NERO FIDDLED

Wait a minute...was that a decade?

noreply@blogger.com (Noah Diamond) — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 05:00:00 +0000

You're kidding.

Ten years ago, we were so focused on the New Century and the New Millennium, we didn't talk much about the New Decade. For a decade, as many great thinkers have said, is not as long as a century. But it is the way we measure and discuss our adult lives ("You see, dear, it was the Seventies"), and it's hard to believe that that was a decade, just now, just as the Eighties or the Nineties were decades. We just did another one of those.

This decade has had an identity crisis, maybe because it has had no name. Some people have tried to call it the Zeroes, the Oh-Ohs, the Uh-Ohs, the Aughts, the Oughts, the '00ughts -- none of it works. It's a decade we can't talk about, because we don't know what it's called.

Groping for instant perspective, what most strikes me about the passing decade is how it was bookended by paradigm-shattering political events. In 2000, the calamitous cooperation of electoral fraud and judicial fiat installed George W. Bush in the White House. In 2008, the American people elected Barack Obama their President. As we navigate the political climate of 2010, we should remember the tragedy of 2000 along with the triumph of 2008. The far right's refusal to accept Obama's legitimacy, laughable though it may be, is more complex than it seems; it's not just racism. It has something to do with our own refusal to accept Bush. It's part of the routine now: If you don't like the guy, you find a way to believe that he has no rightful claim to the office. It's the easiest position you can possibly take, because it spares you the burden of knowing about any other issue. It's nothing-else-matters. If the president isn't really the president, then every single thing he does has to be challenged, on principle.

But why couldn't we accept Bush's legitimacy? Because he lost the popular vote, and because the Supreme Court stepped in and appointed him rather than let anyone find out who won the electoral vote. And the extreme right cannot accept Obama's legitimacy -- because of a series of long debunked myths regarding his birthplace. Which makes it appear that their true argument is with the color of his skin and the sound of his name. Anyway -- we've covered this. Simply, the illegitimacy argument is illegitimate. But it has as much to do with George W. Bush as with Barack Obama.

And today, the personification of Conservative America is an unemployed former governor, who quit in the middle of her first term in order to hire someone to write a book for her, and who now exists primarily on Facebook -- as opposed to the (legitimate or not) President of the United States. Sarah Palin makes George W. Bush look like George Bernard Shaw.

At this time ten years ago, the Republicans controlled the Congress -- so ruthlessly as to have impeached Bill Clinton for adultery! -- and seemed to be pitting John McCain against Al Gore. "It's a center-right country!" bellowed the conservative pundits. "It's a center-right country!" How often did we hear that throughout the Bush years? It might have been true ten years ago.

Still, at the moment, hope feels precarious. The Senate's health care bill has been so thoroughly mutilated that we're not even sure if we want it to pass. Worst of all, the mutilation has been performed more by conservative Democrats, goddamnit, than by -- I'm sorry; what was the name of that other party again? The little one? It seems that if true reform is in the cards, it will be because the liberal majority in the Senate summons the chutzpah to pass a good bill by reconciliation, and not because of any meaningful, active leadership on the part of the president.

His thoughtful words at West Point and Oslo did not convince me that a troop escalation in Afghanistan was a good idea. He has not done enough for the gay civil rights movement. He has not done enough to keep guns off the streets, crooks off the Fed, or heat off the polar ice caps. He has not done enough to keep the arts in the schools, the kids in the classroom, or the manufacturing base in the urban centers.

Second Avenue is still a mess, and have you been on the B.Q.E. lately? Why has President Wonderful not yet enacted comprehensive television reform? We are getting very close to the end of his first year in office, and there is not one electric car on my block. Parliamentary procedure is still ridiculous. Does the man not realize he could save the whole economy just by legalizing marijuana and prostitution? And if he's not going to legalize prostitution, can he at least have Joe Lieberman arrested for it?

Of course we were going to be disappointed. I doubt history has ever asked as much of one person as it's now asking of Barack Obama. But looking ahead to the next decade, and looking behind at the last one, I'm overwhelmed by this inspiring thought: Could be worse. So friends, let's hang on to our hope and greet the new decade with a dynamic burst of positive thinking. America -- Could Be Worse! Yes We Could.

So what do we call this next one? The Ones? The Teens? I can't wait till the Twenties, when we'll be wearing fedoras and doing the Charleston.

Noah

War on Christmas Update

noreply@blogger.com (Noah Diamond) — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 22:27:00 +0000

NOTE: If you are a conservative, a Christian, and/or a Republican, DO NOT READ THIS. I'm trusting you to respect this notice and move along. What I'm about to say is just among liberals, intended for the left only. It's secret. So please, conservatives, just go to another website. Here's one you might enjoy.

Okay. Now that it's just us secular humanists:

As you know, this month is the culmination of our major combat operations in the War on Christmas, and I'm pleased to report that our side is winning. The enemy thinks it's winning, which means we've got them right where we want them -- too strung out on eggnog and yuletide cheer to notice that this year, there shall be no Christmas!

I want to thank everyone who's used the phrase "Happy Holidays" -- which as everyone knows is one of the most insulting things you could possibly say to someone. It is said that every time someone says "Happy Holidays," one of Santa's elves experiences a cerebral hemorrhage. Keep it up!

I also want to congratulate those who have waged war on Christmas by including such symbols as Hanukkah menorahs and Kwanzaa kinaras in their storefront windows and other public displays. Inclusiveness is to Christmas as Kryptonite is to Superman, and our generals are confident that it will only take a few more menorahs and kinaras, prominently showcased, to obliterate the last traces of Christmas.

For those of you not present at our last meeting, I would like to remind you of some important wartime rules and regulations. Do not, under any circumstances, deck the halls with boughs of holly. That's exactly what they want us to do. Please avoid donning your gay apparel. Gay apparel is for conservative Christians only.

I'm pleased to report that in our sweep of the battlefield, we have taken into our custody a large number of enemy combatants. We believe that after being subjected to our enhanced interrogation techniques, these prisoners of war will provide us with information crucial to our cause. Thus far, we have apprehended twelve drummers drumming, eleven pipers piping, ten lords a-leaping, nine ladies dancing, and eight maids a-milking. Yes, there are many more insurgents still at large, but we feel the threat has been contained, as most of them are birds.

Now is not the time to back down, as we are on the verge of victory. Above all, do not allow the enemy to appeal to your sympathies. Many will try to justify their position by describing their affinity for the teachings of Jesus Christ, but this is clearly a diversionary tactic. What the hell does Jesus have to do with Christmas?

We fight this battle not because it is easy, but because it is fun. So stay strong! Keep fighting! And above all, Happy Holidays.

General Diamond

I Don't Pledge Allegiance to the Flag

noreply@blogger.com (Noah Diamond) — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 14:39:00 +0000

“Ma’am, with all due respect, you can go jump off a bridge.”

That’s what ten-year-old Will Phillips of Arkansas said to the teacher who told him he had to say the Pledge of Allegiance. This child, an example to us all, was willing to endure not only the school’s punishment for his principles; he was willing to endure the undoubtedly cruel reaction of his peers -- who, he told CNN, are now calling him a “gaywad.” Yep, that’s elementary school: A smart and sensitive child capable of “Ma’am, with all due respect, you can go jump off a bridge” is being tormented by peers who can’t come up with anything better than “gaywad.” Phillips’ refusal to say the Pledge stems from his support of same sex marriage rights. “I’m good friends with a lot of people who are gay,” he said, “and I think they should have the rights all people should, and I’m not going to swear that they do.” He says he would consider saying the Pledge if “there truly was liberty and justice for all.”

Will Phillips is lucky to have parents who understand and support him. Watching his father, Jay Phillips, accompany his son on CNN, beaming with pride and admiration, I thought, this kid’s going to be great.

I can relate to Will Phillips, because I, too, refused to say the Pledge for most of my gradeschool years. (And I, too, had the support of enlightened and understanding parents.) My own objections to the Pledge of Allegiance weren’t focused on a specific issue. I just didn’t like it. First of all, I thought, I’m not going to pledge my allegiance to a symbol. I thought it was funny. Why are we being so solemn about a piece of cloth? I also thought the robotic, hand-on-heart, unison recitation was creepy.

It’s not that I had disdain for America, or for the language of its ideals – just the opposite. At twelve, I memorized most of the Declaration of Independence. But I didn’t stand there and recite it in unison with all the other kids.

I eventually developed more concrete objections to the Pledge of Allegiance. Partly, my reasons were similar to Phillips’: Just saying “liberty and justice for all” doesn’t mean anything, when examples of injustice abound. A few years down the line, I became uncomfortable with the “under God” phrase. Later, I learned that the phrase “under God” wasn't even part of the original Pledge of Allegiance, written by Francis Bellamy in 1892. It was added to the Pledge in 1956, by a congressional resolution, signed by President Eisenhower. Why? Because of the flag-waving, Bible-thumping paranoia of the McCarthy period.

Will Phillips’ reasons for not saying the Pledge, as far as any report has indicated, are unrelated to its inherent absurdity, or the phrase “under God,” or anything other than his conviction that “liberty and justice for all” is, at this point, a lie. But motive is beside the point. Every schoolchild in America can recite the Pledge of Allegiance, but how many do you think emerge from school with a real understanding of American government and history? How many do you think even know what “allegiance” and “indivisible” mean?

Are you a student? Refuse to say the Pledge, starting today, as a show of solidarity with Will Phillips. Are you a teacher? Remind your students that the Pledge of Allegiance is optional. Are you a parent? Encourage your children not to mindlessly regurgitate pledges, prayers, and oaths at the insistence of authority figures. Have a problem with any of this? With all due respect, you can go jump off a bridge.

Noah

Sheikh it Up

noreply@blogger.com (Noah Diamond) — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 13:56:00 +0000

In perhaps the most shocking development in recent American politics, Republicans quite clearly do not want Khalid Sheikh Mohammed brought to justice. They’re looking more and more like Monty Python’s Silly Party. Pick an issue, any issue, and you can see the widening gap between Republicans and the other eighty percent of the country – which wouldn’t mind, eight years later, seeing the crime of the 9/11 attacks properly prosecuted.

It begs all kinds of questions about this supposedly conservative political party. Yeah, we know they’re against women’s rights, immigration, financial regulation, poor people, rational thought, and the planet Earth. But surely they can get behind prosecuting the mastermind of 9/11. Right?

Nope! Apparently anything that happens in Obama’s America has to be bad. Quite obviously, Republicans don’t want to see the perpetrators of 9/11 brought to justice under a Democratic administration. They’re going to have to get used to it, though. Often, competent leadership will result in progress, and the Republicans are now reduced to fighting against the whole idea of progress, in any form. This is how it’s going to be, though: When the Republicans are in charge, we get attacked; when the Democrats take over, the attackers are brought to justice.

Republicans are weak on foreign policy.

Sometimes you hear conservatives say that President Obama should stop referring to “inherited” problems, that it’s too late to blame Bush for the country’s many crises. Where have they been living? The next five presidents can point to George W. Bush.

I, for one, am really looking forward to seeing some kind of justice, eight years after my city was attacked. But then, I’m not a Republican; I’m with the majority.

Noah

Unlearned Lessons of Ft. Hood

noreply@blogger.com (Noah Diamond) — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 13:55:00 +0000

A lot of Americans think Islam is an evil religion. That's a good start; now if we can just get them to see that Christianity and Judaism are evil too, we'd really be making progress. "Allahu akbar!" is what Major Nidal Malik Hasan may have shouted as he killed thirteen people at Ft. Hood, but it doesn't translate to "Allah is great," as many American media reports had it. That's only a half translation. What Major Hasan declared was, "God is great!" -- something most Americans enthusiastically agree with. Hasan committed an atrocity because he believed that an imaginary character was compelling him to do so.

Major Hasan, like many dogmatic religious people, saw a world of absolutes: God is great, you will be rewarded or punished after you die, etc. He didn't want to be deployed to the Middle East, because he didn't want to fight against fellow-Muslims. Presumably, he would have been willing to fight people of another religious denomination. He was willing to kill thirteen of his fellow soldiers in Texas. It's a typical religious attitude: Us versus them, the chosen people versus the infidels; some lives are more valuable than others; nothing is more important than God. The problem with this, of course, is that as far as anyone can tell, there is no God -- and that leaves it up to people to make up their own crazy ideas about what God wants.

As with the 9/11 attacks, the media has failed to properly identify the Ft. Hood rampage as a religious assault upon a secular institution. But that's by no means the only missed angle in the coverage. We're so fixated on the fact that Hasan is a Muslim that we've nearly overlooked something more important: Hasan is an American military officer. So in addition to Christian jihadists (skinheads and neo-Nazis), our armed forces include Muslim jihadists. If Major Hasan was capable of this act, then a great deal of what we are told about our military and the men and women who serve is very, very wrong. Anyone who believes there's not much of a difference between "our" killers and "their" killers can regard the Ft. Hood massacre as evidence that soldiers, regardless of the side they seem to be on or the cause they seem to fight for, are all the same. People plus guns equals death. If Hasan had been deployed to Afghanistan or Iraq, he could have committed the exact same massacre, against different victims, and been hailed as a great American hero.

Our military, at least in part, consists of scared, emotionally ravaged, physically brutalized young people, many of whom enlisted out of a sense of hopelessness (easy to come by in this economy). They are asked not only to endure horrifying physical risk ("in harm's way" is the standard line), but to grapple with sociological and geopolitical realities almost nobody understands. Americans are quick to declare their alleged "support" for "our troops," and politicians love to describe the military as the finest people in the world. But behind all that patronizing talk is obvious disregard, and even contempt. A new study indicates that more than 2,200 American veterans died last year -- not because of IEDs, but because they don't have health insurance. Imagine surviving an unspeakable nightmare in a foreign land, getting home, and dying because of our insurance system. Imagine preparing for an unspeakable nightmare, and then being gunned down in Texas by one of your compatriots. Yes, something is very wrong with Major Nidal Hasan, but we shouldn't let that obscure the larger truth: Something is very wrong with our military, and its prolonged engagement in unnecessary and unwinnable conflicts.

But wait -- there's guns. Since we're obviously missing the religious and military implications of Ft. Hood, I'm sure we're going to miss the gun implications. Hasan did not use a military-issued weapon to kill thirteen and wound thirty-eight. Hasan used an FN-5.7, sometimes known as the "cop killer" gun, which he purchased legally and easily at a store in Killeen, Texas called Guns Galore. So now that Islamic jihadists (who are also American soldiers) are using America's insanely permissive gun laws to purchase weapons to murder American soldiers, all the demented NRA people will just be quiet from now on, right?

Yesterday, at the Ft. Hood memorial service, President Obama disappointingly flavored his speech with religious dogma right out of the Koran or the Bible: "For what he has done," the President said, "we know that the killer will be met with justice, in this world, and the next." Whoa, there, sir. As far as anyone can tell, there is no next world, and for an American President to perpetuate religious mythology is a major misstep. (We expected it from the last guy, because he was, you know, an idiot. Obama lacks this convenient excuse.) As for this world, whether or not Hasan is punished for his crime, it won't be undone -- nor will the crime of "D.C. sniper" John Muhammed, who was executed last night; his victims remain dead. But until our culture sheds its tragic obsessions with God and guns, these atrocities will continue to accumulate. At the memorial service, how were the fallen represented? Like this:

Where once there were human beings, now there are only guns.

Noah

We're Sorry

noreply@blogger.com (Noah Diamond) — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 17:58:00 +0000

Well, history was made, but it's hard to know how to feel about a triumph that's just barely acceptable, and still has to get through the Senate. It's hard to know how to feel about health care reform that comes bundled with the most severe setback in abortion rights since the Hyde Amendment.

Assuming the bill emerges from the Senate severely diluted, and is then partially restored in conference, and is signed into law soon by President Obama, there should be noticeable improvements in our tragic health care system (which currently offers the finest care in the world to a select group of the healthy wealthy). About 36 million of the 47 million Americans currently uninsured will get coverage. Young people will be able to stay on their parents' plan through age 27. Insurers won't be able to deny coverage, and a public option may well exist in some form. (It is in the bill that passed last night.)

I guess that's positive change, worth getting excited about. But along with health care reform, will the further erosion of abortion rights be a major part of the Obama/Pelosi/Reid legacy? Because something tells me that after health care, we're going to focus on the economy, the environment, Afghanistan, Iraq, and lots of other things before we get around to restoring the rights guaranteed by Roe v. Wade and systematically restricted into near oblivion since then.

This is a divisive issue because religious fanatics dominate one side of it, and liberals dominate the other. Religious fanatics have a good excuse for not being able to distinguish between a fetus and a person; they also can't distinguish between fairy tales and history. And liberals see so much nuance in everything that they've practically given in to the religious fanatics. I want to vomit every time I hear a liberal talk about how much they've "struggled" with the issue of abortion, how it's the one issue where they totally understand and respect the opposing view, because, hey, that's really sensitive.

No it's not. It's an issue just like all the other issues. "Safe, legal, and rare" is a cop-out. It should be safe and legal, and it should happen just as often as pregnant women decide they can't, shouldn't, or would rather not have babies. "Abortion is a tragedy" -- I've heard so many Democrats say this. "Nobody likes abortion, but..." They preface their opinions with disclaimers, to the effect that what they're about to tell you is probably wrong, so don't pay too much attention. Well, I do like abortion, because without it, women would have no choice. I don't think it's a tragedy. I think unwanted children whose parents can't take care of them are a tragedy.

On this and other issues, liberals have to stop apologizing. After we make our points, sure, let's explore the nuances. But up front, in bold letters, we should state without equivocation that abortions should be available and affordable, that the only truly comprehensive health reform would be a single-payer system, that the sale and possession of firearms should be severely restricted, that our public education system deserves as much money and attention as our military, that corporate polluters should be taxed out of their destructive habits, etc.

Otherwise, we wind up compromising right out of the gate. Conservative Democrats start bullying us around before we even get to the Republicans. This is how we get the kind of terrible mixed feelings we had in the pits of our stomachs last night: The House passed historic health care reform legislation! And took away more women's rights!

Noah

I Don't Care What it Costs

noreply@blogger.com (Noah Diamond) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 13:42:00 +0000

Republican legislators, lacking any coherent argument against health care reform, usually settle on "cost." We can't fix our health care system, they say, because it would be too expensive. It's bizarre that they expect citizens who are going bankrupt because of health expenses to be sympathetic to this argument. But it's not quite as bizarre as some of the other arguments, advanced by the people who vote Republican legislators into office. At Michelle Bachmann's pathetic protest, "tea party" types held an enormous photograph of naked, emaciated dead bodies piled up at Dachau, captioned "National Socialist Health Care." Compared to that, the cost argument does begin to appear reasonable.

But it isn't. A few hundred people, with a few hundred I.Q. points among them, assembled on the Capitol lawn and pretended to be concerned about "cost" and "spending." These are the code words Michelle Bachmann, Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, et al have taught them. It just sounds better to say "I am concerned about cost and spending!" than to tell the truth: "I hate President Obama, because he's black and I'm stupid."

Cost? Are you kidding? First of all, it's preposterous to suggest that all these livid right-wingers are screaming their heads off because of "concern about cost." But more importantly, when have we ever worried about cost when American lives were at stake? Or even when they weren't? Nobody asked whether we could afford George W. Bush's unprovoked war in Iraq (we couldn't), or George W. Bush's tax cuts for multi-millionaires (we couldn't), or George W. Bush's catastrophic deregulation of the financial services industry (we couldn't). These things, we were told, had to be done.

Now, 45,000 Americans die every year because of insufficient health coverage. As we've noted here before, that's equal to fifteen 9/11s per year. It's a real emergency, an immediate threat to American lives and safety. It's everything Saddam Hussein's Iraq was not. The government's first responsibility is to keep the American people safe, to save lives, to end what amounts to a massacre of Americans on American soil by insurance companies.

The economy will improve when insurance companies are forced to behave like responsible citizens instead of bloodthirsty terrorists. Those who oppose health care reform because they're "concerned about cost" might as well advocate the abolition of police, fire, and sanitation departments, which also cost a lot of money. There is no rational economic argument against reform -- and that's why I'm not bothering with the rational economic argument for reform. Would it help the economy? Would it hurt the economy? I couldn't care less. It would be better to completely bankrupt the United States than to let another 45,000 people die in 2010 because they don't have enough money to get well.

So shut up about money. It doesn't matter. Figure it out later. Stop the killing now.

Noah

The New York 23rd

noreply@blogger.com (Noah Diamond) — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 17:09:00 +0000

Watching the Republican Party these days is like watching a bug struggle not to drown in a toilet. The humane thing would be to flush, but we can't, because we're so fascinated by the struggle. Unsurprisingly, Republicans are publicly expressing glee over the results of Election Day 2009 -- they did unseat a Democratic governor in New Jersey, and reclaim the governorship of Virginia. But seen in context, those victories were hollow anomalies.

In New Jersey, Democratic incumbent Jon Corzine has been in freefall for months, ran a lousy campaign, and is tarnished by associations with Goldman Sachs and Wall Street. The winner, Republican Chris Christie, is a big-city prosecutor, fiscally conservative, basically a schmuck -- but nothing like the far-right culture warriors who are the national face of the Republican Party. In Virginia, Republican victor Robert McDonnell is a moderate who ran a solid campaign against Democrat Creigh Deeds, universally regarded as much too weak a candidate to counteract Virginia's long history of electing governors who don't belong to the President's party. Here in New York City, everyone knew Bloomberg would win another mayoral term; the surprise was that he barely squeaked through. (One analysis concludes that Bloomberg's mayoral career has cost him more than $77 per vote.) For liberals, the only really bad news last night was Maine's passage of a ballot initiative similar to California's Proposition 8, overturning the state's legalization of same-sex marriage benefits.

The real story of Election Day 2009 was the story of the New York 23rd congressional district. The Republican candidate, Dede Scozzafava, was an arch conservative in all but a few areas -- abortion rights, gay rights, and the stimulus. In these exceptions, she was perfectly in line with her district (which has always been represented by Republicans, and which will be redistricted out of existence by next year's census). But several nationally conspicuous conservatives (Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Tim Pawlenty, Dick Armey, Rick Santorum) inserted themselves into the campaign, declaring Scozzafava an imposter, and throwing their support behind third-party Conservative candidate Doug Hoffman -- a confused twerp who doesn't live in the district, and considers Glenn Beck his "mentor." After meeting with Hoffman (and his babysitter Dick Armey), the editorial board of the Watertown Daily Times concluded that the candidate was "flustered and ill-at-ease" and "unable to articulate clear positions." So you can see why Sarah Palin was drawn to him.

Hoffman was a nothing candidate. But with all of this national conservative firepower behind him, he created untenably uphill conditions for Scozzafava, who dropped out of the race a few days ago and endorsed Bill Owens, her former Democratic opponent. The Republican leadership in Washington, which had endorsed Scozzafava, had to do an awkward about-face and throw its weight behind Hoffman. Last night, Owens defeated Hoffman by three percent.

Owens' victory is more significant for what it says about the current state of politics than for anything he might accomplish in the House; Owens is no liberal's dream candidate. But that's appropriate, because he'll be representing a very conservative district. The titanic miscalculation of Palin, Pawlenty, Beck, et al was that they purged a moderate who was slightly out of step with the national party, but perfectly in step with her district. Scozzafava, they reckoned, wasn't quite conservative enough. So the Democrats get the seat. The more this happens, the better. There is obviously no room in the Republican Party for anyone who supports women's reproductive freedom, civil rights for same sex couples, or economic and health care plans based in reality. That's why they're down to about 20% of the country.

Time to flush.

Noah

Corporations Are People Too

noreply@blogger.com (Noah Diamond) — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 13:20:00 +0000

The political waters seem increasingly muddy these days, but one thing that's never been clearer is our dire need to get the money out of politics. The public health care option -- which we thought was the compromise -- is in serious jeopardy, largely because one conservative Democratic Senator from Montana has received a lot of campaign money from insurance companies. Between the health care "debate" and the Supreme Court's impending ruling on Hillary: The Movie (a political attack ad disguised as a documentary), the subject of corporate personhood has been in the news a lot lately, and it is with this in mind that we present our new music video.

There's more to love on the Nero Fiddled video page.

Noah

News Boxers (a little roomier than briefs)

noreply@blogger.com (Noah Diamond) — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 14:45:00 +0000

Look Who Supports the Public Option

A new Bloomberg poll suggests that public perception of the health care "debate" may be tilting toward reason. Majorities of those surveyed feel that right-wing claims about "death panels," socialism, abortion, and immigration are "scare tactics." In another possible indicator of thawing ice, none other than Bill O'Reilly has spoken in support of a public option -- perhaps because Glenn Beck has cornered the Fox News market on reactionary hysteria, and O'Reilly is staking out a claim to the slightly deeper end of the pool.

Even when O'Reilly says something I agree with, I applaud with great caution. But it would be a great thing if portions of his audience come around to the understanding that the public option in no way represents a radical "takeover" of health care. It would be a great thing if it became more difficult for conservatives to deny that the health care crisis is a greater threat to American lives and safety than any foreign-policy crisis in recent memory. A Harvard Medical School report has found that 45,000 people die in the U.S. every year due to lack of health insurance. That's fifteen 9/11s a year. Thirty-second spots produced by insurance companies should be received in the same vein as al Qaeda's crude video and audio dispatches.

Oklahoma Not Okay

Conservatives continue to scale new heights of absurdity with their ridiculous outrage over czars. One hundred House Republicans are actually co-sponsoring legislation intended to stop the Obama Administration from appointing advisors. Their message is that Obama is turning us into Russia, with all these czars! Never mind the facts: White House point-people with long titles have been informally referred to as czars since the practice began under Nixon; George W. Bush had more "czars" than either Clinton or Obama. These conservatives are plainly saying that the facts don't matter, because their constituents are ignorant. Of course those one hundred House Republicans know full well that there is nothing unique, let alone Communistic, about the Obama White House and its "czars." But they also know that their base doesn't know much, and can be easily whipped up into a frenzy over a foreign-sounding word. This is a useful message to the left: We don't have to call Republicans stupid. Republicans are already doing it.

Ignorance, as always, is a big advantage for Republicans and a big disadvantage for Democrats. Unfortunately, it's an epidemic, and it's getting worse. A recent survey commissioned by the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs finds that only 23% of Oklahoma high school students can identify the first President of the United States. Only 14% know who wrote the Declaration of Independence; 27% can name the two houses of Congress; 26% know that the first ten amendments to the Constitution comprise the Bill of Rights. Six in ten cannot name the two major political parties in the United States, and four in ten are unsure which ocean is on the east coast.

The greatest irony of all is that the questions used in this survey are from the exam immigrants must take in order to become U.S. citizens. Immigrants have to answer six questions correctly. So the majority of Oklahoma high school students, if they were not born in the States, could not pass the test to become citizens. But we know that a good number of them will grow up to be adults who despise immigrants, equate liberalism with Hitler, and claim to defend the Bill of Rights they've apparently never heard of.

Santorum for President?

Former Pennsylvania Senator and renowned fetus-cuddler Rick Santorum says he may run for president in 2012. This would be a hilarious spectacle for all to enjoy, and I, for one, really hope he does it. We haven't had the pleasure of watching "Man-on-Dog" Santorum lose an election in three years, and it would be great to see it again. "The dynamic has changed," Santorum explained in an RNC conference call, adding that the Obama presidency is "injurious to America" and that health care reform is "an abomination." Santorum then returned to his office to cuddle a few fetuses before lunch.

There's a special place in my heart for Rick Santorum, partly because he's such a perfect example of right-wing religious lunacy, and partly because I played Santorum in the Nero Fiddled production Moral Value Meal. For notes on the acting challenge of a lifetime, and a picture of me in the role, see "Becoming Santorum," 4/17/06.

Yes, it's Racism

"I think an overwhelming portion of the intensely demonstrated animosity toward President Barack Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man," said President Jimmy Carter this week. His timing could have been better. President Obama is about to appear on five Sunday talk shows plus Letterman to push health care reform, and the Carter remarks guarantee that each of those appearances will be devoted, at least partially, to the question of how racist the anti-Obama crowd is. If this sounds familiar, it's because back in July, when Obama held an important press conference on health care, he upstaged his own message by commenting, at the very end, on the perhaps racially-motivated arrest of Professor Henry Louis Gates. The President was correct when he said the Cambridge police "acted stupidly," just as President Carter is correct when he says that a lot of the Obama-haters are racists. The question is how much it helps to say so.

Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post writes that Carter was "right in essence, but wrong in degree," that "some -- but not 'an overwhelming portion,' as Carter claimed -- of the 'intensely demonstrated animosity' toward Obama is indeed 'based on the fact that he is a black man." Okay, I get it. We have to be careful not to appear to suggest that everyone who disagrees with Obama must be a racist. Obviously that would be going too far. But between the birthers and the deathers and the disturbing signage and the Joe Wilson outburst and the guns, the racist element of the opposition does strike me as, well, overwhelming.

And when Jim Sleeper, also in the Post, insists that "it's not about race," he comes off as disingenuous at best. He reminds us of "the swift-boating of Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) during the 2004 campaign and the unending conservative rage against former president Bill Clinton," by way of saying that the rage of the right is not new or specific to Obama. But by raising those examples, Sleeper is disproving his own point. As ugly and as ignorant as the attacks on Kerry and Clinton were, it must be acknowledged that the animosity directed toward Obama is worse -- more ugly, more ignorant, and, incidentally, filled with obvious racism. It's sheer foolishness to suggest that these livid, gun-toting "tea party" people are actually bursting with visceral anger over the deficit.

And frankly, when your arguments are completely incoherent and have no basis in fact, people are going to wonder what's really going on. If you're filled with primal hatred of Obama, and you're carrying a gun and a sign that says "The American Taxpayers are the Jews for Obama's Ovens," and you're utterly incapable of coming up with a single rational argument, anyone with half a brain is going to dismiss your stated concerns and assume that there's another explanation for your hatred.

Noah

Reality: Too Controversial for America

noreply@blogger.com (Noah Diamond) — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 15:02:00 +0000

Did you hear about the country so addled by ancient dogma that its film distributors wouldn't release a movie about Charles Darwin? You may ask: Where is this backwards, unenlightened place? Iran? North Korea? Turkey? Saudi Arabia? It would be nice to know, so we can remember not to expect too much from whatever country it is. All I can say is I'm glad I live here in the United States of America, where...oh.

Creation, a British historical drama directed by Jon Amiel, stars Paul Bettany as Darwin and Jennifer Connelly as his wife, Emma. It's based on the book Annie's Box, written by Darwin's great-great-grandson Randal Keynes, and deals chiefly with Darwin's grief at the death of his daughter. The film opened the Toronto Film Festival last Thursday, and had its British premiere yesterday. According to The Telegraph, it "has been sold in almost every territory around the world, from Australia to Scandinavia." But no American distributor will touch Creation, because it might upset people who think the world was created in six days by a big man in the sky.

The film was produced by Jeremy Thomas, the Academy Award-winning producer of Bertolucci's The Last Emperor, and other morsels of tempting Oscar bait such as David Cronenberg's Naked Lunch and Crash. Thomas told the Telegraph's Anita Singh:

"That's what we're up against. In 2009. It's amazing. The film has no distributor in America. It has got a deal everywhere else in the world but in the U.S., and it's because of what the film is about. People have been saying this is the best film they've seen all year, yet nobody in the U.S. has picked it up. It is unbelievable to us that this is still a really hot potato in America. There's still a great belief that He made the world in six days. It's quite difficult for we in the U.K. to imagine religion in America. We live in a country which is no longer so religious. But in the U.S., outside of New York and L.A., religion rules. Charles Darwin is, I suppose, the hero of the film. But we tried to make the film in a very even-handed way. Darwin wasn't saying 'kill all religion,' he never said such a thing, but he is a totem for people."

He certainly is. The unintentionally hilarious movieguide.org ("a ministry of The Christian Film and Television Commission, founded by Dr. Ted Baehr, to redeem the media [by] providing reviews from a biblical perspective") blames Darwin for "atrocities, crimes against humanity, cloning and genetic engineering" and calls the theory of evolution "half-baked." (As opposed to their careful scientific conclusion that God made Adam and then made Eve from Adam's rib and then a talking snake persuaded Eve to eat a magic apple. That's convincing.)

Oh well. Movieguide.org vows to "bring God's light to an industry with much darkness," but apparently it's not helping them see very clearly. The site's news headlines are enough to tell you what kind of relationship these people have with reality: "Obama Appoints Radical Sodomite Activist to Major School Post." "Obama Officially Endorses Homofascist Indoctrination and Oppression." "A Godless Marriage Is Worse Than a Loveless One." And that's the news!

As usual, the outrage of the religious right is uninformed. It turns out Creation is not a rebuke to religion; it focuses mainly on Darwin's family tragedy. Evolutionary biologist Olivia Judson, blogging for the New York Times, writes that Creation "is not a didactic film: its main aim is not the public understanding of Darwin’s ideas, but a portrait of a bereaved man and his family." Ray Bennett, in his Hollywood Reporter review, writes, "It would be a great shame if those with religious convictions spurned the film out of hand as they will find it even-handed and wise." Variety: "This handsome historical piece...isn't about science vs. faith so much as that well-worn dramatic hook, the loss of a child." Screen Daily's review even suggests that the film avoids controversy to its detriment: "In asserting the domestic over all else, Creation may have backed the wrong horse."

But don't expect any of this to matter to the same people who decried The Last Temptation of Christ, Jesus Christ Superstar, Dogma, The Da Vinci Code, and Religulous. They didn't see any of those films either. (But they flocked to The Passion of the Christ -- not only one of the worst films in recent memory, but ironically, the bloodiest, goriest, sickest thing I've ever seen in the mainstream cinema.) The Hollywood Reporter's Ray Bennett writes that Creation "will do well with grown-up audiences across the board." Maybe so. But in marketing entertainment to much of America, Hollywood is not dealing with grown-ups. It's dealing with people who literally believe in fairy tales.

It's dealing with people like Elizabeth Prata, who writes a blog "chronicling the End of Days," and recently sounded off on the Creation controversy. At least Prata has good design sense: She's chosen black text on a dark gray background. The problem is, if you really squint, you can still read what she's saying:

"Darwin said: 'I had gradually come...to see that the Old Testament was no more to be trusted than the sacred books of the Hindoos or the beliefs of any barbarian.' How did it happen that a man who was raised Christian and attended seminary, lost his faith so completely that he ended up proposing a theory that would do more to encourage apostasy and faithlessness than any other concept in the history of the world?"

Well, he realized that he was an intelligent human being who had been behaving irresponsibly. And so, as all responsible people must, he chose reason and reality over the willful ignorance of religious dogma. But it will not surprise you to hear that Prata has her own answer, and that it's pants-wettingly silly:

"Like the strangler fig, satan takes a tentative hold and then if not immediately swept away, he moves his tentacles in and winds slowly around."

Ready to continue? Elizabeth Prata is. Responding to Creation producer Jeremy Thomas's comments to the Telegraph, she writes:

"It is the time of apostasy in a world that embraces a 'theory' instead of the facts of God; that America is 'too religious' (as if there is any such thing); the notion that the world has outgrown God and we must become modern. That, after all, it IS 2009."

Unfortunately, not all the world has outgrown God. Humanity's great progress remains hampered by benighted pockets of primitive thought. That's why Prata can use a phrase like "the facts of God" without blinking. She can even deny that it's possible to be "too religious," in an age when people of faith crash airplanes into skyscrapers to appease their gods. Every now and then, she almost makes a point:

"Apostasy is a falling away from the truth. Here is some truth: Darwin wrote On the Origin of Species. There was a reason Darwin did not title it On the Origin of Life. Science can't explain how life began on this earth."

Right! In other words, people can't explain how life began on this earth! We just don't know! What a wonderful thing that she has accepted this! Now, having finally shed the yoke of religious certitude, I guess she...oh.

"But bible believers know: God created the world and everything in it in 6 days. An even better truth are the words: 'Hebrews 12:2 - Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.'

"The second you take your eyes off Him, a clarion bell goes off in hell, and satan sends his demons to swoop at you with the strangler fig seed to plant in your mind. Beware, it comes slowly and stealthily, until pretty soon you are so choked with lies you decide that we are descended from monkeys instead of Children of God."

Who, exactly, is "choked with lies?" The person who finds certainty in what has been proven through scientific and historical inquiry, or the person who finds certainty in a compendium of ancient myths? The person who perceives existential threats in climate change, nuclear proliferation, and the health care crisis, or the person who thinks Satan is trying to plant figs in his mind? Who is so opposed to thought, so closed to ideas, as to believe that all is lost "the second you take your eyes off Him?"

This would all be a lot funnier if the problem were not so widespread in the United States.
A Gallup poll in February found that only 39% of Americans "believe in" the theory of evolution. (Twenty-five percent do not, and 36% have no opinion either way.) Unsurprisingly, attachment to religious mythology is far less epidemic among the educated; 21% of Americans with a high school diploma "or less" believe in evolution, compared with 53% of college graduates and 74% of postgraduates. Ignorance of Darwin's theory is more common in young people and churchgoers than in adults.

Whether Creation finds a U.S. distributor is ultimately a very small matter. But attached to this story is an issue of unequalled importance. America is being strangled, not by the Satanic fig Elizabeth Prata fears, but by the refusal of too many Americans to think critically, to distinguish between fantasy and reality. If you honestly believe that a man went up a mountain and came back with stone tablets from God, or saved the world by putting two of each animal on a boat, or died "for your sins" and is on his way back, then it must be very easy to believe that Iraq was in on 9/11, that President Obama is a Muslim born in Kenya, and that health care reform is a socialist takeover.

Noah

idiot \id'i*ot\ n.

noreply@blogger.com (Noah Diamond) — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 02:45:00 +0000

[F. idiot, L. idiota, an uneducated, ignorant, ill-informed person]. 1. An unlearned, ignorant, or simple person; an ignoramus. 2. A human being destitute of ordinary intellectual powers. 3. A fool; a simpleton. -- Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary

9/11/09

noreply@blogger.com (Noah Diamond) — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 12:42:00 +0000

Today is the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

On this day, eight years ago, a truly illegitimate President of the United States -- who was not elected by the American people but seized the White House by judicial fiat -- sat in an classroom at Booker Elementary School in Florida, reading The Pet Goat with a group of second graders. (Incidentally, he was not accused by liberals of trying to indoctrinate students.)

I do not believe that George W. Bush and Dick Cheney were responsible for the planning or execution of the 9/11 attacks. But there remain many disturbing, unanswered questions about why the Bush Administration failed to protect America. Whether that failure was willful, or simply due to ignorance and incompetence, is a question not sufficiently answered by the known evidence. Undeniably, the attacks were among the worst things that have ever happened to America, and among the best things that ever happened to Bush and Cheney (not to mention Giuliani and a large cast of other supporting players). The Bush Administration failed to keep us safe, to its own advantage. Which is why Dick Cheney is so quick to appear on television these days and say that the Bush Administration did keep us safe. The implicit appositive is, except for that one time. Except for the only time.

Americans have been reflecting on 9/11 for eight years now, and ironically, almost all of us have missed the most salient lessons of the attacks. Popular opinion still says that a Christian nation was attacked by Muslims. In reality, a secular nation was attacked by religious people. Those attacks were a triumph of religion over peace, faith over reason, holy book over newspaper. Granted, not all religious people are as religious as al Qaeda. If al Qaeda is 100% religious, let's say, then someone like Rick Warren is maybe 65%. Of course Rick Warren would never crash an airplane into a skyscraper; he's only 65% religious. Not all religious people are murderers. But they are all guilty of the crime of faith, the willful rejection of critical thinking. In its milder forms, this only leads to church socials and virginity pledges.Turned up several notches, it leads to horrific mass murder -- like the Crusades, the 9/11 attacks, and the bloody apocalypse all dogmatic Christians eagerly anticipate.

Before 9/11 was an act of mass murder, it was a hijacking -- and since that day, the attacks themselves have been hijacked. Just yesterday, Sarah Palin used the attacks to attack President Obama, in a typically incoherent statement posted on Facebook, now her main forum. This weekend, the so-called "9/12 Project" commences -- an alleged grassroots uprising, actually orchestrated by Glenn Beck and Dick Armey's FreedomWorks. This series of events, centered around a protest in Washington tomorrow, claims to seek a return to "the way we all felt on September 12, 2001" -- and is obviously organized by people who felt nothing at all. Nobody who was really paying attention -- and certainly nobody who was here in New York -- felt very good at all that day. On 9/12/01, we were terrified, horrified; many of us had lost loved ones; many others were still desperately awaiting news.

Ironically, the actual goals of these right-wing extremists are the exact opposite of the "9/12" ideals they claim to represent. Glenn Beck says that on 9/12, we didn't care about politics; we just cared about what was best for our country. And this is the crowd that persists in spreading blatant lies about the Obama Administration, idiotically blubbering about a socialist takeover, free health care for undocumented immigrants, and all that birth certificate nonsense. On 9/12/01, they should be reminded, Americans were in absolute lockstep behind their President -- despite the fact that they had not elected him, and he had just failed, like nobody has ever failed before, in the President's primary responsibility. Even I was in no mood to criticize George W. Bush that day. America was in a crisis. Kind of like the crisis it's in right now, over health care, except that the health care crisis has claimed, is claiming, and will claim a far greater number of innocent lives.

Just as the Bush regime failed to protect America, Americans now fail to learn from what happened. 9/11 should have led to a national referendum on the perils of neoconservative foreign policy, administrative incompetence, and religious faith. It has not. It has led to a national atmosphere so consumed by fear -- instilled by Muslim extremists and perpetuated by Christian extremists -- that the chairman of the RNC is still calling Obama's health care plan a "socialist power grab," Republican legislators are still coming out of the woodwork to question the President's citizenship, and the Archdiocese of Chicago is apologizing for honoring Ted Kennedy, on the ludicrous grounds that his devotion to women's rights makes him a killer of babies.

Terrorism is only a symptom, one of many. The real problem, facing not only America but the entire world, is religious fundamentalism. The problem has grown worse, not better, since the awful day eight years ago when people of faith came to New York and Washington and Pennsylvania to spread the Word.

Noah

"I am not the first President to take up this cause, but I am determined to be the last." (UPDATE)

noreply@blogger.com (Noah Diamond) — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 17:55:00 +0000

Read the original post.

There's a predictable amount of continued fallout from last night's landmark Obama address on health care. Most of it involves the Joe Wilson outburst (which we shall deal with in a moment), but among the important stuff:

The speech has had some immediate impact on public opinion. A CNN / Opinion Research poll indicates that 67% of those who watched the speech agreed with Obama's proposals (up from 53% before the speech). However, CNN reminds us that more Democrats than Republicans watched the speech (the polling sample being 8-10 points more Democratic than the general population), and that similar numbers followed President Clinton's health care address in 1993.

MSNBC is reporting that House Democrats are now a) unwilling to support any bill which does not include a "robust" public option, and b) newly willing to consider reform which does not include a public option at all (except possibly on a "trigger," which would be legislation designed to shoot itself in the foot).

House Minority Whip Eric Cantor, a man cursed with a quality best described as "tone-deafness," is now accusing President Obama of "tone-deafness." Forgive Cantor for not knowing much about last night's speech; he wasn't listening.

John Schoen asks, how much will it cost?

And then there's the Joe Wilson thing -- which I hesitate to even discuss, lest it upstage matters of actual importance. But it does have some minor significance, partly as an indicator of how far beneath civility the Republican Party has sunk. The truth is, Wilson's clever "You lie!" was not the only Republican outburst during the speech. Someone shouted "Read the bill!" during Obama's neat debunking of the "death panel" lie. Another witty conservative came up with "Ha!" after Obama said, "I have no interest in putting insurance companies out of business." Cutaway shots during the speech showed many Republican legislators holding up pieces of paper, allegedly representing alternative legislation. There were hoots and catcalls and guffaws and other displays of adolescent boorishness which only increased my admiration for the Democrats who made it through all those Bush speeches without actually vomiting in the aisles.

Major General Paul D. Eaton says that Rep. Wilson's outburst against the Commander-in-Chief was a "breach of military protocol."

Politicians on both sides of the aisle have condemned Wilson, and the White House has graciously accepted his apology. Wilson says "we need to discuss the issues and I'm happy to do that," but he's still wrong about the Obama plan and undocumented immigrants, and his continued pursuit of that fallacy means he's either stupid or a liar. Or even both.

Needless to say, there are plenty of deranged right-wing bloggers leaping to Wilson's defense. Meredith Jessup at Town Hall was "disappointed" to hear that Wilson had apologized. Jessup, who worked for war criminal Dick Cheney in 2005, suggests that Democrats were equally disrespectful during Bush speeches. (Obviously she's wrong, as she is about almost everything; last week she wrote that for a President to address schoolchildren was "unprecedented." I thought I was reading The Onion.)

Erick Erickson at Red State calls Wilson a "Great American Hero" because he "stood up to Barack Obama," and invites his readers to donate to Wilson's reelection campaign. Good luck with that. In fact, Wilson's Democratic opponent, Rob Miller, has received nearly $130,000 in individual donations since last night. (Donate to his campaign here.) It would be nice if "You lie!" became Joe Wilson's political epitaph.

Noah

"I am not the first President to take up this cause, but I am determined to be the last."

noreply@blogger.com (Noah Diamond) — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 15:45:00 +0000

Good speech last night. I feel a little better. Though President Obama did not insist on a public option, he did speak more forcefully in its favor than I expected, and debunked the usual arguments against it more effectively than ever before. More than anything, though, Obama last night did what we wanted him to do: He showed a level of passion, of emotion, of that "fierce urgency" we used to hear about but haven't really seen since the night he accepted his party's nomination.

With simple eloquence, he put down the inarguable facts about our health care crisis. "I am not the first President to take up this cause," he said early in the speech, "but I am determined to be the last." He described how presidents since Theodore Roosevelt have attempted to meet this challenge, and how "our collective failure" to do so "has led us to a breaking point." He mentioned that "we are the only advanced democracy on Earth -- the only wealthy nation -- that allows such hardships for millions of its people." After one typically horrific health care anecdote: "That is heart-breaking, it is wrong, and no one should be treated that way in the United States of America."

There was even an impassioned defense of government's ability to do good:

"Our predecessors understood that government could not, and should not, solve every problem. They understood that there are instances when the gains in security from government action are not worth the added constraints on our freedom. But they also understood that the danger of too much government is matched by the perils of too little; that without the leavening hand of wise policy, markets can crash, monopolies can stifle competition, and the vulnerable can be exploited. And they knew that when any government measure, no matter how carefully crafted or beneficial, is subject to scorn; when any efforts to help people in need are attacked as un-American; when facts and reason are thrown overboard and only timidity passes for wisdom, and we can no longer even engage in a civil conversation with each other over the things that truly matter – that at that point we don't merely lose our capacity to solve big challenges. We lose something essential about ourselves."

This was, in the words of Rachel Maddow, "the only full, basically formal, at-length defense of liberalism, and defense of the idea of government for the people's good, in ideological terms."

There was news in the speech. For the first time, Obama expressed unequivocal support for an individual mandate ("Under my plan, individuals will be required to carry basic health insurance -- just as most states require you to carry auto insurance"). The addition of a "hardship waiver" for those unable to afford coverage, as well as an exemption for "95% of all small businesses, because of their size and narrow profit margin" makes the individual requirement palatable. That's important, because without the requirement, uninsured people who get sick would wind up costing the system too much money -- a point made often during the primaries by Hillary Clinton, when Obama argued against the individual mandate.

Along with those provisions, Obama embraced measures proposed by John Kerry (to raise taxes on insurance companies which overcharge) and John McCain (to offer individuals with "preexisting conditions" protection from financial ruin). There was also a promise that although the new age of American health care would not fully begin for about four years, low-cost coverage would be available "immediately" to those who need and want it.

Bones were thrown to the right. Other than his determination to be the last president to "take up this cause," Obama only drew one real line in the sand last night: "I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits -- either now or in the future. Period." Not only that: "To prove that I'm serious, there will be a provision in this plan that requires us to come forward with more spending cuts if the savings we promised don't materialize." He's eager to prove the sincerity of his bipartisan impulse; in another goodwill gesture, he spoke in support of tort reform (or "reforming our medical malpractice laws"), adding that the Bush Administration had considered a pilot program to test such legislation. "It's a good idea," Obama said, "and I am directing my Secretary of Health and Human Services to move forward on this initiative today." His tone said: Don't you dare accuse me of partisan myopia.

The President has, in my opinion, an exaggerated view of Republican honor and sincerity. He genuinely wants to work with Republicans, whether he has to or not. But in last night's speech, he was, at long last, tough. It wasn't mealy-mouthed. His Republican-friendly promise regarding the deficit was followed with: "Part of the reason I faced a trillion dollar deficit when I walked in the door of the White House is because too many initiatives over the last decade were not paid for -- from the Iraq War to tax breaks for the wealthy." In some of the address's most gratifying moments, Obama attacked "bogus claims spread by those whose only agenda is to kill reform at any cost." Without specifically mentioning Sarah Palin or "death panels," he dismissed that myth as "laughable, if it weren't so cynical and irresponsible. It is a lie, plain and simple."

It was a bit of a tightrope walk. Obama was conciliatory and combative at the same time. It didn't feel like a ploy; this is who he is. Most of us first heard of him during the 2004 Democratic convention, when he told us there were no red states and blue states.

Circumstance cannot shake this principled urge to cooperate -- not even when, in the midst of last night's speech, Republican Rep. Joe Wilson of South Carolina yelled out, "You lie!" So while President Obama was encouraging us to see the best in our opponents, and to join him in seeking solutions with a wide bipartisan consensus, a Republican Congressman was sitting there acting like a six-year-old. (And not just any six-year-old -- a six-year-old idiot.) Astonishingly, even in light of Wilson's Neanderthal outburst, Senator Lindsey Graham (R - South Carolina) was able to tell reporters that Obama had "behaved in a manner beneath the dignity of the office!"

Okay? And that's Lindsey Graham, supposedly a reasonable moderate. It didn't matter at all that Obama's speech effectively debunked every limp criticism the right has been making. As soon as the speech was over, they went right back to it. The Republican Congressman who delivered the rebuttal -- I'm not even going to bother looking up his name -- delivered probably the second-worst speech of its kind in American history (the first, obviously, being supposed presidential contender Bobby Jindal's rebuttal to Obama's joint session address in February).

We're not dealing with rational people here. Take Bill Kristol for example. If he were a liberal, the amount of drool on his collar would be unbecoming, but for a conservative he's actually a very smart guy. And from Obama's statement "We did not come here just to clean up crises; we came to build a future," Kristol has managed to draw the conclusion that "there is no health care crisis." Kristol implicitly acknowledges that if no new plan is initiated, premiums will again double, fourteen thousand Americans a day will continue to lose their coverage, more families will go bankrupt, and more people will die. Even so, Kristol is able to describe inaction on health care as "doing no harm," which "is far preferable to doing real damage to a good health care system."

Oh, it's a great health care system, if you can afford it. If you're, oh, Bill Kristol, for example, you can live your life with the secure understanding that whatever happens to you physically will be dealt with to the utmost extent of modern medicine's ability. But let's say you're not Bill Kristol. Let's say you're one of the 47 million Americans without insurance.* Then you realize that the "good health care system" Kristol extols is actually a vivid and disturbing example of what conservatives claim to oppose: Rationed care.

Moreover, Kristol and other conservatives really ought to shut up about money. It's preposterous to argue against health care reform on financial grounds when more than half of bankruptcies in America are declared by people who are unable to pay for unexpected medical expenses. Yet Kristol mocks Obama for thinking health care is important enough to warrant a joint session of Congress. "So President Obama invited himself into our living rooms tonight," snorts Kristol in the opening lines of his Washington Post blog. "Why? Not to address questions of war and peace -- even though we are fighting two wars overseas, and even though an avowed enemy and terror sponsor is rushing towards nuclear weapons." Presumably, the conservative-brained among us believe that war merits a joint session because American lives and safety are at stake. Which is precisely the case with health care. In fact, health care is, by the apparent conservative metric, more serious, because it concerns the death and safety of Americans on American soil. For families stricken with illness, accident, and limited financial resources, every day is 9/11.

When George W. Bush went before Congress to make the case for "preemptive" war against Iraq, can you imagine what would have happened if Democrats had said, "How are you going to pay for this?" That extended festival of war crimes was seen, incredibly, as something that simply had to be done, no matter the cost. We must kill Iraqis. But as for taking care of Americans -- well, that's a frivolous liberal pipedream, not worth the money.

What will really matter is what happens next. The speech was wonderful, but a speech is one thing. The White House has joined several Congressional Democrats in recent statements to the effect that this was a "last call" for Republican cooperation. Even Max Baucus, though he's apparently given up on the public option, has vowed to introduce a health care reform bill with or without Republican support. Obama talked a good game ("If you misrepresent what's in the plan, we will call you out"), but the coming weeks will show whether it leads to real reform.

One thing he made clear, and I was glad to hear it: Any politician, Republican or Democrat, who stands in the way of progress will have to answer to history.

Noah

* We've been saying 47 million for a long time now. If 14,000 Americans are losing their coverage every day, then we're adding another million uninsured every 71 days.

Update here.

How to Watch the President's Speech

noreply@blogger.com (Noah Diamond) — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 20:52:00 +0000

This evening, President Obama addresses a joint session of Congress, in what's being touted as a definitive, detailed statement of the administration's goals regarding health care. The New York Times has already given its instructions on "How to Watch the Speech." Here, NERO FIDDLED offers its own advice and guidance for viewers.

HOW TO WATCH:

1. Make sure your television is plugged into an electrical outlet and turned on.

2. Determine which channels are carrying the speech, and set your television or cable receiver to one of those channels.

3. At 8:00 pm, President Obama will begin his speech. You should be seeing and hearing it right there on your TV. If not, something is wrong; repeat steps 1 and 2 until achieving the desired effect.

4. Remain in front of your television, simultaneously watching the image while listening to the sound, until the speech is over. (You will know when the speech is over, because there will be a Republican "rebuttal," during which you will experience feelings of severe nausea.)

5. And there you go! You've watched tonight's speech.

TROUBLESHOOTING:

I've followed all of the above steps, but I still can't seem to watch the speech. Help!

Check the time. Is it 8:00 pm yet? If not, sit tight -- the speech is simply not on yet. On the other hand, if it's much later than 9:00, then you've probably missed it.

No, really, I've read the instructions carefully, and it is 8:02 pm. Help!

Here's an important question: Can you see anything on your TV screen? If your TV is showing some programming, just not the speech you were planning to watch, try changing the channel. Consult your local listings to make sure you know what channels are carrying the speech -- or, if you prefer, you can find the speech on TV through the technique known as "flipping around." Lie flat on your back with your palms facing down. In one motion, flip yourself up in the air and around, so you land on your stomach.

If your TV is getting no picture or sound whatsoever, refer to step 1 above.

Impossible

noreply@blogger.com (Noah Diamond) — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 12:53:00 +0000

And so we prepare for tonight's presidential address to a joint session of Congress. I'm sure it will be a beautiful and beautifully-delivered speech. I'm sure it will present an even narrower vision of health care reform, and leave us with the feeling that 20 million uninsured Americans is better than 47 million, public option or not. Of course, we've already lost this fight; the single-payer, Medicare-for-all concept was briefly hailed by the President as the best way to go, then abandoned before it was considered, due to presumed political difficulty. So the demented right wing, rather than attacking the single-payer concept, went after the public option -- which liberals were already thinking of as a compromise. Part of Obama's task tonight is to convince liberals that he can envision a health care bill that's a) capable of passage in the Senate, and b) worth passing.

But most liberals seem to agree that the health care crisis will never be solved as long as there are private insurance companies. As always, America's problem is that a very small group of people is making far too much money. Yes, there are other countries, like Switzerland, where heavily-regulated private insurers manage to behave honorably and provide affordable care to the entire population. But America is different. We equate money with merit and affluence with success. I would never trust an American corporation with my life, if there's a dollar in my death.

Meanwhile, as the notion of universal health care recedes into a dream, the moron fringe of the Republican Party (like its chairman, for instance) continues to depict "Obamacare" -- a plan which still doesn't exist, and which, if it does seem to exist after tonight's speech, will almost certainly lack any government-run component -- as the subversion of democracy to socialism. People who make this claim really shouldn't be argued with; they shouldn't be given a second of television airtime. Don't bother trying to educate them. Don't waste your time looking for common ground. These people went ballistic over President Obama speaking to schoolchildren yesterday. His controversial message was: Do your homework. There is no way to reason with or work with the Glenn Beck crowd.

Occasionally people ask me why this blog has been so quiet lately, and this is the reason. I just don't see much point in coming on here every day and blasting the lunatic right. Every display of revolting stupidity at a town hall meeting has sent me running to my computer to sound off, and then I always stop and wonder why I'm bothering.

We have two political parties: One is corrupt, conservative, and corporatist -- the Democrats -- and the other is so blitzed out of its mind on religion, xenophobia, nationalism, and gun-lust that it no longer deserves the attention of serious thinkers. The Democrats are a bunch of conservatives, and the Republicans are a bunch of idiots. So how do you choose between conservatives and idiots? Wouldn't it be better to just give the colonies back to England at this point? Sure, many Americans could never survive as Englishmen, because our English language skills are so poor, but at least England takes care of its citizens.

I don't mean to be so down on America. After all, there was enough good in America to elect Barack Obama last year. But what was the point of doing that if the Obama Administration is going to bend over backwards making sure its detractors are happy? The all-important primary endorsement of the late Ted Kennedy rested on Obama's promise to tackle health care reform in his first year. Our votes for Obama/Biden were votes for, among other things, universal health care -- not just a bill, any bill that could pass, without upsetting militia men, Jesus freaks, and insurance companies.

Pragmatists will say that politics is the art of the possible, and that a watered-down bill which lacks a public option but insures 20 or 30 million more Americans is a good start. Okay. Fine. But don't expect me to get excited about it. I still don't have health insurance, and I doubt I'll have it next year either. Art of the possible, yes. But why are we letting the rabid rightist minority decide what's possible?

Noah

The End of an Era

noreply@blogger.com (Noah Diamond) — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 12:08:00 +0000

"I hope for an America where no president, no public official, no individual will ever be deemed a greater or lesser American because of religious doubt -- or religious belief. I hope for an America where the power of faith will always burn brightly, but where no modern inquisition of any kind will ever light the fires of fear, coercion, or angry division. I hope for an America where we can all contend freely and vigorously, but where we will treasure and guard those standards of civility which alone make this nation safe for both democracy and diversity." -- Senator Edward M. Kennedy

More Dispatches from the Underworld

noreply@blogger.com (Noah Diamond) — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 22:17:00 +0000

As you may know, I have for some time been a subscriber to the e-mail list of Human Events, one of the most prominent (and, I stress, mainstream) dispensers of right-wing hysteria. I do this because it's an opportunity to see how the other half -- forgive me, the other twenty percent -- lives. And every so often, to give readers of this blog a frightening glimpse of the underworld, I publish Human Events' e-mails here. As always, I have not added a word (though much of what follows sounds like satire). I have edited the e-mails down for length, however, as they go on and on and on.

The first is noteworthy for its obvious intention of fomenting the brain-dead rage which has haunted so many town hall meetings of late.

ALERT: Congress has started their August recess... but it's NO VACATION!

At "town hall" meetings all across America, the grassroots -- ordinary patriotic Americans like YOU -- are coming out by the hundreds... and they are ANGRY.

ANGRY about "Obamacare" -- Obama's attempt to socialize our health care system!

ANGRY about Obama's push for "cap and trade" legislation, which will be the largest tax increase in U.S. history!

ANGRY about Obama's refusal to just show us his actual long-form birth certificate and PROVE he's a natural-born citizen!

ANGRY that Obama has taken over America's automobile industry!

ANGRY that Obama has nationalized America's banking industry!

ANGRY about Congress' attempt to pass the so-called "Hate Crimes" bill, which is really the "Pedophile Protection Act"!

Just...take a look at some of these Town Hall meetings...where the Members of Congress are finally facing the WRATH of their constituents for what they're doing to us:

We've also included a FULL LISTING of every single upcoming Health Care Town Hall Meeting that's being held across America, provided by our friends at TeaPartyPatriots.org. If you can, you need to attend YOUR local Town Hall meeting -- or, if your Congressman isn't having one or is already WITH US on these big issues, find the closest Town Hall meeting to you, and go to it to support your fellow patriots!

...The radically liberal administration of Barack Hussein Obama -- with the help of his partners-in-crime Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid -- is still trying to FORCE Americans to accept socialized health care like Canada and Europe...

This next e-mail, which deals with health care, contains all their favorite falsehoods about the issue, reduced to four easy-to-remember shouting points. Like many Human Events e-mails, this one is from one of their "partners" -- the Pray in Jesus Name Project, an organization so woefully ignorant that it has apparently never heard of the apostrophe.

Grandmas and Babies Exterminated by Obama "Health" Care Plan

HOT NEW PETITION to STOP OBAMA'S SOCIALIST HEALTH CARE TAKEOVER. Please click, sign, and WE WILL FAX your petition automatically to all 52 "Blue-Dog" House Democrats and/or all 100 Senators, right away (saving you hours of labor!) and saving unborn children, grandmothers, grandfathers, and all other grand-genders created by this bill from Government-forced extermination...

1) EUTHANASIA is the first result of Obama's socialist government "health" care plan.

Bankrupt state can't afford to pay for grandma's hip replacement? Obama's plan sends her a lawyer to make her sign a DNR, explaining her hastened duty to die, and obtaining her signature legally absolving him of all guilt. Euthanasia begins where capitalism ends...

2) Tax-payer funded ABORTION on demand is another guaranteed result...

3) Obama will REMOVE Christian prayers and symbols from Government-run hospitals

The hostile socialist government takeover of Catholic or Christian hospitals will eventually result in atheistic silencing of religious expression (and removing all Christian symbols) from the very place where faith in God is critical to sick and dying patients.

...Just imagine more atheist lawsuits, when all Catholic and Christian hospitals are seized in the same way Obama took control of General Motors, inviting easily-offended atheist complainers to demand we change the name of the hospital from "St. Luke's Memorial" to the "Obama Government" hospital, falsely claiming tax-dollars cannot subsidize religion.

Can a government-run hospital still allow Christian chapels, or pay Christian chaplains, or permit Christian doctors to pray Christian prayers with their willing patients, or even allow Christian parents to control the health care options forced upon their dying children?

Can you say mandatory godlessness in "health" care? If government has power to dictate your health care options, they also have power to seize your children when you refuse. Think about it...

4) Homosexuals free $50,000 tax-funded sex-change surgery not excluded by Democrats...

So let me summarize Obama's health care plan: 1) Euthenizes grandma, 2) Mandates funding murder of innocent children, 3) Empowers atheist litigants to outlaw the healing power of the Christian faith, 4) Refuses to exclude funding sex-change operations.

We all gasped when the federal government seized control of General Motors, and Obama effectively fired the Chairman and replaced the board with government bureaucrats selected by Treasury Secretary Geithner. Now Obama and his liberal Democratic House allies want to replace your doctors with bureaucrats, hasten grandma's demise, abort and kill children in urban neighborhoods, cut doctors' pay and control their religion, and transform Christian hospitals into government-controlled atheist bureaucracies. Does any of this remind you of Communism?

...God Bless you, in Jesus name,
Chaplain Gordon James Klingenschmitt

Jonathan Leaf was once a New York playwright of some promise. Occasionally, in recent years, some denizen of the theatre world has wondered aloud, "What ever happened to Jonathan Leaf?" Here is the pitiful answer.

What PC liberals won't admit about the Sixties

Dear Fellow Conservative:

Celebrating the 1960s as a glorious time of widespread social rebellion by youthful idealists is a favorite theme of the aging radicals in academia and the media.

But the portrait they paint of that decade -- and of its lasting impact on America -- is as false as it is self-glorifying.

Now, in The Politically Incorrect Guide™ to the Sixties, Jonathan Leaf tells the real story of that troubled time -- and showing not only that Sixties radicals were far more elitist and self-serving than we have been led to believe -- but that their social, cultural, and political legacy has been almost uniformly ruinous.

Now, for a limited time, HUMAN EVENTS is making The Politically Incorrect Guide™ to the Sixties available to you absolutely FREE.

Here you will learn the real story of the Vietnam War, student radicals, the Black Panthers, JFK's "Camelot," the Warren Court, civil rights legislation, the advent of feminism, the Great Society, and more.

You'll also learn how a small group of intellectuals -- both in Washington and at our leading universities -- worked in tandem with street thugs to undermine law, order, and family stability.

CLICK HERE to discover more -- and to get your FREE hardcover copy of The Politically Incorrect Guide™ to the Sixties today.

Your friend,
Thomas S. Winter
Editor in Chief, HUMAN EVENTS

P.S. Here is how to tick off a liberal... just subscribe to HUMAN EVENTS today! (And you 'll receive a FREE copy of The Politically Incorrect Guide™ to the Sixties -- a $27.95 value.)

P.P.S. Make a liberal even angrier by subscribing for 70 weeks and also get absolutely free, The Politically Incorrect Guide™ to the Founding Fathers.

The far-right is noisy and brutal, but very, very tiny. It's hard to remember that sometimes, though, because CNN and MSNBC, terrified of "imbalance," insist on covering the paltry far-right equally with the vast progressive mainstream. One recent indicator of the wide abyss between the far-right and most of America is the withdrawal of such mainstream sponsors as Geico, Sargento, and Progressive from Glenn Beck's incoherent program. But to the people at Human Events, this is actually an attack on the First Amendment, and I'll bet you can guess who they think hates the First Amendment enough to do this.

Obama Cronies Try to Silence Glenn Beck

Obama Official Linked to Racially Charged Boycott of Glenn Beck

At least five weak-kneed advertisers are buckling under the pressure of a racially charged boycott of Fox News Channel's Glenn Beck. But that's not all... a high-ranking Obama official has now been tied to the racially charged boycott. Is the Obama Administration orchestrating the boycott? Read the full story on HumanEvents.com.

This next example is probably the most ridiculous, which I realize is saying a great deal. Here, the United States Justice Foundation breathlessly informs readers that President Obama "and his allies" are planning to hold a new Constitutional Convention and rewrite the entire Constitution. Note that this one is from someone named Gary Kreep. I could not make this stuff up.

Obama's Biggest Con ... A Constitutional Convention

Dear Friend,

BARACK OBAMA AND HIS ALLIES ARE TRYING TO CHANGE THE U.S. CONSTITUTION WITHOUT FOLLOWING THE AMENDMENT PROCESS -- IN FACT, THEY'RE TRYING TO REWRITE THE ENTIRE CONSTITUTION -- AND THEY'RE CLOSE TO SUCCEEDING!

What would you think if an amendment to the U.S. Constitution was introduced by liberal Democrat Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, which repealed the First Amendment in the Bill of Rights -- taking away our right to Free Speech?

What would you think if an amendment to the U.S. Constitution was introduced by liberal Democrat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, which repealed the Second Amendment in the Bill of Rights -- taking away our right to Keep and Bear Arms? (A right that the U.S. Supreme Court recently upheld!)

"That could never happen," you say. "No one would allow it!" Right? Well...

Did you know that there are TWO ways that our Constitution can be changed? And did you know that Pelosi, Reid and Barack Obama are using the less well-known way, without having to actually introduce amendments?

IT'S TRUE -- and WE have to stop it NOW!

...Barack Obama and his far-left supporters would be able to get THEIR people appointed as delegates to the Convention, so that THEIR agendas would be the Convention's agenda, and THEIR plans for socialism in America would come to pass.

Say BYE-BYE to the First Amendment's freedom of speech -- Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity could be taken off the air.

Say BYE-BYE to the Second Amendment's right to bear arms -- a total gun ban could be the law of the land!

Say BYE-BYE to the Constitution's requirement that to serve as President a man or a woman must be a "natural born citizen"!

You KNOW that's what they'll do if given the chance -- and we're only TWO STATES AWAY from seeing a Constitutional Convention convened!

...There's very little time to ramp this project up to FULL SPEED -- we need to raise at least $100,000 to prepare and distribute legal opinions, lobby state legislators and begin our grassroots activism campaign this coming month. Please, CLICK HERE NOW to make your best possible donation, and let's STOP Obama, Pelosi and Reid from ripping our Constitution to shreds, and re-writing it to their own socialist goals!

Sincerely,
Gary Kreep, Executive Director
United States Justice Foundation

P.S. President Barack Obama has already expressed his belief that the U.S. Constitution needs to be interpreted in the context of current affairs and events. Can you imagine what he and his supporters would DO to that document if given the chance to re-write it completely? Our Bill of Rights could disappear overnight!

In fact, all the way back in 2006, Obama already had his lawyers researching how someone could get around the eligibility requirements to serve as U.S. President -- these people simply don't CARE about whether we preserve the supreme law of the land!

Remember -- when the last Constitutional Convention met in 1787, the original goal was to amend the Articles of Confederation. Instead, delegates simply threw them out and wrote a whole new Constitution.

That's EXACTLY what Obama, Pelosi and Reid would do this time -- but this time, the result would destroy our freedoms. Please, CLICK HERE NOW to help us STOP them. Thank you!

And finally, a compilation like this would be incomplete without some souvenir of the demented "birther" movement.

Obama Documents - The Facts You Need To Know

Dear Concerned Friend,

...WHAT is Barack Obama trying to hide? WHAT is he afraid of? WHY doesn't he just release these documents to prove that he is a natural-born citizen and, therefore, qualified to serve as President -- especially his actual birth certificate?

Isn't it time we FORCED him to come clean?

...You see, when Barack Obama officially entered the office of President, he became, in essence, a "pretender to the throne." According to the Constitution, only a "natural born citizen" can occupy the presidency.

Even though he was sworn in on January 20, 2009, Barack Obama is NOT legally the President of the United States, unless he is a "natural born citizen."

What's more, every action taken by him while he occupies the White House may be invalid. If he cannot legally serve as President, every law passed by Congress will be null and void because the Constitution clearly requires that all laws be signed by the President... and, without a legally elected and sworn in President in office, that becomes an impossibility.

Quite frankly, this crisis must be ended! And it must be ended NOW!

...We have to press our case to stop Barack Obama from, apparently, illegally holding the Presidency, despite the ongoing threats against us. We are speaking of filing additional lawsuits and administrative actions, over and above the dozens already filed, if you will help us today.

I need your help right now in order to win this battle. Helping USJF with this campaign is your best shot, and, possibly your only chance, at finding out whether Barack Obama is legally holding the Presidency of our great nation, or whether he is a fraud -- a usurper!

Are you willing to see the Constitution shredded by the Left? Will you sit back and do nothing while a foreign-born person may be illegally occupying the White House as President of the United States?

We will not be intimidated. But we MUST have your help immediately if USJF is to survive this fight to the finish -- and if the U.S. Constitution is to weather this crisis intact!

Our country is on the fast track to disaster ... but you can help us keep the situation from getting worse. I pray that I'll hear from you today.

Sincerely,
Gary Kreep, Executive Director
United States Justice Foundation

P. S.: This is the biggest political cover-up in American history! It would be so simple to release the documents to PROVE that Barack Obama is a natural-born citizen... IF HE HAD THE DOCUMENTS!

America has never before faced such a threat. Everything we hold dear is at risk with Barack Obama sitting as President without him releasing his actual birth certificate and other documents.

Barack Hussein Obama thinks he can get away with DUPING the American people and DESTROYING the U.S. Constitution. DON'T LET HIM DO IT! Please, make your best possible contribution to USJF today.

Noah

In a Nutshell

noreply@blogger.com (Noah Diamond) — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 15:21:00 +0000

Rachel Maddow is sitting beside Dick Armey on Meet the Press, debating health care reform. This is what it always comes down to: Intelligent, compassionate liberals versus the dick army.

Noah

The Face of Derangement

noreply@blogger.com (Noah Diamond) — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 12:17:00 +0000

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

The Voice of Reason

noreply@blogger.com (Noah Diamond) — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 12:15:00 +0000

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

Healther Skelter

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show
Full Episodes

Political Humor

Spinal Tap Performance

The Last Republican

noreply@blogger.com (Noah Diamond) — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 16:09:00 +0000

One morning, as Rush Limbaugh was waking up from anxious dreams, he discovered that he was the last Republican left in the United States.

He supposed it was inevitable. Ever since the 2006 midterms, conservatism had been on the decline. Rush knew that at some point he would be its only remaining adherent. Now that it was so, he decided to put on a brave face and accept his status as the last of the dinosaurs.

Curiously enough, his greatest fear was not realized; he was still in demand, still listened to. True, his radio audience had dwindled dramatically, since there was no longer a conservative base. But there were plenty of liberals (i.e., Americans) stricken with morbid curiosity, and they did tune in, in significant numbers, like visitors to a museum. "It's hard to believe some people used to live like this," they'd say.

Rush found, to his great pleasure, that the extinction of conservatism begat a career renaissance. Before, he had bellowed his opinions in the isolated ghetto of his "Excellence in Broadcasting" studio; now, he was in demand everywhere. CNN and MSNBC invited him to be a daily guest on every one of their programs, as they were still intent on covering both sides of every story, and Rush was the only person left to argue from the right. (Fox, having lost its raison d'être with the fall of conservatism, had given up the news and was now devoted entirely to competitive dance shows.)

Without the force of a movement behind him, Rush was not the dangerous figure he had been, but he still had prominent detractors. "Why are we still paying attention to this guy?" asked Chris Matthews one evening on Hardball. "Here to discuss the continued media presence of Rush Limbaugh is Democratic strategist Chris Kofinis, and Rush Limbaugh."

If Rush opposed, say, a new tax plan, the Associated Press described it as having been rejected by one hundred percent of conservatives. President Obama was said to have a zero percent approval rating among Republicans, but he promised to do his best to reach across the aisle. Limbaugh himself ran in the Republican presidential primary, garnering one hundred percent of his party's votes, but he was forced to drop out due to health problems.

He had never been the healthiest of men, and soon the day came when Rush Limbaugh passed away, seized by a massive heart attack while golfing. His death, because it was also the final bow of American conservatism, was the most sensational news story of its time. Everywhere you looked, you saw him. Every website, magazine, newspaper, and television channel overflowed with affectionate and philosophical tributes. Lifelong Democrats remembered him as a worthy opponent. Former Republicans spoke of the old days with a certain misty longing, and although they had parted violently with Rush during the fall of the movement, they now praised his lonely fidelity to the sinking ship. Everyone agreed that despite his failures as a human being, he had been profoundly talented, and one of the defining figures of a turbulent era in American history.

His death, like his life, was marked by controversy and intrigue; a bevy of personal assistants and concierge doctors testified to his ongoing drug dependency and emotional volatility. At the time of his passing, he had been booked to deliver fifty lectures at London's O2 Arena, and his physicians questioned whether he was up to it.

Now CNN and MSNBC were really in a fix. Without America's last conservative, how could they hope to present balanced, impartial news coverage? Where could they point the next time some self-hating liberal accused them of having a liberal bias? To fill the gap, and to maintain balance, they adopted the practice of hiring actors to play Republicans. Pretty soon, the real liberals got tired of debating fictional conservatives, and they resigned en masse; now the networks had no choice but to hire more actors, to play Democrats, and debate the actors who were playing Republicans.

"What a glorious time it is for America," began a widely-quoted editorial in the New York Times. "In recent years we have seen not only the end of the Republican Party, but the return of scripted television."

Noah

District of WHAT?

noreply@blogger.com (Noah Diamond) — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 02:08:00 +0000

Make your own at Kenyan Birth Certificate Generator.

We're Sick

noreply@blogger.com (Noah Diamond) — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 12:52:00 +0000

What the hell is wrong with us? We are the least civilized civilized country on the globe. As Hendrik Hertzberg points out in this week's New Yorker, "the people of every other wealthy democracy on earth have obtained for themselves some form of guaranteed health insurance or universal health care." But not us. Over here, nothing.

The Democratic Party now has an immensely popular president, sixty seats in the Senate, and 256 in the House. If the Republicans had this kind of majority, we would now have mandatory assault rifles in every classroom, and Jesus would be on the one dollar bill. What do we have? We have Democrats -- conservative Democrats like Rep. Mike Ross of Arkansas -- actually boasting to reporters, "We have successfully pushed a floor vote [on health care] to September. The American people want us to slow down, and that's what we're doing here."

Slow down? "Six times since 1948," Hertzberg reminds us, "we have elected Presidents committed, at least on paper, to [the] principle" of universal health care. The so-called Blue Dogs point to their conservatism as though it were some kind of integrity, when it's really a pathetic imitation of the Republicans, and their mindless adherence to market principles rather than moral ones. You know what would be great? If every American who needed medical care could get it, and nobody made a goddamn penny providing it.

Why is it acceptable for 47 million Americans to have no access to health care, but it's not acceptable for the insurance industry to make a little less money? Why is it acceptable for fourteen thousand more of us to lose our coverage every day, but it's not acceptable for those who are insured to endure minor changes in their coverage?

Hertzberg again:

"Pretty much everybody who believes that health care should be a human right, not a commercial commodity, and who makes a serious study of the abstract substance of the matter, concludes that the best solution would be (to borrow Obama’s words at the press conference) 'what’s called a single-payer system, in which everybody is automatically covered.' But, by the same token, pretty much everybody who believes the same thing, and who makes a serious study of the concrete politics of the matter, concludes that a change so sudden and so wrenching—and so threatening to so many powerful interests—is beyond the capacities of our ramshackle political mechanisms."

In other words, we're doomed. America's addiction to success has guaranteed its failure. We can't even take proper care of our sick and dying, because too many people have gotten too fabulously wealthy in the business of health care. And too many others are willing to believe that for the American government to show basic decency would be a surrender to evil socialism.

The unavoidable conclusion is that far too much power is wielded, in the Senate, by politicians who represent virtually nobody. The framers' concession to the underpopulated states -- that their proportionate representation in the House would be offset by equal representation in the Senate -- is killing us. Republican Senators from Iowa and Wyoming have decided there won't be a deal on health care until after the August recess. Those Senators represent fewer than two million actual American citizens. But they're going to decide for the rest of us.

The wilderness mentality rules in the Senate, because the wilderness is vastly overrepresented, and because committee chairmanships distribute power even less proportionally. This problem is holding us back on virtually every important issue -- not just health care, but the environment, social programs, infrastructure. Look at the ongoing crisis of gun violence. People who live in the woods are making gun decisions for people who live in cities! Now, inevitably, some people are going to want to live in the woods, and that's fine; of course they're free to do that. But it's insane that 641,481 North Dakotans are as powerful in the Senate as 36,756,666 Californians. It might have made sense in the eighteenth century. But too many Americans are still living in the eighteenth century.

And so, because malicious men in the Senate are in bed with malicious men in the insurance industry, and have managed to convince some of their thicker constituents that solving this crisis somehow means "putting a bureaucrat between you and your doctor," well, this is just going to have to wait. Sorry, folks, they're saying, but you'll just have to die. And are we really waiting for important details to be worked out? Of course not. We're waiting for the conservative establishment to saturate the country with misleading ads, fake reporting, and bombastic venom about how Obama's health care reform goals are actually part of his plot to turn America into an Islamic commune, or something. No wonder the new Times / CBS poll finds "a nation torn by conflicting impulses and confusion."

Wrap your head around this:

"In one finding, 75 percent of respondents said they were concerned that the cost of their own health care would eventually go up if the government did not create a system of providing health care for all Americans. But in another finding, 77 percent said they were concerned that the cost of health care would go up if the government did create such a system."

What the hell is wrong with us?

Noah