South City Mouth

A Parting Shot

2007-05-03T19:02:00.000-07:00

My work here is done.

That's what I've increasingly come to realize. After 107 posts of varying substance and quality, I think the time has come to put an end to this little endeavor. Mainly, I'm just too busy. On top of my regular teaching job, I'm taking six hours of graduate classes and keeping busy in my church. It doesn't look like my schedule is going to change soon, either.

Also, I've come to realize that lacking the time to write well-thought-out, well-researched, well-reasoned posts, I've increasingly resorted to hastily scrawled, sometimes-flimsy entries. At times recently, I think I've bordered on the shrill and strident, something I never intended. As angry as I am about the current state of affairs in America - and I'm pretty damned angry - I always hoped to present a more thoughtful approach. Pointed and blunt, yes. But never loud and obnoxious. The talk radio guys on the Right are so much better at loud and obnoxious that I could never even hope to compete.

Besides, I think I've said what I intended to say. I think you get the point. In case you didn't, let me pound it into you one more time, in a not-so-subtle fashion:

1) Conservatism has been a destructive force in America. Not completely without merit, the conservative movement is destroying (perhaps unintentionally, perhaps not) any notion of the common good, fair play, justice and equity.
2) The champions of the conservative movement - the Limbaughs and Hannitys - have cheapened public discourse into an ugly, hateful quagmire of deceit and lies and riven a huge divide across America.
3) George W. Bush will quite possibly go down as the worst president in American history. He got us into this nasty, unwinnable war, and damaged our nation's global esteem. He zealously pursued tax cuts for the wealthiest while ignoring the rest of us. He took us in a matter of four years from a budget surplus to our largest defecit ever. He consistently turns a blind eye to the environment. Never before has a president so actively pursued such a malignant agenda to America. And he and his administration are a bunch of nasty, arrogant bullies, to boot.
4) The middle-class and poor are in big trouble. While the Dow reaches record highs, wages remain stagnant and such necessities as housing, college tuition and healthcare spiral into inaccessibility for so many. Meanwhile, income inequality widens to gaps not seen since the Hoover administration. Yet, the Republicans can only wax gleeful about the booming economy. And to what end? That maybe we middle-class folks won't get laid off this week?
5) Corporate America is out of control. No accountability. No responsibility. CEOs make eight figures while average workers are let go for earning too much money. Customers and consumers are often shortchanged and mistreated. Jobs are shipped overseas. Again, how does this benefit the vast majority of us?
6) The almighty dollar is turning our democracy into an oligarchy. Government increasingly exists only to serve the interest and whim of those with the big contribution checks.
7) The Christian church, the one organization that should give us hope above all others, has largely sold itself out as a cheap political movement. The teachings of Jesus Christ have been mowed down by the rhetoric of Jerry Falwell.
8) The average America is fat, lazy and stupid, uninformed, apathetic and interested in little beyond material goods and pleasure. There's virtually no empathy for others, too little concern over maturity and responsibility, too much focus on having fun and being cool.
9) We're destroying our planet, paving it over and heating it up. And as usual, it's all about making money and pursuing lifestyle.
10) We're engaged in the worst, most-unjust war in our nation's history. President Bush lied to get us into it, bungled it from the beginning and hasn't a clue how to get us out of it. Our nation's esteem has collapsed around the world and we're probably at even greater danger from terrorists.

Pretty dour, I admit. But I won't condescend to you with some crap about morning in America. No, I think we're in some pretty tough times. Our nation has been highjacked by ideological bullies who think the majority of us should bend to their will. And their will is pretty frightening.

But I do have hope. Last November's elections show us that the spell has been broken, that the conservative revolution is dead. To folks on the Right, time stood still in 1968, with Jane Fonda and hippies burning draft cards. The rest of us have moved on and wish to pursue something more constructive than the Nixonian wedge of us vs. them. Maybe, just maybe, Americans are ready to talk about real issues constructively, matters like healthcare and education. Finally there's a fair shot that we can repair this damage wrought over the past six years (and really the past 26 years) and move ahead to better times.

Adios, folks. It's been fun.

Fairness = Communism?

2007-04-17T14:53:00.000-07:00

Let's return to my posting of March 29, "A Booming Economy for Some, Perhaps." Clearly, not everyone is outraged that Circuit City would lay off 8.5 percent of its workforce because it was earning too much money. In fact, a frequent reader of this blog called me a communist, employing a right-wing rhetorical tactic better suited for 1954 than for 2007, an ad-hominem desperate conservatives pull out when they can't think of anything more mature or constructive to say.

"Why don't you just pack your bags and move to a country where communism thrives?" the reader wrties.

Have you ever noticed that many right-wingers have taken it upon themselves to decide for the rest of us who is fit to live in America and who isn't? What gives them a unilateral right to decide who is a patriot and who is an America-hater? Have you ever heard a liberal demand of a conservative that he or she should leave the country? "If you right-wingers can't stand religious pluralism, then why don't you move to Iran?" "If you wingnuts are so scornful of economic justice, maybe you'd be happier in El Salvador!" We don't do that because we believe that everyone has the right to express his or her thoughts and dream his or her own vision for America. We might disagree, and we might not always be very polite about it, but never once have I heard a liberal proclaim "America: Love it or leave it."

Then I have to ask, what's so communist about demanding that average Americans who work hard and play by the rules be rewarded with a reasonable standard of living and a minimal safety net and hope for a brighter future? Is it communist to believe that corporations bear some responsibility beyond mere profit or stock price? Shouldn't companies pay employees a fair wage and benefits? Should regular folks not expect, barring hard times for the comany, continued employment and not to be thrown out into the street for making too much money while top execs feed at the hog trough? Are those really such radical demands? I'm sure J.P. Morgan or Jay Gould might have thought so, but what about the average American?

Our frequent reader, while applauding Circuit City for terminating rank-and-file employees because they earn too much, is quite adamant that CEO Phillip Schoonover earns every penny of his multimillion dollar salary (An admission: I inaccurately reported his compensation as $2.17 million. Actually, he earned $4.5 million in 2006). According to Frequent Reader, Schoonover deserves it as he allegedly must "work 80 hour weeks, take tremendous risk, and build businesses that employ other people, strengthen the economy, and pay almost all the taxes." Actually, Schoonover has only been with Circuit City since last June after hopping around from one company to another for several years. I frankly don't see how he's taking any risk, whatsoever, and if he's actually built a company from the ground up himself, I see no record of it. He could run Circuit City into the ground and walk away a millionaire, plus a cushy bonus, I'm sure.

Let's take a look at some more inspirational Horatio Alger types that Frequent Reader no doubt worships for their dedication and risk-taking and see how they did over a four-year period from 2001 to 2005 (Source: MSN.com):

-- Gary Smith. While at the helm at Ciena Corp., stocks lost 93 percent of their value. Smith's compensation: $41 million.

-- Jure Sola. His tenura at Samima-SCI was marked by shares falling 78 percent. Sola's compenstaion: $26.4 million.

-- Scott McNeely. Shareholders at Sun Microsystems lost 76 percent of their investment, but McNeely probably isn't feeling their pain. His compensation: $26 million.

-- Larry Johnston. He drove Albertson's into a shell of its of former self, but don't cry for him. Johnston's compensation: $76.2 million.

-- Peter Dolan. If you bought stocks in Bristol Myers Squibb, you're probably not happy that you lost 48 percent of your investment. But Dolan is pretty happy, I'm sure. His compensation: $41 million.

These certainly are not isolated instances. We recently saw executives at American Airlines celebrate its recent turnaround by awarding themselves $175 million in bonuses, while pilots, flight attendants and other average employees got nothing. The turnaround resulted largely from rank-and-file employees agreeing to pay cuts of 15 to 23 percent.

And I'm a communist for believing that something's wrong here?

Apparently, I'm not the only communist here. Warren Buffett, a notorious Bolshevik, and Standard and Poor, notorious for their desire to redistribute the wealth to the poor and people of color, believe that top execs should make no more than about 15 times the average employee's salary. That would put executive pay in the mid-to-high six figures, not eight or nine figures. We can look at companies where this is the rule, such as Whole Foods, where a salary cap was raised to 19 times the avearge salary. Current top salary is capped there at $608,000. CEO John Mackey, who actually did build up Whold Foods, recently accepted a slaary of one dollar plus benefits, saying he's made plenty of money over the years and he simply enjoys running the company.

Nobody said everybody in America should earn the exact same salary. Nobody said that corporations are obligated to maintain fat payrolls it cannot afford. Right-wingers who charge that people say such things merely want to dismiss us with a little juvenile name-calling into a ridiculous margin. I refuse to let them place me there, as convenient as it might be for them. Instead, I'll firmly speak loudly and demand that corporations pay employees fairly and provide them with standard benefits like affordable health care.

Is that really so communist? If so, then the free market is in big trouble.

Yes to gun rights. No to gun nuts.

2007-04-14T12:46:00.000-07:00

Thank God I live in St. Louis. We have the '06 World Series champions, Budweiser, a big arch, toasted ravioli, the nation's highest crime rate and Nelly.

Now our latest edition to this already distinguished list of honors is this year's NRA convention, taking place as I blog. For the past couple of weeks, I've been treated on the way into work with a billboard on I-44 touting the convetion and its "acres of guns." Imagine that. Acres of guns, no doubt transforming the America's Center downtown into a veritable shrine to the Second Amendment. With this armada of law-abiding patriots visiting the Gateway City, the criminals don't have a chance. I bet we'll only be the third or fourth most dangerous city in America next year.

Sarcasm aside, you may be surprised to know I'm really not a hardcore gun-control advocate, beyond reasonable checks on gun ownership. On some level I do believe America would be a far better place without all these guns. But in the end, I can't turn my back on the Constitution, which clearly states that you and I have the right to own a gun (I don't buy that gun control lobby rationalization of the first clause about militias negating gun rights). Beyond that, millions of Americans perhaps legitimately believe they need a gun to protect themselves. Personally, I feel secure without a gun, but who am I to say no one else have one? And without a doubt, the battle over guns is a done deal, and the gun rights advocates have come out on top. As a result, most Democrats have wisely chosen to walk away from this battle and move on to others they have a better chance of winning. In fact, many Democrats are actively courting the gun lobby, which I find a questionable endeavor.

So does that mean I salute the NRA as a noble and worthy defender of all that's right with America? No way. I have about as much love for the NRA as B from D has for the ACLU. Just because I support the right to own guns in no way equates with support for a bunch of extremist gun nuts. I'm sure there are some very nice people who belong to the NRA, who haven't really considered what their membership dues are supporting. We're talking about an organization who squarely defends every white supremecist redneck residing in a fortified compound and every inner-city gang-banger who believes in his right to spray his neighborhood with automatic gunfire.

The NRA has been a true foe of assault weapons bans. These folks think the Second Amendment allows anyone to own a rapid-fire, military-style assault weapon. I suppose next they'll push for the right to carry a rocket launcher. They resent that business owners have the right to ban guns from their private property (So much for a belief in property rights), and they hate that schools, hospitals and churches also routinely maintain themselves as gun-free zones. They also staunchly defend manufacturers of cheapo guns directly and intentionally marketed toward inner-city thugs. They can't stand the idea of background checks, that the public might benefit from gun dealers making sure they're not selling to felons. And they're lobbying hard to repeal the doctrine that one must attempt to withdraw first when under attack, that firing in self-defense is only to be used as a last resort.

In addition to these highly questionable positions, the NRA has been keeping an enemies list of groups who have dared speak out against their goals. They include such dangerous left-wing zealots as the United Methodist Church, YWCA, and American Medical Association, as well as the St. Louis Rams and Kansas City Royals.

How many average Americans, who otherwise believe that law-abiding citizens should own and carry guns if they choose, would really sign on to the NRA's extremist agenda? Most mature adults with a basic understanding of eighth-grade civics undertand that no right spelled out in the Constitution is absolute, that each comes with limits. Surely, you know that yelling "fire" in a crowded theater is not protected under the First Amendment. That eminent domain is an explicit exception to property rights. God knows that folks on the Right enthusiastically support limits on due process during this war on terrorism. Yet, there must be some magic to the Second Amendment, that makes it the single provision in the Bill of Rights lacking even the slightest check, or so the NRA thinks. Do you believe that? I don't believe most Americans do.

The NRA speaks
From the pro-gun control NRAleaders.com website

Ted Nugent
NRA board member and has-been rock star whose career peaked around 1978

"I'm a fun guy, not a sexist or a racist. I use the word nigger a lot because I hang around with a lot of niggers."
-Detroit Free Press Magazine

"Toxic c---. This bitch is nothing but a two-bit whore for Fidel Castro."
-speaking on Hillary Clinton. Westworld Newspaper

Kayne Robinson
NRA President

"If we win, we'll have a president where we work out of (his) office. "
- On prospects of George W. Bush winning presidency, closed meeting of NRA leaders, 2000

Rep. Barbara Cubin, R-Wyo.
NRA Board Member

"My sons are 25 and 30. They are blond-haired and blue-eyed. One amendment today said we could not sell guns to anybody under drug treatment. So, does that mean if you go into a black community, you cannot sell a gun to any black person, or does that mean because my..."
-Cubin's comments were interrupted at that point by Melvin Watt (D-N.C.) who demanded that her words be stricken from the record as inappropriate.

Jeff Cooper
NRA Board Member, Guns & Ammo Editor-at-Large and Columnist

"The consensus is that no more than five to ten people in a hundred who die by gunfire in Los Angeles are any loss to society. These people fight small wars amongst themselves. It would seem a valid social service to keep them well-supplied with ammunition."
- Guns & Ammo

"Already a couple of the faithful have sent in checks for a foundation memorial to the innocents who perished at the hands of the ninja at Waco. ... I have been criticized by referring to our federal masked men as "ninja" … Let us reflect upon the fact that a man who covers his face shows reason to be ashamed of what he is doing. A man who takes it upon himself to shed blood while concealing his identity is a revolting perversion of the warrior ethic. It has long been my conviction that a masked man with a gun is a target. I see no reason to change that view."
-Cooper's Commentaries (self-published newsletter)

"It is certainly difficult to render a calm and compassionate view of our current system of justice. After a legal friend of ours had his car trashed on the street, apparently just for kicks, he suggested that the proper solution to our inner city problem might be the mass drowning of street punks. Every month in a different big city we should sew up a thousand of them in a huge sack and dump it into the Mississippi. Such ideas may appear fanciful, but the decent people of this country are increasingly driven against the wall. ... While the federal ninja drive around in their black uniforms and face masks, we note that they never seem to bother the street gangs."
-Cooper's Commentaries

Paul Blackman
NRA Head Researcher

" In fact, studies of homicide victims -- especially the increasing number of younger ones -- suggest they are frequently criminals themselves and/or drug addicts or users. It is quite possible that their deaths, in terms of economic consequences to society, are net gains."
From "The Federal Factoid Factory on Firearms and Violence: A Review of CDC Research and Policies."

Leroy Pyle
Former NRA Board Member

"That ugly cackler. She pulls her husband around like a pulltoy on a string. My friends and I say that if that ever happened to one of us and our wife did that, somebody would slip into the house one night and slit her throat."
-On gun-control advocate Sarah Brady, husband of Reagan assassination attempt survivor James Brady. Quoted in "Under Fire: The NRA and the Battle for Gun Control"

John Lott
Pro-gun advocate and researcher

"Allowing teachers and other law-abiding adults to carry concealed handguns in schools would not only make it easier to stop shootings in progress, it could also help deter shootings from ever occurring."
- The Wall Street Journal

Charlton Heston
Former NRA President

"Mainstream America is counting on you to draw your sword and fight for them. These people have precious little time and resources to battle misguided Cinderella attitudes, the fringe propaganda of the homosexual coalition, the feminists who preach that it is a divine duty for women to hate men, blacks who raise a militant fist with one hand while they seek preference with the other... I find my blood pressure rising when Clinton's cultural shock troops participate in gay-rights fundraisers but boycott gun-rights fundraisers and then claim it's time to place homosexual men in tents with Boy Scouts, and suggest that sperm donor babies born into lesbian relationships are somehow better served and more loved."
-Speech to Free Congress Foundation

David Duke
Avowed White Supremicist and 1992 Republican Presidential Candidate

"I was astounded to read these courageous remarks by Charlton Heston. I am thankful to hear a man with such high esteem say essentially the same things for which I have been reviled by the liberal media. His words should be reproduced and put into the hands of every American."
-Responding to Heston's speech

The Resurrection of Newt

2007-03-31T11:38:00.000-07:00

He's not even announced he'll run yet. Just the same, folks on the Right are practically tripping and falling over each other to see who'll be the first to cast a presidential ballot for Newt Gingrich.

It's amazing to me that Gingrich, who left office under a cloud of shame in 1998, presumably never to be heard from again, has been resurrected as the next great hope to revitalize a moribund Reagan Revolution. I've watched this coming slowly, year by year. It started sometime around 2000 when he began cautiously rearing his head on the Sunday morning talk circuit. Apparently he was feeling his oats enough by Sept. 12, 2001, to boldly ascribe blame for the previous days' events on President Clinton, who had already been out of office nine months. Since then, he's become a fixture on the punditry circuit. His reinvention has been complete, it appears, as he poses as some sort of wise elder statesman, not the repugnant and foul ideologue who as speaker of the House ruled our nation as a twisted prime minister.

Since the Right, ever a crew of revisionists, seems to once again be reinventing history to suit its political agenda and get its man into the White House, let's revisit Newt's salad days, circa 1992-1998, and recall what sort of man he was in his prime and what we could expect from him as president.

* By his own admission, Newt is an adulterer and an incredibly hypocritical one at that. At the very same time he was leading impeachment proceedings agains President Clinton for lying about Monica Lewinsky, Newt was having an affair with his very own bimbo. That's old news from a few weeks ago. But it turns out that Newt is a serial adulterer not much different from Clinton. You can read all the salacious details here and here.

* We've heard the one about Newt presenting his first wife, Jackie, while she was in the hospital recovering from surgery. The spinmeisters on the Right have insisted with great desperation that this never happened, but I'll just quote Jackie herself: "He walked out in the spring of 1980.... By September, I went into the hospital for my third surgery. The two girls came to see me, and said, 'Daddy is downstairs. Could he come up?' When he got there, he wanted to discuss the terms of the divorce while I was recovering from my surgery." Gingrich doesn't exactly deny, he just says he doesn't remember that. Not only that, but Jackie had to take Newt to court to get him to pay his fair share of household bills. These days Newt is on wife No. 3, a former Congressional aide, 20 years his junior, with whom he was having an affair during his marriage to wife No. 2.

* Newt, who led the charge against Democratic sleaze in 1994, spoke piously while mired in his own ick. Have we forgotten Newt's $4.5 million book deal with Harper Collins? The book publisher in question, which paid him the exhorbitant amount in 1994, was owned by Rupert Murdoch, the right-wing owner of the right-wing Fox and FoxNews channels. As coincidence has it, Murdoch also was facing some licensing issues at the time and was needing a little help from his friends in Congress.

* Then there was the GOPAC scandal. GOPAC was a political action committee that worked behind the scenes in a complex organization that Tom Delay would no doubt envy, designed to funnel taxpayers money into political organizations. For example, there was his charitable group designed to pay ghetto kids to read books, which actually was used to funnel contributions to his operatives. This was the last straw in a series of ethical breaches for which Newt was forced to resign from his speakership in 1998. How soon we forget all this.

* You remember the House banking scandal, don't you? Blame for that largely fell on Democrats (with a lot of justification), leading to their 1994 demise. What you may have forgotten or not even have known in the first place is that Newt bounced 22 checks himself.

Let's put aside this illusion once and for all that ideologues on the Right really care much about ethics and morality. This is all about power and an agenda in which questionable ends justify rotten means, and Newt Gingrich is just the latest example.

A booming economy for some, perhaps

2007-03-29T07:25:00.000-07:00

We read in this morning's New York Times that the income gap become rich and poor continues to widen exponentially. Collectively, the top 300,000 income earners in our country earned as much in 2005 as those residing in the bottom 150 million. The analysis concludes that on average, the top group earned 440 times as much as the bottom group. Also those top earners' incomes rose about 9 percent, on average, or an increase of $139,000. Meanwhile, those at the "bottom," which includes much of the middle class, saw their incomes drop an average .6 percent or $172.

Meanwhile, we hear that Circuit City will lay off 3,400 workers, about 8.5 percent of its workforce, and replace them immediately with lower paid serfs. Those same laid-off workers are invited, however, to apply for these new lower-paid positions. These workers' were earning "well above the market-based salary range for their role," a company official said. Apparently, the $2,17 million in compensation that Circuit City CEO Philip J. Schoonover earns, according to Forbes.com, is just and fair.

To steal from Bob Dole, "Where's the outrage?"

The moral facade further crumbles

2007-03-10T08:40:00.000-08:00

A big thanks goes out to Newt Gingrich and James Dobson, who further reminded us this week that the Right is concerned about family values and Christian uprightness only when such highminded standards are applied to the likes of Ted Kennedy and Bill Clinton. Applied to their only favorite sons, conservatives are surprisingly flexible and situational in their sense of morality and ethics.

Exhibit A is Newt Gingrich's admission this week that he was cheating on his wife, even while leading the charge to prosecute President Clinton for lying about his own marital infidelity. But of course, it's not hypocrisy, Newt insists. This time it's different. "The President of the United States got in trouble for committing a felony in front of a sitting judge," Gingrich said, showing a lack of any remorse or self-awareness.

Indeed, Gingrich's interview with James Dobson on the evangelist/psychologist's "Focus on the Family" radio show apparently was a celebration of the swell guy that is Newt Gingrich. The website of Focus on the Family, which ironically champions healthy families and marriages, seemed to have no problem with Gingrich's infidelity. Oh sure, Dobson disapproves of such carrying on, but as I looked at the site's home page crowing about this interview, it was clear that Dobson and his group were quite forgiving and saw Gingrich as sufficiently repentant of his sins and still worthy of a run for the White House. In fact, the broadcast in which Gingrich admits to cheating on his wife is titled "Rediscovering Our Nation's Spiritual Heritage." Apparently, a philanderer like Gingrich is fit to lead us to such rediscovery. It all seemed more as a calculated effort to unload some baggage in a manner timely and expedient for a presidential run than it did an honest moment of self-reflection and remorse.

We won't even talk about Gingrich's two divorces and the shady book deal that led to his 1998 resignation in disgrace from his Speaker's chair. The Right is outraged about shady book deals only when it's Jim Wright's shady book deal in question. As for divorce, take a look at Sean Hannity, who was confronted yesterday by a caller who pointed out that this year's Republican candidates together have more divorces under their belts than those godless Democrats. "I guess I have more compassion than you," Hannity said to the caller, in a rare display of understanding and sympathy toward others. You see, divorce is a pardonable sin to conservatives, partly because so many of their candidates' marriages have failed, even multiple times in the cases of Gingrich and Rudy Giuliani. Also, research has shown us that evangelical Christians are more likely to divorce than followers of any other religious tradition, even atheists. So of course, the Christian Right has oddly flexible views on the sanctity of marriage, but only so long as it's their own marriages that are failing, not the marriages of liberals.

Let's now turn to right-wing hypocrisy Exhibit B, Scooter Libby. Gingrich, who this week restated his outrage over President Clinton's lies, is oddly silent over Libby's conviction for lying in the investigation over the Valerie Plame leaks. The conservative punditocracy was anything but silent, however, this week, engaging in nothing but excuse-making. Local wannabe cool guys Jamie Allman and Smash (You know you're trying too hard when you call yourself Smash) went into a long diatribe about Libby's conviction on their morning show on wingnut fave 97.1 Talk.

Allman, former TV weasle and St. Louis Archdiocese PR hack who turned out to be a bigger horse's ass than Archbishop Burke (who'd a-thought that possible?), quoted heavily from the repugnant Anne Coulter in one of her rants, in essence whining, You think Libby was bad, well what about these liberals? Folks, I teach fifth-graders, and they're famous for deflection, finger-pointing and excuse -making. With a 10-year-old, anything goes to take the focus off of Little Johnnie's bad behavior and put it anywhere else so Little Johnnie doesn't have to consider that he might really be a turd. I expect it from 10-year-olds, but to hear it from adults... Well, I stand corrected. Coulter is anything but adult.

Allman, quoting from Coulter, went at length about how we liberals were picking on OxyContin abuser and prescription shopper Rush Limbaugh, how that mean ol' Democrat prosecutor in Texas was persecuting Tom Delay, the accused money launderer, political boss and friend of Jack Abramoff (Oh wait, I forgot, Delay is truly a fine Christian because his heart bleeds for Terri Schiavo). Allman even wanted to know why Ted Kennedy got a pass for Chappaquiddick. He must really have had to stretch if he's looking back to 1969 for ammo.

Right is right, and wrong is wrong. I'm sure liberals themselves have been plenty hypocritical. I've tried to avoid that here. I've declared my distaste for Clinton's poor morality on this blog many times. Back in 1994, I found myself eating plenty of crow and admitting that the Democrats deserved their terrible defeat for its years of corruption and power-mongering If I make an excuse for a liberal, I'll make sure it's a valid one, not just a gratuitous deflection because I'm not man enough to admit that my side is wrong.

And many conservatives are quick to show the same forthrightness and honesty - just not their leadership, which faces sad times. All their high-minded rhetoric has crumbled, a badly built facade turning to dust. In the end, many of these politicians and pundits show themselves as transparent and hollow. Ralph Reed was a greedy power-broker intent on defrauding Indian tribes. Ted Haggard was a meth-head with a taste for male prostitutes. I could go on. I'm truly sorry for the millions of sincere Christians taken in by these hucksters. It all sounded so good. The church was coming take over Washington. But in end, Washington took over the church, and we have nothing left but excuses. And boy, do we keep hearing excuses.

The yahoos and rednecks win yet again

2007-03-03T10:39:00.000-08:00

Give us your poor
Your tired
Your huddled masses
We'll piss on 'em
That's what your statue of bigotry says
- Lou Reed

I just finished reading an interview in the Riverfront Times, St. Louis' uneven attempt at alternative journalism, with Valley Park Mayor Jeffrey Whitteaker, who defends - hell, revels - in his hardline stance against illegal immigrants in his community. Whitteaker, who came out of nowhere last summer to champion a city ordinance to run out all the Mexicans, makes no bones about his feelings regarding the Great American Melting Pot:

"You got one guy and his wife that settle down here, have a couple kids, and before long you have Cousin Puerto Rico and Taco Whoever moving in," Whitteaker says in his profanity-laced interview. "They say it's their cousins, but I don't really think they're all related. You see fifteen cars in front of one house — that's pretty suspicious."

Some will say Whitteaker shows the guts to say what everyone else is thinking. He's certainly in good company these days. Michael Savage, railing on the subject last week on his show, blamed America's problems on the "Turd World," declaring, that these people are taking America "from the Metlting Pot to the Chamber Pot." Neal Bortz, neglecting to cite the slightest attribution, said that illegal immigrants murdered more Americans last year than the total number of people killed in the 9/11 attacks.

OK, then, let's talk immigration.

First of all, here's how I feel about the matter. Illegal immigration is a danger to our national security and places a strain on social services. Our federal government's refusal to do much about it for the past 30 years serves as the ultimate deriliction of our government's most basic responsibility. Nobody should cross our borders and live illegally in our country, and I'm all in favor of stopping people from doing just that. We certainly have the right to decide who comes and goes from this country, and I don't care what the politicians in Mexico say. Build the biggest damn wall from Brownsville to San Diego, and that will be just fine with me. Find and deport those living here illegally, and then once we've decided who does get to live here legally, let them know they should learn to speak English and integrate into our community.

So there. I share the same feelings as much of the rest of America. But I was hoping this would be a constructive national discussion filled with thoughtful conversation on how to balance the protection of the integrity of our borders with consideration for our nation's economic needs and a compassion for those from other places who simply wish a better life for their families.

But as usual, no such luck. The Jeffrey Whitteakers of America have once again won the day, drowning out any reasonable conversation with openly racist and xenophobic invective. We all know that such tendencies are sadly a natural part of the human psyche, and our society has worked hard to repress such speech. But increasingly it's OK once again to hate foreigners and immigrants, and I wonder how long it will be before this mutates into a hatred of anyone with brown skin, regardless of immigration status.

You see, a discerning, rational person is able to comprehend the dangers of unchecked immigration and wish to do something very real about those dangers without signing off on a campaign of hatred and suspicion of people who look, act and talk differently from those of us in the majority. But not many among us wish to be discerning or rational. That's for wimps in an age of hardline, draconian, black-and-white get-toughness. Most folks would rather not consider that most people who illegally enter our countries are otherwise honest, law-abiding folks who weren't as lucky as we are to have been born here and who simply wish to live better lives.

Instead, the Whitteakers in our midst wish to lump these foreigners in with the small percentage of illegal immigrants involved in criminal activities. Law-breakers! the get-tough types proclaim, in an attempt to equate swimming across the Rio Grande with murder or robbery or any number of truly serious crimes. Such distinctions are unimportant to xenophobes as they provide the rationalization they need to strip immigrants of their humanity and any sense of empathy the rest of us might feel for them. Just like rational discourse, empathy is for wimps and liberal marshmallows. Real men hate their neighbor.

So congratulations to Jeffrey Whitteaker and his talk-radio buddies. Once again, a tremendous opportunity for substantive, positive change in our country has been squandered. Instead, facing the prospect of such hardline madness demanded by an increasingly vocal group of haters, Congress will back down on the issue and illegal immigration, a very real problem in our country, will again go unsolved.

It appears that the yahoos and rednecks have won yet again.

Outrage!

2007-02-16T14:55:00.000-08:00

Sean Hannity is outraged! Outraged, I tell you!

Today is a very dark day in America, and hundreds of thousands will die if Nancy Pelosi gets her way. She and Harry Reid, the entire Democratic party and 20 or so Republicans are out to "stab our troops in the back." These Democrats are all about politics, and they don't care about our troops. Nor do they care that our shores will be overrun with swarthy men with funny accents and all manner of doomsday devices strapped on their backs. So goes another day in Foxland.

Mark Levin, a more recent arrival on the right-wing talk circuit, the kind of guy who employs affected machismo, name-calling and outright yelling in lieu of eloquence, is even more outraged than Hannity. You want a performance, Levin will give you the most frantically strident show you ever heard on the airwaves. Nikita Khrushchev and his shoe have nothing on this guy. Nancy Pelosi is a left-wing extremist, Levin will have you know, and not only that, but she's from San Francisco.

Enough already. These talk radio demagogues can't stand that Americans have lost all confidence in President Bush and this ridiculous war that has only diverted from the true mission of fighting terrorism and so much worse. These talking head ideologues can't stand that they've lost America and that more and more people see folks like Hannity and Levin as the true extremists. These two and their ilk wish to paint the Democrats as radicals but don't want us to know that most Americans agree that the war was a mistake and the idea of sending in even more troops seems like even greater insanity.

Now let's forget about the talk radio buffoons and talk about how Americans apparently really feel. It's not at all what the war supporters would like, nor is it really what the antiwar people are getting at, either. According to AP-Ipsos survey results released today, 56 percent of Americans find the war to be a "hopeless cause," while 39 percent agree that it's a "worthy cause." Sixty-three percent oppose sending more troops, as opposed to the 35 percent (an admittedly growing figure) who favor it. But paradoxically, 68 percent of Americans do not want to pull out of Iraq. Only 29 percent do.

That seems like a contradiction, doesn't it? To believe the polls, the average American sees the war in Iraq as a lost cause but opposes a pullout. And I understand this reasoning. It's hard to pull out. Even though I essentially support doing just that, it's not easy to say that, and part of me wants to keep trying. Hell, part of me even wants to grant President Bush's wish for 20,000 more troops. Give the guy what he needs to have one last shot at winning, just so we can say we exhausted all possibilities.

But in the end, I believe it's time to pull out and go home, and I wish the Democrats would have the guts to stand up and say that, and not go with this chickenshit halfway stuff they seem to be advocating for now. I honestly don't think that these extra troops will do anything but prolong this four-year debacle and result in even more dead American troops. Since I oppose an escalation, and keeping them there without the extra support seems crazy, I don't see any choice but to accept defeat and go home. And that outrages some people.

I guess I can't make everyone happy, so here are some points I've made before that I'll make again:
1) The terrorists were not in Iraq to begin with. Saddam Hussein was not alligned with the terrorists. Therefore, I ask, how does starting a war with Iraq make us safer from terrorists?
2) While we were busy deposing Saddam, the terrorists regrouped and brought their jihad to us in Iraq. So now we really are fighting terrorists in Iraq, but it seems more like a self-fulfilling prophecy than any smart strategy on our part.
3) We were told this war was to be fought over weapons of mass destruction. Bush built this argument using a web of deceitful misinformation, so we shouldn't be surprised that we never found the WMD. I'm told that Bush had good intentions, nonetheless, so I guess that makes everything OK.
4) This war has been nothing but a mismanaged mess from the second Colin Powell opened his mouth about fictional yellowcake from Niger to Ken Adelman's "cakewalk" predictions to the burning and pillaging of Baghdad to the nonexistent body armor to KBR's $300 cases of Coca-Cola. After all this, why should I have the slightest confidence in our president that he'll lead us to victory in Iraq?
5) Frankly, this new "plan" looks like nothing more than staying the course, just in a bigger way. Bush still doesn't seem to have any new ideas about how to change things, and staying on a course that has met with nothing but failure will do nothing but lead us to more failure. It's almost guaranteed.
6) Sean Hannity is right. If we pull out, the terrorists will not go away. But guess what, even if we somehow won, they still wouldn't go away. Furthermore this notion that we actually have a choice of either fighting them over there or here at home is just plain foolishness. The terrorists will be a threat either way.
7) Why would we fight a conventional war against terrorism, anyway? We're fighting a war against a concept, not a real army. Our enemy is made of small, loosely affiliated, always dynamic bands of individuals. How can we fight a conventional war against such an enemy? Shouldn't this be a law enforcement and intelligence issue, with the military used in a limited, more precise way?
8) The rest of the world hates us these days. Anti-Americanism is at an all-time high, even among countries that we often consider our closest friends. Is this anti-Americanism sometimes over the top and unfair? Of course. Do these people also have a few valid points? Absolutely, and I'd say more than a few. Are we really right, and the rest of the world wrong?
9) I suspect quite the opposite would happen from Hannity's dire predictions. If we pulled out, I really do believe that tensions in that part of the world would de-escalate, at least a little. Maybe that's naive, but I do know that our presence over there is doing no good and lots of harm.
10) The Right can talk tough all they want. For some, it comes off like a therapeutic compensation for a self-perceived deficit somewhere. But as manly and tough as it makes them feel, no amount of tough talk can cover-up what most Americans see.

So there, that's what I think of our war in Iraq. And if Sean Hannity wishes to equate that with stabbing troops in the back, well, I suppose that's just one more lie about Iraq that the Right wishes to perpetuates.

OK, so now can we agree on global warming?

2007-02-03T12:49:00.000-08:00

So let's see where things stand on the global warming "debate."

We learn this week that the most comprehensive report on the matter minces the fewest words yet. The UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change expresses 90 percent certainty that the planet is warming before our eyes and that we are to blame for it. Global temperatures are expected to rise 3 to 11 degrees by 2100 with ocean levels rising as much as 23 feet. Those dire chicken little predictions of the past 20 years have turned out to be undestatements. It's too late to stop this climatological freight train, but perhaps we can mitigate it significantly if we act now. At least that's what this report, which relied on scientists from over 2,000 scientists from 113 countries, contends. I'm not a scientist, and so I won't pretend to speak authoritatively on the science of global warming and climate change. Instead, I'll cast my lot with what most scientists believe, and at this point, it's clear that the vast majority of scientists believe that human activity is warming the planet.

Can we now declare this debate over, once and for all? Apparently not, as some conservatives (I say "some" because I believe most conservatives also believe the consensus of the scientific community) insist on denying. Sean Hannity said on Thursday that these scientists sound like a bunch of hysterical children, and he managed to dig up some guy from MIT to concur. We know there are some like Hannity, who still want to pretend there's a debate on this issue, that a handful of global warming naysayers is sufficient to negate what most of us would agree is consensus. There remain many who insist the Holocaust is a myth, that the Earth is flat, and the Moon-landing was a hoax. Yet, most of us consider these matters to be completely settled. So why do we insist on pandering to those who so badly wish to believe that a few fringe elements constitute credible debate?

We've seen the 1998 memo dredged up from Exxon-Mobil officials urging that money be spent to fund global warming deniers to propogate this illusion of debate, which in turn allow President Bush to say that these questions are unsettled. We learned this week that the American Enterprise Institute, funded by Exxon-Mobil and closely tied to the Bush White House, was peddling an offer of $10,000 to any scientist to publicly poke holes in the IPCC report. We know of the many government climate scientists who quit because of heavy-handed editing of their work to play down any mention of the possibility that we're making our planet warmer.How many times have we heard U.S. Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., call global warming "a hoax?" And don't forget science fiction writer Michael Crichton, whose book "State of Fear" describes those who warn of global warming as part of a sinister conspiracy and web of deceit, a portrayal that earned Crichton an invitation to the White House to advise President Bush on climate issues. I find it laughable that Crichton, whose books warn that nanoparticles will turn the planet into a mass of gray goo and that prehistoric creatures will eat us if we keep messing with DNA, now implores us to be reasonable.

Then there are the average rank-and-file Joes who buy into all this denial and sophistry.
"A new, IPCC report, is nothing more than guesses and theories," writes the blogmeister at NewsByUs (get the right-wing pun?) "However, it was written by people with the same misguided mind set as Al Gore." From what I can tell, Mr. NewsByUs is a Christian conservative. I presume he's part of the religious right establishment that has sold itself out to satisfy the interests of corporate America, or perhaps he's one of those who believes that Jesus will return in the next few weeks, so who cares if the Earth gets warmer? Or judging by his blog, his hatred for liberals is so knee-jerk that anything Al Gore says automatically demonstrates a left-wing conspiracy. Come on, even Pat Robertson now says, "I'm a convert." Speaking last summer on "The 700 Club," he said, “It is getting hotter and the ice caps are melting and there is a buildup of carbon dioxide in the air. We really need to do something on fossil fuels.”

Yet disbelief persists from those insisting on an impossible threshhold of truth. In other words, they don't wish to believe, therefore they refuse to. It's an inconvenient truth, to be sure. The deniers employ the powers of dubious observation (If the Earth is warming, then why was it so cold this morning?); folksy homespun wisdom (Now, come on folks, my granddad said it was plenty hot when he was bent over with his cotton sack, so let's not lose our heads here); re-interpretation of what the science actually reports (I don't care if the IPCC Third Assessment explicitly states that we're making our planet warmer, if you actually read the report, it says otherwise); anti-media obfuscation (Of course the media reported that the IPCC said we're causing global warming. They're a bunch of liberals. What do you expect?); and isolated, localized facts with no context ("Britain is one degree Celsius cooler now than it was at the time of the Domesday book," states one denial website).

So, since I hold with the four-out-of-five scientists doctrine, let's see what the scientific community says. Four IPCC assessments have now been issued since the panel was commissioned in 1988. Each one has turned up the volume to state with greater and greater certainty that human activity is causing global climate change. The National Academy of Sciences this past summer, in a report commissioned by Congress, stated, "The scientific understanding of climate change is now sufficiently clear to justify nations taking prompt action. It is vital that all nations identify cost-effective steps that they can take now, to contribute to substantial and long-term reduction in net global greenhouse gas emissions." A group of several large American corporations, including Alcoa, Duke Energy, Caterpillar, DuPont, BP and General Electric sided last month with environmentalists on the global warming debate, calling on the U.S. government to take action now to curb greenhouse emissions.

So, now that we've spent the past 20 years studying the matter, can we move on now and do something to save our planet? Apparently not, because the granddaddy of all global warming deniers resides at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., and I don't expect him to budge anytime soon.

The Cheap Rhetoric of Culture War

2007-01-20T12:39:00.000-08:00

You may or may not recall Jerry Falwell's remarks on Sept. 13, 2001 blaming liberals for the attacks two days earlier.

"I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way - all of them who have tried to secularize America - I point the finger in their face and say 'you helped this happen,'" Falwell said to Pat Robertson in a guest appearance on Robertson's "700 Club."

Most of us not on the Right quickly wrote off these comments as the rantings of the goofball that we Falwell to be. But the Right persists with this notion that the alleged "anything goes" spirit of the Left is to blame for the attacks of 9/11. Dinesh D'Souza now makes the same assertion, albeit lacquered over with a pseudo-scholarly veneer, in his new book, "The Enemy At Home: The Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11." The book is apparently so bad that Amazon.com customers give it an average review of 2 1/2 stars (I'm sure right-wingers will now claim that Amazon has a liberal bias). Have you ever heard of a customer review so poor on Amazon?

D'Souza writes: "I am saying that the cultural left and its allies in Congress, the media, Hollywood, the nonprofit sector, and the universities are the primary cause of the volcano of anger toward America that is erupting from the Islamic world."

It brings to mind "Culture Warrior," Bill O'Reilly's recent literary effort at spewing self-righteousness and whipping up his wingnut base into a frenzy. I'm sure you've heard about his new lexicon he's imposed on us concerning "traditionalists" (people who love America and God, drive pickups and listen to country music) and "secular progressives" (francophile atheists who drive Volvos and enjoy hot beverages from Starbuck's).

Which brings me to my belated point: Aren't you sick of hearing about the culture war? Do you really believe these guys' sincerity or do you think they're filled with self-serving, sanctimonious crap.

Don't get me wrong, as a teacher, I hate that our kids are exposed to movies, television and music are filled with violence and all manner of anti-social, indecent content. I hate that our dumbed-down overstimulated youth culture celebrates so much of what is bad in this world. I can't stand that kids waste so much of their youth playing video games and refuse to pick up books or newspapers. But frankly, I'm also sick of all the contrived, calculated, totally empty culture war rhetoric from conservatives. After 30 years, what has the reletntless, aggrieved outrage of the Falwells, Robertsons, Dobsons and O'Reillys gotten us? Absolutely nothing. Our society is worse off than when these guys first started moaning and complaining in the 1970s. In fact, they've only contibuted to this morass by striving diligently to lower the standards of public discourse and statesmanship.

Hollywood and Madison Avenue won't change. It's a battle we lost a long time ago through the Left's insistence 40 years ago on social de-evolution and the Right's ongoing worship of corporate America and its insistence that anything is permissable in the pursuit of a dollar.

But if you want to know who's really to blame, look in the mirror. In America, the public wants what the public gets. All this garbage that we pretend outrages us we really eat up with a voracious collective appetite. My outrage with Brittany Spears and Paris Hilton is spent, knowing full well that they and their friends won't change. My true outrage is with a lot of the parenting I see these days. Here's what really outrages me:

1. Parents who take their children into R-rated movies.
2. Parents who don't monitor what their children watch on TV.
3. Parents who allow their children unrestricted Internet usage.
4. Parents who turn their children's bedrooms into self-contained entertainment centers.
5. Parents who allow video games to take over their house.
6. Parents who let their children stay up until all hours, who think nothing of pulling their kids out of school for a whole week because the lines are shorter at Disney World in January.

If you want to fight a culture war - and sadly, I don't think very many Americans really want to - let's start fighting it at home. Let's start acting like grownups. Don't restrict TV and video games. Throw the damn things out and start really interacting as a family. I hear so many parents talk about how hard it is to raise kids in todays environment, and I realize that many parents are heroically and truly acting as adults and building character and values into their children. Sadly, I'm also convinced that most parents either aren't trying hard at all or harbor good intentions and show poor follow-through. Perhaps this is all cheap talk from one who has chosen, at least for now, to be childless. But then again, parenthood is a conscious choice, and with that choice comes a deep responsibility to step up and be adult.

But let's face it, most Americans won't have any of that, because such radical steps require sacrifice and character, and that's no fun. Falwell and O'Reilly know this damn well, and that's why they never point fingers at the average American, but merely at faceless entities like Hollywood. Let Brittany Spears get some character, but don't ask us to give up our Xboxes.

The silence is broken

2007-01-13T10:33:00.000-08:00

OK, so I've been reeeeaaaalllly bad about keeping up this blog. I guess after Nov. 8's excitement died down, I chose to be quiet for a while. Now let's talk about this and that.

First Hundred Hours
The first 100 hours of Democrats' reign in Congress have passed with little fanfare. I've heard little analysis or even basic reporting of what actually was accomplished during this time. I'll look into that. If nothing else, I'm sure it was far more successful than the first hundred hours of the Republicans' Contract with America, which fizzled into a lot of ideological hot air and almost nothing of substance. Stay tuned...

Have you noticed the virtually complete lack of letters on newspaper opinion pages since November by Democrats telling Republicans to quit whining and get over it? Such discourse has often been the afteraffect of Republican victories, but has been noticeably absent now that the shoe is on the other foot. It's one thing to be pleased with one's own victory. Gloating and poor sportsmanship, however, are something completely different.

The NPR Alternative
This morning I tuned into KWMU, our local NPR station, to find it drowned out on our radio by KSIV, a local purveyor of right-wing "Christian" talk. I left it on, hoping to learn more about how to live a Christian life.

First I heard St. Louis' own Phyllis Schlafly rail against the dangers of bilingual education, using it as a springboard to attack the National Education Association and its alleged promotion of secular humanism, explict sex ed. and even support of the Equal Rights Amendment, something I thought had been been a dead issue since 1982. For the record, I'm an NEA member, as they provide me with legal representation, representation before an educational establishment often indifferent to the concerns of rank-and-fil teachers, and representation before our own local school administration. I believe that if I were to face unfair criminal charges or lawsuits or an unjust termination, NEA would have my back. Last time I checked, Schlafly's Eagle Forum, based just across the river in Alton, Ill., was not providing these services or any support to embattled teachers, nor was any other conservative organization. So given a choice, I'll cast my lot with NEA.

Schlafly was followed by Tony Perkins, founder of the Family Research Council, one of those organizations that sound good in theory until they open their mouths and speak. Perkins today interviewed Oliver North on his recent vist to Iraq (North says we should stay the course. Shocking, I know). What this had to do with family values, I don't know. What I especially don't understand is the Right's unwavering support and canonization of someone who sold weapons to Iran, probably the most dangerous nation on Earth, then funneled the funds to a band of terrorists in Central America. Not only that, but here's a guy who lied to Congress and whose conviction for doing so was thrown out only by a technicality. What Oliver North has to say about anything means nothing to me.

Finally, before turning off the radio and praying for a some wind or weather pattern that would send KWMU back our way, some guy whose name I didn't bother to catch went on a discourse on the dangers of abortion. To believe this guy who painted a picture from The Jungle, abortionists are butchers who work in unsanitary holes. Come on. I'm sure abortions are by and large safe (for the mothers that is), and universally performed in clean, modern facilities. However you feel about abortion - and it is morally wrong - spreading transparently misleading propaganda and disinformation serves no one's cause. This kind of garbage is exactly why an entire generation of druge users 30 years ago found it so easy to disregard the alarmist and flatly untrue information distributed about drug use. Believe what you want, but at least be honest and truthful.

KSIV is owned by the Bott Radio Network, an Overland Park, Kan.-based chain of Christian radio stations, mostly located in the Midwest. Their website proclaims, "Strengthening your family with God's word - all day, everyday." Oddly absent was God's word anywhere throughout this. Rather than enlightening Christians on how to be better Christians, I heard nothing but partisan political discourse, mainly preaching to the choir about how everyone else in America is the problem, but of course not the listener to these shows. Being a Christian is easy when you're told that everyone else is the problem. Focusing inward, however, is a real and not always pleasant challenge, and one that's strangely absent from broadcasters like KSIV.

The War Chronicles
It's been a bad week for President Bush. Once again, as he's done several times throughout this war in Iraq, he has sought to speak directly to Americans about why this war is important. He did so during the summer of 2005 with a series of speeches. He did so again last year. This time, he says, not only should we continue to follow through on this huge mistake, but now we should escalate with 20,000 more troops. The polls consistently show that two-thirds of Americans see this immodest proposal as "been there, done that." Most of us believe that things aren't working out in Iraq. When one begins wondering if maybe Iraq really was better off under Saddam, you something is very wrong. As a group, however, we're not sure about the alternative. I know I'm still not sure, although I lean toward a pullout.

Yet, the dire predictions rage if we do so. We will set the stage for World War III, as Neville Chamberlain did for World War II. Americans will never be safe at home again. Nobody believes that a pullout will lead a breakout of peace in the Middle East. In fact, probably whatever happens will be really ugly and bad, thanks largely to the further destabilizing effects this war has had on this region. I say "further" because the Middle East has been a mess for at least 40 years; it certainly was long before Sept. 11. It will continue to be a mess regardless of what America does. Terrorism of course will continue to be a threat, but maybe we'll learn to start treating terrorism as a law enforcement and intelligence issue with more precise and limited military involvement - not as something we can "fix" through a conventional war with an unseen and frankly unknown enemy.

I have to seriously question whether a pullout truly will heighten the endanger that we inarguably face. Instead, is it quite possible that our leaving Iraq will result in some de-escalation of tensions in the Middle East? Our presence there is such an incredibly incendiary flashpoint, I can't help but believe that a pullout will cool down the passions of billions of people who will probably still hate us but will be less inclined to actually cross over to the dark side of terrorism. Many of the insurgents and terrorists see themselves as fighting for their homeland against what they believe to be an occupying force of anti-Islamic infidels. When that kind of urgency is removed, people's passions tend to cool.

Nobody is denying that the terrorists are bad people and that the threat against our nation is extreme, although many war supporters would like to use such a characterization against people like me. But is our country any safer by insistently continuing on the same course we've repeatedly learned doesn't work?

Random thoughts

2006-11-10T18:08:00.000-08:00

Three days out from VA-Day (Victory in America), here's a grab bag of random thoughts:

With Missouri's minimum wage raise amendment passing by a 79-to-21-percent margin, it's clear that Americans have their minds on social justice. No longer are people willing to wait around as we have for 25 years, hoping that voodoo economics might finally trickle down to the rest of us. Not only that, but clearly it's OK these days to show concern for the poor. I remember a time not so long ago that most Americans thought of the poor as a bunch of lazy freeloaders, not worthy of a moment's concern. Now, most Americans seem to agree that something's very wrong when a quarter of all children in the world's richest nation lives in poverty.

I continue to listen to talk radio as Republicans search their post-election souls as we Democrats have often found ourselves doing over the years. Their consensus on why they lost so badly on Tuesday? They just weren't conservative enough. Republicans apparently agree that they need to move even farther to the right. House Majority (not for long) Whip and Missourian Roy Blunt said so yesterday in his address to the Heritage Foundation, an outfit that no doubt thinks moving even farther right is a splendid idea. I too applaud Republicans' ongong quest for ideological purity. Indeed, I hope they succeed mightily. Of course, they'll continue to lose even worse with each subsequent election, but they'll have that ideological fire in their bellies to keep them warm during their winter of discontent.

So what's up with President Bush's sudden about face on Iraq? Until Wednesday morning, it was stay the course, stay the course, stay the course. How quickly things change. And by the way, in the wake of his recent insistence that Rumsfeld was here to stay, can I now safely call Bush a liar?

Have you seen this year's electoral victory maps? They look awfully blue, even in that flyover area where all the real Americans supposedly live, where nobody would ever vote Democrat. Republicans made a big deal about their broad swaths of red in 2000 and 2004. Remember those electoral map T-shirts proclaiming "Bush's America: My America." Republicans are oddly silent about America's 2006 color scheme.

Obviously, Tuesday's results are not a mandate for liberal extremism. Look at most of the Democrats who won and how moderate and centrist they appear. Likewise, look at all the moderate Republicans who lost, leaving the GOP even more ideological and radical. For all Republicans' snide laughing at Democrats' sometimes-foolish efforts at reaching out for the center all these years, at least the Democrats were trying. Republicans meanwhile pandered exclusively to the far Right, thumbing their noses at the other 70 percent of us Americans. Their strategy reaped obvious results on Tuesday.

The dam has broken and there's no turning back. I suspect the future holds combative two-party rule, but I'll take that over what we've seen the past six years. In the meantime, the days are over in which words like Democrat and liberal are hurled like insults. For many years, the Democrats faced an uphill battle at regaining trust that had deservedly been lost years earlier. Democrats have had a burden of proof on themselves for some years now, while Republicans were more likely seen as the more Christian, more morally upright and responsible, more American. I'd say the GOP, due to their own arrogance and moral corruption, has blown that sweet deal for itself. Now, it's seen as OK to vote Democrat, and that burden of proof at least seems to be history.

The day after the day after

2006-11-09T18:24:00.000-08:00

As a Democrat, I'm not used to all this winning. Having been forced so many times in the past to be the gracious loser, I'm not so sure how to act now that my side has won. So I thought I'd take a look back at come newspaper opinion pages to see how graciously Republicans accepted victory in the weeks after the 2004 presidential election.

Let's start with one letter by Peter Writer of Charlestown, R.I., who wrote these conciliatory words to Decmocrats in The Providence Journal: "Climb aboard the crybaby bus and go away. Don't worry -- you won't be missed."

How about these soothing words from Charles Duhon of Tulsa who extended this olive branch via an eloquent letter to the Tulsa World: "Why doesn't John Kerry grow up and act like a man and stop acting like a girlie boy? I'm not even going to give him the honor of being labeled a girlie man. The dude's a girlie boy."

Writing in to the Anchorage Daily News, Mathias Houston so badly wished to unite us all in his letter titled, "Whining Democrats need to accept the election results and get a life."

I could go on. You know how it is every election year. It's the old quit-whining-and-get-over-it letters that appear in the newspapers every time Republicans perceive an electoral victory. Of course this time, they've lost pretty badly, so I've been interested in gauging Republican reaction now that they've been forced to accept defeat. I tuned in yesterday to 97 Talk, St. Louis' purveyor of the Fox News brand of right-wing talk radio. You know, the whole Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, Laura Ingraham axis, tied together by those top-of-the-hour Fox News updates known for their fairness and balance -- at least by Roger Ailes' definition.

To be sure, Sean and a couple of local wannebe Limbaughs who do drivetime talk assured us they would not be whining and carrying on, as they subtly suggested we liberals did in 2004. They went out of their way to let us know they were not moving to Canada, as Alec Baldwin threatened. I know the rest of us are all relieved. One guy, ever sincere, even said he wished for all the success in the world for Democrats and would even pray for us. Sounds nice, doesn't it?

But of course, tigers can't lose their stripes any more than Karl Rove can grow hair (OK, I shouldn't be one to talk about growing hair), and within minutes these guys were back to their usual liberal- and Democrat-bashing. So much for fond wishes. The Democrats' extreme-left agenda will soon rear it's ugly head. Men will soon be holding hands in public. Men will marry their dogs. Salesclerks at Target will wish customers, "Happy holidays." You know the usual wedge argument. We conservaties are the good Christian patriots, the other 70 percent of America hates God.

One caller delcared that Claire McCaskill's Senate victory signifies that nothing is sacred anymore, that we've lost our sense of values. The host quickly agreed calling us in the majority by O'Reilly's term "secular progressives." Apparently, because most Americans think the war in Iraq was a terrible mistake, and they want affordable healthcare and security in their old age, we'll all soon be smoking pot and burning flags in the streets. Another caller, calling Democrats the "give-peace-a-chance crowd," informed us that the voters just handed America over to the terrorists, that we liberals don't understand that those terrorists are bad people. Our host, some wild, crazy guy calling himself Smash, insisted that Republicans are so much more sportsmanlike and ethical in their political conduct than Democrats. Smash, willfully ignorant of such names as Nixon, Atwater, Rove and Abramoff, piously informed us that Republicans would never stoop to the shameful conduct of Democrats.

But still, they're not whining. Really, they're not. After all, if a good conservative like Crash says so enough times, then it must be true.

Wow!

2006-11-08T18:48:00.000-08:00

Today I've been too speechless to gloat.

Instead, I've been shocked by the complete and almost total trail of Democratic victories from sea to shining sea. I went to bed last night thinking Jim Talent had clenched his first electoral victory, cementing what would probably be a long Senate tenure. Instaed, I woke this morning to find that Claire McCaskill had pulled it through. Apparently, those urban and even suburban votes from St. Louis and Kansas City hadn't been counted yet. My only regret here in the Show-Me State was the failure of the tobacco tax amendment, a victory of the tobacco lobby, which financed endless TV ads painting the measure as a political boondoggle.

This evening, the jury's still out on the Senate race in Virginia, but it appears Macaca Allen is poised to go down. Win or lose, the Republicans have lost the Senate, and at best will have to share it with the Dems. From Maryland to Montana, Republicans have fallen in all key races, save for Tennessee, where a little race-baiting again proved effective.

Even in Texas, the Massachusetts of the Right, Democrats made a few strides. In Dallas County, Dems swept countywide races, something unthinkable even a few years ago. On the Gulf Coast, Tom Delay's Congressional district fell to Democrat Nick Lampson. Even unsuccessful Democratic gubernatorial candidate Chris Bell showed a far greater standing in a four-way race than anyone would have expected a few weeks back.

And then to hear that Donald Rumsfeld has resigned. Well, it's just too much for my left-wing heart to take.

The first time I paid close attention to a political race was as a 12-year-old in 1980. You know what happened then. I suppose I came of political age that night, not realizing that it would be a long 26 years. Is a new wave of change coming or was yesterda just a speed bump in our long ride through the status quo? I certainly have my own beliefs on that, but I suppose we'll all have to stay tuned.

Perhaps tomorrow, we can discuss the meaning of all this. For tonight, I'll just bask.

Odds and ends

2006-09-09T08:59:00.000-07:00

Let's talk about a little bit of this and that today.

Liar in Chief

We see splashed on this morning's paper news that Saddam Hussein not only had no ties to al-Qaeda, but saw the group as a threat and sought to eradicate it. Not only that, but President Bush knew this to be true the whole time. That's the news released Friday from the Senate Intelligence Committee.

"Iraq and al-Qaeda had high-level contacts that go back a decade," President Bush said in October 2002 as he attempted to drum up support for war.

In fact, Saddam opposed al-Qaeda, and at one point Iraqi security forces attempted unsuccessfully to capture Abu Musab al-Zarqawi as he sought medical treatment in Baghdad under an alias. If you'll recall, war supporters have attempted to use this appearance in Baghdad by al-Zarqawi as proof of al-Qaeda ties to Saddam's regime.

Much of the committee's report is based on U.S. intelligence reports, illustrating the degree to which the Bush administration knew damn well that Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11. Many of us have strongly suspected this to be true, and now we all know damn well. It appears more and more that Bush merely wanted to go after Saddam - not an entirely bad idea- and simply used 9/11 as an excuse to do so. This extraordinary diversion from the real war on terror has no doubt put our nation in greater danger than it already faced.

Although Iraq was not a base for terrorists when we invaded in 2003, it certainly has become one since then, turning Bush's lies into a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The Abominable News Anchor

Last night, I finally tuned into Katie Couric's attempt to remake the network news division that once gave us Edward R. Murrow. What an abysmal excuse for a newscast! Frankly, I've always actively disliked Couric. Lacking more eloquent words, I'll simply describe her as a shrewish bitch. Still I expected her newscast to be better than the trainwreck I viewed last night.

For years, I've clung stubbornly to a sentimental and grossly outdated view of CBS as the Tiffany Network. I long for Walter Cronkite, the most trusted man in America; "60 Minutes" in its glory days before it became a tired collection of geriatric farts; Charles Kuralt making us feel good about our coutnry, as troubled as it might be; and even its attempt to turn entertainment into something intelligent and witty with the likes of "Mary Tyler Moore" and "All in the Family."

Granted that view has been tarnished greatly, what with "Survivor" and Dan Rather's oversized ego. Still, trustworthy and solid Bob Shieffer brought us hope with a return a couple of years ago to a serious no-nonsense newscast, featuring real news and not the O.J./Jon Benet/Lacy Peterson foolishness that characterizes the cable news axis.

Well, that's all over, apparently. Now, instead of news, we have a more lighthearted, breezy newsmagazine show. I strongly suspect we're seeing news geared toward the thirty- to fiftysomething woman. It's news for the Oprah crowd, which doesn't like to hear all that bad stuff about war and killing and shrinking prospects for the next generation of Americans.

Last night's broadcast started with news of the manhunt for that cop-killer in New York state, featuring an in-studio interview with a U.S. marshal. We also had a humorous essay on summer by some wild and crazy guy I've never seen before. Katie herself presented a fun rundown of some wacky websites we might wish to check out in our spare time, including a high-speed montage of some guy who photographs himself everyday. And we ended with Steve Hartman wringing his hands over how sad 9/11 was for folks in Shanksville, Pa.

Somewhere in there, the folks at CBS forgot to throw in the actual news, so I turned the TV off without a clue of what actually happened in our world on Friday. What a waste of America's time. If this goes over as well as CBS hopes, expect the other two networks to follow with their own newscast-looking lifestyle show.

Thank God for Jim Lehrer. We need him more than ever.

"Munich"

If you're a Netflix subscriber as we are, you know how it keeps you from ever actually visiting the cinema, and you wind up watching movies months and months after they premiered in their first run. That's how it is with us and Steven Spielberg's "Munich." We finally saw it nine months after it first arrived at the movie theater.

I've been fascinated and admittedly admiring of Israel's take-no-prisoners response to terrorism ever since I was a kid viewing '70s-era TV movies reenacting the Munich Olympics attack and the hostage crisis in Entebbe. We Americans tend to view Israel in a far more favorable light than we do her enemies, certainly with great justification. And of course, testosterone dictates that I always like to see the bad guys get theirs.

The movie has been criticized by many as historically inaccurate. For example, in "Munich," the Mossaud employs a secret commando outift to assassinate a list of 11 plotters in the Munich attacking. By the end of the movie, the outfit's head succumbs to paranoia and disillusionment. Whether he actually feels remorse or moral misgivings is left to the viewer to misinterpret. I'm always troubled by movies that don't wish to portray history accurately. I can easily see viewers of "Munich" literally interpreting the story as fact and forming opinions based on events that didn't actually happen, or at least not in the way they were portrayed.

At the same time, the overall message is something we should all consider. Spielberg illustrates us in "Munich," that exacting revenge and seeking to crush are enemies are ultimately unsatisfying. Something therein leaves us a little more hollow and a little less human. Something in revenge sets forth what I've heard described as a perpetual-motion machine of retribution and violence. In the end, Spielberg says, each assassination by Israel was met be an even larger, more hideous act of terrorism by Arab groups. What we see in "Munich" is the genesis of the mess that eminates from the Middle East and now envelopes the entire world. A mess that Israelis and Palestinians attempted to further perpetuate last month, culminating in widespread destruction throughout Lebanon.

These are dangerous times for the world. No doubt, the terrorists are evil and wish to destroy us. We cannot sit idly by, and no doubt violent tactics will and must be used. Yet, are we excused and absolved from any moral considerations ever in our efforts to make our country safer? Sadly, I suspect most Americans feel such absolution to be perfect and easy. Also, looking at this failed war in Iraq and Israel's failed attempt to bomb Hezbollah into submission, is it possible that we are facing the limits of violence. I know that we Americans decided a long time ago that peaceful means of seeking accord is for suckers, the ridiculously naive and the limp-wristed. Yet, look at the war and destruction we've committed ourself to as the only alternative. Is that getting us what we want?

The rhetorical labyrinth of abortion

2006-09-04T09:12:00.000-07:00

Ramesh Ponnuru, resident National Review geek, has a new book out, "The Party of Death: The Democrats, the Media, the Courts, and the Disregard for Human Life." Essentially, it's a "pro-life" treatise. I put the term pro-life in quotes because I fail to see how conservatives can call themselves that with their worldview of war as solution to all world conflicts, their sense of bloodlust satisfied via capital punishment, their belief that America would be more peaceful if all her citizens packed heat, their unwavering support of the tobacco lobby and their seeming lack of concern that 1/4 of the American children who weren't aborted live in poverty. But I digress once again into territory covered a million times before.

I must say, I'm a little disappointed by the bombastic title and premise of Ponnuru's book. He's been filling in recently on PBS' "NewsHour" as a foil to liberal Mark Shields while conservative David Brooks is off following the kinds of eggheaded pursuits that make Brooks a lovable nerd. Ponnuru, on the "NewsHour," comes off as reasonable and thoughtful, the kind of guy that actually makes guys like me reconsider and re-evaluate our liberal ways. In spite of this ridiculous book title, worthy of an Anne Coulter screed, I hold out hope that I'm still right about him.

And the New York Times Book Review suggests that I am indeed right to assume that Ponnuru shows himself in this book to be several cuts above, say, Michael Savage. Essentially, he skewers the twisted logic of those who support abortion rights. For example: I think abortion is horrible and tantamount to murder, but I don't believe I should impose my beliefs on others. How crazy is that?

For as long as I've had political and social opinions, I've steadfastly held to the view that abortion is a terrible wrong and that it should be illegal, that Roe v. Wade should be reversed. I've lambasted the Democratic party and fellow liberals for their equally unwavering view that choice trumps life. Furthermore, I've been a strong supporter of the consistent pro-life creed, largely promoted by the Catholic church, not the cheap right-wing, evangelical creed of bleeding hearts for the unborn but indifferent hearts toward everyone else.

So it may surprise some of you to learn that my views on abortion have been evolving somewhat over the past several months. I can thank South Dakota legislators for spurring my reconsideration. You may recall that earlier this year, they passed a law in open defiance of Roe that banned abortion in their state. In essence they forced us all up to the precipice that divides reality from theory. Until now, I found my hard-line beliefs quite tenable in the comfortable knowledge that Roe probably wouldn't be overturned anytime soon. Now that a ban on abortion might be a real deal, I've been forced to consider how that might really affect our society.

In response to South Dakota's new law, The New York Times Magazine examined life in El Salvador, where abortion is illegal and law enforcement works aggressively to stamp it out. In El Salvador, doctors are legally obligated to report evidence of past abortions that turns up during an annual exam to authorities. Once evidence is reported, authorities can obtain a court order insisting that a woman show up at a certain time and place for a pelvic exam. Further evidence can be used to prosecute and imprison women and their doctors. Is this the kind of society we want? I don't see any other way to enforce anti-abortion laws other than what goes on in El Salvador.

Ponnuru is right in his questioning of the pro-choice crowd. But now I have questions of him, and of other pro-lifers, myself included:

1) Isn't it hypocritical to stand up for the sanctity of life for the unborn, then draw numerous exceptions under which abortion is permissable? Is life less valuable when conceived under rape or incest? Obviously, not to allow these exceptions would show true heartlessness, but still doesn't it point out a huge trap in our pro-life rhetoric?

2) Do we really want a return to unsafe, clandestine "back-alley" abortions? This stands as the cornerstone of most pro-choicers' arguments. Isn't there validity to this argument? Do we really think all abortion will stop? Do women who seek an abortion get what they deserve if they bleed to death or are otherwise butchered in unsafe unregulated procedures?

3) If abortion really is murder, then should women who seek abortions and doctors who provide them be prosecuted as murderers? In most states, killing a baby constitutes a capital offense. Should we execute these folks? If we truly believe our own rhetoric, then the answer is yes.

4) Don't we pro-lifers often look a little foolish in our rhetoric? Are doctors who provide abortions really greedy and sinister, or do they sincerely think they're taking great risks to do the right thing? Do most folks who favor legalized abortion really do so as a celebration of liberating choice? Do most of them see abortion as a legitimate form of birth control? I doubt it. Does any thoughtful pro-choicer really think a fetus is a neutral piece of tissue? I think not.

Unable to answer these questions in a satisfactory manner, I regretfully find myself retreating from my hardline stance. Increasingly, I stand in the safe-legal-but-extremely-rare camp, which itself has many logical and moral problems. I can never really be OK with a stance that permits taking an unborn life. Yet, this is exactly where I find myself standing. I'm afraid that once we opened the Pandora's box of Roe, we put ourselves past the point of no return, and ultimately any stance on abortion these days is unsatisfactory and frankly tragic.

Still, the best we can do is ensure that as few women as possible desire abortions, that they're not terribly convenient to those who want them, that other pro-life options are made more desirable, but in the end, that they remain safe and available for the undaunted. I really see no other way. So does this stand forever banish me from the ranks of the pro-life? Many would say yes. On the other hand, perhaps I now join the ranks of most Americans who see this as a nuanced, truly difficult issue.

On the one side of this issue are the Gloria Steinems and Molly Yards of the world. On the other are the Randall Terrys and Phyllis Schlaflys. In between lies a vast spectrum for the truly thoughtful, reflective souls of this world.

The religious Right speaks on public education

If you'll recall, I blogged several weeks ago on the hositility to public education shown by many extremists on the Right. Yesterday's Post-Dispatch carried an Associated Press story on how fundamentalists are increasingly pulling kids out of public schools based on their perceptions of what goes on at the school down the street. Here are some quotes:

"Humanism and evolution are taught, but everything I believe is disallowed."
- Roger Moran, member of the Southern Baptist Convention executive committee

"Home-schoolers avoid harmful school environments where God is mocked, where destructive peer influence is the norm, where drugs, alcohol, promiscuity and homosexuality are promoted."
- from the California-based Considering Home-schooling Ministry

"The infusion of an atheistic, amoral, evolutionary, socialistic, one-world, anti-American system of education in our public schools has indeed become such that if it had been done by an enemy, it would be considered an act of war."
- Florida-based evangelist D. James Kennedy

How many of you out there truly believe that we public school teachers spend our time indoctrinating children to hate America, God and all that's good? Promoting drugs and alcohol? That's news to the thousands of schools, mine included, that spend a great deal of instructional time educatingagainst these dangers. Promoting promiscuity and homosexuality? We teachers aren't going near those issues. Amoral? Humanistic? That's a big surprise to schools like mine that actively teach character education. Anti-American? Is the Pledge of Allegiance, recited every morning in schools across America, anti-American? God is mocked? That's a true shocker to the millions of American schoolteachers who happen to be church-going Christians.

I believe that people should provide their children with the kind of education they believe is best, whether it be at a public, private, charter or home school. I also believe that parents should have a solid command of the facts before they make such decisions. Self-serving and ignorant demogogues such as the ones quoted above do nothing to enlighten parents and help them make the best choices for their children.

A list of what I hate about our society (by no means exhaustive)

2006-08-13T19:09:00.000-07:00

Maybe it's this long summer we've been having, and I'm sick of the long, hot days. Perhaps it's this headache I have this evening. Or it could be that terrorists are trying to blow us up. Now that I think about it, I'm pretty peeved that the route I take to work is closed for construction, and it's adding precious minutes onto my commute. Whatever the cause, I'm feeling pretty damned irascible and curmudgeonly this evening. My inner Andy Rooney has emerged. My George Carlin yin to my nice-guy yang has sprung forth, and I'm pretty damned annoyed. So I think I'll take advantage of this mood, and let you in on what really puts me off in our society today. Hopefully, I'll have everyone good and pissed off at me by the time I'm done.

And if any of you wankers out there try to tell me how great America is and how grateful I should be to live here, by God, I'll punch you in the nose.

You say you hated Jimmy Carter's malaise speech? Well, I'm about to give you a malaise speech you won't soon forget:

People who treat cell phones like lifestyle accessories and not, well, phones. They parade around in public with their ears glued to them, talking loudly, putting on a show for everybody. Get over it, America. Cell phones have been around awhile. The novelty wore off sometime around 1997.

Parents who allow video games to take over their homes, their families and their children's minds. These media have zero redeeming value, and please give it a rest about the importance of practicing hand-eye coordination. Instead, how about some eye-brain coordination? Tell your kids to pick up a book and open it. Better still, America, why don't you do the same?

Urban sprawl that eats up our bucolic countryside like cancer, adds to commute times and air pollution, and destabilizes older neighborhoods. Do you really have to live at the edge of creation just because they opened a new Applebee's out there?

Professed Christians who are part of the problem, not part of the solution. Instaed of whining because some salesclerk at Target wished you "Happy Holidays" and not "Merry Christmas," get a clue about what really matters. Do what Jesus would do and take a stand for love, justice, equity, kindness and peace.

African-Amerians' social pathology and march to self-destruction and distinction. The time has come to quit celebrating this insane elevation of ghetto, hiphop, gangsta culture and start looking toward self-sacrifice, discipline and education. Snoop Dogg and his friends have done more to hurt black America than George Wallace and Bull Connor could have ever imagined.

Red-state America's elevation and celebration of low-class, white-trash living. Don't get mad at the African-American lifestyle, then turn around and cheer on Jeff Foxworthy, Larry the Cable Guy, Gretchen Wilson and the entire NASCAR, Wal-Mart, trailer park lifestyle as some sort of pride in heritage. It's not funny, it's not cute, and it's definitely nothing to be proud of. And while you're at it, put down that loser rebel flag and get the damn chip off your shoulder.

The big lie of the '60s: If it feels good, do it. This has been far more than just some hippie, liberal thing for quite some time now. Americans of all persuasions have plunged headfirst into this creed of irresponsibility, betrayal of those they love and their ultimate demise, even if they refuse to admit it to themselves.

McMansions and teardowns. If your house totals more than 4,000 square feet, then your character is poor.

The entertainment/media juggernaut and America's refusal to unplug itself. The TV, movie, music, publishing, and advertising industries will pull off whatever outrage it takes to get our attention, and we always love it even when we're faking outrage. Whether it's Madonna crucifying herself, the 24-hour T&A fest on MTV and BET, or television's ongoing efforts to peddle sex and obscenity, we keep crying out for more, more, more. The people want what the people get.

Adults who refuse to act like grown-ups. Everybody, regardless of age, has to try and be so damned cool these days. If not cool, then childlike and always fun, fun, fun. The bulk of Halloween sales these days is for human consumption and not for kids. Likewise, most comic book and video game sales are for adults. St. Patrick's Day and Mardi Gras are no longer about good-natured carousing and more about falling-down drunkenness, lewdness, obscenity and hooliganism. Families can't canoe down the beautiful rivers of southern Missouri as a weekend outing anymore without a Daytona spring-break spectacle. For crying out loud, grow up, America and quite acting like a nation of frat boys and overgrown children.

Parents who refuse to rein in their kids. DVD players in minivans blare "Spongebob" lest their children go five minutes without entertainment, kids are allowed to run wild in restaurants as we can't expect them to sit politely at a table, and children throw tantrums in stores with impunity lest mom or dad actually have to do something about it. We teachers are the ones left to clean up this mess.

The prevailing me-firstism and selfishness that makes it impossible to get anything done in this country today. We can't do anything about global warming because our choice in what kind of SUV we drive comes first. We wouldn't want to equalize school funding to ensure every child can get a good education or make college more affordable, because that could raise our taxes. We wouldn't dare ask Americans to sacrifice in this time of war; instead, we'll make them feel patriotic about going to the mall. I'm glad our grandparents weren't this fat, lazy and self-centered. Otherwise we'd all probably be goose-stepping today to "Deutschland Uber Allis."

Wow! I feel better already. I do believe my headache is gone.

The news on public schools

2006-08-12T08:14:00.000-07:00

As I prepare my classroom this weekend for an onslaught of kids on Wednesday, I'm reflecting on the state of public education in America.

You probably didn't hear about the report released last month by the Department of Education which finds that elementary schools perform about as well as private schools. The research examined scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress test for fourth- and eighth-graders in math and reading. According to the research, once socioeconomic status and race are isolated, public and private schools show similar results in educating children. In some areas private schools did better, while in other areas public schools came out on top. Statistically the two systems appear to perform about the same.

I say you probably didn't hear about the report because it was released with almost no public notification. The same Department of Edcuation that employs great fanfare and noise in releasing any shred of evidence that public schools are failing was oddly silent with this evidence that public schools might actually be doing a good job. The only notice of the report was a one-sentence item buried inside an e-mail communication from the department's National Center for Education Statistics sent out in limited release on a Friday.

As a former newspaper reporter, I well recall the old release-it-on-Friday trick. Any company with weak earnings reports or any public entity with bad news chooses to report it on Friday when their people have left early for the weekend and when reporters themselves are eager to wrap up their week. In this instance, journalists who caught notice of the report were told that Education Secretary Margaret Spellings would not be available for comment. And In the end, few media outlets reported on this significant report. When challenged later on the almost complete lack of public notification, Spellings said she didn't think parents would be interested. Hmmm. Research that allows parents to make informed decisions about their children's education. Doesn't that sound important to you? In fact, the report's executive summary mentions only the instances of private-school superiority and says nothing of areas where public schools come out on top. It took some intrepid reporters' and educational researchers' deep reading to discover what the study really says.

So is there a vast right-wing conspiracy here? I don't know, but my skeptical mind has been alerted. I know that most rank-and-file conservatives believe in the value of public education, and that most of them are quite pleased with the public schools their own children attend. Many conservatives are teachers and administrators in the public system. But there are a few significant subgroups of powerful right-wingers who are quite hostile to public education, and the White House loves to pander to them.

So who are these folks?

First we have the crowd on the Religious Right who believes our schools are hotbeds of left-wing social engineering. To hear these critics talk, we do little else in the schools these days but read "Heather Has Two Mommies," play the lifeboat game, legitimize all and any sexual activity for minors, persecute and ridicule all forms of religious exercise and teach children that they are in fact their own gods. The Southern Baptist Convention earlier this year considered and ultimately rejected (for now, at least) a resolution calling for all Southern Baptist parents to withdraw their children from public schools. Anne Coulter, in her latest juvenile rant, "Godless: The Church of Liberalism," categorically describes all public educators in America as "taxpayer-supported leeches" and devotes an entire chapter to chronicle isloated documented instances when teachers and administrators did attempt to trample a student's First Amendement rights. It's a transparent attempt, a favorite of the talk-radio outrage mill, to smear an entire system based on a few isolated outrages. In fact, the vast majority of us teachers prefers to steer clear of any social controversy. Really, we'd just like our students to sit still long enough so we can teach them to read and do some math. Maybe if they put their GameBoys down long enough, we could even throw in a little science and social studies.

The second group consists of the nothing-is-sacred crowd of money-changers in the education temple. These are the folks who are out to make a quick buck, and they definitely have President Bush's sympathies as we know he believes nothing is worth doing unless someone can make a whole lot of money doing it. Here's where we find snake-oil salesman Chris Whittle and his Edison Schools. This is the school of for-profit education, where children aren't seen as individuals deserving of the best education we can give them, but more as walking bundles of taxpayer-provided cashflow. I worked for a for-profit charter school for two years. We packed 25-30 students in each classroom with grossly inadequate facilities and teachers paid far less than in the public schools. The school was a dangerous place with test scores far below the public campuses we were competing against. At the same time, some folks in the corporate office were making a whole lot of money.

The final group is the bunch that simply hates public education and would like to see the entire system dismantled. Some are wannabe blueblood elitists, others are anti-tax zealots. These folks, in the end, really don't care if all children receive an adequate education - just so long as their kids get one. Others do care but only in theory. These are the libertarian goofballs like John Stossel, whose one-sided and slanted "20/20" report, "Stupid in America: How We Are Cheating Our Kids," presented the entire public school system as a collective of whiny, overpaid, incompetent teachers. In Stossel's free-market-worshipping, utopian la-la land, once we tore down the current system, a new system of private schools would rise up, tending to all children's needs and do so much more efficiently and adequately than what those public-school slugs currently do. Please refer back to my own for-profit charter school experience above.

Fortunately, most Americans disagree with all three of these groups, further illustrating how out of touch the Right is these days. Study after study has come to the same conclusion: Americans feel good about the schools their own children attend. The entire system, however, they're not so sure about, a perception I know is fueled by this concerted attempt to smear public education and by constant reports on the 6-o'clock news about gang fights and shootings at a tiny number of inner-city campuses.

So how do I feel about public schools in America? When I hear that only 70 percent of our kids graduate from high school (more like 40 percent in the 'hood), and that an achievement gap yawns between white and minority students, I don't feel like cheering too loudly. However, I do know that teachers and administrators work harder than ever, and that lazy incompetent types find less and less refuge in our public schools these days. I think we also need to demand more personal responsibility from students and parents than what our system currently demands. Finally, let's look at David Berliner's and Bruce Biddle's 1998 book, "The Manufactured Crisis: Myths, Fraud, and the Attack on Public Schools" for some perspective. Berliner and Biddle do quite a competent job of pointing out the dangers of comparing American test scores vs. foreign test scores given the vast difference between our inclusive system of education vs. most countries' elitist systems. These comparisons often have lain at the bedrock of public-school-haters' arguments, and they're just not valid.

In the end, I know we have a lot of work to do, but I also believe we do have something to celebrate in our public education system. This recent report that the Education Department doesn't want us to hear about further illustrates it.

Reagan Part II: The Trickle-Down, Voodoo, Supply-Side Effect

2006-08-02T08:30:00.000-07:00

"It's kind of hard to sell 'trickle down,' so the supply-side formula was the only way to get a tax policy that was really 'trickle down.' Supply-side is 'trickle-down' theory."
-Reagan administration budget director David Stockman, 1981

"Voodoo economics."
-then-presidential candidate George H.W. Bush, 1980

A frequent reader of my blog took exception to my rather unflattering portrait of Ronald Reagan the other day. He responded by sending me a link to National Review's fawning, obsequious 1992 examination of Reagan's economic legacy. I'm sure you wouldn't be surprised to learn that the folks at National Review believe Reagan's economic legacy was a tour de force for America, and that we're all better off as a result. If you think otherwise, that's just an illusion created by the liberals, or so we're to believe. You can NR's read their brown-nosing revisionism here.

I've read most of it now, and it sure sounds impressive. Essentially, these guys dedicated an entire issue of their magazine that is so large and all-encompassing, I would never be able to refute it point-by-point. So instead, I'll make some points of my own. Do I purport to have the last word on Reagan's economic legacy? Are my figures infallable? Absolutely not, but at least I'll admit that. Instead, let's just call this some balance to the Right's spin on trickle-down economics.

Poverty Rate
11.9% - Carter
14.1% - Reagan
Yes, the poor got poorer and the middle class shrunk.

Hourly wages
in 2005 dollars
$16.95 - Carter
$15.72 - Reagan
I think it's very important to examine income in some measure besides household income, a favorite yardstick of the Right, which conveniently overlooks the fact that during the Reagan-Bush years, the number of two-income households grew by about 40 percent. That so many women were forced to enter the workforce itself constitutes a true indictment of the Reagan legacy and a betrayal of the Right's pro-family rhetoric.

Unemployment Rates
7.5% - Carter
6.5% - Reagan
Not a very impressive drop, is it?

Government expenditures
as percentage of national income
27.9% - Carter
28.7% - Reagan
We've known for years that Reagan's talk of shrinking the government was nothing but talk.

National Debt
1981 - $930 billion
1988 - $2.6 trillion

Average Incomes
in 1997 dollars
1981
Bottom Quintile - $15,000 (dropped to $13,700 in 1983)
Middle Quintile - $48,700 (dropped to $47,700 in 1983)
Top Quintile - $129,000 (rose to $138,500 in 1983)
Top 1 Percent - $540,100 (rose to $585,900 in 1983)

1989
Bottom Quintile - $15,800 (5% increase over 1981)
Middle Quintile - $54,600 (12% increase)
Top Quintile - $174,100 (35% increase)
Top 1 Percent - $836,900 (55% increase)

On the second anniversary of Ronald Reagan's death

2006-07-28T20:25:00.000-07:00

OK, so I'm close to three months too late to really call this the second anniversary. I guess I was busy on June 5, and I didn't think it polite to say anything negative on the day Reagan actully died two years ago, because we liberals have better home-training than that. I didn't have this blog at the time anyway. I certainly couldn't abide the attempts to rewrite history by the right-wingers who worship Reagan - admittedly an unforgettable president but with at best a mixed record - as some sort of god. So now I'm ready to speak up and provide some balance to these right-wing revisionists efforts, often aided and abetted by the alleged liberal media.

A tribute to Ronald Reagan on the second anniversary of his death (plus 2 months, 3 weeks and 2 days)
If you believe it's only just and good that the rich got richer, the poor got poorer, the middle class shrank and adjusted income declined from 1981 to 1989, then I know you're a Reagan fan.

If you believe the average American living in poverty is a Cadillac-driving welfare queen, then please bow down before King Ronnie.

If you believe the poor in America deserve what they get, then you get the essence of the Gipper.

If you believe that ketchup should be served as a school lunch vegetable to children who may get nothing else to eat all day, then I know you hunger for Reagan's leadership.

If you think Iran is a bad, bad country, but support selling them 1,500 missiles, then you're sold on Reagan.

If you believe terrorists are bad, bad people, but support CIA distribution of a terrorist handbook to the Contras in Nicaragua, then Reagan is your man.

If you believe terrorists are bad, bad people but that it's OK to capitulate when they demand arms for hostages, then Neville Chamberlain - oops, I mean, Ronald Reagan is tops.

If you describe a band of thugs who murdered thousands of civilians in Nicaragua as "freedom fighters" believe they deserved our support, then you must support Reagan.

If you hate Saddam Hussein now but thought he was a swell guy and worthy of our support 20 years ago, then you must think Reagan a swell guy himself.

If you thought Manuel Noriega was a standup guy who belonged on Uncle Sam's payroll, then guess what! Your hero felt the same way.

If you're glad we backed right-wing death squads in El Salvador and Honduras and consider Archbishop Oscar Romero a troublemaker who got what he deserved, then you deserve Reagan.

If you're outraged by Jimmy Carter's failed attempt to rescue the hostages in Iran, but believe it no big deal that 241 Marines were blown up by terrorist in an equally insane mission in Lebanon, then Reagan is your kinda guy.

If you saw Jimmy Carter as inept and weak in his efforts to see the hostages released, but see Reagan as strong and competent as American hostages languished for more than six years in Lebanon, then you see Reagan as only a true supporter can.

If you believe MX missiles are "peacekeepers," then you surely long for Pax Reagana.

If you believe facts are stupid things, then I know for a fact, you must love Reagan.

If you believe trees pollute the environment, volcanoes create more pollution than cars and that a tree is a tree ("How many more do you need to see?"), then you must support Reagan's common-sense environmental approach.

If you believe balanced budgets are unnecessary, a 13-figure national debt is no big deal, and don't mind that in four years the U.S. went from status as world's No. 1 creditor to world's No. 1 debtor, then you owe a debt to Reagan.

If you admire the honesty and integrity of Lyn Nofziger, Michael Deaver, Anne Gorsuch Burford, Rita Lavelle, Edwin Meese, Richard Allen, Casper Weinberger, Elliott Abrams, Robert McFarlane, Alan Fiers, Richard Miller, Clair George, Richard Secord, Thomas Clineswaws, Carl Channel, John Poindexter, Oliver North, William Casey, James Watt, Phillip Winn, Thomas Demery, Deborah Gore Dean, Catalina Villaponda, Paul Thayer, and Joseph Strauss, then you must honestly admire Reagan, his integrity and the company he kept.

If you admire that a young actor cooperated fully with the House Un-American Activities Committee and its witchhunt and later sought to recharacterize his complicity as some sort of patriotic stand, then you and Joe McCarthy must surely look up to Ronnie Reagan.

If you believe allegiance to the flag and allegiance to a political party are one and the same, then you are a star-spangled Reaganite.

If you believe a man whose campaign crew that stole Jimmy Carter's briefing book on the eve of the 1980 presidential debates can be considered honest and scrupulous, then you are honestly a Reagan supporter.

If you believe our nation's public education system is an enemy of the American people, then you're a true scholar of the school of Reagan.

If you admire a professed warrior of Christian values who virtually never went to church, you must indeed worship at the altar of St. Ron.

If you admire a warrior of family values who spent little time with his own children and didn't even know his own grandchildren's names, then you surely are a Reagan warrior.

If you believe that domestic and international policy should sometimes by dictated by an astrologer, then it must be written in the stars, you're a Reagan kind of guy.

If you believe that AIDS, which so far has killed about 22 million people worldwide (about a fifth of those people children), is a character issue not deserving of decent people's attention, then just say yes to Reagan.

If you trust a man who slept through cabinet meetings, then you must have trusted Reagan.

If the Marines' defeat of some Cuban construction workers building a British-designed international airport on a tiny patch of Caribbean jungle and the subsequent rescue of a handful of American medical students strikes you as the ultimate American victory, then throw up a big V for the Ronmeister.

If you believe Reagan single-handedly ended communism and that Mikhail Gorbachev, Lech Walesa and Pope John Paul II and 40 years of previous anti-communism heroes deserve zero credit, and see the Soviet Union of the '80s as more than just a moribund, pathetic shell, then score one for the Gipper.

If you enjoy our current society in which everything has everything to do with the acquisition of money, and nothing has anything to do with anything else, then thank Ronald Reagan's legacy.

If you see greed as virtue and are glad the likes of Ken Lay and Bernie Ebbers can run amok and aren't stopped until thousands are unemployed, then pay tribute to Reagan's legacy.

If you believe that corporate pensions and healthcare plans are optional obligations and that eight-figure payouts to corporate executive failures are just compensation, then salute Ronald Reagan's legacy.

If you enjoy living in a society in which corporations have no responsibility except to shareholders, and even that's a flexible notion, then hats off to Reagan's legacy.

If you're glad that any ideal of the public good and commonwealth has been traded for the dominance of private interests, then give a high five to Reagan and his legacy.

If you enjoy the prospect of America's deindustrialization by corporations shipping jobs to Mexico and China, all in the name of free trade, then give three cheers to the Reagan legacy.

If you're enjoying the greatest redistribution of income in U.S. history - this time from the bottom up - then give Reagan a big wet kiss for the culmination of his vision.

If you appreciate the current Bush administration and everything it stands for, then wave a big red-white-and-blue banner for the culumination of Reagan's vision.

If facts and truth are irrelevant in the face of warmfuzzies, generalized feelgood images and inspiring anecdotes of dubious origin, then smile! The Reagan message triumphs.

If you believe that images of a cowboy riding into the sunset are more important than sound policy, a command for facts, and a commitment to honest and truthful characterization, and that style should always trump substance, then you are the truest believer in the Reagan vision.

Congratulations! The Reagan Revolution is fulfilled. You must be very proud.

The quotable Reagan Administration
I found many of these quotes on a site called Ronald Reagan: The Bonzo Years. Click here for a long walk through an account of a presidency described by the Right as triumphant and embodying of everything good, but really venal and inept.

Enjoy!

"Ebenezer Scrooge suffered from bad press in his time. If you really look at the facts, he didn't exploit Bob Cratchit. Bob Cratchit was paid 10 shillings a week, which was a very good wage at the time... Bob, in fact, had good cause to be happy with his situation. His wife didn't have to work...He was able to afford the traditional Christmas dinner of roast goose and plum pudding...So let's be fair to Scrooge. He had his faults, but he wasn't unfair to anyone."
- Edwin Meese, speaking to the National Press Club, December 1983

"If you tell the same story five times, it's true."
- Reagan spokesman Larry Speakes, responding to criticism concerning a Reagan anecdote of a Congressional Medal of Honor winner that turned out to be a complete fabrication. The anecdote apparently bears a striking resemblance to a scene from the 1944 movie "A Wing and a Prayer" and a 1944 selection from Readers Digest, Reagan's favorite magazine.

"We love your adherence to democratic principle, and to the democratic processes."
- then-Vice President George Bush, addressing Phillipine dictator Ferdinand Marcos, 1981

"(Supply-side economics) was always a Trojan horse to bring down the top rate."
- Reagan budget director David Stockman, quoted in a 1981 Atlantic Monthly article

"I also happen to be someone who believes in tithing - the giving of a tenth."
- Reagan, although tax returns for that year show he actually gave 1.4 percent of his income.

1/19/82
At his seventh press conference, President Reagan:
· Claims there are "a million more working than there were in 1980," though statistics show that 100,000 fewer people are employed.
· Contends his attempt to grant tax-exempt status to segregated schools was to correct "a procedure that we thought had no basis in law," though the Supreme Court had clearly upheld a ruling barring such exemptions a decade earlier.
· Claims he has received a letter from Pope John Paul II in which he "approves what we've done so far" regarding U.S. Sanctions against the USSR, though the sanctions were not mentioned in the papal message.
· Responds to a question about the 17% black unemployment rate by pointing out that "in this time of great unemployment," Sunday's paper had "24 full pages of ... employers looking for employees," though most of the jobs available - computer operator, or cellular immunologist - require special training, for which his administration has cut funds by over 30%.
· Misstates facts about California's abortion law and an Arizona program to aid the elderly

"She really just got tired of people misinterpreting what she was doing."
- an aide explaining Nancy Reagan's decision to no longer accept gifts of designer clothes "on loan." Americans would learn six years later that Nancy never stopped accepting these gifts and would continue doing so until the end of her husband's White House tenure.

"We've got a $120 billion deficit coming, and the President says, 'You know, a young man went into a grocery store and he had an orange in one hand and a bottle of vodka in the other, and he paid for the orange with food stamps and he took the change and paid for the vodka. That's what's wrong.' And we just shake our heads."
- Sen. Bob Packwood, R-Ore., 1982

"Is it news that some fellow out in South Succotash someplace has just been laid off, that he should be interviewed nationwide?"
- Reagan on the worst unemployment figures in 42 years, 10.4 percent, 1982

"South Succotash, with its population of nearly 11 million, must be a considerable place."
- AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland

"Well, it's a good story, though. It made the point, didn't it?"
-Larry Speakes, on Reagan's citation of a nonexistent British law making the carrying a gun a capital offense. Reagan would make the same claim four years later.

"You know, your nose looks just like Danny Thomas'."
- Reagan to Lebanon's foreign minister in a meeting with Middle Eastern leaders

"Do I think US foreign policy is inept?...At times it is. At times it's not. At times it's even brilliant. At times it's rather stupid. It would be very hard for me to label it."
- Secretary of State Al Haig

"It would be a user fee."
- Reagan describing a proposed 5-cent-per-gallon gas tax

"It's a change in his view. It's not an evil empire. It's a Mickey Mouse system."
- an administration official on Reagan's view of the Soviet Union

"I don't think he's read the report in detail. It's five and a half pages, double-spaced."
- Larry Speakes on Reagan's grasp of facts on a Lebanese truck bombing, 1984

"With regard to the age issue and everything, if I had as much makeup on as he did, I'd have looked younger, too... I never did wear it. I didn't wear it when I was in pictures."
- Reagan in a post-debate swipe at Walter Mondale, quickly refuted by Reagan's former makeup artists on "G.E. Theater" and "Death Valley Days," as well as one of the debate panelists.

"Why aren't we talking about these hostages? Why is it allowed to stand when Ronald Reagan says America won't have hostages again? Are we bored with hostages now?"
- Lucille Levin, wife of an American hostage in Lebanon, comparing his then-1984 stance with his get-tough chest-beating on Iran while Carter was still president

"The moral equival of our Founding Fathers."
- Reagan's description of the Contra's in Nicaragua, terrorists responsible for thousands of civilian deaths

"Just had a verbal message delivered to me from Pope John Paul, urging us to continue our efforts in Central America."
- Reagan in a statement immediately refuted by the Vatican.

"I know all the bad things that happened in that war. I was in uniform for four years myself."
- Reagan responding to criticism after he laid a wreath in a visit to a Nazi cemetery iin Bitburg, West Germany, 1985. While indeed in uniform during World War II, Reagan stayed behind in Hollywood to make training films.

"(Thirteen-year-old Beth Flom) urged me to lay the wreath at Bitburg cemetery in honor of the future of Germany."
- Reagan, apparently misunderstanding Flom's letter urging the president not to go.

"They haven't been there. I have."
- Reagan responding to Europeans heckling his Nicaragua policy. Reagan, in fact, never once set foot in the Central American country.

"They have eliminated the segregation that we once had in our own country, the type of thing where hotels and restaurants and places of entertainment and so forth were segregated - that has all been eliminated."
- Reagan, praising the notoriously racist, apartheidist administration of South Africa's P.W. Botha as "reformist"

"You have to treat him as if you were the director and he was the actor, and you tell him what to say and what not to say, and only then does he say the right thing."
- an unnamed White House aide quoted in the New York Times magazine, 1985

"What do you do when your President ignores all the palpable, relevant facts and wanders in circles?"
- David Stockman in his 1986 memoir

'Hypocrisy is a question of degree."
- Donald Regan asked whether it was hypocritical for the U.S. to demand that other countries not trade with Iran while we secretly sold them weapons.

"If Colonel North ripped off the Ayatollah and took $30 million and gave it to the Contras, then God bless Colonel North!"
- Pat Buchanan, praising the sale of arms to terrorist sponsor Iran and the illegal funding of terrorist thugs in Nicaragua

"I don't think there is another person in America that wants to tell this story as much as I do."
- Oliver North, opting just the same to plead the Fifth Amendment before a House ccommittee. Later he would lie to this same committee and be convicted of perjury.

"On the surface, selling arms to a country that sponsors terrorism, of course, clearly, you'd have to argue it's wrong, but it's the exception sometimes that proves the rule."
- Vice President Bush

"The simple truth is, 'I don't remember - period."'
- Reagan on whether he authorized the arms for hostages deal in a written response to the Tower Commission investigating the scandal

"The record is that he was either absent or silent. I don't know what that does for him."
- Bob Dole on Reagan's poor memory

"I hope I'm finally going to hear some of the things I'm still waiting to learn."
- Reagan on the opening day of the Iran-Contra hearings, 1987

"I can't recall."
- Ed Meese in a statement (or some variation thereof) he would utter 340 times during the Iran-Contra hearings

"I can't recall."
- John Poindexter in a statement (or some variation thereof) he would utter 184 times during the Iran-Contra hearings

"That shows the success of what the Soviets were able to do in this country."
- Reagan citing what he sees as a communist conspiracy to discredit and dishonor Joseph McCarthy

"I knew those quotes were the way he felt."
- Larry Speakes, in his 1987 memoir, on making up quotes he attributed to the president

"Like reinventing the wheel."
- Speakes describing preparations with the persident for a press conference

"You know, if I listened to him long enough, I would be convinced that we're in an economic downturn, and that people are homeless, and people are going without food and medical attention, and that we've got to do something about the unemployed."
- Reagan on Michael Dukakis

"I will never apologize for the United States of America! I don't care what the facts are!"
- Vice President Bush after the U.S.S. Vincennes mistakenly shot down an Iranian airliner, 1988

"This was a PR outfit that became President and took over the country."
- former press aide Leslie Janka in her 1988 tall-all, "On Bended Knee"

The minimum wage, estate tax and a couple of girls who matter to me

2006-07-28T17:53:00.000-07:00

I'm lucky to teach at my suburban school. Our students who live in the city and are bussed in daily under the voluntary transfer program are quite lucky too. I believe in this program strongly, and I can't wait to visit my city families in their northside homes each summer to let them know how lucky we all are. Not only that, but these visits allow me a glimpse into the lives of some kids who are very important to me, yet lead lives very different from mine.

I went out yesterday to visit two girls who will be in my class this year and their families. In one home, my student lives with both her mother and father, as well as several extended family members in a bustling, seemingly joyful single-family house. I didn't catch what mom does for a living, but dad works as a groundskeeper. At the second home I visited, a subsidized apartment, my girl lives with her sister and single mother, who works at Wal-Mart. I admire both families a lot. They are loving and stable with clean well-kept homes; these two girls are quite fortunate to be where they are. Yet, I know that in both homes, the parents earn little money, and day-to-day living must be a struggle. If my wife and I gross a combined $75,000 per year and often feel like we barely make it, then how must these folks feel?

I thought about these two families today as I heard news of the Republicans' efforts to hold hostage efforts to raise the minimum wage, a raise that's not happened since 1996. Under the proposal our minimum wage would incrementally rise over three years from its current $5.15 to $7.25, frankly still a pitiful wage but an improvement nonetheless. Republicans know that most Americans support this - 83 percent, according to a Pew Research poll earlier this month - although that didn't stop the Republican controlled Senate from voting against it in June. This time, they've chosen to blackmail Democrats, who have kept a vote on the estate tax repeal at bay. Either allow a vote on the estate tax repeal, Republicans say, or we will quash your minimum wage hike.

"It's going to be one hell of a rumpus," said Eric Ueland, chief of staff for Bill Frist's chief of staff.

Republicans have once again taken sides on who they value. The mega-wealthy over the working poor. You remember all the old estate tax repeal arguments ultimately demonstrated as dishonest and even outright lies. The most famous was the sob stories of all those family farmers who lost their spread after the heirs couldn't pay the "death taxes." When pressed by the New York Times, neither the White House nor the American Farm Bureau could come up with one example of any real family affected this way. Indeed, do you think the average American stands to inherit $4 million, the minimum at which an estate is currently taxed? Conservatives knew better, too, but still resorted to dishonesty to make it look like some sort of kitchen table issue. They showed true zeal and willingness to fight tooth and nail to repeal a ta that affects less than 1 percent of all estates every year. Is there a good case to be made for repealing the estate tax? Perhaps, but any logical argument was long ago obscured in the fog and haze of the Right's deceit and mendacity.

And they show equal amounts of it in their arguments against a raised minimum wage. Conservatives have always hated this as it interferes with their overly concrete belief in Adam Smith's guiding hand. We've heard it all before. If the economy is booming, these folks say that raising the minimum wage will put the brakes on everyone's fun. If the economy is in the shitcan, these folks warn that raising the minimum wage will slow down the recovery. It seems there's never a good time to suit conservatives. Don't forget the one about all those lost jobs and suffering small businessmen, an apparent falsehood given that three quarters of small business owners see no adverse consequences to a wage hike, according to a recent Gallup poll. And of course, to hear right-wingers talk, nobody actually earns the minimum wage other than teenagers flipping burgers, an utter lie.

I happened to tune into Oprah today - summers are great when you're a teacher - and she and her guests discussed these ridiculous claims made against raising the minimum wage. Morgan Spurlock of "Supersize Me" fame discussed his experiences earning minimum wage for one month as part of his new TV show, "30 Days." Spurlock and his girlfriend worked a string of jobs, doing the work none of us middle-class Americans wants to do and earning shockingly small paychecks in exchange. Their deprivations over a month are unimaginable to us average folks, and for Spurlock himself, this was merely a monthlong experiment, not a lifelong trap.

The Christian Science Monitor reported recently that 4.8 million Americans earn less than $7.25. Of those individuals, 48 percent were between the ages of 25 and 64 and support the majority of household expenses with their earnings. A full-time worker earning minimum wage at 40 hours per week and no vacation will gross $10,712 per year. Oprah reported today that 20 million Americans earn less than $10 per hour, and many of these folks include EMTs, teachers assistants and healthcare professionals - in essence people we depend on to do important work in our society. A 40-hour-per-week worker earning $10 per hour will gross an annaul pay of $20,800, still not a wage many of us middle-class Americans would find livable.

So as the right-wing think tanks and pundits work overtime to decry the injustice in taxing a $4 million estate and explain why the working poor don't really need extra money, my thoughts return to my two city girls, both age 10 and certainly not responsible for their family's financial situation. Their parents probably worry nonstop about how they will pay for the groceries, clothing, housing and the expenses of keeping everything running and working. I felt guilty yesterday simply handing over the school supply list. It's none of my business how much these families make, but I bet they could use some extra money.

Clearly Republicans have taken a stand, and it's not with my two girls. Do you plan to take one in November?

A little irony on your freedom fries?

I stumbled into the website selling W Ketchup today. You might remember this as a brand launched in 2004 by a group of ideologues wanting to boycott Heinz after false allegations connected the company to the Kerry campaign. The W in W Ketchup stands for Washington, the website claims with a knowing wink.

Anyway, on their site is a tribute to the deified one, Ronald Reagan. The purveyors of this product apparently forgot about his administration's classification of ketchup as a vegetable to save money on school lunches. Am I the only one seeing irony here? Apparently, W Ketchup's webmaster didn't.

Click here to see this worshipful paean to the man who single-handedly ended the Cold War, got the dadblamed government off our backs, and allowed the eagle to soar once again.

Did they really say that?

2006-07-21T07:59:00.000-07:00

My e-mail inbox has been filled these past couple of days with missives from an ongoing debate on my posting from a few days ago regarding Bush-haters vs. Clinton-haters.

I continue to hear an insistence from conservatives that liberals' rhetoric is meaner than conservatives. I guess they really believe that old Bushianism, if you repeat it enough times it becomes conventional wisdom and therefore truth. But I won't let that happen. I insist on conservatives facing up to the propaganda machine they've built, dependeed on and reveled in over the past 15 years.

Their arguments to the contrary are so sadly weak. When I ask conservatives to explain how liberals can be possibly worse than the Limbaugh/Hannity/Coulter/Ingraham/O'Reilly/Savage axis, they typically dish up the same recycled half dozen quotes from the past year from Howard Dean, Barbara Boxer or Dick Durbin. One conservative recently offered the old quote, "Poor George. He was born with a silver foot in his mouth," said by Ann Richards, at the time Texas state treasurer, in 1988.

We liberals don't need to go back 18 years. I can offer several from just the past couple of weeks. You think I can't? OK, I'll take that bet. Here goes:

Yesterday, July 20
"It is perfectly legitimate, perhaps even praiseworthy, to recognize Islam as a religion of vicious, violent, bloodthirsty cretins."
- Neal Boortz, categorically tarnishing anyone who practices the world's most-practiced religion. Isn't it funny how these same folks expect to win the hearts of Iraqis?

"A lot of Jewish liberals...say it's Israel's fault because we've been mean to (Palestinians), therefore they have a right to do whatever they want, behead people on camera, all this terrible stuff."
-Bill O'Reilly, asserting that some Jews think it's OK for Palestinians to commit acts of terrorism.

Tuesday, July 18
"The American left is cheering today. They'll probably break open the jug wine and cheer that Jews are dying, and that they're living and cowering in bomb shelters. One day, the 'Deutschland über alles' may be played in Jerusalem, and the American left can tear off their masks once and for all and show themselves to be what they really are, which is the Nazis of our time."
-Michael Savage

"So glad to hear that The New York Times got my letter."
-Anne Coulter on The Times' receipt of a powdery substance in the mail that turned out to be corn starch.

Friday, July 14
"(The 9/11 widows) put a lot of other women at risk for becoming widows."
-Coulter, not giving it a rest.

Thursday, July 13
"Couldn't he have killed Jerry Springer?"
-Bill O'Reilly on mafioso Tommy "Horsehead" Scafidi, who allegedly was ordered to rub out Geraldo Rivera.

"Shouldn't somebody be allowed to offer me 10, 20, or 100 thousand dollars?"
-John Stossel, arguing that transplant organs be bought and sold on the open market.

Wednesday, July 12
"I prefer a firing squad, but I'm open to a debate on the method of execution."
-Coulter, calling for New York Times editor Bill Keller's execution.

"I mean, they still have people in Brazil running around with their little darts, hitting you in the head with the poisoned darts, with the loincloths. They still have 'em down there. And they're driving an ethanol vehicle. After they hit you with the poisoned dart, OK, they get into their ethanol vehicle and drive back into the Amazon to do whatever they do there. Eat tapioca, whatever."
-O'Reilly, making what appears to be a backhanded compliment of Brazil's use of ethanol.

Tuesday, July 11
"Liberalism is, in essence, the HIV virus, and it weakens the defense cells of a nation. What are the defense cells of a nation? Well, the church. They've attacked particularly the Catholic Church for 30 straight years. The police, attacked for the last 50 straight years by the ACLU viruses. And the military, attacked for the last 50 years by the Barbara Boxer viruses on our planet."
-Savage

So there you have it, 10 outrageous quotes from the past two weeks lifted off the liberal Media Matters website, which is devoted to monitoring this crew of loose cannons. Media Matter's job is easy. The 24-hour right-wing media establishment of talk-radio hosts and cable news talking heads is always blaring and spewing something mean-spirited, goofball and flat-out false.

And I've heard the right-wing response umpteen times. Well, this isn't the party leadership speaking, conservative ideologues say. It's such an incredibly tiresome, dishonest argument. Well, let's call it what it is - a chickenshit argument. I would argue that these pundits are indeed the party leadership, and the figureheads in the White House and on Capitol Hill beholden. If not that, then the right's pundirty serves as the standard-bearers who do the dirty work and allow Bush and Cheney to look statesmanlike and officious. There's no doubt of the White House's endorsement of this motley bunch. How many times have Cheney and Rumsfeld been Rush Limbaugh's guests? Have the president or any GOP leader ever called for these propagandists to at least turn down the rhetoric? Of course not. They wouldn't dare lest Bush's 35-percent approval rating plummets even further.

And how about the rank-and-file conservatives who listen to, watch and read this crap? They glue their ears and eyes to the radio and TV, unwilling to miss one word that will come out of Michael Savage's or Sean Hannity's mouths. They guffaw, high-five each other and revel in the vicious anger they so smugly describe as political incorrectness. But later, when challenged about the hateful words they so enjoy hearing, these folks harumph and clear their throats and deny they really listen to these guys. Well, someone's listening in. Millions in fact, according to industry figures, and I don't think they're on the left or even in the middle.. Yet, we can't get these conservatives who yammer on and on about personal responsibility to take responsibility for the rhetoric they so eageraly buy into.

And we liberals? Yes, some of us say some mean things, and I continually challenge folks on the left to not fall into the ugliness of the right's rhetoric. Yet, I look at Air America and other failed attempts at liberal talk radio. Folks on the left apparently have better things to do than tune into that garbage. I can't even get many of my liberal friends to read this blog; they tell me they have no interest in anyone's rantings. To equate a few kooks on the left with the very foundation of conservative hegemony is completely fallacious and an impossible task, at least not with a straight face.

How dare these Bush-haters!

2006-07-17T11:17:00.000-07:00

Syndicated columnist Jonah Goldberg is indignant this morning, flat-out positively outraged. How dare these liberals! How dare they hate President Bush.

"Hatred of Bush drives - or poisons - almost everything in liberal politics now," Goldberg says, the sanctimonious righteousness dripping from his brow like so much sweat (Excuse my flowery Victorian metaphor, but nothing else seems as appopriate alongisde Goldberg's grave disapproval).

For an example of this venomous hatred, he points to the New Republic's Jonathan Chait, who wrote that Bush has "wreaked enormous damage on the political and social fabric of this nation."

Horrors! Gasp! Let the booing and popcorn throwing begin in this melodrama. The cursed, blasted liberals exercise the temerity to say that our handsome, gallant Bush has pursued some extreme courses of action that have been harmful to our nation. To be certain, Chait's criticisms carry none of the elan of the Right's artful wordsmithing. When will these dastardly liberals at least begin showing the gentlemanly or ladylike statesmanship of such conservatives as Anne Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity who so delicately, yet truthfully, make their points so that they can never be denied?

"America haters," Hannity so kindly refers to those wicked liberals.

"God haters," says Coulter, pinky sticking daintily out from her teacup.

"Shut up!" O'Reilly says to disagree in a most constructive fashion with his esteemed colleague in the adjoining chair.

OK, enough of my silly rhetoric stolen from a forgotten episode of "Dudley Do-Right." Let me just ask point blank, do conservatives seem more than a little silly in their self-righteous moralizing against criticizing the president, in their assertion that liberals are sour and mean-spirited? We know that some folks on the right exercise a Soviet-style penchant for rewriting history. But do you remember as I do their bitter, mean-spirited hatred of President Clinton? How can anyone forget, other than conservatves who do so quite conveniently?

Let's go back about 10 or so years ago and recall the constructive, statesmanlike things what they were saying:

1) Clinton murdered Vince Foster.
2) Clinton directed tanks to act as flame-throwers to ignite the Branch Davidian compound.
3) Paramilitary wacko Randy Weaver and child molester David Koresh were misunderstood heroes who stood up to Clinton's evil.
4) Government is evil. In fact, let's overthrow the government. (They backed down from that one after Tim McVeigh attempted to make good on their wish)
5) If an FBI agent comes to your door, aim for the head because he'll probably have on a flak jacket.
6) Clinton murdered those two boys mysteriously found dead along the railroad tracks outside Benton, Ark.
7) State troopers in Arkansas provided Clinton with a steady stream of bimbos. (David Brock admits he made that one up)
8) Whitewater. What the hell was that, anyway? Apparently Kenneth Starr didn't find anything there, try as he might (well, other than a cigar and a stained dress).
9) The American Spectator set up shop in Hot Springs, Ark., to search for any more allegations, the truth behind those allegations clearly of secondary importance.
10) Clinton was a draft dodger. OK, that one might be true, but a hypocrisy considering the accusers' unquestioning worship of the current Draft Dodger in Chief.
11) Clinton was a pot smoker. True again, but it appears to many of us that the current Drug User and Recovering Alcoholic in Chief used more than just pot.

These were widely accepted attitudes and views among the mainstream of conservatism, accepted as fact without any questioning for veracity. As crazy as all these allegations seem, they were not extremist views held by a fringe. Not in the least. These were views held by the average rank and file right-winger with plenty of encouragement from the likes of then-Speaker Newt Gingrich and his cabal of Washington ideologues.

Let me say, lest people see this entry as a defense of Clinton, that I grew to thorough dislike him during his presidency. His character was poor, he was shady and he was frankly a disgrace on the office. There was so much about Clinton to dislike that was true that all of these fabricated stories, made-up scandals and flat-out lies were so gratuitous and only served to characterize many Clinton-haters as the same kinds of frothing, red-faced kooks they accuse today's Bush-haters of being. And is there more than a little hypocrisy in tolerating, ignoring and even celebrating so much of the same behavior and poor-character from Bush that these folks claimed to loathe in Clinton?

In the end, are we liberals really so terrible in our criticism of President Bush?

Evil-doers or democracy lovers? Which is it?

2006-07-15T16:00:00.000-07:00

I admit it. I'm perplexed. I seem to be hearing two messages from the right about Middle Easterners, especially Iraqis. They hate us and everything we stand for. They're evil and they wish to destroy us. No wait. They're freedom loving people, and our troops are dying so they can sculpt the democratic republic they so long for.

Which is it?

I consider this as polling data comes forth from the Pew Research Center showing that we Americans and Westerners in general hold a pretty negative view of Middle Easterners and especially Muslims. According to the poll:

*69 percent of Americans think Muslims are disrespectful of women.
*Americans are almost evenly split on whether devout Islam can ever be conducive to life in a modern society.
*More than 40 percent of us think that Muslims are violent and fanatical.

And listen to what some conservatives say about the people they allegedly seek to liberate. Southern Baptist leader Jerry Vines called Mohammed a "deomn-possessed pedophile," and said, "Allah is not Jehovah. Jehovah's not going to turn you into a terrorist that will try to bomb people and take the lives of thousands and thousands of people."

Asked Pat Robertson, "Whoever heard of such a bloody, bloody, brutal type of religion? But that's what it is. It is not a religion of peace."

Michael Savage had a few words about what he'd like to do to Muslims: "So, kill 100 million of them, then there'd be 900 million of them. I mean ... would you rather us die than them? Would you rather we disappear or we die? Or would you rather they disappear and they die? Because you're going to have to make that choice sooner rather than later."

Remember, these are people who strongly support this war.

At the same time an entire World region is branded as antithetical to everything we hold dear, Republicans, conservatives and war supporters insist that Iraqis are freedom-loving peaceful folks who urgently need our help in transforming their nation into a vibrant democracy.

"The vast majority of Iraqis do not want to live under an Iranian-style theocracy and want Syria to stop allowing the transit of terrorists," states a White House fact sheet on the progress of installing democratic institutions in Iraq.

President Bush himself said in a 2003 speech, "And the questions arise: Are the peoples of the Middle East somehow beyond the reach of liberty? Are millions of men and women and children condemned by history or culture to live in despotism? Are they alone never to know freedom, and never even to have a choice in the matter? I, for one, do not believe it. I believe every person has the ability and the right to be free."

Certainly, conservatives cheered on all those blue thumbs held up for the media during last year's elections in Iraq, presented as proof that Iraqis love freedom and democracy and that the war is producing the results we seek.

So which is it? Are Iraqis freedom-haters who despise everything we cherish? Or are they big-hearted lovers of freedom and progressive values? It appears war supporters want it both ways. I know how they would probably answer those questions. The terrorists are different from the average Iraqis, they'd say, who simply seek peace and freedom.

But I'm not so sure that's true. What's becoming increasingly apparent is that most attacks on our troops in Iraq are carried out by locals. We also see that most recent terrorist plots from last year's bombimgs to this summers uncovered plot to attack the Canadian Parliament have been the work of folks from the local mosque, not the work of some worldwide terrorist army. Recent polling data indicates that a large percentage of Iraqis think that attacking U.S. troops is OK and that acts of terrorism might indeed be permissible under some circumstances.

I'm not going to wade in today to fathom attitudes of the average Iraqi. Attempting to ascertain the "goodness" or "badness" of an entire religion or nation is quite a tricky undertaking. Their perceptions of the world and America, right or wrong, often color their attitudes. I would bet that most are just trying to survive and are no better or worse than the society around them.

In the end, I suspect that the folks we wish to liberate are really the same people we Americans label as intolerant terrorists. Somewhere between those two characterizations, I'm sure, lies the truth.

A Greek tragedy played out for the zillionth time

2006-07-06T07:44:00.000-07:00

What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?
- Mark 8:36

It appears Ken Lay pulled off the ultimate prison escape yesterday.

You'd think I would have danced a jig in delight. Ding dong, the witch is dead. Or maybe I should have been outraged that he didn't get the punishment many of us feel he deserved. After all, here was public enemy No. 1 for us liberals, the poster boy for everything wrong with corporate America and our money-dominated political system. I rejoiced when he was convicted. I guffawed heartily the other day when I received this month's Texas Monthly magazine in the mail and saw the small tag on the cover teasing, "Kenny Boy Gets His." In fact, we watched "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room," just last week (As Netflix subscribers we're quite slow in getting to the latest movies). I watched the documentary with great satisfaction, knowing what I thought was the ultimate outcome, that Kenny Boy was indeed getting his. Obviously, I had no idea at the time what the ultimate outcome would be.

But instead of feeling outraged or thrilled, I just feel kind of sad. I actually do feel sorry for Ken Lay. You know us liberals, how we feel sorry for the worst criminals and always seek to understand those who do terrible things. And look at the terrible things Lay and his minions did. There's the 2001 California power crisis, originally blamed by conservatives on state authorities, but in retrospect clearly the work of Enron trading floor warriors who sought to kidnap every last watt from the state as some sort of twisted ransom scheme. Imagine the essential services and commerce disrupted to the tune of tens of billions of dollars. And we can't forget all those employees who stood by helplessly watching their frozen retirement funds drain away like the California power grid while Lay, Jeff Skilling and Andy Fastow were cashing in secretly on their own investments to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. Some conservatives say these rank-and-file workers got what they deserved for their alleged greed, but most of us in middle class America have more empathy than that. There but for the grace of God, we say.

So goshdarnit, why do I feel bad for this guy? I suppose because sometimes it's not fun at all to see someone get his or her just desserts. And I have no doubt that Ken Lay saw himself as a decent guy. I'm sure he honestly saw himself as some sort of visionary out to reinvent American business, a John D. Rockefeller for our times. He was known for his personal generosity, dispensing millions from his own assets for causes I'm sure were worthy. Like me, he belonged to a United Methodist church, so I assume that in his heart he felt he was a good Christian. And perhaps God agrees. His friends all were quoted in this morning's paper, describing lay as a good friend and gave many examples of his personal magnaminity. Who am I to argue?

So how do we reconcile these conflicting pictures of personal generosity and corporate callousness in the very same individual? It seems that the first answer is a matter of compartmentalization, that phenomenon allowing people to act as bastards in the workplace and act as dear friends, parents and otherwise generous souls away from the workplace. There's a line between work life and private life, the compartmentalized soul says, and the two can be kept separate. You've probably worked with - or more likely worked for - one of these people. You couldn't stand being around him, but were shocked to learn what a kind, decent soul he becomes when he goes home from the office. Or perhaps you've been good friends or gone to church with someone like this. You think she's an example of true Christian kindness and charity, and later you're crestfallen to learn that perhaps she mistreats her employees or behaves unethically on the job. There in a nutshell lies the essence of Ken Lay's character.

Lay was also a greedy and arrogant man. He craved money and power more than anything else, certainly more than any sense of ethics or decency could rein in. He labored under a long history and personal track record of winking at gross ethical violations and even outright crookedness. Hear no evil, see no evil, Lay seemed to say. Be sure you're making me lots of money, but please don't tell me what you're doing to earn it. This affected ignorance allowed Lay to plead that he knew nothing of what Skilling and Fastow were up to, yet of course he knew damn well the whole time. Ultimately, his tolerance for malfeasance and the increasing belief in his own corporate divinity led to his downfall.

So Lay never will go to prison. Still, he paid dearly. His fall from the uppper echelons of Houston's power elite must have been unbearable. To watch the corporate empire he built himself crumble into dust must have been the ultimate punishment. And for such a man who thirsted for acclaim to see his name and image loathed by the American public, it must have just killed him worse than any heart attack.

So Kenny Boy really did get his, after all. It's a timeless Greek tragedy. Apparently, the Athenians had a few Kenny Boys over 2,000 years ago. Clearly, Ken Lay was alive and well in Shakespeare's day. And because the arrogant and power hungry learn nothing from history, the tragedy will continue to repeat itself over and over again into perpetuity.