The South certainly doesn't have a monopoly on racism, but it is particularly venomous there. From The Guardian 1/4/10:

The US secret service is investigating an apparent effigy of Barack Obama hung from a storefront in Georgia. Local television news showed what appeared to be a black doll at the end of a noose on the main road in Plains, home of Jimmy Carter, the former Democratic president, Georgia governor and Nobel peace prize winner.

Witnesses said the doll bore a sign with Obama's name. The effigy was quickly removed by the fire department after it was discovered on Saturday.

This is sadly familiar. It isn't that uncommon for racists in the South to leave nooses hanging from trees to try to intimidate African Americans. One of those African Americans was Barack Obama before he was President.

In October 2008 two students in Kentucky hung an effigy of Obama in what they called a Halloween prank. They were arrested, but charges were later dropped.

Hanging politicians in effigy is nothing new, nor is it limited to any one region or country. But, there is a qualitative difference when the politician is not white and the location is the South. It's not just because of that region's racist past, but it also is because of the South's racist present.

If you look at substantive policy, you would think that rightists would be tremendously relieved by the Obama Administration. He has offered continuity over change at almost every turn. The only possible explanation for the rabid, unthinking hatred of President Obama by the right in this country is racism.

 

Photo: Pretty Poo Eater

I'm not leaving myself out of this one.

Us Americans allow ourselves to get panicked over terrorism to the point that I'm sure there are people in other countries laughing at us. What our media and politicians define as terrorism has killed fewer Americans in the last decade than automobile crashes kill in a month in our country. You would have to include de facto terrorism like opposing gun control to get numbers anywhere near the nearly 40,000 annual auto fatalities.

Here's some information from the Centers for Disease Control on the leading causes of death in the US in 2006.

Number of deaths for leading causes of death:

* Heart disease: 631,636
* Cancer: 559,888
* Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 137,119
* Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 124,583
* Accidents (unintentional injuries): 121,599
* Diabetes: 72,449
* Alzheimer's disease: 72,432
* Influenza and Pneumonia: 56,326
* Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis: 45,344
* Septicemia: 34,234

We have allowed the politicians and the corporate media to work our country into a frenzy over something that is highly unlikely to kill us. A major cause of many of the deaths listed above is obesity, yet we aren't pushed to be in a state of constant fear of being overweight, which threatens Americans far more than Al Qaeda.

Terrorism is a significant problem, but it isn't one of our biggest ones as a country. Whenever we read, see, or hear news on terrorism, we need to take a deep breath and restore our sense of perspective.

 

The Democrats performance on queer issues in 2009 wasn't that great. The one really good thing they did was to finally pass hate crimes legislation that included sexual orientation, gender, and disability. The rest was not so good. No other LGBT civil rights issue has even reached Obama's desk.

President Obama's record, aside from signing the hate crimes statute, was not too great either. His involvement of Rick Warren in the inauguration was viciously homphobic and misogynist and showed a lack of interest in dealing with the threat of Christian religious extremism to this country. Aside from minor things here and there, Obama tended to avoid the subject of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Americans whenever he thought he could get away with it.

Casting a huge shadow over all of this is ENDA, the Employment Non Discrimination Act. ENDA is, by far, the most important queer civil rights issue, and it is long overdue. We've been trying to get Congress to pass legislation banning employment discrimination against us literally for decades. We should have gotten that from the Democrats when they had the White House and both houses of Congress in 1993 and 1994.

The 2009 National Equality March and restiveness in the blogs got the Democrats to take action on hate crimes, but all we've gotten on ENDA is talk. I'm getting sick and tired of this crap. Here's text from a 12/3/09 email Sen. Schumer's office sent me in response to my email last year trying to get action taken.

Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon introduced ENDA in August and I proudly joined him as an original cosponsor. The legislation has attracted broad bipartisan support in both chambers of Congress, and I am hopeful that it will be brought to the Senate Floor for a vote by the end of the year. Senator Tom Harkin, the new Chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pension Committee, has expressed his intention to hold a hearing on ENDA in the near future, which would be an important step towards passing this much-needed bill.

It's 2010, and it hasn't even passed the House yet, which is supposedly easier. The Senate has held hearings on ENDA, but they still haven't voted on it.

What really worries me is that the Democrats will try to use the fact that 2010 is an election year to put off our basic rights as human beings even longer. If they don't stop screwing with us, we will lose interest in the Democrats in 2010 they same way we did in 1994. Remember what happened to the Democrats in 1994?

 

Here's a 12/13/09 Press Release from Rep. Dennis Kucinich's office that is encouraging and educational. (I know it's a bit old, but it is important enough to mention even now.)

Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) released the following statement:

“This holiday shopping season, consumers have the choice of using credit cards that don’t take away their legal rights. Until now, all major banks have required their customers – through provisions hidden in the fine print of credit card agreements -- to give up their constitutional right to their day in court. Those agreements have required customers to settle their disputes through a process called arbitration. In July, the House Domestic Policy Subcommittee, of which I am the Chairman, held a hearing in which we showed that mandatory arbitration is arbitrary, and that results depend more on the arbitrator to whom the case is assigned than on the facts or the law that applies.

“Since that hearing, my staff has been communicating with all the major banks, and today I can announce that six of those banks will not have arbitration clauses in their new credit card agreements. Those banks are JPMorganChase, CapitalOne, PNC Bank, TD Bank, Bank of America and Regions Bank. I want to congratulate those banks for their decisions.

“I particularly want to congratulate JPMorganChase and CapitalOne. Those two banks will be issuing new credit card agreements that also allow their customers the right to a jury trial and the right to participate in a class action. I strongly encourage the other banks to follow their lead.

“For the first time in years, you can choose what credit card to use by considering all its terms—interest rate, minimum payment, fees, rewards, and whether it requires you to give up your right to use the courts that our state and federal Constitutions have created for you.”

WTF Are Arbitration Clauses and Why Should I Care?
Arbitration clauses, which are part of most credit card agreements, force you to go to arbitration instead of going to court if you have a dispute with the bank that has your credit card. Arbitration is different than mediation. In mediation, someone without enforcement powers tries to come up with an agreement that both sides can live with. If it doesn't work, the dispute can be settled in court.

Arbitrators, in the kind of binding arbitration in the credit card clauses, can try to mediate at first. However, if the parties don't reach an agreement, arbitrators also have the power and responsibility to enforce a resolution that cannot be appealed in court except under extraordinary circumstances. Binding arbitration is weighted heavily in favor of the credit card holders for a couple of reasons.

1) The banks deal with arbitration and arbitrators all the time. The individual consumer doesn't. That means they can use their knowledge and experience to select arbitrators who are more favorable to them.

2) Arbitrators know about item 1. So, if they want much business, they have to be favorable to the corporations.

These kinds of binding arbitration clauses are not limited to credit card agreements. HMOs and health insurers often use them to their advantage too.

Arbitration clauses sound boring and harmless, but their impacts can be anything but.

 

Our troops in Iraq are still being forced to kill the Iraqis because Big Oil, the mercenary corporations, and the arms merchants are making so much money off of it. Speaking of mercenaries, we still have over 100,000 mercenaries in that country.

With healthcare, Global Warming, the Great Recession, and the War in Afghanistan, it is easy for people to be overwhelmed and overlook the Iraq War, coverage of which is largely censored by corporate media these days. Yet, the occupation and war against the Iraqi people are making all of those problems worse, while unleashing terror, devastation, and death in that country.

CODEPINK has done some great protests over the years against this insane war. I thought running some of the photos from their actions would be a good way to catch your eyes. (All photos are used with permission.)


Photo Page


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In case you forgot why we are in Iraq:

Photo Page

The Iraqi people are depending on us to not forget them and to keep trying to stop the war.

 

The decision of far right Alabama Congressmember Parker Griffith to admit to the fact that he is a Republican, not a Democrat, is being hailed as a victory for the GOP, typical of the far right bias that permeates corporate media outlets.

Some Democrats are upset, but I'm delighted. When batshit crazy Republicans like Griffith lie and say they are Democrats, they end up diverting money, volunteer time, and votes that should be going to Real Democrats. When they push the congressional agenda towards their hard GOP line, they alienate Democratic voters and Democratic leaning independents. Having nutjobs like Griffith in the Democratic caucus has the overall effect of costing the Democratic Party more seats overall and making the party largely irrelevant to middle class and poor Americans.

I hope this hateful jerk will take corrupt nutjobs like Lieberbush, Nelson, and Baucus with him. This country needs two distinct political parties, not two tentacles of the same Gopper beast.

Photo: Nemo's great uncle

 

Photo: Mat Honan

Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) is a fabulous organization that challenges one of my blog's biggest pet peeves, rightist bias in the corporate media. They do wonderful work, and I encourage you to follow their work and support it.

It's the end of the year, and people are giving out awards, so FAIR is giving out the 2009 P.U.-Litzer Awards, acknowledging the crappy reporting that discourages intelligent people from buying newspapers and news magazines and causes people to avoid cable "news" networks. Here's the contents of their 12/22/09 press release announcing these not prestigious awards.

For 17 years our colleagues Jeff Cohen and Norman Solomon have worked with FAIR to present the P.U.-Litzers, a year-end review of some of the stinkiest examples of corporate media malfeasance, spin and just plain outrageousness.

Starting this year, FAIR has the somewhat dubious honor of reviewing the nominees and selecting the winners. It's a dirty job, but someone has to do it. So, without further ado, we present the 2009 P.U.-Litzers.

--The Remembering Reagan Award
WINNER: Joe Klein, Time

Time columnist Joe Klein (12/3/09), not altogether impressed by Obama's announcement of a troop escalation in Afghanistan, wrote that a president "must lead the charge--passionately and, yes, with a touch of anger."

He described the better way to do this:

Ronald Reagan would have done it differently. He would have told a story. It might not have been a true story, but it would have had resonance. He might have found, or created, a grieving spouse--a young investment banker whose wife had died in the World Trade Center--who enlisted immediately after the attacks...and then gave his life, heroically, defending a school for girls in Kandahar. Reagan would have inspired tears, outrage, passion, a rush to recruiting centers across the nation.

Ah, Reagan--now there was a president who could inspire people to fight and die based on lies.

--The Cheney 2012 Award
WINNER: Jon Meacham, Newsweek

Newsweek editor Jon Meacham declared (12/7/09) that Dick Cheney running for president in 2012 would be "good for the Republicans and good for the country." He explained that "Cheney is a man of conviction, has a record on which he can be judged, and whatever the result, there could be no ambiguity about the will of the people.... A campaign would also give us an occasion that history denied us in 2008: an opportunity to adjudicate the George W. Bush years in a direct way."

While the 2008 election might have seemed a sufficient judgment of the Bush years, it's worth pointing out that at beginning of the year (1/19/09), Meacham was adamantly opposed to re-hashing Cheney's record, calling it "the rough equivalent of pornography--briefly engaging, perhaps, but utterly predictable and finally repetitive." The difference? That was in response to the idea that Cheney should be held accountable for lawbreaking. Apparently a few months later, the same record is grounds for a White House run.

--The Them Not Us Award
WINNER: Martin Fackler, New York Times

The New York Times (11/21/09) describes the severe problems with Japan's elite media--a horror show where "reporters from major news media outlets are stationed inside government offices and enjoy close, constant access to officials. The system has long been criticized as antidemocratic by both foreign and Japanese analysts, who charge that it has produced a relatively spineless press that feels more accountable to its official sources than to the public. In their apparent reluctance to criticize the government, the critics say, the news media fail to serve as an effective check on authority."

The mind reels.

--Thin-Skinned Pundits Award
WINNER: Dana Milbank, Washington Post

Washington Post reporters Dana Milbank and Chris Cilizza got into trouble when, in an episode of their "Mouthpiece Theater" web video series, they suggested brands of beer that would be appropriate for various politicians. What would Hillary Clinton drink? Apparently something called "Mad Bitch." The video, unsurprisingly, was roundly criticized, and was pulled from the Post site. So what lesson was learned? Milbank complained (8/6/09) that "it's a brutal world out there in the blogosphere.... I'm often surprised by the ferocity out there, but I probably shouldn't be."

Yes, the problem with calling someone a "bitch" is the "ferocity" of your critics.

--The Sheer O'Reillyness Award
WINNER: Bill O'Reilly, Fox News Channel--TWICE!

1) Asked by a Canadian viewer, "Has anyone noticed that life expectancy in Canada under our health system is higher than the USA?," Fox's O'Reilly (7/27/09) responded: "Well, that's to be expected, Peter, because we have 10 times as many people as you do. That translates to 10 times as many accidents, crimes, down the line."

2) Drumming up fear of Democrats' tax plans: "Nancy Pelosi and her far-left crew want to raise the top federal tax rate to 45 percent. That's not capitalism. That's Fidel Castro stuff, confiscating wages that people honestly earn."

Perhaps Castro was president of the United States in 1982-86, when the top rate was 50 percent. Or maybe all of the 1970s, when it was 70 percent. Or from 1950-63, when it was 91 percent.

--The Less Talk, More Bombs Award
WINNER: David Broder, Washington Post

Post columnist Broder expressed the conventional wisdom on Barack Obama's deliberations on the Afghanistan War, writing under the headline "Enough Afghan Debate" (11/15/09):

It is evident from the length of this deliberative process and from the flood of leaks that have emerged from Kabul and Washington that the perfect course of action does not exist. Given that reality, the urgent necessity is to make a decision--whether or not it is right.

--The Racism Is Dead Award
WINNER: Richard Cohen, Washington Post

Post columnist Richard Cohen wrote (5/5/09): "The justification for affirmative action gets weaker and weaker. Maybe once it was possible to argue that some innocent people had to suffer in the name of progress, but a glance at the White House strongly suggests that things have changed. For most Americans, race has become supremely irrelevant. Everyone knows this. Every poll shows this."

For the record, "every poll" does not actually show this; the vast majority of Americans continues to recognize that racism is still a problem. Cohen went on to write months later--still presumably living in his racism-free world--that he did not believe Iran's claims about its nuclear program, because "these Persians lie like a rug."

--The When in Doubt, Talk to the Boss Award
WINNER: Matt Lauer, NBC News

Today show host Lauer announced a special guest on April 15: "If you really want to know how the economy is affecting the average American, he's the guy to talk to." Who was Lauer talking about? Wal-Mart CEO Mike Duke. The ensuing interview touched on the Employee Free Choice Act, which Lauer noted was supported by many unions but opposed by some large corporations--leading him to ask Duke, "What's the truth?" Yes, look for "the truth" about a proposed pro-labor bill from the new CEO of an adamantly anti-labor corporation.

--The Socialist Menace Award
WINNER: Michael Freedman, Newsweek

Newsweek's "We Are All Socialists Now" cover (2/16/09) certainly turned heads, but one of the stories inside explained in more detail the real threat. As senior editor Michael Freedman asked: "Have you noticed that Barack Obama sounds more like the president of France every day?"

The real problem, though, is what that's going to do to us Americans, says Freedman: "If job numbers continue to look dismal, or get even worse, an ever-greater number of people will start looking to the government for support.... It's very easy to imagine a chorus of former American individualists demanding cushy French-style pensions and free British-style healthcare if their private stock funds fail to recover and unemployment inches upward toward 10 percent and remains there."

Pensions and healthcare for all--this is worse than we thought!

--The Iraq All Over Again Award
WINNER: Too Many to Name

After the invasion of Iraq, countless journalists who had treated allegations about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction as facts were embarrassed when there were no such weapons to be found. So you'd think they'd be more careful about thinly sourced claims that Iran is seeking nuclear weapons. But in 2009, many journalists are still willing to treat such allegations as facts.
-NBC's Chris Matthews (10/4/09): "As if Afghanistan were not enough, now there's Iran's move to get nuclear weapons."
-NBC's David Gregory (10/4/09). "Iran--will talks push that country to give up its nuclear weapons program?"


-Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly (9/25/09): "All hell breaking loose as a new nuclear weapons facility is discovered in Iran, proving the mullahs have been lying for years.... Iran's nuclear weapons program has now reached critical mass. And worldwide conflict is very possible. Friday, President Obama, British Prime Minister Brown and French President Sarkozy revealed a secret nuclear weapons facility located inside Iran."

Some even went further, turning allegations of a nuclear weapons program into the discovery of actual nuclear weapons:

-ABC's Good Morning America host Bill Weir (9/26/09): "President Obama and a united front of world leaders charge Iran with secretly building nuclear weapons."

--The Talking Like a Terrorist Award
WINNER: Thomas Friedman, New York Times

In a January 14 column, New York Times superstar pundit Tom Friedman explained Israel's war on Lebanon as an attempt to "educate" the enemy by killing civilians: The Israeli strategy was to "inflict substantial property damage and collateral casualties on Lebanon at large. It was not pretty, but it was logical." Friedman added, "The only long-term source of deterrence was to exact enough pain on the civilians--the families and employers of the militants--to restrain Hezbollah in the future." That strategy of targeting civilians to advance a political agenda is usually known as terrorism; Osama bin Laden couldn't have explained it much better.

--The It Only Bothers Us Now Award
WINNER: Wall Street Journal editorial page

When Barack Obama only called on journalists from a list during a press conference, the Wall Street Journal did not like the new protocol (2/12/09):"We doubt that President Bush, who was notorious for being parsimonious with follow-ups, would have gotten away with prescreening his interlocutors."

Actually, Bush was famous for calling only on reporters on an approved list; as he joked at a press conference on the eve of the Iraq War (3/6/03), "This is scripted."

--The No Comment Award
WINNERS: MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski and Rush Limbaugh

When asked by Politico (10/16/09) to name her favorite guest, MSNBC host Mika Brzezinski named arch-conservative Pat Buchanan "because he says what we are all thinking."

Rush Limbaugh on Obama (Fox News Channel, 1/21/09): "We are being told that we have to hope he succeeds, that we have to bend over, grab the ankles...because his father was black."

The last award strongly suggests that Limbaugh really, really needs to get laid. I don't volunteer to help him.

 

Firedog Lake Action is calling for the Senate wealthcare bill to be killed. The HMOs and health insurers have pulled out every bit of meaningful reform from the alleged "healthcare reform" bill, leaving a cesspool of GOP style corruption in its place.

Their Action Alert talks about some of the things the legislation would actually do.

1. Forces you to pay up to 8% of your income to private insurance corporations -- whether you want to or not.
2. If you refuse to buy the insurance, you'll have to pay penalties of up to 2% of your annual income to the IRS.
3. After being forced to pay thousands in premiums for junk insurance, you can still be on the hook for up to $11,900 a year in out-of-pocket medical expenses.
4. Massive restriction on a woman's right to choose, designed to trigger a challenge to Roe v. Wade in the Supreme Court.
5. Paid for by taxes on the middle class insurance plan you have right now through your employer, causing them to cut back benefits and increase co-pays.
6. Many of the taxes to pay for the bill start now, but most Americans won't see any benefits -- like an end to discrimination against those with preexisting conditions -- until 2014 when the program begins.
7. Allows insurance companies to charge people who are older 300% more than others.
8. Grants monopolies to drug companies that will keep generic versions of expensive biotech drugs from ever coming to market.
9. No reimportation of prescription drugs, which would save consumers $100 billion over 10 years.
10. The cost of medical care will continue to rise, and insurance premiums for a family of four will rise an average of $1000 a year -- meaning in 10 years, you family's insurance premium will be $10,000 more annually than it is right now.

I also have pointed out that the mandates and fines in the bill will lead to astronomical increases in health insurance premiums and HMO fees which will go beyond even those discussed in point #10.

Republican opposition to this bill is as fake as anything on the WWE. The only reason they keep trying to filibuster it is to give rightist Phonycrats like Max Baucus, Joe Lieberbush, and Ben Nelson the leverage they need to force any trace of reform out of the bill.

Please Take Action to Stop This Monstrous Legislation!

Photo: Muffett

From Democracy Now! 12/22/09:

Health Insurance Stocks Soar in Value

Wall Street has reacted favorably to the Senate bill. Stock prices of health insurance companies have been soaring since October 27, when independent Senator Joe Lieberman announced that he would filibuster any healthcare reform bill that included a public option. Since then, the stock value of CIGNA has jumped 29 percent; Aetna, 27 percent; UnitedHealth, over 20 percent; and Humana, almost 14 percent. During that same period, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has risen by just over two percent.

This is Wall St.'s verdict on whose interests are being served by this legislation, and it sure ain't yours and mine.

 

One of the aspects of healthcare "reform" that is particularly dangerous is the existence of "mandates." In plain English, this will result in huge fines for people who can't afford astronomical health insurance premiums or HMO fees.

I lived in California when a state law was passed mandating auto insurance. It sounded like a good idea at the time, but it had a terrible result: enormous increases in car insurance premiums. Now, it was sold to the public as something which would cut premiums by getting uninsured drivers on the rolls, but rates went up anyway. Why?

Auto insurance premiums are not related much to costs at all. Insurance companies could cut them drastically and still provide the crappy coverage they give, while making a fair profit. What really sets the rates is what the market will bear. When it was illegal to drive without insurance, people couldn't walk away, and the insurance companies hiked their rates.

The same thing will happen with health insurance and HMO mandates. It already costs the HMOs and health insurers a whole lot less money to provide the services they do. If you make it mandatory to be one of their customers, they will jack up the rates big time. In California, the health insurers manufactured a phony "insurance crisis" to cover their tracks. It wouldn't be at all surprising if they did the same thing on a national scale with healthcare reform.

In the real world, nothing will ever reform the bahavior of the corporations opposing the public option. The only real solution to the healthcare problem is to get rid of the HMOs and health insurers. The public option is a good first step, and that's why corrupt politicians who are bought and paid for by those deadly corporations are fighting it so hard. Any healthcare bill that doesn't include at least the option for public health insurance is not a reform bill. It is a dangerous step backwards.

Ultimately, we need single payer. Any politician that opposes single payer is saying that she or he couldn't care less whether or not you live or die.

 

Photo: trrpngirl

Yes, that really is a cement mixer covered with Xmas lights.

Global Warming should be changing behavior more than it is. One example is they way certain pagan traditions are being applied to the pagan holiday of Christmas. The idea of cutting down trees when we need as many trees as possible to fight climate change is crazy.

Then, there is the whole problem of Xmas lights. Who knows how much CO2 goes into our atmosphere because people not only use these things, but many people light them as much as a month or more. You get entire neighborhoods where suburbanites compete on how much energy they can waste in ostentatious and ghastly displays.

Should we put entire countries like the Maldives under water just for Xmas lights? Do we really want to put part of NYC underwater for Xmas lights?

I know this will be tough for some people, but it really is time for decorations that don't use energy, and cutting down trees gratuitously is insane.