Liberal Values are American Values

I believe that liberal values are American values. Here's why:

For starters, liberals fought for America's independence, freed the slaves, and gave women the right to vote.

The Mt. Rushmore Presidents--Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Roosevelt--were each considered radical liberals in their day. 

Below are major American achievements that liberals fought for, and conservatives opposed:

• Independence from Great Britain: Conservatives, who then were called Tories, were against the War of Independence.

• Separation of Church and State: This great achievement was eventually embodied in the First Amendment of the Constitution's Bill of Rights.  It was opposed by conservatives who wanted to preserve the special status of established churches in Virginia (the Episcopal Church) and Massachusetts (the Congregational Church).

• Freedom of the Press: Conservatives distrusted a free press.  This provision, which was fought for by liberals, also made its way into the Constitution's Bill of Rights.

• The Abolition of Slavery:  At the outset of the Civil War, abolitionists were regarded by conservatives as dangerous extremists.  Most were persecuted and many were killed.  Some religious denominations split over the issue.  Today's Southern Baptist Convention owes its origin to conservative Southern ministers who believed that the Bible approves of slavery.  The Republican Party--which for decades was run by liberals--was formed to prevent the spread of slavery into the western territories and states.

• The Pure Food and Drug Act:  A liberal extremist by the name of Upton Sinclair wrote a book called The Jungle which described slaughterhouse practices so vividly that a reluctant, conservative Congress was shamed into creating a federal agency with the responsibility to test all foods and drugs destined for human consumption.

• Women's Suffrage:  Generations of women lectured, wrote, lobbied, marched, and practiced civil disobedience in order to get the right to vote.  They were called liberal extremists, and worse.  Only a few early liberals lived to see final victory in 1920.

• Equal Rights For Women:  The Equal Rights Amendment, which has been introduced in every session of Congress since 1923, was passed by Congress in 1972 but failed to be ratified by the necessary number of states.  Conservatives successfully kept it from becoming law. The dangerous wording of the Amendment is as follows: "Equality of Rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any state on account of sex."

• Birth Control:  In the 1870s conservatives in Congress passed the Comstock Law which made it illegal to disseminate information about birth control practices.  In 1938, in a case involving liberal extremist Margaret Sanger, Justice August Hand lifted the federal ban on birth control.

• Child Labor:  Liberal extremists called "muckrakers" exposed horrible abuses of hundreds of thousands of child laborers. In 1916 Woodrow Wilson pushed the Keating-Owen Act through Congress which banned articles made by children from interstate commerce.  The Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional.  Not until  the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938 did any meaningful child labor legislation succeed.

• The Repeal of Prohibition:  The 18th Amendment, which prohibited the sale and use of alcoholic beverages, was opposed by liberals. It was  repealed in 1933.

• Social Security: Before FDR introduced Social Security in 1934, most elderly Americans lived in poverty, yet it was fought by conservatives as a socialistic scheme. Without it today, most elderly Americans would still live in poverty.

• The Tennessee Valley Authority:  This creation of the Roosevelt era brought cheap electric power to rural areas of the economically devastated Depression-era South.  Private firms had passed on doing it themselves because it was too big and not lucrative enough, but TVA was branded as Communistic.

• The United Nations: The UN is a favorite whipping boy of conservatives.  Conservatives in another generation killed the League of Nations, which if properly implemented, might have prevented WWII.  Undoubtedly the UN is flawed and often ineffectual, but the world would be a more dangerous place if there were no forum for all the nations of earth, rich and poor, dangerous and peaceful, to talk, talk, talk before they fight, fight, fight.

• Desegregation of America's Armed Forces:  President Harry S Truman, by executive order, ended Jim Crow practices in the U.S. military.  His civil rights initiatives split the Democratic Party.  Strom Thurmond, a staunch Southern conservative who later became a Republican Senator from South Carolina, ran for President as a Dixiecrat, and carried four Southern states.

• Civil Rights: Over the fierce opposition of conservatives, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed which made racial discrimination in public places such as restaurants, hotels, and theaters illegal, and guaranteed voting rights. President Lyndon Johnson, who had supported segregation while he was a Texas Senator, was branded as a traitor by conservatives.

• The Environmental Movement:  John Muir, Benjamin Harrison, and Teddy Roosevelt led in the creation of national parks and the preservation of wilderness areas over the opposition of conservative forces led by mining and timber companies and developers.

To be fair, it is true that conservatives have founded and generously supported hospitals, orphanages, museums, schools and colleges, historic preservation, and a wide range of philanthropies. They have created parks and beautified cities.

But conservatives have been on the wrong side of a shockingly long list of major developments that have made American a better place to live--as the above list should make clear. (There are hundreds more that can be added.)

This is because, historically, conservatives generally have been naysayers, defenders of the status quo.

Sometimes conservatives do get it right. But that shouldn't surprise anyone. If you say No to everything, you're bound to be right every once in a while. 

The next time you hear someone saying that liberals are a threat to America, tell them to take a history lesson.

Harry Truman used to say, "The only new thing in the world is the history you don't know."

Now, What's Left? Time to Write a New Book?

Hello, friends of Hooterville!

It sure has been a while.

Over the past few years, as most people have moved to Facebook as their primary way of staying connected to each other and to get the national news, I have tended not to write so much, especially politically. Not that I hide or lie about my political inclinations, but being that Facebook is open to everyone on a scale completely different than a blog, with my personal life and musical/work life as the primary focus, I have not been posting as a political writer. Occasionally I will write or share something of a political nature, but, to be honest, I'm not looking for a fight on my Facebook page.

But now, I am looking to start working on the follow-up to The Price of Right. I want to expand on and further explore my ideas about why people end up with a particular political viewpoint, and I want to address some subjects that I did not talk about in my first book, such as racism and LGBT issues. I also want to try again to engage a certain group of people - the people like me a few years ago, who were progressive but uninvolved in politics

Dear White People: A Perspective On White Privilege

Dear White People:

This word 'racism' is being thrown around a lot lately, and I know it makes a lot of y'all angry and resentful.

And I understand that. It hurts to have a word like 'racist' applied to you, especially because you don't hate black people and you don't think you're better than black people and you have lots of black friends, and you believe in equality for everyone.

But 'racist' in the meaning it's used in today does not mean 'KKK member' - it merely means that in our society, there are difficulties that black folk face that white people are not even aware of.

It does not mean you are an asshole or hate black people.

It means this: that there is something called 'white privilege' that most white people don't notice in their daily lives. We don't notice it precisely because it is a privilege. Doors are open to us that we take for granted, and that we assume are open to everyone. We may think that if someone isn't succeeding the way we are, that it's because they aren't working hard enough, or expect things to be handed to them. Or if they succeed when we don't, it's because they got something handed to them that white people don't get - a free pass 'just because they're black' - i.e. 'affirmative action'.

Just because we don't see the signs of racism doesn't mean they aren't there. One example I use is being a white mom. I am a mother of sons in their teens and early twenties. But black mothers have a fear that I don't have. Rich or poor, all black mothers of teenage sons have to worry that someone may mistake their child for a criminal and kill them - for wearing the wrong style of clothing, for looking 'menacing' or looking like they're in a gang. There's no amount of money, status, or prestige that can insulate a black mom from that fear - a fear that even very poor white moms do not have to carry around because of skin color. In other words, poor white moms have their own fears about their sons, but it's not their skin color alone that is the determining factor.

When you hear the word 'racist' applied to white people as a group, this is part of what they're talking about. But it doesn't make you personally a hater. It does mean that we have biases that we may not be aware of, and we can help eliminate racism by taking a deeper look and listening to what black folk are saying about their own experiences, not project ours onto them. We don't have to be defensive. We're not being attacked personally.

We can be part of the solution.

I hear from so many white people - good-hearted, well-meaning people - that they feel insulted by being called racists (or think that dicussing racism is pointing the finger directly at them and calling them racists).

I am not talking here about the intentional racists - who ARE hateful assholes - but people who genuinely believe in equality, and just don't get that there is anything in society that is still racist, because they themselves don't see or experience it. They see any discussion of racism as someone attacking them personally and saying "you are a bigot who hates black people." I wish that instead of being offended, they could say, "Hey - I did not know that. I never thought of it in that way. I wasn't aware that this is how you feel" and maybe think through it, and maybe look at themselves to see where they could change their perspective. There's nothing 'attacking' about that.

They don't realize how 'white-centric' their world is, because they've never known anything else. It does not mean that individual white people have never struggled or had doors closed to them, but that society as a whole is still skewed in favor of white people. It just is. And understanding and acknowledging that is not saying "I'm an intolerant, racist asshole who is trying to put black folk down" - it is the first step in maybe making things better.

As a white person, it is not my place to speak for the black experience. But I hope that I can get my white friends to understand how and why it is that black folk are still marginalized in our society, and that being aware of that marginalization is not 'putting down white folks'. It's not a matter of 'white guilt'; it's a matter of 'if you know better, you do better.' Everyone wins in that case.

Hood Robbin' - the Real Class Warfare

If Robin Hood represents taking from the rich and giving to the poor, then today's Republican Party is Hood Robbin' - taking from those of us in the neighborhoods and giving it to the people in the gated communities.

Sandy Hook - A Tipping Point?

The tragedy at Sandy Hook is unbearable to even think about.

As a parent, I was in tears much of the day. Like everyone else, our television has been set to the news channel coverage, and Facebook and Twitter have been blowing up with nothing but talk of the horrific events of this sad day.

This is not the first mass shooting we've had this year - in fact, it's the sixth. And over the past five years there have been at least 19.

But the heartbreaking deaths today seem to me to have had an effect on Americans that I have not seen from the earlier shootings  - not the shopping mall in Oregon three days ago, not Aurora, Colorado and the movie theater shootings, not Tucson, Arizona with Gabby Giffords, not the Sikh temple in Wisconsin, not Fort Hood, not Virginia Tech, not the Unitarian Universalist Church shooting in Knoxville.

I get a feeling that we are finally tired of 'not talking about gun control.'

For years we have been intimidated and shut down by the NRA and the howls of 'Second Amendment' that have come from those who equate any kind of gun regulation with Big Bad Government taking away every American's gun. And every time there was yet another massacre, Democrats as well as Republicans somberly intoned that "this is not the day to talk about gun control."

My friend Bobby Pickett says, "This is not the day to talk about gun control. Yesterday was."

Well, I think today is fnally that day.

There is still a huge swath of people who insist that the only way to prevent gun violence is - yep, you guessed it - more guns! Guns for everyone. Guns for teachers. Armed guards in every classroom, store, business, church, home.

A commenter on my Facebook page was insistent that the more guns we had the safer we would be and that the reason the attack at Sandy Hook happened was that the teacher was not armed.

As if somehow, a sweet little kindergarten teacher would have morphed into Sharpie McGreenBeret, whipped out her AK in the middle of the Alphabet Song and picked off the bad guy before he had a chance to shoot any little children - killing or incapacitating the shooter without hitting any of the 30 crying, running, screaming little children in the room.

Wait - the shooter had four guns. So maybe each teacher should have four guns too.

And the commenter claimed that it was people like me who lived in a "fairytale world."

He truly believes in the 'vigilante' civilian who jumps to the rescue to save the day with his own gun.

In an analysis of mass shootings, one fact stands out:

Not one of them was stopped by an armed citizen.

Not a few. Not several. Not ONE. Ever.

We are the most heavily-armed society in the world.

We have more guns per capita than any other nation on earth. Yemen comes in second.

So, by that logic, if more guns made us safer we would have the lowest number of gun deaths in the world. Except, of course, for Yemen. We do not have the highest level of gun deaths in the world - but the only ones higher are mostly low income Latin American and Caribbean nations:

According to the U.N., the U.S. had 3.0 firearm homicides per 100,000 in population in 2009. But there were 14 other nations that had higher rates in 2009, primarily in Latin America and the Caribbean: Honduras (57.6), Jamaica (47.2), St. Kitts and Nevis (44.4), Venezuela (39.0), Guatemala (38.5), Colombia (28.1), Trinidad & Tobago (27.3), Panama (19.3), Dominican Republic (16.9), Bahamas (15.4), Belize (15.4), Mexico (7.9), Paraguay (7.3) and Nicaragua (5.9). Three other nations had higher rates in 2008: El Salvador (39.9), Brazil (18.1) and Ecuador (12.7). But among countries like ourselves - so-called 'First World' affluent nations - we are far and away ahead of them interms of gun deaths. One study published in 2011 confirms this finding. The study, published in the Journal of Trauma -- Injury Infection & Critical Care, found that firearm homicide rates were 19.5 times higher in the U.S. than in 23 other "high income" countries studied, using 2003 data. Rates for other types of gun deaths were also higher in the U.S., but by somewhat smaller margins: 5.8 times higher for firearm suicides (even though overall suicide rates were 30 percent lower in the U.S.) and 5.2 times higher for unintentional firearm deaths.

And, no, this isn't a 'liberal study' - it's Politifact, which does not side one way or the other. My point is - if we have the most guns, why aren't we at the very bottom of the list?

But I do sense a difference today.

I think today just might be the day that we talk about it.

And force our politicians to pay attention. That's the only way to get it done.

The will of the people cannot be ignored - if they stand up and make it known. So far we have been intimidated into keeping quiet.

For these precious children - not today.

We will not be silent today.

Wile E. Coyote Must Be A Republican

One thing you can say for Republicans - they stick to their guns, even when those guns blow up in their face.

Now they're blathering on about the "Fiscal Cliff".

Child please.

We don't have a spending problem. We don't have a debt problem. We have a revenue problem. We had a surplus in 2000 until it was burnt up by tax cuts for the wealthy and two un-paid-for wars. Never in the history of our country have we cut taxes in time of war. It's fiscally irresponsible. We have had a redistribution of wealth, all right - but it has been from the bottom to the top.

Let's call these tax cuts what they really are: spending.

Corporate taxes and taxes on the wealthiest are the lowest they've been in 40 years - and yet that did not magically lead to jobs and prosperity; in fact, the result was the exact opposite. Regulations did not 'strangle growth' - instead it was the lack of regulation that led to the banks and Wall Street's horrific gambling with Other People's Money which led to the tanking of the American economy - and the price has been paid by the taxpayers who did NOT cause the problem.

"Privatize the Profits and Socialize the Losses" is the modus operandi that led to this debacle. So more of the same is going to fix it? Cut taxes and regulation and "Happy Days Are Here Again"? Really? If that was so magical, why didn't it work before?

We got out of the Great Depression by A. shared sacrifice during a time of war - which we did not do; instead, we got tax cuts (which means spending) and B. government investment in jobs which put money in people's hands (for working) which they were able to then spend to stimulate the economy.

Austerity is not gonna cut it, I'm afraid. We need to invest in America and Americans if we want to have a snowball's chance in hell to get a middle class again. This is a time of crisis when borrowing is necessary. It's triage - stem the bleeding first. When we're back on our feet we can talk about deficit reduction and the like.

Four More Years - Welcome to the Backlash!

If Lovin' The Big Dawg Is Wrong, I Don't Wanna Be Right!

Yes. I admit it. With all his failings and foibles, I love him still.

Bill Clinton was not a perfect President. And I'm not talking about Lewinsky - I could not care less about that. But NAFTA, the dismantling of Glass-Steagall and other financial deregulation, telecom deregulation, 'welfare reform' - those things I was not crazy about.

Imperfect as he is, nobody can communicate and lay out the fundamentals of what we believe as Democrats like the Big Dawg.

Day before yesterday, my husband David and I had the honor to sing the underscore for a great new GOTV video about Barack Obama (and about all Americans!) called "Yes, We Will." Actually, it's officially called "WATCH THIS. THEN VOTE." - an excellent and descriptive title. It is by Joel Silberman & Laura Napoli, who did the awesome Funny or Die video "Legitimate Rape Pharmaceutical Ad".

It's out today, and I hope everyone gets a chance to see it and be inspired in these last few days before the election. It clearly lays out President Obama's many accomplishments over the last four years - accomplishments made even more difficult because of the decimated economy he inherited from eight years of George W. Bush and by the stubborn opposition he met at every turn by Republicans determined to block anything that Obama tried to do, without regard to the best interests of the American people. The same Republicans who threatened Democrats with the 'nuclear option' and called them 'obstructionist' if they dared to consider filbustering anything Dubya asked for have happily filibustered their asses off to keep President Obama from

WATCH THIS. THEN VOTE. Inspirational New GOTV Video!

Day before yesterday, my husband David and I had the honor of singing the underscore to a great new GOTV video, "Yes, We Will", by Joel Silberman and Laura Napoli, who also did the hilarious Funny or Die video "Legitimate Rape Pharmaceutical Ad". It's actually officially called "WATCH THIS. THEN VOTE." which seems like a very useful and descriptive title.

It is out today. I hope everyone gets a chance to see this inspirational video in these last few days before the election, which highlights President Obama's many hard-won accomplishments - accomplishments even more amazing when you consider that he had inherited the worst economy since the Great Depression, thanks to eight years of George W. Bush and the conservative myth of "tax cuts for the wealthy + war + deregulation = prosperity". Not only that, at every turn he was faced with a Congress full of Republicans who were determined to block any and all Democratic legislation by the use of the filibuster (which they bitterly decried, threatening the 'nuclear option' when Democrats tried to use it when Bush was President), which required a super-majority of 60 votes to overcome, rendering the 51/49 Democratic Senate majority useless - and then paint Obama as ineffective.

President Obama has still made significant progress in the face of these overwhelming obstacles. Don't go backwards to a return of the failed policies that got us into this mess to begin with, and the rescinding of so many basic human rights that we thought had already been fought for and won that the extreme right wing is determined to take away from us - and in a good position to do so.

Fight back. Watch this video and then - get your ass to the polls and take your friends with you.

You may see me there - I'm a pollworker and, for the first time, so is my son! I am so grateful to be able to actively participate in my democracy by helping other Americans to vote.

Mitt Romney In His Own Words - Entitled Victim And Wannabe Mexican?

The question this election season has been, "Who is Mitt Romney?"

Now we know.

He just told us.

Well, not really told us - after all, we're not "his kind of people, dear." 99.9% of us are not the kind of people with whom Mitt associates. The rest of us have been wondering what makes Romney tick; he comes off as somewhat of a mystery. There's something about his public persona that just hasn't 'rung true' so far, and his changes of

Back Up On The Soapbox!

Okay.

It's time.

Time to climb back up on the ol' soap box. It's been almost a year since my last post (and I'll talk about that in another post), but we're looking November in the eye, and it's time to get talking again.

I know that when I get that feeling in the pit of my stomach that tells me that I have to say something, it's time to say it.

I thought they were bat-crap bonkers before, but between the last time I blogged and now, the Republican Party has ratcheted up the level of crazy to dizzying heights.

So - here we go!

The Dance

I've been so beaten down; so tired; so frustrated and angry. When I started Hooterville in November of 2004, I thought I was angry, frustrated and confused, but that was nothing compared to what has happened in the last two years, when the chickens finally came home to roost - when the last available dollar had been wrung out of the middle class and we were hung out to dry.

As anyone who has visited my blog knows by now, I have not spent much time writing in the last couple of years. I wrote my book "The Price of Right: How the Conservative Agenda Has Failed America (and Always Will)"  during 2006-2007, while I was working a day job and gigging at night and being a mom to 3 kids. Somehow, I was able to find a way to do all that and write on a consistent basis as well.

But the housing market crashed and the economy crashed with it; our predatory mortgage loan became harder and harder to pay as my hours got shorter and shorter. A management change at my job made it very clear that older, more expensive teachers such as myself were no longer wanted, and it would be just a matter of time before I got the boot. There were cobwebs in the mailbox that, once upon a time, was stuffed with my husband's residual checks - cobwebs now only disturbed by bills and scam solicitations.

Then, the foreclosure notices started coming in, and my husband and I began to do The Dance.

You know The Dance - it has many names, like the "Bankruptcy Boogaloo", the "Chapter 13 Cha-Cha", the "Please-Don't-Turn-Our-Power-Off Pirouette", the "Work-Till-You-Drop Watusi", the "Juggle-the-Bills Jitterbug", the "Credit-Card Conga", the "Second-Mortgage Shuffle",  the "Hope-This-Deposit-Goes-Through-Before-That-Check-Gets-Cashed Hustle", the "Try-To-Stretch-The-Dollar-Till-It-Screams Tango", the "Just-Go-Without Jig", the "Put-Off-Going-To-The-Doctor Polka", the "Late-Payment Limbo" (also known as "How Low Can You Go?") and, of course, everyone's favorite, the "Bill-Collector Bolero".

Whatever you call it, whatever your particular dance is, The Dance will wear you out. Like the Red Shoes, it makes you dance and dance and dance and dance until you collapse. And you still haven't gotten anywhere; you're still right where you started, except you're dizzy and exhausted.

You'd think that with all this free time from not working, it would be easy to get things done, but that is not the case. The bills start piling up on the kitchen table, but you can't even look at them when you don't have anything to pay them with. All you can think about is how you can make some money right now - now, before they cut off the cable/power/gas; now, before your bank balance gets so low that a $5 charge will turn into a $35 overdraft fee; now, so you can give your kid lunch money, so you can replace the tire that just blew out - the spare that you've been putting off replacing with a real tire for three months.

You take any job or project or gig you can get, no matter how small or cheap; if you get some work, you put in four or five times the amount of time and effort that you're getting paid for, in the hopes that the people you're working for will be impressed enough to give you some more work. You stay up till 3 or 4 or 5 in the morning on the computer, working on things that you might be able to make some money on. You put things off for a day or two, like going to the grocery store; or for a year or two, like the dentist (what's the Musician's Dental Plan? Chew on the other side); some things you avoid altogether, like replacing or fixing things that break around the house. Broken window? Duct tape and cardboard. Broken doorknob? Duct tape and cardboard. After a while you stop seeing them. You stop seeing a lot of things, including your friends - you don't want to invite anyone over, and when the family is sharing one old car on its last legs, driving around for social occasions seems a little self-indulgent.

When you spend every day like this, for a few years, as I have, finding the wherewithal to do something so immediately un-financially-rewarding as writing a book or even blogging seems to be out of reach. Although technically unemployed, dancing The Dance and staying on my feet has taken every ounce of energy I have.

Being out of work is a full-time job.

Having said that, let me also say that I in no way feel sorry for myself or that I am deserving of pity. I may have to put off going to the grocery store, but I eventually get there. My husband and I are eating; our kids are eating. Our house is falling apart, but we're still in it. And I have a husband whom I love and who loves me back, who is my rock; I have kids who are so good-hearted, uncomplaining, helpful and loving that they take my breath away. We have family and friends who will always be there for us. We have it better than a lot of people, and most of the people I know personally (except the wealthiest of my friends) are in very much the same boat.

This is what the 99% is all about.

So many of us have been dancing The Dance for years, and I have been wondering what it would take to make people realize that it's not their fault; that we have been stolen from by the most brazen, audacious criminals in the world. They have stolen the money, the jobs, the health, and the houses of an entire segment of society! That, my friends, is thievery on so magnificent a scale that it almost defies description - that makes the current denizens of our prisons look like toddlers stealing cookies.

Take my money, my job, my health, my house, and my hope - now, what's left?

My family, my friends, my principles, and my daily decision to appreciate what I have that the crooks cannot steal - unless I hand it to them personally. Hope? Who needs it? What matters is whether you do what's right and fight what's wrong - with hope or without it. Hope is not a bad thing in and of itself but if you only fight if you have hope, then it becomes a crutch, not a motivator.

But I do feel hope when I see the 99% like me standing up, speaking out, getting mad, and fighting back. Is it naïve of me? Perhaps - but it surely beats the alternative, which has been going on for far too long. If I have to dance The Dance, at least I'm not alone - my brothers and sisters are out there dancing too, and if we hold one another's hands and lift one another up, we can start dancing a new dance - a beautiful, powerful dance that will move us all forward together, instead of spinning around in circles by ourselves till we collapse.

Occupy

Definition of OCCUPY (transitive verb)

1 : to engage the attention or energies of
2 a : to take up (a place or extent in space)  
   b : to take or fill (an extent in time) 
3 a : to take or hold possession or control of  
   b : to fill or perform the functions of (an office or position) 
4 : to reside in as an owner or tenant 

I've been so beaten down; so tired; so frustrated and angry. When I started Hooterville in November of 2004, I thought I was angry, frustrated and confused, but that was nothing compared to what has happened in the last two years, when the chickens finally came home to roost - when the last available dollar had been wrung out of the middle class and the house of cards came tumbling down. 

Afterbirth

Recently I posted on my Facebook page about the disappointment and disgust I felt when I had to watch President Obama produce his birth certificate, and, what was even worse, watch the unspeakably vile Donald Trump crow (yes, that word was deliberately chosen) about it, believing that he alone had the power to lift his leg on the President of the United States.

My heart broke for my black brothers and sisters, who are affected by this foulness in a way that the rest of America is not.

Let's call a spade a spade.

This 'Birther' crap is racism, pure and simple, and Donald Trump's actions were racist. I don't care what you say, you racist motherfucker. Actions speak louder than words.

The most powerful and influential black man in history was made to 'show his papers'.

This is not what it appears on the surface - not a legitimate concern about the eligibility of a politician - say, one who was born in Panama...

This is a 'dog whistle' to question the legitimacy of this President to hold his office due to his birth. Black people have been denied their human rights - the rights that the rest of native-born or even non-native-born Americans have been granted as a matter or course - due to their birth: the fact that they were born with black skin.

It was more than a slap in the face of President Obama - it was a slap in the face of every black person in America.

There are many, many people still around who have experienced racism that was written into law - 'separate but equal'. A lot of people like to pretend that we are no longer a 'racist' society, but Plessy v. Ferguson was still in force in my lifetime, and although discrimination is no longer legal it is still very much entrenched in our society.

The election of America's first black President has brought the maggots of racism crawling out of the woodwork and into the open. Yes, in past years it had become unacceptable in polite society to blatantly display racist views, but that did not mean that it was gone. It just looked bad to be too open about it. Since President Obama's election, however, we have seen more overt and open racism than we have in several generations.

And, as it always is, it is fear-based.

Many different kinds of psychological studies show that one of the signal differences between liberal and conservative personalities is that conservatives are more strongly affected and motivated by fear.  A study by the University College London Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience shows a biological correlation as well.

An article in the London Telegraph explains that self-described conservatives

"have brains with larger amygdalas, almond shaped areas in the centre of the brain often associated with anxiety and emotions. On the other hand, they have a smaller anterior cingulate, an area at the front of the brain associated with courage and looking on the bright side of life."

When you are afraid, the most important thing becomes relieving that fear - and rationality has nothing to do with it. One of the results of a fear-driven personality is acceptance of inequality. When your worldview is laid out in a vertical, hierarchical way, inequality is built into it.

This particular subset of nutballs - birthers and Tea Partyers - are people whose fears are assuaged by belonging to these groups, and who equate safety and comfort with sameness and obedience. They offer both a set of simple, unambiguous beliefs, and an enemy to unite against. President Obama is the ultimate embodiment of the "Other"; someone 'not like us', therefore Un-American. Once that decision has been made - that Obama is 'the other' and therefore unworthy of respect or obedience, there is no fact that will dislodge it. In fact, a person with this type of personality derives more safety and comfort the more ridiculous and illogical the premise that they are asked to accept - it means they are more obedient, and therefore safer.


Racism is and always has been the result of fear, and has always been used by those with money and power to control and manipulate people who are easy targets because of their discomfort with ambiguity and strong need for certainty, which make them prone to seek out someone or something 'above' them who will give them that certainty and assuage their fear. Once they accept an authority or ideology, they are both obedient to that authority and hostile and aggressive towards anyone who is opposed by the authority.

A poll taken after the release of Barack Obama's 'long-form' birth certificate indicates that 16% of all voters and 30% of Republicans do not believe President Barack Obama has proven he was born in the U.S., even after release of his long-form birth certificate.

But the fact that he was pressured into having to release it at all is what is the most revolting - that and the fact that the Republicans have no shame about going to the lowest place that humans can go in order to out-crazy each other in the race for the 2012 nomination and tapping into the basest of emotions in order to advance themselves politically.

Racism? It's the new black!

Intelligence. Not All-Out War On Some Hapless Country.

Sigh.

Why I Am A Liberal

Well, friends, I am starting to string some sentences together to start working on my next book, which will be called "Now, What's Left?"

The first thing I have to do is put together a book proposal, which is kind of a big job, but - the good news is that when it's done, you've really done the hardest part of writing the book.

So, in preparation for the proposal, I'm sort of synopsizing everything that's been rattling around in my head that I want to be a part of this book, and one of the things I ended up doing was making a list of the reasons I am a liberal.

I'm sure I'll think of more, but... here goes!

Conservative Louis J. Marinelli, I Salute You.

Louis J. Marinelli, a long-time opponent of same-sex marriage, and the man behind the National Organization for Marriage's 2010 "Summer for Marriage" Tour, has examined his conscience and come to the conclusion that he is in support of marriage equality.

Not only that, he is man enough to 'come out' (if I may be so bold) and state this for the record, while apologizing to those he has hurt during his fight to oppose marriage equality - the gays and lesbians (and their families) - counter-protesters whom he encountered along the path of his travels across the country.

Is he still conservative?

Of course.

As I have said many times, there are conservatives out there who are good-hearted, honest people trying the very best they know how to do what is right. While I don't agree with their ideas of what is right, I do not think they are bad people or stupid people. They are good people who seem to be wired diferently from me and my way of thinking. These are my dear family members and friends. I reserve my disapproval and condemnation for the amoral greedsters and sociopaths who know how to take advantage of the conservative desire for authority, and are no more conservative than my cat. They talk conservative because that's how they appeal to conservatives. But they have no moral compass - merely a barometer that tells them where best to apply pressure.

Real liberals and real conservatives have much in common at heart - way more, in fact, than either type has in common with the amoral greedster that has thrown all of us to the wolves in search of the last dollar that can be squeezed out of the economy and transferred up, up and away - away from the rest of us. Deep down, we share the same values, but the wiring that directs how those values are expressed can be very different.

So when I see an instance of a conservative truly looking within and, more than that, finds it within himself to nut up and acts upon what he finds there - according to his own moral compass, not 'adopting' a liberal viewpoint - I think it's important to acknowledge, applaud and appreciate this.


The reason he changed his views? Because he met and got to know gays and lesbians face to face - as real people, real Americans, not 'faceless political opponents' - not 'the other', the bad and wicked bogey-men (and -women) of his imagination. And because he has the character to act on that knowledge instead of trying to deny or ignore these realities.

Dr. Bob Altemeyer, the author ot "The Authoritarians", asserts that authoritarianism (and authoritarians, who generally self-identify as conservative) is most often strengthened by isolation from and lessened by exposure to other people, ideologies and cultures. This is why diversity is so crucial to our society.

The more that we get to know people who are not exactly like ourselves on the surface, the more that we realize that they are just like us - on the inside, where it counts.

So, conservative Louis J. Marinelli -

I salute you.

Atlantis? Sorry, MSNBC - I Beat You To It.

MSNBC thinks they're all scientific and such. 

Sorry, y'all, but I had it covered a while back.









(how genius am I? Not even re-cycling a post - three-cycling! That's the Hooterville way!)

Eugene V. Debs

I'm just saying.