The mods and regulars at Trike Force HQ are well known for vociferously disagreeing with anyone who veers one iota from their fringe diktats. It takes very little for commenters to get banned and some even have their blasphemy expunged from the record, leaving only white space where their heresy once appeared.

So, when a comment stays up and does not draw any rebuke or even mild opposition, we can assume it has the blessings of both the site admins and the general community. A site that monitors and polices their comments so thoroughly assumes some of the responsibility for those comments that remain and are not opposed.

For example, consider this exchange:

We are approaching an epic confrontation…
rcov092 Tuesday, December 22nd at 9:53PM EST (link)
we fight with all our might and if…if…we cannot roll them back, I vote we embrace Cloward Pivens and collapse the whole thing in on them and start over. If that happens they will fold like cheap suits and we can build something even better. We have 90% of a new Constitution already written and now know where the weaknesses are to remake it even stronger.

and this response:

Yup.
MacAoidh Tuesday, December 22nd at 10:08PM EST (link)
Or maybe we’ll just start shooting.

We’re the ones with the guns and the balls to use them, after all.

They lost an election and were unable to completely screw up health care reform so they want to ditch the constitution and they want to do so violently.

These comments came in response from another commenter claiming to be a Republican congressional staffer and who was trying to argue that moving up a vote from xmas eve to the morning of December 24 was not that big of a deal.

The trikers are up in arms over it and really, really don’t like the Republican leadership. But the real point here is that no one opposed or even mildly questioned the commenter who advocated overturning the government or the one who advocated doing so violently.

Let’s be clear: this is reactionary, authoritarian and anti democratic. And they are threatening violence.

Sylvia Plath, courtesy of Wikipedia

This was written for Read Write Poem Prompt #106: Repeat After Me.. Sylvia Plath was my inspiration for this poem, in which I chose to use one of Rethabile’s suggestions for this prompt, repeating an idea. Mine is almost a refrain I think, or variations on a theme. I hope you enjoy the read.

-Nicole

————————————————-
It’s easy,
a burning half-morning light,
so faint that candles cannot even
make love with it lest they disturb the
shadow of amber that it drops onto the wall. And the
pen – there’s a certain rhythm to the
scribble and the scratch, the
hip-hop beat in ancient form

slowed down,
sped up,
running at a half-rhythm with no known meter except for
what is pulsed by the human hand. But yours needed a
balm, a prayer, a roborant of
rest. How you lucubrated, how you oscillated,
a megawatt widow full of beat and bone,
flowing blood jets through your fingers. 3 A.M.,
4 A.M., 5 A.M. soliloquies, flayed off your skin
out of the ear reach of children. It’s

easy,
this burning half-morning light,
so wanton and blood-tooth hungry that it
forgets wood and wick and burns
you instead for fuel. How holy
was your fire, your phoenix incantations
chanted by night and paper, chasing the demon of sleep
away from you until you rose up,
a scarlet-haired torch of woman levitating by the magic of
madness and words. And if that were not
holy enough, your flames eschewed mere oxygen and sought
oven gas for air. It’s

easy,
this burning half-morning light,
so halcyon that it fails to signal
the freight train,
the demon horse,
Erato turned inside out and painted with Kali. This is
the shaman in negative, shuddering your bones
with his wild death dance. This is
the cobra that steals your spine and slithers into the
empty canal where your straight line of
open-mouthed bone once rested. And it wears
you until you die. I know, because I started

saving up to feed the beast when I was eight. I began
peeling myself off myself, casting
that filthy girl adumbration upon the altar
and blessed her with fire. Executed myself
in endless-loop honor killings until I
thought that girl was gone and Dad would finally
be proud of me: maybe, just maybe, I’d be tough,
a fist-full of angry glee, a ghetto woman of virtue minus
the woman. But my ashes – they kept sticking
in my throat, refusing to be swallowed or stolen
to feed that serpent. So when I was twelve, I started
ejecting them from my throat and reading their tongues
for answers. And it’s

easy,
that burning half-morning light,
so merciful that it renames itself Redemption and
swallows up our ash-demanding gods made out of
marble men, ties the
neck of our orphidian beast into knots, yanks that
insane inamorata of frenzy out of our insides so that it
can no longer wear us for skin. You expired in the coffin
at 23 Fitzroy Road before you could see this light, and the beast
left you behind in ashes and red ink shaped like
your father – we have been reading those dirty little piles
of charcoal and scarlet since, trying to
find out how to spell your name. But somehow, I am
still here,
living in that light,
dancing ahead of the hot breath of
the snake. I am

thirty-three now, still reading the ashes that I refused to offer to
my own little Hitler made out of my father’s face,
resurrected draconian demands in my Freudian skull, and
stygian landscapes of memory. And
these days, I drop tears into my cremated gold, then
reach down and try to mold what is left of my powdered little girl
into an ash golem so that no one,
least of all I,
will ever forget her face. And as my
fingers struggle with that wet dust made of me,
I know

that I will never forget
my own.

Written 12/21/09 and 12/22/09
© 2009 Nicole Nicholson. All Rights Reserved.

Stumble It!

Truth be told, my last post was only half inspired by Ebon Musings. It was also inspired by an incident today at church.

Earlier this morning (Saturday 12/19/09), I took my daughter to church so she could practice for the Christmas concert tomorrow evening (Sunday 12/20/09).

When we got to the church, my daughter started to panic when we approached the room where the organizers were corralling all the kids. My daughter sometimes gets nervous in new, crowded, noisy situations and my wife and I usually have to ease her into it. Once she get’s used to the situation she’s fine and has a grand old time. There are some other occasions where we just throw her into the deep end and she’s fine within seconds. We can tell the difference and act accordingly.

This was definitely a moment where she needed to be eased into it. I know that if I forced her, she’d freak out beyond repair. So her and I took a moment and sat off to the side so she could recompose herself.

The first incident that got me percolating was when a cadre of mothers saw my daughter crying and thought it best to use their parenting skills to cheer her up. None of it worked, of course, because the utterly failed to attempt to understand why she was upset in the first place.  What aggravated me more than that was that I’m guessing they thought I was a clueless, impotent, uninvolved dad who needed “help” getting his kid under control. I really wonder if they all would have swooped down if I was a fellow mom comforting my kid.

For my daughter, I usually use a technique based on exposure therapy. I gradually expose her to the anxiety producing stimulus, while helping her soothe herself until she habituates to the stimulus. Or as we saw on Ni Hao, Kai-Lan the other day “try a little, by little, by little!” This meant sitting by the door way peeking in while the other kids were receiving instruction. This didn’t sit well with the head organizer, who happened to be one of the moms who tried to cheer up my daughter earlier. Let’s call her DirectorMom.

DirectorMom kept wanting to push us to go inside, and every time she did, my daughter would freak out more. At a certain point I was able to get my kid to agree to go inside in the back corner. DirectorMom thought it was best to hurry us along, and while she did, she said to me, “Go and take her in the back. Be the man, be the father.”

Excuse me? What did she say?

When we sat down in the back, she further elaborated by whispering in my ear: “You’ve gotta be the man with her. Don’t let children run the show”.

I was livid. Fuming inside. But I was nice and responded with a simple, “I’ve got this, I know my kid.” I think she took the hint, but I can’t tell. Eventually we had to go into another room which had much less stimulus and familiar friends, and my kid was right as rain again.

This whole thing pissed me off on so many levels.

For starters, she insinuated that I was not quite a man for not being authoritarian with my kid, ruling her with an iron fist. I was less of a man, a sissy child, who hasn’t quite learned yet that kids need to obey like Christians obey god.

Second, she presumed to think that she knows how to parent my child better than I do. Probably feeding on the faulty assumption that my daughter needed rescuing by real parents (Read: Moms).

My wife and I have known since our daughter was an infant that she sometimes freaks out on new, overstimulating experiences but responds extremely well to gradual exposure. We first found this out when we got her an exersaucer when she was 6 mos old and she panicked from all the attachments she could play with. We’ve adjusted ever since and she’s fine.

Our daughter isn’t just fine, she’s great! She’s excellent! She’s so compassionate and caring. She’s loving and affectionate. She’s open and honest. She’s smart and loves learning. She asks the right questions and isn’t afraid to stand up to her mom and dad when we’re obviously being unreasonable or over dramatic. She’s 4 now and has more assertiveness to confront wrongdoing than I had when I was 24. And I don’t mind, I encourage it!

Because unlike DirectorMom, I’m not afraid to admit when I’m wrong. I don’t think admitting fault or wrongdoing is a weakness. I don’t have to be right just because I’m the parent. I don’t have to make rules because I said so. My wife and I treat our daughter as a person not as a toy, or a pet, or a servant. We don’t use the phrase “because I said so” because our daughter is not only smarter than that, but we respect her more than that. If, for matters of expediency, we need her to obey now, we always follow up with a justification after as soon as we can.

I think the evidence will show that on hundreds of criteria, we have an exceptional daughter. The kind of daughter I am constantly proud to have. And while some of that is probably genetic predisposition, a lot of that is just plain old good parenting from her mom and dad.

Now, while none of this really cause to get too riled up, this all occurs in the context of religion, which gets my blood boiling.

Indeed, what DirectorMom is telling me that I need to be more Christian in both my manhood and my parenting. That her way, the Christian way, is the right way and that I’m just doing it plain wrong. I need to exert my authority as the man, the spiritual leader of the household, and get my kid to obey me.

And yet, by the evidence, it would appear that our daughter is doing just fine with our parenting style. This gets me back to my last post, aka why on earth would I want to go back to that!?!?

My daughter is exceptional, and we’re told this by her teachers and other parents too. Why the hell would I want to listen to you and your faith based, authoritarian parenting style? The evidence (her) suggest that our authoritative parenting style is working just fine. If my kid were an obnoxious, spoiled, illiterate, out of control, brat I’d maybe consider it.

By the way, lets look at what Clinical and Developmental Psychologist (read: evidence based scientist) Diana Baumrind says about those two parenting styles:

Authoritative parenting (My way)

The parent is demanding and responsive.

Authoritative parenting, also called balanced parenting is characterized by a child-centered approach that holds high expectations of maturity, compliance to parental rules and directions, while allowing for an open dialogue about those rules and behaviors between the parent and child. “Authoritative parenting encourages children to be independent but still places limits and controls on their actions.”  “Extensive verbal give-and-take is allowed, and parents are warm and nurturant toward the child.” Authoritative parents are not usually as controlling, allowing the child to explore more freely, thus having them make their own decisions based upon their own reasoning.

Authoritative parents set limits and demand maturity, but when punishing a child, the parent will explain his or her motive for their punishment. “Their punishments are measured and consistent in discipline, not harsh or arbitrary. Parents will set clear standards for their children, monitor limits that they set, and also allow children to develop autonomy. They also expect mature, independent, and age-appropriate behavior of children.” They are attentive to their children’s needs and concerns, and will typically forgive and teach instead of punishing if a child falls short. This is supposed to result in children having a higher self esteem and independence because of the democratic give-take nature of the authoritative parenting style. This is the most recommended style of parenting by child-rearing experts.

Authoritarian parenting (Christian way)

The parent is demanding but not responsive.

Authoritarian parenting, also called strict, is characterized by high expectations of conformity and compliance to parental rules and directions, while allowing little open dialogue between parent and child. “Authoritarian parenting is a restrictive, punitive style in which parents exhort the child to follow their directions and to respect their work and effort.” Authoritarian parents expect much of their child but generally do not explain the reasoning for the rules or boundaries. Authoritarian parents are less responsive to their children’s needs, and are more likely to spank a child rather than discuss the problem.

Children with this type of parenting may have less social competence as the parent generally tells the child what to do instead of allowing the child to choose by him or herself. (Emphasis mine) Nonetheless, researchers have found that in some cultures and ethnic groups, aspects of authoritarian style may be associated with more positive child outcomes than Baumrind predicts. “Aspects of traditional Asian child-rearing practices are often continued by Asian American families. In some cases, these practices have been described as authoritarian.”

I know I have a bad habit these days of overgeneralizing specific incidents into religious debates. But seriously, the refrain is the same. Why would I buy into what you’re offering when my way works so much better for me and my family and has evidence to back it up? Why would I want to be part of a system that encourages THAT. And DirectorMom isn’t just a mom, she’s a representative of her religion and her Church. People minister through actions as much as their words. And  I remain unconvinced as to how her beliefs can be of benefit to me.

Oh… notice how I didn’t edit out the bit about researchers finding indications that authoritarian styles may work better than predicted in some populations? Live it.

EDIT: Some commenters below correctly noted that I was unfair in my comments about Christianity and Christians as a whole in regards to DirectorMom’s actions. While I believe that DirectorMom was intentionally acting both as a representative of her specific beliefs and Christians as a whole, my error was in assuming that she actually did speak for Christians as a whole. I know that Christians are as varied and diverse as any population and I in this post am guilty of making the same unfair assumptions as I’ve been arguing against. I don’t like it when people assume things of all atheists based on the actions of a few or one, and I was in error when I did that for Christians. I was not only unfair and prejudiced, I was also hypocritical. For that, I apologize. I’m leaving the original text of the post as is as I don’t believe in covering up my mistakes. I encourage you to follow the discussion in the comments.  If you agree or disagree, feel free to add your thoughts.

IMPEACH Governor Schwarzenegger

I urge you to call and ask your State Legislator to initiate impeachment proceedings against Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

There is also a petition drive: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/3/impeach-governor-schwarzenegger

I care deeply for the rule of law as enshrined within the U.S. Constitution and reflected in the California State Constitution, and I hope you will support the effort to protect and defend our God-given rights as these are enumerated within these documents.

1) Arnold’s circumventing the State Legislature’s unwillingness to legislate to prohibit free-choice and subvert the free market by outlawing T.V.s over 40 inches in diameter is likely unconstitutional, or should be.   Regardless, the action confirms his actual disposition which is to exert an autocratic, authoritarian, dictatorial command of California. To remain silent on this truth is to acquiesce to tyranny, which is precisely the reaction that New World Order Globalists hope for.

2) Arnold has ignored the honest science, highlighted now by the leak of emails and documents from the CRU of the Univ of E. Anglia, science that indicates that the globe is on a cooling trend, that CO2 is not now, has never been, nor ever will be a “pollutant,” and that carbon dioxide levels trail temperature levels by approximately 800 years. The notion of man-made Climate Change is NOT a settled conclusion. Those now involved in the desperate perpetuation of this humongous hoax of man-made global warming are revealing themselves as complicit in deliberately defrauding the world, the purpose of which is to to erect the structural framework for a “global governance,” an economic world government that will subvert the U.S. Constitution. It is clear that Arnold is a willing participant in this treasonous subversion.

3) In his “State of the State” address on Thursday, January 15th, 2009, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger stated:

“I know that we know that any American child now also, no matter what corner of the world his father or mother comes from, can even become president of the United States. What a wonderful national story for us.”

http://gov.ca.gov/index.php?/speech/11390/

This is another example of how the uninformed, sheople public is being deceived, led into the pit of abysmal ignorance of how such a development is unequivocally UNCONSTITUTIONAL.  That the Governor of the state of California would engage in this subterfuge, defrauding the citizens of this state out of the truth, is unconscionable.

A “natural-born citizen” of the United States refers to a person born on U.S. soil to a father over whom the United States already has an established jurisdiction; i.e., a child born to a father who was himself a citizen of the United States at the time of the child’s birth. A person who had been born under a double allegiance (as Barack Obama II admits he was) cannot be said to be a natural-born citizen of the United States, even if he/she had indeed acquired native-born citizenship status by having been born on U.S. soil. A child born to an American mother and an alien father could be said to be a citizen of the United States by otherwise some affirmative act of law, but never is such a child entitled to the concurrent and specialized status of “natural-born” citizenship because through laws of nature the child inherits the citizenship and allegiance condition of his/her father.*

Schwarzenegger’s blatant effort to surreptitiously mislead and misinform the citizenry is civilly unforgivable.  He demonstrated that he is complicit in the larger conspiracy to perpetrate this unprecedented FRAUD upon the American public and to thereby trample the U.S. Constitution. The inauguration of an illegitimate President has formally ushered into existence a coup against our Constitutional Republic.  As a result, the fate of the union of American states is now genuinely in jeopardy.

*Source: Defining Natural-born citizen; the Federalist Blog — http://federalistblog.us/2008/11/natural-born_citizen_defined.html

4) Arnold actually SUSPENDED for a 50-day period this year (from October 10th to November 30th) an active 2005 law that protects pregnant women and children under three years of age from being injected with vaccine containing “toxic levels” of Thimerosal, an oil-in-water based “adjuvant” consisting of the poison, Mercury, that vaccine manufacturers have included in most H1N1 vaccine batches. Aside from the fact that studies have shown that there is no safe level of mercury to begin with (beyond the trace amounts in seafood), that a law existing to protect from Mercury levels over a particular point would be REMOVED for any length of time just to provide legal clearance for Pharmaceutical companies to expose the populace to toxic Mercury through vaccines is utterly CRIMINAL!

http://www.cdph.ca.gov/programs/immunize/Documents/H1N1ThimerosalExemptionInterestedparties%20_3_.pdf

Arnold should be impeached or recalled at the very least because he has demonstrated by deed and expression his callous disregard for the welfare of the citizenry and his treasonous commitment to violate the Constitution of the United States.

Add your reasons below!

You have to hand it to the neo birchers, flat earthers, birthers, climate change deniers and free lance commie spotters. Fueled by Fox “News” misinformation and willful misunderstanding, they never let facts or reality get in the way of their delusions and grand conspiracy theories.

They know there is a vast left wing conspiracy to sap America of its preciousness. Every single person in the media is in on the scam, from tyour local newspaper delivery people all the way up to our leaders, Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow. Of course, Fox “News” is free of taint, but they’re the only ones you can trust to report the exact and absolute truth, no matter what those independent fact checking organizations say about them getting things wrong so frequently.

Also, everyone in academia is in on the plot, from your children’s elementary school teachers to university researchers, professors and, the true masters of the universe, graduate students. We actually have weekly meetings to plot how best to destroy America and advance the global warming hoax.

Yes, I admit it. Global warming is a hoax. During our last meetings on taking down the country, we were told how we got all the scientists from universities and government agencies such as NASA and the EPA to lie and fake the data so we can pull off the scam.

The conspiracy is proceeding according to plan. I just hope Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin can be held off until it’s too late. Dasvidoniya, comrades.

Okay, we get it. Lieberman is pissed at liberals and progressives because they had the temerity to be angry with him for supporting an unlawful, unnecessary, and unwinnable war. He wants to stick it to us. And the only way he can do it is to screw us on HCR.

It makes him feel good.

It will also result in the unnecessary deaths of thousands of people.

But it makes him feel good.

TPM has a piece up arguing that the White House and Congressional Dems don’t want Little Joey to stomp his feet and take his ball home because they need him on bills coming out regarding climate change, security and marriage equity:

Sen. Joe Lieberman might be persona-non-grata in the health care negotiations, but he’s juggling several large initiatives the Obama administration wants to see move forward.

As Democrats grow increasingly infuriated with Lieberman (I-CT) as he throws a wrench into the health care bill, the White House and Senate leadership can’t afford to kick sand in his face.

An exchange in the comments section of this story is interesting:

AdAbsurdum
December 15, 2009 12:09 PM in reply to Steve LaBonne
The fact remains that Joe Lieberman is one of the most reliable liberal voters in the Senate and even more so this past year than throughout his previous senatorial career. There are better metrics of voting records than blog commenter tantrums.

Morbo
December 15, 2009 12:28 PM in reply to AdAbsurdum
Joe’s a heartless asshole who chooses to look away from the giant pile of 44,000 dead bodies that directly result from his and the other bought-and-paid-for corporate whores’ decisions.

Joe thinks Joe is a deeply moral man. He is not. He purposely turns a blind eye to great suffering which he alone could stop. In a just Universe, Joe would spend eternity repeatedly dying to untreated stomach cancer. He deserves his own “medicine”.

There has to be a time in this country where we call our monsters what they are, monsters. Joe is monster #1. And if you think allowing 44,000 more fellow citizens to die next year is acceptable, you’re an immoral monster too.

There are different figures for how many die each deacde, year, month, day, or hour because of our so called health care system. But the premise holds: little Joey has decided that thousands of people will die because he’s in a snit and is using these people as proxies in his quest to stick it to liberals and progressives.

But he’s a Serious Person. And moral. An ethical paragon.

Sometimes I wish I believed in hell.

I recently read “Eichmann in Jerusalem” by Hannah Arendt and wanted to share my thoughts on it.  I read it because I was thinking about terrorism, the Bush Administration’s  policies and legal framework specifically and other interrelated issues; including the Executive Branch’s use  (or abuse) of power through the creation of legal (I use that term loosely)  frameworks. (Can you bring something “illegal” into the law, thereby “breaking” the law to make that thing legal? Paradoxical.)

In particular I thought that it would be important to revisit “Eichmann in Jerusalem” especially because of the upcoming trial of those responsible for the attacks on September 11th, 2001.

(Parenthetically, I also recently read “Angler” by Barton Gellman, “The Terror Presidency” by Jack Goldsmith and “Claim of Privilege” by Barry Siegel which form an excellent nexus of books related to the national security state, terrorism and current politics)

Thoughts on the, “banality of evil”, totalitarian states, society and culture and “Eichmann in Jerusalem” in general:

-The fluidity of a totalitarian state

-Inversion of conscience interrelates to obedience.  (Instead of asking myself- “what horrible acts have I committed?” I ask, “What horrible things I have seen in the course of my duties in obedience to the state?”)

-Following “good society”

-Leaders of Einsatzgruppen were “normal”-killers and psychopaths weeded out

-Always “covering” oneself with orders from superiors

-Language rules: genocide never mentioned, “resettlement” is the code for gas chambers

-Empty phrases-still kept emotional meaning but devoid of practical and real meaning (What did/does the War on Terror mean? Why do I continue to use this phrase? Is it an “empty phrase”? How else can I conceptualize the response to terrorism?)

- “Softness” of Nazi power (This is Arendt’s term and used very specifically)

- “Mystic” of Hitler-obedience to his commands

-Eichmann does not feel guilty about the deaths of the Jews (Psychology of those who assist in mass murder-particular to Eichmann’s psychology?)

-The portrayal  of murder, the gassing of the Jews, as a medical procedure (What about the involvement of doctors in monitoring torture today?)

-The banality of evil.

I don’t mean to draw any direct conclusions or connections between the Nazi state and current events, but only to use “Eichmann in Jerusalem” as distant reference point from which to make some comparisons.  Imagine 2 sets of train tracks running parallel to each other but trillions of light years apart.

I think that one could read about any totalitarian or authoritarian state and see some similarities with politics and governance in democracies.  That’s not to say that therefore there is no such thing as Democracy or that everything is relative.  In fact it shows how great the potential is for any modern state to become totalitarian or authoritarian without the active participation of citizens in their government and state.  Literally, government for, by and of the people.

Further thoughts:

-Democracy’s  chain of command and bureaucratic structure is linear and clear

vs

Totalitarian (Nazi)  regime hierarchy is convoluted and fluid, orders as such are indirect, i.e. lacking written authorization. (For example, check out this PDF)

In any case, all these ideas are in flux being worked out in my head.  Ideas and thoughts appreciated.  Hopefully further postings will elaborate on the ideas brought up here and refine them.  I also hope to have some picture and graphics in upcoming posts. Thanks.

While our friends at redstate Trike Force HQ and elsewhere are busy prostituting themselves to corporations that profit greatly from selling dinosaur era fuel, all their jumping up and down is profiting them little.

They think they have debunked the climate change ‘myth’ conclusively. They are of course wrong, but, trapped in their self amplifying echo chamber, they are largely oblivious to this particular aspect of reality. Of course, they do believe the “MSM” (“main stream media”) are playing their obvious role in the international conspiracy to trick the public into believing in AGW (anthropogenic global warming). Their explanations of the motivations for the vast green conspiracy were always vague and nebulous, but lately seem to revolve around some sort of scheme to enrich Al Gore.

Environmental issues are probably not in and of themselves election deciders for most people. However, they are a strong, if sometimes less attended to, undercurrent that helps shape not only how people vote in individual elections, but also the very foundation of their worldview. This is another in a long string of societal questions that the rightwingers and Republicans have been on the wrong side of.

By attempting to appear credible while obtusely denying global scientific consensus, they are loosing not only a generation of young people who are still working out where they stand socially and politically and who care about climate change — they are also hurting their ethos with others and, even more broadly damaging, they are yet again showing themselves to be completely lacking in intellectual honesty and any interest in rational civic discourse.

So how do progressives, liberals and like minded Democrats respond to this epochal rightwing and Republican failure? Satire, mockery and ridicule.

I read or heard this description recently, but I can’t recall the source: the rightwingers and Republicans have been reduced to a coalition of cynical liars and the willfully ignorant. Neither segment of the alliance is very open to reason and persuasion.

But we’re not trying to appeal to them. Max Bumenthal provides a good description of the sado masochistic impulses that propel so many of them to a rightist authoritarian world view. They are the 20-25% who love the Cheney family television road show and think Bush was the most bestest president since St Ronald the Dyed and they are a lost cause.

However, there’s a much more amorphous and ill defined group, including many younger people, who either have not formulated their worldview or who are true independents and can, at least potentially, vote for either party or even a third one.

This group is open to reason and persuasion — we persuade them by being reasonable. And, at this point in the rightwing and Republican devolution, the reasonable response is satire, mockery and ridicule.

For eight years we in the United States have watched a farce unfold. Every tactic for the usurpation of liberty, every cliché power grab has unfolded in the hallows of Congress. We ignore it for the sake of safety, or worse, for the sake of our selfish sloth. We must contact our senators and representatives and establish again the primacy of liberty in these United States of America. What is there to change?

This. A man was beaten, pepper-sprayed, and arrested at the Canadian border when he asked why his party was being searched. He was later released onto Canadian soil without his jacket or any winter-wear and without his property during a winter storm. On top of this, he was charged (perhaps falsely) with assaulting a federal officer, a charge which carries a two-year jail term and a lifelong ban on traveling through U.S. territory.

We cannot allow this to continue. Our government is intrinsic to the American people. We are responsible for everything this nation does on a grand scale. We the people are responsible for every abuse of authority exercised by representatives of our Federal government. If we do not defend the one who is trod upon by unchecked authority, then who will defend us when we are ourselves trod beneath the wild beast of government.

In the first three parts of this essay, I discussed the nature of social organization in Paleolithic hunter-gatherer groups and how environmental changes and the increase in group size affected social structure and governance in the Neolithic Age and beyond.    As social groups increased in size, social regulation changed from egalitarian, participatory ”governance,” which kept the power of leaders in check, to situations in which ”leveling down mechanisms” could no longer prevent power from being concentrated in the hands of an elite leader or leaders.

In modern times, as Shultziner points out:

Democratic mass elections are modern forms of a leveling-down mechanism by which unsatisfied rank and file can replace their leaders. Elections also reflect a social mechanism of reaching a consensus similar to the ones in foraging bands. And, elections are an acknowledgment in the importance of legitimacy. Almost all regimes in the world today employ elections or referendums in order to exhibit popular consent to their rule. Authoritarian and non-liberal regimes are no exception. Iran, for instance, is far from being a liberal democracy for ultimate political power is vested with an unelected religious clique; yet, elections are being held in Iran and real competition between parties and ideas exists. Interestingly, 120 out of 192 countries held democratic elections in 2000. This implies that the heritage of ancient egalitarianism is very strong and it shapes social practices and institutions not in liberal democracies alone.

Thus, we may legitimately ask: If egalitarianism has been bred into humankind, then what is the future of “participatory democracy?” What form will it take as the 21st century proceeds at literally breakneck speed to a political destiny only dimly perceived?  The exponential development of technology, with its potential for connecting every member of the human race, is arguably the key factor that will determine the future of governance in a global society.  We may ask with some degree of trepidation:  Will democracy devolve into a “One World Government” run by a small oligarchy?  Or will it evolve into a new synergistic form of governance, quite unlike the old, grammar school type of majority-rule democracy, i.e., a “World Governance” that is not under the control of a few, but operates within a nexus of a multiplicity of interdependent groups or organizations all linked for a common purpose.  To decide between these alternative scenarios, we need first to examine the difference between “government” and “governance.”  Then, perhaps, we can see more clearly in what direction the planetary society appears to be hurtling.

The Difference Between Government and Governance

 I shall use the term, “governance” essentially in the sense described by Elizabeth Meehan in a paper (2003) entitled, “From Government to Governance, Civic Participation and ‘New Politics’: The Context of Potential Opportunities for the Better Representation of Women.”  Meehan, an Irish writer from Belfast,  asks rhetorically, “What is governance?”  and, then, and attempts to answer this question.

The notion is hard to pin down, but it does seem accepted that a number of forces have converged so as to change the nature of what it means to govern: forces such as globalization…Europeanization…pressures on the traditional welfare state, and new political cultures in which traditional methods of delivering the services of the welfare state are no longer regarded as ‘empowering’. It is also accepted that there is a discernible difference between government and governance. This is not to say that governance is displacing government; merely that the two forms of activity coexist [Emphasis added].

Analysts of governance focus on a range of new arrangements and practices. These include the fragmentation or sharing of public power amongst different tiers of regulation such as the European Union (EU), state governments and sub-state governments. Secondly, they point to other arrangements encouraging policies to be formulated and implemented away from the centre; the ‘hollowing out’ of the state through the ‘agentization’ of government and the privatization of the provision of utilities and services [citation in original]. Thirdly, analysts note an increasing reliance on partnerships, networks and novel forms of consultation or dialogue that are at the heart of ‘Third Way’ thinking about policy design and delivery.

Governance is usually defined by contrasting it with what is thought of as the traditional pattern of public power in which authority is centralized and exercised hierarchically [or, pyramidally (Editor)]–often called the ‘command and control’ model [Emphasis added].  Here, Prime Ministers dominate other ministers, ministers dominate civil servants, and central government dominates local government [citation in original].

Conversely, analysts of governance [see]…power as dispersed and relational and argue that governance arises from a lack of capacity on the part of governments, acting alone, to effect desired changes. Instead, public power manifests itself through increasingly blurred boundaries between different tiers of government, the public and private, and between the state and civil society….[According to this view] it cannot now be taken for granted that the loci of effective political power are national governments.  Instead, ‘effective power is shared, bartered and struggled over by diverse forces and agencies at national, regional and global levels’. It is being ‘repositioned’ and, to some extent, ‘transformed by the growing importance of other less territorially based power systems’.

Meehan goes on to make a very important point.

…it should be noted that one classical view of civil society is that it is epitomized by self-organizing networks that are independent of government–sometimes even a countervailing force (McLaverty, 2002: 304). Other analysts of civil society see it and the state as interactive, with disputed implications for democracy [Emphasis added].

Thus, according to Meehan, the idea of “governing” changes from…

…acting through vertical chains of command and accountability in a hierarchy of institutions to becom[ing] a facilitator or regulator of what goes on in [society]… in order to try to solve problems [Emphasis added]. Governance means ‘collective problem solving in the public realm’ [citations in original].

In my view, the distinction between “government” and “governance” boils down to the fact that “government” typically is used to refer to a “State,” i.e., a “what.”  In contrast, “governance” refers to a process of social organization and control, i.e., a “how.”  Thus, it should be rather obvious that one can have governance in a social group without the necessity for there being a State (government).  Thus “governance” refers to a general process, whereas “government” refers to the implementation of a specific kind of process by a State.  In this sense, to govern, then, is to organize and control social activities, be they within the jurisdiction of a State or within the purview of a company or other non-governmental organization.

Meehan cites several authors in explicating how the terms “governance” and “government” differ.   To make her points clear in the context of the foregoing definitions which I offered, I shall refer to the specific process of a State as “governing” and the process of non-state organizations as “governance.” 

What, then, characterizes the role of the State in governing?  The State is construed to be the ultimate “Authority” within a geographical region.  Stefan Molyneux defines a government (State) as “a group of individuals within a geographical area who retain the monopolistic, moral and legal right to initiate force.”  Alternatively, what characterizes the role of non-State organizations in governance?  Non-governmental organizations tend more likely than not to be concerned with activation, regulation, or facilitation of social activities.

With regard to dominant mode of functioning, “governing” is characterized by the pursuit of a common, state-defined, ”national interest.”  In contrast, “governance” is concerned with coordinating and harmonizing the varied interests of group members.

What are the primary patterns of interaction under the governing mode and the governance mode?  The former is characterized by a “command and control,” and in most States today, it is based on majority rule.  The latter depends on multilateral negotiations to develop policies.

 Individuality and its Relationship to the Whole

We may justifiably ask: If egalitarianism is wired-in at birth as a result of evolutionary processes operating over millions of years, why then did we as a species develop into societies that so frequently have gone to war and have been governed by strong, dominant leaders who often dictate policy for members of their social or national groups?  I suggest that an answer may lie in the apparent parallelism between the development of the psychological organization of the individual  (individuation) and the development of the social organization of groups of individuals.  In addition to egalitarian tendencies within groups, there appears to be a strong evolutionary push toward individuality that competes with the purposes of social groups.

The human newborn is, ostensibly, without any sense of individuality.  For quite a long time after birth, the infant remains connected with the mother by “a psychological umbilical cord,” immersed in what psychologists call “psychological symbiosis.” Erich Fromm has written brilliantly about the individuation process that occurs as the child eventually begins to sense, as her brain develops, that she is separate from her mother.  This is a world shaking realization, which we see routinely manifested in what has come to be known as the “terrible twos” when the child says, “No” to everything.  She has learned that this little word has enormous power in manipulating her world.  She can get all kinds of interesting reactions from adults around her when she voices her “No.”  

However, as Fromm astutely observes, this burgeoning sense of separateness can also be very terrifying to some children and there is a desire to return to that symbiotic oneness with the mother.  Fromm says there is an urge to “Escape from Freedom,” which is the title of his marvelous and most famous book written in 1941.  The child can pursue a number of avenues or “mechanisms of escape,” including automaton conformity and sado-masochism.  Both of these two mechanisms can lead to the development of a tendency to submit to the dictates of an authoritarian leader. 

However, I would suggest that separateness and individuality are only frightening because Fromm is talking about a child growing up in a society in which the extended family of early humankind has almost disappeared in favor of the modern, nuclear family with all of its inherent social isolation and lack of support. 

It would seem that a child born into an early, egalitarian, hunter-gatherer group of 25 members, or so, probably did not go through such individuation, that is to say, if Julian Jaynes is correct.  Jaynes argues that the capacity for individual self consciousness did not exist at that time.   Individuality was, ostensibly, unnecessary, in fact, it was counterproductive to the group purpose of insuring survival.  Yet, as we observe the development of early humankind, we see an inexorable march toward individuality and all of the resulting conflicts between strong individuals competing for dominance. 

We see the same development in societies as we do in individuals.  The individual starts out submerged in a larger whole, then develops individuality, and if he reconnects with the larger whole in a positive way instead of escaping from his freedom, then individuality becomes integrated as part of the larger whole of society.  Likewise, groups started out with all members participating in the social order with more or less equal access.  Later, with the development of strong leadership in tribes and then nation states, the individual escaped from the freedom of individuality into submission to authority.  Now, in the 21st century, we are seeing a process developing on a global scale which appears to be quite similar to the positive reconnection of the individual with the larger whole of his society.  All over the world, we see groups of people attempting to integrate themselves within a global whole.  Some fear this as a potential return to the autocratic horrors of the past.  Others see an entire new and promising vista.  How we resolve the pessimistic and the optimistic views will be crucial in determining the future.  But, it appears to me that Life is impelling us in the direction of a new cooperativeness and interconnection, not to a development of the mega-authoritarianism of Orwell’s “Big Brother.”  However, the question remains whether the evolution of humankind will get shunted off the main path into an evolutionary cul-de-sac.

There is another perspective to consider which may shed some light on the development of individuality and its exaggerated perversion in the 20th century domination of the masses that occurred on a grander scale than in all of recorded history.  This different slant is to be found in the role of the human need for “recognition” as discussed by Shultziner. 

A Human Need for Recognition?

Shultziner points out that it is import to look beyond exogenous (environmental) factors in order to understand how democratic forms of government came into being.  He calls attention to the endogenous (psychobiological) factors which are involved in the development of democratic governance.

Transitions to democracy, modern and ancient, are not a result of environmental factors alone. A change in environmental conditions would not lead to the replacement of regimes, and leveling-down mechanisms would not lead to more egalitarian social structures, if human beings were not predisposed to react to environments in certain ways.

He goes on to say:

It is clear, then, that we must examine human nature (or endogenous factors) to seek a candidate for a psychological adaptive predisposition which can illuminate the generic historical course toward democracy. Democracies did not “just happen” in different places and at different times; something brought them into being. To my understanding, the proximate underlying factor which gives history its generic (sic) course is the psychological predisposition of the pursuit of recognition [Emphasis added].

Is there a human need for recognition that is just as strongly wired-in at birth as the egalitarian tendency that characterizes groups?  If so, then this would seem to be a outgrowth of the tendency toward individuation and a convenient measure of the tendency toward self assertion.  What do social psychological and genetic research have to say on this issue?

Democracy and the Striving for Recognition

To provide a foundation for his theory of the development of democracy, Shultziner links the striving for “recognition” to the social psychological research on self esteem.

Pursuit of positive self-esteem is a psychological motivation to achieve, maintain or defend one’s positive evaluation of oneself, a motivation not to lose a sense of positive self-worth. The motivation to achieve positive self-esteem is crystallized through acts that are meant to attain and maintain recognition from others. This main characteristic of the self-esteem phenomenon can be referred to as a search, a quest, or a pursuit of recognition [Emphasis added]….The level of self-esteem is defined by the contingencies [rewarding events] one subjectively deems as important to one’s life and not by objective criteria [citations in original].  In that sense, contingencies of self-esteem are not constant: they can, and usually do, change or alternate in their importance in the course of one’s life.

Some people’s contingencies [rewarding events]  for positive self-esteem are in individualistic terms such as successes in academic competence, athletics, physical appearance, god’s love, power and self-reliance [citation in original]; others’ self-esteem may depend on political and communitarian aspects such as adhering to community values for reasons of social acceptance, fulfilling and promulgating personal moral convictions, or pursuing public apology for recognition in perceived historical wrongs. People’s contingencies of self-esteem [rewarding events]  may vary but the psychological phenomenon itself is universal [citation in original]. The implications of these characteristics of self-esteem to politics are significant. People may define the way their regime treats them as a contingency[rewarding event]  of self-esteem. People may admire their royalties, kingships or religious sages (as people still do in many parts of the world) and regard their existence as important to their positive self-esteem; or, people may come to perceive certain regimes as despotic and detrimental to their positive self-esteem like they have in the past. Despotic regimes, however, cannot easily convince their populace that they are not despotic. And, once a regime is perceived as despotic (regardless of how enlightened it intends to be) it will be regarded as an obstacle to one’s positive self-esteem or even as an outright humiliation to one’s worth and dignity. This psychological predisposition to regain and defend positive self-esteem will motivate people to limit or dethrone the despotic regime by employing leveling-down mechanisms such as protests, elections or violent revolutions [citation in original].

Regimes around the world, democratic and non-democratic, are aware of the salience of being perceived as recognizing and respecting their citizens, and hence most regimes make an effort to be seen as speaking in the ‘name of the people’, as elected by the people, or at least as not disrespecting the worth and dignity of their populace. Citizens, on the other hand, can be quite sensitive to the way their regime treats them or to the policies their regime implements. Certain policies may be seen as lacking recognition or as misrecognizing people’s worth.

Shultziner proceeds to “present evidence to support the claim that the pursuit of recognition is a universal and central characteristic of human nature” and that “that perceptions of recognition or non-recognition shape politics.”

Self-esteem and pursuit of recognition are the most studied phenomena in social psychology. Although disagreements among contemporary theorists who specialize in the self-esteem phenomenon exist, one agreed fact does seem salient: almost all scholars agree that the pursuit of recognition is a pervasive characteristic of human behavior. Even those who content [sic - contest] the idea that pursuit of positive self-esteem is a psychological need and those who object that the pursuit of recognition is positive and healthy admit that in actual fact people do constantly pursue positive self-esteem in various ways, to various degrees and in healthy and unhealthy ways [citations in original].  Moreover, there is an agreement among social psychologists that positive self-esteem is a useful buffer against anxiety and that it brings about many other psychological benefits to the individual, and that the pursuit of recognition is a concept with useful explanatory power [citations in original].

What is undecided among students of self-esteem, though, is not if people pursue recognition, but rather why people do and whether the pursuit of positive self esteem is a universal human need, and whether it is a healthy pursuit or not [citation in original].

Shultziner goes on to say, regarding the human pursuit of recognition:

The universality of this phenomenon and its unique manifestations in different cultures have already been documented in a number of studies [citations in original].  Peculiarly then, social psychologists debate the theoretical origins of this phenomenon and not whether the pursuit of recognition is empirically a central behavioral characteristic of human beings.

In Part V of this essay, I shall discuss Shultziner’s review of evidence from genetic research and self-esteem and how these data illuminate “the innateness of the pursuit of recognition in an even more decisive way.”  Then, in the final installment (Part VI), I shall sum up the argument for an evolutionary perspective of the development of modern forms of democracy, including representative democracy as institutionalized in the U.S. Constitution.

While recurrent themes can become tedious to attend to, this one is important. I haven’t had time to dig too deeply into the president’s speech or the rightwing and Republican (mis)reaction to it, I did pick up this little gem over at redstate.com Trike Force HQ:

First, notice how the only respondent to the commenter as of this writing jokes that Obama supporters will try to deny that what happened in Obama’s tenth month in office was in fact terrorism. While many did hesitate to jump to the automatic conclusion that it was an act of terrorism, I have certainly not heard anyone deny that it was terrorism.

Second, and much more astoundingly, the first commenter is vigorously impugning Obama’s competence because of an attack by a single individual that killed 13 people and happened in Obama’s tenth month, despite the fact that Obama or anyone in his administration had heard any of the reports about Hasan’s disturbed behavior.

And the commenter compares this record unfavorably to the last seven years of Bush’s presidency.

Of course the commenter is unaware of the superhuman level of self delusion they operate under, but it could be hoped that someone else might point out the obvious.

But, given the current state of the rightwingers and Republicans, that appears to be too much to ask.

The ever rational rightwingers are outraged that Obama is turning the NFL into a cadre of revolutionary marxists bent on oppressing kid’s god given right to obesity and diabetes.

From the NFL:

President Barack Obama will join Saints quarterback Drew Brees, Steelers safety Troy Polamalu and Cowboys linebacker DeMarcus Ware in a special public service announcement debuting during each of the three NFL games played on Thanksgiving. The 90-second PSA is a joint effort of the NFL’s PLAY 60 campaign, a leaguewide effort to fight childhood obesity by getting kids active for 60 minutes a day, and United We Serve, the President’s initiative encouraging all Americans to participate in community service. The spot will continue airing throughout the rest of the season in a shorter format.

From a commenter at Trike Force HQ*:

American Experience
lukematthews Friday, November 27th at 12:50PM EST (link)
has got his Dumbo-eared visage at the beginning of every show as well. His goofy, I’m gonna-eat-you grin is so omnipresent as to be the Big Brother nightmare scenario. When I saw that NFL thing, I exclaimed, “Good God! Has he no decency.” My family laughed. [Emphasis added]

Yes, equating Obama teaming up with sports figures in an effort to fight childhood obesity to the paranoid reactionary Joseph McCarthy is particularly witty. Who says rightwingers and Republicans can’t do humor.

*Fear them:

(from Sadly, No! Click for link)

From Media Matters and Huffington Post:

No, really. She actually said that. And she wasn’t joking. And, of course, Hannity and the other guest didn’t bat an eye or, y’know, remind her about the almost 3000 people who died eight years ago or about the fatal anthrax letters.

This is a sad follow up to my last post. In today’s rightwing echo chamber, Perino gets to say that, despite the fact that the worst instance of terrorism in United States history occurred under Bush’s watch, in fact, no terrorist attacks actually occurred under Bush’s watch.

This is what passes for accurate and intelligent analysis for rightwingers and Republicans.

And the really weird part is that she wasn’t intentionally or consciously telling a lie. As far as she, her fellow rightwing Republican talking heads, and most of her Fox ‘News’ audience are concerned, she uttered the god’s honest truth.

If for a moment, they allowed a vague recollection of Sep 11 2001 to enter their consciousness, they would quickly mitigate it by reminding themselves that, of course, those attacks as well as the anthrax letters were in truth Clinton’s fault.

You can’t blame a new president for the mess the previous one left. Well, if the new president is not a Republican, then of course you can do that, but that’s another story.

Update: Via Media Matters, Perino obviously explains that, obviously, it’s your obvious fault for misunderstanding her obviously obvious meaning. Obviously.

Here’s a clip from the comment section:

President Obama has been deliberating over the last few months whether or not he should increase the amount of troops in Afghanistan.  It’s been a hot topic, with the President facing mounting public displeasure with his failure to end the wars that Bush started while in office. The reason for these deliberations is the resurgence of the Taliban, which has led the top brass in Afghanistan to request more troops to combat it.

So, what is really happening with Afghanistan?

The answer can be found in a desolate, snowy pass in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan.  Somewhere, buried by the passage of time, lay the remains of thousands upon thousands of British soldiers, casualties of the first British expedition to Afghanistan in 1842.  A gloomy foreshadowing of things to come.

What did these men die for? The same could be asked of the hundreds of US soldiers who have given their lives up in Afghanistan over the last eight years. The same could be asked of the thousands of Russian soldiers who died during the Soviet Union’s brutal attempt in the 80s to impose Communism on the country.

But in fact, Afghanistan is not a country. Afghanistan is the name given to an artificially created region that acted as a buffer zone between British India and Tsarist Russia. It was never meant to be a country – in fact, its borders were drawn specifically so that ethnic and tribal differences would prevent a strong, unified government – and it probably will never be a country, in the proper sense of the word. Afghanistan, in truth, is a territory in which reside a disparate collection of hostile tribes that have been fighting each other for centuries.

In a place rent asunder by such tribalism and fratricide, one can expect lawless people to thrive.  Osama bin Laden, after his exile from Saudi Arabia and Sudan, settled on Afghanistan as a promising venue for his fledgling Al Qaeda movement.  From there, he planned the 9/11 attacks and expanded the Al Qaeda network, recruiting many of the mujahideen or “strugglers” who had fought Soviet troops in Afghanistan ten years before.  The 9/11 attacks elicited a predictable response: the United States invaded Afghanistan under the banner of the UN within a matter of months, in hot pursuit of the man who had wrought destruction on American soil, and to topple the Taliban regime that had harbored him.

The Taliban regime could hardly have been called a regime, since in truth it controlled little more than the streets of Kabul.  Historically, no government in Afghanistan has ever controlled the entire country.  The regime fell with barely any resistance, leaving the US and its allies to find Osama bin Laden.

Yet the US seemed to have other goals in mind as well, one of which was to give Afghanistan a democratic government. The logic was simple: democratic governments are stable and more competent, and have a wider support base among citizens. So give Afghanistan a democratic government and it will be able to control the country, rooting out the likes of Osama bin Laden and other “terrorists.” The experiment has been unsuccessful, and the Americans and their allies now face Afghanistan’s age-old problem: how to control a motley bunch of quarrelsome tribes and ethnicities. Afghanistan continues to be as lawless as ever.

The philosophy of toppling dictatorships and attempting to create democracies in their place has proven misguided in both Iraq and Afghanistan, with the latter descending into a debilitating war between international forces and the Taliban.  I can think of several reasons why democracy isn’t working and the war should end.

1. Like I said before, Afghanistan is not a country but a territory created by outside powers. This means that Afghanis have no sense of being “one nation” with a single identity. They identify most closely with their clan, followed by their tribe, followed by their ethnicity, and last, with the nation itself. Without this sense of being a nation, Afghanis will not want to be part of a nation, but will gravitate instead towards their tribal or ethnic identities.

2. We are supporting a highly corrupt warlord-gone-president, who is largely interested in milking the system to his own benefit.  This is the reason why the Afghan insurgency has a popular base for fighting us.  In the last three months alone, Hamid Karzai has stuffed ballot boxes and bought off rivals.  He is certainly sympathetic to the US – if we left, his government would fall immediately – but he is not interesting in reforming or giving up any power.  No doubt he is betting that because we don’t want to leave the country to the Taliban, we won’t leave him high and dry by withdrawing from Afghanistan. So he thinks he can do whatever he wants.

The irony of the whole situation is that if we withdraw, the Taliban would not be able to control Afghanistan any more than Karzai could.  Their support base is just as narrowly ethnic and tribal as Karzai’s.  In the meantime, continued support of a corrupt and tribal president damages our already-tarnished democratic credentials throughout the Muslim world, and puts our troops at danger of attack from enemies of Karzai. What is the incentive to stay?

I have to say I was pleasantly surprised by Mathews conduct of this interview and it brings up an important trend: the proud and willful rejection of any reference to facts and rationality in preference for stridently reactionary emotionalism.

Chris Mathews actually came down pretty hard on Bishop Thomas Tobin of Providence Rhode Island over his refusal to allow Rep Kennedy to take communion. Mathews asked him if abortion is murder, what should the penalties be and Tobin dodged the question.

Mathews said Tobin must either make specific recommendations or stay out of “law making,” which the Bishop has “transgressed” into. Pretty strong stuff about separation of church and state, saying the church needs to stick to moral suasion.

Mathews notes that, although he shares the Bishop’s views on abortion, Tobin is reluctant to advise “even a minute in jail” for women and girls who have abortions because Americans, Catholics and others, don’t view abortion as a crime.

The piece began with a clip of JFK, still a presidential candidate in Houston, seeking to allay fears that he would be beholden to the Pope as President:

I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish. Where no public official, either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of churches or any other ecclesiastical source. Where no religious body seeks to impose its will, directly or indirectly, upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials.

Mathews repeated the quote, asking Tobin what he thinks of it. Tobin replies that JFK was talking about “establishing a national religion.” Incredulous, Mathews asked how he can assert such a transparently untrue assertion.

You think he meant something different from what he said?

The short answer is yes, he probably does. Although he could be cynically manipulating the faithful, it’s also entirely likely that the good bishop has deluded himself enough that he can purposely accept a ridiculous interpretation of Kennedy’s meaning.

It happens so often that it can become hard to notice. Here is just a short selection from today’s toobnetz:

• New Left Media (via HuffPo) has a great video showing the vacuousness of Palin autograph seekers:
  
• Via TPM, the RNC thinks they lost the last two elections because they were just too leftist, so they think it’s a good idea to implement a purity test.
• Via Think Progress, teabaggers think it’s just a hoot to jeer a woman whose uninsured pregnant daughter in law died.
  
• Via Crooks and Liars, Tucker Carlson, in all seriousness, asserts that Palin is “as smart as” Al Gore and “more experienced than” Obama.
• Via Plumline, Cheney slams Obama for bowing the the Japanese Emperor despite serving two presidents who did exactly the same thing.
• Via TPM, Crist spells it out:

  “It’s hard to be more conservative than I am on issues — though there are different ways stylistically to communicate that — I’m pro-life, I’m pro-gun, I’m pro-family, and I”m anti tax.” … “I don’t know what else you’re supposed to be, except maybe angry too.” [Emphasis added]

• And last, via Political Animal at The Washington Monthly, Steve Benin, addressing the issue, quotes Isaac Chotiner at TNR

  The first problem with this argument is that … Palin is unlikely to become a policy wonk because she is not very smart. What’s more, Douthat’s argument is tautological. Sure, it would be nice for the GOP if Palin and Huckabee were interested in policy. But if they were interested in policy, then they would not be so appealing to the GOP base.

  In other words, the problem is that a large part of the right has no interest in a policy wonk, and sneers at intellectuals and elites and the types of people Douthat would like to see running the party. A candidate who was interested in learning the ins and outs of the welfare state and health care policy is unlikely to ever achieve Palin/Huckabee levels of popularity with the grassroots.

These examples illustrate the views and psyches of a fairly large segment of our society. Recent polls estimate this group to comprise around 20 to 25 percent of the general populace.

That means, assuming you live in an average place, demographically speaking, and you’re in a room or on a bus with 19 other people, four or five of them believe things that are demonstrably untrue and act on those beliefs politically and socially.

In some areas the percentage of your 20 busmates or roomates will be lower; but in other areas, it will be higher — and in some of those areas, very, very much higher.

The web, along with older media like talk radio and Fox News, help fan the flames of such irrationality. But, like printing presses and cans of spray paint, this specific technology is still neutral. Barring further corporate intrusion, it is not in and of itself responsible for the ignorance spread through its reaches.

It just as readily carries counter arguments and refutations. But to do so, it must be peopled with those who are ready and willing to counter the ignorance. Thankfully, it is.

And after coming of age doing so much to fight the spread of misinformation during eight years of rightwing Republican misrule under Bush and Cheney et al, progressives and liberals on the web are well positioned to keep banging on the outside walls of the rightwing echo chamber.

[This post has been changed since original publication to correct the wording of the final paragraph and to acknowledge that emphasis was added to the Crist quote from TPM.]

Some lost causes pick themselves up and remind us that you should never write anything off, never give up on redemption.
I was scouring the net last night and I came across Alex Jones and his antisystem rants – featuring David Icke, our very own Brit on a mythological mission.
I was surprised to see him talking almost lucidly about how the world order is primarily a problem of consciousness. He seems to have reigned in his belief that the state we are is in due to giant alien lizards and talks of how he has woken up to the mind washing effects of the industrial control paradigm. I see this as positive. If Mr Icke has finally got the fundamentals right, if he can shed his authoritaria angst magical thinking and see that an emergent property of the now past social paradigm was mind control, then we are onto a winner.
People are waking up. People are shedding their reactive phase and realising that they can see the real culprit. It is not the powerful, the patriarch over whom we have no power, it is us, it is the order we submitted to for so long. And all we have to do is engage with it as mature adults not as 5 year old traumatised authoritarian followers believing in magical prime movers.
We are the change. You are the change Mr Icke. You have the information age at your feet. Go out there are talk (and for gods sake do some listening too) and let’s not hear anymore about them aliens please.

Rompoy and Ashton have no legitimacy. When they spend our money and speak on our behalf throughout the world there will be no way for us to hold them to account for what they do.

Queen Elizabeth is an unelected, unaccountable head of state, not just of the United Kingdom, but of dependencies and former colonies scattered across the globe; the remnants of a long gone empire.

The monarchy has a place in history, but no legitimacy in a modern democracy. All that could be said for the monarchy is that its powers have been effectively removed.

This is not the case for the unelected and unaccountable members of the House of Lords, including the bishops of the established church, who happily lie about where they live to collect massive ‘expenses’
 while passing laws to interfere ever more in our lives. This affront to democracy is an even greater anachronism than the monarchy.

Monarchy, aristocracy, state religion and a secretive, establishment judiciary all have the excuse of history and tradition to justify themselves. That is a weak excuse which freedom lovers should reject.

When it comes to the United Nations, which is a clique of the victorious powers of 1945, having no democratic legitimacy; the EU, which has been cobbled together in an authoritarian way, to prevent the re-emergence of German nationalism and then to consolidate the victory in the cold war we have anti democratic affronts growing up in our own times and we should be far more ashamed of that.

To cap it all, our daily lives are run by 800 quangos spending £35 billion pounds every year. Appointed by cronies, accountable to nobody, these people are the embodiment of the snooper, nanny state that steals our money and controls our lives.

Rompoy is a parasitic nonentity put in place by a cabal of Euro oligarchs. Give him the respect he deserves. At the same time help us get rid of the unrepresentative parasites on our doorstep who really control our lives.

This is priceless (via ThinkProgress):

This is one reason why I’m still not convinced she’ll have any real success if she runs in 2012. She and her handlers are so arrogant and inept that they even anger fanatics who took time off from work and waited in the cold and rain all day for her autograph.

If she can’t even avoid pissing this crowd off, what response would she evoke from people who are not already enthralled with her?

And it’s not as if any establishment Republican aides and staffers who know enough to avoid this kind of bush league unforced error would be all that eager to sign up to work for her.

Greenwald, Hullabaloo, TPM, along with many other sane people, as well as some not so sane people, are trying to figure out the right wing and republican freak out over terror trials.

Of course, the Trike Force, aka the redstate 101s Fighting Keyboarders, are barely keeping it together.

The snake is eating its tail. This will not end well for the rightwingers and Republicans. They have surrendered their party to the most rabid, damaging — and damaged — elements of “the movement.”

At a time when reasoned discourse and sober opposition might buy them some independents disillusioned with Obama’s punch pulling, they are making the strategic decision to embrace the message and people who drive independents and moderates away in droves.

It is spectacle politics at its worst and only serves to make the already enthralled more ecstatic. Everyone else turns away in disgust from the spectacle, as well as from those who try to pull off and manipulate it for their own short term gain.