The whole teabagging thing started as an astroturf scam by corporate interests trying to block government provided healthcare. However, an actual grassroots movement sprouted from these poisonous seeds, and the corporate masters were losing control. Teabaggers were expressing their own opinions, many of which were unflattering to Wall St. That wouldn't be tolerated for long.

Thus, there should be no sense of surprise that the big teabagger convention was set up to be an exclusionary event. They made people travel long distances, pay for hotel rooms, and pay conference fees during the Great Recession to participate. This wasn't just based on a greedy desire to make a profit. It was even more about a desire to keep the riffraff out.

This gathering of wealthy teabaggers and paid right establishment professionals was quite controversial in the teabagging community. Many middle class members felt that their movement was being taken over, even though it was never really their movement (or a real movement) to begin with. That brings us to the Wasillan Gone Wild: Sarah Palin. Palin was happy to side with the wealthy and corporate interests who rewarded her with $100,000 after she made a speech criticizing Obama for sometimes using a teleprompter while reading notes scribbled on her hand.

Of course, Ms. Palin is hardly the only rightist nutjob joining the GOP's wealthy owners in lashing out at the marginally independent parts of the teabagging mob. Glenn Beck has joined in on the fun, attacking teabagging Texas GOP candidate Debra Medina for comments which may suggest she accepts alternatives to the official 911 narrative. This is ironic for two reasons.

1) Glenn Beck loves, loves, loves conspiracy theories.

2) The official explanation of 911 is a conspiracy theory.

But, this isn't about 911. It's about wealthy and corporate interests trying to reassert control over their own astroturf movement. And, it isn't stopping there.

Redstate.com, a far right blog, was founded by Ben Domenech, whose father is Secretary of Natural Resources for the state of Virginia, and Joshua Treviño, who now runs a PR firm for wealthy and corporate interests. Yet, that blog pretends to be a grassroots venture. They have joined in on the crackdown against independent teabaggers by banning birthers and 911 truthers. The blog even called the birthers "birfers" in order to build their street cred among semi literate Republicans.

The birthers were encoraged wildly by corporate interests and their media. Now that they have outlived their usefulness, they same interests are trying to silence their suckers.

Grassroots folks who have gotten themselves involved in the whole teabagging mess should learn an important lesson from all of this. The wealthy and corporate interests that buy the far right "ideology" you are being fed hold the teabaggers in utter contempt. That goes double for bought politicians like Sarah Palin.

Sarah Palin may have gotten involved with Alaska secessionists, and she did throw red meat to the Texas secessionists at the recent Rick Perry rally, but she doesn't care about any of this. All she cares about is herself.

Middle class Americans who are sick of being screwed over have only one real option: the left grassroots. Middle class people on the right can continue to feed their prejudices, or they can start working to feed themselves and their families.

Photos: cornexo

Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

 

I'm already afraid...of the Cheneys. (Hat Tip: The Joshua Blog)



The organization behind this, Human Rights First, did a good job of satirizing the constant state of fear that rightist and corporate interests want us all to be in. They have a petition to close Gitmo.

 

Photo: Alessio85

For years, I've wondered why Roman Catholics don't demand that Ratzi resign as their pope. But, then again, I'm still trying to figure out why they don't go after the Cardinals and Archbishops who protect child raping priests too.

From The Freethinker 2/12/03:

THE Catholic Church has become mired down in yet another child abuse scandal – this time in Pope Ratzinger’s native Germany.

The widening public scandal began last month with allegations that three priests at the elite Canisius Jesuit high school in Berlin had sexually abused students in the 1970s and ’80s.

In the midst of a steadily growing uproar over the handling of that case, German magazine Der Spiegel published an article last weekend that said nearly 100 clerics and laypeople had been suspected of abusing children and teenagers nationwide since 1995.

According to this report, the rector of Aloisiuskolleg, a high school in Bad Godesberg – an affluent neighbourhood in the former capital of Bonn where diplomats and leading politicians lived – this week resigned over accusations that he was aware of sexual misconduct by teachers at the school.

Many of the cases now coming to light are unlikely to be prosecuted because the statute of limitations requires crimes to be reported within 10 years of the victim’s 18th birthday.

The last paragraph is sadly typical. Priestly child molestation generally isn't even addressed by law enforcement or the media until it's too late to prosecute. Meanwhile, priests continue to rape Catholic kids, and nothing is being done to protect the victims.

I remember reading rightist Catholics from Europe, and some from here in the US, acting like the rampant rape of Catholic children by the Roman Catholic clergy was an "American problem." Some commentators here in the US tried to blame molestation by a nutty rightist clergy on liberals. The facts don't support this kind of denial.

These latest revelations also makes Ratzi's ranting against the UK's queer equality laws even more bizarre. Even without his efforts to protect priests who rape kids, this quote from The Guardian would be bizarre.

"The effect of some of the legislation designed to achieve this goal [of equality] has been to impose unjust limitations on the freedom of religious communities to act in accordance with their beliefs. In some respects it actually violates the natural law upon which the equality of all human beings is grounded and by which it is guaranteed."

Under the last pontiff, Ratzi was in charge of a variety of policies one of which included the effort to protect child molesting priests, a policy that goes on to this very day. The far right's meme of "natural law" always has been suspect, given how far it is astray from biological evidence or even basic logic, but Ratzi has taken things to ridiculous extremes.

Only a true psychopath would think that raping kids is OK under "natural law," but sex among consenting adults of the same gender is not.

His Oppressiveness then goes on to demand that Roman Catholic priests in Britain must meddle in politics, using time and energy that should be used protect Catholic children there from being raped by many within their ranks.

"Continue to insist upon your right to participate in national debate through respectful dialogue with other elements in society. In doing so, you are not only maintaining long-standing British traditions of ­freedom of expression and honest exchange of opinion, but are giving voice to the convictions of many people who lack the means to express them: when so many of the population claim to be Christian, how could anyone dispute the gospel's right to be heard?" he said.

"If the full saving message of Christ is to be presented effectively and convincingly to the world, the Catholic community in your country needs to speak with a united voice. This requires not only you, the bishops, but also priests, teachers, catechists, writers – in short, all who are engaged in the task of communicating the gospel – to be attentive to the promptings of the spirit, who guides the whole church into the truth, gathers her into unity and inspires her with missionary zeal."

Ratzi really is a monster. He makes his celebrity doppelganger, the evil Emperor from Star Wars, seem like a real softy. There simply isn't any way that an honest person can call this pontiff a "moral leader."

 

Image: Colin Purrington

I missed posting yesterday about Darwin Day, which honors the most important figure in the history of Biology. Darwin took a discipline which was more like coin collecting than science and gave it an analytical framework that made coherent sense out of a multitude of observations.

Our society is experiencing evolution in ways that many of us haven't considered. For instance, the development of antibiotic resistant bacteria is exactly what one would expect from the perspective of evolutionary biology.

Yet, Christian religious extremists still refuse to accept the fact evolution has happened and continues to happen to this very day. The anti intellectualism and hostility towards science among these people is only matched by the right's unwillingness to accept scientific fact about Global Warming. People think that they can just form opinions contrary to facts, and that will make those facts go away. People who wouldn't accept the scientific verdict on cigarette smoking far too often paid with their lives. Will people ever learn?

Here's a description of Darwin Day from the official site:

A Global Celebration

Darwin Day is an international celebration of science and humanity held on or around February 12, the day that Charles Darwin was born on in 1809. Specifically, it celebrates the discoveries and life of Charles Darwin -- the man who first described biological evolution via natural selection with scientific rigor. More generally, Darwin Day expresses gratitude for the enormous benefits that scientific knowledge, acquired through human curiosity and ingenuity, has contributed to the advancement of humanity.

The International Darwin Day Foundation website provides resources and publicity for individuals and institutions across the world to celebrate science and humanity every year, on, or near, February 12, Darwin's birthday. In addition to information about the life and legacy of Charles Darwin, this website provides practical examples, advice and templates for organizing and publicizing Darwin Day events. It also provides a directory of events where you can find celebrations taking place near you or register your own event for others to find.

Recognizing science as an international language accessible to all individuals and societies, the International Darwin Day Foundation provides a new global holiday that transcends separate nationalities and cultures. Darwin Day can be celebrated in many different ways: civic ceremonies with official proclamations, educational symposia, birthday parties, art shows, book discussions, lobby days, games, protests, and dinner parties. Organizers may include: academic societies, science organizations, freethought groups, religious congregations, libraries, museums, galleries, teachers and students, families and friends. In Darwin Day, we are able to recognize the diversity among us, while celebrating our common humanity and the universal understanding we share.

 

Corporate interests are never satisfied with the level of butt kissing they get from politicians. Ben Nelson, the "Democratic" Senator from Nebraska is a perfect example. He has sabotaged healthcare reform, opposed even weak legislation to reduce Global Warming, and now he's gone to extremes to pander to anti union corporate and wealthy interests. From the AFL-CIO Now blog 2/12/10 (bolding mine):

Earlier this week, Republicans proved the lesson we all learned in school, “the majority rules,” doesn’t apply to the U.S. Senate. With every single Republican vote and two from defecting Democrats (see below), Republicans sustained a filibuster against Craig Becker’s nomination to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

After the vote, President Obama cited the filibuster against Becker and Republican holds on more than 60 of his nominees and said he would consider using recess appointment strategy to break the stranglehold the Republican minority has put on the nominees.

...

Those two defecting Democrats who supported the filibuster were Ben Nelson (Neb.) and Blanche Lincoln (Ark.). Give them a call and tell them how disappointed you are that they turned their backs back on working families. Nelson’s office phone is 202-224-4842 and Lincoln’s is 202-224-6551.

The Goppers don't like Becker because he was a lawyer for SEIU. They say that makes him "biased." There have been plenty of people on the NLRB who have worked in management positions at corporations, yet the Goppers never said that they were "biased."

You would think that the sleazy corporate interests opposing Becker would be grateful to Nelson, but nooooooooooooooooo.... They actually are attacking them.

The "National Right to Work Committee" (got to love the name) is a lobbying/PR group for wealthy and corporate interests that focuses on denying Americans the right to form and join unions. Even when Nelson went on a major butt kissing mission, they still started running attack ads against him in Nebraska on the Employee Free Choice Act, which would make it tougher for employers to intimidate workers into not organizing unions. Here is how the special interests reward "Democrats" who suck up to them.



Democrats should learn a lesson from this. Corporations and the wealthy people who own them are partisan Republicans who will never be satisfied no matter how much pandering they get. The only way for Democrats to keep their majority is to start representing the overwhelming majority of Americans who are middle class and poor.

 

(Illustration: Jared Rodriguez / t r u t h o u t)

Image paired with the story:
Howard Zinn: A Public Intellectual Who Mattered

The great historian Howard Zinn may be gone, but his amazing legacy remains. Here are two wonderful quotes from him that should inspire liberal and progressive activists at the worst of times (or the best).

"The lesson of that history is that you must not despair, that if you are right, and you persist, things will change. The government will try to deceive the people, and the newspapers and television may do the same, but the truth has a way of coming out. The truth has a power greater than a hundred lies. My hope is that you will not be content to be successful in the way our society measures success; that you will not obey the rules, when the rules are unjust; that you will act out the courage that I know is in you."

- Howard Zinn - Address to Spelman College, 2005


"to engage in whatever nonviolent actions appeal to us. There is no act too small, no act too bold. The history of social change is the history of millions of actions, small and large, coming together at critical points to create a power that governments cannot suppress. We find ourselves today at one of those critical points."

- Howard Zinn

I think the part about "no act too small" is really important. It is easy to get discouraged because you are only one person, and, separately, your actions may not make that big of a difference. Remember, you are part of a large community of activists, bloggers, and others who are doing all sorts of things to achieve the same goals. Be happy to be a part through what you are doing, and try to do a little more.

 

The Indiana Daily Student ran an excellent commentary last month by Zach Ammerman supporting ENDA, the Employment Non Discrimination Act. The author opens with a way of discussing the issue in human terms.

In 29 states (including Indiana), it is completely legal to fire someone or deny them employment entirely because they are gay or transgendered.

Your employer could literally say, “You are a great employee, but I am firing you anyway because I don’t like gay people,” and the employee could do absolutely nothing to fight the unfair termination of his or her employment.

There is simply no reason or excuse for the Employee Non-Discrimination Act not to be passed at the national level.

Opponents of ENDA usually focus on Bible thumping. Some misguided supporters of ENDA try to thump back, which isn't such a smart strategy. Religious beliefs are the main reasons people are homophobic, so debating on the basis of religion has the unintended effect of helping ENDA opponents.

Arguing ENDA in human terms is much more powerful. There really are no humane, people based arguments that work against ENDA. We should lead from our strengths.

Ammerman makes two other excellent points.

Polls have consistently shown that a majority of Americans support these protections, and a large number of local and state initiatives to protect gays from workplace discrimination have passed at the ballot box. Congressional politicians have nothing to fear but the unrestrained bigotry of religious leaders like Pat Robertson.

While our country is caught in the middle of one of the worst unemployment crises in nearly a century, every job lost unnecessarily to bigotry is one job too many. If President Obama and leaders in Congress truly care about decreasing unemployment and keeping their campaign promises to pass ENDA, they should pass ENDA now.

If you live in a state or city with employment discrimination protections, you may think you are safe. However, there's a catch. If your employer relocates to a place without such legislation in effect, you've lost your protections. Also, if you get laid off, you may have to accept a job somewhere other than where you live. The latter is an especially important consideration in this economy.

The queer community needs to keep focusing on ENDA. The corporate media don't want to talk about it because ENDA regulates the behavior of corporations, but it is the most important piece of LGBT legislation in terms of the numbers of queers affected and the level of impact employment on peoples' lives.

Carolyn Beeler also has a commentary on the NPR website which argues that if the military ban can be lifted, then ENDA should be passed too.

Out And Equal: Move 'Don't Ask' Beyond The Military

 

There is an excellent post on We Are Respectable Negroes about the racist double standards in our society. Here's part of it that uses Sarah Palin to illustrate just how bad things still are.

If Sarah Palin were black she would have disappeared into obscurity long ago.

If Sarah Palin were black, her daughter's out of wedlock, "baby daddy drama" would have been presented as an example of both pathological behavior and a dysfunctional family that is symbolic of the social problems in that community. If Sarah Palin were black, never would the poor decision making by the Palin family be marked off as challenges overcome, or deeds to be valorized.

If Sarah Palin were black, her neo-secessionist husband would have been the death knell for her political career, because as we all know you can't trust "those people."

If Sarah Palin were black, her lack of intellectual curiosity, willful and cultivated ignorance, and lack of grace both written and spoken, would not be taken as "folksy." Instead, Palin would be viewed as unqualified for any public office.

If Sarah Palin were black she would be tarred and feathered as an "affirmative action baby."

We live in a society where it is socially acceptable to be crazy racist as long as one is careful not to express the racism directly. Indirect bigotry and code speak are quite common. Of course, this is hardly limited to racism. The problem is quite common with sexism and heterosexism too. Code speak like "Family Values," "Identity Politics," and "PC" are quite common and the "Identity Politics" code is often used by people who are on the left on some issues.

Of course, one could easily do an "If Rush Limbaugh Were Black."

- His bosses would have fired him for hoping that a President would fail.

- His lack of command of facts would be used to question the intellectual capacity of an entire race of people.

- Republicans would stampede to criticize him, rather than cowering in fear.

- Rush's dishonesty would get him vilified by the right, while those same wingnuts would treat that dishonesty as something to be expected from "those people."

- Rush's sexual escapades would be tied to stereotypes about black men.

- His illegal drug use would have gotten him taken off the radio.

- Rush's incredible obesity would be attributed to stereotypes of eating habits and laziness.

Don't think for a minute that I'm making this up. There still is a majority view in this country that white people who are incredibly lazy, unpatriotic, bigoted, stupid, dishonest, dysfunctional, and just plain irritating are "superior" to people of other races just because of the concentration of melanin in their skin.

Photo: cornexo

 

XtraNormal.com is too much fun.



 

Most people think that walking out on a mortgage, negotiating with your bank for a short sale, or being foreclosed ends your debt to the banksters. In many states, it doesn't (CNN Money 2/3/10):

Former homeowners may still be on the hook if there's a difference between what they owed on their mortgage and what the bank could sell it for at auction. And these "deficiency judgments" are ticking time bombs that can explode years after borrowers lose their homes.

It can even happen to people who got their bank to approve them selling their home for less than it is worth.

In most states, the banksters can get away with this.

In the case of foreclosure, lenders can pursue deficiencies in more than 30 states, including Florida, New York and Texas, according to the U.S. Foreclosure Network, an organization of mortgage law firms.

Some states, such as California, are "non-recourse" and don't allow deficiency judgments. But, even there, if the original loan was refinanced, some or all of it may be subject to claims.

Be very careful if you are in this situation.

Releasing title does not necessarily end the debt. It's complicated because of variations in state law, but, generally, a mortgage has two parts: a pledge of collateral, represented by the home, and a promise to pay off the loan.

Lenders may release property liens in order to facilitate short sales without releasing borrowers from their obligations to pay under the promissory notes. The secured debt can convert to an unsecured one after the sale.

Zaretsky had one client who was so relieved to have arranged a short sale that he signed every paper his real estate agent shoved at him, even a confession that clearly stated he still owed the debt.

"He had no idea what he was doing," said Zaretsky. "All the lender had to do was go to court to convert the confession into a deficiency judgment."

If you aren't in financial trouble, but you just want to get out of a mortgage that is for more than the value of your house, be extra careful. Banks look at credit reports and are even more likely to go after deficiency judgements if your other bills are getting paid, which suggests that you are doing a "strategic default."

What the Article Carefully Avoids Mentioning

There is something even more sinister about this. The banksters set up a lot of predatory mortgages that were intended to take peoples' homes from them after they were paying off their mortgages for a few years by sending the interest rates through the stratosphere. Banksters hoped to seize the homes and sell them at a profit, not realizing that their greed and corruption would cause the housing market to tank.

Now, the banksters can collect the deficiencies and eliminate the risks they should have been assuming when they ran these scams in the first place.

The corporate media keeps scolding politicians not to side with populist anger over the blatant misconduct of the banksters. Yet, the behavior of the banksters gets more predatory and avaricious. The same banksters that nearly destroyed our financial system and who are ripping people off every chance they get are looting their own financial institutions by giving themselves enormous unearned bonuses, when their regular salaries alone would make them overpaid.

Here are some great quotes on banks and the people who run them.

It is easier to rob by setting up a bank than by holding up a bank clerk.
Bertolt Brecht

I hate banks. They do nothing positive for anybody except take care of themselves. They`re first in with their fees and first out when there`s trouble.
Earl Warren

But if you want to continue to be slaves of the banks and pay the cost of your own slavery, then let bankers continue to create money and control credit.
Josiah Stamp

A bank is a place that will lend you money if you can prove you don't need it.
Bob Hope

Banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies.
Thomas Jefferson

Whoever controls the volume of money in our country is absolute master of all industry and commerce...when you realize that the entire system is very easily controlled, one way or another, by a few powerful men at the top, you will not have to be told how periods of inflation and depression originate.
James Garfield, 20th US President
Assassinated, 1881

When a government is dependent upon bankers for money, they and not the leaders of the government control the situation, since the hand that gives is above the hand that takes... Money has no motherland; financiers are without patriotism and without decency; their sole object is gain.
Napoleon Bonaparte, 1815

Photo: wot_nxt

 

Most of the people reading this blog have heard about the disturbingly high suicide rates among our troops and vets from Iraq. (No one seems to be keeping track of the mercenaries, but our country tries to pretend they don't exist.)

Reading a posting a little while back from Gold Star Mom Speaks Out alerted me to another terrible aspect of the Iraq quagmire: military family suicides.

Defense.gov has a big section from a speech by Deborah Mullen, wife of the Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on the subject:

“As I look at the numbers for each service, the rates have gone up per capita at about the same rate over the past four or five years for every service,” he said. “This isn’t just a ground-force problem.”

Suicide is a growing problem that leaders have to commit to, and experts who study suicide prevention must help those leaders understand the causes, Mullen said. The military’s leaders are eager to implement programs and better prevention measures, he added.

Mullen advocated for better overall training for servicemembers, noting that the military has a tendency to focus on training, whether it’s field or mental fitness, during the deployment-readiness cycle. Training for troops and their family members must start from the day they swear in, he said.

“We have a tendency to cycle [training] to get you ready before you deploy, but I would argue that with where we are right now, we have to have a continuum of readiness that starts to educate families from Day One about the challenges the lie ahead, the information that is available [and] the networks that are out there in these challenging times, so that we can hopefully avoid crisis,” he said.

Suicide among military family members also is a growing concern for the military. Deborah Mullen said that although much focus has been given to suicide prevention for servicemembers and assistance for survivors of suicide victims, more must be done for the families. Family members also need training to build resilience and learn how to deal with the stress of deployments, she said.

“There’s another side to this, and that’s family members who’ve committed suicide,” she said. “It’s our responsibility. These are our family members.”

Families are under great stress, too, she said, noting that watching their loved ones deploy repeatedly can be equally as strenuous on families at it is on the deploying servicemembers.

“I think we need to realize that we have families that are under such great stress,” the chairman’s wife said. “This stress is only going to continue. We need to be able to give tools to family members who are left behind.

“I hope the families are something you will look at as you work through these really challenging problems,” she told the audience. “We do have family members that we need to be aware of, and we need to get our arms around the number of suicide attempts and actual suicides and the impact on the family.”

Gold Star Mom brings up an additional point that we all need to take into account:

I'm pretty sure that most parents who get that knock on the door consider suicide as one of their options, if only briefly, during those difficult days after they receive the terrible news of the death of their child. I know of too many parents who want to crawl inside at the first view of the flag covered coffin. One more hug, one more embrace. If only they could trade their life for their child's.

Please do not forget the Gold Star parents!

We need to think about the human costs of wars before we start them so glibly.