Blue Corn Comics -- News from a Multicultural Perspective

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Thursday, April 22, 2010

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Republicans for bank failuresIn his speech, Mr. McConnell seemed to be saying that in the future, the U.S. government should just let banks fail. We “must put an end to taxpayer funded bailouts for Wall Street banks.” What’s wrong with that?

The answer is that letting banks fail—as opposed to seizing and restructuring them—is a bad idea for the same reason that it’s a bad idea to stand aside while an urban office building burns. In both cases, the damage has a tendency to spread. In 1930, U.S. officials stood aside as banks failed; the result was the Great Depression. In 2008, they stood aside as Lehman Brothers imploded; within days, credit markets had frozen and we were staring into the economic abyss.

So it’s crucial to avoid disorderly bank collapses, just as it’s crucial to avoid out-of-control urban fires.*****

Gun fanatics threaten ObamaOne scheduled speaker for the rally is Larry Pratt, the executive director of Gun Owners of America. In 1992, Pratt participated in a Colorado meeting of neo-Nazis and self-proclaimed Christian patriots that marked the birth of the modern militia movement. Another speaker at this pro-gun hoe-down will be Sheriff Richard Mack, who states on his Web site that the "greatest threat we face today is not terrorists; it is our own federal government. If America is conquered or ruined it will be from within, not a foreign enemy."

And the Oath Keepers are sponsoring the march. This is a group of right-wingers--many of whom serve in the military or police forces--who pledge to disobey what they regard as "unconstitutional" orders from an increasingly repressive government. Their view of the government is rather dark. They vow not to "obey any order to blockade American cities, thus turning them into giant concentration camps" and not to "obey any order to force American citizens into any form of detention camps." As if the Obama administration is on the verge of declaring martial law and rounding up the citizenry.*****

How the Church became patriarchalThe first-century church was inclusive and democratic, even including a proto-feminist wing and texts. The Gospel of Philip, a Gnostic text from the third century, declares of Mary Magdalene: “She is the one the Savior loved more than all the disciples.” Likewise, the Gospel of Mary (from the early second century) suggests that Jesus entrusted Mary Magdalene to instruct the disciples on his religious teachings.

St. Paul refers in Romans 16 to a first-century woman named Junia as prominent among the early apostles, and to a woman named Phoebe who served as a deacon. The Apostle Junia became a Christian before St. Paul did (chauvinist translators have sometimes rendered her name masculine, with no scholarly basis).

Yet over the ensuing centuries, the church reverted to strong patriarchal attitudes, while also becoming increasingly uncomfortable with sexuality.*****

Tallying Bush's lies

Charges and Countercharges: Did Bush Knowingly Mislead the U.S. Into War With Iraq?

False Pretenses

Following 9/11, President Bush and seven top officials of his administration waged a carefully orchestrated campaign of misinformation about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein's Iraq.

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Open letter to conservativesYou're going to have to come up with a platform that isn't built on a foundation of cowardice: fear of people with colors, religions, cultures and sex lives that differ from your own; fear of reform in banking, health care, energy; fantasy fears of America being transformed into an Islamic nation, into social/commun/fascism, into a disarmed populace put in internment camps; and more. But you have work to do even before you take on that task.

Your party--the GOP--and the conservative end of the American political spectrum have become irresponsible and irrational. Worse, it's tolerating, promoting and celebrating prejudice and hatred. Let me provide some examples--by no means an exhaustive list--of where the Right as gotten itself stuck in a swamp of hypocrisy, hyperbole, historical inaccuracy and hatred.*****

When Republicans became zealotsThen something happened in the 1990s. The leaders of the GOP grew belligerent. They became too religious, almost zealots. They became intolerant. They began searching for purity in Republican thought and doctrine. Ideology blinded them. I continued to vote Republican, but with a certain unease. Deep down I knew that a schism happened between the modern Republican Party and the one I grew up with. During the fight over the impeachment of President Clinton, the ugly face of the Republican Party was brought to the surface. Empty rhetoric, ideological intolerance, vengeance, and religious zealotry became the common currency. Suddenly, if you are pro-choice, you could not be a Republican. If you are for smart and sensible taxes to balance out the budget, you could not be a Republican. If you are pro-civil rights, you could not be a Republican.

It started with minorities: they left the party. Then women; they divorced the GOP and sent it to sleep on the couch. Then, the young folks; they left and are leaving the Republican Party in droves. Then, someone stood up and told my niece and my grandchild that they are not fully Americans—just second class Americans because they are homosexual. They wished hell and damnation upon my loved ones just because they are different. Are we led by priests or are we led by rational politicians? Now, we have became the party of the Old Straight White Folks. We should rename the Republican Party the OSWF rather than the GOP.*****

Republicans follow Nixon's strategy[T]he Republicans are following a playbook that has evolved over more than four decades, to regain power by sabotaging Democratic presidents.

In this analysis, the Republicans believe they can reclaim the lucrative levers of national authority by making the country as ungovernable as possible while a Democrat is in the White House, essentially holding governance hostage until they are restored to power. Then, the Democrats are expected to behave as a docile opposition "for the good of the country" (and usually do).

The "destroy Obama" game plan tracks most closely with Newt Gingrich's strategy for undermining Bill Clinton 16 years ago. But today's strategy also traces back to Richard Nixon's sabotage of President Lyndon B. Johnson's Vietnam peace talks in 1968 and Ronald Reagan's October Surprise gambit against President Jimmy Carter's Iran hostage negotiations in 1980.

Monday, April 12, 2010

Why Tea Party extremism is worseSeveral thousand Tea Party protesters had gathered at the Capitol to protest the health care reform bill that would soon be approved by the House. Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), who once branded Obama "very anti-American," had called for this emergency rally. The GOP House minority helped organize the event, and the top Republican leaders of the House--John Boehner, Eric Cantor, Roy Blunt, Mike Pence and others--were on hand to eagerly address the gathering. They endorsed this opposition and urged on the angry protesters. But what sort of crowd was this? When speakers compared Obama's health care overhaul to European socialism, the demonstrators chanted, "Nazis! Nazis!" And none of the GOP House leaders present objected.

Ponder this for a moment. At an event officially sanctioned (and cheered on) by the House Republicans, the assembled were calling the president and the majority of Congress "Nazis." Nothing of this sort occurred during the Bush-Cheney years. This was a low moment in American history--and it marked the GOP's capitulation to the extremism of its Tea Party base. Silence not only implies consent; it can be read as encouragement. And words can lead to action. If someone truly believes Obama and the Democrats are akin to Nazis, what would be the appropriate course of action to take? Brad Pitt's character in "Inglorious Basterds" knows: You kill 'em. To be blunt: If protesters are shouting "Nazis! Nazis!" and GOP leaders are supporting the demonstration, what signal could that send to a possible violent nutcase?

*****

Republicans believe in free lunchesGeorge W. Bush put two big wars on a credit card. And now we have the perennially clownish Newt Gingrich, in an embarrassing rant against President Obama, assuring the deluded G.O.P. faithful that, yes, the party can indeed bring down the federal deficit while cutting taxes.

The Great Recession and the debacles in Iraq and Afghanistan have not been savage enough to reintroduce the G.O.P. to reality.

One of the reasons so many conservative Republican absurdities became actual U.S. policy was the intellectual veneer slapped upon them by right-wing think tanks and commentators. The grossest nonsense was made to seem plausible to a lot of people—people who wanted to believe in a free lunch. When Mr. Reagan told the country that “government is the problem,” the intellectual handmaidens of the corporate and financial elite were right there to explain in exhaustive detail why that was so.*****

Greenspan = captain of Titanic“I was right 70 percent of the time, but I was wrong 30 percent of the time,” said Alan Greenspan as he testified last week on Capitol Hill. Greenspan—a k a the Oracle during his 18-year-plus tenure as Fed chairman—could not have more vividly illustrated how and why geniuses of his stature were out to lunch while Wall Street imploded. No doubt he applied his full brain power to that 70-30 calculation. But the big picture eludes him. If the captain of the Titanic followed the Greenspan model, he could claim he was on course at least 70 percent of the time too.

Greenspan was testifying to the commission trying to pry loose the still incomplete story of how the American economy was driven at full speed into its iceberg. He was eager to portray himself as an innocent bystander to forces beyond his control. In his rewriting of history, his clout in Washington was so slight that he was ineffectual at “influencing the Congress.” The “roots” of the crisis, he lectured, dated back to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. In other words: Wherever the buck stops, you had better believe it’s not within several thousand miles of the Oracle. As he has previously said in defending his inability to spot the colossal bubble, “Everybody missed it—academia, the Federal Reserve, all regulators.”

That, of course, is not true. In last Sunday’s Times, one of those who predicted the bubble’s burst—Michael Burry, an investor chronicled in “The Big Short” by Michael Lewis—told in detail of how Greenspan and others in power “either willfully or ignorantly aided and abetted” the reckless boom and the ensuing bust.*****

Islamic and Christian women stay subordinateHow could such spirited women, smart and successful on every other level, acquiesce in their own subordination?

I was puzzling over that one when it hit me: As a Catholic woman, I was doing the same thing.

I, too, belonged to an inbred and wealthy men’s club cloistered behind walls and disdaining modernity.

I, too, remained part of an autocratic society that repressed women and ignored their progress in the secular world.

I, too, rationalized as men in dresses allowed our religious kingdom to decay and to cling to outdated misogynistic rituals, blind to the benefits of welcoming women’s brains, talents and hearts into their ancient fraternity.

To circumscribe women, Saudi Arabia took Islam’s moral codes and orthodoxy to extremes not outlined by Muhammad; the Catholic Church took its moral codes and orthodoxy to extremes not outlined by Jesus.*****

Beck admits Fox isn't newsForbes penned an interesting profile of Fox News’ Glenn Beck right-wing money-making machine. And two things stood out. Number one: Beck’s idiotic conspiracy theories and incendiary schtick fills his pockets with $32 million a year. And Number two: The self-described “rodeo clown,” says he “doesn’t give a flying crap” about politics. What does he care about? Making money, now that’s serous business Beck told Forbes. To all you suckers out there buying hook-line-and-sinker, Beck’s incendiary hatemongering, Beck reminds us that he is in the “entertainment” business.

Sunday, April 11, 2010

Video: US troops kill Iraqi civiliansI was just on Democracy Now along with WikiLeaks' Julian Assange discussing the Iraq video they released yesterday, and there's one vital point I want to emphasize. Shining light on what our government and military do is so critical precisely because it forces people to see what is really being done and prevents myth and propaganda from distorting those realities. That's why the administration fights so hard to keep torture photos suppressed, why the military fought so hard here to keep this video concealed (and why they did the same with regard to the Afghan massacre), and why whistle-blowers, real journalists, and sites like WikiLeaks are the declared enemy of the government. The discussions many people are having today--about the brutal reality of what the U.S. does when it engages in war, invasions and occupation--is exactly the discussion which they most want to avoid.

A major reason there are hundreds of thousands of dead innocent civilians in Iraq, and thousands more in Afghanistan, is because this is what we do. This is why so many of those civilians are dead. What one sees on that video is how we conduct our wars. That's why it's repulsive to watch people--including some "liberals"--attack WikiLeaks for slandering The Troops, or complain that objections to these actions unfairly disparage the military because "our guys are the good guys" and they act differently "99.99999999% of the time." That is blatantly false. Just as was true of the deceitful attempt to depict the Abu Ghraib abusers as rogue "bad apples" once their conduct was exposed with photographs (when the reality was they were acting in complete consistency with authorized government policy), the claim that what was shown on that video is some sort of outrageous departure from U.S. policy is demonstrably false. In a perverse way, the typical morally depraved neocons who are justifying these killings are actually being more honest than those trying to pretend this is some sort of rare and unusual event: those who support having the U.S. invade and wage war on other countries are endorsing precisely this behavior.

Tuesday, April 06, 2010

Teabaggers are like Klansmen Like the New Left, Beck and his followers see a bloodsucking state up on top of society. But the 1960s radicals only pointed their hatred upward, at the state, the establishment and the wealthy. The Tea Parties share this upward-looking disgust, but they also see parasites down below them, at the bottom of society, looking for redistribution.

It's this multi-directional loathing that animates the charges that the Tea Party movement is, by its basic nature, racist. (That plus, you know, all the really obvious racism.) In their evocations of a lost, "simpler" past and a "real America," this is what the Tea Party folks are talking about: themselves in the center, and the looters, thieves and degenerates all around them. It’s pretty close to the outlook that characterized 19th-century southern populism. That movement was both an uprising against a capitalist system that the populists saw as rigged from above and also, eventually, virulently racist. Tea Party ideology also closely echoes the belief system of the revived Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s. This second iteration of the Klan was a movement of small businesspeople, skilled workers, clerks and the like, who were convinced that the government and high finance had formed a conspiracy against them with the poor, Jews, Catholic immigrants and African-Americans.*****

Beck perverted Jesus's messageThe Rev. Jim Wallis, president of Sojourners, a network of progressive Christians, says Beck perverted Jesus' message when he urged Christians last week to leave churches that preach social and economic justice.

Wallis says Beck compared those churches to Communists and Nazis.

Wallis says at least 20,000 people have already responded to his call to boycott Beck. He says Beck is confusing his personal philosophy with the Bible.

"He wants us to leave our churches, but we should leave him," Wallis says of Beck. "When your political philosophy is to consistently favor the rich over the poor, you don't want to hear about economic justice."*****

Bush's campaign of misrepresentationSo let's review. Bush and Cheney again and again made statements that were not true and that were not supported by the available intelligence. Moreover, once U.N. inspectors entered Iraq in late 2002 and eventually began reporting that there was no evidence of significant WMD programs, Bush and Co. ignored these experts and continued to claim that Saddam was up to his neck in WMD. They insisted Saddam had been shopping for uranium in Africa, even though the intelligence on this point was dubious. All together, they waged a willful campaign of misrepresentation and hyperbole. And to such an extent, it can be branded a lie.

Or let's put it this way: Can Wehner, Rove and Douthat state that Bush carefully reviewed the intelligence in order to present to the public an accurate depiction of what was known and not known about the WMD threat possibly posed by Saddam? Bush and his aides were looking for ammo. They wanted this war--and they made unsubstantiated claims to get it. The truth was not a priority.

Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Americans for healthcare reform: 50-47%I'd be willing to wager that 47% will be at or close to the high-water mark for the GOP position. As we move forward and people become more familiar with the law, anyone serious about efforts to improve the new reform legislation will be offering ideas for incremental expansion or change, not full-scale overhaul.

Think about it this way: if we were talking about Social Security or Medicare, how do you think "repeal and replace" would poll? It would poll terribly, because it sounds like a bunch of nonsense. That's the same challenge Republicans will begin to face. They are starting out from behind with a strategy that is destined to fail. It's not an enviable position to be in.*****

Pope ignores pedophiliaCardinal Ratzinger devoted his Vatican career to rooting out any hint of what he considered deviance. The problem is, he was obsessed with enforcing doctrinal orthodoxy and somehow missed the graver danger to the most vulnerable members of the flock.

The sin-crazed “Rottweiler” was so consumed with sexual mores—issuing constant instructions on chastity, contraception, abortion—that he didn’t make time for curbing sexual abuse by priests who were supposed to pray with, not prey on, their young charges.

American bishops have gotten politically militant in recent years, opposing the health care bill because its language on abortion wasn’t vehement enough, and punishing Catholic politicians who favor abortion rights and stem cell research. They should spend as much time guarding the kids already under their care as they do championing the rights of those who aren’t yet born.

*****

Columnist proves Bush's liesI closed my column with a question:

Can Wehner, Rove and Douthat state that Bush carefully reviewed the intelligence in order to present to the public an accurate depiction of what was known and not known about the WMD threat possibly posed by Saddam?

It's telling that Wehner does not attempt to concoct a response to that query.

The bottom line is undeniable: Bush and Cheney repeatedly issued false statements to guide the nation to war, and they made no concerted efforts to guarantee that they were providing the public with the most realistic depiction of the threat. They were not interested in an honest debate; they wanted war.*****

Christians infected with prosperity gospelMost professing Christians in America are infected with at least some measure of the health and wealth gospel, said one theologian.

It's a disease that's rampant in the culture and in the church. People are inundated with messages from powerbrokers, media, entertainment, TV evangelists and bestselling authors that say joy is inextricably bound up in material prosperity, physical health, relational success and all the comforts and conveniences Western society provides.

For most people, joy and suffering are incompatible, Storms noted.

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Sowell goes off deep endIf the current legislation does not entail the transmission of all our individual medical records to Washington, it will take only an administrative regulation or, at most, an Executive Order of the President, to do that.

With politicians now having not only access to our most confidential records, and having the power of granting or withholding medical care needed to sustain ourselves or our loved ones, how many people will be bold enough to criticize our public servants, who will in fact have become our public masters?

This is Sowell's nightmare: Nancy Pelosi poring over your individual medical records--especially if you've written something critical about her in your blog. Worse, if you need an operation, she'll be able to issue an order: no treatment for you! Consequently, the entire population will turn into a mass of meek and sniveling sycophants who dare not utter a negative peep about the people in Washington, lest they receive a death warrant from those they criticize. So we're not talking merely about turning the United States into a European-type state--the fear expressed by so many conservative opponents of the health care reform law. Sowell is predicting the complete enslavement of the American public.*****

Beck to Christians: Get out!Glenn Beck said last week on his eponymous show that Christians should leave churches that preach "social justice." Mr. Beck equated the desire for a just society with--wait for it--Nazism and Communism.

I'm begging you, your right to religion and freedom to exercise religion and read all of the passages of the Bible as you want to read them and as your church wants to preach them . . . are going to come under the ropes in the next year. If it lasts that long it will be the next year. I beg you, look for the words 'social justice' or 'economic justice' on your church Web site. If you find it, run as fast as you can. Social justice and economic justice, they are code words. Now, am I advising people to leave their church? Yes.And:Social justice is an essential part of Catholic teaching. It's part of being a Catholic. So Glenn Beck is, in essence, saying "Leave the Catholic church."

But Glenn Beck is saying something else: "Leave Christianity." Again and again in the Gospels, Jesus mentions our responsibility to care for the poor, to work on their behalf, to stand with them. In fact, when asked how his followers would be judged he doesn't say that it will be based on where you worship, or how you pray, or how often you go to church, or even what political party you believe in. He says something quite different: It depends on how you treat the poor.

*****

More healthcare = longer lifespansIn short, great health care is often less about breakthrough technologies than it is about access. And for all the disagreements about President Obama’s health care proposal, let’s focus on this: it unquestionably would increase access, while its defeat would diminish access.

Most of American history has seen a steady increase in access to first-rate health care. But we’re now seeing a reversal of this long trend. A new report has found that one-quarter of Californians are now uninsured.

The reason for the declining access? Our politicians’ ignominious failure over the last half-century to provide universal health care, despite the efforts of Democratic and Republican presidents alike to pass it. It’s astonishing that Republicans today are lined up overwhelmingly against a health care package that is more modest and moderate than one that Richard Nixon proposed in the early ’70s.*****

Big brother in blueThe speaker of the New York City Council and the head of the Council’s Public Safety Committee are calling on Police Commissioner Ray Kelly to get rid of his huge, noxious database of completely innocent New Yorkers who are stopped, questioned and often frisked by the police.

The stops themselves are an outrage and a continuing affront to black and Hispanic New Yorkers, who are the ones most frequently singled-out by the police for this public humiliation. But Speaker Christine Quinn and Council Member Peter Vallone Jr., the committee’s chairman, are focusing on the computerized files that the Police Department is keeping on people who are stopped but found to have done nothing at all wrong.

This is not a small problem. The cops are making more than a half-million of these stops every year. A vast majority of the people targeted—close to 90 percent—are completely innocent. They are not arrested. They are not given a summons. After enduring a mortifying public encounter with the police—which frequently requires the targets to sprawl face down on the sidewalk or spread themselves against a wall or over the hood of a car to be searched—they are sent on their way.