tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-82758037141555512272024-02-08T02:38:23.720-08:00Ebon Bear's CaveAKA: Prophet451.
I am, in no particular order: bisexual, Luciferian Satanist, a British follower of American politics, opinionated, hairy and mostly liberal.
I'm 33 and live with my partner and our two much adored cats in the British Midlands.Ebonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05651853704978508286noreply@blogger.comBlogger57125truetag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8275803714155551227.post-69650678402143641332011-11-13T19:47:00.000-08:002011-11-13T19:48:11.434-08:00The View From Across The Pond<i>...or The Rich Versus The Rest</i>.<br /><br />Politics is, at some level, about tribalism. To what degree varies from one individual to the next but, at some level, party politics is about cheering on our side and condemning theirs. Henri Tajfel proved that the very act of dividing people into groups, or them dividing themselves, creates prejudice against the outgroup and for the ingroup and that happens even when the differences are minimal, trivial or outright random. This is called Social Identity Theory and we can train ourselves to look past it but we cannot prevent it happening in the first place. So, at some level, party politics is about tribalism, us versus them.<br /><br />Republicans know this. Their entire political machine is set up to exploit it. It's easier to exploit SIT with conservative politics because, while Democratic politics often tries to encourage us to look past that us against them instinct, Republican politics doesn't bother. Republican politics is entirely about "us" (the good, small-town, heartland, conservative America) against "them" (the pointy-headed elites on the coasts who think too much). Divide and conquer. Not the newest tactic but a time-tested and reliable one. What makes them Republican machine different is that they play this game of us against them for the benefit of another them: The "malefactors of great wealth", the monied elite, the Powers that Be by whatever name you choose to call them.<br /><br />The PtB have a dream, you see. They've had the same dream for a long time, to create a society where the people are so desperate that they'll work for pennies, where workers can be hired and fired at will for any reason they see fit and where their employers owe nothing to the employed. It's not a complicated dream. It's the same "me first, last and only" dream that the PtB have always had. That's why so many of them love the works of Ayn Rand, because she was engaged in mankind's oldest philosophical pursuit, finding a moral cover for naked greed. And that's why the Republicans have spent so long attacking the safeguards society has in place. Because as far as they are concerned, anything that stops you falling into poverty is something that both costs them tax money and prevents you being forced to work yourself to death for them. "I owe my soul to the company store". Since the fall of feudalism, politics can be mostly summed up as the rich versus the rest and, for the least thirty-odd years, the rich have been winning. For that time period, productivity has shot up while wages have stayed flat and the tax burden has been shifted from the rich to, well, you. Yes, I've heard the excuse that "the rich pay most of the taxes" but here's the thing, that would be true even under a flat tax. They have more money coming in so even a flat tax system will take more from the rich than from the rest. I have also heard that excuse that "47% pay no taxes" and I have to laugh at that, purely because the kind of mind that could hear something <i>that</i> absurd and not fact-check it will believe <i>anything</i>. And then I think a little further and realise that what is being promoted there is yet another call to tax the poor and I stop laughing.<br /><br />America doesn't treat it's poor very well. Nor does my own UK and I could do a whole essay about that but it's besides the point here. America tends to still be stuck on the Victorian notion that the poor are poor not through bad luck or simply because capitalism is designed to have winners and losers but through some moral fault of theirs. You can see this notion underlying all the myths about the poor; that the poor are lazy, fat, drug-addled (all statistically untrue); that they don't deserve medical care. It's the same notion that underlies the arbitrary time limits on welfare too. Again, don't think I'm saying that the UK is immune to this stuff (we're just as bad but it takes a slightly different form here because we have a slightly different culture), I'm just talking about the US on this occasion. The US tends to be rather anti-poor. I suspect that's because, in the fifty-odd years of the Cold War, capitalism became a sort of national religion in the USA. You can see that in the use of "SOCIALISM!" as an otherising epithet. The very idea of anything contrary to capitalism (and specifically, to <i>unrestrained</i> capitalism) is taken as some sort of heresy, the word "SOCIALIST!" proclaimed in much the same way as "WITCH!" was a few centuries ago. And, naturally, the label of socialism has been expanded now to cover <i>all</i> left-wing economic thought. The same people who would whinge like banshees if you labelled them fascist (the furthest right position), think nothing of labelling anyone of the left a socialist. Except they'll now insist that fascism was on the left and much the same as socialism. And if you can't see how that works to the PtB's benefit, you're not paying attention.<br /><br />Incidently, don't think I'm propounding some grand conspiracy here. I'm not saying that the PtB work in concert. I'm using the term as a kind of shorthand for those who are both rich and politically-active. It's not a conspiracy so much as it's the case that those who are both rich and politically-active tend to see the world in a similar way (although there are exceptions, Warren Buffet being one example) and tend to work toward similar goals. Nor am I a socialist except in the manner mentioned above where <i>everyone</i> on the left is a socialist. Personally, I'm for a system where most things are left to private industry but a few key sectors that society relies upon (utilities, mail, healthcare and maybe telecoms) are either socialised or have a state-run competitor to provide a bottom-floor of service for price. In the US, you might call that Democratic Socialism. In my old PoliSci class, it was called a "mixed" economy. So, that's where I stand.<br /><br />The last few years haven't been easy on anyone. They've been frustrating for those who think as I do. We've seen banks fall and while the solution was obvious (nationalise the damn things!), it was never mentioned by those in power. We've seen unemployment skyrocket and a too-small stimulus that helped some but not enough. And we've seen the GOP all but abandon any claim to not being the political arm of the PtB. Obama has been something of a disappointment. While always better than the Paleolithic/Pathetic ticket he ran against and always better than whichever maniac will end up representing the GOP this time (which will probably be Romney), he hasn't been the kind of transformative president everyone was hoping for. In fairness, he's also had to contend with unprecedented vitriol and obstructionism from the GOP. Obama is clearly going to be re-elected, barring massive fraud from the GOP and that too was predictable. One thing I never saw coming was the "Occupy" movement. Even now, I'm not sure if it will stick around or, really, what it wants. I understand that they're protesting economic injustice but not what they propose to rectify that, if they propose anything. Maybe, at 35, I'm too old to understand it.<br /><br />Still, things are always worse on Main Street. Unemployment is high. Shops aren't selling much because no-one has money to buy anything. The GOP's control of the airwaves has turned piddle-down economics and "free markets uber alles" into common wisdom. They've waged all-out war against Keynesianism, re-written history to claim that it doesn't work. And yet, it does work. Not always and not perfectly but it does generally work. Obama's stimulus was only room-temp Keynesianism. Too large a portion of tax cuts for it to really qualify. His Jobs Bill was a good step in the right direction but that should have been proposed back when it was likely to pass but then, Obama wouldn't have been able to campaign for his second term on it (I like Obama but he is still a politician). And the GOP still push their master's agenda: Lower wages, no unions, no benefits, no entitlements. On Main Street, jobs are the most pressing issue. Without jobs, people can't buy and without people buying, businesses can't sell. Jobs are the main issue. But you'd never know it listening to Republicans. According to Republicans, the main issues are abortion, sharia and something called a "war on wealth". That last one is possibly the most disingenuous phrase concocted since "the death tax". Very few people actually resent people being rich. What we resent is them becoming rich at our expense.<br /><br />In a way, I pity Americans. Not just because you have another year of campigning to sit through (campaigns here last four-to-six weeks) but also because your public debate about economics is so limited. You are not allowed to suggest alternatives to capitalism or even major modifications to it or you're marked down as a "socialist", a kook, a heretic. And it's going to take a very long time to alter that, if you can alter it at all (which will require overturning that bloody Citizens United decision). I wish it was going to be easier but I doubt it will be. But two things Americans have in abundance are energy and ingenuity and really, that's all you need.Ebonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05651853704978508286noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8275803714155551227.post-52075551424311408912011-08-24T20:31:00.000-07:002011-08-24T20:34:36.958-07:00The Backstop TheoryA lot of the time on here, I'm ranting about the excesses of the capitalist system. This may have led some people to believe certain things about my position on economic issues. In the interests of being hated for the right reasons, let me explain where I stand: I am not a Communist (in the Marxist sense). History has proven that full-blown Marxist Communism doesn't work. It looks nice on paper, it sounds very reasonable but, like a lot of reasonable ideas, it falls apart when you try and apply it to actual people. I'm not going to bother defining it further because it's failed and only complete idiots still think there is any great support for Communism. It can work for small groups, where the emotional tie between each individual prevents exploitation of the system but it doesn't work en masse. Nor am I a socialist. Now, before we go any further, we need to define what a socialist is. Contrary to the current view of the American right, socialism doesn't mean "anyone who opposes letting the poor starve in the streets". In the urge to label every single person or idea on the left as "socialist", the word has been broadened beyond use. No, actual socialism is where the people (usually through the mechanism of the state) controls <span style="font-style: italic;">all </span>or most of the means of production and distribution. I'm not a socialist. The full-blown socialist system is both inefficient and creates a labyrinthine beurocracy.
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<br />However, I'm also not a great lover of capitalism, especially not in the "free markets uber alles" fashion currently en vogue in the USA. Capitalism is also often inefficient but, more importantly, the capitalist system inherently creates winners and losers. And while the winners are often admired far beyond any actual talents they have, the losers are too frequently despised. We call the losers "unemployed" or, if we're conservative and wish to blame them for their misfortune, "the jobless". Capitalism creates those losers. It has to, it <span style="font-style: italic;">needs </span>the losers because their existance keeps wages down. I don't want to turn this into yet another rant about how our culture treats the unemployed but their existance is both a necessary part of and the inherent result of capitalism.
<br />So, I find myself a nominal supporter of capitalism but only for the same reasons Sir Winston Churchill supported democracy, it's better than the other systems we've come up with.
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<br />When it works (and is properly regulated, which people like to forget), the inherent competition of capitalism works to keep prices low and standards high. However, there are a small group of sectors which pure capitalism does not and, indeed, cannot work for. These are the essential services: Water, gas, electricity, telecoms, retail banking, mail and healthcare. I call them "essential services" because living in the modern world requires using, or at least having the option to use, those services at all times. And that's why pure free-market capitalism cannot work for them. Because you cannot remove yourself from that market sector without, at least, massive inconvienience, the companies that supply those services are able to push up prices and slash standards with little to no repercussions. You can move between the various companies but you cannot easily remove yourself, you are a "captive market". These sectors do not work like others. If the price of, say, a Big Mac gets too high, you can go to Burger King (switch supplier) or you can skip lunch (remove yourself from the market altogether) but with the essential services, <span style="font-style: italic;">you do not (realistically) have the second option</span>. Removing yourself from those market sectors is so inconvienient or, in some cases, dangerous, that you are effectively obliged to deal with them.
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<br />Since you are effectively obliged to deal with those market sectors, I thought up what I refer to as the "Backstop Theory". The idea is that, in those sectors, the state should set up and operate it's own business. A bare bones supplier from which you can buy your essential services from at the lowest possible cost. That provides a backstop, a bottom level of price for service that private companies must then compete with either by beating the price, providing a better service or both. Maybe I'm being naive but I always thought that was the essence of capitalism. I have heard various objections to this idea but most seem to amount to either ideaological objections such as the insistence that government can't do anything right (in which case, use the private competitors, what's the problem?); deranged conspiracy theories that claim the populace will be forced to use the government service in time (as an article of faith, this is unfalsifiable) and ranting about socialism (it's not socialism because the government-run services would still have private competitors).
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<br />In some of these sectors, the US and UK already have a backstop in action. In Britain, the NHS, Royal Mail and the retail banking services offered by the Post Office act as a backstop in their respective sectors. You can still use the private alternatives but, because the public companies provide a minimum of price for service, competitors must be notably better in some way to compete. In the USA, the Post Office provides the backstop mail service but, as far as I'm aware, none of the others. Healthcare would be one of the easiest to create a backstop by simply expanding Medicare to everyone (which would also make it a de facto universal healthcare system).
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<br />So that's my idea. It's not perfect and I'll be the first to admit that I have zero training in economics. The idea just comes from a lot of reading and thought on the subject.Ebonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05651853704978508286noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8275803714155551227.post-29247788801397431492011-08-19T06:32:00.001-07:002011-08-19T07:22:44.088-07:00Another Study Telling Us What We Already KnewA new study featured in the New York Times ( http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/17/opinion/crashing-the-tea-party.html?_r=2 ) tells us exactly what we already knew about the Teabaggers: They are, and always have been, the conservative base. The Teabagger "phonomenon" was only ever a Koch-funded rebranding of the same coalition of groups that make up the GOP's base: Racists, borderline fascists, <span style="font-style: italic;">outright</span> fascists, anti-government kooks, backyard anarchists/Libertarians (I'm aware that the two have differing meanings but the Teabagger's variety of Libertarianism is essentially just anarchism), Randroids, single issue anti-gay and anti-abortionists and theocrats, united by living in a completely manufactured reality supplied by Faux News and the talk radio barkers.
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<br />The Teabaggers will take offence at both the study and my description of them. They'll dismiss the study the same way Bill O'Lielly dismisses studies he dislikes: By repeating the main points in a sarcastic tone (which stupid people think is a rebuttal) and describing the conductors as far-left radicals or extremists. It's so predictable as to be laughable, a worldview immune to self-knowledge or self-examination, "pay no attention to the nasty man" for grown-ups.
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<br />But this is the reality the Teabaggers live in, one where the way things are morphs into <span style="font-style: italic;">The Way Things Ought To Be</span> and the teachinjgs of Jesus are filtered through Ayn Rand. This is a world where the left were just as bad to Bush as the right are being to Obama; where fascism and socialism are pretty much the same thing and Glenn Beck is a prophet. Where Reagan shrank government and balanced the budget while Clinton did the opposite, where Bush was a liberal (yeah, I only just heard that too), Social Security adds to the debt and Obama is a far-left socialist.
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<br />Now, none of the above is actually true. In most cases, they're the exact opposite of truth. The fact, for those of us living in a reality where facts matter, are that the left were nowhere near as bad to Bush, that fascism is corporate control of a nation and directly opposite to socialism; Reagan both grew government, never submitted a balanced budget and exploded the debt while Clinton shrank the debt and submitted several balanced budgets; Bush was ultraright and Obama is a fairly wimpy moderate.
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<br />But the Teabaggers, who are now the majority of Republicans, have a seperate world manufactured just for them. It's a world which not only tells them the above non-facts but provides a source they can quote. They have think-tanks like the Heritage Foundation that pushes absurd reality-denials from the right fringe into the mainstream; they can turn on their TV and listen to Fox tell them, they can turn on their radio and hear the barkers repeating their preferred "truths" all day long. Often, they can listen to them from an increasingly conservative mainstream media (in fact, the flat denial of reality that insists the most conservative media in the free world is actually liberally biased was probably the forerunner to all of this). This is a world where facts are not decided by things like verifiability or accuracy but purely by whether they agree with what Republicans are saying. If something agrees with a Republican talking point, it is revealed truth, gospel and unquestionable. If something disagrees with a Republican talking point, it's a scandalous lie and <span style="font-style: italic;">everyone</span> knows it to be a lie. It's a completely self-insulating world where the gate-keeper of truth is purely convienience, whether it accords with the talking points or not.
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<br />One cannot reason with these people. It is a mistake to try because you are approaching the discussion from two completely incompatible angles. You, being relatively liberal, are approaching from a position of using verifiable facts. They, being conservative, are approaching from a basis where talking points are automatically gospel truth because they are talking points. Anything which disagrees is, by definition, a lie and can be disregarded. You're not just speaking a different language; by questioning the talking points, you're speaking <span style="font-style: italic;">heresy</span>.
<br />Ebonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05651853704978508286noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8275803714155551227.post-79426187591732837912011-06-23T10:17:00.000-07:002011-06-23T10:24:41.043-07:00The BDFL Fixes The USA<div class="mbl notesBlogText clearfix"><div><p>For those who haven't read these previously, BDFL stands for Benevolent Dictator For Life, a position where I assume absolute power over the USA to correct the problem. It's an "if I ruled the world" flight of fancy. All dollar figures are in current dollars and shall be inflation-linked.<br /></p><p> </p><p style="font-weight: bold;"><span class=" fbUnderline">CONSTITUTION AND GOVERNMENT</span></p><p>- 2nd Amendment reworded to remove the words "and bear"; define "arms" to include only single-shot or semi-automatic firearms; restrict the right to ex-cons from owning firearms; establish national minimum age and mandatory firearms safety testing and ban control of a firearm while intoxicated.</p><p>- Create a right to an education through high school.</p><p>- Reaffirm right to abortion, subject to lawful restriction in the second and third trimesters.</p><p>- Create a Court of Constitutional Review, a three-judge panel nominated by the American Bar Association and confirmed by the Senate, who shall rule on the constitutionality of each law <em>before</em> it goes for the president's signature.</p><p>- New Constitutional Amendment clarifying that corporations are<strong><em> NOT</em></strong> Constitutional "persons" and are <em><strong>NOT</strong></em> entitled to Constitutional protections. Corporations are not persons for the purposes of the Constitution. They are fictional constructs used for legal simplicity and convienience, nothing more.</p><p>- A complete and blanket ban on any and all businesses spending a single penny on any form of political activism, whether through campaign donations, PACs or political advertising. Any violations of this law may be punished by a fine of up to one full year's profits (worked out as an average of the previous decade's profits) for a first offence. A second offence will see the maximum fine doubled and a third or subsequent offence shall trigger "election tampering" charges against the board members who made the decision.</p><p>- Blanket ban on all for-profit lobbying. Lobbyists <em>exist</em> to bugger up the democratic process, that is their whole reason for being. If possible, I would prefer to get rid of for-profit lobbyists and keep the concerned-citizen kind but, if necessary, I am prepared to accept the loss of the concerned-citizen lobbyists as the expense of getting rid of the for-profit ones.</p><p> - Automatic voter registration upon reaching the age of majority. This is relatively easy to do due to the Social Security rolls. Convicts do not have the right to vote but the right to vote shall be automatically reinstated upon release.</p><p>- Votes for cloture in the Senate set at sixty. It shall be lowered to fifty-five two weeks after the first cloture vote and to fifty-one (not counting the VP) a month after the first cloture vote. This is intended to curtail the rampant abuse of the filibuster.</p><p>- Bidding on federal contracts shall be open only to companies paying American taxes and all bids shall be available for public viewing unless judged to be a risk to national or federal security (a decision which WILL have to be justified to a court). No-bid contracts may only be used by the military and then only in circumstances where open bidding would constitute a security risk.</p><p><br /></p><p style="font-weight: bold;"><span class=" fbUnderline">EDUCATION</span></p><p>- No Child Left Behind Act scrapped.</p><p>- Remove most formal tests (tests done by teachers for their own assessment still allowed).</p><p>- Impose national curriculum, setting general outlines and concepts which children in each age group should be familiar with. Individual schools and teachers can still decide how to teach them but have proven they cannot be trusted to come up with a curriculum.</p><p>- Teaching of "intelligent design" banned until it can come up with some peer-reviewed studies to assess.</p><p>- Sex education becomes <strong>mandatory</strong> from age twelve. The sexual health of future generations overrules the squickishness of parents. Such education shall obviously be taught in an age appropriate manner and shall include acknowledgement of homo and bi-sexuality, preferably making clear that both exist, deserve human dignity and will not cease to exist if someone disapproves.</p><p>- Teacher's will now be considered civil servants for purposes of working out pay and benefits (including pension options).</p><p>- Each school allocated funds for classroom expenses, removing that from the out-of-pocket teacher expenses.</p><p>- School libraries now funded through the newly created Department of Humanitarian Services.</p><p style="font-weight: bold;"><span class=" fbUnderline">HEALTH</span></p><p>- Commission created to study existing methods of providing universal healthcare around the world. 1 year for studying those methods, followed by six to nine months to create a model for universal healthcare in the USA. In theory, coming late to the party should be an advantage since you can study the methods other nations have tried, using the best parts and avoiding the worst until you come up with a special and uniquely American system. The USHS (for lack of a better name) shall focus on preventative health and shall provide healthcare to <em><strong>all</strong></em> citizens, regardless of age, race, class, employment status or anything else, funded through taxation. This includes abortion through the first trimester or when considered medeically necessary to preserve the life or health (including mental health) of the mother.</p><p>- Doctor's office and hospitals shall provide condoms free of charge to the public. This is intended to prevent and reduce STI rates.</p><p>- As the USHS is rolled out, it shall absorb both Medicare and Medicaid, leading to a cessation of both those programs.</p><p>- Having a prescription filled shall attract a small fee, initially set at ten dollars. This is <em>not</em> intended to cover the cost of drugs, it's intended to stop you from bothering your doctor with minor shit that just needs a couple of asprin or a roll of antacids.</p><p>- Legislation preventing the US government from negotiating drug prices repealed, legislation <em>obliging</em> the government to negotiate on drug prices substituted.</p><p>- As the health care and abortion services of Planned Parenthood will no longer be required due to the USHS, funding for them shall be removed.</p><p> </p><p style="font-weight: bold;"><span class=" fbUnderline">MILITARY</span></p><p>- 20% reduction in military budget, targetted toward obsolete and/or unneeded weapons systems.</p><p>- Veteran's medical care rolled into USHS.</p><p>- Mental health added to veteran's care.</p><p>- New requirement that troops be given at least two years at home for each year in a combat area (may be waived in times of national invasion or rebellion).</p><p>- Ban on sending troops to war without full kit for each and every trooper (again, may be waived in cases of rebellion or national invasion).</p><p>- Remaining troops out of Iraq as soon as logistically possible, out of Afghanistan within the next eighteen months and out of Libya as soon as logistically possible without a Congressional authorisation.</p><p>- Minimum age of military active duty raised to eighteen. Recuits may enter training at seventeen but may not be deployed until eighteen. This may be waived in the event of national invasion or rebellion.</p><p> </p><p style="font-weight: bold;"><span class=" fbUnderline">ECONOMICS</span></p><p>- New top tax rate added of 50% on household incomes above $1 million annually.</p><p>- Capital gains taxed as income with the exception of one (1) house, designated as the primary residence. If the household only owns one house, that shall be designated as the primary automatically. If more than one is owned, the designation may not be moved more often than once in every five year span.</p><p>- Nationwide network of JobCentres created. New legislation that every job for which application is open to the general public (i.e. headhunting not included) shall be notified to the JobCentre which shall display such jobs in each Centre and on their website. Each Centre shall also have phones and computers available (free of charge) for the purpose of applying for jobs and will even mail in applications upon a jobseeker's request. Short courses shall also be provided in such job-seeking skills as CV/resume writing, interview technique, basic computer literacy and so on. Advice shall be available for those interested in opening their own business and small loans shall be available for such things as buying an interview suit, attending interviews and relocating for work.</p><p>- Welfare "reform" enacted under Clinton repealed. Welfare goes back to being a non-time-limited entitlement but administered through the JobCentre and contingent upon actively seeking work (we leave Congress to work out the details of what "actively seeking" means). Legislation introduced obliging all businesses to firstly, respond to job applications (nothing more disheartening for a job seeker than companies that just ignore applications) and secondly, respond to JobCentre enquires about interview attendance (too many horror stories of people who lose their welfare because companies couldn't be bothered replying).</p><p>- The BDFL's administration has no intention of rewarding the lazy or workshy but if you genuinely cannot work or if you genuinely cannot land a job despite your best efforts, we will look after you.</p><p>- Creation of the Rebuild America Corps (name up for debate since I don't much like it). This is a central plank of the BDFL's platform. The RAC shall offer employment to unemployed persons (starting with the long-term unemployed) and ex-convicts (if we want people to reform, they have to be given the opportunity) to rebuild the USA's crumbling infrastructure along with various community enhancing projects like clearing graffiti, building low-income housing or beautifying countryside. Wages shall start at minimum wage and, so much as is possible, respect worker's religious/philosophical commitments (For example, Muslims will be given time out for their required prayers). So much as is possible, workers existing skills shall be respected (i.e. administrative slots shall be mostly filled by unemployed clerical workers). However, workers can request assignment to alternative areas if they wish to broaden their skills (for example, a bricklayer can request assignment to a weatherising team to broaden his skills) and can earn on-the-job certification in that area (i.e. our bricklayer can earn his certification in weatherisation). The RAC shall work with local charities and government in assessing local needs and desires. Since the USA currently has both a crumbling infrastructure and a high percentage of unemployment, the creation of the RAC will address both problems. As time goes on, the RAC will become a beloved institution, it provides teenagers with their first real jobs, allows the unemployed to retain their dignity with the feeling that they are contributing to society and earning an honest wage doing so and allows ex-cons the opportunity to rebuild their lives with an honest trade. Social perception of the unemployed turns around when the average citizen can see teams of RAC workers in hi-vis vests rebuilding the local community.</p><p>- Once the economy is back under control (which we estimate at 5-8 years), our administration will introduce free tuition at college and/or trade schools for anyone who does not already hold a college degree or professional certification.</p><p>- Estate tax reinstated on estates above $2.5 million. All family-owned farms, the property designated as primary residence and any works of art or historic import which are exhibited to the public shall be exempted when working out each estate.</p><p>- Congressional committee instituted to examine the corporate tax code for loopholes and write legislation to close them.</p><p>- Moratorium on foreclosures, to be reviewed after six months. Legislation that if the company holding your mortgage cannot produce the legally required paperwork in court, your home is signed over to you and they have to swallow the loss.</p><p>- NAFTA/CAFTA renegotiated with a view to limiting both agreements to goods which cannot be produced in the USA.</p><p>- Any company which moves it's production facilities overseas for the purpose of maximising profits (note, this is quite different from a company getting out of a particular sector or closing a money-losing division) shall see their import duties <em>doubled</em> for the next ten years <em>AND</em> must pay it's redundant workers a minimum of two year's salary (worked out as an average if wages vary) as severence.</p><p>- No board member may be paid more than fifty (50) times the wage of the companies lowest paid employee, including bonuses and benefits. This encourages the raising of wages across the board, channels more of the profits to the stockholders who actually own the company and prevents the board voting themselves exhorbitant pay and benefits packages. This shall not apply to sole trader and partnership businesses on the grounds that they are risking their own time and money.</p><p>- Minimum wage raised to $10 an hour for small businesses, $12.50 an hour for corporations nationwide. Individual states may raise it further if they choose.</p><p> </p><p style="font-weight: bold;"><span class=" fbUnderline">LAW & ORDER</span></p><p>- Cannabis consumption legalised in private residences. In public areas (such as bars), it shall be at the discretion of the owner. Buying and/or growing cannabis for personal consumption shall be legalised for those of or above the age of 18. Selling cannabis shall require a sales license for selling intoxicants in the same way as alcohol. Like any other adult pleasure, cannabis is age-restricted (initially set at age 18) and driving while under the influence is banned (driving under the influence of <em>anything</em> which alters perceptions is a bad idea). In other words, if you want to smoke a fat doobie in your living room, it's no business of the law. If you grow your own for personal consumption or with a few friends, that's equivelent to brewing your own beer and, again, none of our business. All persons imprisoned for simple possession or consumption of cannabis shall be freed as soon as logistically possible.</p><p>- In the case of drug charges for simple possession or consumption, there shall be a presumption against imprisonment and toward rehabilitation. It is cheaper, more effective and more humane to rehabilitate addicts rather than imprison them where possible.</p><p>- We shall create a commission of chemists, scientists, sociologists and criminologists who shall be charged with assessing the effect of various drugs (including alcohol, nicotine and caffeine for comparison purposes) on both the individual and society and making recommendations on the legal status of each drug which shall, except in exceptional circumstances, be made law.</p><p>- Moritorium on the enactment of the death penalty while racial disparities in sentencing are studied and resolved to the BDFL's satisfaction. Outright ban on enacting the death penalty on anyone with an IQ of or below 75 or with a physical <em>or mental</em> age of below 18.</p><p>- Option of sentencing prisoners to LWOP (Life Without Possibility of Parole) shall be introduced in all cases where the death penalty would be available.</p><p>- Mandatory drug screening and, if necessary, rehabilitation shall be introduced in all prisons, starting with and concentrating on soon-to-be-released prisoners (more effective that way).</p><p>- Nobody under 18 shall be tried as an adult without the concurring opinions of <em>two</em> psychologists that the accused is mentally an adult.</p><p>- Enactment of the "Romeo & Juliet" law. Where both partners are within both four years of one another <em>AND</em> the junior partner is within 18 months of the age of consent, sexual intercourse shall <em>NOT</em> be considered rape and neither partner shall be considered a sex offender.</p><p>- Top-to-bottom ongoing review of criminal law to ensure constitutionality. This will take years but needs to be done.</p><p>- Nominations for the SCOTUS shall henceforth be made by the American Bar Association (who shall nominate those it considers moderate in their views and cast-iron adherents to the principles of law). Nominations shall be considered/confirmed by both branches of Congress, requiring a passing vote in both chambers. Recess appointments shall <em>NOT</em> be allowed for the SCOTUS. Confirmation shall be for a term of twelve years, upon which Justices must either retire or be re-nominated and re-confirmed. There shall be no limit on how many terms a Justice can serve and Justices may retire at their own discretion at any time.</p><p>- A new Ethics Committee shall be created to police the SCOTUS Justices. The current Justices have proven they cannot be trusted to act ethically without a watchdog.</p><p>- The <em>Citizen's United</em> decision overturned and quashed.</p><p>- Gambling legalised for over-18s nationwide. Premises and persons whose business is gambling (i.e. casinos, bookies, arcades, etc) must be inspected and licensed for the usual safety checks and for keeping out the underage and/or the intoxicated. Businesses and persons engaged in the gambling trade have the usual freedom to refuse service but are <em>obliged</em> to refuse service to anyone they consider underage or intoxicated. Repeated violations of that rule may result in the revokation of the license. Providers are also <em>obliged</em> to provide a receipt of placed bets and to pay out on production of a valid slip for a winning bet. It's at their discretion whether they pay out if you don't produce it so keep hold of your betting slip. There shall be a 5% tax on bets or winnings (gambler's choice) in sports gambling.</p><p> </p><p style="font-weight: bold;"><span class=" fbUnderline">MISCELLANIOUS</span></p><p>- DOMA overturned.</p><p>- DADT overturned straight away, military integrated tommorrow.</p><p>- Civil marriage extended to same-sex couples within the next six weeks. The law shall be written in such a way that in all respects but the very, very technical (such as exactly how "consumation" is defined), same-sex marriage shall be considered legally identical to hetero marriage. The six-week delay is purely for logistical reasons. Military granted a three-month delay to prepare (for example, by building additional married couples quarters).</p><p>- Israel gets six months to sort out some kind of reasonable compromise with the Palestinians (or make what the BDFL considers a good faith effort) or we cut off aid.</p><p>- We institute the BUSA (Benefactor of the United States of America) medal. This conveys no additional rights or priveliges but is intended to be the highest civilian award the USA can bestow and equivelent to a British Life Peerage, a way for the USA to single out and appreciate those civilians who have made a remarkable contribution to the country. All US residents shall be eligible for nomination but a <em>maximum</em> of twelve medals can be handed out each year (save for the first year, to allow the nomination of all the Founders) and there is no minimum number. Being awarded a BUSA should be the highlight of anyone's life, an honour equivelent to the Noble Prize and a way for the country to say a secular "well done, thy good and faithful servant". No publically elected official shall be eligible for nomination until thirty (30) years after their death (intended to prevent both the pro forma nomination of past presidents and using the BUSA to make political hay). These are intended to be the greatest civilians the USA has ever produced and should be recognised accordingly.</p><p>- Federal purchases of goods must be spent within the USA unless no American company produces the required goods. For example, if the USHS wishes to purchase ambulances, they must purchase from a US company unless there is no US company producing suitable ambulances.</p><p>- Creation of the Department of Humanitarian Services. This department shall be the agency responsible (or co-responsible in some cases) for bettering the citizen's condition. In other words, their job is to fight for the improvement of the citizen's life in all areas. Sometimes, they shall be acting alone (for example, library funding now falls under their remit) and other times, they will be liasing with other departments (for example, with the Department of Justice in formulating rehabilitation recommendations). Other departments have a complex agenda where different pressures must be evaluated and weighed, the DHS has only one: The improvement of citizen's lives.</p></div></div>Ebonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05651853704978508286noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8275803714155551227.post-79845934820752619142011-04-02T20:44:00.000-07:002011-04-02T20:50:47.469-07:00One Moment In HistoryMarch 30th was the 10th wedding aniversary of the world's first legally married same-sex couple. They are two Dutch women, married a decade ago and they're still together and still in love.<br /><br />I rant and rave a lot on this blog and that's because there's a lot of injustice in the world. As far as gay rights go, we have promises to keep and miles to go before we sleep but just for once, let's take a moment to warm our hearts with a love that has endured.<br /><br />Congratulations, you two. May it be only one of many happy aniversaries.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.news.com.au/world/worlds-first-legally-wed-lesbian-couple-celebrates-their-10th-wedding-anniversary/story-e6frfkyi-1226030866529">http://www.news.com.au/world/worlds-first-legally-wed-lesbian-couple-celebrates-their-10th-wedding-anniversary/story-e6frfkyi-1226030866529</a>Ebonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05651853704978508286noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8275803714155551227.post-26070979935518033342011-03-28T21:33:00.000-07:002011-03-28T21:38:58.906-07:00Fascism And The USALet's get a few things straight before we get going here. Firstly, fascism is on the right of the political spectrum. In fact, it's the furthest right position possible. It's left-wing analogue in Communism. In very simple terms, the difference is that in Communism, the state (in theory) serves the people while in Fascism, the people serve the state. Granted, the two look similar to the person suffering under them because both are authoritarian and authoritarian regimes always look somewhat similar but they have very different reasons for being authoritarian. Secondly, despise whatever lies you may have been told, fascism and socialism or communism have nothing to do with each other. While the mental picture of Fascism tends to bring to mind Hitler's Nazi party (it's not a Godwins if you're talking about legitimate history) which was called the "Socialist Worker's Party", the plain facts are that firstly, the "Socialist" appelation pre-dates Hitler's rise to leadership; secondly, the insertion of "Socialist" in the name and a couple of socialist points in the manifesto were a fairly cynical attempt to bring in extra members and thirdly, upon Hitler's assumption of power, all the Socialist aspects except the name were dropped under Hitler's instructions (the Nazi party being run under <span style="font-style: italic;">fuhrerprinzip </span>or "what the boss says, goes").<br /><br />Fascism as a political ideaology can be attributed to Mussolini, who invented (or possibly stole, it's unclear) the ideaology sometime between 1915 and 1920. Mussolini variously described the ideaology as being "the union of corporate and state power" or "corporate control of the state". It's clear that, while under Communism, the state would control business; under Fascism, business would control the state. Depending on which version of Fascism you're talking about (Mussolini's is Classical Fascism, Hitler's was Racial Fascism, there are many other variations), you can sometimes add that the state would curtail or encourage various business practices depending on what industries it considered valuable (this was far more prevelent in Hitler's version than Mussolini's). While Communism envisions the state gradually withering away entirely to leave a collectivist utopia, Fascism concentrates power into the state and the state prostrates itself to business.<br /><br />Now, the topic of this essay is whether the USA can be considered a Fascist state. To that end, we shall start by looking at Dr Lawrence Britt's list of Fascism's fourteen defining features but before we start, a word of caution about Dr Britt's list: While I'm sure that Dr Britt does not intend to promote misinformation with his list, he has a tendancy to use "Fascism" as a generic term for authoritarianism and, in my opinion, misses a few pointers and gives too much weight to others. However, his list makes a good starting point so here we go.<br /><br />1 - <span style="font-style: italic;">Powerful and Continuing Nationalism</span>. This is one of the major features of Fascism and one where it can be easily distinguished from socialism or Communism. While Socialism and Communism are explicitly transnational (think of the <span style="font-style: italic;">Communist Internationale</span>), Fascism is powerfully nationalist and, usually, nativist. The flag is seen everywhere and the nation is identified with the party. On this one, the USA is guilty as sin. The USA has always been more nationalistic than many nations. Think of popular slogans like "love it or leave it" or "my country, right or wrong". Think of how often any American criticising an American policy or historical act has to stress that they love their country. In other nations, that would just be assumed. Think of the doctrine of "American Exceptionalism" or the uproar when Michelle Obama said she was "really proud of her country" for the first time. In the USA, patriotism is not just expected but socially enforced by public approbation.<br /><br />2 - <span style="font-style: italic;">Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights</span>. Because of Fascism's use of scapegoats and fearmongering and the glorification of the state, rights are seen not as due simply for being human or granted by the divine but granted by the state, which may withdraw them as it wishes. Frequently, rights are first withdrawn from official scapegoats with the rationale that "they're only terrorists/communists/Jews/Gypsies, they don't deserve rights". Here, the USA has a mixed record. The Bush administration's hatred of human rights is well known (and their escape from accountability will forever be a stain on Obama's record). The withdrawal of habeus corpus rights from anyone accused of terrorism (including at least two American citizens) is notorious. While it's unclear whether Bush's reputed description of the Bill of Rights as a "goddamn piece of paper" was actually true or not, it's clear that they acted as if it were. The Obama administration has not gone any further in destroying humans rights than the Bush administration did. However, they have also not reversed much of the damage. Most provisions of the Orwellian-named PATRIOT Act remain in force, Gitmo remains open. So a mixed result.<br /><br />3 - <span style="font-style: italic;">Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause</span>. Fascist regimes always single out something to unite against. In this, Fascism understands human nature far better than many political ideaologies. It is vastly easier to get humans to unite and stop grumbling when you convince them that they're under attack. It's also the case that humans love to play the victim. You will rarely find any societal group, no matter how repugnant, that doesn't claim to be under attack. White supremacists claim to be under attack by race-mixing, Fred Phelps claims to be under attack from "sodomites", even Hitler claimed to be defending Germany against Polish forces (no, I'm not kidding). Here, again, the USA has a mixed record. Historically, one could mention the crazed panic of "Reds under the bed" and McCarthyism (as it turned out, while the USSR would doubtless have loved to undermine US society, they never came close to having the capacity to do so). In recent history, the Bush admin used terrorists as a unifying scapegoat (although, credit where it's due, they never equated terrorists with Muslims despite many fellow travellers doing so) while the Obama admin hasn't used it half as much. In fact, this is a far more pronounced tendancy on the American right than the left. While outright hatred of Obama in particular and liberals/progressives in general has become a cause celebre on the right and the Teabaggers sole defining characteristic, there is nothing similar on the left (no, Baggers, liberals were NOT this bad to Bush). So, mixed again.<br /><br />4 - <span style="font-style: italic;">Supremacy of the Military</span>. In Fascist regimes, the military is always given a disproportionate amount of funding, military service is glorified and glamorised. Now, is the USA guilty of this one? <span style="font-weight: bold;">OH HELL, YES!</span> The USA spends more on it's military than every other nation in the world combined. The yearly budget increase alone is more than the entire military budget of your nearest competitor. The USA has enough firepower to render the planet devoid of life several times over and that's without even using the nuclear arsenal. And military spending is sacrosanct. Even when the economy is supposedly in trouble, no-one is seriously talking about cuts in military spending. Likewise, joining the military is not just seen as performing a valuable and necessary service , as it is in other nations, but as an automatic act of heroism sufficient to give one additional gravitas even in unconnected areas. John McCain's entire campaign for president was contingent on his having spent five years as a PoW in Vietnam and, while I respect that service, one must ask how it gives him any additional insight on, say, economics or foreign relations?<br /><br />5 - <span style="font-style: italic;">Rampant Sexism</span>. In Fascist regimes, power tends to be controlled almost exclusively by males. Women are exhorted to breed, to be homemakers. Traditional gender roles are socially enforced. Divorce, abortion and homosexuality are surpressed. Here, again, the USA has a mixed record. While no-one would claim that the USA is free of sexism, it has become both less prevelent and less tolerated in recent years. Divorce is relatively easily available and while gay rights still has a long way to go, things are slowly moving in the right direction. The rampant sexism often claimed by supporters of Hillary Clinton's campaign for president turned out, on inspection, to be mostly untrue (mostly, there were some seriously sexist attacks on her though). The exception is abortion. Abortion rights in the USA have always been under attack. While the Supreme Court legalised abortion under most circumstances with <span style="font-style: italic;">Roe V. Wade</span>, the American pro-life movement (which is concentrated on the right but not exclusively so) has never conceded their loss. Challenges to the law by both individuals and state legislatures are frequent and campaigns of threats, intimidation and sometimes outright terrorism have forced many abortion providers out of business.<br /><br />6 -<span style="font-style: italic;"> Controlled Mass Media</span>. The USA is innocent of this one. Fascist regimes tend to have a controlled media, either through outright state control (interestingly, the BBC, which is state controlled, is considered the global standard of scrupulous impartiality) or through sympathetic media figures and censorship is common. Here, the USA can hold it's hands up and say "not us". While the media in the USA is controlled by it's corporate ownership and therefore, the USA has the most conservative media in the free world (anyone who genuinely thinks the US media is liberally biased should shoot themselves to remove their stupidity from the gene pool), the state exerts very little control over the media itself. Regulation consists mainly of dividing up the available TV and radio bandwidth and ensuring against monopoly (although even that is very often ignored). The FCC, an organ of state, attempts to control content to ensure appropriate broadcast times (and is sometimes absurdly restrictive on sexual grounds) but censorship on political grounds is entirely absent. One must mention Fox News here. Fox News is dedicated to attacking Democrats and liberals/progressives in general and President Obama in particular. As much as they may bleat about Obama's supposed "fascism", their continued operation proves otherwise because such a 24/7 attack/smear machine would never be allowed in a Fascist regime.<br /><br />7 - <span style="font-style: italic;">Obsession with National Security</span>. This one goes in cycles. In general, the sequence goes that there is a terrorist or international incident. Then the USA goes batshit crazy about national security for a few years, stripping back rights, inconvieniencing the average person and arresting anyone who looks sideways at a landmark. Then gradually, the panic wears off and things go back to more-or-less normal and the cycle repeats.<br /><br />8 - <span style="font-style: italic;">Religion and Government are Intertwined</span>. This is another one much more true of right-wing administrations than leftish ones. It's easily observable that the USA is one of the most religiously extreme natiuons in the western world, not as a matter of policy but as a matter of the public psyche. In right-wing administrations, the state tends to push religion as much into state power as it legally can (and, in some cases, further). Again, the Bush admin should be our guide. Bush instituted the Office of Faith-Based Initiatives (as one wag pointed out "9/11 was a faith-based initiative"), positions were commonly staffed by graduates of Pat Robertson's university. Monica Goodling, a Bush appointee who ended up smack in teh middle of the US Attorneys scandal, routinely made staff recomendations based on religious views and Whitehouse prayer meetings and Bible study were, while not enforced, an expected part of life. While Obama is a Christian (or claims to be anyway, it's not my job to play No True Scotsman) and has continued the Office of Faith-Based Initiatives, he has been noticeably more circumspect about bringing his faith into his public life. Partly, that can be attributed to the attention whoring of his former pastor, Rev Wright.<br /><br />9 -<span style="font-style: italic;"> Corporate Power is Protected</span>. Another biggie. This, and the following entry, are two of the defining features of Fascism. The industrial and business leaders are both those who put politicians into power and those who benefit from their policies, creating a mutal cycle of corruption (in fact, if not in law). And on this one, the USA is guilty. The tremendous deference shown to wealth in the USA is easily observable, both by the almost deification of business leaders and by the public outrage shown when the Obama admin suggested raising the top rate of income tax by 3.5%. Suddenly, a wimpy moderate of a leader became "SOCIALIST, COMMUNIST!". While Obama has been less deferential to wealth than Bush, he has still been far more accomodating than most Western leaders.<br /><br />10 - <span style="font-style: italic;">Labor Power is Suppressed</span>. Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed. This is another one where there's a real left/right divide. The right, which has become simply the political arm of Big Business, is ruthlessly anti-labour and routinely presses for lower wages and benefits or, lately, the outright banning of the union's power of collective bargaining ("First, they came for the trade unionists"). The left tends to be more supportive of labour power and while teh cynical would say that's because trades unions donate mainly to Democrats (and there's an element of truth to that), they rarely ask why unions mainly donate to Democrats.<br /><br />11 - <span style="font-style: italic;">Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts</span>. Another one where the divide is pronounced. The right in teh USA is fiercely opposed to both intellectuals and the arts and has been for many years. There is a very, very strong streak of anti-intellectualism to the right which is not only suspicious of intellectual achievment but outright hostile to being taught anything. If you took a shot every time Sarah Palin bashed intellectuals, you'd almost be as wasted as Sarah Palin. On the other side, the left has a tendancy to listen to intellectuals only selectively (see for example, the fact that scientists have been ringing giant alarm bells about global warming for years) and ignore the arts altogether.<br /><br />12 - <span style="font-style: italic;">Obsession with Crime and Punishment</span> . This is another one the USA is guilty of. Of the countries which release statistics, the USA has the highest population of prisoners in the world. Red China locks up less people than the USA does. The US has over seven million people either imprisoned or on parole, around 730 people per 100,000. The nearest comparison is Russia which has 584 per 100k. And there is a marked racial disparity. 70% of US prisoners are non-white. In fact, of the three major ethnic groups in prison, whites make up the least populous group and blacks the most (Hispanics are in the middle). The USA is also one of the very few western nations which retains the use of the death penalty and by far the western nation which uses it most. In 2009 (2010 records unavailable), the USA executed 52 people. Compared to China (which executed at least 1700), that's not too bad but it stands in marked contrast to the rest of the western world which executed none. I don't want to argue the merits of the death penalty here but there is often a disturbing level of glee seen in teh USA when someone is executed. The execution seen less as a terrible necessity than a cause for celebration.<br /><br />13 - <span style="font-style: italic;">Rampant Cronyism and Corruption</span>. We're using "corruption" here in it's non-legal sense. That is, the influence of personal advantage or nepotism in policy. And here is another where the USA is guilty as sin. The revolving door between politics, business and media doesn't need any further ranting from me, one needs only examine Dick Cheney's personal history. Fox currently has at least three possible Republican candidates for president in 2012 under contract. Bush was the son of a former president, Hillary the wife of another. In itself, it doesn't prove nepotism but it is an uncomfortable observation for a country which supposedly has no aristocracy.<br /><br />14 - <span style="font-style: italic;">Fraudulent Elections</span>. Now, this one is complicated. I will go to my grave knowing that the general election of 2000 was stolen. That is known, it is proven (by the Florida Ballots Project) and it is not up for dispute. The 2004 election, I don't know. The 2006 and 2008 elections clearly weren't stolen but they may have been tampered with. What's more concerning is that the US's use of unaccountable "black box" voting machines makes it impossible to be sure of election results. That such machines are absurdly easy to corrupt is well known and has been demonstrated numerous times but what is less well known is that the state is not even allowed to examine or certify the software they use. It's proprietery software, considered "trade secrets" so the companies that manufacture the machines have to simply say "Trust us".<br /><br /><br />That's Dr Britt's list. I consider it incomplete. I would add:<br />- <span style="font-style: italic;">Rural populations are exhorted</span>. Within all Fascist regimes, the simplicity of the common volk is glorified. Granted, this is also a feature of Soviet Communism (to the extent that Soviet artwork has been described as "girl meets tractor"). On this, the American right is clearly guilty. Witness Bachmann's paens to small-town America, "real America, if you will"; Palin's pride at coming from a state with the population of San Bernadino. Fascism always comes from such rural populations or, at least, seeks to identify itself with them.<br /><br />- <span style="font-style: italic;">Obsession with productivity</span>. In the words of the Nazis "Work will make you free". Work is held to be the reason for living and those unable to contribute are derided as "freeloaders" or "scroungers". The USA is guilty on this one but so is much of the rest of the world. The British ConDem government (evil, evil bastards) have made it the cornerstone of their entire economic policy.<br /><br />- <span style="font-style: italic;">Looks back to a "glorious" past</span>. "I want my country back!". How often have you heard that in recent months? This is another feature where Fascism and Communism are directly opposed. While Communism always looks forward to a glorious future, Fascism always looks back to a glorious part, a (usually imagined) Golden Age. For Mussolini, it was the Roman Empire. For Hitler, it was the Holy Roman Empire (which was neither holy, Roman nor an empire). For the American right, it's the 1950s. An era where minorities, women and children knew their place, everyone had a job that paid decent wages and the USA bestrode the world like a collossus. The irony, of course, is that much of their perception of that period is based more on <span style="font-style: italic;">Happy Days</span> than actual history and the Democratic policies they so bitterly oppose are the ones more likely to help get back to that employment level.<br /><br /><br />So, those are my additions and we're up to 17 points. Taking those into consideration, I would say that the USA is <span style="font-style: italic;">NOT </span>a Fascist nation (yet) but that the country is in danger of becoming so and teh American right, the Teabaggers in particular, very much are Fascists. What I hope I've demonstrated through this essay is that "Fascism" isn't just a nasty name to call someone or a synonym for all authoritarian regimes. It is a specific set of reasons and principles, a defined and identifiable ideaology.Ebonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05651853704978508286noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8275803714155551227.post-50740252667219807352011-03-11T20:54:00.000-08:002011-03-11T20:57:55.802-08:00Things We Should Have Learned By Now<meta equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><meta name="ProgId" content="Word.Document"><meta name="Generator" content="Microsoft Word 9"><meta name="Originator" content="Microsoft Word 9"><link rel="File-List" href="file:///C:/DOCUME%7E1/Ebon/LOCALS%7E1/Temp/msoclip1/01/clip_filelist.xml"><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:donotoptimizeforbrowser/> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><style> <!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:"Arial Unicode MS"; panose-1:2 11 6 4 2 2 2 2 2 4; mso-font-charset:128; mso-generic-font-family:swiss; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:-1 -369098753 63 0 4129279 0;} @font-face {font-family:"\@Arial Unicode MS"; panose-1:2 11 6 4 2 2 2 2 2 4; mso-font-charset:128; mso-generic-font-family:swiss; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:-1 -369098753 63 0 4129279 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0cm; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:Arial; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";} p {margin-right:0cm; mso-margin-top-alt:auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto; margin-left:0cm; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Arial Unicode MS";} @page Section1 {size:595.3pt 841.9pt; margin:72.0pt 90.0pt 72.0pt 90.0pt; mso-header-margin:35.4pt; mso-footer-margin:35.4pt; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --></style>Earlier this evening, I was having a conversation on one of Scott's posts with a nice chap called Lars who I don't think I've met before. And we ended up talking about the need to put some decent funding into space research so we can get off this damn rock. Not everyone, just the vaguely sane people (I realise that a mentally ill guy calling himself part of the "sane people" is just dripping with irony). And the new society we'll set up. Our new society will have it's problems, as any society does but in contrast to what we have right now, we'll have learned from our mistakes. The mistakes we've made in this society, mistakes that are now so embedded as to be near-impossible to correct, we'll already know to avoid them. Oh, for sure we'll find all new mistakes to make but we'll know to... <o:p></o:p> <p> <o:p></o:p></p> <p><u>Keep carbon emissions below 350 ppm.</u><o:p></o:p></p> <p>Three hundred and fifty parts per million is the scientifically established safe level of carbon emissions. Above that level, the earth gets warmer and we're all in trouble. Below that, the temprature stays the same or, just possibly, even drops. Granted, the new planet we set up house on will have a slightly different safe level but we don't know what that will be yet so I've just used the earth's limit. We'll have to do this on our new planet because this one is already fucked. The very concept of climate change is now so politicised that it's impossible to do anything about it. In the halls of power, they're not talking about how to deal with this problem, they're talking about whether the problem even exists. The cap-and-trade program that Obama's endorsed won't help the problem and might even make it worse and even <span style="font-style: italic;">THAT </span>is too much for too many. And that's something else we'll have learned: <o:p></o:p></p> <p> <o:p></o:p></p> <p><u>Don't let politicians decide science by vote.</u></p><p>Science is done by scientists. The second politicians start discussing science,. it becomes politicised and that inevitibly means it becomes a matter of party affiliation. The politicians we have now refuse to do a damn thing about the fact that our planet is melting. Abstinence-only sex-ed clearly and provably doesn't work but politicians keep funding it because they think it should work. Stem-cell research, which could save or improve countless lives, doesn't get funded because politicians know shit about the science involved. A basic rule of humanity is that humans are, by and large, fucking dense. We have this really cute idea that one side makes their decisions by emotion and the other side makes theirs by cold, hard reason. It's a cute theory and, like most cute theories, <em>it's bollocks</em>. Research done with people who actually can't feel any emotion (mainly due to brain damage) shows them to be utterly indecisive and that's because humans rarely make decisions by reason. We use reason to rationalise decisions we make by emotion. And one of these days, I'll write one of these essays about how terrifyingly easy it is to manipulate the human mind. Point I'm making is that most people make their decisions by emotion and politicians, who have very well-paid staff who know that, know how to manipulate those emotions. And nowhere is that more apparent than with science. Because most people don't understand science and don't really want to. <o:p></o:p></p> <p> <o:p></o:p></p> <p><u>Don't let everyone think they're an expert on everything.</u><o:p></o:p></p> <p>I might catch some flack for this one but I studied law and I'm currently studying criminology with psychology. Law is a subject where everyone instantly considers themselves expert. Some case comes before the SCOTUS and everyone thinks they understand the issues at stake. Plain truth is, law uses specialist language and principles and most people don't have the experiance or training to understand them (or why "activist judge" is a nonsense phrase). Medicine is the same way. I'm mentally ill, I have been for some time. As soon as you admit that, especially on the internet, you get a bazillion orders from everyone and their dog that you should take vitamins, take excercise, stop taking your meds. Advice like this gets people killed. Among my many other problems, I have Major Depressive Disorder. Telling someone with MDD to stop taking their meds drops their life expectancy to a matter of weeks. The climate change "debate" is the same way; people without a day's training or experiance in climate science who instantly think they know better than trained professionals who have devoted their lives to studying the subject. Biblical literalists (they like to call themseloves "Bible-believing" like literalism is the only form of belief) who think they know better than paleontologists who've spent their whole lives immersed in study and will <em>still </em>tell you that they don't know everything about the subject. And it's because we've eliminated the concept of expertise. We've gone from "your opinion is valuable" (which it is) to "your opinion counts as much as anyone else's" (which it doesn't). Yes, the experts in a subject can occasionally be flat wrong, no arguments there, but they are a damn sight more likely to be right than muggins off the street who thinks Glenn Beck is a prophet and <em>The Sun</em> is a newspaper. When people who have studied the subject are talking, either ask some sensible questions or shut the fuck up. If Gordon Ramsay is trying to teach you how to cook, shut the fuck up and listen. If John Dicey is trying to teach you law, shut the fuck up and listen. If Kurt Angle is trying to teach you how to wrestle, shut the fuck up and listen. Asking intelligent questions and taking notes is also encouraged. Our society has become terrified of telling people that they don't know what they're fucking talking about. It's said that the more you know about a subject, the more you become aware of how little you know. I'm sure that's true but I think someone needs to add the caveat: The less you know about a subject, the more likely you are to think yourself an expert in it. <o:p></o:p></p> <p> <o:p></o:p></p> <p><u>People are people are people.</u><o:p></o:p></p> <p>This one really should be a no-brainer but our society still has problems with it: Treating everyone the same, giving everyone the same rights. And yes, I'm talking partly about letting gay people get hitched. Now personally, I don't see why anyone would want to marry but that's besides the point. Usually, at this point, some dickhead starts saying that gay people have the same right to marry someone of the opposite sex as everyone else but that's bullshit, that's playing fucking word games. If that worked, we could shut down every church except mine. You still have the freedom to be a Satanist like any rational person after all. There is a reason the phrase "one size fits all" appears in no known Constitution or Bill of Rights anywhere and that's because you don't have freedom if the state bans everything else. <em>Loving V. Virginia</em> defined marriage as a "fundemental human right" and sorry, wingers, there is nothing so extraordinary about same-sex marriage that the ruling has to add "this includes the queers too" (yes, I believe in reclaiming unpleasent words. I also believe in hitting people who use them unironically). Likewise, I can't see why any gay person would want to join the military especially right now but if straight people have the option of getting their nuts shot off, gay people should have that option too. Gay people are exactly the same as straight people in almost every regard; same plumbing, different wiring. That's the only difference. Some guys want to shag Johnny Depp, some girls want to shag Angelina Jolie. I'm bi so I'll take both (because <strong>I'M HARDCORE!</strong> and only fans of old-school ECW will get that joke). Look, humans are pretty simple and we're mostly much the same. We almost all want the same things. We want shelter, food and drink and we want someone to share our lives with. Yeah, I'm talking about love. Love is what redeems us, it's what makes us something more than just a super-evolved ape and love, real love, is so rare in this world. Every seer and visionary down through the ages has told us the same thing. Buddha, Mahatma Gandhi, Jesus; all of them said the same thing, the same thing John Lennon said: Love is the answer and you know that for sure. Are we really stupid enough, petty enough and spiteful enough that we would shut off someone's chance at happiness (or permanency, depending on your experiance of marriage) just because a guy likes cock or a girl likes pussy? A lot of us are that petty and that spiteful and that baffles me. I'm not a very nice guy (despite this rep I've bafflingly acquired) but even I'm not that much of a bastard. <o:p></o:p></p> <p> <o:p></o:p></p> <p><u>Don't let megacorporations buy news providers</u><o:p></o:p></p> <p>Another one that should be a no-brainer but has become so deeply embedded that we'll never get it out. Wingers love to trot out that survey where most reporters admit to having liberal social views (although they always ignore the part of that same survey that shows reporters generally have conservative economic views). Thing is, reporters don't decide what goes into news media, editors do and editors tend to be conservative and part of the reason editors tend to be conservative is because they're the ones accountable to media owners and the corporations that generally own the media tend to be conservative. In fact, corporations generally tend to be conservative and that's entirely logical. To be conservative means to be opposed to, or at least wary of, change and corporations that are successful enough to own media outlets don't want change, they've already got the world arranged just the way they like it. In fact, corporations generally want change rolled back, preferably to the Gilded Age when workers were desperate and had zero protections (see, Scott Walker). That anyone could actually believe that the US media is predominantly liberal simply proves what I was saying earlier about how easy it is to manipulate humans because the US has the most conservative media in the free world. Even the channel considered most liberal, MSNBC, has a Republican former elected official for three honkin' hours every morning. <o:p></o:p></p> <p> <o:p></o:p></p> <p><u>Don't let them buy politicians either</u><o:p></o:p></p> <p>Oh boy, the <em>Citizen's United</em> decision was a fucking catastrophe. The US system of funding political campigns is perilously close to outright bribery. The politicians would have us believe that the millions fuinnelled to them by corporate donors doesn't affect their votes. You have got to be kidding. Look, basic human nature dictates that if someone plays a big part in placing you in a position of power and priviledge, a position that if you're careful, you can extend into a lifelong gravy train (see Gingrich, Newt; see also "crook"), you are at least going to feel warmly about that person. And politicians are no different. If Exxon helps get a pol elected, he is, at very least, going to give Exxon more of a hearing than he would of a company that hadn't given him millions of dollars. Now, Republicans have given up any pretence of being anything other than the political arm of Big Business but the Democrats aren't a great deal better (although there are a few notable exceptions, take a bow Dennis Kucinich). We are asked to believe that politicians are both "just like you" and also such a rarified breed that basic human emotional drives don't apply to them. Of course, if they didn't apply, they would be psychopaths which is scarcely more reassuring. And speaking of psychopaths... <o:p></o:p></p> <p> <o:p></o:p></p> <p><u>No Ayn Rand.</u><o:p></o:p></p> <p>Do I even need to justify this one? <o:p></o:p></p> <p> <o:p></o:p></p> <p><u>Corporations are not people. </u><o:p></o:p></p> <p>First off, a corportion is <em>not</em> a person. The basic definition of a human being can be found in any encyclopaedia, while a corporation is a piece of shorthand we use purely for legal convienience. Now, "personhood" is, to some extent, also a legal construct but from it's very beginnings, it has had a specific meaning: A (born, although that came later) human being. Not an automaton, not an animal and not a legal construct. A corporation has all the advantages of being human but none of the drawbacks. A corporation cannot starve, feel cold or wet or have it's heart broken. A corporation doesn't have to worry about paying the rent or keeping the electricity turned on. In a lot of ways, a corporation is closer to a vampire (the traditional folk tale version) than a human; it's sole reason for existing is to generate profit which it then uses to generate even more profit. Indeed, legally, that is the only duty of the corporation and it's directors. Humans are not so simple. Humans have numerous competing needs and desires. If you could look inside the head of even a mentally healthy person, you would see a constant struggle between desires for basic survival needs, for status, for companionship, for a hundred things. Not the corporation. It has only one desire.<o:p></o:p></p> <p> <o:p></o:p></p> <p>Secondly and politically, an individual is limited to a campaign contribution of (I believe) $2,400 per cycle. A corporation may, however, make limitless donations <em>in kind</em> (another legal construct, <em>in kind</em> means that the receiver enjoys the benefit even though no cash changes hands) by buying tv time. Since tv time is likely to be a, if not <em>the</em>, major outlay for campaigning politicians, that amounts, in effect, to unlimited campaign contributions. And because a corporation is an automaton (lacking self-direction), those contributions will be made at the behest of the board of directors. By filtering the contribution through the corporation, the limit on contributions has effectively been abolished for directors. The US system of campaign financing is already perilously close to outright bribery. Whether we wish to alleviate that complaint rather depends on whether you plan your future to include elections or auctions.<o:p></o:p></p> <p> <o:p></o:p></p> <p>Thirdly, this creates an unholy mess of legal principles. A human may commit crimes and, if caught, may be fined. Fair enough, a corporation may be fined as well (although they rarely are and <em>never</em> enough to make a difference). However, a human may also be imprisoned or, if the crimes are severe enough, executed. A corporation cannot be imprisoned and while it can be executed after a fashion by being wound up, those responsible for the crimes of the corporation walk away, free and clear and quite possibly to commit the same crimes at another corporation. Further, the law depends on a balance of rights and responsibilities. The responsibilities are usually implicit but they are there nonetheless. For example, your right to keep and bear arms carries the responsibly to do so responsibly. We might quibble over precisely what "responsibly" means but we do not deny that we have that obligation. Your right to free speech carries the rsponsibility to excercise that right with some care (the "yelling FIRE! in a crowded theatre example) and so on. Well, if a corporation is a legal person and has rights, what are it's responsibilities? It has only one responsibility: To gorge itself, to profit just as much as it can. That is it's only consideration. Legally, that <em>can</em> be it's only consideration. This is roughly equivelent to raising a child to believe that his only responsibility is to satisfy himself, come what may. We call people like that psycho or sociopaths. Ambrose Bierce once remarked that a corporation was "an ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility".<o:p></o:p></p> <p> <o:p></o:p></p> <p>Fourth, a corporation is a psychopath. I touched on this above but it needs spelling out. Some humans have, for reasons we do not yet fully understand, a conscience and sense of empathy which is either extremely minimised or absent entirely. These people are called psychopaths ("sociopath" means the same thing, both are covered by Antisocial Personality Disorder). Contrary to popular belief, they are not automatically violent but because they lack conscience, because they feel no empathy or remorse, if one decides that his personal desires will be best satisfied through violence, he will act to satiate those desires as soon as is practical. A corporation also has no conscience, no sense of empathy or remorse. The people in charge of that corporation may do (or may not, a surprising amount of business leaders test out as psychopaths) but because decisions are made at a distance from the subject, that conscience may well not be sufficient to prevent a decision from causing damage. When you see your customers every day, when it's actual people coming into your store (for example), your subconscious marks them down as human, like you, and therefore beings you can feel empathy toward. However, if your only contact with your customers is as numbers in a book, account names on a profit and loss record, you don't think of them as entirely "real". That's not a unique thing, it's a perfectly normal human trait. It's the same reason why Americans were more emotionally affected by 9/11 than the London Tube bombings, it's the same reason I was more emotionally affected by the Tube bombings than by 9/11. Because I've visited London many times and used the Tube frequently, it was more emotionally <em>real</em> <span style=""> </span>to me than the destruction of a landmark on another continent that I'd never visited or seen or known anyone who was there. That reduction of emotional impact for things with which you are not personally familiar is entirely normal. It is also entirely normal for humans to feel less concerned about the plight of someone distant from them (among others, it was observed by Milgram in his famous experiment). That's absolutely textbook human normal (note: "normal" does not mean "nice". Humans are a lot less psychologically pleasant than we like to believe) but when you combine those two perfectly normal psychological mechanisms, you end up with teh simple fact that, for the CEO atop his ivory tower, most of his employees and customers barely emotionally exist for him. It doesn't take a psychopath to poison the Gulf or dump hexavalient chromium into the water supply, all it takes is those two psychological mechanisms and the constant pressure to profit. If you are only barely emotionally aware of your employees and customers, why <em>not</em> drive them harder, why <em>not</em> slash their benefits and wages (real wages have been mostly stagnant for years), why <em>not</em> skip the safety testing?<o:p></o:p></p> <p> <o:p></o:p></p> <p>I haven't brought you on this little journey to rant about the evils of corporations (although I could do that too). Rather, I am making the point that the corporation insulates it's controllers from the consquences of their actions to a great extent and thus, the corporation is able to take tremendously harmful actions without the soul-searching which a (mentally normal) human would be subject to. And thus, it can buy politicians to enable it without any second thoughts. And that's when politicians (especially Republicans) are not already doing it's bidding under the common misaprehension that being pro-capitalist necessarily means being pro-corporatist.<o:p></o:p></p> <p> <o:p></o:p></p> <p>Fifth, and finally: If corporations are persons, why can't they vote? No, I'm serious. If corporations are legal persons, then they are covered by the protections of the Fourteenth Amendment. That makes them citizens and that entitles them to vote.<o:p></o:p></p> <p><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></p> <p>And I haven't even gotten into the politicisation of the courts yet...<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></p> Ebonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05651853704978508286noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8275803714155551227.post-67406415958635436122010-12-19T08:44:00.000-08:002010-12-19T08:46:52.324-08:00DADT Goes Down For The Three-CountSo, Don't-Ask, Don't-Tell is officially dead. Gay/bisexual people already in the military and those looking to enlist in the future can now be honest about who they are and who they love and poor Dan Choi can re-enlist. And that's great. Really, it is. I can't see why anyone, gay or straight, would <span style="font-style: italic;">want </span>to elist under current circumstances but that's besides the point. I can't help but be suspicious that real political effort to repeal DADT only came when the US was stuck in a seemingly intractable war and having trouble recruiting people like translators. "Enlist your gays for we need the cannon fodder"?<br /><br />Still, a step forward for equality. And everyone who pushed for, proposed and agitated for this change deserves congratulation. Congrats guys, have a drink and take a short holiday.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />There, did you enjoy it? I don't want to rain on anyone's parade but the fact is, getting gay people their right to risk life and limb for the Stars & Stripes was only <span style="font-style: italic;">part </span>of the battle and, given the USA's near worship of the military, probably one of the easier parts. The Department of Defence (and really, what are they defending? The US has been on the offensive for years) wants warm bodies in uniform, and at a certain level, they're not overly picky about who they are. The military has accepted neo-Nazis, assorted racists and a slightly worrying amount of organised fundementalist Christians (small note: Christians in general, no problem. Christians who want to remake the military into a crusading force for Christendom, that's a problem) so why not gay people?<br /><br />But don't think everything is wine and roses now. There are still going to be problems integrating the military in the same way as there were with racial integration and the larger war for full equality still goes on. Gay people still don't have equality in marriage rights, hospital visitation, taxation, employment and a bazillion other things I don't have space to list right now. This is a start, a step in the right direction.<br /><br />That's not to take away from the importance of this step. The good guys won one for a change, enjoy that, revel in it for a little while. But only for a little while because we won a battle but the war goes on.Ebonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05651853704978508286noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8275803714155551227.post-7828585887655437022010-11-22T05:39:00.000-08:002010-11-22T05:41:53.721-08:00That's It, I Give Up On HumanityI've been working on an article for a while now on how the BDFL (my fictional me-as-dictator flight of fancy) would handle the US's current state but what grabbed my attention today was this article from PinkPaper.com ( http://news.pinkpaper.com/NewsStory/4319/18/11/2010/countries-vote-to-accept-execution-of-gays.aspx ). In case you're not aware, the UN has a list of things people should <span style="font-weight: bold;">not </span>be executed for, what it lists as "discriminatory reasons" for execution and for about a decade, sexual orientation has been included on that list. Makes sense, right? Well, a few days ago, the UN narrowly voted to REMOVE sexual orientation from that list. There are still 76 countries that criminalise homosexuality and five that treat it as a capitol offence (not counting Uganda's kill-the-gays bill which hasn't been ratified yet) and the world can't even agree that this is a moral outrage?<br /><br />That's it. I give up on humanity. We officially lose any right to be the dominant species after this. <span style="font-style: italic;">Seventy-nine</span> countries voted to remove the ban (actually a condemnation, since the UN has bugger all actual power). Seventeen abstained. <span style="font-style: italic;">Abstained</span>? How the fuck do you abstain from that vote? Killing guys just because they like to suck cock (or girls who like to eat pussy) isn't something you can be undecided on. This isn't an issue where you can say "Hey, to each his own" because we are talking about fucking <span style="font-style: italic;">killing </span>people for who they fall in love (or, at least, into bed) with. "Beef or chicken?" is something you get to not have an opinion on, killing gay folks isn't.<br /><br />Now, I'm not opposed to the death penalty in principle (my views on it<span style="font-style: italic;"> in practice</span> are in flux right now) but when I think of people who deserve to be executed, I think of people like Richard Rameirez, Jeffrey Dahmer or Robin Gecht, not Freddie Mercury, Elton John and Graham fucking Norton (and I can't stand Graham Norton). The fact that there even needs to be a list in the first place is depressing enough but the fact that better than half the world's countries voted to remove homosexuality from it, to say killing people for being queer is acceptable? There's a bullet through the heart of any sense of pride in the human species. I mean, Jesus fucking Christ, if we can't at least agree that executing people for being gay is a moral outrage, what fucking hope is there for humanity?Ebonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05651853704978508286noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8275803714155551227.post-33665110452686760592010-10-19T20:01:00.001-07:002010-10-19T20:03:10.125-07:00Britain, sickness and evil bastardsSparked by this:<br />http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11580332<br /><br />"They have bombarded us with massive scary numbers and whispered not<br />so quietly about Greek-style riots if the international markets were to<br />lose confidence in the British economy and government.<br />Second, they have gone to enormous lengths to persuade everyone that the cuts<br />...will be fair - hitting everyone from the rich to the poor. "<br /><br />They are, of course, lying through their teeth on both counts.<br /><br />The "debt crisis" is illusory. Britain doesn't have a debt crisis. We have a significant downturn because our government, like many others, listened too much to Austrian magical thinking economics for the previous twenty years but we don't have a significant debt problem. Even if we did have a debt problem, austerity cuts are exactly the wrong way to address it. The "debt crisis" is a phantom, a spectre the Tories and their media buddies have summoned up to justify their real aims. That is, taking an axe to the welfare system.<br /><br />The second part would be laughable if it wasn't so disgusting. Of course the cuts won't be fair. If you wanted them to be fair, you shouldn't have voted in Tories. Tories don't do "fair". They're big money bully boys, fascist financiers. Vote in Tories, you get government for teh sake of the rich. That's just how it is and always has been.<br /><br />When the coalition were voted in five months ago, David Cameron said that, of course, the most vulnerable would be protected from the cuts. Was that a cold-blooded lie? Naturally. The most vulnerable are the people who will be <span style="font-style: italic;">targetted </span>by these cuts. Again, that's what Tories do, it is their natural function in life. Tories stomp on those at the bottom for the sake of those at the top. This is as normal and predictable as the sun rising.<br /><br />Want proof? Solid reports coming out of the coalition indicate that £2.5 billion is to be cut from ESA. ESA is what the government gives you if you're too sick to work. The system is already designed so that virtually no-one can claim it but still, they want more cuts. The state has been trying to get rid of sickness benefit entirely for years but, knowing that people wouldn't accept that, they've settled for making the box you have to fit in to claim it smaller and smaller. It's hardly a king's ransom. I get £125 a week and that's because my partner is listed as a dependent. And I'm on the "partly fit for work" section because ATOS (the private company who "administer" the tests, lie their asses off at every opportunity and are corrupt to teh core) don't think the "unfit for work" category exists. When ATOS were contracted to do the work, it was estimated that about 40-50% would be found unfit. Actual number was less than five percent and I'd be willing to wager that the majority of those got it on appeal. £125 a week comes to £6,500 a year and they want savings of £2.5 billion.<br /><br />That's a whole lot of dead people. And that's the intention, to get people off teh rolls by any means necessary. If you can work, work. If you can't, die. Whole lot of dead people.<br /><br />And I'll probably be one of them. Having Major Depression means struggling not to kill yourself all day, every day. And then there's the additional knowledge that, as an unemployed person, you're part of the single most despised group in the country (yes, more than child molesters, it's approaching societal pathology). And then there's the state trying to kill you as well. And it becomes ever more difficult to hold on or know why you should.<br /><br />£2.5 billion. At £6,500 each. Lots of dead people to come. I'm tempted to leave early to avoid teh rush. The depths of this government's cold, unmitigated evil are only just starting to become obvious.Ebonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05651853704978508286noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8275803714155551227.post-8443759216150889042010-10-19T10:04:00.000-07:002010-10-19T10:22:52.288-07:00Now Here's Something I Can Really Get BehindI think I have a problem with the campaign for same-sex marriage / marriage equality. No, not that it exists or is "going too far", that the movement is being far too <span style="font-style:italic;">civilised</span>. Don't misunderstand, trying to get your human rights recognised through the courts and public opinion is very noble, very admirable. It speaks to the inherent civility of the movement that it is still being so restrained. But there's something about humanity that seems to only recognise a right when it's torn from the bloodied fist of the oppressor. Would Martin Luther King (whom I have the utmost respect for) have been so convincing if white society hadn't been so terrified of Malcolm X? I don't know. But I <span style="font-style:italic;">do </span>know that when your other option is Magneto, kindly old Professor Xavier starts to look a lot more reasonable. <br /><br />In other words, I think getting in people's faces can achieve a valuable goal. That's easy for me to say; I'm a big guy, trained to fight and confrontational by nature but let's be honest, a good firm smack in the mouth ends a lot of arguments. Occasionally, when discussing gay rights, I make the call to have some fucking <span style="font-style:italic;">riots</span>. Usually, I'm not serious about that but I do think there's a lot to be said for standing and saying "this is who I am, this is what I do and fuck you if you can't take it". Why should gay guys be allowed to marry other guys? Because fuck you, that's why. <br /><br />See, the public awareness campaign and the lawsuits, they do a nice job of reaching the undecided but some people, you're never going to reach. You're never going to be able to reason with them because they left reason behind years ago. And for people like that, something a little stronger is needed. Maybe I'm just not as nice a guy as some people think but my urge to yell "we're here, they're queer and if you got a problem with that, let's step outside" peaked a few years ago.<br /><br />With that in mind:<br /><br /><object width="480" height="295"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/1amIrR-VMAI?fs=1&hl=en_GB"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/1amIrR-VMAI?fs=1&hl=en_GB" width="480" height="295" allowScriptAccess="never" allowFullScreen="true" wmode="transparent" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"></embed></object>Ebonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05651853704978508286noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8275803714155551227.post-41198781228852944842010-10-11T00:02:00.000-07:002010-10-11T00:07:51.415-07:00About bullying, we need to talkAdvance notice: Forgive me if I get emotional here.<br /><br />So, I've been away for a while. What's brought me back now has been the recent spate of kids killing themselves because they were being bullied. In discussing it with someone on another forum, I was asked if bullying was actually worse now than it was before and yo yo yo, let me speak on this 'cos I got something to say:<br /><br />It's worse. Far worse. Partly, that's because there are so many more avenues for bullying now. When I was a kid, cellphones were the size of a house brick and only the wealthy or those with very demanding professions owned them; the internet didn't exist and DARPAnet (which would eventually evolve into the internet we have today) was only in it's formative stages. The only time you saw bullies was at school to a large extent. Today, pretty much everyone has a cellphone (which is not to argue that cellphones are a bad thing) and there's MySpace, Facebook, LiveJournal. There are so many more avenues of communication today. That has it's upside that I've talked about before at great (and probably boring) length but it also has a downside because there are so many more openings for bullies to get through now.<br /><br />So it's worse now but it was always pretty bad. Remember that kid in school who didn't fit in? The one that most people pretty much isolated and ignored? I was that kid. I was slightly overweight, bookish, dyslexic (I know that seems a contradiction but dyslexia has many forms and mine only really affects my writing) and, hard as it may be to believe for those who know me now, rather timid. So I was bullied. I was beaten down pretty much every day between the ages of about seven and fourteen (when I suddenly gained fifty pounds and discovered wrestling). And there's the dehumanising taunts, name-calling that targetted my intelligence, my sexuality (years before I was even aware of it), my ethnicity, everything. Kat tells me that girls are just as bad, they just use taunts instead of beatdowns.<br /><br />There's some stuff about bullying that adults believe that really needs to be debunked because I got told it as well. If you stand up to the bully, he doesn't back down, he hits you. If you hit him back, he goes and gets his mates and they all hit you. Bullies aren't necessarily stupid or insecure or underachievers. In my experiance, they're likely to be of normal intelligence and the exact opposite: So cocky, arrogant and overachieving that they believe they have the right to dominate others. The bully isn't socially isolated and without close friends. They're usually charismatic and collect friends eager to do their dirty work for them. And while I'm sure some of them are abused kids, many aren't. The bully doesn't pick on you because he's jealous of you or threatened by you or anything like that. A few individual cases might be all of those things but for the most part, the bully picks on you <span style="font-style:italic;">because he can</span>.<br /><br />A couple of years back, two girls here committed suicide due to bullying and teh press threw a fit. Stories about the "hidden cancer of bullying", big tearful headlines, the full works and I can remember feeling outraged. No, not because of them in particular. I'm sorry for them, of course but I've seen the story too often to be unusually moved by one or two cases. No, what outraged me (apart from the ever-present, maddening use of "cancer" as a metaphor. Guys, you're trained writers, FIND A NEW WORD!) was that it was only now that people noticed. It was only when the victims were photogenic little girls whose portraits could be splashed across front pages and you could concievably envision as reincarnations of the Christ child, only when there was actually blood on the classroom floor, only then did people actually pay any attention. Where the fuck were they for the previous thirty years? Were where they while hundreds, thousands, maybe millions of kids were having their lives destroyed? Where were they when those kids carried the damage that shit did to their minds into psychologist's offices around the world? Where were they when the victim wasn't some photogenic little angel, when the victim didn't have a straight A average and doting parents who thought the sun shone out of their blessed little behinds?<br /><br />And, of course, I know where they were. I know exactly where the bleeding hearts and self-appointed moral guardians were. They were sat at the back of the class. Maybe they were laughing, maybe they were cheering the bully on, maybe they were hoping the bully didn't notice them but they didn't do a damn thing. And when some little angel (excuse me while I spit) tops themselves, they cry "oh, the humanity!" and rend their garments and tear at their hair and say how awful it is, someone should do something about it. And then tomorrow's paper rolls around and there's some new outrage and they go quietly back to sleep and forget about it because there's always a story important enough to go on the front page. And across the country, the kids that they just gave up on, the ones they think should brawl with the bully and his pack; those kids cry themselves to sleep every night if they can sleep at all or they sag off school or they cut themselves while their parents dismiss their emotions as teen angst, shoved their feelings in a little tickbox that they can safely ignore. And if the parents care at all, the advice they give is useless. My parents gave useless advice. It was Grimmer who bothered herself to go and raise hell about it.<br /><br />Kids are animals, you see. Vicious little balls of spite and entitlement, all Ego and Id. It's the job of parents, of families and schools to train them to be something better. But, as Larkin said, "<span style="font-style:italic;">they fuck you up, your mum and dad</span>". A lot of us aren't doing so well with raising kids these days and the old familial structures that meant kids were raised by an extended family, they're gone now. Thirty years of live to work and stagnant wages and shorter vacations and shrinking social safety nets, they've destroyed those family structures. And the schools, well, they're too busy pushing Little Johnny (who's a decent kid but a little slow) through this week's high-stakes test to get concerned about their student's life. The attitudes that allow bullying to happen, that cause it to happen, begin with families and you can't support lower wages, shorter vacations and a shrinking safety net and call yourself "pro-family". I was trying not to involve politics in this but fuck it, there it is.<br /><br />Bullying is a weird thing. Everyone knows it happens but no-one's willing to acknowledge how much it happens or how deeply it affects people. Some people get over it, they go on to live perfectly normal lives. But a lot don't get over it, not entirely and not ever. I'm 34 now and I started cutting back when I was a teenager as a way of dealing with my emotions. I'm a bright guy, IQ somewhere between 152 and 165 depending on the test and with the mental clouding my meds cause and, when I let things get to me, I can still hear those voices calling me stupid because I could barely write (in fairness, dyslexia is much more recognised these days). I'm mentally ill, I know that and so, I'm maybe an extreme example. Most bullied kids probably won't become mentally ill or, if they do, it'll not have any connection (I'm very, very unclear on how much connection the two had in myself) but they'll carry the emotional scars of it. And still, no-one wants to expend time or money to tackle the issue. They want to teach kids how to cope with bullying instead of stopping the bullying itself. This is somewhat akin to shooting the looters in the aftermath of Katrina; it might help the immeadeate poblem but it doesn't exactly tackle the cause.<br /><br />Anyway, that's me said my piece. Went on longer than I wanted, got more emotional than I intended and probably swore more than I should. But there it is, the die is cast.Ebonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05651853704978508286noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8275803714155551227.post-43932638359711154092010-08-05T01:45:00.000-07:002010-08-05T01:46:53.685-07:00Today Was A Good DaySo, did you hear? Prop 8 got overturned in California. Isn't that awesome? Equality and the rule of law win out over the momentary whim of the mob, fantastic stuff. Still, this would be a pretty dull entry if all I did was praise the ruling so instead, I thought I'd vivisect Michael "Savage" Weiner's article on the ruling (no link to hate sites, find it yourself). For context, Weiner is a notorious closet case who's semi-autobiography included his literary avatar being beaten for "acting like a sissy". This is pretty obviously what turned him into the self-loathing closet case we all know and, well, know. For several years now, my holiday wish for Mikey has been a course of extra-strength therapy to convince him that being gay really is ok and a subscription to Gay Times so he has something to do with his sexuality. Essentially, Weiner is about two steps from being an outright fascist and one of those steps is getting over his attraction to strong men in uniform. Oh, and he posted his tirade in full CAPS, sorry.<br /><br />Title: FROM BLACK SHIRTS<br />TO BLACK ROBES<br /><br />Instantly, the association with fascists. The fascists were on the political right but Weiner, like many ultraconservatives, maintains the sick lie that they were leftists.<br /><br />TODAY, A LEFT-WING JUDGE IN A BLACK ROBE RULED THAT YOU HAVE NO VOTE. JUDGE VAUGHN WALKER WHO WAS APPOINTED BY GEORGE BUSH SR<br /><br />First off, he didn't rule that at all. He ruled that no amount of votes can override the federal Constitution. Secondly, if he's "left-wing", why was he appointed by Bush Sr and nominated by Reagan?<br /><br />IN A 138-PAGE DECISION, HE ASSAULTED AND INSULTED THE VOTERS OF THIS STATE.<br /><br />That's a complete and utter lie which Weiner pulls straight from his ample backside.<br /><br />THIS LITTLE CAESAR CLAIMED THAT PROPOSITION 8 PLACES THE FORCE OF LAW BEHIND STIGMAS AGAINST GAYS AND LESBIANS.<br /><br />Which it did, blatantly.<br /><br />THIS LITTLE CAESAR CLAIMED THAT THE RIGHT TO MARRY PROTECTS AN INDIVIDUAL’S CHOICE OF MARITAL PARTNER REGARDLESS OF GENDER.<br /><br />Which it does. Marriage is a "fundemental right" according to Loving.<br /><br />THIS LITTLE CAESAR CLAIMED DOMESTIC PARTNERSHIPS DO NOT SATISFY CALIFORNIA’S OBLIGATION TO ALLOW PLAINTIFFS TO MARRY.<br /><br />Dude, what's with the "little Caesar" thing?<br /><br />ALL OF THIS IS WRONG. BUT WHAT’S MORE IMPORTANT TO KNOW IS THAT JUDGE VAUGHN WALKER HAS STOLEN THE VOTES OF 7 MILLION PEOPLE.<br /><br />All of this was absolutely correct except in the upside-down, black-is-white world of Savage Weiner. And again, he didn't steal their votes at all, he ruled that those votes cannot overrule the federal Constitution.<br /><br />NOW LITTLE CAESAR JUDGE WALKER, THIS HAPPENS TO BE GAY. THIS IS A FACT THAT THE MEDIA REFUSES TO REPORT TO YOU.<br /><br />Because it is utterly and entirely irrelevent. If Weiner is making the argument that a gay judge cannot be impartial in this case (which he is), then he is also arguing that black judges should be recused from cases involving black people and white judges should be recused from cases involving white people.<br /><br />AND HE HAPPENS TO BE A RADICAL LEFTIST.<br /><br />Who was nominated by Ronald Reagan, re-nominated and appointed by Bush Sr. But why bother with that, Weiner (like Bill Orally) declares everyone who disagrees with him a "radical leftist".<br /><br />IN 1999, HE REJECTED ARGUMENTS FROM THE PARENTS OF A BOY WHO CLAIMED THEIR RELIGIOUS RIGHTS WERE VIOLATED BY PRO-GAY COMMENTS THEIR SON'S TEACHER HAD MADE IN THE CLASSROOM.<br /><br />And he was right to do so because their religious rights hadn't been violated.<br /><br />IN 2005, HE SIDED WITH THE CITY OF OAKLAND AGAINST TWO EMPLOYEES WHO PLACED FLIERS PROMOTING "NATURAL FAMILY, MARRIAGE AND FAMILY VALUES."<br /><br />And since the city took issue with it, you know damn well there was more to the case that Weiner gives you here.<br /><br />THIS IN NOT AN IMPARTIAL JUDGE. THIS IS AN DICTATOR IN BLACK ROBES.<br /><br />This is an entirely impartial judge who made a decision that closet case Weiner dislikes.<br /><br />IN THE 1920S AND 30S, MUSSOLINI, THE FASCIST DICTATOR OF ITALY, SENT THUGS IN BLACK SHIRTS OUT INTO THE STREETS TO BEAT UP ANYONE WHO MIGHT OPPOSE HIS TYRANNICAL REGIME.<br /><br />Mussolini, like all fascists, was a right-winger. And while the history lesson is welcome (if unnecessary), how is it relevent?<br /><br />BUT NOT EVEN HE HAD THE AUDACITY TO STEAL 7 MILLION VOTES TO ACHIEVE HIS ENDS.<br /><br />Weiner is obsessed with this idea. The judge, of course, did nothing of the sort. He just said that those votes could not overrule the federal Constitution. Interestingly though, Weiner had absolutely no problem when Bush's 2000 election team actually did steal loads of votes or when the SCOTUS installed Bush in the most activist decision in history.<br /><br />PROPOSITION 8 WAS PASSED BY THE VOTERS OF CALIFORNIA IN 2008.<br /><br />Which is entirely irrelevent. Lots of states had anti-miscegeny laws too.<br /><br />EVEN THOUGH THE STATE VOTED FOR OBAMA<br /><br />Also irrelevent.<br /><br />ON OVERWHELMING MAJORITY OF CALIFORNIANS SAID THAT MARRIAGE WAS JUST BETWEEN A MAN AND A WOMAN<br /><br />1) Five percent is not "overwhelmingly" unless you consider Bush's two percent 2004 victory a "mandate". 2) Many of those Californians would now vote differently. 3) Still irrelevent because no amount of votes can overrule the federal Constitution.<br /><br />7 MILLION CALIFORNIA VOTERS SAID THAT. AND NOW, ONE BITTER, LITTLE CAESAR HAS VOTED TO THROW ALL THOSE VOTES OUT THE WINDOW.<br /><br />He's obsessed with this "little Caesar" thing. And, yet again, Judge Walker has done nothing of the sort, he has, blah, blah, you know the rest by now.<br /><br />SO THE QUESTION IS THIS – IS JUDGE VAUGHN WALKER 7 MILLION TIMES MORE IMPORTANT THAN YOU ARE?<br /><br />1) Yes, that's how the law works. 2) He's at least seven million times as important as Michael Weiner.<br /><br />ONE JUDGE HAS NULLIFIED THE VOTES OF MILLIONS: IS THIS CONSTITUTIONAL?<br /><br />Yes, entirely.<br /><br />MICHAEL SAVAGE SAYS NO. <br /><br />Actually, Michael "Savage" Weiner says "RARGH, dribble, dribble, LIBERALS, buro, PUDDING!" because he's absolutely out of his mind.<br /><br />Here's the thing: It is not a judge's job to enforce the tyranny of the majority. The whim of the braying mob is utterly irrelevent to the law. All 300 million odd Americans could have voted for Prop 8 and it would still be irrelevent to the law. A judge's one and only duty is to interpret that law (and anyone about to say one word about "activist judges making law" can go fuck themselves, the principle of stare decisis means judge's can't avoid making law). Judge Walker observed the letter and spirit of every legal principle and procedure from beginning to end. His lengthy written decision is a textbook shinging example of judicial reasoning. See, what people like Weiner don't get is that judges do not just pull their opinions from somewhere under their robes (apart from Clarence Thomas, who does and Antonin Scalia, who has them dictated by the ghost of Adolf Hitler). Judicial reasoning is a very specific mode of logic; it has it's own rules, principles and assumptions and it takes law students months, if not years, to fully understand it. Judge Walker made no less than EIGHTY findings of fact in his decision. This decision will go down in history, not just for it's role in what will (hopefully) be the legalisation of same-sex marriage but as a teachable example of how to write a judicial ruling.<br /><br />Contrary to Weiner's ranting, the US is not an Athenian democracy, you do not vote on every issue. Your Founders, who were actually rather wary of democracy, set up a very careful system to ensure that the whom of the mob could not take away the rights of the people. According to teh decision rendered in Loving, marriage is a "fundemental right" (and no, morons, there is nothing so special about same-sex marriage that the ruling has to say "this includes the queers too"). Article XIV of the Constitution says, in effect, that the rights of the people cannot be abridged by popular vote. If an Amendment to the federal Constitution was formulated, passed and ratified in the described manner, then that would be a different matter but thus far, it hasn't and the chances of that happening are fairly slim.Ebonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05651853704978508286noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8275803714155551227.post-14571382125109609472010-07-26T23:35:00.000-07:002010-07-26T23:50:04.959-07:00A Meandering Rant About SexualityToday, I'd like to talk about sexuality a little.<br /><br />I am a bisexual man. For those lacking a high-school education, that means that I am sexually and romantically attracted to both men and women. My current (and hopefully, last) partner is female. Unlike most bisexual people, I don't have a gender preference. Most bisexuals have a preference for one gender or the other so it's pretty common to see bisexual people describe themselves as a quarter hetero or seventy percent gay or whatever, that's very common. I'm slightly unusual in that I'm a pretty straight-up (forgive the pun) 50-50 who doesn't noticeably skew toward either gender. If I list the people I am sexually or romantically attracted to, it contains a roughly even number of men and women including a few (such as Clea Duvall) who are themselves gay.<br /><br />Being bisexual is not the same as being gay. It's not the same as being straight either. I think a lot of people who are gay or straight forget that. It's not the same as being a gay man who occasionally likes pussy (forgive the vulgarity) or a straight man who sometimes like cock. I'm a part of both worlds but, like the half-native kid in the fable, not truly a part of either because our society places so much emphasis on who you sleep with that neither side entirely "gets" the bisexual person. And that causes all kinds of misunderstandings and preconceptions.<br /><br />We are not just greedy. Yes, as Woodly Allen said, being bisexual automatically increases your chances of getting a date on Saturday night (although really, not even that since gay men are rarer than straight women). Yes, I have a lot more options for porn than most people but human desires are not controllable. I can choose whether I <span style="font-style:italic;">act </span>on those desires but the actual desires themselves aren't somethign I can control. More to the point, nor can anyone else. In our society, it's still something of a stigma to be gay (although, granted, things have improved a lot in recent years). Up until a few years ago, it was still illegal in Texas to be gay. Since this didn't make any notable difference in the number of gay people from Texas, we have to assume that our desires are in-born and, to some extent which we don't entirely understand yet, inate. Looking at that world, why on earth would anyone <span style="font-style:italic;">choose </span>to be gay or bisexual? They wouldn't. Unless that desire was something inate about them. And just like gay people, my attraction to both genders is inate. <br /><br />However, that <span style="font-style:italic;">doesn't</span> mean that I must have a mate of both genders to be satisfied, that really would be greedy. Straight men and gay women, I'm sure you see dozens of girls every day that you find sexually attractive; straight women and gay men, you must see dozens of shaggable guys every day, right? Well, it's the same for us. Yes, men and women feel different, having sex with each is a completely different experiance but newsflash, <span style="font-style:italic;">that's true of individuals as well</span>. Thinking back on the women I've slept with, each of them felt completely different and utterly unique and the same is true of the men I've slept with. If you can manage to avoid sleeping with the unique and attractive girl at the office, why should it be any different for us? Being attracted to the guy in the bookstore doesn't mean I am any more inclined to cheat on my partner than anyone else (although Johnny Depp, if you're reading this, you're on my list so gimme a call). And while we're on the subject of different tactile sensations, there are these things called sex toys which people can buy and simulate a whole range of sexual experiances. It's not like the days where the only way to simulate gay sex was to buy your girlfriend a fake moustache, there's a cornucopia of dildos, vibrators and costumes in a rainbow of colours. Seriously. Some of them even ejaculate. And for the phonomenally paranoid: No, a liking for taking it up the ass, fabulous though it is, does not mean you're gay anymore than a liking for blowjobs does. If you like shagging people with tits, no matter how you like shagging or being shagged by them, you're either a straight man, bisexual or a gay woman and a quick look down in the shower should enable you to figure out which. Unless you're into tranny porn. In which case, hey, whatever floats your boat, no judgements here.<br /><br />No, I'm not confused about my sexuality and I'm not going to quietly place myself in a checkbox as I get older. I <span style="font-style:italic;">used </span>to be confused about my sexuality. When I was a small child, I was sexually molested by a male relative. No, that didn't cause me to be bisexual but it did make me very screwed up about my sexuality for years. Because I associated guy-guy sex with being molested, I buried that attraction for many years. It was only when I got to university in my mid-twenties that I felt able to start dealing with that. It took some years to sort the attraction that I felt toward guys from the rage and humiliation I felt as a result of the molestation but you didn't read this to plumb the depths of my psyche so all you need to know is that I eventually dealt with it. Now, doubtless there's someone reading this and asking themselves why I couldn't have stayed repressed about guylove all my life, why I had to sort out my attraction to guys. Because fuck you, that's why. Something anyone acquinted with me should know by now is that I think sexuality is incredibly overcomplicated by our culture and that I have a pretty combatative nature (I worship the original rebel, for goodness's sakes). I won't be repressed, not by faux-morality, not by self-appointed moral guardians and not by the infirmities of my psyche either. More to the point, love is a rare thing, transcendent and pure. Love is what makes us more than just a super-evolved ape. Every spiritual visionary worth his or her salt has said the same thing from the dawn of time. Ghandhi said it, Martin luther King said it, even Jesus said it. The same message every time: As John Lennon put it "Love is the answer and you know that for sure". Nothing dignifies humanity like love, nothing else makes the shit of this world, the war, death, hatred and pineapple on pizza, worthwhile like love does. And it is so rare, so vanishingly unusual, to find that <span style="font-style:italic;">one </span>person. That person who can celebrate your triumphs and comfort your tragedies. I don't believe in "you complete me" because I don't believe that being alone necessarily makes you incomplete but it is so rare in this universe to find that one person who feels like home that if there was <span style="font-style:italic;">any </span>chance of finding that person in your own gender (and I'm not talking about completely straight or gay people, they're incapable of being romantically interested in their own or the opposite gender, that's just understood), wouldn't your response to those saying you shouldn't even look be "fuck you" as well?<br /><br />Personally, I think sexuality is mainly about what feels good anyway. That's not a value judgement, it's a suggestion that the human sex drive is inately hedonistic and <span style="font-style:italic;">that's not a bad thing</span>. For some people, girls feel right and that's good. For others, guys hit their sweet spot and that's good too. Look, if you're a straight guy, you're not going to enjoy having sex with another guy. It's won't feel good to you, no matter how good he is at sucking cock <span style="font-style:italic;">because you're straight</span>. Likewise, a straight woman is not going to enjoy having sex with another woman, no matter how firmly she straps her boobs down or how skilfully she pilots a strap-on. It's about what feels good and that's fine. The only rules worth any notice about sex are so obvious that rational people usually just take them as read (but, for the terminally dense: No kids, no animals, make sure everyone's consenting and if you're even slightly unsure of anyone's sexual history, use rubbers. Oh, and the host picks the music). Beyond those aforementioned guidelines that should be so obvious anyone of age automatically assumes them, it's not like there are rules. Somewhere in the myriad complexity of human chemistry, there's some kind of switch that says if you're gay, straight or somewhere in-between. Most people end up being straight because humanity needs them to be straight to ensure the continuation of the species (the evolutionary process is dumb and doesn't understand things like IVF), somewhere between eight and twelve percent of people turn out to be gay and an unknown percentage turn out to be bisexual <span style="font-style:italic;">and it's all ok</span>. But most of our views of sexuality date from the Victorians and a time before we learned to control our fertility. We feel we have to justify our sexual choices constantly. An example is the debate about whether being gay is a choice. Now, all the research (which is not entirely conclusive yet but very nearly so) says it's not a choice but <span style="font-style:italic;">why should that fucking matter anyway</span>? Yes, I know the idiots use it to beat you over the head with a stick of "choosing to be immoral" but the idea depends on the preconception that there is something less desireable about being gay than there is about being straight, it's a justification for something that doesn't need a justification.<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Why </span>some people are gay is a question of only academic interest. It's an interesting question for biologists, psychologists and geneticists but beyond the halls of academia, it doesn't matter, it's irrelevent. If you start from the viewpoint that being gay or being straight is as morally neutral as having green or blue or brown eyes, then who cares why some people are gay? Even if being gay is a choice (and, again, it's not), why should we discriminate against it? I'm not discriminated against because I choose to have a beard (with the exception of a very radical feminist I once knew who said I was "aggressively asserting" my masculinity and thereby reinforcing the patriarchy), my partner isn't discriminated against because she chooses to dye her hair so why the hell should we discriminate against someone because of why they like to have sex with even if it <span style="font-style:italic;">was </span>a choice (yet again, it's not)? It's stupid, an irrelevent distinction that should only be of interest to the individual and the person they're sleeping with. Now, some idiot Crusader (and boy, are you on the wrong blog) could make some noise here about being gay damning you to stinky hellfire but that's a threat only convincing to people in the rowboat with you. My chosen holy book says that some will love the same sex and some will love the opposite sex and it's all good. You have to assume that being gay is immoral in order to make the case that being gay is immoral. That's called circular reasoning, buddy, and it's not welcome here (although Conservapedia will love you). No-one is offering to legislate the moral precepts of my faith, nor should they and I would fight them if they did. A few obsessed morons might say here that some people might choose to fuck kids and if I think all choices are acceptable, how can I discriminate against them? Well, firstly, look up the phrase "informed consent" and learn why children (and animals for that matter) are incapable of giving it and secondly, fuck off to another blog and be thankful we aren't having this discussion in person.<br /><br />See, another area where we overcomplicate sex is when we talk about explaining it to teenagers. Conservatives love to play this card, "if you allow gay people, you'll have to explain sodomy to kiddiewinks". Talk about begging the question. Since you already explain to them that mummy and daddy love each other very much, where's the problem in telling them that some boys love other boys and some girls love other girls? And as for the ones who don't even want their kids to know gay people <span style="font-style:italic;">exist</span>; well, firstly, they're going to find out eventually, no matter what you do. My mother owned lesbian cats, gay people are openly in media these days and if they've got an internet connection, five seconds is going to teach them way more than they were ever curious about. Secondly, fuck you, you shouldn't even be <span style="font-style:italic;">allowed </span>to raise kids. No, I'm not being hyperbolic. You can raise your kids to have any kind of values you'd like but when you want to selectively edit reality because of it? Yeah, I think Child Services is justified in taking your kids away at that point because you're no different than the bigot who said they didn't want their kids to know black people existed (and if you're going to use the word "choice", see above and fuck you too). You get to have your own opinions and your own values but you don't get to have your own facts and the fact is, gay people exist, they are only different from you in irrelevent details and you don't get to make a shitstorm about that. <br /><br />And while we're on the subject of the sacred little bastards (yeah, I don't like kids, does it show?), if your kids are even <span style="font-style:italic;">interested </span>in sex at that age, they have bigger problems than the existance of gay people. Fact is, the reaction of small children to seeing naked people is much the same as their reaction to seeing a parrot for the first time: "Mummy, what's that?". Dirty jokes sail completely over their heads until they hit puberty so unless you set out to make it something shameful, your kid is not going to be damaged by knowing that Brian and Tom love one another. By the time they <span style="font-style:italic;">do </span>hit puberty, Google and Playboy have already taught them the basics anyway. Parents tend to think that kids are way more innocent than they actually were anyway. They like to think their darling little bundle of joy convieniently discovers sex when they get to the age of consent and they don't even like to consider that their kid masturbates underage. They can't fool themselves completely with boys since the basket full of soiled Kleenex is a dead giveaway but, hey parents, little Fiona is probably rubbing one off <span style="font-style:italic;">right now</span>, you better rush off and stop her! See, this is such a stupid waste of time and it's largely because we've internalised the idea that sex is something to be ashamed of. We try to train kids to think that giving themselves pleasure is a terrible thing. Hell, when I was at the age when I was discovering masturbation, my parents moved me into a room without a door. Seriously, normal room, open doorway with no door there. I'm not trying to turn this into a rant about the various ways my parents did their level best to mentally cripple me (and, in fairness, they were pretty screwed up themselves and didn't have a clue what they were doing) but the fact is, masturbation is normal, it's part of the pleasurecruise of self-discovery we all go on during our teens <span style="font-style:italic;">and it should be</span>. Masturbation is sex without the dangers. You can't get pregnant, catch an STD or even get stood up by your hand at the prom. It's sexual pleasure with literally no drawbacks. Way I figure it, parents should be singing the praises of masturbation to their kids. OK, you're within the bounds of reason to ask Tommy to shut the door but at least he's not fucking in there. In fact, if you want to delay your teenagers first full coital bonk, you might want to extoll the virtues of mutual masturbation while you're at it. You'd be surprised what teenage boys will settle for. Your kid would literally sell his soul for a quick feel of boob through clothing and you think he's going to turn down a quick handjob? No, he's going to agree very enthuasiastically, enjoy it enormously and be exceedingly grateful. If he's got any brains, he'll also keep his mouth shut about it (teenage girls, the single best threat is "If you tell anyone, you'll never get another one"). Full blown sex can lead to pregnancy, STDs and complicated family gatherings, mutual masturbation just leads to Kleenex, snuggling and a desire to raid the fridge. There's a shitload of things people can do to get their rocks off without actual penetrative sex and I would suggest mentioning all of them. <span style="font-style:italic;">When </span>you should start singing the virtues of handjobs and dryhumping is a question I'll leave to your discretion, you know your kids better than I do. Just make sure it's not too late and be sure to point out, repeatedly if necessary, that just because you can <span style="font-style:italic;">doesn't mean you have to</span>. If you don't like them, don't want to go that far or even if you're just not in the mood, saying "no" is not only acceptable but required (and if you're an adult, "no" is your <span style="font-style:italic;">only </span>acceptable response). Sex play, even the kind that stops short of penetration, is a game for two or more players and it's a lousy game unless everyone is enthuasiastic about playing. And if you find a copy of Hustler in your kid's room (either gender), just quietly put it under their pillow and forget about it.<br /><br />A lot of conservatives like to imagine some golden age (almost always, the Fifties or earlier) where sexuality was something that seemingly didn't exist. If you're into that kind of thing, it might be a reassuring fantasy but it's a fantasy nonetheless. Fact is, our attitudes toward sexuality are actually pretty recent. And I don't mean "recent" as in the Sixties either. the sexual revolution of the Sixties was actually very dependent on class. If you were middle-class, not much changed for you. You still fucked at drive-ins but you were still quiet about it. In the counter-culture, we've actually gone <span style="font-style:italic;">backwards </span>since then. According to the recollections of some of those who were around at the time, the liberalisation that the birth control pill allowed was such that for many women, it would be as simple as seeing someone they liked the look of and asking "Do you want to fuck?" (small note, I am <span style="font-style:italic;">applauding </span>the women who were that up-front with their sexuality). Our attitudes toward teenage sexuality are no more than a century old and, in many cases, much younger. Shakespeare made Juliet all of thirteen years old (another note, that play is about the <span style="font-style:italic;">short-sightedness</span> of young love, stop holding it up as a romance when it's a tragedy). The accounts of coppers from Victorian London are full of reports of having to move along children as young as elevn or twelve from copulating in gutters and yes, child molestation is as old as humanity as well. We are unique not because we are the first generation to have such things happen but because we are the first generation to be aware of it, we are the first generation to both know the extent of the problem and be in a position to do something about it and prevent it. Porn is as old as humanity too. In fact, our porn is relatively tame compared to that of ancient peoples which included incest (Egyptians), pederasty (Greeks), bondage (Romans) and bi or homosexuality (absolutely <span style="font-style:italic;">everyone</span>). Again, it was really only in Victorian times that we even bothered trying to control porn. The sexually adventurous woman of the Sixties mentioned above wasn't really doing anything which men haven't done since the beginning of time (and the only reason women haven't done it just as long is because of the danger of pregnancy which the pill liberated them from). Hopefully, the generation of girls now being raised will understand that men <span style="font-style:italic;">love </span>sexually direct women, it removes all the guesswork. The old system of putting out subtle signals if you were interested in screwing? Yeah, some men (including me) are absolutely hopeless at reading them. So we don't dare make a move, Either we are entirely oblivious to those subtle signals you put out or we don't trust ourselves not to be misinterpreting them. She just put her hand on my knee, is that a green light? No, maybe she's just being friendly. No, don't chance it. And we talk ourselves out of intimacy that way for years. So the advent of women who were clear and unambiguous that they liked sex and they would like to enjoy it with you, women like that were a miracle to me and men like me and not just for those reasons. The idea that someone would actually <span style="font-style:italic;">want </span>to have sex with us, would find us sexually <span style="font-style:italic;">attractive </span>and be prepared to say so, unambiguously, with no room for misinterpretation... The women who did so live forever in our memories, not just as masturbation material (although sometimes as that too) but because, when we have been rejected far more often than we have been accepted, punched far more often than we have been kissed, when the reaction of virtually everyone to you has been one of mockery or disgust, to be able to summon up a memory of someone in your head who clearly, vocally <span style="font-style:italic;">wanted </span>you is something that lives forever in your mind. <br /><br />We're going to back away from that subject now because I've realised that I'm revealing rather more about myself than I feel comfortable revealing or subjecting my readers to. <br /><br />I'm not just looking to save sanity here but adjusting our attitude to sexuality to be less royally fucked up might literally save lives too. See, 99.9% of us have sexual desires (a miniscule number of people, for hormonal reasons, have no sexual desires at all) and every single last one of those people <span style="font-style:italic;">will </span>find some way of releasing those desires. No exceptions, this is a biological impeartive engraved deep in our lizard brains. Some way, sometime, everyone will find a way to release those desires, even if they're celibate. Hell, <span style="font-style:italic;">especially </span>if they're celibate. Even priests and nuns will masturbate and even if they've got Batman's willpower and don't, tough shit, your brain will give you sexy dreams and pretend to fuck while you're asleep anyway. Surpressing your sexuality your whole life is simply <span style="font-style:italic;">not </span>an option and guess what happens when people try? Yeah, they get fucked up. <span style="font-style:italic;">Seriously </span>fucked up. In my meatworld life, I'm partway through studying for a degree in Criminology. It's slow going and I have to do it by distance learning because of my mental problems but it's fascinating stuff in a horrifying way. Here's a little snippet: Did you know serial killers are subdivided by motivation? And did you know what the single largest subcategory of serial killers is? Yeah, it's sexual sadists. Now, we don't entirely understand the psychology of serial killers yet but there are certain things that sexual sadists have in common. They all exhibited the "unholy trinity" of bedwetting beyond the age where that's common, animal abuse and arson. Traumatic head injuries during chilhood or adolescence aren't present in every case but they crop up more often than coincidence would allow and there's one more thing which every last one of them has: Their sexuality was warped beyond recognition. Some were sexualised very early in life, some were raped by family members continually (Fred & Rose West, a highly unusual case of true folie a deux serial killers, both came from families where incest was common) and, in many cases, their sex drive was surpressed as it developed. I could go into why surpressing the sex drive would lead to sexual sadism (and I may do so in a future essay) but for simplicity, it's like trying to force a wedge into a rock; either the wedge gets warped or the rock breaks. If you don't let a sexuality develop on it's own and in it's own time, it will either warp the person's sexuality or it will break their mind altogether. Human sexuality is an incredibly powerful force and it is near-enough relentless. Sometimes it drives us to distraction, sometimes it drives us to crime (look up the psychology of arsonists sometime) but it cannot be denied. <br /><br />And it doesn't need to be denied, not really. We've been doing this since before we were really humans, it's just sex, not launching a space shuttle.Sex isn't a matter of debate, it's not something you need an instruction manual for (although you might need an instruction manual for <span style="font-style:italic;">good </span>sex). We needn't be ashamed of doing what makes us feel good (yes, annoying conservative, subject to the guidelines above <span style="font-style:italic;">obviously<span style="font-weight:bold;"></span></span>) and I think that's something an awful lot of people need to learn: Just because it feels good doesn't make it wrong.Ebonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05651853704978508286noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8275803714155551227.post-63417064370908243842010-07-20T08:56:00.000-07:002010-07-20T09:00:18.140-07:00Republican Lies, Part 12,397Just three for today...<br /><br />Claim: "The left compared Bush to Hitler too!"<br />Rebuttal: Some did, sure but not to anything like the same extent or with the same visibility. Yes, a few bloggers and some people at protests made the comparison but no-one with national exposure did. Keith Olbermann didn't, nor did Rachel Maddow or Ed Schultz and that's pretty much it for openly liberal TV hosts because that's about all of the openly liberal TV hosts. Also, the accusation just plain doesn't make sense. Fascism is on the extreme right of the political spectrum so while comparisons with Bush were vastly overblown (and vastly overrepresented in right-wing recollections), at least they were on the same side of politics (and the comparison with the Joker was even sillier, the Joker was an anarchist). Now, you could claim that those protesters carrying Bush=Hitler signs prove the equivelence but if that were true, then we could indict the whole Tea Party movement of racism on the grounds of the racist signs carried at rallies. Speaking of which...<br /><br />Claim: "The Tea Party is so not racist!"<br />Rebuttal: I'm actually kinder than many liberals, I tend to assume that most of the Teabaggers (they chose the name, they don't get to unchoose it just because it's embarrassing) aren't racist. I think the vast majority of them are extreme-right nutjobs but that doesn't necessarily make them racist. However, the Teabaggers have to deal with the fact that there is a racist element to their coalition. The witch doctor posters, "Lyin' African", the fact that so many are also Birthers (and that really <span style="font-style:italic;">is </span>just racism), these point to a vocal racist element among the Teabaggers. Contrary to Teabagger claims, these didn't come from liberal provoceteurs, most of them came from before stuff like crashtheteaparty existed (and that pretty much fizzled out anyway). Blaming this on liberals is just blame shifting. Do these people represent the whole of the Teabaggers? Probably not but the failure to disavow them speaks volumes about their willingness to trade principles for power (and yes, the same criticism can be levelled at many lefties). A lot of this is based upon the Republican canard that more Democrats voted against the Civil Rights Act than Republicans. Which is true but wildly misleading. The fact is that prior to integration, the Republicans were the more liberal party and the champions of civil rights. As Republicans often point out, Martin Luther King Jr was a Republican during this period. However, what they leave out is that after Johnson forced integration, the majority of the racists left the Democratic party and moved first into George Wallace's segregationist American Independent party and, when that collapsed, into the Republican party. <br /><br />Claim: "Fascism is on the left!"<br />Rebuttal: No, wrong, lie. This is a fantasy invented by Jonah Goldberg in his excremental book <span style="font-weight:bold;">Liberal Fascism</span> (which might as well be titled <span style="font-style:italic;">Everyone I Dislike Is Exactly The Same</span>). That Goldberg had to rely on <span style="font-style:italic;">The Pink Swastika</span>, a book no less revisionist than David Duke for his claim that Nazis had no problem with homosexuals says just about everything one needs to know about his scholarship. It's not difficult to confirm that the Nazis massacred gay people, they kept records. Sure, there were a few closeted gay people in the Nazi heirarchy but that's nothing unusual, there are plenty of closeted gays in the Republican heirarchy too. More to the point, Goldberg has to re-write the entire political spectrum to make his "argument" and confuse the aims of Communism with it's results. To start with, he pulls the assumption (seemingly straight from his ass) that moving to the left means more state control and moving to the right means less state control. This is flipping the entire political spectrum on it's head. The traditional spectrum assumes that the further you move to the left, the more you assume that people should be equal and the further you move to the right, the more you're ok with accepting inequalities. Now, we could have a reasonable discussion about how much state control should be involved in that but that's categorically <span style="font-style:italic;">not </span>the same as "left=state power". In fact, that definition is unique to the USA. Further, Goldberg confuses the <span style="font-style:italic;">aims </span>of Communism with it's <span style="font-style:italic;">results</span>. Granted, the result of Communism in the USSR was state control of pretty much everything but the eventual <span style="font-style:italic;">aim </span>of Communism was collectivist anarchy, the complete absence of a government. Again, this is not difficult to confirm, <span style="font-style:italic;">The Communist Manifesto</span> outright says so. And while we're on the subject, Communism and socialism are <span style="font-style:italic;">not </span>the same thing. Socialism is an economic theory about the distribution and ownership of the means of production. One can agree or disagree with that theory but it has bugger all to say about politics. Communism takes the economics of socialism and combines it with an anarchist political ideaology. No, the USSR didn't end up as a collectivist anarchy, nor did any other Communist state because Communism doesn't work. That doesn't change what they were aiming for. All Communists are also socialists but not all socialists are also Communists. Finally, on this subject, Goldberg makes a great fuss over praise for Mussolini and/or Hitler from a few (presumed) liberals such as Cole Porter. This is one of those cases where context is everything. Firstly, the reference to Mussolini in "<span style="font-style:italic;">You're The Tops</span>" is actually from PG Wodehouse's revision, not from Porter's original. Secondly, and more importantly, in the early 1930s, there was a great fear that Communism would overtake Europe (much as the same was feared of Asia in the sixties). As the Fascists were explicitely and violently anti-Communist, some liberals looked upon them as a bulwark against Communism, a kind of "enemy of my enemy". While most didn't agree with the precepts of fascism, they viewed it as preferable to Communism and so, fascism became briefly fashionable among the educated class. Like virtually everyone else, they dropped any allegiance the second World War II broke out.Ebonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05651853704978508286noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8275803714155551227.post-86761209237398197762010-06-28T07:38:00.000-07:002010-06-28T07:39:09.454-07:00The Tories Are Trying To Kill Me AgainWell, not me specifically (although never discount the possibility that one's paranoia is fully justified) but the sick and disabled generally.<br /><br />Because of my wildly unstable mental condition, I am unable to hold a job. In the UK, that means I am eligible for two benefits specifically for the sick and disabled: ESA and DLA. DLA is the Disability Living Alliance and is only available to some of the disabled. ESA is the Employment & Support Allowance. In order to claim this, your doctor has to consider you unfit for work. Then, because the system assumes your doctor is a liar, you're examined by a notoriously corrupt company called ATOS. In theory, you can then be classified as "fit for work" (remember, you got ESA in the first place because your doctor considers you unfit), "partly fit for work" or put you in the "support group" (meaning utterly unfit for any kind of work). Except that as far as ATOS is concerned, the third category doesn't exist. ATOS considers me "partly fit for work". The rather more through DLA test considers me not just utterly unfit for work but an active danger to myself and others if I try.<br /><br />When we had an election last month, the Tory party (which won by the skin of their teeth and was forced to form a coalition with the Liberals to take power) promised there wouldn't be a return to the tyrannical greed-is-good policies of Thatcher (think of her as Ronald Reagan in a dress and minus the charm). Having achieved power, they've interpreted it as a mandate to re-enact all of Thatcher's policies. The ones that have or will affect me are a re-examination of all ESA claimants (due to ATOS's "everyone can do something" attitude, we are already examined at least every six months), extending the same test to DLA claimants (test is notoriously bad at evaluating mental conditions and administered by a profoundly corrupt company). In future, all JSA (unemployment benefit) claimants will have their housing benefit cut by 10% after the first year. Seems that everyone knows we are in a recession and jobs are hard to come by until the subject of benefits comes up. Then everyone forgets we're in a recession and assumes jobs grow on trees.<br /><br />This morning, the Tory Chancellor (finance minister), the frankly sociopathic George Osborne, announced that ESA will be cut. He claimed that he will protect those in genuine need but encourage those who can work into work. Remember, the whole reason you're on ESA in the first place is because your doctor says you're unfit for work. Under the current system, AFTER your own doctor considers you unfit for work, 68% are classified as completely fit for work and 23% are classified as partly fit for work. Only 9% are classified as unfit for work. As I said, ATOS think that category doesn't exist. Prior to the election, the Tories claimed that one in five ESA claimants were fit to work (again, and I'm repeating this to stress it, your own doctor has already certified you as unfit for work). According to those close to Osborne, he thinks many more are fit for work. I know what he's saying. He means every single one of them. As far as the Tories are concerned, there is not and never has been any such thing as someone incapable of work. If the horrendously biased test judges you fit for work (decision makers are supposed to take other evidence into account. They never, ever do), you're moved onto JSA, amounting to a massive cut in benefits which are already pitiful. After a year on JSA because, despite what the completely misleading and biased test says, you're unfit for work, your housing benefit is cut by 10%, presenting you with a choice between rent and food.<br /><br />Osborne is simply lying. There will be no attempt to protect the most vulnerable. In fact, the vulnerability of the sick and disabled is exactly why they're being targetted for cuts. Based on a right-wing media campaign that there is masses of fraud in the benefits system (a complete lie), the public have now become vicious advocates of social darwinism and the Tories, who always were social darwinists, are more than happy to play along. Of course, libertarians and anarchists have a simple attitude to this which is "fuck you, it's your fault for being sick". Mental instability is already heavily stigmatised and being a benefit claimant has become the social equivelent of being a child molester thanks to the weekly two-minute hate of the tabloids. Now, it seems the already small amount of money we get is to be taken away as well. Of course, everyone (especially the Tories) can see what the result will be: Suicide and homelessness will skyrocket but then, that was their intention to begin with. My mental condition means that I am fighting every single day to fend off suicide. It seems that the Tories are determined to systematically encourage me to give in.<br /><br />The Tories are also talking about offering the unemployed "incentives" to move to areas where employment is more plentiful. Of course, that's also going to lead to the further fracturing of an already shattered communal society (Thatcher, famously, didn't believe society existed) and the creation of ghettos and a class of job-seeking migrants criss-crossing the country. Which is entirely the Tories intention. Desperate people with no support structure are easy to abuse. I don't like to use Nazi comparisons much (primarily because I think they're overused and usually misused) but the creation of ghettos for the jobless? Yeah, I'm prepared to call that fascism.<br /><br />Of course, I'm not ignoring the general publics viciousness here. For years now, the right-wing press (which is most of it, our media being largely owned by right-wing tycoons) media have been spinning the lie that all benefits claimants are workshy scroungers who live a life of luxury on the public tab. It's something similar to Reagan's welfare queen who drive a Caddy and just as fictional but the public, so spiteful, so stupid, have swallowed it whole. If you ever want to see the full outpouring of human bile, viciousness and hatred, start a discussion on the unemployed. It's truly amazing how everyone knows we are in a recession and jobs are hard to come by until teh subject of the unemployed and benefits comes up. Then everyone knows that jobs are ten-a-penny and you must be actively avoiding work to not have one. The general public believes that it's possible to get more money on benefits than from full-time work. Assuming a healthy single person with no dependents and on the average rent, benefits amount to just over seven grand a year. The passage of the minimum wage (which the Tories opposed and still do) means that it is factually illegal for a full-time job to pay less than that. Even if it were not, the general public thinks the solution is to cut the already pitiful benefits amount, not to actually raise wages to a decent level. You have the same phonomenon in the states, in the form of the working class people who constantly argue for cutting wages and eliminating minimum wage laws. In both our countries, the right has won the battle to recast unions (which exist in the first place to protect their members from abuse by business owners) as the enemy of the worker. In fact, the US and the Tories have succombed wholly to the psychopathic Randroid model that business is morally entitled to do whatever it likes and any form of protection for the worker is too much. I actually had some anonymous idiot on my blog yesterday make a comment that seemed to be arguing against the concept of worker's comp. Boy, is he in the wrong place (hey, braintrust, I think corporations are the outright enemy of the common people). As an unemployed, disabled person, I am a member of the most hated social group in Britain. Right now, I can be pretty sure that someone reading this is thinking "Well, you can type, why can't you work?" and the answer is because this is me on one of my better days. My better days are fairly rare and entirely unpredictable. I don't post on my worse days. Moreover, I have no control over when my mental state will suddenly do a nosedive. Even if, somehow, I could take a job where I could only work on my better days (and good luck finding one of those), how is my employer going to take it when my mind suddenly snaps and I start trying to hack my wrists open with a ballpoint pen? And no, that's not hyperbole, that has happened.<br /><br />Moreover, when did society move from the dignity of human life to dignity of life only for the employed? There are people, lots of them, who wholeheartedly believe that if you can't work, you should be allowed to starve. They're called Social Darwinists or Libertarians and the Tory party is full of them. So is the Republican party. The BBC's "Have Your Say" message board is dominated by them, as are most open political boards. Their belief is fairly simple: If you can't contribute to society (by working, other forms of contribution are ignored), you deserve to die. While they usually won't outright state that or actually execute the unemployed, they will happily, gleefully push policies that will kill such people in droves. Our parents and grandparents worked hard for a living wage. We work like slaves for less (in most sectors) than they earned. We no longer work because we have to. Now, we work because we have been brainwashed into believing it is our duty to work for the good of our masters. We have been brainwashed into believing that our benefit as a society is the same as the benefit of the corporate class that rules over us. Right about now, some fuckwit is about to describe me as "anti-capitalist" or some synonym thereof like socialist or communist (or both since they rarely understand that the two are different things). I say, as I have said many times before, that I am not anti-capitalist. I am anti-corporatist. I am anti- the pervasive belief that capitalism should be treated as some sort of unassailable holy writ. I am anti- the belief that wealth should be valued more highly than labour. Most of all, I am anti- the belief that there is no inherant worth to a human life than their market value or how much they add to the bottom line.Ebonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05651853704978508286noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8275803714155551227.post-78651612744862568152010-04-12T19:17:00.000-07:002010-04-12T19:19:47.318-07:00Huckabee Is A MoranOK, we already knew that. But in a recent interview with a College of New Jersey student publication called "the Perspective", he described same-sex marriage and civil unions as "not necessary". The full quote is even worse: <blockquote>"You don't go ahead and accommodate every behavioral pattern that is against the ideal. That would be like saying, well, there are a lot of people who like to use drugs, so let's go ahead and accommodate those who want who use drugs. There are some people who believe in incest, so we should accommodate them. There are people who believe in polygamy, so we should accommodate them."</blockquote><br /><br />Now personally, I have no problem with polygamy but I can see practical reasons for banning it but more to the point, Huck is just jumping on the old slippery-slope fallacy here. Incest and polygamy have nothing to do with homosexuality or same-sex marriage. Incestuous relationships are (almost) always unequal, for a start. When idiots like Huck say "where does it end?", every nation that has legalised same-sex marriage or some comparable arrangement has said it ends at two consenting unrelated adults. This isn't rocket science. People like Huck like to that if you accept one thing, you must automatically accept everything which he says must come after (most of the right does this with socialism too) but reality and legislation don't work like that. It is perfectly possible to say "yes" to same-sex marriage and then, when the sister-fuckers turn up asking to legalise incest, tell them to go to hell. <br /><br />His views on same-sex raising of children are scarcely more sensible: "<span style="font-style:italic;">Children are not puppies. This is not a time to see if we can experiment and find out, how does this work?</span>". Oh, Mikey, the ship has long since sailed on this one. See, there's this miraculous resarch tool available called "Google" and if you used it, you would discover that there has already been an awful lot of research done into the effects on kids of being raised by same-gender parents. That research says that kids of same-sex couples grow up just as healthy and happy as kids of opposite-sex couples. Besides, if you were really concerned about kids, you would be doing more to promote the raising of children by extended families. Researchers have known for years that the single best arrangement for child-rearing, the one most likely to result in a happy, wall-adjusted child, is the extended family of parents, grantparents, aunts, uncles and cousins who all pitch in to help. There are a number of ways to encourage that. But I don't see Huck pushing them.<br /><br />In the end, it's becoming increasingly obvious that one simply cannot be both Republican and pro-family. The stagnation (and in many sectors, actual lowering) of real wages has had a devastating effect on families, forcing both parents to work every hour available. I'm not a fifties-nostalgia guy, I don't think a woman's place is in the kitchen but I do think that it's pretty important to have a parent (or other member of the extended family above) at home with the kids. Exactly which parent or family member is for them to work out but yeah, I think it's important that when a kid comes home from school, there's actually someone there. A lot of conservatives claim to think the same thing but they seem incapable of taking the logical next step: That the reason both parents work these days isn't some metaphysical "career woman" demon, it's because the decent working/middle class wages of the fifties which allowed parents to stay home with their kids are a thing of the past. Since the Sixties, unions have been demonised and wages (in constant dollars) have, on average, dropped by around 13% (much more in some sectors) while prices have zoomed upward (utility bills, in constant dollars, verge on outright extortion). You think THAT might have something to do with the growing number of latchkey kids? Here, the state tried to handle that by instituting Child Tax Credit and naturally, the media have now invented the myth of women who make a career out of having babies.<br /><br />Where was that concern for families during the Prop 8 campaign? Gay people married, formed families and the right campaigned to prevent more families being formed. Some even campaigned to forcibly divorce those who had already married (which would have been a legal nightmare if it had passed). Here where a bunch of morans trying to split families up in the name of being pro-family. And these morans accuse the left of being anti-family.<br /><br />You cannot claim to be pro-family while also acting as a pawn of a corporate class which is raping the modern family. There exists this prevailing mythology that if you give the corporate class a tax break, they'll expand their business and hire more workers, thus aiding families. It's bollocks, a complete myth. The corporation employs the exact number of people it needs to do the work it needs, at the lowest wage it can get away with paying. If it chooses to expand, it will do so by using the existing business as security and leveraging assets and that's discounting the VAST sector of the economy that doesn't actually make anything physical in the first place. Tax breaks make no difference to what the corporation chooses to do with their business. They're nice, sure and the corporation would like to have as many as possible but they don't actually affect the way it does business. But I digress. <br /><br />My point is that supporting the destruction of the working and middle class simply cannot be reconciled with a claim to being pro-family. Being pro-family means supporting a decent wage and healthcare. Corporations will not give those things if they can avoid it. They will not comply with the safety regulations which ensure the breadwinner's safety if they can avoid it (and they often can, as the disaster at Big Branch demonstrated).Ebonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05651853704978508286noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8275803714155551227.post-8661152293377650592010-03-15T11:10:00.000-07:002010-03-15T11:12:18.729-07:00For Gits And Shiggles...I present to you, the one <em>provable</em> faith, the Church Of Google!<br /><br /><a href="http://www.thechurchofgoogle.org/">The Church Of Google homepage</a>.Ebonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05651853704978508286noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8275803714155551227.post-15075331298076153132010-03-01T01:51:00.000-08:002010-03-01T01:53:16.464-08:00The Psychopathology of Ayn RandYou've probably heard of Ayn Rand. Most people have these days. She was the author of such inexplicably widely-read "novels" (really, barely-disguised political diatribes) as "The Fountainhead" and "Atlas Shrugged". Her books are currently enjoying something of a boom among those who misguidedly believe they would be in the self-righteous community of "Atlases" at Galt's Gulch. The novels themselves are of only passing interest, being long, melodramatic and mediocrely written. Rather, it is the "philosophy" at the core of the novels which bears attention.<br /><br />Hear ye, hear ye, I come to bury Rand, not to praise her. While numerous conservative thinkers (and, oddly, Neil Peart) have lauded Rand as a philosopher, few academic institutions include Rand or Objectivism as a philosophical discipline. Conservatives, such as Chris Sciabarra, tend to believe that the academic left decries Rand due to her anti-communist, pro-capitalist slant. Like much of the witterings of conservatives who presume to know what the left things, that presumes firstly, more power than the academic left has had in decades; secondly, assumes that the left was universally pro-communist and anti-capitalist, something which has never been true and thirdly, that Rand was saying anything worth studying. She wasn't. Rand's "philosophy" was the same defence of endless greed which mankind has been engaged in for eternity, the same attempt to place a moral cover on pure selfishness that has long been pursued by any number of exploiters down the centuries. Nietzche was, and is, pilloried for saying "God is dead", Rand is lauded for effectively saying "the self is God". There is nothing new here, save perhaps for the self-delusion that allows so many professed "Christians" to adhere to a philosophy that glorifies greed and athieism. There is also a cult-like deification of Rand by her followers and "swarming" of those who dare criticise her which reminds one very strongly of Scientology (and Glenn Beck followers but that's another matter).<br /><br />There is another name for those who hold that the only proper moral consideration is the happiness of the self; for those who view empathy and compassion as weakness; who view selfishness as the only virtue: Psychopaths. <br /><br />Contrary to popular belief, the psychopath is not automatically violent. Rather, the psychopath is defined by a near-complete lack of empathy. Robert Hare (who created the widely used "Hare Psychopathy Checklist") describes psychopaths as "instraspecies predators" who use a combination of charisma, manipulation, intimidation, sexuality and violence to satisfy their own desires. The more human qualities of conscience, empathy, remorse or guilt are either completely absent or extremely limited. It must be repeated that the psychopath is not necessarily violent. Indeed, many are not because their lives have never placed them in a position where violence was the only means to satisfy their desires. Many businessmen (and therefore, many politicians) profile as psychopaths because they exhibit the core characteristics or some section thereof. Ayn Rand should also be considered a psychopath.<br /><br />Hare's checklist lists certain personality factors as indicative of psychopathy. The average person will perhaps exhibit one or, at most, two. The psychopath will exhibit all <I>but</I> on or two. In no particular order, these items are <I><B>Glibness/superficial charm</I></B>. After her writings became popular, Rand collected around herself a group of cultists who virtually worshipped her. However, <I><B>shallow affect</I></B>, the psychopath's charm is only ever superficial. As one comes to know and understand the psychopath more fully, the charm which initially attracted one to them is revealed as only skin-deep. In this, Rand was entirely textbook. She was described by most who knew her best as a bitter, friendless child who grew into an equally bitter and acidic woman. <I><B>Grandiose sense of self-worth</B></I> would certainly fit Rand. A woman who names her beliefs "Objectivism" out of a belief that any reasoning person who observes the objective truths of the world would necessarily come to full agreement with her would probably qualify. The fact that her little cult were required to memorise her works and discounted as "imbecilic" and "anti-life" if they asked questions simply seals the deal. Her sincere belief was that thinking freely would automatically lead to total agreement with her views. The ruthless policing of her cult would also qualify her under the <I><B>Cunning/manipulative</I></B> qualifier. <I><B>Patholigical lying</B></I> is one that Rand is probably innocent of. So far as we know, there is no reason to believe she was a pathological liar. <I><B>Lack of remorse or guilt</I></B> and <I><B>Callous/lack of empathy</I></B> could be described as "Ayn Rand syndrome". These two qualifiers are really the core of her books, philosophhy and worldview. In one of her books ([i]The Fountainhead[/i]), her "hero", Howard Roarke, blows up a housing project he designed when a minor alteration is made and then orders the jury to acquit him (the fact that, as an architect, Roarke was presumably contracted for his work and therefore, it wasn't "his" anymore piddles all over the supposed respect for property too). In <I>Atlas Shrugged</I>, her ode to the super-rich which imagines them going on strike against progressive taxation, Rand describes the rest of the world (without whom, let us not forget, the super-rich would be unable to make anything) is such niceties as "savages", "refuse" and "immitations of living beings". When one of the strikers engineers a train crash (because they don't just strike but commit acts of terrorism too), Rand makes it clear that she believes the murdered victims deserved their fate because they supported progressive taxation. A stewing hymn of Nietzchean will-to-power, misanthropy, failure to understand economics, feudalism and sexual politics verging on the obscene, <I>Atlas Shrugged</I> is full of this stuff. Her heroes spend their time both insisting that they are the heroic producers (and without labour, what are they producing exactly?) and bemoaning that others do not worship them as such. In her spare time, Rand was an admirer of serail killer William Hickman (I'll spare you the details of his crimes save to say that they were brutal even by serial killer standards), describing him as "a brilliant, unusual, exceptional boy"; "other people do not exist for him and he does not see why they should" was her evaluation of his crimes and Rand considered this worthy of <I>praise</I>. Finally, on the personality factor, there is <I><B>Failure to accept responsibility for one's actions</I></B>. Since our record of Rand's life isn't fully detailed, it's difficult to say how much she satisfied this one. Certainly, when her lover Nathaniel Branden found another partner, she blamed him rather than herself or her increasingly poisonous views. We shouldn't sympathise with Rand as injured party too much here, she was herslelf married to someone entirely different and cruel enough to carry on the affair without regard to discretion. Indeed, if the only duty of the superman is to please himself, Brendan was acting according to Rand's ideals and she should have applauded him. She once said the the USA should be a "democracy of superiors only" with "superior" being defined as "rich". One scarcely needs to point out that such a system wouldn't be democracy at all but oligarchy and interestingly elitist for all her followers claim to despise elitism.<br /><br />One doesn't need to work very hard to diagnose Rand. Her life and writings paint a vivid picture of psychopathy so clear and obvious that it is only surprising so many miss it. She was a phonomenally damaged woman for whom one can feel an element of pity (an emotion that disgusted her) even while aware of how terrifically dangerous she and her philosophy was and are. Rand herself died alone except for a hired nurse. Her deranged views had driven away anyone who might have been close to her. Like L. Ron Hubbard, however, her lunatic ideas have spawned a cult that would turn all of us into happy little psychopaths; a cult that includes many of the world's foremost economists, politicians and rabble-rousers (Beck again, although "intellectual terrorist" might be more appropriate). Like George Orwell, Rand imagined a dystopian world characterised by the powerful's exploitation of the powerless. Unlike Orwell, Rand wanted to live there.Ebonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05651853704978508286noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8275803714155551227.post-74009450150836592522010-02-16T06:40:00.000-08:002010-02-16T06:44:33.690-08:00The Republican Reality GapAnn Coulter once said that liberals "take a perverse joy in lying", that liberals actively enjoy telling untruths. She was, of course, wrong about liberals (as she would have difficulty even understanding a thought process so different to her own) but I am increasingly of the opinion that her remarks were correct if applied to conservatives (projection, in other words). How else can one explain the warped version of reality which so many conservatives carry around in their heads? I'm not talking about subjects which reasonable people can disagree on, like the existence and disposition of god(s) or the merits of direct democracy. Those are issues without clear answer which reasonable people can have a discussion about. I'm talking about believing and not just believing but vehemently <em>defending </em>beliefs which are provably, factually <em>wrong</em>. Believing something which is untrue would be understandable if it were done out of ignorance but such people, when exposed to the facts, will vehemently attack or dismiss them and often the messenger as well. In an individual, this would be considered mental illness (and in the case of some, such as Glenn Beck, that would be an accurate description) but the mental health community is understandably reluctant to label whole swathes of the public as crazy. If someone believes they are being followed by a man-eating hedgehog, you can just give them a heavy stick and a chair to stand on and let them get on with it but when a whole section of the public is holding beliefs which are no less crazy, those beliefs somehow become an accepted part of the public dialogue. For example:<br /><br />- <strong>Fascism is a left-wing ideaology</strong><br />I think it was Goldberg who started this one. Since the end of WWII, fascism has been identified as a right-wing (right-<em>fringe</em>, really) ideaology. There has never been any significant doubt about that. It's only fairly recently that some conservatives have decided that everything unpleasent is teh fault of the left and so, fascism must be a left-wing ideaology. Partly, this is based on the mistaken belief that state control of everything was the <em>aim </em>of communism, rather than the result of communism being unworkable in the real world. It's the same mentality which claims that because I dislike legal abortion, child molestation and homosexuality, all those things must be caused by the teaching of evolution, which I also dislike. One can find the same mindset in those who tout that the Weather Underground proves that the left is more likely to be violent while forgetting, for example, Timothy McVeigh. It's rewriting history, <em>stealing </em>history really, for use as partisan political points. And while we're on the subject:<br /><br />- <strong>Obama is a socialist/communist</strong><br />This one is based on a misreading of history so obvious that it <em>must </em>have been deliberate. To claim that Obama, a wimpish moderate in any sane world, is socialist in any way is not just wrong but outright insane and yet, it persists. And it persists because most people don't actually know what "socialism" means. They don't understand that when socialism says "communal ownership of the means of production and distribution", it means ALL the means, not just an interest or equity in a few firms which would otherwise have collapsed. But the right-wing media machine doesn't like that reality and so, they endlessly promote the lie that <em>any </em>communal ownership of <em>anything </em>is automatically socialist. Part of me wonders if this societal case of the fallacy of the excluded middle is the result of decades of Cold War rhetoric or simply the decades of propoganda on behalf of capitalism or if there is even a difference between the two.<br /><br />- <strong>Republicans have been better for minorities</strong><br />There are two strands to this one. The first is based on a very selective misreading of history. There certainly was a time when Republicans were the better party for minorities, that's inarguable. The Democrats, pressured by a group of conservative Southern members known as "Dixiecrats" were rotten for minorities for some time. But this reading of history ignores everything that's happened since integration, when the Dixiecrats almost universally defected to the Republican party. Since then, the Democrats have (overall and in general) been better at minority rights. And minorities know it. There was a time when black people almost universally voted Republican, seeing it as the party of Lincoln. These days, better than 90% of black people vote Democrat. Which brings us onto the second strand of this argument. This strand holds that minorities typically vote for Democrats because Democrats give them more "government hand-outs". Now, firstly, let's remember that it was Bill Clinton who ended welfare as an entitlement program (for which, I don't think he's been criticised enough) but secondly, notice the inherent bias and racism in the allegation. It assumes that A) government can never do anything good and B) that black people will vote for Democrats because they're all lazy work-shys who depend on "government hand-outs". Sometimes, for those less overt with their racism, some vague theory about a "culture of dependence" will be added.<br /><br />Those are just three examples of what could be dozens. Indeed, so devoted are conservatives to their alternate universe view of reality that I could write a book on the subject (and may yet do so). To be a conservative, it seems, is to be a conspiracist; to believe that there exists some secret cabal of leftie elites constantly rewriting the world in their favour (at which, the leftie responds "have you seen us? We can't even keep a radio station running"). This is what psychologists call "projection", the seeing of one's own faults in others and it is agravated by the conservative trend toward "purity" i.e. calling oneself a Republican means accepting all these points wholesale or we'll call you a RINO and make you a non-person in the party. A whole faction of the populace believes that Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and President Obama are left-fringe radicals (and "left-wing radical" now means anything to the left of Bush who really <em>was </em>a radical) and if you call these people crazy, which would seem the obvious reasponse, they start screaming about Stalin labelling people insane and protesting their patriotism (every kook, crank and domestic terrorist in American history has proclaimed their patriotism). You cannot reason with these people because they have left reason entirely behind. Rather, their allegiance to this talking point version of reality is closer to that of a religion or cult, their accusations of liberals worshipping Obama as a messiah just more of their endless projection (and nowehere is this more true than of Glenn Beck's acolytes who swarm liberal publications whenever an article is unflattering of Dear Leader). The conservative model is well established by this point: Lie about something until you convince a small portion of the populace, force publications to label well-established facts as controversial and then shout "teach the controversy!" and rely on social pressure to do the rest.<br /><br />So, how can they be beaten? I'm honestly unsure. Education would be an obvious point but children spend far more time learning the talking point reality at home than they do learning the reality-based version at school and the textbooks of those schools are now largely drawn to Texas standards and already corrupted anyway. Conservative control of the media is now so pervasive and so entrenched that we should expect no help from that quarter either. I wish I had an answer but every future I envision ends up with the USA accepting a version of reality entirely at odds with the one the rest of the world accepts.Ebonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05651853704978508286noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8275803714155551227.post-79713567182017702942010-02-10T22:10:00.001-08:002010-02-10T22:31:51.805-08:00Just Occasionally, It's All Worthwhile...So, I have this thing set up to <span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">email</span></span> me when I get a comment. Mainly, I do this for spam-filtering services. You know the kind of thing; fake rolexes, boner pills, that kind of stuff. This morning, I'm sat here reading news and just pondering the idea of hitting the hay when an email drops into my inbox telling me that someone has commented on an old post (this one, if you're curious: http://ebonscave.blogspot.com/2009/10/ever-get-feeling-you-just-cant-win.html ). "Odd", thinks I and open it. THIS is the message I find:<br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-family: arial;">Man, you are a freaking monster!</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">If you want to see what happens to humans when they stray from God and indulge their perversions, look into the mirror.</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">There are not enough psycotrophic drugs in the world to quiet the monsters in your head.</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">Know this:</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">God does NOT hate because you are a sick perverse queer liberal, rather you ARE a sick perverse queer liberal BECAUSE God hates you.</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">Get help and not from those Tools Of Satan at the DUmp!</span></blockquote><br /><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">There is only one possible response to this: BWA-HA-HA!</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">This comes from "Anonymous" (because apparently, when you're an obnoxious Christian crusader, you don't have the guts to even use your handle)</span></span> who apparently thinks that a tirade of abuse from him would make a real impact on me (and no, Anon, reproducing your mail to mock you is not the same thing) and it has; it's massively brightened up my day. Not as amusing as the guy who sent me a formal anathema (I have that printed and pinned to my wall) but pretty good all the same.<br /><br />See, I'm not usually someone who likes to divide the world into "types". I have a little more respect for the wonderous variety of humanity than that. But there is a certain type that I know well and loathe; self-righteous ultraconservative bigots and I figure that if they hate me, I must be doing something right. It's kind of like Hitler cussing you out (pardon my Godwins), you automatically know you're on the right side. Now, some Christians like to point to lines like that and sarcastically say "oh, how tolerant of you" but firstly, that's just playing word games and secondly, not to go all schoolyard on you, but he started it.<br /><br />But, my dear Anon, you did get one thing right. I <span style="font-weight: bold;">AM</span> a tool of Satan. Matter of fact, I'm a worshipper of Satan, I willingly pledge my service to the lord of darkness and shadows and unlike <span style="font-style: italic;">your </span>god, mine doesn't forbid sorcery. Are the shadows around you getting a little deeper, Anon, can you smell something odd? That's brimstone, my sweet little zealot. I should run to bed if I were you. Snuggle yourself up and pretend you don't feel anything unusual. Go on. We couldn't think any the less of you than we do already.Ebonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05651853704978508286noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8275803714155551227.post-36727173403386757882010-01-21T22:27:00.000-08:002010-01-21T23:45:01.668-08:00The United States Died TodayThe ramifications of yesterday's <span style="font-style: italic;">Citizen's United</span> decision are difficult to comprehend. In one fell swoop, in a decision which relied on no precedent or legal rule, the Supreme Court of Justice Roberts destroyed any and all limits on corporate financing of campaigns. No, it's too big. Let's walk back a little and take a brief look at how we got here.<br /><br />In a decision in the nineteenth century, a no less misguided Supreme Court decided that corporations were, in certain important respects, <span style="font-style: italic;">persons</span> and thus entitled to some of the protections laid out in the United States Constitution. Too much ancient history for you? OK, perhaps you'd feel better if we only went back about thirty years. It was about thirty years ago that the public began to be fed an endless diet of anti-union propoganda. Not coincidently, that coincided with the rise in Washington of a class of politicians who believed Ayn Rand was right; that corporations should be entirely unregulated. My opinions on Rand are fairly irrelevent here (although I believe she may be the most evil woman in history) but what that led to was a systematic dismantling of the limits on corporate activities that had been put in place after the Great Depression (also caused by corporations). Those politicians, in union with a media almost completely controlled by the right-wing, preached that the corporation was your friend and the public, so forgetful, so endlessly trusting, believed them.<br /><br />Perhaps you would say that, since today's decision was made by judges, not politicians, that political movement is irrelevent. Sadly, that's untrue. Judges are appointed by the president and confirmed by the Congress. Because of that, the only judges considered for selection are those whose worldview matches that of their selector. President Reagan would not have even considered a judge who was pro-choice, for example. Confirmation is a little more complex but, given the Republican minority's effective current veto power (via their unprecedented lockstep filibuster on absolutely <span style="font-style: italic;">everything</span> and no, wingers, the Democrats were nowhere near this bad to Bush) can be worked around. Bush just went with recess appointments (and it's unclear whether that was even meant to apply to judicial nominations). The lifetime appointments given the Supreme Court justices were originally meant to insulate judges from political pressures. In reality, they've done exactly the opposite and simply given a lifetime term to any justice's political biases.<br /><br />Ah, now we can get to the ramifications of the decision. Keith Olbermann did a good job of scratching the surface in his special comment yesterday but, given the time limits of his medium, he could go only so far. Let's start with these: A lowering and eventual abolition of corporate taxes and, shortly thereafter, of taxes on the rich who run those corporations. How about the abolition of minimum wage laws? From now on, your salary will be whatever the corporation decides to pay you. Think you can go to another corporation and get paid better? Good luck. With corporations in control of Congress, expect ever more incentives to move jobs overseas. You're going to be competing for jobs with ever more people and if you won't take that job for fifty cents an hour, there's someone who will. Oh yeah, your taxes are going to go up as well. With the lowering and elimination of corporat tax and taxes on the wealthy, the money has to come from somewhere and it's going to come from you.<br /><br />Oh, you think the politicians wouldn't go that far? Sorry, you will now choose your politicians from a pool of candidates funded (and therefore, vetted and approved) by the corporations. The corporations now control whether your politicians get elected and that means that politicians will do whatever the corporation demands. From now on, you don't have a senator from California, you have a senator from Aetna or Wellpoint or... Well, pick a corporation.<br /><br />The dream of the corporations is and always has been to have a class of people rich enough to buy their crap and a much larger class poor enough and desperate enough to work for pennies to make their crap. So you can kiss any form of healthcare reform goodbye. If you get sick, tough luck, you're fired and out to starve in the gutter. Any and all forms of employee protection will go. You will now be employed for as long as the corporation wants you, at whatever wages they want to pay. Forget workplace safety laws, forget employer funded healthcare. Forget the enviroment too. The corporate sector has always resisted enviromental protections and now, they're in a position to do something about it. Forget same-sex marriage, some red meat thrown to the evangelicals while the corporations take over. Reproductive choice will go the same way and, since the corporation always wants to lower wages, ever more people competing for ever fewer jobs is always in their interests. Forget banking reform too, there are few corporations more powerful. Credit card reform is the same story. Oh, and forget consumer protections as well. So your drugs may or may not work anymore. Expect more wars, expect a draft or "national service" because the corporations that manufacture bullets and bombs and all that fancy equipment are still corporations, after all.<br /><br />Think I'm being too alarmist? Perhaps. But look up the position of the average person during the Great Depression, or the Dark Ages or any age where those with the gold ruled openly. Your wages have already stagnated for years. Now, with nothing to stop them, they're going to start falling. Expect the few remaining rules on media ownership to be swept aside as well. The corporations need to control those to control you, to keep you distracted.<br /><br />So who can you turn to to save you? Sorry, there's not much better news here. A Supreme Court decision, through the doctrine of <span style="font-style: italic;">stare decisis</span>, establishes enforceable law for all courts within US jurisdiction. Through the principle of judicial review, any law passed by Congress will have to be compatible with this decision or it will simply be overturned, either by the Supreme Court or by a lower court with no choice but to follow this precedent. You could try for a Constitutional amendment, the Supreme Court can't overrule that but the chances of getting a Constitutional amendment through Congress with the current Republican veto are nil and if you think a lter Republican Congress will do so, you're dreaming. The Republican party has become the political arm of the business lobby and, through the right's control of the media, has managed to convince much of the populace that that's a <span style="font-style: italic;">good</span> thing.<br /><br />Enjoy your remaining time to complain about this on the internet as well. Because Net Neutrality will shortly become a thing of the past. And if you think "the people" are going to rise up and institute a revolution, forget it. History shows us that revolutions only happen when people's basic needs are threatened or removed and even then, it's only fifty-fifty. Bread and circuses. If the bellies of "the people" are full and they have, say, <span style="font-style: italic;">American Idol</span> to distract them, they may grumble but, chances are, they won't do anything about it. They'll go to the polls every few years and cast their vote for the corporate-approved shill who sounds slightly better than the other corporate-approved shill. The people of Germany didn't rebel against Hitler, nor did the people of Rome rebel against Nero. Until the food stops coming, there will be no revolution and even if there was, who do you think makes your guns and bullets? I can make ammo, as can a lot of firearms hobbyists but the gun you need to fire them comes from those same corporations and, incidently, the chances are fairly good that you'd be too busy fending off the poor bastards now starving in the streets to take up arms against the corporations.<br /><br />Amid all the accusations of socialism and communism the right has been throwing around lately, it seems that fascism has snuck in by the back door (shh, don't tell the wingers, they think fascism was a left-wing ideaology). Mussolini, the original fascist leader, once said that fascism should more properly be called <span style="font-style: italic;">corporatism</span> as it represented the union of state and corporate power. "The people" or, as I like to call them, "the mob" may not know this because their education has been woefully limited and they have been lied to their whole lives but corporate control of the political sphere is the very definition of fascism. There might not be tanks in the streets (as people seem to believe fascism requires) but it's fascism all the same. You now live in a fascist country.<br /><br />Let me put this in simple terms so that it cannot be misunderstood: The American experiment is over, it failed. Government of, by and for the people is done. Legislators are now for sale to the highest bidder. Government is now (as Olbermann brilliantly said) <span style="font-style: italic;">of</span> the people, <span style="font-style: italic;">by</span> the corporation, <span style="font-style: italic;">for</span> the corporation. If you want to know what the future looks like, read some William Gibson or the rulebook for the roleplaying game <span style="font-style: italic;">Shadowrun</span> (although, sadly, you won't get the magic). You have, generously, five years to destroy this monstrous decision, to save your country and the dream of America. If this decision is not overturned, cut down or otherwise circumvented, your entire way of life is over.<br /><br />Get to work.<br /><br />"<span style="font-style: italic;">Saint Peter, don't you call me 'cause I can't go / I owe my soul to the company store</span>" ~ Johnny CashEbonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05651853704978508286noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8275803714155551227.post-72492159836831418552010-01-17T22:53:00.000-08:002010-01-17T23:00:14.642-08:00More lies from Prop 8 trial.The majority of this article was written way back when same-sex marriage was initially legalised in California. With the current court battle over the constitutionality of the ban on same-sex marriage and the anti-marriage side's odd decision to drag homosexuality itself into the dock, it seemed like a good time to revise and reprint this article.<br /><br /> “<span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">The judges overturned the will of the people</span>” ~ It is not the job of the judicial branch to uphold the wishes of the majority. There is a very good reason why very few states and virtually no civilised nations elect judges and that is because it would open them to the same pressures as politicians face. Judges are deliberately insulated from the political process to ensure that they don’t have to follow “the will of the people”. The judges were asked to rule on whether the state’s ban on same-sex marriage conflicted with the state constitution’s ban on discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation. They decided it did. making that decision was their only responsibility. Not enforcing the will of the people, not following the prevailing political winds, simply stating the law as they understood it. If the judiciary’s only function was to rubber-stamp “the will of the people”, there would be little point having them. The judicial branch is independent to guard against the tyranny of the majority, not to enable it. <span style="font-weight: bold;">UPDATE:</span> If the current case leads to the decision that the ban is unconstitutional, then we can expect to see this argument and the one below used ad infinitum by the right but it still doesn't change the fact that it is not the judiciary's job to enforce the will of the people. Not least because "will of the people" is so often so close to "whim of the mob".<br /><br /> “<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Activist judges / legislating from the bench</span>” ~ The phrase “activist judges” has only ever meant “a decision I disagree with”. Of the seven judges who made this decision, six were appointed by Republicans and California currently has a Republican governor, not the kind of people normally slandered with cries of judicial activism. As anyone who has ever studied law knows, it is utterly impossible for a judge to avoid legislating from the bench. In any case at all (except Bush V. Gore), the decision establishes a legal precedent. By the principle of stare decisis (roughly “the court stands on it’s previous decisions”), that precedent then has the force of law to all lower courts unless and until it is overturned, thus establishing law and thus, legislating from the bench. That is how the legal process is supposed to work. It is, in a very real sense, the essence of what judges do. Further, the cry of activism can only ever have any weight (beyond the previously mentioned “decision I dislike”) if a decision is made without firm legal reasoning. In this case, the legal reasoning was entirely sound. The wording of both the State Constitution and the marriage act were exceedingly clear and the court also drew on the decision made in Loving which established the right to marriage as a fundamental right. That is a well-reasoned, well-thought out judicial opinion. <span style="font-weight: bold;">UPDATE:</span> Not much to add to this one as the above comments still hold true but an additional point should be made. Laypeople often believe that judges have a great deal more lattitude in their decisions than they actually do. In fact, judicial decisions are constrained by a legal doctrine called stare decisis. Stare decisis is legal shorthand for the principle that similar cases will be decided in a similar manner (mutatis mutandis, obviously). What that means is that courts are divided into strict heirarchy. If, say, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals renders a decision, every court in that jurisdiction below them is obliged to render the same decision in same circumstances. This was part of what caused the Ricci case which got Justice Sotomayor in such trouble. Standing precedent (i.e. a case which established the policy of how a particular point of law is treated) said that tests which produced a disproportionate response could be thrown out, even if the disproportionate response was unintentional. Justice Sotomayor rightly applied the existing precedent in that case and kicked the case up to the SCOTUS so they could revise the precedent (which they duly did). The point here is that judges do not make their decisions by consulting a Magic 8-Ball. The law is a complex system of competing precedents, rules of procedure and presumptions. When the layman doesn't understand how that system works, the correct response is to ask for an explanation, not scream "ACTIVIST JUDGE!".<br /><br /> “<span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Now people will be able to marry children/dogs/box turtles</span>” ~ First off, there is no evidence whatsoever that gay people abuse children any more frequently than hetero people and a certain amount of evidence suggesting exactly the opposite. Secondly and more importantly, marriage is (shorn of the religious connotations) a state-sanctioned contract. Children cannot consent to a contract, nor to sexual intercourse so when one is asked “where do we draw the line?”, the appropriate answer would probably be “at people who are able to give consent”. While we’re on the subject, animals are also judged unable to give consent so leave that one at home too. <span style="font-weight: bold;">UPDATE:</span> This one is still true as well. Despite the pro-8 side's constant attempts to hammer it into the public mind, there is still no credible evidence that gay people abuse children any more than straight people.<br /><br /><br /><br /> “<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">They’re free to marry someone of the opposite sex, like anyone else so same-sex marriage is a special righ</span>t” ~ There is a reason the phrase “one size fits all” appears in no known constitution or bill of laws anywhere. If you wish to apply that argument, one can as easily shut down every church except the Satanists, not our fault if you choose to be something different or we could enforce vegetarianism, not our fault if you like a steak. Quite apart from the absurdity of the argument, it becomes rather more sinister when you flip it around: If the government can say I only have the right to marry a woman, why can it not say I only have the right to marry some women? Or this woman? Or this aardvark? A reasonable argument can be made for limiting marriage to two people out of sheer practicality and the need to maintain a tax base but beyond that, allowing the state to decide which people can marry sets a dangerous precedent. <span style="font-weight: bold;">UPDATE:</span> This one is still around, although people are becoming more aware of how absurd it is. The "special rights" argument is still ridiculous. If same-sex couples get the right to marry, it won't be limited to gay people. You, average straight person, will have the right to marry Bob from the office if you want to as well. What, that's still a special right because you wouldn't want to? Welcome to the gay couple's current position.<br /><br /> “<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Marriage has always been between a man and a woman</span>” ~ So was child labour, so was miscegenation, so was slavery. Everything is “always” until we decide it’s something else. The satirist Terry Pratchett once described tradition as “the name we give to something daft we’ve been doing a long time”. His point was not that tradition is inherently a bad thing but that holding a tradition simply because it had always been a tradition was absurd. Until quite (shamefully) recently, it had “always” been legal to force sex upon one’s wife. And then the world grew up and realised that was foul and changed it. Humanity is not static, what was done does not have to continue to be done. If humanity had stuck with what it had “always” done, we would be eating our meat raw and living in a tree. Respect the last by all means but don’t be a slave to it and, when necessary, be willing to learn from it’s mistakes. <span style="font-weight: bold;">UPDATE:</span> Since Rick Warren was stupid enough to insist that marriage had been "one man, one woman" for "five thousand years", it's worth debunking that. For most of human history, polygamy was the rule, largely to cope with epidemic child mortality rates. In certain cultures, polygamy is still the rule. For example, Islam allows a man to take four wives (many Muslims do not do so but the option is clearly allowed by the Qu'ran). Then, in the western world, marriage became an exchange of property. The groom purchased the bride from the bride's father. In ancient Egypt, incest was common among the ruling class. In fact, the current arrangement of one-man and one-woman as relative equals is quite recent. Further, many cultures have or had same-sex marriage or local equivelant. Same-sex unions were recognised in ancient Greece and Rome at various times, parts of China and various parts of Europe. The emperors Nero (who was admittedly insane) and Elagabalus (who wasn't) both married men. While records from this period are patchy, the practice was evidently widespread enough that the Roman emperor Constantinius II felt the need to outlaw same-sex unions in 342ad. Finally, one only needs to look at the Sacred Band of Thebes (who also destroy the argument against gays in the military). The Sacred Band were an elite force of around 300 men in the 4th century Theban army. What made them unique was that the entire force consisted of around 150 bonded gay couples. The rationale was that, while a man may abandon his comrade, he would fight through hell to protect his love. It worked. The Sacred Band defeated a Spartan army three times their size at the battle of Tegyra. The one time they were defeated, at the battle of Chaeronea, they had to be massacred almost to a man. The Theban army, outmatched by Macedonia's invention of the phalanx, broke and fled the field with it's allies but the Sacred Band refused to surrender. They held their ground and fell where they stood. The only members of the Sacred Band taken as prisoners were those too injured to fight on. When Phillip II encountered the corpses of the Sacred Band (virtually the entire company, remember), "piled one upon another", he said "<span style="font-style: italic;">perish any man who suspects that these men did or suffered anything unseemly</span>".<br /><br /> “<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">God says it’s immoral</span>” ~ Got God’s fax number? Willing to share it? Then it’s just your opinion. You may have an elderly book that says your god feels this way but I have a book which says otherwise and since neither of us can prove our case or disprove the others, let’s just leave everyone’s gods out of the equation. Or, to quote Sir Francis Walsingham: “Is your god such a worldly god that he must play at politics?”. <span style="font-weight: bold;">UPDATE:</span> As "<span style="font-style: italic;">Prop 8: The Musical</span>" reminds us, the Bible also codemns homosexuality in exactly the same language as it condemns eating shellfish. The Bible also allows stoning one's wife, selling one's daughter into slavery and slavery in general.<br /><br /> “<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">It’s unnatural</span>” ~ So is wearing clothes, driving cars, modern medicine, corporations and American Idol. The life of man in a state of nature is nasty, brutish and short. The entirety of human existence has been a flight away from nature, a drive to modify nature to our own ends. That is what has made us the dominant species on the planet and, because we never know when to stop, is killing the planet. Homosexuality has been observed in at least a hundred species (last time I checked, it may be even more now). If animals in the state of nature do it, it is natural by definition. <span style="font-weight: bold;">UPDATE:</span> At time of writing, homosexual behaviour (that is, choosing to engage in same-sex coupling even when a mate of the opposite sex was available) has been observed in around 1500 species. In about a third of those, homosexuality is both common and well-documented. It's not difficult to find examples of this. From the German penguins who formed same-sex couples to near-uniformly bisexual bonobos to gay bison so common that Native American peoples have distinct names for them, homosexuality is natural. Case closed.<br /><br /> “<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">It will encourage homosexuality</span>” ~ You can’t encourage an inborn trait. All the<br /> evidence, while not entirely conclusive yet, indicates that homosexuality is almost certainly innate. More to the point, what do you think is going to happen? Are otherwise hetero kids going to notice two guys getting married and think “I’m cured, I want the boys!”. If gay people have been being gay and living as gay and coming out as gay despite the ban on same-sex marriage and despite the phenomenal pressures to be straight and conform and despite the (decreasing but still very prevalent) threat of physical violence, we can safely assume that suppressing gay people hasn’t worked. <span style="font-weight: bold;">UPDATE:</span> Still true.<br /><br /> “<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">It will destroy the sanctity of marriage</span>” ~ OK, first off, let’s talk about that sanctity. Last time I checked, the divorce rate was around fifty percent and around eighty percent of married people (men and women) will cheat at some point in their married life so marriage doesn’t currently seem to be very sanctified anyway. Secondly, do you honestly believe that gay people getting married will have any effect on hetero marriages (beyond the minuscule effect on tax revenues)? Straight people are not going to stop getting married purely because marriage is no longer exclusive to them, the human mind doesn’t work that way. <span style="font-weight: bold;">UPDATE:</span> This one seems to be what the pro-8 forces are basing their argument on. Hilariously, they've run into a judge who seems determined to make them prove it. There are an increasing number of nations which have legalised same-sex marriage or (as my own UK has) an indentical-in-everything-but-name arrangement. Surprise, straight people in those nations are still getting married. The world keeps turning.<br /><br />"<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">If gay people can marry, they'll be raising children</span>" ~ This one's a new entry with the prop-8 trial. And the only rational response is "<span style="font-style: italic;">So?</span>". There's quite a lot of research on the effects that being raised by a same-sex couple has on children (just Google it, it's fascinating stuff) and, while the nature of sociological research means that uniform agreement is impossible, the vast preponderence of the research says that children raised by same-sex couples do just as well in every way as kids raised by hetero couples. In certain areas, they actually do slightly better (for example, kids raised by lesbian parents are less likely to develop mental illnesses). There's a tendancy among anti-gay people to claim that children need role models of both genders and that part's true, kids really do need role models of both male and female genders. Where they screw up is assuming that those roles have to be filled by parents, they don't. The child of a lesbian couple (for example) can just as easily gain a male role model from an elder sibling or relative, an involved teacher or coach or their parent's friends (few couples have friends exclusively of one gender). I was raised by my grandmother for most of my formative years and turned out fairly masculine, I even have a beard (the kind that grows on one's face). Moreover, if such people were honestly concerned about a child's wellbeing (rather than just having a convient excuse to be anti-gay), they would pay more attention to the plethora of research which says that the single best model for childrearing is the <span style="font-style: italic;">extended </span>family. It has been proven time and again that the extended family, the traditional close-knit collection of parents, aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents where everyone pitches in to help raise a child, turns out the most well-adjusted children. That was the normal method of raising children for most of human history although now, as families now live apart more often, it's becoming rarer. Of course, one could also point out how much this argument is based on socially constructed gender roles but I have no desire to turn this into an essay on gender roles and societal expectations.<br />Further still, one could point out that, due to biology, most gay couples who have children <span style="font-style: italic;">choose</span> to have them. Unlike a straight couple who can concieve a child by accident, a gay couple either has children from a previous relationship who they have chosen (and normally, had to fight) to keep with them or have gone through a very long and trying process to adopt or concieve a child. Thus, that child is very much wanted and loved. A child who feels loved, regardless of the gender of his/her parents will always turn out better adjusted emotionally than one who does not.Ebonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05651853704978508286noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8275803714155551227.post-51117536850834941302010-01-02T20:13:00.000-08:002010-01-02T20:25:25.628-08:00Here's How To Win Hearts And MindsSponsor the local baseball team: <a href="http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/72174.html">http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/72174.html</a><br /><br />Sports, especially team sports, have an ability to bring people together which is second only to music. And every time an Iraqi watchs their baseball team play a game now, they're going to know that some nice people in the USA donated the equipment. For the price of some sports equipment, you just won more hearts and minds than you have in the entire occupation so far.<br /><br />So, me being me, let's take it over the top and sponsor the entire Iraqi sports community. I'm sure Iraqis play football (soccer to you on the wrong side of the Atlantic), the whole world plays football so let's send them some of Dunlop's best balls, a bunch of studs (cleats) in assorted sizes and some shorts and shirts. I'm pretty sure Iraq must have a basketball scene so lets send them some hoops and balls, a few pairs of Nike's best. In fact, let's help Iraq organise a Pan-Islamic Games. I'm 99.9% sure that the cost of sending a few plane loads of assorted sports equipment is going to be a fuckload cheaper than keeping troops there until the end of time. A lot of Arabic countries have a great deal of national pride. You're not going to change that, you're never going to grind it down so let's channel it into something positive.Ebonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05651853704978508286noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8275803714155551227.post-19853644606524237492009-12-26T14:33:00.000-08:002009-12-26T14:35:41.723-08:00The Year Of Living CautiouslyBack when the Democratic primary was in full flame, I supported Dennis Kucinich. Kooch (as he is affectionatly known in some areas of the webway) is considered a kook-end radical leftie in the States, someone one step away from Mao but I'm English and, odd personal habits aside, he'd be a perfectly respectable LibDem here. But the American electorate are stupid (as is the electorate in every country) and, unlike most countries, the American media is entirely corporate owned and led and tilts so far right that they can make people believe the centreist Obama is further left than Stalin. So Kooch was out pretty much before the race started. Then I supported John Edwards because he was the only one saying anything much about poverty. But Edwards was removed (and, as it turned out, fatally compromised anyway).<br /><br />So that left Hillary and Obama. And for a long time, I thought either would do. By their own admission, their policies were virtually identical. Hillary's healthcare plan was better but she seemed to have a rather hawkish foreign policy. Hillary has very high negatives but Obama had almost zero experiance. Obama had Rev Wright (Ayers was never an issue) but Hillary had made some really fucking moronic comments about violent video games. So, not much to choose between them. In the end, it came down to that wonderful speech Obama made about race to end the Rev. Wright fiasco. No, not because it was some transformative political experiance. I'm not that naive. No, that changed my mind because it was the first time in about twenty years that I can remember a politician (apart from Kooch) addressing the public as if they were adults who could understand nuance, subtlety and context. And that swung me for Obama. Not by much, not a die-hard supporter by any means but he would do. Decent guy, no real skeletons in the closet (no, Fox's 24/7 attempts to turn Ayers and Wright into skeletons don't count, Fox would have personally murdered Obama by now if they could), policies about as liberal as is possible in the US and certainly as possible as the ultraright American media (that is, all of it bar about four hours a day on MSNBC) would allow, kids are cute as a button. Yeah, he'll do. So I supported Obama but not with any great enthuasiasm. I'm a die-hard liberal and there are only about a dozen liberals in the entire US government and Obama isn't and never was one of them. But of the unappetising options, I went for that one. I was pleased when he brought Hillary into the Cabinet since I thought that would be the best of both worlds although I thought she would have fit better at HHS than State (remember, I think her healthcare plan was better) but still, good move.<br /><br />So why am I now wondering if we've been hoodwinked here?<br /><br />Well, there's a lot of reasons but let's start with gay rights. Now, personally, I think gay marriage (or an identical-in-everything-but-name arrangement like we have here) is a moral must. I think it is utterly immoral to deny gay people the chance to marry (or have the previously mentioned all-but-identical legal option). But Obama doesn't agree and we knew that going in and, with the exception of Kooch, nor did anyone else so we shouldn't have expected agreement on that one. What Obama did say he would support though, was civil partnership, the repeal of DOMA and the repeal of the asinine Don't-Ask, Don't-Tell. Current score is that DADT is still on the books, Obama hasn't ordered it to stop being enforced pending a full repeal (which could be done by executive order fairly quickly) and he hasn't mentioned repealing DOMA in months. His administration has actually <em>defended </em>DOMA (their obligation, as I understand it) and done so in the most repulsive terms (certainly <em>not </em>their obligation). Oh yeah, and he invited Rick Warren to give the invocation at his inauguration but I'm willing to let that slide as just a tin-eared mistake.<br /><br />But perhaps you say Obama has been too busy trying to stop the economy imploding to devote time to gay rights issues? That's a reasonable arguement. So what has been done about the economy? The stimulus package passed was far too small and too much of it was tax cuts (in terms of stimulus, tax cuts are exactly the <em>least </em>effective method). Tim Geithner was installed at the Treasury and the right instantly tried to drum up the story that he was a tax cheat. Actually, all they proved is that the tax code is impossible for humans to understand. That's not my problem with Timmy. My problem with him is that he's a Wall Street bootlick, he's inculated in that Wall St culture where, as Michael Douglas said (and incidently, summed up Ayn Rand's entire "philosophy" in three words) "<em>greed is good</em>". Maybe the bailout was necessary, that's certainly a reasonable argument (albeit, one I disagree with) but were the collosal bonuses really necessary? Was there any reason not to pass legislation limiting those bonuses to, say, a figure one human could concievably spend in a lifetime? Don't misunderstand me, there's a lot of blame to go around for the financial implosion. Reagan's decimation of the middle class and stripping the Republicans of their few principles started it; Clinton did little to repair the damage and DimBulb made it even worse and numerous CongressCritters on both sides bear some blame as well but Timmy is currently in the hot seat so he has to carry the can.<br /><br />How about healthcare reform? Well, how about some? The leadership of the Obama admin on healthcare has been lacking to put it very mildly. Now, I live under a single-payer system here (the NHS). All my care, both physical and mental, is covered by taxes. That's the real left-wing option, that's what real "socialised medicine" would look like but that option was taken off the table even before the election. So, instead, the public option (which was the compromise position in the first place) has been painted as to the left of Stalin. The bill currently winding it's way through Congress includes a public option that very few people could get but that would save money (the right, as usual, are just plain lying when they say it would cost money), eliminates the pre-existing conditions barbarity and incorporates a few efficiency measures. It's better than nothing but not by much. I'm leaving the atrocious Stupak-Pitts amendment aside because, as disgusting as it is, the Obama admin had no input whatsoever on that. Why hasn't Obama been out front twisting arms (both literally and figuratively) to get this bloody thing passed? The bill which, as of writing, just passed the Senate, has no public option, no Medicare buy-in and, most importantly, no competition or incentive to lower prices. What is included is a mandate, an obligation to carry some form of insurance. Hooo boy, this is a mistake. Now, apparently, there will be subsidies for the poorest to purchase insurance (which I'd be willing to bet will be far too little) but, with no public option or Medicare buy-in, the premium you will be forced to buy will cost whatever the insurance company feels like charging.<br /><br />On foreign policy, Obama can claim some successes. While Republicans keep harping on about "a worldwide apology tour" (they seem to take it as a badge of pride if the rest of the world hates them), the foreign policy team (and Sec. Clinton has been a shining example here) has been mostly successful. Iran has refused to abandon their nuclear ambitions but they would have been immovable regardless. More importantly, the majority of the western world now holds a favourable view of the USA again. That's important and not for any conservative-baiting touchy-feely reason but because it makes the rest of the western world more likely to back the US's plays.<br /><br />Another minor victory was the signing of the Lilly Ledbetter Act. The Act amends the Civil Rights Act (1964) in a minor, but very important, way. Previously, those discriminated against in pay had a 180-day "window" in which to file suit. In many cases, that would mean that the window expired before the victim was aware of the disparity in pay. The Ledbetter Act alters that so that the 180-day period "resets" with each discriminatory paycheque received. That's a relatively minor change which will make life that bit better for numerous people across the country. Congress can also be rightly proud of the Credit CARD Act, a catalogue of minor changes to credit card regulations which will, taken together, make life for users of credit cards a little easier. Predictably, the credit industry loathed it but that was to be expected. One surprise in the bill was Tom Coburn's attaching an amendment which allowed firearms to be carried in natural parks. This serves to illustrate hos ridiculous the system of unlimited amendments can get. I personally don't have any problem with the rule change but what the hell did it have to do with credit card regulation?<br /><br />One last thing must be touched upon with regard to Obama's first year: The refusal to bring prosecutions, or even investigate, the war crimes committed by the Bush administration. The logic of refusing to pursue this is obvious, it would monopolise political debate in the US and allow Republicans to claim that the Obama admin was criminalising policies they disagree with (although they're already doing that). Morally, however, there is no excuse. Failing to prosecute such obvious and admitted crimes for political reasons is the height of moral cowardice.<br /><br />Finally, no discussion of Obama's first year (even one as rushed and circumspect as this) would be complete without a quick examination of the right's breakdown. That the Birther's racist claims are still being voiced was perhaps to be expected; the redefining of "socialism" to mean "anything remotely on the political left" was predictable in light of how rightward the political spectrum in the US tilts but what could not have been predicted was the healthcare mobs, the "Tea parties" (whose only uniting principle seems to be hatred of Obama), the climate of intimidation and violence. All of which is rationalised by the right, excused. While a few marginal figures on the left compared Bush to Hitler, those few marginals are now used by the right to excuse the constant comparison between Obama and Hitler (ignoring that Nazism, and fascism generally, are extreme-<em>right </em>ideaologies). In my spare time, I study criminal psychology. Part of that is learning the difference between psychopaths and psychotics. Dick Cheney was and is a psychopath: Lacking conscience or remorse, uncaring of anyone but himself and his loved ones (psychopaths can feel love although not in the way that we do). Michelle Bachman is a psychotic, she is suffering a clear and discernable break from reality. Not in terms of things that reasonable people can disagree with like the existence or nature of God or the proper role of military force but believing in things which are provably, factually untrue. When observing the "tea party" crowd, one has to ask if it's possible for a whole segment of society to suffer from a psychotic break. Because the things this crowd believe, from "death panels" (which Palin is now attempting to claim meant a reference to rationed care) to "pulling the plug on grandma" to "taxed enough already" to the ubiquitous claim that Olbermann and Maddow are the same as Glenn Beck are immense. They can't be reconciled with reality. Moreover, they take the same form of self-preservation as many psychotics: The accusation that those pointing out the illness are themselves agents of the conspiracy against them. How does one reason with such people?Ebonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05651853704978508286noreply@blogger.com0