NEON GODS

Grow up Republicans. You're embarrassing yourselves!

More and more I'm thinking that Republicans are just adult adolescents who just can't let go of their childhood when it was okay to believe in fairy tales.  Reality obviously scares the dickens out of them.

Barack Obama was born in the state of Hawaii.  Hawaii was a state at the time.  It still is (I'm going slow so Republicans can follow me).  His birth announcement was published in local Honolulu newspapers at the time. Barack Obama has published a certified copy of his birth certificate on the Internet for everyone to see and officials of the state of Hawaii have looked at it and said it is an exact digital copy of his birth certificate.  People who knew the Obamas at the time have said they remember his birth and that the family was in Hawaii at the time of his birth.

And YET.........Republicans refuse to believe it!  My previous post tells of a Republican Congressman who has expressed doubts, Republican Joe Arpaio, Sheriff of his own warped mind claims to have investigated this and found that the birth certificate Obama posted is a FORGERY, and now Arizona's Secretary of State has opened his own investigation because 1,200 of his constituents believe the crazy Sheriff and not Hawaii.  PEOPLE, you are fools and the rest of us are beginning to think maybe Republicans are agents of an alien culture that is trying to destroy our country and our sanity.

Barack Obama, he of the foreign sounding name, brown skin, and all, believed that by 2008 the people of this country were mature and smart enough to look at the person running for office, and not skin color or funny name.  He was right, a majority of Americans broke with tradition and elected him.  But not Republicans.  They can't accept that this brown-skinned man who has an international background can actually be President of their white nation.  They are certain that if they say Obama's middle name enough, if the call him a Kenyan often enough, if they remind us of his race enough, and if they keep yammering about how "no one is really sure Obama is an American" that the rest of us will suddenly become bigots like them.  I guess that's how out of touch they are with the majority of Americans in the 21st century.  They should consider joining the 21st century sometime.

--Trakker

Nope. No racism here in America. None. And Unicorns are real, too.

A black couple buys a house in Newton County, Georgia, and when they begin working on it to get ready to move in they are confronted by armed neighbors and told to put their hands up and leave the house or they will be shot.  When the couple complains, the cops come, arrest them, and take them to jail!  For working on their own house.

But, no, there is no racism or racial profiling here in America.  Black people just like to whine and play the victim.

Right...

This is what African Americans have to put up with all the time.  Sometimes they end up dead (e.g., Trayvon Martin), sometimes they just end up being humiliated like this couple.  But every African American knows that a significant percentage of white people assume blacks are dishonest, lazy, and violent, and act accordingly.  And as long as this is the case, you better damn well expect their anger to be expressed like it was in the Martin case.  In fat the Martin case shows just how many whites are incapable of feeling any empathy for people of other races.  To them I offer my erect middle finger.

--Trakker

It's your country. You get what you pay for.

The Associated Press has good news and bad news for us.  The good news is that in response to higher gas prices more people are taking mass transit to work and for other trips.  Good.  That's good for the environment.  But wait, America's mass transit systems are crumbling and the added burden of more and more riders could force their collapse.

Driven by high gas prices and an uncertain economy, Americans are turning to trains and buses to get around in greater numbers than ever before. But the aging transit systems they're riding face an $80 billion maintenance backlog that jeopardizes service just when it's most in demand.

...decades of deferred repairs and modernization projects also have many transit agencies scrambling to keep trains and buses in operation. The transit administration estimated in 2010 that it would take $78 billion to get transit systems into shape, and officials say the backlog has grown since then.

In Philadelphia, for example, commuters ride trains over rusty steel bridges, some of them dating back to the 19th century. The Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority — which operates subway, trolley, bus and commuter rail systems — is responsible for 346 bridges that are on average 80 years old. Officials said they may be forced to slow trains or even stop them from crossing one bridge that's 1,000 feet long and 90 feet above the ground if it deteriorates further, leaving stations on the other side without service.

A key power substation relies on electrical equipment manufactured in 1926. There's no hope for acquiring spare parts, so workers try to open the boxes housing the equipment as infrequently as possible to prevent damage from exposure to the environment.

I recall Washington, DC's Metro subway system when it opened in 1976.  It was a delight to use, the trains and stations were clean and attractive.  Today, 36 years later the cars are worn out, the stations are drab, and the escalators are out of service at least a third of the time.

These systems, like our highways, are largely funded and subsidized by the government, and are falling apart because the right has convinced the people of America that our taxes are too high and that government is bad.  So our transportation infrastructure is falling apart - and the right continues to demand more tax cuts!

America used to have the best, most modern infrastructure in the world.  We used to be proud of our highways, airports, and subway systems and we paid high taxes to keep them that way, but now we're told by the radical right that the government is too big, it's bloated, it's wasteful. Instead we must rely on the private sector to make us great again.

Well, I'm waiting for WalMart to expand and modernize Washington's Metro.  Philadelphia is waiting for AT&T to rehabilitate their rusty, dangerous bridges.  It's going to be a long wait.

This is just more evidence that ever since Reagan, the right has pushed an agenda that will eventually usher America back to the 1870s, and the right won't quit until people starve and the trains stop running.

It's our country, people.  Just remember, you get what you pay for.

--Trakker

America: screw the future, it's more fun to attack strawmen and let big business run the country

Paul Krugman put to words exactly what's been bothering me,

America used to be a country that thought big about the future. Major public projects, from the Erie Canal to the interstate highway system, used to be a well-understood component of our national greatness. Nowadays, however, the only big projects politicians are willing to undertake — with expense no object — seem to be wars. Funny how that works.

As the radical right has taken over this country, it has done all it can to insure that America becomes an 18th century country in a 21st century world.  A nation of high unemployment, low wages, crumbling infrastructure, extremely high college tuition (that only the rich from all over the world can afford), and run by big business for big business, not the people.

The NYTimes, in an article today, reports that a lot of immigrant's kids, especially those from India, China and other countries with booming economies, are leaving the U.S. and returning home because they can see they have no future here.  So true.

--Trakker

 

Danziger Bridge

I'm way behind in my reading but I just finished this post by Charles Pierce and it has taken me a few minutes to clear my eyes. 

Yes, I followed this story, somewhat, in the news over the years but it took Charley to add the sense of horror and outrage that news stories cannot provide, and then he finishes it off with the "steps to nowhere." 

Smart, talented, irreverent writers like Pierce are the reason I have confidence that this country will soon recognize the horrific damage done to this great country by the party of greed and bigotry for the past three decades.  Jesus, if he existed, would be horrified by a political party that professed to embrace him but coddled the money changers and denigrated the poor.

--Trakker

The NRA's America would be a nightmare.

I apologize for not posting more often these past few weeks.  I've been busy with other stuff, plus the weather here (Washington DC) has been spectacular, and what fool would rather be inside writing when they could be outside enjoying the renewal of nature? 

Yesterday I spent my afternoon on Mason Island (a large wooded island in the Potomac where the Teddy Roosevelt National Monument is located), then wandered into Rosslyn and Georgetown to enjoy a different kind of nature.

I've flagged a lot of articles I've wanted to write about but they pile up so fast.  The Trayvon Martin shooting still leads the pack because it exemplifies the kind of country the Republicans are trying to turn America into: a nation that is always armed in public - even when the threat of violence is nil - and has been given permission to shoot to kill when the armed citizen FEELS threatened.

There is so much about this case that is sickening that I can't possibly cover everything, but a few things stand out.  Let's start with George Zimmerman.  We've all known people like him, cop wanna-bees, who want to carry a gun and arrest bad guys but either aren't smart enough, or don't possess the self-discipline to become a real cop (or are deemed too crazy to be accepted), so in states like Florida the cop-wannabees can act like one anyway, in fact Florida gives citizens more latitude to kill and walk away free than they give cops!

Anyway, George Zimmerman appointed himself as the "captain" of his gated community's "neighborhood watch" committee, evidently a committee of one.  He never registered with the national Neighborhood Watch group and ignored their suggestions.  We're told that Zimmerman's community had suffered 7 or 8 burglaries in the past and that's why he was patrolling the neighborhood.  But it is a gated community and thus there is a much higher likelihood that anybody in the neighborhood has a good reason to be there than in your average neighborhood. Plus there was absolutely no history of violence in the neighborhood, SO WHY WAS HE ARMED?  The national neighborhood watch program is very explicit, you should not be armed when you are watching the neighborhood.  If you see something suspicious, you call the real cops to check it out, and make an arrest if necessary.

But that's not the kind of America the NRA wants.  They want all Americans armed at all times and ready to shoot.  They even tell us that cops in America are never around when you need them, so every citizen must arm themselves and act as cops for society.  Forget the fact that real cops are screened to weed out the psychotics, are highly trained and retrained periodically, and are accountable to society for every shot fired, and even after all that they make mistakes, and even often miss their targets when they do have to shoot at human beings.  The last thing I want in my life is a bunch of untrained, psychologically unscreened, George Zimmermans walking around me supposedly "keeping the peace."

I'm certain the founding fathers never intended what the NRA and other gun nuts are trying to foist on America, a society of people armed with firearms with the power, accuracy, and ability to shoot 15 to 30 rounds in just seconds - firepower unimagined in 1790 - with fewer and fewer restrictions on gun ownership and less requirements for training.  Such a society is doomed to live in fear of it's armed nuts, bullies, and bigots, and that is not an America I want to live in.

--Trakker

Our new Freedom. Freedom to ignore the sick, the injured, the poor.

I've been wanting to write about this piece by Charles Pierce because it captures the very essence of the America I grew up in.

Charles begins with something Dahlia Lithwick wrote about her impression of the right's argument before the Sureme Court where they are trying to have Obamacare overturned:

Until today, I couldn't really understand why this case was framed as a discussion of "liberty." This case isn't so much about freedom from government-mandated broccoli or gyms. It's about freedom from our obligations to one another, freedom from the modern world in which we live. It's about the freedom to ignore the injured, walk away from those in peril, to never pick up the phone or eat food that's been inspected.

Charley riffs off this:

For all the huffing and blowing we get about rugged individualism, the American spirit and the American experiment always have had at their heart the notion that the government is all of us and that, therefore, the government may keep things in trust for all if us. That was present at the very beginning, in the Mayfloer Compact, which was not a document through which individuals demanded to be free of their obligations to each other and to society; rather, it was a document through which free people bound themselves together, for their own good into a political commonwealth...

Chaley then reminds us that,

We, The People is more than a statement of purpose. It is an acknowledgement of an obligation to each other.

Have you ever thought about that phrase, "We, the people..."?  It doesn't say, "We, the individuals..."  It implies that our Founders saw Americans as a group speaking as one with common interests, not as many individuals who had no oblgation to each other.

The point is, America used to be a nation of people who felt we were all Americans, not Us and Them.  I remember hearing people tell us kids that we had an obligation to help our fellow Americans who were less fortunate.  We had an obligation to make it easier for Americans with will and ambition to go to college.  Back then Americans wanted to have a minimum wage that employers were obligated to pay so their employees could afford food and clothes for their kids.  We all recall that the United States was the leader in free public schools so that eveyone, no matter how poor, could insure their kids had a basic education and a step on the first rung of the ladder to success.  We wanted to help our fellow citizens and pay for it with our taxes. 

So what happened? We are now a nation with a significant population of people who begrudge even a single dollar of their taxes being used to help those less fortunate.  They claim the poor are merely lazy, and living well off the taxpayer's generosity, while the taxpayers themselves struggle.  They believe that if you make the poor suffer enough, they will magically find jobs where none exist, and other magical things will happen.

If you have a few minutes, read Charles' post, and the comments too.  He tells us we've lost our way and why.  We must work to find our way again.

--Trakker

We are now two seperate nations living in one country. We have almost nothing in common anymore..

Why have I been silent here lately?  Partly because I made the mistake of reading comments at the Fox News news site.  At least the commenters there don't hide their racism.  But even at other news sites it's becoming painfully obvious that we are a nation of two very distinct tribes who increasingly agree on less and less.  And both sides now pretty much hate each other with an increasing passion.  I don't see how this is going to work out in the future because the two sides have a completely opposite view the kind of country they want America to be. 

Look at Paul Ryan's recent budget proposal.  The Republicans want to cut funds for almost everything that benefits the people, especially the poor, and increase spending on the military and give huge tax cuts for the very wealthy, including retaining the Bush Tax Cuts which the Republicans initially agreed would end in 2010.  They are still in place in 2012!  Hahahaha, silly us!

They also want more people to be armed in public, and by public I mean schools and bars and parks and churches.  I think we all know how this is going to play out.

I don't want to live in a country with a crumbling infrastructure, a small middle class, prohibitively expensive college tuition with fewer and fewer grants for the children of the poor, and a huge and growing number of poor, with no health care and many living on the edge of disaster (Republicans appear to enjoy the thought of people desperate for jobs, scared that they may get sick and lose their homes or apartments and get thrown out onto the street).

The right really does live on a different planet than the rest of us.  They don't trust science, they don't trust any sources of facts except for those that distort facts to fit their fairytale world.  They are becoming increasingly hostile to blacks, gays, non-Christians, the poor, and anyone else that doesn't embrace their distorted brand of Americanism. 

I don't know how this will end.  My side wants to live in a modern, educated, open-minded, society that respects people who are different (religion, race, sexual orientation), that has a large middle class and a wealthy class that is willing to pay more to help those who are jobless, who are ill, who have ambition but no money. 

The other side believes if you give your money to the rich instead of the government, they will build bridges and highways and send up weather satellites, and test your food and water to make sure it is safe, etc., etc.  Didn't I tell you they live in a fairytale world?

--Trakker

 

The murder of Trayvon Martin, and my response to the NRA and the gun nuts

Back in the good ol' days of America Online and dialup Internet connections I used to argue with gun zealots (aka gun nuts) online.  Two things stood out to me, 1) gun zealots, at least the ones online, were inordinately afraid of black guys, and 2) how much they wished they could use their guns on those black guys when they felt threatened (which was most of the time). 

Obviously, the NRA finally gave them their wish by pushing something called the "Stand Your Ground" law on the states that allow gun owners to use deadly force when they "reasonably" feel that their life is in danger or that they might suffer serious bodily harm. 

If you want to see this law in action, look no further than the murder of Trayvon Martin three weeks ago in Sanford, Florida.  Much has been written already about this murder of an unarmed teenager by an armed police-wannabe, so I won't go into a lot of detail, but the bottom line is that over the years the NRA has successfully made it easier for more and more citizens to carry guns in more and more public places with less and less oversight into who can carry guns in public.  At the same time they have made it easier and easier for people carrying guns in public to kill people who they get to judge as "threatening" and walk free with almost no questions asked.

Granted, the homeowner's association that sponsored the Neighborhood Watch program under which the shooter was operating deserves some of the blame. The Neighborhood Watch program is sponsored by the National Sheriff's Association and they publish a handbook that clearly states, "It should be emphasized to members that they do not possess police powers and they shall not carry weapons..."  The Neighborhood Watch person who shot Trayvon clearly violated that guideline, he was armed with a 9mm handgun which he used to shoot Trayvon.

But the bigger issue here is guns.  The ultimate goal of the NRA appears to be to allow, even encourage, every American to carry a gun in public in all 50 states with no restrictions on who can own guns, who can carry them in public, or where in public they can be carried.  At the same time the NRA wants to make it as easy as possible for gun owners to act as judge, jury, and executioner when they feel threatened, and society must respect their judgement.

What really pisses me off is that gun zealots not only want the right to be judge, jury, and executioner, they want me to recognize them as some kind of exalted protector of society.  I'm supposed to be relived to know they are walking among us, protecting me.  They insist I must acknowledge and be grateful that their presence makes me safer.

BULLSHIT!  To them I say, "I don't know who you are, I don't know what kind of training you've had, I don't know how sane you are, I don't know how you handle fear and anger, and I don't know why you feel the need to carry a gun, so fuck off!   Don't I have the right to live my life and manage my safety without you bringing your gun into it?  People should be allowed to prohibit people from carrying guns into their school, their neighborhood, their towns, their counties, or even their states if they choose.  Your right to own a gun isn't a right to bring it wherever you damn well please. 

Do you think the parents of Trayvon Martin and other parents of black kids feel safer with armed assholes who may also be flaming bigots running around knowing they have the right to blow away people who make them scared?  Should we arm all black teens and tell them they have the right to shoot any white guy who starts following them, challenges them, or makes them scared?  Because that's the next logical step if Trayvon's killer goes free.

--Trakker

It was bound to happen.

We knew the Republicans would eventually overreach.  We know what the base REALLY wants, a return to the 1870s or earlier, and eventually a return to Biblical law. 

Over the years and months the right has been pushing, pushing, pushing to end abortions, end access to contraception, humiliating the poor - especially if they are minorities or single women, encouraging a wild west gun culture, busting unions, eliminating minimum wage laws, and letting the rich run the country.

Every month the right proposes crazier and crazier ideas and laws, and we know at some point there would be a proposal or set of proposals/issues that would finally make the uninvolved American public sit up and take notice that the Republicans are actually batshit insane.   Thank you, transvaginal ultrasounds, thank you Susan Koman Foundation, thank you Rush.

From the NYTimes:

As baby showers go, the party Mary Russell attended to celebrate her niece’s first child was sweet, with about a dozen women offering congratulations over ice cream and cake.

But somewhere between the baby name game and the gifts, what had been light conversation took a sharp turn toward the personal and political — specifically, the battle over access to birth control and other women’s health issues that have sprung to life on the Republican campaign trail in recent weeks.

“We all agreed that this seemed like a throwback to 40 years ago,” said Ms. Russell, 57, a retired teacher from Iowa City who describes herself as an evangelical Christian and “old school” Republican of the moderate mold.

Until the baby shower, just two weeks ago, she had favored Mitt Romney for president.

Not anymore. She said she might vote for President Obama now. “I didn’t realize I had a strong viewpoint on this until these conversations,” Ms. Russell said. As for the Republican presidential candidates, she added: “If they’re going to decide on women’s reproductive issues, I’m not going to vote for any of them. Women’s reproduction is our own business.”

The article has a number of similar examples.  It isn't just women either.  I've heard from politicians that almost as many men have contacted them in opposition to this "War on Women" as women have.

The Democrats are going to run with this, they'd be stupid not to, but they will also almost certainly couple it with a lot of the other crazy stuff the Republicans have been pushing as well, instead of jobs.  Rep. Gohmert (R-TX) just submitted a bill (H.R. 4182) that would require the Architect of the Capitol to place a historical plaque in the National Statuary Hall recognizing the seven decades of Christian church services held in the Capitol Building from 1800 to 1868.  27 Representatives, all of them Republicans, have signed on as co-sponsors.  THIS is the kind of stuff the Republicans are wasting our time with.

--Trakker