Twelfth Bough

i run my own damn think tank

Archive for December, 2007

Superlatively Thin Skin

Dec 20

Posted by Marlena in Corruption & Crime, Politics, Psychology, Stupidity | No Comments

Mike Huckabee fascinates me. Apparently I’m not the only one. In the latest installment on Faire Huckabee, we will examine his micron thin skin and vindictive streak.

Max Brantley, the editor of the alternative weekly Arkansas Times, has feuded with Mike Huckabee since the presidential candidate first appeared on the political stage during his failed 1992 Senate run. A liberal columnist married to a circuit judge appointed by Bill Clinton, Brantley penned weekly columns antagonizing Huckabee for his staunchly conservative social views, opaque campaign finance disclosures, and acceptance of gifts during his time in office. “Huckabee would believe I covered him obsessively, and he’d be right about that,” Brantley says.

Fair enough.

In a series of unpublished private letters dating to the mid-’90s that Huckabee faxed to Brantley, a surprising–and furious–side of the former governor comes through. The four letters, which Brantley provided to The New Republic, are multi-page, rambling, and highly personal attacks that Huckabee wrote while in Arkansas office. In them, he excoriates the journalist, referring to the Arkansas Times as “a local version of the National Enquirer,” a “collection of carping columnists,” a “newsletter for the Democrats,” an “irrelevant irritant” and the “Theater of the Absurd,” among other sobriquets.

And Brantley was not alone. Reporters recall Huckabee as combative, even malicious, in response to critical coverage. He was known to attack reporters, fire off scathing e-mails to newsrooms, and complain to editors about probing questions. “I was just astounded at how vindictive he was,” says Joan Duffy, who covered Huckabee for The Commercial Appeal of Memphis in the ’90s. “He took it all so personally. . . . You’re either with him, or you’re a mortal enemy.”

Looks like he has precarious control over his own temper. I think we can safely predict some colorful snappage sooner or later.

It could be that, when it comes to media relations, Huckabee is finally in good hands. But talk to enough reporters who really got to know him, and you begin to suspect that his curiously unthreatening demeanor may not last.

In addition, Huckabee holds a very high opinion of himself and his own righteousness. Notice his definition of ethics: whatever feels right.

Many reporters who have covered Huckabee believe his reticence to answer critical questions is a result of his experiences as a Southern Baptist leader. When Huckabee faced scrutiny, he exuded an infallibility that frustrated reporters. “He has a religious thing going on and usually thinks he’s in the right,” Brummett says. Rob Moritz, a reporter for the Arkansas News Bureau, recalls that Huckabee retreated from tough questions into moral certitude: “During the ethics questions, he would tell reporters, ‘I don’t see a problem here. I can lay my head on the pillow and get a good night sleep.’ “

Jonathan Weil, a columnist for Bloomberg News, covered Huckabee for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette in the late 1990s and broke a series of stories about both Huckabee’s use of a private plane during a campaign and payments received from the nonprofit group Action America. “He was constantly getting in the press for taking small amounts of money where it just didn’t look right,” Weil recalls. “To a lot of people, it didn’t look becoming of a governor. And his answer was that ethics isn’t following rules, it’s what in your heart.”

How convenient. I think if given enough rope, with any luck, Mike Huckabee will hang himself.

.

The State of Afghanistan

Dec 20

Posted by Marlena in Afghanistan, Corruption & Crime, Injustice, Iraq, Politics | 1 Comment

I don’t read much fiction, but I read both The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini this fall. They are wonderful books. To have heard that Afghanis have known little but suffering for decades is one thing; to read such powerful stories about them is quite another. Sadly, that continues even after the US decided to “help” them.

More than six years after the US-led invasion of Afghanistan, two recently released reports have again demonstrated the falsehood of the Bush administration’s claims to be helping the Afghan people. The social indices on literacy, life expectancy and food availability contained in the reports provide an insight into the terrible social crisis confronting millions of Afghans. [emphasis in original]

…The SENLIS Council report “Stumbling Into Chaos, Afghanistan on the Brink” examines the reasons behind the growing armed insurgency against the US-led occupation. In doing so, however, the think tank is compelled to consider the anger and hostility generated by the country’s social crisis, endemic official corruption and broken promises of international aid.

The report quoted a doctor at the Bost Hospital in Lashkar Gar who explained: “If the international community has sent aid to Helmand province I haven’t seen this. There are 25,000 refugees in the camps around Helmand. Not a single person has spoken of food aid delivery. In some districts there are not even any medical clinics; these were destroyed as a result of the fighting between the Taliban and the international forces.

“I don’t think anyone is getting any aid whatsoever. We gave the British ambassador and Members of Parliament a list of all the hospital’s needs. We haven’t heard anything from them since. We have not received the medicines they promised, nor have we received the equipment or anything else they promised us.”

The reality of these people’s lives has been reduced to begging and/or growing drug crops:

“I cannot provide for my family; I don’t have any work and I am ill. My eldest son is only three years old. My mother is begging for food. Only the people at the mosque collect some money for us,” one said.

“We don’t receive any help, no aid whatsoever. My family and I don’t have anything to eat. We have no shelter and no drinking water. We can only get some water from the houses around the camp. We are forced to move from one place to the other,” the second explained.

The only flourishing industry in Afghanistan is the illicit growth and trade in opium. Forced to find a means of feeding their families, many farmers have turned to growing opium poppies. So widespread and all pervasive is the drug trade that Afghanistan is often referred to as a “narco-state”.

According to the 2007 Afghanistan Human Development Report, between 80-90 percent of economic activity occurs within the “informal” sector. “The estimated area upon which poppy cultivation is taking place in Afghanistan increased by 59 percent,” it stated. Afghanistan is believed to produce about 90 percent of the world’s supply of illegal heroin.

According to the 2007 opium survey conducted by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, cannabis cultivation has also risen 40 percent this year. In an Associated Press article last month, a farmer explained: “The government cannot provide a good market for other crops like cotton, watermelon and vegetables, so I have to grow marijuana instead of poppy.”

Another farmer Akbar Khan said: “We know marijuana is an illegal crop, but we are very poor and we have to grow it to help our families survive. I don’t like growing poppy or marijuana. I don’t want people to become addicted to these things, but I have to feed my children and I have no other way.”

Britain, which is responsible for trying to eradicate opium production, is seeking to find ways of encouraging farmers to grow legal crops - such efforts have been tried and failed before. Washington, however, is pressing for poppy fields to be destroyed from the air. If that takes place on a wide scale, many farming communities will be left without any livelihood at all. Already there have been complaints of opium crops being destroyed.

While information and statistics remain scanty, the two reports constitute a devastating indictment of the Bush administration’s invasion, which has compounded, not alleviated the crisis facing the Afghan population.

It’s not for nothing that Afghanistan has been turned into a narco-state. If you’ve never investigated the War on Drugs in America, this is as good a place as any to start.

Catching up

Dec 19

Posted by Marlena in Economy, Psychology | No Comments

What a day. I try to keep the Christmas consumer-fest to a minimum, but I really couldn’t put things off any longer. One of my kids had no presents as of this morning, so I had to fix that by bumping into obnoxious people every ten minutes for a few hours.

I’m still wading through news, but this story really pushes my buttons.

Three Florida fruit-pickers, held captive and brutalised by their employer for more than a year, finally broke free of their bonds by punching their way through the ventilator hatch of the van in which they were imprisoned. Once outside, they dashed for freedom.

When they found sanctuary one recent Sunday morning, all bore the marks of heavy beatings to the head and body. One of the pickers had a nasty, untreated knife wound on his arm. Police would learn later that another man had his hands chained behind his back every night to prevent him escaping, leaving his wrists swollen.

The migrants were not only forced to work in sub-human conditions but mistreated and forced into debt. They were locked up at night and had to pay for sub-standard food. If they took a shower with a garden hose or bucket, it cost them $5.

Their story of slavery and abuse in the fruit fields of sub-tropical Florida threatens to lift the lid on some appalling human rights abuses in America today.

Between December and May, Florida produces virtually the entire US crop of field-grown fresh tomatoes. Fruit picked here in the winter months ends up on the shelves of supermarkets and is also served in the country’s top restaurants and in tens of thousands of fast-food outlets.

But conditions in the state’s fruit-picking industry range from straightforward exploitation to forced labour. Tens of thousands of men, women and children – excluded from the protection of America’s employment laws and banned from unionising – work their fingers to the bone for rates of pay which have hardly budged in 30 years.

The article goes into much more detail about these workers and the Navarettes, the family that owns the farm. The Navarettes have been treating these other human beings like caged animals.

The men had to pay to live in the back of vans and for food. Their entire pay cheques went to the Navarettes and they were still in debt. They slept in decrepit sheds and vehicles in a yard littered with rubbish. When one man did not want to go to work because he was sick, he was allegedly pushed and kicked by the Navarettes. “They physically loaded him in the van and made him go to work that day. Cesar, Geovanni and Martin Navarette beat him up and as a result he was bleeding in his mouth,” a grand jury was told.

The complaint reveals that the men were forced to pay rent of $20 (£10) a week to sleep in a locked furniture van where they had no option but to urinate and defecate in a corner. They had to pay $50 a week for meals – mostly rice and beans with meat perhaps twice a week if they were lucky. The fruit-pickers’ caravans, which they share with up to 15 other men, rent for $2,400 a month – more per square foot than a New York apartment – and are less than 10 minutes’ walk from the hiring fair where the men show up before sunrise. At least half those who come looking for work are not taken on.

What kind of people treat other human beings this way? Well, we know the answer to that. They have accomplices in the food industry, notably Burger King and Whole Foods. I’ve written about the very precious Whole Foods Market before. Today we find them opposing a penny per pound wage increase for these Immokalee laborers.

Burger King is not the only buyer digging in its heels. Whole Foods Market, which recently expanded into Britain with a store in London’s upmarket suburb of Kensington, has been discovered stocking tomatoes from one of the most notorious Florida sweatshop producers. Whole Foods ignored an appeal by the Coalition of Immokalee Workers to pay an extra penny a pound for its tomatoes.

In a statement Whole Foods said it was “committed to supporting and promoting economically, environmentally, and socially sustainable agriculture” and supports “the right of all workers to be treated fairly and humanely.”

Such lip service. Whole Foods caters to upscale suburban shoppers, but they don’t want to pay a penny more per pound for their tomatoes. This country is so fake. It’s all about appearances. I saw more women today dressed up to go shopping: high heeled shoes and boots, long coats, sunglasses, shiny hair, bored pouty faces, expensive pocketbooks, SUVs. I encountered people blocking aisles, completely unconcerned that they were inconveniencing others and making no effort whatsoever to be considerate. I saw people with giant mounds of clothing in their shopping baskets. I know several people with dozens each of shirts, pants, sweaters and shoes for every person in the family. It’s just completely exasperating.

When we go shopping, we need to ask ourselves questions like, “Why is this so cheap?” and “Why is this so expensive?” If these inanimate things we buy could talk, they would be screaming out and the shelves dripping blood from all the injustices committed to bring our products to market. All those pouty mouthed bitches would abandon their shopping carts, race home in their SUVs and stick their heads under their pillows.

Hard as Nails Ministry

Dec 19

Posted by Marlena in Psychology, Religion | No Comments

HBO did a documentary and Nightline previewed it on Justin Fatica, an young Catholic man who has started up his own brand of youth ministry: Hard as Nails Ministry. ABC article here; eight minute video here.

Honestly, I’m not sure what I think about this. On the one hand, watching him made me feel emotionally confused, and I always pay attention to that feeling because it’s a red flag. Having spent much time developing my own faith in my secret inner life, I can’t watch this without wincing. I don’t at all like the evangelical postures: people with hands raised, touchy-feeley God on the outside business. To the best of my knowledge, a person has to be very patient and mindful of God over a period of many years before he or she can even begin to show God on the outside. And it doesn’t look like that. This process has been described by various saints and is known to people today mainly through their writings. Two that I have become very familiar with are The Interior Castle by Teresa of Avila and The Dark Night of the Soul by John of the Cross. I have read both of these books many times. The process of knowing God is an obscure, mysterious journey in which the person remains largely groping and powerless. The main requirement is not to give up while God does the work. Metaphors like the castle and the night help us comprehend and map out the powerful journey.

That is not to say that some people cannot jump through what’s generally considered a long process very quickly, but that would be unusual. So on the other hand, it’s true that the spiritual journey starts with juicy feelings about God.

The grace of God is just like a loving mother. Grace kindles in the soul renewed warmth and ardor for serving God. Through grace, the soul discovers sweet spiritual milk and effortlessly drinks in all the things of God. Through grace, God gives the soul intense delight in spiritual practices, just as a loving mother places her breast tenderly into the mouth of her child…Even though she may tend ernestly to her spiritual practice, the beginner notices that she is spiritually weak and imperfect. This is because she is still motivated to engage in spiritual practices because of the comforts and pleasures they yield. She has not yet been galvanized by the powerful struggle to live the true virtues. A soul only achieves perfection in proportion to the perfect habits she has cultivated. The beginner has not practices long enough to hone her spiritual skills, so she still works feebly, like a child. Dark Night of the Soul, p. 36

Beginners suffer various imperfections which must be purified. The process by which God purifies us feels like he has gone away. During this time of hidden spiritual growth, many people who started out having an excitement about God give up because they don’t think they are making any progress. This is the Night of Sense, a time of preparation for much deeper spiritual growth, the Night of Spirit.

So what is Justin Fatica doing with these kids? I think these kids, like many kids everywhere, do not understand much about love. They probably find church boring. They have been inured to violence through our culture. They may abuse themselves with drugs and sex. He gets their attention by meeting them where they’re at. If that horrifies us, and it does me, let us note that. These kids are not in a good place, and that’s why it shocks us to see that his violent, in your face style connects with them. That’s what our culture has wrought. He’s meeting them in the dark and taking them to the very beginning of the spiritual journey. It’s what happens next that really matters.

Will these teenagers stay on the journey through the inevitable difficulties? Will someone explain to them that spiritual growth passes through many stages, and they are at Stage 1? Will they continue to love God and remember God even when they can’t feel him anymore?

The reason church seems quiet and boring is because it has evolved to reflect the later stages of spiritual development, the inner stages. The fact that people progress through various stages does much to explain the many styles of worship within Catholicism. Some people like no music, some like rock music, some like choirs…in my experience churches and even different masses within a church will sort out by noise level. People are attracted to worship that meets them where they’re at and hopefully takes them a little further. Notice that monks live in silence and chant. Outside the monastery we have children’s masses, youth masses, folk masses, high masses and everything in between to meet the needs of people worshiping.

Despite my reservations about Justin Fatica, I think maybe he is onto something. People simply do not understand love. I remember very vividly the moment that I understood it, when I held my very first child for the very first time. I was already 31 years old. Before that time I had done many stupid and dangerous things because I did not understand anything about love. My parents gave me an excellent and loving upbringing, but for some reason I just didn’t get it. When my daughter was born, suddenly, and I mean like a bolt of lightning, I understood so many things and immediately became overcome with remorse and gratitude. So I completely understand how kids can fail to grasp that they are loved. If Justin Fatica can make that connection, I think he should. And somebody better be there to guide those kids for at least the next five years.

Mr. Chatterbox

Dec 18

Posted by Marlena in Bush/Cheney, Economy, Language & Meaning, Unreality | No Comments

Bush made some comments about the economy at a town hall-style Q&A meeting. I think he means to reassure the folks.

“This economy is pretty good. There’s definitely some storm clouds and concerns, but the underpinning is good, and we’ll work our way through this period,” Bush said in a town hall-style question and answer session here.

The US president’s comments came as part of a defense of his economic policies, especially the giant tax cuts of his first term, which he says stimulated the US economy out of a downturn, while critics note that they have fed a soaring US national debt.

Bush also acknowledged anxiety about a crisis in the once-booming US housing market, saying: “I am concerned, I know you’re concerned, about the housing industry — we all should be.”

“We’ve been building a lot of homes, and all of a sudden fewer buyers are showing up. And it’s going to take a while to work through the housing bubble, but we can mitigate some of the issues,” he said.

…“I hope you can tell I’m an optimistic fellow. We’ve been through a lot over the last seven years, we really have. But I’m absolutely convinced this country is strong and vibrant,” said Bush.

Who the hell is he talking to?

Storm clouds on the horizon?

We’ve been building homes and now, all of a sudden, without any warning, surprising me no end, just like that buyers stopped showing up.

Oh dear. But WE can do it. Yes WE can. I say, all WE have to do is keep smiling and being very chipper and optimistic and sure enough those storm clouds will pass us by, yes indeed, yes they will, I am sure of it.

The Tail Wags the Dog

Dec 18

Posted by Marlena in Bush/Cheney, Corruption & Crime, Israel | No Comments

Scott Ritter has some choice words about Israel and the US/Israeli relationship. He begins by expressing how much he admires the Israelis.

As a weapons inspector I made numerous visits to Israel for the purpose of coordinating with the Israeli intelligence community on matters pertaining to Iraqi WMD. I was greatly impressed not only with the professionalism of the Israeli intelligence services, but also with the Israeli people and society. During my time in Israel, I was witness to numerous horrific events, including several terrorist bombings and the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. The resilience of the people of Israel in absorbing these blows yet continuing to live life to its fullest was remarkable, and worthy of admiration.

But without belaboring that point, he goes on to strongly, justly and accurately criticize the Israeli government and the “special friendship” that the United States and Israel share.

As a firsthand witness to the remarkable vigor of the Israeli state and its people, and as someone who considers himself to be their friend, it saddens me to see just how poorly the current Israeli government returns this friendship, not to me personally, but to my country, the United States of America. The government of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has embarked on policies that are questionable at best when one examines them from a purely Israeli standpoint; they are nothing less than a betrayal of the United States when examined from a broader perspective.

The insidious manner in which the current Israeli government has manipulated the domestic political machinery of the United States to produce support for its policies constitutes nothing less than direct interference in the governance of a sovereign state. The degree to which the current Israeli government has succeeded in this regard can be tracked not only by the words and actions of the administration of President George W. Bush and the American Congress, but also by the extent to which a pro-Israel lexicon has taken hold within the mainstream media of the United States. Witness the pro-Israel bias displayed when discussing the situation in southern Lebanon, the air strike in Syria, or the Iranian situation, and the retarding of any effort toward a responsible discussion of anything dealing with Israel becomes apparent.

One would expect such efforts to shape the domestic public opinion of a state deemed hostile, but when the target of these Israeli actions is its ostensible best friend, one must begin to question whether or not the friendship is a one-way street. And if this is indeed the case, then perhaps it is time for the United States to reconsider its decades-old policy of strategic partnership with Israel.

He makes several very critical observations: The Bush Administration enables Israel; Israel’s nuclear program is the core source of instability in the region; and Israel has become completely intolerant and self-absorbed. He concludes that the US/Israeli relationship must be totally reexamined.

It is time for what those who are familiar with dependency issues would term an intervention. Like a child too long spoiled by an inattentive parent, Israel has grown accustomed to American largess, to the point that it is addicted to an American aid package that is largely responsible for keeping the Israeli economy afloat. This aid must be reconsidered in its entirety. The day of the free ride must come to an end. The United States must redefine its national security priorities in the Middle East and position Israel accordingly. At the very least, American aid must be linked to Israeli behavior modification. The standards America applies to other nations around the world when it comes to receiving aid must likewise apply to Israel.

I highly recommend reading the whole thing. Ritter makes a powerful, withering analysis of the special friendship, and I completely agree with his conclusions. However, the dysfunction pervades our side of the relationship as well. Relationships take two parties, and as the enabler, the US has decided to pay out a lot of line to Israel. It will not be a simple thing to reel that line back in. I don’t know that it’s even possible given the powerful interests and vengeful attacks arrayed against anyone who so much as tries.

Ritter acknowledges as much, but I’m struck by his matter-of-fact noting of this intractable problem. He points it out as if to say, oh by the way, we need to fix this. So maybe it can be fixed. Perhaps events have finally neared the tipping point. Perhaps enough people have become sick of insane leaders that a change will be forced. Maybe it’s just wishful thinking on my part, but Scott Ritter has been right on a number of important things, to the bitter chagrin of the pro-war crowd. I hope he’s right about this, too.

The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree

Dec 17

Posted by Marlena in Corruption & Crime, Media, Politics, Psychology, Unreality | 1 Comment

Mosey over here and look at this picture of Mike Huckabee’s son, David. This young lad hung a stray dog from a tree at Boy Scout Camp in 1998. But don’t worry. He went onto to become an Eagle Scout.

Do you see anyone home in those eyes? Anyone you’d want to spend time with? He has the dead gaze of a psychopath and the behavior to match.

After the incident, the Animal Legal Defense Fund pressed for an investigation.

The state police never granted the request, and no charges were ever filed. But John Bailey, then the director of Arkansas’s state police, tells NEWSWEEK that Governor Huckabee’s chief of staff and personal lawyer both leaned on him to write a letter officially denying the local prosecutor’s request. Bailey, a career officer who had been appointed chief by Huckabee’s Democratic predecessor, said he viewed the lawyer’s intervention as improper and terminated the conversation. Seven months later, he was called into Huckabee’s office and fired.

“I’ve lost confidence in your ability to do your job,” Bailey says Huckabee told him. One reason Huckabee cited was “I couldn’t get you to help me with my son when I had that problem,” according to Bailey. “Without question, [Huckabee] was making a conscious attempt to keep the state police from investigating his son,” says I. C. Smith, the former FBI chief in Little Rock, who worked closely with Bailey and called him a “courageous” and “very solid” professional. Huckabee called Bailey’s account “totally untrue” and described him as a “bitter” exemployee.

Apparently the boys decided that the dog was sick, and they were simply putting it out of its misery. Curiously, the father of the other boy said the dog was already hanging from the tree when he arrived on the scene.

(In April of this year, he [David Huckabee] was arrested—and paid a fine—when he forgot to remove a loaded gun from his carry-on luggage at Little Rock airport.) His father told NEWSWEEK that his son did not engage in “intentional torture.” “There was a dog that apparently had mange and was absolutely, I guess, emaciated.” A campaign official says David “regrets” the incident and notes that he later made Eagle Scout.

Oh, so when he forget to remove a loaded gun from his luggage this past April at the airport, he was arrested and paid a fine. That’s funny, because this poor woman from Iceland (scroll down one post) was interrogated, withheld food and water, denied counsel and paraded in chains through JFK airport twice, just this last week, for a visa technicality that happened over ten years ago. Huh. What do you make of that?

Just imagine, if you will, if this Huckabee story happened to one of the Democrats running for president. What do you suppose the reaction would be? And do we suppose that Faire Huckabee (h/t Bob Somerby, scroll down to On Saturday:) will be subjected to the same scrutiny? I think not.

Welcome to Amerikka

Dec 17

Posted by Marlena in Civil Rights, Corruption & Crime, Injustice, Psychology, Surveillance | 2 Comments

Read this horrific story of a young woman visiting NYC with her friends, only to be treated like an international criminal. Unbelievable.

Last Sunday I and a few other girls began our trip to New York. We were going to shop and enjoy the Christmas spirit. We made ourselves comfortable on first class, drank white wine and looked forward to go shopping, eat good food and enjoy life. When we landed at JFK airport the traditional clearance process began. We were screened and went on to passport control. As I waited for them to finish examining my passport I heard an official say that there was something which needed to be looked at more closely and I was directed to the work station of Homeland Security. There I was told that according to their records I had overstayed my visa by 3 weeks in 1995. For this reason I would not be admitted to the country and would be sent home on the next flight.

A detailed interrogation session ensued. I was photographed and fingerprinted. I was asked questions which I felt had nothing to do with the issue at hand. I was forbidden to contact anyone to advise of my predicament and although I was invited at the outset to contact the Icelandic consul or embassy, that invitation was later withdrawn. I don’t know why. I was then made to wait while they sought further information, and sat on a chair before the authority for 5 hours.

And so on, to the point that she was paraded through airports (twice) in chains and escorted by guards, until she was finally sent back home.
What can possibly explain this bizarre behavior of our Homeland Security officials?

Is it a show of authority expressly meant to intimidate people, but otherwise more or less randomly inflicted?

Does it mean that this woman, who has a blog, has done things or written things that have been noted? Perhaps she has been caught up in some unconstitutional telecom surveillance? What’s with all the unrelated questions? What did they know about her?

Have civilian rights simply been weakened so dramatically that psychopathic authoritarian types can abuse people at will, just for the fun of it?

All of the above?

It just doesn’t make any sense to treat people this way. But it must make sense to someone. This outrageous incident proves that other agendas are at work, otherwise it would not be tolerated in a civil and democratic society. Not only are secret agendas clearly at work, they are obviously well entrenched at many levels.

“There can be no doubt—”said K., quite softly, for he was elated by the breathless attention of the meeting; in that stillness a subdued hum was audible which was more exciting than the wildest applause—”there can be no doubt that behind all the actions of this court of justice, that is to say in my case, behind my arrest and today’s interrogation, there is a great organization at work. An organization which not only employs corrupt warders, oafish Inspectors, and Examining Magistrates of whom the best that can be said is that they recognize their own limitations, but also has at its disposal a judicial hierarchy of high, indeed of the highest rank, with an indispensable and numerous retinue of servants, clerks, police, and other assistants, perhaps even hangmen, I do not shrink from that word. And the significance of this great organization, gentlemen? It consists in this, that innocent persons are accused of guilt, and senseless proceedings are put in motion against them…“ The Trial - Franz Kafka

The cloud of doom descends; Some people curiously unaffected

Dec 17

Posted by Marlena in Politics, Religion, Stupidity | 2 Comments

I have been experiencing the cloud of doom very strongly the last week or so. The future feels very dark and uncertain. I worry about my family. But everybody does not pay close attention. The longer the charade hangs together, the closer we get to the breaking point.

There are many updates to running stories today, too many to address individually. I suppose this one irritated me the most: Huckabee draws support of home-school families.

Conservative Christians are said to represent the vast majority of the parents of the 1.1 million children estimated by the federal Department of Education in 2003 as home-schooled in the United States.

As a group, they are fundamentally religious people who say they have learned politics at the ground level, in a constant struggle with public authorities who they say oppose home schooling on principle.

…The beginning of Mr. Huckabee’s rise in the polls, from third or fourth to a solid first place, coincides with a series of strong performances in debates, and with Mr. Brownback’s dropping out. But by far the most common factor cited by Mr. Huckabee’s supporters among home-school families here is that he is a Southern Baptist minister. Among a subset of Christians steeped in orthodoxy, it confers instant recognition. “I have not been super-active in politics over the years, and so I am not current with all the issues and position papers,” said Pete Kottra, 43, who helps his wife, Jeannie, 40, home-school their four children. “But with Mike Huckabee, I know he’s a Christian. So I know he sees the world the way I see it.”

Mr. Kottra, a computer programmer, said he became interested in Mr. Huckabee’s candidacy when his church’s pastor suggested he take a look.

No one interviewed for this story mentioned Mr. Romney’s Mormonism, which is considered a heretical branch of Christianity by most evangelical Christians; nor did anyone know about Mr. Huckabee’s remark, made in an interview for an article Sunday in The New York Times Magazine, asking, “Don’t Mormons believe that Jesus and the devil are brothers?”

…Mrs. Hurley said that for most home-schooling families, the affinity with Mr. Huckabee transcended the issue of home schooling.

“We are about the pillar issues of our faith — family, marriage and abortion,” she said. “Home schooling is just part of it.”

In political terms, she said, “family and marriage” are expressed in opposition to same-sex marriage laws, opposition to broader rights for gay men and lesbians, and support for covenant marriage laws like the one signed by Mr. Huckabee as governor in 2001.

… “Beyond all that, a lot of people are tired of the fact that we can’t say Merry Christmas any more, and that ‘God’ is removed from every public place,” Mrs. Hurley said. “Here’s a guy, Mike Huckabee, who comes along, and he’s not mad about anything, but he’s just saying, ‘Hey, let’s take another look at what’s happening here.’”

Could these people possibly be any more myopic? This country and this world we live in is about two clicks away from a complete meltdown, and these people just blithely tune in when they find out Mike Huckabee is a Southern Baptist minister. Ooohh! They have not been following issues, they don’t know what’s going on, they just care about their pet causes which revolve around limiting other people’s civil rights. I hope Huckabee does get permanently lashed to the Evangelical Christian wingnuts, because they are widely and deservedly discredited among thinking people everywhere. They deserve each other.

Meanwhile, thanks and praise and moral support to Chris Dodd, Ted Kennedy and Russ Feingold, who today will filibuster a bill that would grant immunity to the telephone companies for wiretapping Americans. The telecoms succumbed to pressure from the Bush administration, who started down the path of spying on Americans two weeks after taking office. Updates and instructions at FireDogLake.

Middle Class

Dec 16

Posted by Marlena in Economy, Injustice, Language & Meaning, Psychology | 7 Comments

An editor for the Chicago Tribune questions what anybody means by the term “middle class”. It’s a good question. He doesn’t have the answer, and neither do I. But I do think we can narrow it down. The answer may surprise you.

As I recall, back in the days when I graduated from college (late 80s), my first job had a starting salary of $17500. I thought it was a little lame. I think my manager made about $45K, and she had been with this large corporation for many years. She and the other woman I worked with chain-smoked cigarettes in the office all day long. Anyway, around that time my sister and her husband bought a new house for under $100K, and he probably made no more than $50K at the time. They were in their early 20s and doing just fine. I considered them very successful. New house, new furniture, new cars, new babies. No problem. As soon as they had a baby my sister stopped working. They loved Ronald Reagan, and they’ve been Republicans ever since.

This is not ancient history, but it might as well be. In those days a salary of $30K was a decent salary. You could live on that, have a decent car and a decent place to live.

Compared to 2000, we are spending 17% more for goods and services. Compared to 1987? I don’t know, but I estimate that where I live now, a family easily needs to bring in over $100K a year to live approximately like people used to live on $40K twenty years ago. That is some serious inflation. Of course, most families accomplish their middle class standard of living now by having multiple crappy jobs which, when pasted together, make the ends meet. Things have been sacrificed, but that’s another story.

The funny thing about “middle classness” is that despite how much more money it takes, the definition remains stuck in the 80s. There’s something about crossing that magic six figure salary line that pretends to vault us to the upper end of the middle class. Just a little more and you’ll be RICH!!! Keep working!!! Well maybe that used to be true, but today, of course, it’s total bullshit. A low six figure family income is just not that much money anymore. Just think about every time you’ve registered for some free service or product warranty, and the business wants to know your income. The choices always stop around $150 or $200K. If you make more money than that, I guess you don’t have to answer questions anymore. You’ve made it, baby. You are rich. Right?? Every time you see one of these marketing things, it confirms the official story of how we are supposed to sort out by income. Poor, middle, upper. Except the numbers I always see mean poor, not as poor, and middle. Wealthy? Where does wealthy start? Why are those people always invisible?

This website (last update 2005) estimates that the poorest rich earn $400K a year without working. That’s right. Rich people are so incredibly rich that after you’ve doubled the upper limit of every marketing questionnaire you’ve ever seen, you enter the outer slums of Richistan. And not to get into all of that, because you can read about it for yourself, but what does it mean about the definition of the middle class? It simply means that everybody who earns less than $400K without working is not rich. Clearly, they’re not poor. Aha! They must be the middle! Once you factor the truly rich into the picture, the middle class becomes everyone from about say $150K right on up to those who make a half million dollars annually without even working. So that means the rest of us are actually poor. OK? I mean, if we’re going to have a society that worships rich people, then let’s be honest. Look at the data. Read David Cay Johnston’s book Perfectly Legal. The system works this way for a reason. The people who greatly subsidize the rich are the very same people who smugly prance around thinking they shit cupcakes because they make $200-400K a year. Little do they know the joke is on them. It’s all a big head game.

Real rich people live in sequestered places where they don’t have to interface with life as we know it. They don’t go to grocery stores, and they don’t shop at the mall. They occupy different space.

But while we don’t see these people, they are out there making decisions every single day that affect you and me. They control vast resources. They amass more and more wealth with each passing day, week, month, and year. The bottom line is that from the rich man’s perspective, every moneybags asshole that ordinary people have to put up with is really just a middle class asshole, a wannabe who will never get into the club but who needs to die trying. As a result, I think it would be helpful to society if we all started using the same definitions.