"Why Mockingbirds and Sacred Cows?" you ask. That's easy. In my favorite novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee dared to challenge the sacred cows of 20th Century America, many of which still wander the pastures of our minds befouling our political discourse and bulldozing our societal maturation.
Besides, I firmly believe that a generous helping of roast sacred cow, well-done, is the best response to the question, "Where's the beef?"
This full-page ad appeared in the December 28 Columbus Dispatch. I think it’s supposed to indicate bad news, however the list of channels which are being threatened are ones I seldom if ever watch, primarily because of their vapid content.
The following channels in your lineup could be affected by our ongoing negotiations with some programmers:
•FX
•Fuel
•Speed Channel
•Fox Reality Channel
•Fox Soccer Channel
•Fox Sports World en Espanol
Hmmmm...I wonder what it would take to get Time Warner to drop FOX News along with this list of snoozers? ;-)
The Dispatch letters page has been long on wishful thinking during the Copenhagen climate talks. If only climate scientists were greedy villains, we could blame them and go on ignoring how human activity is altering the planet.
Nice Christmas wish, maybe — but nothing more. Letter writers Roderick Clay (last Saturday), John Belt (Sunday) and John McFadden (last Saturday) need to go back a few years and look at the expensive public-relations campaigns led by Big Tobacco. A recent article in The Lancet compares climatechange skeptics to those desperate tobacco lobbyists.
Despite the mounting scientific evidence of harm, tobacco apologists kept playing the same game the climate-change deniers are playing up to now: for as long as possible, cast public doubt to delay implementation of tougher rules that would hurt their bottom line. The sources these letter writers cite are never climate scientists whose work has undergone peer review.
Christopher Horner and Iain Murray belong to the Competitive Enterprise Institute, which has received hundreds of thousands of dollars every year from ExxonMobil. Patrick Michaels' 2007 academic curriculum vitae disclosed that he's been funded by the Edison Electric Institute and the Western Fuels Association.
Another skeptic is a director of three mining companies. Best of all, Clay disputes global warming by citing the infamous Steven Milloy of junkscience.com — a Web site set up to defend . . . tobacco companies! Milloy, long a paid advocate of Philip Morris, now gets his gravy from ExxonMobil, too. A professional shill and not a scientist, Milloy would have to be against doing something about global warming, wouldn't he, now that the money to flack cigarettes is all gone.
Scratch a skeptic, find a paid spokesperson. Too bad climate change is going to harm so many more people than secondhand smoke ever did.
JOHN DEEVER Mount Vernon
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Special Note: John Deever survived my 9th Grade English class many years ago. His missive appeared on the Letters To The Editor Page of the December 26 Columbus Dispatch.
Rod Parsley says ministry threatened by lack of funds
The Rev. Rod Parsley, megapastor and televangelist, has issued a desperate plea for money, telling his flock that he is facing a "demonically inspired financial attack" that is threatening his ministry.
Click here to read the entire article from the December 16, 2009 Columbus Dispatch.
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Of course, it could be that folks are finally waking up to the fact that Parsley is little more than a self-serving hypocrite who peddles fear and bigotry in the name of The Prince of Peace.
I haven't seen or heard a single word from him on behalf of the folks who have lost their jobs and homes as a result of the economic downturn. Apparently, his only concern is the financial threat it poses to his lucrative ministry.
He sees his reduced cash intake as "demonically inspired," but there has been no word of condemnation from him for those who engineered the financial debacle. According to Parsley, Satan, rather than a group of greedy bankers, is responsible for the economic crisis.
In the words of comedian Dana Carvey's Church Lady character, "How conveeeenient!"
After all, it's much easier to blame an invisible, supernatural entity for one's financial misfortunes than to admit to being joined at the hip to those who caused those misfortunes in the first place. It's also a very effective means of separating one's followers from what little money they have left after the American financial cartel's recent redistribution of wealth initiative.
If you're asking why anyone would write such words about a "man of God," I offer an explanation from yet another comedic character, Flip Wilson's Reverend Leroy:
You say you're against the health-care legislation currently working its way through Congress, and you've basing your opposition on what you've been hearing from The Party of No and their agents on talk radio and FOX News that the bill is too complicated?
Well, here's a picture that even folks who let Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity think for them can understand, not that I hold out much hope that they'll bother to look at it.
This is for those of you who are in danger of succumbing to the constant barrage of lies coming from those owned by the health insurance industry.
Click here for a related video and more information.
No political rant today. I'm too numb from following the idiocy which passes for thoughtful debate in Washing D.C.
Instead, I offer fresh insight gleaned from the sports page of The Columbus Dispatch which may help Democrats attempting to pass healthcare reform navigate through the opposition to reach their goal.
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Ray Small, who plays for The Ohio State Buckeyes, is one of football's elite, a kickoff and punt returner with the uncanny ability to shred defenses and rack up yardage totals well-beyond what his peers are able to accomplish.
In last week's game against Penn State, Small averaged over eighteen yards on seven returns. Fans watching Small and other kick return specialists often wonder how they know which route to take with teammates, defenders, and officials scurrying and colliding all over the field like balls on a billiard table.
Well, wonder no more, my football-loving friends.
Thanks to my keen eyesight and extensive knowledge of the latest technological advances in electronic gadgetry, I have discovered their secret.
The image below reveals how they do it.
Source: The Columbus Dispatch: November 8, 2009 (with added graphics)
CRAIG HOLMAN DISPATCH Ohio State's Ray Small shows his frustration after being stopped on a punt return. Small wasn't easy for Penn State to catch, averaging 18.6 yards on seven returns.
Let's hope Congress isn't stopped short of passing health-care reform by The Party of No and those who use fear to dupe folks into voting against their own best interests.
And you thought I was serious when I said there'd be no political rant today. ;-)
OK, folks, it's time to get serious. When both the AMA and the AARP come out in favor of the health-care bill currently working its way through Congress, and you're still listening to the naysayers, it’s time to recognize that you’re being played for a sucker.
Those fighting to kill health-care reform are not interested in you or your well-being. They are only interested in political power and maximum profit for themselves at your expense.
End of story. Case closed.
Write, email, or call your congressional representatives and tell them you’re on to the scam and that you expect Congress to pass health-care legislation that protects your interests and not those of the health-insurance industry and their well-paid lobbyists.
AMA, AARP like health-care bill Groups’ backing contrasts protest from tea partiers
By Erica Werner and Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON — Buoyed by two major endorsements, House Democratic leaders yesterday predicted swift passage of President Barack Obama’s historic health-overhaul initiative.
The president himself declared, “We are closer to passing this reform than ever before.”
With a vote set for Saturday, momentum gathered behind the legislation to remake the U.S. health-care system and extend coverage to millions of the uninsured. The American Medical Association and the powerful seniors’ lobby AARP both threw their weight behind the bill yesterday. AARP, with its 40 million members, promised to run ads to gin up support.
“I urge Congress to listen to AARP, listen to the AMA, and pass this reform for hundreds of millions of Americans who will benefit from it,” Obama said during a visit to the White House briefing room after the endorsements were announced.
At the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, Democrats were listening.
“We are right on the brink,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. “We have an historic opportunity for us to again provide quality health care for all Americans. It is something that many of us have worked our whole political lifetimes on.”
Pelosi and other Democratic leaders were working to negotiate final language on abortion and illegal immigration and nail down the 218 votes they’ll need to pass the bill. Obama planned to give them an assist todayAlso yesterday, AARP of Ohio endorsed the House bill.
Joanne Limbach, the AARP’s state president, said that as “Ohio’s congressional delegation prepares to vote, they will hear from older Ohioans.”
Yesterday’s endorsement by the American Medical Association contrasted with the Ohio State Medical Association’s condemnation of the same proposal a day earlier.
Just before Obama appeared before reporters yesterday, thousands of conservatives rallied outside the Capitol where they listened to speaker after speaker — ranging from actor Jon Voight to House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-West Chester — denounce the House bill.
“This bill is the greatest threat to freedom that I have seen in my 19 years in Washington,” Boehner said. “This bill will take away your freedom to choose your doctor, the freedom to buy health insurance on your own, and will lead to tens of thousands of new government bureaucrats down the street making decisions for you.”
Actor John Ratzenberger, who played the role of Cliff on the comedy hit Cheers, went even further, charging that “these people who are trying to force this health-care bill upon us are not the philosophical descendents” of President John F. Kennedy, but instead the “philosophical descendents of Abbie Hoffman,” the 1960s anti-war radical.
As the crowd chanted “kill the bill,” many waved American flags or carried signs, including “Stop Obama’s death panels,” or “Obama listens to Mao, I listen to Fox News.”
Sarah Williams, 18, a student at Wheeling Jesuit University in West Virginia who is from central Ohio, said lawmakers have been getting “tons of e-mails and letters” from people who oppose health-care reform and “they’re still not listening.”
Late yesterday, Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, took part in an online chat about health care. He insisted that the bill does not radically change the U.S. system, saying that “we’re doing it building around what we have now. We’re preserving the best we have in the system.”
JOSE LUIS MAGANA ASSOCIATED PRESS
Demonstrators opposing to health-care reform were joined on Capitol Hill by Republican members of Congress. “Kill the bill” was their chant.
Dispatch Washington bureau reporter Jack Torry contributed to this story.
It's almost Halloween, and FOX News is on a witch hunt.
The talking heads at the GOP's propaganda mill have lambasted the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) as if it posed a greater threat to America than would turning over our nuclear stockpile to Al Qaeda.
What is the rationale for this relentless attack? Here is how conservative activist, Paul Weyrich, explains the danger.
They want everybody to vote. I don't want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of people. They never have been from the beginning of our country, and they are not now. As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections, quite candidly, goes up as the voting populace goes down.
To get truly fair and balanced information about ACORN and the FOX campaign against it, watch this video.
If you don't like political witch hunts and want to do something to counter the FOX smear campaign, click HERE to go to a website where you can send a message to Congress, post the video on FaceBook and Twitter account, or email it to your friends and family.
Choosing ideological purity over intellectual honesty is a recipe for disaster. The ingredients are hate and fear-mongering. It is always half-baked, and it always produces a toxic brew unfit for human consumption.
Nevertheless, this is the recipe which the leaders of Republican party appear to have dog-eared in their political cookbook.
Rather than work with Democrats to craft meaningful legislation which would help Americans and strengthen America, Boehner, McConnell, and the rest have cast their lot with the 20% of Americans who appear to be intellectually incapable of self-critical evaluation.
Manipulated by the words of Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and Sarah Palin they claim absolute knowledge and ownership of scientific, religious, and political truth. They would prefer see the country torn asunder rather than to have Barack Obama and the Democratic party succeed in their attempts to change the status quo.
That 20% tail is currently wagging the elephant, and the Republican leadership has embraced its hate-mongering rhetoric in the cynical hope that American failure will lead to electoral success in 2010.
Well, the joke is on them. It is the GOP and not America which is coming apart at the seams.
This my infamous, spooky, scary, evil, bat-mouth pumpkin.
I first carved the design in 1967, and I have replicated it just about every year since then. 2009, however, will probably be the last year I carve it, thanks to a new pumpkin variety which grows exclusively in the perpetual, polyurethane, pumpkin patch somewhere in China.
When I'm not fixing computers or writing articles for this blog, I sing with The Alliance of Greater Central Ohio, one of the best men's barbershop choruses in the world (currently 6th out of over 800).
The Alliance is an a cappella chorus, of course, so any horn tooting in this post is strictly metaphorical.
But I digress.
The chorus recently released a new CD in time for the 2009 holiday season. It's called Harmonies for the Holidays, and it is theraison d'être behind this brassy message.
City of Bread, Track 10 on the CD, is a song which I wrote and arranged.
Click here to listen to the sound clip for City of Bread and all the other selections on the CD. If you like what you hear, you can order securely online.
The Alliance is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization and a member chapter of the Barbershop Harmony Society.
A friend just sent this to me. I think it's worth reading and sharing.
I am well aware that some folks will dismiss this article outright because of what they've been told to believe about Michael Moore by FOX Noise. But then, that's the crux of the problem, isn't it?
How does one communicate with those who have embraced a closed belief system which claims absolute knowledge of God's will and use it to wall themselves off from the discomfort inherent in honest inquiry and rational thought?
How does one counter the blessing bestowed upon rigid adherence to closed-mindedness when it is broadcast 24/7 by Rupert Murdoch's minions?
I'd like to have a word with those of you who call yourselves Christians (Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Bill Maherists, etc. can read along, too, as much of what I have to say, I'm sure, can be applied to your own spiritual/ethical values).
In my new film I speak for the first time in one of my movies about my own spiritual beliefs. I have always believed that one's religious leanings are deeply personal and should be kept private. After all, we've heard enough yammerin' in the past three decades about how one should "behave," and I have to say I'm pretty burned out on pieties and platitudes considering we are a violent nation who invades other countries and punishes our own for having the audacity to fall on hard times.
I'm also against any proselytizing; I certainly don't want you to join anything I belong to. Also, as a Catholic, I have much to say about the Church as an institution, but I'll leave that for another day (or movie).
Amidst all the Wall Street bad guys and corrupt members of Congress exposed in "Capitalism: A Love Story," I pose a simple question in the movie: "Is capitalism a sin?" I go on to ask, "Would Jesus be a capitalist?" Would he belong to a hedge fund? Would he sell short? Would he approve of a system that has allowed the richest 1% to have more financial wealth than the 95% under them combined?
I have come to believe that there is no getting around the fact that capitalism is opposite everything that Jesus (and Moses and Mohammed and Buddha) taught. All the great religions are clear about one thing: It is evil to take the majority of the pie and leave what's left for everyone to fight over. Jesus said that the rich man would have a very hard time getting into heaven. He told us that we had to be our brother's and sister's keepers and that the riches that did exist were to be divided fairly. He said that if you failed to house the homeless and feed the hungry, you'd have a hard time finding the pin code to the pearly gates.
I guess that's bad news for us Americans. Here's how we define "Blessed Are the Poor": We now have the highest unemployment rate since 1983. There's a foreclosure filing once every 7.5 seconds. 14,000 people every day lose their health insurance.
At the same time, Wall Street bankers ("Blessed Are the Wealthy"?) are amassing more and more loot -- and they do their best to pay little or no income tax (last year Goldman Sachs' tax rate was a mere 1%!). Would Jesus approve of this? If not, why do we let such an evil system continue? It doesn't seem you can call yourself a Capitalist AND a Christian -- because you cannot love your money AND love your neighbor when you are denying your neighbor the ability to see a doctor just so you can have a better bottom line. That's called "immoral" -- and you are committing a sin when you benefit at the expense of others.
When you are in church this morning, please think about this. I am asking you to allow your "better angels" to come forward. And if you are among the millions of Americans who are struggling to make it from week to week, please know that I promise to do what I can to stop this evil -- and I hope you'll join me in not giving up until everyone has a seat at the table.
Thanks for listening. I'm off to Mass in a few hours. I'll be sure to ask the priest if he thinks J.C. deals in derivatives or credit default swaps. I mean, after all, he must've been good at math. How else did he divide up two loaves of bread and five pieces of fish equally amongst 5,000 people? Either he was the first socialist or his disciples were really bad at packing lunch. Or both.
House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) has just more or less dared proponents of a public option to bombard his office with their expressions of support of the plan. Boehner claimed, with a semi-straight face, that he has yet to meet a regular "American" who favors the option -- despite polls showing that a majority of voters support to the idea of having the choice of a government plan.
"I'm still trying to find the first American to talk to who's in favor of the public option, other than a member of Congress or the administration" said Boehner, whose sole recent foray into a public discussion of health care reform was a tea-party-style event in Ohio a few weeks back.
"I've not talked to one and I get to a lot of places," he told reporters at his weekly press availability. "I've not had anyone come up to me -- I know I'm inviting them -- and lobby for the public option . "This is about as unpopular as a garlic milkshake."
I then asked him: "Isn't a garlic milkshake healthy?" to which he replied, "I don't know I haven't tried it."
The polls are actually pretty divided on the issue, with a SurveyUSA poll showing three-quarters of Americans backing a public option choice. But that number dropped to 43 percent when the option was portrayed as a mandatory component of the plan in an NBC/WSJ survey.
Upon reading Glenn Thrush's article, I sent this message to Rep. Boehner:
Mr. Boehner,
It is obvious to me that you take your role as House Minority Leader very seriously. Unfortunately, it appears that to you that means listening only to the minority of Ohioans who oppose a public health care option rather than the majority which favors it.
How else is one to understand your recent comment to the effect that you have not spoken to anyone who wants a public option? Although I do not live in your congressional district, I am an Ohioan, and I am in that majority which favors a public option.
Since we have not actually "spoken," however, I'm fairly confident that you will repeat your disingenuous comment as you advocate for ideological purity at the expense of the health and well-being of the people of Ohio and the nation
George A. Denino
If you wish to respond to Mr. Boehner's challenge, you may send your personal message at this link:
Note: I included my full address and phone number in my message, but I omitted that information here for what should be obvious reasons.
Finally, here's the reply I received, and which you will get, from Rep. Boehner's office:
Thank you for contacting the Office of the House Republican Leader. Your thoughts are important to me and are appreciated. Due to the volume of E-mail I receive, it may not be possible to personally respond to your comments. However, please be assured that your comments are important to me and my colleagues.
This video debunks anti-evolutionist rhetoric and at the end suggests the best thing to do with the fifty page "creationist" introduction included in a new edition of Darwin's Origin of Species which is being promoted by Kirk Cameron for free distribution on college campuses.
Thanks to Eric Cantor (R-VA) We now know what the GOP has in mind as an alternative to the healthcare reform efforts of President Obama.
In a meeting hosted by the Richmond Times, Rep. Cantor answers a question about a woman who had lost her job and her health care and then learned that she had had abdominal tumors which required an operation. His reply includes the suggestion that she do what it takes to qualify for an existing government program or find a charitable organization to help her.
That, my friend, is the failed and discredited supply-side (i.e. "trickle-down") economic model applied to health care.
Cantor: First of all, I guess I would ask what the situation is in terms of income eligibility and the existing programs that are out there. Because if we look at the uninsured that are out there right now, there is probably 23, 24% of the uninsured that is already eligible for an existing government program [...] Beyond that, I know that there are programs, there are charitable organizations, there are hospitals here who do provide charity care that if there's an instance of indigemcy and the individual is not eligible for existing programs that there can be some cooperative effort. No one in this country, given who we are, should be sitting without an option to go be addressed.
If you don't understand exactly what Cantor's reply means, watch this video:
Finally, you may view the entire, 97 minute Richmond Times Public Square: Health Care Reform meeting held on September 21 (below) at which Virginia representatives Bobby Scott (D-3rd) and Eric Cantor (R-7th) discussed the issue, presented their respective views on what reform should look like, and answered questions from the audience.
It's quite informative and worth watching.
The question about the woman with abdominal cancer and the responses of both Rep. Scott and response begins at the 59 minute mark. Watch and listen carefully. Notice which representative addresses the issue from the standpoint of helping the woman and which from the standpoint of protecting the profits of the insurance companies.
The cartoon above fairly accurately depicts how conservative talk radio and cable-television news, broadcasting 24/7 and appealing to the lunatic fringe of the far-right, have hijacked the GOP and driven an agenda based on hatred, fear, and lies about the lawfully elected President of the United States.
Now at long last, it looks as if thinking Republicans may have awakened to the realization that such an agenda is not good for their party or for the country.
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Publication: The Columbus Dispatch; Date: Sep 23 2009; Section: Front Page; Page: A1
Secretary slams political 'trash talk'
LaHood blames drop in civility on hosts of radio, cable shows
By Joe Hallett THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
A Republican member of President Barack Obama's cabinet blistered conservative talk-radio hosts and cable-television news yesterday, saying they have eroded civility and impeded the nation's ability to solve big problems.
Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood told The Dispatch that the level of "harsh discourse in Washington has probably reached an all-time high," and he partly blamed it on "all of this trash talk about the process and about politicians 24/7" on cable television and talk radio.
LaHood referred to criticism Obama received for appearing Sunday on five television news shows to promote his health-care overhaul. The secretary also indicated that even the president's bully pulpit is no match for the cacophony over the airwaves from the political right.
"He can't even compete with all this stuff that people are saying about him, so the idea that he did five interviews on Sunday, that's just minuscule compared to the kind of trash talk that goes on all week prior to that," LaHood said.
"All of this background, all of this trash talk in the background, it does not contribute to civil discourse, and it does not contribute to the government or the country's ability to solve big issues."
LaHood made his comments while in town to tout the benefits for Ohio of the federal economic-stimulus bill. LaHood, a former 14-year member of the U.S. House from Peoria, Ill., is one of two Republicans serving in Obama's cabinet. (Defense Secretary Robert Gates is the other.)
A moderate known for his ability to get along with both parties in Congress, LaHood was chosen to preside over the 1998 House impeachment vote of then-President Bill Clinton, and he voted to impeach.
LaHood is the second high-ranking Republican in the past dozen days to decry the influence of conservative talk-show hosts on civil political discourse.
On Sept. 11, retired longtime Ohio GOP Chairman Robert T. Bennett told the state party's governing board that the party should stand up against "some of our talking heads" who led the opposition to Obama's televised speech to schoolchildren or risk "losing the battle with middle America."
Bennett singled out Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck. Yesterday, LaHood named them and Fox News commentator Sean Hannity for diminishing civility. In the rural central-Illinois congressional district LaHood used to represent, he said, Beck, Limbaugh and Hannity dominate the daytime airwaves.
"Now, when you get farmers picking their corn and beans, driving around in their (tractor) cabs listening to, from 9 to 3, these guys all revved up against Obama, against everything that he's trying to accomplish, that gets people stirred up. …They're making an enormous amount of money by trashing politicians and trashing the process."
Referring to cable TV news shows, LaHood said, "Look, you know as well as I do that there's not enough news for 24 hours, so what happens is that these channels keep repeating politicians yelling at one another or people that are all exercised, and that gets people all revved up.
"And it also gives the idea that maybe these politicians don't know what they're doing."
Asked whether he envisions any changes in the media that might reverse the trend of incivility, LaHood replied, "In a word, no. Unless the people decide that the way, you know, (is) to shut it off, turn it off."
Now that we know how and why the right-wingnuts are so successful in subverting attempts to bring real reform to Washington, Wall Street, and America in general, let's take a look at who is behind the whole pack of lies.
It's none other than Dick Armey, former Speaker of the House and chairman of the right-wing advocacy group Freedom Works.
Mr. Armey is on record saying, "Politics is about 97% fiction and 3% imagination," and he certainly has the fiction part down pat. He was the man behind the "Tea Party" rallies earlier this year as well as the town hall meeting disruptions, both of which used Freedom Works-financed professional lobbyists to spread lies about health care reform while presenting them as "grass roots" movements.
The greatest hypocrisy, however, is that Dick Armey, staunch opponent of government-run health care, has never had any health care plan other than one paid for with tax money.
Discover the truth about Dick Armey and the health coverage he enjoys - coverage to which he does not want to grant you access.
Click here or on the image below to watch Bill Moyers on the Man Behind the March.
This is a most interesting video. It demonstrates how our memories work. It also shows how memory and perception can be manipulated by someone posing as an unbiased source of information.
Although it was not intended for this purpose, the video also shows precisely how and why the right-wing spin machine is so effective in duping the public.
In the video, Elizabeth Loftus inserts a bogus image into an ostensibly objective test, and Leslie Stahl is manipulated into believing she saw the bogus face even when presented with the actual face she had seen in the test.
In the same way and for completely ideological reasons the talking heads at FOX News, talk show hosts, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, et al., and the leaders of the GOP use conflation to control perception.
They present contradictory ideas (e.g. "Obama is a fascist" and "Obama is a socialist.") as if they were interchangeable. No person, however, can be both a fascist and a socialist because those are polar opposite political concepts.
Having established doubt in the minds of their audience they then repeat the conflation at every opportunity.
This makes it very difficult for people to recognize the truth; and, because most folks are predisposed to trust any person claiming to present "fair and balanced" information, they are duped into believing one lie after another.
I am an Ohioan. I was born, raised, educated, married, and will likely be buried here. However, from the time I first became aware of Ohio's political climate as a teenager, I have suffered from a chronic case of the red-state blues.
It's endemic among Ohioans who have come to recognize that greed, prejudice, and ignorance drive a regressive legislative agenda within the chambers of the Ohio Statehouse.
Finally, after more than fifty years, someone has come up with a plan offering hope and a possible cure...
There are just some kind of men who—who're so busy worrying about the next world they've never learned to live in this one..."
— Harper Lee, To Kill A Mockingbird
In To Kill A Mockingbird Harper Lee broached the subject of how otherwise intelligent, caring people let religious dogma justify prejudice toward others and insulate themselves, their behavior, and their belief system from introspection.
Frank Schaeffer is the author of CRAZY FOR GOD—How I Grew Up As One Of The Elect, Helped Found The Religious Right, And Lived To Take All (Or Almost All) Of It Back.
Schaeffer is the bridge which links the truth expressed through fiction in Harper Lee's novel to the political, religious, and social realities of today's world.
As a former Religious Right leader, who was raised (and home-schooled by my Evangelical-leader parents, Francis and Edith Schaeffer) in the movement, let me explain just why the ordinary rules of decency don't apply to the right these days.
Watch Schaeffer's discussion of the danger to America posed by the religious right's rejection of facts.
There are two ridiculously inefficient and ineffective (no, they are not the same) economic entities within the American system of government which foster prejudice and prevent citizens of the richest country in the world from enjoying services people in less wealthy nations take for granted. Much like a shotgun wedding, each creates a tie which binds a critical service to a recalcitrant partner.
Public education and health care are the entities. The recalcitrant partners are property owners and employers respectively. In each case something which improves the lot of the entire populace depends on the largess of a portion of the populace for funding.
All modern societies, indeed all societies which have ever functioned above the level of nomadic bands of hunter-gatherers, have maintained themselves through an economic system of wealth redistribution. America is no exception. However, certain groups in America have consistently argued that this is not the case and that a complex society can exist without a functioning government-run economic system. They believe, or claim to believe, that America could get along just fine if taxes were eliminated and public services were provided by privately funded charities.
The United States tried that under the Articles of Confederation. It didn't work, and the Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution. Ever since its ratification, however, those whose wealth depends on the existence of an underpaid but compliant workforce have taken steps to undermine any attempt by the government "to establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity" as set forth in the Preamble.
Calling themselves "strict constructionists," they assert that to the Founding Fathers the phrase "ourselves and our Posterity" meant wealthy property owners like themselves, not ordinary citizens.
This narrow interpretation of four words within the Preamble to the Constitution allowed slavery to exist until the Civil War and then morph into Jim Crow after emancipation.
Today that same mindset undermines the public education system by tying funding to property taxes while sustaining a system of private educational institutions available predominately to the wealthy. It is also the reason health insurance is tied to employment. Such an arrangement denies adequate health care to millions of unemployed and under-employed Americans while coercing millions more with better-paying jobs to resign themselves to unjust and inequitable working conditions.
Remember this whenever you hear folks shouting "Socialism!" in response to the current attempt to reform the health care system.
Here's a bit of creative money-folding magic I thought you might enjoy. Both the subject line above and the image below are from www.farleftside.com. The commentary is mine.
George ===
Isn't it amazing what you can pass off as "revealed truth" if you're willing to alter or completely ignore the reality on which your conclusions are based?
Since Glenn Beck has built his entire career on doing just that, while making a ton of money in the process, I believe it's only fitting that someone decided to amend as well as fold a $100 bill to reveal this bit of truth about the FOX News bloviator.
amend |əˈmend| verb [ trans. ] make minor changes in (a text) in order to make it fairer, more accurate, or more up-to-date
The letter which follows was published in the August 23 edition of the Columbus Dispatch:
Can health-care view define a person?
I have been a board member of the YMCA, a vice president of the United Way and the president of a parent-teacher organization. I thought I was a pretty solid citizen.
However, I have been informed by Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California that I am "un-American." Paul Krugman said I was a racist ("Anger aimed at Obama, not at his proposals," Forum column, Aug. 10), and White House officials believe that I am part of an angry mob because of my opposition to President Barack Obama's health-care plan.
BILL BABBITT New Albany
To this letter, I wrote and submitted the following reply:
Editor,
On August 23 The Dispatch published a brief letter from Bill Babbitt under the headline "Can health-care view define a person?" I offer the following response to Mr. Babbitt's letter as well as to the editor who wrote the headline:
Dear Bill,
It's not your view, but rather the arguments you use to present that view which tell others who and what you are.
If your reasons for opposing President Barack Obama's health-care plan are the unsupported, emotionally-loaded taunts phrased as questions being shouted at town hall meetings, you are indeed a member of an angry mob of un-American racists, despite any and all claims to the contrary and a record of past community involvement.
If you have reasons for your opposition, which are supported by facts, you need to state them in order to dissociate yourself from those who offer none.
President Obama debunks the myths around health reform, and discusses the public option proposal in which many of them are rooted. But he focuses his address on the stark moral and historical turning point at which we find ourselves.
