Category Archives: Politics

Bloggers Get Ready for 2012 – Dealing with the Radical Right

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I am always amazed at right-wing efforts to revise history to fit their canonical wish for purity. The most absurd attempt I can think of is “Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning” by Jonah Goldberg. According to Goldberg, Democrats should feel right at home in their local KKK meeting. Don’t you love all those bleeding heart, white supremacists? They are so touch feely and came out in huge numbers for Obama. In this parallel universe it is easy to feel revulsion from the collision of our universe and their fantasy land.

I must admit I am fascinated as to how these folks can reach these conclusions with both oars in the water. I have exposed the Hitler, Stalin and Mussolini myths elsewhere

(https://www.mixermuse.com/blog/2010/01/03/fascism-is-liberal-and-squares-are-circles/)

with lots of data and direct quotes from these guys showing their love for nationalism and their violent hatred for socialists and liberals. Every serious historical scholar I have found has nothing but absolute disdain for Goldberg and his illusions. Most average folks shake their head when they hear such nonsense. However, as in any unfalsifiable claim, they have an explanation for rejection of their wackiness, it is the liberal press, scholars associated with communist universities, antichrist-secular-God-haters and so on that have deluded average folks and revised history. Their version is the sanctified version and you are either in their church or not, holy or profane.

I have also found this pathology on the sanctified version of Southern history, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and how the Republicans were the saviors of Southern blacks and the Democrats were the racist bigots that opposed Civil Rights. This is a prized list these folks love to pass around:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-gop/1499184/posts

Here is their entry for 1964…

June 9, 1964 Republicans condemn 14-hour filibuster against 1964 Civil Rights Act by U.S. Senator and former Ku Klux Klansman Robert Byrd (D-WV), who still serves in the Senate
June 10, 1964 Senate Minority Leader Everett Dirksen (R-IL) criticizes Democrat filibuster against 1964 Civil Rights Act, calls on Democrats to stop opposing racial equality
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was introduced and approved by a staggering majority of Republicans in the Senate. The Act was opposed by most southern Democrat senators, several of whom were proud segregationists—one of them being Al Gore Sr. Democrat President Lyndon B. Johnson relied on Illinois Senator Everett Dirkson, the Republican leader from Illinois, to get the Act passed.
June 20, 1964 The Chicago Defender, renowned African-American newspaper, praises Senate Republican Leader Everett Dirksen (R-IL) for leading passage of 1964 Civil Rights Act

There is nothing here about that guy LBJ, he was the lowly Democratic president at the time that signed the bill. I have responded to this topic elsewhere:

http://mixermuse.com/blog/2010/03/29/the-democrats-filibustered-the-civil-rights-act-of-1964-and-performed-southern-lynching/

http://mixermuse.com/blog/2009/12/15/of-all-the-varieties-of-virtues-liberalism-is-the-most-beloved-aristotle/ (this has the actual vote counts fro the bill)

If you notice there is a distinct difference in the way I approach this topic and Goldberg and the Republican white-washed list approaches the topic.

I think it is great that Republicans starting with Lincoln were against slavery and for Civil Rights.

I know there was post Civil Rights Democrats that were racists in the South. It is only logical that a Southern Democrat would hate the party that won the war and killed them in large numbers. Of course, there were Northern Democrats that equally hated slavery and supported Civil Rights. I am willing to give credit where the historical record demonstrates credit is due.

I also know, being from the South that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 turned white Southerners against the party that sided with them in the Civil War. The real issue for white Southerners was not Republican or Democrat but white and black. When busing started in the South white, Democratic Southerners became white Republican Southerners. Initially, they voted for the Dixiecrats and retained their party affiliation in the Democratic Party. Eventually, they started voting Republican and were DINOs (Democrats in Name Only). In the eighties and nineties they changed party affiliation.

Today, in Louisiana the clan groups are in northern Louisiana where the WASPs are dominate. Most of the north is Republican. In the south where the Cajuns live, it is typically Catholic and Democrat. I used to debate David Duke on the LSU campus. He and his Nazis always came dressed in Nazi uniforms and expressed only violent hatred for the left. He actually won a seat in the House of Representatives as a Republican. Only a crazy idiot would tell you that KKK’ers are Democrats. They make no bones about what party they vote for (if they haven’t been convicted of a felony of course). Much of the blogging you will find on the internet about those liberal fascists comes from white supremacists and many times from prisons. The internet is a perfect media to peddle their goods.

The revisionist right is fond of claiming Republicans voted more for Civil Rights than Democrats. On the surface, percentage wise (the Republicans were in the minority) this is true but as the data shows in the link above, the actual votes fell along the Mason-Dixon line. Southern Democrats and Republicans voted against it. Northern Democrats and Republicans voted for it. Note that Southern Republicans voted unanimously against it and Democrats were mixed.

Here is the point. Whenever a zealot tells you about history there are ‘tells’ (i.e., poker) that will inform you when they are revising history to suit their needs. They want to convince you that they are keepers of the truth and everyone else is trying to deceive you. It is pure manipulation. Here are the tells:

1) Everything they did was historically correct.
2) Everything the opposition did was historically incorrect (otherwise called political correctness).
3) They use “proofs” a-temporally. In other words, for all time they were politically correct and for all time the opposition was politically incorrect.

These techniques were raised to a fine art by the Nazis. The bottom line is that to get to the truth you need an open mind and a resolve to work. The real data is typically out there with these kinds of issues but it is not easy to find. Include references in your proofs. Go with reputable sources. If you use Wikipedia you must check the references.

If you know of demographic data by region from the sixties to the present for party affiliation please let me know. I have checked Pew, Gallop, The Census Bureau and others but no luck yet. I know I can dig election data out of the Congressional and Presidential official government records and that may be what I need to do. I am not interested in books about the era only hard data.

When zealots try to sell you on their truth they are insulting you. They think you are too stupid to check their ‘facts’. I think of it as part of my civic duty to check the data if I do not have it handy and get back to them whenever I can about my findings. I never insult them personally but I am often the brunt of personal insults. If you return their rude insults you lost the argument so don’t give them that pleasure; that is what they want. The political stalemate in our country will not be solved on either side by war but by rationality. The majority of folks will learn and make wise political decisions while the zealots will always have their church. If they get violent we pay our taxes to law enforcement to deal with them.

Here is an interesting quote from Newt:

“Johnson shattered his party, Gingrich went on to say, because he had “grotesquely overreached” in four areas: mismanagement of the economy, the failure in Vietnam, the cultural divisions that emerged in part over Vietnam and later civil rights initiatives. Johnson’s mistake on civil rights, he said, was not in signing major legislation but in later getting ahead of the country by supporting school busing and failing to take a firmer stance against racial violence in the cities.”

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2010/03/gingrich-like-lbj-obama-risks.html

Some other interesting links:

http://www.tagalogshortstories.com/civil_rights_act_of_1964/encyclopedia.htm

http://100days.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/09/how-kennedy-won-the-house-and-lost-the-south/

Fantasy and Lies OR Reality and Facts

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It is odd that Republicans how found religion on the debt after the Bush administration ran the debt up 85% while President Obama’s administration has only run it up 41%.

http://mixermuse.com/blog/2011/12/08/all-you-need-to-know-about-politics/

Let’s not even think about discretionary and non-discretionary parts of the budget.

In any case, I think most of us can agree debt is important.

I guess the next thing in line after debt for Republicans would be quality of life or as they would have it, the misery index.

For me, the next thing would be life or the lack of it, death. For Iraq and Afghanistan, 7,648 of our children have been killed.

http://icasualties.org/

Bush started these absurd wars. I know from personal experience with two older brothers that wars create misery and death. Additionally, the cost of both wars is estimated at $1,284,743,552,321.

http://costofwar.com/en/

http://nationalpriorities.org/en/blog/2011/08/16/How-Safe-Are-You/

The cost of the wars, make the national debt look insignificant. I am not a Ron Paul supporter but I like his stand on foreign engagement. He is the only Republican candidate that is not itching for another war. If you really care about the debt, misery and/or body count you should vote to re-elect President Obama.

What Republicans Want…

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Mitt recently stated, “The president says he wants to transform America, I don’t want to transform America into something else. I want to restore it”

Mitt Romney along with Sarah Palin is fond of mocking President Obama for his promise of “hope and change”. So, what is the alternative to hope and change? Is it hopelessness and changelessness?

Or

Let’s see, restore it to…

…the Bush administration

Bush started two wars and bankrupted the economy. President Bush increased the national debt more than twice as much as President Obama. During his administration unemployment went up 90% more than during the Obama administration.

http://mixermuse.com/blog/2011/12/08/all-you-need-to-know-about-politics/

…prior to Medicare and Medicaid?

“Before Medicare, only 51% of people aged 65 and older had health care coverage, and nearly 30% lived below the federal poverty level.”

http://www.usgovernmentbenefits.org/hd/index.php?t=define+medicare

…before women had the right to vote and blacks and gays were hung for entertainment?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynching_in_the_United_States

…before Social Security?

“the best estimates show that the elderly poverty rate in 1935 was probably somewhere in the range of 70 to 90 percent.”

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2010/aug/17/eddie-bernice-johnson/texas-congresswoman-eddie-bernice-johnson-says-soc/

…before the civil war

Slavery

…from the beginning

In 1800, the mean life span in the United States was about a quarter century

In 1900 the mean was about 50 years

http://www.longevity.ca/info_life_expectancy.htm

Do you REALLY want to go there?

The Republicans are painting a fantasy picture for voters that need to believe fantasies of the past – it NEVER happened. The fact is that we have progressed from a dark past albeit in a bumpy and messy way. It is absolute insanity to want to go back to the way it really was. There was no earlier, greater time than now for the United States. Yes, a few things may have been better but don’t let them fool you, things are better now than they have ever been for folks.

So, here is the question, do you want to transform our future or restore our past?

Regarding the Payroll Tax Reduction Bill:

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The flagrant and merely politically trite politics that folks clearly despise is evident in the House of Representatives if any reasonable person looks at the facts. I have compiled the pertinent facts with links to the official House of Representatives site and the U.S. Senate site. If you want your politicians to act different you need to vote different. If you keep acting the same you will get the same result. Know the facts then, base your opinions on the facts not visa-versa. We will all benefit from informed voters.

The House of Representatives passed HR 3630 on December 13.

224 Republicans voted for it.

14 Republicans voted against it.

10 Democrats voted for it.

179 Democrats voted against it.

3 Republicans and 3 Democrats did not vote

93% Republicans voted for it and 5% Democrats voted for it – Why?

http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2011/roll923.xml

Besides Payroll Tax Reduction, Unemployment Insurance Extension and the Medicare “Doc fix” I counted over 100 provisions not in any way related to these 3 issues. Other issues include EPA, flood insurance, education, drug testing, housing, highway, FCC provisions and oh yes, the Keystone pipeline. This “poison pill” is what Republicans used to call “earmarks”. Why do you think the Democrats did not go for it?

The Senate bill was a fairly “clean” bill with only the original three issues and the Keystone pipeline.

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/R?r112:FLD001:S08749

Harry Reid Sponsor, Mitch McConnell Cosponsor – Number: S.Amdt. 1465

http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=112&session=1&vote=00232#name

89 yeas, 10 nays, and 1 no vote

7 republican nays, 2 democrat nays, 1 independent nays – as close to unanimous as it gets

If the House of Representatives could bring itself to write a bill like the Senate’s bill this whole thing would have been resolved a long time ago.

Calling All Investigative Journalists…

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Are you looking for low hanging fruit for the Holidays? Here it is – the Attorneys General suit against the Federal Government for mandatory health care coverage. I sent an email to Attorney General Suthers back on April 1st, 2010 inquiring about the finances for their law suit (https://www.mixermuse.com/blog/2010/04/01/my-email-to-the-attorney-general-of-colorado/). I never received a response but I did hear later on a news broadcast that they were only going to spend $5,000 of taxpayer’s money on that law suit. Folks, lawyers don’t wash their cars for $5,000. If you are an enterprising journalist that wants to make a mark on the national stage, it starts here – follow the money trail.

With all the rhetoric about government waste and debt, where is all the concern about this frivolous case. This lawsuit was sponsored by 12 Republican Attorneys General and one Louisiana Democrat, Attorney General. It has GOP written all over it. These are the same Attorneys General that sponsored the recent Republican “debate” on the topic (who do you think paid that bill?). When this case is ruled against by a conservative Supreme Court the journalist that did the local digging on the story is going national. When the case is overturned there will be a backlash against spending any amount of taxpayer money on such a political, partisan issue. Either Colorado will have spent much more than $5,000 on this rip off or we will find private GOP donors funding this wasted effort OR both. This is a win-win for an ambitious journalist.

Additionally, the Republicans are the authors of the mandatory requirement for health care debacle. Mitt and friends saw it as a boondoggle for insurance companies and were the first to start acting on it. Now that they have flip-floppers religion on the issue, they have over-extended their protest too much – more fodder for the fire. This is another start the de-regulation, wall street rip off/make the money on it and run/find religion for the working man/and give up the religion for the de-regulation cause again. The Republicans originated mandatory health care reform/started the law suit against it when it became law/ paid for the law suit with dubious and scandalous means/and now think they can bank on the issue politically in the next election. How can any investigative journalist sit back apathetically when so much up-side is at stake – red meat? There’s nothing like it for the Holidays!

All You Need to Know About Politics

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Here are the latest numbers:
Bush debt increase: 85%
Obama debt increase: 41%
Bush increase in unemployment: 98%
Obama decrease in unemployment:  8%

See for yourself…
From January 20, 2001 to January 20, 2009 the national debt increased from $5,727,776,738,304.64 to $10,626,877,048,913.08. For those that still believe in arithmetic this is an 85% increase in the debt over the Bush administration’s term ((10,626,877,048,913.08 / 5,727,776,738,304.64) * 100) = 185% or an 85% increase).

From January 20, 2009 to December 7, 2011 the national debt increased from $10,626,877,048,913.08 to $15,046,397,725,405.16. This is a 35% increase in debt over President Obama’s term ((15,046,397,725,405.16/ 10,626,877,048,913.08) * 100) = 141% or a 41% increase).

Don’t take my word for it, check it out on the US Treasury Department site at:
http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/BPDLogin?application=np

When Bush took office on January 20, 2001, the national unemployment rate was 4.7%. When he left office on January 20, 2009 and President Obama took office the national unemployment rate was 9.3%
http://www.bls.gov/cps/prev_yrs.htm

The current unemployment rate as of December 2, 2011 is 8.6%
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm

Doing the math, the increase during the Bush administration was (9.3 / 4.7) * 100 = 198% or a 98% increase in unemployment. For the Obama administration the math is (8.6 / 9.3) * 100 = 92% or a 8% decrease in unemployment.

The Obama Administration Raises Unemployment 25% – REALLY?

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When Bush Junior took office on January 20, 2001, the national unemployment rate was 4.7%.  When he left office on January 20, 2009 and President Obama took office the national unemployment rate was 9.3% ( http://www.bls.gov/cps/prev_yrs.htm ).  The current unemployment rate as of June 2001 is 9.2% ( http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm ). Doing the math, the increase during the Bush administration was (9.3 / 4.7) * 100 = 198% or a 98% increase in unemployment.  For the Obama administration the math is (9.2 / 9.3) * 100 = 98% or a 2% decrease in unemployment.  The latest Karl Rove, Crossroads, national ad states that the national unemployment rate increased 25% during the Obama administration.  Since unemployment data by definition is published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, no amount of “private facts” or bold face lies can explain away the real facts.  The Republican lie machine has no problem spending millions of dollars spewing forth unadulterated lies. 

Do these folks really think that sane voters would prefer a 98% unemployment rate increase to 2% percent decrease in unemployment?

Well, what about the long held theory that taxes cuts create jobs and help the economy.  We had 8 years to try this theory out.  Not only did it result in a 98% increase in unemployment but it also resulted in an economic crash and the greatest recession since the Great Depression.  Did it work?  Didn’t the Clinton administration end up with 4 years of a Federal surplus and a 4.7% unemployment rate?  Do voters really want to believe that if we try the Republican’s economic solution again it will work this time?  Are voters that stupid?

Well, what about health care and lassie faire?  We have tried decades of letting the market decide in the Republican promise that the market would solve the problem.  Did it work?  How much longer do we need to TRY the market based approach?  Ok, so let’s get rid of “Obama-care”…is the solution to go back to what we had before?  Was it so much better?  How many more decades do we need to try the market approach?  If we cut everyone off and get rid of the debt, are we willing to let men, women and children die in the streets from lack of health care while we satiate ourselves in our country clubs?  What is the solution?  Is there one?

The more interesting questions are:

1)      What kind of folks continue to spin out lies decade after decade to get and keep political power?

2)      Why does it seem to work?

When an ideology continually repeats lies to sustain and get power the word that describes it is “propaganda”.  The main purpose of propaganda is to manipulate.  There are two assumptions that propaganda proves out:

1)      Those that are have the money and power to create this marketing blitz are the elite “knowers”.  They are willing to do anything to obfuscate their true motives.  Their apparent contradictions are smoking mirrors cleverly designed to play on folk’s emotions and trick folks into supporting their true agenda – protecting the rich and powerful.  At the bottom of this machine is a pure Darwinian belief that power needs no justification, logic or truth.  Power is its own virtue.  Conquest proves who the blessed are and who the cursed are. 

2)      People are stupid.  They are “herdal” and cow-like.  They cannot remember the past and have no sense of logic and rationality.  They are zombies that can be manipulated and controlled by the elite.  They can be made to run straight off a cliff to their own demise and believe the whole time that it is in their best interest.

While the elite would never make such an explicit statement of their intentions, their actions leave no doubt as to what their game really is.  

I hope and want to believe they are wrong.  I want to believe in logic, rationality and history.  I would like to think that there is an intrinsic good in people that will overcome these schemes.  I can’t say that I do not have doubts and maybe the Darwinian instinct is correct.  However, if I were to believe this ideology I would find a certain meaninglessness and futility in existence.  Maybe we should “make friends with the enemy” as Apocalypse Now” maintains.  Maybe we should head straight of the cliffs and thank the wolves that made us believe we were doing it for our own good.  Well, as for me, I am willing to hope against hope, if that is what it takes, to adopt a more optimistic approach to human existence.  I suppose that this may be a kind of Kierkegaardian, existential staking out my “eternal happiness” on an absolute paradox…at least as thought from the dialectic of power.  These choices are left to us individually whether we explicitly know it or tacitly “do it”.  I find the belief that one is the “blessed” and “all-powerful” to be a comic tragedy of one’s own making in which the hero becomes the blind fool and forgets his end will be in the dust with his cows while the only thing that really mattered was humanity and concern, optimism and belief, the virtue of work – of harmony and balance with nature and logic, the scorned simplicity that faces us in the other.

Guns and False Quotes

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“False is the idea of utility that sacrifices a thousand real advantages for one imaginary or trifling inconvenience; that would take fire from men because it burns, and water because one may drown in it; that has no remedy for evils, except destruction. The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature. They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes….Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.” (Thomas Jefferson)

This was not a quote by Jefferson as many on the net have asserted.  He  compiled a book of quotes called, “Legal Commonplace Book.”  The quote is actually from Cesare Beccaria’s Essay on Crimes and Punishments.  The only notation made by Jefferson on Beccaria’s quote is, “False idee di utilità.” or …false idea of utility.  It should not be attributed to Thomas Jefferson unless one’s philosophy allows for the sophistry of ‘false ideas’.

See this reference:

http://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/laws-forbid-carrying-armsquotation#_note-2

Also, this was not in the Constitution as some have maintained…”that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed”.  It is in a personal letter…  

To Major John Cartwrigt Monticello, June 5, 1824

Here is a fuller context to the quote…

“The constitutions of most of our States assert, that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves, in all cases to which they think themselves competent, (as in electing their functionaries executive and legislative, and deciding by a jury of themselves, in all judiciary cases in which any fact is involved,) or they may act by representatives, freely and equally chosen; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed; that they are entitled to freedom of person, freedom of religion, freedom of property, and freedom of the press.”

http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/P/tj3/writings/brf/jefl278.htm

Racism, Sexism, Homophobia and Republicans

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In G.W. Bush’s recent interviews for his book “Decision Points” he discusses how he was enraged at Kanye West’s comments that imply he was a racist due to the Katrina disaster and the apparent lack of concern for black, impoverished folks.  The new right has been accused of being racist and sexist but the cutting edge of that movement denies the charge.  The first point I would like to make is that racists and sexists most commonly find their ideological home in the Republican Party.  Recently, the tea party has skirted these accusations.  Ken Buck the tea party candidate for U.S. Senator was caught making a sexist comment about “not wearing high heels” on video.  Mark Kirk, the Republican U.S. Senate candidate in Illinois, was accused of voter intimidation of blacks in Chicago, http://mixermuse.com/blog/2010/10/25/republicans-intimidate-minorities/.  Tea party signs have made derogatory comments about blacks and gays.  The highly charged venom towards Nancy Pelosi goes way beyond the traditional forms of disagreements in politics and appears highly vindictive towards the most effective women Speaker of the House in U.S. history.  It seems to me to cross the line into sexism and rage fueled by a woman beating white men handily at their own game.  In spite of these suspicions, this kind of overt racism, sexism and gay homophobia seems to be relegated the periphery of the Republican Party and can easily be dismissed as extremist party faithfuls. 

The most potent form of racism, sexism and homophobia is what has now become institutional.  Republicans did not have anything against blacks but the Republican faithful in Louisiana, possibly the most Republican state in the United States, was all too happy to let the failing and ancient levees in New Orleans come to their inevitable demise.  Did it matter that those behind the levees were poor and black?  If they were rich and white would that have mattered?  If young, single women were rich, voted and were padding the pockets of Republicans would the Republicans allow the anti-abortion movement to dominate their ideology?  If gays were an important component in Republican successes would they oppose equality as vehemently?  When the institution permits these kinds of injustices the individual is no longer on the hook.  It is the system’s fault, no one is personally responsible.  Some even go so far as to blame it on the Democrats.  Folks do not need to be racist or sexist anymore they can just go along with the status quo to achieve the same social results.  They can even personally state they are abhorred by racism and sexism and still let their conservatism conserve the inequities.  This is a concrete example of how the ‘it’ of truth and the absolution of responsibility in the neutrality of the institution have preserved inequity while absolving the individual (See http://mixermuse.com/blog/2010/11/10/responsibility-and-the-goods/). 

While President Bush had his feelings hurt by Kanye West men, women and children were hurt in much more substantial ways that makes the feelings of Bush quite insignificant…and yet, Bush had his hurt feelings blasted all over the media while selling his memoir.  Here is a thought, why not donate the proceeds of the book to the survivors of Katrina?