I've wondered about Rodin's famous sculpture. Is he engaged in deep thought or sitting around wasting time? And why isn't he wearing pants? I ask the same of myself. Here we comment on well, mostly politics. Or we may just sit! If you like it, tell a friend. If not, tell us, but please read the GROUND RULES before you do.
Tomorrow, on the hallowed site of one of the great moments and speeches in American history, Dr. Martin Luther King’s I Have A Dream speech at the Lincoln Memorial, Glenn Beck and his sick minions will perpetrate a deliberate travesty on the American people and admirers of Dr. King’s eternal legacy of peace and social justice. Glenn Beck and his sick minions will perpetrate their scheme with extreme prejudice and malice aforethought.
Beck called President Obama “a racist,” then today embellished his hate speech with the bizarre claim that the President is moved by a “liberation theology” in which he sees the United States of America, of which he is president, as “the enemy.” Strictly speaking, liberation theology is “a movement in Christian theology which construes the teachings of Jesus Christ in terms of a liberation from unjust economic, political, or social conditions.” It has its origins in the Roman Catholic Church of the 50s and 60s in Latin America. By the 1980s, as democracy swept the military regimes aside and a conservative Pope emerged to lead the Church, the movement died out. Conservative detractors labeled it Marxist, but it was no more so than Martin Luther King’s civil disobedience and lifelong struggle for social justice and civil rights.
More important, there is no evidence whatsoever that President Obama was even aware of, much less subscribed to, liberation theology. This is the problem with the teabaggers and their paranoid fantasies about our President. He cannot be a Christian and a Muslim at the same time; or a socialist and a Nazi; nor can he belong to the black church evangelical tradition and be a Catholic too. When is enough ENOUGH hounding this man about his religion and birthright. These questions have been answered more fully than by most recent presidential candidates. Answer this, sick teabaggers: What is John McCain’s religion? Reagan’s? George H.W. Bush’s? George W. Bush’s? Sarah Palin’s? GLENN BECK’s?
This is only the latest outrageous insanity from a deeply disturbed individual who is running out of offensive and hateful things to say about Barack Obama. Unlike a majority of Americans, Beck’s sick followers harbor a negative view of the President by 87% to 7%. Those seven percent almost certainly represent the misguided individuals who have legitimate grievances that aren’t expressions of hatred and bigotry toward one dark-skinned man and entire groups of people. President Obama has always been Glenn Beck’s personal obsession. In his book The Promise, about President Obama’s first year in office, Jonathan Alter wrote of how the President approached questions of personal identity:
While he was determined they would not shape his presidency, “that hardly meant he ignored his racial heritage. In his first week as president he found a bust of Martin Luther King near a landing in the East Wing and put it in the Oval Office. A framed flier from the 1963 March on Washington that had hung in his Senate office also went near his desk, amid other relics of American history with no connection to race.”
So there’s the connection. It’s personal and deceitful. Glenn Beck LIED when he claimed to be unaware of the date’s significance, not only to President Obama but to millions of Americans. In fact, this is how the huckster Beck described the purpose of his rally:
“We are the inheritors and the protectors of the Civil Rights Movement. They are perverting it. We are on the right side of history, we are on the side of individual freedoms and liberties and damn it, we will reclaim the Civil Rights Movement. We will take that movement because we were the people that did it in the first place.”
HISTORY REALITY CHECK:
From the Boston Tea Party (from which Beck’s disturbed followers take their rabble’s name) to 1865 –
MILLIONS OF AFRICAN AMERICANS WERE IN CHAINS AND SHACKLES IN THIS COUNTRY. THEY WERE SLAVES. THEY WERE OWNED BY WHITE PEOPLE. SLAVERY WAS THE CAUSE OF THE CIVIL WAR, AND MORE THAN 600 THOUSAND LIVES WERE LOST TO FREE THE SLAVES.
IT TOOK NEARLY 100 YEARS FOR AFRICAN AMERICANS TO REALIZE THE FULL PANOPLY OF RIGHTS THAT WHITE AMERICAN MALES HAVE TAKEN FOR GRANTED FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE REPUBLIC. IT WAS PASSAGE OF THE CIVIL RIGHTS ACT OF 1964 THAT GAVE AFRICAN AMERICANS FULL RIGHTS OF CITIZENSHIP UNDER THE CONSTITUTION. IT WAS A DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENT, LYNDON JOHNSON WHO SIGNED THE ACT INTO LAW AFTER IT HAD BEEN PROPOSED BY PRESIDENT JOHN KENNEDY BEFORE HIS ASSASSINATION.
THE FINAL VOTE FOR THE CIVIL RIGHTS ACT OF 1964, BY PARTY, WAS:
199 DEMOCRATS IN THE HOUSE AND SENATE v. 163 REPUBLICANS CAST THEIR VOTES FOR THE CIVIL RIGHTS ACT OF 1964. THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY PROUDLY OWNS THIS HISTORIC LEGISLATION, WITH AN ASSIST FROM MOSTLY MODERATE (AND EVEN SOME LIBERAL) REPUBLICANS.
So where does this GUTTERSNIPE SCUMBAG BECK come off spouting THE OBSCENE WORDS QUOTED ABOVE -- IT’S A RHETORICAL QUESTION.
Glenn Beck is a genuinely disturbed individual. Or, as they say, ONE SICK MOTHER.
St. Louis Cardinals superstar Albert Pujols is going to bat for Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin.
The three-time NL MVP is joining his manager, Tony LaRussa, at the “Restore Honor” rally organized in Washington, D.C., Saturday, the St. Louis Dispatch reported.
“I made it clear when we were approached: I said, ‘If it’s political, I wouldn’t even approach Albert with it.’ I don't want to be there if it’s political,” La Russa told the newspaper.
For those who do not follow baseball, Albert Pujols is the best all-round player in the game today, one of the greatest sluggers in baseball history, and a shoo-in for the Hall of Fame. Pujols is also a black Latino man. One has to wonder: Was Pujols in some kind of bubble, unaware of Beck’s daily racist rants against the President, Latino immigrants, poor blacks, and the unemployed? If so, he’s still got time to reconsider and pull out of the event. He should not lend his considerable prestige to validate what is clearly a political event.
If, on the other hand, Pujols is going into this with eyes wide open, then he will add another record to his name, completing the unholy wingnut trinity with Curt Schilling and Roger Clemens. As for Tony LaRussa, it’s automatic that a dude who conceals his eyes behind aviator shades by day and by night, is a right winger. Good on Rick Chandler, calling them out.
One could expect most of the Yankees to show up at this kind of event. But Pujols’ presence at Beck’s trashing of Dr. Martin Luther King’s memory is surprising. And sad.
This is dedicated to the Teabaggers -- If you like this and recognize the bigotry in your ranks, you might possibly avoid GOING STRAIGHT TO HELL! Los Lobos in 1987:
Given the rabid rants/electoral calculations of GOP politicians revolving around the planned Islamic community center blocks from Ground Zero in New York City, it’s fitting that Texas congressman and perennial presidential candidate Ron Paul becomes the first (and only –- taking bets) national Republican figure to condemn the “grandiose demagoguery” of GOP opponent(s) of the so-called mosque. In geopolitical terms, as a NYT columnist somewhat noted recently, the ironies abound:
We have sacrificed more than 4,000 American lives to “liberate” one Islamic nation (that did not attack us on 9/11) and formed alliances with another to wage perpetual war against the 100 or so in-country Al Quaeda terrorists (that attacked us on 9/11) and its more robust threat, the Taliban (that did not attack us but together with our nuclear armed ally, Pakistan –- the most populous Islamic nation in the region -- gives Al Quaeda continuous safe haven, although our as-yet non-nuclear armed enemy Iran, does not) as we pretend the corrupt administration of our ally, drug-dealing Afghan President Hamid Karzai, is not disturbingly similar to Diem’s in South Vietnam c. 1963, while trying to put out burgeoning terrorist threats in neighboring Yemen (and distant Somalia; the global reach of terrorism) that could have been better contained with a regional balance of power rather than a chaotic power vacuum –- but that’s another story.
Tarnished U.S. Image A Terrorist Recruiting Tool?
Meanwhile, the man sitting in a Cairo café in Egypt (our ally, hence recipient of large chunk of U.S. foreign aid in the service of that elusive regional stability shattered by our invasion of ally-turned-enemy-turned-ally, Iraq) wonders whether it’s safe to travel in the U.S. when the moderate Imam who once called himself a Jew and traveled the region under Bush State Department auspices to promote friendship and understanding between Islam and the West is under siege by angry mobs in America. The Imam’s American crime is proposing to develop a community center near Ground Zero to serve a community of Muslim Americans that just happens to live within walking distance. The center will have quintessentially American basketball courts and a gym and cafeteria, with two floors out of 13 set aside for prayer. If New York City -- where days ago a cabbie was attacked by a drunken crazed Islamophobe -- isn’t safe for a Muslim, what part of the country is?
“Not to worry,” says the Cairo café man’s friend, who is traveled in the U.S. and a student of America’s schizoid culture. “It is an election year in America” and “George Bush’s party is out of power for two years,” he adds with a knowing finger wag. “Ah…” With a shrug of understanding the relieved Cairo café man takes a sip of his strong coffee. Perhaps it is safe for his son to study in American university, after all.
Newt Gingrich Exploits Fault Lines and Conspiracist History
As much as Ron Paul’s libertarian principles are offended by “how the right to own property also protects the 1st Amendment rights of assembly and religion,” the “grandstanding” and “grandiose” demagogue of his blistering statement aptly describes one, and only one, GOP presidential candidate: Newt Gingrich.
Gingrich is not one to let a crisis go to waste; or rather, he will not waste an opportunity to gin-up a crisis for personal political gain. The faux controversy, initially created out of whole cloth by a wingnut Islamophobic blogger, soon went viral once Fox and parts of the MSM picked it up. Republicans swiftly seized on what they perceived as a juicy wedge issue plum for November. It’s not as if they have a governing plan other than oppose the President and his party. Gingrich, who had been making presidential noises for some time, jumped in with both feet.
It was vintage Newt, from the demagogic exploitation of the issue to his strained historical revisionism linking the center’s proposed name, Cordoba, to “radical Islamic triumphalism” ascribed to the Moor conquest/occupation of the Iberian peninsula in 711. Gingrich is apparently concerned that “radical Islamists” plan to set up a new 800-year Caliphate on American soil, with New York City as its capital, renamed New Cordoba. To assuage Gingrich’s paranoid historical fantasies, the center’s planners have renamed it the Park 51 Center. What could be a more benignly American name, right? Right?
Understandably unfamiliar with the Republican Tea Party’s history-as-a-paranoid conspiracy sources (Alex Jones, Dan Brown, the Knights Templar, Turner Diaries, Coast-to-Coast AM) the center’s planners failed to account for the Arab numeral “51” in the center’s RE-name. AREA 51, anyone … need I say more? Or perhaps these Illuminatti Numeratti were familiar with the hidden meaning of the Arab numeral “51” all along? (Cue spooky conspiracy soundtrack.) This may seem over the top … until one delves into the weird sources and beliefs of Tea Party extremists.
Gingrich compared the misnamed “Ground Zero mosque” to placing a “Nazi sign next to the Holocaust Museum” and branded the moderate community center planners “radical Islamists.” Republicans either parroted Gingrich or signaled their acquiescence in this madness with their silence. Which, in a way, is worse.
Undeterred by widespread criticism outside the right wing fringe, Gingrich persisted in throwing more rhetorical bombs, accusing President Obama of “pandering to radical Islam.” He whipped up the GOP wingnut base into Islamophobic hysterics, then rested to survey the damage: ugly demonstrations at Ground Zero in which a black man with a tight-fitting cap was confused for a Muslim –- he was not –- and jostled by a white mob; teabaggers in California pledging to show up at a Muslim prayer with dogs; opposition to mosques across the country and growing hate crime threats to life and property of Muslim Americans.
Ron Paul to the Rescue, Or GOP Eruption?
When Ron Paul finally spoke out, the loquacious Newt windbag was uncharacteristically mute. The eccentric libertarian Paul, whose loyal followers believe reason in politics trumps charisma, is usually mild-mannered and measured in his criticisms. Paul could no longer hold back his revulsion with the NeoCons in the GOP, Gingrich chief among them, “who demand continual war in the Middle East and Central Asia and are compelled [with the “mosque” controversy] to constantly justify it.” Even blood wasn’t thicker than NeoCon Kool-Aid: “Ayn” Rand Paul added one more to his “run the other way” list -- microphones, cameras, reporters … and now, his daddy.
High principle aside, Ron Paul must have been royally pissed to violate Ronald Reagan’s “Eleventh Commandment: Thou shalt not speak ill of another Republican.” In a sense, Newt Gingrich’s flatulent bloviations did us all a favor, exposing the GOP’s dirty laundry. With the likely prospect of facing Newt and Sister Sarah in another quixotic presidential bid (who’s the Don and Sancho Panza in this matchup?), Ron Paul served notice he will not be a GOP talking point on-message drone this November. Not generally known for self-control or rhetorical discipline, Newt for his part must have had a talking-to behind the shed from the person(s) who will have something to say politically and financially about his fortunes as a future presidential candidate. ‘Cool it,’ they told him, ‘this thing could get out of hand for Republicans.’ Sure enough, Gingrich cancelled without further comment his attendance at a protest of the proposed “mosque” in lower Manhattan on the anniversary of 9/11.
‘Cain’t Nobody Here Lead This Party?’
What the Paul-Gingrich spat has revealed is a leadership crisis within the GOP/Tea Party. GOP movers and shakers (its leadership in exile), embarassed that Rush Limbaugh is widely viewed as the real leader of the Republican Party, are scrambling madly to find a suitable alternative Party leader without Palin’s high negatives among independents, RNC Chairman Michael Steele’s buffoonery, or Ron Paul’s blasphemous dovinshness and secular sacrilege. The face of the “Tea Party” is extremist: Sharron Angle, Rand Paul, Ken Buck, Marco Rubio. The face behind the “Tea Party” is corporate and sinister: Dick Armey, the Kock brothers, fake doctors, white supremacists:
Almost by default, John Boehner was coaxed away from the links to give a “major address.” The dour, robotic Boehner was clearly not ready for prime time. A creation of his corporate donor base, the former Republican back bencher was once caught distributing tobacco industry checks on the House floor. In this Q&A with Meet The Press and Fox (Chris Wallace decides to be a journalist), Boehner is incapable of answering a simple question: Will the GOP pay for extending the Bush tax cuts for the rich?:
That this moron without a plan or a clue would be Speaker if Republicans take over the House should be enough to give most rational fence-sitting voters pause. The Republicans cannot expect to sit on a lead, like Dewey did when he defeated Truman, or win somethin’ for nothin’. When November rolls around, it will inevitably come down to a choice for voters. And not only will Democrats look a lot better then, but they will also turn out, confounding the fat analyst with the Justin Bieber haircut.
Churchill’s Way Out
The tragic irony of America’s Byzantine history in the Middle East is that we have sacrificed dearly in blood and treasure to encourage moderate Islam to fight and defeat its radical terrorist fringe. The U.S. has propped up a corrupt Afghan regime with military might and bales of billions tossed into a black hole with Swiss bank destinations. Meanwhile on the home front, jingoistic bigots supportive of the war effort -- as long as it involves killing lots of “bad guys”-- project an image of intolerance and Islamophobia aimed precisely at one instrument of America’s outreach to moderate Islamic hearts and minds, the now infamous “Ground Zero mosque” Imam.
When Winston Churchill famously said of the former Soviet Union –-
“I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma: but perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest.”
-- He could not have predicted our so-called “Af-Pak policy” or schizophrenic history in the region, although its outlines were hinted at during his time, when Britain was a world empire. Substitute “Russia” with “Iraq, Afghanistan, or Pakistan” and “Russian” with “U.S.” and a way out of the quagmire is suddenly revealed. If we are wise enough to define what is and is not in our national interest.
Sunday on Meet The Press, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell refused to lay to rest speculation that President Obama is a secret Muslim. Said Senator McConnell, “The President says he’s a Christian, I take him at his word.” McConnell’s equivocation did not escape Stephen Colbert: “Just like when Mitch McConnell says he’s not a human turtle hybrid, I take him at his word.”
But he added, “And it’s not easy … I have a strong desire to feed this man lettuce and raw hamburger!” We report, you decide:
… Or do you pretend like he’s a weird, eccentric uncle? The kind you only trot out on Thanksgiving … No, but that’s Pat Buchanan. Hmm … Rachel, I think you’ll have to adopt another “fake uncle”…
Is anyone really that surprised by the salmonella outbreak triggering the largest egg recall in the nation’s history? Not me, which is why I pay a little more for eggs from naturally raised, uncaged breeding hens. We are the only Western nation that packs hens so tightly into battery cages they “cannot flap their wings, nest, perch, bathe, or perform any natural behavior other than egg production. Their excrement piles up on the floor inches below their feet. While still chicks, their beaks are blunted on a metal wheel, or chopped off entirely to prevent them from pecking each other to pieces out of panic and frustration. Some chicks are kept for breeding, and often unwanted male chicks are ground up alive.”
All of this, of course, in the name of the Almighty Dollar and corporate profits. As reported, this recall could have been averted were the regulations proposed ten years ago by the FDA adopted sooner and not blunted by the Bush administration, leaving people like this to his own deregulatory devices, in charge of the nation’s food supply. Meanwhile, in those evil socialist countries of the European Union, battery cage confinement for hens has been banned in several countries and will be phased out completely by 2012. And we are slowly poisoning our children, compromising their immune systems, with growth hormones and antibiotics fed to our food supply -- cattle, pigs, dairy, hens, fish -- in huge corporate farms under horribly cruel conditions.
Not to speak of all the food we import from completely unregulated countries: China with its recent outbreak of tainted powdered milk and, of course, high concentration of lead in toys for America’s kids. And how about food and weight loss supplements -- Does anyone read labels carefully? The Bush FDA couldn’t even police food and drug safety within our borders; its clueless Consumer Product Safety Commission director did not know what to do with adequate funding; how was it expected to check the safety of Chinese imports?
While the CPSC struggled to keep up with its workload last year, President Bush requested an increase in its fiscal 2008 budget of $550,000 -- an amount so small it would have forced the agency to cut another 19 staffers. Congress approved a hike from $63 million to $80 million.
The Bush legacy of defunding the FDA, the CPSC, gutting safety inspections farmed out to state subcontractors, a virtual deregulation insanity, including lax oversight over the food and pharmaceutical industries -- Well ... its chickens are coming home to roost.
But wait! We’re not even talking about coal mining (Rand Paul says federal safety regulations are not needed) and the BP Gulf oil catastrophe.
YEP. THE BODIES JUST KEEP PILING UP. YOU GO, TEABAGGERS!
ATTN: TEABAGGERS (at least the RATBASTARDS who aren’t in D.C. tomorrow spitting on the memory of Dr. King; or the SCUMSUCKERS taking pit bulls to break up an Islamic prayer session) –- Can you answer the question with a concrete example?
of you have sat, and perhaps thought, with us!