NEON GODS

"Screw the First Amendment!"

Evidently this is what it is like to live in a red state.  From the Wichita Eagle,

A Kansas teenager is in trouble after mocking Gov. Sam Brownback during a mock legislative assembly for high school students.

Emma Sullivan, a senior at Shawnee Mission East High School in Prairie Village, was in Topeka on Monday as part of Kansas Youth in Government, a program for students interested in politics and government.

During the session, in which Brownback addressed the group, Sullivan posted on her personal Twitter page:

“Just made mean comments at gov brownback and told him he sucked, in person #heblowsalot”

On Tuesday, Sullivan was called to her principal’s office and told that the tweet had been flagged by someone on Brownback’s staff and reported to organizers of the Youth in Government program.

The principal “laid into me about how this was unacceptable and an embarrassment,” Sullivan said. “He said I had created this huge controversy and everyone was up in arms about it … and now he had to do damage control.

“I’m mainly shocked that they would even see that tweet and be concerned about me,” she said. “I just honestly feel they’re making a lot bigger deal out of it than it actually was.”

Sullivan said the principal ordered her to write letters of apology to Brownback, the school’s Youth in Government sponsor, the district’s social studies coordinator and others.

I hope she doesn't apologize. I hope she sues. Given the mood on the right these days she's lucky she wasn't pepper-sprayed!

--Trakker

Why the Super Committee failed

One of the most challenging blogs around is Balloon Juice.  They feature a number of different writers who are generally liberal but rarely see eye to eye on every subject.  Their arguments can get intense - and then there are the readers who throw even more fuel to the fire in the comments section.  If you post a comment, expect to get burned.  I've been called every name in the book there for some of my comments.  Ya' just got to suck it up and wonder, if these are fellow liberals (and not all are liberal), imagine the responses if I posted on a conservative blog (or washingtonpost.com!).  But the bottom line is that Balloon Juice features and attracts some very smart writers.

John Cole is the lead blogger at Balloon Juice and he gets slammed just as hard as anyone by the readers.  I don't agree with everything he writes, but when he's right he's brilliant.

I was reminded today of something he wrote back in 2009 about bipartisanship and in light of the failure of the Congressional Super Committee this week it really resonates with me.

I really don’t understand how bipartisanship is ever going to work when one of the parties is insane. Imagine trying to negotiate an agreement on dinner plans with your date, and you suggest Italian and she states her preference would be a meal of tire rims and anthrax. If you can figure out a way to split the difference there and find a meal you will both enjoy, you can probably figure out how bipartisanship is going to work the next few years.

The pundits are pissed because the Democrats and Republicans on the Super Committee couldn't work out a compromise.  What they don't understand is that you must never compromise with the insane, and kudos to the Democrats for finally understanding this.

--Trakker

Newt Gingrich wants kids to take your job

Newt Gingrich:

"You say to somebody, you shouldn't go to work before you're what, 14, 16 years of age, fine. You're totally poor. You're in a school that is failing with a teacher that is failing. I've tried for years to have a very simple model," he said. "Most of these schools ought to get rid of the unionized janitors, have one master janitor and pay local students to take care of the school. The kids would actually do work, they would have cash, they would have pride in the schools, they'd begin the process of rising."

This is what passes for intelligence in the Republican party today:  Fire adults who are making a living wage, put them on unemployment and hire their kids at 1/4 the salary,  Do you know what lesson these kids will learn from this?   "Why get an education? As soon as you're an adult you're unemployable.  Kids can do it cheaper."

Oh well,

Have a Happy Thanksgiving! 

--Trakker

[editorial cartoon by Pat Oliphant, 11/23/11]

Obama explained.

We have a cat.  He loves chasing the red light dot I direct on the floor from a little penlight I bought.  Every time the cat is about to pounce on the dot I move it and he has to try to catch it again.  The bottom line is our cat never catches the dot and yet after months of playing this game he still doesn't realize he never will catch it.

The same can be said of President Obama.  Every time he thought he had a deal with the Republicans they moved the dot farther to the right, and Obama had to try again.  Just like our cat, Obama never caught on that this is just a game (with dire consequences), and that he can never catch the dot.

Now, I know he's smarter than a cat and I hope he has finally caught on to the game, but I'm not sure his advisers and the Dems in Congress have.  We must not allow the Republican clowns anywhere near the White House, but I suspect the right will continue to succeed in moving the dot to the right even if they lose the White House.  And that is depressing.  It's also the reason we must support the Occupy movement as our only effective response.  Elections and our political system don't work anymore.

--Trakker

The UC-Davis incident summed up in one graphic

[copied from a WaPost article which did not credit the artist who photoshopped this]

--Trakker

To the right, we are not Americans, we are the enemy.

The WaPost has an interesting article today, "The e-mail rumor mill is run by conservatives."  Here's a clip:

Of the 79 chain e-mails about national politics deemed false by PolitiFact since 2007, only four were aimed at Republicans. Almost all of the rest concern Obama or other Democrats, such as Hillary Rodham Clinton. The claims range from the slightly daffy (the White House wants to rename Christmas trees as “holiday trees”) to the serious (the health-care law will grant free medical care to all illegal immigrants).

I don't think this comes as any surprise to those of us on the left, but it certainly elicited a lot of angry (and totally whacked) comments from the right.  Most of the comments from righties reinforce why the right is so receptive to emails containing lies, but a few made me stop and think, like this one:

dryrunfarm1

2:40 PM EST

I'm one of those conservative recipients of right-wing email. As owner of a private shooting range, and host to many avid 2nd Amendment supporters (several officers in law enforcement among them), the one about the UN treaty on small arms is one that sticks out in my mind. My response to this rumor? I tell ever sender, by reply email, that it's nonsense. 
 
Not that I doubt for a minute that the UN, Obama and the left, generally, don't WISH it were true. I don't. 
 
The fact is, though, that the 2nd Amendment exists, it has been affirmed and "incorporated" as an individual, Constitutional right, and there isn't a treaty out there that can supersede it. Besides, treaties have to be ratified by Congress: even if some treaty COULD (for example) establish Roman Catholicism as the state religion of the US (an accomplishment fully equal to denying citizens the right to "keep and bear arms"), there are enough members of Congress - including quite a number of Democrats - who support the 2nd Amendment that no such treaty would stand a chance. 
 
So why do I get such emails? 
 
It isn't mistrust of the media. It's mistrust of government; and, under the Obama administration, that mistrust has driven all but the most level-headed conservatives to virtual paranoia regarding the excesses Washington is now capable of. They don't doubt that Obama is capable of anything, up to and including sending tanks down Main Street USA, imposing martial law and suspending - in advance of totally repudiating - the Constitution and every individual protection in it. 
 
We fully believe Obama's heart is up to such a thing - Pelosi's, Reid's and Schumer's, too - and our rights and protections under the Constitution seem flimsier and flimsier each day under their watch. The Bolsheviks have taken Washington - THAT, we believe, is an indisputable fact. Is there any wonder that we're willing to believe almost any detail that agrees with that fact or appears to validate it? 
 
The United States of America is under attack, by the left, from within. Describing conservative emails as belonging to a conservative "underground" is closer to the fact than the health and well-being of the Union can afford.

The writer sounds lucid and responsible, and that's what makes this all so scary.  It appears he honestly believes that Obama and the left are enemies of the state, not regular citizens who serve our country, pay our taxes, and work hard to play by the rules and vote like everyone else.  No, to the new right, we are NOT Americans, we are not welcome in their country, we are evil devils trying to take their country by "...sending tanks down Main Street USA, imposing martial law and suspending - in advance of totally repudiating - the Constitution and every individual protection in it."

This not just depressing, it's frightening, but now I'm beginning to see why the right seems so explosively angry these days, and I'm now less confident that we can ever reunite as a country. I suspect this is a war that only one side can win.

--Trakker

Gun owners have their priorities

A guy goes into a gun shop to buy a .50 caliber Desert Eagle pistol.  The dealer says to him, "Tommy, man, you already bought 24 handguns this year and the state just passed a law that says if you buy more than 24 handguns a year they have to castrate you."

Tommy stops and thinks for a moment and says, "Damn! I'm really gonna' miss my nuts, man."

--Trakker

My first (quick) visit to Occupy DC.

Sunday evening I dropped off some books and plastic containers at the Occupy DC camp.  I only had a few minutes to walk around and observe. 

Occupy DC is camped out at McPherson Square, a square block park in downtown DC,  named for James B. McPherson, a General in the Union Army.  There is a statue of him in the middle of the square.  I believe the square is owned and administered by the U.S. Park Service.

The park is criss-crossed by cement sidewalks that run roughly diagonal through the park, and these sidewalks are all unobstructed allowing people to walk though the park as usual.  There are tents in all the grassy areas except in a large grassy segment in the southwest corner reserved for group meetings I believe.  On the west side of the McPherson statue there is a make-shift Information booth, and to the left is their make-shift library.  While a lot of work has gone into making the park clean and organized, the general feeling is one of organised makeshift chaos.  However, I felt safe and welcome (as opposed to tolerated) walking through the park. 

The people.  I only spoke with a few and observed maybe 60 others. It was about 7:30 on a pleasant Sunday night and a lot of people were eating, sitting on the park benches and around the statue.  There was a lot of energy evident, with a lot of pockets of people talking together, but the park was generally quiet.  I saw no police in the park, just four unoccupied DC police cars parked randomly nearby.  I'm sure they have undercover police embedded.

From what I can tell there has been very little trouble at the site and there appears to be a good working relationship between Occupy DC and the city.  The organizers seem determined to keep the park open and accessible to the public.  My impressions of the people I observed are that they are largely working class, high school educated, with some homeless and drifters mixed in.

My question is, how many are there because they have no place to go and might not have any strong political feelings, and how many are there because of a strong desire to change the system?   I wonder how you can start a "Occupy" movement in a city park and not have it turn into a camp of displaced people with personality or mental problems, violent tendencies and anger management problems?  The latter can cause trouble in camp and the surrounding neighborhoods and generate unwanted negative publicity (which has plagued other Occupy sites), negative publicity that the Fox News crowd delightfully uses to paint the whole "Occupy" movement as undisciplined rabble, or "dirty hippies."

I will be in West Virgina for the next two weeks but hope to return to Occupy DC when I get back.

--Trakker

Torture

I haven't watched a single minute of any of the Republican presidential candidate debates.  Why would any liberal want to engage in self-inflicted torture?

Yes, I know, calling something like a GOP debate torture is in poor taste because real torture is something so excruciating that it should never be joked about.  However, in defense I submit this from last night:

“I do not agree with torture, period,” Cain said to start the exchange. “However, I will trust the judgment of our military leaders to determine what is torture and what is not torture. That is the critical consideration.”

Asked specifically about waterboarding, Cain tipped his hand. “I don’t see it as torture,” he said. “I see it as an enhanced interrogation technique.”

This is a common technique among Republicans.  Go one record as being against something terrible and then change the definition of the thing you support so it is no longer part of that terrible thing you strongly oppose!

Lets see how easy this is.  I start out with, "I do not agree with letting adult men rape little girls!"  Then I turn around and say, "However I don't see an uncle having sex with his 10 year-old niece as rape, I see it as hands-on sex education by an experienced family member."  So I can still come out strong against rape ("terrible!!") while redefining the part you want to allow: letting uncles rape their nieces.

Yes, that example is ugly and in bad taste, but so is redefining torture.  Waterboarding has always been considered torture in our country.  To redefine it now shows that Republicans are truly taking America back in time, when torture was acceptable, witches were drowned, and heretics were burned at the stake. 

Every society has a segment of their population that has no empathy, just hatred and a crushing desire to mete out pain and even death to those they don't like.  Politicians used to understand how dangerous these people are and avoided encouraging them, but the Republicans have discovered that while these people are a minority, they are easily led and easily angered, so it is easy to keep them energized against the Democrats.  What is so amazing is that these people seem to have no capacity for common sense.  They will believe any lie you tell them. That's why this country is in trouble.

--Trakker

 

What are they accomplishing?

I still haven't visited Occupy DC yet.  Maybe tomorrow since we aren't leaving for West Virginia until Monday. 

The "Occuy [fill in the blank]" movement is beginning to wear out it's welcome (if there was any welcome to begin with) in many cities.  Most of the occupy camps are not there legally.  Many have problems with sanitation and trash, they are damaging tax supported facilites and grounds, and they often attract the homeless and people with mental or drug problems.  Cities claim the occupy camps require extra law enforcement resources which means the rest of the city suffers and the taxpayers get charged.  The bottom line is, on balance is this movement accomplishing anything positive?

If you read the news reports you would have to wonder, because they tend to dwell on the violence, the drugs, the damage to the city's facilities, how much the extra city law enforcement resources are costing the taxpayers, and how it's making the rest of the city less safe.  Also, the right is going hog wild painting the protesters as dirty hippies, the scum of the earth, and I worry that public opinion is going to swing quickly against the movement, especially as Fox News and the richly supported right wing propaganda machine gets going.

Obviously my heart is with the protesters.  I think they will eventually get their act together and become a major force in politics next year, but it will be hard because they are going to continue to attract drifters, the unstable, addicts, plus those who believe the only way to achieve real change is through violence.

The Occupy movement will present a mine field for Democrats in the coming elections.  While the movement seems to be much more aligned with Democratic values, the right will do everything they can to link the Democrats to every act of violence, civil disbedience, damaged property and unsanitary conditions in the camps.

This is just a new battlefront in the ongoing civil war being fought in America, a war hardly anyone acknowledges.

--Trakker