Death Knell To The Pretense Of American Democracy

Let's be frank: America has never been a democracy. It was founded as an oligarchy with the franchise going only to white property-owning men (much of whose property consisted of other human beings) and has been run as an oligarchy ever since. Sure the vote was eventually expanded (after a civil war) to people of color, and then in the 20th century to women, but the Big Boys have been pulling the strings from the get-go.

But America has always sold itself as a democracy and, more importantly, most Americans have gladly bought into this bright and shining lie. As of this week even the pretense has fallen away and anyone who continues to delude him or herself into believing America to be a democracy can only be described--charitably--as pathologically dense.

The election of a single senator in a single state--giving the minority party in Washington only 41 out of 100 votes--has destroyed the hope that America could ever or would ever do the right thing and make affordable healthcare available to the millions upon millions of Americans who are unfairly denied affordable healthcare for themselves and their families. This of course in an elective body that is itself fundamentally undemocratic (the two senators from Wyoming, which has less than a million people, get the same number of votes as the two senators from California: two). So much for the power of the people.

Now comes word that the Supreme Court--stacked with paleoconservatives after three long decades of Reaganism--has removed all limits from corporations with regard to financing political campaigns. Oligarchs and robber barons will be able to flood a political campaign with a never-ending river of cash, dominating the airwaves with paid advertising and putting as many mercenary organizers on the street as is required to put corporate lackeys into office (like they've ever been unsuccessful at that anyway). Corporations like Kellog Brown & Root, or Freeport-MacMoRan (largest single polluter in the history of the earth) will be able to elect to congress whomever they deem worthy of doing their bidding.

All the pretense is gone. Wake up America. This is a nation by the rich, of the rich, and for the rich. Your little salary gets you squat, nothing but what the Big Boys choose to offer you from their table. That and the freedom to put yourself further in thrall to them by using the high-interest credit cards they have so graciously provided you to buy all manner of cheap mall crap. Meanwhile, if you get sick just go hang out at your local emergency room and hope for the best.

Bread and circuses: the Romans understood the usefulness of the concept but the Americans have perfected it (the Romans, after all, only had the Colosseum; Americans have cable television). America has exactly the government it deserves.

Memo To Progressives: Hold Your Water, Part II

Democrats have only themselves to blame for the loss of Ted Kennedy's senate seat in Massachusetts. While progressives were busy finding fault with one another's ideological purity regarding issues like Gitmo, domestic spying and, most of all, healthcare reform, Republicans were busy stoking the fear and resentment that comes with double digit unemployment (with issues ranging from the marginally reasonable like the deficit to the racist and loony like Obama's birth certificate). Once the tea bagger phenomenon spontaneously combusted the R's just glommed on and rode the wave of resentment to victory in Massachusetts.

Now, of course, comes the question of what happens regarding healthcare reform? One hopes that idiots like pompous ass incarnate Keith Olbermann, or the ever-oily Arianna Huffington will now see how utterly dumb it was to advocate for saying no to any form of healthcare reform that did not meet their own acute standards for progressive purity (easy to have high standards when you're a multi-millionaire who can afford any healthcare anyone could ever even imagine). Their self-righteous criticism of centrist Democrats and of the messiness of the legislative process just made it less likely that working people--or, as Keith and Arianna refer to them, "the help"--would ever be entitled to affordable health insurance.

Unfortunately, I suspect that now progressives will come out and again tut-tut over the imperfections of the healthcare bill the senate passed and push for healthcare to be killed rather than have the house simply pass the senate bill and move on. This would appease the progressive elite--and overjoy the extreme right--but would cheat working people of access to healthcare. If progressives allow for healthcare reform to be denied again, then they deserve nothing but scorn and further electoral defeats. Best to take what we can get and move on to the biggest issue right now: jobs.

If progressives want to stave off further humiliation at the ballot box (or in congress) they need to spend more time/money/effort organizing the "great flyover" rather than examining one another for ideological purity. It should offend progressives to no end that the Republicans--the party of the rich and powerful par excellence--has been able to position itself as the party of Main street and to channel political resentment against the party that wants to grow the economy through the only way proven effective: fiscal stimulus. Progressives need to find a better way to get their message out because out here in the heartland it is the R's who are winning the debate.

I just don't think that progressives have any real understanding of what it's like to live in the great center--politically and geographically--part of our county. Out here the local hometown paper is always owned by some right-wing extremist, and so every headline is spun right. The local news stations broadcast the latest Chamber of Commerce press releases with little analysis (or even acknowledgment as to the source), and public TV's are almost always tuned to Fox News. Couple that with ten percent unemployment and it's going to be the rare race that the Dems win anytime soon.

Progressives need to take their comeuppance in Massachusetts and then get down to work. Quit sniping and try instead to figure ways of harnessing the energy the R's have been able to harness lately and use it as a force for good. Get healthcare reform passed even if it means that the House has to accept the Senate bill as is. And then get behind whatever plan Obama and the congressional Dems come up with to stimulate unemployment, because if unemployment is still ten percent or up come November nothing progressives truly want is ever likely to happen.

Nah, You're Just A Breeder--And That's A Bad Thing

So some of the breeders are upset (click title for link) that others use that term to describe those who... well... who breed. They want to be seen as nurturing mothers, creative parents, anything but just another animal that spawns a being that will itself go on to eat shit and breed, thereby guaranteeing a world overrun with humanity to the detriment of all the other animals that inhabit our little planet.

I once had a breeder tell me that I was selfish for not wanting to have children. Selfish?! What's more selfish than believing that what the world needs is a mini-me? Another iteration of your own super specialness? Amazing! And you somehow think that your own little bundle of redemption is not going to grow up to be another ingrate teenaged mall rat? Where does anyone get off in thinking that what my city--any city--needs is another human being contributing to an environment that's already out of control with pollution?

That's what children are: another form of pollution. An infancy of diapers; a river of high fructose corn syrup; a mountain of feces; a carbon footprint the size of the Titanic. Thanks but no thanks, Mr. and Ms. Breeder. Time to get over your bad self and just say no to procreation. On behalf of Mother Earth, I thank you.

Brit Hume Can Suck My Dogma

Brit Hume personifies everything that is wrong with America: a preening self-righteousness informed by an ignorant religiosity; an unctuous condescension toward anyone who disagrees with him; and a bogus sense of persecution by those he deems to be on their way to hell in any event. Who the hell is he to tell Tiger Woods (or anyone else) what Woods needs to do to cure his soul. "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone...." blah blah blah. Do any of these self-proclaiming Christians even bother to read the words of Jesus?

What is interesting is that Hume would compare Buddhism to Christianity and find Buddhism to be lacking. How many wars have been waged in the name of Buddhism for the purpose of converting souls at sword point (sometimes referred to as 'crusades')? How many innocent souls have been tortured in the name of Buddhism in order to make them repent of something they were innocent of anyway (you know, like an 'inquisition')? How much hatred has been spewed by Buddhists over issues of race or gender or sexuality toward "the other"? Two millennia of anti-Semitism culminating in the Holocaust? Wasn't Buddhism, Brit.

Not that any of the other Western monotheistic religions acquit themselves any more favorably (though it must be admitted that Christianity likely has a higher body count--at least for now). Islam is a faith built on conquest of the infidels. Much of modern Judaism is in thrall to Zionism and as such spends an inordinate amount of time trying to justify the oppression and ghettoization of the Palestinians. So much for the Abrahamic faiths.

As for Buddhism, what does Brit Hume (or most other Americans) know about Buddhism or any other Eastern faith? I've spend several years trying to study it, but the more one studies Buddhism the more complex one realizes it is... except.

The Buddha tried to teach a way of thinking and of interacting with the world that would liberate human beings from suffering. Unlike Western religions, Buddhism is more a way of approaching the world--the world as it really is--than of supernatural explanation. Buddhists use practices like devotion and meditation as a way of removing themselves from the cycle of birth and death.

In order to attain redemption from the endless cycle of suffering that is birth and death (and birth) Buddhists seek to behave in certain ways that, though not redemptive in and of themselves, help to hone consciousness to the level of mindfulness needed to transcend suffering. These ways of behaving are generally referred to as the five precepts: don't kill; don't steal; avoid sexual incontinence; don't deceive others; and avoid substances that alter one's consciousness (it interferes with mindfulness).

Following the five precepts brings peace to one's own mind, to one's family, and even to one's community (or nation). One need not understand all the various iterations or complexities of Buddhism to understand that following the five precepts is a formula for personal integrity of the sort that is sorely lacking in Brit Hume's America. To behave in a way that is mindful, nonjudgmental, and devotional--just what does Brit Hume find wrong with that?

One suspects that had Jesus had occasion to read Buddhist philosophy he would have understood it completely, intuitively, affirmatively. The Sermon on the Mount has much in common with Buddhist thought. Before Brit Hume raises himself up on his high horse to preach to the rest of us about the superiority of his views, he should first look inside to see if he is even faithful to what he purports to be his own views. Meanwhile, he can suck Baby Fatt's big fat crooked dogma.

Rush Limbaugh's Irony-Free Zone

The headline of the SEIU press release says it all: "Hell Freezes Over: Rush Limbaugh Loves Union Hospitals And Socialized Medicine" (click on title above for link). Rush apparently had chest pains over the long holiday weekend (had he read the warning that came in the bottle of Viagra he might have been more careful), and was subsequently impressed by the healthcare he received in Hawaii.

As SEIU points out, the Hawaiian healthcare system is the most progressive in the country, requiring insurance mandates for employers and subsidies for employees, and with a healthcare workforce that is heavily unionized. The Hawaiian healthcare system, in other words, is much like what progressives have been trying to get passed in the rest of the country. As with most blowhards, one suspects the irony will be completely lost on Rush.

Of course Rush has millions and millions of dollars, and so could get great healthcare wherever he happens to start having chest pain (memo to Rush: kick the meat and up your veggie intake and you might live a long time. Then again: never mind, have another Havana). What I can't wait for is the effect the healthcare reform will have on working class conservatives, the ditto heads who so slavishly parrot Rush's talking points. Once folks actually start to receive decent healthcare--you know, have a PCP prescribing for them rather than an ER doc--how will they reconcile that experience with all they've been taught to believe? Unfortunately it probably won't have much of an effect on any of them.

A few years ago one of my aunts (who's somewhere to the right Ron Paul) injured herself while in France. She was walking along a dock in Normandy and slipped and lacerated her knee badly. My cousin took her immediately to the closest ER to get the wound treated. She was treated as soon as she walked in the door. It took upwards of twenty stitches to close the wound, and at discharge they gave her a prescription for antibiotics and another for pain meds.

My aunt is a cynical--and also a wealthy--woman, so as my cousin was helping her get checked out my aunt whipped out her American Express card and told her to pay whatever bill there was. My cousin told her the bill had already been taken care of. The prescriptions were five euros each and the stitches, doctor time, X-rays--everything else was free. My aunt was fairly impressed, but did it change her view of socialized medicine? Nah.

There are problems with any healthcare plan, no matter where and how it is constituted. Ten years from now America will have a much more progressive healthcare system than it has now and, as is our inalienable right as Americans, we will all complain about it at every opportunity. We will complain about its shortfalls, its bureaucracy, its inefficiencies, all the while getting routine healthcare for everything from wound care to chronic conditions (heart disease, for instance). Hell, half the fun of an entitlement is getting to complain about it.

And conservatives, of course, will complain most of all, even while taking every advantage of a progressive healthcare system that provides routine, affordable care for themselves and their loved ones. Just as today they gather in well-armed hordes to decry socialism while taking time on their way home to deposit their Social Security checks, they will somehow be able to keep within their heads two utterly incompatible thoughts: government is the problem not the solution; and why hasn't the government done more for me lately. Amazing, simply amazing.

But that's the joy of being conservative: never having to suffer cognitive dissonance (or appreciate irony). Just ask Rush.