Category Archives: Muslim

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I Really Hadn’t Thought About It

To say that America is a violent country is to say nothing new. To say that the a large number of fringe groups dedicated to hate of one kind or another inhabit our country is also to say nothing very new.

We continue to be subjected to white supremacist groups and nothing has changed much except that perhaps we don’t pay much attention to them, although their numbers have, I believe, been on the increase.

I’m not one to reprint other people’s work and dust off my hands, thinking, “well, there’s another post completed,” but Juan Cole is someone you should pay attention to regularly, both because of his superb reporting, but also for his superb analysis.

Usually I would point you to his post, but I think that it is better to reprint it here. Have you thought about how the press reports on incidents of internal terrorism? Juan has. And you should listen:

Top Ten Differences between White Terrorists and Others:

1. White terrorists are called “gunmen.” What does that even mean? A person with a gun? Wouldn’t that be, like, everyone in the US? Other terrorists are called, like, “terrorists.”

2. White terrorists are “troubled loners.” Other terrorists are always suspected of being part of a global plot, even when they are obviously troubled loners.

3. Doing a study on the danger of white terrorists at the Department of Homeland Security will get you sidelined by angry white Congressmen. Doing studies on other kinds of terrorists is a guaranteed promotion.

4. The family of a white terrorist is interviewed, weeping as they wonder where he went wrong. The families of other terrorists are almost never interviewed.

5. White terrorists are part of a “fringe.” Other terrorists are apparently mainstream.

6. White terrorists are random events, like tornadoes. Other terrorists are long-running conspiracies.

7. White terrorists are never called “white.” But other terrorists are given ethnic affiliations.

8. Nobody thinks white terrorists are typical of white people. But other terrorists are considered paragons of their societies.

9. White terrorists are alcoholics, addicts or mentally ill. Other terrorists are apparently clean-living and perfectly sane.

10. There is nothing you can do about white terrorists. Gun control won’t stop them. No policy you could make, no government program, could possibly have an impact on them. But hundreds of billions of dollars must be spent on police and on the Department of Defense, and on TSA, which must virtually strip search 60 million people a year, to deal with other terrorists.

Kind of brings you up short doesn’t it?

And it would be well worth your time to read about the culture of hate that is being cultivated in this country by the rich, whose interests are not at all patriotic but who use pursue Muslim hate as a means to frighten unsuspecting Americans into supporting them, and thus giving them the power base they need for their real agenda.

Believe it or not, there are wealthy interests in this country who have much to gain from continued and increased violence in the Middle East and elsewhere.

It’s disheartening yet predictable that sadly uneducated and malleable individuals can become enamored of hate-centered groups. It is more than likely that the latest example, Mr. Page, thought he was striking out at Muslims, utterly and stupidly unaware that Sikhs are not Muslims at all.

It is worse than disheartening when we hear various elected officials appear to fuel the fire by finding a Islamic jihadist under nearly every bed. The fact that most of these hate-spewers are Republican is probably predictable given their ties to the interests who would promote surreptitiously an agenda of war.

We cannot keep ignoring these people as irritating nuisances. They are dangerous and must be stood up against everywhere.

On a lighter note, Juan Cole has a lighter side: I thought this was cute.

Photograph on road from Tripoli to Misrata, Libya, May, 2012, by Juan Cole

 

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Is It Still the Wrong Time to Talk About Gun Control?

 

 

Yes no doubt it is. Just as La Pierre and his band of gun-sodden nuts. After all, guns don’t kill, people do–with guns.

And for the Breitbart wannabes out there who were sure this was some Obama-induced Islamic terrorist. . . .first go learn some history, and then shut the F**K up.

And the senseless killing continues perpetrated by mentally ill individuals who find it oh so easy to purchase the weaponry they desire to wreak havoc on innocents.

How sick of this need we get before we wake up?

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Because I have fabulously bright and well read readers, I invite you to a website that I suspect many of you will thoroughly enjoy. It’s called the Boston Review, and comes out I believe 4-6 times a year. You can of course subscribe to a hard copy but I think you can read all or most of it online. This month’s subject is: Under the Influence: Politicians listen to money rather than to the public’s preferences. An opening article starts the discussion and then others respond with articles of their own. Plus there is more. Go take a look.

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I have come to the very important conclusion that being a leveraged-buyout artist ala Willard, must be a job that any moron can do. Why you say?

Because every which way I turn, Willard manages to screw the pooch. I mean has anyone ever run a worse campaign to date? His attempt to turn the lawsuit filed by the Obama Administration against the new voting law that seriously shortens the time average people have to vote into some anti-military thing is falling on deaf ears. Perhaps, and finally, people are starting to understand that with Willard it is noun, verb, lie whenever he opens his mouth.

Similarly Willard has come out against tax credits for wind energy, something that is insane in a state like Iowa which was still considered a toss-up. Wind energy accounts for some 20% of electric power in Iowa and supports several thousand jobs. Nice job dunce!

So headhunters! Call me! I can leverage all day!

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Some people are no longer worth picking on because they have lost every last cell of common sense and gone over to the willy-wonka crazy tent. Such a one is Bryan Fischer, the dude who waxes all too often on the growing fascism of the President. Today Bryan told us that a Saudi woman who competes in judo is nothing more than way of promoting sharia law, something he claims is now enshrined in the Olympics.

I bet if you asked his mom, you’d find out that Bryan ate paste as a child. He has all the symptoms of paste syndrome you know–wild leaps of fantasy, followed by long bouts of crying.

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Oh, gosh, it’s so hard to decide who to give the YOU’RE STUPID AS HELL AND EVERYONE KNOWS IT, award for the week. I think I’ll give it to that perennial idiot, James Inhofe, senator from the burning state of Oklahoma. Given the awful weather of the year, and the growing and uncontradicted reports of global warming, Mr stupid pants came up with this intellectual response:

“It gets cold, it gets warmer, it gets colder, gets warmer. God is still up there, and I think it’ll continue in the future.”

Another paste eater for sure.

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If ya didn’t hear, our new best friend, Curiosity Rover landed softly on Mars and is busy going about its job. You can follow her at Twitter: Curiosity Rover @MarsCuriosity. She’s a her, cuz I said so.

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There are 12 rules to being a human being. Bet you didn’t know that. There are though, and if you don’t believe me, go over to  Mark and Angel’s and see. I wouldn’t lie ya know.

Life lessons. Don’t miss them.

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Scott Erb over at World in Motion has a great post on givers versus takers. And I want you to know I stole this from the post. I wouldn’t lie to ya, like I said.

Yeah, someday they will wake up. Hopefully before it’s too late.

We’re having some brokeback tacos for dinner with guacamole and green chile salsa. And I need to get into the kitchen and start makin’ it. If you would like thee recipes just head on over to What’s On the Stove? and you can find ‘em with little efforts.

Have a good one.

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Sometimes You Feel Like a Nut, Sometimes You Don’t

New Hampshirites go to the polls today to determine which flav of the week they are hungry for. Ask them next week, and they might well change their mind. For folks who are in love with “things as they are/were/always have been” GOP voters these days sure seem uncertain of little else but what state they reside in.

We are tempted to spend some time in the kitchen making snacks so we can sit noshing as the returns come forth. Will it be another nail-biter like Iowa? Will Santorum’s Google problem catch up with the staid Catholic prude? Will Newt sit in the middle of the street in diapers and bawl his head off? Or will Mittens try rap as a means to communicate with the masses?

I guess my biggest question is whether or not Newt gets it. Has it dawned on Pillsbury DB that he is dead in the water? Is he simply engaged in a Shermanesque slash and burn campaign to destroy the man he thinks took him down? He is doing the Democrats work for them, and of course that is great. Can the Establishment GOP rein him in other than by assassination at this point? lets

My second question is whether Jon Huntsman is just getting his name out there in anticipation of 2016, or is he angling for the Establishment to turn his way now that Romney is starting to flounder a bit?

What is clear is that there is now an answer to why Romney avoided interviews and other unscripted situations up until he was forced to it by Newt’s surge. He is a bit undisciplined. Not a bit. A lot. He comes off in debates as childish and as some teacher’s pet sorta brat when he doesn’t get his way. He also let’s go with stupid crap like: “I’m running for President, for God’s sake!”, “I like to fire people,” “I’m proud I forced him to take a mortgage out on his house to beat me,” and other assorted gems that prove that rich people like me live by way different rules than you.

Me thinks that Santorum’s moment in the sun was just that, a moment. Odds are that second place is gonna be a fight between Dr. Paul and Huntsman. His homophobic theocratic crap will play much better in South Carolina. Too bad DeMint don’t like him. He could do well there, but probably won’t. Newt is pinning his hopes there as is Ricky P. You remember Ricky P don’t ha?

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I must say, I do try to understand those folks who hold opinions that I find utterly mad. I do. I try to figure out what set of basics one starts with, from which one can build a house of cards that lead to whatever cockamamie conclusion that I am scratching my head about. There is an interesting article over at Religious Dispatches about how and why the likes of Santorum and others come to their weird explanations as to why marriage equality is so dangerous to life on Mars.   Well thought out and well written.

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Just a question. How are the climate nay-sayers explaining this winter? I haven’t heard a peep out of them. Usually about this time of year one hears the stupid “yeah, it’s 15 below and we have three feet of snow in Virginia–so much for global warming!” Strangely they aren’t explaining this nation wide warmth and lack of snow. Hmmmm.

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The Right, including the GOP panderers are always hot to trot when it comes to sabre rattling against “Islamic Jihadists”. And of course it sets a tone that is anything but helpful. There is a really nice article by Anouar Majid at Informed Comment  about the Arab Spring, and the opportunities to forge a better relationship between Americans and Muslims. Do read.

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You may have missed this. Here in Iowa, they broke into regular programming to give the news. Todd Palin has endorsed Newt Gingrich. Along with Christine O’Donnell opting for Mittens, I can’t wait for who Ronald McDonald is gonna choose. I mean, millions four people want to know.

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This just in. The Blaze has gained access to the pictures, and they are up in arms. I mean, the inhumanity of it all. Exclusive here, you can see the photos of the extravaganza  that taxpayers were forced to pay. The Obama’s had a Halloween party in 2009, replete with costumes and the usual riffraff from Hollywood, including JOHNNY DEPP dressed as the Mad Hatter. Register your anger now.

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What’s on the Stove? Well, we got the taste for a Reuben sandwich so I got some corned beef, some sauerkraut, some high-grade Emanthaler swiss cheese, so rye bread,  and of course some homemade thousand island dressing (which will be posted today). Weep on my dears.

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Somewhere Over the Rainbow

 I’ve said this before. In a manner of speaking. I’ve theorized that the GOP elite is basically throwing this election by giving the extremists within the party control. Of course this presupposes that they will flame up and then die.

Some are starting to agree with me, albeit from a completely different angle.

They see the landscape, and they wonder: why in the world is the GOP intent on killing itself? They are on the wrong side of so many issues that it is barely possible to remember them all. They are out of touch with mainstream America.
They conclude that this is a party that is basically re-living the Goldwater years. They argue that Goldwater and his insiders did not seriously expect to win the election, but they were fighting for control of the party.

This is what some now see as going on with the GOP. Rather than the insiders letting the TeaNutz® run the party over the cliff, and then picking up the pieces and going on as usual, they see the TeaNutz® ignoring a mainstream electorate precisely because it has yet to be educated in the finer points of Teanuttery. Like Goldwater, they believe that this is a process, and they must suffer the loss in order to solidify their control, and grow.

So says Jeffrey Toobin. He argues that the madness might be explained by looking at the Goldwater election and it’s deeply embedded goal of turning this country away from New Deal policies and toward the kinds of policies favored by Tea folk today, namely a restructuring or elimination of social programs designed to provide safety nets to citizens.

Paul Waldman makes essentially the same argument. He, however, nuances it in suggesting that the delusion of some in the GOP is such that they really think that what they believe is so obviously correct, than any candidate they nominate will surely get that across to the public.

In any event, these theories do work to explain, from one side or the other what has otherwise been inexplicable: why the GOP seems determined to remain utterly out of touch with the opinions of most in the country.

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Hey, think fast. What has the mass of 125 hydrogen atoms?

Give up?

Hint: God is watching!

It’s the Higgs-Boson. Yep physicists think they may have located the elusive bugger.

Life will never be the same.

I’m may have to take the day off just to figure out how my life will be changing.

I can’t wait to find out. But don’t forget, they still don’t have the 3-sigma statistical significance, so we still have time to shop for Christmas!

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And then there are those who do not seek irrelevance, but have it thrust upon them. Sometimes they seek it too.

WorldNetDaily, that bastion of true-blue Christianist bible-thumping rectitude, decided to beat a dead horse publicly with a banner fly over a football stadium during a game. The subject: why, the imposter in the White House: the non-citizen, one Obama.

Zee problem?

God forgot to tell them the dome was closed.

Oh Drat!

Foiled again!

God knows a good joke when He sees one.

Refund?

Oh, don’t forget to order your “freedom seeds” for your “freedom garden” and get your “freedom gold” from Beck’s gold meisters.

Armageddon is a comin’ doncha know.

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Speakin’ of hate, old (and I do mean that, she is OLD) Phyllis Schlafly’s new group, Eagle Forum, has a manifesto it is asking Congressional candidates to sign, ala Grover Norquist. Oh the list is so precious. Come take a look. (From Joe.My.)

1. Will you vote to protect the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA)?
2. Will you vote for federal school appropriations to require informed, written parental consent for curricula, surveys, classes or books that may be privacy-invading or offensive to religion or conscience?
3. Will you support legislation for Congress to use its Article III power vote to deny jurisdiction to the federal courts over areas where we don’t trust them, namely, the definition of marriage, the Pledge of Allegiance, the Ten Commandments, the Cross on veterans’ memorials, and the Boy Scouts?
4. Will you vote to prohibit the federal courts from hearing challenges to the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) or similar state laws respecting the definition of marriage?
5. Will you oppose federal hate crimes laws?
6. Will you vote against any legislation to help Puerto Rico to become a state?
7. Will you vote against any legislation to pretend that the District of Columbia is a state or entitled to a state’s representation in Congress?
8. Will you vote to end federal funding of so-called bilingual education (teaching immigrant children in their native languages) which the voters of CA, AZ, and MA have rejected?
9. Will you vote to revoke the citizenship of naturalized citizens who betray their oath of U.S. citizenship by claiming “dual citizenship” with their native country?
10. Will you support federal funding for abstinence-until-marriage education instead of for explicit sex education programs, school-based clinics, and the distribution of contraceptives in schools?

There are more, just suppress your gag reflex.

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Yesterday, we reported on the withdrawal by some 65 or more companies of ads for a Muslim reality show. We have located a full list of all those companies that withdrew their ads. While it may be hard to withdraw your patronage from them all, please do the best you can, and let them know via e-mail or in person your displeasure at those who help to foment hatred in this country.

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Enjoy your day.

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The Changing Face of Dearborn Michigan

I spent most of my life living in Michigan. And I spent a year living in Dearborn, Michigan under the mayorship of Orville Hubbard, pictured at the right.

So I have some knowledge.

Dearborn, is probably like a lot of small towns. If you look at the history of any small town, you will probably find some fascinating changes that have occurred over the time span of the 1700′s to today.

But few would exhibit the amazing changes that have occurred in this seemingly unimportant suburban community outside Detroit, Michigan.

Originally of course, much of Dearborn was occupied by members of the Algonquin family of tribes. But that soon changed with America’s revolution, and white folks populated the area and named it after Revolutionary patriot and Secretary of State under Jefferson, Henry Dearborn.

For a long time Dearborn was of no consequence. That was until areas surrounding it (still in farm land) caught the eye of resident, Henry Ford. Some of that land became the Ford estate, the Ford Motor Company World Headquarters (The Glass House), Ford Proving Grounds. People still come there to see the Ford Museum, which features so much stuff that I can’t begin to tell describe it all.

Along came a man named Orville Hubbard who became Mayor in 1942 and retained that job until 1978 (I lived there in 1972-73 I believe).

Now you have to recall that Detroit at that time was in its growing pains. Car companies thrived in and about the city, which steel was forged at the Rouge plant down the river. Building cars was big business. And African-Americans, beaten down by Jim Crow laws throughout the South were migrating north to find a better life. Many found it in Detroit where employment in the factories were plentiful.

A few years later, in the aftermath of President Kennedy’s assassination, the Civil Rights Act was passed and then the Voting Rights Act.

Orville looked out upon this landscape, and came to a few conclusions. Hubbard has been styled by some as the “suburban face of resistance to racial integration.” And he was.

He had an abiding and hideous hatred of African-Americans. He was all that one would expect of a Southern plantation owner and more. He describes being in Haiti in the Marines and claims they practiced cannibalism, even “eating a few Marines.” He once called the “bullet-ridden body” of a black man found in the city as “a clear case of suicide” and ordered the case closed. He ordered his local police to “shoot looters on sight” during the 1967 insurrection in Detroit.

The slogan of his administration which continued until 1978, was “Keep Dearborn Clean” which was widely recognized to mean, “Keep Dearborn White.”

The way it worked was simply this: white folks found “reasons” never to sell to blacks, and whites who were rumored to be doing that were vandalized. Of course he didn’t think much better of Jews or the Irish, and later, the Arabs either.

The Arabs that first moved into Dearborn were almost all Lebanese Christians. They were later followed by Muslims from various countries. After Hubbards retirement blacks slowly moved in, but today, still nearly 85% of the population is “white”. However, 34% of that “white” demographic is Arab.

The largest Mosque in North America is found there.

And well, sadly it has now become the focus of hatred in another vein.

I don’t know much about the show. Actually I know nothing other than there is a “reality” based show about Muslim families in Dearborn, and how they incorporate their faith with their patriotism for America. As with all commercial television shows, it has corporate sponsors who buy ad time (known as commercials)  throughout the program.

A fringe group, Florida Family Association, whose sworn duty is to promote all things biblical, has launched a campaign against the show and more particularly against the sponsors of the show, being some 67 companies. They claim that 65 have now pulled their ads. Some of these companies are: McDonald’s, Bank of America, Campbell’s Soup, Dell, Estee Lauder, General Motors, Goodyear, Green Mountain Coffee, Sears, Wal-Mart, and most famously Lowe’s.

What is insane, is the FFA objects to the show because it fails to present Muslims as terrorists! In other words, the show is not “fair and balanced” showing only law-abiding, patriotic, good citizens.

Well, it’s all insane. This is bigotry at its worst. This is un-American. This is absurd. It is reprehensible. It cannot be allowed to stand.

Go to SignOn.org to register your anger.

Or go to Lowe’s Facebook page: and register your views directly.

 

**Orville Hubbard: the ghost that still haunts Dearborn
    Wikipedia:  Dearborn Michigan
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Making My Bed and Lying In It

You know, there have always been small groups that picketed this or that thing. The Greenpeace folks, the PETA people. They remained small.

But then along came Arabs, mostly Muslims. And the world changed.

In Yemen, in Egypt, in Syria and in Libya, people took to the streets. And no matter what happened, they kept coming back. And they keep coming back.

Until finally America woke as well. And citizens, young and old, from all walks of life, took to the streets.

Elections were head in Russia. And they took to the streets to protest what they perceived to be a “fix.”

And they are meeting on global warming, and they have taken to the streets to plead for governments to stop the madness of doing nothing.

And it pretty much started with Muslims who risked life and limb and shamed the rest of the world into seizing their moment, and not “taking it any more.”

I wonder if the Oxford Dictionary will include “mike check” in the next edition?

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The Beckian Lunatic Fringe (BLF) hates Occupy Wall Street. Which is ironic since they hate bank bailouts. But they love corporate giants and the rich. They do the bidding of the rich in the hopes that they too can be so one day. That ain’t gonna happen. Why don’t they get that?

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When Herm was in the game, his screw-ups, which were numerous to say the least, went largely ignored by his followers. One could argue that Perry has made fewer, and not nearly as egregious. Yet, Herm was forgiven, and Perry was unceremoniously dumped. Why? Perry was immediately seen as someone who could not debate Obama. The crazy Right mouths that Obama is stupid, but they really know he isn’t, and they knew he would mop the floor with Perry.

So Perry was not electable. Herm on the other hand, in their dementia, was Black and in their bigoted heads, it meant he would bleed off the African-American vote as Herm enticed all the field hands off the Democratic plantation. They saw Herm as electable, and more important controllable as several GOP pundits were eager to reassure the racist Right.

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That baseball player Pujols who played for the World Series champs, the Cardinals? He turned down a $22 million/year for 10 year contract with St. Louis to move to the Angels for about $25 million/year for 10 years.

Did that three million really make such a difference that you would abandon your team of many years?

More importantly, some have done a check on the cost of living between the two places, and it turns out Pujols will actually lose money by that analysis.

Why do we stand for paying people such sums for failing most of the time?

I believe it’s one of the top 12 questions Jesus will be asking when he returns.

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Newt styles himself as an “intellectual” of sorts. Not the elite type as I’m sure he would re-assure the trailer voters he sucks up to. But some other kind, like the self-less ones who study just for the purpose of righting the record on our Founding Fathers real beliefs, our true foundations, and so forth.

Truthfully, we are woefully under-represented when it comes to intellectuals. A fine post by Gary Gutting, Professor of Philosophy at Notre Dame. He has a great idea. It of course has no chance of being used.

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It looks like there will only be two candidates at the Trump debate: Santorum and Newt.

I don’t know how to react to that. It might be utterly boring, or more fun than watching Karl Rove getting a root canal. I just don’t know yet.

I wonder if Newt wishes he hadn’t? I bet he does.

Does Ricky have the nerve to attack?

The Donald can’t be pleased.

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Did you known that the SIX heirs to the Walton (Wal-Mart) fortune, net worths are equal to that of 30%  (thirty percent) of the rest of Americans?

But they find it impossible to treat their employees with even a semblance of fairness in benefits and advancement.

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Speaking of Karl Rove. His Crossroads Super Pac which is doing the most vicious ads around these days, has offered itself up on the irony bed. After first attacking Elizabeth Warren (running for Senator from MA), for being in “bed” with the Occupy Wall Street crowd, he now comes out with an ad attacking her for being in “bed” with. . .*drum roll* WALL STREET!

Got to love Karl. He treats the rabble GOP electorate for the unthinking, unknowledgeable folks they are. Trouble is, those are not nearly enough zombies to elect someone for dog-catcher in Hoboken.

Even Michael Steele wonders whether the GOP has a clue what Americans think about anything these days. He mopes they are getting way of tune with reality.

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Looks like the Congressional GOP buffoons will try the usual end around play. Since they hold that majority in the House with no filibuster rule, they intend to pass a pay-roll tax bill with all sorts of awful amendments and then go home for the holidays, figuring that that leaves the ball in Harry Reid’s court.

Do they not see that we get the game?  Yet?

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Another week has slipped on by. Is that ironic?

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What Must It Be Like. . . .

I’m a 61-year-old white woman. When I applied for law school, law schools were actively soliciting female applicants, so I had a leg up. I benefited from women before me who had to fight tooth and nail to even attend a law school, let alone practice law. And most could never hope to gain a partnership in a major firm.

As a female high-school graduate, certain “professions” were closed to me. At that time, women were not allowed to “work the streets” as cops. Women couldn’t fly fighter planes in the Air Force, women’s roles in the military were severely limited. Women didn’t fly commercial airplanes with the major carriers.

Women are still underpaid vis-a-vis their male counterparts.

We still deal with our Phyllis Schafly’s who would advise us that God prefers us to stick pretty close to either the kitchen or the bedroom. A whole host of male ministers would tell us that we are to be subservient to our “head” –meaning our husbands.

So I know a little bit about being a second-class person. But only a little. I can’t say that I have been denied much of anything I really wanted. I had whiteness to thank for that.

As a white person, I had the American Dream pretty much intact for the asking. It’s a birthright we receive just by being. Pretty nifty when you think of it. It’s like being 30 yards ahead in a 100 yard dash when the gun goes off. It’s like being born in America. It’s just a big head start.

I am a Christian, which generally speaking, whatever all the hoopla one hears about “being discriminated against”, is a safety net of sorts. Nobody calls me names except those who risk being called more names: non-believers. In a country that is overwhelmingly Christian, it’s the “right” faith.

So, my life and my world is defined by all this entitlement. I take it as normal. I take it as the way things are. It is the natural environment through which I move, not thinking about it any more than thinking about the air that I breathe that makes my life possible.

Yet, a host of folks in this country are not so privileged. They are gay, black, brown, Muslim. Oddly, Asian has not yet become suspect–at least as to Asian Americans. But given the economic up-turn going on in Asia, it seems likely to in the future.

If you are at all like me, (and most of you are smart, thinking folks), then you are reading a lot on the Internet. You are watching the news, reading papers and magazines, and listening to the radio. And tons of the stuff every day, involves all these “others” among us.

Bryan Fischer and those of his ilk, remind us daily how awful it is to be gay. To choose to be gay, as they claim. They engender fear in some of us about the safety of our children. They warn of God’s wrath. They assure us that civilization itself is on the precipice of destruction should we ever allow “marriage” between other than A man and A woman.

Race has taken on a new twist in this “post-Obama” era. Race had become the quiet, but still insidious disease of our country. The election of Obama and the need for racists to find a way to attack him without “looking racist” became paramount.

So we discovered to our shock that he was a “socialist” “communist” “fascist” “dictator” “Muslim” “member of the Muslim Brotherhood” “activator of the New World Order, “anti-Christ” and “Kenyan citizen”.

We learned that if you find three sycophant house negroes to champion your position of Obama hatred, gay hatred, Muslim and immigration hatred, you could be absolved of that charge, and in fact call liberals racist and the other 99% of all black people racists. Not a bad trade-off.

Stoked by  the right-wing media machine which captures its audience by a mixture of fear and pointing the finger at all NOT WHITE, NOT CHRISTIAN elements in the country, Muslims were the next target. Because a few deluded idealogues financed by a few more rich deluded ideologues chose to cause great hurt and destruction upon US soil, all Muslims are now suspect. Best they just go away. And it is most of all best that they all be looked upon with great suspicion.

Don’t have a job? Taking a pay cut? Losing your benefits? Or just stuck in a dead-end job with no real hope of moving up that ladder to the “good life?” Why that same Foxy media and its traveling fellowship will explain to you that it’s because of this country being flooded with “illegals” who are “taking your jobs.”

I remember a time when we had a lot of sympathy for Mexicans in this country. We knew that many of them were migrant workers. And we knew they were underpaid and often poorly used by their employers. We worked to better their lives.

No more.

They take our jobs, use our emergency wards, don’t pay taxes, get free schooling for their kids, and have the nasty habit of dropping “anchor babies” to attach themselves to this country and it’s wealth.

No matter than nearly all of this is untrue. It fits the needs of both the offerers: (the right-wing power and media) and the offerees: (those who are hurtin’ and wanna blame somebody).

And while we are at it, let’s blame all the smarty-pants folks who got educated and tell us we are wrong. We aren’t, they are just “elitists”.

This is America today. And I stop and think sometimes. What must it be like to be gay? Or Black? Or Brown? or Muslim? What is it like to be talked about as if you are something bad? Something dangerous? SomeTHING as opposed to someONE?

What must it be like to be fearful that those eyes that look upon you at Wal-Mart and look so mean might be ready and willing to do more than give you that dirty look? What must it be like to endure those barely under the breath remarks? What must it be like to be asked to step out of line and be singled out for a “more thorough” search? What must it be like to have to “prove” one’s right to be on the highway?

I try to imagine. I cannot. But it hurts to think that others suffer because they ARE.

The closest I can come is this. Have you ever been accused of something that you did not do, but could not prove other than by your word? Remember the frustration and anger you felt, at being unfairly accused. Is it anything like this?

What must it be like?