Talk about misdirected anger

Obama has been getting a lot of press for his comments in the recent Rolling Stone interview, but I'll get to those later.  My reaction when reading the interview, and remember I'm ridiculously liberal, was how biased the first question seemed to be.

When you came into office, you felt you would be able to work with the other side. When did you realize that the Republicans had abandoned any real effort to work with you and create bipartisan policy? (read the full Rolling Stone interview here)

I know that's the truth, but it just seems blatantly left wing.  "I know when you were elected you wanted to work with those douchebags, but when did you realize that trying to work with them was like trying to get Satan to accept Jesus as his lord and savior?"  Most people ask it without the "any real effort".  They usually ask, "why do you think it's been so difficult to achieve bipartisanship?"  Forcing the president to call them douchebags. 
 

A rally for the 98 percenters!

I am very excited about the upcoming Colbert and Stewart rallies.  I'm glad they decided to put forth a moderate answer to the extremist rallies that have been going on thus far.  I hope that they get a million people on the mall to give voice to the 90+% of Americans whose voices are ignored for the guy who is screaming at the top of his lungs.   More after the jump.

Oil Companies v. Muslims

I love when Republicans are angry about something that they essentially do to others.  I think this is called hypocrisy.  So hard to tell nowadays what with hypocrisy being standard to engage in debate in this country.

Now, Republicans want Democrats to stop Demonizing the oil industry. Article Here


Rep. Kevin Brady (Texas), the top House Republican on the Joint Economic Committee and a senior member of the House Ways and Means Committee, said he hoped a Republican majority in the House would end the scapegoating of the industry.

litigation vs. regulation: which costs us more.

A great piece in the Economist that makes the case that we need regulations and less litigation to give us more freedom. I like the idea, and would totally support it. I think that currently since we don't have good regulations, litigation is the only thing that keeps certain businesses honest. An excerpt below: (and read the full article at the Economist)

To generalise: for risks I can assess myself, I don't want regulations that prevent me from doing as I please just because I might end up suing the government. For risks I can't assess myself, I do want regulations that give me the confidence to do as I please. One kind of regulation stops me from swimming in a pond in Massachusetts. The other kind lets me swim in a river in the Netherlands. One kind of regulation makes me less free. The other kind makes me freer.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2010/08/liberaltarianism_and_regulation

Cell Phones for the Homeless

This topic is a little off the political path what with the uproar over a Muslim community center being built in a Burlington Coat Factory in New York taking up all the headlines.  The topic is cell phones for the homeless.

Earlier in the year a co-worker forwarded an email that purported to show that some homeless person at a government funded soup kitchen was getting a free meal while taking a photo of Michelle Obama with an expensive cell phone.  The email photo wasn't faked.  It was real.  What the email implied was misleading.  The email was meant to make you think that your tax dollars were being used to give freeloaders free meals while they spent their money on Blackberry phones.

Forgot one

When setting up the defense of the Muslim Community Center in New York, I left out a very important speech.  Mayor Bloomberg gave this great speech in defense of religious tolerance: (taken from Huffington Post)

Here are his remarks:


We have come here to Governors Island to stand where the earliest settlers first set foot in New Amsterdam, and where the seeds of religious tolerance were first planted. We've come here to see the inspiring symbol of liberty that, more than 250 years later, would greet millions of immigrants in the harbor, and we come here to state as strongly as ever - this is the freest City in the world. That's what makes New York special and different and strong.

What will be remembered...

It's like America has no sense of history.  The irrational prejudice against Muslims today is no different than the irrational hatred of Japanese or Native Americans or Blacks or pick a minority.  What is sad is that this is going to be one of those things that we read about in History books (except maybe in Texas) and think, "wow, those people back then were really ignorant."  The Japanese internment camps, the Indian Removal Act, the enslavement of blacks, have we no memory?  Oh, but we have "reasons" to distrust Muslims.  So did those people back then, or so they thought.  Blacks & Native Americans needed civilization. The Japanese were our enemy.  Neither of these was true then, any more than the "reasons" given today.

But my words are insufficient to the cause I feel.

Hendrik Hertzberg did a great comment in the New Yorker titled Zero Grounds.  It's fun to make something out to be scary, damn the facts.  Fighting a straw man is so much easier than fighting real people.  For instance, the people who want to open a Muslim community center, terrorists? radicals? No:

Like many New Yorkers, the people in charge of Park51 (the Muslim community center), a married couple, are from somewhere else—he from Kuwait, she from Kashmir. Feisal Abdul Rauf is a Columbia grad. He has been the imam of a mosque in Tribeca for close to thirty years. He is the author of a book called “What’s Right with Islam Is What’s Right with America.” He is a vice-chair of the Interfaith Center of New York. “My colleagues and I are the anti-terrorists,” he wrote recently—in the Daily News, no less. He denounces terrorism in general and the 9/11 attacks in particular, often and at length. The F.B.I. tapped him to conduct “sensitivity training” for agents and cops. His wife, Daisy Khan, runs the American Society for Muslim Advancement, which she co-founded with him. It promotes “cultural and religious harmony through interfaith collaboration, youth and women’s empowerment, and arts and cultural exchange.”

Read more http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2010/08/16/100816taco_talk_hertzberg#ixzz0wMO721jJ

Hertzberg lays out the case against fear and prejudice pretty well.  But for Humor and Facts, nobody does it better than Jon Stewart:

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I couldn't have said it better.  No seriously, I couldn't.  If the facts are not on your side, then all you're left with is irrational prejudice.  Irrational prejudice and fear-mongering.  I don't need history to show me that "Wow, these people are really ignorant."

A failure to communicate

The Bush Tax Cuts are coming up for renewal.  Republicans want to keep them (even though they proved to do not a damn thing to help the economy) and Democrats want them to expire.  I'm not sure what the odds are on them passing, but if they do it will be in part because Democrats and Progressives don't know how to make an emotional argument. 

Republicans & Conservatives are anti-intellectual for the most part.  They are the ones who keep pointing out how elitist and fancy we progressives, liberals and Democrats are.  The voting public (at least segments of it) buy this.  Why?  Look at the debate on the Bush tax cuts.  Republicans and Conservatives are framing it as a tax increase, which strikes an emotional chord with Americans (heck the TEA party stands for Taxed Enough Already).  When you try to make the rational (and completely correct) argument that by keeping the tax cuts we will increase the deficit and not stimulate the economy (for if it was going to stimulate the economy it's had plenty of time to do so), you lose the argument.  Why?  Because emotions don't respond to logic. 

Try convincing your loved one to not leave you due to all the logic you can muster.  Not going to work.  Two friends don't like each other, try and show logically that they are perfectly compatible and like the same things.  Not going to work.  Country Music singer Colin Raye (I believe) said it, "Logic never could convince a heart."  Yet that's what we keep doing.  We keep expecting people to see that it "just doesn't make any sense" and they never do. 

Look at this article from Think Progress where Eric Cantor is unable to come up with a single program he'd cut to reduce spending enough to offset the Tax Cuts.  To us that's evidence that the Republicans aren't serious about reducing the deficit & that the Tax Cuts are going to hurt this country more than help.  But we still lose the argument (and the guy Cantor's talking to isn't even against him). 

What we need is more emotional/common sense arguments.  For instance, when talking about the tax cuts make the argument about how we're going to pay for them in simple terms.  Use family budgets.  Example:

"When you cut taxes, what you're doing is cutting income.  So let's say that you're a family living off a certain income, if you cut your income you've got to cut expenses.  All we're asking for the Republicans to do is tell us what they want to cut to offset the lost income.  If you at home take a lower paying job, you don't make up for that by maxing out your credit card, and that's what Republicans would like us to do.  Part of the reason that we ended up with such a high deficit is that Republicans ran up our credit card bills to pay for the lost income."

I think this is an argument that would resonate with voters, especially those that have lost jobs and actually taken a lower pay rate and have had to cut expenses.  I know we've used the "tighten our belts" argument before, but it's become cliche.  Using examples that really resonate, I believe, would help us persuade more voters.  And it doesn't hurt that we're right.

'I Feel Like I Don't Live In America:' The Best Worst Prop 8 Reactions | TPMMuckraker

'I Feel Like I Don't Live In America:' The Best Worst Prop 8 Reactions | TPMMuckraker: "It's also extremely problematic that Judge Walker is a practicing homosexual himself. He should have recused himself from this case, because his judgment is clearly compromised by his own sexual proclivity."

That quote above is from the American Family Association and I consider it the worst of the worst.  OK so you think Judge Walker's judgement is compromised by "his own sexual proclivity", but your judgment isn't compromised by your irrational hatred for gays.  No you're probably right.  You see things clearly.

There really is no legitimate reason to be against gay marriage.  You can claim religious reasons, but most of the people who claim them seem just so hateful and not-religious (I vaguely remember from when I was religious that there was this thing about Jesus and Love).

I got this image from http://www.joemygod.blogspot.com/ and he has the original source data.

Such a great photo.

And I have to be Honest this next video I also got from Joe My God.  I have to admit a little jealousy since my name is also Joe and I never thought of using Joe My God.  And I at times can be really arrogant. 

This is a great bit from the Young Turks, who I miss listening to in the morning since Air America left Austin, and then died apparently.  Shellfish are an abomination (The bible says it multiple times).  I'm for the Red Lobster Amendment, no wait, I love shellfish.



Basically this blog is part I'm happy that Prop 8 was overturned, part I hate anti-gay rhetoric, and part you should really read and follow Joe My God. 

Rachel Maddow: Scaring White People for Fun and Profit

Rachel Maddow does a fine job of not only making a good argument, but having the facts and figures to back it up.  And most importantly, those facts and figures aren't made up.

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McConnell Makes His Choice | Talking Points Memo

McConnell Makes His Choice | Talking Points Memo: "Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has come out in support of congressional hearings into the matter of whether the US Constitution grants citizenship to every person born in the United States -- so-called 'birthright' citizenship."

For all the fear mongering on the right about what this country is becoming, I don't see any outrage about revoking citizenship for persons born in the United States. This is obviously anti-immigrant rhetoric, and exposes even more the racism of certain members of the right. Why, for instance, are the only examples ever really spoken about Mexicans. The "anchor babies", as they are called, never refer to Canadians or the Irish.

But this repeal of the 14th amendment would cause all sorts of problems. What if your father is American and your Mother is Canadian (though applying for citizenship) and you're born? You're not an American according to them. My parents were both born here, but my Grandmother wasn't. She didn't get her citizenship (she was on permanent work visas) till I was in college. My Grandparents on my father's side were both born here, but I'm not sure about my Great Grandparents. Where exactly do I draw the line? When does my citizenship stop being in question? (of course, these are the same people who question Barack Obama for being born in Hawaii and honestly think he's Kenyan)

I don't think these questions are out of line. If your parents aren't citizens, and you can't be a citizen even if you're born here, you could feasibly deport me. I who have paid taxes, voted in elections, and can't speak a lick of Spanish might have to go to Mexico?

If it means I don't have to pay off my student loans, I'll consider it.

Why I'm not a libertarian

Rand Paul has gotten into a lot of trouble recently for his comments on the Civil Rights Act.  He made them, then had to go back and retract a little, then had to reverse his comments completely.  The problem is that most people were accusing him of being racist, when what he was being was a true libertarian.  In all the discussions about whether he believes blacks should be allowed to sit at lunch counters, what was missed was that libertarianism is a flawed way of running a country.

This would probably be reason #153 as to why I love Rachel Maddow.  On the show where she interviewed Rand Paul she did hammer him over and over again about whether a private business has the right to deny service to anyone it sees fit, and Rand Paul countered that if you can tell a business who they can and can’t serve, then you can limit speech, etc.  For Paul and libertarians, if they’re real libertarians, any government interference is unwelcome.  For people like Maddow and myself, government sometimes needs to step in and accomplish what we cannot on our own.  There are times when society moves to slow, and we ask our elected representatives to pass laws to move us a little bit further along.  This is what it means to be a Progressive.  See the video below

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Libertarians have an odd sort of attraction to both the left and the right.  The right because they favor limited government interference, however for Republicans that usually only means limited interference in business.  A libertarian, however, would never approve of a marriage amendment or spending on abstinence only education.  This is why some liberals fall for libertarian ideas, because libertarians favor the repeal of drug laws and wouldn’t ban gay marriage, because both those are limits on individual freedom.

The flip side is they believe people should be free without limits.  That sounds like a good thing, because it’s only words.  It’s philosophy without any grounding in fact. What Rachel Maddow attempted to show was the dark side to this unlimited freedom.  No government interference means that businesses can discriminate against anyone they see fit.  They can choose to pay women less for the same jobs, they can fire gays for no reason, they can dump toxic waste where they see fit, they can lie in advertising, they don’t have to run safety tests on their products, they don’t have to prepare food in sanitary ways, etc. 


Here's Rachel Maddow the next day:

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Rand Paul and others try to argue that we don’t need the federal government to tell us that racism is wrong, but Woolworth’s wasn’t going to desegregate on its own and if it did, it would have been decades later.  Belief that business will act in its self interest and create safe products is not true.  We had an oil spill in the gulf and it was most likely due to a business seeking to skirt the safety standards of the United States.  (and of course Rand Paul defended them as well.) What more proof do you need to know that businesses will not do what is in the best interests of anyone but themselves.  Price gouging is against the law because if it wasn’t PEOPLE WOULD DO IT!

If we lived in small communities libertarianism might work.  In a small community any business that acted inappropriately could be ostracized and shamed by that community, but we live in a vast nation.  We have corporations that took money from people, then took money from the federal government when it mismanaged that first set of money and had the audacity to give its members bonuses.  They feel no shame.  What can the people do when they have no individual power?  They can use their power, through their elected representatives to pass laws to ensure that it can’t happen again.  Essentially saying, we allowed you freedom, and you’ve proven you cannot be trusted.  Much the way your parents imposed stricter rules on you as a teen when you stayed out past curfew or were caught drinking.  Most people think of the government as an outside force, when in fact it is comprised of people just like us (though some more arrogant and greedy, sure), who were hired to do what we ask them to.  It isn’t always perfect, and they don’t always come through, but I’d rather have them trying than the libertarian ideal of no one trying at all.

 

I resemble that remark.

On the heels of Arizona passing it’s immigration law, countless cities cancelling events, and the fear that Major League baseball will decide to pull next year’s all-star game (apparently it won't but maybe the players will boycott), any rational individual would try to lie low and see if the controversy blows over. Well, Arizona appears to be taking a page from Sue Lowden and has decided to draw even more attention to its racial attitudes. However, those attitudes just seem to confirm what the country already thinks of it.

The other day, Arizona governor Brewer signed a law to get rid of ethnic studies classes in schools. The reasoning given by Tom Horne, the author of the bill, is that these ethnic studies classes "promote resentment toward a race or class of people" (read: white people) and "promote the overthrow of the United States government".  Seriously, that what he thinks will happen if you have kids read Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

This echoes a fear that a lot of white people have that children are going to be taught history that diminishes what white people have done and, at worst, paint white people as the bad guys. The problem is, if you’ll pardon the pun, most of the history we’re taught in school white-washes our past.  Heck Pat Buchannan on Rachel Maddow claimed that "this has been a country basically built by white folks".  Forgetting to mention that it was done with a lot of free black labor.

I learned about the civil rights movement only because I read about it on my own. I even had a teacher who tried to say that the Civil War wasn’t about slavery but about economics. Yeah, I’ve heard those arguments before (here's a list of 5 from about.com.
-- The Civil War was about economics. Yes, the south didn’t want to pay workers a salary, when it could just buy them at a one time fee.
-- The War was about state’s rights. Yes the right of some states to keep and own slaves
-- The War was brought on by the differences between industrial and agricultural ways of life. Yes, and agriculture at that time involved…what was that again… oh, yeah…SLAVES!

Look, the truth is that there are hippie teachers who take glee in pointing out that Jefferson owned slaves at the same time as writing that “all men are created equal.” The problem isn’t with those teachers, as people on the right would have it, it's with trying to write only "shiny-happy" history.

What Jefferson and the founding fathers did is amazing. They were a group of intellectuals who “thought” about what the best type of government would be and then debated, made compromises and implemented it. That government stands as the sole remaining super-power in the world today. The fact that they denied women a vote and denied blacks even the most basic rights of humanity, is a big bad spot on our record. But just because they made mistakes (and a big ones at that) doesn’t mean we should just ignore those mistakes.

The United States of America has done a lot of bad things: Slavery, the treatment of the Chinese railroad workers, Jim Crow laws, Japanese Internment Camps, Vietnam massacres, the list goes on. The difference between the Right and Left on talking about these things is that the Right feels that even mentioning these things is to disparage or “hate” America. The Left knows that by acknowledging these events, apologizing and trying to make things right after the fact, is what makes us a great country. Saying we made a mistake, trying to make it right and ensuring that it never happens again is what movie heroes are all about.

Al Franken explained it like this: "But you have to love your country like an adult loves somebody, not like a child loves its Mommy. And right-wing Republicans tend to love America like a child loves its Mommy, where everything Mommy does is okay. But adult love means you're not in denial, and you want the loved one to be the best they can be."  Your parents could do no wrong and if someone criticized or spoke bad about your parents, you’d fight with them.

The Left is like a married couple. We know that our spouse isn’t perfect, and we’re going to have disagreements and sometimes they’re going to annoy the hell out of us. But, you work at it. You love them so you try to make things better. You try to find a solution that doesn’t end in dissolution. At least that what you should do if you’re an adult.

So when Horne heard about these African-American and Mexican-American studies programs, he reacted like a child upon hearing his parent being denigrated. “You take that back! You shut up!” In all honesty these courses just teach that someone other than old white men had a hand in crafting our nation. It teaches these students that people like them made a difference; it makes them feel a part of history. If you have kids that are interested enough to take these classes and learn about American History or read world literature, why would anyone try to stop them? Teachers have a hard enough time getting students interested in lessons, why take away something that might actually hold their interest?

On a political level, why would you sign a bill that targets “ethnic” groups on the heels of signing a bill that many believe targets “ethnic” groups? I predict a ban on Mexican radio stations next with some flimsy argument as to why it needs to be eliminated. “It’s not that we don’t like Mexican music, it’s that the beats of that music cycle at a frequency that is harmful to salamanders.”

Good luck Arizona, I hope you find your way.

When will they admit they're wrong?

There comes a time when you have to admit you're wrong.  Whether it's because you said, "I turned the dishwasher on," only to find that all your dishes are still dirty and the soap is sitting in its holder unused.  Or, because you believe that business should operate without any oversight or regulations, only to find that they end up buying credit default swaps on bad CDOs or not keeping their mines up to safe standards.  Sometimes you have to admit you're wrong.

The news these days is filled with items that should have people (and by people I mean politicians as well) reevaluating their stances on certain issues.  It should, but it doesn't.  An American citizen is captured for attempting to set off a bomb in Times Square and he was caught with good police work, not torture or by dropping bombs.  However, the issue on the right is whether he should have been Mirandized.  These are lawmakers, they do understand that if you don't make someone aware of their Miranda rights, any information they give us might not be admissible in court.  Meaning when you tried to convict him of a crime, he might go free. (I won't even mention the Lieberman bill.)

Then there's the Drill Baby, Drill crowd.  We have a major ecological disaster in the gulf, and they don't admit that maybe 1. we need to make sure we regulate the oil industry, 2. maybe oil isn't the easiest thing to drill from the ground, and 3. it can cause a big mess when something goes wrong.  At least Arnold Schwarzenegger said it made no sense to drill off of California after the spill, but Palin couldn't let it go.

And, shouldn't this spill lead us to some environmental legislation.  Well, we have this bill that Sen. Kerry and others are going to pass.  Of course, it probably won't do anything really substantial, but it is a start.  And maybe thanks to the oil spill there won't be an amendment for more oil wells off of the coast.

And what about Protecting the Constitution, Arizona passes a law that allows police to violate your 4th amendment rights, and it was passed by a Republican majority and the tea parties aren't marching on Phoenix!

I would just like every once in a while for people to say, "you know maybe I should re-think some of my proposals and stances."  Instead it seems that everyone is sticking to their ideological guns.  Intellectual honesty is all I want, but maybe that's too much to ask.

Fox has to stop with the Crazy

It's like Rupert Murdoch watched Citizen Kane and decided he wanted to be Charles Foster Kane.  "We'll just make up the news and report it, if someone says we made it up, we'll accuse THEM of bias."   Thank goodness for the Daily Show, a Media Matters for the casual political geek, calling foul when Fox steps out of the box.  Unfortunately the Daily Show is unbiased or it would have to devote every show, every night to policing FOX.  Could I recommend a Daily Show spin-off in the vein of CSI and Law & Order - Daily Show: FVU (Fox Viewers [or Victims] Unit)

Below a segment where Fox makes up out of whole cloth a connection between a White House logo and Muslim flags.  They had to find something to criticize about this summit because the President accomplished something and it's about peace. 

My favorite line from the Daily Show was, "We called the White House...because, I guess, our phones work."

Keep up the good work.

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Mike Huckabee compares gays to drug users

I knew Mike Huckabee was religious and doesn't believe in evolution, and I knew he didn't support gay marriage, but I didn't realize how intolerant his beliefs were. In an interview with The Perspective, the college of New Jersey's magazine, he compares Homosexuality with Drug use and incest: (from the article)


Huckabee went on to draw parallels between homosexuality and other lifestyles that are considered by some to be morally aberrant. “You don’t go ahead and accommodate every behavioral pattern that is against the ideal,” he said of same-sex marriage. “That would be like saying, well, there are a lot of people who like to use drugs, so let’s go ahead and accommodate those who want who use drugs. There are some people who believe in incest, so we should accommodate them. There are people who believe in polygamy, so we should accommodate them.”

He also affirmed support for a law in Arkansas that prohibits same-sex couples from becoming adoptive or foster parents. “I think this is not about trying to create statements for people who want to change the basic fundamental definitions of family,” Huckabee said. “And always we should act in the best interest of the children, not in the seeming interest of the adults.”

“Children are not puppies,” he continued. “This is not a time to see if we can experiment and find out, how does this work?”

He also had the audacity to claim that Don't Ask, Don't Tell only affects a small group of people and no one in the military is asking for a change:


Huckabee, a former Baptist preacher, remains in favor of keeping in place ‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell,’ the policy that requires the military to expel openly gay service members. “I wouldn’t support a repeal if I were commander-in-chief,” he said. “You don’t see foot soldiers out there demanding it. I’m not sure that’s the most important thing we ought to be doing for the military.”

“[‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell’] touches an extraordinarily small group of people,” Huckabee continued. He dismissed calls to amend the policy as “primarily a posturing point for political purposes,” and an attempt to “force something on the military that they themselves haven’t pushed that hard.”

 I guess the fact that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mullen and Secretary of Defense Gates both support the repeal.  As for a small group, over 13,000 soldiers have been dismissed by this policy.  Not to mention the number of Arabic translators that were dismissed at a time when we're waging a war on terror with people who happen to speak primarily Arabic.

Mike Huckabee wants to be President, and we can only hope he'll keep giving interviews like this to keep that from happening.  I know there are people who agree with him, but his beliefs run counter to reality.  Of course that means he'll probably get decent support from the tea party as they also don't really subscribe to reality either.  So those of us who believe that equality includes all humans will have to make sure to that we get to the polls in greater numbers than these "agents of intolerance".

Daily Show response to START treaty coverage

When I heard Obama had reached an agreement with Russia to reduce our nuclear arms, i knew the Republican reaction would be predictably against it (at least vocally).  Thanks to the fine folks at the Daily Show with Jon Stewart, I didn't have to spend all day searching for why they were hypocrites.  I know they no longer use the phrase, "The most important television program, ever!" (which they stopped using after 9/11 out of respect) but they really should start again and this clip is one of the reasons.

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Why the Tea Party won't last - part 2

Even Your Name is From Hundreds of Years Ago.

You can’t fight progress. Ask the horse and buggy people, telegraph operators, heck even newspaper people if you can fight progress. Trying to go back to some previous time is not a recipe for success. In fact I’m trying to think of one successful retro-movement. I’m not talking about fads like bellbottoms coming back into style, I’m talking about real social movements. The only regressive movement that seems to have any success is the anti-gay marriage movement.

Homosexuals deserve to enjoy the same rights as heterosexuals, it’s an inevitability that they will be allowed to serve openly in the military and get married. Yet the forces against this progress seem to be successful, for most of the reasons that the Tea Party movement isn’t: They have a clear message (gays can’t get married or serve in the military), it’s mostly grounded in reality (gay people are real, but they aren’t trying to destroy marriage) and they have a clear goal (they have anti-gay marriage propositions and voting initiatives that they pass). But they are on the wrong side of history. Being gay isn’t a choice and it can’t be cured. So the reality is that a segment of our population is being denied equal rights. And the denial of rights to anyone is the wrong side of history.

Take Health Care, most other western nations offer their citizens some type of universal coverage. America is actually late to the game. And that government takeover the right talks about? All America is requiring is that all of its citizens purchase insurance from private insurance companies. The Hospitals will still be privately run (unlike England where they are state run) and there is no government insurance agency. Everything is still in the private sector. So once again the Tea Party movement isn’t grounded in reality.

Even Social Movements Need the Target Demographic

The final reason the Tea Party movement is going to fail is that it isn’t embraced by young people. Almost every major social movement, every revolution, every lasting social change is started or embraced by the younger generation. Even our revolution was made up of people mostly under 50, many under 40. Alexander Hamilton was 19-21 at the first constitutional convention. Thomas Jefferson was 33 when he wrote the Declaration. Martin Luther King, Jr was 26 when he led the Montgomery bus boycotts and 34 when he led the march on Washington. Rosa Parks may have been 42, but predating her on refusing to give up their seats was Irene Morgan, who was 27 (she helped overturn segregation on interstate bus rides), Sarah Keys (whose age I can’t find but she was a private in the Woman’s Army Corp), and just nine months before Parks infamous ride, Claudette Colvin a 15 year old refused to give up her seat on the same bus line. Heck, Jesus who you may know as the founder of Christianity, died in his early 30s.

What you aren’t seeing is a bunch of protests at college campuses in the name of the Tea Party movement. The Iranian election protests were on Twitter, students marched on Tianamen Square, Ron Paul is a major political name due to his popularity on college campuses. And of course there was this guy named Obama.

Some people know you have to get them when their young, it’s why the conservatives on the Texas school boards and Kansas school boards work so hard to stay in power. They can decide what the textbooks say, and can feed our children the version of the facts that best fit their ideology. (Funny that conservatives are the ones who claim that liberals “indoctrinate”, when it is conservatives who are literally rewriting school books.)

But what about the Tea Party?

Quick google search for tea party turned up quotes from a:
54 year old,a Retiree,  Guy who receives Social security, woman 67, man 50, 

And image searches don’t help much either. I had to really search to find anyone who looked under 40. Try it yourself, do a Tea Party Google image search. If you find a picture that is less than 50% people over 50 I’d be surprised (and children under 12 don’t count).

Even though the Tea Party will not last, it doesn’t mean it can’t make life hard on those of us trying to move the country forward. How can we speed up their demise? Do the exact opposite of what they’re doing: Have a clear message, have clear achievable goals, keep the young people energized and keep painting the Tea Party as the party of the past and ours as the party of progress. That’s how Obama got elected, how Clinton got elected, and it’s even how Reagan got elected. We have to remember that a majority of Americans (53%) elected Barack Obama. And every congressman was elected by of majority of their constituents. If the tea party movement represents a majority of the American people, then we’ll see that reflected in the polls, but if the Democratic majorities are any indication, the United States has been turning towards progress. If the Tea Party movement is still around in 2012, it won’t be because they’ve been successful, it will be because we’ve not worked hard enough to defeat them.

Joe R.

Why the Tea Party won't last - part 1

Note: I've split this post into two parts due to length. I'll post the second part on Wednesday.

The Tea Party would like to think of itself as here for the long run, possibly replacing the Republican Party as a national party. That the Tea Party movement is a large movement with many members is not to be denied, but can they actually achieve anything? Are they a new political party or just a passing fad?

If you look to the social movements of the past you’ll see that the Tea Party just doesn’t have what it takes. Even the people they claim to admire, our founding fathers, did more than just throw tea in a river out of anger. The founders weren’t randomly angry at the king, they had legitimate grievances, and they took specific actions to change things. There are four reasons the tea party will not last: They do not have clear goals and objectives, they have an inconsistent message not grounded on facts, their direction is backwards rather than forwards, and their movement is not embraced by young adults. It is these four things that make a social movement historical as opposed to a footnote.

So, you’re mad. What are you going to do about it?

First, the Tea party movement does not have clear, ACHIEVABLE, goals or objectives. They have vague goals like lower taxes, or no taxes, getting government out of our lives, etc. When you look at movements of the past that were successful they had clear goals and objectives. The civil rights movement of the 60s was not out to end racism (though that was a hope), they were out to change the laws that made racism seem legitimate. The woman’s suffrage movement didn’t have as it’s goal to make men see women as equals (though that was the hope), it’s goal was to give women the right to vote. By having a clear goal that is achievable your movement can affect social change. There is less racism today (but as events over weekend of the Health Care vote show it is by no means gone) thanks to the civil rights legislation. Hilary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi are testaments to the social change brought about by the suffrage movement (though the small number of female senators is testament to how far we still need to go). If the Tea Party movement were to have a clear goal that it could achieve, something that could be voted on, it might have some staying power. Vague ideas with no actionable items are philosophy not government.

Totalitarianism: or how a President elected by 66 million people enacting legislation he said he would pass once he became President is somehow subverting the will of the people.

The Tea party also has an inconsistent message that is not grounded on reality. The civil rights movement and the suffrage movements were trying to correct wrongs that ACTUALLY existed. Black people in the United States could not eat at lunch counters, sit in the same sections or use the same water fountains or toilets as white people. That was the reality of the United States in the sixties. The Tea Party talks about government totalitarianism, socialism, government takeovers, none of which are real. Many tea party members are on medicare and don’t want government run insurance. They simultaneously want more government regulation of corporations and less government meddling. If the tea party movement wants to last it’s going to need an actual message that is grounded on facts.

As a liberal I believe that government can help people, because I’ve seen in my own life that it can. So when I support health care reform it is because I’ve seen that there are people who have insurance who get sick and have their coverage dropped (reality), then these same people have to struggle just to live, literally LIVE (reality). Arguments that there is going to be a government takeover of hospitals (fiction), Death Panels (fiction), the government coming between you and your doctor (fiction) may help keep people scared, but they do not make for a lasting movement because once people see the reality, they won’t follow the movement anymore. Claims of socialism, fascism and communism (which aren’t synonyms) will only take you so far.

Next: Why you may not understand their music but you still need their support.

What's wrong with the Republican party

I was working on a post about all that is wrong with the current Republican party, then I read this: An open letter to conservatives from Talking Points Memo and decided I should probably just post a link to it, since I can't match the amount of citations it achieves. It's one thing to make claims about conservatives and Republicans, it's another to have an example for every single critique. In a word this blog post is awesome. And something everyone should have a permanent link to.

Here's how it begins:

Dear Conservative Americans,

The years have not been kind to you. I grew up in a profoundly Republican home, so I can remember when you wore a very different face than the one we see now. You've lost me and you've lost most of America. Because I believe having responsible choices is important to democracy, I'd like to give you some advice and an invitation.

First, the invitation: Come back to us.

Now the advice. You're going to have to come up with a platform that isn't built on a foundation of cowardice: fear of people with colors, religions, cultures and sex lives that differ from your own; fear of reform in banking, health care, energy; fantasy fears of America being transformed into an Islamic nation, into social/commun/fasc-ism, into a disarmed populace put in internment camps; and more. But you have work to do even before you take on that task.

Your party -- the GOP -- and the conservative end of the American political spectrum have become irresponsible and irrational. Worse, it's tolerating, promoting and celebrating prejudice and hatred. Let me provide some examples -- by no means an exhaustive list -- of where the Right as gotten itself stuck in a swamp of hypocrisy, hyperbole, historical inaccuracy and hatred.

If you're going to regain your stature as a party of rational, responsible people, you'll have to start by draining this swamp:

Continue reading

Obama signs health reform into law

I was at work during the signing, but thanks to the internet and CNN.com I was able to watch this historic moment. I work for a company that has a little over 60 employees, and while it pays a good wage, doesn't offer insurance. Thanks to this bill I may finally get coverage. (I live in Texas so there's a chance Perry and the Attorney General may try to keep me from getting it.)

Even if I don't get coverage many other Americans are going to benefit from this program. Part of the reason I'm a liberal, and vote Democratic, is due to the fact that it was Democratic programs that allowed me to attend college. It was the government helping me out, that allowed me to get a degree. Private loans cannot compare to Federal student loans (both sub & unsubsidized). It was the Hope credit that helped make it affordable. The fact I get to deduct my student loan interest from my taxes helps me. This is all that the government has done for me. Now here is what the government is going to do for you:

A list of some of the things that this Health care bill will do:

* This year, children with pre-existing conditions can no longer be denied health insurance coverage. Once the new health insurance exchanges begin in the coming years, pre-existing condition discrimination will become a thing of the past for everyone.
* This year, health care plans will allow young people to remain on their parents' insurance policy up until their 26th birthday.
* This year, insurance companies will be banned from dropping people from coverage when they get sick, and they will be banned from implementing lifetime caps on coverage. This year, restrictive annual limits on coverage will be banned for certain plans. Under health insurance reform, Americans will be ensured access to the care they need.
* This year, adults who are uninsured because of pre-existing conditions will have access to affordable insurance through a temporary subsidized high-risk pool.
* In the next fiscal year, the bill increases funding for community health centers, so they can treat nearly double the number of patients over the next five years.
* This year, we'll also establish an independent commission to advise on how best to build the health care workforce and increase the number of nurses, doctors and other professionals to meet our country's needs. Going forward, we will provide $1.5 billion in funding to support the next generation of doctors, nurses and other primary care practitioners -- on top of a $500 million investment from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Health insurance reform will also curb some of the worst insurance industry practices and strengthen consumer protections:

* This year, this bill creates a new, independent appeals process that ensures consumers in new private plans have access to an effective process to appeal decisions made by their insurer.
* This year, discrimination based on salary will be outlawed. New group health plans will be prohibited from establishing any eligibility rules for health care coverage that discriminate in favor of higher-wage employees.
* Beginning this fiscal year, this bill provides funding to states to help establish offices of health insurance consumer assistance in order to help individuals in the process of filing complaints or appeals against insurance companies.
* Starting January 1, 2011, insurers in the individual and small group market will be required to spend 80 percent of their premium dollars on medical services. Insurers in the large group market will be required to spend 85 percent of their premium dollars on medical services. Any insurers who don't meet those thresholds will be required to provide rebates to their policyholders.
* Starting in 2011, this bill helps states require insurance companies to submit justification for requested premium increases. Any company with excessive or unjustified premium increases may not be able to participate in the new health insurance exchanges.

Reform immediately begins to lower health care costs for American families and small businesses:

* This year, small businesses that choose to offer coverage will begin to receive tax credits of up to 35 percent of premiums to help make employee coverage more affordable.
* This year, new private plans will be required to provide free preventive care: no co-payments and no deductibles for preventive services. And beginning January 1, 2011, Medicare will do the same.
* This year, this bill will provide help for early retirees by creating a temporary re-insurance program to help offset the costs of expensive premiums for employers and retirees age 55-64.
* This year, this bill starts to close the Medicare Part D 'donut hole' by providing a $250 rebate to Medicare beneficiaries who hit the gap in prescription drug coverage. And beginning in 2011, the bill institutes a 50% discount on prescription drugs in the 'donut hole.'

Source:
Nancy-Ann DeParle
Director, White House Office of Health Reform

It's not perfect but it's a start.

Different ways of thinking

The first year of the Obama administration has been one of intense debate. There were debates on bailouts, the recovery act, health care, the war on terror and on and on. The problem is that there are two ways of thinking about problems: the scientific and the non-scientific. I use science because those are the two types of degrees you can get in college: a liberal arts or a science degree. (There are other degrees you can get, but they basically boil down to these.) It is those two types of degrees that shape the way you debate about issues.

The difference in these two ways of thinking is why there are never any solutions to our problems in Congress. I was watching a debate on the Daily show between Jon Stewart and Marc Thiessen on “Enhanced Interrogation Techniques” (EIT). The problem with this debate is that Thiessen believes he’s right because he has evidence to support his argument. Stewart thinks he’s right because he has evidence to support his opposing argument. Well if there is evidence to support both arguments, then how can you tell who is right?

(In the interest of full disclosure I have a degree in Psychology, which is still considered a liberal art not a science)

In the liberal arts, such as history, literature, and the social sciences, arguments are made by finding evidence to support your argument. In a typical assignment you would present a thesis and then offer examples that support the thesis.

In the sciences, such as biology, physics and chemistry, you present a hypothesis and then attempt to disprove it. If you believe that x causes y then your hypothesis gains evidence if you show that x causes y. But that’s not where science stops. Science then tries to see if “w” causes y, or “g” causes y. If those things are also true, then what does it mean that x causes y? Only science approaches questions in this way.

Let’s take the enhanced interrogation techniques (EIT) argument. If EIT gets us intelligence that prevents attacks, that’s a good thing and you have evidence for your thesis. However, intelligence that prevents attacks has been gained without using EIT. So now the question is, do we need to use EIT?

In most discussions there isn’t a way to answer these questions because you can’t normally run experiments to prove these sorts of hypotheses. You can’t assign people to random groups of EIT and non-EIT. Unless you’re lucky (or unlucky) enough to have the federal government unofficially run the experiment for you. All we have to do is take all the intelligence that was gathered by both methods (and I do mean all, you can't pick and choose), have an independent group rate the data on how useful it was (use scientists with no interest in public policy), then compare the two. If it turns out that there was a 60/40 or 70/30 difference between the two methods of interrogation, then you have your answer.

That, unfortunately, would only be the beginning of the problem. Let’s say that it turns out that EIT is 70% more effective than non-EIT, should we use it? I ask this question, because the same question can be asked about stem-cell research. Using embryonic stem-cells is much more useful, than using adult stem cells. The difference is probably more than 70%, however most people who would support EIT would NOT support stem-cell research that uses embryonic stem-cells. Their argument is that using embryonic stem-cells may save lives, but it is morally wrong. People who are against EIT argue that it may yield results, but it is morally wrong also.

(Of course, if it turns out that you get more useful data using non-EIT, then there isn't really any debate to be had.)

So I guess all I really did was postpone the argument. We have a way of discovering the truth, but not whether it’s right or wrong (morally). At least if we knew what was true, then debating on whether it’s right or wrong would mean something.

Goes without saying

Democrats refuse to work with Republicans.

Democrats raise taxes.

Why do Republican’s get away with making these claims? Partly it’s because reporters don’t engage in debate with the people they’re interviewing (so they don’t seem biased), but is also because Republican’s (and Democrats) are speaking to their bases, their supporters. When speaking to people who agree with you, you don’t have to worry about facts. That’s seems like I’m calling them liars, what I mean is you don’t have to make your case because they already agree with you. Ones supporters accept as given something others would require evidence for, before they believed. “It goes without saying.”

If you believe in ghosts, then the door shutting on its own is proof that the house is haunted. If you don’t believe in ghosts, then the door shutting might be due to air pressure changes in the house, (like happens in my apartment) or any number of other reasons.

If you believe that Democrats like big government, then you probably don’t know that Clinton reduced the size of the federal government only to have George W. Bush increase it. If you believe that government can’t solve social problems then you ignore the civil rights movement, or the fact that social security and Medicaid have helped millions.

Whenever anyone makes a statement, and I mean anyone whether you agree with them or not, you should ask yourself, “is this true, or am I agreeing out of a preconceived notions?” Is this a fact or a belief? Be skeptical, but in the true sense of the word. A real skeptic accepts as facts ideas that have ample evidence for them. A skeptic doesn’t dismiss everything as opinion, but seeks to eliminate questions by finding more evidence. The more evidence for a position, the more likely it is to be right.

So when you say, “they’re all in the pocket of the corporations.” You’re wrong, and are part of the problem. Because as long as you spread the blame on every Senator and Representative, then those that are truly responsible will get away with their obstructionism and live to obstruct another day, while those who are trying to do the right thing get swept out of office because they were painted with the same broad brush as the obstructionist. When you don’t vote because you think your vote doesn’t count (another truism), the status quo wins. If everyone who disagreed with the way things are going now actually voted, things would change. That’s something that many in power would rather go without being said.

I don't think that word means what you think it means.

It's been fun watching Republicans talk about compromise as if it were a synonym for capitulation. Here's what happened with Health Care: Democrats had a 60 seat (if not vote) majority, but they still tried to put everything they could in the bill that Republicans would want and take out everything that Republicans would find even remotely offensive. After all this, the Republicans still claim that Democrats refuse to cooperate.

We could talk about how they get away with this sort of rhetoric, but that's a blog for a different day. What I want to talk about now is what compromise really means. Compromise is about two people making concessions to achieve a middle ground. Let's put it in simple terms that anyone can understand: let's say you have a group of people and they want to order a pizza. There are ten of you. 4 want supreme pizza, 3 want pepperoni, and 3 want veggie. What the Democrats did was forgo supreme pizza completely even though the majority wanted it. The democrats decided to order pizzas for everyone that was half pepperoni half veggie. The Republicans refuse to eat the pizza because they only want pepperoni, and now believe we should start ordering from scratch. That's not compromise, that's ... well being a child. Only children refuse to eat with others because they don't get what they want, and when you give in to them, still cry about the unfairness of it all.

When I see Eric Cantor or John Boehner talking about "starting with a clean sheet", i think of a child whining about having to share with others, and sad because they don't get to dictate how the game is played anymore. The sad part is that we as Democrats let them get away with this. I don't have children, but for those of you who do, how long would you allow your kids to get away with this sort of behavior? How long are we going to let Republicans get away with it?