-- Santino Anel, a student in the south Sudanese capital of Juba, celebrating the region's near unanimous vote to declare independence from the northImagine having schools, no fear, no war. Imagine feeling like any other people in their own country.
-- Phil Angelides, chairman of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, discussing at a press conference the first official government review of the causes of the 2008 economic crisisWe conclude first and foremost that this crisis was avoidable.
Look, I don't begrudge her that benefit at all. It's just ironic (and really sad) that she begrudged it for other people.Ayn Rand was not only a schlock novelist, she was also the progenitor of a sweeping “moral philosophy” that justifies the privilege of the wealthy and demonizes not only the slothful, undeserving poor but the lackluster middle-classes as well.
Her books provided wide-ranging parables of "parasites," "looters" and "moochers" using the levers of government to steal the fruits of her heroes' labor. In the real world, however, Rand herself received Social Security payments and Medicare benefits under the name of Ann O'Connor (her husband was Frank O'Connor).
As Michael Ford of Xavier University's Center for the Study of the American Dream wrote, “In the end, Miss Rand was a hypocrite but she could never be faulted for failing to act in her own self-interest.”
Her ideas about government intervention in some idealized pristine marketplace serve as the basis for so much of the conservative rhetoric we see today. “The reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand,” said Paul Ryan, the GOP's young budget star at a D.C. event honoring the author. On another occasion, he proclaimed, “Rand makes the best case for the morality of democratic capitalism.”
Most of the examples listed include videos which only add to the inspiration.5-year-old Phoebe Russell needed to complete a community service project before she could graduate from kindergarten. Uninterested in a lemonade stand, she saw a homeless man begging for food and decided to raise $1,000 for the San Francisco Food Bank. Her teacher tried to lower expectations to something more reasonable, but Phoebe’s heartwarming appeal to leave soda cans and donations at the school snowballed. Before she knew it, Phoebe had raised $3,736.30– the equivalent of 17,800 heated meals.
And here's another snippet:For the next hour, we begin with the president of the United States addressing the nation and calling for a massive investment in this country's infrastructure, rebuffing the idea of giant tax breaks for the richest Americans, and warning anyone who would dare touch Social Security to keep their hands off.
You want to talk about red meat for the base? Listen to some of the language the president used. "Workers have a right to organize into unions and to bargain collectively with their employers. And a strong, free labor movement is an invigorating and necessary part of our industrial society." Wow.
How about this one? "Only a fool would try to deprive working men and women of their right to join the union of their choice."
Listen to the way he goes after the right here. "Should any political party attempt to abolish Social Security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things, but their number is negligible and"--and the president says--"their number is negligible and they are stupid."
That is not what Barack Obama said [Tuesday] night. That is way to the left of any national Democrat at this point. That was all Republican President Dwight David Eisenhower. That was all the stuff he said when he was president.
The rest is worth reading. Definitely.But the whole of American politics has shifted so far to the right in the last 50 years that what used to be thought of as conservative, what used to be thought of as a conservative position, is now considered to be off-the-charts lefty.
It's from the Democracy for America organization. You can sign a petition to keep Social Security safe right here.Either House Majority Leader Eric Cantor doesn't understand how Social Security works or he doesn't care.
Just hours after President Obama said that Social Security cuts and privatization are off the table, Cantor said that Social Security had to be cut to balance the budget. But here's the thing: Social Security does not and never has added a single dime to the federal deficit.
Let me try to explain this to Mr. Cantor. Social Security is paid for through the payroll tax. Currently, the payroll tax raises way more money than Social Security pays out and things are projected to keep going this way for another couple of decades.
The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? They add to the deficit. Tax breaks for billionaires? They add to the deficit. Subsidies for big oil? They add to the deficit. Bailing out Mr. Cantor's friends on Wall Street when they make a bunch of shady deals, cause a financial crisis and almost ruin the world economy? That adds a lot to the deficit.
Simply put, Social Security will run a surplus for decades. The rest of the budget runs a deficit. So, why are we even talking about Social Security?
-- Nancy La Vigne, director of the Justice Policy Center at the Urban Institute, on state programs that help ex-convicts find jobs. (Source: The New York Times)An exorbitant amount of money is dedicated to incarcerating people. There are ways you can go about reducing the number of people incarcerated. The best way to help them successfully integrate into society and become independent, law-abiding citizens is to make sure they get a job.
Words fail me at this point.Today on a local radio show, freshman Rep. Renee Ellmers (R-NC) — a fierce opponent of the new health care law — said that she will participate in the government plan because, otherwise, it’s too “expensive.” “Unfortunately, being here in Washington is very expensive,” Ellmers said, who is set to make $174,000 this year. “Yes we do have a salary and we do have benefits. It costs a lot of money to be here. I’ve signed on to the private plan, just like so many in America are on. The benefit is available to me. People need to understand out there it costs a lot money to be here in Congress.”
Troubling. Yes, indeed, it's troubling.The troubling message to progressives is that they remain essentially orphans when it comes to having their political interests addressed by any corporate news outlet. While the Right has built its own vast media infrastructure – reaching from newspapers, magazines and books to radio, TV and the Internet – the Left generally has treated media as a low priority.
-- Michel Jarraud, secretary-general of the World Meteorological Organization, which determined that last year was the hottest on record, though statistically identical to the almost equally hot 1998 and 2005The 2010 data confirm the earth's significant, long-term warming trend.
It's from an article by Rick Ungar entitled "Congress Passes Socialized Medicine and Mandates Health Insurance -In 1798".In July of 1798, Congress passed – and President John Adams signed -“An Act for the Relief of Sick and Disabled Seamen.” The law authorized the creation of a government operated marine hospital service and mandated that privately employed sailors be required to purchase health care insurance.
Keep in mind that the 5th Congress did not really need to struggle over the intentions of the drafters of the Constitutions in creating this Act as many of its members were the drafters of the Constitution.
And when the Bill came to the desk of President John Adams for signature, I think it’s safe to assume that the man in that chair had a pretty good grasp on what the framers had in mind.
Do, please, click on through and read about the details. It's not a very long piece.Clearly, the nation’s founders serving in the 5th Congress, and there were many of them, believed that mandated health insurance coverage was permitted within the limits established by our Constitution.
The moral to the story is that the political right-wing has to stop pretending they have the blessings of the Founding Fathers as their excuse to oppose whatever this president has to offer.
Wonder if the president realizes this?A new New York Times/CBS News poll finds that Americans are staunchly opposed to cutting entitlement programs. The poll finds that two-thirds of Americans would prefer hiking payroll taxes to cutting Social Security or Medicare, and that the majority of Americans “by a large margin” would rather cut spending on the Pentagon.
So let us begin anew -- remembering on both sides that civility is not a sign of weakness, and sincerity is always subject to proof. Let us never negotiate out of fear, but let us never fear to negotiate. Let both sides explore what problems unite us instead of belaboring those problems which divide us.
- John F. Kennedy's inaugural address, January 20, 1961
Hat tip to Watertiger at Dependable Renegade.
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UPDATE: You might like to click through and read the column by Eugene Robinson entitled "Palin’s Egocentric Umbrage". I particularly like the way it gets started:
In the spirit of civil discourse, I’d like to humbly suggest that Sarah Palin please consider being quiet for a while. Perhaps a great while.
Perhaps, indeed.
~~~
I found it right here.A new USA Today/Gallup poll shows Sarah Palin's favorable rating has dropped to 38%, her lowest since just after bursting onto the national scene as Sen. John McCain's running mate in 2008. In the wake of controversy over her response to the Tucson shooting, her unfavorable rating hit a new high at 53%.
The eight reasons are, of course, listed and explained.To many of us, a world where no one goes hungry, where there is no unemployment, where people are happy and they have spacious homes and lots of leisure time seems like fantasy. But it's not a fantasy for Helena Norberg-Hodge -- she saw it firsthand in the tiny Himalayan region ofLadakh, a remote mountain community that borders Tibet.
During the course of 35 years there, she also saw what happened when Ladakh was suddenly thrown open to the outside world in the 1970s and subsidized roads brought subsidized goods to the region. The local economy was undermined, the cultural fabric was torn apart.
Unemployment, pollution and divisiveness emerged for the first time.
"This was Ladakh's introduction to globalization," says Norberg-Hodge. The "story of Ladakh can shed light on the root causes of the crises now facing the planet."
Look, there are a lot of Republicans (heck, probably most Republicans) who wouldn't dare say such a thing.I disagree with many of the president's policies, but I believe he is a patriot sincerely intent on using his time in office to advance our country's cause. I reject accusations that his policies and beliefs make him unworthy to lead America or opposed to its founding ideals. And I reject accusations that Americans who vigorously oppose his policies are less intelligent, compassionate or just than those who support them.
-- John McCain
I, Mary Fallin, do solemnly swear, that I will support, obey, and offend, the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the state of Oklahoma...
-- Lois Chedsey, secretary to the Arizona Arms Association, of the Crossroads of the West gun show, which will be held this weekend 13 miles from the site of the Jan. 8 shooting in TucsonWe had no hesitation about going ahead with the show so soon after the incident.
The article gets started this way:The shooting in Tucson was not an anomaly. It was an inevitability, and as long as we play this foolish game of "both sides are just as bad," it will be inevitable again.
Then, one example after another is offered from Glen Beck to Ann Coulter to Bill O'Reilly and on and on. Then this conclusion:Both sides are, in fact, not "just as bad," when it comes to institutionally sanctioned violent and eliminationist rhetoric.
An anonymous commenter at Daily Kos and the last Republican vice presidential nominee are not equivalent, no matter how many ridiculously irresponsible members of the media would have us believe otherwise.
There is, demonstrably, no leftist equivalent to Sarah Palin, former veep candidate and presumed future presidential candidate, who uses gun imagery (rifle sights) and language ("Don't Retreat, RELOAD") to exhort her followers to action.
The article is by Melissa McEwan. I recommed it. The comments too.And as long as we continue to play this foolish game of "both sides are just as bad," and rely on trusty old ablism to dismiss Jared Lee Loughner as a crackpot—dutifully ignoring that people with mental illness are more likely to be victims of violence than perpetrators; carefully pretending that the existence of people with mental illness who are potentially dangerous somehow absolves us of responsibility for violent rhetoric, as opposed to serving to underline precisely why it's irresponsible—it will be inevitable again.
Yeah. That's it.A conservative is someone who maintains that health care is not a fundamental right, but gun ownership is.
Here's a comment I found elsewhere on Common Dreams:Echoing the new battle cry of the right, Sarah Palin has come out of hiding to accuse those who suggest over-the-top rhetoric and a volatile political climate might offer some explanation of Saturday's gun rampage in Arizona of manufacturing a “blood libel” against her.
Desperate to defend herself after being called out for placing the crosshairs of a rifle over the home district of a congresswoman, who was then the victim of an assassination attempt, the former governor of Alaska scrubbed her website of the offending imagery and then portrayed herself as the victim. To describe her predicament, Palin used a term for false and aggressively anti-Semitic claims that Jews murder children as part of religious rituals.
The wounded congresswoman, Arizona Democrat Gabrielle Giffords, is Jewish.
Exactly.Anyone care to guess what the rightwingers would be saying if it were some liberal website showing Sarah Palin and their other heroes in the 'crosshairs'-- then Palin was gunned down?
There's more. It's passionate. It's good. And, I would assert, Pitt is right.I'm talking to you, "mainstream" media people, who created this atmosphere of desperate rage and total paranoia out of whole cloth because of your unstoppable adoration for spectacle, and ratings, and because the companies that own your sorry asses agree with the deranged cretins you helped make so famous and powerful. It was sickeningly amusing on Sunday to watch Wolf Blitzer bluster and bluff on CNN about how the media owns no responsibility for this disaster. It was like watching a ten-year-old try to explain how a lamp got broken while he was running through the living room, but no, it wasn't him. It was, in reality, a pathetic display...but that is what you generally get whenever Wolf is on your screen.
"Mainstream" news personalities like David Gergen and John King bent over backwards warning people not to blame Sarah Palin and her ilk for this calamity. It was a sick man who did this, they said. Bollocks to that. I hate to break this to the "mainstream" media know-betters, but words matter. When people like Palin spray the airwaves with calls to violence and incantations of imminent doom, people like Loughner are listening, and prepared to act. The "mainstream" media lets it fly without any questions or rebuttal, because it's good for ratings, and here we are. Words matter. Play Russian Roulette long enough, and someone inevitably winds up dead.
...
And yes, I'm talking to you, Sarah Palin, you unutterably disgusting fraud. You pulled it off your ridiculous website, but it's out there: you put cross-hairs - literally, cross-hairs - on Rep. Giffords, you blithered about "reloading" instead of "retreating," and you made this country more stupid and violent with every breath you took. Well, congratulations, you failure, you quitter, you inciter of mobs. You put the cross-hairs on her, and someone finally pulled the trigger. Run from it all you like, Lady MacBeth, but this blood will never be washed from your hands.
I'm talking to you, Sharron Angle, you walking punch-line, who talked about "Second Amendment remedies" being necessary if you didn't get your way on health care reform during your failed Senate campaign.
We are so riddled with hypocrisy in this country.If a Detroit Muslim put a map on the web w/crosshairs on 20 pols, then 1 of them got shot, where would he b sitting right now? Just asking.
Word is this thing is going viral even though Palin had it scrubbed from her website immediately after Gifford was shot.
~~~
UPDATE: Oh, my goodness. Here's what one commenter over on Democratic Underground said:
"Hey, Sarah. How's that hatey, killy, reloady, chrosshairsy thing working out for ya?"
~~~
UPDATE 2: It turns out that out of the twenty members of congress targeted in the list above, only two of them (Gabrielle Giffords being one) were returned to office after the mid-term elections. The other is Nick J. Rahall II (D, WV). I would imagine he's pretty nervous these days.
~~~
The entire piece is entitled "Words Have Consequences" and it's by Gary Hart.Gradually, over time, political rhetoric used by politicians and the media has become more inflamatory. The degree to which violent words and phrases are considered commonplace is striking. Candidates are "targeted". An opponent is "in the crosshairs". Liberals have to be"eliminated". Opponents are "enemies". This kind of language eminates largely from those who claim to defend American democracy against those who would destroy it, who are evil, and who want to "take away our freedoms".
Today we have seen the results of this rhetoric. Those with a megaphone, whether provided by public office or a media outlet, have responsibilities. They cannot avoid the consequences of their blatant efforts to inflame, anger, and outrage. We all know that there are unstable and potentially dangerous people among us. To repeatedly appeal to their basest instincts is to invite and welcome their predictable violence.
On the off chance you don't know what's happening, go here.When you look at unbalanced people, how they respond to the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government. The anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous. And, unfortunately, Arizona I think has become sort of the Capital. We have become the Mecca for prejudice and bigotry.
-- Sheriff Clarence Dupnik of Pima County Arizona
-- Nancy Pelosi, the outgoing Democratic Speaker of the House, on the possibility of working with the Republicans on issues affecting the middle class; GOP leader John Boehner officially became the new Speaker on WednesdayWhere we cannot find common ground, we must stand our ground.
This is also happening in Brazil and in New Zealand and in Maryland.They have dead birds falling from the skies (twice in the last week) in Arkansas. They have dead birds in Louisiana and Kentucky too. And in Chile. And now in Sweden.
Shortly before midnight on Tuesday, residents found 50 to 100 jackdaws on a street in Falköping southeast of Skövde. The incident echoed a number of unexplained incidents earlier this week across the southern US.
It's in an email I got this morning from the folks at Sojourners Magazine.Blacks and whites use drugs at about the same rate, yet African Americans are 10 times more likely to be imprisoned for drug offenses. This is the unbalanced and inhumane effect of America’s “war on drugs” -- a dirty secret that nobody wants to talk about. The discriminatory treatment of minority drug users has been virtually ignored by the media, politicians, and the rest of us.
The price of freedom is to allow freedom. Very few people are willing to pay the price.
Some other important points are made as well.And economists have found not only that unemployment tends to increase the rate of suicide, but that the loss of unemployment insurance actually has a stronger impact on an individual's likelihood of committing suicide than the loss of a job does.
Click on the link and go on over to the article for a brief and wonderfully clear explanation of the science involved.There were two silent calls, followed by a message left on my voicemail. She had a soft, gentle voice and a mid-Wales accent. "You are a liar, Mr Monbiot. You and James Hansen and all your lying colleagues. I'm going to make you pay back the money my son gave to your causes. It's minus 18C and my pipes have frozen. You liar. Is this your global warming?" She's not going to like the answer, and nor are you. It may be yes.
There is now strong evidence to suggest that the unusually cold winters of the last two years in the UK are the result of heating elsewhere.
...
According to Nasa's datasets, the world has just experienced the warmest January to November period since the global record began, 131 years ago; 2010 looks likely to be either the hottest or the equal hottest year. This November was the warmest on record.
