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.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Presidential Correspondence
I received this email from FactCheck.org, right after the President’s speech:
Fact-Checking Obama's Speech
February 25, 2009
The president gets facts wrong about oil imports, mortgage aid and the transcontinental railroad, and more.
Summary
President Obama's first speech to a joint session of Congress was stuffed with signals about the new direction his budget will take and meant-to-be reassuring words about the economy. But it was also peppered with exaggerations and factual misstatements.
He said "we import more oil today than ever before." That's untrue. Imports peaked in 2005 and are substantially lower today.
He claimed his mortgage aid plan would help "responsible" buyers but not those who borrowed beyond their means. But even prominent defenders of the program including Fed Chairman Bernanke and FDIC chief Bair concede foolish borrowers will be aided, too.
He said the high cost of health care "causes a bankruptcy in America every 30 seconds." That's at least double the true figure.
He flubbed two facts about American history. The U.S. did not invent the automobile, and the transcontinental railroad was not completed until years after the Civil War, not during it.
He claimed that his stimulus plan "prevented the layoffs" of 57 police officers in Minneapolis. In fact, it's far more complicated than that, and other factors are also helping to save police jobs.
The president also repeated some strained claims we've critiqued before.
Note: This is a summary only. The full article with analysis, images and citations may be viewed on our Web site:
Shortly afterwards, I sent it along to everyone on my blog distribution list. Not long after that, my friend and tor-mentor, Ron, responded thusly:
One has to wonder why his speech writers don't run their material by these checking folks BEFORE the speech is delivered.
I thought about this for a few moments, and offered these thoughts in return:
As a Dem, I would have to jokingly remark that that "would take all the fun out of it".
As a Repub, I would have to feign outrage, and yell, "You're goddam right!"
As a cynic, I would only ask, "Well, what do you expect? He is a politician"
As a skeptic, I would say that "You have to expect this sort of sloppiness in politics".
As a Libertarian, I guess I would call it "ongoing government fraud and a waste of tax payer money".
As an Oklahoma redneck, I'd have to say that "that damn n#@&^%r is lying again”.
Ron seemed to enjoy this:
Oh, shit! This is great writing! Always a pleasure to read you when you hit this level--p.s. stop drinking that coffee now before it's too late and you are unable to sleep again, forever.
Then I realized that I had missed a salient observation. I had neglected to include:
The lawyer: "Certain liberal allowances were made and concessions granted in the interest of expediency and the public good".
This all could have been avoided if President Obama had simply said:” Americans can do anything, which is how Henry Ford was able to invent the modern automobile industry in this country, enabling workers to afford responsible mortgages . This has played a significant role in making our heath care costs less than we had originally thought and helped reduce our oil consumption since 2005, because of the railroad we built right after the Civil War, which has dramatically affected the employment status of Minneapolis police officers. “
But I guess it wouldn’t have had quite the same ring to it, then, would it?
Fact-Checking Obama's Speech
February 25, 2009
The president gets facts wrong about oil imports, mortgage aid and the transcontinental railroad, and more.
Summary
President Obama's first speech to a joint session of Congress was stuffed with signals about the new direction his budget will take and meant-to-be reassuring words about the economy. But it was also peppered with exaggerations and factual misstatements.
He said "we import more oil today than ever before." That's untrue. Imports peaked in 2005 and are substantially lower today.
He claimed his mortgage aid plan would help "responsible" buyers but not those who borrowed beyond their means. But even prominent defenders of the program including Fed Chairman Bernanke and FDIC chief Bair concede foolish borrowers will be aided, too.
He said the high cost of health care "causes a bankruptcy in America every 30 seconds." That's at least double the true figure.
He flubbed two facts about American history. The U.S. did not invent the automobile, and the transcontinental railroad was not completed until years after the Civil War, not during it.
He claimed that his stimulus plan "prevented the layoffs" of 57 police officers in Minneapolis. In fact, it's far more complicated than that, and other factors are also helping to save police jobs.
The president also repeated some strained claims we've critiqued before.
Note: This is a summary only. The full article with analysis, images and citations may be viewed on our Web site:
Shortly afterwards, I sent it along to everyone on my blog distribution list. Not long after that, my friend and tor-mentor, Ron, responded thusly:
One has to wonder why his speech writers don't run their material by these checking folks BEFORE the speech is delivered.
I thought about this for a few moments, and offered these thoughts in return:
As a Dem, I would have to jokingly remark that that "would take all the fun out of it".
As a Repub, I would have to feign outrage, and yell, "You're goddam right!"
As a cynic, I would only ask, "Well, what do you expect? He is a politician"
As a skeptic, I would say that "You have to expect this sort of sloppiness in politics".
As a Libertarian, I guess I would call it "ongoing government fraud and a waste of tax payer money".
As an Oklahoma redneck, I'd have to say that "that damn n#@&^%r is lying again”.
Ron seemed to enjoy this:
Oh, shit! This is great writing! Always a pleasure to read you when you hit this level--p.s. stop drinking that coffee now before it's too late and you are unable to sleep again, forever.
Then I realized that I had missed a salient observation. I had neglected to include:
The lawyer: "Certain liberal allowances were made and concessions granted in the interest of expediency and the public good".
This all could have been avoided if President Obama had simply said:” Americans can do anything, which is how Henry Ford was able to invent the modern automobile industry in this country, enabling workers to afford responsible mortgages . This has played a significant role in making our heath care costs less than we had originally thought and helped reduce our oil consumption since 2005, because of the railroad we built right after the Civil War, which has dramatically affected the employment status of Minneapolis police officers. “
But I guess it wouldn’t have had quite the same ring to it, then, would it?
IT IS NOT PERMANENT
Post Script: Since this was first written, Sen. Chas. Schumer (NY) has chastised Gov. Jindal, et.al., by saying that the stimulus money was not a buffet, wherein states could pick and choose what monies they would or would not take: http://thinkprogress.org/2009/02/24/schumer-multiple-choice/. In other words, get a life, get with the program or get lost. Sen. Barney Frank has hinted that there may well be a legal precedent for this condition, although I do not know about that: taking off-the-cuff television remarks at face value is risky.
Then the President gave a speech on the economy: (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29375944/) and never directly mentioned the controversy with the governors at all…which I thought was both polite and politic. Not everyone was completely happy with some sought-after details (http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090225_getting_warmer/), and FactCheck.org bemoaned some shortcomings (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29377101/), but Howard Fineman, commenting immediately after on MSNBC-TV, said the speech “exuded confidence”. And the next morning there was this: http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2009/02/25/obama_speech/?source=newsletter
In the Republican rebuttal (not many “re”’s and lots of “buts”)and offered by none other than Gov. Jindal himself, there was no clear follow-up to any of the substance of the President’s remarks, but rather offered a long and rambling apology for past governmental failures and yet more supports for tax cuts. It had all of the (pardon me) “earmarks” of a lead balloon, and did not even please some traditional conservatives: (http://thinkprogress.org/2009/02/24/jindal-fox-ncot/). The basic message seemed to be that “the right is right and everyone else isn’t.”, and I was reminded of a scene from an Eddie Murphy movie, when his character responds to criticism by holding his hands over his ears and yelling, “I can’t hear you! Nah-nah, nah-nah!” As for Jindal’s reminiscence about walking down a grocery store aisle with his father, and his father making the statement, “Americans can do anything”, I thought Jindal might try walking down an aisle of a Wal-Mart and look at all of the products from China.
Most baffling, however, was a response I received to this article, after I posted it on another site (http://turn-left.hypocrisy.com/), from a man from the red state of Tennessee. He told me that he had had a long, heart-to-heart talk with his congressional representative, who “educated” him in the complicated ways of government (That sounds patronizing: “Hi! I’m from the government, and I’m here to help you!”). She explained (?) to him that to accept the unemployment funds would require the state to set up laws and regulations that would later require his state to pay out funds it would no longer have. Or something. (Curiously, TN is among some red states that are broke or nearly so, and they do not have the money even now. This makes the point moot, because you cannot spend money you did not not have in the first place. Or something.). He therefore told me I should “investigate more” (I did) before I “judged” (I didn’t). I got the distinct impression that a) he got led down a primrose path by his representative, and b) he didn’t carefully read anything I said about the permanence, any more than Bobby Jindal paid careful attention to the President’s remarks.
Lately, many politicians (Jindal, Frank, Obama, Biden) have said repeatedly that we “need to be clear” and that America’s affairs should be transparent. Apparently they are nowhere near “clear”, because it increasingly appears that the only persistent condition that is permanent in America (i.e., from the understanding of my friend in TN) is that some continue to insist upon selective perception and hearing only what might soothe them. Or something.
Then the President gave a speech on the economy: (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29375944/) and never directly mentioned the controversy with the governors at all…which I thought was both polite and politic. Not everyone was completely happy with some sought-after details (http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090225_getting_warmer/), and FactCheck.org bemoaned some shortcomings (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29377101/), but Howard Fineman, commenting immediately after on MSNBC-TV, said the speech “exuded confidence”. And the next morning there was this: http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2009/02/25/obama_speech/?source=newsletter
In the Republican rebuttal (not many “re”’s and lots of “buts”)and offered by none other than Gov. Jindal himself, there was no clear follow-up to any of the substance of the President’s remarks, but rather offered a long and rambling apology for past governmental failures and yet more supports for tax cuts. It had all of the (pardon me) “earmarks” of a lead balloon, and did not even please some traditional conservatives: (http://thinkprogress.org/2009/02/24/jindal-fox-ncot/). The basic message seemed to be that “the right is right and everyone else isn’t.”, and I was reminded of a scene from an Eddie Murphy movie, when his character responds to criticism by holding his hands over his ears and yelling, “I can’t hear you! Nah-nah, nah-nah!” As for Jindal’s reminiscence about walking down a grocery store aisle with his father, and his father making the statement, “Americans can do anything”, I thought Jindal might try walking down an aisle of a Wal-Mart and look at all of the products from China.
Most baffling, however, was a response I received to this article, after I posted it on another site (http://turn-left.hypocrisy.com/), from a man from the red state of Tennessee. He told me that he had had a long, heart-to-heart talk with his congressional representative, who “educated” him in the complicated ways of government (That sounds patronizing: “Hi! I’m from the government, and I’m here to help you!”). She explained (?) to him that to accept the unemployment funds would require the state to set up laws and regulations that would later require his state to pay out funds it would no longer have. Or something. (Curiously, TN is among some red states that are broke or nearly so, and they do not have the money even now. This makes the point moot, because you cannot spend money you did not not have in the first place. Or something.). He therefore told me I should “investigate more” (I did) before I “judged” (I didn’t). I got the distinct impression that a) he got led down a primrose path by his representative, and b) he didn’t carefully read anything I said about the permanence, any more than Bobby Jindal paid careful attention to the President’s remarks.
Lately, many politicians (Jindal, Frank, Obama, Biden) have said repeatedly that we “need to be clear” and that America’s affairs should be transparent. Apparently they are nowhere near “clear”, because it increasingly appears that the only persistent condition that is permanent in America (i.e., from the understanding of my friend in TN) is that some continue to insist upon selective perception and hearing only what might soothe them. Or something.
Monday, February 23, 2009
It is not Permanent
Filling The Room With Smoke
After listening to some Republican governors in the press for the last few days, you cannot help but wonder why some of them insist upon punching more holes in the bottom of a boat which is already sinking. Largely representing the RNC is Gov. Bobby Jindal (R. LA), there is a move afoot to decline certain federal monies from the $787B stimulus bill which just became law (http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/22/governors-on-the-stimulus/#more-9101) .
Here is a report of some of the news on 2/23/09, the very day the President brought together a confab of affected, affecting, inflicted and inflicting economic players and decision makers at the White House: http://www.stumbleupon.com/toolbar/#url=http%253A%252F%252Fpr.thinkprogress.org%252
It goes without saying that there are far more people either unemployed or under-employed in the country right now than we have seen or experienced in a very long time (the boat is sinking). A leading (and phony, stumbling) argument for several governors pretending at fiscal heroism (Schwarzeneger and Crist excepted, to name two) is this: they claim that “strings attached” to such funds will force the states to alter their rules and regulations on the eligibility for the states’ unemployment payments, and thereby hamstring and cripple their budgets in the future, long after the stimulus funds are exhausted. It would begin to appear as if posturing, grandstanding (and an irresistible urge to obfuscate) has completely overtaken these state executives. They are puffing up their chests when they should be grabbing buckets and bailing water. Their desire for “personal gain”, political advancement and national publicity, seem to matter far more than their desire to effectively serve the constituents who so desperately need their help, right now. Indeed, HardBall, the MSNBC-TV program (Chris Matthews) on 2/23, played clips of three republican governors who as much as said they were posturing for a run for president 2012, by taking a stand against acceptance of some stimulus funds. It would seem that when your priorities are completely misguided, enabling the boat to sink quicker is somehow interpreted as a way to save lives (read: your own skin) in the immediate future: governors, high, and dry, and warm and comfortable in their mansions, apparently don’t share the same wet feet that their constituents have when the boat starts to take on water. This is especially odd when you think about Louisiana.
In some ways, I suppose, I should not be surprised at this dyslexic appraisal of our state of affairs. The recently unpregnant Bristol Palin has just been quoted as saying “abstinence is not realistic”, among teens, but the religious right sees it differently:
http://www.alternet.org/reproductivejustice/128265/. And Fox News reporters today (Countdown, MSNBC-TV) said that, despite the straightforward quote, Ms. Bristol said abstinence was “absolutely realistic” (yes, you read that correctly). You might just guess, that in the minds of many in the GOP, black is white, up is down and yes is no (and “no” seems to be a favorite GOP word, these days). For some of our illustrious leaders, even bass-ackwards seems ass-backwards. Doing the wrong thing seems to be the right thing, or so thinks the right, and these headline-grabbers are hoping you won’t remember how they made you dogpaddle, as the boat sank, when they come up for a next election…and we are “left” behind.
After today’s White House gathering, Gov. Jindal was all over the television, applauding the President’s efforts, while simultaneously attempting to hamper and stultify them. It was a photo op which did nothing to help the unemployed and disenfranchised of Louisiana. He doesn’t get it and I don’t get him. I hope no one else does, either. I think this is what you call operating without a hint of shame. If he is the rising star of the GOP, the dawn may a long time coming.
Firedoglake ran this today: http://firedoglake.com/2009/02/23/obama-on-cable-chatter-im-looking-at-you-jindahl/, and the President said (something like) this, to today’s assemblage: “ When we are talking about $7B out of a package of $787B, which is 5 ,6 , or 7% of the total, it sounds more like politics than anything else…which doesn’t make sense, when we have work to do”. He also reminded them that there was still “plenty of time for campaigning”. If this was a poker game, he just called their (the governor’s) bluff.
During all of the discussion prior to the passage of the stimulus bill, the universal descriptor for the Republican congressmen was “obstructionist”. They were also tiring and boring, and were testing everyone’s patience with their tedious linguistic pranks (Boehner was banal and Graham is crackers). They developed a party line that was anchored in the faulty mortar of more tax cuts and a lack of “real stimulus”. And now, even after they failed to stop the bill’s momentum, the governors have pretended to take up the mantle of smoky confusion to prolong the agony of tedium and empty rhetoric. To refuse needed funds out of grossly misguided principals is destructionist: has no one thought ahead to the costs of “re-construction”? Politics for politics’ sake is always expensive, down the road, and the state of the nation (and the states) has no time for peacock feathers and glory hounds. But see Jindal strut.
There are no perfect solutions for this completely imperfect economic travesty, and there is no faultless foresight concerning the crisis before us, but there is some awfully good hindsight about the last eight years of tax cuts and de-regulation that got us into the fix in which we are semi-fixed. We seem to be sitting atop a legacy of either doing nothing or doing as little as possible, and we must do something (I once had an “uncle” Alex, who used to say, “Let’s do something, even if it’s wrong”: we may be there). In some ways, the proposed delays, distractions, arguments and completely unhelpful “posturing” is akin to the environmental studies that stop needed construction projects: there is a small rabbit in the road, ahead of the bulldozer. Rather than spend a million dollars and two years’ study before the levee washes away the town, someone should stop screwing around and move the damn rabbit . It will take about ten minutes and save the local landscape from devastation the next time it rains. (Does the GOP even realize it is raining?)
This nonsense about “permanent” and/or irreversible state legislation about future unemployment policies is hogwash. These “united states” are still free to introduce legislation which augments, alters, defies or flies in the face of federal programs, whenever they like. They have certainly done so often enough in the past. I do not know what the governors are smoking, but the room is becoming hazy. Perhaps these captains of their ships of state are hoping the populace will get contact stoned from the smoke, and then somehow forget and not hold them accountable later on. But I hope we are not that gullible and short on memory. If anything should be permanent right now, it should be a determination to see that all of those we hold responsible stand up and act that way.
After listening to some Republican governors in the press for the last few days, you cannot help but wonder why some of them insist upon punching more holes in the bottom of a boat which is already sinking. Largely representing the RNC is Gov. Bobby Jindal (R. LA), there is a move afoot to decline certain federal monies from the $787B stimulus bill which just became law (http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/22/governors-on-the-stimulus/#more-9101) .
Here is a report of some of the news on 2/23/09, the very day the President brought together a confab of affected, affecting, inflicted and inflicting economic players and decision makers at the White House: http://www.stumbleupon.com/toolbar/#url=http%253A%252F%252Fpr.thinkprogress.org%252
It goes without saying that there are far more people either unemployed or under-employed in the country right now than we have seen or experienced in a very long time (the boat is sinking). A leading (and phony, stumbling) argument for several governors pretending at fiscal heroism (Schwarzeneger and Crist excepted, to name two) is this: they claim that “strings attached” to such funds will force the states to alter their rules and regulations on the eligibility for the states’ unemployment payments, and thereby hamstring and cripple their budgets in the future, long after the stimulus funds are exhausted. It would begin to appear as if posturing, grandstanding (and an irresistible urge to obfuscate) has completely overtaken these state executives. They are puffing up their chests when they should be grabbing buckets and bailing water. Their desire for “personal gain”, political advancement and national publicity, seem to matter far more than their desire to effectively serve the constituents who so desperately need their help, right now. Indeed, HardBall, the MSNBC-TV program (Chris Matthews) on 2/23, played clips of three republican governors who as much as said they were posturing for a run for president 2012, by taking a stand against acceptance of some stimulus funds. It would seem that when your priorities are completely misguided, enabling the boat to sink quicker is somehow interpreted as a way to save lives (read: your own skin) in the immediate future: governors, high, and dry, and warm and comfortable in their mansions, apparently don’t share the same wet feet that their constituents have when the boat starts to take on water. This is especially odd when you think about Louisiana.
In some ways, I suppose, I should not be surprised at this dyslexic appraisal of our state of affairs. The recently unpregnant Bristol Palin has just been quoted as saying “abstinence is not realistic”, among teens, but the religious right sees it differently:
http://www.alternet.org/reproductivejustice/128265/. And Fox News reporters today (Countdown, MSNBC-TV) said that, despite the straightforward quote, Ms. Bristol said abstinence was “absolutely realistic” (yes, you read that correctly). You might just guess, that in the minds of many in the GOP, black is white, up is down and yes is no (and “no” seems to be a favorite GOP word, these days). For some of our illustrious leaders, even bass-ackwards seems ass-backwards. Doing the wrong thing seems to be the right thing, or so thinks the right, and these headline-grabbers are hoping you won’t remember how they made you dogpaddle, as the boat sank, when they come up for a next election…and we are “left” behind.
After today’s White House gathering, Gov. Jindal was all over the television, applauding the President’s efforts, while simultaneously attempting to hamper and stultify them. It was a photo op which did nothing to help the unemployed and disenfranchised of Louisiana. He doesn’t get it and I don’t get him. I hope no one else does, either. I think this is what you call operating without a hint of shame. If he is the rising star of the GOP, the dawn may a long time coming.
Firedoglake ran this today: http://firedoglake.com/2009/02/23/obama-on-cable-chatter-im-looking-at-you-jindahl/, and the President said (something like) this, to today’s assemblage: “ When we are talking about $7B out of a package of $787B, which is 5 ,6 , or 7% of the total, it sounds more like politics than anything else…which doesn’t make sense, when we have work to do”. He also reminded them that there was still “plenty of time for campaigning”. If this was a poker game, he just called their (the governor’s) bluff.
During all of the discussion prior to the passage of the stimulus bill, the universal descriptor for the Republican congressmen was “obstructionist”. They were also tiring and boring, and were testing everyone’s patience with their tedious linguistic pranks (Boehner was banal and Graham is crackers). They developed a party line that was anchored in the faulty mortar of more tax cuts and a lack of “real stimulus”. And now, even after they failed to stop the bill’s momentum, the governors have pretended to take up the mantle of smoky confusion to prolong the agony of tedium and empty rhetoric. To refuse needed funds out of grossly misguided principals is destructionist: has no one thought ahead to the costs of “re-construction”? Politics for politics’ sake is always expensive, down the road, and the state of the nation (and the states) has no time for peacock feathers and glory hounds. But see Jindal strut.
There are no perfect solutions for this completely imperfect economic travesty, and there is no faultless foresight concerning the crisis before us, but there is some awfully good hindsight about the last eight years of tax cuts and de-regulation that got us into the fix in which we are semi-fixed. We seem to be sitting atop a legacy of either doing nothing or doing as little as possible, and we must do something (I once had an “uncle” Alex, who used to say, “Let’s do something, even if it’s wrong”: we may be there). In some ways, the proposed delays, distractions, arguments and completely unhelpful “posturing” is akin to the environmental studies that stop needed construction projects: there is a small rabbit in the road, ahead of the bulldozer. Rather than spend a million dollars and two years’ study before the levee washes away the town, someone should stop screwing around and move the damn rabbit . It will take about ten minutes and save the local landscape from devastation the next time it rains. (Does the GOP even realize it is raining?)
This nonsense about “permanent” and/or irreversible state legislation about future unemployment policies is hogwash. These “united states” are still free to introduce legislation which augments, alters, defies or flies in the face of federal programs, whenever they like. They have certainly done so often enough in the past. I do not know what the governors are smoking, but the room is becoming hazy. Perhaps these captains of their ships of state are hoping the populace will get contact stoned from the smoke, and then somehow forget and not hold them accountable later on. But I hope we are not that gullible and short on memory. If anything should be permanent right now, it should be a determination to see that all of those we hold responsible stand up and act that way.
Friday, February 20, 2009
Stupid...And More Stupid
From the Department of "I don't get it".
I was nearly prepared to write blog today about hypocrisy and duplicity (perhaps the new monikers of government), when this showed up in the NYT:
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/20/against-stupidity-2/?emc=eta1
John (I picked a bad time to stop drinking)Boehner, Lindsey (nationalize the banks) Graham, Nancy( my family has money) Pelosi, Barbara(send me your tired, huddled masses and all of your money...NOW) Boxer, Sen. (I hang out in men's rooms)Craig, Sen.(I sleep around) Vitter, Rep.(I get all the facts wrong)Cantor and few others, including other assorted Republican grandstanders and state governors, just "don't get it". They rail and rant and stomp their adolescent feet in opposition to the stimulus, then they take credit for any portion of the bill that will put money into the hands of their constituents; or, as a mayor or governor, they say that even though they think the bill is bad idea (generational theft?), they want to be first in line to take the money. One person who may "get it", is Anh Cao, the Vietnamese-American Rep. who recently got elected in Louisiana, because after saying he would vote for the bill, ultimately did not: he buckled under pressure from his Republican obstructionists and now his constituents are now calling for his removal from office. Oops. And right now, some mayors and governors are saying that while they will welcome the cash, they object to being told by the Feds about how and where to spend it. They sound like the bankers who made $350B evaporate into the ether, last fall. Perhaps Hank Paulson is advising them?
Either I am missing something here, or else hypocrisy (I was for it before I was against it) or duplicity (I was against it before I was for it)are the watchwords of the day, and these professional comedians really expect us to believe them, trust them and that they will look out for us. Krugman (above) calls alot of this stupidity: he is more blunt than I like to be (you can laugh, now).
There are some other stupids:
Every study I've seen (and apparently Bill Clinton reads the same ones) from prominent economists says that tax cuts don't help in our current situation. They may not help at all, may actually be bad and that cash infusion for infrastructure, food stamps and extended unemployment benefits give back much more bang for the buck. Continued harping for tax cuts is STUPID.
GM wants umpteen billion more dollars to lay off 47,000 people and close factories. The little car company that could (Saab) has just filed for bankruptcy back home in Sweden, Hummer is on the block ( a special stupid for it even BEING in the first place)and Saturn is on the way out( the dealers are looking for a Chinese or Indian manufacturer to keep it alive?), and , finally, Chrysler is looking for another chunk of money (To give to speculative investors?) for funeral expenses (Chrysler is already dead: they are out shopping for coffins). All of this, as well as our tolerance for this foolishness, is STUPID.
Starbucks is closing many, many store and laying off 7,000 people. At the same time they are introducing instant coffee, or exactly a product they made their fortune campaigning against. STUPID.
J C Penny and Lowe's Home Improvement both say their fourth quarter sales were down 10%. Penny says their profit was down 50% as result. Lowe's says the profit drop was 60%. Who is doing these books? Are we supposed to believe this? STUPID.
Magic tricks: Bernie Madoff makes $50B disappear. Texas "Not a billionaire" Stanford makes $8B disappear. Then he disappears. Scotland's Wedgewood China goes belly up after a hedge fund makes their entire pension fund disappear. United Bank of Scotland admits to helping hide fortunes of taxable money in Swiss accounts, but pulls a George W. Bush and vows not to release details. STUPID.
The stimulus bill was signed just a few dozen hours ago and people are already claiming it doesn't work. NOTE: This document is the product of possibly the largest and slowest moving governmental body in the world. "You want it WHEN?" STUPID.
In February of 2009, in the 21rst century, we still have people trying to make the United States a Christian nation. Try looking around the world and your neighborhood: if you cannot see the ethnic and religious variations, you are just plain STUPID.
A hard-liner secular Jew in Israel is backing Netanyhu for PM and urging, among other absurdities, oaths of loyalties to the Israeli government by any of the several million non-Jews living with rocket range. Hypocritical, duplicitous and STUPID.
Prominent Israelis and defenders/promoters of Israel are decrying the new US mid-east envoy as "too fair", and "too even handed". Heaven forbid we should avoid favoritism and promote any equality of treatment. STUPID.
The new RNC chairman, Mr. Steele, is promoting a re-birth of the GOP through the use of hip-hop. We have a few thousand important issues staring us in the face, and he wants to recruit new blood into his party through the use of a musical venue which sounds as foreign to most Americans as the tone poems of Bela Bartok. STUPID.
Nearly everywhere I look, I see politicians and civic leaders speaking out of both sides of their mouths or reversing themselves over night. The ex-Reverend Ted Haggard (Colorado Springs) and ex-Gov. Spitzer (NY) are poster boys for hypocrisy. Every Republican congress member who voted "no", in lock step against the Recovery Act, then stood up to take credit for its benefits (or the pork they managed put in it, ala "earmarks are bad" John McCain)are guilty of duplicity.
And if we sit back and swallow all of this without criticism, oversight or scrutiny, then we are, sadly very STUPID.
I was nearly prepared to write blog today about hypocrisy and duplicity (perhaps the new monikers of government), when this showed up in the NYT:
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/20/against-stupidity-2/?emc=eta1
John (I picked a bad time to stop drinking)Boehner, Lindsey (nationalize the banks) Graham, Nancy( my family has money) Pelosi, Barbara(send me your tired, huddled masses and all of your money...NOW) Boxer, Sen. (I hang out in men's rooms)Craig, Sen.(I sleep around) Vitter, Rep.(I get all the facts wrong)Cantor and few others, including other assorted Republican grandstanders and state governors, just "don't get it". They rail and rant and stomp their adolescent feet in opposition to the stimulus, then they take credit for any portion of the bill that will put money into the hands of their constituents; or, as a mayor or governor, they say that even though they think the bill is bad idea (generational theft?), they want to be first in line to take the money. One person who may "get it", is Anh Cao, the Vietnamese-American Rep. who recently got elected in Louisiana, because after saying he would vote for the bill, ultimately did not: he buckled under pressure from his Republican obstructionists and now his constituents are now calling for his removal from office. Oops. And right now, some mayors and governors are saying that while they will welcome the cash, they object to being told by the Feds about how and where to spend it. They sound like the bankers who made $350B evaporate into the ether, last fall. Perhaps Hank Paulson is advising them?
Either I am missing something here, or else hypocrisy (I was for it before I was against it) or duplicity (I was against it before I was for it)are the watchwords of the day, and these professional comedians really expect us to believe them, trust them and that they will look out for us. Krugman (above) calls alot of this stupidity: he is more blunt than I like to be (you can laugh, now).
There are some other stupids:
Every study I've seen (and apparently Bill Clinton reads the same ones) from prominent economists says that tax cuts don't help in our current situation. They may not help at all, may actually be bad and that cash infusion for infrastructure, food stamps and extended unemployment benefits give back much more bang for the buck. Continued harping for tax cuts is STUPID.
GM wants umpteen billion more dollars to lay off 47,000 people and close factories. The little car company that could (Saab) has just filed for bankruptcy back home in Sweden, Hummer is on the block ( a special stupid for it even BEING in the first place)and Saturn is on the way out( the dealers are looking for a Chinese or Indian manufacturer to keep it alive?), and , finally, Chrysler is looking for another chunk of money (To give to speculative investors?) for funeral expenses (Chrysler is already dead: they are out shopping for coffins). All of this, as well as our tolerance for this foolishness, is STUPID.
Starbucks is closing many, many store and laying off 7,000 people. At the same time they are introducing instant coffee, or exactly a product they made their fortune campaigning against. STUPID.
J C Penny and Lowe's Home Improvement both say their fourth quarter sales were down 10%. Penny says their profit was down 50% as result. Lowe's says the profit drop was 60%. Who is doing these books? Are we supposed to believe this? STUPID.
Magic tricks: Bernie Madoff makes $50B disappear. Texas "Not a billionaire" Stanford makes $8B disappear. Then he disappears. Scotland's Wedgewood China goes belly up after a hedge fund makes their entire pension fund disappear. United Bank of Scotland admits to helping hide fortunes of taxable money in Swiss accounts, but pulls a George W. Bush and vows not to release details. STUPID.
The stimulus bill was signed just a few dozen hours ago and people are already claiming it doesn't work. NOTE: This document is the product of possibly the largest and slowest moving governmental body in the world. "You want it WHEN?" STUPID.
In February of 2009, in the 21rst century, we still have people trying to make the United States a Christian nation. Try looking around the world and your neighborhood: if you cannot see the ethnic and religious variations, you are just plain STUPID.
A hard-liner secular Jew in Israel is backing Netanyhu for PM and urging, among other absurdities, oaths of loyalties to the Israeli government by any of the several million non-Jews living with rocket range. Hypocritical, duplicitous and STUPID.
Prominent Israelis and defenders/promoters of Israel are decrying the new US mid-east envoy as "too fair", and "too even handed". Heaven forbid we should avoid favoritism and promote any equality of treatment. STUPID.
The new RNC chairman, Mr. Steele, is promoting a re-birth of the GOP through the use of hip-hop. We have a few thousand important issues staring us in the face, and he wants to recruit new blood into his party through the use of a musical venue which sounds as foreign to most Americans as the tone poems of Bela Bartok. STUPID.
Nearly everywhere I look, I see politicians and civic leaders speaking out of both sides of their mouths or reversing themselves over night. The ex-Reverend Ted Haggard (Colorado Springs) and ex-Gov. Spitzer (NY) are poster boys for hypocrisy. Every Republican congress member who voted "no", in lock step against the Recovery Act, then stood up to take credit for its benefits (or the pork they managed put in it, ala "earmarks are bad" John McCain)are guilty of duplicity.
And if we sit back and swallow all of this without criticism, oversight or scrutiny, then we are, sadly very STUPID.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Everybody has their Liebermans
There is this story on MSNBC.com, this morning:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29276575/
You can read the whole article for yourself, but the by-line that got me reads like this (next to a photo of a guy who looks unsettlingly much too much like Paul Krugman):
Israel's Yisrael Beiteinu party leader Avigdor Lieberman, who has called for the country's Arab minority swear loyalty to the state or lose their citizenship, has backed Benjamin Netanyahu for prime minister.
My old Texas Instruments calculator seems to be broken, so I can’t say exactly how many people I will piss off with this comment, but that’s the way the unleavened cookie crumbles. Following in the footsteps of, and in the best traditions of, American politics, the Israelis have been busy playing the election game. This last race was a troublesome threesome, starring the venerable retread (and to some reviled) Netanyahu, the foreign minister, Tzipi Livni (I still think her name sounds like an anorexic Italian sports car) and the third party, the Beitenu. This third party, the Ralph Nader/Ron Paul element, the salt-in-the-wound, itch-where-you –can’t-quite-scratch, annoying-like-a mosquito bite group, is apparently fronted by a man named...you guessed it…Lieberman!. From the photo in the article, he appears to dress much more casually and with a much nicer flair than our Connecticut chameleon, but he is very outspoken about his positions concerning what Israel “ought to do”And he is completely unapologetic about advising President Shimon Peres as to what stance to take and how the “new” government should be structured. It reminds me of the old joke:” Hi! I’m from Beitenu and I’m here to help you!”
I both know and know of many people in the US who are disgruntled, discouraged and annoyed by Joseph Lieberman and his curious impact on the last election. He dresses drably (and speaks with the same lackluster drone), muddies the waters and makes no secret of his desire to be in the limelight and garner public attention for his changing an changeable positions. I think the Democrats have been very kind to him, considering how many times he has thumbed his nose at them. I have yet to sense anything worthwhile that he has contributed to either the process or the outcome.
The (real) Israeli Lieberman frightens me more. There are too many words and phrases in this article that bother me: hard-liner, ultranationalist, government reign, threat to mid-east peace, and that ominous line (up above) about “swearing loyalty”. I am very concerned about how much obstructionist, militaristic and pugnacious thinking has risen so much to the forefront, especially when nearly the entire world is appalled by the recent genocide in Gaza. And history is littered with self-appointed “advisors” to kings, tzars and Presidents, and I don’t recall any of them promoting bright spots in world development.
But the last influence the world community needs right now is a hard-line position on Palestinians, when almost everyone would like this decades-old conflict to be ended as soon as possible. And the term ultranationalist just reminds me of the carnage, not so long ago, in the Balkans. And the simple fact is that no one needs to reign over the mid-east: somebody needs to get to the Israeli leaders and not-so-gently remind them that the days of King David are long over and democracies don’t reign.
But more disturbing than any other reference is the one about “swearing loyalty” to the government. Great and memorable(?) leaders like Adolf Hitler and kings and of the realm and their ilk have called for such measures over the centuries, and it has always been a story without a good ending. In the case of the Jews, after the Third Reich, I can’t imagine how such a phrase could even begin to roll off anyone Jew’s lips. If the Israelis are going to follow the US democratic model, they should pay attention to the fact that we ask people to “swear allegiance to the flag”, which is quite different from swearing loyalty to the government. An essential component of a vibrant democracy is the ability that we always are able to question the government ( I think Rush Limbaugh just had a heart attack).
Liebermans, Liebermans everywhere, and not a chance to think. I have been thinking a lot lately, during the foreplay and aftermath of the passing of the stimulus bill, about how totally inappropriate, backward looking and oddly askew the language and remarks of the Republicans have been, and wondering how this recent obstructionism and recalcitrance would be resolved. I have also wondered why Joe Lieberman has been relatively quiet. But now I see the world stage is like Wrigley’s chewing gum: with two Liebermans we can double our trouble and double our (not so very much) fun. I wonder if Avigdor wants the Palestinians to wear arm bands?
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29276575/
You can read the whole article for yourself, but the by-line that got me reads like this (next to a photo of a guy who looks unsettlingly much too much like Paul Krugman):
Israel's Yisrael Beiteinu party leader Avigdor Lieberman, who has called for the country's Arab minority swear loyalty to the state or lose their citizenship, has backed Benjamin Netanyahu for prime minister.
My old Texas Instruments calculator seems to be broken, so I can’t say exactly how many people I will piss off with this comment, but that’s the way the unleavened cookie crumbles. Following in the footsteps of, and in the best traditions of, American politics, the Israelis have been busy playing the election game. This last race was a troublesome threesome, starring the venerable retread (and to some reviled) Netanyahu, the foreign minister, Tzipi Livni (I still think her name sounds like an anorexic Italian sports car) and the third party, the Beitenu. This third party, the Ralph Nader/Ron Paul element, the salt-in-the-wound, itch-where-you –can’t-quite-scratch, annoying-like-a mosquito bite group, is apparently fronted by a man named...you guessed it…Lieberman!. From the photo in the article, he appears to dress much more casually and with a much nicer flair than our Connecticut chameleon, but he is very outspoken about his positions concerning what Israel “ought to do”And he is completely unapologetic about advising President Shimon Peres as to what stance to take and how the “new” government should be structured. It reminds me of the old joke:” Hi! I’m from Beitenu and I’m here to help you!”
I both know and know of many people in the US who are disgruntled, discouraged and annoyed by Joseph Lieberman and his curious impact on the last election. He dresses drably (and speaks with the same lackluster drone), muddies the waters and makes no secret of his desire to be in the limelight and garner public attention for his changing an changeable positions. I think the Democrats have been very kind to him, considering how many times he has thumbed his nose at them. I have yet to sense anything worthwhile that he has contributed to either the process or the outcome.
The (real) Israeli Lieberman frightens me more. There are too many words and phrases in this article that bother me: hard-liner, ultranationalist, government reign, threat to mid-east peace, and that ominous line (up above) about “swearing loyalty”. I am very concerned about how much obstructionist, militaristic and pugnacious thinking has risen so much to the forefront, especially when nearly the entire world is appalled by the recent genocide in Gaza. And history is littered with self-appointed “advisors” to kings, tzars and Presidents, and I don’t recall any of them promoting bright spots in world development.
But the last influence the world community needs right now is a hard-line position on Palestinians, when almost everyone would like this decades-old conflict to be ended as soon as possible. And the term ultranationalist just reminds me of the carnage, not so long ago, in the Balkans. And the simple fact is that no one needs to reign over the mid-east: somebody needs to get to the Israeli leaders and not-so-gently remind them that the days of King David are long over and democracies don’t reign.
But more disturbing than any other reference is the one about “swearing loyalty” to the government. Great and memorable(?) leaders like Adolf Hitler and kings and of the realm and their ilk have called for such measures over the centuries, and it has always been a story without a good ending. In the case of the Jews, after the Third Reich, I can’t imagine how such a phrase could even begin to roll off anyone Jew’s lips. If the Israelis are going to follow the US democratic model, they should pay attention to the fact that we ask people to “swear allegiance to the flag”, which is quite different from swearing loyalty to the government. An essential component of a vibrant democracy is the ability that we always are able to question the government ( I think Rush Limbaugh just had a heart attack).
Liebermans, Liebermans everywhere, and not a chance to think. I have been thinking a lot lately, during the foreplay and aftermath of the passing of the stimulus bill, about how totally inappropriate, backward looking and oddly askew the language and remarks of the Republicans have been, and wondering how this recent obstructionism and recalcitrance would be resolved. I have also wondered why Joe Lieberman has been relatively quiet. But now I see the world stage is like Wrigley’s chewing gum: with two Liebermans we can double our trouble and double our (not so very much) fun. I wonder if Avigdor wants the Palestinians to wear arm bands?
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