Grow Up, Repubicans

The modern Republican party seems like a college fraternity being run by eighth-graders.  They are in an endless party loop.  They don't do their homework, and haven't learned anything.  Ever.  They are, in fact, proud of their know-nothing status and enjoy hazing the eggheads.  They believe the most ridiculous nonsense. 

And they are sponsored by a group of billionaires and corporations who act like Richie Rich's mommy and daddy (Richard and Regina Rich - I looked it up).  They buy their lazy drunken fraternity boy a new Ferrari - every time he totals the old one.  And he seems to total the thing every time he drives.  Never mind - there are lots of Ferraris out there. 

None of this is new - we all know that today's Republicans are lazy and irresponsible.  But why?  I mean, look at US history.  There have always been right wing extremists.  But the new breed seem qualitatively different.  The crazy is just so crazy today.  The denial of obvious fact is so brazen and bizarre. 

And it's so dangerous.  Americans are not, by and large, deep political thinkers.  Many don't follow the issues at all until an election.  And they believe the people they are raised to believe.  As a consequence, many Americans don't know that the crazy train left town years ago.  When rightists talk about the failure of an Obamacare program that is a huge success, they believe it.  When the climate deniers are in power, their constituents don't believe - don't want to believe - that those they trust are hucksters. 

And the budgets that are put forward - cartoonish grabs at money from the mouths of the poors to give away outlandish largesse for the rich and corporations.  People who empirically study this stuff laugh at it.  But most voters don't know how badly they're being shafted by these children in expensive suits. 

I have one theory of why.  I think the end of the Cold War has a lot to do with it.  During the period of the ongoing ideological and military rivalry with the Soviet bloc, leaders in both parties had to be deadly serious.  Denial of obvious fact could lead to a devastating war, or to the loss of allied countries in areas like the Middle East and Southeast Asia.  American leadership had to inpire the 'free world' or risk losing it.

One of the differences between the Vietnam War and the Iraq War was that in Vietnam, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon all believed that the fight against world communism would be won or lost in proxy fights like the one in Vietnam.  They believed I the 'domino theory' - that if one country fell to communism it would lead to communist victories in the next and then the next country. 

It was a mistake, clearly, but one made in the firm belief that it was a necessary fight to preserve freedom. 

Iraq, on the other hand, was simply a war of choice by the frat brothers.  They lied to everyone, they executed badly and left a huge mess.  And they never believed anything.  They wanted to give giant contracts like their no-bid gift to the Vice President's old employer, Halliburton.  The president clearly was manipulated by Cheney and his own daddy issues.  He wanted to prove that he could take down Saddam - his daddy couldn't!

Iraq was started and executed under the worst of American impulses - greed.  The US government was used to create a wholesale fabrication to the citizens of the country and the world. 

But in the post-Cold War era, there is no larger consequence.  There is no rival to American power which could use the catastrophic Iraqi failure against them.  There have been consequences - there is no better recruiting poster for terrorists than Iraq.  The ISIS group was founded by and is run by displaced former Iraqi security and intelligence officers. 

But having the world see the US as violent blunderers is no longer a fatal error.  With no rival to their power, Americans are no longer tied to acting responsibly.  So they don't.  The rightists cavort as though nothing they say or do has any meaning.  They put people like Sarah Palin and Paul Ryan on presidential tickets.  The roster of presidential 'hopefuls' on the right looks like a Looney Tunes intro.  Their Senators and Congress people are beneath contempt.  They stopped every bit of sane, grown-up legislation they could for eight years and now are running on the fact that Democrats didn't get anything done.

They're running on the childish notion that people don't have a right to health care.  Kids don't think they need doctors and nurses.  And thankfully most don't.  But grown-ups  know better. 

The right has let their id off the leash and they think it doesn't matter.  But as we look at the news and watch the world burn in violence and drown in rising sea levels, we know this stuff does matter.  It matters more than the greedy whims of an idiotic fraternity.

Rightists have been getting used to stealing the answers to the test rather than studying.  They gerrymandered the House to steal it.  They are instituting voter suppression laws in states around the country.  And their Bro's in the Supreme Court have gutted the Voting Right Act so they can get away with it.

Let's start calling them on it.  No more cheating to 'win' elections.  No more fact-free legislation of any kind, and no more science denial.

Enough is enough.  Let's make them grow the fuck up.

All In for 1984

George Orwell must have had a time machine.  No, I'm not talking his prediction of the Fox News Memory Hole (tm) where their opinion pieces disappear in case they require a new opinion tomorrow - whatever they like or hate, they've always liked or hated it. 

Rather, I'm talking about Britain's head of counter-intelligence, Mark Rowley.  In a speech, he said:  "Some technology and communication firms are helping militants avoid detection by developing systems that are "friendly to terrorists." 

That's "friendly to terrorists" in the sense that some communication is becoming harder for government to spy on.  So, preserving your right to private communication is bad.  It's like catching someone going through your desk and having them ask you to turn a light on. 

Didn't it used to be important to preserve free speech?  I can clearly remember reading that somewhere.  It's probably gone now - the NSA wouldn't have liked it. 

Rowley went on to say:  "We all love the benefit of the internet and all the rest of it, but we need their support in making sure that they're doing everything possible to stop their technology being exploited by terrorists. I'm saying that needs to be front and center of their thinking and for some it is and some it isn't."

Yes, technology companies that are making efforts to protect their clients from illegal government data collectors are really helping terrorists.  It might help us to believe that if the US or Britain or the Harper stooges in Ottawa could show a single case where their internet interceptors actually stopped a terrorist.  I haven't seen one - have you? 

These internet spying programs are so transparently not about counter-terrorism that's it funny to even have to mention it.  Does anyone believe that they spend billions of our tax dollars on these programs to protect us from something?  Anyone? 

Clearly the government has moved into our collective electronic houses because they want to keep track of us.  They want to read our email and monitor our communication and whereabouts because it gives them power.  They know all about me and you.  We all live on-line lives now and that life is monitored by our respective governments.  And your respective governments.  Location is no longer a factor.  Signals - internet, telephone - travel in ways that respect no borders, and governments collect those signals.

Just like 1984:  The TV in our wall is watching us while we watch it.

And now Rowley - and I'm sure many others in his field - are accusing people of wanting their freedom in order to help terrorists.  I am free so therefore terrorists win.

Except that it's the Orwellian opposite.  I'm not free when the government tracks me.  I'm free when it doesn't. 

And the price of that freedom is that I may (or may not) be in greater danger of a terrorist threat.  Braver people than I have faced far graver danger as the price of freedom.  I can summon up the modicum of courage it takes to live in a marginally less safe world and be free of surveillance. 

So, Mr. Rowley, please stop bullshitting us about helping terrorists.  It's a lie and an insult.  You spy on me and I can't stop you.  Only one of us is doing a historic wrong, and it's not the people having their privacy stolen. 

This Just In: Experts Possess Experise

The fact that experts possess a level of knowledge not possessed by those who are not, you know, experts should not be a news item.  The giveaway is right there in the name:  expert. 

But for many years, Americans have denounced these "know-somethings" because, umm, well I really can't say.  But it is a political reality in (let's face it) Red America that having a recognized proficiency or a studied credential or wealth of recognized professional knowledge in something makes you suspect. 

This is the famed Mr. Knowledge, the egg-head who tells you that them bugs in your yard are endangered so you can't use the DDT on them.  That river is a feed to the water system so your sewage will have to go some place else - after all these years!  And on a larger scale, Mr. & Mrs. Knowledge are telling you that the world is being killed by a bunch of stuff that you can't understand.  Hell, if Global Warming is real why do all those Jews retire to Florida?  AmIright?

In America, all you have to do is follow the money.  Money has bought itself free of governmental control because most (all?) politicians have a price.  And that price is expressed in money. And so Money has become Citizen One of the United States.  Money bought the Executive Branch to the tune of two Regan terms and three Bush terms, and so paid for the appointments of Money Men to the Judicial Branch (the women Judges come from the sane States). 

The Money Judges gave us corporate personhood which led to the Citizens United decision.  Together, they mean that Money is officially in charge of you and I.  It wasn't enough that we are bound to a corporate zombie-job for life.  Now that corporation that owns your livelihood and holds your mortgage also owns your Senator.  That, my friend, is the efficiency of oligarchy.  And if you want to know how oligarchies work out in the end, just ask the Roman Empire - oops, I mean the Roman Republic. 

Money doesn't believe in experts because in the words of the great Stephen Colbert, "reality has a well-known liberal bias." 

Facts get in the way and are often a bummer, as are those who deliver these 'facts.'  Yes, Experts.

Experts tell you facts about how the pollution is hurting the kids.  About how the laws say you can't do things - even if you really really want to do them.  Even if you'll make buckets of more - yes! - Money.  Even Al Gore (Al Gorehitler?) relies on them.  The Inconvenient Truth?  You can't tell the CEO an Inconvenient Truth about making less Money.  He'll make you Inconveniently Fired. 

So if you already know everything you need to know by pretending that you read the Bible and purporting that you were raised up good an proper by some salt of the earth variety parents, there's no need for expertise.  So your mining operations knock the tops off mountains to fill a few rivers - don't give me a big song and dance about the environment.  It's the same environment, it's just now making a dirt dam rather than holding up trees at the top of a hill.  You can't put that ahead of progress (read:  Money). 

But here's the thing that sane people already know:  experts know stuff.  And it's not just the stuff they know, it's how they know it.  That means that in their field, most real experts will tell the truth rather than have their professional opinion swayed by their political leanings. 

In a study reported in the WaPo, state-level judges were tested against lawyers, students, and the general public on how their answers measure up to an objective truth when a political element was in play to swing the answer one way or another.  The study showed that, thought possibly biased in other areas of their views, they stuck to the facts of a legal case remarkably closely and came out with well-grounded legal opinions.

Clearly these judges have no future in their profession, as federal judges (appointed under Reagan and the Bushes) are as mean radical union-busting gay-stomping patriots as you'll find.  Show up to federal court without an axe to grind and you'll deserve what you get. 

I was reading this and thinking about a Fox editorial I'd read recently by former Judge Andrew P. Napolitano.  He's the judicial whackdoodle that Fox calls upon to denounce what needs to be denounced right fucking now - judicially.  He'd written an editorial on the "Religious Freedom Act" in Indiana (you know - the one where you can discriminate against the gays all you want right up until you go out of business). 

And you know what?  He said it's unconstitutional.  I mean, here's the guy who wrote a book called Suicide Pact about how Obama has ruined the presidency by being all Obama-y and making executive orders and all that, without noticing that Bush did far worse while judge Nap was, you know, right there.  And that the scorched-earth Republicans killed anything Obama tried in Congress so he did what he needed to do within his executive authority.  Stuff like that. 

But clearly the Indiana hate law is in breech of the constitution, as are all laws that allow religion to excuse law-breaking.  So if you get Judge Nap on terra firma, you get a straight answer.  Get him on terra foxa, and not so much.

So I went back to the Wholly Land (Fox News site) to get a link to the Judge Nap non-crazy bit.  But it's not there.  There are pages for their opinion heads, but no past opinions.  It's like the Memory Hole is a living thing at Fox.  Today's opinion is yesterdays opinion.  We've always loved that place.  We've always hated that place.  Whatever we say today is the enduring truth for all past and future.  And that statement remains true for anything we say - if it's different, it's always been true.

So I went to Judge Naps Facebook page to find the article, among his Benghazi Crazy and his Jerry Brown Crazy and assorted other nuts.  There's a TV segment, but not the original.  I'm sure I could find it out there on the interwebs, but Fox made it's point loudly enough:  stop thinking!

And don't trust the experts - even our own.

This Just In!

Fox News is giving me that 'come hither' look again and I just can't stay away.

Today's outrage comes in the form of a Fox News poll:  by a large majority, Fox respondents want  you off their damn lawn!  I'm not kidding - get off their lawn!

Shockingly, the Fox poll shows that people think taxes are too high.  Another result shows that water tastes "too bland" and is "all wet."  Because, really, who is going to say that taxes are too low?  Certainly not the millionaires and Tea Party crazies who keep the lights on at Fox.  Even rational people (and I don't think this poll found any to ask) will prefer to pay less to the government.  Yes, I'd rather buy a new [fill in the object of my avarice] than pay that money to whatever level of government is asking for it.

Except that if you ask people what government should do, they'll give you a list of things that all cost money.  Most of us would like the government to stay in the road building (and fixing) business.  Then there's the not letting my house burn down aspect - that's a good one.  And since I don't want to watch my fellow citizens starve to death or die of treatable illnesses, let's all kick in for food assistance and health care. 

Even Fox viewers (especially Fox viewers) want a strong defense.  So let's arm our soldiers.  I'd take the step Fox & Friends don't want to take:  let's provide medical and other support for veterans when we're done with their service.  That all costs money.  And that's okay.  But the burden of taxation must be fair, and that means that the people and organizations which extract the most from our society - the wealthy and corporations - must pay more for the privilege of picking our collective pockets. 

They lead the poll "results" with Saint Reagan:

"The latest Fox News poll shows by a 67-18 percent margin, voters agree that the assessment by Ronald Reagan of the nation’s woes in 1981 applies today as well: That government is not the solution to our problems -- government is the problem."

You're clearly still on Fox's lawn and you'd better get off.  Yes, Fox viewers have not changed their opinion on anything since Reagan.  Who were the 18% of Foxers (or whoever they called - I think they're pretending this was a real survey) who thought that the government isn't the problem?  Maybe that's the part of the Fox demographic (average viewer age:  68) who can remember the Great Depression.

The Great Depression was that time when future Fox sponsors and parents of future Fox sponsors screwed the economy so badly that some of them ended up actually suffering along with the millions of average lives destroyed.  Presidents Coolidge and Hoover provided the Republican response:  let them starve.  Franklin D. Roosevelt provided the human response, and Foxers will - literally - never forgive him for it. 

But those 18%-ers may not have forgotten what it was like living in Depression America.  Before FDR created Social Security, the elderly and people with disabilities just died.  If they didn't have family - who were broke themselves - or some other charity (and charities quickly went broke in the 1930's) they would just starve.  Sorry for your luck.  If you are old enough to recall the food and jobs that FDR used to get America working again, you might be part of the 18% of their poll. 

The Crazy Right are the people who denounce socialist medical care while telling pols to keep their hands off Medicare.  Huh? 

Government is the problem only if you don't understand what the problem really is.  Government didn't steal your retirement savings.  Wall Street did the moment that FDR era controls were lifted.  Government didn't put your elderly relatives in the hospital - government kept them there to get well under programs like Medicare and Medicaid - and now Obamacare. 

Government is the problem if you're trying to swindle investors out of their life savings, or if you're going to the casinos with savings deposit money.  Certainly government isn't enough of a problem for people in those lines of work, because their fellow travellers in the new rightest Congress have their backs and water down any real financial reform. 

So to recap:  Fox is unreconstructed right wing pablum created by the greedy and fed to the misguided.  And they did a poll that agrees with them! 

So I'm getting a big old umbrella and a beach blanket.  I plan to stay on their lawn for a good long while yet.

Make the Deal

The President - sorry, I meant 'Obamahitler' - seems to have cut a nuclear deal with Iran.  All the usual Maiden Aunts are just shocked and appalled that such a thing could happen.  And they're going to stomp their little foot until it goes away.  But, thankfully, it's not going to go away. 

Iran and the US are at an historic impasse.  Iranian nuclear ambitions are an absolute non-starter with the developed world.  We just can't have a nuclear Iran.  It's be like watching a five-year0old walk around with a loaded assault rifle.  It's much better to stop him before he gets the thing loaded than try to afterward. 

And yet, Iran believes that it has a unique place of leadership in the Islamic world.  They are the Yin to Saudi Arabia's Yang.  They support any and pretty much all Shia causes, especially when they get a poke at Sunni Saudi's eye. 

But here's where it's important to distinguish between 'terrorism' and 'revolution.'  Because the 'terror' that Iran supports is mostly Shia Islamic revolutionaries who are trying to replace failed states that are Western or Saudi backed.  So Iran supports - with weapons and money - the Shia fighters in Iraq and Syria opposing ISIS.  And they are supporting Shia revolutionaries in Yemen who are trying to replace a failed Saudi client government there. 

Outside of the American-created mess in Iraq, where are the Iranians supporting actual 'terrorism?'  The working definition of 'terrorism' here is violence that is not part of an attempt to build a country or violence to oppose the creation of a country.  Iran supports that sort of violence in Iraq.  And they support Hamas in Lebanon and whatever's left of Syria.  But Hamas, while chucking rockets and murdering Israelis when given the opportunity, are also a quasi-nationalistic force.  They have stepped in to replace the infrastructure of two failed states.

The point being that they really are not a force for any sort of good in the world, but they're also not the caricatures of bloody Arab menaces that the right in the US and Israel like to paint.  Hell, they're not even Arabs!  Ian also has a youth bomb that's about to explode.  Their population is slanted wildly to a young generation just starting to mature.  If the current Iranian government doesn't do something about making these kids happy and quiescent, that might be the end of them.  There is great internal pressure from these youth for Iran to stop being the world's top asshole state.

The US has nothing to fear from Iran, but Israel really does.  Israel can deal with the various client forces of Iran, but not a nuclear Iran.  They really are dumb and hateful enough to use a nuclear weapon on Israel.  We can't afford to find out if that's true or not.  So what do we do about it?

The Crazy Right in the US wants endless war - as long as they aren't threatened.  War not involving the offspring of the wealthy is part of the foundation of modern American right-psychoses.  They really want to bomb Iran and have a replay of the fun we had in Iraq all over again.  And they're using the Israeli right to do it.  Their message is:  "brave Bibi is standing up to Iran but Obamahitler is selling him out."  They couch their opposition to the Iran deal as defense of Israel.

And the American press buys it.  Not just Fox -this is the story in the Washington Post:

Hey!  That's not Obama! 

Don't believe the hype.  This is the next war that the Crazy Right wants. 

Look:  there are two ways to avoid a nuclear Iran.  One involves mass death and destruction.  It involves colossal profiteering by defense contractors.  And it calls for Republicans to wave a blood-drenched flag on their way to the next election. 

The other way is to cut a smart deal and enforce its terms.  Is that really a choice?