Just Shut Up And Listen

17 minutes that started continued some pretty momentous change.  The prospect of change (and the agents of that change) proved so scary and dangerous that the authoritarian assholes among us moved quickly to try to kill it.



The problems King was trying to tell us about haven't gone away.

Here's one of the more imprtant points from a longer talk by Tim Wise - I've put this one up a coupla times before, and I'll keep going back to it until I can recite it verbatim:



It's about what's fair vs what's unfair.  It's about getting USAmerica Inc to live up to its promises, and to stand by its word.  It's about demanding "the power" to behave like regular human beings.

We should never expect anything more, and we must never accept anything less.

And also too - if this doesn't apply to you, then why're you gettin' all bent outa shape about it?

Today's Worst

Seems like every other day or so, something pops up about something I've really loved for a long time that makes me have to consider blowin' it off for a while or telling it to take a flying fuck at a rollin' doughnut.

The world just kinda sucks right now.

Some Charts

So Obamacare isn't quite the disaster we were told it would be.  In fact, it's begininning to work very much like it's supposed to work, which isn't as good as it could be, but a shitload better than what we had before.

More people have coverage, which means the risk is spread thinner, which means the average cost goes down some, which means more people can get coverage, which means etc etc etc - gee it's almost as if there's some kind of Basic Principle Of Economics at work or something.

Anyway, The Commonwealth Fund did their survey, and guess what:

For the first time there are fewer working people without coverage.
For the first time, there are fewer working people struggling to pay their doctor bills.
For the first time, there are fewer working people putting off a visit to the doctor due to cost.

For the first fucking time - seems vaguely significant to me.

And yet it still seems like we've got a particular bunch of rat-bastard politicians trying to pull a very standard maneuver - where they fuck something up and then stand aside and say, "Hey look everybody - it's all fucked up.  We need to trash this thing and start over" 

("so we can take the credit for solving a problem we caused in the first fucking place" - that's the part you don't ever say out loud).

These people have no soul and no honor.

hat tip = Democratic Underground

Happy National Religious Freedom Day, Everybody

From a proclamation by The Prez in 2014:

In 1786, the Virginia General Assembly affirmed an ideal that has long been central to the American journey. The Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, penned by Thomas Jefferson, declared religious liberty a natural right and any attempt to subvert it "a departure from the plan of the Holy Author of our religion, who being Lord both of body and mind, yet chose not to propagate it by coercions on either." The Statute inspired religious liberty protections in the First Amendment, which has stood for almost two and a quarter centuries.

Today, America embraces people of all faiths and of no faith. We are Christians and Jews, Muslims and Hindus, Buddhists and Sikhs, atheists and agnostics. Our religious diversity enriches our cultural fabric and reminds us that what binds us as one is not the tenets of our faiths, the colors of our skin, or the origins of our names. What makes us American is our adherence to shared ideals -- freedom, equality, justice, and our right as a people to set our own course.

Thomas Jefferson was asked what he tho't were his greatest achievements, and he listed his big 3:

Conspicuously absent are things like Minister to France, Sec'y of State, President of the United States. You know - the small stuff.

But it's that 2nd one that makes it all really shine.  We have a legitimate claim to being exceptional because we broke free from the cynical manipulations of politicians that grow from the arbitrary bullshit of religion and religious authoritarianism.

An Act for establishing religious Freedom.

Whereas, Almighty God hath created the mind free;

That all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burthens, or by civil incapacitations tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and therefore are a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, who being Lord, both of body and mind yet chose not to propagate it by coercions on either, as was in his Almighty power to do,

That the impious presumption of legislators and rulers, civil as well as ecclesiastical, who, being themselves but fallible and uninspired men have assumed dominion over the faith of others, setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible, and as such endeavouring to impose them on others, hath established and maintained false religions over the greatest part of the world and through all time;

That to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions, which he disbelieves is sinful and tyrannical;

That even the forcing him to support this or that teacher of his own religious persuasion is depriving him of the comfortable liberty of giving his contributions to the particular pastor, whose morals he would make his pattern, and whose powers he feels most persuasive to righteousness, and is withdrawing from the Ministry those temporary rewards, which, proceeding from an approbation of their personal conduct are an additional incitement to earnest and unremitting labours for the instruction of mankind;

That our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions any more than our opinions in physics or geometry,

That therefore the proscribing any citizen as unworthy the public confidence, by laying upon him an incapacity of being called to offices of trust and emolument, unless he profess or renounce this or that religious opinion, is depriving him injuriously of those privileges and advantages, to which, in common with his fellow citizens, he has a natural right,

That it tends only to corrupt the principles of that very Religion it is meant to encourage, by bribing with a monopoly of worldly honours and emoluments those who will externally profess and conform to it;

That though indeed, these are criminal who do not withstand such temptation, yet neither are those innocent who lay the bait in their way;

That to suffer the civil magistrate to intrude his powers into the field of opinion and to restrain the profession or propagation of principles on supposition of their ill tendency is a dangerous fallacy which at once destroys all religious liberty because he being of course judge of that tendency will make his opinions the rule of judgment and approve or condemn the sentiments of others only as they shall square with or differ from his own;

That it is time enough for the rightful purposes of civil government, for its officers to interfere when principles break out into overt acts against peace and good order;

And finally, that Truth is great, and will prevail if left to herself, that she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict, unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons free argument and debate, errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them:

Be it enacted by General Assembly that no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief, but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of Religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge or affect their civil capacities. And though we well know that this Assembly elected by the people for the ordinary purposes of Legislation only, have no power to restrain the acts of succeeding Assemblies constituted with powers equal to our own, and that therefore to declare this act irrevocable would be of no effect in law; yet we are free to declare, and do declare that the rights hereby asserted, are of the natural rights of mankind, and that if any act shall be hereafter passed to repeal the present or to narrow its operation, such act will be an infringement of natural right.

It's all about the freedom to think.  Like the man said, "for I have sworn upon the altar of god eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."

Welcome To Pottersville

It's Russia TV, but the truth is what the truth is.

Know Your Rights: Medical, Dental and Mental Health Care (2012 resource): Prison officials are obligated under the Eighth Amendment to provide prisoners with adequate medical care. This principle applies regardless of whether the medical care is provided by governmental employees or by private medical staff under contract with the government.

Know Your Rights: Publications Sent by Mail (2012 Resource): Restrictions on prisoners’ access to publications cannot be arbitrary; they must be “reasonably related to legitimate penological interests.” That said, in practice, courts often will accept the judgment of prison authorities in deciding whether censoring a publication is reasonable.

Know Your Rights: Legal Rights of Disabled Prisoners (2012 Resource): Statutes exist under both the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) to protect the rights of prisoners with disabilities.

LA County Jails: The ACLU has served as a court-appointed monitor of the L.A. Country jails since 1985. During this time, the ACLU and the ACLU of Southern California have documented overcrowding, unsanitary conditions and extreme abuse of inmates at the hands of deputies. The ACLU is working to expose and put an end to the unconstitutional conditions and ongoing climate of violence the nation’s largest jail system.

Stop Solitary - The Dangerous Overuse of Solitary Confinement in the United States: Over the last two decades corrections systems have increasingly relied on solitary confinement as a prison management tool – even building entire institutions called “supermax prisons” where prisoners are held in conditions of extreme isolation, sometimes for years or decades. But solitary confinement jeopardizes our public safety, is fundamentally inhumane and wastes taxpayer dollars. We must insist on humane and more cost-effective methods of punishment and prison management.

Nice Work If You Can Get It

Per military.com:

At least 184 Humvees, 58 tanks and nearly 700 other vehicles have been destroyed or damaged in the more than 1,600 airstrike missions that have hit more than 3,200 ISIS targets in Iraq and Syria since bombing began last Aug. 8, the U.S. Central Command said Wednesday.

In addition, a total of 26 MRAP (Mine Resistant Ambush Protected) vehicles and armored personnel carriers, 79 artillery and mortar positions, and 673 infantry fighting positions were destroyed, CentCom officials said.

An unknown number of Humvees, M1A1 Abrams tanks and MRAPs were captured by ISIS when Iraqi national security forces fled and abandoned their equipment as ISIS swept into Iraq last June.

The formula for success in American Capitalism is pretty simple - at least it is in certain sectors of our economy, and once you've managed to put in place the basics of the incestuous Revolving Door setup that's been cultivated since before WW2:

Military Brass at the Pentagon recruited and groomed for executive positions at Big Defense once they "retire"

plus

Lobbyists who are almost invariably former and/or future Staffers at the Pentagon or in Congress

plus

Coin-Operated Politicians who collect monster campaign donations from Big Defense in return for their influence when it comes time to "appropriate" the Tera-Bucks for all the National Security shit we need in order to fend off invaders from anywhere from Ulan Bator to Alpha Centauri.

plus

The Press Poodles necessary to keep us confused as to who should be held responsible for fucking us with our pants on - paralyzing us in the middle with the Both Sides Narrative

But once in a while we hear the story I quoted above, and it gets a little clearer that some of these jokers are playing an even simpler and much shorter version of the game.

1) Sell large quantities of materiel to the Federal Government in order to supply "our friends" (Iraq, Syria, etc) with the means to defend themselves, making sure of course all that gear is not the latest and greatest.

2) Wait for "our friends" to lose all that gear to ISIS (eg) - we all knew that was gonna happen, but hey, how do we just sit around and do nothing blah blah blah.

3) Send in the air strikes that destroy the gear, which makes it necessary to supply more gear, which makes it necessary to destroy more gear as it falls into the wrong hands - and which also makes it vital to develop even better gear for ourselves, because - remember(?) what if that gear falls into the wrong hands!?! (and then begin again at #1 above).

What They Don't Tell Ya

"They" want us to believe (need us to believe, actually) that this:

...was an integral part of this:

 ...and this:

But it wasn't.

It was staged.  Hard for me to imagine anything sadder...

...except for how the "conservatives" are busy slagging Obama for not going there himself, and/or for not sending some high-profile representative, but c'mon, guys - if he was there, you'd be slagging him for doing another phony photo-op.  Get some new material - you're making this too easy.

hat tip = Little Green Footballs

Trying

Trying not to laugh while trying not to cry while trying not to puke, while trying to figure out how to make sense of these 1st World Problems of Privilege.

Ohio State wins the big game (beat the snot outa the Ducks), and it came as no surprise to anyone when the Traditional Celebratory Riot soon followed.


And so also too, I just can't resist:  When will the moderates of White Middle Class America step up and not only take full responsibility for the actions of their people - but take it upon themselves to eradicate the violent behavior of the Young-Adult-ish Extremists among them?

Today's Irony

NYPD Edition:

What's Next

A gazillion people turned out in Paris for a rally to show support for Charlie Hebdo, and now the magazine is set to pop their latest edition with this cover art:

Way to go, guys.

From The Guardian:

Zineb El Rhazoui, a surviving columnist at Charlie Hebdo magazine who worked on the new issue, said the cover was a call to forgive the terrorists who murdered her colleagues last week, saying she did not feel hate towards Chérif and Saïd Kouachi despite their deadly attack on the magazine, and urged Muslims to accept humour.

“We don’t feel any hate to them. We know that the struggle is not with them as people, but the struggle is with an ideology,” she told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

The two gunmen who launched the attack on the magazine’s offices last Wednesday killed five of France’s top cartoonists, saying that they wanted to avenge the prophet for Charlie Hebdo’s satire of him.

The grieving journalists who survived the murderous assault promised it would be business as usual at the weekly publication.

--and-- 

Asked to explain the magazine’s front cover, which features a cartoon of a crying Muhammad wearing a “Je suis Charlie” badge under the heading “All is forgiven”, Rhazoui said: “We feel that we have to forgive what happened. I think those who have been killed, if they would have been able to have a coffee today with the terrorists and just talk to ask them why have they done this … We feel at the Charlie Hebdo team that we need to forgive.”

So the exercise for a while will be to find as many Radical Islamist websites as possible (harder than I tho't), and post one of Charlie Hebdo's cartoons in the comments section.  

(Is it weird that Googling "islamist assholes" only gets a list of blogs here in the US where all they ever do is hate on Muslims?  Yeah, OK - I don't think it's weird either.  Just checking.)

Which BTW should remind us that this is about pushing back against a shitty ideology, and not about fucking up the everyday people who get bamboozled (or bullied) into going along with a shitty ideology.