Pitt Griffin: 2014

“The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.” ― Marcus Aurelius, ‘Meditations’.

There is wild speculation is West Africa over the causes of the Ebola outbreak and the role played by the Liberian government in the epidemic. Speculation so wacky it hardly seems credible that people could believe it.

This will come as no surprise to westerners complacent in their rational superiority, who will greet the news with a “duh, of course” paternalism by those who see Africans as ovine children caught in the cross-fire between the greed of their governments and rebels doing God’s work (who have their own avaricious lusts).

But it isn’t the superstitious mob that sees a conspiracy behind the Ebola affair, that nugget is making the rounds of the educated classes. The uneducated are less interested in machinations at the seat of power. They have pursued the millennia old explanation for catastrophe – that it is the work of an angry God, pissed off at some moral failing in the population.

So what are these wacky theories? One belief is that Ebola doesn’t even exist. It is in fact a fiction propagated by government officials eager to see the spigots of international aid cranked wide open. To add credence to the fiction. the government is supposedly poisoning wells around the capital, Monrovia

While this seems incredible, it does jibe with the history of western money in West Africa. It is well known that a lot of foreign aid does end up in the dear leaders’ Swiss bank accounts.

Over 2,000 years old and trafficking in infectious diseases.

More off the wall is the Queen of Sheba cabal. According to this theory she was invited by the government to bring Ebola to the country for the same reasons the government invented the epidemic – foreign funds. It is unclear who this Queen is. But no one has actually met her. It is like every urban legend – validated by a friend of a friend.

Most Americans will look askance at this ridiculousness. But should we be so superior? Is there nothing like this in the US? Of course there is. We are a country in love with absurdities. Not just at the fringes, but right to the top of the political heap.

Take evolution. The majority of GOP presidential candidates reject it. The US has won more Nobel Prizes than any other country – easily. Yet conservative politicians insist science is a matter of opinion. They are more likely to believe that a personal God created everything in its present form. And that a bronze-age book of collected shepherds’ tales has validity as a science text. And further, they want to inculcate the youth of America in this nonsense. It’s child abuse.

But ignoring science is something the GOP does well. Every cold snap in Duluth is greeted with guffaws from climate-change deniers. “Put your head out the window. Where’s your global-warming now?” they derisively sneer. They are proud they don’t know the difference between weather and climate. And are comfortable ignoring unprecedented heat-waves in other countries. (Because other countries don’t exist unless we invade them or they are going bankrupt due to “socialist” policies.)

Let’s revisit religion. What’s the intellectual difference between a fundamentalist Muslim and a fundamentalist Christian? It’s a trick question. There isn’t any. Both reject any evidence that doesn’t comport with their world view. It is only the religiously deluded that believe America was created as a Christian nation. Or that the Middle East is Allah’s paradise on Earth. I am not so familiar with Middle East, but the Constitution clearly demands the US be agnostic among faiths.

So far, no Nobel award for the chemtrail promoters.

Then there are the American “Queen of Sheba” believers. The type of folks who believe in “chemtrails” and that the United Nations is conspiring to confiscate American guns and rewrite our zoning laws. And that believe the President is a Muslim, a Kenyan, and a socialist.

That FEMA operates death camps. That 9/11 was a government or Jewish project. That Sandy Hook was a false flag operation. That JFK’s assassination was a mob hit, the Cubans, the Russians or Martians, for all I know. That FDR was forewarned about Pearl Harbor. Or that the moon landings were faked.

At the end of the day the Liberians seem comparatively sane.

Friday, August 15, 2014

The Ferguson Affair is no Reason to Abolish the EPA.

“If men were angels no government would be necessary” – James Madison

The Ferguson PD deployed armored vehicles and heavily armed, camouflaged officers to counter the protests over the Michael Brown killing. Libertarians are leaping on that overreaction to decry a government grown too large; too authoritarian; too fascist. Their solution? Dispense with the whole apparatus; sweep it away; drown it in a bathtub. But that is to throw the baby out with the bathwater .

This is not the army in the Middle East. It is the police force in Ferguson, Mo.

An out of control police force is no reason to deep-six the EPA.

There is no doubt that, on the large scale, the NSA overreach – and small, the militarization of local police departments – government has been feeling its oats. All – except those who enjoy being spied on and brow-beaten by the brown-shirted bully boys – agree that these vile incursions on individual rights are despicable. But that should not be a rallying call to disband the EPA – nor any of the other agencies that protect the citizens from the depredations of corporate America.

Libertarians jump the shark when they conflate government oppression of the citizen with government regulation of business. Nobody wants the government to interfere with the individual’s pursuit of happiness. But there is much to recommend some entity preventing big business from peeing in everyone’s swimming pool (speaking metaphorically).

And what should the nature of this entity be? Libertarians tell us that the “free market’ will police itself. That “bad actors” will be weeded out. It is a utopian delusion – refuted by reality. Companies behave badly – time and time again – not because there is too much regulation, but because there is bad regulation. It is the same as saying that because “bleeding” and leeches didn’t cure disease, we should get rid of medicine.

Love Canal – a libertarian’s vacation paradise.

The need for something to rein in industry is overwhelming. In 1969 the Cuyahoga river in Ohio caught fire. In 1978 Love Canal was evacuated. In 1983 the Hudson River was declared a superfund site after being PCBed into submission. And that hardly scratches the surface of corporate environmental indifference.

Relying on the free market to police itself is like relying on an infant to keep his high chair clean. We need the EPA. And if it behaves in ways offensive to the individual then it needs to be improved not discarded.

It isn’t just the polluters who skate over decency. Money makes sinners of so many. Drug addicts are excoriated for there lack of moral fiber. Substance abuse is poo poo’ed as a disease and sneered at as a moral failing. But the addiction to profit seems to have abscised whatever moral fiber financiers may have brought to the party. Even to call them financiers is to give them a status beyond their exaltation.

Wearing an expensive suit doesn’t make you an upright man. Pimps and drug barons have style and flash but are scorned as society’s leeches. How is a hedge fund manager or any other get rich quick huckster any different? Capitalists who invest in new factories contribute to the economy – and make money, why not? But the masters of the universe use exotic, impenetrable financial instruments to create wealth – seemingly out of thin air – but not to contribute to economic growth.

If these self regarding, money mavens treat the economy as a casino they should expect to be regulated if they anticipate the general public backstopping their adventurism.

Business has bought itself a pack of poodles in Congress – and spends millions to convince the gullible to keep reelecting them. It is sad irony that the wide-eyed were convinced to enslave themselves to corporate rapacity by plutocrats selling them the idea that corporate regulation is fascism. It is one thing to wear chains. It is another to willingly don them.

Thursday, August 14, 2014

Ferguson Isn’t 1776 – But There Are Some Common Themes.

“You can’t hold a man down without staying down with him.” ― Booker T. Washington

America celebrates its birth as a triumph of the oppressed over their oppressors. But when the oppressed in America revolt today, the establishment sniffs. I suppose that when you are the children of revolutionaries, you celebrate those revolutionaries. But when you are the establishment, you support the establishment. Besides, the revolutionaries in Ferguson don’t look like the establishment.

Michael Brown – he was off to college.

Some of those citizens have actively protested the killing of a black unarmed teenager by a white cop. Some of those protestors have rioted and perhaps even looted. The authorities have leapt all over that to paint the crowd as a criminal mob. Which plays into white America’s suspicion that blacks are closer to the jungle than other races – and therefore allows the self-righteous to elide over the very real discrimination which may have contributed to the death of Michael Brown.

In fairness, the establishment was also horrified by the shenanigans of the “Occupy Wall Street” movement, the protests against the WTO, and even the violent celebrations following major professional sports victories – generally much whiter affairs. But in these cases the miscreants could be dismissed as young, unwashed and liberal.

The establishment likes to contrast this active expression of frustration with the politesse of the Tea Party’s marches. Two thoughts. One, the Tea Party is old – how did these geezers act when young? Two, talking about being young, did none of these old foggies ever burn a draft card or a bra. If not, what a wasted youth.

In our romantic view of the American Revolution much is made of the relative strength of the two sides. The overmatched colonists were up against the best equipped, best trained fighting force on the planet. The very fact that we were the underdog added legitimacy to our protest – “lack of might is right”, if you will.

This is not the army in the Middle East. It is the police force in Ferguson, Mo.

There is no comparison in toto between the Ferguson protesters and the revolutionaries of 1776. But there are some common themes. The protesters in Ferguson have molotov cocktails and reportedly shotguns. Facing them are a well equipped paramilitary force. The days of the cop on the beat swinging a billy-club are gone. Today’s police sit snug in armored vehicles – toting high-powered rifles, flash-bangs, tear-gas and a cornucopia of small arms and non-lethal weaponry.

They authorities behind this army have the same jaundiced view of the protesters as the English poobahs did of the American revolutionaries. But both sets of oppressed had real grievances. To be black in America is to be assumed guilty. Blacks smoke pot at the same rate as whites, but are arrested, convicted and jailed at a greater rate, Black drivers are more likely to be pulled over and ticketed. And unarmed black teenagers are more likely to be shot and killed.

White apologists harumph that there is more crime in black neighborhoods; that as a result it only makes sense to have more police presence. But it isn’t the quantity of policing that is the issue, it’s the quality. Any purse snatcher should be pursued and arrested, but no one should be detained on the suspicion they might be a purse snatcher.

The Constitution, and ethos of America, forbid a “Minority Report” world. But too often black youth are profiled – and treated – as criminals, before any evidence of crime is uncovered.

This lack of empathy by the authorities is exacerbated by the different make-up of the police and the community. Ferguson is 67% black. But its 53-person police force was reported to have only three black cops. That contention was scorned by the Ferguson police chief, who pointed out there were actually 5 black, 1 Hispanic, and 2 pacific-islander officers – in other words the police aren’t a dismal 6% minority, but a less than stellar 15%.

The pride of the chief’s contention shows his tone-deafness. As does his claim that he got along with neighborhood groups – while adding, “Unfortunately, an undertow (of racial unrest) has bubbled to the surface. Race relations is the top priority right now.” Too bad it wasn’t before.

Black Americans shouldn’t be given special treatment, but they should be treated the same as white Americans; given the same opportunities; and treated with the same respect.

Tuesday, August 12, 2014

Really? – 8.12.14 – Another dead, unarmed black teenager; Irony never takes a vacation; The 1st amendment – topless; The curse of ignorance

There are Many Problems – But Few Crises.

There is a lot of stuff hitting the fan. And when stuff hits the fan the media – and the political punditocracy – love to throw the label “crisis” around. But does every brouhaha deserve the label “crisis”? Let’s review.

First, closest to home, is the migration of unaccompanied minors from Central America to the US. This is decidedly not a crisis. It’s a problem. maybe even a big problem. Why should it be called a crisis? If there is one thing the US does well it is immigration. There are over 300 million of us who are immigrants or descendants of immigrants.

There are 12 million so called “illegal immigrants” in the US – how an extra tens of thousands of kids makes a difference is unexplained.

Ebola is deliciously scary. And if you are victim then it is damn serious for you. The same could be said for shark attacks and plane crashes. But so far the number of dead is less than 1000 – or less than half the number of Palestinians who have died in the latest Israeli/Hamas strife. The resources dedicated to the suppression of ebola are extensive and the effected West African countries seem to have taken measures to combat the spread of the disease. It isn’t a crisis.

On the flip side of the ledger is Sunni vs Shiite civil war. ISIS is a crisis. The conflict has cast the survival of Iraq and Syria in doubt. Thousands are being killed – many more will be. Entire religious sects are being eradicated. The ISIS fighters believe they are doing God’s work and as such can not be reasoned with.

At some point there will be an end to the massacres. The Cultural Revolution in China petered out. Stalins purges and the further oppression of the Soviet citizens finally collapsed with the Soviet Union. Although Putin is keeping that ball rolling. But that will take decades – if not centuries.

Which brings us to Ukraine – and Georgia, Belarus, and the other old Soviet Republics. Are they teetering into crisis? Hardly. The Soviet Union’s economy was vast. Russia’s economy is the size of Italy’s. Russia has nuclear weapons – but they aren’t going to use them.

And Russia has gas and oil - which the Europeans need. However, the Russians are now pivoting to China. But that is a path fraught with danger for the Russians. Europeans will be forced to adapt to a new energy source and the Chinese will go from strength to strength threatening Russia’s future viability. Which is unfortunate for them – but not a crisis for us.

Back to the USA. The true crisis in America is not – as we have seen – the kids on the Southern border. Nor is it the terrorist threats from radical, terroristic, islamofascism. It is the increasing inequality of wealth, the lack of economic mobility and the disastrous decline in the education of our youth.

But more on that another day.

Thursday, August 7, 2014

Really? – 8.8.14 – Another Rand Paul fail; Anti-gay marriage bigots divorced from reality; Conservatives loving big b̶r̶o̶t̶h̶e̶r̶ government; Ebola x2.

Wednesday, August 6, 2014

The Impeachment Follies

Sunday, August 3, 2014

Really? 8.3.14 – Abortion Follies; Bigotry; Perry Lies; & the GOP Love Affair with Corporations

Saturday, August 2, 2014

Does God Love You?

A local church proudly announced on its billboard.

“God loves you

He always has

He always will.”

This is no doubt comforting. And satisfactory if you don’t over-think it – or think about it at all. But cursory consideration shows that the statement is absurd. Two claims are made here. One by implication – there is such a thing as “God”. And one by assertion – He loves you.

Let’s, for the sake of argument, stipulate that God exists and take a run at the claim that He loves you. It is hard to see where the evidence exists for this. If a father were to act as God does in the Old Testament he would be found guilty of child abuse. His sentence would be long.

In the New Testament, God’s reviews are more favorable. But his main booster is his Son. And as previously mentioned the father is so demanding and sadistic, his son’s testimony should be taken with a grain of salt. In all likelihood this poor bugger was so beaten up he would say anything to stop the pain.

Not that it did him much good, as his Father thought it a jolly idea to have him nailed up to suffer a revolting death.

When the dust has settled on that, the Bible promises such extraordinary tribulations on everyone who doesn’t dots the ‘i’s and cross the ‘t’s just so, it verges on torture porn.

Then let us contemplate human existence. There are some good bits. Sex, love and children are winners. As are a good meal and a nice bottle of Chianti. Good books, basking on the beach and the Grand Canyon can all be put in the plus column.

But the big negative is the capricious nature of life. It’s all going swimmingly until your 10 year-old daughter is killed by a drunk driver or cancer. Even your arrival is a coin toss. Will you be swaddled in the finest cottons, attended to by the palace retinue? Or dropped in a field by a starving mother, gleaning a meager existence?

If you even make it. Perhaps 1/3 of us – and according to God’s most fanatical, we are an ‘us’ from conception – do not make it from fertilization to birth. Leaving God as nature’s most prolific abortionist.

At best He can be said to be from the “spare the rod, spoil the child” and “this will hurt me more than it will hurt you” school of thought. But the facts paint the Divine as an unmitigated shit.

Luckily, a complete lack of evidence suggests our stipulation – that God exists – is premature.

Sunday, July 27, 2014

The Gun Lobby Remains Silent on Accidental Shootings

Americans frequently shoot themselves and others accidentally - often fatally. You would have thought that the NRA – an organization purportedly representing the interests of gun owners – would work to reduce this senseless violence. Perhaps the old NRA would have, but this current lot cannot afford to highlight this problematic side of gun ownership.

Should you mention that the NRA never publicly addresses accidental shootings, the gun absolutists will indignantly – and misleadingly – point to “Eddie Eagle’, the NRA’s gun safety character. Superficially this cartoonish figure has some safety cred – but it is only skin deep

He comes with two strikes. One, as critics maintain, is that he is a Trojan Horse. That he is to guns what Joe the Camel was to cigarettes. That is to say, he is a cynical promotional tool, foisted on impressionable kids, by an organization that has morphed from a gun-owner advocacy group t0 a marketing arm of the gun manufacturers.

These critics claim that Eddie’s role is to lure new customers to the gun industry. Certainly there is a Ronald McDonald cast to the smiling bird. But is the characterization fair?

To get at that truth let’s consider the second strike. The NRA is very vocal about gun ownership rights. Even going so far as to fret that a law banning the sale of ivory might make criminals out of the owners of ivory embellished guns. But as noisy as they are about the rights of gun owners they are silent on gun responsibility. Just try and find an NRA public service announcement addressing gun safety.

In addition to Eddie Eagle, the NRA trumpets its training. Indeed, the NRA was founded as an organization to teach marksmanship after the disastrous performance of union riflemen in the Civil War. But safety and training are buried on their website. You can easily find its lobbying arm – and its store – but safety requires navigation.

It’s simple really. If reducing accidental shootings were a priority for the NRA they would talk about them publicly and feature solutions to them on their website. It doesn’t – because they aren’t.

To put the NRA’s approach to gun safety in perspective, imagine if the AMA had reacted to the dangers of smoking by staying silent. Then, when their passivity was challenged, they had reacted by huffily pointing to their website, with its cigarette warnings three clicks from its home page.

A reasonable person would question their commitment to reducing tobacco-caused illness. Especially if they had also lobbied to give the tobacco industry legal protection from product liability suits. And cowed the GOP into demanding that the CDC cease to research the connection between smoking and disease.

The truth is that the NRA – and its acolytes – will never pursue an aggressive path to reducing accidental shootings as long as their priority is to pursue a promiscuous view of the 2nd amendment.

Wednesday, July 23, 2014

Really? 7.23.14 – Texas hates on women; Politicians with ADHD; Ignoring evidence; Cruel, but not so unusual; ACA games.

Sunday, July 20, 2014

Nineteen Eighty-Four’s “Newspeak” in 2014.

Part of George Orwell’s genius was his understanding of how language shapes ideas. Words and phrases are not neutral. Consider the difference in meaning between the glass half-full and the glass half-empty.

In ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ Big Brother’s authority stemmed in part from “newspeak” – a language designed to simplify English – and remove negative words -in order to enhance the ability of the state to control thought. In addition the state promoted “doublethink” – the ability to think two contrary thoughts and believe in both. If the state said “white = black”, or “2+2 = 5″ then it must be so.

And there were the state slogans “War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.”

This perverse use of language is not restricted to Orwell’s novel. Who will forget the GOPs “death panel” characterization of an end-of-life counseling session or “death tax” for estate tax. Current newspeak reduces complex economic solutions to “job-killing” measures. And promotes heterosexual unions as “traditional marriage”.

States that have eviscerated unions proudly label themselves as “right to work”. Fox News calls itself“fair and balanced”. Homosexuals demanding equal marriage rights are promoting the “gay agenda”. A law allowing more pollution is called the “Clear Skies Act.” Another one expanding spying on Americans is called the “USA PATRIOT ACT.”

Not to mention “creation science”, “job creator”, “family values”, “class warfare” and “welfare queen”.One of the rationales for restrictions on women’s health clinics is that they “protect women”. Ted Cruzcharacterizes a Senate bill to restore access to these clinics as a “manifestation of a war on women.”

Everyone has an opinion on what should happen to the unaccompanied Central American kids crossing the border. But they leave right-wing evangelical Christians with a problem – how do you appear to care about the plight of parentless children, while at the same time enforcing restrictive immigration laws? The answer is to claim that measures to keep the kids out of the country are in fact for the kids’ benefit.

To this end. they have latched on to the idea that if we fortify the border, and get that message out, these kids won’t take the journey that offers nothing but rape, violence and possibly death. Of course they elide the fact that these kids are making the journey to escape rape, violence and possible death in their home countries.

A Dallas Pastor, Robert Jeffress, promoted this inhumanity with an analogy. “If you’re a homeowner with a swimming pool that doesn’t have a fence around it, and a neighborhood child wanders in and drowns, you’re liable because you have enticed that child into a dangerous situation. The remedy is to build a fence.” And this sadist calls himself a Christian?

The lesson learned, is that politicians will use words that often cast the object of their description in a very different light than the truth.

Friday, July 18, 2014

Microsoft CEO Explains At Great Length That The Company Must Be Leaner.

Microsoft is a mature business. Which gives it the same advantages and disadvantages that mature people have. They know a lot. But they become stodgy and set in their ways. Mature people, who want to shed weight, exercise and experiment with diets. Mature businesses cut payroll and experiment with business strategies. Some people succeed, some corporations fail.Because there is no fountain of corporate youth.

Some companies – General Electric springs to mind – seem to retain a vibrancy as they age. Most companies die. Will Microsoft? I don’t know. But to this layman, it seems they are invested in an LP business, while living in a digital world.

A clue to the direction of Microsoft’s future lies in a “State of the Company” memo written by its current CEO, Satya Nadella. In it, he says that everyone at Microsoft must find ways to simplify, work faster and more efficiently. But the memo itself belies the message. It is 3,100 words long. And includes such gems as:

“We will create more natural human-computing interfaces that empower all individuals.” - (In English) “We’ll make it easier to use our products.”

“We will increase the fluidity of information and ideas by taking actions to flatten the organization and develop leaner business processes. Culture change means we will do things differently.” - “We’ll fire half the administration”.

“We think about productivity for people, teams and the business processes of entire organizations as one interconnected digital substrate. We also think about interconnected platforms for individuals, IT and developers. This comprehensive view enables us to solve the more complex, nuanced and real-world day-to-day challenges in an increasingly digital world.” - “We’ll think of everything.”

My suggestion to Mr. Nadella is to try again. To help him out I have written a new draft.

“Dear fellow Microsofters,

Things are so-so with the company. To do better we need a leaner company, building better products. If you have game, you’ll keep your job.

We must remember that we can only be successful if we put the customer first. And give him products that he can understand; that work with the other stuff she owns; and that work well at work and home.

We want the big stuff to work with the little stuff and still be secure. We must make stuff that generates profits for business and an income for the individual.

And don’t forget the gaming – Xbox is huge.

We’ll make production quicker. And educate the staff.

To all of you that remain after the purge, I look forward to a better year. Or we’ll have to do this again.

Best, Satya

PS. I was going to use, “Think Different” - but I was told me that someone already had.

(146 words)

Tuesday, July 15, 2014

McThinking.

Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason why so few engage in it. – Henry Ford

Conservatives enjoy Ann Coulter, in much the same way a child enjoys fireworks.They are colorful, make a lot of noise, are easy to understand and don’t take up a lot of time. Children – and some adults – can see the same firework show time and time again and it remains fascinating – just like cat videos.

This isn’t to say that Coulter isn’t wicked smart. She is. She has all sorts of important degrees, and even clerked for a Federal Appeals Court Judge. It isn’t her fault that her fanciful expeditions through the supposed frou frou foibles of liberal intellectualism have attracted a loyal following of dull knives.

Coulter understands brilliantly that bumper sticker wisdom is about the most the true believer can absorb. It’s like reading the last page of an Agatha Christie book – you get the point, but miss out on the slog (although Christie, unlike Dorothy Sayers, is not a slog). And it is that effort which brings the greater reward. After all, how can you decide for yourself the quality of the book if you don’t read it.

But not reading things – instead having them “explained” – is a long suit for Americans. Take the right’s most revered texts: The Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bible. I venture to say that not many have read all three. I’ll grant you the Bible is often tedious. But the other two are not. And even if they were, they are mercifully short. A reader with 6th grade abilities could plow through both in an hour.

It is this distance from original sources that allows many to believe that the America was founded as a Christian nation; that the Bible uniquely condemns gays; or that the original motto of the US was “In God we trust”.

As so few true believers read, charlatans and other political or religious opportunists can use these texts as a tabula rasa to promote whatever bigotry warms their heart, safe in the knowledge that the vast unwashed lack the knowledge to call them out. And they lack knowledge, because knowledge, like fitness, is earned. The people who think they have learned something because they listen to Ann Coulter, are the same people who think they can lose weight by swallowing pills.

Or that McDonalds is food.

Saturday, July 12, 2014

Can You Be Good Without God?

Do you need God to be good? People around the world were asked that. The results varied by country. But three trends emerged – belief that God is needed for morality is (1) greater in the poor, (2) in the old, and (3) in the ill-educated. Two countries buck the trends. In relatively poor China, God is given short shrift as the seat of morality. In wealthy America we still cleave to the divine underpinning of goodness.

It isn’t a surprise. Chinese religion is grounded more in family, philosophy, and tradition than it is in a godhead. On the other hand, the US is an outlier in the industrial world for its religiosity. But even within the US, regional differences are stark. In the relatively religion-free North-East, God is not considered necessary for morality. Whereas, in the deeply religious South His role is viewed as critical.

Let’s take a run at the question ourselves. Is God, in fact, necessary for morality? As might be expected – and as polls confirm – the more religious a country, the more likely the population is to believe that is so. And those religious folk take a dim view of atheists. In their thinking, if you do not believe in God you have no reason to be good.

Superficially it may sound reasonable, but it is a specious argument. Built into most religions is the idea of forgiveness and atonement. Do what ever the hell you want – it doesn’t matter, God will forgive you. The Catholic Church is rooted in sin, confession and absolution. The Jews have Yom Kippur. And how many philandering pastors and politicians insist that it will all be good, as soon as they will make it right with the Lord.

Atheists, on the other hand, do not have a “get out of jail free” card. There is no easy salve for their consciences. And if the religious claim that non-believers have no conscience, they confuse atheists with sociopaths.

The religious hypothesis that God is needed for good is easily testable. And in the test, it fails. States with lower rates of church attendance generally have lower crime rates, lower rates of divorce, and lower rates of teenage pregnancy. They even have lower rates of obesity.

And prison populations are notably religious.

Religious people may like to think they occupy the moral high ground. They don’t. And not all atheists are angels. It is obvious that morality is not a gift from God but comes from within. The real question is whether morality is innate or learned - or is it, as seems likely – a blend of the two?

Friday, July 11, 2014

Are the Terrorists a Few Steps Closer to the Destruction of the US?

ISIS has got its hands on radioactive material. Authorities reassure us that we should only be “minimally concerned”. I expect that the President’s political foes will inflate the theft to an existential crisis for the US. And the punditocracy will ignore the facts to promote their pet point of view.

Should we be concerned about ISIS’s new possessions? In short – no.

I do not base that answer on any knowledge of exactly what ISIS has, or what scientists they have in their ranks, or what their capabilities are. I base that answer on the history of hyperbolic threats full sound and fury resulting in nothing.

Not only do Cassandras issue threats with no substance, but more tragically they ignore threats for which there is evidence. Experience suggests that we may safely ignore all that we are warned of, and worry about that which no one talks about. Look no further than the empty warnings of Saddam’s WMDs (“…we don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.”) and the total surprise of 9/11 and the Oklahoma City bombing.

And remember how we had to defend South Vietnam, lest a unified communist Vietnam presaged a Red tide sweeping over Southeast Asia. Even the end of the cold war revealed the old Soviet Union to be a paper tiger.

American politics lurches from bogeyman to bogeyman; the list of threats seemingly endless. Everything is a crisis. We are teetering on the brink – an inch from extinction.

And yet we are still here.

Thursday, July 10, 2014

Political Tomfoolery on the Border.

Conservatives think that the Liberal solution to all problems is government throwing money around. Liberals think that the Conservative solution is to send troops or let the free market sort it out. The arrival of 1,000s of unaccompanied Central American kids at the Southern border illustrates these stereotypes well. The President has requested $3.7 billion to address the issue. The GOP has balked because the President’s plan lacks a deployment of the National Guard.

The solution to illegal immigration is simple. But more on that later. Let’s first look at the current solution – the Border Wall.

The Berlin Wall gives perspective. It was remarkably effective. But it illustrates a grievous fault of the US Wall – a fault fiscal conservatives should find appalling – it costs a fortune.

The Berlin Wall worked because it had eyes along its entire length, a lot of eyes. At its peak 47,000 Grenztruppen der DDR (border troops) watched the 124 mile long barrier – which amounts to 379 of them per mile. It would take 740,000 US troops to ensure the same ratio for the 1,951 mile-long Southern Wall. That’s 5 times as many as invaded Iraq.

The expense would be absurd. The expense to just build the wall is absurd. The wall, without the manpower to make it count, is a paper barrier to a mudslide. Which raises the question – what is worse, politicians who are to stupid to know a boondoggle when they see it, or politicians who would knowingly waste billions to prove they are tough on ‘illegals’?

So what is the simple solution? The answer lies in reducing the demand for illegal aliens. To reduce the demand, throw anyone who employs undocumented aliens in jail. Include the CEOs and human resource directors of public companies, the owners of private companies, and even the homeowners with housekeepers or who pick up day laborers to mow the lawn.

No jobs for illegals, no illegals, And it doesn’t cost much. Seems like a slam-dunk – right? Hardly. I guarantee that no politician will suggest it.

Tuesday, July 8, 2014

George Orwell Analyzes Neocons and the Iraqi Imbroglio.

In the 1940s, during WWII, George Orwell wrote a series of columns he wrote for the journal, Tribune, under the rubric “As I Please”. The forum gave Orwell carte blanche to report his observations of the state of affairs in Britain and abroad.

On December 17, 1943, he wrote the following,

“Yet I was not so wrong as the Military Experts. Experts of various schools were telling us that the Maginot Line was impregnable, and that the Russo-German pact had put an end to Hitler’s eastwards expansion; in early 1940 they were telling us that the days of tank warfare were over; in mid-1940 they were telling us that the would invade Britain forthwith; in mid-1941 that the Red Army would fold up in six weeks; in December 1941, that Japan would collapse after ninety days; in July 1942, that Egypt was lost – and so on , more or less indefinitely.

Where now are the men who told us those things? Still on the job, drawing fat salaries. Instead of the unsinkable battleship, we have the unsinkable Military Expert.”

Right Dick?

Friday, July 4, 2014

It’s Time for a New Declaration of Independence.

“Our liberty can never be safe but in the hands of the people themselves” – Thomas Jefferson

In 1776 the English in America told the English in England to bugger off. Their compliant? Laws were enacted in London that governed the English in America, without the governed having a say. This frustration was most famously expressed in that most iconic of political protests: “No taxation without representation”.

But arbitrary taxes were hardly their only grievance.

The Declaration of Independence enumerated the colonists’ objections. The Constitution later established a framework for the new government. Both are notable in that they acknowledged that society needed rules, but that the rules were to be created and consented to by the citizen – excluding women, the unpropertied, slaves and Indians. Nowhere are authority or rights granted to corporations.

“THE PEOPLE”

And you would have thought that was clear to everybody – it certainly used to be.

Now the Supreme Court makes some flim flam argument that, at their root, corporations are just groups of people and that in promoting the rights of corporations you promote the rights of individuals. That’s nonsense. Whosoever you allow to vote in a democracy has one vote. Let him cast that vote for whomever he choses – and let him have the same degree of political expression as any other voter.

If you give corporations rights, you give the owners extra rights denied to employees. In effect the Court gives license for owners to foist their religion on their employees – consigning the worker to compulsory worship.

Owners have the right to profit from their capital. And owners already have a say in the economic circumstances of the worker. Now the Court gives them a say in their workers’ reproductive outcomes.

So why aren’t politicians of every stripe incensed? Why aren’t they true to the nation’s founding philosophy? The answer lies in the Supreme Court’s poodle-like eagerness to please. And presto, corporations are people with free speech rights and permission to bribe politicians.

Which means that Americans have lost their representation again. But instead of an arbitrary, capricious and distant king pulling the strings, today’s autocrat is corporate America. In 1776 the American English declared independence from an English King. Now American individuals have to throw off “a long train of abuses and usurpations” perpetrated by American corporations

The country would do well to find another group of revolutionaries, as talented as the first lot, to wrest power away from the “factions” so anathema to the founders.

Ironically, returning power to the people is a goal liberals and conservatives can agree on – even if they are at odds with what they would do with that power.

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“The greatest good we can do our country is to heal it’s party divisions & make them one people. I do not speak of their leaders who are incurable, but of the honest and well-intentioned body of the people.” – Thomas Jefferson

The GOP Scrambles to Deal With the Political Fallout of an Improving Recovery.

“If one morning I walked on top of the water across the Potomac River, the headline that afternoon would read: ‘President Can’t Swim’.” - LBJ

Doomsayers (aka Republicans) warned that Obamacare was going to be a job-killing catastrophe for the economy and death knell for many small businesses. These Cassandras are wrong. After delaying the recovery for years with their obdurate behavior, the GOP is now faced with (for them) the unpleasant truth that the President is not cratering the economy and his policies are not dimming a brightening jobs picture.

In fairness, there is debate over exactly how much a President’s policies impact the economy. But as the GOP was blaming Obama for the anemic recovery, they must also give him credit when things take a turn for the better.

But you know they won’t. So how will the Republicans spin this?

In the short term, Hurricane Arthur will be a boon – because images of trees whipping around are compelling video. And it will give conservative news sources the rationale to bury the story. (Fox News has it so deep-sixed it isn’t even the lead story in its business section – which itself is on the bottom of its homepage.)

If they have to face it in the long term, they will likely hang their hat on the economy’s contraction during the 1st quarter 2014. But A. the weather was lousy and B. much of the 2.9% decline in GDP was a result of lower health care spending. And that’s an irony. The GOP could beat the President up for the negative GDP, but that would acknowledge he was right about the ACA. The GOP will no doubt deal with this unfavorable (for them) news by not mentioning it. The number is bad, why analyze the cause?

The GOP may take credit for the good news. They will claim that their obstructionism allowed the economy to be shielded from the depredations of the tyrant Obama’s ministrations. But if they want to own today’s better recovery, they must also own the anemic recovery. And they won’t.

They might argue that the latest good news is a result of the Federal Reserve flooding the market with cheap money and that it is unsustainable. To which Obama should reply, that’s why we have the Fed – and they won’t be doing it indefinitely.

Republicans might imply that an improving recovery is being fueled on out-of-control government spending and skyrocketing federal employment. Except the spending is not out of control and federal employment is declining.

In all likelihood the GOP will just ignore the recovery and keep their fingers crossed that it won’t last.

Wednesday, July 2, 2014

Really? – 2.2.14 – A mixed week for the religious; A GOPer sneers at science; and the Supreme Court takes a beating.

It’s been a mixed week for the religious. Obviously the Hobby Lobby is great news for those who think arbitrary religious beliefs take precedence over national law. On the other hand, there were events less favorable to those who think that religion has some higher claim to moral or legal authority.

More hypocrisy in the Catholic Church.

Archbishop John Nienstedt hates the sin, loves the sinner (repeatedly).

In ‘Angels in America’ a power-loving lawyer denies his true nature (in the third person), “Roy Cohn is not a homosexual. Roy Cohn is heterosexual man, Henry, who fucks around with guys.” Perhaps a similar rational goes through Archbishop John Nienstedt’s mind.

This Minnesota Church official is a noted homophobe, who spent$650,000 of the Church’s money to fight for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. His signature issue is condemnation of the LGBT community.

Now he is being investigated for having sex with other men in robes.

Gay marriage rights.

Gay marriage proponents haven’t lost a single marriage case since DOMA was overturned by the Supreme Court. Quite simply because there is no legal reason to deny gays the right to same sex marriage. As the latest judge to overturn a gay marriage ban (this time in Kentucky) put it,

“In America even sincere and long-held religious views do not trump the constitutional rights of those who happen to have been out-voted.”

And he added, there is an “utter lack of logical relation” between excluding same-sex couples from marriage and any legitimate state interest.

The GOP and women’s issues.

Mitchell McConnell spent the weekend assuring the National Right to Life Convention that he would take second place to none in his war against abortion.

There is nothing wrong in being against abortion – many women are. But when you combine it with a war against contraception, a sniggering puerility, an attitude that women are sluts, and denial of men’s responsibility, it comes across as misogynistic.

When science is an opinion.

LA state Rep. Lenar Whitney – Is her slogan a hat tip to the storied criminal history of Louisiana politicos?

LA state Rep. Lenar Whitney is a GOP candidate for Congress. To burnish her anti-science cred she told the climatology community to shove their science. She went so far as to call Global Warming, “perhaps the greatest deception in the history of mankind”. Worse than evolution?

She knows that the science is false because she doesn’t need the fancy scientific tools and complex computer modeling that actual scientists use. Instead she knows that, “any 10-year-old can invalidate their thesis with one of the simplest scientific devices known to man: a thermometer”.

The Supreme Court takes a beating.

Chief Justice John Roberts probably came to the Supreme Court with an idea of going down in history as an admired leader of a well-regarded Court. He can kiss that good-bye.

The Supreme Court is the least well-regarded Court since Gallup started polling the issue in 1973.

Roberts can take comfort in the fact that hardly any Americans know who he is. And if Gallup had polled companies I am sure that the results would have been much more in his favor.

Thursday, December 11, 2014

Tuesday, December 9, 2014

Saturday, November 29, 2014

Thursday, November 27, 2014

Monday, November 24, 2014

Wednesday, November 19, 2014

Tuesday, November 18, 2014

Monday, November 10, 2014

Friday, November 7, 2014

Thursday, October 23, 2014

Monday, October 20, 2014

Wednesday, October 15, 2014

Sunday, October 12, 2014

Saturday, October 4, 2014

Wednesday, October 1, 2014

Monday, September 29, 2014

Saturday, September 27, 2014

Saturday, September 20, 2014

Friday, September 19, 2014

Tuesday, September 16, 2014

Sunday, September 14, 2014

Wednesday, September 10, 2014

Friday, September 5, 2014

Wednesday, September 3, 2014

Monday, September 1, 2014

Friday, August 29, 2014

Thursday, August 28, 2014

Wednesday, August 27, 2014

Sunday, August 24, 2014

Monday, August 18, 2014