Thanks To Everyone Who Sent In A Creation Story

We've already read a couple of them. Good stuff, good stuff. We hope to have selected a winner in the next week or so.

Christopher Hitchens Mops The Floor With Completely Overmatched Paul Edwards

I recently came across this excerpt of Christian radio host Paul Edwards interviewing Christopher Hitchens from awhile back. It’s one of the worst verbal ass-kickings in a debate I’ve ever listened to. The audio cuts out in one or two places in the beginning, but it’s worth hearing in its entirety. I mean, Hitchens gets so pissed off, he just hangs up on the guy. You can’t beat that. It gets particularly awesome at the one minute and thirty second mark.

Can you say Hitchslapped?

- Max

The Lowell Sun Is A Terrible Newspaper

A Lowell Sun editorial writer squeezes out another quality Op-Ed.

Because she knows I loathe the conservative Lowell Sun, a friend of mine just sent me an email exchange she had with the editor of the Sun, Jim Campanini, a squinty-eyed man who looks as if he’s trying to—but can’t quite—figure out the world around him. Apparently, it started when my friend wrote a letter to the editor stating that it’s too bad the city’s only newspaper publishes significantly more conservative Op-Eds than liberal ones in a predominantly liberal city and region—a reality I can attest to, being all too familiar with the Sun’s house-of-horrors editorial page. Campanini declined to publish the letter and responded to her personally, stating, without a hint of irony, that the Sun publishes all points of view.

Here’s the exchange, starting with my friend’s letter to the editor, which was not addressed to Campanini personally, but intended for general publication. I have decided to withhold my friend’s name from the letters, and have placed in bold those remarks by the Sun’s editor which are completely unprofessional or outrageous.

(Begin correspondence)

To Whom Is The Sun Speaking?

Why does the Lowell Sun insist on speaking only to the conservative minority on its Op-Ed page? Its editorials have endorsed George W. Bush and John McCain, even though (Greater) Lowell didn’t by wide margins. Its lily-white columnists and their vanilla verbiage rarely if ever write anything that could be described as progressive. And the letters the Sun selects for publication are overwhelmingly from conservatives or outright reactionaries. On top of this, many letters contain blatant falsehoods, complete non sequiturs, and just plain terrible writing. The Sun seems all too happy to print these because they support its editorial agenda.

The city of Lowell is in the middle of a significant transition to a city of artisans, professionals, and college students who—whether you want to admit it or not—generally hold progressive views. And surely many older (Greater) Lowellians hold views that are at odds with the Sun’s. I’m not saying that the Sun should advocate liberal positions, but I don’t think I’m alone when I say that I’d like to see some ideological diversity on these pages. I know of plenty of liberals who have written eloquent, well-reasoned letters to the Sun, only to have them not published in favor of poorly-written letters that simply reaffirm what the Sun’s editorials have already stated. A liberal columnist wouldn’t hurt either.

In an age when newspapers are going out of business, the Sun is alienating a bloc of readers who want to stay abreast of city issues and read insightful commentary, but are turned off by the paper’s ideological uniformity. Sadly, the Sun seems to have no interest in printing progressive views. While the city of Lowell is undergoing major changes around it, the Sun continues to push an agenda that Lowell has repeatedly rejected at the ballot box.

Campanini's response:

[Name withheld],

I found your letter most amusing. Evidently, you don't read the newspaper very closely, for you will see that we don't censor viewpoints and have as many liberal columnists - E.J. Dionne, Eugene Robinson, Steve and Coakie Roberts, Donna Brazile - as conservative - Cal Thomas, Michelle Malkin, Ann Coulter. I put Kathleen Parker in the more moderate arena. Our local columnists are liberal zealots Bob Forrant and John Edwards from Umass Lowell.

As for our editorial voice, we are independent but lean toward family values and a conservative mindset on social issues.

If it weren't for The Sun's strong editorial positions through the years, Lowell would not have a downturn [sic , presumably he meant “downtown”] with artists lofts, an arena, LaLacheur Park, new restaurants, two new garages and the Hamilton Canal District project.

Also, I would hope you can give me concrete information or the names of "liberal" letter writers who have not been published in the Sun. We publish all viewpoints, I think you are making it up, which is a sure sign that you are a liberal. Still I don't hold it against you. Most of my friends do the same thing all the time and I tolerate them with love and dignity.

Lastly, we open up our pages to discussion to our readers - all readers - and we never discourage their viewpoints or the way in which they state their case. You sound very undemocratic in that you would take that freedom away just because someone can't articulate like President Obama.

My best,

Jim Campanini

My friend's response:

Mr Campanini:

I found your letter most insulting, and indicative of the bias that generally plagues your rag paper. I consider it a vindication of the point I was making.

Evidently, you didn’t read my letter carefully, because I never said or implied that the Sun “censors” viewpoints. Rather, your editorials and letters are in fact, overwhelmingly conservative. As for Bob Forrant and John Edwards, they don’t seem to write as regularly as your others columnists, and when they do it’s usually about local issues and in a nonpartisan manner. Also, I find your description of them as “liberal zealots,” very telling. And while I haven’t been keeping count, conservative syndicated columns definitely seem to outnumber liberal ones. As for your leaning towards “family values,” this term is complete baloney. Do you know of anybody in the mainstream who advocates against “family values?” It’s a term some conservatives like to use to assert a nonexistent moral superiority, as if liberals cannot claim to be for "family values."

You also say, “If it weren't for The Sun's strong editorial positions through the years, Lowell would not have a downturn [sic] with artists lofts, an arena, [etc.]” Are you saying there’s some kind of downturn in Lowell for which the Sun is claiming responsibility? Ok, so you meant “downtown.” But I’d be interested to hear what city councilors, administrators, citizen groups, and business associations have to say about your contention that without the Sun, Lowell’s present downtown would not have been possible.

As for my liberal pals I mentioned, I decline to name in this contentious context, especially without their permission. You are accusing me of being a liar, adding, “which is a sure sign that you are a liberal.” Someone might say this is a sure sign that you are a jerk, but rest easy, I’m not that someone. However, thanks for “tolerating” me, because if there’s anything I require, it’s the toleration of William Randolph Campanini.

Lastly, I’m not undemocratic. I’m anti-ignorance and pro-facts. The Sun has recently published letters that contained clearly made up information. You say you don’t discourage viewpoints regardless of how the case is made? Well that’s just foolish, and explains many of your letters, such as the one about cap-and-trade which baselessly claimed that residents’ energy costs would increase by 300% if it passed, or the totally unintelligible letter about Martha Coakley and gambling statutes, or the one that just plain lied and said ACORN generated 15 million votes for Obama and that it will conduct the census. Personally, I wouldn’t have published these letters, not because they’re conservative, but because they’re horribly written and even worse, contain patently obvious falsehoods. But again, you’re happy to print them because they support your agenda.

If you’re as democratic as you imply, then you’d print every letter you get. But that would be ridiculous because newspapers should print only well-reasoned ones, or at least, ones that don’t make stuff up. I don’t expect people to write like Maureen Dowd or David Brooks, but I’d like to think that facts and logic are minimum requirements for letter publication in the Sun. Of course, I’d like to think that, but when I read your Op-Ed page, how could I? How could anyone?

My best,

[Name withheld]

Campanini's response:

[Name withheld],

Of course you are a liberal. You resort to name-calling in order to try to get your point across.

Good luck,

Jim Campanini

My friend's response:

Mr Campanini:

No, I'd say the rest of my letter gets the point across. I don't think you'd take kindly to being called a liar (as you did to me) either. Telling me that you think I'm lying and am therefore liberal is not becoming of a news editor, not to mention a total non sequitur.

(End correspondence)

Now, I’m probably one of those name-calling liberals Campanini’s referring to above, so I might be biased, but I have to say, the guy got his lunch handed to him. That BS about having an ideologically balanced Op-Ed is absurd, as anyone who’s read the Sun will tell you, conservatives included. He totally got called on it. As for her rejoinder, the best the Campster could do is seize upon the word “jerk” while ignoring a completely cogent letter as if to take the high road. But what do you expect from a guy who automatically associates liberalism with lying?

- Max

The Little League World Series Sucks

It’s that time of year once again when baseball parents and pedophiles all across America will tune in to watch arguably the worst event on the calendar of televised sports: the Little League World Series.

As a guy who played baseball for fifteen years at various levels, and as a person who appreciates a good ballgame, to me Little League games should never, ever be televised. Ever. Why kids’ baseball is selected for exposure and not, say, peewee hockey or Pop Warner football is beyond me. All these sports—when played by prepubescent children—are equally horrible trainwrecks that make mockeries of the games attempting to be played. And what do you expect? They’re little kids, and they have to learn somehow. But to televise this garbage is just brutal.

Not only are baseball fundamentals often missing from these on-field abortions, but when kids make errors, strike out, or lose games, more often than not they cry like Glenn Beck when he talks about 9/11. It’s pathetic, hammy, and cruel because the programmers have no business putting these emotionally unstable people on television.

Unfortunately, ESPN will continue to televise the LLWS so long as they both exist. At the very least, Little League officials should make all players watch the following clip so as to remind them of one very important point:

There is no crying in baseball.

- Max

If You Gave Bill Donohue An Enema, He Would Disappear

Not sure if Bill Donohue pissed off? Check his pulse. If he has one, then yes, he’s pissed off.

What do you call a loudmouth Catholic with nothing better to do than whine and issue press releases in response to perceived blasphemy against his religion? Why, a Bill Donohue, of course.

Donohue is head of the Catholic League, which, contrary to popular belief, is not an Italian soccer association. The League states that it is “for religious and civil rights,” but this is a crock because Donohue and the CL completely lose their shit every time some public figure or celebrity exercises free speech and disses Catholicism. As P.Z. Myers recently pointed out, Donohue is currently having a meltdown over an episode of Penn and Teller’s Bullshit! scheduled to air August 27 on Showtime.

Donohue is calling for Showtime—a subscription-based channel owned by CBS Corp.—to fire the comedy duo because he claims that the upcoming episode will defame Catholics. He says this because the show’s website contains a warning about the upcoming program that states, “Graphic Warning, Adult Content.” And he’s probably right about this, but who cares?

In his cute little press release titled, THIS IS THE FINAL STRAW (his all-caps, not mine), Donohue’s words drip with an indignation that would impress Bill O’Reilly:

“This is not the first time Showtime has featured a vile Penn & Teller show. In 2005, Mother Teresa was called ‘Mother F---ing Teresa,’ and her order of nuns were branded ‘f---ing c--ts.’ The year after, Jillette said on his CBS radio show that Mother Teresa ‘got her [sexual] kicks watching people suffer and die.’

“Just recently, Jillette took after me again in his usual foul way. That doesn’t matter, but what matters greatly is his pathological obsession with bashing Catholics and their religion. There is no legitimate place for this kind of frontal assault on any demographic group.”

Waaa, waaa. A couple of comedians are picking on Catholics. Boo hoo.

Somebody get Donohue a pacifier to suck so he’ll shut up. Or a dick. I don’t care which.

Since we’re talking about Catholicism, I’m going to make a confession. While I love blasphemy and religion-bashing in general, I particularly relish “this kind of frontal assault” on the Catholic Church about which Donahue is speaking. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I was forced to go to C.C.D. (Catholic indoctrination) for ten years, but my main reason for this is a bit nobler.

As I mentioned in my letter requesting that I be excommunicated, the Church essentially owned most of Europe for centuries. The Vatican enjoyed vast resources and political power, could make or break kings, and pretty much went hog-wild. Pope after pope demonstrated an unyielding desire to punish seemingly anyone whose opinions or actions went against official Church dogma. And by punish I mean utilize some of the most fucked up methods of inflicting maximal amounts of pain the world will ever see. In fact, the holy inquisitions ushered in a golden age of torture devices which are now, thanks to the relative impotence of the abominable Church, curious relics of a bygone age of incomprehensible Catholic sadism. During this period, the Vatican scared the ever-living shit out of everyone and cast a dark fog over the European continent that stymied intellectual development and non-torture related technological innovation.

No thanks to the alleged god who watched these monstrosities unfold, the party has been over for some time and the Church has been defanged. Nowadays, the pope has been relegated to some sort of advisory role, admonishing the increasingly skeptical faithful not to do this or not to do that. Prominent Catholics are no longer the beneficiaries of preferential treatment, but must be content to bitch and moan about getting disrespected. A crotchety papist ass-hat such as Donahue—who was probably Torquemada in a previous life—is so bloated with self-righteous BS and subconscious Irish guilt, he doesn’t see the irony in crusading against mere verbal assaults that are in opposition to an institution which has caused more pain, suffering, death, and general misery than Satan would ever even want to.

So pardon me for relishing in some sweet Catholicism-bashing every now and then. I don’t believe in the divine, but if I did, I would certainly regard the Church’s dramatic decline over these past few centuries a form of divine justice. It isn’t often that massive historical injustices get rectified, and even if they do, the victims are hardly ever around to see the perpetrators receive their comeuppance. However, this heretic considers himself a sort of heir to those brave men and women who dared to say “no” to one of the most terrible, sadistic, and murderous institutions, and who paid quite dearly for it. They may not be around to enjoy the increasing irrelevance of the Church and the flak it gets, but I am. It’s true that the Catholics and other Christians of today hadn’t anything to do with the atrocities of the past, but the Church certainly did.

When I lay my head on the pillow tonight, I will close my eyes and let my mind wander back through the annals of time and keep my ears open to see if I might catch a faint echo of the gut-wrenching screams of those long-forgotten oppressed and tortured victims of the Vatican. I will then wander back to the present, and recall the petty grumblings of the politically impotent Bill Donohue. And then I’ll see if I can enjoy a little sardonic chuckle before drifting off to pleasant oblivion for a few short hours.

- Max

I'm Trying To Get Excommunicated!

Luther Before the Diet of Worms, by Anton von Werner

Since I long ago denied the existence of God and Christ as his savior, I have not called myself a Catholic for many years. However, I have decided to make my apostasy official by attempting to get excommunicated from the Church. This morning I called the nearest archdiocese and told them I had typed up a letter requesting that I be excommunicated, and they told me to contact my local parish. I did, and the nice lady on the other end of the line told me I should mail the parish the letter, which, my fellow apostates, you may feel free to use as a template for your own excommunication requests. Simply fill in the redacted parts with your information.

So, without further ado, here is the letter I dropped in the mail this morning.

To Whom It May Concern:

I am writing this letter to express my sincere desire to be excommunicated by the Catholic Church post haste.

In ______ of 19__, I was baptized as a newborn baby at _______________ church in _________, _____________ at an age when I could not have possibly consented to receiving that Sacrament. From the time I was about six years old until I was fifteen, I was subjected to the incessant inculcation of Catholic propaganda in Confraternity of Christian Doctrine. I wholly reject the fundamental tenets of this wicked doctrine, and I have no use for it—or the Church from which it emanates—whatsoever.

The idea that I am somehow eternally indebted to a long-dead Judean peasant for his “sacrifice” is entirely without merit. I say without equivocation that Jesus Christ was by no means divine, either by nature (Athanasianism) or by deed (Arianism). If he existed at all, Christ was at best an eccentric preacher who was under some serious misapprehensions, and at worst a devious huckster of the first order. Vicarious redemption is not only a false doctrine, but an immoral one.

I also deny in wholesale the alleged miracles he performed as described in the Gospels—a series of texts written many, many years after the crucifixion, using hearsay and legend. Even if the Gospels had been written by the real Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, I daresay this would do nothing for the veracity of these texts because these followers of Christ were delusional and illiterate simpletons. Indeed, their breathtaking credulity is responsible for much of the world’s misery over the last 2,000 years. Unfortunately for humanity, the Romans failed to eliminate the Christian menace in Palestine as it was beginning to sprout. If only they had the foresight to keep going until every Christian was neutralized, and every lion satiated, we might be much better off.

Additionally, I regard transubstantiation as a laughable, if not perverted concept. What the Church calls the actual body and blood of Christ, is in fact, an awful-tasting cardboard-esque wafer and watered-down wine, nothing more. To insist that that the wafer and wine are the real body and blood of Christ, is to make cannibals of all who receive Communion. This pagan ritual is clearly borrowed with some modification from ancient Dionysian tradition.

It may also interest you to know that the very first time I received the Eucharist as a small child, I promptly spit it out.

As for the Judeo-Christian god itself, I see no reason to believe in the existence of such a character. And not only do I not believe in him, but I am quite glad that he does not exist. The Old Testament is rife with the atrocious actions of this wretched, jealous, malevolent, genocidal maniac, who appears to have made humans for his own amusement and personal fulfillment, desiring to be worshipped in round-the-clock fashion.

Lastly, there is the Papacy. The Papacy is without question, the largest and most enduring tyranny in the history of civilization. For over 1,000 years, the church had free reign over Europe and made full use of its autocratic powers. It told people how to live and what to think. It imprisoned, tortured, and killed those who dared to hold opinions that went against Church doctrine. During that time it was the single greatest impediment to social, intellectual, and yes, moral progress. I shudder to think where we would be had the Church maintained its dark grip over Europe.

In our time, the Papacy continues to hold and advocate positions which have no business being promulgated in any decent society. I see no reason to think that abortion, homosexuality, or the use of contraceptives is wrong. Indeed, the Church’s position on contraceptives is entirely ludicrous. The idea that sex ought to be engaged in only for the purposes trying to conceive is harmful and outright stupid. Herr Ratzinger and his cohorts know nothing of sex, except for a select number of priests who alleviated years of pent-up sexual tension by preying on little children. Bernard Law could have prevented much of this by reporting Shanley, Geoghan, and the rest of the collared pederasts to the authorities, but instead he chose shuffle these deviants from parish to parish. Rather than enjoying a cushy job in the Vatican, Law should instead be rotting in a Massachusetts prison until death arrives to relieve him of his iniquitous life.

For these reasons and many others, I sincerely request that I be excommunicated forthwith from the Catholic Church. I do not wish for a rebuttal to any of the aforementioned points, nor do I wish to have a meeting about this matter; for my mind has been made up on this score for many years now. I have no use for God, Jesus, the Bible, the Pope, the Sacraments, or any other religious mumbo jumbo. I hope that someday the Church will be so diminished in its power, influence, and resources, that it will be necessary to bulldoze its houses of tyranny across the globe, with the exception of the great cathedrals.

Lest you think that you may ignore this letter and have that be the end of this matter, I am willing to do whatever is necessary to be expelled by this abhorrent organized racket. I am very serious about this, and I believe I have conveyed this sentiment given the tone of my letter. If I do not receive a reply within two weeks of my mailing this, I shall initiate contact again, and every two weeks thereafter until I receive a response. Hopefully, the Church will act on my request before I am forced to get its attention by doing something rash, such as marry a Protestant. If it is necessary for me to write to the ___________ Archdiocese or some other outlet, please inform me so that I may go through the proper channels in order to be officially excommunicated.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Regards,

Max Canning, Apostate

Reform Opponents Continue To Oppose Health Care Plan That No One Is Proposing

Republicans be warned.

Not content with employing the tried and true strategy of reductio ad Hitlerum in the health care debate, Republicans have rolled out a new tactic that’s absolutely jaw-dropping. Generally, in a rational debate, two or more sides discuss a problem by examining facts and engaging in empirical analysis that draws upon those facts, with each side explaining why its position is the correct or most logical one. That, in one sentence, is what a debate is.

What the Republicans have been doing in the discussion on health care reform, however, is nothing short of remarkable. In this “debate,” opponents of the health care legislation have been alleging that the government will: establish a eugenics program (Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh et al.); set up “death panels” (Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich et. al); and euthanize old people (Senator Chuck Grassley, seemingly every anti-reform idiot who attends those town halls, et. al). These are not reality-defying claims made by marginal figures. They are reality-defying claims made by central figures in the GOP. And they have managed to bog down the discussion by requiring Obama to actually have to say that he’s against government-mandated euthanasia. What a country.

This strategy’s success has been as shocking as its premise. Republicans haven’t just misrepresented or mischaracterized the health care reform legislation, they have accused it of containing provisions for the grossest and most egregious violations of human rights and dignity, including but not limited to eugenics and geriatricide. It’s a straw man on steroids. And it’s working.

It’s working because the Republicans understand—much better than the Democrats—H.L. Mencken’s timeless axiom that no one ever went broke underestimating the American public. Indeed, apparently any counterintuitive, crazy-stupid, bogus horseshit can be fed to the manure-hungry American populace. In holding his town hall meetings in New Hampshire and Montana, Obama did what any rational person would do in the face of such insane accusations: explain his position using facts and logic. Unfortunately, this approach is wholly ineffective in communicating with the American public. George W. Bush understood this, which is why his administration never felt constrained by the inconveniences of reality and got away with all kinds of awful stuff. Bush could always insist that up was actually down, right was actually left, and Saddam was actually Osama. For Christ’s sake, in 2004 the Swiftboaters were able to make John Kerry’s military record a constant topic of discussion—John Kerry, who actually went to Vietnam, unlike a certain nincompoop from Texas who was on “guard” here in the states in case the Viet Cong tried to invade the American south.

Clearly, rational discussion in the health care debate is not an option because the Republicans refuse to engage in it. They have been making a unified effort to avoid discussion of actual issues, and have instead decided to debate reality itself. Their attitude is, if the health care legislation doesn’t contain mandates for eugenics and euthanasia, say it does anyway and repeat it ad nauseum. I mean, how the fuck do you debate that? Your opponent accuses you of advocating Position A, and you try to set him straight and say, “No, I don’t advocate Position A,” but the person says, “Oh, but you do.” Discussion is simply not possible. Case in point: Senator Claire McCaskill’s town hall meeting, where she was so dismayed at the obnoxiousness of the unruly Madisonian faction screaming at her, she asked the crowd, “You don’t trust me?” to which the mob yelled, “No.” And there it is. No matter what McCaskill or anyone else tells these ill-mannered ignoramuses, they’re going to believe what they want. They’re going to believe that the Democrats—who routinely count on the elderly vote—want to kill the same old people they need to get reelected, even though the Dems assure them that’s not true. They’re going to believe that Obama is not a citizen, even though his Hawaiian birth certificate has been provided and authenticated, complete with contemporaneous newspaper announcements about it. They’re like the handful of leftwing morons who think Bush either knew about or orchestrated the 9/11 attacks. No matter what you say, no matter what evidence you provide, they’re going to believe whatever the hell they want.

- Max

Proposing No Solutions Of Their Own, Conservatives Resort To Lies And Nazi Analogies In Crucial Health Care Debate

The centerpiece of the conservative argument against health care reform.

This morning I tried to attend a health care town hall forum in Chelmsford, Massachusetts hosted by Congresswoman Niki Tsongas. Although she’s not my representative, I happened to be in the area and I figured I’d check it out. Unfortunately I couldn’t get in because the turnout was far higher than I had expected. It wasn’t long after I got in line—futilely awaiting entry into Chelmsford’s town hall—when I realized that the same sorts of kooks who had been poisoning health care forums in Florida, Ohio, and other swing states with their bombastic and intimidating vitriol, were out in full force here in this liberal district.

I do not call these people kooks because they disagree with me on this issue, but rather because of their methods. Instead of advancing a coherent argument against Obamacare, these protestors resort to yelling—literally yelling, that the government is going to euthanize old people and that Obama is a modern day Hitler. It’s total off-the-wall fearmongering. No need to introduce facts into the discussion when you can just scare the shit out of the ignorant masses by telling them that Obama wants to turn America into Logan’s Run for sexagenarians.

So as I was standing in line, reading all of these signs, listening to this propaganda, and reading a pamphlet from the Lyndon Larouche crowd with a Photoshopped picture of Obama and the Fuhrer yukking it up with some Hitler Youth on the cover, my urge to call someone on this bullshit was coming to a head. I noticed a man of about sixty walking toward me with a sign saying that under the proposed reform bill, once Americans turn sixty-five, the government would decide whether to euthanize them or not, or some such idiocy. He had an impressive beer gut and was wearing a hat indicating that he had been in the navy. I didn’t care that he was old or a veteran, I wanted to say something, and I did. I laid it on thick: “You’re a propagandist. You should be ashamed of yourself. You’re a disgrace to the conservative cause.” To which he replied that he wasn’t a propagandist, ashamed, etc., before pulling the, I-was-in-the-military-for-thirty-seven-years card, as if somehow that bolstered his ridiculous claims. To my extreme disappointment, as soon as he said this, several people around me said, “Thank you” to him for his military service, despite his contemptible lie that the government is going to kill people’s grannies. Reasonable people can oppose health care reform, but reasonable people do not use lies, hate, and Nazi comparisons to do it. They do what one well-mannered anti-reform attendee did: hand out serious literature from reputable sources about the large costs of the proposed reforms, and engage others in spirited, but civil debate on this important problem.

But the navy guy—who by the way, received government health care for those thirty-seven years he was in the service—wasn’t even the worst. There was actually a group of younger people holding a large picture of Obama with a Hitler mustache (see above), and it was from this group I picked up a pamphlet of “Act Now To Stop Obama’s Nazi Health Plan,” with a picture of Obama and Hitler on the cover, with the Fuhrer smiling at the president, because after all, being buddy-buddy with a black liberal is exactly what Hitler—the ultimate white supremacist—would’ve done.

Remember how, during the previous administration, a few fringe liberals would make Bush-Nazi analogies, and conservatives like Rush Limbaugh and Fox News would go apeshit? Apparently, it isn’t ok to call the president a Nazi or Hitler if he launches an unprovoked war and shows contempt for civil liberties and the U.S. Constitution, but it is ok when he’s attempting to reform healthcare by making it cheaper and more accessible. But honestly, I’m not nearly as disturbed by showmen like Limbaugh and Glenn Beck, as I am by these everyday people who despise the democratic process so much, that they endeavor to shout down their elected representatives and their fellow citizens who hold opposing views. These people like to scream, “This is America,” as if they favor freedom of speech and open debate. Newsflash: they don’t. They don’t want a real debate, which is why they act like complete assholes in forums where they’re actually welcome to ask questions of their representatives.

While in line, a totally ignorant sixty-something year old woman starting talking to me for no reason, telling me how there was a provision for eugenics in the health care reform bill. I asked her where this provision was. She assured me that it was in there, saying, “When people get older, the government won’t allow them to have certain operations.” Of course, this isn’t eugenics, which I would recommend for this woman if she were of child-bearing age, but perhaps she meant euthanasia, although even this isn’t accurate. What she was really going for was the phrase “rationed care,” which we actually already have in this country with private insurers. My own sense is that any government-run health care system in this country will be measurably more accommodating than many private insurance companies.

No sufficiently well-educated society would allow such rank hypocrisy, lies, and exaggerations to pass as legitimate objections. But here in America, where thinking is optional, the grossest transgressions against truth and even mere consistency in argument and standards may be committed with no one blinking an eye, or worse, with people nodding in agreement at the lies and distortions emanating from a mob so short on serious ideas and alternatives for what is being proposed, that screaming and intimidation is their “strategy.” If in fact, “This is America” as these degenerates insist, then never have I been more ashamed to call myself one of its citizens.

- Max

America: The Plutocratic Corporatocracy (Part II)

As I mentioned in the last post, the United States is one of the freest countries in the world in terms of human rights and civil liberties. And yet, for all this unabashed freedom we have, Corporate America has managed to hijack the U.S. government for its own rapacious ends, turning the country into a kind of neo-serfdom.

For decades the income gap between the wealthy and non-wealthy has been widening steadily. Under George W. Bush, this chasm became even more dramatic. Here’s what the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office discovered earlier this year:

“The data reveal starkly uneven income growth over recent decades. Between 1979 and 2006, real after-tax incomes rose by 256 percent — or $863,000 — for the top 1 percent of households, compared to 21 percent — or $9,200 — for households in the middle fifth of households and 11 percent — or $1,600 — for households in the bottom fifth...In 2006, the average household in the top 1 percent had an income of $1.2 million, up $63,000 just from the prior year; this $63,000 gain is nearly two times the total income of the average middle-income household.”

The seemingly ever-widening income gap is hardly news, as this plutocratic trend has been well known since the Reagan years. Because Americans are generally docile creatures, hardly any of them have raised a stink about the matter. After all, a widening income gap does not necessarily imply hard times for the non-wealthy. But in 2008, the U.S. economy was in a full-blown corporate greed-driven nosedive, which, when it came crashing down, decimated shareholdings and 401Ks. Unlike the voodoo accounting scandals of Enron, Tyco, WorldCom, etc. in the early 2000s, the 2008 shit-show was more far-reaching. You didn’t have to be a big player in the market to lose big, and many people sure did.

It didn’t take long before the corporate propagandists—avarice’s apologists—were on the scene to assure the American people that everything that had happened was legal. There would be no need for corporate witch hunts because it was all on the level, we were told. But even if this is true, what does it say about our financial system? The housing bubble was achieved by smoke and mirrors, and it should’ve been clear that maybe—just maybe—too many people were getting credit when they shouldn’t have; not just mortgages, but also auto loans and credit cards. Much of this debt was securitized and bought up by opportunistic speculators who were left holding the shit end of the stick when the subprimes blew up the economy. Add to this a horrifyingly lopsided balance of trade in favor of imports, and you have yourself a nation of debtors spending well beyond their means and who don’t make anything the world wants. Who knew our house-of-cards economy would fold like a house of cards?

The worst part about this wasn’t the collapse itself, but the government’s remedy for it. Then Secretary of the Treasury and former Goldman Sachs CEO Hank Paulson saw fit to arrange a taxpayer-funded bailout of Wall Street, including Goldman and big Goldman debtor AIG. In order to justify the bailout, the government told the masses that these companies were simply “too big to fail” and that if a company like Goldman Sachs went belly-up, the ripple effect would be devastating. Indeed, there is some truth in that phrase, but if Washington insists on using it, then let’s not pretend that our economic system follows a capitalist model. Adam Smith and David Ricardo would shit themselves if they saw what we’ve been doing in this country. And what we’ve been doing is state-subsidizing capitalism, which of course, is not capitalism at all.

So why this complacency among the people even in the face of this disaster? Well, it has a lot to do with the freedoms enjoyed by Americans. That ours is a republic in form only, and is really a corporatocracy is not evident to most Americans. While it is true that many Americans hold a low opinion of politicians in the abstract, it is this writer’s impression that they know not just how near the mark are their cursory observations.

Complacency, of course, does not bode well for any kind of social mobilization. Rather than trying to improve the country, many Americans prefer to rest on the nation’s laurels and relish in its being supposedly the “greatest country on earth.” A large portion of the U.S. population is far too conservative and patriotic, and therefore extremely susceptible to plutocratic manipulation. It’s the classic What’s the Matter with Kansas? strategy. The interests of Corporate America are served best when serious discussions about the economy, health care, taxes, military spending, etc. do not take place in the public forum. Otherwise, it is inevitable that Americans will reject the corporate agenda. This is why the business-friendly GOP generally tries to steer the discussion in less threatening directions, toward abortion, or gays and flag-burning. In fact, you could sum up the Republican Party’s talking points in three words: Fags and flags. They don’t want informed and substantive debate to occur on matters that affect everyone because that would make for a nightmare scenario come reelection time.

If you think I’m exaggerating, take the anti-health care reform strategy of the Orwellian-named FreedomWorks, a conservative organization of corporate shills led by former House majority leader Dick Armey. In a FreedomWorks memo you have to read to believe, the organization advises health care town hall forum attendees on how to deal with a pro-reform representative:

“– Artificially Inflate Your Numbers: ‘Spread out in the hall and try to be in the front half. The objective is to put the Rep on the defensive with your questions and follow-up. The Rep should be made to feel that a majority, and if not, a significant portion of at least the audience, opposes the socialist agenda of Washington.’

– Be Disruptive Early And Often: ‘You need to rock-the-boat early in the Rep’s presentation, Watch for an opportunity to yell out and challenge the Rep’s statements early.’

– Try To ‘Rattle Him,’ Not Have An Intelligent Debate: ‘The goal is to rattle him, get him off his prepared script and agenda. If he says something outrageous, stand up and shout out and sit right back down. Look for these opportunities before he even takes questions.’”

There you have it. This memo shows just how intellectually and morally bankrupt many of health care reform’s opponents are. This should thoroughly piss off anyone looking to have a serious and intelligent discussion about health care reform. Even if you oppose Obama’s health care plan, this sort of shit should enrage every decent American. If you think “Try to ‘Rattle Him,’ Not Have An Intelligent Debate’” is a legitimate strategy like the people at FreedomWorks, you are an asshole and a terrible human being. One of the great things about America is that we can have intelligent public debates. To deliberately try to railroad efforts to that end is an abomination, is fascistic, and is something the Iranian mullahs would do.

I must say, however, that while the GOP has a penchant for deceit and corporate servitude, the Democrats are only slightly better in this respect, and by slightly better I mean slightly less bad. Politicians from both parties accept boatloads of cash from wealthy donors. In the U.S., if a candidate wins election to the House or Senate, he or she will undoubtedly owe quite a few favors to some wealthy people who will be looking for a political payoff. The president? Even worse. By the time a person becomes president, he’s totally compromised and in the fucking corporate bag.

That is the deal with our plutocratic corporatocracy. This assessment is admittedly superficial, but it would take many more words to sufficiently explore the mound of steaming shit that is the American power structure—a project I may very well undertake in the coming weeks, as I haven’t been this bullshit about politics in quite some time.

- Max

America: The Plutocratic Corporatocracy (Part I)

On Friday, a federal grand jury ordered Boston University graduate student Joel Tenenbaum to pay $675,000 in “damages” to the Recording Industry Association of America. His crime? He illegally downloaded thirty songs on his computer using peer-to-peer file sharing networks. The verdict came not long after a Minnesota woman was fined a gaudy $1.92 million for downloading twenty-four songs. Clearly, with millions of Americans guilty of this same crime, the fascistic RIAA was looking to make an example of these unlucky sons-a-bitches in order to deter future piracy (good luck with that), but what’s more, these cases are a microcosm of the almost fully developed corporatocracy that has all but replaced democratic republicanism in the United States.

Take the taxpayer-funded bailout of the Wall Street companies who happily took our money and proceeded to pay many of its employees bonuses despite the fact these people oversaw, and in many cases were responsible for, the biggest financial collapse in a generation. In Corporate America, it isn’t necessarily your performance that matters, it’s who you are, or who you work for. So for example, at everyone’s favorite corporate whipping post, Goldman Sachs, the company used some of its bailout money from us, the taxpayers, to dole out big bonuses to executives who—in any just universe—would be tied down and have their pee-holes stretched open, at which point everyone who lost money in this largely Goldman-driven clusterfuck would take turns pouring isopropyl alcohol on the agape dickheads.

But we don’t live in a just universe, or even a just country. We, my fellow Americans, live a plutocratic corporatocracy where Wall Street can do whatever the fuck it wants, can be reckless with the money of investors and shareholders, and take solace in the fact that if the economy goes south (for reasons which may include its own insatiable avarice) its puppets in Washington will be on hand to give out enough of our money to get them out of their self-induced financial jam and maybe even turn a first quarter ”profit” of a few billion dollars mere months later. Meanwhile, Joel Tenenbaum, a broke-as-shit grad student, gets slapped with a $675,000 fine, because he downloaded some songs and engaged in file sharing. Now, Tenenbaum didn’t issue tons of subprime loans. He didn’t sell securities backed by said shit loans. He didn’t cost innumerable people their savings and retirement money. He didn’t take any money from the taxpayers. He didn’t use taxpayer money to give himself a bonus. You don’t have to condone what Tenenbaum did to see that something is horribly, horribly wrong here. This is the corporatic culture at work in the U.S. If instead of downloading a bunch of songs whose artists and corporate copyright holders are already disgustingly wealthy, Joel Tenenbaum had peddled what he knew to be junk mortgage securities to unwitting investors on a massive scale, then proceeded to bet that the value of those same securities would plummet and wipe out people’s savings and 401Ks in the process, he may very well have been given billions of taxpayer dollars by the government, with enough left over to give himself a sweet bonus. To top it off, Tenenbaum would be lauded by business pundits such as Mark Gimein, who would instruct us to “resist the urge to punish success” as he did last month in one of the most insulting, outrageous, and shameless Op-Eds ever published in the Washington Post—a piece of propaganda so fallacious and fellatious, one has to read it to believe it. Furthermore, Tenenbaum could take great comfort in the fact that everyone will want to do business with him—no matter how bad he fucked up in the past, or will fuck up in the future—because his investments and deceit will always be backed by the full faith and stupidity of Wall Street’s political wing: the U.S. government.

So to reiterate: we are a nation whose vast majority of people are working stiffs—suckers, really—barely getting by, who are basically regarded as disposable by the wealthy ruling class, whose recent collective gross incompetence didn’t make them think twice before rewarding their own disastrous handiwork with fat bonuses. It’s true that we Americans enjoy some of the most extensive human rights and civil liberties in the world, but when you get right down to it, power in America rests primarily with the business interests of this country. And despite the increasing financial inequalities in America, no one seems to give a shit. Either that, or the workers in this country do give a shit, but nonetheless allow themselves to be smacked around by their fatcat oppressors. In this way, the U.S. is the perfect incubator for the cancer of corporatism. In my next post, I’ll explain why this is so.

- Max