A group of ten America Baptists from Idaho were detained yesterday when they tried to bus thirty-three child survivors of Haiti’s recent earthquake into neighboring Dominican Republic without documentation.
How in the world did these Christian cretins think that just whisking a bunch of kids out of their home country without any records was ok? If I had to guess, I’d say these bumpkins probably just assumed that documentation standards in countries populated by black and brown people are lax, so therefore they could just do whatever. Hey lady, they’re children, not puppies. Just because authorities from the Dominican Republic supposedly said you could bring them over doesn’t make it all right. Besides, I doubt D.R. officials knew you had no paperwork.
This woman also said that these kids need god’s “love” and “compassion” (i.e., they need to be brainwashed with evangelical propaganda). Well, pardon me if I think the Haitians have had quite enough of god’s sadistic handiwork of late.
Recently I had the displeasure of conversing with a 9/11 “truther”—a person who believes that the September 11th attacks were an inside job perpetrated by the Bush administration to use as a pretext for the so-called war on terror. His syllogism went something like this:
Bush wanted to invade Iraq (and presumably Afghanistan).
Bush could not invade without a good reason.
Therefore, 9/11 was orchestrated by Bush to provide the reason.
Now, I think George W. Bush is one of the worst presidents ever, and his invasion of Iraq was a textbook war crime. But if the Bush administration was going to go through the trouble of somehow getting planes (or missiles as some truthers claim) to fly into the World Trade Center, planting explosives in the buildings beforehand so they could be detonated after impact, fabricating the identities of the hijackers, covering up all government involvement after the fact, then I have just one question: Why wouldn’t the Bush administration just forge some Iraqi passports for the phony hijackers in order to make an airtight case for war against Iraq? I mean, if 9/11 was one big ingenious theatrical production by the government, why would Bush and company make the hijackers out to be from Saudi Arabia, a key U.S. ally? Instead, none of the nineteen hijackers were Iraqi, while fifteen of them were Saudi.
This question has never been coherently answered by any truther. When I posited this to a conspiracy nut once, he replied, “Because that would’ve been too obvious.”
Ha. So what he was saying was that the Bushies, instead of cooking up some fake Iraqi identities to create a slam-dunk justification for invading Iraq, decided to choose the path of most resistance by implicating a bunch of Saudis in the attacks so they’d have to jump through all kinds of hoops to explain to the American public that it wasn’t Saudi Arabia that needed to be invaded, but Afghanistan where the “terrorists” had trained, and then Iraq, which they had nothing to do with.
This does not make sense on any level. The fact that most of the hijackers were Saudi was extremely inconvenient for the Bush administration, and this needed to be overcome for propaganda purposes.
Another problem with the truther hypothesis is that if the government was able to orchestrate 9/11 and cover it up, fooling most Americans, why couldn’t it fabricate some evidence linking Iraq and 9/11? Or, why couldn’t it fabricate evidence proving beyond all doubt that Saddam was manufacturing weapons of mass destruction? Indeed, if the Bush administration had the will and the ability to orchestrate the 9/11 attacks, why didn’t it have the will and the ability to plant some WMDs in Iraq after the invasion so they could “find” them and tell the American people, “Aha! See, we were right!”? But this didn’t happen. Not even a single drum of nerve gas. And when no WMDs were found, Bush looked like a total asshole. So again, this makes no sense.
Also, what about the fact that in a conspiracy of this magnitude, hundreds, probably thousands of people would have to be involved in the attacks and the subsequent cover up? If 9/11 were an inside job, you’d think somebody would’ve leaked something. How can a secret like that be kept when hundreds of people know it? It’s impossible, especially with over eight years having passed.
But if you’re a truther, why bother trying to explain any of this? It’s much easier to take a condescending tone with people and tell them, as truthers love to do, “Wake up, people!” In using this kind of rhetoric, truthers are telling us that they are part of an “enlightened” minority, a small group of critical thinkers who are “in-the-know” about 9/11. They assume the guise of teachers who want others to see the light, but in reality they want stay small in number so they can continue to feel smarter than everyone else. The only problem is, their theory of what happened is totally fucking stupid.
This is your brain. This is your brain manufacturing its own illegal drugs.
Anyone with at least a hint of intellect that has inquired about the efficacy of the U.S. drug policy should be well aware that our “War on Drugs” has been an abject failure on virtually all fronts. Most, however, remain unaware of what is perhaps the most delicious hypocrisy of all with respect to this failed policy: that all human beings are in possession of an illegal substance at all times. Yup, that’s right. We are all just a bunch of drug-addled criminals that deserve to be locked in a cell and chained to our captors. Seriously though, if the current drug laws were actually carried out to the fullest extent, every citizen in the country would end up behind bars.
The substance I am alluding to is DMT (N, N Dimethyl-tryptamine), which is a “psychedelic” chemical found all throughout the natural world and produced by the human brain. The exact biological function of endogenous DMT is virtually unknown; however, some hypothesize that it plays a central role in “normal” waking consciousness, thus making everyday existence a sort of “controlled psychedelic experience.” It is only when this control is loosened in some way that altered (psychedelic) states can arise. Rick Strassman, M.D., one of the leading researchers of this chemical, speculates that this loosening of control over DMT production in the brain is what helps create the imagery associated with dreams, near-death experiences, and mystical-type states. These theories, at the very least, call for serious continued study of this mysterious chemical. Unfortunately, DMT research has been severely limited from the beginning in large part due to government restrictions, which are perpetuated by a deeply-ingrained skepticism and prejudice among the scientific community with regard to psychedelic drugs.
DMT is considered a Schedule I substance in the U.S., which is the most tightly controlled class of illicit drugs. Although this law is explicitly written for the drug in its pure form, it also extends to ayahuasca, which is a commonly ingested tea made from DMT-containing plants.
Let’s examine this a little closer:
It is basically illegal to own plants that contain a chemical that is also produced naturally in the human brain. The reasoning behind making these natural DMT-containing plants illegal seems to be: if one is in possession of such plants it can be inferred that that the possessor plans to “abuse” the chemicals inside the plants by consuming them with the goal of intoxication, which of course is illegal. This same logic could be applied to our possession of endogenous DMTif we accept Strassman’s theory that the chemical plays an active role in producing dreams and mystical states. This would essentially amount to us all committing crimes when we drift off to sleep at night or practice intense spiritual disciplines like meditation or yoga, for example. Thus, natural human experience could rightly be considered illegal.
Now, let’s consider whether or not DMT and ayahuasca can rightfully be deemed a schedule 1 drug according to the DEA’s standards:
“For a drug to be classed as schedule 1 it must be found that:
(A) The drug or other substance has a high potential for abuse. (B) The drug or other substance has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States. (C) There is a lack of accepted safety for use of the drug or other substance under medical supervision.”
There is no basis whatsoever to say that ayahuasca or pure DMT have a high potential for abuse. Repeated use of these “drugs” does not result in the common addictive symptoms of tolerance and withdrawal. On the contrary, sensitivity rather than tolerance to DMT develops through repeated use. In other words, a smaller (not larger) dose becomes necessary to achieve the same effect over time. I should also mention that DMT is classified among the most dangerous drugs to consume (class A) despite the fact that it appears impossible to overdose on and that there are no specific health problems associated with its use.
It is ridiculous to say that ayahuasca in particular does not have any accepted medical use in this country, chiefly because our drug policies actively stifle the research that would be necessary to back up this claim. In fact, anti-psychedelic-drug sentiment squashed the legitimate study of endogenous DMT almost as soon as it was first discovered. In contrast, scientists who discovered morphine-like endorphins were awarded Nobel prizes (Strassman, 48).
Thankfully, research projects investigating the potential medical uses of ayahuasca are currently being conducted in various places abroad. Preliminary results from these studies suggest that ayahuasca, rather than being a drug of abuse, can actually be effective in treating addictions to real “drugs” like alcohol and heroin. Other claims for ayahuasca’s unique healing properties have also been supported by anecdotal evidence for years, although these still remain largely unsupported by research. Regardless, the standard of accepted medical use remains somewhat ambiguous. For example, despite clearly having a high abuse potential, cocaine is less controlled (level II) than DMT in our current system because it is claimed that it has “some accepted medical applications.” Cocaine was indeed once used commonly as a topical anesthetic; however, this medical use of the drug was largely abandoned in the early 20th century when more effective and less debilitating treatments (e.g., lidocaine) took its place. Heroin’s early use as a pain reliever suffered a similar fate, yet that drug is no longer considered to have “some medical applications.” Go figure. (Please contact me if you think you can solve that riddle)
Since the intoxicating effects of ayahuasca and DMT can be very intense, it is understandable that one may draw the conclusion that such drugs cannot be given in safety under medical supervision. This, however, is simply not true. When taken under the right kind of medical supervision, which would include proper preliminary screening and careful attention to psychological (set) and physical (setting) variables, a fair amount of safety can be ensured. Rick Strassman’s groundbreaking clinical DMT trials in the mid 1990’s proved that the drug can be administered with relative safety. Although, even these conditions were less than ideal, primarily due to research restrictions i.e., having to administer the drug in a drab, sterile lab environment rather than providing a setting that would be more inviting to a psychedelic experience. More recent research with psilocybin (“magic mushrooms”), however, provides a better example of how psychedelic research can be conducted to maximize safety precautions for subjects.
In conclusion, an analysis of the three conditions that are used to justify DMT as a schedule 1 illegal drug makes it clear that this classification is founded upon pure, unadulterated horseshit. I believe it is time for the orchestrators of the “Drug War” puppet show to step it up a notch and imprison the whole lot of us for possessing endogenous DMT. At least that way this heinous and entirely ineffective policy would appear to have some logical coherence rather than remaining ultra-ambiguous and insanely hypocritical. An alternative, of course, would be to drop these ridiculous laws in order to at least enable qualified professionals to study important chemicals like DMT as thoroughly as possible.
References
Strassman, R. (2001). DMT: The Spirit Molecule. Vermont: Park Street Press.
You are looking at one of the most overrated coaches in the history of the National Football League.
Just when you thought ESPN couldn’t suck any more than it already does, today they run a front page story about retired NFL coach Tony Dungy and how he’s Holier Than Thou.
That’s right. ESPN and the unbelievably overrated Tony Dungy are back it, telling us once again what a swell guy he is, how he’s a “moral compass,” a “mentor,” and a “great—and selfless—counselor.” The article is titled, “Higher Calling,” an allusion to the fact that Tony Dungy is a great Christian, which naturally means he opposes gay rights. But no matter. Tony Dungy is better than you because he helps guide misguided black NFL players who have gone astray of the law and morality.
The subtitle of this fawning piece states, “Respect and moral authority have made Tony Dungy a powerful sports figure. But do those seeking his help come for image laundering, or true redemption?”
Notice that the subtitle calls into question the motives of “those seeking his help,” but not the motives of Dungy himself. Those are simply assumed to be virtuous. Dungy has cloaked himself and his lucrative best-selling book in the shroud of his Christian faith. Notice also that it is automatically assumed that it is others who seek out Dungy, not the other way around, even though this is how he came to mentor convicted dogfighter Michael Vick:
“Dungy reached out to [Vick’s lawyer Bill] Martin to discuss ways Dungy might be able to assist Vick. Dungy met with Martin, and the two men flew to Kansas to visit Vick [in prison].”
Notice also that the subtitle implies that Dungy is in some type of position to provide redemption, at least indirectly. Listen to the savior ruminate about how he might have been able to stop Vick from continuing his dogfighting ring if he only had known about it five years ago:
“It was preseason. We were in Japan for a game against the Falcons, and we went around to different events to promote the game, Jim Mora, Peyton [Manning], Mike Vick, myself,” Dungy says. “I got to know him a little bit. We talked about some things. Warrick Dunn told him I liked to fish. We agreed when we got back home we would get together and go fishing. It never happened.”
“When the dogfighting stuff came out, I never stopped thinking about that. If we had eight hours on the boat, maybe I would've found out about it. Maybe everything would have turned out differently. Maybe it all would've been different.”
Translation: Because I’m such a great moral authority, and yes, Holier Than Thou, if I had known about the dogfighting thing, I probably could’ve stopped it. I could’ve saved him.
Given that Dungy has embraced this “mentor” role after his 18 year old son James committed suicide in December of 2005, we are basically forced to draw a connection between the suicide and the mentoring. After all, we’ve seen the grieving parents of dead kids compensate for their guilt by becoming mentors and spokespersons before. It’s virtually standard operating procedure.
Two months before he died, James Dungy took an overdose of painkillers and told police that he was “depressed.” Why was he depressed? Did he have a drug problem? Did he have a genetic predisposition to depression? Was he gay in what was presumably an unabashedly Christian and anti-gay household? Something else? We may never know the answer because his father has remained quiet on the subject, which is strange. Generally when a grieving parent sets out to try to alleviate the guilt that comes with “not being there” for his child, the tendency is to champion against whatever it was that did the child in. Alcohol, drugs, depression, texting while driving, etc. But not so with Tony Dungy. Why? Is he ashamed of something?
Clearly, I know very little about this sad situation. But having said that, why does everybody including ESPN keep putting Dungy up on a pedestal as a great mentor? Isn’t it possible that Dungy actually failed the most important mentoring job he’ll ever have? As an NFL coach, he was often on the road and worked long hours even when he was home. Again, this is speculation, but the question remains: what justification does ESPN have for heaping endless amounts of mindless praise on this man? When will it stop?
Howard Zinn presenting his The People Speak on History.
Howard Zinn died yesterday at age 87. Anyone who knows of this man’s work and does not appreciate what he did is a total ignoramus. Far from being a “revisionist” or “alternative” historian as many right wingers claim, Zinn simply rejected the old notion that history must be told from the perspective of kings, presidents, businessmen, and other ruling elites. His approach to history was to start not at the top, but at the bottom, with the people; hence his outstanding, A People’s History of the United States. Instead of writing obsequiously about the “great men” of history as many historians are wont to do, Zinn focused on the real agents of change in American history: abolitionists, suffragettes, labor unions, civil rights advocates, feminists, and other social movements. As I noted in a post about Zinn’s documentary, The People Speak, rights are not benevolently handed out by the powerful; they must be fought for through great struggle.
A number of years ago a colleague of mine decided that his students should read A People’s History for a course he was teaching. To his amazement, several bookstores could not accommodate his order—at least not as soon as he would’ve liked. So he called Howard Zinn on the phone having never met the man who was by then already famous. “Professor Zinn,” he said after introducing himself. “I’m having a hard time ordering A People’s History and I was wondering if you could help me.” Zinn replied, “First of all, call me Howard. Second, I’ll see what I can do.” He had the books delivered within a week.
By all personal accounts, this story is quite typical. Several years ago I drove an hour to see Zinn, I mean, Howard, give a great talk at Framingham State College. Afterwards he signed autographs and seemed genuinely appreciative of the interest people had in what he was saying. While I did not dare ask him to sign anything, I’m glad I was able to shake his hand and let him know that I was grateful for the work he had done over the years. We need more people like Howard Zinn now more than ever. Especially now that his one of a kind voice is silent.
According to a new book, Why A Saint, written by Monsignor Slawomir Oder, the late Pope John Paul II would routinely engage in self-flagellation in order to “bring him closer to Christian perfection.”
According to Oder,
In his closet, among his vestments, there was hung on a clothes hanger a particular kind of belt for pants, which he used as a whip…
When he was bishop in Poland, he often slept on the bare floor so he could practice self-denial and asceticism.
Wow. I’ve heard of Catholic guilt before, but this is ridiculous. If the Pope—supposedly god’s mouthpiece for million’s of Catholics—thought he was worthy of whipping, I can only imagine what he thought of the laymen and what their penance should be for having committed sin.
This episode highlights the incredibly neurotic nature of Catholicism, which like virtually every other sect of Christianity, teaches that humans are born wicked. In truth, it is Catholicism—and religion in general—that is inherently wicked, not humans.
In religion, especially the monotheistic faiths, we see a classic slave mentality at work in the minds of the faithful. It is appropriate that one of the most famous Christians in history whipped himself regularly; much like Southern plantation owners would whip their chattel slaves for having committed some transgression against the master.
Psalm 23:
1The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not be in want.
2He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters,
3he restores my soul. He guides me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.
4Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.
5You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.
6Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.
In the context of slavery, this last line may resonate especially with those who are familiar with Malcolm X’s description of “house negroes”—slaves that the masters found agreeable and obedient enough to be treated in a more decent manner than the “field negroes.”
Of course, whether a person was a house slave or a field slave, the servitude was quite obviously involuntary. The same cannot be said, however, for metaphysical slavery, which is a self-imposed bondage to a vague and intangible “being” who also demands obedience; and his rules are kindly relayed by his earthly representatives who often call themselves “god’s humble servants.” Indeed, we often hear pastors refer to their “flock,” as in a herd of sheep needing direction.
If you really need convincing of this, look no further than this not uncommon rhetoric from a popular evangelical Christian website:
All men and women are either slaves of Satan or slaves of Jesus Christ, there is no in between. When one comes to Christ in faith, one ceases to be a slave of Satan and becomes a slave of Jesus Christ, his or her Lord. Jesus calls his people out of the darkness of slavery under Satan and out of the bondage power of sins to “marvelous light” and to a whole new relationship with Jesus Christ.
Thus, if you are alive, you are slave. On this matter you have no choice. The only “choice” you have comes in deciding whether to follow Jesus or Satan. I should hardly have to tell you that as far as Christianity is concerned, to reject the premises altogether is tantamount to deciding to be a slave of Satan.
Whence came this demented mentality? I suspect it has something to do with the desire of many to believe that someone is minding the store (or plantation), even if they can’t actually see the owner. Take the owner out of the mix, and the slaves cease to be slaves. But the prospect of freedom is daunting because with freedom comes responsibility. Consequently, humans would be responsible for themselves and answerable to each other. No one else.
This is the antithesis of Christianity, which teaches that Jesus assumed responsibility for the actions of mankind. In turn, humans are answerable to him. Thus, the revealed “wisdom” of the gospels provides a meaning of life and a set of (not always clearly) promulgated rules for living. To reject god is to reject morality handed down from on high. As a consequence, humans would have to construct their own morality from the ground up.
Just as Camus said that committing suicide is an admission that life is too much, believing in god makes a similar confession. Belief declares that one is incapable of living for living’s sake. Bare existence is too much and freedom is too formidable to endure. So enter the manmade master. He provides moral guidance. He provides a feeling of transcendence. And all he asks is your undying obedience to his immutable and timeless laws. He will take away the burdens of freedom and a happy slave you shall be.
New York—In a stunning admission that is likely to send shockwaves throughout the American media, “Glenn Beck” announced on Sunday that his radio and television shows are part of an elaborate social experiment to find out whether he could “make the crazy seem plausible to millions of people.”
“This has been an incredibly disturbing experience for me,” said Peter Morton, a.k.a. “Glenn Beck.” On Sunday, Morton revealed in a press conference and Q&A with reporters that he is a sociology professor at the University of South Florida who has been on sabbatical for ten years, during which time he has hosted a nationally syndicated radio show and two cable television programs as part of a major academic research project. Morton said he has authored an upcoming book, The Mass Psychology of Stupid, which describes his experiences as one of the preeminent right-wing talk show hosts in the United States.
“I cannot continue the charade any longer,” a visibly shaken and broken Morton read from a prepared statement. “This has gotten way out of hand. I started this experiment ten years ago with honest intentions, to test the credulity of the American public, and to try to gain a deeper understanding of the political psychology of the American people. Today, my experiment ends, and my search for a therapist begins.”
Morton said his experiment commenced in 2000, when he used his connections in the radio industry to secure an afternoon show on WFLA in Tampa. “By that time,” said Morton, “I had already published several peer-reviewed papers on the sociology of politics, so I came up with an alias. Americans gravitate towards people with short names that are only one or two syllables long. Notice that Obama is the first president since JFK to have a last name that’s more than two syllables, and only the third major presidential candidate since 1972 with a three-syllable name, [McGovern, 1972 and Dukakis, 1988] so I eventually settled on ‘Glenn Beck.’”
When the Glenn Beck Program premiered in 2000, Morton espoused moderately conservative views. However, as time progressed, Morton said he realized that in order to maintain ratings that would keep him on the air, he would have to “up the ante.” Gradually, Morton went from a reasonable but obscure radio show host to a right-wing fringe figure broadcast over 280 stations nationwide by 2008.
“This endeavor was only supposed to last six months, a year, tops. I was planning on losing money because I was funding it myself,” said Morton. “The next thing I knew, I was making millions of dollars for saying the craziest stuff I could possibly think of. It was exciting and scary at the same time. I had never done so little actual work in my life and here I was raking in more money than I had ever seen. But on the other hand, it was frightening to know that there was such a huge market for this. And then HLN called me one day asking if I’d want to host a TV show. A TV show!”
Morton hosted Glenn Beck on HLN for two and a half years before signing a deal with Fox News. He hosted his first show on the network on January 19, 2009, the day before Barack Obama’s inauguration. “The last year of this experiment was by far the toughest,” Morton said. “It was one thing to be an apologist for the Bush administration and go after his detractors. The work was mundane and old because Hannity and O’Reilly had already been doing it for years on television. But with a new Democratic president coming into office, I knew I’d have a chance to showcase my creativity as a propagandist.”
Within a year, Morton’s excitement was tempered by the stark realization that his insane rants had actually been resonating with millions of people. “I was trying to get fired,” confessed Morton. “But no matter what I did or said, my ratings just kept going up and up. I thought shedding what were obviously fake tears time and again over 9/11 would do it, but people just ate it up. And then I got the idea to start insinuating that Obama was in league with Hitler, Stalin, and Mao. And I thought that would do me in for sure. I mean, we all know how conservatives reacted to people who called Bush ‘Hitler.’ But as you know, not only did I not get fired, my ratings went even higher. You should see the emails I received, thanking me for telling the truth and exposing the Nazi-Stalinist, ACORN-orchestrated plot to destroy America. These weren’t a few isolated emails. This was 85% of the correspondence I got.”
Morton continued, “Then I figured, you know, I’ll just go off the deep end. I’ll just directly attack the half-white, half-black president and call him a racist, which makes no sense whatsoever, but I wanted out of there. It was becoming too much. It was a really daunting task coming up with new red meat conspiracy theories to toss to the viewers. Over the summer I was really grasping at straws with the FEMA camp thing. So I went on Fox & Friends one morning and said something about how this president has exposed himself over and over again as a guy who has a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture, and that he’s a racist. Don’t ask me what I meant by ‘white culture’ because I didn’t mean anything by it. There is a French culture. A Norwegian culture. An Italian culture. But there is no universal ‘white culture.’ It’s a meaningless term.”
“Well, there was a backlash from liberals, but my bosses at Fox just doubled down even after a several companies pulled their ads from my show. The next thing I knew I was being contacted by Goldline International to hawk precious metals. And I thought, ‘My audience can’t buy gold. They’re not rich.’ But then I realized I could cross the ethics line by plugging gold on my show while simultaneously advertising for Goldline on my free time. When that didn’t get me fired, I decided I had had enough. So here I am today.”
Morton also offered insights into media personalities he encountered during the experiment. “When I was at HLN, I ran into Nancy Grace in the hallways a few times. She’s an incredibly disturbed individual. Maybe bipolar, I don’t know. She’s obsessed with dead, missing, and battered white kids. Once, about two hours before her air time, she was in a panic because a missing kid she had planned on talking about turned up in his parents’ house. He was just hiding. So she was in her office hunched over her computer looking for news about victimized children. I tried to help. I said, ‘Well Nancy, a little girl got kidnapped today in New York.’ Her eyes lit up. She said, ‘Where?’ and I said, ‘Harlem.’ Then she just frowned and went back to her computer.”
Morton also discussed some of the personalities at Fox News, at one point calling Bill O’Reilly a “schoolyard bully” who’s “probably a sexual deviant.” When asked to clarify, Morton responded, “Have you readThose Who Trespass? I wouldn’t have read it, but one day he handed me a copy and said he wanted to know what I thought. It was the worst thing I’ve ever read in my life. Worse than the loofah affidavit.”
About Sean Hannity, Morton said, “Hannity was by far the worst. He’s not conservative. He’s not liberal. He’s not anything. He’s just for whatever the Republican Party is for, and against whatever the Republican Party is against. He’s like a member of the politburo. I don’t think he’s ever had an independent thought in his life.”
“By the way,” Morton added, “Ann Coulter is a guy.”
Conspicuously absent from Morton’s prepared remarks at the press conference was any mention of “Glenn Beck’s” 9/12 project—a mass gathering of disaffected Americans who last summer protested nonexistent tax hikes and other vague ideas such as “spending.” One reporter, however, did inquire about that momentous event in Washington last September.
“Yeah,” said Morton. “I’m not proud of that, but I wanted to see how many people I could get to physically show up at a specific place and time. It’s one thing to get millions of people to tune into your show from the comfort of their homes and cars, but the 9/12 project was designed specifically to see how many people would jump when I said to jump. A lot of people were wondering why I didn’t show up to my own march in D.C. The reason is that it just would’ve been too much. I did not want to see what I had created. I did not want to have to give a rousing and insincere speech. I did not want to see the rotten fruits of my deceitful labor.”
“I need a drink.”
Morton’s book, The Mass Psychology of Stupid will be available sometime in the fall.
Thanks to Christian Science, claiming demon possession may get you out of jury duty.
A few days ago I received a notice to appear for jury duty in my home state of Massachusetts. After indulging my curiosity by reviewing all of the possible ways to disqualify myself from the process, I discovered something neat which took me completely by surprise. According to my state government, if you think you may be “physically or mentally incapable of performing juror service,” all you require to be officially disqualified from serving is “a note from a registered physician or Christian Science Practitioner describing the illness or disability.” That’s right folks: to get out of jury duty, residents of Massachusetts can submit a medical statement from a loony faith healer in lieu of an actual doctor’s note. It’s too bad only Christian Scientists are given such privilege in this state; otherwise I would have had my Nigerian Juju priest friend write me a note.
You may now be asking yourself, as I did, what qualifies one to be deemed a Christian Science Practitioner. Well apparently, "any student of Christian Science who has taken the 'intensive' two-week class instruction in Christian Science healing may use the initials 'C.S.,' and take patients as a practitioner." Now I know that might not sound like enough training to qualify one to make informed medical recommendations to a court, but I hear they really pack a ton of information into those “intensive” two weeks. What the fuck!?! I think I feel some serious mental illness coming on after contemplating this outrage. Perhaps I can find a Christian Scientist to write me a note confirming my suspicion that my soul is currently being assaulted by a troop of menacing imps. I should think that would be sufficient to get me out of jury duty. After all, it seems these Jesus scientists should at least be more qualified to diagnose spiritual maladies than actual medical problems right?
Taking two weeks of Christian Science healing courses does not only allow someone to make official medical recommendations to a court; some common health insurance plans will actually cover treatment by these practitioners. I guess that’s ok though, because according to them, their brand of spiritual healing is unique and certainly not to be associated with the practices of wacky faith-healers. As they say, “Christian Science does not involve pleading with God to heal the sick and then accepting His will, good or bad. A Christian Scientist’s decision to rely on prayer comes from trust, not blind faith, in God, and from a conviction that God’s care continues under every circumstance.” They apparently do not need to appeal to the crutch of blind faith because they also have trust in the obvious efficacy of their healing powers. Where does this trust come from? Well from scientific evidence of course, scientifically Christian evidence that is. The proof of their healing powers is well documented in the no-peer-ever-reviewed, Christian Science Journal.
Although the church leaders declare that there is no official ban on seeking real medical attention for members, that is still a big part of their unofficial doctrine and, as such, most Christian Scientists avoid seeking medical help at all costs. This can be traced in part to the church’s doctrine of the “unreality of imperfection.” According to them, “nothing in Christian Science theology says it’s God’s will that anyone suffer, be sick, or die. Christian Science shows God to be entirely good, and therefore His will for each individual is only health and life.” To seek regular medical attention, then, would seem tantamount to conceding the reality of human frailty, which obviously doesn’t jive well with the “unreality of imperfection” horseshit. This dangerous practice of avoiding proper medical care no doubt causes many a church member to needlessly suffer, but such a practice is largely protected by religious exemption laws. I see no reason to object to an adult’s right to refuse their own medical treatment. The real controversy with these laws, however, has to do with the rights of parents to deny their children medical care based on these wacky spiritual beliefs.
There have been a number of documented cases of children needlessly dying from their parent’s insistence on seeking treatment solely through Christian Science rather than actual medical care. In one horrifying case (1989), a child who fell into a (very treatable) diabetic coma was basically just hovered over by a Christian Science “nurse” as he lay on his bed dying. The kid’s father later filed a wrongful-death suit against the mother (who was with the child when he died) and the church. Unfortunately, an appellate court dismissed the charges against the church, and later, the Minnesota State and U.S. Supreme Courts both refused to review the ruling. If that does not make your blood boil, consider this: during the hearing, “Christian Science nurse, Quinna Lamb Giebelhaus, who cared for Ian, testified that Christian Science is an excellent method of treating juvenile-onset diabetes and that Christian Science nurses are well trained to care for patients sick with all diseases. She was asked at trial what training she had received specific to the care of sick children. Her only answer was that she had been taught to cut sandwiches in interesting shapes.” Now I admit that the last remark does seem a bit unbelievable, but even if she didn’t say that, it takes nothing away from the absurdity of this case. If anything, it just helps bring some humor into an otherwise hideously tragic event.
Thankfully, there is a growing trend of prosecutions over wrongful-death suits like this one; however, these delusional nut-jobs can often still get away with neglecting their children under the protection of religious exemption laws. These kids shouldn’t have to die before their parents are charged with child abuse. Unfortunately, the state’s tolerance of these lunatics only further justifies to them the “scientific” legitimacy of their faith. I guess I can’t blame them for that though. After all, Massachusetts considers Christian Science Practitioners just as qualified as doctors to write medical recommendations to a court. The fact that insurance companies also bill for their “professional services” only helps to perpetuate this illusion of legitimacy. This is obviously an egregious abuse of religious freedom. These kooks should have the right to worship whatever the hell they wish, but they should not have a right to impersonate licensed physicians and needlessly jeopardize the health of their children.
So it goes... In the meantime, I think I will use this lunacy to my advantage and have a local Christian Scientist get me out of having to perform my civic duties.
Parking space, house. What’s the fucking difference?
Xavier MacTavish makes his Inebriated Discourse debut by decrying the amount of shitty drivers on the road.
Have you ever been driving around, either aimlessly or perhaps with a specific objective in mind, and you're suddenly overwhelmed with the need to fulfill a Grand Theft Auto-esque fantasy? I’m not talking about loading up on automatic weapons, killing a few hookers and shooting down helicopters with an RPG. It’s that all-too-familiar desire to plow full speed into the jackass in front of you and eliminate their dumb-fuck driving from the streets for the benefit of mankind. I know I’m not the only one. It happens so often that I cannot possibly be alone here. We have a widespread problem on our hands and there is absolutely nothing we can do about it short of cursing a blue streak at our windshield and pounding our fists on the steering wheel.
Unfortunately, we decent and attentive drivers are not the only casualties of this predicament. There are millions of indirect victims that have been shouldering the blame of poor driving for years. These victims are our “new” drivers and “old” drivers. Namely, teenagers and seniors. Here in Massachusetts, there has been a substantial campaign to establish forms of testing for our elders behind the wheel in order to reduce the number of Bonnevilles plowing through store fronts and school crosswalks. Any time some shithead in high school gets caught racing or totaling the family van, articles cloud the papers pushing our need to raise the minimum age for licensing. Considering I fit into neither of these age groups, I could give two shits if they do either. What perturbs me though, is the overwhelming amount of god-awful driving that still exist in the all-important age 18-65 demographic. Male and female alike. I’m no chauvinist, ladies.
Look people, this is 2010. It’s safe to say these days that every vehicle is equipped with both a left and right turn signal. We use these to alert other drivers of our upcoming intentions on the road. So when you suddenly slam on the brakes in the middle of a main road with someone only a few car-lengths behind, don’t look so pissed when you hear a long draw on the horn and catch a middle finger in your rear-view. Yes, that’s me pointing at your face in the mirror, telling you you’re a fucking douchebag.
Parking lots have become just as bad. Notice the multiple parallel and perpendicular lines on the concrete? These are predetermined spaces for people to neatly arrange cars, preventing chaos and paint-loss. Just because you drive an X5 or a fucking Escalade doesn’t give you the right to take up two spaces to widen the space between your car and others (especially when you have a primo spot near the damn entrance!). It takes entirely too much effort to refrain from carving obscenities in their hood with a Swiss army knife.
Trust me, I’m going somewhere with this.
I’m suggesting we stop looking at opposite ends of the spectrum in this debate, and take it all in. To do that, three truths need to be realized:
1. Driving a quarter mile, pulling over, doing a 3-point turn and coming to a complete stop are not enough criteria to determine attaining a license, especially at age 16.
2. It is common fucking knowledge that as people age, their eyesight and reflexes diminish. To not evaluate their competence because they whine about their freedom is retarded. We’ve been forcing people to give up their freedom for worse reasons than that for years. (Been to an airport lately?)
3. There are some dumb goddamn people in this country.
We are left with only one option. That is yearly or bi-yearly testing. For everyone. No more of these three-minute driving tests that require no talent or decision-making either. An evaluator should spend considerable time with the driver while they perform the daily routine, seeing reactions and normal driving habits (like loud music, texting, and make-up application). If you fail, you lose your license for two weeks and are forced to pay for a retest. A second fail? Two more weeks and heftier fee. Strike three? A month of expensive and extensive Driver’s Ed. We can go on all day.
I don’t know this just makes sense to me. Think about the jobs we’d be creating and money that would roll in. Not to mention how many stupid pricks we could take off the road! You might get to work a little sooner, maybe spend the day in a better mood. Otherwise we may be forced to continue losing patience with friends and family because some officious prick cuts you off with nobody behind you.
Thanks to today’s predictable 5-4 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission, corporations will now be able to buy elections directly, without having to go through the inconveniences of adhering to, and trying to circumvent, state and federal campaign finance laws. This decision means that the corporations may now spend as much as they want on behalf of their preferred candidates. In other words, if Goldman Sachs were to come up with an algorithm that would enable them to spend $∞(infinity dollars) in support of a candidate, they could, because according to the Supreme Court, (1) Corporations are persons; and (2) Money is speech. Hence the rather Orwellian conclusion: All Americans have a right to free speech, but some have more speech than others.
The ruling applies to unions and other organizations as well, but given the vastly deeper pockets of corporate America, the implications of the decision are clear. This development should be ridiculed by liberals and conservatives alike, because frankly, this decision takes yet another step towards fascism—a merging of state and corporate power in nation of citizens that can be whipped into a patriotic frenzy on a moment’s notice, and thus, be conditioned to ignore the gradual destruction of their democracy.
Writing the majority opinion, Justice Anthony Kennedy penned one of the most buffoonish lines ever to appear in a Supreme Court decision—a line that will go down in infamy along with some of the doozies from Dred Scott v. Sandford, Plessy v. Ferguson, Buck v. Bell, and Korematsu v. United States:
“Because speech is an essential mechanism of democracy—it is the means to hold officials accountable to the people—political speech must prevail against laws that would suppress it by design or inadvertence.”
By itself, there is nothing wrong with this line. It is akin to something one might find in the papers of Jefferson. However, since it is being written to justify giving private tyrannies the ability to spend indefinite amounts of money in order to achieve a desired electoral outcome, this remark makes a total mockery of the First Amendment. Apparently it does not occur to Kennedy that even though corporations are “persons,” their interests may differ greatly from those of natural persons. In the overall context of this case, Kennedy’s phrase “accountable to the people” reads like a sick joke.
Naturally, the business world is ecstatic. From the Wall Street Journal: the court decision “rips the duct tape off the mouths of the American people.” It’s an “unequivocal victory” for people “who believe in free speech and the rights of organizations…to promote [their] point of view,” no matter how destructive they are to liberty, equality, and other elements of free society.
The Republican leadership in Washington, which consists mostly of fake conservatives, welcomed the ruling as well. While Democrats are also the beneficiaries of corporate money, the GOP is expected to reap more of the fruits of the court’s decision.
“The decision may boost Republicans as they aim to recapture congressional seats in the November election. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky was among those urging the court to lift the corporate spending restrictions, while the Democratic National Committee backed the limits.”
The American philosopher John Dewey once said, “Politics is the shadow cast on society by big business.” What an understatement that has turned out to be.
A much more appropriate version of the American flag.
Recently Thomas Frank, author of What’s the Matter with Kansas and The Wrecking Crew was on Bill Moyers’ Journal where the two had an outstanding conversation about contemporary American conservatism. If you have twelve minutes to spare at some point, I highly recommend watching it.
The main thrust of Frank’s argument in The Wrecking Crew is that American conservatives want to create a culture of government failure: It’s a good point of departure for what I am going to discuss:
What conservatism in this country is about is government failure. Conservatives talk about government failure all the time, constantly. And conservatives, when they're in power deliver government failure…And sometimes from design...
Not always from design, but often. The Department of Labor, for example, the conservatives when they’re in office, routinely stuff the Department of Labor full of ideological cranks. And people that don't believe in the mission.
And the result is that it doesn’t—they don’t enforce anything. Towards the very end of the Bush-era, the Department of Labor had been whittled down. It was a shell of its former self. And at the very end of the Bush Administration, one of the government accountability programs did a study of the Department of Labor. And, I’m smiling, because it's kind of amusing. It was like an old spy magazine prank.
They made up these horrendous labor violations around the country and phoned them in as complaints to the Department of Labor to see what they would do, okay? They responded to one out of ten of these, you know, where they called in as like, “Well, we got, you know, kids working in a meat packing plant during school hours. You know, can you, you going to do anything about that?” “No.” Or you look at something like the Securities and Exchange Commission. These guys are supposed to be regulating, you know, the investment banks, okay? Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, that sort of thing. These guys were so under-funded, and not just under-funded, but you had people in charge of it who didn’t believe in regulating Wall Street.
As I noted in my post about the conservative backlash to Howard Zinn’s The People Speak on History, government is obviously geared toward maintaining the status quo. It will not change unless pressured to do so by the masses. While we should always be skeptical of government, we should also realize that government can be a positive outlet through which to exercise the power of the people.
American conservatives will have none of this. They are concerned with people power only insofar as it will help elect politicians who want to make government—and thus by extension the general population—virtually irrelevant. In this way, contemporary American conservatism is extremely undemocratic, as it seeks to discredit or destroy the role of government even where it is welcomed as in the cases of social security or Medicare. As a corollary to this, what is termed the “free market” is understood by conservatives to be the be-all end-all of society. If only the government would get out of the way, they say, the market would provide us with everything we need.
Except they don’t want government totally out of the way. As a reservoir of taxpayer money for corporate subsidies and the Pentagon budget, conservatives very much want government involved in the “free market.” America’s military expenditures are a good illustration of this, and rarely do they come under fire from either party for being too high despite the fact that the U.S. military budget is about $600 billion more than the world’s second highest total, which belongs to China, a major U.S. trading partner. One of the worst kept secrets of the Pentagon budget is that its immense size has more to do with military Keynesianism and pork-barrel spending than national security. The lesson that many economists learned from World War II was that heavy government spending could lead to substantial economic growth. After the war, the way to keep up America’s wartime economic boom, they argued, was to keep arms expenditures relatively high even in peacetime. Over the next several decades, trillions of dollars in taxpayer money would be invested into the private sector for arms and technology. Many of the technological developments that came as a result of public funding turned out to be useful for civilian purposes as well as military, such as computers, the internet, cell phones, and GPS.
Standard free market principles dictate that when investment results in the successful and ongoing production of a commodity or service, the investors receive a return on the capital they provided toward that very end. But the “free market” envisioned by American conservatives is quite different. In this scenario, the taxpayers do not get a return in the traditional sense of the word, but rather an opportunity to simply purchase that which their money made possible—cell phones, computers, etc. Applying conservative “free market” principles on a smaller scale for a moment, imagine that your friend wants to start a restaurant and convinces you to invest say, $5,000 in startup capital. A year later, his restaurant is booming with business. When you ask him for a return on your investment, he tells you that you may stop by anytime during business hours to buy a nice meal and that this is your share of the spoils.
This is the exact same principle at work with the Pentagon budget.
Or take the now-forgotten misnamed Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005, incidentally passed by a Republican congress with Democratic support not long before the housing bubble collapse/foreclosure boom of 2007-08. A very anti-capitalist piece of legislation, this law makes it more difficult for individuals and businesses to file for bankruptcy under Chapter 7. Not surprisingly it was fervently supported by the credit industry who had been lobbying for a bill like it for years. Under this law, many debtors wishing to file for bankruptcy have had to file under Chapter 13 of the federal bankruptcy code, which requires that a certain percentage of the total debt be paid back within five years, rather than simply liquidating existing assets for repayment purposes as under Chapter 7.
Lending is an inherently risky endeavor. While some loans carry less risk than others, there is always the possibility of default. Lenders assume the risks in the hopes of reaping interest on the principal. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn’t. Either way, free market principles dictate that it is up to the lenders to assess the risks involved and determine whether a loan would be a good investment. Free market principles also dictate that it is not up to the government to help investors recoup losses because they made bad loans. (A lesson unfortunately not recalled by Congress during the TARP vote.) In fact, now that they found themselves with stronger government-guaranteed protection from defaults, and with no provisions in the law for curtailing the issuance of predatory loans, creditors became even more cavalier in their lending, at least before the housing crisis.
These examples are typical of the conservative position of the role of government vis-Ã -vis the “free market.” Rather than the government having no role, as conservatives like to proclaim, time and again they have shown that they believe government should intervene in the markets, and always on the side of business. As such, American conservatives favor the “redistribution” of wealth to the already well-off through these and other mechanisms, such as tax cuts, which apparently in and of themselves constitute a comprehensive economic policy.
Regarding health care, one of the few coherent arguments against a government-run insurance option emanating from conservatives was that the government would be able to undermine private insurance because government doesn’t need to make a profit. And that’s absolutely correct. But what does that say about the state of American conservatism when Republicans can offer, as an actual argument, that even though the government can provide affordable health care to millions of Americans, such a program would be unfair because the private sector would not be able to compete? Here again we see the high priority given to markets by American conservatives: people have a right to profit from health insurance, but they don’t have a right to health insurance. And given medical costs, not having a right to health insurance essentially means not having a right to health.
The appearance of the “death panel” myth in the public discourse on health insurance last summer seemed quite effective in convincing some of the more ignorant citizens that the government is evil. Again, by extension, this means that democracy is evil. Implicit in the American conservative message is that the population has to be taken out of the equation, with their representatives serving only to dismantle the last vestiges of a once functioning democratic society in order to make way for the wonders of “capitalism.”
Of course, the U.S. doesn’t have capitalism. What we have instead is a corporatist system, which may very well be the inevitable sum of capitalism plus dysfunctional democracy. But conservatives are not concerned about the democratic deficit in American society. Indeed they welcome it. In their eyes, the people (government) have to get out of the way so the markets can do their thing, even if it means marginalizing the majority of the population.
