1. Yep:
“‘Tea party’ activists: Do they hate liberals more than they love liberty?
A recent ‘tea party’ rally showed lots of anger toward President Obama, but little consistent support for liberty in America.
Many “tea party” activists staunchly oppose big government, except when it is warring, wiretapping, or waterboarding. A movement that started out denouncing government power apparently has no beef with some of the worst abuses of modern times.
Unfortunately, there is scant evidence that most tea partyers have studied the copies of the Constitution they generously hand out to bystanders.
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And yet, the crowd of 300 seemed most outraged that the US government is not being sufficiently aggressive in using its power.
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The fact that the cost of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq thus far roughly equals the projected cost of the first decade of Obama’s health-care program is irrelevant. Military spending is viewed as holy water by many activists who otherwise despise Washington. While tea party activists rage over Obama’s alleged lies, they ignore the Bush administration’s deceptive justification to attack Iraq.
None of the speakers criticized the warrantless wiretaps that the National Security Agency began during the Bush administration.
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Many of the attendees seemed to hate liberals far more than they loved liberty. A CBS/New York Times poll conducted in April showed that two-thirds of tea party members have a favorable opinion of Sarah Palin, and 57 percent have a favorable opinion of George W. Bush. Denouncing big government while approving of President Bush is like denouncing immodesty while sunning oneself on a nude beach. After all, it was Bush who championed the prescription drug benefit for seniors that adds $7 trillion to Washington’s unfunded liabilities. “
2. “Congress Pushes Surge in Ongoing War Against Iran
He knows, as any sentient being knows, that even if Iran did produce a nuclear weapon, it would not and could not pose an “existential threat” to Israel — or to the United States for that matter. Any nuclear attack by Iran on Israel would result in a massive retaliation from Israel’s nuclear arsenal (obtained and maintained illegally, outside any international treaty or supervision). And even if Israel had no nukes, a nuclear attack by Tehran in the close quarters of the Middle East would rain deadly fallout back on Iran itself. Not to mention the distinct possibility of retaliation by the United States — or indeed Russia or any number of nuclear states who would feel threatened by this wanton, self-destructive act of nuclear aggression.
In any case, all of this speculation — every bit of it — is itself the purest fantasy. It is not going to happen — and our champions of liberty, justice and human rights who sit ensconced in the midst of thousands of nuclear weapons while directing wars of aggression – know it is not going to happen. The “Iranian threat,” as promulgated by the leaders of both parties in the United States, is the basest of falsehoods — as the promulgators themselves well know.
I realize it is deeply insulting to the intelligence of anyone with a modicum of intelligence to point out these glaringly, tediously obvious facts — but when you are dealing with the vast amount of crude, Nazi-like propaganda that daily inundates the American people on the subject of Iran, this kind of waste treatment is necessary.”
http://chris-floyd.com/articles/1-latest-news/1960-waste-management-congress-pushes-surge-in-ongoing-war-against-iran.html
3. “It is easy to discern the falsity of such a gesture of empathy: The notion that, in spite of political differences, we are all human beings with the same loves and worries, neutralizes the impact of what the soldier is effectively doing at that moment. The only proper reply of the mother should be to demand that the soldier address this question: “If you really are human like me, why are you doing what you are doing now?” The soldier can then only take refuge in reified duty: “I don’t like it, but these are my orders,” thus avoiding any responsibility for his actions.”
http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/5864/a_soft_focus_on_war
4. “Rabbis Condemn Israel for War Crimes Committed in Gaza
We affirm your findings and believe you set up an impeccable standard that presents strong evidence that during the war in Gaza Israel engaged in war crimes that revealed a pattern of continuous and systematic assault against Palestinian people and land that has very little to do with Israel’s claim of security. Your report made clear the intentional targeting of civilian infrastructures such as hospitals, schools, agricultural properties, water and sewage treatment centers and civilians themselves with deadly weapons that are illegal when used in civilian centers.
This is the ugly truth that is so hard for many Jewish people to face. Anyone who spends a day in Palestinian territories sees this truth immediately.”
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=18862
5. “The Pope, Pedophilia and the Class Struggle
War on global movement for justice
What role does the Vatican play in class society that is of particular value to U.S. imperialism?
While absolving, covering up and transferring thousands of priests who were guilty of child abuse, Pope Benedict XVI used his position for 25 years as head of the most powerful church institution, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, to remove from parishes, schools and all positions of authority thousands of priests, bishops and religious persons who were in any way progressive or concerned with advocating for the rights and dignity of poor and oppressed people.
Dissident Catholic theologians, teachers, writers and intellectuals were prevented from writing, publishing and teaching in church institutions. Bishops who attempted to use their authority for social change were investigated for loyalty and forced to resign. They were replaced by the most politically reactionary clergy who were concerned mainly with preserving religious authority and dogma.
This was a right-wing effort to stamp out a progressive religious current known as “liberation theology,” which sought to align the church with the liberation movements and anti-colonial and revolutionary struggles sweeping Africa, Asia and Latin America and the civil rights movement in the U.S.
Priests such as Father Camilo Torres in Colombia, who wrote, spoke and organized around the effort to unite revolutionary Marxism and Catholicism, were considered a direct threat to capitalist exploitation. Father Torres joined the armed struggle against the U.S.-supported dictatorship and died in combat.
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Faced with growing opposition on every level, this powerful institution that has for centuries protected the property and privilege of the Western ruling classes increasingly chose to elevate the most fanatically reactionary forces to do battle with those urging change, opening, equality and attention to the needs of the poor and oppressed.
Under Pope John Paul II and then Pope Benedict XVI, the Catholic Church was a staunch ally of U.S. imperialism opposing socialist construction in Eastern Europe. In turn the powerful U.S. media played an active role in promoting and giving favorable coverage to the church while demonizing Muslims and other religions of oppressed people.
In 2006 Pope Benedict gave Catholic support to the anti-Muslim propaganda that Washington had consciously enflamed in order to justify war and occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan. In a major papal address he quoted a 14th-century Byzantine emperor who said that the Prophet Muhammad had brought the world only “evil and inhuman things.”
The alliance with U.S. imperialism forced the Catholic Church to revive the most reactionary excesses of its own dark past. Members of groupings tied to death squads and military dictatorship throughout Latin America and to fascism and extreme reaction in Europe, such as the secretive Opus Dei and Legionnaires of Christ, were promoted to top offices in the Vatican and around the world.
Two fascist clerics, Josemaria Escrivá, who sided with Hitler during World War II and organized fascist gangs to hunt down communists and revolutionary trade unionists in Franco’s Spain, and Cardinal Aloysius Stepinac of Croatia, who helped establish extermination camps for Jews, Serbs and Roma people, were proposed for sainthood.
It is not a contradiction that priests who abused children were protected and hidden while those religious forces who sought to defend the rights of the oppressed and ally with their movements were forced to resign. Leniency to criminal thugs and harsh repression of progressives are two sides of the same class policy of defending the authority of the established hierarchy. The same approach played out on every social issue.”
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=18874
6. “(1) Several people are insisting that the problem of violence and threats by Muslims is far greater than, and thus not comparable to, those posed by Christians and Jews. This is just the same form of triabalistic, my-side-is-always-better blindness afflicting Douthat. Who could possibly look at the U.S. and conclude that brutal, inhumane, politically-motivated, designed-to-intimidate violence is a particular problem among Muslims, or that Muslims receive special, unfairly favorable treatment as a result of their intimidation? Do you mean except for the tens of thousands of Muslims whom the U.S. has imprisoned without charges for years, and the hundreds of thousands our wars and invasions and bombings have killed this decade alone, and the ones from around the world subjected to racial and ethnic profiling, and the ones we’ve tortured and shot up at checkpoints and are targeting for state-sponsored assassination?
(2) There’s no question that violence or threatened violence by Islamic radicals against authors, cartoonists and the like is a serious problem. But (a) simply click on the links above — or talk to workers in abortion clinics about the climate in which they work — and try to justify how you can, with a straight face, claim it’s not very pervasive among extremists and fanatics generally, and (b) avoid exaggerating the problem. The group that threatened the South Park creators is a tiny, fringe group founded by a former right-wing Jewish-American settler in the West Bank who converted to Islam and spends most of his time harrassing American Muslims (the former “James Cohen”; h/t Archtype); they’re about as representative of Muslims generally as Fred Phelps and these people are representative of Christians. Moreover, numerous blogs displayed the Mohammed cartoons and plan to do so again; the notion that the Western World is cowering in abject fear from Muslim intimidation is absurdly overblown.”
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/04/26/douthat/index.html
7. “Behind the Arizona Immigration Law:
GOP Game to Swipe the November Election
Our investigation in Arizona discovered the real intent of the show-me-your-papers law.
Don’t be fooled. The way the media plays the story, it was a wave of racist, anti-immigrant hysteria that moved Arizona Republicans to pass a sick little law, signed last week, requiring every person in the state to carry papers proving they are US citizens.
I don’t buy it. Anti-Hispanic hysteria has always been as much a part of Arizona as the Saguaro cactus and excessive air-conditioning.
What’s new here is not the politicians’ fear of a xenophobic “Teabag” uprising.
What moved GOP Governor Jan Brewer to sign the Soviet-style show-me-your-papers law is the exploding number of legal Hispanics, US citizens all, who are daring to vote — and daring to vote Democratic by more than two-to-one. Unless this demographic locomotive is halted, Arizona Republicans know their party will soon be electoral toast. Or, if you like, tortillas.
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The illegal voters, “wetback” welfare moms, and alien job thieves are just GOP website wet-dreams, but their mythic PR power helps the party’s electoral hacks chop away at voter rolls and civil rights with little more than a whimper from the Democrats.
Indeed, one reason, I discovered, that some Democrats are silent is that they are in on the game themselves. In New Mexico, Democratic Party bosses tossed away ballots of Pueblo Indians to cut native influence in party primaries.
But what’s wrong with requiring folks to prove they’re American if the want to vote and live in America? The answer: because the vast majority of perfectly legal voters and residents who lack ID sufficient for Ms. Brewer and Mr. Pearce are citizens of color, citizens of poverty.“
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article25320.htm
8. “
That’s a serious question, which brings me to reason number three for letting secesh secede. It’s not exactly a secret that the folks who want to split from the union today (as before) are the ones with the nastiest, most backward politics in the country, and would therefore hardly represent a loss to the rest of us. Worst of all, though, because they are aggressive and skilled at hard-ball politics, they are also the folks who hold leadership positions in the US government, way out of proportion to their numbers. Which means that their lousy politics get nationalized for all of us to enjoy. Thinking I’m kidding? Do these names mean anything to you?: Bush, Cheney, DeLay, Palin, McCain, Armey, Clinton, McConnell, Gingrich, Lott, Frist, Rove, Atwater, Thurmond, Helms. and so on… For years now, these fine folks have been working to turn the USA into Mississippi, rather than the other way around.
And they’ve succeeded. So now that they’re talking about seceding, I’m wondering exactly what the down-side is. It’s not like we in the would-be rump United States will lose revenue or something. In fact, the opposite is true. The folks who bitch the most about the oppressive heavy hand of Washington are always the same ones whose states are net recipients of federal funds. Which makes the rest of us net payers. And, I’m sorry, I don’t mind helping out my comrades (even in Texas) who need an assist here and there. But not if they’re going to have stupid and regressive policies. And especially not if the price of my assistance is having them insist we all have stupid and regressive policies. And really, totally, especially not if they’re going to complain about how tough it is being forced to receive and spend my tax dollars.
I’m dead serious, then, when I say good riddance to the tea party and GOP dominated states and their backward societies. If they want to secede from the union, we should encourage them. We in the progressive states will then be free to actually make thoughtful public policy decisions for once, without all this painful catering to absolutely obstinate regressive politicians. They, meanwhile, can set up their ideal Republic of Jesus. They can toss out science and do supersti… – sorry, I mean religion – instead, as the basis for their education system and other policy decisions. They can spend all their money on the military and eat pork rinds all day long. They can cut their lazy seniors off the Social Security and Medicare dole, and put them to work in coal mines right up until the day they die. It will be good for their character! They can oppress women and minorities and gays just as much as they need to in order to feel better about their sorry selves, and then watch what happens when all those folks split for better places, like where we live. (Watch out, though – we may borrow their repressive immigration policies to keep them out of Intelligent America. We’ll treat regressives like they treat poor Mexican immigrants, and wouldn’t that alone be worth the price of admission?)
I’d like nothing more, to be honest, than to see those two new polities, side by side, conduct a little living experiment in social science. Let’s all come back ten, thirty and fifty years later and compare notes. Let’s see who is succeeding and who is just seceding, whose policy ideas work, and whose don’t.
But there’s one little problem, of course. There wouldn’t just be two new polities – there would be more. In some ways, the best thing that happened to the Confederacy was to lose the war, because otherwise, like any good confederal polity, they would have immediately had to struggle with the massive problems of a pathetically weak central government. It’s the same built-in disaster that caused the Founders to ditch the Articles of Confederation after about a decade or so of failure under its structure, opting instead for the horrifyingly repressive federalism model of the Constitution instead.
Let’s say the South were to secede tomorrow, and establish Richmond as the capital of the new Confederate States of America. Not only would those boneheads immediately realize that none of their problems were solved by ditching Washington, and not only would they see that their problems and standard of living just got worse without us to carry them anymore, but they would also still be dealing with the same old power issues, only with worse outcomes. Richmond would try to give orders to Texas, only to find Texas flipping them a very nice little states’ rights birdie in response. It might even get deeper than that. Maybe southern Florida would split from the northern half of the state. Secession on secession. And so on. What an accomplishment, eh?
If it sounds like I’m laughing at these tea party buffoons and their secession rants, it’s because I am.”
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article25315.htm
