Category Archives: Random Blogging

You Do Know Those Things Never Happened, Right?

It’s the time of year for “summing up,” so in that spirit, I thought I’d share an amusing (albeit also depressing) roundup  from Right Wing Watch, listing some of the crazy predictions from various rightwing cranks that—surprise!—failed to materialize during 2015.

You’d think the fact that none of these things happened would cause at least a few of these characters to reign in the crazy, but I wouldn’t hold my breath. They are too far gone.

Some of the predictions were doozies.

Several Religious Right pundits jumped on a nonsensical and convoluted tale about how blood moons and the Shemitah, a biblical day of debt relief, would lead to some sort of disaster in America on September 13.

Apparently, prophecies about ancient Israel are also applicable to the U.S. because–wait for it—the Founders made a covenant with God. (An assertion that would undoubtedly have surprised the Deists among them.) The catastrophe most frequently predicted was a 30% or greater decline in the Dow Jones.  Unaccountably, the stock market actually gained around that time.

There was a rash of dark warnings about God’s vengeance in the wake of the Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage (and adding insult to injury, the White House’s LGBT Pride Month celebration with rainbow lights). Prominent among them was the prediction that Hurricane Joaquin would strike Washington, D.C. and New York. (It didn’t hit either city). Other “prophets” predicted violence in the streets. (Well, there was, but it was totally unconnected to same-sex marriage.) The WorldNutDaily predicted that “millions” of Americans would emigrate.

Pat Robertson warned of financial calamities as a sign of God’s judgment for the Supreme Court marriage equality ruling and Massachusetts-based pastor Scott Lively said the Antichrist could emerge around September 23.

(Gee–I thought Obama was supposed to be the anti-Christ…but he “emerged” way before then….)

My personal favorite was the Jade Helm conspiracy. Jade Helm was the name given to a routine military exercise scheduled to take place in Texas; Texas being the epicenter of insanity these days, Republican politicians fed fears of a “federal invasion” of Texas. One poll found that one in three Republicans, including half of Tea Party supporters, agreed that “the government is trying to take over Texas.”

Not to burst your bubble, fellas, but the federal government already HAS Texas. (Although I personally would favor giving the Lone Star State back to Mexico, if Mexico would take it….)

Ever since President Obama won the 2008 election, right-wing activists have claimed that he is on the verge of creating a private army akin to Hitler’s Brownshirts.

With 2015 coming to a close, it looks like Obama has just one year left to create such a force, but conservative talk show host Michael Savage has a pretty good idea of what Obama has in mind. Savage, who believes that Obama is bent on committing anti-white genocide and rounding up conservatives, has alleged that the president intends to create a personal force composing of Syrian refugees, Black Lives Matter demonstrators and members of the Crips and the Bloods, whom he thinks will be armed and deputized by Obama.

There’s a lot more.

We can probably explain all the unhinged hysteria by recognizing that there are people in our country who reject modernity, who are threatened by the very existence of gay people and many other “others”, and who really, really, really resent having a black President.

They’re also obviously bat-shit crazy, and I’d feel sorry for them if most of them weren’t armed.

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The Eye of the Beholder

Yesterday, I posted about a recent court case that required a judge to define the limits of permissible discrimination.

In a very real way, however, discussion of that case and the merits of the contending arguments begged a couple of important preliminary questions: what is discrimination? when does the day-to-day practice of making choices—discriminating between possibilities A, B and C—cease being a reasonable activity we all engage in and become a socially destructive practice in which privileged people oppress those less powerful or advantaged?

Where does that line get drawn?

Recent research suggests that the general public is polarized around the answers to those questions, and that the polarization mirrors political affiliation.

The partisan lens through which many view the social and political world also impacts perceptions of discrimination: as the Public Religion Research Institute’s 2015 American Values Survey shows, Democrats and Republicans have a very different understanding of the nature of discrimination in the U.S. today—and who are the most likely targets of it.

Not surprisingly, Republicans are far less likely to see discrimination against historically marginalized groups than are Democrats. (Click through to see several interesting graphics representing responses to questions about discrimination from self-identified Republicans and Democrats, contrasted with responses from the general public overall.)

As the study’s authors note, the difference in perceived discrimination tells us a lot about the partisan differences in policy.

Overall, the pattern is clear: there is considerable daylight between those on the left and those on the right when it comes to perceptions of discrimination in America today. Perhaps then, it is not surprising that Democrats and Republicans have such divergent opinions on issues ranging from black Americans’ protesting unfair government treatment to legislation protecting gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people from discrimination. If you don’t perceive discrimination against certain underrepresented groups or marginalized communities to be especially severe or widespread, then these protests and policy proposals might appear to be solutions in search of a problem. If, however, you believe that the discrimination against these groups is particularly severe, then such protests and policy demands are understandable and perhaps even a necessity.

A big part of our current political dysfunction is a reflection of the fact that conservatives and liberals occupy different realities.

Sort of reminds me of that old song, “Two different worlds….”

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Santa, Baby…..

It’s Christmas, and I assume that even the least religious among us are enjoying the holiday, each in our own way, so this will be brief.

Our multi-ethnic clan exchanges gifts on Christmas Eve, so I plan to use the better part of this day to try out the shiny new toy my obliging husband bought me. (I didn’t hint–I told him what make I wanted, and I specified the model and accessories.)

I’m getting ready to read the manual, so that I take proper care of my spiffy new vacuum cleaner….

What can I say? My children routinely remind me that I’m weird.

It really comes down to being a control freak, and in today’s world, there isn’t much I can control–or even influence. So–our political system may be a mess, but I can see to it that my floors are clean!

Happy Holidays, everyone!

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Lying With Impunity

Okay, so here’s what worries me. A lot.

In the most recent GOP debate, we were treated to outright prevarication. Lies. Blatant untruths. The fact that politicians of both parties will lie (this certainly isn’t the first time!) is not what concerns me; what scares the bejeezus out of me is the fact that they can do so secure in the knowledge that very few members of their target audience will know enough to know that they are lying.

Let’s take a few examples.

Take Carly Fiorina (please!). She said she wants to “bring back the warrior class — Petraeus, McChrystal, Mattis, Keane, Flynn. Every single one of these generals I know. Every one was retired early because they told President Obama things that he didn’t want to hear.”

In the real world, Petraeus left to head up the CIA, and subsequently resigned after a sex scandal. Keane served under George W. Bush, and resigned in 2003. McChrystal was ousted after Rolling Stone reported comments amounting to insubordination.

Chris Christie boasted about his relationship with Jordan’s King Hussein–“When I stand across from King Hussein of Jordan and I say to him, ‘You have a friend again sir, who will stand with you to fight this fight,’ he’ll change his mind.” Small problem: Hussein’s been dead for 16 years.

Christie also criticized Obama’s “reckless incompetence” for allowing Russia’s “recent partnership” with Syria. That “recent” partnership goes back to 1971, when the USSR established a huge warm-water navy port in Syria. It’s been there ever since.

Several debate participants criticized the Obama administration’s “political correctness,” asserting that such “political correctness” prevented monitoring of social media and was the reason authorities missed “jihadist” postings by the female San Bernadino shooter. Except, as the head of the FBI has patiently explained, there were no such postings.

Factcheck has posted a lengthy list of GOP “misstatements,” ranging from relatively minor errors (as when Rick Santorum–who isn’t going anywhere anyway– said “10 years ago I put the sanctions on Iran’s nuclear program,” when he really sponsored a bill that largely codified existing sanctions) to more consequential assertions (for example, Lindsey Graham repeated the claim that the U.S. spends $350 billion “to buy oil from people who hate our guts,” although over a third of America’s oil imports in 2014 came from Canada, and another 9 percent from Mexico.)

A disquieting number of the misstatements made during the debate cannot fairly be labeled “lies” because those uttering them so clearly had no idea what they were talking about. (“Targeted” carpet-bombing? really?)

And therein lies the real problem. We have these embarrassingly unqualified candidates because we have large numbers of civically-illiterate citizens. People supporting Trump, Cruz, Carson, et al, apparently don’t know when they misstate facts, don’t know when proposals they are applauding (deporting 11 million Mexicans, only allowing Christian Syrians to enter the country, etc.) are impossible or unconstitutional or both.

I am convinced that the voters responding to the ignorance, nationalism and racism being delivered by the “clown car” candidates are a minority. Most Americans are better–and smarter– than that.

The question, however, is: who is more likely to vote?

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Not Your Father’s GOP…

Younger Americans don’t understand–probably cannot understand–how far the political pendulum has swung since 1980.

1980 was the year Ronald Reagan ran for President, and I ran for Congress. We were both Republicans, both excoriated as “too conservative.”

Today, Reagan would be too liberal for the “Freedom Caucus” and other far rightwing activists who have taken over the GOP in the intervening years. As for me, I haven’t changed my basic political philosophy at all (although I have changed my position on some issues after learning more, or examining accumulating evidence), and I’m now considered a wild-eyed liberal. At best.

Every once in a while, an old-time Republican decides to violate Reagan’s Eleventh Commandment (Thou shalt not speak ill of another Republican), and publicly bemoan what has happened to a once-sane and responsible political party. Most recently, that person was Bob Dole. (I have a soft spot for Dole for a number of reasons, not least because his political action committee financially supported my campaign “back in the day.”)

In a recent interview on MSNBC, Dole bemoaned the current state of the Republican party, which he said had become “an extreme group on the right.” Dole harshly criticized Donald Trump’s proposal to ban all Muslims from entering the United States, calling Trump “over the top” and saying that he “couldn’t understand” how people supported him.

Dole also opined that Ted Cruz is far too extreme, and not at all a traditional conservative. He criticized Cruz’ so-called Senate “achievements” of shutting down the government twice and calling Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) a liar on the Senate floor.

Dole, like many traditional and Reagan-era Republicans, represent an era that modern conservatives constantly idealize but is seriously disillusioned with the current extremism and ignorance of the Republican Party, which he’s said is “out of ideas.” Dole also said that he doubted Ronald Reagan would win the nomination if he ran in the current extremist climate of the Republican Party.

In the ultimate heresy, Dole also praised President Obama, calling him a “very good man.”

While saying that he probably wouldn’t support Hillary Clinton in a potential general election matchup with Trump or Cruz, Dole suggested that he wouldn’t be able to bring himself to vote for either of those Republican demagogues, saying with a laugh that he “might oversleep” on election day.

A good number of the remaining reasonable, disheartened Republicans are likely to oversleep on election day–or even vote Democratic.

After all, you don’t have to be excited about Hillary Clinton to recognize the gulf between competent and crazy.

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