S.E. Cupp: As stupid as she is attractive

It may be safely assumed that if S.E. Cupp looked like CNN’s Candy Crowley, no one would know who she is. But just like Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann, because Cupp is attractive, her stupidity matters far less to those who find favor with her.

I do not make the “stupid” charge cavalierly. Anyone who is familiar with Cupp’s downright nonsensical position that although she doesn’t believe a god exists, she nonetheless wants the president of the world’s most powerful country to believe otherwise. Put another way, she wishes for a president who answers to what she basically says is a figment of his imagination. Kind of like a schizophrenic.

Her latest column for the New York Daily News is an attack on Ron Paul in what amounts to a fourth-grade foray into international affairs—a complete mindfuck of gibberish, non sequiturs, and just plain ignorance of US foreign policy:

The problem is that Ron Paul’s America would be a scary place to live in. So would the rest of the world.

That’s not because he would, as he has so often promised, end the Federal Reserve or the Department of Education, but because he would end our history of fighting brutal regimes and human rights abuses around the world.

And what about our history of favoring and supporting brutal regimes and human rights abuses around the world? Cupp does not address this aspect or even acknowledge its existence.

She then proceeds with a familiar line of attack, made popular by Bush, Rudy Giuliani, and other neocon nincompoops who refuse to understand what the 9/11 attacks were about:

It goes beyond getting out of Iraq and Afghanistan. On 9/11, his position is that we started it. “Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda have been explicit,” he said in Monday’s debate in Tampa, “and they wrote and said that we attacked America because you had bases on our holy land in Saudi Arabia, you do not give Palestinians fair treatment, and you have been bombing . . .” His argument was cut off by a chorus of boos.

He concluded that “we had been bombing and killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqis for 10 years,” which is untrue, then asked, “Would you be annoyed? If you’re not annoyed, then there's some problem.”

Ron Paul’s explanation for the 9/11 attacks is shared the CIA, the 9/11 Commission, and anyone who’s ever studied US foreign policy for more than 15 minutes, using sources other than Sean Hannity. The 9/11 attacks were of course examples of “blowback”—the unintended negative consequences of US foreign policy. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that if you meddle in the domestic affairs of other countries—overthrowing the democratically elected government of Iran in 1954, installing the Shah in its place, supporting Saddam Hussein in the 1980s, imposing a devastating sanctions regime on Iraq in the 1990s that wiped out hundreds of thousands of people, bombing a critically important pharmaceutical factory in Sudan in 1998, supporting dictatorial regimes as in Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Bahrain, Egypt and elsewhere, among other crimes—it’s going to cause widespread resentment among the civilian populations in those places.

But instead of comprehending this fundamental axiom of not just international relations, but basic human interaction, Cupp takes an all too familiar swipe at Paul:

The idea that Bin Laden was justified in his violence is dangerous and patently anti-American.

Ah yes, the old, “Giving an explanation for 9/11 that goes beyond the they-hate-us-for-our-freedoms mantra means you are justifying their crimes and hate America” shtick. If this is true, then surely the American CIA hates America, because it’s concluded the same thing. Maybe in her next column, Cupp will write about how Langley needs to be purged of all its anti-Americans.

Continuing on,

This is what the founders advised,” Paul says. “We were not meant to be the policemen of the world.” One is left wondering, then, what President Paul would have done about Hitler or Pol Pot. What would he have done about Rwanda or Bosnia? What would he do now about North Korea?

Cupp isn’t helping her own case here by citing these examples, which show what a putz she is. With the exception of one these, the answer to her question is, the same thing all those other presidents did in those situations.

What would Ron Paul have done about Hitler? Probably the same thing Franklin Roosevelt did after Germany’s Japanese allies bombed Pearl Harbor: asked for a declaration of war on the Axis powers.

About Pol Pot, he would’ve done nothing, just like Carter did. In fact, Carter provided military support to the Khmer Rouge after Vietnam invaded in 1979. And that was our “human rights president.” For his part, when he took office Reagan continued to recognize the overthrown Khmer Rouge as the legitimate government.

Rwanda? Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe the US did nothing, again, with the Clinton administration taking its sweet time before it could bring itself to calling the slaughter of 20% of the Rwandan population a genocide.

Bosnia? Does she really mean Bosnia, as in the small peacekeeping mission the US had there for about a decade? Or does she mean to say Kosovo, for which we bombed Serbian civilians and after which the ethnic cleansing actually increased? Who knows? Who cares?

And regarding North Korea, Obama and his predecessor have largely ignored them, save for the imposition of trade sanctions. Truth be told, if Ron Paul were president, I doubt we’d see a big shift in US policy vis-à-vis North Korea.

What’s the matter, S.E.? Didn’t want to mention Darfur where the US did nothing also? I’m sure she would’ve mentioned the ghastly civil war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo that killed over 5 million people, but she’d first have to know that that country exists. The US didn’t intervene there either.

The US of course didn’t really intervene in any of these places for the plain fact that there was nothing to be gained geopolitically from doing so. Or at least, the costs were perceived to outweigh the potential benefits. On the other hand, Iraq, which the US invaded, sits on an ocean of oil. Saudi Arabia, despite its tyranny, is a US ally because it too has a shitload of petroleum. Ditto for the monarchy in Bahrain, which hosts the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet. Cupp makes it sounds like a Ron Paul presidency would allow dictators free reign. But at least then we wouldn’t be supporting them.

- Max

I don't care if Obama loses in 2012

America's most powerful conservative

Against my better judgment, I’ve been commenting on stories on Huffington Post lately. Usually my comments are about how Barack Obama has failed both as a president and a liberal. There is little that distinguishes him from George W. Bush, save for some progressive rhetoric that is ultimately unaccompanied by action. Any honest and politically literate progressive knows this. The only supposed liberals who seem to really believe in Obama can be found on MSNBC or on the Washington Post editorial page—centrists posing as liberals, because they have allowed themselves to be dragged rightward by the craven corporate whores in the modern Democratic Party.

Even the liberal commenters on Huffington Post and Daily Kos have given up defending Obama with any degree of fervency. Most of them, anyway. A few die-hards remain, but their minds are impervious to reality, a la that infamous 30% of the population that was still approving of George W. Bush’s performance at the tail end of his second term.

Despite this widespread disappointment, I am frequently criticized for my Election Day 2012 plans, which do not include a trip to the polls, except perhaps to cast a Green for president and maybe a vote for my congressman. I voted for Barack Obama in 2008. I will not vote for him again. That much is certain. Even if I lived in a swing state like Ohio or Pennsylvania, I still would not vote for Obama. And it is here, for many liberals, where my need for “ideological purity” comes under fire. Whether it’s on the threads of HuffPost or when I’m having drinks with liberal friends, the specter of a Rick Perry/Michele Bachmann/Mitt Romney is always raised, as if failing to vote for Obama next year—despite my disappointment with him on almost every major issue—will haunt me until my dying breath.

Liberals insist that liberals must vote for Barack Obama because if we don’t, who knows what whackadoodle could be our next president, as if that outcome would be anyone’s fault but Barack Obama’s.

I for one am not going to allow myself to be scared into the voting booth at the mere mention of Rick Perry, Mitt Romney or anyone else. No doubt, however, that millions of other liberals certainly will. And that’s a problem. It sends a message to the Establishment-oriented Obama, and all other Democrats present and future, that to secure the “base” of the party, one need only frighten those in it with the prospect of a theocratic supply-side dystopia if Republican candidate X wins the election.

And maybe that’s true. Maybe that’s what we need in this country. Apparently, Bush didn’t make things bad enough in order for endless war, permanent tax cuts, and the trampling of the Bill of Rights to be deemed bad ideas by either party. After all, these buffooneries have continued apace into this so-called liberal administration, which has doled out trillions to the financial sector while destroying the savings of the general population, which eagerly awaits a jobs plan that they will no doubt be terribly disappointed by.

If Obama manages to win reelection, it would be a disaster for liberalism rather than a boost. Since Obama is not an actual liberal, his reelection would demonstrate that, electorally, core New Deal Democratic values don’t really matter on a substantive level, only at a very superficial rhetorical one. It would vindicate former press secretary Robert Gibbs’ dismissive assertion that only the “professional left” is disaffected with the president, meaning anyone who gives a shit about protecting America’s working class from corporate marauders, several of which populate the administration itself.

If Obama is defeated in 2012, the pundit class will proffer every explanation possible for the outcome, except for the correct one—that Obama is a centrist whose shamelessly pro-corporate policies failed to effect positive change in the lives of ordinary Americans during the worst financial crisis in 80 years.

- Max

Herman Cain perfectly summarizes Tea Party social values

Herman “The First Amendment Doesn’t Apply To Muslims” Cain

One of the great misconceptions about the Tea Party is that it’s driven mainly by concerns about the economy and the national debt. And for some members, that is certainly the case. However, as the current race for the GOP nomination shows, even those candidates who have labored to co-opt Tea Partyism simply can’t help themselves when it comes to engaging in Lee Atwater-esque social wedge issue campaigning. Witness the candidates tripping over themselves in attempting to secure the fetus vote, the obligatory tough talk on illegal immigration, and references to god, religion, and other bunkum.

Before today I thought the candidacy of former Godfather Pizza CEO Herman Cain served only one function: To demonstrate the non-racism of the Tea Party crowd by giving them an opportunity to say nice things about an African-American. But now I realize he serves another function: To make Michele Bachmann look like Madame Curie.

Explaining why he opposes the building of the now-forgotten proposed mosque in Murfeesboro, Tennessee, Cain told the AP this about the allegedly devious machinations of that project:

“It is an infringement and an abuse of our freedom of religion,”[…]“And I don't agree with what's happening, because this isn’t an innocent mosque.”

So Herman Cain opposes the building of a mosque because “it is an infringement and an abuse of our freedom of religion.”

Read that again. Then again. And then again. Because no matter how many times you read it, it makes no fucking sense at all, unless you share Cain’s bizarro interpretation of freedom of religion, which to him apparently means he has the freedom to choose which religions others are not free to practice. Calling the building of a mosque “an abuse of our freedom of religion,” sends a clear signal to some of the more deranged Tea Partiers that he shares their vision of an America without Muslims.

Of course, I too wish for an America without Muslims, but also one without Christians, and Hindus, and every other practitioner of a faith premised on a belief in the supernatural. Nevertheless, we must never endeavor to hinder what is otherwise private religious practice by legislative fiat or other government mandate. For Cain to say that the mosque ought not to be built, is a direct attack on the First Amendment of the Constitution and the rights of private property. Apparently these don’t hold as much weight in Tea Party circles as some would have us believe.

- Max

Gnarly Tour de France crash

Breaking sports news video. MLB, NFL, NBA, NHL highlights and more.

I don’t care how random this post is. It’s not every day a Tour de France cyclist gets knocked into another rider by a media car, sending that guy into a barbed-wire fence. And yet, both of them finished the race.

Bruins fuck yeah!

The deterioration of America is our own damn fault

American politics in action

Never in my adult life have I felt so detached and indifferent with respect to American politics. I have always regarded it as a twisted sideshow, unfit for consumption by decent folk. But consume I have. For years I have watched and analyzed this ongoing train-wreck, first out of the hope that someday I could help play a small role in stopping it; then with the understanding that though I could not stop it, I would at least be able to comprehend it; and then finally, having realized that it is neither stoppable, nor comprehensible, I followed politics merely for my own morbid amusement.

I no longer glean much amusement from political diversions. Much hoopla has been made recently about a congressman sending photos of his penis over the internet. In two weeks, the media has spent more time on this “story” than it has explaining how and why the financial system collapsed in last two plus years. Our political debates, such as the one in New Hampshire last night, are nothing more than personality contests stripped of all substance and laden with clever one-liners that pundits use as some sort of standard of political excellence.

And maybe they are. Americans can rarely fix their attention on anything that lasts longer than seven seconds. During the debate Ron Paul no doubt left most people scratching their heads when he blundered by discussing monetary policy. Apparently he doesn’t watch much cable news; otherwise he would know that there is just no place on television for that sort of topic. Much as Americans are concerned about the economy—as they should be—they don’t care to listen or know much about it. The average American’s knowledge of economics is so shockingly deficient that it is no wonder the richest of the rich have been able to plunder middle class wealth for the past few decades. Tea Party types are right to protest wealth redistribution, but they do not seem to understand that the redistribution is upward, not downward to minorities and illegal immigrants as many of them seem to think.

There is a contingent of libertarians and survivalists who keep warning of a malevolent authoritarianism coming to America, and that the people will be ruled over by an iron fist of the kind seen in Third World countries run by military juntas. But this admonition makes a sketchy assumption—namely that Americans would care about, and fight back against, such a development. After all, a true, active dictatorship would only be necessary in America if the citizens push back against the current passive dictatorship, which is run by Wall Street oligarchs and their enablers in Washington. And yet, the populace seems so sufficiently passive, that there is no need to institute a true autocracy complete with the abolition of the Constitution and its Bill of Rights. (No doubt rights have been curtailed courtesy of the “war on terror,” but what I am referring to is the outright erasure of the Constitution by official government fiat.)

Herein is an alarming prospect, captured well in a famous comic strip about the differences between literary prophets George Orwell and Aldous Huxley. That strip reads in part:

“What Orwell feared was those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who would want to read one…

“As Huxley remarked in ‘Brave New World Revisited’ the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny ‘failed to take into account man’s almost infinite appetite for distractions.’”

In a nation where a show called “Extreme Couponing” can exist, one must wonder how much longer the culture can be viable before it turns into a society of total serfs—a gigantic idiocracy too stupid and ignorant to operate at a functioning level. It is a sad state of affairs when one of the more popular shows on television is all about fat people working out. Reality television, once criticized for being unrealistic, has with time lived up to its billing. Programs with odd premises such as Survivor have been drowned out by shows about parking enforcers, mall security cops, exterminators, pawn shop owners, and home fixer uppers. One would think Americans already have enough contact with such people, that it would be entirely unnecessary and even idiotic to air shows about such mundane everyday activities. Obviously, one would be wrong.

- Max

The obsession with and uselessness of lawns

This is what a green void looks like.

Is there anything in the world more uninspiring and mundane than a neatly kept suburban lawn? I have scoured the most imaginative nether regions of my cerebrum and, alas, have come away empty-handed. Thinking of possible contenders I could not help but recall the view I had from my dorm room as an undergraduate—that of a giant concrete staircase. I resented the view especially since those on the other side of the building enjoyed a panoramic vista of the river. Even today it still seems unfair that I was paying the same amount for room and board as those more fortunate inhabitants.

But even that bulky and aesthetically foul staircase embodied a world of possibilities that no kempt lawn ever could. For one thing, there were always people going up and down that staircase, coming and going to conduct their business. Sometimes on lazier days, reverie would take hold and I’d find myself wondering and predicting—on no evidentiary grounds whatsoever—just where exactly those people were going.

With a neat lawn, however, there are no possibilities. For the owner of this ecological wasteland will not allow it. To him, every activity that could possibly occur on that lawn is an unwelcome encroachment on his green canvas masterpiece. Ants, squirrels, chipmunks, birds, rabbits, children, and other pests must be denied access at all costs. Though these creatures be involved in the usual work and play of the animal kingdom, any sign of natural commerce or of life in general are snuffed out. The weather, unless it comes in just the right combination of sunlight and rain, often displeases him. Too much sunlight will scorch his green rug; too much rain will drown it. Even the grass itself is not permitted to grow beyond a certain length. But all other things being equal, a well kept lawn will look the same this week as it did the last, especially if the caretaker has a regular mowing schedule, which he undoubtedly does.

And what function does this lovely lush lawn serve? Why, to show the neighbors and all who pass by what a lovely lush lawn the owner has. Like Christmas lights carefully placed around shrubbery in front of a house in December, the lawn is (in some places) a year-round reminder that the master of the house gives a damn about keeping up appearances. This of course is not a function, but rather a matter of cosmetics. A man may chide his wife for being fussy about makeup, but in the finicky department, a man and his dear lawn will always put her to shame.

Not only do millions of people keep up their lawns with a tenderness typically reserved for favored children and pets, but many of them insist that their neighbors do likewise, but perhaps not so much as to put his cookie-cutter creation to shame. No, the prideful lawn owner wants his neighbors to mow their lawns, uproot unseemly dandelions, and perhaps even strategically plant some pre-grown flowers, lest the shabby appearance of an adjacent property affect the market value of his own. Such busybodies have succeeded in influencing the levers of local government and even populate it. Peruse the bylaws of any suburban municipality and you will likely find an ordinance or two ironically instructing the locals in how their personal property ought to be maintained.

As hideous as that imposing concrete staircase was, and still is, it is a testament to productive human activity. Thousands of feet have trampled its steps and it is no worse for the wear. I have no doubt it looks the same now as it did when I was undergraduate, all the while requiring no maintenance save for the occasional winter salting. A lawn can make no such claims. It has no function. It bears no fruit. It features little or no animal activity if the owner can help it. It seldom if ever hosts a wiffle ball game or a bocce match. It is a patch of nothing.

This weekend, millions of people will tend to their patches of nothing with a sense of pride that continues to befuddle me. While other less lawn-bound people are hiking, kayaking, attending a museum or a play, or even just reading a good book, the lawn man shall go a-mowing, a-weeding, a-planting, and maybe even a-mulching. When he nears the end of his life, he may even stop to think in what sort of condition his gravesite will be kept. Perhaps that will be his greatest regret in life—that he will not be around to tend his final lawn.

- Max

The fruitless search for self

We are all wired into a survival trip now. No more of the speed that fueled that 60s. That was the fatal flaw in Tim Leary's trip. He crashed around America selling “consciousness expansion” without ever giving a thought to the grim meat-hook realities that were lying in wait for all the people who took him seriously. All those pathetically eager acid freaks who thought they could buy Peace and Understanding for three bucks a hit. But their loss and failure is ours too. What Leary took down with him was the central illusion of a whole life-style that he helped create; a generation of permanent cripples, failed seekers, who never understood the essential old-mystic fallacy of the Acid Culture: the desperate assumption that somebody—or at least some force—is tending the light at the end of the tunnel.

So wrote Hunter S. Thompson as he reflected on the rise and fall of LSD as a viable door of perception. Dropping acid in the sixties was often an act of rebellion against ubiquitous materialism and consumerism. Like religion, it was used as a tool to apprehend something transcendently meaningful. It satisfied an age-old psychological urge by helping create the impression that some force is indeed tending the light at the end of the tunnel.

These days LSD is largely out of fashion. The kinds of people who would’ve taken acid in the sixties today resort to weed, meth, and other drugs whose chief effect is not “consciousness expansion,” but consciousness numbing. Rather than actively seek a path to illusory enlightenment, the chief aim of drug use today is mere psychological aloofness. Of course, smoking endless bales of marijuana is hardly a prerequisite for entry into the counterculture, which today is characterized by a fair amount of nonchalant douchebaggery in the form of nihilistic hipsters who seek meaning—but only ironically—through half-baked art house performances of topless body painting and male go-go dancing set to the theme song of Golden Girls, all while the audience samples fine artisanal cheeses.

But enough about the skin-tight jeans faction. How has the rest of America been coping with the constant cacophony of chaotic commercialism? To answer this, one need only consult the latest list of bestselling nonfiction paperbacks. Here is a sampling of titles.

Heaven is for Real. “A boy’s encounter with Jesus and the angels.”

Have a Little Faith. “A suburban rabbi and a Detroit pastor teach lessons about the comfort of belief.”

Drive. “A look at what truly motivates us, and how we can use that knowledge to work smarter and live better.”

90 Minutes in Heaven. “A minister on the otherworldly experience he had after an accident.”

Eat, Pray, Love. “A writer’s journey in search of self takes her to Italy, India and Indonesia.”

The Checklist Manifesto. “The power of a simple idea to manage the increasing complexity of life.”

If the popularity of these books is any indication, the search for self is not only underway, but profitable. Indeed, “self,” not space, may very well be the final frontier. But the average American’s self, like space, is a vast expanse of nothingness containing just a few if any fleeting flashes of supernova-like brilliance that must ultimately give way to destitute black holes capable of only consumption, not creation. Hence the insatiable consumerism and the path of devastation it leaves in its wake. This realization is what awaits all honest seekers of self. Unfortunately—or perhaps fortunately—very few will arrive at this point. Indeed, humans may have even developed an internal survival mechanism to prevent such a realization from occurring. At least, people in the United States seem to have. It is difficult to imagine America producing a Camus, for example, for the plain fact that his ideas threaten the American dogma that one must exist for something else—god, spouse, children, society, etc.—instead of existing for existence’s sake.

Like the cockeyed acid heads before them, today’s group of self-seekers assumes that some cosmic manager is minding the store. With science’s destruction of faith-based explanations for natural phenomena virtually complete, and the creeping absurdism that accompanies it, we can now perceive the rise of a one-size-fits-all “spirituality” that is slowly encroaching upon the territory of Old Time Religion. Of course, the die-hards will remain, praising Jebus and whatnot until their dying breath. But as for the rest, they will become increasingly receptive to the gobbledygook preached by Wayne Dyer, Tony Robbins, Mitch Albom, and other garbage salesmen who incorporate a elusive spiritualism that on one hand satisfies the American need for religious mumbo-jumbo, while on the other is so vague that it can appeal to anyone who thinks there has to be something “out there.”

But there is nothing out there—nothing that can possibly be ascertained by our mortal minds, anyway. And not only is there no one tending the light at the end of the tunnel, there is no light at all.

On the Afghan response to the Florida BBQur'an

“A believer wounded by the nonbelievers. A nonbeliever wounded by the believers.”

Cited in Le Devoir

During his first year in office, President Barack Obama justified his decision to send an additional 30,000 soldiers to Afghanistan by declaring, “We’re in Afghanistan to prevent a cancer.” Recalling the perpetrators of the September 11^th attacks, he said,

As we know, these men belonged to al Qaeda – a group of extremists who have distorted and defiled Islam, one of the world’s great religions, to justify the slaughter of innocents….

[S]hortly after taking office, I approved a long-standing request for more troops. After consultations with our allies, I then announced a strategy recognizing the fundamental connection between our war effort in Afghanistan, and the extremist safe-havens in Pakistan. I set a goal that was narrowly defined as disrupting, dismantling, and defeating al Qaeda and its extremist allies, and pledged to better coordinate our military and civilian effort.

Islam-inspired extremism, then, is the enemy thus defined. Fast forward to April Fool’s Day last week, when over one thousand rioters in the Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif were certainly not fooling when they killed seven United Nations employees and beheaded two of them. This was the mob justice meted out in response to the burning of a Qur’an by a pastor in Florida, quite obviously a development with which the UN workers had nothing to do. Clearly, Obama is right to be concerned about “al Qaeda and its extremist allies,” but what is particularly instructive about this savagery is that it occurred in a city that is under the control of the US-backed government led by the corrupt Hamid Karzai, who according to a New York Times article, actually helped incite the rioters:

Both Afghan and international news media had initially played down or ignored the actions of [Terry] Jones, the Florida pastor. On Thursday, however, President Karzai made a speech and issued statements condemning the Koran burning and calling for the arrest of Mr. Jones for his actions. On Friday, that theme was picked up in mosques throughout Afghanistan.

“Karzai brought this issue back to life, and he has to take some responsibility for starting this up,” said a prominent Afghan businessman, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution if he was identified as a critic of the president.

If it’s extremists President Obama is after, he need look no further than the Karzai government he supports; not to mention the depravedly excitable people of Mazar-i-Sharif, who represent not an insubstantial faction of religious zealots who are not in an officially designated terrorist organization. With citizens of a US-allied government like these, who needs al Qaeda?

- Max

Paul Ryan's proposes neoliberal junta budget

“We’re gonna get ridda your Medicare and you’re gonna like it. Capisce?”

I just finished perusing the Republican budget proposal for fiscal year 2012. It was unveiled at a news conference today by Wall Street bailer-outer Paul Ryan and about fifteen House Republicans; and with the exception of one woman, all were white men over the age of 40.

The GOP proposal is like something you’d find being advanced by a 1980s Latin American military junta hoping to win favor with the IMF and World Bank in order to obtain loans. The budget plan calls for $6.2 trillion in cuts over the next ten years, but still wouldn’t lead to a balanced budget until the late 2030s. Part of the reason is its insane call for huge permanent tax cuts for individuals and corporations, including drastically lowering both the top individual and corporate tax rates to 25% from 35%. The proposal would eliminate the 2010 health care reform law. Naturally, the Pentagon’s budget is barely touched, and the GOP proposal has essentially deferred to Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ budgetary recommendations. Most of egregious of all, however, is that the GOP plan eliminates Medicare. Of course, that’s not the word Republicans are using. They’re saying they’re saving Medicare by reforming it, but Republicans want to save Medicare in the same sense that Lieutenant Calley saved My Lai village by ordering it destroyed.

Here’s the crux of the GOP’s plan to eliminate Medicare:

Starting in 2022, new Medicare beneficiaries will be enrolled in the same kind of health care program that members of Congress enjoy. Future Medicare recipients will be able to choose from a list of guaranteed coverage options, and they will be given the ability to choose a plan that works best for them. This is not a voucher program, but rather a premium-support model. A Medicare premium-support payment would be paid, by Medicare, to the plan chosen by the beneficiary, subsidizing its cost.

The premium-support model would operate similar to the way the Medicare prescription-drug benefit program works today. The Medicare premium-support payment would be adjusted so that wealthier beneficiaries would receive a lower subsidy, the sick would receive a higher payment if their conditions worsened, and lower-income seniors would receive additional assistance to cover out-of-pocket costs.

This is interesting considering how similar it is to what Republicans call Obamacare. In the same budget proposal, Republicans are advocating the repeal of the president’s health care law with its sliding scale government subsidies allocated based on personal income levels, while simultaneously calling for the implementation of the same general plan for people who turn 65 after 2021. Even though this is the kind of idea that Republicans find worthy of the “socialist” epithet, they’re pushing this approach because it is much less socialistic than the current single-payer Medicare system.

What is surprising about the GOP’s proposed abolition of Medicare as we know it, is the brazen manner in which it’s being presented. Medicare is a very popular government program, even more so than private health insurance, which is remarkable considering that its only customers are people over 65—a demographic that can sometimes be difficult to please. Furthermore, everyone who is under the age of fifty-five right now would be affected by this change, which will have the surely anticipated effect of increasing out-of-pocket expenses. This is because there is nothing to prevent private health insurance premiums from continuing to rise at a rate that outpaces wage growth or inflation. Will the GOP’s premium-support model contain provisions for adjusting subsidies based on premium increases or will it be subject to a cost of living adjustment scheme that lags behind these hikes? Most likely the latter, since the whole point of “reforming” Medicare is for the government to spend less on it, and for the citizens to spend more. Even if this reality does not explicitly enter the minds of Americans under 55, they are still going to have some serious questions about gutting a program that has done well by their parents and other elderly loved ones. Frankly, I anticipate that the GOP’s Medicare proposal will be rebuked by the electorate with extreme prejudice.

On a related note, Ryan’s budget also contains a long-sought wet dream of the American right, federal tort reform. In this case, tort reform means placing a cap on damages rewarded by juries in medical malpractice lawsuits. By implementing a ceiling on damages, so the argument goes, malpractice insurers won’t have to pay out as much money in lawsuits, meaning the insurers could lower the premiums they charge doctors and hospitals, meaning the doctors and hospitals could lower what they charge to HMOs for providing those HMOs’ customers with care, meaning the HMOs could lower premiums for their customers, i.e., the American people. Notice that the American people are last in this wondrous chain of trickle down tort reform. Of all the entities in this relationship, patients are likely to benefit the least simply by virtue of being the furthest removed from where the reform is being initiated. That is, of course, unless you’ve been the victim of medical malpractice, in which case you’d be right in the thick of it, as you’d be unable to reap the kinds of damages you would have been under various state laws, which brings me to my next point.

Not a day goes by when some prominent Republican doesn’t decry increasing encroachments by the federal government on states’ rights and individual liberty. And yet one of the key proposals in Republican health care reform has been the enactment of a federal tort reform law that would supersede state laws pertaining to medical malpractice. I’m not quite sure how conservatives square that one.

As if these proposals weren’t bad enough, we come to Ryan’s not-so surprising take on the Pentagon’s budget, which defers to the Obama administration’s insistence that the decades-long boondoggle for military contractors is maintained:

Reflects $178 billion in savings identified by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, reinvesting $100 billion in higher military priorities and dedicating the rest to deficit reduction.

Nice try, but that’s not $178 billion in savings. It’s $78 billion in savings. Spending $100 billion on weapons programs X, Y and Z instead of A, B and C because you deemed the latter projects wasteful doesn’t mean you saved $100 billion; it just means you spent that money, but more wisely (you think). Of course, this is the Pentagon we’re talking about, which has seen it appropriate to spend more than the GDP of Australia to build thousands of F-35 fighter jets to fight al Qaeda’s nonexistent air force.

Obviously the Republicans don’t expect all or even most of their ideas to make it into whatever FY 2012 budget finally gets passed. Nonetheless, they are hoping to frame and control the nature of the budget debate. By putting Medicare essentially on the chopping block in their budget, the GOP wants this proposal germinate into something that they hope will soon become “mainstream,” or at least be seen as a viable policy prescription.

As far as the Obama administration’s response to this plan goes, anything short of derisive laughter, mockery, and criticism will not do. When it comes to Medicare and Social Security, the electorate is on the side of the Democrats, who historically have enacted and protected these programs. Whenever the Republicans win an election, they always seem to overreach. Whether it was George W. Bush after the 2004 election proposing the privatization of Social Security, the unpopular gutting of labor unions in Wisconsin, or the proposed elimination of Medicare, Republican economic policy is starkly at odds with what Americans want. Sure, the GOP can cite polls saying people want them to crackdown on wasteful spending or some other vague idea that virtually everyone can get on board with, but once you get into the specifics, once you start asking people if they want their Medicare or Social Security or unemployment benefits messed with, that’s when the GOP hits serious resistance. This budget proposal is no different and is pure folly, and if there is a shutdown of the government, Obama will be able to point to the GOP Medicare proposal and tell Americans that the Republicans are after their Medicare and soon their Social Security.

That’s assuming Obama doesn’t cave once again, but at this point who the hell knows?

- Max

Muslim savages behead UN workers in Afghanistan in response to Koran burning in Florida

MAZAR-I-SHARIF, Afghanistan — Stirred up by a trio of angry mullahs who urged them to avenge the burning of a Koran at a Florida church, thousands of protesters overran the compound of the United Nations in this northern Afghan city, killing at least 12 people, Afghan and United Nations officials said.

The dead included at least seven United Nations workers — five Nepalese guards and two Europeans, one of them a woman. None were Americans. Early reports, later denied by Afghan officials, said at least two of the dead had been beheaded…

Unable to find Americans on whom to vent their anger, the mob turned instead on the next-best symbol of Western intrusion — the nearby United Nations headquarters. “Some of our colleagues were just hunted down,” said a spokesman for the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, Kieran Dwyer, confirming the attack.

New York Times

Once again Islam’s theocrackpots have held up their “religion of peace” for all to see. What does it say about the level of fanaticism when the desecration of a Koran by redneck pastor Terry Jones, (who last year threatened to, but ultimately did not burn the Koran) thousands of miles away can whip up a mob up into a homicidal frenzy to the point where its members feel justified in targeting anyone who appears to be from the West?

Here’s one fascist trying to explain the situation:

A prominent Afghan cleric, Mullah Qyamudin Kashaf, the acting head of the Ulema Council of Afghanistan and a Karzai appointee, also called for American authorities to arrest and try Mr. Jones in the Koran burning.

The Ulema Council recently met to discuss the Koran burning, Mullah Kashaf said in a telephone interview. “We expressed our deep concerns about this act, and we were expecting the violence that we are witnessing now,” he said. “Unless they try [Terry Jones] and give him the highest possible punishment, we will witness violence and protests not only in Afghanistan but in the entire world.”

So it isn’t these infantile Muslim sadists, with their uncanny inability to handle news of an isolated incident of blasphemy in some faraway land, who have the problem. It’s the United States, with its freedom of speech and expression. It’s because Terry Jones and every other American has the right to physically and verbally trash the Koran, the Bible, the Bhagavad-Gita, or Tuesdays with Morrie from now until the First Amendment is repealed.

Of course some liberals will be inclined to condemn not just the murderers themselves, but Terry Jones as well. Not me. While Jones’s religion is also bunk, and I have no doubt that he is probably one of the most ignorant hayseeds in the hemisphere, the man has a right to do what he did. Only a true miscreant would take such umbrage as to say he has blood on his hands. The collective psychosis on display in Mazar-I-Sharif is a display of barbarism that can only be explained by the irrational devotion to Islam.

Fuck the Koran, fuck Mohammed, and fuck Islam, which is a heinous, evil abomination.

- Max

John Yoo distorts Alexander Hamilton to fit his own warped view of the Constitution

Friday’s Wall Street Journal featured an Op-Ed by former George W. Bush Justice Department official and de facto war criminal John Yoo. Yoo is most famous for authoring a series of memos which advocated the torture of “War on Terror” detainees by doing an end-run around the Constitution and international conventions against torture.

For a summary of Yoo’s crimes, you can check out Glenn Greenwald’s piece at Salon or Jennifer Van Bergen’s at Counterpunch, but here I would like to take issue with his extremely deceitful quoting of Alexander Hamilton.

In making the Constitutional case for Obama’s missile strikes against Libya, Yoo cites Federalist 74, written by Hamilton, to support his argument. Here’s how he puts it:

“For once, Mr. Obama has the Constitution about right. As Alexander Hamilton wrote in Federalist 74, ‘The direction of war implies the direction of the common strength, and the power of directing and employing the common strength forms a usual and essential part in the definition of the executive authority.’ Presidents should conduct war, he wrote, because they could act with ‘decision, activity, secrecy, and dispatch.’ In perhaps his most famous words, Hamilton wrote that ‘Energy in the executive is a leading character in the definition of good government….It is essential to the protection of the community against foreign attacks.’”

Yoo’s presentation of Hamilton’s arguments about war powers is dishonest and/or incompetent, which is especially terrible because Yoo is a law professor at the University of California at Berkeley. What he’s implying here is that Hamilton advocated a unilateral Executive war-making authority. But let’s take a look at what Hamilton wrote in Federalist 74 in context.

“The President of the United States is to be ‘commander-in-chief of the army and navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several States when called into the actual service of the United States.’ [Emphasis Hamilton’s]…Of all the cares or concerns of government, the direction of war most peculiarly demands those qualities which distinguish the exercise of power by a single hand. The direction of war implies the direction of the common strength; and the power of directing and employing the common strength, forms a usual and essential part in the definition of the executive authority.”

As you can (but Yoo can’t) see, Hamilton is saying that the prosecution of war is best left to a single hand—the president—not the decision to wage war itself. And who calls the military “into the actual service of the United States”? To answer that, let’s see what Hamilton said earlier in Federalist 69:

“The President will have only the occasional command of such part of the militia of the nation as by legislative provision may be called into the actual service of the Union. [Emphasis mine]….The President is to be commander-in-chief of the army and navy of the United States. In this respect his authority would be nominally the same with that of the king of Great Britain, but in substance much inferior to it. It would amount to nothing more than the supreme command and direction of the military and naval forces, as first General and admiral of the Confederacy; while that of the British king extends to the declaring of war and to the raising and regulating of fleets and armies—all which, by the Constitution under consideration, would appertain to the legislature. [Emphasis mine]”

As if advocating torture weren’t bad enough, John Yoo also sees fit to drag the name of Alexander Hamilton into the mud where his own perverted views of the Constitution reside.

- Max

Atheism and morality (Part 2 of 3)

In my previous post I addressed the oft-repeated claim by believers that god/religion/holy books provide an objective moral benchmark by pointing out that this morality is hopelessly vulnerable to selective and flawed execution. I hasten to add that even when such principles are universally applied, the results are frequently ghastly. One need only think back to the time when the Catholic Church, with its absolute standards of morality, reigned supreme over Europe. This epoch is called the Dark Ages for a reason, and the presence of an objective system of morals was of no consolation to those who were persecuted in accordance with its precepts.

Rabbi Adam Jacobs claims that when Sam Harris and other atheists condemn the Taliban (or anyone else) for engaging in objectionable behavior, they are betraying the principles of atheism, which for Jacobs includes rampant moral relativism. This is because atheism is the rejection of deities, and for him deities are the only things capable of advancing objective moral guidelines. By implication, the theist is in a far better position to decry as immoral the acts of the Taliban. But does not the Taliban feel its actions are guided as much by their understanding of divine law than Rabbi Jacobs is of his? In this regard, the problem is not godless moral relativism, but competing religious moral absolutisms.

Not content with accusing atheists of nihilism, Jacobs hurls this insult:

“At the end of the day, the reason that I can agree with many of the moral assertions that these atheists make is because they are not truly outgrowths of their purported philosophies, but rather of mine. I would suspect that the great majority of the atheistic understanding of morality comes directly or indirectly from what is commonly referred to as the Judeo-Christian ethic. I have not yet found an atheist who is willing to follow his or her convictions through to their logical conclusions (outside of sociopaths like Jeffrey Dahmer who was at least honest enough to say, ‘I always believed the theory of evolution as truth that we all just came from the slime ... if a person doesn’t think there is a God to be accountable to then what’s the point of trying to modify your behavior to keep it within acceptable ranges?’ [sic, no closing parenthesis]”

There you have it. Neither Jeffrey Dahmer nor Rabbi Adam Jacobs can imagine a reason for behaving oneself in the absence of a supernatural entity that promulgates and monitors morality. I suppose what the rabbi is confessing here is that if he stopped believing in god today, he would turn into Mr. Hyde—or Jeffrey Dahmer—tomorrow.

As to Jacobs’ contention that the morality of atheists is in fact the residual influence of the “Judeo-Christian ethic,” that is wishful thinking and spoken like a true arrogant religionist. Read the books of the Old Testament and see how much of the “Judeo-Christian ethic” you actually assent to or would deem fit to teach a child for that matter. These books are replete with god-sanctioned genocide and homicide, contain obscure commandments that not even the most ardent of the faithful follow or even know about, and prohibits certain sexual activity that only a truly neurotic deity could care anything about, among other abominations. It should also be added that of all the commandments found in the Old Testament, not one says anything like, “Thou shalt not rape.” I am quite certain that Sam Harris, other atheists, and Rabbi Jacobs himself think that rape is bad, but if that’s the case, then on whose authority do they form such an opinion?

If the bible contains any provisions which have been codified in the laws of our modern society, this is only a happenstance. Believers pick and choose which commandments they follow as evidenced by their following of rules not put forth by the deity, and their neglect of those that are. The implication here is clear: humans are capable of forming a set of morals independent from divine sanction.

Not only does Jacobs conveniently ignore the selective application of his beloved objective morality, he fundamentally misunderstands evolution:

“Is not [Christopher] Hitchens an ardent supporter of the tenets of Neo-Darwinism that necessitates the perpetual death struggle within all species at all times? Shouldn't he in fact believe the precise opposite of what he claims? Survival of the fittest does not suggest social harmony.”

A more fatuous point would be difficult to imagine. Anyone who has stopped often and long enough to observe wildlife will notice that a general peace exists among animals of a particular species, and often animals of different species. In my travels I find that squirrels are the most abundant mammal, and I see several of them each day. And yet, not once in my years of observing thousands of squirrels have I observed one squirrel attacking another. This is not to say this doesn’t happen or that squirrels do not kill one on another on occasion, because they surely do. However, squirrels have no sense of divine morality, and so according to Jacobs’ logic, there could be no expectation of social harmony among these creatures. And yet there is. Take any species. No doubt it happens that rams or giraffes or sharks, etc. attack each other (especially when females are involved), but these are rare occasions. No population of species whose members are engaged in a “perpetual death struggle” with each another would last very long. Without question living things are engaged in a competitive struggle, but rarely must the survival of a member of one species involve the demise of another member of same. In many cases, it is quite the opposite.

- Max

Part One

Atheism and morality (Part 1 of 3)

Consult a preacher about morality and he will tell you that like everything else, it is a gift from god. Without this divinely imparted sense of right and wrong, you will be told, all would be lost. There would be no standard for human behavior other than for each person to act as his own conscience dictates. Without this god-given morality, the world would be marred by chaos, uncertainty, and unspeakable acts. A true Hobbesian jungle in which there is no “objective” way to view human behavior.

Such is the critique by Rabbi Adam Jacobs on Huffington Post, which seems to have an endless supply of rabbis and other unimaginative clergymen whose thinking is limited by a belief in celestial magic. I am not very much interested in specifically critiquing Rabbi Jacobs since he makes a charge against atheists that so many others have made and will continue to make. I will however, quote one relevant paragraph because it typifies this kind of accusation:

“What I do not yet understand is why [Sam Harris] (or any atheist for that matter) makes so many moral proclamations. The average atheist makes certain basic assumptions about reality: that we all exist as a result of blind and purposeless happenstance, that free will is illusory, that there is no conscious ‘self’ and that there is no objective right or wrong. As Dr. Will Provine has said, ‘[as an atheist] you give up hope that there is an imminent morality…you can’t hope for there being any free will [and there is]…no ultimate foundation for ethics.’”

He goes on to say that to be an atheist is to be amoral because atheism does not allow for an objective standard of morality. According to Jacobs, only theism can provide this much needed behavioral benchmark. And so any pretense on the part of atheists to be able to judge right from wrong is actually a subjective exercise because, well, on whose authority are such judgments being made?

This is the reasoning of a slave. The notion that a divine engineer is necessary to provide universal norms of behavior is one that recurs everywhere—among Jewish populations, Christian populations, Muslim populations, and so on. Such is the purpose of religion, to provide an explanation for life—its nature and meaning, as well as how it ought to be lived. This is morality by revealed wisdom. No thinking necessary.

One immediate problem with Jacobs’ view is the sheer of volume of disagreement on moral questions that believers in god have amongst each other. Take for example, the Ten Commandments, the most famous and perhaps the most important divine moral instructions for those in the Judeo-Christian tradition

The Sixth Commandment admonishes, “Thou shalt not kill.” This seems a straightforward dictum. And yet believers of all kinds cannot seem to agree on a whole range of issues in which this commandment is a central concern. Ask a group of Catholics, or Protestants, or Jews about the death penalty, or if and when it is ever morally acceptable to use lethal self-defense, or if it is ever right to kill in war. See if you can find a uniformity of opinion with respect to any of these questions, even among members of the same faith.

Or take, “Remember the Sabbath; to keep it holy.” Jews and Christians do not even agree on which day the Shabbat falls. Nor do they agree on what kinds of activities can be performed on that day. And while we’re at it, why is it that Christians and kosher Jews do not see eye to eye on the matter of pig consumption? They are after all praying to the same Yahweh.

How about, “Honor thy father and thy mother”? What form shall this honoring take? Is the honor to be bestowed even on those parents who are negligent or abusive? What exactly is so “objective” about this or any of the aforementioned instructions? One could go on in this fashion for days, but I’m sure you can think of your own examples of Biblical or Koranic ambiguity. Clearly, even when morality is assumed to emanate from divine wisdom, these rules still lend themselves to subjective interpretation.

Granted, Jacobs and his ilk might very well concede the above points without agreeing that they have damaged the contention that atheists must necessarily be amoral or that divine sanction is a prerequisite for moral objectivity. One of the more interesting (and wrong) arguments I’ve heard that defend this position admits that religion is flawed because it is a “human endeavor,” which is to say it’s as corruptible as anything else. In which case, what is religion for?

- Max

Part Two

Bill Kristol is a fucking maniac

Weekly Standard editor and Fox News pundit William Kristol has never seen an American-led war he didn’t like. His latest column for the Standard begins,

“And so, despite his doubts and dithering, President Obama is taking us to war in another Muslim country. Good for him.”

It is truly amazing to me that a neoconservative like Kristol can show his face at the grocery store without a trace of embarrassment, let alone offer his opinions—the exact same ones that helped lead America into a bloodbath in the Middle East—on the pressing foreign policy questions of the day. That he and other neoconservatives, such as John Bolton and Charles Krauthammer, are asked to impart their wisdom to national audiences is a true testament to the total absence of any form of meritocracy in the world of television punditry.

Kristol of course was a founder of the now defunct Project for a New American Century, which blatantly advocated unchallenged US global hegemony. Its statement of principles was signed by some familiar names: Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Elliott Abrams, Jeb Bush, Dan Quayle, Steve Forbes, and other fanatical jingoists who never bothered to learn the time-tested lesson that maintaining a global military presence leaves a bad taste in a lot of mouths. In 1998, these geniuses sent a letter to President Clinton advocating that the US take out Saddam Hussein. With the arrival of George W. Bush in the White House and some planes at the World Trade Center, the stage was set for the longtime wetdream of invading a country with the second largest oil reserves in the world to become a reality. And it was made easier by the fact that several PNAC poltroons were top officials in the Bush administration.

But “invading” isn’t the right word here, says Kristol. Rather,

“Our ‘invasions’ have in fact been liberations. We have shed blood and expended treasure in Kuwait in 1991, in the Balkans later in the 1990s, and in Afghanistan and Iraq—in our own national interest, of course, but also to protect Muslim peoples and help them free themselves. Libya will be America’s fifth war of Muslim liberation.”

By “we have shed blood,” Kristol means people other than him have done that. Despite being of prime military age at the height of the Vietnam war, Kristol never served. Apparently regretful of missing that party, he now lives out his schoolboy fantasies of world domination by penning Op-Eds and journal articles explaining the necessity of taking out countries that pose no threat to the US. Undeterred by the disastrous wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Kristol has even set his sights on Iran.

It’s one thing to have the foreign policy views of a pubescent manchild with raging hormones, but you have to be seriously fucked in the head to say with any sincerity that the current bombing of Libya is “America’s fifth war of Muslim liberation.” Who but a middle schooler or maybe Sean Hannity would put it in those terms?

I say this because Kristol knows damn well what US foreign policy is and that it’s driven by realpolitik. He isn’t some mustachioed, NASCAR-watching, Bud-swilling trailer donkey who’s as ignorant about international relations as his mullet is long. He knows, for example, that the US is right now backing dictators who are oppressing Muslims in Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Bahrain, Pakistan, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, and elsewhere. And in the past, the US supported despots in Iraq, Iran, Indonesia, Egypt, Tunisia, etc.

If the perseverance of Bill Kristol’s pundit career illustrates anything, it’s that it doesn’t matter how wrong you’ve been or how badly your policy prescriptions have been discredited. What’s important is that you fit neatly into the Left/Right paradigm of American political discourse. And if you’re more hawkish on foreign policy than most, all the better. No one ever lost his job advocating war in America.

I leave you with a clip of Bill Maher tearing into the neocons.

- Max