The Conversation We Need to Have About Gay Rights

Tags

essay, gay rights, marriage equality

I have a friend who often wonders why people care about the personal lives of other people. Why does anyone care whether somebody chooses to be single or married, have children or not, wants to sleep with this one or that one? Yet, it is undeniable that some people do care. Perhaps it is nothing more than powerless people attempting to force their lives on others in some vain attempt to feel superior, because their choices are “right” and that makes them feel better about themselves.

Some small few no doubt have deeply seeded religious notions (however wrong I may adjudge them) that urges them to compel others to live as they do, while paying lip service to a “religious freedom” that they conveniently reserve only for themselves. A great many more use religion as a shield to their own perhaps unconscious fears that they have certain stirrings which occur when the subject comes up, stirrings contrary to their definition of fitting into their particular group.

As polling suggests, the country continues to move more and more strongly in the direction of marriage equality. And the small, but adamant religious right, continues to voice its disapproval. But if it were this alone, we could all be content to “let the hater’s hate” with their pretense of “hating the sin, while loving the sinner.” Life always contains such out of the mainstream extremes so it seems.

But it is of course not “this alone.” This vocal and increasingly violent speaking segment continues to come up with innovative ways of making their animus known and felt. In reddish states across the nation (some six at the present with another half-dozen who have recently turned down such legislation), Republicans attempt to legislate bigotry in the face of a growing certainty that marriage equality will soon be the law of the land.

Republicans in general and those who appear to be running for President, reel like drunken sailors attempting to negotiate a rational path that both satisfies the “law or the one anticipated” and their growingly hostile base which insists on purity on this issue as on others. Of course there ends up being nothing rational at all in their stance.

Bush, Rubio, and Cruz are more than vocal in their support of the new mantra, that somehow there must be laws to protect the “religious” rights of people not to engage with gay people in their businesses if they don’t want to. There is no doubt that Huck, and Christie and Paul, and certainly Carson and Jindal agree as well. The fact that the argument is farcical is of no import. It “sounds” good, and that is always enough for the Right to pursue against a populace usually too busy with daily life to seriously disassemble the argument.

It’s all about religious freedom and not discriminating against Christians they intone. But is it?

As Jon Stewart pointed out, the florist who can’t bring themselves to sell flowers to a gay couple for their wedding, doesn’t even ask the trice about-to-be married man or woman, whom arguably Jesus would call adulterers. It doesn’t inquire into the criminal background of the pedophile, or the swindler before selling them a bouquet for their home. It doesn’t inquire of the drug dealer, murderer, before selling them the “wedding special.” All these instances are surely as egregious to God as the couple who has the temerity to love without benefit of the “right” plumbing arrangements.

These pieces of legislation are simply ruses to make you and I abide by somebody else’s personal preferences or to guard against their personal fears. Naming it “God’s will” doesn’t change a thing.

People talk about “deeply held religious beliefs” on the part of the florist or photographer. How is one to make that determination? By asking? By church attendance? By tithing amounts?

People talk about “next church’s will be forced to perform marriages against their tenets.” Really? Who has ever asked for that? There is no law in this country that attempts to interfere directly in church operations. Is anyone stopping the Westboro Baptist church from preaching hate every Sunday? Has anyone suggested that we should?

People talk about forcing people to serve others against their religious views. Well, yes, they are being told that. They are serviced, those businesses, by fire and police, they pay taxes, they receive water and electricity, the meet building codes, and sanitation requirements. They are in a fact engaged in a public endeavor, using city and state services. They are in a phrase, engaged in commerce, a public event. As such, this is simply one more general requirement of engaging in a public business–NOT DISCRIMINATING AGAINST PEOPLE BECAUSE THERE IS SOMETHING ABOUT THEM YOU DON’T PERSONALLY LIKE. Live with it, or get out of public sector business.

People like Rubio and Bush and Cruz attempt to draw some lines, such as “well we don’t mean they can’t be served in a restaurant.” Why not? How is that different from a florist? Which businesses are magically exempt? Will Hobby Lobby and it’s fakery about being offended by contraceptive care when it buys most of its inventory from abortion friendly China get the exemption?

People say that being gay is a choice. The question always becomes, so when did you “decide” to be straight? But putting aside the “gotcha”, why do religionists insist upon this “choice” thing? The weight of the evidence is that there is a genetic component which probably is in some way triggered by one’s environment. Or perhaps it is all genetic. Whatever it is it is not a choice, for even in today’s liberalizing environment, who would choose gayness with all its inherent problems? Surely more gays today are happy with their gayness, but at the point of decision would they have chosen this fight? Precious few of us desire to be martyrs.

The reason the religionists need gayness to be a choice is that is simply solves a lot of theological problems for them, and thinking makes religionists heads hurt. If it’s not a choice, then God made gays that way and it must be good if you read Genesis literally. So explain why God makes gay people and then demands of them to ignore the most basic of human needs and desires–sex? They can’t of course, so therefore, it must be a choice. It keeps the theology tidy.

And of course, if Gay is not a choice, there goes the argument that “gays are out recruiting your children” argument. It makes as much sense as saying that people who love surfing go out recruiting your children to be surfers.

This is just painful to write. Because as I type away, laying out the arguments, I try to imagine what it must feel like to be the subject of such an essay. People talk about gays and blacks and browns and women, and all minorities fighting for equality as if they were subjects on a chessboard. I say “the gays” or “women believe” as if they were some homogeneous pat of butter to be added or subtracted to the mix of human stew.

This sort of thing needs to stop being discussed because we need to stop putting people in these awful categories of “people like me” and “people not like me.” It’s all artificial, all just a disguise for our own hates and fears, and confusion.

People are people. Love is love. Let people work out for themselves whom they love. Let them live as they choose with whom they love. Let them arrange their love in whatever form works for them, and mind your own freakin’ business. Nobody wants to watch you groping and rolling in your bed with your love.

Don’t get me started on “then somebody will want to marry a horse,” crap. Just don’t.

As my husband says, the doorbell has still not wrung with my government-issued gay husband that I have to marry. Isn’t that enough for you bigots?

 

How I Learned to Love the Criminal Life

This is a snoozer. Let me say that up front. I try in almost all cases to keep these posts fresh and snappy as well as informative. This is pretty much just the latter. If it helps you in some way, that’s extra good. But mostly it’s just to establish a public record and illustrate just how insane bureaucracy gets.

Once upon a time the ACA was passed. Let’s make this clear. I adore the President. I totally get why he pursued the formation of what we fondly call Obamacare. Facing Congress and its known excesses of idiots, he figured that a health care plan that they had originally put forth as the alternative to Bill/Hillary care would garner a fair number of Republican adherents and grease the skids for an easy passage.

We know that that did not happen. What follows is somewhat critical of the Act, but I am very grateful at the same time. I believe health care is the right of all human beings.

That said, here’s what happened to me.

I applied, ran into the usual snafu’s at the beginning and was left with not being “verified”. I waited several weeks and tried again only to find that the validating company no longer had my “ticket” and I could not proceed with my application. By phone I was able to do so and I don’t fault the workers who manned those lines to assist people through the process. Mine came up “may be eligible for Medicaid”. Even though common sense told me I was not eligible, I was forced to go through that process.

I went to a “facilitator” here locally in Las Cruces. She insisted that the Medicaid New Mexico laundry list of financial questions were “inappropriate” and that all that was required was how much my income was, meaning our combined social security checks. Even though I protested, she insisted and filed an application on my behalf.

Weeks later I and my husband received Medicaid cards and a stilted letter than required a phone call to confirm that we both were given Medicaid coverage. My husband bailed on that, since he is covered by the VA. I went about life, an ensured person, seeing my doctor and filling prescriptions amazed at the wonders of health care.

Until about three months went by. We received another letter from Medicaid NM, just as cryptic, requiring yet another phone call, all to confirm that my coverage had been cancelled. No explanation was ever forthcoming other than “somebody had approved your application by mistake”. They saw no reason to explain further.

I placed a call immediately to the Federal exchanges where after numerous apologies for the bonehead play by New Mexico they assured me that the for me, the exchanges were still open (even though it was July) since my original application would be marked as “still open”. They graciously completed my application, told me of my subsidy, and went through the various plans until I decided on one.

I contacted my new insurer, paid the premium and happily my doctor accepted them and life again returned to normal.

Starting in about October I started receiving solicitations from a dozen or more insurance companies for supplemental insurance to Medicare. I was advised that I needed one for sure. Before I could even contact Medicare to see about the process of applying (I would turn 65 in April of 2015), I got official stuff from Medicare.

What a delight I thought. I was “automatically” enrolled in Part A and Part B. It was up to me to decide whether I wanted any supplemental coverage. There was reference to a Part D Medicare for prescriptions I could buy but no mention of cost, other than it would cost something more.

I soon received more official stuff from Social Security, as it related to Medicare. I was told I “might be eligible for extra help in paying for prescriptions”. It had to do with being “low-income” and receiving other “supplemental assistance” of various kinds.

I immediately smelled a rat.

Sure enough an application was forthcoming wherein there was a the laundry list of financial questions that I knew would kick me out. How much do you have in savings and checking? List your investments. What is your mortgage? At the bottom of the form was something to the effect of “I don’t want to apply for Federal “extra help” but send my application to the state for consideration”.

There were no other choices. I sent the form back without filling out ANY of the financial information to conform to the requirement. I assumed that New Mexico would look me up, see that my Medicaid had been cancelled for “ineligibility” and then I could get on to the business of choosing a Part D provider.

Not so.

I received some weeks later, a letter FROM THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT (DEPT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, from Maryland) advising me that I had been granted extra help and that I could choose from eight or so carriers. If I chose none, one would be assigned to me.

My frustration started to really grow at that point. I did nothing. A carrier was assigned to me, and I received a lovely packet of information from my new insurance provider and a shiny plastic card to show my pharmacist.

I put off the phone calls that I knew were necessary, and finally steeled myself to that event yesterday. I gathered all the various pieces of information, made sure I had all the identifying documents at hand, and called Medicare.

I explained that I had been given “extra help” for Part D coverage, and that I was, in my opinion not entitled to. I was even over the cut off based on my social security alone, without adding in our savings and investment portfolio. I was advised that New Mexico had granted the “extra help” and that Medicare couldn’t remove it. I was given the number to NM Medicare, which is not really Medicare at all, but Medicaid.

That call resulted in being told that “they had nothing to do with it at all, and I must deal with Medicare.

I called back Medicare.

Same result.

I called back Medicaid NM. Same answer.

I called back Medicare. Same answer

I called back Medicaid NM. This time they told me I needed to call NM Health and Human Services.

I did. Their menu had nothing about Medicare at all as far as I could see.

I called Social Security, “extra help” division. They gave me a history lesson in Medicare/Medicaid, and after assuring me they would help, told me that the document I had entitled Health and Human Services, from Maryland (denoting the US govt) was from New Mexico. I was advised to call NM HHS.

I called NM HHS. They actually looked up my old file, which is still current because at the age of 64, I still am able to receive family planning care at the state’s expense. If I’m ever declared as having a post-menopausal pregnancy, I’ll be the first to tell them and the world. She informed me that NOBODY there deals with anything like “extra help” nor Medicare. We didn’t do it she insisted.

I got in the car, drove to the Social Security Office. I explained my situation. “They are trying to give me extra help based on a mistaken belief that I am too poor to be required to pay,” I explained. They will come to correct that in a few months, and that might leave me without coverage, and my prescriptions are expensive. I am trying to clear up the problem now.”

He looked at me like I had landed from Mars. “So, he said, “you are getting Part D coverage but you don’t want it?”

“NO! It’s not that I don’t want it. I would love to have it. It’s just that I don’t think I qualify for it, and I don’t want to be stuck with no coverage when they inevitably figure that out. NOBODY will acknowledge that they gave it to me, so I can’t even discuss the qualifications with anybody. If by some miracle I am entitled, I’m happy to have it. But I can’t find that out until somebody admits they granted it. Somebody put an “approved” stamp on this. I’m trying to find that person/entity.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

He made a phone call. He called the new insurance carrier and said, “she is covered by you, but doesn’t want it.”

I demanded the phone.

I gave her the information, “my insurance number”.

She looked up the file. She said, “there was a cross over from your Medicaid coverage directly here.”

“But my Medicaid coverage was cancelled.”

“I understand what you are saying, but they did it anyway.”

“Who is they?”

“It does not say. It appears that your status as having Medicaid caused a cross over.”

“But everybody denies they did it.”

“Ma’am I do understand. I can cancel it if you wish, but that may open a can of worms for you in trying to replace it. There is on its face no justification for refusing it, and so they might not give you other discounts. I really can’t say. I’d just advise you to leave it be.”

I looked at the Social Security guy across the table from me.

“I give up.”

“I’ve called everyone, talked to everyone. No one will admit they approved my being placed on this plan, so I can’t even ask the question of on what basis I’m entitled. I was here. Note that in my file. I’m done.” He smirked as if he had won the battle on that one.

Here I stand, beaten.  I thought I was being an honorable and honest person. The system does not reward honesty, it laughs at it. This stands as a testament should I ever be called to answer for my crime of trying to do the right thing.

Please tell me you have run into equally stupid bureaucratic bullshit?

 

The Conversation We Need to Have on Race

Like the post on war, this is a post I don’t write with joy. I write because sadly, it still needs to be said. But here I do not write in the anguish that I might hurt people I care about. I frankly don’t give a damn. For if you are hurt by what I say, then you damn well need to hurt because this shit has gone on quite long enough.

I don’t speak from some high mountain of arrogance, for I was raised in a racist environment where such things were taken for granted. I cast racial slurs as a child, mimicking the adults around me. No black face walked the halls of my high school or walked my neighborhoods let alone lived within it.

I was a child of the Civil Rights Movement, but surely not old enough to realize its importance at the time. Common sense, much touted as of late by a number of uneducated and thus defensive people I know, was not enough to show me or my friends and family that separating people by something so silly as skin color was stupid. It was not until I moved into the world and interacted with people of color that I realized the insanity of discrimination.

Later, I spent better than twenty years, living among, working with, loving, and befriending hundreds of people of color and  I saw all the more clearly how warped we become when we use such elements as divisions rather than celebrations of diversity.

We, in our days of college, when we sipped of the vine of how the world ought to be, and would be under our tutelage,  sincerely believed that all this would be behind us in the next generation, long gone by the 80’s, or at least by the 90’s.

There are a variety of reasons why this did not happen. Those who remained unexposed to integration through much of their adulthood did not move on to that better place. Much of it can be put at the feet of a misunderstanding of the role of truth and how it plays across the spectrum of the human psyche.

Those of us who are rational beings, driven by facts and rational conclusions think evidence, facts, and reasoned argument will carry the day. Truth changes mind we surmise.

But alas, it truly does not for a great portion of individuals. Study after study today shows that people in general, but most especially the conservative mind refuses to accept “facts” once their minds are made up. In fact, they become even more set in their error the more you present them with facts. They come up with all sorts of irrational reasons why they need not accept your data.  It is flawed (without explaining how), usually by being the product of “the liberal press”, a thing that in reality is hard to define, and harder to actually find.

When attacked for their intransigence, the bigot gets predictably defensive. Liberals are accused of “always playing the race card”. Worse, they attempt to adopt MLK as one of their own (he was a Republican they shout), but the ONLY phrase they know of all the things he said was the hope that someday little children would be “judged by the content of their character, rather than the color of their skin.” This they fervently insist is what they do. It’s not their fault that most of “those black people” whether they be young black men in low-hanging jeans, or incarcerated young black men, or poor women paying with food-stamps just “happen” to have no good character.

They are blind to the racism they exhibit even honestly, to the degree that they now accuse liberals of being the racists. This comes from the usual cesspool of right-wing media efforts used to gin up their fear while at the same time sanctifying their hate. Suddenly the Democratic Party “uses” blacks for votes while keeping them enslaved. Presumably Democrats and liberals in general aren’t versed in the “tough love” that conservatives know needs be employed to force “these people” to stand up for themselves and take charge of their lives in the white American” way. There are always the black Toms willing to dance to the conservative tune in return for a pretence of acceptance and a moment in the spotlight.

Nobody, it is true, wishes to face their own irrational hatred. Conservatives can be forgiven in some sense for their failures, but that does not mean that we can stop pushing back against the insidious evil of their defenses.

America is still racist. And it may be that it will remain so for a good long time to come, until at least every vestige of “that’s the way those people are” is eradicated from the family conversation. When aunt Carole and grandpa George have finally died and their anecdotes have finally vanished from family memory, maybe we can get beyond this ugly impasse.

The nativism which strangles us today in the guise of a vocal and ugly minority who can’t stop railing against “illegals” will, with the turn of time and the grace of God, be stamped down once again and relegated to the dust bin as it should be. Immigrants, ALL illegals at one time, built this country into what it is today. We cannot escape ourselves no matter how much we run. Meanwhile, millions suffer from the ubiquitous “other” leveled at them in the guise of “illegal” and cantaloupe calves”.

Ferguson shows us white folks what black folks have always known. We are deeply racist, unconsciously and consciously so. We make jokes at the expense of people based solely on their color, though we quickly give excuses as to why it’s about something else. That in itself should alert us that we still are diseased.

The abuses of Ferguson are appalling. They “shock the conscience” as the Supreme Court once announced. Yet they are not news to African-Americans ANYWHERE in America. It is not shocking to many of us whites either, at least those of us who have close ties to minority groups and have experienced first hands the uneven-handedness of law enforcement vis-a-vis black and brown communities.

This racism which is still so rampant has lain dormant in the public mind for decades. In some real sense Obama’s presidency has brought these things to the forefront. The incessant clamor by some members of the hardest of Right wing apologists that Obama is not a “real” American, not like us, not American at all, but Kenyan, not a Christian, thereby raising a religious test the opposite of that which faced John F. Kennedy regarding concerns about his Catholicism, has ironically brought forth exactly what they did not want. People are talking about the elephant in the room again.

So in some sense, the ugly racism expressed by the Tea Party at their rallies with their placards, and the “jokes” discovered in emails of elected Republicans, has served to bring the issue back to the fore. People who from some insane sick place in their minds refer to the President of the United States as the “anti-Christ” and a “monkey” have reaped their own whirlwind.

They have done the fine job of reminding us who have become complacent, that indeed this is not a post-racial world at all.

When I hear people become indignant that this official or that one fails to tout American exceptionalism, I cringe. With a history such as ours, starting with the near genocide of our Native Peoples, where do we get this notion of being exceptional? America started out an amazing dream, yet we had already begun our destruction of Native Peoples before we  began. And we continued it and racism long after, flouting in some real sense the flowery language of Jefferson’s Declaration.  We may forgive Jefferson as a man of his time, for the “all men are created equal” not meaning either women or men of color, but we cannot forgive that that failure proceeded to this very day.

People who have to “blame” some “others” for their own failures in life, must get up the courage to face themselves and their racism. They must admit that they have and do judge people based on a physical reaction to the color of their skin. Judgements are made immediately about their value, their likely occupation, and a whole host of attributes which are then barriers that must be overcome before they consider them in any way, “equal.” And in most cases this equality doesn’t extend to welcoming “them” into their families as relatives, or close friends.

There is no scientific evidence that color has anything to do with intelligence. Racial distinctions are not scientific by any standard, but are political constructions made for reasons of discrimination. 

As much as it may pain you to alter your thinking, you must do it. Justice demands it. And decency demands it. God demands it. Stop the madness. HONOR SELMA!

DC Teaparty rally

 

Conservative Comedy Show: Is That Some Sort of Oxymoron?

Tags

political satire, teabagger humor, the GOP

It is said (or at least it should have been said) that the human brain is pretty much capable of coming up with anything. I mean we humans have invented the most amazing ways of torturing people and killing them off bit by bit.

Go into any supermarket and stroll down the soda pop aisle or cereal aisle and you can see that we can invent several dozen variations on a theme, making each appear fresh and new.

But I swear I cannot come up with a viable version of comedy that stresses conservative themes and is funny at the same time. It would be a bit like pushing matter and anti-matter too closely together. It just implodes.

What on earth is funny about all the things that the GOP is for? They are for cutting taxes for the rich. That’s gotten to the point that nowadays we are sending money to them since they “pay” taxes in the negative.

They are for trying to offset their growing state deficits by adding “luxury” taxes to food and other necessities, taxes that cruelly attach more to the poor than any other group.

They are for the life of the fetus, which is surely laudable if it were coexistent with care for pregnant mothers, babies, health care, and a host of services to support that fetus as it grows to old age. But they are not.

They are against government intervening in the lives of ordinary people unnecessarily. They call this regulation. But the forms they wish to dismiss are those that protect people from dirty water, dirty air, shoddy manufacturing practices, unfair labor practices that endanger and diminish people.  They figure kids, rather than get a free lunch should sweep the school for their dinner.

But when it comes to regulating behavior, they can’t get enough of regulations. They want to and do, try to regulate every aspect of women’s bodies when it comes to reproduction and girls bodies too. They seek to regulate what women wear. They seek to protect the rights of others to treat fellow human beings badly based upon personal ideologies that they call a “religion.”

They seek to express American exceptionalism by meddling around the world, upping the ante everywhere, bloating defense budgets to accommodate their need to puff out their chests and “prove” America is better. At the same time, they protect themselves and their offspring from standing on any battlefield they create.

They seek to pretend that race and ethnicity no longer are of any concern in their America. They turn the page by flipping the equation such that anyone who brings up the issue is dubbed a “racist”. They employ a few dark faces, who for the price of personal fame, are willing to nod genteelly in agreement. They twist and cherrypick the words of great civil rights leaders and try to claim them as their own.

They live every day using every convenience devised by modern technology. They tweet and fly, pick up their fancy lattes, take their youth-enhancing shots at spas, drive computer directed cars, yet when it comes to any science that impinges on their gravy train of K Street lobbyists and the free-flowing money that is funneled their way, science becomes pure bunk.

They prefer stupid, cute-talking bobble heads to thoughtful men and women.

They prefer “common-sense” to education, except when they visit the doctor or the dentist or the accountant or the lawyer, or the airport pilot. Education is for elitists, who are people who want to be better than the average person, meaning they get embarrassed when they haven’t a damn clue what is being said.

They are all for individuality, and they mean that they will say that everyone is equal, and you can just do the best you can. If it don’t work out, why that poor house thing back in the twenties wasn’t so bad, and we got a lot of free road work done. See don’t you feel better knowing you are paying for your own gruel?

They want to, therefore, end social security, cuz individuals properly prepare for their own old age. John-Boy is remembered fondly and surely was going to care for his ma and pa. You don’t need medicare either since health care is no right but a privilege reserved for those who have managed to acquire sufficient funds to pay for it.

There is no need either for unemployment benefits because it’s your job to foresee that free markets might end your job. Worse, if you are so down and out as that, you probably are not of sufficient moral character to withstand the urge to just sit on your ass and suck off the rest of us anyway, and we can’t have that.

Food stamps? Hunger builds character. See the above regarding unemployment benefits regarding your unfitness for food.

Housing? Ditches are quite comfortable in summer I hear.

And let’s not forget the churches. Our fine Christian houses of worships are dedicated to helping the “truly” poor, whatever the hell that means. Not so much non-Christian houses of worship which are really just oxymorons, cuz that’s what my Jezus said, after all, somewhere; at least he implied it.

I mean two thousand years of working on that issue, is a good start!

Immigrants were us two hundred or so years ago, and that was fine. Everyone knows white trash from Europe beats red skins any day. And immigrants are really good at cleaning houses and mowing lawns and picking fruit. They don’t want hardly anything for the privilege. But too many? Oh now, that makes you an ALIEN and an ILLEGAL.

Those words are words of fear, because damn, I’m following all the good rules set up by my betters, and fuck, life is still not any better, so somebody is to blame, and my betters say it’s THEM.

So, we can hate us some Mexicans and, hell all of South America pretty much just cuz. But we will not hate the Cubans, at least the rich ones who escaped Fidel. They are not aliens or illegals, but good people who lost their wealthy land holdings and much to be commiserated with.

We can hate us some Arabs, as many as we want and wherever we want, because we just want their oil, them that got it at least. The rest? Who cares?

We can ignore all our history and all of the worlds for that matter just because it interferes with the narrative we have to tell ourselves today to get to sleep. I mean the past is the past, why dwell on uncomfortable things like slavery and partitioning and supporting dictators and crummy stuff like that. It just makes me feel bad, and, after all, we have to deal with TODAY right?

Let’s make history a quest to make our kids good Americans! And we know what will do that. Put God back in school! In fact, let’s turn over education our youth to private enterprise, cuz they will do the job better and cheaper! And they will never have an ulterior motive to teach our kids anything that was wrong, or quietly made themselves look like the best thing since sliced bread, will they?

Let’s continue to push for not letting those who think against us vote. Let’s continue to make judges do what we want them too.

Let’s put a gun in every graduate’s hand. And I ain’t talkin’ about graduating from college, or even high school. Grade school is old enough to understand proper gun usage. Carry it proudly son. It’s what the Founding Fathers wanted for sure.

This is what the Grand Overly Dead Party thinks. Now, if you can come up with how to make this funny, do tell. I can’t come up with anything. Not a damn thing. A wake? I can come up with that, but not comedy.

 

 

 

Obama is For Life-I’m for Death

Tags

ISIS, religious fundamentalism, right-wing crazies, violence

So we can start off with the “this is much ado about nothing” which of course begs the question, “why bother?”

Cuz a girl’s gotta write since it’s my passion, and there is always the miniscule hope, (for we all know that it springs eternal) that some poor bastard out there who was “damn the President for dissin’ Christians” will awaken from the fog of dissonance and the clear bell of enlightenment will ring forth: “I was once stupid and now I am not.”

Such is at least my justification for this essay.

I just happened to be tuned in the other morning as the President gave the traditional speech at the National Prayer Meetin’ which is held annually in Washington where all the sinners come to pretend they are doin’ their very best to apply God’s law as they slip another check from Exxon-Mobile and JP Morgan, into their $3000 suits.

The President, as we all know, has pretty much given up on the idea that facts, and good logic will get him anywhere, and as of late has pursued a policy of “screw you, try to stop me” and a general “fuck you” to Congressional Republicans who are fresh off the latest round of “ain’t got no bootstraps with which to pay for healthcare? Well die, you dog, and make room for those who do.”

As every good American knows, there’s the guys in the black hats (bad) and the guys in the white hats (good) always near to the scene. America is built upon this scenario and we have all the cheesy old westerns to prove it. Let us introduce the latest and best entry into the black hats category. A group known as ISIS (not to be confused with an Egyptian god) or ISIL if you have a clue what Levant means.

ISIL is a slipshod group of thugs who claim a perverted understanding of Islam which they use to justify their attempts to take over the world. Since their threat is pretty much everywhere, that means just about everyone else gets to be the guys in the white hats, but Merika of course always has to lead, cuz we are the super, super white hats.

Anyway, if you hadn’t noticed, we have a fair share of Arab Muslims (and Arabs in general) who live in the US, and boy I sure wouldn’t want to be them, since Americans are flighty people who tend to assess blame against whole swaths of people since it’s just easier. We learned that from the movies too, where it’s often best to “shoot first and ask questions later.” Anyway, even the dumbest of President (that would be you Dubya) have realized that it’s really not a good idea to let the great stupid mobs of American whiteness carry on in this manner, and so they are always at pains of ‘splainin’ to the stupid white people that NOT ALL ARABS ARE MUSLIMS AND MORE IMPORTANT NOT ALL MUSLIMS ARE KILLERS. In fact the huge majority are not, but are just peace-loving, family-seeking individuals like you and me.

Now Dubya can say nice things about Arab Muslims, and even hold hands with them, and nobody thinks a thing bad about it.   He can even share a short peck and not even be thought particularly gay. Just good old American manners.

And he can say all kinds of nice things about Muslims to remind dumb American white people that it’s never a good idea to paint a brush too broad.

“America treasures the relationship we have with our many Muslim friends, and we respect the vibrant faith of Islam which inspires countless individuals to lead lives of honesty, integrity, and morality. This year, may Eid also be a time in which we recognize the values of progress, pluralism, and acceptance that bind us together as a Nation and a global community. By working together to advance mutual understanding, we point the way to a brighter future for all.” Presidential Message Eid al-Fitr December 5, 2002

But when President Obama reminds us that there are bad people in all religions historically who have done really bad things

Humanity has been grappling with these questions throughout human history.  And lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ.  In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ. . .So this is not unique to one group or one religion.  There is a tendency in us, a sinful tendency that can pervert and distort our faith.  In today’s world, when hate groups have their own Twitter accounts and bigotry can fester in hidden places in cyberspace, it can be even harder to counteract such intolerance. But God compels us to try.

the hue and cry from the extreme right in this country rose like a phoenix, screaming that such utterly evil words had never been spoken in all of our democracy.  Former Governor of Virginia, Jim Gillmore was “outraged” having never heard a more terrible thing from the lips of a President. Santorum and Limbaugh chimed in with their mortification of Christianity today being compared to the unspeakable ISIS killers. And on it went, the rallying cry being “this is not a moral equivalency!!”

And it was not suggested as such either, if you read the text.

It was meant to remind everyone that while the killings by ISIS are horrific, we as humans have been doing horrific things to each other since the inception of so-called civilization, and a good deal of it has been veiled in perverted religious beliefs. People find it most convenient to put on the mask of religion to disguise their blatant lust for power and to express their hatred and fear. It has always been so. ISIS is no different in that respect than all the others. It is no more heinous, no more bloody certainly, and no more representative of the faith it espouses than any of the others were.

A few examples should suffice.

African-Americans in this country were often burned at the stake during slavery and Jim Crow. If you don’t think it was done in the name of Christianity, then read the words of the Confederate Vice President Alexander Stevens:

[T]he first government ever instituted upon the principles in strict conformity to nature, and the ordination of Providence, in furnishing the materials of human society … With us, all of the white race, however high or low, rich or poor, are equal in the eye of the law. Not so with the negro. Subordination is his place. He, by nature, or by the curse against Canaan, is fitted for that condition which he occupies in our system. The architect, in the construction of buildings, lays the foundation with the proper material-the granite; then comes the brick or the marble. The substratum of our society is made of the material fitted by nature for it, and by experience we know that it is best, not only for the superior, but for the inferior race, that it should be so.

It is, indeed, in conformity with the ordinance of the Creator. It is not for us to inquire into the wisdom of His ordinances, or to question them. For His own purposes, He has made one race to differ from another, as He has made “one star to differ from another star in glory.” The great objects of humanity are best attained when there is conformity to His laws and decrees, in the formation of governments as well as in all things else. Our confederacy is founded upon principles in strict conformity with these laws.

The charred body of Jesse Washington pictured above was in 1905 in Waco. The deaths of countless other African-Americans during Jim Crow by lynching, by the KKK (which always has a “Christian” front), occured. George Wallace invoked the name of God dozens of times in his 1963 inaugural  address where he also famously uttered the words, “Segregation now. . .segregation tomorrow. . .segregation forever.” 

The extreme Right-Wingers will tell you that the Crusades were wars of defense. Yet the arguable owners of that land were Palestinians and Jews. Muslims lay claim based on Muhammad. Yet Christians have no real claim certainly any greater than Jews or Muslims. All claim the area as holy.  Yet when the first Crusade ended, the city of Jerusalem was cleared of all non-Christians, and by cleared I mean murdered. Jews who barricaded themselves in their synagogues were burned to death and survivors sold into slavery. All told the Crusades occurred over about 200 years, ending in 1291 or so.

When Saladin recaptured Jerusalem, only then were Jews allowed to return and live in relative freedom.  This was in 1187, nearly a hundred years later.

They claim that the Inquisition was “political” as if that means something.

In fact the Inquisition was instituted by Pope Innocent III and set up by Pope Gregory IX. Confessors to heresy were burned alive. In 1242 the Talmud was condemned and burnings of Jews began in France in 1288. The Inquisition was begun in Spain for fear of “secret Jews” and the Conversos (those that had converted at pain of death in the first place and were suspected of retaining their true Judaic beliefs). In Seville alone more than 700 Jews were burned to death. By the time it ended in 1808, nearly 32,000 died by fire.

And the Inquisition was not just in Spain and France. It spread to Portugal and then to New World colonies and throughout Asia as well. 

We need not but mention the Troubles in Ireland in which religion was the division between sides. Or that of India/Pakistan again, where religion affiliation defined the sides.

It is not that religion perverts human souls, but that some small sick group humans use religion to perpetrate their own evils upon the world.

President Obama, in the hopes of tamping down the ugly nativism that is so beginning to plague this nation with its ugly hate, attempted to remind us that we all have blood upon our hands. ISIS is but the latest in a long line of evil people doing evil things in the name of their perverted version of God.

** Let me recommend Jeff Sharlet’s book The Family which documents the shady and weird folks behind the National Prayer Breakfast.

**Also a great read is Karen Armstrong’s Fields of Blood which argues that religion has played  a lesser role in most violence historically, however much it may have been the cover story. I’ve not read this but I’ve read others of hers and she is a uniquely qualified religious scholar who is highly respected for her scholarship. She was once a nun herself.

 

 

 

Whose Freedom?

Tags

1st Amendment, free speech, Paris

This whole Charlie Hebdo thing is pretty deep if you stop to think about it. Of course most don’t treat it as such. It has become a knee-jerk reaction for most. Jon Stewart pointed this out when he suggested that some countries who have championed free speech and press, actually arrest plenty of speech in their own countries.

We are all in danger, it seems to me, of being hypocrites, myself included. I confess right now that I have participated in at least two attempts to squelch the free speech of others when it came vile bigoted hate speech against the President.

It’s not nearly as easy an idea as it might appear to be.

A friend of mine posted a link to statements made by the Pope. He suggested that free speech must be protected, but that,   “You cannot insult the faith of others. You cannot make fun of the faith of others.” Francis did not expound on what should be the consequences of such inappropriate speech, but he warned that the attacks in Paris can fairly be expected from such talk.

I tend to disagree with Francis here, at least insofar as he claims that the ends justify the means. If he suggests that we should ban hate speech vis-a-vis religion if it would engender violence, then this leaves us under the thumb of every radicalized person about any issue he or she defines as “religious”. Where would it stop?

I am aware that all speech is not protected. As Oliver Wendell Holmes said in Schenck v. United States, 249 US 47 (1919), you are not free to yell fire in a crowded theatre. Forever after we have lived with the standard of “clear and present danger” as the bellwether of when speech crosses a line to incite lawlessness.

To succumb to the threat of violence if you “say those things” invites the standard (a difficult one at best) to be flipped to be defined by the one threatening the violence. I have no doubt that the Pope spoke in the general, and as he put it in a friendly manner not meant to be a papal statement of substance.

Yet, of course, those inclined to think little and shallowly about the subject go off the deep end. In the wake of the Paris shootings, Oxford University Press, certainly one of the more respected publishing houses in the world, announced that it would no longer use the words pig, sausage, or pork-related products in its children’s literature. This as a means to not offend Jewish and Muslim readers.

They have been not only roundly ridiculed for such a decision, but criticized as well by the reputable press.

In the post I cited at the beginning, one read the expected Christian whine, “The only ones we have to be kind to are the militant, extremist muslims who might behead us. All the other religions are fair game.” Such rhetoric is of course, both nonsensical and off point.

In fact the world community has stood up very clearly and said, as offensive as Charlie Hebdo is to most people at one time or another, they have he right to say what they wish about Muslims or anybody else for that matter. In a country that is overwhelmingly Christian, (Pew estimates that 78.4% of all Americans define themselves as Christian) it is predictable that the religious right will complain that it is a victim of persecution!

This all suggests that at least some of the Je suis Charlie is nothing more than acclamation that the “right” religion is being attacked. Should Charlie Hebdo attack, (as they of course have done and no doubt will continue to do) Christianity, these self-defined freedom proclaimers will be calling for Charlie’s head.

Some things it seems to me need to be cleared up.

Speech is speech, and unless it reaches the “clear and present danger” standard, ought under no circumstances be prohibited. Westboro Baptist must be allowed to spew it’s hate, as well as the KKK and various right-wing evangelicals and their “burn the Quran”. Atheists who call believers names fall into the category as well.

Speaking against a religion is not persecution of that religion. Persecution involves state action to suppress a religion because of its existence. That does not mean that it is right or to be championed. It is to be marched against, spoken against, and shunned in the most clear way. But it must not be prevented.

When we speak of “not offending” another religion, we are again talking about state action. It is improper to set up creches in public places such as town property, because that is the government speaking then. It is quite proper for a private establishment decorate as it wishes. This is I think where people get most confused.

When a store decides to use the phrase “happy holidays” they are not persecuting Christians, they are choosing to respect all their patrons, Christians and others as well. Similarly if a store chooses to say Merry Christmas or Happy Kwanzaa that is their choice as well.

While I see Oxford Press’s point, I think they have stepped over the line. Some attempts at political correctness are simply absurd. Small children have no clue the point being made, and who are really addressed are parents, who are surely capable of explaining to their young if they think it necessary.

We simply begin down a dangerous path when we start deciding that certain types of speech are not allowed. In Germany for instance, I believe it is still a crime to speak out in denial of the Holocaust. While there might have once been reason to do such a thing in the raw years immediately after WWII, I’m not sure it is still valid. Many countries have liberal prohibitions of speech that attacks the state. These too are wrong, as most of us would agree.

We must never forget that at one time, the most innocuous of things today was then blasphemous. People were arrested for speaking about all sorts of things that threatened the state (religious or secular) either directly or indirectly. We have come a long way, in most of the civilized world. If we resort to making it illegal to speak our minds about anything beyond what threatens life itself, we run the risk of turning backward down a path that leads to dictatorship, repression, and tyranny.

Those on the Right, who so vociferously espouse “our freedoms” should be the first in line to defend speech. But of course, they have are not. But then, true patriots reside elsewhere on the spectrum, as we all suspect.

 

Oh Say, Can You Hear Me Now?

Tags

corporations, hacking, privacy

Seriously, have I got this right?

First Sony’s emails get hacked and the bodies are strewn across America from sea to shining sea.

Then Sony produces a movie about Kim Jong Un and it  is cancelled because North Korea hacked into their system and threatens to pull out all their fingernails and toenails if they don’t.

I saw the interview with Seth Rogen on the Daily Show, and even I’m scared that they will come after me.

But Sony, what in the hell did you do in a previous life that is bringing down all this upon your corporate shoulders? I know the corporation is suffering, since the SCOTUS has explained to me that corporations are people too and can have religious opinions and political ones, so no doubt they can feel pain and fear as well.

Is this just karma?

Or is that blasphemous itself and really the great white beard in the sky getting back at Sony for some perceived failure to bring good Christian movies to the screen? I mean, I suppose THAT movie, The I N T E R V I E W, (that should confound any hacker), could be considered Christian, but then again, maybe not, since I have not seen it. But I must say that Seth Rogen, (who is an awful interview by the way with a horrid giggle that is super annoying) doesn’t strike me as someone you might see at the local Baptist Church, being Jewish first of all. Maybe it’s his Canadianishness that is the problem, though I don’t recall the Good Lord speaking about Canucks in the New Testament at least, though they maybe those Canaanites with just a spelling error.

By the way, why DO you think that God sports a beard? Did Gillette not get the franchise in heaven?

So anyway, let me just say a word or two about all the hoopla.

First, what possessed Sony to think it was a good idea to make a movie about assassinating a living person? I mean that is really the issue of first import here. I’d be the first to tell you I think His Special Imperialness Kimmy is a screw loose and on the run. Giving that man a nuke is probably not on anybody’s wish list. Still and all, he does qualify genetically speaking as a human being and as such has a right to not expect his very life is made sport of. His life may be supercilious to be sure, but still, it’s the only one he’s got (apparently).

I mean seriously folks, we make sport of crazy people all the time, and we make movies about them, but we call then Prince Crazypants of UZ-beki-beki-Uz-stan. We don’t call-em by name and country. Did Sony fear we couldn’t figure it out?

All would not have happened had they just called him “Jim”.

Beyond that, well, opinions are rampant on both issues. Fear reigns supreme at the present. Sony is “corporately speaking” hiding in the closet, George Clooney is asking why everybody is being such a lady part and having no manly parts? And most normal people go about their business and don’t have much of an opinion, unless it has to do with somehow it being Obama’s fault and therefore a nuke delicately placed up Kimmy’s arse is the ONLY proper response.

Which all begs the second issue, personal chit.

Sony’s other issue deals with hackers who exposed a lot of emails between Sony personnel. They were as you might expect, rather unkind to some people and made jokes at others expense.

What’s new?

I mean that seriously.

We live in a time when the government can hack our phones and listen to our conversations. Corporations regularly have their credit card banks violated. Facebook and my computer monitors everywhere I go, and everyone I talk to, and presents me with “other things I might like”.

While it might be fruitful to make some acts criminal, and a lot more actionable as “violations of privacy”, they cannot be termed unexpected by any sane person any more. They are business as usual.

Whether the government should listen in, it will or somebody else will. And like the rung bell, it cannot be unrung now. The same people who work for the government work for themselves and rogue governments and will do it anyway. If there is a means to profit, people will do it. That has always been the case, and will always be the case.

The fact is, that really smart people choose to do criminal things for either more money, or more thrill. You can’t change that, and so you pretty much gotta live accordingly.

Big brother is watching and so is big sister, and big daddy and mommy.

It’s no use lamenting that fact or pining for the good old days (as we have pointed out, they had plenty enough of their own problems whether you remember or not).  Don’t write down what you don’t want published across public domains. Simple as that. Save your salacious remarks for in-person conversations and check your lunch dates for wires (okay that may be too far).  PS: microphones of any kind are a tell-tale sign that what you say may be heard by OTHERS.

If you are like me, I pretty much don’t care what you know about me, though I would rather you didn’t have my credit card numbers. But I gave up information just a week ago and had to cancel a card and change my passwords, because I acted before thinking it through and was taken in by a website that looked perfectly legit yet on second thought, made no sense. It’s part of life, and with each episode you learn a bit more how to protect yourself.

So, let the media rant and rave about all this business of hacking. Some day, people will find it so normal that we won’t talk of it any more. It will undoubtedly spur new technology to develop “zones” of privacy which will then be the subject of new hacking efforts. And we shall survive it, and on to another level we go.

That’s my take on all this stuff. Sony, I know this will embarrass you, but dude, you were just stupid. Do you feel the pain?