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The University of Washington has published a poll that clearly shows that 2/3 of teabaggers support racial and religious profiling and other violations of civil rights, such as governmental wiretaps. The veneer of taxes and big government is rubbing off and the racism under the hood is beginning to shine through so clearly it's blinding.
Click here for the study.
April 28, 2010
April 27, 2010
Teabaggers, the jig is up.
There is no longer any room for the teabaggers to hide from what they are. David Duke, former Klan leader and first rate jack ass, has posted a video on YouTube in support of the teabaggers. What's more, he's up to his old tricks again, claiming that the only reason they are being portrayed as racist is because the Jews run Hollywood. That's right, he said it again. Let me provide you with a few quotations from he latest screed of idiocy.
You see, for Duke and people like him, preserving America is about being white. People of color are a threat. They are dangerous and they will kill you and take your stuff. Don't mind the fact that all of this garbage isn't even good for fertilizer. According to Duke, being a teabagger is all about making white people the only people in America.
You know, by letting other people come to America and bring their weird, foreign ways and languages. But the worst sin of all was those darn race traitors electing a black man president. That, right there, was the death knell for men like Duke and the predominantly white, militant, and racist teabaggers. Oh, so you still think that being a teabagger is about being white and scared? Tell me, where are the non-whites? Why is it that the people at your tea parties look like Alice and not Nelson Mandela? The insane majority of teabaggers, well over 90%, are white. This is something that Duke even admitted during is idiotic blathering. He even went so far as to advise teabaggers to drop the fake multiracial, multicultural façade and be proud it is a white people thing.
The jig is up. When the likes of David Duke are cheering you on, endorsing you, and telling the world at large that you are just a bunch of angry white people, it's time to rethink what you're doing. The only agenda you are serving is one of hatred and racism. It's time to stop acting like a bunch of petulant children and start acting like adults.
Here is Duke's video, watch at your own risk.
And that isn't even the worst of it. You should look at the gems for comments. Here are three, from the first page of comments on YouTube.
If you want to claim that this is all about sovereign rights and the Constitution, where the hell were these "patriots" when Bush was trampling on our civil liberties with warrantless wiretaps? Where were they when Bush intimately tied federal money to religious charities? Where were the armed mobs holding up signs with racist epithets for 8 years as the Right Wing moved this country closer to a fascist police state than we've ever been. Where are the teabaggers protesting the new law in Arizona that is clearly an attempt to marginalize all people of color and make them prove they are legal residents or citizens? They aren't there because being a teabagger is about being a racist pig. It's got a veneer of being about civil rights, but they only popped up after a black man became president. The rhetoric is eerily similar to the filth that spewed from the mouths of men like Duke and Timothy McVey. The vast majority are white, angry, and conservative. Why is that? The one thing that is good about Duke's video is that it lays to rest the idea that teabagging is about anything other than white people being scared and angry.
Duke: Tea Party people are called racist because the vast majority wants to stop the massive non-European immigration that will turn America into a crumbling tower of Babel. Most Tea Partiers believe that we in America have the right to preserve our heritage, language, and culture, just as every nation has that human right. The vast majority of Tea Party activists oppose affirmative action and diversity, which are nothing more than programs of racist discrimination against white people.
You see, for Duke and people like him, preserving America is about being white. People of color are a threat. They are dangerous and they will kill you and take your stuff. Don't mind the fact that all of this garbage isn't even good for fertilizer. According to Duke, being a teabagger is all about making white people the only people in America.
Duke: The Tea Party movement is made up of American people who have watched in silent anger while the nation of our forefathers has been destroyed.
You know, by letting other people come to America and bring their weird, foreign ways and languages. But the worst sin of all was those darn race traitors electing a black man president. That, right there, was the death knell for men like Duke and the predominantly white, militant, and racist teabaggers. Oh, so you still think that being a teabagger is about being white and scared? Tell me, where are the non-whites? Why is it that the people at your tea parties look like Alice and not Nelson Mandela? The insane majority of teabaggers, well over 90%, are white. This is something that Duke even admitted during is idiotic blathering. He even went so far as to advise teabaggers to drop the fake multiracial, multicultural façade and be proud it is a white people thing.
The jig is up. When the likes of David Duke are cheering you on, endorsing you, and telling the world at large that you are just a bunch of angry white people, it's time to rethink what you're doing. The only agenda you are serving is one of hatred and racism. It's time to stop acting like a bunch of petulant children and start acting like adults.
Here is Duke's video, watch at your own risk.
And that isn't even the worst of it. You should look at the gems for comments. Here are three, from the first page of comments on YouTube.
• The supporters of the Tea Party already are White and that is why the Judeo-Media calls them racist
• If the Tea Party is hijacked by Jews and Zionist Christians, (just like the Democrats and the Republicans were hijacked), it will become utterly useless. Keep the Tea Party for the Founders and it will continue to be effective.
• Whites must come to stark realization that if we let ourselves become a minority, small one at that, we are going to get a lot worse than even Obama! We must defend OUR heritage just as Forefathers did!
If you want to claim that this is all about sovereign rights and the Constitution, where the hell were these "patriots" when Bush was trampling on our civil liberties with warrantless wiretaps? Where were they when Bush intimately tied federal money to religious charities? Where were the armed mobs holding up signs with racist epithets for 8 years as the Right Wing moved this country closer to a fascist police state than we've ever been. Where are the teabaggers protesting the new law in Arizona that is clearly an attempt to marginalize all people of color and make them prove they are legal residents or citizens? They aren't there because being a teabagger is about being a racist pig. It's got a veneer of being about civil rights, but they only popped up after a black man became president. The rhetoric is eerily similar to the filth that spewed from the mouths of men like Duke and Timothy McVey. The vast majority are white, angry, and conservative. Why is that? The one thing that is good about Duke's video is that it lays to rest the idea that teabagging is about anything other than white people being scared and angry.
March 28, 2010
My Name Is Called Disturbance
I've lately been reading a lot of commentary regarding the increasingly violent advocacy emanating from the people who still think Ozzie and Harriet represent the political and social norms of the United States. These are the people who now want to take William F. Buckley's philosophy of "standing athwart history yelling STOP!" and put it into practice through street violence in a misguided attempt to save the nation by destroying it.
From somewhere a memory stirred, inspired by the topic, and after reviewing it, I remembered exactly what it was. 1968. Vietnam. Civil rights. Economic disparity. And a great deal of unfocused outrage that would lead to the Weathermen. The Left seemed to be on the move, and the Rolling Stones captured the mood in their "Street Fighting Man":
This mood was -in 1968- more propaganda than actuality despite the rise of the Weathermen, whose entire output of "revolution" is far exceeded by just one day's IED activity in Baghdad. But the threat was enough to motivate certain blocs of the Democratic Party base to shift allegiances and put Richard Nixon in power. These fearful actions seemed justified with the outrages committed by the Manson tribe, which itself helped to still the waters when upper-middle-class college students were gunned down by Nixon's "tin soldiers" at Kent State and Jackson State colleges. No one wanted to be the next one to die over a war lie. Everyone wanted to get back to where we once belonged, only that time had passed, never to return.
But the streets were again quiet, and society had allowed the violent suppression of protest to achieve this Potemkin Peace to become the norm. A state of calm seemed to return to the land, and we could again feel secure enough to dream big - even if the dream itself was a falsehood intended to cover a multitude of sins committed in the name of The Dream.
But like all pipe dreams, reality will intrude into the fantasy once the effects wear off. It always takes more substance to reach that same plateau in nirvana, and the cost of the trip soon becomes excessive. Those ensnared in the fantasy have trouble adapting to that revitalized reality, even fighting against their best interest to return to that relatively numb condition which is self-interpreted as idyllic.
It is thus with the Tea Baggers and their ilk. They want to return to a time when "people knew their place", when they knew that theirs was at the top of the heap. They see all the gains made by minorities as having been taken away from them and want to reverse those changes. The elections of 2006 and 2008 took away their governmental majority, leaving them impatient and worried that something might happen to change their perceptions of power and status before it could be regained. Not willing to wait to use the political process in that effort, they have adopted the tactics of the 1960's and are issuing calls for "a palace revolution". The call is answered with "the sound of marching, charging feet" as those who want the world BACK the way they thought it was (and they want it that way NOW) "shout and scream 'I'll kill the king'" and "rail at all his servants" who attempt to explain why those demands cannot or should not be met.
But to achieve power, the "game is called disturbance". Stage a raucous protest to stop the proper counting of ballots so that a partisan judiciary can decide who "really" won for the voters. Be obstructive in the passage of legislation and then scream that you weren't allowed to participate. Then attempt to make sure that no implementation of any change can happen. That attempt uses the implied threat of violence to turn the electorate once again as it did in 1968. Only like in 1968, the turn realized was not the turn intended.
The focus on the street violence of 1968 was intended to remove Lyndon Johnson's clique from power, not to facilitate the installation of Richard Nixon. It was a calamitous miscalculation. The threatened violence from the Tea Baggers (aided and abetted by the forces of social control in ways that the '60s radicals could only dream about) is intended only to remove Barack Obama and his clique from power, not to facilitate the rise of a fascist corporate state. It will prove to be a calamitous miscalculation if these people succeed.
Those out in the streets shouting about how Obama is a fascist/communist/socialist/Muslim extremist wouldn't know a real extremist if they met one in the mirror. They don't know for whom their efforts will directly benefit, choosing to believe the lies that they are the patriots saving their country from radicalism by being radicals. Should those who will benefit from the theocratic destruction of the expressions of popular democracy achieve their desired corporatist goals, these Tea Bagger fools don't think for one minute that the snake they ride will turn on them. They don't know about how Hitler turned on the Brown Shirts who made it possible for him to rise to power. The don't know how Lenin and Mao both purged the ranks of those deemed untrustworthy to the revolution once their usefulness had expired. It can't happen here! We're Americans!
It was so then, and so will be again if the Tea Bagger path is followed to its logical conclusion. No corporatist power elite is going to reward those who fought their fight by allowing them to realize any benefit from the effort. The Tea Baggers will be disarmed and put into the same place where everyone else landed. They won't have any of the rights they now think they are defending, as everyone of these is anathema to proper business management. Only then will they see the light, and their power will have been dissipated in creating their own prisons. They will be out of options.
Many current commentators express the opinion that the excesses of the Tea Baggers will work against them in the long run. I wish I could agree. While the historical norm is for radicalism to quickly die out, or to get so extreme that it loses popular support, sometimes that doesn't happen before the entire social norm is overthrown. The ensuing anarchy always produces totalitarianism. As there is evidence that big money is behind these "populist" protests and actions, one can only assume that anarchy is the strategy and totalitarianism the goal. And the more the Tea Baggers are whipped up to bring on socio-political Armageddon in America, the more likely that elitist totalitarianism is the outcome of the effort - no matter the alleged renunciation of the means of achieving that goal.
It CAN happen here, especially because we're Americans.
From somewhere a memory stirred, inspired by the topic, and after reviewing it, I remembered exactly what it was. 1968. Vietnam. Civil rights. Economic disparity. And a great deal of unfocused outrage that would lead to the Weathermen. The Left seemed to be on the move, and the Rolling Stones captured the mood in their "Street Fighting Man":
Ev'rywhere I hear the sound of marching, charging feet, boy
'Cause summer's here and the time is right for fighting in the street, boy
. . .
Hey! Think the time is right for a palace revolution
'Cause where I live the game they play is compromise solution
. . .
Hey! Said my name is called disturbance
I'll shout and scream, I'll kill the king, I'll rail at all his servants
This mood was -in 1968- more propaganda than actuality despite the rise of the Weathermen, whose entire output of "revolution" is far exceeded by just one day's IED activity in Baghdad. But the threat was enough to motivate certain blocs of the Democratic Party base to shift allegiances and put Richard Nixon in power. These fearful actions seemed justified with the outrages committed by the Manson tribe, which itself helped to still the waters when upper-middle-class college students were gunned down by Nixon's "tin soldiers" at Kent State and Jackson State colleges. No one wanted to be the next one to die over a war lie. Everyone wanted to get back to where we once belonged, only that time had passed, never to return.
But the streets were again quiet, and society had allowed the violent suppression of protest to achieve this Potemkin Peace to become the norm. A state of calm seemed to return to the land, and we could again feel secure enough to dream big - even if the dream itself was a falsehood intended to cover a multitude of sins committed in the name of The Dream.
But like all pipe dreams, reality will intrude into the fantasy once the effects wear off. It always takes more substance to reach that same plateau in nirvana, and the cost of the trip soon becomes excessive. Those ensnared in the fantasy have trouble adapting to that revitalized reality, even fighting against their best interest to return to that relatively numb condition which is self-interpreted as idyllic.
It is thus with the Tea Baggers and their ilk. They want to return to a time when "people knew their place", when they knew that theirs was at the top of the heap. They see all the gains made by minorities as having been taken away from them and want to reverse those changes. The elections of 2006 and 2008 took away their governmental majority, leaving them impatient and worried that something might happen to change their perceptions of power and status before it could be regained. Not willing to wait to use the political process in that effort, they have adopted the tactics of the 1960's and are issuing calls for "a palace revolution". The call is answered with "the sound of marching, charging feet" as those who want the world BACK the way they thought it was (and they want it that way NOW) "shout and scream 'I'll kill the king'" and "rail at all his servants" who attempt to explain why those demands cannot or should not be met.
But to achieve power, the "game is called disturbance". Stage a raucous protest to stop the proper counting of ballots so that a partisan judiciary can decide who "really" won for the voters. Be obstructive in the passage of legislation and then scream that you weren't allowed to participate. Then attempt to make sure that no implementation of any change can happen. That attempt uses the implied threat of violence to turn the electorate once again as it did in 1968. Only like in 1968, the turn realized was not the turn intended.
The focus on the street violence of 1968 was intended to remove Lyndon Johnson's clique from power, not to facilitate the installation of Richard Nixon. It was a calamitous miscalculation. The threatened violence from the Tea Baggers (aided and abetted by the forces of social control in ways that the '60s radicals could only dream about) is intended only to remove Barack Obama and his clique from power, not to facilitate the rise of a fascist corporate state. It will prove to be a calamitous miscalculation if these people succeed.
Those out in the streets shouting about how Obama is a fascist/communist/socialist/Muslim extremist wouldn't know a real extremist if they met one in the mirror. They don't know for whom their efforts will directly benefit, choosing to believe the lies that they are the patriots saving their country from radicalism by being radicals. Should those who will benefit from the theocratic destruction of the expressions of popular democracy achieve their desired corporatist goals, these Tea Bagger fools don't think for one minute that the snake they ride will turn on them. They don't know about how Hitler turned on the Brown Shirts who made it possible for him to rise to power. The don't know how Lenin and Mao both purged the ranks of those deemed untrustworthy to the revolution once their usefulness had expired. It can't happen here! We're Americans!
It was so then, and so will be again if the Tea Bagger path is followed to its logical conclusion. No corporatist power elite is going to reward those who fought their fight by allowing them to realize any benefit from the effort. The Tea Baggers will be disarmed and put into the same place where everyone else landed. They won't have any of the rights they now think they are defending, as everyone of these is anathema to proper business management. Only then will they see the light, and their power will have been dissipated in creating their own prisons. They will be out of options.
Many current commentators express the opinion that the excesses of the Tea Baggers will work against them in the long run. I wish I could agree. While the historical norm is for radicalism to quickly die out, or to get so extreme that it loses popular support, sometimes that doesn't happen before the entire social norm is overthrown. The ensuing anarchy always produces totalitarianism. As there is evidence that big money is behind these "populist" protests and actions, one can only assume that anarchy is the strategy and totalitarianism the goal. And the more the Tea Baggers are whipped up to bring on socio-political Armageddon in America, the more likely that elitist totalitarianism is the outcome of the effort - no matter the alleged renunciation of the means of achieving that goal.
It CAN happen here, especially because we're Americans.
March 8, 2010
Well, I'll Be A Wealthy Monkey's Uncle!
I think I have just discovered why it is that Republicans tend to prefer religious beliefs over evolution (or science in general for that matter - unless it involves killing or destroying). It would have to do with the fact that Republicans are not evolved themselves. Let's examine the data.
I had this flash of insight while reading about a study of bonobos and sharing published in Current Biology. Researchers discovered that bonobos will voluntarily share food -even surmounting difficulties to do so- rather than eat alone.
This was considered a human trait until someone noticed that when Republicans invite people to dinner, it's so that the guest can pay for it. The guest is usually quite willing to do so (if already wealthy), for then the Republican will return the favor in the form of some very generous government contract.
There is some evidence that Democrats share this trait as well, but maybe in smaller numbers due to it being a recessive gene. For instance, California Senator Dianne Feinstein was a reliable liberal vote up until her husband was awarded a Pentagon contract worth as much as $3.1 billion of YOUR MONEY even if the resulting heat caused her to resign her committee seat. There are other and far more lucrative allegations of mutual grooming-style economic corruption, but I'm already far afield from my simian premise.
Despite the evidence of voluntary sharing in bonobos, this trait of currying future favor might also be shared by them if a research question regarding the motive for sharing is borne out by further study. Male chimpanzees are known through study to give "gifts" of food to female chimps in trade for precedence when the female goes fertile (they would also throw in a movie after dinner if they cared about such things!). So if the suspicion about bonobos' motivations for sharing are determined to be a valid assessment, it would mean that bonobos -our nearest great ape relative after the chimpanzee- are no more evolved than are Republicans. This would not be a good sign, inferring that maybe humanity is not as evolved as we like to believe we are.
It would explain a lot!
I had this flash of insight while reading about a study of bonobos and sharing published in Current Biology. Researchers discovered that bonobos will voluntarily share food -even surmounting difficulties to do so- rather than eat alone.
This was considered a human trait until someone noticed that when Republicans invite people to dinner, it's so that the guest can pay for it. The guest is usually quite willing to do so (if already wealthy), for then the Republican will return the favor in the form of some very generous government contract.
There is some evidence that Democrats share this trait as well, but maybe in smaller numbers due to it being a recessive gene. For instance, California Senator Dianne Feinstein was a reliable liberal vote up until her husband was awarded a Pentagon contract worth as much as $3.1 billion of YOUR MONEY even if the resulting heat caused her to resign her committee seat. There are other and far more lucrative allegations of mutual grooming-style economic corruption, but I'm already far afield from my simian premise.
Despite the evidence of voluntary sharing in bonobos, this trait of currying future favor might also be shared by them if a research question regarding the motive for sharing is borne out by further study. Male chimpanzees are known through study to give "gifts" of food to female chimps in trade for precedence when the female goes fertile (they would also throw in a movie after dinner if they cared about such things!). So if the suspicion about bonobos' motivations for sharing are determined to be a valid assessment, it would mean that bonobos -our nearest great ape relative after the chimpanzee- are no more evolved than are Republicans. This would not be a good sign, inferring that maybe humanity is not as evolved as we like to believe we are.
It would explain a lot!
March 7, 2010
A Proposal In Order To Save The Union
If there is one thing that the Left and Right agree on, it’s that government is broken. The details of why are vastly different, but at least they agree that it needs to be fixed. What follows are just some of the major changes to government that I would make in an attempt to set right the huge mess we have today. What you won’t see is a partisan redesign that strongly favors any political party. I am not a member of any such organization, and I don’t believe there is one that represents my interests. What you will find is a common theme, one directed by the very principle that our Constitution is built upon, a government for the people, by the people.
Abolition of all political parties.
Political parties have demonstrated consistently that they do not represent the American people. They represent their own interests, predominantly the accumulation of power and wealth. The do not govern with the interest of the people in mind, only their own self-serving agenda. These are the very reasons George Washington himself advised against the rise of political parties at the outset. His wisdom was ignored, but it’s never to late to take heed and reverse course. The loss of political parties also means that an elected official must represent the people that elected them, not a powerful special interest group for elitist control.
Public funding for elections.
I know, I know, that’s a very high cost that has to be made up in some way. While there are details to work out, such as how to pay for it and how much everyone should get, the benefits outweigh the cost. You see, I’m not talking about additional funding for campaigns. I’m talking about strictly limiting funding for campaigns to only public funds. Candidates can not use their own personal wealth. They can not receive political donations from PACs or corporations. They can’t be bought by sweetheart deals from powers beyond. By eliminating the use of private wealth we also severely limit a wealthy elite from seizing control because everyone has the same amount of cash. A more level field has never existed.
Term limits for Congress.
I propose that term limits for the House be set to a maximum of four three-year terms and the Senate be limited to two six-year terms. Both Houses would potentially have longer service than any single president and could govern during three different presidencies. This gives the legislative body more consistency than any administration, but the nature of term limits prevents career politicians from becoming so entrenched that graft and corruption are practically a given. Also, extending the length of a term in the House by a year slows down the immediate drive to begin campaigning on the first day of the job.
Elected officials can not accept gifts from lobbyists.
This doesn’t mean that lobbyists are to be banned, only that special interest organizations cannot be permitted to unduly influence the course of legislation by bribing politicians with “gifts” or sending them on trips or other such nonsense. Additionally, lobbyists can’t be permitted to take them out for dinner or some other private meeting. When a lobbyist meets with an elected official, it must be in that official’s government office and during normal business hours. A public log of who they met with must all be kept and published so we, the people, can track who is trying to persuade our representatives.
Reverse Citizens United decision.
Corporations are not people, pure and simple. The idea of corporate personhood is preposterous and dangerous. Unfettered spending sprees by corporations, even indirectly, in support of one politician or another still permits undue influence. While I do believe organizations, including PACs, businesses, and unions, have a right to publish a statement of support or opposition to a candidate for office, the idea that they can spend as much money as they want in order to produce propaganda to sway the electorate is a terrifying proposal. We have already limited campaign funding, and now we must limit indirect support. Organizations are not people and therefore are not subject to the full application or support of the 1st Amendment. In order to maintain a government by and for the people, actual flesh and blood people need to be the deciding force, not businesses or other organizations.
There are other changes I would propose, but these tend towards operational details like reminding the Senate that their job is to represent their home state and its interests at the federal level while the House is to represent the people of a specific area in that state. As you can see, these are not small changes. They are big, big overhauls but I believe they would be the foundation upon which our government would be returned to us, the American people, and taken away from powerful, elite groups that care not one damn bit about what is good for us. We are the majority, we are the masses, and this is our country. It belongs to us and I want it back!
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