Author: chasdarwin

Active in Americans United, Center For Inquiry, and ACLU

A secretary came to town

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I’m not talking about the non-gender specific (right!) people who used to, between typing and answering the phone,  bring my boss and I coffee in the 1960’s, but rather Ohio’s superstar Secretary of State – Jenniffer Brunner – who won the Kennedy families’ ‘Profiles in Courage’ award in 2008 for enginnering a fair election in Ohio.

After sharing some of her 2008 elections experiences with us, Ms. Brunner, speaking before a packed house crowd of more than 70 people at the March Westside Democrats meeting, told us why she has decided to move on and run for the upcoming US Senate seat in 2010.  “The center of action has moved, with Obama, to Washington, and that’s where it will be for a number of years.”  (I also expect that she sees a window of opportunity: Senate seats do not open up often, and she, like me, sees 2010 as a another ‘D’ year.)

She told us a little bit of her life, and – like this author – is a Natural Progressive: she always had more brains and charity than money.  

The next Senator from Ohio answered questions from the floor, and then talked individually with those who stood in line so to do. 

N.B.: My next revised history will have her win SoS in 1998, Gore winOhio in 2000 and 2004, and the US will be on top  of a safe, green, world.

The ideologies that failed

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Frank Schaeffer – see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Schaeffer – a former religious right Republican, addresses his former party:  “You Republicans are the arsonists who burned down our national home. You combined the failed ideologies of the Religious Right, so-called free market deregulation and the Neoconservative love of war to light a fire that has consumed America. Now you have thenerve to criticize the “architect” America just hired — President Obama — to rebuild from the ashes. You do nothing constructive, just try to hinder the one person willing and able to fix the mess you created.

I used to be one of you…. Today no actual conservative can be a Republican. Reagan would despise today’s wholly negative Republican Party. And can you picture the gentlemanly and always polite Ronald Reagan, endorsing a radio hate-jock slob who crudely mocked a man with Parkinson’s and who now says he wants an American president to fail?!

With people like Limbaugh as the loudmouth image of the Republican Party — you need no enemies. But something far more serious has happened than an image problem: the Republican Party has become the party of obstruction at just the time when all Americans should be pulling together for the good of our country. Instead, Republicans are today’s fifth column sabotaging American renewal.

President Obama has been in office barely 45 days and the Republican Party has the nerve to blame him for the economic and military cataclysm he inherited.” 

Thank you Mr. Schaeffer, and here we hope the  GOP ignores you & continues its current path…

see: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/frank-schaeffer/open-letter-to-the-republ_b_172822.html

Malthus and Darwin were correct

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Chris  Hedges writes in TruthDig:

“All measures to thwart the degradation and destruction of our ecosystem will be useless if we do not cut population growth. By 2050, if we continue to reproduce at the current rate, the planet will have between 8 billion and 10 billion people, according to a recent U.N. forecast. This is a 50 percent increase. And yet government-commissioned reviews, such as the Stern report in Britain, do not mention the wordpopulation. Books and documentaries that deal with the climate crisis, including Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth,” fail to discuss the danger of population growth. ”

“We are experiencing an accelerated obliteration of the planet’s life-forms—an estimated 8,760 species die off per year—because, simply put, there are too many people. Most of these extinctions are the direct result of the expanding need for energy, housing, food and other resources. The Yangtze River dolphin, Atlantic gray whale, West African black rhino, Merriam’s elk, California grizzly bear, silver trout, blue pike and dusky seaside sparrow are all victims of human overpopulation. Population growth, as E.O. Wilsonsays, is “the monster on the land.” Species are vanishing at a rate of a hundred to a thousand times faster than they did before the arrival of humans. If the current rate of extinction continues, Homo sapiens will be one of the few life-forms left on the planet, its members scrambling violently among themselves for water, food, fossil fuels and perhaps air until they too disappear. Humanity, Wilson says, is leaving the Cenozoic, the age of mammals, and entering the Eremozoic—the era of solitude. As long as the Earth is viewed as the personal property of the human race, a belief embraced by everyone from born-again Christians to Marxists to free-market economists, we are destined to soon inhabit a biological wasteland.”

Birth Control for all!

see: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090309_we_are_breeding_ourselves_to_extinction/

A Ponzi Scheme for all Americans vs real wealth for all Americans

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We have been warned!

In todays Times ( New York, not London), Tom Friedman writes: “What if the crisis of 2008 represents something much more fundamental than a deep recession? What if it’s telling us that the whole growth model we created over the last 50 years is simply unsustainable economically and ecologically and that 2008 was when we hit the wall — when Mother Nature and the market both said: “No more.”

We have created a system for growth that depended on our building more and more stores to sell more and more stuff made in more and more factories in China, powered by more and more coal that would cause more and more climate change but earn China more and more dollars to buy more and more U.S. T-bills so America would have more and more money to build more and more stores and sell more and more stuff that would employ more and more Chinese …

We can’t do this anymore.”

“We created a way of raising standards of living that we can’t possibly pass on to our children,” said Joe Romm, a physicist and climate expert who writes the indispensable blog climateprogress.org. We have been getting rich by depleting all our natural stocks — water, hydrocarbons, forests, rivers, fish and arable land — and not by generating renewable flows.  ““You can get this burst of wealth that we have created from this rapacious behavior,” added Romm. “But it has to collapse, unless adults stand up and say, ‘This is a Ponzi scheme. We have not generated real wealth, and we are destroying a livable climate …’ Real wealth is something you can pass on in a way that others can enjoy.”

see: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/08/opinion/08friedman.html?ref=opinion

Brooks says: “Spending freeze ‘Insane'”

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That would be David Brooks, not Mel, and he was speaking during an appearance on “This Week with George Stephanopoulos”.    “New York Times columnist David Brooks said on Sunday that it was “insane” for Republicans in Congress, including every GOP member of the House, to support a spending freeze in the middle of a recession.  “Tying such proposals to an intellectual simplicity exhibited by Rush Limbaugh, the conservative scribe also said the party was too obsessed with pursuing the legacy of Ronald Reagan in a drastically different time.  The problem with them and the problem with Limbaugh in terms of intellectual philosophy is they are stuck with Reagan,” … They are stuck with the idea that government is always the problem. A lot of Republicans up in Capitol Hill right now are calling for a spending freeze in a middle of a recession/depression. That is insane. But they are thinking the way they thought in 1982, if we can only think that way again, that is just insane. And there are a lot of Republicans like David Frum … who are trying to say Reagan was right for his era, but it is time to move on. And there are just not a lot of them on Capitol Hill right now, and I think the party is looking for that kind of Republican.”

Well said Mr. Brooks, even though I abhor seeing limp bough’s name in the same sentence with the word ‘intellectual’ –  although ‘simplicty’ did rescue the statement.  Also, having read Stockman’s “The triumph of Politics, How the Reagan Revolution Failed” (he was budget director during the early scenes of that B movie). I also cringe when I see the actor’s named linked with policy. 

Before jumping on the good ship Reagan, one must ask if  ‘Reagonomics’ worked? It certainly did: 

  o It redistributed wealth from the lower and  middle classes to the very wealthiest.

  o Increased our national debt nearly ten fold.

  o Allowed our infrastructure and education systems to deteriorate.

  o Left us unprepared for the post cold war world: enter Japan, then Korea, then China, et all.

N.B.: I am including Bush 41 & 43 with Ronald I, under supply-side slumdogs. 

see: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/03/08/brooks-gop-spending-freez_n_172838.html

New ideas are dangerous?

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Some say that progressives ‘hate’ Mr. Limbaugh – aka limp bough.  I don’t hate any life forms, but I can and do at times hate what some may say or do.  I find the limp one offensive, dangerous, and a non-contributor to the progress of our species.

Joe Conason writes in TruthDig: “Once upon a time, conservatives liked to say that “ideas matter.” They attributed this pithy slogan to Ayn Rand, venerated author of “Atlas Shrugged” and “The Virtue of Selfishness,” and tried to live by it, generating books, papers and legislative proposals by the dozen. Although many of their theories later proved flimsy, they at least attempted to address real problems with fresh thinking.

But ideas no longer matter—and in fact they’re dangerous, according to the maximum leader of the right.

At the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington last week, Rush Limbaugh declared that new ideas ought to be shunned by every right-thinking American. The radio kingpin savaged those in his movement who have dared to suggest that the right needs policy alternatives to compete with Democratic plans for economic revival, universal health care, environmental stewardship and educational improvement. Ranting on for more than an hour, he warned against any reconsideration of the sacred platitudes of Reaganism.”

He continues: “The image of a radio demagogue, dressed entirely in black, roaring against dissenters from the official line, provoked comparison with Fidel Castro or Mao Zedong. Here was the harbinger of an ideology in decline, exhibiting pathological aversion to intellectual activity and unfettered debate, an aversion that is always the surest evidence of political decay.

The irony, of course, is that Reaganism was, at its zenith, a vehicle for policy ideas as well as a personality cult. What began with the founding of National Review and the Barry Goldwater campaign as a rump protest against stale Republican moderation became the dominant current—with a vision of its own and a series of policy schemes, from supply-side economics to workfare, faith-based social spending, school vouchers and Social Security privatization. But although the world has changed radically since those ideas entered the political mainstream a quarter-century ago, Limbaugh and his millions of followers evidently feel that any attempt to cope with change is heretical.

Some Republicans clearly understand that their party and their ideology are exhausted, even if they still can’t come up with anything more creative than capital gains tax cuts. (That means you, Newt Gingrich.) They also know that as a public spokesman and symbol, Limbaugh, whose utterances over the years have been larded with obnoxious racism and sexism, leaves much to be desired… For Democrats, these clown shows are amusing and encouraging. As long as the Republicans kowtow to Limbaugh, they won’t be able to muster substantive opposition to President Obama and the congressional majority. That may be just as well for now. But every nation needs a competitive marketplace of ideas—and conservatism today offers only retreads. ”

Mr. Conason does well here, and, if one asks if I tire of the limp bough controversy, I recall that at the time of the Abu Grahib prison revelations, a conservative colleague said: “I wish they would stop talking about it.” I’m sure she did, and I am happy to see the Mindless One as the Icon of the GOP.

 

see: http://www.truthdig.com/report/print/20090304_rushing_toward_irrelevance/

N.B.: Speaking of Ayn Rand, it might be noted that genes have been discovered which favor intra species cooperation…

What we have here is a failure to communicate…

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There is currently a great deal of  attention being given to Rush Limbaugh, although in Cleveland the current top story is over another unsavory topic -multiple murder and suicide. 

Questions:

0: Who is Rush Limbaugh?

1: What is this talk radio format, of which he is a participant?

2:  Is this talk radio format an acceptable form of communications?

3: Is it factual, that is, does it seek after the truth, and after multiple sides of the story?

4: If not, what can be done?

5. Is Rush Limbaugh ‘good’ for America?

6. Is He good for the GOP?

7: Is he as highly approved as some of his advocates think?

0: Rush Limbaugh was born in 1951, and dropped out of  Southeast Missouri State University  after two semesters and one summer, with a very undistinguished record.  He became a disk jockey, and then moved into talk radio.  With ” the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine — which had required that stations provide free air time for responses to any controversial opinions that were broadcast — by the FCC in 1987 meant stations could broadcast editorial commentary without having to present opposing views”, and this launched conservative talk radio.  (From wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rush_Limbaugh).  He uses the term “Excellence in Broadcasting” network, but that is a fiction – there is no such entity.

1. The format of this type of programming has two characteristics:

 o Opinion and editiorial content are stated as fact.

 o The dialog is controlled, e.g., if a caller got through and challenged what was being said, the host can hang up, and then reword statements to their advantage.

2.  The result is illusion, not reality: no, it is not a form of broadcasting the truth, and not an acceptable form of communications. 

3. As an example of this show’s disconnect from reality, consider: “During the February 14(2006) broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, Rush Limbaugh invented a racial component to explain Iraq war veteran Paul Hackett‘s departure from the Ohio Democratic Senate primary race. While reporting on Hackett’s decision to withdraw from the Democratic primary race against Rep. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) for the seat currently held by Sen. Mike DeWine (R-OH), Limbaugh asserted: “And don’t forget, Sherrod Brown is black. There’s a racial component here, too,” adding that “the newspaper that I’m reading all this from is The New York Times, and they, of course, don’t mention that.” In fact, Brown is Caucasian — a point on which Limbaugh was corrected later in the program.” (From: http://mediamatters.org/items/200602160001), and in fact Sherrod won the seat.  This is an example of ignorant,  irresponsibe journalism, and even a miniscule knowledge or research of the facts would have avoided it.  Give him an ‘F ‘ on this – a grade familiar from his college career.   Also see mediamatters, or “Rush Limbaugh is a big, fat liar” by Al Franken for a nearly endless list of other such examples.

4. We can restore the Fairness Doctrine, and move on from there.

5. He appears to be racist, and anti-female, among other unsavory characteristics: hard for to find much good there.

6. Politico’s Jonathan Martin had the scoop: “Top Democrats believe they have struck political gold bydepicting Rush Limbaugh as the new face of the Republican Party, a full-scale effort first hatched by some of the most familiar names in politics and now being guided in part from inside the White House.

The strategy took shape after Democratic strategists Stanley Greenberg and James Carville included Limbaugh’s name in an October poll and learned their longtime tormentor was deeply unpopular with many Americans, especially younger voters. Then the conservative talk-radio host emerged as an unapologetic critic of Barack Obama shortly before his inauguration, when even many Republicans were showering him with praise.
Soon it clicked: Democrats realized they could roll out a new GOP bogeyman for the post-Bush era by turning to an old one in Limbaugh…”  see: 

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/06/weekend-opinionator-the-party-of-limbaugh-a-conservative-debate/

This dialog then, is of benefit to Democrats.

7: Apparently not – see: http://zdrake.blogspot.com/2009/03/rush-limbaugh-polling-hes-not-popular.html

“..a failure to communicate The Truth”.

Forget the Bachelor – Health care reform in 2009

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Loud and Clear – This is the year! That is the message that came out of the White House conference yesterday, along with the message that this is part of repairing the economy.

“WASHINGTON | Sen. Edward M. Kennedy received a royal welcome, of sorts, when he appeared Thursday at a health care forum hosted by President Barack Obama.

Warm applause greeted Kennedy, back in Washington for the first time since casting a vote last month on the economic stimulus bill. Earlier this week it was announced that Kennedy is to be awarded an honorary knighthood by Britain.

“To Sir Edward Kennedy,” Obama said amid laughter and applause from those gathered at the White House. “That’s the kind of greeting a knight deserves.”

Kennedy, who recently turned 77, is battling brain cancer and has been in Florida continuing his treatment and physical rehabilitation.

see: http://www.kansascity.com/news/nation/story/1070220.html,

among many others

You know me, people, and I’m no Rush Limbaugh

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Michael Moore: “But some commentators (Richard Wolffe of Newsweek, Chuck Todd of NBC News, etc.) have likened this to “what Republicans tried to do to the Democrats with Michael Moore.” Perhaps. But there is one central difference: What I have believed in, and what I have stood for in these past eight years — an end to the war, establishing universal health care, closing Guantanamo and banning torture, making the rich pay more taxes and aggressively going after the corporate chiefs on Wall Street — these are all things which the majority of Americans believe in too. That’s why in November the majority voted for the guy I voted for. The majority of Americans rejected the ideology of Rush and embraced the same issues I have raised consistently in my movies and books.”

see; http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-moore/why-im-not-now-and-have-n_b_172410.html

Who speaks for Them?

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I once worked with a very intelligent young woman, who grew up as a have not, and worked her way through college, which made it difficult for me to comprehend why she listened to the factually challenged fat boy. 

I very seldom purposefully listen to him, as his statements such as “You don’t have to think, we will do the thinking for you” are offensive and, as one who works hard for everything that he knows, is contradictary to me.   Having heard many accomplished speakers in my life – E. O. Wilson – most recently, RL’s self-proclaimed knowledge rings both hollow and disinenuous.  

In the early 1960’s, it was fashionable among some to say (speaking of the Luce empire): “Life is for those who can’t read; Time for those who can’t think”.   Today: “Rush Limbaugh is for those who can’t think; Fox Noise for those who don’t”. 

Bob Cesca, in HuffPost writes:

“The Democrats are going about the business of cleaning up the mess of three decades of Reaganomics, while the GOP is duct-taping themselves to the ample bosom of the most self-satirical political sideshow geek in American media history.”

see: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bob-cesca/the-dittohead-party-how-t_b_171979.html