Patriotism Education

"It is not always the same thing to be a good man and a good citizen." -- Aristotle

Arizona, ever the center of enlightened conservative thought, has done it again:

Arizona public schools would be barred from any teachings considered counter to democracy or Western civilization under a proposal endorsed Wednesday by a legislative panel.

Additionally, the measure would prohibit students of the state's universities and community colleges from forming groups based in whole or part on the race of their members, such as the Black Business Students Association at Arizona State University or Native Americans United at Northern Arizona University. Those groups would be forbidden from operating on campus.

The brainchild of Rep. Russell Pearce ...

Pearce, a Mesa Republican, said his target isn't diversity instruction, but schools that use taxpayer dollars to indoctrinate students in what he characterized as anti-American or seditious thinking ...

SB 1108 states, "A primary purpose of public education is to inculcate values of American citizenship. Public tax dollars used in public schools should not be used to denigrate American values and the teachings of Western civilization."

For schools that violate the anti-Western-teachings provision, the bill provides the state superintendent of public instruction with the authority to withhold a portion of state funding.

Rep. John Kavanagh, a member of the Appropriations Committee, said he hopes the measure helps return cultural studies in the state's schools to a "melting pot" model.

"This bill basically says, 'You're here. Adopt American values,' " said Kavanagh, a Fountain Hills Republican. "If you want a different culture, then fine, go back to that culture ..."

It's almost too easy to make fun of Pearce and Kavanagh. The closing quote by Kavanagh is jaw-droppingly offensive and stupid. "American values" -- exactly what does that mean? White, religious, conservative ... I'm sure that's their idea of what it means.


The drive to define and force patriotism is similar to a drive by the Chinese to keep Tibet in line:

China scholars vow patriotism drive for Tibet

Is it more noble to be patriotic than good? Are loyalty oaths going to be a requirement of citizenship? The day that happens is the day that you can kindly have my U.S. citizenship back. Fascism, here we come.

"If I knew something that would serve my country but would harm mankind, I would never reveal it; for I am a citizen of humanity first and by necessity, and a citizen of France second, and only by accident" -- Charles de Montesquieu (French Politician and Philosopher, 1689-1755)

Letter to a Christian Nation

This was my first Sam Harris book. I'd read essays by him in Free Inquiry magazine, but this was my first extended exposure to his writings. And I'm impressed. If you don't know where to start in the genre of atheist books by the vaunted triumvirate of Dawkins, Hitchens and Harris, Letter to a Christian Nation is a great start. It's a quick read, conversational in tone and armed with great arguments to start discussions with your Christian friends. It's not riddled with the overly scientific tone of Richard Dawkins' work, The God Delusion, nor with the sometimes elitist tone of most of Christopher Hitchens' works.

As the title would indicate, the book is written in the form of an imaginary letter to a Christian. Sam Harris is specifically addressing the subset of Christians who "believes ... that the Bible is the inspired word of God and that only those who accept the divinity of Jesus Christ will experience salvation after death ...". Most polls indicate that's over half of America. So, it's not a trivial group.

This is one of my favorite passages from the book:

I am confident that I can give you a very clear sense of what it feels like to be an atheist. Consider: every devout Muslim has the same reasons for being a Muslim that you now have for being a Christian. And yet, you know exactly what it is like not to find these reasons compelling. On virtually every page, the Qur'an declares that it is the perfect word of the Creator of the universe. Muslims believe this as fully as you believe the Bible's account of itself. There is a vast literature describing the life of Muhammad that, from the Muslim point of view, proves his unique status as the Prophet of God. While Muhammad did not claim to be divine, he claimed to offer the most perfect revelation of God's will. He also assured his followers that Jesus was not divine (Qur'an 5:71-75; 19:30-38) and that anyone who believed otherwise would spend eternity in hell. Muslims are convinced that Muhammad's pronouncements on these subjects, as on all others, are infallible.

Why don't you find these claims convincing? Why don't you lose any sleep over whether or not you should convert to Islam? Please take a moment to reflect on this. You know exactly what it is like to be an atheist with respect to Islam. Isn't it obvious that Muslims are not being honest in their evaluation of the evidence? Isn't it obvious that anyone who thinks that the Qur'an is the perfect word of the Creator of the universe has not read the book very critically? Isn't it obvious that Muslims have developed a mode of discourse that seeks to preserve dogma, generation after generation, rather than question it? Yes, these things are obvious. Understand that the way you view Islam is precisely the way every Muslim views Christianity. And it is the way I view all religions.

It reminds me of the famous quote:

"I contend we are both atheists, I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours." -- Stephen F. Roberts

Obviously, I have some problems with Christianity (or any religion) and the point of Harris' passage and Roberts' quote is one of the main reasons why. It's the belief by religious people that their God is the "one true God". It's belief borne not of reason, philosophical insight, or even extensive study of world religions. It's belief borne largely of locale and of family. People are Catholics because their parents were. Same with Jews or Muslims. You will be saved only because you were born in Iowa instead of Syria. I have a problem with that. But I don't have a problem with Sam Harris's book. Check it out.

Aryan Outfitters

I saw this photo essay on Mother Jones' Magazine's website (click image or link to view):

Aryan Outfitters


I know it's not right to draw a larger meaning out of something that is anecdotal and not necessarily representative of our whole society. But at the very least, the photos and the people represented in them are illustrative of a few things:

- There is no apparent understanding of irony by these people. How do you perform the selfless act of caring for a disabled grown child while also actively supporting an organization that preaches hate and has in it's past preached violence and even killing?

- Religion gives a cloak of righteousnous to those who preach hate. They feel the bible both instructs them and supports them in doing this. The pictures of "Mrs. Ruth" blessing each robe is beyond the pale.

- Raising your children to hate is borderline child abuse.

Scooter

We did it. We bought a scooter - a brand new Honda Elite 80.


It's pretty sweet. I rode it home from the dealership (about 10 miles) and the wife took it up to the grocery store to pick up a few things. Great gas mileage (about 100 mpg). Easy and fun to drive. She's going to use it to drive to her work each day (about 5 miles). We'd had concerns about safety, but we tested out a route today that is almost all residential and 35 mph zones.

We're pretty excited and proud that we didn't take on a second car payment and the environmental hit that would result from the 2nd car. We don't really need 2 cars. The last 4 months with just 1 car has proven that. Adding the scooter to the mix will give me some scheduling flexibility with my clients as I don't have to take the wife to work or her to the bank for her daily deposits. On days where my clients are close by, I'll probably take the scooter. I feel so European.

The Demon Haunted World

I'm finally wrapping up the reading of about a half dozen books that I've been in the middle of for months now. Over the next week or so, I'm going to provide my thoughts on each as I finish them. I have a really bad habit of getting myself in the middle of a bunch of books and then I get interested in something else. This has to end and I can't start anything new till I finish all of them. They include Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, His Dark Materials by Phillip Pullman, I am America by Stephen Colbert, The Assault on Reason by Al Gore, Letter to a Christian Nation by Sam Harris and From Lucy to Language by Donald Johanson. The first that I'm going to quote a few highlight passages from is Carl Sagan's The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark. This is a very good book and analyzes the psychological and societal elements that force or allow people to believe in superstition, whether it be UFO's, new age religion, hallucinations, dreams or Christianity. Having been written a few years ago and not in the current relatively welcoming era of atheist tomes by Harris, Hitchens and Dawkins, Carl Sagan doesn't take on Christianity directly but it's obvious that he would have liked to. If there is a weakness to the book, it is that it spends entirely too much time on the psychology of UFO enthusiasts and not enough on that of Christians.

The following is from an essay on the "fine art of baloney detection". He listed some things to look for in politicians, religious people, media, or anybody that is trying to sell you something. Plus the list is useful for analyzing our own arguments:

In addition to teaching us what to do when evaluating a claim to knowledge, any good baloney detection kit must also teach us what not to do. It helps us recognize the most common and perilous fallacies of logic and rhetoric. Many good examples can be found in religion and politics, because their practitioners are so often obliged to justify two contradictory propositions. Among these fallacies are:

ad hominem -- Latin for "to the man," attacking the arguer and not the argument ...

argument from authority (e.g., President Richard Nixon should be re-elected because he has a secret plan to end the war in Southeast Asia -- but because it was secret, there was no way for the electorate to evaluate it on its merits; the argument amounted to trusting him because he was President: a mistake, as it turned out);

argument from adverse consequences (e.g., A God meting out punishment and reward must exist, because if He didn't, society would be much more lawless and dangerous -- perhaps even ungovernable.* Or: The defendant in a widely publicized murder trial must be found guilty; otherwise, it will be an encouragement for other men to murder their wives) ...

appeal to ignorance -- the claim that whatever has not been proved false must be true, and vice versa ... This impatience with ambiguity can be criticized in the phrase: absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

special pleading, often to rescue a proposition in deep rhetorical trouble (e.g., How can a merciful God condemn future generations to torment because, against orders, one woman induced one man to eat an apple? Special plead: you don't understand the subtle Doctrine of Free Will.... God moves in mysterious ways.

begging the question, also called assuming the answer (e.g., We must institute the death penalty to discourage violent crime. But does the violent crime rate in fact fall when the death penalty is imposed? Or: The stock market fell yesterday because of a technical adjustment and profit-taking by investors -- but is there any independent evidence for the causal role of "adjustment" and profit-taking; have we learned anything at all from this purported explanation?);

observational selection, ... as the philosopher Francis Bacon described it, counting the hits and forgetting the misses ...

statistics of small numbers -- a close relative of observational selection (e.g., "They say 1 out of every 5 people is Chinese. How is this possible? I know hundreds of people, and none of them is Chinese ...

misunderstanding of the nature of statistics (e.g., President Dwight Eisenhower expressing astonishment and alarm on discovering that fully half of all Americans have below average intelligence);

inconsistency (e.g.,Attribute the declining life expectancy in the former Soviet Union to the failures of communism many years ago, but never attribute the high infant mortality rate in the United States (now highest of the major industrial nations) to the failures of capitalism ...

non sequitur -- Latin for "It doesn't follow" (e.g., Our nation will prevail because God is great. But nearly every nation pretends this to be true; the German formulation was "Gott mit uns"). Often those falling into the non sequitur fallacy have simply failed to recognize alternative possibilities;

post hoc, ergo propter hoc -- Latin for "It happened after, so it was caused by"

meaningless question (e.g., What happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object? But if there is such a thing as an irresistible force there can be no immovable objects, and vice versa);

excluded middle, or false dichotomy -- considering only the two extremes in a continuum of intermediate possibilities (e.g., "Either you love your country or you hate it." Or: "If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem");

short-term vs. long-term -- a subset of the excluded middle, but so important I've pulled it out for special attention (e.g., We can't afford programs to feed malnourished children and educate pre-school kids. We need to urgently deal with crime on the streets. Or: Why explore space or pursue fundamental science when we have so huge a budget deficit?);

slippery slope, related to excluded middle (e.g., If we allow abortion in the first weeks of pregnancy, it will be impossible to prevent the killing of a full-term infant. Or, conversely: If the state prohibits abortion even in the ninth month, it will soon be telling us what to do with our bodies around the time of conception);

confusion of correlation and causation (e.g., A survey shows that more college graduates are homosexual than those with lesser education; therefore education makes people gay ...

straw man -- caricaturing a position to make it easier to attack (e.g., Scientists suppose that living things simply fell together by chance -- a formulation that willfully ignores the central Darwinian insight, that Nature ratchets up by saving what works and discarding what doesn't. Or -- this is also a short-term/long-term fallacy -- environmentalists care more for snail darters and spotted owls than they do for people);

suppressed evidence, or half-truths

weasel words (e.g., The separation of powers of the U.S. Constitution specifies that the United States may not conduct a war without a declaration by Congress. On the other hand, Presidents are given control of foreign policy and the conduct of wars, which are potentially powerful tools for getting themselves re-elected. Presidents of either political party may therefore be tempted to arrange wars while waving the flag and calling the wars something else -- "police actions," "armed incursions," "protective reaction strikes," "pacification," "safeguarding American interests," and a wide variety of "operations," such as "Operation Just Cause." Euphemisms for war are one of a broad class of reinventions of language for political purposes. Talleyrand said, "An important art of politicians is to find new names for institutions which under old names have become odious to the public").

Knowing the existence of such logical and rhetorical fallacies rounds out our toolkit. Like all tools, the baloney detection kit can be misused, applied out of context, or even employed as a rote alternative to thinking. But applied judiciously, it can make all the difference in the world -- not least in evaluating our own arguments before we present them to others.

It's kinda scary that you can witness pretty much all of these on a daily basis by watching a news conference by Dana Perino or the President.

Theater of the Mind

"Radio is the theater of the mind; television is the theater of the mindless" -- Steve Allen

Today was a good day to be a progressive.

My drive-by radio debut went off without a hitch. Attesting to the fact that I was basically terrified about being on the radio and that it was just an hour show, I didn't interject too often. But I did get in a blurb about my business and a jab at Sheriff Joe.


The show hit several topics including Katrina, uranium mining in the Grand Canyon and alternative energy, had a great guest, Eric Magnusson of Environment Arizona and knowledgeable callers. The podcast of the show will be up tomorrow morning at:

Unreported News in KPHX 1480. Look for the 4/13/08 show under free audio downloads.

For a little more about the host, Herb "Sarge" Phelps, see an interview with him on Channel 12:

Sarge on Channel 12 or check out his show blog or personal blog at Sarge of Unreported News Network

While I was on-the-air, the missus and kid were doing their part at The Glendale Family Bike Ride. It was a ride that focused on recycling and alternative energy and had booths set up from many local groups and organizations. I would have loved to join them, but it was impossible to be at two places at once.

Birthday Books

I had a great birthday, spending it with friends and family and adding some titles to my book collection that I had been meaning to get for awhile:

The wife got me The Green Book, a good guide with practical ways of not putting a huge wide-ass footprint on the planet.

With some birthday money, I bought books by two prominent atheists that I did not have books by previously:

Letter to a Christian Nation by Sam Harris

The Portable Atheist by Christopher Hitchens

E & J got me I Am America (and so can you!) by Stephen Colbert. It's hilarious. I love the section on atheists:

Atheists
These No-goodnik no Godniks are growing in numbers and power in America. It makes me wonder how a God could exsist Who'd allow people to piss me off so much.

Luckily, a recent survey published in American Sociological Review revealed that atheists are the least trusted group in America - less trusted, even, than homosexuals. It makes sense - at least we trust the homosexuals with our hair.

But here's the biggest head-scratcher of all: Not only are atheists destroying our country, they're completely deluding themselves. There's simply no way to prove that there is no God. If I didn't hate them so much, I'd feel bad for these folks. Imagine going through life completely duped into thinking that there's no invisible, omniscient higher power guiding every action on Earth. It's just so arbitrary! Can't they see?

What's worse is that atheists blindly follow whatever scientists tell them to, no matter how unbelievably fantastical it sounds to rational ears. Yeah, earthquakes are caused by the shifting of giant unseen plates buried deep beneath the ground. There's no way it could be God jiggling the globe because people in California commit sodomy. No, that would be too simple!

Atheists enrage me precisely because they impute everything that happens to the semi-random workings of the natural world. They refuse to take responisbility for their actions! If their dog dies, it's because the decay of its cells caused by the aging process was "meant to be." They'll never stand up and say, "I deserved this as punishment for mixing my meats and cheeses." Makes me angry just thinking about it!

Agnostics

Atheists without balls.

Atheists and the Big Secular Agenda
People of faith like you and me are under attack. Especially people like me.

Atheists are the driving force behind what I call Big Secularism.

Card-carrying members of BS have snaked their way into every branch of our federal government, except for the judicial and executive. Did you know that in the House of Representatives and the Senate, there are as many as one self-described atheist currently serving? Democrat Representative Pete Stark of California's 13th district, to name just one. Just think of it - how are any pro-faith initiatives going to make it into law when Congress is held hostage by the anti-God caucus of Stark, his self, and him?

BS is gathering storm - a growing movement of lefty Lord-loathers intent on driving religion out of the public square, no matter how much time I spend hanging tinsel.

Ramblings

Damn, I need to blog more often. Got my taxes done, so I should have a bit more time to do so.

We went to the Diamondbacks home opener Monday (we won) and had a good time. For some pics, click the image.


This Sunday, I'll be making my on-air debut with the local progressive talk radio station, KPHX 1480. As seems to be the case with me, I was just a bit lucky and just happened to get the opportunity to do some work for the right set of people. A year or two ago, I'd made an local acquaintance on democraticunderground.com and had done some computer work for this person. She was happy with my work and mentioned me to some of her friends. Well, some of her friends just happened to be a couple of the Sunday morning hosts on KPHX. This week, I did some gratis work for them, they mentioned me on their show and invited me to come on air this Sunday. Hopefully I won't sound like a complete moron. They post the podcasts of the show by the next day here. I'll give you a heads-up this weekend to let you know if it will be worth a listen.

Also this Sunday, my son has his first classes at church for communion. As I don't exactly know what that entails and with you all knowing my opinion on religion, this subject should make for some blogger fodder for me over the next few weeks.

Movie Reviews

I've got a couple decent movies to review this week. Nothing earth-shattering and life-changing, but entertaining and not completely without a message.

The first of these is 21. Let's begin by not overanalyzing this film or making it into some high-brow idealistic one - which it is not trying to be. Once you do that, you can take it for what it is - a well-made and entertaining caper movie with attractive and likable young actors and a couple of great elder statesmen actors, Kevin Spacey and Laurence Fishburne.

21 is the story of Ben Campbell, played well by British actor Jim Sturgess (of Across the Universe and The Other Boleyn Girl). Campbell, along with several other MIT students, comprises a group of card-counting 21 players who travel to Las Vegas and win millions of dollars. The group is ran by one of their professors, who is played by Spacey, in typical Kevin Spacey-mode - cocky, sarcastic and over-the-top. Their nemesis is Vegas security officer Cole Williams, played capably by Fishburne. Campbell reluctantly joins the group, so as to make enough money to put him through graduate school.

The movie is fairly predictable but the MTV-style cinematography serves the subject matter well. The game of blackjack is not as visually compelling or dramatic as poker, so the music and flashy camera work helps to add tension.

The other student film roles are filled by stereotypical ethnic roles and the love interest is played by Kate Bosworth. I've yet to see her do any compelling acting in any of her roles, but her lack of ability doesn't detract enough to hurt the film.

The plot is not completely vacuous and everyone ultimately gets what they deserve, so don't fear that it's just an empty gambling movie where there are no consequences for questionable and immoral decisions.

I'm a sucker for Vegas and gambling films both light (Ocean's 11) and heavy (Leaving Las Vegas), so this one was right up my alley. Grade: B-


The second film, Horton Hears a Who, probably wouldn't have been my first choice for a film to see, but we had just went out to eat for my birthday today and we were looking for a family friendly film to see. Our son obviously voted for this one. And we were pleasantly surprised.

Horton Hears a Who, for those who don't already know, is from a Dr. Seuss story. This is easily the best screen adaptation of his books (Cat in the Hat and How The Grinch Stole Christmas were the others). There is a lot of great voice talent - Jim Carrey as Horton and Steve Carell, Carol Burnett, Seth Rogan, Isla Fischer, etc. in various other roles.

The main thing that raises this film above the other adaptations is it's visual look (animated as opposed to live action) and the quality of that animation. Also, it does a lot less wink-wink, nudge-nudge type self-referential humor that movies like Shrek are guilty of.

I won't get too into the story, as I imagine a lot of people have already read most Dr. Seuss stories. Basically, Horton the elephant hears a cry from a small person on a speck of dust. The story follows him trying to save the creatures that live on this speck of dust and to make others believe him. The moral of the story is summed up by Horton's motto, "After all, a person is a person, no matter how small." I've heard reviews that have tried to link the morality of the story to the immigration issue and I can definitely see that. But I also took out of the story parallels to fear mongering by politicians. But the movie doesn't beat you over the head with any of those themes. But they are there if you look for them. Grade: C+

Pre-crime

From the latest issue of Mother Jones magazine:

When Attorney General Alberto Gonzales held a press conference in the summer of 2006 announcing the arrests of seven young men for plotting to bomb Chicago's Sears Tower, he sounded defensive, his voice lingering a beat on each thing the men allegedly did. "Individuals here in America made plans to hurt Americans," he claimed. "They did request materials; they did request equipment; they did request funding." Gonzales admitted that the American and Haitian-born men posed "no immediate threat." But, he warned, "homegrown terrorists may prove to be as dangerous as groups like Al Qaeda. Our philosophy here is that we try to identify plots in the earliest stages possible, because we don't know what we don't know about a terrorism plot."

... juror Delorise Thompkins told the Miami Herald. "You're going to find someone always afraid of terrorist groups, but then when you see the evidence, there's not a lot there—no plans, no papers, no pictures, no nothing connecting them to Osama bin Laden." The jury's ambivalence is understandable. The plots were little more than talk encouraged by informants; the central evidence in the case—the taped oath—was a staged fbi production. But then, whether the men were a threat or the plot real doesn't matter when it comes to the charge of material support.

... There's a reason material support has become such a popular charge, a reason it's central to many of the government's most questionable cases: The laws are a prosecutor's dream. They don't require evidence of a plot or even of a desire to help terrorists. They give the government a shot at convictions traditional criminal laws could never provide. "The administration adopted the preventive paradigm, i.e. 'We've got to stop people before they've done something wrong,'" says David Cole, a Georgetown University law professor who's the author of several books about the effect of anti-terror laws on the justice system. "There's tremendous pressure to expand grounds of criminal activity, to prosecute people who might represent a threat. The material-support provisions have been the principal vehicle for pushing that envelope."

The question is whether that approach has made us any safer. "The government does not understand how terrorist groups operate," says Michael German, a former counterterrorism agent at the fbi and now counsel for the aclu. "When I was undercover, there were plenty of people who may have been sympathetic to a group but were very clear they didn't want to break the law or get involved in violence. And we didn't go after them." Blurring that distinction by opening the door for prosecutions of people who do little more than express sympathies for a group, argues German, "that's where the material-support provisions go off the rails. The terrorist's goal is to convince everybody he identifies as his community that they are being oppressed. And when the government's response tends to create injustice, the government's fulfilling that prophecy."

... Think of the laws as "aiding and abetting"—only on steroids. It has always been illegal to support criminal activity. If a man drives a getaway car for bank robbers, then he can be charged for the robbery, too. Prosecutors have simply had to show that there was an intent to further the crime and some meaningful connection between the help and the crime itself.

What the material-support laws did was roll back those requirements. A taxi driver hired for a short drive by a Hezbollah politician—a driver who had no intention of engaging in terrorist activity—would, so long as he knew the politician was with Hezbollah, be guilty of providing material support. That's because the laws that define "material support" contain a long list of often nebulous activities, such as providing "property, tangible or intangible" or "service," and are applied whether or not those activities truly helped advance the cause of a terrorist group, and regardless of the suspect's intentions. The laws make little distinction between the taxi driver and, say, an arms merchant who sells detonators to Hezbollah. The Patriot Act extended the concept further, making it illegal to attempt or conspire to provide material support. Before, prosecutors had to prove you gave support. Now they just have to show you wanted to ...

"The Constitution is, among other things, a counterterrorism strategy," says Michael German, the former fbi agent. "What the framers recognized is that you don't create the perception of repression if you allow people legitimate means for fostering change. The material-support laws criminalize conduct that in and of itself isn't typically criminal, isn't illegal." When you have cases based on such sweeping laws, argues German, "you're ostensibly hurting terrorist organizations, when in fact you're helping them. You're giving people more of a reason to become militant."

Fittingly, but coincidentally, I had re-watched Minority Report this week, a movie that takes the concept of predicting and preventing crime to another level. The whole concept of punishing people for what they think is just a bit too 1984ish, with the government in the role of the Thought Police.


Where is the line drawn? It's not difficult to see this being taken to a level where any seditious thoughts are punishable. And what is sedition? The founding fathers of our country were certainly seditious. As the above article states, "What the framers recognized is that you don't create the perception of repression if you allow people legitimate means for fostering change." These loosely drawn laws and the way we enforce them are criminalizing thoughts and gutting our own Constitution.

The system of government that used to be a beacon for the rest of the world is now using the tools of totalitarian regimes. It's not hard to see why we are not respected any more. It's hard to respect a country that tortures, that spies on its own people, and ignores it's own laws.

"We are not content with negative obedience, nor even with the most abject submission. When finally you surrender to us, it must be of your own free will. We do not destroy the heretic because he resists us; so long as he resists us we never destroy him. We convert him, we capture his inner mind, we reshape him. We burn all evil and all illusion out of him; we bring him over to our side, not in appearance, but genuinely, heart and soul. We make him one of ourselves before we kill him. It is intolerable to us that an erroneous thought should exist anywhere in the world, however secret and powerless it may be. Even in the instance of death we cannot permit any deviation . . . we make the brain perfect before we blow it out." -- 1984 by George Orwell

The God That Failed

Mother: We didn't know sick daughter was terminally ill

Gannett Wisconsin Newspapers
and The Associated Press

WESTON -- The mother of an 11-year-old girl who died of untreated diabetes said Wednesday that she did not know her daughter was terminally ill as she prayed for her to get better.

The parents of Madeline Kara Neumann called 911 three minutes after police and EMS crews already had been sent to their home by the girl's aunt, who lives in California.

Neumann died Sunday from an undiagnosed form of diabetes. The family told police they chose to pray for her to get better, rather than seek medical assistance.

Neumann's mother, Leilani Neumann, told The Associated Press Wednesday she never expected her daughter, whom she called Kara, to die. The family believes in the Bible, which says healing comes from God, but they are not crazy, religious people and have nothing against doctors, she said.

The aunt from California told a Marathon County sheriff's dispatcher Sunday afternoon that the girl was thought to be at home in a coma. She advised the dispatcher in a recorded phone call that the family was religious and refused to take the girl to the hospital, despite the aunt's urging them to do so for at least three days.

When the dispatcher asked if an ambulance should be sent to the Neumanns' town of Weston home, the aunt replied, "Yes. She's refusing. She's going to fight it," in reference to the girl's mother.

A few minutes later, at 2:38 p.m., a male caller from the home told a sheriff's dispatcher that a child there was not breathing, according to the 911 call, a copy of which was obtained by a Gannett Wisconsin newspaper. The dispatcher informed the caller that an ambulance already was on its way.

He then attempted to instruct the family how to perform CPR. Family members sounded panicky, and cries and screaming could be heard in the background.

Officers met with the Neumann family Wednesday, and Everest Metro Police Chief Dan Vergin said he hopes to complete the investigation late this week or early next week.

Child protective services interviewed Kara Neumann's three older siblings Wednesday night to determine whether it was safe to return them to the home, Vergin told CNN's Nancy Grace.

The Marathon County district attorney's office is working with police to determine whether criminal charges should be filed. Vergin said officers still are trying to determine a timeline of Neumann's decline during her final days.

Marathon County Medical Examiner John Larson said Kara Neumann was quite ill Friday and Saturday and became gravely ill Sunday, the day she died.

"I think this young girl was sick for some time; she just progressed into a situation where she needed medical attention and did not get it," Larson said. "At some point, they should have recognized she was very, seriously ill."

The family does not belong to an organized religion or faith, Leilani Neumann said.

She said the family is not worried about the police investigation into her daughter's death because "our lives are in God's hands. We know we did not do anything criminal. We know we did the best for our daughter we knew how to do."

For a little more on the case, see this video. I'm reluctant to reference this video because it's from Nancy Grace's show. I hate Nancy because her trumped-up indignation has less to do with actual compassion for the victim and more to do with her ego and her sense of theatrics. I think she might be the only person that might cause me to feel sorry for a serial killer.

When does "freedom of religion" go too far? I believe when it endangers someone else's life or health. Obviously, Christianity is not the only religion whose tenets infringe upon innocents, but it's the pertinent one here. So, just because I'm not listing all the others doesn't mean I don't hold them just as accountable. One could argue that indoctrinating your children to creationist beliefs is cruel and unusual punishment, but we'll leave that subject for another day. I grant that it's probably correct to allow parents to use their best judgement when educating their kids. After all, recovering from an inferior education is a lot easier than recovering from an unnecessary death.

Though the family in question do not say they adhere to a specific religion, their beliefs are certainly similar to those of Christian Science. After reading some of the rights afforded people merely in the name of religion, I get the distinct impression that we are just a country of backwoods country bumfucks. Case in point - from Wikipedia:

Christian Scientists have been controversial for their failure to provide conventional health care for children (Asser and Swan, 1998). In the United States, the constitutional guarantee of protection of religious practice from intrusion by government has been used by Christian Scientists and other religious groups to seek exemption from legislative or regulatory requirements regarding child abuse and neglect, including medical neglect in more than three quarters of the states. There are now statutes in 44 states which contain a provision stating that a child is not to be deemed abused or neglected merely because he or she is receiving treatment by spiritual means, through prayer according to the tenets of a recognized religion. Although these exemptions take different forms and interpretations in different state jurisdictions, the overall effect has been to limit the ability of the state to prosecute parents for suspected or alleged abuse or medical neglect of children when such occurrences may be the result of religious practice. Severe (even fatal) physical discipline, failure to seek medical care, or refusal of a proven efficacious treatment of a critically ill child may be protected from prosecution because of the religious exemption clauses now found in a majority of state codes. (However, most of these cases do not involve Christian Scientists.)

The band Metallica, whose lead singer James Hetfield was raised as a Christian Scientist, wrote this song after Hefields's mother died of cancer because of not seeking treatment:

The God that Failed by Metallica

Pride you took
Pride you feel
Pride that you felt when you'd kneel
Not the word
Not the love
Not what you thought from above

It feeds (it feeds)
It grows (it grows)
It clouds all that you will know
Deceit
Deceive
Decide just what you believe

I see faith in your eyes
Never you hear the discouraging lies
I hear faith in your cries
Broken is the promise, betrayal
The healing hand held back by the deepened nail
Follow the god that failed

Find your peace
Find your say
Find the smooth road on your way
Trust you gave
A child to save
Left you cold and him in grave ...

In our laws, we are actually protecting people who neglect their children because of their religious beliefs. Do you think that people who claimed that aliens told them not to seek treatment for their sick children would get the same protections? Of course not. A system of laws that should be based on reason is being influenced by superstition. And yet we are viewed as a model democracy. Perhaps it's not a God that failed but rather a government based on superstition that failed.

Good Sci-Fi ... Bad Sci-Fi

I've always said that the beauty of sci-fi movies is that even the bad ones are interesting to watch. That's because even the bad ones are trying to say something. The new incarnation of Battlestar Galactica has obvious parallels to our current world politics. Star Wars explores the common mythology of religions. 2001: A Space Odyssey explores evolution and technology. And so on.

But forget what I said. There ARE bad sc-fi movies that are just bad and don't try to say anything. I just saw one yesterday - Jumper. I was optimistic that I would like it despite the scathing reviews I'd heard. After all, Doug Liman was directing. He had directed a couple of really good movies - The Bourne Identity and Swingers. Samual Jackson and Diane Lane, Oscar nominated actors, are in it. It seemed to look mildly cool in the previews.

From IMDb:

"A genetic anomaly allows a young man to teleport himself anywhere. He discovers this gift has existed for centuries and finds himself in a war that has been raging for thousands of years between "Jumpers" and those who have sworn to kill them."

Between the previews and that blurb, you have the entire movie. Jumper gets no deeper than that. The movie doesn't really delve into why they can "jump" or why others are trying to kill them. It's like a Highlander rip-off. There is nothing likable or redeeming about the protagonist David Rice, played lamely by Hadyn Christensen. I keep hearing that Hadyn is really a good actor despite the contrary evidence of his movies (Star Wars). If he doesn't start proving it soon, no one's going to be around to care.

The characteristic that I had spoke of relating to bad sci-fi movies that made them palatable was some kind of message. Jumper is not a metaphor for anything. There is no morality play. There is no hidden meaning. It's just fluff with pretty young people in it. Grade: D

========================================


I've talked about bad sci-fi, let's talk about good. One of the most important science fiction authors or our time and one of the four most important sci-fi authors of my youth, Arthur C. Clarke, passed away this week (Frank Herbert, Robert A. Heinlein and Larry Niven being the other three). He wrote the previously mentioned 2001: A Space Odyssey, numerous other books, and was a highly respected scientist and futurist whose writings are often cited as influencing the development of the modern communications satellite. Farewell, Arthur.

========================================


Also of note, and not unfamiliar in sci-fi circles (Fifth Element, Harry Potter, Batman Begins), today is my favorite actor's 50th birthday. Happy Birthday Gary Oldman. Check out my blog entry of a few years ago for recommended films by him: dbackdad's favorite actors: part one -- gary oldman

We Can't Even Shop Right

The Fall of the American Consumer
by Barbara Ehrenreich
How much lower can consumer spending go? The malls are like mausoleums, retail clerks are getting laid off and AOL recently featured on its welcome page the story of a man so cheap that he recycles his dental floss–hanging it from a nail in his garage until it dries out.

It could go a lot lower of course. This guy could start saving the little morsels he flosses out and boil them up to augment the children’s breakfast gruel. Already, as the recession or whatever it is closes in, people have stopped buying homes and cars and cut way back on restaurant meals. They don’t have the money; they don’t have the credit; and increasingly they’re finding that no one wants their money anyway. NPR reported on February 28 that more and more Manhattan stores are accepting Euros and at least one has gone Euros-only.

The Sharper Image has declared bankruptcy and is closing ninety-six US stores. (To think I missed my chance to buy those headphones that treat you to forest sounds while massaging your temples!) Victoria’s Secret is so desperate that it’s adding fabric to its undergarments. Starbucks had no sooner taken time off to teach its baristas how to make coffee than it started laying them off.

While Americans search for interview outfits in consignment stores and switch from Whole Foods to Wal-Mart for sustenance, the world watches tremulously. The Australian Courier-Mail, for example, warns of an economic “pandemic” if Americans cut back any further, since we are responsible for $9 trillion a year in spending, compared to a puny $1 trillion for the one billion-strong Chinese. Yes, we have been the world’s designated shoppers, and, if we fall down on the job, we take the global economy with us.

“Shop till you drop,” was our motto, by which we didn’t mean to say we were more compassion-worthy than a woman fainting at her work station in some Honduran sweatshop. It was just our proper role in the scheme of things. Some people make stuff; other people have to buy it. And when we gave up making stuff, starting in the 1980s, we were left with the unique role of buying. Remember Bush telling us, shortly after 9/11, to get out there and shop? It may have seemed ludicrous at the time, but what he meant was get back to work.

We took pride in our role in the global economy. No doubt it takes some skill to make things, but what about all the craft that goes into buying them–finding a convenient parking space at the mall, navigating our way through department stores laid out for maximum consumer confusion, determining which of our credit cards still has a smidgeon of credit in it? Not everyone could do this, especially not people whose only experience was stitching, assembling, wiring and packaging the stuff that we bought.

But if we thought we were special, they thought we were marks. They could make anything, and we would dutifully buy it. I once found, in a party store, a baseball cap with a plastic turd affixed to its top and the words “shit head” on the visor. The label said “made in the Philippines” and the makers must have been convulsed as they made it. If those dumb Yanks will buy this…

There’s talk already of emergency measures, like making Christmas a weekly holiday, although this would require a level of deforestation that could leave Cheney with no quail to hunt.

More likely, there’ll be a move to outsource shopping, just as we’ve already outsourced manufacturing, customer service, X-ray reading and R&D. But to whom? The Indians are clever enough, but right now they only account for $600 million in consumer spending a year. And could they really be trusted to put a flat screen TV in every child’s room, distinguish Guess jeans from a knock-off and replace their kitchen counters on an annual basis?

And what happens to us, the world’s erstwhile shoppers? The President recently observed, in one of his more sentient moments, that unemployment is “painful.” But if a pink slip hurts, what about a letter from Citicard announcing that you’ve been laid off as a shopper? Will we fill our vacant hours twisting recycled dental floss onto spools or will we decide that, if we can’t shop, we’re going to have to shoplift?

Because we’ve shopped till we dropped alright, face down on the floor.

Oh, how the mighty have fallen. We don't make the best cars. All our favorite actors are foreign. And now ... we can't even shop right! lol.

Well, this a mantle that I'd be proud of us losing. It might actually indicate that we are finally figuring out that an economy is not ran on encouraging people to buy stuff they don't need. The businesses that will survive are the ones that make things well, make them affordable and that make things that people need regardless of the economy. It's all about sustainability. Just because you can fool some poor sap into buying that 70 inch plasma TV that he doesn't need and can't afford, doesn't mean that you should. You'll say that the market will sort it out. A perfect market may. But not one inhabited with a bunch of morons like ours. Our market has producers whose only criteria is how much they can make and consumers whose only criteria is how much debt they can get into to keep up with the Jones's. There has to be a concept of common good. But, WAIT!, you will say. You might even quote Ayn Rand to me:

"America's abundance was not created by public sacrifices to "the common good", but by the productive genius of free men who pursued their own personal interests and the making of their own private fortunes." -- Ayn Rand

I'd probably agree with the free market types who say you can't legislate "common good". But at the same time, you can't have a government who actively encourages the exact opposite of common good. That's not a free market either. We're not living in some Ayn Rand fantasy world. How exactly is the market "correcting" anything when CEO's of companies that hemorrhage money are given $20 million golden parachutes? "Productive genius of free men", my ass.

"Win or lose, we go shopping after the election." -- Imelda Marcos

Contrast

Friday afternoon, when I should be working, I'm at a spring training ball game with the kid. Weather's gorgeous, if just a bit breezy. Portobello mushroom sandwich and a beer to top it off.


Today, Sunday, when I should be relaxing, I'm at a recently relocated client in Prescott (100 miles from home), but who paid me for the travel time and everything. Weather is freaky. It snowed a good deal of the way there, the entire time we were in Prescott, and half the way home. The last 15 miles going into Prescott, I'm following a snow truck putting sand on the road and we're crawling along at 20 mph. It's not slick, mind you - it's not really cold enough for that. But Arizona people are unaccustomed to inclement weather and go a little overboard with precautions.


As bad as it was there, Flagstaff (just another hour away) got hit even harder and had whiteout conditions and tragically bad results. And to think, my biggest decision this morning was whether I was going to wear shorts or jeans (jeans thankfully won out). Looks like my time might have been better spent actually turning on the Weather Channel.

Usury

Christians Heart Payday Lenders by Stephanie Mencimer

The Christian Right has used the Bible to bolster many a political issue, from abortion to stem cell research. Strangely enough, however, they seem to have missed one of the biggies: the Bible's many injunctions against usury, or predatory lending to poor people. The Bible is far more explicit in its disapproval of usury than, say, gay marriage. (The book of Ezekiel compares usurious lending to extortion and murder for hire, in fact, and threatens major hellfire for those who practice it.) Yet in parts of the country where the Christian Right wields the most political power, usurious payday lending has flourished more than anywhere else in the U.S., according to a new study by Christopher Peterson and Steven Graves.

Today's payday lenders charge around 450 percent interest on short-term loans, rates ten times higher than the federal definition of criminal loan sharking and nearly double what the Mob charged in its heyday. Peterson's home state of heavily Mormon Utah ranked high on the list of havens for payday lenders. The state claims more payday lending outlets than McDonalds, Burger Kings, Subway sandwich chains, and 7-11s combined, and has failed to pass even modest restrictions on allowable interest rates that exceed 500 percent a year, among the highest in the nation. (One reason may be that the chairman of the Salt Lake City Republican Party, former State Senator James Evans, himself owns several payday-lending outfits.)

Peterson and Graves decline to speculate as to why devout Christians and Mormons who wield considerable political clout continue to tolerate practices that are so clearly at odds with Biblical teachings. They simply attempted to point out the correlation, writing that sadly, "Those states that have most ardently held to their pious Christian traditions have tended to become more infested with the progeny of money changers once expelled by Christ from the Hebrew temple."

Funny how we use the bible to justify our prejudices (gays) or end times foreign policy but conveniently forget the part about usury. Religious people (including our President) have used religious imagery (Crusade) and have advanced a war that by it's very existence is violating at least four of the Ten Commandments (coveting anything of your neighbors'[oil], killing, stealing, working on the Sabbath). Makes one question whether a lot of people's piety is really about God.

"If thou lend money to any of my people that is poor by thee, thou shalt not be to him as an usurer, neither shalt thou lay upon him usury." -- the Bible

Political Song of the Day

My Political Song of the Day is usually anti-war, environmental or otherwise left-leaning. But I was flipping channels in the car the other day and came upon a country station and heard a song so innane, so misinformed and so perfectly representative of the attitude of a large percentage of Americans that I had to share it with you:

Have You Forgotten? by Darryl Worley

I hear people saying we don't need this war
But, I say there's some things worth fighting for
What about our freedom and this piece of ground
We didn't get to keep 'em by backing down
They say we don't realize the mess we're getting in
Before you start your preaching let me ask you this my friend

Have you forgotten how it felt that day?
To see your homeland under fire
And her people blown away
Have you forgotten when those towers fell?
We had neighbors still inside going thru a living hell
And you say we shouldn't worry 'bout bin Laden
Have you forgotten?

They took all the footage off my T.V.
Said it's too disturbing for you and me
It'll just breed anger that's what the experts say
If it was up to me I'd show it everyday
Some say this country's just out looking for a fight
Well, after 9/11 man I'd have to say that's right

Have you forgotten how it felt that day?
To see your homeland under fire
And her people blown away
Have you forgotten when those towers fell?
We had neighbors still inside going thru a living hell
And we vowed to get the one’s behind bin Laden
Have you forgotten?

I've been there with the soldiers
Who've gone away to war
And you can bet that they remember
Just what they're fighting for

Have you forgotten all the people killed?
Yeah, some went down like heroes in that Pennsylvania field
Have you forgotten about our Pentagon?
All the loved ones that we lost and those left to carry on
Don't you tell me not to worry about bin Laden
Have you forgotten?

Have you forgotten?
Have you forgotten?

Have you forgotten ... indeed. Darryl Worley, have your forgotten that 9/11 has nothing to do with Iraq? Have you forgotten that it was George W that forgot about Bin Laden and started a new war, not us? Have you forgotten that meat-headed bravado like your stupid song is why most of the world hates us?

The fact that someone wrote a song like this isn't that big a deal. It's that a vast majority of the NASCAR, bible-belt, pick-up truck, NRA set eats this stuff up as truth that bothers me.

Testify

As I was picking weeds in the front yard the other day, a couple of nattily dressed people approached me and asked if I'd like to attend a meeting to talk about Jesus. I politely declined, not wanting to offend or to start a huge religious discussion. But the man wouldn't leave it at that and felt compelled to say, "So, you're not a Christian?" in a condescending tone. At that point, the gloves were off, and I lit into him a little bit, saying that my beliefs should not be of his concern. Seeing my consternation, he backed off and apologized for implying anything. It was obvious he wasn't going to get anywhere with me and he bid me good day. Perhaps, I overreacted. But I think not. Should each of us feel compelled to force our beliefs on others or compel others to do the same? Is talking about Jesus or testifying without being asked to do so considering forcing?

That got me thinking of the religious concept of "testifying"? To me, it seems eerily similar to one of the 12 steps (which in and of itself is already religious-based). The one about apologizing to those we have hurt. Could religion just be some 2,000 year old perversion of pop psychology? By going around and "spreading the word", are people hoping to heal themselves and others like you would in AA? I posed the same question to my wife ... a Christian, mind you. She's heard my rants before and wasn't offended. She countered that testifying is more about just letting people know that Jesus is there for them if they need him. So I said, "So, it's like advertising." -- "Act now and as an added bonus you will get this lovely afterlife!". Testifying is just Dr. Phil mixed with ginsu knifes. I think she failed to see the humor. Oh well.

In religion, testimony generally involves an inward belief or outward profession of faith or of personal religious experience.

Christians in general use the term "testify" or "to give your testimony" to mean "the story of how you became a Christian" (or less commonly it may refer to a specific event in a Christian's life in which God has done something deemed particularly worth sharing). Christians often give their testimony at their own baptism or at evangelistic events, where non-Christians are able to hear what God has done in their lives ... (from Wikipedia)

I'm not trying to be profane or step on anyone's toes. I respect people to have what religious beliefs they choose. But that's part of my point in saying something - It's OK to have your own views, but your compulsion to share them is infringing on other people's views. One could argue that by discussing my religious views on a blog, I'm doing the same. But people come to my blog by choice. I wasn't making a choice to be preached to by merely being in my own front yard.

You may say that testifying is a tenet of your religion and you have to do it. That's not my problem. Any religion that considers it a requirement to spread itself out by proselytizing is not a religion ... it's a virus. A great idea should be self-evident. People aren't just waiting around for someone to come and "save" them.

And you stare at me
In your jesus christ pose
Arms held out
Like you've been carrying a load
And you swear to me
You don't want to be my slave
But you're staring at me
Like I need to be saved ...

Jesus Christ Pose by Soundgarden

Pete Seeger

If you get the chance, check out a great show on PBS, American Masters Pete Seeger: The Power of Song. It was a well put-together program following his whole life and career with many appearances by artists influenced by him including: Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks, the Byrds, Peter Paul and Mary, Joan Baez, etc. Seeger is, perhaps, our country's most important folk music artist and he truly is the father of the modern politicaly active musician. There is a very obvious progression from the likes of Seeger and Woody Guthrie to Dylan and Baez to Springsteen to Rage Against the Machine and Pearl Jam.

Springsteen honored the influence Seeger had on him in an album and tour.

Read some excerpted lyrics from a couple of songs by Seeger about the Vietnam war and tell me they don't have relevance today:

Waist Deep In The Big Muddy
by Pete Seeger 1963, planned for the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour in 1967 but CBS objected to the blacklisted Seeger making obvious references to the "big fool" in the White House, finally sung by Seeger on the Comedy Hour in 1968 as the finale in a medley of anti-war songs

It was back in nineteen forty-two,
I was a member of a good platoon.
We were on maneuvers in-a Loozianna,
One night by the light of the moon.
The captain told us to ford a river,
That's how it all begun.
We were -- knee deep in the Big Muddy,
But the big fool said to push on.

The Sergeant said, "Sir, are you sure,
This is the best way back to the base?"
"Sergeant, go on! I forded this river
'Bout a mile above this place.
It'll be a little soggy but just keep slogging.
We'll soon be on dry ground."
We were -- waist deep in the Big Muddy
And the big fool said to push on.

The Sergeant said, "Sir, with all this equipment
No man will be able to swim."
"Sergeant, don't be a Nervous Nellie,"
The Captain said to him.
"All we need is a little determination;
Men, follow me, I'll lead on."
We were -- neck deep in the Big Muddy
And the big fool said to push on.

All at once, the moon clouded over,
We heard a gurgling cry.
A few seconds later, the captain's helmet
Was all that floated by.
The Sergeant said, "Turn around men!
I'm in charge from now on."
And we just made it out of the Big Muddy
With the captain dead and gone.

We stripped and dived and found his body
Stuck in the old quicksand.
I guess he didn't know that the water was deeper
Than the place he'd once before been.
Another stream had joined the Big Muddy
'Bout a half mile from where we'd gone.
We were lucky to escape from the Big Muddy
When the big fool said to push on.

Well, I'm not going to point any moral;
I'll leave that for yourself
Maybe you're still walking, you're still talking
You'd like to keep your health.
But every time I read the papers
That old feeling comes on;
We're -- waist deep in the Big Muddy
And the big fool says to push on ...

"We were -- neck deep in the Big Muddy ... And the big fool said to push on." -- We certainly are neck deep in Iraq. The "big fool" then was LBJ. Take your pick today. Certainly Bush and McCain fit the role.

Bring 'Em Home

If you love your Uncle Sam,
Support our boys in Vietnam ...
Bring them home, bring them home.

It'll make our generals sad, I know ...
They want to tangle with the foe ...
They want to test their weaponry ...
But here is their big fallacy ...

I may be right, I may be wrong ...
But I got a right to sing this song ...

There's one thing I must confess ...
I'm not really a pacifist ...
If an army invaded this land of mine ...
You'd find me out on the firing line ...

Show those generals their fallacy ...
They don't have the right weaponry ...
For defense you need common sense ...
They don't have the right armaments ...
The world needs teachers, books and schools ...
And learning a few universal rules ...

So if you love your Uncle Sam,
Bring them home, bring them home.
Support our boys in Vietnam,
Bring them home, bring them home.

This song is an answer to those who try to frame patriotism as being blind jingoistic support of an unjustified war.

from Wikipedia: On August 18, 1955, Seeger was subpoenaed to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) where he refused to name personal and political associations stating it would violate his First Amendment rights... "I am not going to answer any questions as to my association, my philosophical or religious beliefs or my political beliefs, or how I voted in any election, or any of these private affairs. I think these are very improper questions for any American to be asked, especially under such compulsion as this."

It's obvious that the government censors us, but we seem to do a pretty good job of censoring ourselves. Seeger was blacklisted for two decades for refusing to kiss the ass of McCarthyites. He cited the First Amendment, the freedom of association, instead of hiding behind the Fifth Amendment like a lot of others did.

As dangerous as the world we live in is, it seems that the things that people and governments are most afraid of are words and ideas. Pete Seeger showed that songs can be a lot more powerful than guns.


You may think we've came a long way since the day of the blacklists, but modern artists like Springsteen, the Dixie Chicks, Rage Against the Machine, etc. still catch heat for their political views. TV networks, radio stations, newspapers feel more obligation to their corporate bosses and Washington connections than they do to the truth.

It's refreshing when you find artists who truly don't sell-out. Seeger never did. He could have made it easier on himself. He could have went commercial and made a lot of money. You don't find many artists ... or people for that matter ... now days that don't compromise their ideals for that house in the 'burbs, that new car, that vacation home. Our souls shouldn't be for sale.

"Songs won’t save the planet, but neither will books or speeches. Songs are sneaky things; they can slip across borders." -- Pete Seeger

William F. Buckley Jr.

Weird week. Two annoying conservatives expired (Mecham and Buckley). While sympathetic to their families, it's not necessarily a time to sugercoat their influence.

William F. Buckley Jr. as a Progressive Role Model by Matt Zeitlin

William F. Buckley Jr, who died today, was mostly known for founding and editing National Review and being a leading conservative intellectual, journalist and thinker for more than 5 decades. But before founding National Review, he wrote God and Man at Yale. He was in many ways the original conservative critic of the academy. God and Man was a polemic against the liberal atheism, or at least agnoisticism, among Yale faculty. Buckley anticipated those right wing critics who today think that college campuses are much too liberal, except he was doing it 50 years ago.

But more importantly, Buckley should be a model to all of us young writers looking to influence the political scene. Buckley wrote God and Man when he was 25, and founded the most influential political magazine of the last half-century when he was 29. And even though he was a conservatives’ conservative, he still appreciated youthful vigor and energy in his movement that he did some much to shape. He was an enthusiastic Goldwater supporter and helped found Young Americans for Freedom in 1960 so as to channel youthful energy into movement conservatism. In modern liberal blog terms, he was some freaky combination of Matt Yglesias, Markos Moulistas and Rick Perlstein – except conservative.

There's a whole lot anyone can learn from Buckley the man - he was kind, urbane, sensitive, intelligent and an amazing stylist. But we liberals and progressives rightly are repulsed by his politics. But there's also Buckley the institution builder. And he was greatly responsible for turning conservatism into the institutional force it is. And he was able to do it by providing ideological coherence and also by energizing and deploying young people to be proud, excited conservatives. But he also viewed conservatism as distinct from the Republican party and was ready to abandon the party when he thought it wasn't conservative enough. He should be the model for what we self-styled progressives are doing today - building a set of institutions to make progressivism a lasting force in American politics. And while many of us are supporters of the Democratic party, we recognize that our movement has to be more than a partisan one. In short, we need to be like Buckley to reverse the gains him and his movement have chalked up in the last 50 years.

I wouldn't quite go as far as Zeitlin to compliment Buckley. Buckley wasn't quite as kind as he makes out. Bill was even known to have lit into Gore Vidal and Noam Chomsky pretty good on occasion. But Zeitlin does show some of the areas where Buckley can give us a lesson:

- the need to build permanent institutions and publications that further the progressive movement

- the need to remember that erudition and activism are not the sole territory of the left

- the need to not necessarily tie your idealogy to a certain political party

- the need to be a good writer and intelligent advocate for your cause

The passing of Buckley reminds me of the importance of not only reading people you agree with but also those you disagree with. I've read books by Limbaugh, O'Reilly, Coulter, Hannity, Buchanan, Ralph Reed, Goldwater, etc. ... and Buckley. Besides being amazed that the first four I listed were even capable of reading, let alone writing a book, it gives one a sense of what you are up against. A little Sun Tzu-ish, I grant you ("Know thy self, know thy enemy"). But smart.

And lastly, it's comforting to know that not all effete Ivy League snobs are liberals.

By the Time I Get to Arizona

It might be tactless to speak ill of the recently deceased, but I couldn't just let the passing of former Arizona Governor Evan Mecham yesterday go by without comment.

After all, Mecham is another in a long line of corrupt and pathetic Republican governors in Arizona. Two of the last three GOP governors here have had to be forcibly removed from office (Fife Symington being the other).

Mecham had a lot to be proud of:

"As governor, Mecham was plagued by controversy and became the first U.S. governor to simultaneously face removal from office through impeachment, a scheduled recall election, and a felony indictment ...

While governor, Mecham became known for statements and actions that were widely perceived as insensitive to minorities. Among these actions were the cancellation of the state's Martin Luther King Day, attributing high divorce rates to working women, and his defense of the word "pickaninny." In reaction to these events, a boycott of Arizona was organized, damaging the state's tourism industry by the cancellation of multiple conventions." (from Evan Mecham on wikipedia)

At least he got a song written about him:

Public Enemy - By the Time I Get to Arizona

I'm countin' down to the day deservin'
Fittin' for a king
I'm waitin' for the time when I can
Get to Arizona
'Cause my money's spent on
The goddamn rent
Neither party is mine not the
Jackass or the elephant
20.000 nig niggy nigas in the corner
Of the cell block but they come
From California
Population none in the desert and sun
Wit' a gun cracker
Runnin' things under his thumb
Starin' hard at the postcards
Isn't it odd and unique?
Seein' people smile wild in the heat
120 degree
'Cause I wanna be free
What's a smilin' fact
When the whole state's racist
Why want a holiday F--k it 'cause I wanna
So what if I celebrate it standin' on a corner
I ain't drinkin' no 40
I B thinkin' time wit' a nine
Until we get some land
Call me the trigger man
Looki lookin' for the governor
Huh he ain't lovin' ya
But here to trouble ya
He's rubbin' ya wrong
Get the point come along
An he can get to the joint
I urinated on the state
While I was kickin' this song
Yeah, he appear to be fair
The cracker over there
He try to keep it yesteryear
The good ol' days
The same ol' ways
That kept us dyin'
Yes, you me myself and I'ndeed
What he need is a nosebleed
Read between the lines
Then you see the lie
Politically planned
But understand that's all she wrote
When we see the real side
That hide behind the vote
They can't understand why he the man
I'm singin' 'bout a king
They don't like it
When I decide to mike it
Wait I'm waitin' for the date
For the man who demands respect
'Cause he was great c'mon
I'm on the one mission
To get a politician
To honor or he's a gonner
By the time I get to Arizona
I got 25 days to do it
If a wall in the sky
Just watch me go thru it
'Cause I gotta do what I gotta do
PE number one
Gets the job done
When it's done and over
Was because I drove'er
Thru all the static
Not stick but automatic
That's the way it is
He gotta get his
Talin' MLK
Gonna find a way
Make the state pay
Lookin' for the day
Hard as it seems
This ain't no damn dream
Gotta know what I mean
It's team against team
Catch the light beam
So I pray
I pray everyday
I do and praise jah the maker
Lookin' for culture
I got but not here
From jah maker
Pushin' and shakin' the structure
Bringin' down the babylon
Hearin' the sucker
That make it hard for the brown
The hard Boulova
I need now
More than ever now
Who's sittin' on my freedah'
Opressor people beater
Piece of the pick
We picked a piece
Of land that we deservin' now
Reparation a piece of the nation
And damn he got the nerve
Another niga they say and classify
We want too much
My peep plus the whole nine is mine
Don't think I even double dutch
Here's a brother my attitude hit 'em
Hang 'em high
Blowin' up the 90s started tickin' 86
When the blind get a mind
Better start and earn while we sing it
Now
There will be the day we know those down and who will go