Persecution: a chilling reminder of the Holocaust

Persecution: noun. Hostility and ill-treatment, especially because of race, political or religious beliefs

Today I hiked up to Portland’s amazing Japanese Garden. Close by is the small but extremely poignant memorial to the victims of the Holocaust.

Almost 25 million civilians perished in Europe in World War II, almost 6 million Jews and millions of others [homosexuals, liberals and intellectuals, gypsies, Jehovah’s Witnesses, labor leaders, etc.] fell victim to racial hatred and premeditated murder carried out by Nazi Germany and its collaborators…  Hitler blamed these people for the country’s post- WWI woes and promised stability.

At the memorial are bronze castings of the things that the men, women and children had to leave behind as they fled for their lives (only to die of starvation or gassing soon after). A doll, a broken violin, a book, a boot and some spectacles, a teddy bear.

These were people who lived and loved, worked and played, just like you and me. Am I being melodramatic? Maybe. But enough hate has been unleashed since the election of DT that we see America’s underbelly. The man himself is a narcissist and sociopath with zero compassion for others. Nor do the people he wants to appoint instill any faith in me.

Someone named Elliott Lustzig wrote about Hannah Arendt’s book on the rise of totalitarianism what  a couple of days ago:

Decent liberals in of 1930s Germany would “fact-check” the Nazis’ bizarre claims about Jews, as if they were meant to be factual. What they failed to understand, she suggests, is that the Nazi’s Jew-hating statements were not statements of fact, but declarations of intent. So when someone would blame the Jews for Germany’s defeat in WWI, naive people would counter by saying there’s no evidence of that.

What the Nazis were doing was not describing what was *true*, but what would *have to be true* to justify what they planned to do next. 

Did 3 million “illegals” cast votes in this election? Clearly not. But fact-checking is just a way of playing along with their game. So… Trump may be saying that 3 million illegals voted, but what he means is: I’m going to steal the voting rights of millions of Americans.

This has already happened in several GOP-led states where they’ve used voter ID laws, restricted voting sites and restricted voting hours, to make it very difficult for minorities, immigrants, students and the poor to vote.

Fact-checkers are exhausted trying to keep up with the blizzard of lies coming from Trump and his representatives. And they don’t give a fuck.

Yeah. I’m upset.

Parallel Planets: right wing’s grip on reality

[A repost from 2009. The GOP is still out there in lala land.]

Parallel: adj. extending in the same direction, everywhere equidistant, and not meeting

Planet: n. one of the large bodies that revolve around the sun in the solar system

This was quite a week in la-la land, where hate crimes are a reflection of one’s faith, a decrease in one’s taxes is a cause for a taxpayer revolt, and patriotic disgust at the duly elected Obama administration is sufficient reason for Texas to secede.

The unhappy rightmost fringe of the GOP exists not only on a different planet from everyone else on earth, they also run arguments that directly contradict other of their pet arguments.

We’ll take Tony Perkins first (of the Christian group – Family Research Council). He has created a website “fighthatecrimes.org” to OPPOSE a bill currently in Congress that says people who harm other people because they’re different (gay) will be prosecuted.  Isn’t the first rule of Christianity, “Love Your Neighbor as yourself?”

Then we have the TeaBaggers, who are protesting Anything and Everything Obama – currently “taxation without representation” – even though American voters went resoundingly for Obama last November and 69% support him today. And even though almost all of the protesters’ taxes will be lower, thanks to his tax cuts.

Gail Collins at the NY Times notes:

Have you ever noticed that the states where anti-tax sentiment is strongest are frequently the same states that get way more back from the federal government than they send in? Alaska gets $1.84 for every tax dollar it sends to Washington, which is a rate of return even Bernard Madoff never pretended to achieve. Yet there they were in Ketchikan waving “Taxed Enough Already!” signs and demanding an end to federal spending.

Then we go to Texas, where Governor Rick Perry (whose hair is almost as perfect as Senator John Boehner’s or Ex-Gov Blagojevich) thinks Texas should secede from the United States.  (And wasn’t Todd Palin into that as well, up in Alaska??)

Collins continues:

Have you noticed how places that pride themselves on being superpatriotic seem to have the most people who want to abandon the country entirely and set up shop on their own?

“What a great crowd,” Perry twittered, referring to the protesters he addressed in Austin, some of whom were waving American flags and yelling “Secede!”

Back when we protested the Iraq war, we were called unpatriotic and much worse; we were called traitors. “You’re either with us or you’re with the enemy…”

What makes this tax season so different from a couple hundred tax seasons that preceded it?  Last week’s protests were almost exclusively populated by white folks… Could it have anything to do with racism??

Need I mention that Obama is black?

Angry people need scapegoats – it’s the Mexicans taking our jobs and raking in welfare; it’s the black guys taking over the government.  But no one wants to admit being racist so instead they protest taxes, regulations, religious “persecution”.

Pew on pew-sitters’ support of torture

Pew: n. Pew Research Center, a non-partisan center that looks at American values, religion, and the public life.

Pew-sitter: n. a person who goes to church regularly (the bench is called a pew).

Churchgoers more likely to back torture, survey finds

WASHINGTON (CNN) — The more often Americans go to church, the more likely they are to support the torture of suspected terrorists, according to a new analysis.

More than half of people who attend services at least once a week — 54 percent — said the use of torture against suspected terrorists is “often” or “sometimes” justified. Only 42 percent of people who “seldom or never” go to services agreed, according the analysis released Wednesday by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

White evangelical Protestants were the religious group most likely to say torture is often or sometimes justified — more than 6 in 10 supported it. People unaffiliated with any religious organization were least likely to back it. Only 4 in 10 of them did.

Honestly this doesn’t surprise me one whit. Jack Cafferty at CNN asked viewers for comments and here are some choice ones:

–Pastors need to address the paradox and say, “You can’t be pro-life and at the same time be pro-death penalty, pro-guns, and pro-torture.”

–I’m not sure that the ‘faithful’ finding torture acceptable should surprise us. Isn’t that what Islamic fundamentalists do? All radicalized forms of thinking lack innate tolerance — that’s what radicalism does, whether it’s based on religion, politics, culture, money or anything else.

–Why? Why?! Really? Jack, c’mon… Can you say, “Crusades?” Can you say, “Holy War?” Can you say, “Jihad?” Nobody loves man’s inhumanity to man more than those who have God on their side.

–Having been tortured sitting through all of those sermons, I think it’s no wonder churchgoers want to share the misery.

Premier of President Obama’s primo first 100 days

Premiere: n. First in occurrence; first showing; highest importance

Primo: adj. of exceptional quality, first class, kickass

Al Rodgers has assembled a fantastic collection of photographs and accomplishments from President Obama’s first 100 days in office.  It’s not to miss.  Some of the pictures move me to tears.

And what his administration has accomplished so far is mind-boggling, given the radioactive garbage dump Bush and Cheney left us with.

YES WE CAN!

Party-pooping patriots: the Texas GOP

Party-pooper: n. A person who ruins a party by either stopping the fun or not participating in a certain activity

Patriot: n. One who loves, supports, and defends one’s country

The Texas Republican party is such a joke. Half of them love America so much that now the Democrats are in charge they want to take their marbles and go home.  Markos’ post was so priceless today that I give you the whole thing:

We now know that half of Texas’ Republicans want to secede from the United States.  So I have some questions for that crowd:

• Are you flying an American flag? Because you don’t get to do that when you cry and take your ball home.

• Do you have a bumper sticker that says, “These colors don’t run”? Because it sure looks like you’re running.

• Do you still pretend that your party is the “Party of Lincoln”? If so, what part of Lincoln exactly, would that be?

• Since you’ve spent the last eight years saying “America, love it or leave it”, is that an admission that you don’t love America? Because we liberals loved it and stayed, even when your idiot of a president was trashing the place.

• Was your patriotism (My country, right or wrong) so skin-deep, that it depended 100 percent on the guy in the White House?

• That $200 billion Texas got in defense contracts between 2000 and 2007? No more of that. No more Ft. Hood. No more NASA. No more federal largesse. You okay with that?

You do realize that the Cowboys will no longer be “America’s Team”, right? Though they’d dominate the two-team Texas Football League (TFL).

Population boom: teen and unmarried mothers

Population: n. : the whole number of people or inhabitants in a country or region

More babies were born (4.3 million) in the US in 2007 than any other year in our history. Two particular statistics fly in the face of rhetoric from the religious right:

1. The teen birth rate is up again, for a second year in a row. So much for “abstinence only”.

Even at the low point in 2005, the United States had the highest rates of teenage pregnancy, birth and abortion of any industrialized country. Because teenage births carry higher risks of medical problems and poverty for mother and child, state health agencies, schools and private groups have mounted educational campaigns to deter teenage pregnancy.

2. Forty percent (40%!) of last year’s births – to mothers of all ages – were to single women.  Which leads me to believe that heterosexuals don’t much care about the institution of marriage …  and it has nothing to do with gays marrying (or not).

Along with the boom in birth (less contraceptive use?), we’re seeing a decrease in abortions.

What I want to know is how many of these new babies were really wanted by their mothers? And if many were not wanted, what problems with troubled children are we going to see in a few years?

Another worrisome trend is the continuing increase in C-section use:

In yet another record high, the share of deliveries by Caesarean section reached 32 percent in 2007, up 2 percent from 2006. Experts have repeatedly said some C-sections are not medically necessary and impose excess costs, but the rate has steadily climbed, from 21 percent in 1996.

Not only are C-sections expensive and invasive, but the baby’s long-term health may be jeopardized:

Swiss researchers are reporting in the journal Thorax this month that a Caesarean delivery is linked to a much higher risk for asthma compared with babies born vaginally.

In a study of nearly 3,000 children, the researchers found that 12 percent had been given a diagnosis of asthma by age 8. In that group, those born by C-section were nearly 80 percent more likely than the others to develop asthma. The explanation may be that a vaginal birth “primes” a baby’s immune system by exposing it to various bacteria as it moves through the birth canal.

Party Platform: GOP’s national security plank

Party: n. (see prior post)

Platform: n. a declaration of the principles on which a group of persons stands ; especially : a declaration of principles and policies adopted by a political party or a candidate

Plank: n. an article or particular issue in the platform of a political party

From Barb Morrill yesterday on DailyKos:

When Republicans got together last year to write the national security plank of their party platform, I wonder if the irony in this passage escaped them:

One sign of our unity is our English language. For newcomers, it has always been the fastest route to prosperity in America. English empowers. We support English as the official language in our nation … thereby fostering a commitment to our national motto, E Pluribus Unum.

… because the facts certainly did. Our national motto is:

In God We Trust

Oops.

The Petulant Posturing Party of NO! – Today’s GOP

Petulant: adj. characterized by capricious ill humor, peevish

Posturing: adj. assuming an artificial or pretended attitude

Party: n. a group of persons organized for the purpose of directing the policies of a government

The current Republican party is behaving like a bunch of spoiled 4-year-old brats whose mama has said “No more cookies!”

When they were in control of the government, they thought nothing of shutting out anyone who disagreed with them. They had ZERO interest in bi-partisanship.

Now that they’re in the minority, despite Obama’s efforts to include them in the debate, they scream bloody murder unless he agrees to follow their agenda. No compromise considered.

They have become the Party of NO!  If it’s Democratic Party sponsored legislation they’ll shit on it.

It used to be that to pass legislation in the Senate, a majority of Senators (51) had to vote yes.  That’s the democratic process – majority rules. But under Republican obstructionism, nothing passes without 60 votes.

Their game is to threaten a filibuster, which continues debate indefinitely unless a cloture vote passes (requiring 60 ayes) to force a vote on the issue at hand. They wouldn’t give a rip if the entire Congress ground to a halt. Or the country for that matter.  Posture and partisanship above the people’s needs.

Right now, Democrats have 58 votes. When the smarmy Minnesotan soon-to-be ex-Senator Norm Coleman finally gives up his bogus court fight over what he claims are wrongly marked ballots, Al Franken will be our 59th.

It’s especially galling when they postured loudly against the stimulus and budget bills because they’re full of earmarks (pork). No matter that earmarks were a Republican specialty when they were in power – now they have the gall to pronounce the packages “porkulus”. Then they go home to their districts and brag to their constituents about how they brought them money for their local projects.

Some Republicans even voted against pi last week.  The House periodically passes non-binding resolutions that are mainly symbolic and as such usually pass unanimously.

The ten nay-sayers refused to declare March 14 to be Pi day, to honor perhaps the most famous constant in mathematics. (Pi has been understood since ancient times, and is defined as the circumference of an arbitrary circle divided by its diameter.) It was first celebrated by a bunch of scientists from San Francisco 21 years ago.

Prurient Prevarication: Fox News

Prurient: adj. marked by, arousing or appealing to sexual desire

Prevarication: n. “deviation” from the truth; a lie

The GOP “news” arm, Fox, is having a field day with the stimulus bill. (I could have done a whole P-post on their new talking point word “porkulus” but it reminded me too much of the gag-worthy Rush Limbaugh.)

The current porkulus lie began in Bobby Jindal’s pathetic response to Obama’s speech last week in which he claimed the bill included $8 billion for a mag-lev train from Disneyland to Las Vegas.

There is no such train project in the bill, but Fox liked the pleasure-seeking images it conjured up, inserted some prurient imagination and ran with their addition to the story: not only did the train run from Disneyland to Nevada; it ran directly to the Moonlite Bunny Ranch brothel !!! Wow!! (The ranch is actually 422 miles further.)

Here’s how Fox played the story (I especially loved the display of long female legs at the end, in conjunction with the chuckles over a “stimulus package”….)

Watch it here

Pro-Life? How do you respond?

Pro-life: n. code word for (usually) Christian conservatives meaning that you oppose abortion.

Mike Huckabee called me the other night. Well, Mike, the former gov of Arkansas, former fattie, former presidential candidate and current talk show host (of course… what better way to stay in the public eye in preparation for his next run) didn’t actually call me in person; his robot did.

“Hi,” said his computer voice, “this is Governor Mike Huckabee – I want to ask you a couple of questions… Did you vote in the last election?”

Since I always want to hear what Republicans are currently spinning, and because it’s true, I said yes.

“Do you consider yourself pro-life?” Huckabee’s voice asked.

Now this stumped me for a minute, because I’m “pro” lots of things. I mean who wouldn’t be pro “LIFE”? It’s better than the alternative, as Woody Allen once said.

Framing the anti-abortion movement as being “pro-life” was a stroke of linguistic genius because the most natural oppositional phrases are “pro-death”, “anti-life” or “pro-abortion” – all of which sound bad, even though none of them are accurate descriptions of those who believe women have the right to choose whether to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term or not.

Planned Parenthood used to have a brilliant slogan: “Every child a wanted child.”  It conveys the heart of the matter: a woman should be able to control her own fertility because who knows better her ability to bear, love and raise that child? No child should have to bear the burden of being born to someone who doesn’t want him. God knows, in this world a kid has a hard enough time getting the love, support, health care and education he deserves being raised by parents who wanted him. Unfortunately every community around the world has growing populations of homeless men, women and children who lacked that nurturance.

Anyway, back to Mike and me.

He took my stammering for a YES and plunged on with the true purpose of his call – to pass along the scary lie that Obama’s top priority was to pass a law to make it possible for anyone to perform an abortion on any woman anywhere anytime.  Now, if I had known Mike was going to call with such a load of codswallop, I’d have figured out how to record the call so I could quote him exactly and could parse the statement phrase by phrase…

The message was paid for by Americans United for Life, but I believe he’s done various versions of the message for other pro-life groups as well.  They are nothing if not well organized and well-funded.

I totally deplore fear-mongering as a persuasion technique – and the Right specializes in it – that and reducing the issue to its most simplistic even if the truth must be twisted or ignored to get there.  Those of us on the left have a greater interest in facts , even if they’re messy and complex to communicate.

So back to “pro-life”.

Our standard catch phrase response is “pro-choice”, which, though truthful,  lacks the emotional impact of “pro-life.”  We are certainly not “pro-abortion”; we’d much prefer the pregnancy be avoided thru the use of contraceptives. But contraception can fail and women do get raped.

Some of us believe we could call the pro-lifers “pro-fetus, anti-child,” because once the child is born conservative ideology says taxpayers shouldn’t have to support “welfare mothers” who can’t make ends meet raising kids alone.

We could also call them the “forced pregnancy” squad.

My own definition of pro-life means we respect the mother’s right to choose to give life or not. And if she does, we as a society are there to help her succeed as a parent and to help her child grow up to be a healthy, responsible, educated and contributing member of society.