproar by the self-styled Tea Partiers and the entire spectrum of far-right nut jobs. I haven't seen such a spate of juvenile name-calling and bullying since junior high school . . . only this is even scarier, because this time the bullies have guns.
The behavior and tactics of these people [and I use the term both loosely and advisedly--Ed] consist of willful denial of facts, delivered loudly, and now not just overt threats of violence [anyone remember the Tea Party rally sign "We came unarmed--this time"?--Ed], but actual incidents of brick-throwing and other acts of violence against their perceived opponents, including increasingly overt threats involving guns.
To its great shame, the "mainstream" wing of the GOP has been encouraging this increasingly apocalyptic reaction. Sarah Palin has tweeted her followers that it's "time to reload" and has posted a map online targeting selected Democratic-Party-held House seats through gun sight cross hairs. This must stop before we wind up with a totally Balkanized nation. Palin and her ilk can disavow overt acts of violence all they want, but whether they admit it or not, they are morally responsible for encouraging the hyper-extremists in their increasingly unstable behavior.
I try to comfort myself with the knowledge, based on history, that this is what always happens when the forces of reaction realize they are losing 100% control of any given situation. It's akin to the notion that the darkest hour is just before the dawn. But the race to the bottom seems to be not just on, but in full swing. I am afraid that this time there will be even darker hours before that new dawn breaks.
I have it on good authority that yesterday was officially Grammar Day. In honor of the day, at least one web site hosted a limerick contest. The winning entry naturally referred to the web site's owner [suck up!--Ed.], which didn't occur to me, but for the sake of posterity, I'd like to enshrine my own, non-winning entry here:
A woman accused of apostasy Told grammar geeks to stop accosting me Possessives ending in "s" Can be plural; don't guess-- I'll tell you where to put your apostrophe.
The US Representative for the 2nd District of Nebraska, Lee Terry (R), announced last week that he's running for re-election--again. This will be his seventh campaign, so he's held the seat for 12 years and wants to keep it for at least two more. I make special note of the length of time he's been in Congress for two reasons:
(1) When he ran the first time, and in his first two (or so) re-election bids, he flat-out promised that he would "serve" no longer than he'd be able to under a term-limits law, which he said at the time was a maximum of three or four terms at the most. He said he'd not keep running even if no term-limits law were ever actually passed. No term-limits law ever was passed . . . but he's still there. You do the math.
(2) The article in the Omaha World-Herald announcing the opening of Terry's most recent re-election bid headlined the puff piece by saying Terry was going to continue to work to accomplish "core issues." Well, if he hasn't gotten anything accomplished toward implementing his core issues in the last 12 years, why in the world should he be given another two?
My problem with him is that he's a total party hack. He spouts the GOP line chapter and verse, and just ignores facts that contradict the lies he's spreading. I can live with "my" Representative in the House being of a different political party--hell, I have lived with it, for far too long, frankly. But whomever "my" Representative is, I wish fervently that he or she would have a brain and USE it instead of being a corporate ventriloquist's dummy.
It has been argued that even a government on a war footing can satisfy the needs of its citizens at home, the classic economics expression being "guns and butter." FDR had some success in that regard, despite rationing of certain products and raw materials during World War II. LBJ's efforts to make the same argument got less and less credible with every escalation in Vietnam, despite the fact that rationing was never imposed within the US during the 1960s. Warren Zevon brought an entirely new layer of meaning to the phrase by changing "butter" to "money" and throwing lawyers into the mix, to boot.
And today the US Supreme Court hears another Second Amendment case, one with potentially drastic consequences for the entire nation. In the case at hand, a Chicago citizen is challenging Chicago's ban on possession of handguns, even in one's own home. The citizen concedes that under Chicago's law, he could legally have a shotgun, but he wants a handgun because a shotgun is "inconvenient."
The Second Amendment case (a 5-4 decision) from two years ago determined that gun ownership is a fundamental individual right, but since that case arose out of the District of Columbia's handgun ban, it applied only to federal enclaves such as DC itself and the national parks. [See the post "Strict Constructionist--NOT" for my take on the previous case.--Ed.] This case seeks to expand the judicially-defined meaning of the Second Amendment to all state and local government entities, as well.
Set aside for a moment the delicious irony of so-called conservative "strict constructionists" like Antonin Scalia imposing a massive expansion of federal control over the states. The ramifications of the case at hand could literally mean anarchy--for extended to its logical conclusion, the 100% unfettered right of individual Americans to own guns would result in the eventual overturning of even the paltry gun-control measures we have now, such as licensing and registration of handguns.
There is a workable solution, however, based on long-standing (and thus settled) First Amendment precedent. One's right to the religion of one's choice is unfettered--except where it is regulated. You have an absolute right to believe whatever the heck you want. You do not have an absolute right to act on those beliefs. The classic example is the handling of poisonous snakes. Certain churches have held that God will protect the faithful, and that they will suffer no harm from passing rattlesnakes around amongst themselves, even to their children. Well, the Supreme Court put the kibosh on that a long, long time ago. There's a larger concern: the protection of children and the general public safety and welfare. So the church members are not forbidden to believe that they can handle poisonous snakes with impunity. They just cannot demonstrate their beliefs by actually handling such snakes as part of their religious observances.
It will be instructive to see how the Supremes decide this case, and by what sort of a margin. I'm predicting--and dreading--a 5-to-4 split, with Antonin Scalia again writing for the majority, and dictating that guns rule. Scalia has already shown, by his majority opinion in the DC handgun ban case, that he's willing to throw away all his other cherished philosophical beliefs about strict construction and avoiding judicial activism for the sake of being able to shoot 'em up.
I wonder whether anyone who's considered the looting problems in Haiti and Chile after their recent earthquakes has stopped to think about how much harder it would be for the Haitian and Chilean police and military to restore order if the looters had the unfettered right--and ability--to shoot back.
I heard a report on NPR this morning about how the human brain changes during its lifespan. The latest research indicates that while middle-aged brains aren't very good at multi-tasking and are also not as fast as they once were in processing information, they are at their life's peak of being able to perform complex reasoning tasks, and are also at maximum capacity for seeing issues from someone else's point of view, a/k/a empathy. Teenaged brains, on the other hand, while being able to cope with levels of information input that would disorient the rest of us, have very little, if any, capacity to empathize and even less to recognize and anticipate the consequences of the actions they prompt.
The common element affecting both ages of brain is the presence and thickness of myelin, the fatty sheath around nerve endings that improves nerves' ability to process information. Middle-aged brains have a lot of myelin. The quantity and thickness of the myelin enhances complex reasoning functions. Teenaged brains have less myelin, especially around the nerves connecting to the brain's frontal lobes, which are the home of these same higher reasoning functions.
I've bemoaned for years our society's seeming race to the bottom in terms of public behavior, expression of opinions, and general attitude towards civic discourse and political and philosophical differences. Almost nobody cares anymore to be polite, to speak with a civil tongue, and to argue based on the issues and the facts. It seems as if whomever shouts the loudest and longest is declared "the winner," correct on the merits or not. Usually not, too, or else there'd be no need to scream and shout. I always used to think of it in terms of my generation's [yes, I'm talking to and about you, fellow Baby Boomers.--Ed] tendency to raise its children to be its friends instead of raising its children to be good citizens, which in turn those children replicated when raising their own, resulting in at least 3 generations now of selfish brats being at the forefront of society.
But now I wonder. Is there a genetic difference that makes certain people more likely to have less myelin in their brains all their lives? And if so, does this explain the schoolyard bullying and high-school-cliquish behavior of people like Rush Limbaugh and the anchors on Fox "News"?
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Texans are to Americans the way Ugly Americans are to the rest of the world. This could also mean, based on the previous observation, that Texans, too, tend to be permanent teenagers. It's as good an explanation as any for what is largely boorish behavior. Please don't get me wrong. I have lived in Texas. I have friends and family members who have lived in Texas--indeed, some of them are still there. There are a lot of things to love about Texas and Texans. But that does not include the Texans making all the noise about how Texas is better at everything than everybody else, ever, period.
And that constant crowing gets real old, real quick. [Maybe at its deepest heart, it's a sign of fundamental insecurity--the most frightened act the bravest?--Ed.] And it's even worse when listening to Texans turn on one another, as they have during the current campaign among GOP candidates for governor. I will not repeat the accusations, lies, and mud that has been slung. I will say only this: when candidates who've openly claimed to support Texas' secession from the Union are accused by their fellow candidates of not being conservative enough, well, let's just say the train has derailed. [Thank God the primary is this-coming Tuesday, so we'll soon have an at least brief respite.--Ed.]
I always shake my head in rueful wonder when I hear talk of secession as though it were a viable option. The Civil War ended 145 years ago, people. Secessionists lost. Get over it. Besides, as a purely practical matter, would those pro-secessionists really be so keen to leave the Union when doing so would cost them incalculably? I'd like to see Texas try to survive without all the money the federal government dumps into its economy through military bases, NASA, local jobs with everything from the National Park Service to the IRS, and contracts for everything from oil and gas leases to research and weapons development.
Still, Texas and Texans can be as grating as fingernails running down a blackboard. And just because they can't secede doesn't mean we can't throw them out, does it?
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I see from this morning's news that all the financial pundits have their collective knickers in a twist about the fact that Americans' spending levels have gone up again, even though incomes have not. One consequence is that what we're saving has declined again, down to approximately 4 percent of income, though that figure is still twice as high as it has been for most of the past few decades. The pundits are wailing about Americans' bad habits and predicting the end of the world as we know it [hey--a little hyperbole is never out of order when being sarcastic.--Ed.].
I don't think it's any particular cause for alarm, and I want to know what world these pundits inhabit, because it certainly isn't the real one in which I and my fellow normal Americans live. It's simple, really. When times are hard, purchases are put off. I don't buy a new car just because my current car is 15 years old. I wait. But there comes a time when, no matter how bad my economic circumstances are, I can wait no longer. My car is no longer repairable, for any amount of money. So I go and buy another car (even if it's not brand new, it's new for me). So I'm putting myself back into a financial hole, but that hole would be twice as deep if I lacked dependable and reasonably safe transportation to and from my job (if I'm one of the ones lucky enough to still have one) or to and from job interviews (if I'm one of the too many who doesn't).
Frankly, it's no different from how people without health insurance are forced to live. Minor injuries and illnesses are ignored or given band-aids, and only when circumstances have gotten so bad that there's no other option will people go to the emergency room. This is not a good way to live. It's more costly to everyone in society in the long run than stopping problems while they are still minor and treatable would be. But when wages are stagnant, costs are rising, and those with the money and power are more concerned with maximizing their own comfort than in making society better for every one of its members, there really aren't other options.
Such are the consequences of letting those with the mentality of teenagers run the world.
I was half asleep, listening to (but not really watching) MSNBC's "Too Early" show this morning, when I heard what has to be the mother of all Olympic tie-ins. As part of its quest to bring us everything possible even remotely connected to the Vancouver Olympics, NBC's cable affiliate took a totally unscientific poll to discern who is the greatest Canadian of all time.
The suggestions apparently poured in. [There must be many, many more people awake at that hour than I can imagine.--Ed.] Neil Young made the list, as did the Canadian scientists/researchers who first developed insulin for human use (worthy nominees all). But according to MSNBC, the top three, in reverse order, are:
Bronze: Michael J. Fox Silver: Dudley Do-Right Gold: William Shatner
My eyes were now opened wide as I nearly fell out of bed, laughing. Any poll that has a lovable rascal, an animated naif, and the ultimate space cowboy as its top three is a poll whose results I can endorse!
Observation the first: the governors of the fifty states have been meeting this weekend. Liberal or conservative, Democrat or Republican, they all seem to oppose the "intrusion" of the federal government into their lives and statehouses. I am not unsympathetic; I don't have a great deal of love or respect for unfunded federal mandates, myself.
However, I must take issue with the governors' assertion that the states are 50 laboratories which can each do experiments and find solutions for their own pressing problems. (What works best for West Virginia may not work best for Utah, as it were.) True enough, and tailored clothes always fit better than off-the-rack ones. But when it comes to issues like the problems with our current healthcare system, implementing 50 solutions is like shooting 50 BBs at a rampaging grizzly bear. Ain't gonna stop him--only gonna make him madder.
National problems require national solutions. In the case of healthcare reform, BBs won't work. Only high-powered rifle bullets will have any lasting effect. Besides, just because one is buying one's clothes off the rack, it doesn't mean that they don't fit or suit [pun intended--Ed.] their intended purpose. It just means one is wearing a brand-name and not a designer original.
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Observation the second: two weeks ago, an associate professor of politics at the University of Virginia, one Gerard Alexander, wrote an op-ed piece for the Washington Post wherein he decried the condescending attitude of liberals toward conservatives. As a female who follows certain sports diligently, I have been on the receiving end of condescension, and I agree, it's no way to behave. However, Prof. Alexander failed mightily to prove his point. He kept saying that conservatives have good ideas, but he didn't spell out any of them. Thus one must look to what other conservatives are saying to determine whether Alexander's point is well-taken, and in light of the healthcare reform debate alone, the paucity of Alexander's complaint becomes glaringly clear.
So far, the conservatives' "good ideas" consist of "death panels" (a/k/a "killing Grandma"), "socialized medicine," and "higher costs to you, the consumer." The size of the cost is a legitimate concern, but what the conservatives spouting that bit of "wisdom" fail to address is just how much higher the costs of doing nothing will be than will be the costs of doing something. "Death panels" and "socialized medicine" repeatedly have been shown to be outright lies. "Death panels" are what we have NOW, when corporations whose profits depend on denying coverage decide what level of care policyholders will get; "socialized medicine" is impossible under the current plan being debated, seeing as how it is a public "option." Nor does providing the public option put us inevitably on the road to socialized medicine. One would think that our over 40 years' experience with Medicare adequately demonstrates that.
One of the first things that law students learn is this hierarchy of argument: when you have the facts on your side, argue the facts. After all, facts are the strongest possible support for your case. When you don't have the facts, argue the law. Laws already on the books frequently bolster an argument that is unsupported by the facts, so it's the second-best line of attack. Only as a last resort should you make blatant emotional appeals, because resorting to the same demonstrates that you have neither the facts NOR the law on your side . . . and thus is an indication that you have no case.
Yet the conservatives in this country present their "ideas" in terms of distortions and even outright lies, as the second paragraph of this essay-in-miniature demonstrates. Their tactic of first--not last, but first--resort is to incite fear and anger. That's a blatant emotional appeal, which by its very existence proves that conservatives have no case (except their own greedy self-interest). It is hard not to be condescending toward that.
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Observation the third: I am beyond being sick unto death of conservatives claiming that only they love and revere the US Constitution, as the editor of The National Review[whose name escapes me at the moment. My apologies.--Ed.] claimed during the NPR broadcast of All Things Considered which aired locally last night (starting at 4 p.m. CST). I love and revere the Constitution just as much if not more than any of them. I daresay I know it better, too, having taught college-level courses on the history of same and having studied it as one of my fields of particular interest all my adult life.
What conservatives revere is their own interpretation of the Constitution, which is designed to protect and defend their own advantages, too often at the expense of the vast majority (by sheer numbers) of us in this country. Anyone who wants to pooh-pooh that idea must first consider this: if there were only one way to interpret the Constitution, we wouldn't NEED the Supreme Court at all, because there'd never be any disagreements about what the Constitution means and thus how it applies in any given situation.
And don't even get me started on "original intent." I've covered that ground before in this blog, in great depth and detail, so I will not bore you by repeating myself--at least not beyond saying that just because Shakespeare didn't know of, use, or even invent the term "psychological drama," it doesn't mean that he didn't write any.
Even after absorbing the considerable wisdom of the analysis provided by the book What's the Matter with Kansas? and after factoring in my self-proclaimed status as both a Civil War buff and an Abraham Lincoln admirer, I knew I was missing something while trying to connect the dots of American history in my own mind. And then I saw a PBS rerun of Ken Burns' The Civil War. Specifically, I saw the episode wherein Shelby Foote [may he rest in peace--Ed.] explained why so many poor, landless, non-slave-owning whites fought for the Confederacy. In his sublimely subtle Southern drawl, Mr. Foote imagined a Confederate foot soldier talking to his Union counterpart: "Y'all came down here."
I had what can be described accurately only as a true "light-bulb" moment. The average Confederate couldn't care less about "Union," slavery, or any of the larger issues supposedly driving the war. He cared about feeling threatened, put-upon, literally invaded.
And so it occurs to me that even with all the technological and scientific and other advances humanity has made in the past 150 years, humans themselves have not changed--only their roles in society have. Land- and slave-owning Southern patricians have become corporate and banking CEOs (and other high-level managers); poor Confederate foot soldiers have become Tea Partiers; abolitionists have become political progressives . . . and we still have a tall, lanky, President from Illinois whose goals are larger and for the betterment of ALL of us, much more so than many of the country's citizens seem able to imagine.
OK, that last was a bit of a stretch, and said slightly tongue-in-cheek, but the general analogy holds. I don't know why I didn't consciously recognize it sooner. After all, I've been saying for decades that if we all had been alive 300 years ago, everyone on Wall Street would have been pirates.
An NPR report this morning confirms that Sarah Palin has been comparing the Tea Party movement to the US civil rights movement. So blacks (and whites) in the 1950s and 1960s who were beset by police attack dogs, blasted with fire hoses opened to full blast, jailed for politely asking that they be served in segregated lunch counters, bus stations, retail stores, and other establishments, and even murdered, are the spiritual forebears of a group that applauds Tom Tancredo for complaining that people who cannot spell "vote" helped elect President Obama? A group that seems to delight in "clever" name-calling ("Obamanation" anyone?) and which has nary a minority member amongst its adherents? A group that has full access to the political process in this country but is mad because it's no longer in power?
I can't decide whether to call on the spirit of George Orwell or the spirit of Lewis Carroll.
The Tea Party is not the spiritual heir of the battle for civil rights. The Tea Party doesn't want to expand the promise of America to cover all its citizens. The Tea Party is merely the current generation of the white supremacists who sicced the attack dogs and turned the fire hoses on the civil rights demonstrators forty-some years ago.
In a twisted way, then, Palin is right--she's just pointing to the wrong side of the historical equation. The Tea Party is actually the modern incarnation of the 19th century Know Nothing party, a group of xenophobic anti-immigration (and especially anti-Catholic) zealots who made a lot of noise but who, thankfully, amounted to not much. May the Tea Party suffer the same fate.
A great many Republicans of late are taking umbrage at news reports regarding the victory of their own candidate, Scott Brown, in taking what has been called "Ted Kennedy's Senate seat." They are mightily offended that anyone suggest, imply, or flat-out say that that seat belonged to the late Senator Kennedy.
I suppose I should not be surprised that their inability to comprehend their own native tongue reflects the same rigid inflexibility they exhibit when "discussing" anything else. Nor should I be surprised that they are so willing to politicize something which, even though it's talking about politics, is NOT a political issue. So I am not surprised. But I am disenheartened. No one would be able to get away with making such stupid statements if we still had proper grammar education in our schools.
English is a prehensile language, and sometimes its ability to bend and flex and stretch causes problems. However, the lack of understanding that English can so bend and flex and stretch should never be the root of what has become a disinformation campaign. I don't know who is worse: the people who dropped grammar education from our standard curriculum, or the people who have cynically exploited that for their own nefarious purposes.
Yes, "Ted Kennedy's Senate seat" can, under one interpretation, mean "the seat owned by/belonging to" Ted Kennedy. HOWEVER, it also can mean "the seat most recently occupied by and identified with" Ted Kennedy. Furthermore, we all know journalism abhors both the passive voice ("something is done by someone" as opposed to "someone does something") and long, drawn-out sentences (why I'll never be a journalist, alas). Thus, "Ted Kennedy's Senate seat" is merely journalism's way of saying "the Senate seat most recently occupied by and identified with Ted Kennedy."
So I beg of you, those of you who are blathering on in protest about "Ted Kennedy's Senate seat," give it a rest, already! You're only making yourselves look foolish. Before you sound off again, please take a moment to consider Mark Twain's sage advice: better to keep your mouth shut and let people think you're an idiot than to open it and remove all doubt.
I have to admit, I find it shocking that people are defending the majority's decision in the Supreme Court's overturning yesterday of campaign-financing reform laws. Nevertheless, reading some of the comments published online in response to various news reports about the decision, it seems the American public is just as divided as was the Court. And that leaves me once again frightened for the future of not just America, the country, but America, the idea.
I take a backseat to no one in my devotion to the First Amendment. Anyone who knows me at all knows I am a thoroughgoing champion of free speech and the free press, freedom of assembly, freedom of religion, and the right to petition the government. But anyone who knows me also knows that these freedoms do not include the right, for example, to yell "Fire!" in a crowded theater when there is no fire--for the danger to the public safety of inciting panic outweighs the individual's right to say what he likes willy-nilly. For the same reason, the Founding Fathers always knew and recognized [read the Federalist Papers if you don't believe me--Ed.] that what they were protecting was political speech. Commercial speech, the right to hawk one's goods, as it were, was never intended to get the same level of protection. Otherwise, we'd have no truth in advertising laws, and people who were damaged by lies such as "oh, this product is 100% safe" when the product was, in fact, toxic, would have no legal recourse. Then again, in the days before the publication of Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, many people didn't care. What you don't know can't hurt you . . . except that it can, and frequently does.
But how anyone can equate a corporation with a living, breathing human being is utterly beyond me. We are the United States of America, not the United Corporations of America. Our system is "of the people, by the people, and for the people" not "of, by, and for the Corporation."
Corporations do not have the right to cast ballots in either primary or general elections. Corporations exist to make profits for their owners. They have no other raison d'etre. They do not care about right and wrong, good and bad, or any of the other higher concerns that motivate individual people. Corporations are at best amoral, artificial creatures, which do not exist outside the laws governing their creation and operation. Their behavior thus can be regulated according to the public will. Their only stake in our system of government is to do whatever they can within the law to minimize risk and maximize profit.
But they do have an inordinate amount of money to throw around, and that raw economic power alone puts them in opposition to being regulated by government. After all, when they can make an extra $10 per toy, for example, if they don't have to ensure that said toy is lead-free, they will not spend the money to make the toy lead-free . . . unless an outside regulatory force, government, makes them do so.
Government exists to do the things we as individuals cannot do for ourselves. In its own way, it's "the cost-effective" option. Better for us, as individuals, to have one government agency out there to test and regulate toys for lead content than to force every family in the country to buy lead-testing kits along with every single new toy. We ARE the government. Government is not our enemy. It is our agent, our collective representative. Its raison d'etre is to protect our rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Corporations are not alive; they are not free (they don't exist except within the context of the laws); and happiness is NOT their pursuit. Their pursuit is to make money. The most money for the least possible cost. Period.
These are facts. They cannot be disputed. I concede that the implications of these facts are disputed, but too often the dispute is not about the merits of whatever is at issue. The dispute too often becomes a cover for expression of one's personal political proclivities at the expense of genuine discussion and debate. For example, the vast majority of the people posting comments supporting the Court's majority ruling takes a very bullying, schoolyard tone. Most of those people's comments do not rise above the level of name-calling and insulting those with whom they disagree. That alone suggests that those people are in the wrong, for if the facts are on your side, you should be stressing the facts, not making personal attacks on anyone else.
To all you who wrote in favor of the majority's ruling: you who say that this is a great victory for the First Amendment and truly free speech, and who believe that the Internet will protect the full expression and circulation of all ideas, are forgetting something: if the corporate owners of your access to the Internet decide to pull the plug, what will you do then?
Money in politics is like steroids in sports--especially baseball--it distorts everything in favor of those who have the most clout. Again, corporations are not people; corporations do not vote. What if all the shareholders but one in a corporation dislike the position the corporation has chosen to support financially, but the one shareholder has the controlling vote? The controlling shareholder thus essentially gets double expression of his idea since he can express it through his individual vote AND through the corporation's spending. All the other shareholders can cast their individual votes otherwise, but if the one shareholder, through his corporation's money's clout, has the ear of the people in office, they're going to listen to him, not the other shareholders. For they know that if they don't listen to him, he'll put his money and resources at the disposal of their political opponents. "Pay to play" and "get paid to play" will become the norm, not standing up for the larger public good.
If you disagree with this analysis, fine, but answer me this: if my analysis is so wrong, so off-the-beam, why do corporations spend millions and millions of dollars every day on lobbyists and advertising? Because lobbying and advertising work. Jane and John Q. Public's voices can hardly be heard above the din of all the money that's in the system now. Removing the few regulations that were in place until yesterday's ruling means the silencing of Jane and John for good. Maybe not in one fell swoop, but ultimately . . . what do they say in Las Vegas? "Money plays."
Money plays. Money wins. No longer will the best ideas win because of their intrinsic merits. The best ideas will never even get heard. The ideas that win will be the ideas that have the most money behind them. Furthermore, it is error to presume that getting tons of financial support is a sign of being the best idea. It is a sign only of the idea which is in the best interests of those with the most money to spend, which may be antithetical to the best interests of you and of me, we who are supposed to be the beneficiaries of the system.
I was afraid this would happen back when the Court announced it would hear the case. I even wrote about it in this blog. See "Overshadowed In Yesterday's News," posted 9/10/09. I will say at this point that I am sick to death of the way EVERYTHING has become politicized in this country. Some things ought to be bigger than politics, and the fact that nothing any longer is saddens me. Maybe "America" cannot work, for the very freedoms it protects enable the seeds of its own destruction to sprout and grow. For my part, 99% of the hope I felt at this time last year has gone right down the drain.
To conclude with a bit of hyperbole: this Supreme Court ruling truly is the worst thing to happen to people as individuals since the Dred Scott case, for in effect, it makes you and me and every other person who is not a CEO or CFO de facto chattel of those who are. Not all at once, mind you. Just after our access to all ideas has been so squeezed and so circumscribed by those with the money, hence the power, to press incessantly for their points of view that we will be anesthetized or otherwise beaten into submission.
Still, in every "good" there is a "bad," and vice versa. At least the lie that "conservative" justices hew to "original intent" has been put to death once and for all. This ruling is activist in the extreme. Radical, I daresay. Not that that matters to the right-wingers who insist on politicizing everything. As far as they are concerned, it's only "activism" when they disagree with the outcome. Anyone with intellectual honesty and integrity, however, must admit that "activism" is "activism." It's only bad when it takes us (collectively, as a society) backwards and not forwards.
I have had a lot to say about a lot of subjects, but the real world has kept me from being able to take the time to say it . . . at least, so far this year. But I do have to make a few quick observations about subjects I'd normally like to cover in depth.
(1) I don't know why everyone is reporting with such sturm und drang about how terrible it is that the Democratic Party has lost its "60-vote, filibuster-proof" majority in the US Senate. If the current debacle surrounding the proposed health care legislation has shown us anything, it has shown us that while the Democrats may have had 60 votes in name, they NEVER had them in actual fact. So get over it, already! A change that makes no difference is really no change at all.
(2) Let's hope the Democrats learn the correct lesson from this, however, and start acting like Democrats again, instead of trying to be the GOP-lite. The minority Republicans who have been crowing that the results of the Massachusetts special election Tuesday show that the country wants the Democrats to practice "more inclusive" politics are full of W%R^&%^**&&^$%. The real Democrats, the true progressives in the party, according to all the post-election polls I've seen, largely stayed home. They want Democrats to be Democrats, not start from the center and move right to try to accommodate a minority that thinks it's still the majority.
(3) Nonetheless, I am not surprised by Martha Coakley's loss in that Massachusetts special election to fill the seat formerly occupied by the late US Senator Ted Kennedy. Rule Number One in politics is: NEVER take anything for granted. The Democrats, at both state and national levels, forgot that. Senator-elect Scott Brown did not. While I find him and his views on the issues of the day odious [let's just say that Keith Olbermann is right and leave it at that.--Ed.], I have to give Brown credit for his political savvy. So far.
(4) My disappointment in former US Senator (and erstwhile Vice Presidential nominee and Presidential candidate) John Edwards is now at 100%. I heard on the news this morning that he finally 'fessed up to being the father of the child that his videographer had in 2008. Way too late and several billion dollars too short, sir. You had an eloquent, effective, and persuasive voice on the twin issues of health care reform and poverty in this nation, and you squandered all of it for the sake of your ego and what you couldn't keep in your own pants. Now that voice has been silenced, and the good you could have done, especially in the wake of Ted Kennedy's death, is squelched. Not to mention the fact that your newly-acknowledged daughter is going to have to grow up knowing her own father denied her for the first two years of her life. Way to go, Daddy-o, she said, sarcasm spewing from her lips.
(5) I'm all for Rush Limbaugh continuing to rant his rabies-froth-tinged rants against all relief efforts to Haiti and against the Haitian people. Maybe he's finally stepped over a line even the tea-baggers and ditto-heads won't cross, and made his racism and selfishness and inhumanity so blatant that even those idiots will no longer follow him. So if his ravings on this subject finally break his apparent stranglehold on the GOP, all to the good. Anything that will contribute to a return to the politics of "we can agree to disagree, but we are going to work together to move the country forward" is a wonderful thing. This petulant, childish, and immature "if I can't have it 100% my own way, I'm picking up my ball and going home" approach to the nation's business must stop, before we find America relegated to irrelevance--or worse--by the rest of the world.
Random thoughts on the passing scene for this shiny brand-new year:
2010 is NOT the first year of the new decade. It is the LAST year of the old decade. How do I know this? Reason the first: our calendar has no "Year Zero." We go straight from 1 BC to 1 AD. Yes, folks, that's right: "AD," or "Anno Domine," literally "in the year of our Lord," is the year of Jesus' birth. When he wasn't yet born, it was 1 "BC" ("before Christ"). Once He was born, it instantly became 1 AD. He wasn't a year old until His first birthday, but His first appearance on this earth was the first "Anno Domine."
Reason the second: one does NOT count to ten by saying "0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9." One counts to ten by saying "1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10." Note that "ten" comes at the END of the sequence, not the beginning. Note that we are now in "twenty-ten," the operative word being "ten." IT'S THE END OF THE CURRENT DECADE, NOT THE BEGINNING OF A NEW ONE.
Reason the third: Arthur C. Clarke, no intellectual slouch he, called his book "Two-Thousand-One" and not "Two-Thousand" for a very good reason. He knew that 2001 was the beginning of the new millennium, not 2000, which was, in fact, the end of the old one.
Observation the first: when did our schools get so bad at or lazy about teaching such fundamental counting techniques? And what does that mean for our desire to continue to be the world's leader in technology and scientific advancement when we can't even get something this simple correct?
Observation the second: even NPR had it wrong. All weekend, NPR shows were full of both retrospectives covering "the last decade" and speculations concerning "the new decade." When even NPR is getting it wrong, the battle has been lost. My heart breaks for the sake of the future.
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Please tell me I'm not the only person who is troubled by the underlying message of "Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer." If you're different, it's OK for everyone else to make fun of you and to ostracize you. Worse, when what makes you different turns out to be advantageous, it's OK for everyone else to use your difference for their advantage, and you're supposed to go along and be grateful that you are now an "accepted" member of the "in" crowd. Which status would be snatched away in a second if you either stopped allowing yourself to be used or if you expressed anything other than 100% gratitude for everyone else's "beneficence" towards you.
Bah! Humbug! Indeed.
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The major sport of the past 10 days (other than dancing around in relief that Nebraska is back after the Huskers shellacked the Arizona Wildcats 33-0 in the Holiday Bowl) has been taking pot-shots at snow removal crews in the Metro area. I refuse to join in. Those people worked long and hard, probably missing Christmas Day dinner with their families (amongst other important aspects of the holiday celebrations), in a monumental effort to cope with a total snowfall over the past two weeks that outpaced most entire winters since the mid-70s.
But all that people seem to be concerned about is that (1) their street wasn't plowed out at once; and (2) the snowplow crews were pushing snow back into their driveways that they'd just shoveled. I have no sympathy for them. Major arterials and emergency routes have to be opened and kept clear first; the residential neighborhoods are a lower priority. That's life. If you don't want to be plowed out last, move to a location along an emergency route. Oh . . . but then you'd be on a busy street and not off in some quiet cul-de-sac somewhere. Grow up, people. You can't have it both ways.
And by the way--your driveways would not have been plowed back in if you hadn't shoveled your snow out into the street in the first place. You don't want your driveway plowed back in after a storm? Shovel your snow up onto your yard, not out into the street. Good grief! What a bunch of whiners and moaners!
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Bad enough that Christmas decorations are now up before Halloween in many retail establishments. Bad enough that we are pummelled with TV commercials and print ads to "buy, buy, buy" as if that were the reason for the holiday season. What's worse is that everything grinds to a complete stop on Christmas Day. Christmas Day should be the beginning of the celebration, not the end of it! "The Twelve Days of Christmas" start on Christmas Day and go until Epiphany (or Twelfth Night) Eve. Not only should we do more to keep the real reasons for the season foremost in our minds and hearts, we should try to spread the joy throughout the season as it was originally designed to be. Keep your lights and decorations up and on until at least Epiphany (January 6th). Listen to Christmas music till then, too. Don't just stop, turn away, and go on to the next buying occasion, despite all the store ads now appearing for Valentine's Day candy and gifts. Please!
Before last night's Big XII Championship Game between the University of Nebraska Cornhuskers, winners of the Big XII North division, and the University of Texas Longhorns, winners of the Big XII South division (undefeated, and consensus #2 NCAA Division IA team in the nation after Alabama upset Florida yesterday), the general attitude in these parts was that Texas would probably win, though it was going to be closer than most national pundits would expect. And that's exactly what happened. Texas won the game 13-12, coming from behind with a 38-yard field goal with literally only one second on the clock.
So why does everyone in Husker Nation this morning feel rotten? Probably because two Nebraska errors (one poor execution, one 15-yard penalty) in the last one-and-a-half minutes (or so) of the game are the only reasons Texas was in a position to win at all. Nebraska scored a field goal to take the lead, 12-10 with about 1:40 left on the game clock. On the ensuing kick-off, instead of burying Texas deep in its own half of the field, the NU kicker flubbed it, and the ball went out of bounds short, giving Texas excellent field position near its own 40 yard line. And then a Nebraska defensive back, in trying to minimize the damage of a nineteen-yard-plus passing gain by Texas, made a horse collar tackle on the receiver . . . giving Texas another 15 yards on top of the gain, and another first down.
A couple of plays later, Texas QB Colt McCoy stopped the clock by throwing an incomplete pass so that there was only 1 second left on the official game clock--a play that had to be reviewed because several (including ALL the Cornhuskers) thought time had actually run out and Nebraska had won.
As it was, the Texas kicker was less than a yard away from missing the kick wide to the left. And at least 2 NU defenders were within inches of getting their hands on the ball and deflecting the kick.
The loss feels so especially awful because it's a classic case of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. No one gave NU a serious chance in the game. The Huskers were a 14-point (if not more) underdog. And they came out firing on all cylinders, because they seemed to realize they had nothing to lose and everything to gain. On their first offensive series, they went for it on 4th-and-1. They didn't make it, but they were fairly deep in Texas' territory, and it sure sent the message to the Longhorns that the Huskers were not intimidated and that they'd come to play.
The old saying that "offense wins games but defense wins championships" is true . . . to a point. Defense can get you close to winning championships, but you have to score more points than the other guy to win. The Husker defense did its job. It held the vaunted Texas offense, which until last night had averaged 43 points per game, to only one touchdown. But NU's offense has had its ups--and downs--all season long. The most common term I've heard to describe the offense is "non-existent." They couldn't score even one touchdown against Texas last night. I do not mean to diss the Longhorns' defense. They are excellent--among the top 5 in the nation. But the Huskers had plenty of chances. They just couldn't capitalize on them, be it due to interceptions, penalties (some of dubious merit), or some questionable play calling.
I thought it was brilliant that NU head coach Bo Pelini put All-Universe defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh in as a fullback on more than one key third down play. I do not think it was brilliant that Suh was used as a blocker for the ball carrier in those situations. The entire Texas defensive line keyed on Suh--I can but wonder what would have happened had the Huskers put Suh in, let Texas go after him, and run the ball carrier on a counter, up the other side of the field. Methinks THAT would have gotten the Huskers some serious offensive yardage, as long as they didn't run such a play more than twice.
So the Huskers finished their regular season at 9-4, which would have been unthinkably awful 10 years ago, but is an improvement after the debacle of the Pederson-Callahan years. And the season could have been much better than that. They could have beaten Virginia Tech (lost by only one point, again, on a last minute bit of brilliance by Tech); they should have beaten both Iowa State (lost that game by 2 points after making a record-setting 8 offensive turnovers) AND Texas (as we've just discussed). The only superlatively bad game they had was the blowout they suffered at the hands of Texas Tech. Still, coach Bo Pelini and his staff have done well in this, only their second season.
The moral of the story is that having some hope often feels worse than having none. With some hope, one can be tormented by the "coulda, woulda, shoulda"s. With no hope, there are NO "coulda, woulda, shoulda"s. With some hope, even a loss that everyone else said was inevitable feels worse than a loss when there never was any chance to win. A loss like last night's leaves one feeling that "we wuz robbed!" even though that's not what happened. Putting that one second back on the clock was the correct call, as the replay showed. Besides, blaming the loss on that last play is like everyone bleating about how the GOP stole Florida in the 2000 presidential election. What happened in Florida would have been 100% irrelevant to the outcome if Al Gore had only managed to win his own home state of Tennessee. Had the final Huskers' kick off put Texas deep in its own territory, even if the horse collar tackle had still happened and been penalized, Texas most probably would not have been able to get close enough to try that last-second field goal in the first place.
Let's just hope that the Huskers learn the right lessons from this season's ups and downs, and that Pelini works as hard and as diligently on preparing the offense for next year as he did the defense for this one. Oh, and that the Huskers win big in their upcoming bowl game.
It must be the general darkness and creepiness of the season (as some choose to characterize it, that is), but I am in one foul mood right now. Either that, or the collective weight of the crummy news this week has finally overwhelmed me. I had thought that President Obama's election was a new beginning for America, a revival of the America that the Founders envisioned, an America with a system of government unique in the history of the world. This week, however, I have decided that America's decline is irrevocable, and we are sliding down to an ignominious end.
There are no truer words in the Bible: the love of money is the root of all evil. And the love of money is what has done in America. Our Founding Fathers envisioned a country where merit and objective standards determined our fate, but what we have wound up with is the same thing that has brought down most, if not all, other great experiments in human self-governance: an oligarchy. Only the minute details differ. America is not an oligarchy based on birth. America is not an oligarchy based on intelligence. America has become an oligarchy based on money. To put it less delicately (and as I have noted before): them what has the gold makes the rules. Or even less delicately: the only thing that trickles down to people like me in a trickle-down economy is pee.
The ingredients? Keep as many people as possible out of good housing. Since public school budgets are based on property values, this preserves inequities in the educational system. Moreover, work at dumbing down the public education system and move all the rich kids into private schools. "No Child Left Behind"? Hardly. More like "Every Child Except the Child of Millionaires Left Behind." The educational inequities produce a less skilled workforce, which will work for lower wages and no benefits (especially once you convince them that unions are evil), which can be led around by the nose by propaganda masquerading as news. Truth doesn't matter. Facts do not matter. The only thing that matters is how much money you can throw around to drown out the voices of those who disagree with the desire of the rich to keep those riches for itself.
The only thing that can fight money is more money--and for those who have barely enough to cover their basic expenses every month, it's impossible to contribute (monetarily) to even the most worthy of causes. I admire and respect what True Majority does, but if I have to choose between paying for prescription refills and giving money to True Majority, guess where the money is going? To my prescription refills. As a matter of survival, I literally have no other choice.
Money in politics is as corrosive and corrupting and disruptive as are illegal steroids in sports. Right now, health insurance companies are running an ad designed to frighten our senior citizens into crying out against health care reform, on the grounds that "a government takeover of health care" will result in reduced Medicare benefits to them. I'm not even going to get into the irony that Medicare is itself a government-run program. I'm not even going to get into noting that the allegation that Medicare benefits are going to be reduced is simply untrue.
I am going to note only that the health insurance companies have the money to air these ads around the clock, on every channel, and especially on channels identified [rightly or wrongly--Ed.] as "liberal" outlets. My own reaction, when I first saw that ad running on MSNBC, was where the heck are the MSNBC bigwigs? Why are they allowing this? It's an implicit endorsement of what the ad is saying. And then I thought maybe the powers that be at MSNBC are "taking the money and running." That thought was amusing at first. It also reaffirmed my belief that people who tend to pay attention will get the irony of the ad airing on MSNBC and will see it for what it is, an outright lie. But now that that ad has pummelled me for a week, at all hours of the day and night, I think the true purpose is what has,in fact, happened to me. I am tired and overwhelmed. I no longer have the mental energy to push back. I am suffering from issue fatigue, and, compounded by my illness, I am no longer able to mount anything other than this most feeble protest. In short, I am on the verge of giving up.
About one percent of the people in this country hold well over half the total wealth of this country. And that one percent is not just able, but willing, to spend whatever it takes to drown out the rest of us. I could even live with that if the rest of us were holding our own, but we aren't. Purchasing power and standards of living for the traditional "middle class" in this country have declined, frighteningly so, in the past decade. Yet the überrich are not content to keep what they have. They are intent on amassing ever more of the country's total wealth for themselves. Their focus is their own short-term economic gain. They are trying to undo every single thing that this country has done in the past 150 years that put ANY kind of limit on them at all. And the rest of us can just go hang, as far as they are concerned.
Short-sighted? Yes. Ultimately stupid? Indubitably. It's not unlike the situation from a few decades ago when the loggers in the northwest wanted unrestricted access, to cut down all the old-growth forest, and to hell with the spotted owl. Yes, the loggers and their families would have more work and more money . . . for a while. But when the old growth is gone, it's gone. Forever. Then what? Likewise, once we lose everything and can no longer subsidize the lifestyles of the very rich, what will they do? They don't even think about that. They don't care. Their only concern is to top their previous quarter's record-breaking earnings. Gordon Gekko has won. Even people who don't share in the bounty think that greed is good, for they HOPE to share in that bounty someday. That "that ain't gonna happen" doesn't even occur to them. They've bought into the propaganda. They'd eat their children if they thought it would help them gain the keys to the kingdom.
At times like this, I am glad I am so sick, for I do not want to live through what this trend, continued unabated, inevitably will cause. I weep for the America that could have been. I mourn for the average citizens of the America that is to come. Then again, if the Mayans and the Chinese and Nostradamus and all the other prognosticators are right (according to the History Channel, that is), we're all going to die in 2012, so at least our continued suffering will be short.
In case you are not familiar with it, please go and check out the web site www.delanceyplace.com. You can sign up to receive daily excerpts from significant works of history, culture, and science. You can also make suggestions for publication, if you've read something that you think deserves wider dissemination. It's a great way to fulfill your need to "learn something new" every day.
Toward the end of last week, www.delanceyplace.com sent out excerpts from notes describing the debate at the convention of delegates who created our Constitution. My OMG moment while reading this was as follows: if you put the language into contemporary syntax and usage, you will find you are describing the tea-baggers, conspiracy theorists, and other assorted nut cases who are encouraged to spew their ignorance by the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Fox "News." I now see the Founders' point--and agree with it.
What really distresses me about my change of mind is that I used to be totally against those of the Founders who spoke in favor of limiting direct democracy, seeing as how I'd probably be one of the ones disenfranchised due to my social standing as based on my birth. I now find that I am not opposed to a "meritocracy" when that merit is judged by one's education and capacity for rational thought. I am opposed to it only when its criteria are things like (1) being a white male of a certain age who (2) owns a certain amount of real estate. By those criteria, the tea-baggers and the other crazies might still qualify to vote, thus leading the country straight into the toilet of stupidity down which they today are still trying to flush us.
Anyway, with no further ado, here is the text of the excerpt emailed out to www.delanceyplace.com subscribers:
In today's excerpt - because of the inherent distrust of pure democracy that existed in the 1780s, only the members of the House of Representatives were to be elected directly by the people in the original U.S. Constitution; Senators were chosen by their state's legislature, and the President was to be chosen by electors. The comments below come from the notes of the debate of the Constitutional Convention itself, and show there was considerable opposition even to allowing the people vote directly for representatives:
"ROGER SHERMAN [of Connecticut]: Election [of the members of the House of Representatives] should be by the state legislatures. The people immediately should have as little to do as may be about the government. They lack information and are constantly liable to be misled. If the state governments are to be continued, it is necessary in order to preserve harmony between the national and state governments, that the elections to the former should be made by the latter. The right of participation in the national government will be sufficiently secured to the people by their election of the state legislatures.
ELBRIDGE GERRY [of Massachusetts]: The evils we experience flow from the excess of democracy. The people do not lack virtue, but are the dupes of pretended patriots. In Massachusetts it has been fully confirmed by experience that they are daily misled into the most baneful measures and opinions by the false reports circulated by designing men. One principal evil arises from the want of due provision for those employed in the administration of government. It would seem to be a maxim of democracy to starve the public servants.
CHARLES PINCKNEY [of South Carolina]: The people are less fit judges in such a case than the legislatures, and the legislatures will be less likely to promote the adoption of the new government if they are to be excluded from all share in it.
WILLIAM PATERSON [of New Jersey]: If the sovereignty of the states is to be maintained, the representatives must be drawn immediately from the states, not from the people.
JOHN RUTLEDGE [of South Carolina]: Election by the legislatures would be more refined than an election immediately by the people, and more likely to correspond with the sense of the whole community. If this Convention had been chosen by the people in districts, it is not to be supposed that such proper characters would have been preferred. The delegates to [the Continental] Congress have also been fitter men than would have been appointed by the people at large.
JOHN MERCER [of Virginia]: The people cannot know and judge of the characters of candidates. The people in towns can unite their votes in favor of one favorite, and by that means always prevail over the people of the country, who, being dispersed, will scatter their votes among a variety of candidates. ...
PINCKNEY: The first branch should be elected by the people, in such mode as the state legislatures shall direct.
GERRY: The people should nominate a certain number, out of which the state legislatures should be bound to choose. Experience has shown that state legislatures drawn immediately from the people do not always possess their confidence. An election by the people should be so qualified that men of honor and character might not be unwilling to be joined in the appointments. The people could choose double the requisite number, the legislature to appoint out of them the authorized number of each state.
MERCER: Candidates should be nominated by the state legislatures and elected by the people, who should not be left to make their choice without any guidance."
Jane Butzner (Jacobs), Constitutional Chaff, Copyright 1941 by Columbia University Press, pp. 8-9.
