Has Fascism Arrived in America?
Last Sunday, my wife and I were coming home from church and I stopped at a red light. A car pulled up around us and was on my driver’s side. The driver was laughing at something that I couldn’t figure out. I opened the car window to hear what it was that was so funny. He then opened his window and remarked, “You voted for Obama?!” It was clearly a reference to the bumper sticker on my car that says “Obama ’08.” My wife wisely suggested I close the window, which I did. When the light turned green I let him speed off, not wanting to get into a heated exchange with an obviously demented individual, especially one who was driving a car. But the episode left an indelible impression upon me.

Living in a free society with the right of expression does have its benefits. No body can tell us to shut up, and we are free to voice our opinions as we wish. But, unfortunately, the flip side of that coin is that along with the benefits comes the very somber reality that those who lack the basic tenets to form a coherent or cogent thought are also accorded the same rights. It is at those moments that I thank God that the Founding Fathers established not just a democracy, but a republic with a representative form of government. Men like Hamilton and Madison were petrified at the prospect of what they referred to as the “tyranny of the majority.” The specter of a simple majority taking control of the whole of society and deciding what all of its citizens could or could not do was as unacceptable to them as the system of government they had just successfully revolted against. Only a republican form of democracy insured liberty for all. It was an experiment that has thankfully lasted for over two hundred years, and there has never been anything like it since.

But as precious and as unique as our system of government may be, it is constantly under attack by groups who can’t stomach the idea of diversity of thought. There is, within these groups, an underlying and pathological contempt and hatred not just for those who are different than them, but for the values and beliefs such people hold. For these groups such values and beliefs pose a grave threat to their way of life. As long as such people are allowed to live and breath, they will always be feared and hated. The Nazis blamed the Jews for the nightmarish conditions that Germany had to endure after World War I, and the result was that six million of them were murdered. Pathological dissent often reads like freedom of expression until it is turned up a few notches and it is given voice in the form of riotous hatred. In such instances, the ignorant and frightened are often manipulated and mobilized to act in manners they normally would not be prone to do. Shakespeare understood this all too well when he wrote his masterpiece: “Julius Caesar.” Haven’t we seen the likes of Mark Antony all throughout history? Have we not seen the mob that turned on Brutus in the Nuremberg rally? Or in the town-hall meetings that have been taking place throughout the country? Whenever fear meets prejudice, the result is usually the same: the truth is drowned out and our baser selves come out in full force.

In an op-ed piece called “Fascist America: Are We There Yet?” in Campaign for America’s Future, Sarah Robinson describes in great detail how fascism takes root in a society.

"Historian Robert Paxton defines fascism as 'a system of political authority and social order intended to reinforce the unity, energy, and purity of communities in which liberal democracy stands accused of producing division and decline.' He goes on to add that it is 'a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation or victim-hood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.'


"According to Paxton, fascism unfolds in five stages. The first two are pretty solidly behind us -- and the third should be of particular interest to progressives right now.


"In the first stage, a rural movement emerges to effect some kind of nationalist renewal (what Roger Griffin calls 'palingenesis' -- a phoenix-like rebirth from the ashes). They come together to restore a broken social order, always drawing on themes of unity, order, and purity. Reason is rejected in favor of passionate emotion. The way the organizing story is told varies from country to country; but it's always rooted in the promise of restoring lost national pride by resurrecting the culture's traditional myths and values, and purging society of the toxic influence of the outsiders and intellectuals who are blamed for their current misery.

"Fascism only grows in the disturbed soil of a mature democracy in crisis. Paxton suggests that “the Ku Klux Klan, which formed in reaction to post-Civil War Reconstruction, may in fact be the first authentically fascist movement in modern times. Almost every major country in Europe sprouted a proto-fascist movement in the wretched years following WWI (when the Klan enjoyed a major resurgence here as well) -- but most of them stalled either at this first stage, or the next one.


"As Rick Perlstein documented in his two books on Barry Goldwater and Richard Nixon, modern American conservatism was built on these same themes. From 'Morning in America' to the Rapture-ready religious right to the white nationalism promoted by the GOP through various gradients of racist groups, it's easy to trace how American proto-fascism offered redemption from the upheavals of the 1960s by promising to restore the innocence of a traditional, white, Christian, male-dominated America. This vision has been so thoroughly embraced that the entire Republican party now openly defines itself along these lines. At this late stage, it's blatantly racist, sexist, repressed, exclusionary, and permanently addicted to the politics of fear and rage. Worse: it doesn't have a moment's shame about any of it. No apologies, to anyone. These same narrative threads have woven their way through every fascist movement in history.

"In the second stage, fascist movements take root, turn into real political parties, and seize their seat at the table of power. Interestingly, in every case Paxton cites, the political base came from the rural, less-educated parts of the country; and almost all of them came to power very specifically by offering themselves as informal goon squads organized to intimidate farmworkers on behalf of the large landowners. The KKK disenfranchised black sharecroppers and set itself up as the enforcement wing of Jim Crow. The Italian Squadristi and the German Brownshirts made their bones breaking up farmers' strikes. And these days, GOP-sanctioned anti-immigrant groups make life hell for Hispanic agricultural workers in the US. As violence against random Hispanics (citizens and otherwise) increases, the right-wing goon squads are getting basic training that, if the pattern holds, they may eventually use to intimidate the rest of us.

"Paxton wrote that succeeding at the second stage 'depends on certain relatively precise conditions: the weakness of a liberal state, whose inadequacies condemn the nation to disorder, decline, or humiliation; and political deadlock because the Right, the heir to power but unable to continue to wield it alone, refuses to accept a growing Left as a legitimate governing partner.' He further noted that Hitler and Mussolini both took power under these same circumstances: 'deadlock of constitutional government (produced in part by the polarization that the fascists abetted); conservative leaders who felt threatened by the loss of their capacity to keep the population under control at a moment of massive popular mobilization; an advancing Left; and conservative leaders who refused to work with that Left and who felt unable to continue to govern against the Left without further reinforcement.'

"And more ominously: 'The most important variables...are the conservative elites' willingness to work with the fascists (along with a reciprocal flexibility on the part of the fascist leaders) and the depth of the crisis that induces them to cooperate.'


“That description sounds eerily like the dire straits our Congressional Republicans find themselves in right now. Though the GOP has been humiliated, rejected, and reduced to rump status by a series of epic national catastrophes mostly of its own making, its leadership can't even imagine governing cooperatively with the newly mobilized and ascendant Democrats. Lacking legitimate routes back to power, their last hope is to invest the hardcore remainder of their base with an undeserved legitimacy, recruit them as shock troops, and overthrow American democracy by force. If they can't win elections or policy fights, they're more than willing to take it to the streets, and seize power by bullying Americans into silence and complicity. When that unholy alliance is made, the third stage -- the transition to full-fledged government fascism -- begins.


“All through the Bush years, progressive right-wing watchers refused to call it 'fascism' because, though we kept looking, we never saw clear signs of a deliberate, committed institutional partnership forming between America's conservative elites and its emerging homegrown brownshirt horde. We caught tantalizing signs of brief flirtations -- passing political alliances, money passing hands, far-right moonbat talking points flying out of the mouths of "mainstream" conservative leaders. But it was all circumstantial, and fairly transitory. The two sides kept a discreet distance from each other, at least in public. What went on behind closed doors, we could only guess. They certainly didn't act like a married couple.

“Now, the guessing game is over. We know beyond doubt that the Teabag movement was created out of whole cloth by astroturf groups like Dick Armey's FreedomWorks and Tim Phillips' Americans for Prosperity, with massive media help from FOX News. We see the Birther fracas -- the kind of urban myth-making that should have never made it out of the pages of the National Enquirer -- being openly ratified by Congressional Republicans. We've seen Armey's own professionally-produced field manual that carefully instructs conservative goon squads in the fine art of disrupting the democratic governing process -- and the film of public officials being terrorized and threatened to the point where some of them required armed escorts to leave the building. We've seen Republican House Minority Leader John Boehner applauding and promoting a video of the disruptions and looking forward to 'a long, hot August for Democrats in Congress.'


“This is the sign we were waiting for -- the one that tells us that yes, kids: we are there now. America's conservative elites have openly thrown in with the country's legions of discontented far right thugs. They have explicitly deputized them and empowered them to act as their enforcement arm on America's streets, sanctioning the physical harassment and intimidation of workers, liberals, and public officials who won't do their political or economic bidding. According to Robinson this is the 'catalyzing moment at which honest-to-Hitler fascism begins. It's also our very last chance to stop it.'

"According to Paxton, the forging of this third-stage alliance is the make-or-break moment -- and the worst part of it is that by the time you've arrived at that point, it's probably too late to stop it. From here, it escalates, as minor thuggery turns into beatings, killings, and systematic tagging of certain groups for elimination, all directed by people at the very top of the power structure. After Labor Day, when Democratic senators and representatives go back to Washington, the mobs now being created to harass them will remain to run the same tactics -- escalated and perfected with each new use -- against anyone in town whose color, religion, or politics they don't like. In some places, they're already making notes and taking names.

Where's the danger line? Paxton offers three quick questions that point us straight at it:

1. Are [neo- or protofascisms] becoming rooted as parties that represent major interests and feelings and wield major influence on the political scene?

2. Is the economic or constitutional system in a state of blockage apparently insoluble by existing authorities?

3. Is a rapid political mobilization threatening to escape the control of traditional elites, to the point where they would be tempted to look for tough helpers in order to stay in charge?

By Robinson’s reckoning, we're three for three. “That's too close. Way too close.”

“History tells us that once this alliance catalyzes and makes a successful bid for power, there's no way off this ride. As Dave Neiwert wrote in his recent book, The Eliminationists, "if we can only identify fascism in its mature form—the goose-stepping brownshirts, the full-fledged use of violence and intimidation tactics, the mass rallies—then it will be far too late to stop it." Paxton (who presciently warned that "An authentic popular fascism in the United States would be pious and anti-Black") agrees that if a corporate / brownshirt alliance gets a toehold -- as ours is now scrambling to do -- it can very quickly rise to power and destroy the last vestiges of democratic government. Once they start racking up wins, the country will be doomed to take the whole ugly trip through the last two stages, with no turnoffs or pit stops between now and the end.


“What awaits us? In stage four, as the duo assumes full control of the country, power struggles emerge between the brownshirt-bred party faithful and the institutions of the conservative elites -- church, military, professions, and business. The character of the regime is determined by who gets the upper hand. If the party members (who gained power through street thuggery) win, an authoritarian police state may well follow. If the conservatives can get them back under control, a more traditional theocracy, corporatocracy, or military regime can re-emerge over time. But in neither case will the results resemble the democracy that this alliance overthrew.


“Paxton characterizes stage five as "radicalization or entropy." Radicalization is likely if the new regime scores a big military victory, which consolidates its power and whets its appetite for expansion and large-scale social engineering. (See: Germany) In the absence of a radicalizing event, entropy may set in, as the state gets lost in its own purposes and degenerates into incoherence. (See: Italy)

“It's so easy right now to look at the melee on the right and discount it as pure political theater of the most absurdly ridiculous kind. It's a freaking puppet show. These people can't be serious. Sure, they're angry -- but they're also a minority, out of power and reduced to throwing tantrums. Grown-ups need to worry about them about as much as you'd worry about a furious five-year-old threatening to hold her breath until she turned blue.


“Unfortunately, all the noise and bluster actually obscures the danger. These people are as serious as a lynch mob, and have already taken the first steps toward becoming one. And they're going to walk taller and louder and prouder now that their bumbling efforts at civil disobedience are being committed with the full sanction and support of the country's most powerful people, who are cynically using them in a last-ditch effort to save their own places of profit and prestige.
“We've arrived. We are now parked on the exact spot where our best experts tell us full-blown fascism is born. Every day that the conservatives in Congress, the right-wing talking heads, and their noisy minions are allowed to hold up our ability to govern the country is another day we're slowly creeping across the final line beyond which, history tells us, no country has ever been able to return.”

Austin Cline, Regional Director for the Council for Secular Humanism and a former Publicity Coordinator for the Campus Freethought Alliance, recently wrote an article titled, “If Fascism Comes to America, It Will Be Wrapped in the Flag, Carrying the Cross.”

“It should be clear that there is nothing fascist about "Islamofascism," so that's an example of people using the fascist label as a means of attack rather than as a serious description. Fascism is more like a religion than it is like a political movement. Fascism isn't motivated by rational conclusions about economics, political philosophy, or social policy. This makes real religions like Christianity well suited for integration with a fascist movement. If fascism occurs in America, it will be Christian in nature because only Christianity has the power to motivate a mass-based movement with a passionate concern for unity, redemption, victim-hood, and nationalism. Christian fascism will also be convinced of its own righteousness, moral purity, and godly intentions.”

While Cline’s proclivities can hardly be described as unbiased with respect to religion, in that he is a self-professed atheist, he has, I feel, accurately articulated the neo-conservative evangelical community in this country, and those of us who call ourselves Christians should be very afraid of the growing fascist tendencies within it. Groups like Randall Terry’s “Operation Rescue,” James Dobson’s “Focus on the Family,” Pat Robertson’s “700 Club” and John Hagee’s “Christians United for Israel” are about as inimical to the true ideals of Christianity as the laws of the Pharisees were to the teachings of Christ. In deed they are worse for they have become symbols for millions of people of a faith that they neither understand nor adhere to.

The latest battle over Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor is another case in point of how the Right is looking to rewrite the laws of the land and weaken decades of judicial progress. Ideological arguments over judicial activism are a smoke screen for a larger agenda, to take the country back to a pre-Warren Court day with a weaker Federal government and less corporate oversight and regulation. Imagine an America with no "Brown v. Board of Education" or "Mapp v. Ohio" or "Baker v. Carr" or "Griswold v. Conneticut." Such landmark issues as racial segregation, criminal procedure, voting rights and reproductive rights might never have been heard, or if they had been heard would've gone the other way. Imagine a country where racial segregation was still a states' rights issue. Weakening the federal government does not restore the nation to its earlier post-colonial days the way the Founding Fathers intended, it makes it far more vulnerable to the kinds of activities we've been seeing from the Right; hence far less likely to withstand the sort of onslaught that malitia movements and fascist organizations could potentially bring about. The repeal of the Fairness Doctrine has had a devastating impact on broadcast journalism in this country over the last twenty years, making it far easier for wingnuts like Glenn Beck and Mark Levin to stir up the pot of discontent with virtually no checks and balances to thwart them.

If all of this sounds too fantastic to contemplate, remember they thought the same thing in Germany in 1932 and look what happened. If history has taught us anything it’s that anything is possible. A famous quote is worth mentioning here. "Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same." That quote ironically came from Ronald Reagan. Ironic in that many of his most ardent admirers don't even understand its meaning. And that is the most frightening thing of all.

A Moment's Sunlight

With the 40th anniversary of Woodstock I thought it would be appropriate to post a song that ironically was written two years before Woodstock, but which didn't get a whole lot of airplay. And then a New York disc jockey by the name of Dan Ingram used the song in a brotherhood promotion for WABC and it took off all the way to number 5 on the pop charts. The group was called the Youngbloods and the song was called Get Together.

It remains as current and relevant now as it was then.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4fWN6VvgKQ

Get Together
by
Jesse Colin Young

Love is but a song we sing
Fear's the way we die
You can make the mountains ring
Or make the angels cry
Though the bird is on the wing
And you may not know why
C'mon people now
Smile on your brother
Ev'rybody get together
Try to love one another right now

Some may come and some may go
We shall surely pass
When the one that left us here
Returns for us at last
We are but a moment’s sunlight
Fading in the grass
C'mon people now
Smile on your brother
Ev'rybody get together
Try to love one another right now

If you hear the song I sing
You will understand (listen)
You hold the key to love and fear
All in your trembling hand
Just one key unlocks them both
It's there at your command
C'mon people now
Smile on your brother
Ev'rybody get together
Try to love one another right now

Right now
Right now!

Hatred and Fear: The Enemy's Favorite Tools of Kingdom Building

Whether you are a Keith Olbermann fan or not, his "Special Comment" last night on "Countdown" struck a nerve, as did Jon Stewart's segment on The Daily Show last night. I firmly believe that this debate on health care has absolutely nothing to do with being a conservative or a liberal. There are plenty of legitimate concerns regarding the House bill, but none of this is getting much airplay. The truth is the enemy lives for chaos and ignorance, and feeds the dark side of our very natures, seeking death and destruction at every opportunity. Those who feed that dark side are as guilty as those who show up and drink the koolaid; in deed they are worse, for they should have known better.

There is nothing so despicable as those who turn away from reason and compassion and promote, for their own cheap ambition, despair and deception, except perhaps those who sit by and watch it happen. May God have pity on their souls.

To all out there, raise your voices on the health care issue, if you haven't already. We have heard a monologue; now let's have a REAL discussion. I know you are out there; I have your emails to show for it. This isn't a town hall meeting. You are allowed to speak your minds without intimidation or flat out lies. Contact your congressman or senator to tell him or her how you feel. It's your right!


http://thisweekwithbarackobama.blogspot.com/2009/08/keith-olbermann.html

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-august-10-2009/healther-skelter

Tortured Logic
Obama Administration DOJ Does It Again!

For those who still believe that we who voted for Obama are somehow in the tank for him, this should hopefully dispel such notions.

This was taken straight off Glenn Greenwald's blog. I will print it in its entirety. It speaks for itself, but I know some, if not all, of you will share my outrage at the continuation of this practice and the reluctance of Eric Holder to prosecute, at the highest level, those who stained our nation and did so believing that they were justified in their actions.

Appalling!

I urge all of you to write your congressmen and senators, and while you're at it the White House, and demand that the DOJ immediately start criminal prosecutions of high-ranking officials who sanctioned these disgusting practices. We may not make a difference, or change policy, but God will hear our collective voices and take note of our steadfastness.

What was that about those who sit by idly and do nothing...


Monday Aug. 10, 2009 11:11 EDT

Tortured logic

Editor's note: Glenn Greenwald is on vacation this week. Digby is guest-blogging today.

We weren't sure he was going to even go this far, but according to news reports over the weekend, Attorney General Holder has decided on a "narrow" investigation into torture. In fact, it's so narrow that it won't investigate any of the torture that was authorized by DOJ functionary John Yoo at all. Using inverted pretzel logic, they are apparently going to go after those who failed to follow John Yoo's directives.

For instance, according to the LA Times, Holder will not investigate allegations of waterboarding in themselves, but rather if they failed to properly follow their waterboarding instructions to the letter:

The inspector general also voiced alarm over how much water was being used. Rather than dripping liquid from a canteen, as the 2002 memo envisioned, CIA interrogators "applied large volumes of water," raising questions about whether the method "was either efficacious or medically safe." Because of such documented discrepancies, Justice Department officials and legal experts regard the waterboarding abuses as cases that hold the most promise for prosecution.

I think we can all see the problem here, can't we? By prosecuting waterboarding "abuses" we are essentially declaring waterboarding under John Yoo's only slightly less sadistic guidelines to be legal. Evidently, the new standard will be that if you're going to torture, you'd better do it right.
But it is actually worse than that. Buried in the LA Times story is an item I hadn't heard before, but which one would think would be important in all this:

Officials said it wasn't clear that any CIA interrogators were ever informed of the limits laid out in the Justice Department memo. "A number of people could say honestly, correctly, 'I didn't know what was in it,' " said a former senior U.S. intelligence official familiar with the inner workings of the interrogation program. The CIA report also cites cases in which interrogators engaged in potentially illegal improvisations. One interrogator brandished a gun, former CIA officials said. Other prisoners were reportedly threatened with bodily harm, including being buried alive.

It's hard for me to see how these memos can be considered legally binding if the people who allegedly followed them didn't know they existed. And if they didn't know of the memos, the obvious question is what legal basis they thought they had for doing any of it? If they can't be held liable for "abuse" of the torture techniques because they didn't know the techniques could be abused, did they think they could do anything at all? These seem like questions worth asking.
If these questions aren't asked, you end up with an incoherent legal structure that says that if you waterboarded a prisoner "properly," that is by using the legally sanctioned amount of water to temporarily drown them, you cannot be prosecuted. But if you merely threatened the prisoner with bodily harm, you could be in big trouble:

The CIA report also cites cases in which interrogators engaged in potentially illegal improvisations. One interrogator brandished a gun, former CIA officials said. Other prisoners were reportedly threatened with bodily harm, including being buried alive.

Meanwhile, such truly horrible psychological techniques such as long term sleep deprivation escape scrutiny altogether.

One begins to see why the CIA is so threatened by all this. They are being asked to answer for something that makes no sense. (Obviously, they all have free will and could have declined to participate at all, but that's another subject.)

And, of course, even worse than all that (if that's possible) is the fact that by validating John Yoo's directives, they are also validating the idea that obscure Justice Department officials can be granted the authority to essentially immunize officials at all levels of the government, from the president down to the lowest field officer, by issuing a secret memo. This is very important new development in western jurisprudence and one that surely requires more study and consideration. If Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan had known about this, they could have saved themselves a lot of trouble.

Andrew Sullivan says that Holder's plan is much worse than nothing because it is:
...the kind of split-the-difference pragmatism that will end up alienating everyone. It is vital that the Obama administration does nothing to imply that what was authorized within the rules under the Cheney torture program is in any way legal, defensible or moral.

It strikes me that this isn't actually pragmatism at all. It will protect Cheney and his lieutenants, to be sure, but doing this is going to cause a great deal of dissension among the intelligence services for no real purpose. The bad apple approach doesn't solve the political, legal or moral problems. Indeed, that seems so clear that you have to wonder if this isn't being done to serve some other purpose.

As it happens the UK is dealing with some similar issues right now, with the Binyam Mohammed case heating up with the revelation that the government lied about knowing he was imprisoned in Morocco. (MI5 is accused of being complicit in Mohammed's horrifying torture after he was "rendered" there in 2003.) As Glenn discussed at length when it was revealed, the Obama Administration issued a memo to the UK that the US would withhold vital anti-terrorism information from the British Government if they allowed their judges to release information to the public about the torture programs. I personally always felt this was unlikely to have been a real threat, but rather a result of collusion between the two governments to keep the information under wraps.

But one wonders, considering the recent activity on this front in both countries, if they both haven't decided that they are both better off conducting some show trials on the torture issue rather than trying to sweep the whole thing under the rug. If pragmatism is what's guiding the administration on this, I suspect it's this kind of Real Politic pragmatism rather than domestic political considerations. Otherwise they wouldn't be making the laws governing this issue even more obscure than they already are.

UPDATE: The ACLU produced this powerful video, also called Tortured Logic, featuring the actual words of the notorious OLC

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjoX59e75L4&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.salon.com%2Fopinion%2Fgreenwald%2F&feature=player_embedded

Stupid is as Stupid Does!
Formerly titled You Can’t Make This Stuff Up.

While President Obama continues to decide whether he has the stomach to take seriously and challenge the extreme conservative flank of the Republican Party on health care reform, it’s always refreshing to know that we can count on some of the more unhinged of the conservative movement to strut their stuff and give us a few lowlights.

So, with that in mind, I have decided to launch a new monthly entry, titled, Stupid is as Stupid Does. Each month I will pick three contestants who have distinguished themselves in the annals of stupidity. I know it will be difficult, given that there are so many contestants to choose from and so little space. And, of course, there are some individuals who will be frequent flyers, if you know what I mean.

So let's start the festivities, shall we?

First Place in this month’s contest goes to Sarah Palin, now former governor of Alaska, who just can’t resist reassuring the millions of Americans who didn’t vote for her last year that they made the right choice. Seems she’s been blogging on her Facebook page and had some choice words about President Obama’s health care plan.

"The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama's 'death panel' so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their 'level of productivity in society,' whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil."

Now of course Palin is not the only conservative who has deliberately distorted for political purposes what’s in the health care plan, but not even the most partisan hacks have invoked the term death panel. When you’re further to the right than most of the space cadets who have shown up at the town hall meetings and engaged in staged shouting matches you’re about as fringe as it gets. Rumor has it that Palin has decided to go out on the stump for Republican congressmen and senators during the 2010 mid-terms and that the vast majority of them have not returned her phone calls. I can’t imagine why.

Runner up goes to the self-proclaimed “mobfather” of the lunatic Right, Rush Limbaugh, who never lets an opportunity to embarrass himself go by. This time he has truly gone all out by comparing Barack Obama to Adolph Hitler.

“Ms. Pelosi, you asked for this. Here you go. Adolf Hitler, like Barack Obama, also ruled by dictate. His cabinet only met once, one day. That was it. Hitler said he didn’t need to meet with his cabinet. He represented the will of the people. He was called The Messiah. He said the people spoke through him. Do you know what the very first law that Hitler ordained was? The very first law was a law declaring how to cook lobsters. They were to be boiled. That was deemed to be the least painful. The law was sent around to all the restaurants. Now, does this sound like something any conservative president has ever done or does it sound like the things that liberals are doing all over this country? The links to show you just how off-the-wall radical environmentalist the Nazis were are posted now at the top of RushLimbaugh.com. Okay, Ms. Pelosi. You say you see swastikas? Well, when it comes to it, you look much more like one than any of us ever will.”

BTW, the reference that Limbaugh is making regarding Pelosi has to do with a comment she made about some of the, shall we say, more enlightened of the town hall meeting attendees who were sporting swastika tattoos. She was not insinuating that these deranged individuals were in any way connected to the Republican Party; merely that they were being incited by radical elements within it. Not that that matters to the likes of a Limbaugh. The only thing he seems concerned about these days is his maniacal hatred for anything Obama.

But our third place winner this month is a tie between personal favorites, Michelle Malkin and Glenn Beck. Talk about persistence paying off. Malkin appeared on last week’s The View, which for her is analogous to a vampire staying up to see the sunrise. Malkin is promoting her new book “Culture of Corruption” to people who actually read, which means she has to leave the comfort zone of her fan base who are barely above crayons. The book, all 400 pages of it, chronicles all of the scandals and lies of President Obama. While I haven’t had the honor and privilege of picking it up, much less thumbing through its pages, what puzzles me is how this so-called journalist can write a comprehensive book on a 6-month old administration, yet said virtually nothing during the interminable eight-year reign of King George II. Hmmm. As for Captain Video, who was last month's winner all by himself with his now infamous interview of Michael Scheuer in which Scheuer said that the only chance we had was for bin Laden to attack us again with Smiley just nodding stupidly throughout the whole interview. Well this time all he managed to do was call the President a racist, joke about Nancy Pelosi drinking a glass of wine that he had poisoned, and drum roll please, state that the government, through its Cash for Clunkers Program, was looking to take over your computer. He referred to a link on the government website cars.gov which states that your computer is “now the property of the United States.” Turns out the alleged link was never on cars.gov, but on another site where dealers had to register to get their rebates; the consumer was never under any threat alleged or real of losing their privacy, not to mention their computers. Seriously, Glenn, I know all of you are paranoid about the government and even more pissed off that you have to look at a Democrat in the Oval Office for the next three and a half years, but enough is enough. I don’t expect much when I watch Fox, which thankfully isn’t all that often, but calling the President a racist and just flat out making up stuff about government programs you have stated you don’t like in the first place is beneath even you.

So there you have it. This month’s “Stupid is as Stupid Does” awards. Stay tuned next month to see who our winners will be; or you can just watch Fox News.

Et Tu Obama?
Why the Right Will Never Go Away!


Watching politics in this country, it is often said, is like watching a good tennis match between two excellent servers. We wait for the serve that can’t be returned to know who won. But some of the more astute have a different opinion. It’s more like the scene after the “Et tu Brute” moment in Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar”. You keep waiting for Mark Antony to appear and rile up the mob to turn on its hero, Brutus. Those who studied the play in school will note that the fatal error Brutus makes is believing that the mob will have enough intelligence to see the assassination of Caesar as a virtuous thing. After all, after he explains the rationale for the deed, they cheer him as the true patriot of Rome. But almost as fatal as Brutus’ overestimation of the crowd’s intelligence and sophistication is the decision to leave it in the hands of Antony. Nature abhors a vacuum and will look to fill it anyway it can. Within a few short minutes, Antony’s “Friends, Romans, countrymen” speech turns the crowd decidedly against Brutus and the rest of the assassins. Soon it is Brutus who is on the run for his life. The irony is that Brutus uses rational logic to make his point to the people, while Antony resorts to emotional manipulation. Guess which tactic works in the end. I’ll give you a hint for those who never read the play: it doesn’t end up well for Brutus.

Now look at the current debate on health care and tell me if you don’t see this scene playing out. Bill Maher said on his Real Time program last week that “Democrats never learn.” The Swiftboat campaign against John Kerry in 2004 was thought to be juvenile and was never taken seriously. Kerry was quoted as saying that the American people would see through the lies. He was wrong. Like Brutus, he gave the mob a bit too much credit and paid for his overconfidence. By the time Kerry woke up and fought back, it was too late. The mob had turned on him. The lead over Bush evaporated and he lost the election.

Now enter Barack Obama, 44th president of the United States. He swept into the White House with about as decisive a victory as any Presidential candidate since Ronald Reagan’s 1984 re-election. Opinion polls were decisively in his favor. He enjoyed a honeymoon unlike any President in almost a century. The Republican Party, by contrast, was in retreat and when it did occasionally voice an opinion, it sounded lame and irrelevant by comparison. Brutus stood over the dead body of Caesar and had made his case; Romans everywhere rejoiced that the tyrant had met the fate he deserved. Hail Brutus!

But Mark Antony was waiting in the wings for his opportunity. In deed, you could say he was there from the very beginning, chirping and chirping and chirping away, undaunted by anyone’s opinion of him, relentless in his onslaught. “Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears,” he kept repeating over and over. Soon the silliness and irrelevance began to take hold. “I come not, friends, to steal away your hearts. I am no orator, as Brutus is; but, as you know me all, a plain blunt man, that loves my friend and that they know full well that gave me public leave to speak of him --- for I have neither wit, nor words, nor worth, action nor utterance, nor the power of speech to stir men's blood.” Does that not sound like something the GOP could’ve written? In deed did we not hear all throughout the 2008 campaign shouts of elitist whenever Obama would speak out against the policies of his opponent? Weren’t the Joe Sixpack and terrorist sympathizer comments made by Sarah Palin nothing more than attempts to win over by subterfuge an audience that had grown weary of the status quo? Was not Bush Caesar?

That the attempts failed was fortuitous for the country, mainly because, like Mark Antony, the enemy was never vanquished. He kept at it. The DOW was plummeting throughout December and January. It was Obama’s fault, even though he not yet been sworn into office. The stimulus package was runaway spending without accountability, even though Bush had signed off on it back in September. The budget was evidence of a government hell bent on the ruination of free-market capitalism that would lead to record deficits, even though the last two two-term Republican presidents had more than doubled the debt during their time in office. And now the health care bill is socialized medicine that will lead to rationing, old people being killed off and the end of life as we know it. Even Mark Antony would choke on some of the rhetoric being used.

It is often said that all glory is fleeting. Sadly, the rhetoric of the Right appears to be working and it is working for two main reasons that owe their genesis to that famous play. The first is that at their core people have very short memories. They are easily manipulated. Look at how quickly Antony turns the mood of the people against Brutus. Within a few minutes, the crowd goes from hailing Brutus as an honorable man who liberated Rome from the would-be imperialist to wanting to hunt him down and murder him. History is replete with similar examples, though not filled with nearly as much alacrity. But the main reason that Antony is able to turn the crowd so effectively is that Brutus hands him the stage. It is Brutus’ naiveté, his over confidence in the population to have the capacity to understand his motives and see beyond mere emotion, that affords Antony his opportunity and would eventually lead to his demise. It was the same error John Kerry made in 2004, and Barack Obama is making it again five years later.

Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Facts are not driving this debate, anymore than they did in ’04. Every thinking, rational human being knew there was no truth to the Swiftboat claims, and yet the GOP kept repeating them over and over and over and over again. Say something often enough and it becomes fact, no matter how ludicrous. Health care reform is no different. So far, the only legitimate criticism that responsible conservatives like David Brooks have been able to make is the issue of costs. No matter which plan emerges from Washington, unless it can deal effectively with bringing down the spiraling costs of treatment, it will ultimately fail. On that, everyone seems in agreement. But that argument, alone, is insufficient to stop the reform legislation from being passed, and the Right knows it. Hence, the town hall meetings over the last few weeks and the “outrage” of “ordinary” citizens who show up and shout down elected members of Congress and the Administration.

Shouts of socialism, fascism, euthanasia, fill every town hall meeting. Throw in a few birthers for good measure and you have an insane asylum. Inaccuracies are given legitimacy by conservative talk-show hosts. Seeds are planted, given fertilizer and spring up as full-bodied weeds intent on devouring all living plants that get in their way. The truth is buried alive amidst the distortions and deceptions. And, all the while, proponents of real change sit by and naively believe that in the end reason will win out and the people will come to their senses and reject the lies. Truth will vanquish fear, and all will be well with the universe. Brutus has left the building and Mark Antony is preparing his eulogy. Oh, death where is thy sting?

When will they ever learn? You do not lie down in the middle of a busy intersection and not expect to get run over. The idea that because the Republicans got routed in last year’s election that they would go quietly into the night is arrogant to say the least and incompetent to say the worst. It is one thing to be mugged in the middle of the night; it is quite another to hand over to the mugger the gun and wallet before hand and then have the temerity to claim you are a victim of some foul mischief.

If universal health care meets its death this fall it will not be because the Republicans killed it; it will be because a Democratic president and a Democratic congress left the building, took a long stroll down a short peer and gave the murder weapon over to the very foes they should’ve known could not be trusted with it in the first place. They will have no moral high ground from which to shout foul from, for they ceded the very debate they had hoped to wage. No matter how rational and logical your argument is, if you cannot defend it against all manner of criticism and do whatever is needed to protect it from harm, in the end you will be vanquished. It is that simple. The sad truth is that American politics is not about separating truth from fiction; if it were that easy, we would’ve had universal health care in this country decades ago. It is about winning and losing. Those who are resourceful enough to do whatever it takes to make their point often win; those who don’t lose.

And all we are left with are two telling, yet ominous, quotes to sum up what this might well be about in the end.

“Good countrymen, let me depart alone,
And, for my sake, stay here with Antony:
Do grace to Caesar's corpse, and grace his speech
Tending to Caesar's glories; which Mark Antony,
By our permission, is allow'd to make.
I do entreat you, not a man depart,
Save I alone, till Antony have spoke.”

"Now let it work. Mischief, thou art afoot.
Take thou what course thou wilt."

History is cruelest of all, is it not?

The Enemy's Real Goal

The below was taken directly from Sojourners: Faith, Politics, Culture and was posted in facebook by Linda Hope from the church. I believe it states not only my viewpoint perfectly, but others in the church as well.

There are two predominant voices on the Right who shout out socialism whenever universal health care is mentioned: the misinformed and the miscreants. Both are injurious to our nation. The former because they simply lack the facts to form a truly cogent opinion; the latter because they have deliberately misrepresented the facts to suit their own agenda.

The Right's opposition to universal health care is based on one fundamental and overriding premise: to protect an industry which has made billions of dollars treating its customers - us - as nothing more than numbers on a profit and loss statement. I rarely invoke Satan directly - frankly I think we as Christians sometimes give him a bit too much credit - but in this case he is behind this and has been for quite some time. All of us need to rise up and do what we can to spread the truth to those who don't know and to shout down the liers who do.

As Linda said, making sure every human being in America has health care may cost all of us a little bit more, but in the long run we will be richer for it by decreasing overall costs, living healthier lives, and simply knowing that we have done the right thing by our fellow man. The only question we need ask as Christians is this: What would Jesus want us to do here?

Thank you Linda for the post.

http://blog.sojo.net/2009/07/22/is-nationalized-health-care-hazardous-to-your-health-check-the-facts/


Is National Health Care Hazardous to Your Health?



Check the Facts

by LaVonne Neff 07-22-2009

Various Web sites and e-mails are reporting that cancer survival rates are much higher in the U.S. than in various European countries. Some quote Mark Tapscott in the Washington Examiner, who quotes Jim Hoft in the American Issue Project, who quotes Michael D. Tanner of the Cato Institute, who quotes … well, quite a group of conservative pundits and politicians are involved. They appear to be using the same set of statistics to argue that national health care results in dramatically increased mortality rates from breast, prostate, and other cancers.

To check the facts, I went to the World Health Organization and made myself a chart.

Using the most recent statistics available, I compared the health outcomes of six Western nations. No nation’s health-care program is totally private, and no program is totally nationalized. Government funds pay for a percentage of health-care expenses in all six countries: the United States (45.8 percent), Germany (76.6 percent), Italy (77.1 percent), France (79.7 percent), the Netherlands (81.8 percent), and the United Kingdom (87.4 percent).

Do mortality rates increase with a higher percentage of government funding? Here’s what I found:

The United States ties with Italy for the lowest cancer mortality rate of all six countries. Interestingly, the U.S. and Italy also have the lowest smoking rates. The Netherlands and the U.K. have the highest smoking rates and also the highest death rates from cancer. The cancer mortality rate in the Netherlands is 15 percent higher than that of the United States and Italy.

However, cancer accounts for fewer than a quarter of all deaths in the United States. Heart disease is an even bigger killer, and statistics on cardiovascular mortality are not so good in America. Of the six countries, the U.S. has the second highest mortality rate, with 59 percent more heart-related deaths than France.

The U.S. also has the second highest death rate from injuries. American mortality in this category is more than 100 percent higher than that of the Netherlands.

In the largest category, non-communicable diseases, the United States has the highest mortality rate of all six countries, with 25% more deaths than France.

The adult mortality rate — that is, the probability of dying between the ages of 15 and 60 — is highest in the United States. The next runner-up, France, is 20 percent lower, and Italy is 70 percent lower.

Personally, I don’t want to die from cancer. I don’t want to die from heart disease or other non-communicable diseases either, and I’d rather not be smashed to death in an accident. In fact, I’d just as soon stay healthy as long as possible, so I’d be very happy if the United States had the best health care in the world. Alas, we have a long way to go.

Of the six countries I compared, the United States is at the bottom in terms of healthy life expectancy: 69 years here compared to 71 in the Netherlands and the U.K., 72 in France and Germany, and 73 in Italy.

The U.S. is also at the bottom in terms of total life expectancy: 78 years here compared to 79 in the U.K., 80 in Germany and the Netherlands, and 81 in France and Italy.

Please, when you get an e-mail or see a Web page giving statistics to argue that the United States already has excellent health care and doesn’t need to revamp the system, stop and ponder. We currently spend roughly twice as much per capita on health care (counting both public and private sources) as these European countries.

What lots of Americans don’t realize is this: The U.S. government already spends more per capita on health care than do the governments of these other countries — over 50 percent more than the Italian government spends, for example. And yet the Italians manage cancer just as well as we do, and their health-care outcomes are better than ours in every other category.

LaVonne Neff is an editor, writer, and publishing consultant in Wheaton, Illinois, who blogs on book, bodies, and belief at livelydust.blogspot.com

Mr. President, Have Pity on the Poor White Man!

Original lyrics by Randy Newman
Alterations and additions made by Peter Fegan

The events of the last few days involving Henry Louis Gates’ arrest in Cambridge, Massachusetts and the comments made by the President have prompted this blog. I hope some of you enjoy the pun. But in all seriousness, though, no one who is white can ever know the humiliation and fear that a black man or Latino man feels when confronted by a cop, especially in his own home. You may say that Gates overreacted and Obama mis-spoke, but that doesn't hide the fact that this nation has had a terrible stain on it that is 300 years old and still has not been fully removed.

Here's a question for every white man out there. Would any of you right now trade places with an African American or Hispanic? You needn't bother replying. You and I already know the answer. Face it, no matter how you spin it, being a white man in America is still the best gig in town.

Here's another question. How did we get to be such an endangered species anyway?

And now for our song of the day...


We've taken all you've given
But it's gettin' hard to make a livin'
Mr. President have pity on the poor white man

We ain’t askin’ for you to love us
You may place yourself high above us
Mr. President have pity on the poor white man

I know it may sound funny
But white brothers ev'ry where are runnin' out of money
We just can't make it by ourselves

It is cold and the wind is blowing
We need something to keep us going
Mr. President have pity on the poor white man

Don’t you know how great we’ve been
We’re the best race that you’ve ever seen
Mr. President have pity on the poor white man

Maybe you're cheatin’
Maybe you're lyin'
Maybe you have lost your mind
Maybe you're only thinking 'bout yourself

No reverse discrimination against our kin
Don’t hold it against us because of our skin
Mr. President have pity on the poor white man

We made all them laws and all them rights
Now you say we need to call it a night
Mr. President have pity on the poor white man

I know it may sound funny
But white brothers ev'ry where are runnin' out of money
We just can't make it by ourselves

Too late to run. Too late to cry now
The time has come for us white boys to say good-bye now
Mr. President have pity on the poor white man
Mr. President have pity on the poor white man

Unity Does Not Mean Silence or Complicity

This has been on my heart now for quite some time and I believe it is long overdue. A number of years ago I had been receiving, unsolicited mind you, a plethora of emails from fellow Christians on various issues of the day: the war in Iraq, patriotism, gay marriage, prayer in public schools. The theme was decidedly conservative and very presumptuous. The conservative part I could forgive – everyone is entitled to their opinion, regardless of what I may think of it. But what really burned me up was the arrogant assumption that just because I attended the same church as they did, that meant I would automatically subscribe to the same line of reasoning

After several heated exchanges with a few “brothers” and “sisters” all of which involved replying to all in the email so that everyone had a chance to hear my heart, I received, shall we say, a very pointed and admonishing reply from a church leader – his name will not be posted here – who basically said that what I was doing was creating disharmony and disunity within the Body of Christ and that I should stop it. In other words, even if I didn’t agree with what the others were saying I should zip it as it were rather than cause dissention. Getting called out like that was one thing, but what I protested most was that this particular member held most of the same opinions that the others had. In other words, I was being reprimanded by an individual who already had made up his mind about where he stood on these issues and was not interested in hearing a differing opinion. How convenient.

Now to put it in context, this was the period of time between 2004 and 2005, just as the nation was beginning to ask some profound questions about the direction the country was headed. In other words we were beginning to emerge out of the ether of the post 9/11 haze. Many conscientious Americans were challenging the Administration’s take on the build up to the War and what it was continuing to cost us as a country to continue fighting. Some of those Americans were Christians. I had hoped I could find some within my church. Not only did my search prove fruitless, but now one of the leaders of the church, who has hardly hid his own personal bias mind you, blasted me for standing up to the consensus under the banner “United we stand, divided we fall.” It was a great song in 1970, but I felt slighted and betrayed because his words were far more self-serving than they were biblical.

Disconsolate, I contemplated leaving the church altogether. Not leaving Jesus, mind you, but simply finding a place where my own personal beliefs and convictions were not subject to biblical hostage taking simply for expedience sake. I decided to seek out some advice, so I went to see Steve at the church. I had called this church my home since, well, Christmas of 1991, and now I was planning on leaving it. Steve listened to my concerns and encouraged me not to leave; he said the people I was looking for were here, maybe not in the majority, but definitely here. They were worth seeking out. He introduced me to something he had been doing for quite some time: blogging. He said it was a great way of expressing yourself and that it was a great outlet. It could also be an opportunity to reach out and have dialogue with fellow Christians who shared my views and concerns.

His words sounded intriguing. I had no place else to go, and I did want to see if I could somehow salvage this thing. After all what if I left and found out that there were people who felt as I did? Not only that, but what if the next church I landed in ended up being worse? Also, though I disagreed with their opinions, I actually liked many people in the church. Maria and I both had friendships within the church that we would be leaving behind if we left. I decided to give it one more shot.

My first blog hit the blogosphere on Friday, September 2, 2005 under the banner Christians Against Hypocrisy and was well received by a handful of people, including Steve. Thank you, kind sir. Since then I have continued to speak out against what I perceive as hypocrisies within the Church and to call out certain belief systems that the conservative factions within the Church have embraced that are I believe at their core hypocritical. In this I have been undaunted and while I may not have found the audience I was looking for, the exercise proved extremely satisfying and therapeutic. Cathartic would be a better word.

I have also come to a realization that unity means different things to different people. For some it means that they are free to spew and defame the very faith they so fervently claim to defend, but the moment someone attempts to challenge them they are called out and made to feel like an outcast that is causing dissention and allowing “the enemy” to build momentum. Bull.

I have a differing opinion of unity. It goes something like this. We are all Christians who believe that Jesus is our Lord and savior, that he died on the cross for our sins, and that his resurrection gives us eternal life in heaven. After that we are free to hold any belief we deem important to us. Here are some of mine.

1. I believe that God gave us not only free will, but also the intelligence to reason things out and discover certain truths about the universe and how we came to be. Hence I do not think it is heresy to believe that the universe and all we can see is billions of years old, anymore that I think that interpreting certain chapters of the book Genesis as parables and not necessarily as historical references (see my blog on Genesis) is biblically wrong. If Jesus taught in parables why not us?

2. I believe that the government is NOT the antichrist and that this incessant mindset among conservative Christians that good old-fashioned self-reliance and profit motive alone can cure all that ails us financially is not only historically inaccurate, but biblically untrue. Will someone please find me the scripture that reads: “God helps those who help themselves.” Whether you are a fiscal conservative or liberal, the truth is that the government has played a crucial role with respect to dealing with poverty in this country that quite frankly, Adam Smith notwithstanding, the private sector is simply ill equipped to deal with, and that includes, gulp, getting involved in health care! BTW, the Bible does speak to this, if we’re willing to look for it (Hint, Matthew 25:31-46).

3. I am adverse to stances within the Church that oversimplify and misrepresent what the Church’s real calling ought to be. You are against abortion, gay marriage, the teaching of evolution in public schools, global warming, fine, that is your opinion. But must you narrowly define for millions of people what an entire faith represents? Of course not. So how about aid for pregnant mothers to carry their babies to term so that the number of abortions is reduced? Or how about teaching teenagers about the changes in their bodies and what that can mean to them, instead of just telling them to abstain from sex? Or how about not referring to doctors who perform abortions as mass murderers, thus inciting unstable people to commit murder in the name of a God they will never understand? How about not demonizing homosexuals, thus driving them away from the so-called salvation you wish for them? My own opinion on this has changed over the years. While I do agree that some men and women who engage in an alternative lifestyle do so because of some sexual abuse issues they suffered when they were younger; there are way too many of them to suggest that all of this can be simply explained as a form of deviant behavior, and until we know their hearts, or walk in their shoes, we should, none of us, be judging or condemning them. How do we know what happens in the birth canal? What if we discover that gender orientation is as genetic as hair color or pigmentation? What then? And while we’re at it, let’s stop the “God doesn’t make mistakes” line. People are born with birth defects all the time. Did God blink? As for evolution and global warming, here’s a suggestion: if it offends you to hear something that contradicts your interpretation of Genesis take your kid out of public school and place him in a religious school, instead of insisting that the science text books be rewritten to accommodate your narrow viewpoints; then buy some beach-front property and live there for the next twenty or thirty years. Send me a postcard when the water is knee deep in your living room. What I’m saying is this: instead of shouting out to the world what we’re against, let’s state what we’re for. Let’s start with love and compassion and then build from there. There is no room within our ranks for religious zealots with closed minds and closed hearts.

4. Stop the countdown to Armageddon! If Jesus didn’t know when He was returning, why are you so preoccupied with it? Put away your stopwatch and get a life! Waiting around for the Tribulation while there are starving children to feed, the homeless to shelter, and the sick to be cured not only goes against the teachings of Christ, it is perverse. We should be pro-active, not reactive. The book of James carefully outlines what our correct actions should be. Our faith needs to be lived out, not spoken out. We will be judged by what we did not what we said we’d do. You want to save someone’s soul, don’t preach about when you think Jesus is coming back, buy them lunch and pay their electric bill first. As a wise man once told me, “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” There are plenty of preachers who shout down fire and brimstone from the pulpit; what we need more of are true Disciples of Christ.

5. Call it as we see it, or more appropriately, speak the truth in love. I am doing my part, such as it is, but we all have a responsibility to call out injustice, not only in other countries, but here at home as well. When we hear anti-Christian statements coming out of the mouths of supposedly Christian leaders, we must challenge and refute them. Paul did this consistently throughout his letters and the Church was better for it. Whether it is on facebook or Myspace, or other chat rooms or venues, stop being the silent, innocent bystander. Stand up and raise your voice when you see something that you know in your heart is wrong. Another old saying goes like this, “If you don’t stand for something, you’ll go for anything.” Too many of our flock have been reluctant to speak out for fear they will not be liked. Get over it. When it was his time Jesus was not captured by the Romans, he delivered himself into their hands willingly and thwarted attempts by Peter to resist arrest. Speaking out against the intolerance of some of our leaders – even those in our own church - will be costly, but it pails in comparison to what Jesus suffered in our name.

6. We are all, each and every one of us, hypocrites in our own hearts. Left to our devices none of us can walk this walk. Only through the mercy of Christ and the conviction that is brought about by the Holy Spirit can we live out the promise that we see in the Gospels. By being the humble servant that Christ was during his time on Earth, we might just win over the hearts and minds of those who don’t have what we have, and in the process shame those who should know better into changing their ways.

Can’t Anybody Here Play This Game?!

As the manager of the 1962 New York Mets, Casey Stengel was never at a loss for words whenever he found himself near a club reporter. After one particularly hideous loss – one of the 120 the team would endure that season – Stengel cut loose and blasted his team in the above, now infamous, quote, which was posed as a question, but which really was more a rhetorical indictment. Stengel knew the answer, as did anyone with half a brain. The Mets were dreadful and most of their roster was comprised of over the hill, washed up veterans and over rated rookies, most of whom would mercifully have a very short career in the major leagues, which reminds me of another of Stengel’s more endearing quotes. "See that fella over there? He's 20 years old. In 10 years, he's got a chance to be a star. Now that fella over there, he's 20 years old, too. In 10 years he's got a chance to be 30."

Watching broadcast journalism these days is sort of like watching that 1962 Mets team. You can’t help but ask yourself that same rhetorical question, “Can’t Anybody Here Play This Game?” The game back then was baseball and the very best were hall of famers; the game today for our purposes is being a journalist and not simply a stenographer. Sadly most of the best are dead. Murrow, Sevareid, Cronkite, are all gone, but in reality what they brought to their industry died a long time ago. The courage and relentlessness that these legendary pioneers possessed must have been something to behold to anyone with a TV back then. With the scarcest of resources at their disposal, they probed, prodded, refuted, rebuked and challenged their sources and the powers that be until they got at what they fervently believed was the truth, caring not what others thought of them; their only concern being the integrity of the story. Television may have been in its infancy, but broadcast journalism was in its heyday. Those were the days.

Since then we have witnessed a steady and consistent collapse of this once venerable profession. Despite a plethora of technology at their disposal and the emergence of 24-hour news channels, today’s news journalists – and I use the term loosely – barely scratch the surface when they report on a story. More often than not they look more like hosts of an infomercial than investigative reporters. The last ten years have been particularly distressing to watch. The conduct of the industry during the weeks and months after 9/11 was beneath contempt as it did a complete lay down to the Bush Administration’s policy machinations. Even when it realized its complicity rather than look in the mirror and admit their wrong, they blamed it on the “mood of the country” and the “patriotic wave” that swept the nation. Five years after the United States was hoodwinked into an unjust war, MSNBC’s David Gregory still didn’t get it. "I think there are a lot of critics who think that in the run-up to the Iraq War if we did not stand up and say this is bogus, and you're a liar, and why are you doing this, that we didn't do our job. I respectfully disagree. It's not our role"

Then whose role is it, David? Perhaps it is the role of the multitude of twitter users who now share their deepest thoughts and concerns with Rick Sanchez of CNN so that Rick can include them in his “news” segment. That’s it! That’s the ticket. The answer was there right in front of us all along. We no longer need news professionals schooled in asking the tough questions; we now have news by committee. What’s your opinion? We’d like to know. Twitter us now and you too can have your 15 seconds of fame. The ghosts of Murrow, Sevareid and now Cronkite have been supplanted by the likes of oxfordgirl, claritybleeds and whisper1111.

Incredible, but regrettably true. The news media has now co-opted the general public to do the job it was hired to do. No need to have an informed opinion based on evidence corroborated by trustworthy sources when you can ask your viewers to chime in with their own “informed” opinions. What do you think of the recession? What’s your take on Sotomayor? How do you feel about your health care coverage?

Now there’s nothing wrong with an opinion, and everyone is entitled to voice it, but allowing it to be substituted for actual news is an affront to all that the news industry is supposed to stand for. To put it in perspective imagine for a moment the next time you went for a physical your doctor asked you for a diagnosis of your problem, or if the next time you brought your car in for an overhaul the mechanic handed you his tools and told you to get to work, what would you think? I know what I’d think. What am I paying you for?

But that is exactly what appears to be happening in the media today. Whether it’s the fact that these “news” organizations simply have too much time during the day to kill or that the people they have in their employ are not up to the challenge of being worthy news journalists, the simple and painful truth is that more and more the guy or gal in the street has more to say on the day’s relevant issues than the guardians of the microphone in the studio.

So the next time you go to Citifield or Yankee Stadium, just help yourself to a bat in the bat rack, step up to the plate and take a swing or two or three. If the umpire objects just tell him Rick Sanchez sent you; it should be OK? Who knows you might be just as good, if not better, than the “professional” on the home team. Just make sure the public address announcer gets your name right. “Now batting for the Mets, Oxfordgirl.” Certainly can’t be any worse than Marv Throneberry. After all a little viewer participation is good isn’t it? And what harm can it do?

A Brave New Venture!

Over the next few weeks I will be sharing with you the writing of a new book, titled:

"Sketch: An Insider's View of Retail. What you don't know is hurting you."

I will devote an entirely new blog to this venture, and hopefully someone who knows a publisher - hint, hint - will alert such a person and I will get published.

Over the last few weeks I have been bothered by what I have witnessed at my job, and I feel a strong calling to shed light on it.

My hope is that God will bless it, and use it to help others.

What Would Jesus Do?

Those Who Live in Glass Houses, Usually Throw the Largest Stones!

I recently had a chance to hear Congressman Peter King’s comments about Michael Jackson on youtube and quite frankly was deeply disturbed by them. While it is true that the media has bored us to tears with the over the top coverage of his death, referring to him as a low life is beneath contempt. Those who applaud such comments should examine their own hearts, or perhaps their closets. Sitting in judgment on someone is easy, but is that really what Jesus would’ve done? I doubt it. Jackson had personal problems and what he allowed to happen to himself was a tragedy. He was an incredibly talented individual who was doubtless deeply troubled, as anyone who saw the movie about his life would've known had they bothered to watch it.

Jackson grew up with an overbearing father who never praised his sons and often manipulated them to meet his ends. He had no childhood worth a damn and didn’t even have much of a teenage existence. By the time he was 20, just as “Off the Wall” was hitting the charts, the pattern of abuse that defined his entire life had already taken hold of his soul. All you have to do is look at what he did to his face and skin over the next twenty years to realize that he hated who he was and was desperately trying to run from it at all costs. Like most mega stars he found drugs a convenient way out, and he took them right up until the time his body couldn’t take anymore.

All that wealth and he could not buy happiness. He entered this world a child prodigy, and he left it a caricature of himself. His critics, many of them “God-fearing” people, will no doubt feel justified in their condemnation of who he was and what he was alleged to have done – let’s not forget he was NEVER convicted of the charges against him – but none of us, fans or otherwise, could ever have traded places with him, nor would we have wanted to. Imagine living that life; imagine hating yourself so much that you will stop at nothing to destroy your face and live in virtual seclusion.

No, what Michael Jackson needs from us is not our judgment or our snide remarks about pedophilia; if we are in deed the Christians we claim to be, what we should be hoping and praying for is that in death, Jackson somehow found the peace that alluded him most if not all of his life. A peace we would wish on any fellow brother or sister at an alter call. It is no less deserving of a man, who more than most, probably could’ve used it.

You Can’t Make This Stuff Up, Continues

I have been holding back with this topic, primarily due to two factors: 1. I was hoping to be more optimistic and this stuff just burns me up; 2. I was a bit lazy! Probably more the latter. But this time, I just couldn’t resist.

Glenn Beck is At It Again; or should I say more accurately, he never stopped. On his July 1st show he had on a guy named Michael Scheuer, a former CIA operative, who said the following:

“The only chance we have as a country right now is for Osama bin Laden to deploy and to detonate a major weapon in the United States, because it’s going to take a grass roots, bottom up pressure, because these politicians prize their office, prize the praise of the media and the Europeans. It’s an absurd situation again, only Osama can execute an attack, which will force Americans to demand that their government protect them effectively, consistently and with as much violence that is necessary.”

Throughout this whole diatribe, not once did Beck interrupt or correct Scheuer; in fact near the end, Beck can be seen nodding in agreement. I have attached the link to this show for your review, assuming of course that you have the stomach to watch it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auQJVhNH99c

The Right has certainly gone out its way to blast the current administration for its stance on the economy – going so far as to call Obama a socialist – but when one of your guests actually comes right out and says that an attack upon the United States by a terrorist is “the only chance” the nation has, and you sit there nodding like some moron, you have crossed whatever line there is not just for decency, but for treason.

I have heard enough stupidity from these bozos to last a lifetime. When their man was in power, they went out of their way to praise him and ridicule anybody who would even dare intimate some of the suggestions that have surfaced over the last few months, like secession. Now that they are out of power, the lunatics have truly taken over the asylum. Tea parties sponsored by corporations, neo-cons suggesting attacks on our own country, and polls taken to decide which form of insurrection would be desirable to rescue the nation from the socialists hordes are now becoming all too common with this lot.

I am growing more and more nervous with each passing day. The only thing scarier than having to listen to such fools spew would be if they actually got what they were wishing for. That is my ultimate fear. The simple truth is that the United States will probably be attacked in the future. What 9/11 should have taught us is that we are not nearly as untouchable as we thought we were. An attack on our soil, I’m afraid, could push the nation backwards into a myopic, nationalistic mode that would rival even what we witnessed in the months after the initial attack in 2001. That is the last thing the United States needs. With all that is at stake in the world, let’s pray that Glenn Beck and his ilk are not right. Let’s hope that America is made of better stuff than what Fox News believes about it.