Actually, Torture Worked

It worked for the good people of Christendom who hunted witches and heretics.  It worked for Communists to find capitalist pig traitors.  It works for the Iranian government to find American spies.  It worked to find Pinochet's enemies.  It's worked to confirm every wild paranoid conspiracy theory every tinpot dictator has ever had.  It's worked to find the state's enemies and put them on TV so they could confess their crimes to the revolution.

Torture is great... for hearing what you wanted to hear in the first place.  The victims say what must be said in a desperate bid to end the suffering.  Whatever crazy, Kafka-esque nightmare of a regime used the torture uses the "confession" to punish dissidents even more brutally.  All to reinforce fear.  But, that's not what we did.  Oh, no.  We kept our tortured prisoners secret, even from the Senate committee that was supposed to know about them.  We destroyed video of what happened.  So, why torture people if you don't use forced confessions to bolster a illegitimate government?

Those who defend it today claim it was for information. But that's been knocked down by the report issued last week.  We didn't get anything we didn't already have, and everything else was stony silence or wrong.  But hey, that wrong stuff was useful.  Our government tortured because the people in charge of national security at the time know that torture doesn't produce information. It produces propaganda.  It produced utterings that "justified" every bomb they planned to drop.  It produced screams that "backed up" every gun they fired.  Torture was never supposed to find the truth.  It was supposed to support their efforts for unending war and occupation.

Because, when tortured prisoners tell you that all the crazy stuff you think is happening and going to happen is true, you get to invade a country that had nothing to do with 9/11, and had no capability to harm us.  You get to keep those soldiers there indefinitely, or at least until your successor partly cleans up your messes, because you've got "intel" that terrorists are all over the place.  Those who ordered the torture, those who defend it now, need enemies all over the place.  To justify military build ups that benefit their campaign contributors.  To justify invasions that benefit mercenary companies. To justify wiretapping with no warrants.  To justify entrapping Muslims into criminal conspiracies.  To justify bombings that reinforce America's military might to the world.

And, to be honest, we, or at least some of us, the American People, wanted all these things too.  Dropping bombs on civilians half a world away avenged us after 9/11.  Watching a nation crippled by our invasions and the resulting chaos comforted us, that we were still #1 after one of our skyscrapers became concrete dust. Seeing Muslim guys with their dark skin and black, uncut hair in court wearing prison garb made us feel superior.  Hearing that guys who admitted being bad under torture were being tortured made us feel like we were returning pain for pain, damage for damage.  An eye for an eye.  Oh, yes, torture worked.  We just need to stop acting like national security was the goal.

Yeah, Sure Phil, Whatever You Say

"If you can’t reconcile some of the things Phil says with his otherwise friendly demeanor—perhaps because you are gay, or a duck—I don’t blame you. And I don’t blame Duck Dynasty for keeping the show safely apolitical, ensuring smooth digestion for a mass audience."

By now, the choicer tidbits of GQ's interview have been widely disseminated.  Here's the whole article, in case you'd also like to read the interviewer's reactions to Phil's bible-thumping.

First things first:  Phil Robertson is a goddam-fucking homophobic bigot.  When you compare a sex act between consenting adults to asshole-religious-fanatics flying planes into buildings, you're an asshole-religious-fanatic who hates gays.  When you literally tell people that allowing sodomy is the the start of allowing anything and the source of America's problems, you're a fucking homophobic bigot.  Period.  When Trent Lott told us that integration was the start of modern-day American problems, people correctly assumed that meant he favored segregation.  Trent Lott ended up resigning, because acting like you like Black people but still want them to use different drinking fountains is just no longer credible.  However, claiming that you love homosexuals while telling them their sex acts should be as criminal as blowing up a pizza joint, and that you hope that they renounce their "lifestyle" so they can be your "brothers" is somehow, still, supposed to be a rational opinion.  

Phil, what if we don't want to be your brothers and sisters in Jesus?  What if the Christian family just has no appeal for us?  Phil's greatest asshole tendency in this article is to assume that everyone wants to be saved like him.  No, we don't.  We don't want to be involved in this man's life of control freak antics over his family.  We don't want anything to do with a man who won't even apologize to people he's beaten up before becoming saved.  We don't want anything to do with a white Southerner who insists that he certainly never saw any Black people being mistreated.  

And now we get to what's been ignored:  Phil is basically saying the same thing Germans said all through the summer of 1945.  We didn't know it was happening.  We didn't see it.  No one complained to us.  That lasted until Nuremberg.  Hey Phil, does the North really have to stage a version of a war crimes trial documenting Jim Crow?  Could you not have cracked open a fucking book to learn that Black people who complained or tried to change the situation in any way got lynched, run out of town, or beaten?  Will someone please drag this asshole motherfucker to a room, tie his beard to something, and make him watch Mississippi Burning? 

I'm tired of hearing Southerners' lame ass excuses for why it never occurred to them that Black people might not have liked segregation, no voting rights, and a constant campaign of terroristic violence to completely smother anything resembling free speech. Oh, wait, that would get in the way of their own persecution complexes.  

To white Southerners (and some white Northerners, I'll admit), the abdication of power whites were never entitled to is seen as some sort of oppression.  So, I'll clarify:  Phil, you and your ilk were never entitled to keep women and non-white men from voting.  You were never entitled to keep them ignorant.  You were never entitled to keep them out of professions you wanted to preserve for your own status.  You were never entitled to outlaw consensual sex between people of the same sex.  You were never entitled to keep homosexuals from marrying.  You were never entitled to do any of these things, so taking these powers away from you is the opposite of persecution.  

Preventing you and your ilk from persecuting others is the key to everything other ethnic groups, women, the disabled, and the LGBT community have achieved.    I know you think the law shouldn't protect the freedoms they need to achieve.  I know you think the law should protect a non-existent "right" you think you have to treat others any way you want to. 

Phil's fans may think he's been unfairly silenced to keep him from preaching his faith, but what about the Dixie Chicks?  What about Helen Thomas, Martin Bashir, and Alec Baldwin?  I guess only preaching their bible is the only free speech that shouldn't have any consequences.   

Phil's fans think he is being punished unfairly for just stating what their sacred book says.  Legally, they have no leg to stand on.  So they just argue that the decision came from some sort of gay mafia that doesn't want any Christian to say anything, ever.  Last time I checked, your homophobic rants were still safe in your own churches.  Phil's fans ignore one thing that is lacking from the First Amendment:  there's no obligation, for anyone, to listen to anything Phil wants to say.  A&E doesn't have to be a megaphone for someone trying to convert people, or convince them that "love" can be found, but only if you agree that Phil is right and you must live just like him.  Phil, my advice is to find a small island just for yourself.  Preferably one that is being slowly taken away by rising sea levels.  The ocean will never tire of your preaching.

Your idol gropes you, and you're not at a rock concert. What do you do?

I am a damned infidel.  However, besides a note on my Facebook page, I keep pretty quiet about it.  Besides trashing the religious right on this page, that is.  The vast majority of my relatives are still Christians.  Most of my friends have a "spiritual" life of some sort or another.  They keep their metaphysics out of my life, and I don't remind them that there's no evidence and the whole concept breaks down when you take a good, hard, look at it.

It also means I don't go to conferences or get involved in the now numerous skeptic/secularist/atheist groups literally sprouting up all over the place.  I live in a place with every religion under the sun as well as non-believers who deconverted from all these religions, so everyone is just mixed up with each other and kind of tries to stay out of each other's hair (and bedroom).

So I don't really have to get involved with the recent scandals of sexual harassment going on at the non-believing conferences and conventions around the country.  I don't want to get involved either, mostly because just saying that this behavior is unacceptable makes the harassers' defenders issue numerous threats, including threats of rape and death.  Which seems stupid coming from people who keep saying the non-believing community doesn't have a misogyny problem. When Rebecca Watson revealed her 4am elevator experience, the community didn't have her back, but did stab her there.  First of all, when someone invites you to their hotel room at 4am after you've left a bar, it's never for coffee and conversation. Never.  I don't care what this guy said after about how harmless his proposition was.  It was for sex.  We're not all as naive as Paula Jones; when a man invites you to his hotel room, we already know it's for sex.  And it's creepy to do when the woman is alone, in a closed, confined space no one can exit until the desired floor is reached.  Watson didn't do anything wrong in her Don't-be-that-guy PSA.  And she was right to name him.  Other women need to know who the creeps are.

The fact is that all of ElevatorGate's defenders have insisted that women have the obligation to be treated as sex objects as conferences and conventions.  And not just at non-believers' gatherings.  It seems that every event that is supposed to draw people away from home to enjoy their interests with other like-minded people actually has a huge "COME FOR THE EASY SEX WITH THE CHICKS WE DUPED INTO SHOWING UP" sign that only men can see.

Fortunately, the blogosphere and Wired.com have been doing some great work.  Bloggers of both sexes have been naming names, even when it could get them in legal trouble.  And Wired has been exploring the issue in a little depth, publishing reports on the problem and its sociological origins, and advice to avoid being that guy.  Kudos to Wired for telling guys how to avoid harassing, instead of making it a woman's problem to avoid.  But even they have been getting backlash.  Look at the comments. Most people who have witnessed harassment, or in some cases, assaults are told they should have called the police.  At a conference. Where the criminal can just melt into the crowd and disappear in the 20 minutes it takes the cops or even security to show up.  Most of the status quo's defenders don't know what they're talking about, and think that because they have blinders on, there's nothing to see.

Wired is on the right track.  The online magazine has treated it as a serious problem, looked at the sociological reasons it could be prevalent, and placed the burden on harassers to learn self-control.  Harassment is not a burden anyone should have to bear at a conference they've come to for professional or personal enrichment.  Women (and the occasional man, not denying the stage five clinger) should not have to stay home and miss out on enjoying their lives or advancing their careers in public.  And we will not.  The burden needs to be on the would-be and already-done-it harassers to maintain self-control or deal with the loss of public respect once exposed.  Policies need to come from the women who have been harassed and enforced not just by security, which almost never works anyway, but by passers-by (I'm thinking of you, Bri).  Judgement from one's immediate peers, the ones he's come here to impress, would go a long way.  But it seems, instead, all the judgement is reserved for those who want men to learn self-control.

So I'll say it.  Guys, learn some fucking self-control.  It's your obligation to us and the civilized society you get to live and work in.  Learn self-control on your own, 'cause you won't like how I teach you.

The Presumption of Innocence: Not Just for White People Anymore!

To the NYPD and all those who sided with the NYPD to support Stop-n-Frisk:  all Judge Scheindlin is saying is that age bracket, sex, and skin color are NOT a substitute for "reasonable suspicion" or "just cause", which are legal terms that have definitions.  She found that it even violated Terry v. Ohio, which invented the term "reasonable suspicion" in the first place.  To those religious conservatives who complain that "separation of church and state" isn't in the Constitution:  neither is "reasonable suspicion".  But non-whites still had to live with the NYPD literally stretching it to mean "anyone we feel like searching, so go fuck yourself".

Thank you, Your Honor, for reminding us that the Fourth Amendment applies to non-whites too.   I know it's hard for these lock-em-up types to understand, but non-whites (specifically blacks and latinos) don't have to put up with being treated like criminals in order to walk on the street.

My Latest Girl Crush

If Yemmynisting is not on your blog reading list, it needs to be there.  In a place (the US) and time where the LGBT community is on the threshold of freedom and equality, Yemisi Ilesanmi is from a place (Nigeria) that the 20th century seems to have left behind.  (In terms of technology.  Sadly, the 19th century left it behind socially).  Ilesanmi struggles against a culture that opposes LGBT rights violently whenever and however it can.  Nigerians against LGBT rights aren't caught up in Western nonsense of spouting bigoted rants and then whining when they're called bigots.  Nigerians against LGBT rights just spout ignorant nonsense as if it's proven scientific fact.  They don't think they're expressing a conservative, religious point of view; they think they're expressing the only way to think brain fart about the subject.

In steps Ilesanmi.  She takes no prisoners and doesn't care if you don't like it.  Ignorant superstition is just shot down with no mercy.  And her opposition hates her for it.  And, Yoda love her, she refuses to apologize.  What polite way is there to remove someone's foot from your throat? What polite way is there to keep people from lynching you? When her opposition insists on "politeness", what they're really insisting on is that no one call them on their bullshit to their faces.  Her opposition neither knows or cares that those who would restrict the freedom and equality of others must make a justification, not the other way around.  If your own religious freedom depends on discriminating against or oppressing others- guess what- you're in a religion that encourages people to be assholes.  It doesn't make you a man or woman of your god to search your thesaurus for new insults for LGBT people.  It just makes you an asshole.

Reading her blog on a regular basis is a reminder (sometimes embarrassing) of how cowardly and lazy I can be.  What's the point of accepting the equality of others if I'm not willing to make some sacrifices, piss off some assholes, or shoot down some ignorant garbage?  Are the opinions of ignorant douchebags who tell me that their insults and discrimination and oppression of others a sign of their god's love really important?  Isn't it time we started treating their opinions bullshit with the complete lack of respect it deserves?

Goodnight, Sweet Prince - An Ode to Batting Left and Throwing Right

I will be selfish for one paragraph and whine about how the way-too-early death of Doghouse Riley has ruined my reading life.  The only writer who comes close to him is Charlie Pierce, mostly because Pierce is not afraid to lob insults.  Doghouse was (and always will be), my blogging Pole Star.  His is the example I try to attain.  I want my writing to "sound" like his.  I want to be right about everything the way he was.  I want to understand everything about the writing he leaves behind for us, because he nailed the blogging form down.  Whether he had only a quick quip or a rambling, autobiographical revelation, he knew how to write so people would stop clicking.

Doghouse's great talent was in knowing what was so wrong about the right-wing and everything they say and do in the first place.  Whenever Tom Friedman or David Brooks opened their mouths, their euphemisms and half-truths always sounded good, even if in the end I could just feel that their conclusions were dead wrong.  But Doghouse always knew how to cut right through their bullshit.  He knew what they were omitting, wrongly assuming, outright lying about, or reversing their opinions on without admitting they were wrong before.

And he had the moral courage to be pissed at these motherfuckers.  When bullshit (also known as Iraq War Commentary) was broadcasted on international television and got thousands killed, it was Doghouse who held up their hands and said "Can't you motherfuckers see all the motherfucking blood all over these hands??!?!?!?!?"  When the Emperor paraded down the street buck naked, it was Doghouse who howled with laughter at the Emperor's arrogance.  And his subjects' cowardice.

Because Doghouse knew, and pointed out constantly, that these motherfuckers couldn't get anywhere near legislation, or even a podium, without the willing acquiescence of not just right-wingers everywhere, but everyone unwilling or unable to see through the bullshit.  Sure, harping on racist politicians is fun. But someone needs to point out when that racism is by popular demand.  Ripping a new one on a leader helping the rich get richer is easy.  Attacking, brutally, our own smug assumptions of how our good livings indicate that we are better people is thankless.  In right-wing land, even the poor believe in tax cuts for the wealthy because the wealthy have repeatedly told the poor that's the only way they'll get any job. And the poor have been unwilling to even try to contest it, mostly because it melds so well with their fear that somewhere, somehow, a black guy is living off of them.   Someone needs to fucking tell the Emperor's subjects to laugh at the naked guy in the middle of the street.  Because the Emperor only gets away with this bullshit because his subjects let him.

I'm going to blog more often.  You can read or not.

sure, right, okay ....

I'll make John Stossel a deal.  He personally can go without wearing seat belts if he wants to.  However, when he inevitably hits something with his car (speed limits are for people who want to be oppressed), and everything except the mustache goes through the windshield, skipping along the road surface like a well-thrown stone over water, leaving streaks of gooey clumps, no government workers are going to clean that up off the road.  John Stossel's streaks of gooey clumps will be left for all to see and cry "Freedom!"

John Stossel's relatives will have to come out with shovels, brooms and dustpans and clean it up themselves.  In return, John Stossel's relatives will be free to bring John's casket, dump the gooey clumps that were John Stossel in said casket, and then drive to the nearest landfill for John Stossel's funeral.  

Dear Republicans,

This is your party.   Is it too late to nominate Jane Svoboda?  This bat-shit crazy, raving bigot truly represents you better than Mitt Romney ever could.  Mitt was just a sneaky bigot, who couldn't even do his own bullying himself.  He can't even own it later.  The witnesses still feel awful about the incident, but Mitt can't even remember it.  And then he can't help chuckling over it.

This is what your party has sunk to.  At this point, you can't even pass a measure to allow the Catholic Church to keep birth control expensive.  Your personhood amendments fail.   Planned Parenthood is still open.  Scott Walker just monumentally embarrassed himself and is surrounded by corrupt staff.  Laying off thousands of government workers over the past two years has retanked the economy.  The only thing you've won on this year is to keep the homosexuals down, and remind them that only straights' families count.  You go on about our national debt and yearly deficits, but propose cutting taxes anyway.

I will give your party this- you certainly are great at acting as if you know what you're doing.  Your party, since the 1960s, has been founded on satisfying the greed of plutocrats, the ignorance of religious fanatics, and the hate of bigots.  And that's done well among some of the voters.  Turns out that greed, ignorance, and hate do go well together.  At least, they work together well at winning elections and referendums.  But governing requires putting all three aside.

You can't remain an honest politician while bowing to whatever demands the richest place on you.  You can't serve your constituents without a vast body of background knowledge in science, history, and economics.  You can't believe in right-wing economics unless you just totally forget the economic history of the Industrial Revolution and 20th century banking.  You can't guarantee religious freedom for all if one religious group is allowed to write its dogma into civil law.  You can't say you provide economic opportunity when economic outcomes are so skewed for race, sex, and parents' wealth.

So, Republicans, enjoy the mess of embarrassing rants and wealthy ass-kissing caught on video.  This is the party you wanted.  A collection of mostly ignorant haters that don't care how the rich have screwed the rest of us, because somewhere there might be a homo who hasn't been stoned.

I got your Nanny State right here

Usually, I like reading Jack Cafferty, but this post just pisses me off.  I've read this man's life story in It's Getting Ugly Out There, so I know he's not saying this from a position of having anything handed to him in life.  But Jack Cafferty could probably use some reminding of a few things:
1- His job is protected by the First Amendment of the Constitution.  His freedom, as well as his boss's freedom, to do the stories they want to do the way they want to do them may not be abridged by Congress and can only be removed for inaccuracies or dishonesty.
2- Jack got his start on public airwaves.  They are rented out for free to networks/stations, in exchange for public service announcements and excluding obscenity.
It's almost as if Jack's opportunity to work his way up from a hellish childhood was made possible by someone watching over.... and protecting his chosen industry....  almost... sort of like... a fucking nanny.

They're not pro-life, they're anti-woman

Wow. South Dakota is in some sort of frenzy to earn my contempt.  And earned it the state has.  Apparently, some moron with more Bibles than brain cells has decided that abortion providers have got to go.  But don't worry, ladies.  This bill isn't about killing abortionists, it's about giving you the right to defend your unborn child.  Because the way Phil Jensen describes it, when a man is trying to cut open your abdomen to perform an abortion on you without your consent, you would NOT be legally allowed to defend YOURSELF.   What would we do without that son of a whore defender of women's rights to carry babies? Women apparently had no right to bodily integrity until Phil Jensen came around.   Well, let's be honest.  What women in SD would be allowed to defend is their unborn child, not themselves.  Is THAT legal in South Dakota?  Or is right to self-defense one of those things only men get?

Here's why there's no agreeing with anti-choicers, and I will never call them pro-life.  First of all, most anti-choicers support lots of ways for people to die- as collateral damage, on death row, for example.  So, they're not really pro-life.  But Phil Jensen has revealed to all just how anti-woman they are:  if a pregnant woman already has the right to defend herself from bodily harm, why would we even  need this law?  Because to Phil Jensen, women do not have bodily integrity.  In the anti-choice movement, women's bodies are not their own and Phil and his fellow Bible-beaters will never acknowledge this.

And their is no compromise position with these people.  Because to people who don't believe that my body belongs to me, there is no intrusion on my privacy and dignity these people will not push.  And enforce, through 'justifiable homicide'.  Fuck you, Will Saletan.  Maybe you should have listened to George Carlin more, and Jim Wallis less.

this isn't even the worst part

so iran, a country that literally and openly does some of the most barbaric government-mandated acts against women in the world, has won some sort of half-assed u.n. general assembly vote to retain (not acquire, see the link) it's seat, for another five years (until 2015), on the commission on the status of women, aka the women's rights commission.  and when i say rights, i mean the idea that people deserve a standard of fair treatment from their government and society. does the iranian government even know what women's rights are?  or rights in general?  the worst part of this:  they've had this seat since 1990.  literally, for 20 years.  no wonder this is a commission that seems to go nowhere.  it's like the commission hired a driver who decided to take a baseball bat to the car.

there is a world of things wrong with this.  for some reason, the u.s. could lobby to keep iran out of the human rights council, but not this one.  not sure how that works.  not sure why the u.s. even has to lobby to keep iran off of either council.  the government of iran has a long, and well video-recorded history (and present) of using violence, prison, and execution to trap its citizens in a theocratic hell.  but this is not the first time the u.s. has forgotten about women's rights, simply because it decided to take what it could get.  remember the iraqi constitution?  remember the revoking of secular family law?  as right wingers pat themselves on the back for noticing the irony of this situation, one must ask:  where the fuck were you when iraqi women were getting fucked?

spill, baby, spill

how's that pathetic excuse for an energy policy workin' out for ya', sarah?  here's how it's workin' out for the rest of us, you betcha':

do ya' see where it says "wildlife refuge" to the left and top?  yep.  that's what's fucked.  the only thing i still want to know is what exactly god's punishing us for this time.  come on, pat robertson, i can't hardly wait.

maybe girls are just smarter

nicholas kristoff is one of my favorite columnists of all time.  if anyone is aware of the wars and poverty that currently plague africa, or the scourge of sexual slavery, it's because they read it in a nicholas kristoff column or talked to somebody who did.  now nicholas kristoff had decided to turn to his fellow male americans, and ask his readers why they are slipping behind girls in various academic categories, especially ones requiring reading.  being the sister of five boys, my first inclination is to point out that guys just don't care about schoolwork as much as girls do.  after spending 3/4 of a year in the same french class as my two-years older brother and easily outscoring him, i thought that i had seen this firsthand.  but i now realize, after reading the responses that nicholas received, that i only believe that because feminazis forced me to listen to their man-hating diatribes (i have no memory of the incident, but i could have just repressed it).  so, to sum up nicholas' readers:

1-  boys don't do things that don't personally interest them.  since girls will stick with a boring assignment to get it done or because there might be some educational purpose in the work, let them keep doing that.  but save the cool, interesting, hands-on stuff for the boys.
2-  making a boy sit down, shut up, and listen to a woman tell him something is an insult to his penis, and may make it shrink by as much as 2" over the course of his educational career.  the same goes for teachers who want some order in the class.  i had previously thought they were doing that because disruptions to class keep their classmates from learning.  i now realize that when teachers tell johnny to be quiet and pay attention, they're trying to emasculate johnny so jane will run the world and bring us the nanny state.  attention spans are highly overrated, and may be a marxist plot to sap our young men of their essence.
3-  boys need more exercise and fresh air than girls.  we know this because girls don't complain about being indoors, which means that there's definitely nothing wrong.  and let's face it, it's not like there are any playground activities they could do, like jump roping or hopscotch, that they could do without the boys.   giving boys the extra activity they need while girls sit inside reading will also nip that whole title 9 thing in the bud.
4- anything written by a woman is chick lit.  it should not be taught as if it's a valuable contribution to english-language literature.  also, boys seem uninterested in female authors, which is a great indicator of their non-contribution to literature in general.  it's not like jane eyre or pride and prejudice have interesting male characters.  and besides, the male characters are only a part of the main female characters' stories.  that is definitely feminazism.  the feminazis want to destroy our natural and god-ordained society by showing women in the lead of a narrative for a change.  definitely marxist.
5- make sure your boys get in plenty of video games.  it's not like you could require your sons to spend evenings and weekends getting fresh air and exercise.  also make sure that every time someone calls your son a sissy for reading anything except tom clancy, you point out to your son that he is, in fact, a sissy.  and maybe a marxist.  when you're son brings home excellent grades, remind him that football is more important and will get him laid more.

well, these are all great ideas.  let's go back to keeping girls more dormant than boys, ghettoizing their contributions to literature, and maintaining boys' naturally aggressive behavior, and watch boys excel.  and if some girls get sexually harassed, think women have made no contributions to literature, etc., all the better.

social justice v. charity

before i get into the differences, i think i should note to conservatives that we did get glenn beck's message-  doing anything beyond voluntary charity is communism, or socialism or fascism.  since these ism's are blended together so seamlessly in glenn beck's mind, it's a little difficult to tell whether social justice will lead to killing jews, killing capitalists, or soul-crushing bureaucracy.  or will it lead to all three?  who knows?  more importantly, who cares?

i think it's important to note that countries like france, britain, canada, post-war germany, to name a few, went, at least mostly, down the social justice path.  so far, no communism, socialism, or fascism.  no concentration camps or gulags.  just bureaucracy.  which, for all its negatives, puts people to work.  and longer life spans.  and some sweet-ass vacation time.  for all of conservatives' attacks on our government-maintained safety nets, i don't see these fuckers moving to places that lack them, just complaining about their fellow americans who need them.

i guess now would be a good time to describe why glenn beck has pissed off a lot of christians who normally might agree with him.  christians, traditionally, have considered it one of their church's duties to support and administer programs for the poor.  and, technically, glenn beck doesn't seem to have a problem with this because apparently it's voluntary to give to christian charities.  but many other christians go further.  there is a branch of christianity that interprets the teachings of jesus to avoid wealth and give to others even when it's a sacrifice to oneself.  these christians believe that charity from your excesses is only to impress others instead of actually fostering the sense of unselfishness jesus christ came to spread.  some catholics took this even further to develop liberation theology, which supported the human rights of the poor against the property rights of the rich, especially in latin america.  combined with the catholic worker movement, liberals and those even more leftist in catholicism have kind of carved an unofficial (and unapproved) niche for themselves.  but even pope john paul 2, while no fan of communism, was also no fan of unregulated capitalism and unrestrained greed.  his cyclical on treatment of workers makes andy stern of the seiu look like a libertarian.   martin luther king considered it his christian duty to examine the causes of poverty itself, and attempt to eliminate them.  king called this "a revolution in values", and he called on his supporters to not just fling coins at beggars, but to restructure a system which produced beggars (which is why the right should think twice before insisting MLK actually acted on conservative values).  mormons actually require members of their congregations to donate, or tithe, 10% of their yearly income.  they actually have to state to their bishop that they've tithed every year.  this is not voluntary if you want to belong to a mormon congregation.  even muslims are also in on the act, requiring all muslims to contribute a minimum percentage of their wealth to charity, and to show hospitality to strangers.  this is not considered voluntary in islam.  these contributions are considered a part of improving one's soul and one of islam's five pillars.  social justice has a long history in various religious beliefs, including christianity.  glenn beck may want to pause before he chalks social justice up to marx and hitler.

why is glenn beck so pissed about social justice anyway, and why would he think churches should shun it, and people should shun churches that practice it?  because it's compelled by law.  oh, my stars and garters!  social justice is when you decide you've had enough of an economic system in which people who do the grunt work of a company make poverty wages.  social justice is when you demand that health insurance companies do the job we pay them to do, or the government will step in and do the job better.  social justice is when you decide that some money in taxes to support school lunches is better than seeing kids go hungry.  social justice demands that our economic system value something besides profit.  social justice sees people as more important than profit, and that our economic system must provide for us, not the other way around.  we don't have to support unregulated, unprotected capitalism if all we have to show for it are fat cats and slums.

social justice does not denigrate charity.  in fact, involving oneself in charitable acts is one way in which people learn about social justice.  some who involve themselves in charitable programs see too many decent people who are not afraid of hard work but have bosses who are afraid of paying living wages.  some see too many people thrown away by our economy from sickness, drug addiction, and the loss of one paycheck.  social justice is what you do when you realize that private charities are not equipped to provide the help needed to everyone who needs it, especially in hard times when private charities cannot muster the donations to meet the need.  that is why our government, which can compel you through fines and possibly jail time, maintains a safety net of its own.  this safety net is not voluntary- giving to it doesn't make you look good for your friends, or get one into heaven.  however, this safety net is always there, whether the rich want to pay for it or not.

long story short- if you belong to a church which administers and supports various charitable programs, and your church has not come to question an economic system that treats rush limbaugh better than your own neighbors (who actually do something productive, instead of selling ads on a radio show)- then i'm asking you- how can your church not add 2+2 and get 4?  how can any institution which spends time with the poor not see the numerous roadblocks our economic system puts in their way?  record company profits through layoffs and poverty wages are great for stockbrokers, but end up placing a huge strain on our secular and religious charities.  poverty wages and easy credit nearly destroyed our economy, which also puts a huge strain on charities.  which charities don't see this?  and even worse, which charities see this and choose to do nothing about it because they can't find a bible verse explicitly telling them to?  i guess somebody thinks he can get through the eye of a needle.

just ignore all the tinfoil hats

conservatives have spent the last month on a global warming binge.  ever since winter came about a month late like it has for the last three years, conservatives have used the seasonal temperature drop to make you dumber "argue" that the moon landing was faked global warming is a hoax so the u.n. can create a one-world government through the hollywood elite.  in addition, the stealing liberating of emails from a british university has set afire anyone who can't thoroughly read or research anything.  this is the stupidest shit ever, especially since nasa can actually show you the data on worldwide average temperatures, sea level rises, and carbon dioxide concentrations and their rise. in a widget for the mac.  and i have yet to see sean hannity's explanation for march-like temperatures in january in new york. 

this leads to my point.  in the last few years, conservatism has become dominated by conspiracy theories.  global warming is a hoax.  evolution is a conspiracy by atheists to wipe out christianity.  obama was really born in kenya.  taxes are a plot to destroy innovation and punish the rich.  mexican illegal immigrants will return the southwestern u.s. to mexico.  there's a nafta superhighway linking mexico and the u.s. and it somehow wipes out u.s. sovereignity.   abortions cause breast cancer.  the gays want to provide safety for gay kids "recruit" your kids.  the hollywood elite wants you to hate america.  martin luther king was a communist.  joe mccarthy was right, and was crucified by liberals.    saddam hussein had weapons of mass destruction, and syria helped hide them (or we found them).  iran is definitely developing nuclear weapons.  valerie plame was not a covert agent, and scooter libby's prosecution was political.  joe wilson was sent on a tantalizing junket to niger by his wife, valerie plame.  the clintons killed vince foster. it seems these days that whatever the conservative position, there's a conspiracy theory that supports it.

it says something about a political movement when the crap they take straight from their asses "facts" they use are not supported in peer-reviewed scientific journals, are flatly denied by investigators, have no evidence to support them, or rely on deliberately misunderstanding and misrepresenting others, notably scientists (see richard dawkins) and prominent liberals (see van jones).  it says this political movement has no credibility.  there comes a point where anyone in the conservative movement who still has a working brain and some desire to be an honest human being has to ask: is it us?  when your ignorant ranting "facts" have to come from a site that claims all other information is wrong, and only your site can be trusted, because the liberals have taken over everything else, then there's no reason why anyone should take your retarded scribbles "facts" seriously.  and if there's no reason to take your fucking lies "facts" seriously, then why take your opinions seriously, or listen at all?

finally, my point.  we seem, in this country, to have decided that all opinions are equal. but that's not really what freedom means.  in this country, anyone is definitely allowed to hold any opinion they please.  if you want to think nafta was a terrible treaty, that's fine.  but if you base that opinion on a superhighway that doesn't exist, that's not a real reason.  if someone dislikes nafta because it caused a loss of manufacturing jobs and can provide evidence of these job losses, that's a real reason. and that opinion is better than the opinion based on the conspiracy theory.

conservatives have complained that liberals tend to believe their opinions are "better" than conservatives' opinions.  well, our opinions are based on peer-reviewed scientific research, investigative reports with source material, non-partisan fact-checking, non-partisan government watchdogs, confirmed journalists' reports, and confirmations from the state of hawaii.  conservative opinions are based on firmly believing that the entire mass media is run by a cabal of liberals out to deny creedence to ignorant bigots "the truth", and therefore only information sources run by their fellow travelers can be trusted and are the only source of true stupidity "truth".

so excuse us if we pat ourselves on our backs for having done some fucking homework.  excuse us for paying attention during the class on the scientific method and how it prevents or detects stupid mistakes and hoaxes.  excuse us for using exhaustive investigations done by disinterested government officials or prosecutors.  excuse us for insisting that reports by journalists be confirmed before ranting about them.  if you could bother to do any of the above even for about five minutes, maybe one day i'll treat your opinions with a little respect.  but only a little.

5 worst motherfuckers of 2009

this is wtf?. not happy happy joy joy. so don't expect a 5 best pussy eaters of 2009, although i'm considering it.

harry reid- do i even need to explain? how does this man stand upright without a spine? to this man, compromise means that liberals give up whatever conservatives want in order to pass a legal version of horseshit. to this man, joe lieberman is a legislative asset. that's horseshit, too. joe lieberman uses democrats to "legislate" the way rush limbaugh uses the 1st amendment to "pontificate".

sarah palin- conservatives claim that liberals hate her because she's proof that you can be a feminist and pretty and conservative. well, she's pretty and conservative. here's a clue for conservatives, who STILL don't know what feminism is: no feminist who chooses to give birth to a kid with down's syndrome would force any other woman to do the same; no feminist would ever even CONSIDER forcing the cost of rape kits to collect evidence of rape onto the rape victims; no feminist would ever support abstinence-only sex ed; and no feminist would shove her kids in front of cameras to show her "family" values and then complain about the media when it turns out her family makes the spears family look classy. next time you feel like telling us all you're a feminist and you care about women's equality, STFU. you don't know shit about feminism. you're just pretty and stupid and that's why conservatives love you. face it.

which gets into my next problem with her: she makes being stupid acceptable. it should never be acceptable to be that stupid and ignorant and badly spoken. we, as a nation, should have learned that over the last eight years of president shit-for-brains. it turns out, approximately 1/4 of the country didn't. here's a hint for conservatives: when you're candidate appeals to the people who couldn't figure out that george w. bush is an idiot, that's bad.

dick cheney- go the fuck away. we hated you when you were the vice president and we had to pretend to care what you think. now we're not even going to bother to do that. stop acting like you can possibly justify anything you did. you can't. it wasn't legal, it wasn't constitutional, and it wasn't for us or our benefit. it was for your own personal aggrandizement, and for the use of future republican presidents. and please, for all our sakes but especially for the sake of those who lost a loved one on september 11, 2001: please stop telling us how awesome it is that you kept us safe after september 11. that's like the germans telling us how safe air travel was after the hindenburg. september 11 isn't a freebie- it was a collossal failure to check on warnings that came all that year, while you were really the president.

bill donohue- this man makes me glad i'm not a catholic or a christian anymore, but especially a catholic. apparently, criticism of the catholic church's policies, misogyny, and rampant child abuse is some form of hate speech. this interview alone should have gotten him banned from any type of media, for life. anyone who can minimize the horrific abuse and shameful coverup that happened over decades in ireland should be shunned. or maybe punished along with the perpetrators.

glenn beck- you're crazy. perhaps you're schizophrenic, or bipolar, or have some narcissistic or personality disorder. i don't know. high school psychology class was a long time ago, and you're not coherent enough for me to figure out exactly what keeps you from grasping the difference between fantasy and reality. but you can't. and your conflict of interest in telling your mouth-breathing listeners to buy gold is pathetic. even opinionators are not supposed to have conflicts of interest, and a real news network would have fired your ass for it. i'm not asking you to shut up, because if you have tourettes that's impossible anyway. i'm just asking you to seek professional help, and possibly commit yourself before the people of new york city have to.

ah, good old freedom

yes, i know the public option is out. and i'm pissed about that. in fact, a post about obama weaseling his way out of the public option may be due. but john ensign just leaped into my face with his own nugget of dishonesty and stupidity, and i couldn't resist.

john ensign has decided that the government mandating citizens to buy health insurance is a violation of the of the 5th amendment. because it forces you to spend money you otherwise would have used to buy a big-screen tv on health insurance. ensign has also decided that: 1- the pursuit of happiness is in the constitution, which it's not; and 2- that mandating citizens buy health insurance somehow deprives them of the ability to pursue happiness. ensign has also decided that all americans have the freedom to not buy health insurance, and that this is what people in ww2 fought for.

okay, john, i'm going to explain it nice and slow so you can eventually get it. NOBODY wants to die of disease or injury. NOBODY with cancer wants the freedom to choose to either go broke surviving or die. NOBODY with a broken leg wants to choose to let it to heal deformed so they can't walk normally again but still have an Ipod. you're talking about, and passionately defending, a "freedom" that nobody wants. at least you say you are.

so what's the real freedom ensign is defending? he's not defending the freedom to choose between death or bankruptcy court. he's defending the freedom to NOT CARE that others must choose between death and bankruptcy court. he's defending your freedom to turn a blind eye to those who suffer chronic health problems or die. he's defending the freedom to feel nothing for them, or tell them to go to charities that don't exist, or that have run out of money. that's the freedom john ensign cares about.

the government is mandating the purchase of health insurance because uninsured & underinsured patients' inability to pay their bills is contributing to unnecessary bankruptcies. their inability to pay also forces hospitals to increase their fees for services, which is one of the reasons why health insurance premiums have skyrocketed. which will slowly bankrupt everyone. which is why reform includes a mandate to buy health insurance. it is sad that we've reached the point where those who had to choose between insurance and food have affected people who otherwise wouldn't care about the uninsured. we liberals sure are sorry that their desire to live despite their poverty has affected your insured asses. but we have reached this point, and we need a solution to this problem, and the republicans have only proposed a piece of dreck that insures fewer people, and leaves those with pre-existing conditions in hi-risk (read: hi cost) insurance plans that the bill doesn't even create and that won't even cover the pre-existing condition that requires them to buy the hi-cost insurance in the first place. so unless you have something that will actually be worth paying for, STFU.

Only 90 minutes left for blasphemy

Happy International Blasphemy Day! We have only 90 minutes left. I spend most of my time mocking Christianity, but this gem from Islam cannot be ignored: apparently, Hamas has decided that girls who haven't reached puberty are marriagable. Seriously. Man,not even the FLDS sinks this low.

So here's my IBD question- in Islam why is pedophilia good, and alcohol bad? And can I really expect anybody following this religion to be sane?

Happy IBD! Go out and insult someone's religion, before one of those crazy believers makes it illegal!

maybe i don't want to seem nicer

some genius named nathan named his blog after a guy stupid enough to fall asleep on a window ledge and fall out to the street below. this makes nathan's blog worth reading for a reason that must occur only to christians. and nathan has decided he knows just how to make atheists seem nicer. because if there's one group of people whose opinions matter to me, it's the christians. oh wait, i meant the hell's angels.

nathan's first idea is that atheists need to stop feeling smug. i guess nathan doesn't like the condescending way we atheists roll our eyes at yet another recital of pascal's wager, or the first cause "argument". that eye-roll might have something to do with the fact that these arguments have been refuted, repeatedly and long ago. why should we pretend to care about bad re-runs?

i'll tell you what nathan- watch the south park episode where they explain what scientologists believe. and then tell me what our attitude should be with the people who actually believe it. then, make yourself, as a courtesy, sit with one of those weirdos at the times square subway station and get a stress test, and force yourself to listen to how the thetans are causing your problems, and what scientology's "evidence" is of this. do not tell me, with any expectation of being believed, that you don't feel the slightest bit smug about not having been hoodwinked into believing into some dreck l. ron hubbard dreamed up and sells in the mass market paperback section. and remember: one woman's dreck is another's "faith". try not to roll your eyes at the poor soul.

oh, and apply this to wicca, mormonism, and your smug knowledge that of course zeus and athena are false gods.

then, nathan wants us atheists to ignore christians' proselytizing, because they're not really trying to convert us anyway, just the people who haven't made up their minds. nathan, here's a fucking clue (christ, am i smug): we want to reach out to the people who haven't made up their minds too. we just do it by summarizing the "arguments" for the existence of a deity and refuting them. we also point out various contradictions in your "book", as well as the contradictions between the different things christians tend to believe about their deity. so, we have to address you whether you want us to or not. i know, your jobs are much easier when we don't . which is probably why you think it would make us seem nicer if we just let you spout gobbledy-gook with no rational, evidence-based response. it's like a football team's offensive squad demanding the other side not bother to defend their goal. i wonder what the ref would say?

nathan, dear, can intelligent and rational people believe in magic? and tolkien's elves? and tolkien's hobbits? can intelligent people there really was a cinderella, and spend their lives looking for that glass slipper? because that's all communicated by books too. your "book" is a collection of stories never meant to be taken literally as things that actually happened. it was people trying to forge a cultural heritage with a story of shared struggle and sacrifice. cute story, especially is you like killing innocent, firstborn children on behalf of the good guys. the god "communicating" through that book is a manipulative, vengeful, petty, jealous, bloodthirsty asshole who apparently has no problem planning our sins and then punishing us for them. and in order to forgive the humans whose sins he planned and plans to watch, he sent his "son" to earth to lead a blameless, sinless life. after this blameless, sinless life, this god then has the son's friends betray and abandon him, and then has the authorities of the patch of dirt the son lived and preached around force this son through the most excruciating, tortuous death humankind has ever devised (except, of course, suicide from watching general hospital). this horrific death then makes it possible for this god to forgive humans' sins. you call this intervention? here's a clue: this all-powerful god could have decided to just forgive people, but didn't. how do you rationally, intelligently explain why the tortuous death of someone who supposedly was himself perfect makes it possible for an all-powerful deity to forgive people for shoplifting? what was this god's thought process? what's rational and intelligent (not to mention ethical) about any of this crap?

i know you hear this all time, but where was this intervention during the holocaust? why does a just god let this happen, to his chosen people no less? i notice that this god lets alot of shit happen that just wipes out hundreds of thousands of people with one big wave. why intervene for the ancient hebrews leaving egypt, and not for people on the hijacked planes on 9/11? how does this god pick his interventions? i notice most of them happened in this "book", with parts dating back 4,000 years ago, with these last interventions happening about 1,900 years ago. why no interventions now?

nathan, do you read what you type before posting? do you know that a hypothesis is based on a series of observable facts? oh, i visited all these islands in the pacific ocean and found species are similar to each other and yet still different species. and i found that each one is perfectly well suited to that particular island's environment. and other people have found fossilized skeletons of animals that no one sees anymore. why would some species die out, and some survive- and does the environment have anything to do with that? i guess i could come up with a theory that explained how attributes that make a species better suited to a particular environment make it easier to survive, and pass on offspring with those attributes. and over time, attributes that are not good for an environment cause those living things to die without offspring. i guess i could test the theory by examining other environments, and observing whether species are suited to those. and i guess scientists in later generations could find even more fossils, and figure out how to date the fossils and the rocks the fossils are in, and then i guess some future scientists could also examine genes to see how closely related different species are.

oh, i noticed that people who get cowpox don't get small pox. why is that? i guess, maybe, the cowpox is not as strong as small pox, but getting it makes your body somehow better at resisting smallpox. maybe i could convince a few brave souls to be injected with pus from cowpox blisters, and see if they too resist small pox. but that would be a combination of induction and deduction, and the christians have decided that that can't be the scientific method. guess i won't bother.

get it, nathan? someone sees observable facts without an explanation, then makes an explanation. this explanation (called a theory) is then tested by experimenting and collecting additional observed facts. this theory is used as an explanation for facts until some new, observed facts no longer support the theory. then a new explanation is thought of, or the original theory is revised, and this new explanation is tested. see? in the scientific method, no one is required to except a theory without experimental data to support the theory. this enables human beings to understand how the world operates with the best knowledge we have at the time. which is a fuck of a lot better than trying to figure out how to make the sun stop in the sky.

however, you are correct about one thing: science is easy to abuse. just tell people that it's a belief system that atheists have "faith" in, tell people that the dinosaurs lived with people in the garden of eden, and put a saddle on a triceratops. but please note, it tends to be your fellow christians who do the abusing. i guess, to reach the undecideds.

which leads me to nathan's last pearl of wisdom. millions of people claim to be mormons, and therefore christians. can i judge christianity by these millions? what about the christians following sun myung moon? might not be in the millions, but a lot of people anyway. which millions of christians should i judge the religion by? the ones who want to go back to forced pregnancy and childbirth? which sect got it right? i just want to know- who are the real christians, who are the fakes, and who gets to decide who is what? are you the decider? am i? is the pope? how 'bout pat robertson?

and what is the christological narrative? four conflicting accounts? is the part about jesus coming back to israel to give the jews one last chance to accept him a part of the christological narrative? is jesus appearing in north america part of the christological narrative? exactly how broad is this broad narrative? and who decides how broad it is? me? you? the pope? jim wallis? mitt romney? sun myung moon?

as for quoting old testament law: i'll make a deal with you: when conservative christians stop telling me that homosexuality is considered an abomination in leviticus, and that some prophet in the old testament told us god knows us in the womb and therefore abortion is murder, i'll stop with the shit about not eating shellfish and mixing fabrics. oh, and we can see how the laws were supposed to work- the punishment is usually right there in the text, and it usually involved throwing rocks at offenders until the offenders were dead. i'm sure the christians who you consider intelligent and rational because they just happen to believe the exact form of christianity you do are cool with this.

it's time. okay, it's been time for a while

the right are not decent human beings. we on the left have been saying this privately for years. but nobody wants to blurt it out in public, except people who are never going to interview john mccain anyway. anyone who wants to get invited to speak on news and commentary tv shows have been unwilling to say this openly, because the tv talking heads all agree that to impugn someone's patriotism is wrong. except for people opposing illegal wars, or illegal torture, or unconstitutional detention. anytime you oppose something that is actually illegal or unconstitutional, well, that means you hate america. but i digress.

discussing the sad reality that basic human decency has fled america's right is currently limited to the blogosphere. this idea that right wingers want social justice and tolerance and peace, but just want to pursue those goals with unrestrained greed, theocracy, and unjust wars, is what most public, "respectable" figures must declare. but the time has come for public figures to publicly admit that the right wing of america could give a shit about social justice. america's right doesn't care if illegal aliens bleed to death right outside hospitals- in fact, america's right would enjoy the sight. america's right doesn't care about tolerance, and we know this because they never extend it to anyone but themselves. non-christian religions, non-white people, non-profit projects, receive nothing but scorn from them and will never receive anything else. and peace? has anyone listened to the right? with the exception of ron paul, the right has a long list of people they're dying to bomb, and they'll even sing the list to an old beach boys tune for ya.




and then there is the biggest delusion of all. the idea of republicans actually knowing what the fuck they're spewing about. spare me. these are people who shrugged, if even that, at the cost of our invasions of aghganistan and iraq. these are people who still wanted george bush's welfare to the rich in the form of tax cuts at a time when we "had" to fight those wars. these are people who supported the creation of a whole new department of the federal government and accompanying cabinet position (homeland insecurity, i think). these are people who supported the nsa listening to our phone calls, reading our emails, finding out what library books we've borrowed, and demanded that anyone who participated in this rape of our privacy be pardoned in advance. these are people who supported treating foreigners, many of who were innocent, worse than michael vick treated his dogs. these are people who thought locking someone up indefinitely (read: for life) on the president's say-so alone was a great way to preserve freedom. these are people who thought shocking and awing middle easterners into accepting foreign military occupation was requested by god. these are people who's idea of christian charity means that there is no amount of kicking someone when they're already down they won't tolerate. and they have the nerve to act like they care about the deficit now. and freedom. and government interference in people's private lives. and the religious beliefs of the president. and anything except their own pathetic, paranoid delusions.


because that is what the right in america has become. one big delusional cult. a cult that believes that obama is a muslim. and muslims are taking over (that's why obama's the president, so he can hand the country over to them). and obama is a racist, and so is jeremiah wright. and black people are racist. and obama is a communist, socialist and a fascist (you have to ignore the wars they fought against each other in spain and germany and russia, but oh well). and a bailout that we are supposed to get paid back to us, with interest, from the banks is going to bankrupt us. and that open season has been declared on gun owners, taylor swift, and white kids who ride the bus. and that the country is going to fail unless obama does. and that government bureaucrats will decide if anyone over 65 gets to live or not, based on whether or not they've read karl marx. and that global warming is a hoax to destroy the SUV market, and turn us into soviet russia (where i guess people lived in trees and were strict vegetarians). delusion after delusion after delusion. no matter how many times these delusions are argued against with facts and reason and some logical induction and deduction, the delusions continue.

there is a solution to this. we, as a nation, must start calling the right what they are. in public, on tv, on the internet, on op-ed pages, at family reunions, and at birthday parties. the right are lying, scheming, delusional, greedy, bigotted, sexist, theocratic douchebags. and they have been for a while. and we must freeze them out of the public realm. because there is only so much political discourse that anyone can have with a dining room table.