George Carlin on Human Arrogance

The Lesser of Two lessers

        

The Criminality of Pretence: Dysfunction of Two Parties Incestuously Spawned from Corporate Money and Corruption                        

"Our technical civilization has just reached its greatest level of savagery. We will have to choose, in the more or less near future, between collective suicide and the intelligent use of our scientific conquests. Before the terrifying prospects now available to humanity, we see even more clearly that peace is the only battle worth waging. This is no longer a prayer but a demand to be made by all peoples to their governments - a demand to choose definitively between hell and reason."

-Albert Camus

The 2000 presidential election was the first time in my lifetime that I was able to vote for a candidate instead of using my vote to defeat the lesser or two miserable alternatives. Those of us who had the temerity to buck the dysfunctional political system in this country, satirically referred to as a democracy , were lambasted for wasting our vote on the “egomaniacal” Ralph Nader and by default electing the pathetic little Texan bastard from the inbred Bush clan. Chastened and guilt-ridden, many of us were herded back into the flock of the slightly less bad, albeit feckless and spineless, Democratic Party. The fact we had voted for a candidate who spoke to the issues we believed in as well as a man of conscience, erudite intelligence, and possessing a record of accomplishment that defines decency and courage did little to ameliorate our collective grief over the murderous criminality of the Bush junta with the hapless Democrats, in control of Congress after 2004, as willing accomplices.

In 2008, many progressives and more authentic leftists were seduced once again by the promises of the Democratic Party and the soaring rhetorical poetry and of Barack Obama. Obama was elected because he convinced the left that he had an agenda that would make social and economic justice the centerpiece of his administration, and he would lead a resurrection of American ingenuity and idealism to confront the serious issues facing our country and the world. America’s voracious imperial ambition, perpetual war to brutally repress challenges to our global dominance, accelerating climate change, ecological degradation, unfettered corporate hegemony, the outlandish and rapacious criminality of Wall St., and justice for the long suffering Palestinian people are merely a few of the festering issues that continue to define our world as a brutal and unjust place for the vast majority of its citizens. In short, Obama convinced progressives that he was on their side and that he actually had balls and a spine. Obama, we came to believe, had game. We did not vote for the abstractions that became the meaningless slogans of his campaign, but rather we voted for a man who marketed himself as having the courage to transcend the political posturing of both major parties and act according to his ethical principles applied to economic, social and ecological justice. We voted for a leader who would have the necessary audacity to demand that America finally live up to the promises of its creed.

 Instead, we have gotten four more years of “just us” policies along with a dash of empty eloquence added to our global swagger. We voted for another Coelenterate who waffles in the turbid currents of a reality defined by the virulent ideology and unrelenting propaganda of our corporate media. Pervasive visual technologies along with the scripted torrents of hate flooding the public airwaves from talk radio now define our perception of reality and what is acceptable to think and believe.

   Unfortunately, President Obama has shown us clearly since he took office that he is no progressive. His limp dick pretensions to be otherwise only reinforce the self-fulfilling conviction that the left is incapable of boldly defending its putative core ideology. Examples of Obama’s milquetoast appeasement to the zealotry of the right are numerous and troubling. To reign in the metastatic greed of Wall St. and institute the constraints necessary to prevent another economic meltdown, Obama did just what any good Republican would do; he delegated the job to Geitner, Paulson, and Bernanke all of whom still wreak of the stench of their own complicity and corruption from Goldman-Sachs to Stanley-Morgan.  In Afghanistan, Obama relinquished his promise to be a peacemaker, and implemented his own version of the “surge”. With the death toll of innocents and combatants rising, nobody in the Administration seems capable of articulating any cogent rationale to explain why our young men are sent to kill and be killed. Ask returning soldiers why he or she is fighting in Afghanistan and they will inevitably reply that they are doing it for their buddies and themselves. Their mission is to survive.  No flag waving platitudes for these very brave, but misguided soldiers. They get it. Last week eight woman gathering wood were killed by our an American drone attack. Just more endless collateral damage along with a tincture of probable blowback.  

The pernicious litany of lies and reptilian propaganda has been seamlessly transitioned from the odious Bush neocons to the Obama invertebrates. Obama’s response to the issue of greenhouse warming, a problem that potentially imperils all life on this planet and poses a greater threat to US security than terrorism according to a recent Pentagon report, was to support the ludicrous market based approach of cap and trade.  His ineffectual rhetorical posturing and apparent eagerness to compromise keystone values promise to make complex ecological, social, and economic problems far more intractable for those who have the moral spine to act assuming that we now have time to take meaningful action. The consequences of the gutless failure of Democrats to responsibly react to the dire effects of rising atmospheric carbon dioxide levels will ensure intensified suffering and dislocation to millions of global citizens who had no part in creating the problem. This moral and ethical abdication of responsibility has occurred on the watch of the last five presidents, but Obama seemed to understand the severity of the problem.

 The climate policies of the last twenty years might as well be called “An Idiot’s Guide to Saving the Planet” written by the fossil fuel industry for the science illiterate Congress. Listen to the moronic babble of Jimmy Inhofe to get a real sense of the level of idiotic incapacity ruling the greatest country on earth. Half of the Republican Congress do not believe in anthropogenic warming and have used their new power to attack climate science and the climatologists who seek, as the nutty narrative of the right goes, only to profit from the irrational apprehension they engender in the American people. And fear induced paralysis steadfastly remains one quality American product that has not been outsourced. We manufacture it using the ubiquitous right wing propaganda outlets and disseminate it through the complicit corporate media much of which has been consolidated into a small oligarchy of powerful and obscenely wealthy zealots        ( Rupert Murdoch and the Koch brothers for example). And while Republicans taught the nation to ignore science, Democrats frantically continued their hopeless search for a backbone.

And let us not forget the long suffering Palestinians. Did anyone seriously believe that Israel’s  policy of ethnic cleansing in the West Bank, which has received nothing but tacit and overt support from its American Bitch, would change in response to the Obama peace initiative. Even Obama knows Israel will never abdicate land promised to God’s chosen people. The show must go on, as does the killing. I wonder if our government ever expressed its condolences to Rachel Corrie’s family. She was a brave young woman committed to Palestinian emancipation who was murdered by the Israeli’s in the West Bank.  Rachel Corrie’s young life dedicated to the pursuit of justice for the oppressed is a testament to human possibility.  An Israeli court recently found that Rachel’s death was a tragic accident with zero Israeli culpability. For Israel, the execution of a young American woman was merely an issue of spinning a few days of bad press. .

In  the 2008 Congressional elections, Democrats discovered that the patience and credulity of progressives does indeed have limits. In the ensuing post-mortem analyses, the general consensus seemed to be that Democrats had misread their 2008 mandate as a license to swing a couple of nanometers to the left.  Evan Bayh, Democrat from Indiana stated that the party needed to move back to the center in order to regain the trust of voters. Bayh ironically is the son of the late Senator Birch Bayh who by today’s standards would be labeled an extreme leftist. Indeed, Birch Bayh exemplified a very different zeitgeist when it was not considered frivolous policy or weakness to care about the disenfranchised in America and elsewhere. President Obama lamented that he had “lost touch” with the American people. Obama assured Americans that he would negotiate                  ( compromise) with Republicans on issues like energy and education and the Bush tax cuts. The president might want to consider how it is possible to compromise on an issue like climate change which most Republicans and increasing numbers of Democrats reject as either not happening or view with disdain as an issue of trivial importance. They don’t believe because they don’t understand the science, haven’t taken the time to learn the science, and most importantly are in a tangled incestuous corporate embrace that pays them not to believe and not to act.

It should be noted that the faith based approach to responding to significant issues based on feelings and opinions devoid of data, fact and scientific methodology is antithetical to the way science is interpreted and advanced. I suppose it is okay to believe in God or ghosts based on your faith and intuitive certainty that such entities exist, but it is childish and irresponsible to say you do not “believe” in a scientific theory without presenting countervailing evidence. In other words, one cannot validly believe or disbelieve in science simply because it does not conform to his or her politics or preconceptions based on faith or stupidity. Republicans and conservative “red state” Democrats have integrated the blame the victim dogma into a nasty, and vindictive theology. Christ would be so proud of his sociopathic flock.

 Those who dismiss the compelling science of climate change do so at a perilous cost to their children in the very near future. The capitulation of our culture to denialism has transformed Americans from a people taught to cherish ideas and respectful discourse into a strident unthinking herd complacently consuming a toxic brew of disinformation and blatant lies. Endlessly repeated sound bytes and narrowly focused talking points ensure that the message will become acculturated. The complicit corporate media provide a conduit for unfiltered and never questioned pronouncements always stamped with the approval of the people to provide specious corroboration. And what has the President, the Audacity to Hope a now rancid memory, done to provide the courageous leadership now so desperately needed. If politics and lofty rhetoric count for something, then something.  

The pandemic of magical thinking that insinuates contemporary American mythology is exacerbated by appeals to themes of omnipresent lurking danger and personal helplessness. We are taught not to be problem solvers but potential victims of some lurking menace that will target our vulnerabilities. This pathology has made us into a brutal social – Darwinian nation that condemns the weakness of its victims so that we can be inoculated from a similar fate. The inexorable desensitization of America to the proliferation of levels of violence and injustice that would have been unimaginable a generation ago continues to spread throughout the culture like an aggressive cancer.  As our collective courage continues to wane, our greatness as a nation and our humanity as a people is diminished. 

Obama’s genuflection to the right is hardly surprising given his twisted dalliance with compromise and his troubling affirmation of Bush policies on Iraq and Afghanistan. Both conflicts are widely regarded by the left in this country and most of the world as troubling violations of international law. Revelations from the Wikileak’s documents only amplify the dubious moral and ethical concerns rational people have over the continued abuse of American military might and the unconscionable toll of senseless casualties. Compromise on issues like social security, unemployment benefits, a living wage, affordable healthcare, and the continued evisceration of the American economy by Wall St and multinational corporate profiteers can only lead to an accelerated race to the bottom and compounded human misery. Obama’s centrist agenda is just as reprehensible as the Republican contract on the American people. Obama has revealed himself to be only slightly less odious than Bush and his criminal cabal. The American people as well as all people of the world are viewed merely as human capital. Money and power are the only bottom line either party respects. Just like the Bible thumping, hypocrisy of Bush, the only God Obama and his administration of inept retreads worship is Mammon.

So please Mr. Obama spare the left of any further appeals for understanding. And spare us the conflicted posturing and lofty rhetoric devoid of substance. The Democratic Party has shown clearly that it has nothing to offer the left but contempt. The party always assumed we had to come back to the Democrats as we had no place left to go. As Democrats tack further to the right hoping to cast a wider net, they will lose more elections and what little ideological connection they have with progressives. A new Progressive party must emerge to engage the corrupt duopoly. The ideals of the New Deal, Henry Wallace, and Eugene Debs, Saul Alinsky and thousands of other American heroes who have fought to make  the promise of America a reality for all must be reborn and forever integrated into our DNA. Rational people know there is too little time left to continue the dysfunctional lesser of two evils paradigm.

Compromise with Democrats has brought ruinous consequences to our people, country and planet. The frivolous game of fealty in exchange for a few ephemeral crumbs of meaningless, too little too late, appeasement is no longer acceptable because it keeps us on a suicidal trajectory of human suffering and ecological decay. The status quo which promulgates the notion that politics is a media blood sport, that elections and power can be bought, and that the only constitutional mandate of a politician is to do or say whatever is necessary to get reelected must be banished forever from our political culture.

 Politics is now and for the foreseeable future about doing everything in our power to save the planet and ameliorate the human condition. It is no longer a zero sum game. If we fail to act, if we fail to hold Obama or any elected official to the highest standards of performance and policy, human rights, and justice for all, then we all lose big.

America's Biggest Dick Expounds on Shrinking Male Genitalia

Rush Limbaugh decided to comment on a recent Italian study which found that male penises had decreased in size by 10% over the last fifty years. Limbaugh, who is an expert on pricks, disagreed with the researchers explanation that air pollution was responsible for the phallic shrinkage. Limbaugh's explanation was that feminism and "feminazis" provided a direct causal link to men's contemporaneous shortcomings.

Nader: Obama is a War Criminal

Pledge Allegiance to What ?

What have we learned from the Wikileaks revelations? To be sure nothing we did not already know. Wikileaks was merely a validation of the constantly reverberating intimations that American mythology is not a metaphorical book of stories directing us towards a tangible comprehension of our collective past. Rather Wikileaks provided us with a more a bleak certainty that we have perpetrated more than our reasonable share of evil in a world where death by injustice is an unassailable reality. The startling realization that the “evil doers” that Bush sanctimoniously condemned from his bully platform constructed from bricks of imported Chinese clay were, in reality. ourselves quickly vanished with a few coats of media whitewash. Afterall, our collective and credulous belief in the fable of American exceptionalism is epigenomic.
Our government lies to its people while continuing to stage the American morality play in slightly altered idioms. The redundancy and ubiquity of our brutal policies heedless of human life no longer fill us with shock and awe.A government that lies is hardly surprising, but the instinctive self–righteousness of those lies as well as thir astonishing magnitude and fluency exposes the corrupt foundations of our creed.

More Junk Science From Steve Milloy

 I just read Fox contributor  Steve Milloy's junk science piece on global warming. Milloy finally got published, but alas, not in a respected peer-reviewed journal. Of course, Milloy has nothing but contempt for real science as he evinces with venomous regularity on his corporate blog "Junk Science". Milloy is a buffoon who has accused Rachel Carson of genocide. He is fond of hyperbole and distortion which are requisite qualities for employment at Fox. Fox pollutes the public airwaves with dangerous propaganda by using self-proclaimed experts like Milloy to propagate deception.. Yeah, global warming is just another U.N. plot to undermine the greatness of our country. It is perfectly okay to "opine" as the bilious O'Reilly does frequently, but it is not acceptable make up your own facts. Most sane people, not Fox viewers, would call that lying.  As that nasal blowhard  Sean Hannity would say, Steve Milloy is a great American. I would say Milloy is just another Fox d-bag who will do or say anything for a buck.

Limbaugh's Sociopathic Creed

Rush Limbaugh’s Sociopathic Creed
Rush Limbaugh is not a genial man. He is, however, a misogynistic ideologue who uses his Clear Channel bully pulpit to harass, attack, and bludgeon those with whom he has identified as political adversaries. He has been given license to spew poison for years. Who could ever forget his demeaning “ Barack the Magic Negro” spoof of the nation’s first Black president? His venomous diatribes are the equivalent of drive-by shootings. Once potential prey has been targeted, they are dispatched by cruel derision, vast distortion of fact, and shameless mendacity. Limbaugh’s audience of 25 million “dittoheads” are adoring sponges who credulously parrot every odious lie pontificated by the great one. His years of distorting climate science are especially troubling because he has been so successful in promoting climate denial among Americans whose science literacy is at least as limited as Limbaugh’s.
Limbaugh’s hate mongering emanates from approximately 500 radio stations carrying his syndicated drivel fest. Most of these stations are owned by media conglomerate Clear Channel whose shameless silence over Limbaugh’s repugnant and recidivist cruelty is further evidence of the moral dissolution of corporate America. The conviction that the only meaningful corporate responsibility to society is to surpass Wall Street’s quarterly earnings expectations is tightly woven into the fabric of American business culture. Rush Limbaugh is the proud logo of this sociopathic creed.
Limbaugh’s latest victim is a young woman who is a law student at Georgetown University. She had the unmitigated temerity to testify before Congress on the Obama healthcare policy of requiring that employees of religion-affiliated institutions have access to healthcare that provides coverage for women’s reproductive health. Such coverage would include, dare I say, contraception. The Catholic Church is opposed to contraception even though the vast majority of Catholics use some form of birth control other then Limbaugh’s recommended aspirin between a woman’s knees. Apparently, El Rushbo believes preventing unwanted pregnancies is strictly the responsibility of the woman.
The church is unyielding in its opposition to Obama’s plan even though the use of contraception reduces the likelihood of abortion as a less than optimal family planning option. The church’s willingness to overlook the fact that most Catholic women use some form of birth control seems more than a little contrived and hypocritical. The Catholic Bishops are fighting a needless battle in a war they lost years ago. In so doing, they have allied themselves with right wing extremists and pernicious propagandists like Limbaugh who are the antithesis of Christ’s teachings.
The young woman, so reprehensibly attacked by Limbaugh, speaking to a mostly Democratic Congressional audience, described the burdensome cost of contraception on women of limited economic means as well its essential efficacy in the treatment of a variety of medical conditions such as von Willebrand disease. She also detailed the plight of a friend who had an ovary removed because the Georgetown student health plan (Georgetown is a Jesuit institution) would not cover a prescribed birth control medication to stop the recurrence of ovarian cysts.
Limbaugh’s bizarrely vitriolic response to a private citizen exercising her First Amendment rights can be most appreciated by his own words. “What does it say about the college coed… who goes before a congressional committee and essentially says that she must be paid to have sex?” El Rushbo followed this egregious smear with the following abomination. “It makes her a slut right? It makes her a prostitute. She wants to be paid to have sex.” Limbaugh has always been disdainful of women, but what could justify the ugliness of this kind of language demeaning and objectifying a college student? What kind of man would verbally rape a young woman before an audience of 25 million listeners? What kind of audience would continue to listen to a coward who abuses women and the truth? But more importantly where are the voices of outrage and protest from Republican leadership and the Catholic Church, and Limbaugh’s employers?
Limbaugh is a proxy hit man for the unholy patriarchal alliance seeking to transform women’s personal healthcare decisions into the specious issue of religious freedom. As previously mentioned, adherence to the Church’s proscription against contraception use is virtually ignored by most self-identified Catholics. It is done so without any consequence from the Church. Therefore, this can only be a political issue and nothing more. For Republicans it is merely another opportunity to bash Obama. For the Catholic Church, I believe the real issue is the perception of control. The Catholic hierarchy is merely taking a misguided opportunity to create the illusion of medieval obedience to antiquated dogma that conflicts with their putative pro-life convictions.
The question remains as to why Limbaugh’s attack on an intelligent, articulate, and sincere young woman was so vicious even by Limbaughian standards. Limbaugh is a nasty, brutish bully who loves the cheap shot. This woman became a target precisely because she was such a compelling spokesperson for her cause. She must have been a particularly appealing target as she had no forum, or so Limbaugh thought, to fight back. Limbaugh does what he does because he is paid well for it and because he is a coward. He is never held accountable for the daily torrent of hate speech corrupting the public airwaves by his constituency or his employers.
Limbaugh has made America meaner and more stupid long enough. It is time for thoughtful people to demand an acceptable standard of discourse and intelligence from the wasteland that has become talk radio where every wingnut has an opinion and their own set of matching facts. If you are concerned about the corporate hijacking of America’s priorities and values as well as its purposeful cultivation of an incendiary culture of blame, then let Clear Channel, Limbaugh, and his sponsors know that you are going to show your disgust by boycotting any product mentioned during the bloated bloviator’s daily assault on human dignity and good taste.
Boycotting those who sponsor Limbaugh’s malignant perturbations of reason and civility is the very least we can do. It’s time the playground bully learned what it feels like to take a punch and taste his own blood.