Bullshit Baffles Brains? Maybe not forever.

The bullshit is so deep out there that hip waders aren't enough. You need a dry suit and a self-contained air supply. Let's show what toxic waste is doing to people...





It's not often that you see Bill Moyers get upset. Heck, it's not often that you see Bill make an unconditional statement. Bill is just sick to death of the bullshit.




Canadians are getting fed up with their health care system being demonized. The bullshit fear-mongering annoys us. It makes us cranky enough to make definitive statements. This is how a Canadian says "You are so full of shit."

It's done politely - and it burns all the worse for that. But, sweet John A. McDonald, how attached to your ignorance must you be to believe so many stupid things simultaneously, oh Right Wing Umurikins?

And lest you state that it's none of our business - you morons are flushing the hemispheric economy down the toilet. Health Care Reform is critical to rebuilding a robust middle class with a flourishing diversity of small businesses, which, by the by, is one of the reasons Canada is not actually circling the drain right now. It's not the result of "socialism" - not alone. It's at least as much due to some hard nosed Conservatism, of the "grounded in fiscal reality" variety of conservatism and not of the "there's a homo nigger commie with a tube of flouride toothpaste under my bed" variety.

Hell, over at MSNBC, John Harwood just doesn't care any more. As far as he's concerned, there's just no word for stupid better than "stupid."


H/t The Joshuablog for all these videos. (Follow him on Twitter - he collects such nuggets quite reliably)

I really understand the impatience.

Is it too much to ask of you nutbars to come up with an INFORMED opinion?

Ron Paul has done so. William F. Buckley did. Pat Buchanan does. Whatever I or you may think of their opinions is immaterial - their positions are arguable, and each of them is well known and justly famed for being willing and able to assert them. Not one of them has to "cut the mike" of anyone in disagreement. They can mix it up. They can bring it.

They are based in reality, fact and reason; they don't resort to the argument from authority, they are - legitimate - authorities in their realms.

But your average wing-nut would be hard pressed to explain in their own words how and why Noam Chomsky and Ron Paul differ on, say, campaign finance reform, much less come to an informed decision as to which was the more persuasive argument.

And that makes said wing-nut's opinion bullshit. It's crap, and you should ignore it, for truly, they have pulled it out of their ass.

I treat that handful of bullshit in exactly the same way I would treat an offering of crap pulled out of a toddler's diaper, for the exact same reasons. It's unhealthy and the only sane response is to commit an act of sanitation upon them. I will certainly not celebrate it as an artistic expression. It's poo. And it doesn't belong on my walls.

When I see a public-policy debate - ANY public policy debate - and everyone on the one side is being fairly sensible, while everyone on the other side is flinging poo and flaming straw men, then the odds are very good that even if I can't follow the argument on it's merits, the sensible-sounding side is more likely correct than the one losing it's water into it's shoes.

Pick your social media outlet of choice, and you will see exactly that sort of consensus developing on a wide range of issues, from health care to drug policy to prison reform to foreign policy, all against the backdrop of shrill whining about how "unfair" it is to be "dug down" for calling Obama a "Socialistic Fascist."

You see, when you say that, you reveal a complete ignorance of socialism, fascism and Obama's on-record policy statements and legislative history. It's not that you are being dug down for criticizing Obama. You are being dugg down for being fucknuts. You are uttering nonsense with such total conviction that ignoring you is only sensible thing to do.

It's impossible to usefully argue with someone who believes that a provably false idea is just as good as a provably true idea if enough other stupid people agree. Wishful thinking - and that's the kindest way to put it - is no basis on which to run a country. Or deploy armies. Or make really important economic decisions.

It's really not that difficult to inform yourself, to develop an expertise about an issue that matters to you, and then develop an intelligent position from any reasonable political perspective. Therefore, an intolerance of stupidity and conspicuous impatience with aggressive, loutish behavior is - well, I'd commend it more were it not so long overdue.

For myself, here's a discussion over on digg that I think illustrates the point. It's about the "radical" proposition that we should just legalize all "illicit" drugs, and then regulate them, according to our models for alcohol and legal drugs.

Quickly skim and evaluate both sides. One side makes quite sound-seeming arguments that you can fact check - and the other side makes accusations, appeals to authority and moralistic predictions that, if they were actually true, would have come true with the repeal of Prohibition.

And, far more in line to the general thrust of what I write, these comments often reveal a chilling indifference to the impact of policy on individuals; they show a heartless, mean-spirited and cruel mindest. Truthout just ran a rather good piece on that very point.

A right-wing spin machine, influenced by haters like Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Michael Savage and Ann Coulter, endlessly spews out a toxic rhetoric in which: all Muslims are defined as jihadists; the homeless are not victims of misfortune but lazy; blacks are not terrorized by a racist criminal justice system, but the main architects of a culture of criminality; the epidemic of obesity has nothing to do with corporations, big agriculture and advertisers selling junk food, but rather the result of "big" government giving people food stamps; the public sphere is largely for white people, which is being threatened by immigrants and people of color, and so it goes. Glenn Beck, the alleged voice of the common man, appearing on the "Fox & Friends" morning show, calls President Obama a "racist" and then accuses him of "having a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture." [2] Nationally syndicated radio host Rush Limbaugh unapologetically states that James Early Ray, the confessed killer of Martin Luther King Jr., should be given a posthumous Medal of Honor, [3] while his counterpart in right-wing hate, talk radio host Michael Savage, states on his show, "You know, when I see a woman walking around with a burqa, I see a Nazi. That's what I see - how do you like that? - a hateful Nazi who would like to cut your throat and kill your children." [4] He also claims that Obama is "surrounded by terrorists" and is "raping America." This is a variation of a crude theme established by Ann Coulter, who refers to Bill Clinton as a "very good rapist." [5] Even worse, Obama is a "neo-Marxist fascist dictator in the making," who plans to "force children into a paramilitary domestic army." [6] And this is just a small sampling of the kind of hate talk that permeates right-wing media. This could be dismissed as loony right-wing political theater if it were not for the low levels of civic literacy displayed by so many Americans who choose to believe and invest in this type of hate talk. [7] On the contrary, while it may be idiocy, it reveals a powerful set of political, economic and educational forces at work in miseducating the American public while at the same time extending the culture of cruelty. One central task of any viable form of politics is to analyze the culture of cruelty and its overt and covert dimensions of violence, often parading as entertainment.
Underlying the culture of cruelty that reached its apogee during the Bush administration, was the legalization of state violence, such that human suffering was now sanctioned by the law, which no longer served as a summons to justice. But if a legal culture emerged that made violence and human suffering socially acceptable, popular culture rendered such violence pleasurable by commodifying, aestheticizing and spectacularizing it. Rather than being unspoken and unseen, violence in American life had become both visible in its pervasiveness and normalized as a central feature of dominant and popular culture. Americans had grown accustomed to luxuriating in a warm bath of cinematic blood, as young people and adults alike were seduced with commercial and military video games such as "Grand Theft Auto" and "America's Army," [8] the television series "24" and its ongoing Bacchanalian fête of torture, the crude violence on display in World Wrestling Entertainment and Ultimate Fighting Championship, and an endless series of vigilante films such as "The Brave One" (2007) and "Death Sentence" (2007), in which the rule of law is suspended by the viscerally satisfying images of men and women seeking revenge as laudable killing machines - a nod to the permanent state of emergency and war in the United States. Symptomatically, there is the mindless glorification and aestheticization of brutal violence in the most celebrated Hollywood films, including many of Quentin Tarantino's films, especially the recent "Death Proof" (2007), "Kill Bill" 1 & 2 (2003, 2004), and "Inglorious Bastards" (2009). With the release of Tarantino's 2009 bloody war film, in fact, the press reported that Dianne Kruger, the co-star of "Inglorious Bastards," claimed that she "loved being tortured by Brad Pitt [though] she was frustrated she didn't get an opportunity to get frisky with her co-star, but admits being beaten by Pitt was a satisfying experience." [9] This is more than the aestheticization of violence, it is the normalization and glorification of torture itself.

Personally, while I applaud Truthout's treatment of the issue, I don't see this as a new phenomenon. I see it as simply becoming more and more obvious. It used to be that the sadism was cloaked a bit more, a rationalization or two presented for the viewpoint - but the Authoritarian brutality celebrated in Hawaii 5-0, Kojack or the Dirty Harry movies was aimed for the very same, visceral target; the idea that all of the "moral failures" of society could be resolved with the right amount of pain applied to the right target.

The difference is that these days, the need to justify the urge seems to have worn threadbare. Hurting people and reveling in the suffering of others has become normalized, and not without a lot of help from supposed Christians who really ought to know better. In this transcript of an interview with Max Blumanthol, author of the newly-released Republican Gomorrah, lays much of our current sociopolitical problems with torture, violence and outright depravity at the feet of James Dobson, of Focus on the Family.

Where did Dobson’s fortune come from? How did he erect this empire? It came mainly from one book, which I quote from extensively in my book, Republican Gomorrah­Dare to Discipline, which is essentially a manual for corporal punishment, for beating your child. In this book, he says pain is a marvelous purifier that a child should be­that pain goes a long way with a child, that pain should be dispensed sufficiently enough to make a child cry, but then the child will crumple to your breast, and you should welcome the child with warm, open arms. This is a recipe for sadomasochism. And sadomasochism, as I discovered in­ [lost chunk in rush transcript]

JUAN GONZALEZ: And he saw himself originally as the antithesis to Benjamin­Dr. Benjamin Spock.

MAX BLUMENTHAL: Dr. Benjamin Spock, who tells you to basically pick your child up and cradle it. And, you know, I mean, I was­you know, for whatever it’s worth, I was raised along those guidelines. When your child’s crying, you pick up the child.

By creating a belt-wielding army of millions, Dobson created the next generation of Republican shock troops, who are more radical than before. And sadomasochism­I know this sounds a little strange­is what defines the essential character, you know, that­this is what­at least what I’ve discovered­of the Republican follower of today. They’re sadistic in that they want to lash out at deviants, at people who are weaker than them, homosexuals, immigrants, foreigners, socialists. At the same time, they’re masochistic. They are followers of a higher cause, of a strong leader, a magic helper like Dobson or George W. Bush or the macho Jesus archetype that they worship. And this is what defines this movement.

So many of the people that Dobson has been able to get close to and work with in the Republican Congress and in American culture have been viciously abused as children. And he understood that by advocating violence against children, deliberate violence, he was creating this sensibility, which would produce a radical generation of political followers.

Tom DeLay, for example, who Dobson converted from Hot Tub Tommy, a dallying, philandering, no-name legislator in Texas, you know, who lived in a house that was nicknamed “Macho Manor,” Dobson converted him into this hardcore­you know, into “The Hammer,” the man who whipped the Republican Congress into shape and turned it into one of the most radical congresses in history.

Ted Bundy, who I write about extensively in my book, Republican Gomorrah, who is the most notorious serial killer in American history, Dobson helped convert Ted Bundy on death row into a born-again Christian and then got the final interview before Ted Bundy was executed and sold tapes of this interview to raise a million dollars for his political empire and to generate national renown.

Unrestrained sadomasochistic lust does not translate into sane public policy. It doesn't create a workable society. Those who take delight in the suffering of others and who see punishment of the weak this as part of the definition of a powerful State are made incapable of making rational, ethical decisions either on their own behalf or as rational participants in a democratic society, if for no other reason than this - in order to create the pain to revel in, you must become indifferent to the absolute cascade of bad outcomes that will surely pile up to the point where society shatters. For there is no earthly reason to expect that people will generally put up with such crap.

They WILL resist, they will retaliate, and there can no reasonable expectation that they will be as stupid about going about resisting authority as Conservatives have been in justifying it's cruel excesses.

The right wing answer to this, of course, is to call for a theocratic state. There are words for that sort of thing... but frankly, "Stupid" is more succinct.

Erotic writer "Bridget Keeney" outed as South Carolina Republican.

Here at Graphictruth, any day that I have the journalistic duty to link to outright pornography is a good day.

When the reason I must do it is that the author of said hardcore fapfesting textviles is a right wing, social conservative who presumes to tell other people what their publicly educated children must and must not learn while home-schooling her own, it is not just a good day, it's a frigging good day. Via Fitsnews: (H/T The Progressive Puppy)

S.C. Gov. Mark Sanford may be an amateur Romeo, but it looks like he’s got nothing on his appointment to the S.C. State Board of Education.

Kristin Maguire, an Upstate evangelical and one of South Carolina’s most respected social conservatives, has been one of the governor’s closest education policy advisors for years. She’s also Sanford’s appointment to the S.C. Board of Education, which last year elected her its Chairwoman.

What else is she?

The prolific author of hardcore erotic fiction on the Internet, according to documents provided to the governor’s office earlier this summer and later obtained by FITS.

Maguire, a professed Christian who home-schools her four children, declined to comment for our story but did not deny that she had previously frequented websites that feature such X-rated material. Maguire believes that a former friend is leaking the information to the media in an effort to ruin her political career.

Fitsnews states a number of other allegations about Maguire's personal behavior, and if true, it might provide some insight into Governor Mark Sanford's ... well, let us call it "Leadership Culture." Indeed, one might wonder if as much a product of such a culture as an instigator.

I'm not writing this in order to publicly humiliate another right-wing sexual hypocrite. I honestly don't like humiliating people, even when it directly serves my point.

But I don't think she IS a hypocrite. I think her politics, her choice of career and possibly even the apparent hypocrisy of being on the board of education while at the same time choosing to home school her children arises directly out of her own sexuality. Moreover, I don't think it's difficult to discern it from her own pornographic musings, which is what makes it newsworthy. "It goes to motive, your Honor."

Lauren's Masturbatory Musings by bridgetkeeney © 04/18/03

...

He reached up to loosen his tie as he walked to his desk. Sitting in the middle of the blotter on his desk was his 'Man of the Year' statue with an envelope leaning against it. He picked up the envelope and sat in his chair. He recognized the bold 'P' on the front as Lauren's writing. While he withdrew the two folded pieces of paper, his eyes rested on the statue, pleased that Lauren had reminded him of their passionate times together.

This past week had reminded him how important she was to him. Years of marriage and busy careers had seen them drift into a complacency in their relationship. If anyone had asked him two weeks ago how his marriage was, he would have replied 'good'.

After Lauren came to his office bringing dinner and dressed to kill last Tuesday, he would have said 'great'. He would never be able to look at his award again without getting a hardon, picturing her frigging her clit while fucking herself with it deeply.

Let us pause and meditate on this. She used his "man of the year" statue as a sex toy. And bragged about it. To him.

Only in fiction does that end well, with garlands of flowers and cakewalks through the streets of Baghdad and all of it "Bareback" - you know, sans condoms and/or body armor. You see, not so much a hopelessly mixed metaphor as illustration of a psycosexual spectrum disorder.

I'm starting to think that all the outrage over Monica Lewinski and Bill Clinton and oral sex and cigar moistening was not so much outrage as complete failure to commit intelligible pornographic speech.

It's not the man she has a relationship with, it's a symbol of a man's success and power in the corporate world. Oddly, he's flattered, but wank-story characters are always flattered at the attention, for cardboard ordinarily gets little love. But the author permits herself no greater depth - as she projects herself into her fiction - than her faceless, but famously-endowed sex partner.

"I love to have my meat in your cunt, Lauren," you said as you thrust deeper into me. "Do you like when I fuck your cunt, Lauren?"

"I love when you fuck me, Paul. There is nothing better than your hard cock in my desperate cunt." "Whose cunt is it, Lauren?"

"It's your cunt, Paul."

Her cunt belongs to him. And "him" is just a symbol for Male Power Incarnate. Do I HAVE to draw theological parallels here, or can we say, in the words of digg, that "obvious observations are obvious?"

It's hard to even think where to begin to conceptualize the thrust and depth of this fuckup. I can understand why it's tempting to not think about it.

Indeed, Mommy insists that you WILL not think about it. And she will get on the Board of Education so nobody else can, either, despite the fact that this is a prime example of what happens to people who do not think about the root causes of their actions and who refuse to admit responsibility for the outcomes.

Let me quote my wife, in the moments in which I or someone else manages to unconsciously reveal Total Catastrophic Thought Failure.

"Oh, HONEY!"

She manages to covey the recognition that one has committed a cognitive act not at all unlike a sudden failure of toilet training, but without any sense of attempting to shame the puppy.

There is deep sympathy for how very humiliating the situation must be for the poor creature - and she will go get a towel. Further, should the puppy be blessed with thumbs - as Kerstin is - she will hand the towel to the puppy, with the expectation that it do something more productive that attempting to pretend that it did not happen. Sadly, Kirstin has tried to pretend it didn't happen - by deleting every instance of her writing but two - thereby proving that she had access to the author's account.

That's not an actual cover-up, it's even worse than a failed cover up. There was an allegation these writings were yours, but it was all gossip and conjecture - UNTIL they were deleted. Now it's not just gossip and conjecture, it's a fact in evidence.

But I do understand why you tried.

Because your porn says far more about you than you would like everyone knowing. This is true of everyone who writes porn, myself included. Actually, it's true of anyone who writes anything about anything that is deeply, emotionally and viscerally meaninful. It is immensly personal and revealing.

Our only choice (other than not writing at all, as would have been prudent) is to reveal ourselves consciously and by choice, rather than simply letting the unconscious direct access to the fingers.

The only difference between thee and me, dear girl, is that I don't publish stuff I cannot afford to admit having written. Long ago, it seems now, I had to confront the distinction between the porn I liked and wanted to make and what I would have liked to believe about myself if I could pretend that someone else wrote, drew and enjoyed the porn I created and consumed. At some point, I actually considered what that said about me, and then I spent some quality time with me working on those aspects that I really could not live with.

As a direct result of that gobsmack, I have spent a great deal of time considering the role of porn in our society and the social ends it all to often serves. But I've never before seen such a literal, direct and vivid illustration in the public domain as this and I don't think it's overly hyperbolic to call it a "Gift from God."

At some point, you see, Kristin got the idea that her role was ... well, exactly what she described. She was a vessel for the seed of powerful men. The yin to the yang of Power. And the opposite of Power, well, that must be powerlessness. Sexuality and social ethos, all tangled together.

But, wait, that's not actually the PROBLEM. That happens to us all, to some degree. People who say their sexuality and their politics and their world views are entirely separate are lying to themselves. And, ideally, all these things should inform and empower one another.

Nor is this worldview her fault. If, as I suspect, she was raised from birth to never EVER think about what such urges mean (other than to think of them as Sinful Temptations,) she could hardly contemplate how they biased her life path. You see, we always live in ways that allow us to meet our needs, and we do what we have to do in order to get there.

But it should be no surprise though, that unthinking behavior leads to thoughtless actions that lead in turn to all KINDS of unforeseen outcomes.

Nope, the problem, Kirstin, is that you were thinking with your crotch. That's what happens when your crotch says something and you pretend not to hear it. It does the best it can, under the circumstances. You see, our survival needs, the things that really matter to us, our own selves, our very personal self image, our well being, well, those are tied very directly to our sexuality. When something makes you instantly hard or wet - aside from being hot, it's fucking important. Pay attention - and then meet that need as intelligently and as effectively as possible.

Why? Because if you pretend it didn't happen, you will meet that need thoughtlessly, impulsivly and without much regard to the harm it does to other people. That will piss them off and they will hurt you back. And if you STILL won't think about that, well, then your stupid hindbrain starts to think that the hurting and hurting back is all part of the fun.

So it's important to understand what your pussy is saying. Your flatcat really gets off on being penetrated by the symbols of power.

Why do I say that? Well, I didn't. YOU did, dear. You see, in erotic, or really, ANY literature, the "hook" for a story is important. And the hook for this clearly establishes an erotic attachment to power. Not people, hell, not even penises. The first sex act mentioned, the one that triggers this little erotic reverie is a sex act with the symbol of a male's power - which you then react to by worshiping with your reproductive orifice.

I note something else, which I have noted in other Right Wing Porn - said worship is not real if there is any barrier between vessel and seed. To what end does opposition to condoms and sexual education arise from sexual, and not religious preference?

Now, I could write a book on the symbolism in these two stories. I could advance or criticise particular expressions of it, I could explain the essential ethics needed to live with kinks such as you have, but NONE of that has any point when are acting with no conscious understanding of what it is that makes you wet to your knees, and I expect that you don't. There's some serious dissociation happening here, and my gut tells me that the very flaming obviousness of the symbolism involved is not so much in aid of masturbation as a desperate attempt by your subconscious to gain your attention.

Seriously. Honey. Have you actually READ what you wrote?

Do you still have copies of the other files? If you do, I think you need to go back and re-read them, and discuss them with someone you genuinely trust.

You have arranged your entire life to get reamed by powerful SYMBOLS of male power, probably in competition with other Stalwarts of Family Values such as yourself. And at the end of the day, the bearer of the prize for the state championship of dick-sizing, the top dog in the state - runs off to fucking ARGENTINA, rather than partake of the local, desperate, aching, self-defined "cunts" such as yourself.

Why? Well, in reading his own words, I was struck by how important it was to him that she treated him with whatever degree of sincerity was required to achieve her ends, as an actual person. Respect. Not for his position, or his power, but for him.

Governor Sanford got to the top office in his state, having done whatever it took to gain power in that state and within his party. This is the public pool he played in. He won the game - he looked around, and saw the array of prizes. His just and due reward, according to this value set that you, honey, so viscerally and clearly express.

And he ran away screaming, burning every bridge behind him. Apparently, he did not wish to be the train that pulled into your station or an item of Continental Cuisine.

Now that I think about it, I think better of him for doing it. There is much to be said against how he bailed, it was hurtful, sad and messy, but still, a more honest and honorable thing than it seems at first. Think of it as an example of something that could have been done better.

And please understand, I'm not criticizing your professed values or your brand of politics. This is not due to what you have to say about education, or homeschooling or health care reform. I can't, for we both know that those things are merely means to an end. Camouflage. Hunting blinds. It has the same, identical semantic content as Larry Craig tapping his foot in the bathroom stall.

It's a means to an end. Gaining power to use on people for the sake of personal, psycosexual satisfaction.

If your deepest need is to be fucked with a pillar of the community, that's what you have to do to get yourself around such a cold, hard and unforgiving tool. Meanwhile, said pillar of the community bearing person is doing exactly the same thing, to get all that perky Soccer-MILF action.

And none of that has anything to do with politics, left, right or center. Politics is about the responsible use of power in furtherance of common, rational, ethical, goals, goals that can be expressed and explained in actual words, justified with real numbers, defined in predictable outcomes. That understanding of what the process is and what it's actually for has become somewhat rare on the Right.

I'm not saying that the Republican Party of South Carolina is nothing more than a self-referential circle-jerk. I don't have to. We are at the point where reasonable people should be demanding outright documentation that it is NOT that. But that will not happen so long as "Not Thinking About It" is damn near a plank in the republican platform.

My question is, WHY is it so important to not think about it? Why were you so carefully taught to never examine your own most basic, most visceral motivations? I mean, girl, you WROTE that porn! For what it is, it's not badly written. There's some craft there, and whatever else might be said about it, I think we can understand that in your words, we have a glimpse of the authentic you.

Want to know what I honestly think of the you it shows?

Oh, honey. We have some work to do. But there's something worth working with. Let us consider the arc of your career. There's much that can be criticized - but considering the self-imposed cognitive handicaps, not bad. Honestly, not bad at all.

Now, here's your towel. And, honey... I think you need to let your kids go to school. They need a wider variety of reality checks than are currently available.

Oh, and that "former friend" that leaked this information in order to "sabotage your political career?" You owe them a huge debt moral and ethical debt you owe for them pulling you out of that pool before it drowned you and you should call them up and thank them. Sincerely.

And given the sort of person they may well be, it will just totally fuck with their heads.

Consider the sort of people you've been calling "friend," in order to get to where you were - hell, consider the sorta guy that you defined as the default target of your aching maw of need.

Now that circumstances have made "not thinking about it" literally impossible - I hope and, indeed, expect you will be thinking about mindfully meeting the needs your sexuality imposes upon you in an ethical way, in accordance with Biblical principles.

I assure you, it's possible. Actually, it's a lot easier. The "not thinking about it" makes avoiding causal and painful pitfalls rather difficult.

"Paul set down the letter and swallowed hard. His rigid cock throbbed against his thigh. He picked up his phone and buzzed his secretary. "Rachel, cancel all my appointments for the rest of the week. An urgent family issue has come up."

That's the last paragraph of "Lauren's Masturbatory Musings."

The irony, it burns....

PS: More of her work can be found here, on a web archive of Literotica.com of a time in the past before the files were deleted. I'm sure more PDF files are being made as I type. H/t to porn obsessed internet geeks via Fitsnews.

Erotic Truth: Gotopless.org - a new Raelan Revelation

Here's a rights and ethics blog post that I can't put here because it needs pictures of boobies to ... um... support my point.

So to speak.

Erotic Truth: Gotopless.org - a new Raelan Revelation

GoTopless We are a US organization, claiming that women have the same constitutional right to be bare chested in public places as men.

Maitreya, Rael, spiritual leader and founder of goTopless.org states: "as long as men can be topless, constitutionally women should have the same right, or men should also be forced to wear something hiding their chest."

I must give credit where credit is due; the Raelians have done something worth doing, and are taking heat for doing it. From where? Well, it's not from where you might expect... it's from Terribly Serious Nudists, who grump about how the Raeliens are causing people to take this issue less seriously than it should be taken.

Well, frankly, naked people who wish to be Taken Seriously should put some clothes on.

NSFW, for newsworthy boobs, breasts and nipples. There, that should ensure a freakin' stampede!

It Takes A Moran To Raise Awareness...

The Funniest Signs From Town Hall Protests (PICS)

Some times a picture is worth a thousand derisive words.







I do believe the White House to assure these people that "the pubic option" is off the table.

And remember folks; that ain't just stupid, it's GLEN BECK stupid!

Unwarrented Assumptions: Checklist of Neurotypical Privilege:

Red I'm with Neurotypical T-Shirt by webcarve Browse more Neurotypical T-Shirts

Asperger Square 8: Checklist of Neurotypical Privilege: New Draft

Ordinarily I'd say something, or quote an excerpt but in this case, just go have a look. It's all of a piece, and developing.

Don't Piss On The Crazy Bush

By the way: I am to some degree suggesting that we can use "Crazy" in the clinical sense. As in, should be under the care of a mental health professional.

In responding to a comment below, I was reminded of this story: Why the Right's 'Astroturfing' Propaganda Is Textbook Psychopathic.

Here's a quick test, a sort of free-association game: What do egocentrism, deceitfulness and aggressive criminality have in common?

If you guessed that they are characteristics of disturbed behavior, you're half right. They are in fact features of the Psychopathy Checklist Revised, a template for diagnosing psychopaths, designed by Canadian psychologist Robert D. Hare.

But what's more interesting about this triumvirate is the fact that it's being employed in the recent slew of corporate-backed, faux grassroots outbursts (also known as "astroturfing" campaigns) across the country.

Perhaps that might make the following make more sense. It's not "crazy" to disagree about political differences. It IS crazy to lie, cheat and threaten people, particularly in ways that show that you are completely unable to foresee the possibility of being caught, or what that will do to your cause.

Now, when you are confronted with a crazy person, realize that you simply cannot deal with them as if you were dealing with a rational, predictable person with a sense of right and wrong. At the same time, you cannot simply crotchpunch them. I know, it seems wrong to me too, but there it is; for some reason, only the police get to crotchpunch disagreeable people.

But you have absolutely no reason to treat them with the respect, consideration and forbearance due rational people. Keep an eye on them and wait for them to do something foolish enough to take them out of play. For they will, surely they will. But there's no reason for YOU to be the victim of their hard-earned karma!



The thing about us cosmopolitan elitists is that we have learned that taking crazy people seriously can make you crazy. They USED to teach people in Journo 101 that you don't give credence to the incredible.

It is fun at times to ridicule the ridiculous - but some things are so fucking INHERENTLY ridiculous that pointing it out amounts to insulting the intelligence of any audience worth having.

Rick Perlstein -- Birthers, Health Care Hecklers and the Rise of Right-Wing Rage - washingtonpost.com: "So the birthers, the anti-tax tea-partiers, the town hall hecklers -- these are 'either' the genuine grass roots or evil conspirators staging scenes for YouTube? The quiver on the lips of the man pushing the wheelchair, the crazed risk of carrying a pistol around a president -- too heartfelt to be an act. The lockstep strangeness of the mad lies on the protesters' signs -- too uniform to be spontaneous. They are both. If you don't understand that any moment of genuine political change always produces both, you can't understand America, where the crazy tree blooms in every moment of liberal ascendancy, and where elites exploit the crazy for their own narrow interests."

Never mind watering the Tree of Liberty. Stop pissing on the Crazy Bush!




That's how you deal with crazy people. You firmly tell them that the shit in their heads is their shit, and they have to own it.


At the very least, before inviting others into the private regions of your head, you should pick up the trash and do the laundry. There's a perfect example of that right here.



People who behave like that in public should be treated in the same way as a five year old who has yet to learn that public masturbation is inappropriate.

Renegade Evolution quotes the crazy in full, and mistakenly attempts to respond to the crazy as if she were talking to a rational person who was attacking her for sane, if malicious reasons. A mistake, I fear. I have a stock t-shirt for just such occasions.

While it may have worth citing as a textbook example of disastrously flawed rhetoric or to feature as an example of what happens when you roll a double zero on your critical thinking skill table, one only had to read three paragraphs down to realize that any deeper consideration would be entirely misplaced.

The signers of the letter say they are “members of the academic community.” The media quickly converted that into “50 professors.” In fact, quite a few are not full-time professors or administrators at these institutions; rather, some are adjunct faculty, graduate students, or retired. At least one signer seems to be an undergraduate.

You see, the nutball letter states that these persons who claim to be "members of the academic community" are, indeed, members of the academic community, precisely as they claimed. Citing that media has failed to correctly cite their credentials is not a valid criticism of the credentials they claim, if anything, it more firmly establishes their proper credentials - as representing the entire range of the academic community, that is to say, people who's primary qualification is to think about stuff and derive useful insights that may advise others who may, though no fault of their own, have less time to devote to such matters.

Such as, Margaret Brooks and Donna M. Huges of Citizens Against Trafficking the co-authors of the above paragraph.

See, having established that they cannot think, one may cease to be concerned with what they think regarding any appareant mutual concerns, because any response amounts to Pissing on the Crazy Bush.

Any discussion of any topic of any importance (say, human trafficing and slavery) will be degraded into incoherence by dealing with the sort of people who insist on their right to be heard because of what the insects in their heads tell them is Too Important To Be Ignored.

This advice does not merely apply to such people speaking out against you. It's far more humiliating to have such people thinking they have a place in your "posse."

It's like hearing "Chemtrails" in conversation - it's a signal to switch to meaningless small talk. Trust me, they will not notice the difference, and you won't feel the need to crotch-punch them, so it's a win-win.


Some things are so awesomely, majestically, comprehensively stupid as to be worthy of standing alone in all their awful majesty. I understand why Ren takes this nasty little screed personally, but she's mistaken in doing so.

It's not that I'm saying that she should "understand" their position. She shouldn't even try. You don't encourage people to rationalize a phobic response. You either accept it or you do not, and that reaction depends entirely upon whether the irrational spasms pose any danger.

Likewise, as a responsible person, you cope with your phobia or you do not, and arrange your life accordingly. A phobic has no reasonable expectation that people should accommodate their irrational fears, much less enable them in oppressing the people they are phobic about.

"Doctor, it hurts when I do this."
"Well, then, stop DOING that!"

I may squish a spider in order to keep my wife's brains from leaking out of her head. I will not harm a person because she reacts to them in the same way; I'll take her to the mental health clinic. We both understand that distinction, and she would do the same for/to me. There is a limit to which reasonable people expect their irrationality to be accommodated.

Sane public policy cannot possibly accommodate all irrational fears and phobias, nor may it advantage personality disorders over civility and long persist. Government, along with every other human activity, cannot sacrifice outcome in the name of process.

Bring facts, bring reason, bring a coherent argument with, you know, facts and stuff, or stay home.

From this elitist bastard's perspective, you may just as well. I'm not going to waste precious, publicly funded photons on arguing with crazy.

(Should I forget, do feel free to remind me.)

Free Speech and it's consequences.

Update! And, no, wingtards, it's NOT "sensorship" to refuse to store or forward terror threats. It's entirely sensible.

Of late, I've been noting the bury brigades over on digg and the #tcot twits twittering; in those abrupt contexts, a rather pervasive misunderstanding of the First Amendment is often painfully illustrated.



The view is that a person has the right to say whatever they like about anyone with the presumption that there should be no consequence for that speech, legal or otherwise, if you are a REAL American. Of course, if you are NOT a "Real American," a substantially different standard applies, and on occasion tips over into direct threats of violence.

This even extends to those who will passionately assert things that are completely, obviously and provably untrue; these folk seem to be genuinely offended that their words are not given equal weight to those who advocate positions ballasted with actual facts, genuine documents, logical reasoning and historical evidence.

You do have the right to believe a lie. You don't have the right to demand that your belief be accorded the slightest respect. The only respect you might be allowed is the presumption that you are a conscious liar, and not a deluded thrall - but frankly, the expectation of such charity is SO 2004.

Over at The Volokh Conspiracy, I found that Eugene Volokh has taken on an interesting Pro-Bono case, in which the ACLU has filed an Amicus brief in support of his idiot client's right to say patently offensive things to a public official. I concur with Eugine and the ACLU that it's an abuse of power to use the law to "correct" the disrespectful address of our "betters." Frankly, as an anti-authoritarian, I encourage an entirely conditional respect for authorities.

I expect an authority to be competent and authoritative. They should be able to demonstrate their qualifications on demand and welcome the opportunity. And, as opportunities go, this one is a slow pitch. Such "critics" are to be treasured, such "dissent" tends to discredit other critics by example.

So, when a public official uses the law to punish such "dissent", it doesn't speak to me of their skill or qualifications. To the contrary.

Nonetheless, behaving like a dick tends to bring out that response in human beings with hind brains and limbic systems. Nor should anyone expect to speak to anyone in the manner cited below and expect to escape unscathed. Perhaps once, perhaps twice - but as a lifestyle choice, it's doomed to an abrupt and painful end.

I have a friend in Iraq that I told all about you and he referred to you as a Benedict Arnold. I told him that fit you very well. . . . I’d like to puke all over you. People like you should be forced out of this country. Hey, I have a great idea!!!! . . . Let’s do nothing to Iran, let them get nukes, and then let them bomb U.S. cities and after that, we will just keep turning the other cheek. Remember that Libs like yourself are the lowest form of life on this planet[.]

I would like to think that I'd be capable of "rising above" such a situation. I can think of times that I have succeeded. I can think of other examples when I have failed. In practice, I think that any response short of a slap across the face and an offer to exchange seconds is a gift.

Courtesy is a requirement for human beings who wish to participate in civil society, and the lack of courtesy will be often be met with cuffs and spittle, regardless of the pure merit of that reaction under law, or our expectation that those in power rise above the standards expected of the common man. That is a presumptive ideal; we should demand it of ourselves, but it should be considered foolish in the Darwinian sense to so sharply test the forbearance of others.

So, while I applaud Eugene and the ACLU for protesting the actions of the state against an odious arsewipe, I wish to state for whatever record that the defense itself is a consequence.

First Amendment cases do tend to be illustrated with the pain of those who have somehow earned the wrath of others, justly or unjustly. It's a rather perverse form of public service, that one has somehow managed to be such a conspicuous pain in the ass that it's merits as critical speech, redeeming social value and where it lies within the boundaries of free and unfettered speech must be discussed by the Supremes.

Should I ever find myself involved in a free speech case I want to be compared to George Carlin, not the KKK. And frankly, this fellow's speech does not rise to the standard of the KKK asserting their right to march in Skokie. This is simply a jerkwad, being used to demonstrate that even fucking jerks saying things that only a drunken jerk would say are protected by the first amendment. It's a principle well worth establishing. And yet it should be observed that it's a consideration that goes to the principle, it says nothing about the worth of the idea or the respect that it is due.

We choose to preclude a violent response to speech this deliberately offensive because we wish to preclude the right of those in power to prevent criticism.

But we must at the same time recognize that if you said this in a bar to someone else, nobody would be even slightly surprised if the response was a punch in the face, and you might well be held liable for any consequential damages or injuries.

The thing about pointlessly offensive speech is that it offends people, who tend respond by correction or avoidance. And they don't always distinguish between you, the offensive fucking jerk, and you, the offensive fucking jerk speaking in support of what you touchingly think to be "conservative values."

It often bears indirect, personal consequence in terms of lost opportunity and diminished respect, in direct proportion to the target and the wit displayed. Witlessly, mindlessly, patently offensive speech, then, bears it's own consequence and reward, for the speaker - and anyone standing next to them.



We need no state or church to tell us what we should be offended by, or what speech should have greater legal consequence than others, short of batshit insane exhortations to violent actions, or provable, malicious slanders and libels.

In almost every case of batshit insanity, even if it does exhort fools to violence we can say this: "Res Ipsa Loquitor," The Thing Speaks For Itself.


If such a speaker could convince you to violent acts - well, so could any random combination of sounds, or the invisible pink unicorn that lives in your lunchpail. If you can't consider this source - you are incapable of critical thought to a degree that amounts to a diagnosable handicap.

If you are thinking that hanging out with people that are that stupid gives you a shot at some influence and power ... well, the workman is known by the quality of their tools.

Speaking of whory aphorisms, there's another precept that predates any modern understanding of the terms "Liberal" and "Conservative," and it goes like this: "It's better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt."

Sarah Palin has made it impossible for anyone to defend her as a responsible, ethical, intelligent, informed and capable leader. Hell, she's made it impossible for anyone to think her capable of forming an intelligible sentence. I don't know what the hell she's trying to say here; I doubt she is entirely sure herself, but I doubt it deserves more deference than a chocolate-covered five-year old's assertion that an invisible friend ate all the cookies.

Oh, and Sarah, don't call yourself a "Conservative." Fucking up state Medicaid to the extent that federal intervention is required is not the hallmark of Conservative leadership, not socially nor fiscally. It's irresponsible at best, corrupt at worst, and absolutely disqualifies you from talking of yourself as politically and idealistically motivated.

Political philosophy speaks about how you go about fulfilling the duties you are elected to discharge according to law. This speaks to being indifferent to responsibility entirely. "Malfeasance" is not an ideology. It's a character flaw.

The only people who still consider her to be an authority - on anything - are doing so in willful suspension of disbelief. She's an authority because she says she is, they elected her because she said she was and continue to support her because she asserts competence in the face of stark evidence to the contrary.

She is the chosen icon - or perhaps the boobalicious bubo - of the near terminal case of Authoritarian Personality Disorder that has stricken the GOP. The Republican Party has squandered it's right to leadership by pandering only to those who would blindly follow any tall figure on a pale horse.

Aside from being utterly cynical, it's moronic. At most 30 percent of the population falls into this category, and they are a promiscuous lot; as likely to follow Charles Manson as Sarah Palin. Their support says nothing good at all about the quality of the leadership or the causes it stands for.

The single most telling and persuasive rebuttal to Sarah Palin is ... Sarah Palin. She is also one of the most visceral emotional arguments against the social and economic policies of the GOP. That is to say, "You have to be THAT stupid to be a Republican?"

"Never argue with fools; people might not be able to tell the difference." And if you seem to be agreeing with fools, much less exploiting fools... well, again, the conclusions are inescapable.

This leads directly into the concept of "Free Speech" and the Freely Earned Consequences Of It. A free society neither needs nor desires any restriction on free speech or association, other than the natural rewards for good and bad choices.

If you utter bigoted and hateful words, it is inevitable and natural that people will realize that you are a bigoted and hateful person, and that your support of a position comes because you ARE that sort of person. If you speak in ways that reveal you to be stupid, shallow, opportunistic and self-serving, it's doubtful that it will impress those who hold the key to the opportunity for larger responsibilities that you might seek. Again, yes, I'm thinking of Sarah Palin - but it is a target-rich environment.

There are consequences to inviting obnoxious idiots to your Party. All the smart people finish their beers and leave via the back door, while blocking your phone number on their Blackberries.
And for the GOP, I'd have to say that started around 2004. I expect that the Blue Dog Dems will become the next party of the Right.

It's not because principled conservatives do not exist - it's because their speech has been driven out of the marketplace of ideas. If they speak as conservatives, or at least Republican Conservatives their ideas will be dismissed as either idiotic by definition, or simply a string of jingoistic keywords to provoke the freepers into another Pavlovian spasm. They will have to wait until the idiots are gone before they can be heard; and there's no real conservative principle that says there's great moral value in delaying the inevitable consequences of antisocial behavior.

Those witnessing the show can easily come to the conclusion that the Republican brand of Conservatism is inherently unethical, idiotic, selfish, inhumane, reactionary, authoritarian, judgmental and utterly incapable of critical thought. And it may well be that this has come to be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

It's certainly accurate enough regarding those Republicans who happen to be in positions of influence. I could state many examples, but one is so definitive that it trumps all others. The public defense of torture as necessary for the security of the State? The sanction of state terrorism, in violation of the Constitution and what the Deceleration states to be "inalienable" rights to life and liberty? Anyone who could say that thing aloud cannot call themselves a Republican. The concept does not stretch that far.

I consider those who advocate the use of torture to be ... well, I consider them to be persons worthy of no regard. And by "no regard," I mean that quite literally. They have renounced any reasonable expectation of regard for their human rights. Due process under law is not justice, for such people. It's merciful forbearance granted for the greater good, not because they deserve it, any more than any other terrorist does.

Those who have advocated torture, much less participated in the process deserve nothing more than that which they have excused, demanded or participated in. Torture is terrorism.

It would be ILLEGAL to shoot you in the nuts and laugh at your pain. I'm not absolutely sure that it would be wrong, and it's laughable to suggest it would be undeserved. It would be madness to rely on your moral or ethical insight and guidance. If that was not evident from first principles - and it WAS - it's certainly been brutally and effectively illustrated by the distinct and consistent inability of those who think and act in this way to achieve the results they predict. "Six Months." Greeted with flowers. Cakewalk. Mission Accomplished.

Words that will go down in history in comparison with "Peace In Our Time."

Since the GOP has insisted that torture is a legitimate tool of state interest and that it can and will detain and torture anyone it damn well pleases for any reason it damn well wants and sees no need to excuse or defend it - well, there you go. Now that you lost the election, how does it feel to be looking at the other end of those lovingly crafted testicle crushers? What argument do you have against them being tried out on you?

Those who have treated Constitution and Citizenry with contempt deserve nothing but contempt. And I certainly do not respect any assertion of political piety or rational justifications for inherently inexcusable positions, much less permit them to associate their sort of Conservatism with my own.

If you will not do as you would be done by, you will be done by as you did. It's not a moral precept. It's not even a statement of an ethical ideal. It's an observation of cause and effect.

UPDATE: Screengrab link to threat will not work. A Mad American Explains:

I expect there will be an impromptu First Amendment Seminar sponsored by the Department of Justice in A_Mad_American's immediate future. Perhaps the fine, somewhat academic distinction between "Free Speech" and "Uttering Terrorist Threats" will be clearer to him subsequent to having to pay for legal council.

Why I don't read "Conservative" media.

Wonkette : Important Editorial: If Stephen Hawking Lived In The U.K., He Would Be Dead

You know where Stephen Hawking has lived for 67 years? England. Again: England. England. And this is why an editorial from the “Investors Business Daily” about Obama trying to kill Trig Palin for having Down Syndrome, one that was cited favorably in a Human Events press release today, has become the stuff from which humor-jokes are made on the Internet: “People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn’t have a chance in the U.K., where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless.” [IBD, Atlanta J-C, Ezra Klein]

I have a very simple requirement for my primary sources. I can account for bias, and if one source leaves out an "inconvenient" fact, I'm sure I'll be able to find it somewhere else. But what I absolutely cannot tolerate is being lied to, and if it's done in a way that could easily set me up for personal embarrassment and ridicule for days afterward... well. That source gets roundfiled.

After all, if I have to fact-check every freakin' link before trusting it, what's the point in even reading it?

Just imagine how many thousands of FORMER WND readers were gleefully ambushed at the water-cooler when they plopped out this rhetorical gem to "prove" how "Evil Socialism" would have killed Steven Hawking, had he suffered from Evil Socialist Health Care. In England. Where He Lives.

One fave twitter comment I saw in passing... "But he doesn't have an English accent!"

Let this be an example of why stupidity is so fucking dangerous. Well, if the burning pain of personal humiliation can illustrate WHY you need to have reliable and trustworthy information sources, perhaps it's done some good.

But not the "good" they had in mind. Which, you know, is better known as "evil."

Now, a rhetorical question. This is supposedly a site that gives out financial advice. They are stating as facts a number of lies and distortions that, should you believe it, would tend to be of gigantic financial benefit to the insurance and pharma sectors.

What are the chances that their direct investment advice is more honest, unbiased and truthful?

That's a rhetorical question, by the way. If you have to ask someone that sort of question, there's no point in believing the answer.

Illustration: citation needed by Anisotropy

John Batchelor: Sane Conservative on Radio?

There may be a sane conservative speaking on radio! He has a well-attended blog at The Daily Beast. Here's the quote that captured my attention.

If the Republican Party existed except as a club of groupies and roadies for the rabble-rousers on radio and cable, it would rouse itself from its narcotized self-satisfaction of second best and give a speech that the Turfers, Birthers Tea-Baggers and all the other amateurs of dissent must sit down and listen to the reason of statesmanship or else leave the halls of Congress. The GOP would tell the snipers that this is a somber, modest political party, not a cruise ship to the seventh grade. Somewhere in the outline of this speech, this make-believe worthwhile Republican Party would include the language of liberty and restraint. And then this never to be given speech by a non-existent leader to the never again to be dignified Republicans would build to a quiet conclusion that very much resembles Edmund Burke. "But what is liberty without wisdom, and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint.”

John Batchelor is radio host of the John Batchelor Show in New York, Washington, D.C., San Francisco, and Los Angeles.

***
Ordinarily, I think of my Zazzles as being illustrations more than products. I have sold a number of these posters, but honestly speaking, they are of interest to a rather narrow range of political junkie. However, if you were planning on attending a health care town meeting as a legitimate conservative who intended to ask real questions in the expectation of getting real answers in return, one of these would help separate you from the swastika-sliming idiots.

I happened to notice they are on sale, so get two and bring a friend.

In your heart, you know he's pissed! by webcarve See more posters at Zazzle

Buy 1 Poster Get 1 FREE! (50% off 2+ posters) Use code: BTSPOSTERS09

T-shirts are available if you find that more convenient. I have one featuring this design on the front with a quote from Goldwater on the reverse that seems trenchantly prophetic:

In your heart, you know he's pissed! by webcarve
See more Republican T-Shirts

A Letter From a True Patriot of the Tea Bag Movement

A Letter From a True Patriot of the Tea Bag Movement:

by Rich on 04/23/2009

in Politics

We usually don’t pay attention to people like this, but I think that this guy’s harsh words really represent the current “tea bag” movement and the attitude towards the Obama administration that Fox News pundits have been endorsing. This ever-growing dissatisfaction with the way our government is run can only end one way, as this gentleman clearly demonstrates…"

Title links to site.
Read, Digg, Stumble and include in a chain letter to That Side of the family...

Who shall guard the Guardians

I can only speak for myself, to be sure, but it seems to me that anyone with any sense of history and the slightest degree of rational paranoia felt a distinct chill when Bush announced the formation of The Department of Homeland Security, with it's eerie resonance to the Fascist "Fatherland" and the Stalinist "Motherland."

Note that both Stalinist and Fascist states have one thing in common - a certain disdain for human rights and dignity when any particular person or idea is thought to be a threat to the state, for whatever reason, by whatever pinhead happens to be wearing the jackboots.

It was no real surprise to me that the response of Homeland Security was lackadaisical in response to Hurricane Katrina, or that in absorbing FEMA (which was arguably one of the two most competent agencies involved), they had effectively short-circuited it, in favor of not helping non-white and therefore non-deserving people.

But if you want, there are more recent examples of what the real meaning of "homeland security" is, in the words and deeds of those on the ground, wearing the jackboots. I've never been much of a believer in fine words when there are actual deeds to be seen and performance metrics to be evaluated.

It's even more telling that this story comes to us via the New York Times.

After federal border agents detained several Mexican immigrants in western New York in June, an article about the incident in a local newspaper drew an onslaught of vitriolic postings on its Web site. Some were racist. Others attacked farmers in the region, an apple-growing area east of Rochester, accusing them of harboring illegal workers. Still others made personal attacks about the reporter who wrote the article.

Most of the posts were made anonymously. But in reviewing the logs of its Internet server, the paper, The Wayne County Star in Wolcott, traced three of them to Internet protocol addresses at the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees border protection.

Homeland Security started an investigation into the posts this month, according to the reporter, Louise Hoffman-Broach, and Richard M. Healy, the Wayne County district attorney. A spokeswoman for the federal agency’s inspector general said she could neither confirm nor deny an investigation; department rules prohibit the use of office equipment for the personal transmission of material that could offend fellow employees or the public.

Coming on the eve of the apple harvest season, the Web posts and the investigation — first reported this week on The Star’s Web site — have ratcheted up longstanding tensions in Wayne County, where farmers and laborers have accused immigration officials of using heavy-handed tactics like racial profiling and arbitrary or unjustified detentions.

Such tactics, the farmers say, have scared Hispanic farm workers from the region just as growers are preparing for the harvest.

Representative Dan Maffei, who represents the area in Congress, said the allegations of overaggressive immigration enforcement, coming from a wide range of constituents, were “of extreme concern.”

Of course, the thugs that landowners employ to keep the workforces in line and content with whatever pittance they are given have, historically never been quite so tolerant of nuance as their employers. They aren't breaking heads in order to secure labor at an acceptable price, they are doing so because they hate Mexicans. They took the job because it would permit them to abuse "Illegals" with impunity - and as the article goes on to observe, they have a tendency to presume that even documented Mexicans are presumed illegal until long after they are abused, detained and no doubt subjected to whatever amuses such racist fuckheads.

But here's the bottom line, America. You have the cheapest food supply in the world PRECISELY because so much of the labor involved is performed by "illegals." So, put up or shut up. Pay producers enough so that they can afford LEGAL wages - and yeah, it's a fact of life that a farm that employs legals and pays union wages CANNOT compete with a farm that does not. That, or accept that you are willing and indeed cheerful eating burgers produced by slave labor kept docile by the friendly folks at ICE. Because, that's exactly what it is, why it's their and the end to which Bush and agrabiz agreed it to be.

All the talk about curbing "illegal" immigration was ginned up to gain support for the existence of said jackbooted thugs stomping around and "defending the nation." Selectively. When the occasion warrants. Say, when a farmer or a rancher says something deemed "inappropriate" by the local Rotary Club leadership.

You see, ICE only has about a thousand field agents. That's a ridiculously low number to deal with the actual problem that we are told exists. But it's just the right size for a flying goon squad. More than enough to turn a town or small city upside down. It's just the right size to punish the fuck out of people. Of course, to confirm your suspicion, you would also look to the institutional culture. What does the group itself think it's actual mandate is, whatever it's fine-sounding mission statement might be?

And for that - well, we have the words of the jackbooted thugs themselves.

The article about the arrests, posted on June 16, led to a torrent of angry Web postings. One, sent from a fake e-mail address, said, “watcha doing to mi wifey, no checky her papeles. she no legal, but she havey benifit card.”

A response, which carried a Homeland Security Internet protocol address, read: “That sounds like my boyfriend. Leave him alones and get your own. My boyfriend works sometimes but he is really good at getting FREE benefits from the Federal and State government.”

Another post, apparently sent from a separate computer linked to Homeland Security, read in part: “These farmers have a problem because the gravy train that they were riding for soooooo long is being brought to light.”

The newspaper removed the posts. It also reported that it had discovered others, dating to last year, that appeared to have come from computers affiliated with Homeland Security.

Who will guard you from such Guardians, eh? Can you PROVE your papers are not fake? Hell, I go by Papa Heinlein's dictate - whenever a government starts requiring you to carry identity papers, it's time to leave. This sort of thing, and the implicit threat that it makes against anyone, was one of my personal decision points. I did leave, so for me the answer is "The Crown, in the form of Canadian Customs and Immigration." But then, I'm a lucky sod. I was born here, so my support, as a dual citizen of the US constitution was always a matter of choice.

They say it's wrong, but it feels so right!

Alien Lover T-Shirt by webcarve
Design personalized tshirts with www.zazzle.com

Yep. This is all about further mockery at the expense of those people who are afraid that the brown, illegal aliens will descend upon the continental US in their brown helicopters and impose common sense, tolerance and affordable, single-payer health care upon the screaming masses still reeling from fluoridation, integration and affirmative action.

I so cannot take these people seriously anymore. I mean, yes, they ARE potentially dangerous lunatics who are certainly not to be considered to be safe to have around firearms, explosives or impressionable children. But I'm Goddamn done with treating their manufactured little "concerns" as if they were issues that would actually matter to people who had the capacity to think for themselves.

William Rivers Pitt of Truthout has some thoughts on it. He thinks in words, so, rather than translate from "t-shirt," I'll let him get the ball rolling.

The rank absurdity of the Birthers' contentions hasn't kept a whole array of high-ranking Republicans from jumping into the fray to endorse the validity of this farce. "Indeed," reported Talking Points Memo on Wednesday, "prominent Congressional Republicans were openly entertaining this stuff. A bill to require birth certificates from presidential candidates has picked up 11 total co-sponsors; Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Oklahoma) declared that the Birthers 'have a point,' and that he doesn't discourage it. Even House GOP Vice Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Washington), a member of the leadership, was saying she wanted to see the documents."

But here's the funny part. Fox News commentator Bill O'Reilly, right-wing bombthrower Ann Coulter and GOP Chairman Michael Steele - three people who have repeatedly set the standard for Deranged Things Actually Said In Public - have been working overtime to kill the Birther debate because they think it's stupid. They think it's stupid. Memo to the Far Right: when you've lost the support of people like O'Reilly, Coulter and Steele, you have to step back and wonder just how far from the pack you've strayed.

Elsewhere on the goofball spectrum, a couple of prominent right-wingers accused President Obama and the Democrats of being racists. Yes, they actually did. Fox News commentator Glenn Beck called Obama a racist for coming down on the side of Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. during the recent flap over his arrest. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) blasted Senate Democrats for - get this - using Sonya Sotomayor's race to divide the American people. Democrats, according to Cornyn, have been "giving cover to groups and individuals to nurture racial grievances for political advantage."

This puts us comparatively sane people in a strange position - of having to recognize that certain members of the wingnut media are actually behaving more responsibly - or at least, less reprehensibly - than actual Republican members of Congress.



Yeah, you heard that right. Ann Coulter thinks birthers are "cranks." (And the freepers are howling for her blood for this BLASPHEMY!) While I think many things of Coulter, I don't think she's stupid. I think she's quite aware of the fine line between being controversial and being... ridiculous. I think it likely that she's concerned that she might be confused in the mind of the public with this woman, Orly Taitz.

So, one of the many, many amusements of this week is seeing Coulter sputter about another blond republican being a "crank" for holding views that Sen. Jim Inhofe finds credible. Of course, as the White House Press Secretary wryly observed, he also thinks global warming is "a hoax."

Now, I don't know if it's my time spent as a mental health consumer or my training in Logic and Rhetoic. Goodness, perhaps it's my reading of the Associated Press Style Guide, in which I learned that You Can't Just Make Shit Up And Publish It.

But clearly, many members of the public, the media and even congress are of the opinion that if you say something loud enough, it will become true. That if you want something to be true enough, it IS true. And any "concern" that is put on television, no matter how ill-founded, malicious or fictional, no matter how clearly self-serving nor how directly connected to political operatives deserves to be treated with all the due consideration once accorded to the moments when Walter Cronkite took off his glasses.

"Illegal Aliens" - The Truth is Out There!

Did you know that there are people who really, actually think that President Obama's Grandmother forged his birth certificate so that he could be president one day?

No, really. (And they say this is the "real" one!)

But then, the question arises. Who must she be that she would know that she needed to DO that?

Now, wouldn't it be fun to show up at one of those pinhead teaparties or the new "hassle a congressman" events wearing this? Sometimes satire, ridicule and mockery is the only appropriate response.

Illegal Alien T-Shirt by webcarve See other Birther T-Shirts

And A Shriek Of Joy Was Heard Across The Land

Jon Stewart Earns the Wrath of Rush Limbaugh | Politicususa.com

Jon Stewart has now earned the wrath of Rush Limbaugh for getting Bill Kristol to admit on The Daily Show that government run healthcare works. Limbaugh said that Stewart is a sell out for using the military as healthcare example, because liberals like Stewart hate the military. Ugh, so now Rush is going after Jon Stewart.

Oh, I am SO tuning in tonight, even though it's somewhat pointless. That is to say, very, very few people who listen to Limbaugh will bother to tune in to the upcoming reality check.

It's not like you NEED John Stewart to fact-check Rush. There's Google, there's Factcheck.org, Snopes.com, white house, congressional and agency web-sites, hundreds upon thousands of newspapers, books and other publications and, with the exceptions actually recommended by Rush, a surprisingly large number will disagree with some or all of his public statements.

But then, if you are stupid enough to listen, you are also dumb enough to want to believe whatever Rush says.

Unlike Limbaugh’s old, angry, white man listenership, Stewart’s viewers will be shaping elections for years to come, so dismissing his program as a comedy show that young people think is real news is dumb thing to do. Stewart isn’t a sellout for pointing out the holes in the Republican healthcare argument. A sellout is someone like Rush Limbaugh who goes on the air everyday and acts as a propagandist for the Republican Party. Limbaugh is the very definition of a sellout.

You know, as tragicomically funny as this is, it's also deeply depressing. Because what Rush thinks should not matter to anyone.

Stop taking the moron pills.

I haven't been posting much lately because I've been wondering what I could possibly say.

The ONE single bright spot has been Jimmy Carter, denouncing organized religion in general and the Southern Baptist Convention in particular.

But that one bright spot of sanity has been trumped by the outright freakin' lunacy that seem to have dominated the news the last several months. Palin. Take Sarah Palin. Please. And people will tell you and me with a straight face that she is the best hope for the Republican Party in 2012?

I don't know how John Stewart brings himself to even MOCK this idea. And then there are the birthers. That was impossible to take seriously, but apparently someone slipped Lou Dobbs some moron pills, because he's grumbling about what questions it raises that President Obama cannot produce a proper birth certificate.

Lou. Baby. He did. I cannot even be bothered to go digging for proof of the proof, but your NETWORK has all the relevant details. The very idea that this should be taken seriously makes me want to floss my brain.

Then there's the cop who WILL not apologize to Professor Gates OR to his Commander in Chief for what is either incompetance, idiocy or both. I'm left wondering if it's racism, stupidity or authoritarian ignorance. Oh, and his BOSS thinks his behavior is fine too... and why then, should the lot of them not find themselves working as security guards or Wal-Mart greeters?

I'm not giving up, folks. But I am not hurrying back to the keyboard to get back in the swing of it all. Because, holy crap, the stupid might just be contagious!

Please Don't Call Me "Liberal" T-Shirt by webcarve
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The price of "abnormality."

Cognitive Dissident (Neurodiverse) T-Shirt by webcarve
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I am sometimes asked I've never sought any official MH diagnosis.

Whose Planet Is It Anyway?: All Your Brains Are Belong To Us

Applying medical labels to cognitive differences also results in forcible use of drugs in many cases; after all, our society considers anyone who does not want treatment for an "illness" to be dangerously irrational. Ginger just posted a blog entry describing the ordeal of Nate Tseglin, an autistic teenager in California who was taken from his parents because they were seen as neglectful for not giving him medications to prevent self-injury. Although the parents explained that he had a history of strong negative reactions to psychiatric drugs, the authorities ignored their concerns and placed their son in a group home where he was forcibly drugged, as described in the Orange County Register:


… the parents were cut out of any decision-making regarding their son. They were given only short visits with him. After he ran away from the group home, the government transferred Nate to a mental hospital. The Tseglins say the drugs the hospital gave Nate caused him to have a "grand mal" seizure, and his health has continued to deteriorate while he languishes in a government mental facility. When they visited him over the summer, they found his face swollen. He faded in and out of consciousness and was suffering from convulsions. They believe he has been beaten and are worried about sexual abuse, given that he is housed with the criminally insane.

The Tseglins claim Child Protective Services has told them they have the "wrong set of beliefs" and even threatened to force them to undergo court-ordered psychological evaluation. The agency at one point suspended the parents' visitations as a way "to assist them in coming to grips regarding their son." The Tseglins, as former citizens of the Soviet Union, have good reason to be fearful of the authorities. But they tell me that they experienced nothing of this sort in the former communist nation. If their descriptions are correct, then the Soviets weren't the only ones who know how to create a totalitarian bureaucracy.


Ginger is asking autism bloggers to write about this case in the hope of shaming the authorities into letting Nate go home. We need to be aware, however, that this is by no means an isolated incident. Children in the foster care system are routinely given strong psychiatric medications to keep them docile, and this has been going on for many years. I used to know a woman in California who was a licensed foster parent. When she got a new kid placed in her home, the first thing she did was throw away the kid's meds. That was her way of fighting back against a broken system that was destroying children's lives.

That was 25 years ago.

We now have a society that spends vast sums waging a largely ineffectual "war on drugs" while, at the same time, enforcing a psychiatric regime that routinely uses powerful drugs for the purpose of "combating" autism and other neurological variations. Millions of American citizens are stigmatized, coerced in various ways, and sometimes locked up because they are using illicit drugs to change the functioning of their brains. Millions more are stigmatized, coerced in other ways, and sometimes locked up because they have not altered their brains enough to meet with society's approval. And the ever-shrinking group of "normal" people in the middle has to live in fear of what might happen if, at some point, they or their family members were to be judged "abnormal."

It is but one small step from designating someone as being "different" to "potentially lacking in self control" to "to dangerous to allow in society" to "unworthy of life."

Many, besides me, have noted that Autism Speaks has studiously ignored any input from Autistics, offers publicity that tends to increase the fear of autistic births as being the ruin of entire families, while seeking a genetic test. And they are not even particularly subtle about their ultimate goals.

The ethics of this are, aside from obviously bad, should be obviously familiar. Read into the Eugenics movement. Don't stop when you trip over the Nazis - though you will. It originated in North America. It's our own old nightmare, come back to trouble us again.

But then again, we've never needed much excuse to take sides against one another.

Graphic Truths from a comic

I wish I could draw half so well or speak as brutal a truth as eloquently as does Lesya, the creator of Denizens! Attention!

You see, I've been spending my time rediscovering my roots. Looking back on my life, where I came from, what I did, and what I thought important at the time. And the thread through it all, I'm pleased to say, has been ethics; the art and discipline of not being a complete waste of skin.

I most specifically include my time spent toiling within the so-called "adult" industry.

More on that another time; it doesn't fit this post, other than it was an area I needed to explore in my quest to understand the apparent need those with power seem to have to abuse those who are less powerful.

I think it's something we all need to understand better, given our recent history. Well, today I had just finished reading Alice Miller's groundbreaking work on the effects of toxic childrearing philosophies "For your Own Good (full text)" and then this came up as a recommended comic on DrunkDuck.com.

I choose to take that as a sign.

It's Canada Day, Eh?

No, it's not a tee, just a little something I did to celebrate the occasion.

Hiatus will continue as I figure out what it is that I wish to be doing - and when I do, I'll blog about it here.