Let Us Eat Cake

Are We Headed for Another French Revolution?

I'm a big reader (in case you haven't guessed by my other site) and although I read a lot of different genres, I love historical fiction. Being the inquisitive mind that I am, what tends to happen is that I obsessively read fiction about a certain era, and then I start researching, because I want to know the truth, or just MORE.

A year or so ago, it was the Tudor era. Lately, it's been the French Revolution.

The more I read, and the more I research, the more it scares me.

A really quick, non-historian rundown of the French Revolution:

• Louis XVI (the 16th, for those with Roman numeral issues...) came to power in 1774. He was married to Marie Antoinette, of Austria, and together they had 4 children, two of whom died in early childhood.
• By the end of the 1780s, France was going through a very bad economic time, partly due to its participation in The Seven Years' War, and the American Revolutionary War.
• However, while the common people were struggling to survive, the aristocracy was living as if nothing had happened. Tales of royal excess were legendary, often focused -unfairly or not - on the Queen (we've all heard the "Let them eat cake" story, right?)
• VERY long story short, the people - lead by some lesser nobles (whose motives are more than likely questionable) - decided that they wouldn't take any more, and rebelled. After months of rebellion, The Palace of Versailles was attacked, and the Royal Family forced into a house arrest-type situation at a palace in Paris. They made a rather pathetic attempt to escape France, at which point they were locked down even further. As different factions fought for power in the new republic, the King and Queen - despite being stripped of any power - were considered a threat and were eventually executed. 
• As the rival factions continued their feuds, the "Reign of Terror" began and tens of thousands of people - both nobles and commoners - were executed, mostly by the newfangled guillotine. The unheaval led to the rise of Napoleon Bonaparte, and went on for decades. 
• The "rebellion" depicted in Les Miserables actually took place in June, 1832 - nearly 40 years after the executions of Louis XVI and his Queen. During those years, as I mentioned, Napoleon was in charge for 11 years (1804-1815), and the monarchy came and went several times, ending for good in 1848. This all just goes to show that there were DECADES of upheaval before France's current political system was finally settled.
  

So, what's the point of all of this? Why does it scare me? Because the more I read about the French Revolution, the more it starts to sound eerily familiar.

No, we don't have a real monarchy anymore - not in the way that the French did - but instead of the "First Estate" we have "The 1%" (who, incidentally, pay almost no tax in many cases - similar to how the nobility in pre-revolutionary France paid no tax, while the commoners were highly taxed.) Instead of lesser nobles claiming to have the best interests of the people at heart, we have celebrities advocating not voting as a means of rebellion. Instead of the satirical pamphlets handed out on street corners, we have bloggers who can (although not all do) write whatever they want - whether it's true or not with no repercussions (and yes, I see the irony in this statement). Corporations continue to make higher and higher profits, while their workers struggle to figure out how to pay rent and buy food at the same time.

Think that I'm blowing the similarities out of proportion? In just a few hours yesterday, these two news stories appeared in my social media feeds (the Russell Brand video I linked to above has also been posted all over everywhere recently):

• McDonald's Tells Worker She Should Sign Up for Food Stamps
• Palaces-in-the-Making

Every day, there is more and more unrest. Every day there is more division between the "Royalists" (the conservatives) and the "Constitutionalists" (the liberals.) More and more people are wondering aloud how it is fair for the gap between wealthy and poor to keep getting wider. Median income - when adjusted for inflation - is actually LOWER than it was a decade ago. The government in Canada - oh, sorry, The Harper Government - claims that the number of people on Employment Insurance is going down, but they neglect to mention the number of people whose Employment Insurance runs out before they find work, or those forced to take part-time and/or low-wage work. In the US, people are forced out of their homes because of predatory lending practices, and people go bankrupt just trying to pay for life-saving medical treatment for themselves or their families. Meanwhile some CEOs are making 1000x the pay of their average employee.

No matter which "side" you're on, you have to admit that our society is broken. And people are getting angry. What frightens me is to think of the violence that can come of a large group of angry people. In the Women's March on Versailles (the event that led to the Royal Family fleeing their home) there were an estimated 6,000-10,000 people who attacked the palace, leaving death and destruction in their wake. Really, when you think about it, there have been VERY few major societal revolutions that didn't involve violence.

So what does that mean for us? The "Occupy" movement was essentially a peaceful protest. Will people continue to utilize peaceful resistance, or are we looking at a future of angry violence? It seems that those in power have no interest in changing the status quo: corporations are intent on continuing their pursuit of profit for the few at the expense of the many; housing prices are becoming completely unsustainable; there is little in the way of job stability for anyone; people are now considered a disposable commodity (AKA "collateral damage".)

What continues to amaze and sadden me is how the economic issues plaguing us are causing those of us in "the 99%" to turn on each other. We say that younger generations have a sense of entitlement, and no work ethic; we say that the Baby Boomers refuse to give up power and revel in the failures of their own children. We blame everyone but those who are truly to blame.

Before you ask, at this point, no, I don't have a solution. Most of what needs to be done will never happen voluntarily under the current "nobility." They - or maybe we - have succeeded in creating such a gap between our factions that instead of working together, we just create barriers to prevent any real progress. I'm just trying to point out what I'm seeing, and where I'm afraid we're heading, and hoping that someone will be able to come up with a solution before it's too late.

Newtown: How can this not be the time?

I've been told in the past that, as a Canadian, I shouldn't have any opinion on American politics. However, anyone who knows me knows that it's not like me to keep my opinions to myself, and I'm not about to start now. Not now.

I heard about the shooting earlier in the day, but it didn't really register with me at first. I was at work, trying to get ready for an office Christmas party, of all things. After lunch, I left the office briefly to run a couple of errands. It was then that I saw a television news report, and realized the magnitude of what had transpired in Newtown, Connecticut.

Later that afternoon, on Twitter, almost all of the posts related to the shootings. They came in three varieties: shock and horror, dismay at brands who were continuing self-promotion at a time when people were only interested in grieving, and people saying, "Now is not the time to talk about gun control."

If not now, when?

Memories fade quickly. Right now, we are all grieving, but as our lives return to "normal", and we go back to our Christmas preparations, what about the parents who will have presents remaining unopened? After the Colorado theatre shootings it was also "too soon" to talk about gun laws, and the conversation never happened. How many more people have to die before it's the right time?

"But the Second Amendment guarantees us the right to bear arms!" you say.

As a friend of mine so eloquently put it earlier: "Fuck the Second Amendment." My right to send my children to school and have them come home safely trumps your right to own a semi-automatic.

"Guns don't kill people; people kill people."

This is my all-time favourite gun argument. Especially when they couple it with "Guns kill people like spoons made (insert name of obese celebrity here) fat." You know what I say to that? Spoons serve a purpose other than as an instrument of death. Give me one purpose of a gun other than to kill - just one - and I will give up my argument against gun control.

Larry Pratt, the Executive Director of "Gun Owners of America", had this to say:

Gun control advocates have the blood of little children on their hands. Federal and state laws combined to ensure that no teacher, no administrator, no adult had a gun at the Newtown school where the children were murdered. This tragedy underscores the urgency of getting rid of gun bans in school zones. The only thing accomplished by gun free zones is to ensure that mass murderers can slay more before they are finally confronted by someone with a gun.

So there you have it: the answer to gun crime is more guns. Makes perfect sense, doesn't it? Heck, if EVERYONE had a gun - even little children - no one would ever shoot anyone! Maybe gun training should come right after potty training?

This Christmas, 26 families and their friends, will be in mourning. So many other children have had their innocence taken away far too young. How can this possibly not be the time to talk about gun control?

Who's in Charge of this Train, Anyway?

A friend just "recommended" this editorial by Michael Ignatieff on Facebook. My initial thought was to recommend it myself, with my thoughts. Then I decided to post it here, instead. I've noticed lately that I've lost a few FB friends, and although at first this hurt me, I had to wonder if it was due to my political/ideological postings. If that's the case: too bad. I am who I am, and I believe what I believe. Often very strongly.

What I don't understand is why people who disagree with me about these issues are so offended by the idea of society working together for everyone's betterment. Are they afraid for their own standard of living? Do they honestly believe that every poor person is poor because of laziness and/or drug and alcohol abuse? That every New Year's baby born today has EXACTLY the same opportunities for "success" as his/her peers?

I love the analogy in the article: that living in the Great Depression was like riding a train. If you had a job, "it was like being in the heated parlour car in the front of the train, while the unemployed were in the unheated freight cars in the back." I've noticed that those who are so adamantly against government programs to help the poor are usually those who are not only employed, but have been in the same job for a long time; who haven't had to deal with months and months of resumes and applications, and internet job searches; those who don't know that trying to live on $1800 per month (approximately the maximum amount of EI in our area) is nearly impossible for a family who may depend on that income as their sole source of support. For those who have been riding in those unheated freight cars, it is a ride of fear, shame, and despair, made all the more hard by living amongst those who are eating caviar in the parlour car.

I guess I just will never understand how it is that people can be so unwilling to give up a little bit of their wealth to make sure that other people have a reasonable standard of living. There is no way out of this mess while some are zealously guarding the proverbial Versailles and the peasants are crying for bread.

I once had someone ask me "Who are you to decide what's a reasonable income for anyone else?" That's not an easy question for me to answer. I suppose I have no right to say that no one NEEDS over a million dollars a year, but to me, that's just plain logic. To say, "I work 20 hours a day for that money, so I should get to keep it" discounts those who are working 2 or 3 jobs at minimum wage and barely surviving. Are you working harder than the person who's cleaning your office at 2am? The person who's out collecting your trash in -20 degree or 35 degree weather? Are you working harder than the person building the roads for you to drive to your company? The teacher who's educating your children? Who are YOU to say that what you do is worth more than what anyone else contributes to society?

I've been told that this whole "December 21, 2012" thing is more about a societal shift than about the end of the world. I really hope that's true, because until we all realize that we're all in this world together, I don't see us finding those middle cars on the train.

Love Prevails

I was out at the gym last night. Yay me! But, of course that means I come home to the Twitter timeline from Hell. This time, it was okay, though.

Because everywhere in my timeline there were posts praising the court judgement against Prop H8 in California. From Ellen DeGeneres to the random moms that I follow, to friends I've known for years, it seemed everyone was happy. Of course, I'm guessing that if anyone WAS for Prop H8, then they weren't likely going to speak up too much anyway.

Gay marriage has been legal in Canada for five years now. It's just a fact of life. Our families haven't fallen apart. Our children haven't been "indoctrinated" and I doubt that anyone has been converted by "The Gay Agenda."

When will the H8ers realize that it's none of their business who other people love? Pierre Trudeau said so long ago that the government had no business in the nation's bedrooms. It has no business in the people's marriages, either. Let us marry (or divorce, as the case may be) who we want.

I don't know what will happen when this case in California goes to appeal (and I'm sure that it will), but I'm still hopeful that eventually California, and the rest of the US, will figure out that it is so much easier to love than it is to hate. Hate takes up way too much energy. Love only GIVES energy.

Tea Partiers are Old, Rich White Dudes? I'm Shocked.

So, a poll conducted by the venerable New York Times (I love being able to use the word "venerable") and CBS News is aiming to show the demographics of the "Tea Party". They like to proclaim that they are "of the people" and try to make out that they are the voice of the blue collar workers tired of having Evil "Big Government" take all of their money and redistribute it. So in other words, they don't like Robin Hood. This makes them what? The Sheriff of Nottingham? I'm just sayin' is all...

Anyway, despite what they would have you believe, the new poll shows that the 18% of Americans who say they are supporters of the Tea Party tend to be older than 45, male, married, white and Republican. WHAAAAT? Sorry, did my eyes just roll into the back of my head? I'll try to stop that.

More than half of the Tea Partiers believe that the current administration's policies favour the poor instead of the rich or middle class. It's also worth noting that 25% believe that the administration's policies favour blacks, rather than whites. Oh yeah, I forgot about that "Blacks can't be charged for armed robbery: they're just giving themselves a step up" Bill.

Ninety-two percent believe that Obama is heading the US towards socialism. On a related note, the Times failed to mention the percentage of those who could actually give the proper definition for socialism.

“I just feel he’s getting away from what America is,” said Kathy Mayhugh, 67, a retired medical transcriber in Jacksonville. “He’s a socialist. And to tell you the truth, I think he’s a Muslim and trying to head us in that direction, I don’t care what he says. He’s been in office over a year and can’t find a church to go to. That doesn’t say much for him.”(from the Times article)

Oh, and while they are against Evil Big Government, they don't want Medicare or Social Security cut.

Yep, these are definitely the people I want running the country two hours away from me. Yep.

Acts of Cowardice, Ignorance

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/legislative/house/2010-03-24-threats_N.htm?loc=interstitialskip

WASHINGTON — The FBI is investigating acts of vandalism and a death threat aimed at Democrats who voted for the health care legislation.

A freshman Democrat from Virginia reported that a gas line had been severed at his brother's home, and two congresswomen — one in New York and another in Arizona — said windows at their district offices were smashed.

"A significant number, meaning more than 10" members received threats, said Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland, and officials from the FBI and U.S. Capitol Police talked with House Democrats Wednesday about how to protect themselves. Hoyer and other Democrats said the incidents may have been the work of angry opponents of the health care legislation, which President Obama signed Tuesday.

Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y., who on Wednesday disclosed two "alarming" incidents that occurred last week, blamed Republican leadership for "fanning the flames."

House Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio condemned such misconduct. "Violence and threats are unacceptable," Boehner said Wednesday on Fox News. "Yes, I know there is anger, but let's take that anger, and go out and register people to vote, go volunteer on a political campaign."

The FBI is "seeking to identify those responsible" for threats against members of Congress, spokeswoman Katherine Schweit said Wednesday. She did not know how many threats had been made.

"Anybody who has information, we want them to contact us," Schweit said.

Slaughter, who had a prominent role in passing the historic legislation as chairwoman of the House Rules Committee, said a window in a district office was shattered by a brick and a voicemail "referencing snipers" was left on a campaign office phone. She said the FBI, Capitol Police and local authorities are investigating.

Rep. Tom Perriello, D-Va., said the FBI and local authorities are investigating the incident at his brother's house.

Perriello, who defeated Republican Virgil Goode by fewer than 800 votes in 2008, has been a target of conservative ire because of his vote for health care. Earlier this week, a "Tea Party" activist posted Perriello's brother's address on a blog, mistakenly identifying it as the congressman's home and urging readers to "drop by ... and express their thanks regarding his vote for health care."

"While it is too early to say anything definitive regarding political motivations behind this act," Perriello said in a statement Wednesday, "it's never too early for political leaders to condemn threats of violence, particularly as threats to other members of Congress and their children escalate."

Mike Troxel, the blogger who posted the Perriello address, could not be reached for comment Wednesday and his website was inaccessible. Troxel is a "participant" in a Tea Party group in Lynchburg, Va., said Mark Lloyd, the group's chairman. Tea Party members are conservatives who oppose increased government spending and regulations.

Lloyd said in an e-mailed statement that his group does not "encourage violence, damage to property, or criminal activity of any sort." He added: "If bad taste and poor judgment were a crime, then most of Congress would be behind bars."

In Arizona early Monday morning — shortly after the health care bill passed the House — vandals smashed the glass door at the Tucson office of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., her office said.

Giffords' spokesman, C.J. Karamargin, said a security guard reported the incident hours after he and others had left the office after watching the health care vote on television. Giffords voted for the legislation.

"That was the frightening thing, that people were here just before this happened," Karamargin said in a telephone interview from the Tucson office. "We feel lucky no one was injured."

He said the office had received many phone calls with "nasty and rude and hateful comments" from opponents of the health care bill.

President Obama believes that "people should have a right to ... passionate views," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said. However, Gibbs said, people should "exercise those views not in a way that threatens anybody's safety or security, not in any way that foments violence."

Clarifying the US Health Care Changes

Sorry, only time for a link right now, but the article is worthwhile reading for Americans, and others interested in the changes happening in US healthcare.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/22/your-money/health-insurance/22consumer.html?hp

Yes!!!

Democrats poised to pass historic health-care reform bill - thestar.com

President Barack Obama and House Democratic leaders struck a last-minute deal Sunday with abortion foes to secure the final few votes needed to remake America's health care system, writing a climactic chapter in a century-old quest for near universal coverage.
The House argued its way through a thicket of Republican objections toward an evening vote on the bill to extend coverage to 32 million Americans who lack it, ban insurers from denying coverage on the basis of pre-existing medical conditions and cut deficits by an estimated $138 billion over a decade.
Passage of a central health care bill already cleared by the Senate would send it to Obama for his signature. That still would leave one more step, a companion package of changes that would go to the Senate.
The stakes could not have been higher for Obama's presidency. Obama has made health care reform the defining issue of his first year in office. Republicans hoped that by blocking the legislation, they would be able to thwart Obama's ambitious domestic agenda, including immigration reform and climate change legislation.
While national health care has long been a goal of presidents stretching back decades, it has proved elusive, in part because self-reliance and suspicion of a strong central government remain strong in the U.S.
A shouting band of protesters outside the Capitol dramatized their opposition, and one man stood up in the House visitor's gallery shouting, “Kill the bill” before he was ushered out — evidence of the passions the yearlong debate over health care has stirred.
Obama lobbied by phone from the White House, then took the crucial step of issuing an executive order that satisfied a small group of Democrats who demanded that no federal funds be used for elective abortions.
“We're well past 216” votes, a majority needed for passage, said Democratic Rep. Bart Stupak, swinging behind the bill after leading the anti-abortion holdouts in a rebellion that had left the outcome in doubt.
Democratic aides confirmed his vote count.
Obama, on the verge of securing one of the most significant legislative triumphs in decades, planned to make a statement to the nation Sunday night after the House takes its final vote on the health care legislation.

After more than a year of political combat — certain to persist into the fall election campaign for control of Congress — debate on the House floor fell along predictable lines.

“The public has been grievously and purposely lied to,” by Republicans in their efforts to defeat the legislation, said Democratic Rep. Louise Slaughter, a clear reference to Republican accusations that included the claim that there would be death panels for elderly patients.

Republicans opposed the measure as a takeover of government health care that would cut Medicare for the elderly and raise taxes by nearly $1 trillion combined. Republican Rep. David Dreier criticized the Democrats for their tactics on the House floor, but said, “the greatest outrage has always been for the bill itself.”
Over and over, Democrats stressed the historic nature of the day. The measure represents the biggest expansion of the social safety net since Medicare and Medicaid were enacted in 1965 during President Lyndon B. Johnson's administration to provide government-funded health care coverage to the elderly and poor.
“Health care isn't only a civil right, it's a moral issue,” said Democratic Rep. Patrick Kennedy. He said his late father, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, had worked his entire career for nationwide health care, and President John F. Kennedy before him.
Slaughter, read a message President Franklin Roosevelt sent Congress in 1939 urging lawmakers to address the needs of those without health care, and said Democrat Harry Truman and Republican Richard Nixon had also sought to broaden health insurance coverage.
Obama has said often that presidents of both parties have tried without success to achieve national health insurance, beginning with Theodore Roosevelt early in the 20th century.
The 44th president's quest to succeed where others have failed seemed at a dead end two months ago, when Republicans won a special election to fill Edward Kennedy's Massachusetts Senate seat, and with it, enough votes to prevent a final vote.
But the White House, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid soon came up with a rescue plan that required the House to approve the Senate-passed measure despite opposition to many of its provisions, then have both chambers pass a fix-it measure incorporating numerous changes.
Under the order of the day, set down by Democrats, the House was voting first on the Senate-passed bill, sending it to Obama for his signature. A final vote on the fix-it bill would follow. Its passage would set up a final showdown in the Senate, where Reid says at least 50 votes are in hand for its final approval under a fast-track procedure known as reconciliation.
Under the legislation, most Americans would be required to purchase insurance, and face penalties if they refused. Much of the money in the bill would be devoted to subsidies to help families at incomes of up to $88,000 a year pay their premiums.
The legislation would also usher in a significant expansion of Medicaid, the federal-state health care program for the poor.
The insurance industry would come under new federal regulation. They would be forbidden from placing lifetime dollar limits on policies, from denying coverage because of pre-existing conditions and from cancelling policies when a policyholder becomes ill.

Parents would be able to keep older children on their coverage up to age 26. A new high-risk pool would offer coverage to uninsured people with medical problems until 2014, when the coverage expansion goes into high gear.
Once enacted, the two bills would create a series of so-called “insurance exchanges” beginning in 2014 where self-employed people and small businesses could pool together to shop for health care coverage.
To pay for the changes, the legislation includes more than $400 billion in higher taxes over a decade, roughly half of it from a new Medicare payroll tax on individuals with incomes over $200,000 and couples over $250,000.

Is it perfect? Absolutely not. Is it better? Absolutely. And with US politics being what it is right now, a step in the right direction is better than nothing.

Glen Beck is an Idiot. And So is His One Brain Cell.

I have to admit, I have never seen Glen Beck. Then again, I've never sat in a pool with piranhas, and I'm pretty sure that I wouldn't like that, either. Everything I've heard of the man offends me to my very core. His brand of Conservatism isn't about the government redistributing wealth, as he'd have you believe. It's not about how individuals should be helping each other, rather than government. It's about "ME ME ME!!!" It's about "I shouldn't have to give you one red cent of my millions to help anybody else because my new Bentley is more important than a 3 year old's cancer surgery and treatment." In other words, it's bullshit for greedy sheep.

My friend Jen posted this blog by Roger Ebert. It sums up my feelings pretty damned well.

http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2010/03/jesus_was_a_nazi_and_sos_your.html#more

Pretty near everything Glenn Beck says strikes me as absurd, but he scored a perfect 10 when he warned his viewers against the dangers of Christianity. You already know all about it. Well, maybe not, because the usual defenders of Christianity, like James Dobson and Pat Robertson, were very quiet on the topic. Not even a peep from Pat about this man who showed every sign of having hired the best lawyers to draft his pact with Satan.

Many other Christians were not so silent Dr. David P. Gushee, Professor of Christian Ethics at Mercer University, wrote: "He managed to do something few have been able to do -- speaking only of my own religious community, he has united Catholics and Protestants, evangelicals and mainliners, Christian progressives and moderates and conservatives."

What were Beck's unifying words? "I beg you, look for the words social justice or economic justice on your church web site," he told his audience. "If you find it, run as fast as you can. Social justice and economic justice, they are code words. Now, am I advising people to leave their church? Yes! If you have a priest that is pushing social justice, go find another parish. Go alert your bishop and tell them, 'Excuse me are you down with this whole social justice thing?' If it's my church, I'm alerting the church authorities: 'Excuse me, what's this social justice thing?' And if they say, 'yeah, we're all in that social justice thing'--I'm in the wrong place."

I was on the brink of picking up the phone and asking Francis Cardinal George if he was down on this whole social justice thing, but then I recalled that I no longer use the telephone. Do you suppose the cardinal texts? I know some priests pretty well, and two ministers I went to high school with, and a rabbi, and I have a Muslim friend who teaches that faith in Chicago universities, and I work with a Buddhist, but it's no use asking them. They're all down on this social justice thing.


What are the words "social justice" code for? Why, Nazism and Communism, says Beck: "Social justice was the rallying cry--economic justice and social justice--the rallying cry on both the communist front and the fascist front." Beck even went so far as to cite Jesus Christ, saying, and I quote: "Nowhere does Jesus say, Hey, if somebody asks for your shirt, give your coat to the government and have the government give them a pair of slacks." Well, Beck has me there. It is quite true that nowhere does Jesus say that. Nor, for that matter, does he ever say, A wop bop a lu bop, a wop bam boom!

What I would enjoy hearing is one single clergyman from any faith in America, appearing on Beck's program to agree with him and denouncing social justice. Such a person might be a real piece of work. I suspect he might currently be in between congregations. Beck's oversight is that all religions teach social justice. That's sort of what they're about. "My church doesn't," said Beck, who is a Mormon. Not for the first time, he was dead wrong, and the mountains of Utah rang with the thunder of outraged Mormon elders. I know now, and did not know before, that before statehood the Mormons in the Utah territory provided universal health care and care for the poor as a matter of their duty.

What Beck has demonstrated, in a singularly inelegant way, is an increasing tendency of the extreme right to automatically describe its opponents in negative buzz words. You would think that if it's possible to be a conservative it's also possible to be a liberal. Not so. In the Beckian theology, a conservative is merely a conservative. Liberals are socialists, community organizers, Marxists, traitors, communists, haters, Nazis, elitists and, in general, liars. Conservatives, on the other hand, are moderates, patriots, reasonable, pro-American, and stand for family values.

I am proudly a liberal. I am also patriotic, reasonable, pro-American, and stand for family values. Sometimes I stray from moderation. I do not remotely identify with the ideologies Beck wants to tar and feather me with. Nor, for that matter, could a genuine conservative identify with a flywheel like Beck. Conservatism is a political and ethical philosophy that exists in another universe from Beck's shopping cart. Remember that TV show where couples raced up and down aisles seeing who could jam the most loot into their carts? Beck loads up from the shelves of the Discount Screwball Supermart. He needs material to fill his daily hours of air time and fuel his fans with one-liners they can pass off as thought.

What is social justice, anyway? I think it involves civil rights and liberties. It involves a trial in a fair legal system. It involves freedom of speech and the practice, or non-practice, of religion. It involves a living wage and decent working conditions. As my father often repeated, "A fair day's work for a fair day's pay." Which of these areas does Glenn Beck believe the Communists and Nazis excelled in? Is he holding in reserve a secret cache of obscure speeches by Hitler? If his listeners heard those words (which real liberals and real conservatives subscribe to) emerging from Hitler's mouth, would they be confused?


Another quote from Beck. The Communists and Nazis "talked about economic justice, rights of the workers, redistribution of wealth, and surprisingly, democracy." Why, that proves it! Those are the very same things Christians talk about. And Democrats. And liberals. And find me, please, one single genuine Republican who doesn't also talk about them. We can gather that Beck disagrees with all of them. Even -- given his maladroit syntax -- surprisingly, democracy.

Beck has strayed way, way off beyond conservatism, to a land where reason itself is an evil conspiracy. This is a growing trend. In Texas, I learn from prisonplanet.com, "A prominent insider has told Infowars that Texas Governor Rick Perry and other establishment neo-cons have decided to deliberately target grass roots constitutionalists with dirty tricks campaigns in an effort to derail and hijack the growing liberty movement whose influence is threatening to blow the Texas gubernatorial race wide open." Yes. Rick Perry, indistinguishable from Democrats, mainstream Republicans, liberals, socialists, Nazis, elitists and believers in social justice.

This whole argument is described by a term widely familiar on the internet, the reductio ad Hitlerum. It is also known, Wikipedia explains, as playing the Nazi card. Anyone using this argumentum, it is believed, is signaling that his logical facility has jumped the rails. It is frequently used in a reflexive sense, as when your opponent accuses you of doing the same thing: "You guys called Bush a Nazi, so it's all right for the Tea Partiers to call Obama a Nazi." To the extent that this is accurate, it is an appeal to -- why, one's sense of social justice, actually.

I am writing this because I have a blog and I needed to vent. I am told repeatedly that Fox News is fair and balanced, that it has the largest share of the (actually rather small) cable news audience, and that it speaks for ordinary Americans. To the degree that this is true, Beck has left them all behind, watching his figure shrink on the far horizon of fanaticism. He has finally, definitively, said something that is completely Wrong from every viewpoint.

Does Glenn Beck speak for average Americans? His logic indicates they must be attending churches that preach Communism and Nazism from the pulpit every Sunday. Why are they so slow to catch on? Now that Beck has alerted them, where can they flee to worship? What will become of them? They have been cast out into the wilderness, where nothing makes sense anymore. The lonely, barren, ignorant wilderness, silent but for the gnashing of Glenn Beck.

I Think I Actually Respect Jesse Ventura... Almost... Wow...

How Dare He?!? He MUST be the Anti-Christ!

When Barack Obama received the Nobel Peace Prize, it was met with a general surprise. I am a big Obama supporter, but even I was kind of shocked. After all, up until his presidency he had almost no international experience.

However, I am impressed with the list of charities to which he is choosing to donate the $1.4 million prize.

– $250,000 to Fisher House, a group that helps provide housing for families of patients receiving medical care at military and Veterans Affairs medical centers;
– $200,000 for the Clinton-Bush Haiti fund, which supports relief efforts in the earthquake-ravaged nation;

– $125,000 for the College Summit, which helps prepare students for college;
– $125,000 for the United Negro College Fund, which helps more than 60,000 students attend college annually;
– $125,000 to the Posse Foundation, which awards four-year full-tuition scholarships to students who, according to the White House, "may be overlooked by traditional college selection processes";
– $125,000 to the Hispanic Scholarship Fund, which has awarded scholarships to over 90,000 students over a 34-year history;
– $125,000 to the Appalachian Leadership and Education Foundation, which supports higher education opportunities for students from Appalachia;
– $125,000 to the American Indian College Fund, which provides over 6,000 scholarships annually to Native American students;
– $100,000 to AfriCare, which supports programs primarily in Sub-Saharan Africa dealing with health, food, and water resource development; and
– $100,000 to the Central Asia Institute, which backs education and literacy efforts for girls in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Damned Socialist. How dare he. Education at home and abroad? Sub-Saharan Africa? Haiti? Helping families of injured veterans? Sheesh. What was he thinking?