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Monthly Archives: March 2012

Religious Humor – The Type That Would Be Funny If It Weren’t True

March 31, 2012

Two Men and a Bible

Goober #2 Who's the bad seed?

According to evangelist Franklin Graham, President Obama’s “problem is that he was born a Muslim, his father was a Muslim. The seed of Islam is passed through the father like the seed of Judaism is passed through the mother. He was born a Muslim, his father gave him an Islamic name,”  Franklin Graham told CNN’s John King in a televised interview that aired Thursday night.

“Now it’s obvious that the president has renounced the prophet Mohammed, and he has renounced Islam, and he has accepted Jesus Christ. That’s what he says he has done. I cannot say that he hasn’t. So I just have to believe that the president is what he has said,” Graham continued, adding that “the Islamic world sees the president as one of theirs.”   SOURCE 

Along these same lines

Lot’s son Moab is described as being born from an incestuous relationship between Lot and his eldest daughter (Genesis 19:37) after the destruction of Sodom. The Moabites are described as descendants of Lot’s son Moab.

Ruth, a young woman of Moab, was the great-grandmother of David and, according to the Christian tradition, an ancestress of Jesus.

So as seeds go, Jesus didn’t turn out to be anything like an ancestral mother of his.  And if one accepts scripture as true, God didn’t seem to have any problem impregnating the mother of Jesus who carried that seed from a tribe viewed as inferiors to the Israelites, the so-called “chosen people”

Is there is lesson here Franklin Graham seems not to have grasped from his reading of the Bible?

 

BUT GRAHAM AIN’T GOT NOTHING OVER INHOFE

Goober #1

 

Where Graham’s lapse of the Biblical Moab seed is apparent, another phony Christian seems to have read more into the Bible than what is there.

In a radio interview with Voice of Christian Youth America, Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) argued that his belief that global warming is a hoax is biblically inspired. Promoting his book The Greatest Hoax: How the Global Warming Conspiracy Threatens Your Future, Inhofe told interviewer Vic Eliason on Wednesday that only God can change the climate, and the idea that manmade pollution could affect the seasons is “arrogance“:

Well actually the Genesis 8:22 that I use in there is that “as long as the earth remains there will be springtime and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, day and night.” My point is, God’s still up there. The arrogance of people to think that we, human beings, would be able to change what He is doing in the climate is to me outrageous.    SOURCE 

I think the key phrase here is, “as long as the earth remains …”.  This of course presumes that the earth may not remain and one of the factors that may effect its demise is the increased CO2 in the atmosphere manufactured by man-made fossil fuels.

In the preceding verse (21) God tells Noah, “And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done.”   Clearly God doesn’t personally plan to effect the climate change that would cause floods and rising sea levels but, along with giving man free-will, he did establish a natural order of things and if that natural order is altered any with say ….. elevated green house gases from burning fossil fuels for the last 200 plus years, then it would be man, not God, responsible for the consequences of climate change.

Of course these scriptures were written some three thousand years ago so not everyone can be as sure as Inhofe is that God’s still up there.  He may be off creating another Universe since the inhabitants he is said to have created on one of our solar system’s planet nailed his son to a cross.  We could well be on our own and from the looks of who’s running Congress, it most certainly seems we have been abandoned by the God of reason.

Posted by in Climate Science/Global Warming, Humor, Religion/Science Tags: , , , , , , , ,

9 comments

“I felt more intimacy with asphalt”

March 29, 2012

There’s a video making the cyber rounds that many more women have seen I’m sure than men.  For obvious reasons.  It speaks to the intrusions the state makes on a woman’s personal life that only the most religious fundamentalist would not object to but who would invoke the Almighty himself if that same state imposed restrictions on prayers in public school.  It also graphically depicts there are consequences forced on the young girl who feels pressured by the state to carry an unwanted pregnancy to full term.

The video poem has received praise from around the country

MoveOn.org called [it] “the most riveting message on the war on women in under three minutes.”  The poem has also been featured on Daily Kos, RH Reality Check and On the Issues Magazine. Along with stunning hate mail, she was nominated for State Poet Laureate, gave a TED talk and has since shared stages with top business leaders, state officials and rock stars.   SOURCE

 

Words are powerful tools.  They are to the poet what the hammer and chisel are to the sculpture and the brush and palette are to the painter.  They create imagery more powerful than the common expressions most people use in their daily conversations with each other.

Lauren Zuniga’s poem here elicits the deep emotions and concerns of teens and young women who have been traumatized, not only by a brutal sexual encounters but the continued rape of their body by strangers who cannot share their pain as they dictate their actions from the cold marble halls of a state legislature.  Laura’s words expressed in the rhythm she uses will capture your emotions and give you a sense of not only the pain these women experience during the sexual assaults on them but the pain any woman would feel if they were required to endure the vaginal probes they are forced to undergo by many state laws if they are contemplating aborting an unwanted pregnancy.

If you’re not simply overwhelmed by her sense of outrage in these verses then you then you might want to check and see if you have a pulse.

 

To the Oklahoma law makers who will force all women to receive an ultrasound prior to an abortion by Laura Zuniga

Why don’t you print out the ultrasound pictures in pastel framed.

Make me take them home and hang them on my wall as a souvenir of the night that is branded like red coals to flesh on my memory.

The night when his hand pressed so hard against my shoulder blade

I felt more intimacy with asphalt.

 

Why don’t you knit the baby a sweater.  Make me take it out and smell it

on the anniversary of this day for the rest of my life

to remind me that I chose to be a “murderer”,

instead of bringing a child into a world where we kill people in the name of freedom

but imprison people in the name of life.

You could pass laws for that too, you know.

 

It’s bad enough that I can still see his hand prints on my thighs,

but now I can see your probing eyes

scraping across my cervix, tattooing my womb with shame.

 

Why don’t you send me a card every Mother’s Day

to remind me of how wretched I am

Sign it, “your friends at the state capital”

making sure you know we actually do something all day with your tax dollars.”

 

Look, I know it can get boring

between the porkers association breakfast and the oil and gas industry lunch

and I know you need something to do

between screwing up our election system and

passing off your racism as an immigration bill

but I need a little more from you than a piece of paper.

 

I mean if you really want to show me

that you believe in faith, family and freedom

then why don’t you come along for the ride.

I could have used you that night, after the football game.

Him finally showing me attention, me grasping for acceptance.

 

Tell me I’m special so when he hands me the next drink

I don’t look to the bottom of it for approval.

Tell me to scream louder so someone might find us.

Wrap me in a blanket when he’s done.

Take me home.

 

My body, a tapped keg

My heart, the grimy gym floor after the pep rally.

Give me the words to say to my parents

when I come out of the bathroom with a plus sign on the stick

and he won’t even talk to me.

 

The school hallway is a canyon, silence echos in my skull

and I don’t know what to do.  Tell me what to do.

Sit with me at the clinic

The ticker plucking away at my innocence.

Give me the revelation that the blip on the screen is actually a baby.

 

Take me home when I change my mind.

Take me to the doctor every month.

Hold my hand in the delivery room.

I will name him after you if will help me do my homework

when he’s crying in the next room.

 

Give me food stamps, pay my gas bills,

put him in an after school program

where he learns he can sell my pain pills.

Have mercy on him when he goes to court.

Give me strength when they sentence him.

 

If you want to play God, Mr. and Mrs Lawmakers;

If you want to write your bible on my on my organs

then you better be there

when I am down on my knees,

pleading for relief from your morality

 

Related Article:

Violence Against Women is as American as Apple Pie

Posted by in Music/Poetry Tags: , , ,

7 comments

Misplaced Meritocracy

March 27, 2012

A recent contributor to the “Letters to the Editor” column in my local newspaper proposed a concept that clearly lacked critical analysis.  It associates itself with laissez faire free marketers who view wealth as an important measure for gauging  purpose and value to one’s life.  Included in this notion is the added concept that certain rights and privileges should come to those who “have more to risk”.  This is “free market speak” for those who possess the greatest wealth.

In the letter, the writer starts off on solid ground

The ultimate expression of fairness in our society is the concept of one person, one vote. It is the great equalizer or leveler of people. No matter how much money you have, your vote counts just the same as the homeless person. That’s as it should be.

But then he begins to take a hard right to the notion that this concept can be played out equally in other social systems.

But if that holds true for voting, why shouldn’t it hold true for income taxes: one person, one tax. That way every person has skin in the game, as they say.

As a percentage, the more you make, the more you pay, but the percentage each person pays on income is the same for everyone or true equality.

Conversely, if a progressive tax system is so good, maybe we should also have a progressive voting system.

The more you make, the more you have at risk, thus the more voting power you should have. 

I could challenge his notions about a “flat tax” but my interest in his comments lie with what appears to be a distorted version of a meritocracy.  One that presumes people of wealth are necessarily the most qualified to make choices for everyone else.  In a true meritocracy talent and ability makes one exceptional, not their class or wealth.  But what’s being suggested here is that we reward the wealthy by giving them more power because somehow they have earned that right.

There’s definitely a need for a truer application of meritocracy within government.  Some presidents and state executives have done a better job instilling qualified leaders in their positions than others.  President Obama’s recent appointment of Dr. Jim Yong Kim to head the World Bank appears to be a good example of filling a critical role with the right person.  Bush’s appointment of Michael Brown to FEMA in 2003 is a tragic example of meritocracy’s absence.  But as a form of government who some seek to replace our democracy, human limitations and weaknesses are also sure to diminish this system of efficiency.

“The more you make, the more you have at risk”,  our letter writer rationalizes.  Wealthy people however are often more clever than they are intelligent, thoughtful people and have been known to engage in unethical behavior to accumulate their wealth.  In conjunction with this is the central principle of laissez faire thinking, where people always do what is in their own self interests.  Not exactly a prime consideration for someone you want making decisions that affect us all.

To get a sense of how some acquire their wealth in socially unacceptable ways, one only has to read Greg Smith’s recent Op-ed letter in the NY Times explaining why he left a lucrative career at Goldman Sachs after investing twelve years of his life there.  “I believe I have worked here long enough” Smith tells us,  “to understand the trajectory of its culture, its people and its identity. And I can honestly say that the environment now is as toxic and destructive as I have ever seen it.”

I hope this can be a wake-up call to the board of directors. Make the client the focal point of your business again. Without clients you will not make money. In fact, you will not exist. Weed out the morally bankrupt people, no matter how much money they make for the firm. And get the culture right again, so people want to work here for the right reasons. People who care only about making money will not sustain this firm — or the trust of its clients — for very much longer.   SOURCE

Focusing on others more than self is the hallmark of both good business and government leadership; something that was missing in both leading up to the great recession of 2008.

In his scathing indictment of wealthy bankers back in February, 2011 Matt Taibbi reminds us how the economy began to tank as a result of the financial meltdown that was ignited by Wall Street greed.  “Virtually every major bank and financial company … [was] embroiled in obscene criminal scandals that impoverished millions and collectively destroyed hundreds of billions, in fact, trillions of dollars of the world’s wealth — and nobody went to jail.”     

TIME magazine listed those who were behind this failure and everyone of them had acquired great wealth in part or in whole from those obscene criminal scandals.  They were aided and abetted by those in government who relaxed or removed the regulatory oversight that had been set up years ago to prevent this very thing from happening again.  Wealth, therefore, clearly doesn’t earn someone a special right to have a greater say in how our government operates.

I would point out too that there is this idealized vision of ardent capitalists who insist that incorporated within the free-markets principals of capitalism is a control measure called “the invisible hand”.  It is deeply held by some that the invisible hand of the free-market will prevent excessive greed by those humans who practice these principles.  Ideally, competition between producers and providers of goods and services would ultimately work to benefit socially desirable ends, even though their goals were not intended for this purpose.

This might have made sense to Wealth of Nations author Adam Smith and men of commerce back in the 18th century, thinking as they might that honorable people would always dominate the ranks of those in commercial enterprises.  But in today’s world of multinational corporations and banks “too big to fail”,  the invisible hand of the free markets is often found stuffed in the pockets of trusting but gullible investors and most consumers while making monetary deposits in the campaign coffers of willing politicians.  When “honorable” men and women in the corporate world do condemn such practices today, most it seems usually do so after the fact and with only ineffectual reprimands against those who have been caught.

What seems to be lost on this letter-to-the-editor writer, or what he’s willing to ignore, is that the wealthy already have a greater say in how government runs and how it does so to the advantage of the privileged one-percent.  Their people in the Supreme Court have already allowed money to serve as free speech’s equal following their decision in Citizens United vs. FEC and behind closed doors there exists the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the corporate-funded entity that works to “hand state legislators the changes to the law they desire that directly benefit their bottom line.”

The value of a true meritocracy has been lost on those died-in-the-wool defenders of capitalism.  Crony capitalism has served as a substitute for those who truly have the skills and talent to run government where it ably serves all of its citizens.  The norm we’re left with are those political office holders and corporate lobbyists who interchangeably go from public sector jobs to private sector positions and back again, making the rules that we all have to live by while they become independently wealthy and secure from legal persecution.

In a corporate version of meritocracy the only criteria to advance and distinguish yourself is to acquire more wealth than the fellow in front and back of you.  Your major skill asset is your ability to keep pace with this goal lest you get overrun from behind.

Posted by in Corporate Influence Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

7 comments

Sunday Humor

March 25, 2012

Paintball Redemption

Thanks to Sheryl over at her spinnyliberal blog for this information

When you’re lost and your life seems aimless, there’s one sure way to regain your bearings and find that direction to lift you up. Play paintball.

"Not a racist" Paula Smith

Take it from Paula Smith who owns Low Country Paintball just outside of Ludowici, Ga.  Paula was recently discovered to be the promoter of the racist bumper sticker by the lady who claims she isn’t a racist.

Besides co-owning Low Country Paintball with her husband, she also owns a small bumper sticker business called Stickatude.com.  It appears this wasn’t a very profitable business until she added the “Don’t Re-Nig” bumper sticker to her assorted collection.

Ms. Smith said she is not racist, she just wants Obama out of office. She tells me she doesn’t have a preferred replacement candidate. “And besides Obama is not even black. He’s got a mixture of race. It’s his choice of what his nationality is. I’m a mixed breed. I call myself a Heinz 57,” she says, referring to an ancestry that’s part of French, Scottish, and German.

“I just want someone that’s going to help the United States and not give it other countries all the time. And stop giving the immigrants the benefits that most Americans inside their own states can’t even get because they’re giving it others who don’t even live here as an American.    SOURCE

Yes, Obama doesn’t have to view himself as “black”.  That doesn’t mean Georgia white trash can’t though.

Ms. Smith applies even more low country Georgia logic to inform us why she’s not prejudice.  The word “nig” used in the bumper sticker doesn’t really mean what conventional dictionaries define it as.  According to the Ludowici translation it simply means “a low down, lazy, sorry, low down person. That’s what the N word means.”

It also appears that you actually have to mouth the word to be truly considered a racist.  When asked if she thought the “N” Word was a bad word? she said, “No, because I don’t use it.”

But if this isn’t proof enough for all you narrow-minded liberal social elites out there then you can choke on your own misgivings when she gives you the ultimate example of her non-racists sentiments.

“I’ve helped black families…to guide them in the right direction. Paintball is one of these things. We like to laugh and have a good time. That’s our way of life.”

Notice how everyone is laughing in this photo of paintball enthusiasts taken from Low Country’s website.  Everyone except the two black people near the right end of this photo.

The guy on the very end, next to them, is laughing so hard he has passed out standing up.  It’s either that or he’s trying to discern if he wore matching shoes for this event.

Posted by in Humor Tags: , , , ,

4 comments

An Extremist’s View of an America Lost

March 23, 2012

The mainstream media and many bloggers are focusing on the Trayvon Martin killing as race-based.  Is something else really going on here, making race merely a bi-product of this shooting?

UPDATED 8:12am C 3/23/12 


Judge Roy Bean and George Zimmerman.  Judge, jury and executioners?

 

 

 

 

In most of my writings that were aimed at ultra-conservatives, the Tea Party, right-wing extremists and their media talking heads, I have usually hit on a central theme of theirs that conjures up an America that existed in another time period.  Their call to reclaim America from their perceived enemies is not uncommon from some on the political left.  The difference as I see it though seems to be one in where the more conservative factions want to relive an era where minorities were mostly disenfranchised and along with women, had little political power.

Following the recent killing of Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida, I can now add vigilantism to this state of mind.  Hispanic-American George Zimmerman, who falsely claimed to be an authorized neighborhood watch captain, most likely killed Taryvon Martin with the belief or knowledge that a new law would protect his right to do so.  Furthermore, according to a report by Brendan Fischer at the Center for Media and Democracy, the shooter has legal immunity from prosecution.

The law, also pushed by its supporters under the name the “Castle Doctrine,” changes state criminal justice and civil law codes by giving legal immunity to a person who uses “deadly force if he or she reasonably believes it is necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony.” It also bars the deceased’s family from bringing a civil suit.   SOURCE

Upon close scrutiny, the actions of shooter George Zimmerman and the poor response from Sanford Police Chief Bill Lee, the bygone law of the West seems to be in force.  Judd Legum on the ThinkProgress blog has broken down the details of this event via recorded news accounts.    Here’s a thumbnail sketch of Legum’s report

  • Zimmerman called police to report “suspicious” behavior from what he presumed at the time was a black person.  He also presumed Taylor was “up to no good, on drugs or something” and then told the police dispatcher that  “These a**holes always get away”
  • Zimmerman pursued Taylor after he was told by the police dispatcher not to.
  • That Taylor posed a threat to Zimmerman is dubious since, besides pursuing Taylor which initiated the confrontation, he was 110 lbs. heavier than Taylor and was armed with a 9 millimeter handgun while Martin was found carrying only a bag of Skittles and a can of iced tea
  • Martin had no criminal record while police records show that Zimmerman “was charged in July 2005 with resisting arrest with violence and battery on an officer”.
  • The police failed to test Zimmerman for drugs or alcohol use.
  • They failed to properly question Zimmerman.  A source inside the police department told ABC News that a narcotics detective and not a homicide detective first approached Zimmerman. The detective peppered Zimmerman with questions, the source said, rather than allow Zimmerman to tell his story. Questions can lead a witness, the source said.  SOURCE
  • Police accepted Zimmerman’s version of who yelled out for help rather than those of some witnesses who felt certain it was the voice of a child and it appears they amended the initial police report that had no account of a bloody nose or wet shirt on Zimmerman

There are a couple of other issues here that incriminate him.   First, his father told sources that his son has a spotless record before the assault incident in 2005 was revealed.  Second, Zimmerman’s behavior in his self-appointed role as a watch captain and how he carried this out seemed zealous to many of those in his community.  It didn’t help either that there was a prevailing attitude toward what one resident of the Retreat at Twin Lakes community referred to as “low-lifes and gangsters”.  Such was the assessment of one of Zimmerman’s acquaintance, Frank Taaffe, a former neighborhood block captain.

What makes this less of a racial issue however and more of an historical mind-set issue is the fact that Zimmerman is of hispanic heritage and a few of his neighbors, including two black residents, reported that they liked and trusted him.

We currently don’t have any documentation to attest to Zimmerman and Taaffe’s political persuasion to see if they were stringent pro-gun, anti-Obama advocates; especially those who are prone to rally around the “take our country back” call .  But what we do seem to have is that their state of mind reflects those people who are unable to grasp the social changes our nation has been undergoing for the last half century and  whose fear of people unlike themselves often draws negative preconceived notions

Legitimate concern for one’s safety, especially in a neighborhood where crime is prevalent would understandably affect some to the point of purchasing a weapon to protect themselves and give them a sense of security.  The neighborhood that Zimmerman lived in and Taylor was visiting that week back in February this year seemed to be such a place.

“police records, …  show that 50 suspicious-person reports were called in to police in the past year at Twin Lakes. There were eight burglaries, nine thefts and one other shooting in the year prior to Trayvon’s death.

In all, police had been called to the 260-unit complex 402 times from Jan. 1, 2011 to Feb. 26, 2012.”    SOURCE

Forty-six of those calls, over 10%, were made by one man – George Zimmerman.

When fear grips the mind beyond a point that justifies it, people can over react to perceived threats.  Time and the fact that the local police are not always able or even willing to see things as seriously can lead a person to think they have to take action into their own hands.  A reaction that was the norm on the frontiers of early American civilization.

The one restraint that has perhaps prevented many of these people to go over board in acting on their fears are the laws that forbid people to act in vigilante style.  Remove that public restraint and people like George Zimmerman will begin to feel empowered to chase a suspicious asshole down and draw his 9mm handgun to kill him if he gets too close; an encounter that resulted in all likelihood because one zealous individual didn’t know where to draw the line in protecting his neighborhood.

The political right’s pervasive fear that the America they claim they once knew is disappearing under the leadership of a black president with distant ties to the Muslim faith has overwhelmed so many to a point that has allowed the state of Florida and 21 other states to revert back to the Wild West, issuing “stand your ground” laws, that were essentially written by the NRA, and allow citizens to shoot anyone, even away from their own home, who, under the new law “reasonably fears [anyone who poses an] imminent peril of death or great bodily harm to [themselves] or another.”

I don’t think it has dawned on some people that as they vote for those politicians that keep making deep budget cuts while avoiding raising taxes to provide basic services like police and fire protection, they are opening that dangerous territory where the heavily armed yet undetected mentally unstable individual down the road can shoot you in cold blood if your dog unintentionally poops in his flower bed.  Or it could be someone like George Zimmerman who has allowed the real or perceived racial tensions in his neighborhood push him over the brink and revert to actions we outlawed, for good reason, over a century ago.

Posted by in political fringe groups Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

18 comments

When People and Our Humanity Disappear

March 21, 2012

A beautiful woman vying for a state competition is as common in Texas as droughts and Friday night football. We have plenty of all three.  Texas can lay claim to two former Ms. America’s in Shirley Cothran (1975)  and her predecessor back in 1971, Phyllis George.    Both attended school at North Texas State University, my old alma mater, which has had a name change since then to the University of North Texas.  But there is a departure in this norm today where one young contestant seeking recognition by the general public is not in it for the looks or talent. 

UNT student Skylar Conover

photo by Al Key, Denton Record-Chronicle

 

University of North Texas student Skylar Conover is competing with other Texas physically handicapped women for the title of Ms. Wheelchair Texas.

The 22-year-old was diagnosed with facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy — a disease that causes progressive muscle weakness and loss of muscle tissue — during her freshmen year of high school. Going from being a cheerleader and dancer to having to use a wheelchair was a drastic change for Conover.

“My whole life flipped upside down,” she said.

Conover said her friends disappeared after she was diagnosed because they didn’t know how to deal with it.

That’s why she decided to conduct workshops with youth groups to educate them about the different types of disabilities and teach them to be compassionate.     SOURCE

What caught my eye about this story was not the courage Skylar is showing for not allowing her fate to devolve into despair and dependency.  It is indeed no doubt  admirable that she has mustered the mental strength to figuratively make lemon-aide out of lemons.  Though facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy (FSHD) is considered a minor disability that affects approximately 5 out of every 100,000 people, it decreases one’s mobility and their ability to care for themselves.  Read more about this genetic disorder that tends to strike both male and females equally between the ages of 10 and 26.

Skylar’s path for her life has become centered around her discovery since contracting her disability that she is fading from view, at least with those she once considered close personal friends.  This observation is what piqued my interest in her story.

At first, she said, little changed because there was no apparent difference between her and her friends.

“They couldn’t see it, and therefore, it didn’t exist,” she said.

Then, she began using a wheelchair during her junior year [in high school].

“When I started using a wheelchair, all my friends said bye,”  … I appeared to be different. All of my friends disappeared.”      SOURCE

 

Rightly or wrongly I think as many of us can identify with Skylar’s victimizers as we can with her.  High school adolescents is all about appearance.  Looking both  “hot” and “cool” are images that seldom reflect someone who is physically handicapped.    It’s true that there are those at this age who rise above this inappropriate behavior but it still lurks just below the surface with most high schoolers and exposes itself more often than anyone wants.

Skylar herself may have played this role to some degree as a member of the in-crowd in her freshman cheerleader role.  Perhaps she was one of those exceptions though and such esteem-killing behavior never played a part of who she was.

Skylar’s becoming invisible to her friends after contracting FSHD left me thinking how little we seem to realize, especially at early ages, that our treatment of others affects their self-respect.  I can recall a couple of situations where I was a part of that crowd that shunned unacceptables because of how they looked and acted.  These weren’t physically handicapped people either.  They were simply human beings who had the misfortune of being a part of an adolescent social world that seldom looked beyond surface appearances.

We can damage people we deem "unacceptable"

 

I was never the deliberate mean bully who browbeat those who one might consider uncool.  I was even empathetic at times when others weren’t.  But I do recall two incidences that occurred which I was ashamed of later and wish I had the ability to turn back the clock and do things differently.

One occurred in the eight grade to a new girl named Gloria, who transferred to our elementary catholic school when her parents relocated to that area.  Her newness automatically made it a handicap to make friends easily but she had another characteristic that made it difficult for her to meet boys.  In its ugliest manifestation by teenagers, she was simply – fat.  Borderline obese.  As a result, many of the boys in our class weren’t attracted to her.  It falls back on what continues to this day about physical appearance among teens.  Where I saw it hurt her the most was at a class dance.

As Catholics in the early 60’s we socialized in ways where boys and girls would attend planned and chaperoned events and then pick dance partners.  Ideally you were expected to interact with more than one boy and girl but it doesn’t always play out that way.  Everyone linked up with who they had a crush on.  Gloria was perhaps the only girl at the dance who wasn’t being asked to dance.  Only after some of the girls implored the boys to ask Gloria to dance, did she actually get to.  Yet I know she understood these were merely gratuitous gestures on our part and I recall seeing that hurt in her face.

I never saw Gloria after that school year because we went on to separate high schools.  Perhaps she assimilated into the group later unless her parents relocated again and she had to start over and deal with similar abuses from shallow-minded teenage boys.  Perhaps it never changed and her life was never truly fulfilled because of how she grew up seeing herself as others did.

The second incident happened in my sophomore year in high school and was more tragic.  To this day it haunts me a bit.  Jimmy Ray Lee was a thinnish boy who sat next to me in Home Room class.  He had short cropped hair, wore glasses and was a member of the school’s Reserved Officers Training Corps (ROTC) program.  Back in those days some looked down on the ROTC as nerdy.  I neither liked or disliked Jimmy.  My acquaintance with him existed only as a member of my Home Room who happened to sit next to me.

I recall having brief conversations with him but never went much beyond the occasional “this class sucks” or “that teacher blows” comment.  Later I would think how he must have been starved for friendship.  He was trying to fit in where he often wasn’t wanted, wasn’t accepted.  I wasn’t one of the popular crowd in high school but I wasn’t a Jimmy Ray Lee either.

I can’t remember precisely when it occurred but sometime during early 1965 when it was cold enough to require a heater running in your car, Jimmy died from asphyxiation.  Mrs. Iris Farmer, our home room teacher, informed the class the day after his death that he had died as a result of carbon dioxide fumes inside his car.  Evidently as he was running his heater while driving with the windows up, the exhaust gases leaked inside the auto and he was overcome by the toxic fumes.

Mrs. Farmer was visibly upset while sharing this sad incident, crying some as she conveyed what happened.  Unlike the rest us who didn’t truly know Jimmy she apparently had; well enough at least to call him a “gentle, sweet boy” and wondered out loud “why did this have to happen to him”.

 

To this day I wonder if Mrs. Farmer was sparing us all of what really may have happened to the kid no one seemed to like.  Was it an accident or did he intentionally allow the leak he was already aware of to engulf him while he idly ran the car in some secluded spot where no one would see him.  He was invisible to most of us already so he could have just have easily done it in plain sight without anyone giving it much thought.

Jimmy, Gloria and Skylar are victims of a shallow mind set that judges people who appeal to our stereo-types of what is attractive.  It’s an image that has been created in part and nurtured by a culture that values healthy, beautiful people.   Implicit in this perception is that all others are somehow less valuable and to be avoided.

It may not be totally fair to condemn those close friends of Skylars and others their age who shun unacceptables.  They are after all products of the generation who preceded them.  If it were some innate characteristic, some mutant gene that has evolved with the human species then all kids would act this way.  But we know that not all teens are this cruel to their peers.  Some have been raised with a set values that sees people more for who they really are, below their skin or broken body appearance.

There’s no shame to realize we have all been culpable of such hurtful behavior some time in our lives.  I think the real shame occurs when it continues into adulthood and we become unable to acknowledge this ugly side of ourselves.  When confronted by those who know better that infecting others with low self-esteem is wrong, these adults instead make rationalizations for their destructive behavior rather than face any flaw in themselves.  It lives with them and gets passed on to their prodigy where future Skylar Conovers and Jimmy Ray Lees suffer.  An aspect of humanity has indeed disappeared.

We should all celebrate it when someone like Skylar not only doesn’t allow this sickness to take hold but is motivated to eradicate it before it gets started.  But if history is any indication that she will be successful we need only remind ourselves that one of the greatest faith systems that was built on the teachings of love, tolerance and compassion ultimately developed into a springboard for many to persecute those who were different from themselves.

Posted by in Social Discourse, Texas/Local stories Tags: , , , , , , , ,

12 comments

Rick Santorum: Too Far Right To Be Right

March 19, 2012

Rick Santorum wants to protect our families and their children from “hard core” pornography but apparently doesn’t think they need any protection from potential financial ruin or from health threats resulting from man-made global warming.

Though his “war on pornogrophy” is perhaps more a creation of the news media  Santorum has stated that he intends to “vigorously enforce … [the] federal obscenity laws” that are already on the books, implying of course that Obama is  not.  That may be true if for no other reason than President Obama rightly remains more focused on more serious issues that affect more people in more dramatic form than what Santorum feels pornography does.

Several days ago, Goldman Sachs executive director Greg Smith conveyed in a NY Times Op-ed that he had resigned his position there because of the  “toxic and destructive” environment he found himself working in at one of the world’s largest and most important investment banks.  Through deliberate deceit the culture at Goldman has devolved into a pattern of bilking their clients to enhance their own personal wealth.  From chief executive officer, Lloyd C. Blankfein, and the president, Gary D. Cohn down to the junior analysts, Smith charges them with becoming “morally bankrupt”.

On a recent Bill Moyer’s Journal, former Citigroup chairman John S. Reed told Moyer’s that CitiBanks’ merger with Travelers Insurance in 1998 was a mistake that helped push our economy over the edge in 2008.  Reed said “we got carried away with the enthusiasm.  In the 90’s the [Investment Banks] took over, and they basically said to management, ‘We don’t care what you do.  We don’t care how many private jets, houses, golf courses, swimming pools, whatever you have.  As long as you keep the share price going.  Share prices start going down we’re going to get rid of you.  Even if you’re good’”

Like Greg Smith at Goldman Sachs, Reed indicated that accumulating personal wealth became the norm at Citigroup.   Being personally rich “never crossed my mind as an objective”  Reed told Moyers.  The concept of “share value” replaced the concern for customers almost overnight.  Wall Street became obsessed with originating and selling products in the financial markets that Reed said never should have been originated.

This financial pornography ended up ruining millions of lives and its impact will be felt for years.  Yet Santorum, as well as the entire GOP presidential field, are on record, NOT to weed out the purveyors of greed, but to protect the financial industry from those government regulations established earlier to prevent financial institutions from bleeding the savings of the average American

There are many philosophical justifications for favoring the wealthy and powerful. The Gospel of Wealth, Social Darwinism, Manifest Destiny, God’s Will and “trickle-down economics” are but a few of the rationales.

These rationalizations are a sign of pathological narcissism, i.e., the overvaluing of oneself and the undervaluing of others springing from greed, insecurity, fear and the lust for power.

It represents the law of the jungle, not the law of a civil, democratic society.    SOURCE

Using the Pornography Issue to Divert Voter Attention Away from More Vital Issues

“Every family must now be concerned about the harm from pornography”  Santorum says on his website.   As a parent it’s hard to disagree with this comment and there may or may not be as he claims a “wealth of research is now available demonstrating that pornography causes profound brain changes in both children and adults, resulting in widespread negative consequences.”  Those consequences according to Santorum are its “toxic” affects on marriages and relationships, its contribution to misogyny and violence against women and its relationship to prostitution and sex trafficking.

I think it’s admirable for Santorum to combat what he and others perceive as a stain on the moral character of our society.  But does this “moral stain” always have negative consequences?  I’m not sure pornography doesn’t have its place for those who feel they need some sexual release who might otherwise find some outlet in sexual violence.  Might there also be some value for couples to learn how to better fulfill their partner’s sexual needs, the absence of which could lead to strained marital relationships and ultimately divorce?

But, as compelling as this argument is, is it an issue that should even be raised at a time when families are suffering more from job loss, low wages and insufficient job opportunities and growth. And what about those “toxic” effects to their health as a result of air and water pollution from coal-fired power plants, discharges of carcinogens into drinking systems that stem from “fracking” natural gas sources or the threats from more violent storms from climate changes that are linked to a increasingly warm climate?  This warming is in large part due to a rapid buildup of CO2 in our atmosphere from burning coal, oil and natural gas, generating a more intense green house effect.

Santorum and Financial Reform

After suffering our worst financial crisis since the Great Depression in the 1930’s the conditions that caused this disaster are still in effect.  The legislation needed to keep greedy Wall Street speculators from using the hard-earned savings of families for risky ventures has slowly been removed over the last 30 years as financial special interests and their cronies in government have sided with “corporate citizens” over real people. The collapse of the economy back in 1929 was the direct result of unregulated investment firms taking risks with investor money without have sufficient capital to cover all loses if their ventures went south.

The legislation put in place in 1933 by the Roosevelt administration that would prevent this from happening again – the Glass-Steagall Act – was removed from the books through majority support of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act in 1999 by both Houses of Congress and signed into law by President Clinton.  Rick Santorum’s view on our economic crisis has failed to grasp the significance of this and other covert acts going on between the financial sector and our representatives in Congress.

Bizarrely Santorum has advocated for even fewer government regulations in this and other areas with the debunked view that unfettered free markets alone and lower tax rates for the wealthiest Americans will generate job growth and personal wealth.  It is the classic example of Einstein’s theory of insanity – the endless repetition of the same experiments, in the hope of obtaining a different result.

Santorum voted with every other Republican and most Senate Democrats on May 6th, 1999 for the Orwellian-termed “Financial Services Modernization Bill” which included the Republican sponsored Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act that killed Glass-Steagall.  He has made no reference in his campaign to reverse that decision.

Santorum and Rising Health Care Costs

Santorum’s position on deregulation carries over into matters that affect the public health.  The move recently by the EPA to monitor CO2 output by outdated coal-fired power plants, despite the public’s approval on this, is opposed by this presidential contender.  Though he states that he wants that agency to “refocus [on] commonsense conservation [to provide] safe and clean water and air”, Santorum strangely concludes that monitoring and preventing toxic waste into these life sources is somehow not a part of the EPA’s original focus.    According to the American Lung Association “Coal-fired power plants produce more hazardous air pollution in the United States than any other industrial pollution sources.”

Santorum also wants to remove what meager health care reform the Congress was able to pass back in March of 2010 with what he euphemistically calls “market based healthcare innovation and competition”, those same ideas that have been in place for years and have failed to reduce growing health care costs in this country.  There are some problems with the Affordable Care Act but without it

  • many young adults unable to find jobs that provide health care benefits or decent wages to pay for it on their own would be unable to remain on their parents health care plans until they turn 26.
  • Insurance companies could continue to redirect more than 15% of your premium dollar to go to their bottom line instead of covering your health care needs
  • people who can afford it but who have pre-existing conditions would be denied coverage by private insurers
  • insurers could deny to cover policy holders for treatments they dispute with a patient’s doctor are necessary
  • insurers could continue to cap how much they will cover for long-term health care conditions

Santorum on Global Warming and Climate Change

Lastly there is the growing concern that the rapid increase of global warming resulting from our use of fossil fuels is impacting the catastrophic climate changes we’ve been experiencing over the last few years, killing thousands of people in this country and around the world in the forms of floods, droughts, tornadoes, hurricanes and possibly earthquakes.  Those who are not actually killed by these events  may develop life-threatening health issues from malnutrition, contamination and lack of potable water.

Despite the fact that we are just concluding “the winter that wasn’t” following the summer unlike any other, Rick Santorum, who has no experience studying climate change, is set to take the corporate sponsored position that global warming is a hoax.  In so doing he ignores the scientific consensus that man-made global warming is real.  Even an earlier climate skeptic who jumped on the bogus “Climategate” bandwagon has back tracked and concluded that the Earth’s surface really is getting warmer.

I want my children and their children to have a healthy perspective toward sex but I would like them to able to do so without worrying about a future where their income and job opportunities will suffer under corporate cronyism, their health be limited by for-profit insurers who care more about their share holders than their customers and surviving cataclysmic climate changes caused in large part because we supported policies that pushed for more drilling of oil and gas along with destructive practices of mountain top removal to provide dirty coal energy.  Why then would I or any parent vote for a candidate who is likely to effect such negative conditions that our children and grandchildren will have to deal with?

“The moral principle of revolutions is to instruct, not to destroy”. -Thomas Paine, “First Principles of Government,” 1795.

Posted by in 2012 Presidential Elections Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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Religious Right-to-Life, Meet Religious Right-to-Kill.

March 16, 2012

Separation of church and state may indeed not be an absolute in American jurisprudence as Rick Santorum suggested recently.  How we determine what is good and bad, right and wrong, has and will stem from religious teachings and has its place in American political discourse.  This should be done however with the understanding that one set of religious tenants do not exclude all others.

The recent charges by many Christians that their religious freedoms were being attacked because the government sought to enforce a policy requiring some religious institutions like hospitals and charities to add contraception to their health insurance coverage for female employees raised a pretty big stink.  Though never really brought to the forefront by the mainstream media and many on the right who railed against this policy, these charges against Christianity do not seem to carry the same weight when other religions seek to practice their faith in ways they deem are their constitutional rights.

Islam has been the primary victim of many Christian conservative religious groups who have protested at multiple locations the rights of Muslims to worship where they freely and legally choose.  The Islamic Community Center in Manhattan near “ground zero” is but the most obvious example.  America is primarily a country where Christianity is the largest faith orientation, with the greatest numbers of those in the Protestant denominations.

Wherever majorities tend to dominate they often make it difficult for “interlopers” to assimilate into the existing culture.  It is no different in those countries where Christians are the minority.  Because of our religious freedoms heritage that was established at the birth of this nation, the animus toward such outsiders has had little legal and moral ground to stand on.  The Protestant majority staved off as best they could the Catholic immigrations back at the turn of the 20th century with the Italian and Irish influxes through tougher immigration laws and strong political majorities.

The anti-semitism toward Jews by all Christian sects was also very pronounced back then and well into the 20th century.  There is even evidence that this prejudice continues  unabated into the 21st century.  A 2004 study by the AntiDefamation League found that “Anti-Semitic incidents in the United States have reached their highest level in nine years”.  

But outside the mainline faith systems there are also those less familiar to us, especially those amongst native Americans whose religious views still reflect a communion with the earth and its creatures.  One tribe, the Northern Arapaho Tribe in Wyoming, has recently made headlines to establish their right to use the feathers of a freshly killed bald eagle in religious ceremonies.  Because there has been a long-standing law to preserve the bald eagle in America, the Northern Arapaho Tribes have found themselves on the other side of U.S. law for killing the bird for use in their religious ceremonies, until just recently.

CHEYENNE, Wyo. — The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has taken the unusual step of issuing a permit allowing a Native American tribe to kill two bald eagles for religious purposes.

The agency’s decision comes after the Northern Arapaho Tribe in Wyoming filed a federal lawsuit last year contending the refusal to issue such permits violates tribal members’ religious freedom.  – SOURCE 

An on-line MSNBC poll related to this story found that nearly 4 out of 5 surveyed opposed the killing of bald eagles for any reason, even as a part of their religious beliefs while less than one in five apparently found the similarities between the Christian church’s right to restrict the use of contraception and the right of a small band of native Americans killing two bald eagles a year as a part of their faith beliefs.

Should the killing of bald eagles be allowed?

16 %   Yes, but for religious purposes only.

79%   No, there’s never a good reason to kill bald eagles.

5 %   I don’t know.

This single question poll of course is unscientific and the numbers who side with the rights of the Arapaho’s religious freedom could be loaded with members of orthodox christianity while those who felt there’s never a good reason to kill bald eagles, may be heavily weighted by more liberal, “tree-huggers” types who also protest wars and the death penalty.  I identify with this latter group at some levels.  Ironically, I think, native American cultures, who view plants as the ‘hair of Mother Earth’ would likely feel a closer association with the liberal groups who seek to preserve the planet rather than exploit her natural resources for monetary gain.

The sacred medicine bundle is the most holy of holies among all the Native American First People … [and] contains a varied collection of objects and representations of spiritual significance, from animal skins and effigies to ceremonial pipes. 

What the poll does indicate though is that there appears to be a double standard in our society that demands justice for a majority while failing to see that others who don’t share similar socio-religious values have similar needs.  This is at odds it seems with that popular Tea Party sentiment that demands we protect our personal liberty against what they view as an over reaching government.  Such a view coincides with what the British liberal political philosopher John Stuart Mill called the “tyranny of the majority“.

I raise this issue citing this example because in this election year the shouters who beat others over the head with ideological talking points drown out the more critical thinking that allows tolerance among our multi-culture society, showing that those who hold to a narrow and rigid application of one’s belief system can trip over their own words when they are put side by side by the circumstances of minorities; minorities that often find themselves ostracized by majorities.

Multi-culturalism itself is a whipping boy for many on the right who’ve labeled it as “collectivism”, which is code for that which does not reflect early 19th century populations.  A cursory study of this population will show that they were almost exclusively white and Protestant and governed in large part by land owning males.

Democracy is indeed a messy process and as the preamble to the Constitution points out, we are still a work in process as we seek “to form a more perfect union”.  The fact that the founding fathers intimated that change and growth would be a part of who we were to become cancels out any notion that we should remain what we started out as.

Adapting to those changes requires that we make room to accommodate that which doesn’t hurt us even though it may not be something we would practice.  Religions are cultural expressions of man’s spiritual nature.  Confining it to only one limited point of view is not only unhealthy, it suggests that those who restrict wider interpretations of the Constitution as it’s authors apparently intended, do so out of a certain level of ignorance and fear on where our future is headed.

Posted by in Social Discourse, Society and Politics Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

15 comments

Are We Ignoring the Better Nature of Our Angels?

March 14, 2012

We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.  Abraham Lincoln’s 1st Inaugural address, 1861

Though Lincoln’s words in his first inaugural were aimed at his countrymen, they reach out to our global society today which finds many of us pitted one against the other for ideas that often reflect narrow and bitter choices rather than our connectedness in terms of economic needs and a greater shared humanity.  Sadly his appeal to avoid the conflict that would tear us part went unheeded by a dark nature in all mankind that creates a “we” against “them” straw man; a “good versus evil” dichotomy that sees only one side to an issue because there is a false assertion that only one side is right.

Avoiding War With Iran

When you live under the constant threat of being attacked your defensive senses are on a hair trigger and your responses can result in overkill.  When your neighbors are your sworn enemies there is the feeling that any action on their part that is not seen as friendly or even neutral becomes a motivation to strike first before they hurt you.  Paranoia constantly engulfs you and because it does you convince yourself that extreme preemptive actions are warranted.  To gain support for these actions you convince your family and your allies that the threat others pose to you are the actions of a nebulous evil and must be met with a “terrible swift sword” often invoking the will of God himself as justification for your actions.

This conceptualization of “reality” exists not only in the minds of many people around the world but in the collective consciousness of many nation-states as well.  None though perhaps to the extent it does with two mideast adversaries – Israel and Iran.  Because of this prevailing sense of doom with both nations we are on the precipice of engaging in yet another foreign war that will consume our young men and women, our treasure and will essentially not, as past wars in these areas have shown, resolve the underlying sickness that perpetuates the threat.  How do you eradicate a disease that lies dormant in areas that can never be fully seen.

As allies of Israel we are obligated to help that country defend itself from external threats.  We would have little problem flexing our muscle as the world’s preeminent military power with an arsenal unmatched by any other nation.  Israel, like the U.S. has nuclear capabilities though publicly we pretend Israel doesn’t.   Limiting nuclear weapons expansion has been a universal goal officially since the early 1960’s.  Following China’s unwanted inclusion into this limited club in 1964  with the U.S., Russia, France and Great Britain, the Eighteen Nation Disarmament Committee (ENDC) negotiated an agreement that was endorsed by the U.N.General Assembly and Resolution 2373, better known as the Non-proliferation Treaty, went into force in March of 1970.

All nations seeking to acquire fissile material and weapons-applicable nuclear technology and information to create nuclear weapons are kept in check by the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) but this has not stopped some rogue nations from building their own nuclear weapons.  Four such nations, including Israel, North Korea, Pakistan and India are not “legitimate” bearers of nuclear weapons capabilities since they remain outside the parameters of the UN’s resolution on non-proliferation.

Thus, considering the mental state of the nation in Iran one can understand why they too would like to be a member of this small fraternity.  For right or wrong Iran has made Israel an opposing force that needs to be neutralized.  Yet the war of words used by some within these two countries and their supporters in the U.S. have depicted each as an evil that needs to be destroyed before they have a chance to destroy each other.

Cooler, more rational views on Iran’s threat to Israel have been marginalized by the hawkish forces in Israel and the U.S., beating the war drums as they have done before with Vietnam and Iraq that pulled us into destructive slaughters of innocent civilians and military personal with great loss of national financial resources to the detriment of taxpayers.

Israel’s own former head of their equivalent to our CIA has denounced the proposition held by the hawks that they or the U.S. should destroy Iran’s fledgling nuclear capabilities as a preemptive measure to prevent a suspected threat.

The most strenuous objection to an Iranian attack by Israel comes from recently retired Mossad head Meir Dagan, who called attacking Iran “the stupidest thing I have ever heard.” His predecessor, Ephraim Halevy, seconded his assessment. Dagan’s successor, Tamir Pardo, and former Israeli Defense Force Chief of Staff Dan Halutz both declared that Iran is “not an existential threat” to Israel     SOURCE

The Obama administration and all of the GOP presidential candidates, save Ron Paul, have publicly acknowledged that war with Iran is a realistic option to prevent them from creating a nuclear threat; a threat that is less realistic than some would have the American public believe.  Santorum is the most aggressive of the lot.

Pressed by NBC’s Meet The Press host David Gregory, Santorum distorted President Obama’s record on Iran and vowed that if Iran did not cooperate with his requests, he would attack Iran’s nuclear facilities with airstrikes. Gregory said, “The reality is there is no good option to disarm Iran.” Santorum replied, “Yes, there is,” and expanded on what he would do – order air strikes if he felt that Iran is developing a nuclear weapon.   SOURCE

The fearful assumption that Iran is not only developing nuclear weapons capabilities but  would use them quickly against Israel and those who support Israel is a ploy that many use who raise the specter that our “national security” is threatened.  This fear-mongering has allowed taxpayers to build vast weapons systems that will cost us about $700 billion over the next ten years which “is bigger than that of the next 17 countries combined.”  Our GDP spending on defense is higher than both China’s and Russia’s.

For the U.S. or Israel to act on the notion that Iran does not comprehend the consequences of a policy along the lines of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) is naive and self-serving.  Self-serving for a people who react in dangerous, knee-jerk style to perceived threats without fully weighing the inevitable awful consequences that have a domino effect from such spurious  decisions.

There is no good war.  There is only the devastation and loss in human life that can never really be replaced.  Even WW II that is seen by many as a virtuous war that stopped the militarism and despotic ways of Nazis, Fascists and Imperialists led to another greater threat Eisenhower referred to as the military-industrial complex.   A war machine that consumes 20 cents of every tax payers dollars to give us an illusion of security but which a single individual could remove with one, strategically placed dirty bomb.  Our menacing hulk  and presence around the world has created a new global threat that conventional tactics cannot effectively deal with.

In a 2007 report from the Department of Defense it has been acknowledged that the “character of war is changing—it is irregular, catastrophic, disruptive and no longer confined to the traditional battlefield.”

History has shown that it is possible to influence the decision to acquire nuclear weapons. Thus emphasis should be placed on developing tailored approaches to proliferation prevention to shape the nuclear environment.   SOURCE  

Nobody wants war less than those who have to fight it.  Sadly however nobody makes fewer sacrifices when war is enacted than those politicians and pundits who rattle their sabers and leap to this act of last resort intended to defend not only the security of our nation but that of our allies.  The public is often disengaged from this course of action because they do not feel it’s immediate impact and too many are easily convinced that such acts truly safeguard our personal security.

There is a bill sponsored by Rep. Barbara Lee [D-CA], H.R. 4173: Prevent Iran from Acquiring Nuclear Weapons and Stop War Through Diplomacy Act, that directs “the President of the United States to appoint a high-level United States representative or special envoy for Iran for the purpose of ensuring that the United States pursues all diplomatic avenues to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon, to avoid a war with Iran, and for other purposes.”  I encourage all who read this post to fire a letter or e-mail off to their congressional representative to support this act.  Lincoln’s “angels of our better nature” allegory requires at least this modicum of effort from each of us.

Posted by in Global politics Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

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Rush Limbaugh: Defining Women

March 12, 2012

”We’re not sexists, we’re chauvinists — we’re male chauvinist pigs, and we’re happy to be because we think that’s what men were destined to be. We think that’s what women want.”  – Rush Limbaugh

 

The inclusive “we” in Limbaugh’s comments above doesn’t reflect someone who has actually had open-ended conversations with people other than his drinking buddies at the all men’s club.  I think it’s safe to say that he didn’t come to this conclusion by sitting in on a select panel of objective individuals on the subject.  Limbaugh knows deep down this is not a real truth (though he may disguise it as a joke) but a perception he harbors with other like-minded men to justify their inability to have long meaningful relationships with women.  He has after all been married 4 times.

When public figures who connect with millions of Americans each day make comments that have no basis in reality, there are bound to be those listeners who will assimilate them into their world view that they have already been partially or wholly programmed to.  Whether he’s truly serious, attempting to be humorous or engaging in “theatrics designed to rev up his audience”, Limbaugh’s comments can be scoffed at by people like me while at the same time registering with those males who have been raised by domineering fathers, doting mothers or both.

 

Images of male superiority have long been entrenched in our culture, from the patriarchal writings of our religious scriptures to the absence of equal citizenship status when our Constitution was framed.  The male dominance perception has survived in today’s culture by people like Limbaugh who sees women only as he does his pet female cat;  a subservient, docile creature wanting only her basic material needs met.

By definition a male chauvinist pig is a male who patronizes, disparages, or otherwise denigrates females in the belief that they are inferior to males and thus deserving of less than equal treatment or benefit.   When men start incorporating such a demeaning view of women deep within their psyche then traditional relationships embodying a mutual, self affirming  connection with each other begins to disappear.

When this happens then it’s not that much of a leap to explain why 55% of men reported in a less-than-scientific-survey from Glamour Magazine that they would falsely tell a woman they cared about them just to get them in bed.  By the standards set by people like Limbaugh, women are objects to be used by men, thinking that this is how they really want to be treated.

If the demeaning comments about women were a one time sentiment expressed by the ultra-conservative radio commentator, there would be little to support the premise that what he said affects some male attitudes in his audience who’ve been conditioned to think like this all of their life.  But it’s not.  Limbaugh has a history of such warped images. 

 

How serious can you take someone who has claimed that he’s “a huge supporter of women. … [and loves] the women’s movement — especially when walking behind it.”   Image, not content, is the measure by which men like Limbaugh assess the female gender.  During the Clinton administration he told his audience that the President has a pet cat but he also has a dog, as he held up a picture of the Clinton’s daughter, Chelsea

Women have more value solely for their beauty and as someone who wants to pleasure a man based on comments made by Limbaugh over the course of his broadcast career.   The talk show host once stated that some women who are offended by sexual harassment in the work place are “out there protesting what they actually wish would happen to them sometimes.”.

He expanded on this shallow view when he claimed that “Feminism was established so as to allow unattractive women access to the mainstream of society.”  Were the same criteria about good looks applied to men however, Limbaugh would most likely be an unknown quantity.  He might even find himself being repeatedly rejected by those self-absorbed women who he thinks personify the ideal woman, unless they were true gold diggers attracted only to his celebrity-based wealth.  This of course would only further feed into his cat analogy about women.

Limbaugh’s further ignorance of women and thus his devaluation of them as human beings is expressed in his fallacious comment that “women still live longer than men because their lives are easier.”  Woman do indeed live longer than men but not because they live the pampered lives like Limbaugh’s cat.  Research has shown that women live longer because they’re more cautious and health conscious.

To think  as Limbaugh does that women have it easier than men is typical of the gender who has never had to deal with a 9-month pregnancy and then at birth pass something the size of a football through an orifice in their body.  He should try giving birth to 19 children like Michelle Duggar before he presumes how much easier women have it.  Having and raising children is something he is unfamiliar with considering the man is childless after 3 marriages.

 

My wife and I have a daughter and a son and we have tried to view them as equally capable of accomplishing whatever they put their minds to.  If I were to limit my daughter’s chances by subscribing to Limbaugh’s demeaning view of women I would be bordering on the repressive treatment many women receive in rigid fundamentalist Jewish, Christian and Muslim cultures.  Despite Limbaugh’s ignorance of history, women were NOT “doing quite well in this country before feminism came along.” (Radio show, quoted in FRQ, Summer/93)

Some may feel that Limbaugh has been genuinely contrite about his comments regarding Susan Fluke, like his liberal-bashing pal, Cal Thomas.  But a cursory reading of his latest “apology” is nothing more than a Flip Wilson style of evading personal responsibility while blaming it all on the “liberal devil”.  His frequent misogynistic references are out of date and destructive.

RESOURCES:

Conservative Host Rush Limbaugh

Rush Limbaugh’s 19 most outrageous remarks

Posted by in Social Discourse, Wedge Issues Tags: , , , , ,

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