This was a very bad way to begin the day:
http://www.alternet.org/rights/129920/
Is Obama Bringing Too Much Religion into the White House?
By Liliana Segura, AlterNet. Posted March 5, 2009.
Our new President is trying my patience. As Obamaphoria has subsided somewhat and the celebratory smoke has cleared, as the clouds of bliss have wafted away and some of the ugliness of life’s realities have made themselves apparent, I am finding myself gasping for breath, as one disappointing revelation follows another. Getting smacked in the face with this headline, even before my obligatory coffee, so early this morning, is really pushing the edge of the envelope.
Firstly I am offended by the ghastly apparition of the Geithner/Summers series of economic brain farts. The worst part of these is not that they smell bad; they just don’t smell at all. Geithner needs to PLEASE go back from whence he came and calmer, more capable heads need to be brought to bear upon the travails at hand. I’m not terribly happy, either, with the strong hints that we may carry forward some torture practices around the world of our nefarious prisons and detention centers. And on March 4, the President single-handedly declared war on the wasteful spending of the military industrial complex. Optimism and progressive thinking is one thing, but naiveté’ and sticking your head into the mouth of a hungry lion without a safety net is something else. At the end of the classic movie, “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid”, the two hapless heroes prepare to rush out into the courtyard and attempt an escape...against impossible odds. Obama (Butch) is in this one all alone (Joe Biden is no Sundance), like the Lone Ranger, and he has absolutely no idea how many Mexican/Indian/corporate armament-building moguls are perched with guns outside on the wall. Once again, while I can applaud forward thinking, I do not have much time to watch a poorly planned suicide. He is supposed to be more clever than that.
But this morning’s religious news threatens my total exasperation. In the first place, the United States was NEVER intended to be a Christian nation. The founding fathers fought and wrote and argued against that condition from the very onset of our fledgling nation. In one misguided step and after another, over a period of 200+ years, there have been moves afoot to impose, insert and infect American society and government with “Christian” inspired beliefs, mores and practices. Enough, already. I really had hoped that this ongoing use of the infiltration and poisoning of independent secular humanity with saccharine religiosity had reached its zenith during the Bush II administration, but the monster seems far from dead. This Alternet article would seem to indicate that we should brace for another round of government-religious foppery.
“Jesusology”, and its many offshoots and perversions (including those theistic step-children under the umbrella of AIPAC and modern Jewish militarism), have attempted, over the years, to either infiltrate, color, shade or camouflage the basic inter-dependent relationships between men and women in our society. They seek to lay claim to innocence for complicity in the world’s genocidal horrors, starvations, racial inequities and assorted hatreds, by simply invoking the word “God”. I have simply had it.
We have “In God We Trust” plastered all over government buildings, seals, coins and documents, inserted “under God” into the pledge of allegiance (which we periodically attempt to eliminate and regularly ignore), waste time and money arguing for and against placement of the twelve commandments and nativity scenes in public places, both take out of context and misquote “Christian” writings and utilize misappropriation of “Christian” beliefs to impugn, harass and discriminate against people of color, Muslims, Hindus, Zoroastrians, occasionally Jews on the wrong side of the political fence, and atheists and secularists, as well. Our “assumed”, God-given religious supremacy has warped most of our day-to-day perceptions of our fellows, their essential needs and how we choose to proceed or falter.
And Now Barack Obama wants to attend prayer breakfasts, make promises and continue to misuse, abuse and mal-manage monies associated with “faith-based” programs and initiatives. To invoke (God forgive me) Newt Gingrinch, “Does he think we are stupid?”
Apparently so. The religious right (if they have taken the time to read and pay any attention) should have discovered by now that George W. pandered to them for their votes, created a White House office for faith-based affairs, and then made sure it did nothing and remained unfunded. It created, propagated and sustained a belief that anything that was deemed “faith-based” was good, wholesome, Christian (not “Christ-like”) and somehow more beneficial than any other form of social intercession into poverty, racial hatred, social injustice or matters related to sex education or gender equality. For the record, I think that it is possible to have “faith” in the basic goodness of our fellow man and to make efforts to attend to his or her needs without having to make the special efforts to tie it to Jesus-oriented, guilt-ridden sympathies related to the misfortune of Jews or any other racial, ethnic or religious group that has fallen victim to holocausts, inquisitions or other forms of persecution. At least the lions on the Roman coliseum were non-discriminatory about who they devoured and decimated. We, however, by designating a program as “faith-based”, use our cultural ethos and its appropriated arrogance to name names and be particular about whom we single out to “help”(or not to), in order to symbolically wash away our sins of neglect, economic isolation, discrimination and social and gender estrangement.
I can (somewhat) excuse Rick Warren’s empty rhetoric. I can figure out a way to ignore and laugh at the likes of Rev. Wright. Hell, I’ve been tolerating Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson for as long as I can remember. And despite the clamor to the contrary, Billy Graham is not and never has been the protestant Pope of the United States. This is all religious foolishness, used to offer distractions and divergences to Americans, used as sideshow entertainments and emotional panaceas to soothe and calm the American confused and somewhat schizophrenic humanitarian psyche.
When all else fails, it seems the best we can do is to throw logic to the wind, fall on our knees and pray, and hope the God we are praying to is the one most sympathetic to our plight. If we are really lucky, he/she/it will really get down on that lazy, feckless, faithless guy next door that we detest for his faithlessness. We are, after all, “faith-based” in our motivations and actions, and so very much better than he/she is. Perhaps we should contact the Center for Disease Control and see if they can find a vaccine for jesus-based infestations and faux good will. Perhaps addressing this ailment should be a new element of our universal healthcare. Perhaps we could wake up and smell the coffee and stop proliferating crucifixes.
And I think we should start collecting taxes on Church properties. Think what that would do for local budgets. I’ll bet I’ve really pissed of a bunch of folks, with this one. I need more coffee.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Monday, March 2, 2009
It's Not Clear, Either
Not long ago I took issue with the position of some Republican governors, that some of the funds available from the $787B stimulus package would impose distressing permanent legislation and policies on state governments, concerning future payments from entitlement funds, specifically unemployment benefits. As time has gone on, much of the mythology accompanying this has been dispelled, the waters are calming and quieter heads are prevailing.
However, in a manner much like using the term “transparent” to describe how President Obama would like the government to be about its’ financial affairs(it hasn’t been and probably will not be, despite the web sites available to track federal monies from taxpayers dollars) the latest word to be center stage in public discourse is, “clear”. Well, just as I suspected, many conditions that were claimed to be “permanent”, on second inspection, were not, and much of what the legislators claim as “transparent” turns out not be see-through at all. Add to those, now, nearly every time a politician or bureaucrat says:
-Let’s be clear here (or “about this”),
Or
I’d like to be clear on this,
Or
We should be clear, here,
Or
I want to make this crystal clear,
one can be very nearly completely almost assuredly possibly certain that whatever you are about be told is (or purported to be) clear, will not be. Clear, that is.
Along with being very nearly stunned in recalling the number of times then President-elect Obama used the word “clear” in his acceptance speech, on a Sunday morning political talk show, Peter Orzag, the new main man at the OMB, prefaced his responses to George Stephanopoulos with qualifying phrases about necessary clarity three times in five minutes. My friend Barbara, who is a much better student of human behavior than I am, reminded me that both Obama and Orzag probably were coached by the same handlers, urging them to use some variation on “I want to be clear” as a technique to give themselves both linguistic and mental breathing space before attempting a potentially taxing response.
This is all well and good, but in almost every instance, what follows the disclaimer about chrystallinity is usually something like this: “First all we will need to do this…”, then, “Secondly, our attention should be focused on…”, which if followed by, “And lastly, we should not lose sight of…”, and by then, any chance that any thing at all had any chance to be “clear” has been lost. And Sen. Harry Reid likes to be clear as well: what that usually means is that he about to make an excuse for something the Democratic congress failed to do or compromised on. I would just as soon he left that kind of clarity in Vegas. And if Harry’s explanations are not clear enough for you, Nancy Pelosi will make sure you get it later: she will stand behind a lectern, flanked by beaming dems and say, “Let’s be clear about this…”, and you will feel a kind of California warmness. She hopes. (In Orzag’s defense, he did illustrate that when someone like Bill Gates makes a $1000.00 donation to charity, after the current tax cuts expire, the Mr. Gates’ tax deduction will drop from $350.00 to $280.00. Clear. Precise. I can understand that. There is something to be said for economists sticking to numbers).
Conversely, showing no evidence whatsoever of coaching from democratic handlers, Secretary Gates, on Meet the Press the same day, made doubly sure (to my way of thinking) that nothing was clear, using a kind of unclear political double-speak when trying to answer David Gregory’s questions: queried about the residual forces announced for Iraq into the next several months and years, Gates did not explain or make clear anything, by saying that the proposed 50,000 troops to be left there will be a “transition force”, and a “way station” on the road to Iraqi independence. He also said that they would be re-named in a “different role”, for “a different kind of mission”. Really? This is, of course, bullshit. He said this residual force will make it “safer for those remaining” (And who is that, exactly?) As has been pointed out repeatedly, every one of the 50,000 combat ready troops are, in fact, truly combat ready. They march around in body armor, carry automatic weapons and hand grenades and kick in doors, looking for insurgents. The only reality which Mr. Gates made clear is that, despite the linguistic gymnastics, nothing will change (To his credit, when asked what might constitute “victory” in Iraq, he only offered that that would be for someone else to decide, later).
Along these same muddled lines, Congressman Cantor, when asked point blank, TWICE, by George Stephanopoulos, if Republicans were going to vote for the new proposed budget, Cantor completely dodged the question, TWICE, and even managed to make the discussion less clear, by inserting a dig about the stimulus bill, claiming it was “Speaker Pelosi’s bill”. It was not “Pelosi’s”, of course, and he offered no clear indications about the upcoming vote. Stephanopoulos finally gave up his search for any clarity. And in order to further his genuine lack of clarity on both the economy and the stimulus bill, Cantor said that we should be “preserving and protecting new jobs”, as the “focus on economic growth”. Now, I don’t know where Mr. Cantor has been hiding, but you cannot “preserve “a new job, and the task of “protecting” should be for existing jobs. And last I heard the stimulus bill was as much about “jobs” as anything to focus on economic growth…in addition to Republican tax cuts (which he earlier said did not exist). The only clear revelation here was that Cantor himself was not clear about the content of the bill. Had either Gates or Cantor told me up front that they were going to be “clear” in their remarks, I might have been more comforted. But telling me (Gates) that the “same-old, same-old” will have a new “role” as a “way station”, and having Cantor answer the voting question by saying that “people want results” and the Republican party is the party of ”new ideas” is all not very clear at all, but rather insulting and infuriating. Verbal contortionism does not for clarity make. Sam Watkins, a Republican strategist, said on MSNBC-TV this afternoon, that Republicans did not get re-elected in recent voting because they did not “talk the talk and walk the walk”: well, that’s pretty not clear. What the hell does that mean? And RNC chairman Steele has decided to reinvigorate the party by infusing it with hip hop and Michelle Bachman. Those are two truly new ideas. Are you clear on that? Traditional Republican should be clearly infuriated.
But there were some moments of clarity on Sunday…or at least moments of clear protestation. Katrina vanden Heuvel (The Nation) lashed out with clarity and precision when she told George Will and Karl Rove that the Republicans, since the days of Ronald Reagan, had been “starving the beast (government)” while “feeding the rich” though tax cuts. Clear enough. Karl Rove made it abundantly clear that while not complying with a subpoena to appear before Congress, but he was happy to show up at NBC to get paid to sit on a panel. Rove also used a variation on ”being clear”: he offered to “set the record straight”, at one point (whatever it was that he set the record straight on went right over my head…but with great clarity). Also last week, at CPAC, Sen. McConnel asked, “Who would you rather hang out with, guys like Krugman and Reich or Rush Limbaugh?” This made very clear the fact that he can really confuse apples and oranges. If you would like to draw a comparison here, in order to make something “clear”, you should at least find another economist to run up against Krugman or Reich: last time I looked, Limbaugh has no credentials as an economist. In fact, Limbaugh makes a career out of guaranteeing that nothing is clear except his girth and his bombast (As I think about it, I am much happier to “hang out” with Krugman, who says that the only thing we know for sure is that nobody knows anything for sure, and that the only reality which is clear is that there are almost no clear realities. Somehow, I prefer that nebulous innocence to the vacuous emotional tirades of Limbaughism). And Newt Gingrich asked the same CPAC group, “Do they (the democrats) think we are stupid?” Actually, Newt, the clearer reality may be that ever since trickle-down economics, voo-doo economics, “Read my lips: No new taxes” taxes, the desire to tinker (and wreck) social security and then cut taxes for the uber-rich( who can most afford to pay them…we do, after all, have a progressive income tax), the Republicans have been counting on our being stupid for years , while we continually fell for those lines of thinking which have put the United States in this current financial mess .
Speaking of which: After repeated promises of transparency and attempts to “be clear on this”, the new President reached into his hat and pulled out a rabbit named Geithner. Mr. Geithner (and his second in command, Larry Summers) were supposed to be clear about what we needed to do next, about the economy. Geithner has never used the word clear that I can find, has said and done (almost literally) nothing which I can see is clear in any way, and our economic situation seems only to deteriorate further every day. http://www.alternet.org/blogs/workplace/129574/
Geithner has thus far been so completely unclear that he is like a fogged-up mirror, in the least, and as permeable as a brick wall at the worst. And Larry Summers is sounding like he has used Cantor’s speech coach: if we are lucky, sometime this summer we might hear him say something which is helpful, forward looking and makes it ”clear” that he and Geithner are capable of and planning to do something for the good of the country besides give money to AIG and General Motors (talk about a couple guys who could use some new ideas). While it is “clear” (sorry about that) that the economies of scale at stake are enormous, the President told us…CLEARLY… that Geithner’s resume up to the task. I’m waiting. This Geithnerian drama lacks drama, and Bernanke and Summers are likely breathing the same rarified air and drinking from the same purified water: there is no substance, there are no minerals or supplements, and no impurities to be filtered out through discussion. Perhaps without substance, one does not need to ponder the need for clarity.
I hope you are clear on all of this, because I’m not. At the moment, unless something changes, all I see ahead is Rumsfeld’s long slog through the unclear mud of double-speak. While it used to be that “on a clear day you could see forever”…and even General Motors…despite repeated claims to the contrary, no one has made anything “perfectly clear”, at all. And we are not that stupid.
However, in a manner much like using the term “transparent” to describe how President Obama would like the government to be about its’ financial affairs(it hasn’t been and probably will not be, despite the web sites available to track federal monies from taxpayers dollars) the latest word to be center stage in public discourse is, “clear”. Well, just as I suspected, many conditions that were claimed to be “permanent”, on second inspection, were not, and much of what the legislators claim as “transparent” turns out not be see-through at all. Add to those, now, nearly every time a politician or bureaucrat says:
-Let’s be clear here (or “about this”),
Or
I’d like to be clear on this,
Or
We should be clear, here,
Or
I want to make this crystal clear,
one can be very nearly completely almost assuredly possibly certain that whatever you are about be told is (or purported to be) clear, will not be. Clear, that is.
Along with being very nearly stunned in recalling the number of times then President-elect Obama used the word “clear” in his acceptance speech, on a Sunday morning political talk show, Peter Orzag, the new main man at the OMB, prefaced his responses to George Stephanopoulos with qualifying phrases about necessary clarity three times in five minutes. My friend Barbara, who is a much better student of human behavior than I am, reminded me that both Obama and Orzag probably were coached by the same handlers, urging them to use some variation on “I want to be clear” as a technique to give themselves both linguistic and mental breathing space before attempting a potentially taxing response.
This is all well and good, but in almost every instance, what follows the disclaimer about chrystallinity is usually something like this: “First all we will need to do this…”, then, “Secondly, our attention should be focused on…”, which if followed by, “And lastly, we should not lose sight of…”, and by then, any chance that any thing at all had any chance to be “clear” has been lost. And Sen. Harry Reid likes to be clear as well: what that usually means is that he about to make an excuse for something the Democratic congress failed to do or compromised on. I would just as soon he left that kind of clarity in Vegas. And if Harry’s explanations are not clear enough for you, Nancy Pelosi will make sure you get it later: she will stand behind a lectern, flanked by beaming dems and say, “Let’s be clear about this…”, and you will feel a kind of California warmness. She hopes. (In Orzag’s defense, he did illustrate that when someone like Bill Gates makes a $1000.00 donation to charity, after the current tax cuts expire, the Mr. Gates’ tax deduction will drop from $350.00 to $280.00. Clear. Precise. I can understand that. There is something to be said for economists sticking to numbers).
Conversely, showing no evidence whatsoever of coaching from democratic handlers, Secretary Gates, on Meet the Press the same day, made doubly sure (to my way of thinking) that nothing was clear, using a kind of unclear political double-speak when trying to answer David Gregory’s questions: queried about the residual forces announced for Iraq into the next several months and years, Gates did not explain or make clear anything, by saying that the proposed 50,000 troops to be left there will be a “transition force”, and a “way station” on the road to Iraqi independence. He also said that they would be re-named in a “different role”, for “a different kind of mission”. Really? This is, of course, bullshit. He said this residual force will make it “safer for those remaining” (And who is that, exactly?) As has been pointed out repeatedly, every one of the 50,000 combat ready troops are, in fact, truly combat ready. They march around in body armor, carry automatic weapons and hand grenades and kick in doors, looking for insurgents. The only reality which Mr. Gates made clear is that, despite the linguistic gymnastics, nothing will change (To his credit, when asked what might constitute “victory” in Iraq, he only offered that that would be for someone else to decide, later).
Along these same muddled lines, Congressman Cantor, when asked point blank, TWICE, by George Stephanopoulos, if Republicans were going to vote for the new proposed budget, Cantor completely dodged the question, TWICE, and even managed to make the discussion less clear, by inserting a dig about the stimulus bill, claiming it was “Speaker Pelosi’s bill”. It was not “Pelosi’s”, of course, and he offered no clear indications about the upcoming vote. Stephanopoulos finally gave up his search for any clarity. And in order to further his genuine lack of clarity on both the economy and the stimulus bill, Cantor said that we should be “preserving and protecting new jobs”, as the “focus on economic growth”. Now, I don’t know where Mr. Cantor has been hiding, but you cannot “preserve “a new job, and the task of “protecting” should be for existing jobs. And last I heard the stimulus bill was as much about “jobs” as anything to focus on economic growth…in addition to Republican tax cuts (which he earlier said did not exist). The only clear revelation here was that Cantor himself was not clear about the content of the bill. Had either Gates or Cantor told me up front that they were going to be “clear” in their remarks, I might have been more comforted. But telling me (Gates) that the “same-old, same-old” will have a new “role” as a “way station”, and having Cantor answer the voting question by saying that “people want results” and the Republican party is the party of ”new ideas” is all not very clear at all, but rather insulting and infuriating. Verbal contortionism does not for clarity make. Sam Watkins, a Republican strategist, said on MSNBC-TV this afternoon, that Republicans did not get re-elected in recent voting because they did not “talk the talk and walk the walk”: well, that’s pretty not clear. What the hell does that mean? And RNC chairman Steele has decided to reinvigorate the party by infusing it with hip hop and Michelle Bachman. Those are two truly new ideas. Are you clear on that? Traditional Republican should be clearly infuriated.
But there were some moments of clarity on Sunday…or at least moments of clear protestation. Katrina vanden Heuvel (The Nation) lashed out with clarity and precision when she told George Will and Karl Rove that the Republicans, since the days of Ronald Reagan, had been “starving the beast (government)” while “feeding the rich” though tax cuts. Clear enough. Karl Rove made it abundantly clear that while not complying with a subpoena to appear before Congress, but he was happy to show up at NBC to get paid to sit on a panel. Rove also used a variation on ”being clear”: he offered to “set the record straight”, at one point (whatever it was that he set the record straight on went right over my head…but with great clarity). Also last week, at CPAC, Sen. McConnel asked, “Who would you rather hang out with, guys like Krugman and Reich or Rush Limbaugh?” This made very clear the fact that he can really confuse apples and oranges. If you would like to draw a comparison here, in order to make something “clear”, you should at least find another economist to run up against Krugman or Reich: last time I looked, Limbaugh has no credentials as an economist. In fact, Limbaugh makes a career out of guaranteeing that nothing is clear except his girth and his bombast (As I think about it, I am much happier to “hang out” with Krugman, who says that the only thing we know for sure is that nobody knows anything for sure, and that the only reality which is clear is that there are almost no clear realities. Somehow, I prefer that nebulous innocence to the vacuous emotional tirades of Limbaughism). And Newt Gingrich asked the same CPAC group, “Do they (the democrats) think we are stupid?” Actually, Newt, the clearer reality may be that ever since trickle-down economics, voo-doo economics, “Read my lips: No new taxes” taxes, the desire to tinker (and wreck) social security and then cut taxes for the uber-rich( who can most afford to pay them…we do, after all, have a progressive income tax), the Republicans have been counting on our being stupid for years , while we continually fell for those lines of thinking which have put the United States in this current financial mess .
Speaking of which: After repeated promises of transparency and attempts to “be clear on this”, the new President reached into his hat and pulled out a rabbit named Geithner. Mr. Geithner (and his second in command, Larry Summers) were supposed to be clear about what we needed to do next, about the economy. Geithner has never used the word clear that I can find, has said and done (almost literally) nothing which I can see is clear in any way, and our economic situation seems only to deteriorate further every day. http://www.alternet.org/blogs/workplace/129574/
Geithner has thus far been so completely unclear that he is like a fogged-up mirror, in the least, and as permeable as a brick wall at the worst. And Larry Summers is sounding like he has used Cantor’s speech coach: if we are lucky, sometime this summer we might hear him say something which is helpful, forward looking and makes it ”clear” that he and Geithner are capable of and planning to do something for the good of the country besides give money to AIG and General Motors (talk about a couple guys who could use some new ideas). While it is “clear” (sorry about that) that the economies of scale at stake are enormous, the President told us…CLEARLY… that Geithner’s resume up to the task. I’m waiting. This Geithnerian drama lacks drama, and Bernanke and Summers are likely breathing the same rarified air and drinking from the same purified water: there is no substance, there are no minerals or supplements, and no impurities to be filtered out through discussion. Perhaps without substance, one does not need to ponder the need for clarity.
I hope you are clear on all of this, because I’m not. At the moment, unless something changes, all I see ahead is Rumsfeld’s long slog through the unclear mud of double-speak. While it used to be that “on a clear day you could see forever”…and even General Motors…despite repeated claims to the contrary, no one has made anything “perfectly clear”, at all. And we are not that stupid.
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