From the outside this Tea Party 'movement' seems almost inexplicable. What in the world? - bizarre - unexplainable. But let's take a closer look. The average Tea-bagger is white, low to upper middle class, 60 or older, retired or soon to be, and angry. Imagine for a moment you are that person. Why might you be angry? And what would be in your self interest?
Well to start with the idea of seeing a black man in the role of commander in chief of our armed forces - armed forces that you very well may have served in - a black man in that role is not going to sit well with you. I mean this racial equality stuff is fine as long as your daughter doesn't bring a black man home or as long as a black man doesn't dare to assume a role of real authority. Do you remember the anger several of our southern republican leaders in the senate exhibited upon seeing pictures of Obama in the oval office shortly after he assumed the job? They pretended to be enraged that he dared to remove his suit jacket in the oval office and thus was desecrating that hallowed space - but what was really enraging them was that some uppity black man dared to sit there as if he were truly their equal or worthy. Remember how their public outrage immediately ceased when the media showed dozens of pictures of Bush senior, Reagan, Clinton, and Bush junior in their shirt sleeves in that same office, pictures that these same republican leaders had not seemed to have minded at the time - oops. Remember the outrage when it was learned that Obama was to go into our public schools and encourage our children to work hard? No black man was going into a predominately white school in Tennessee and hold himself up to be important and worthy of respect - oh no way - not to OUR children. And remember the Glen Beck rally attended by 100,000 - 300,000 predominately white people, many of them tea partiers? He chose his rally on the exact same day and exact same spot Martin Luther King gave his I have a dream speech. Accident? No - message - WE are taking back OUR country - and we're sending the black guy home with his tail tucked after we do.
Okay the Tea Party movement is fueled in part by racial hatred - but what else? Well how about greed.
These are retired or nearly retired white people, their children grown. They have no need to fund public schools - they've gotten what they needed out of them. They have lived for years in their predominately white neighborhoods and feel safe - no need to fully fund police. They have their medicare - no need for pesky expensive health insurance plans for the rest of us. They are approaching the end of their lives - they can comfortably deny or ignore global warming and environmental issues. They want to decrease or abolish taxes because they figure they don't need nor do they want to pay for public schools, police, infrastructure, or government oversight in these last few years of their lives.
And so energized by racial hatred, enticed by the idea of paying less taxes, and just plain lazy when it comes to informing themselves, they allow themselves to be manipulated by big money - be it foreign or domestic - and corporate interests. Who do they think is paying for all of this? Their political 'leaders' are almost all one issue charlatans willing to do the bidding of big money interests in exchange for power and wealth.
Racial hatred, greed/selfishness, ignorance and big money funding - without all four the Tea Party would be nowhere. How sad for this country that it appears to be somewhere.
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Friday, October 29, 2010
Saturday, October 23, 2010
Damn Immigrants
"My great-grandfather did not travel from Ireland across 4,000 miles of the Atlantic Ocean to see his adoptive country overrun by a bunch of immigrant's".
Stephen Colbert
Stephen Colbert
Global Warming and Worldview
In February 2007, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change “concluded for the first time that global warming is unequivocal and that human activity is the main driver." Despite this only 13% of Congressional Republicans think human activity is contributing to it. Few Americans doubt global warming is real, but about 30% think it's 'just an evolution of nature' - human activity playing no role. Ok, great. So it's ok to ignore it because it's natural? Well, no.
Is it ok to ignore a hurricane? How about the flooding of our coastal cities? How about global famine due to extreme drought? How about the death of billions? Global warming, no matter the cause - be it human or "natural" - will cause significant changes in our weather that will result in all of these things happening. The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) has recently published a report authored by climatologist Aiguo Dai stating amongst other things that "most of the western two-thirds of the United States will be significantly drier by the 2030s...that the United States and many other heavily populated countries "face a growing threat of severe and prolonged drought." It's not just that our air conditioning bills will go up. Global warming will cause an interruption in food production worldwide - just as a start - that will affect all of us - and it will happen much sooner than you think. You don't get to ignore global warming because you've decided that it is being blamed on humans by a bunch of whinny liberal soft-headed hippies that want to implicate progress and would have us all return to living in grass huts.
Global warming is real. If we don't do something about it there will be a global catastrophe in our children's lifetime, perhaps in ours. And here's the real kicker - we will need to completely change the way we interact with the world if we are to survive this. We're not going to be able to protect our families with walls, or underground shelters, or a super-powerful military machines. A unilateral search for security will simply not work. The problem is global. There will be no shelter behind walls.
To survive global warming we will have to learn to think in a new way. As never before, the future of each of us depends on the good of all, worldwide. It will require decades of cooperative international effort to solve. We cant simply scoff, stopping at denying that mankind has caused it. We have to join in a worldwide effort to temper it's devastation. And to do that we have to become citizens of the world.
Is it ok to ignore a hurricane? How about the flooding of our coastal cities? How about global famine due to extreme drought? How about the death of billions? Global warming, no matter the cause - be it human or "natural" - will cause significant changes in our weather that will result in all of these things happening. The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) has recently published a report authored by climatologist Aiguo Dai stating amongst other things that "most of the western two-thirds of the United States will be significantly drier by the 2030s...that the United States and many other heavily populated countries "face a growing threat of severe and prolonged drought." It's not just that our air conditioning bills will go up. Global warming will cause an interruption in food production worldwide - just as a start - that will affect all of us - and it will happen much sooner than you think. You don't get to ignore global warming because you've decided that it is being blamed on humans by a bunch of whinny liberal soft-headed hippies that want to implicate progress and would have us all return to living in grass huts.
Global warming is real. If we don't do something about it there will be a global catastrophe in our children's lifetime, perhaps in ours. And here's the real kicker - we will need to completely change the way we interact with the world if we are to survive this. We're not going to be able to protect our families with walls, or underground shelters, or a super-powerful military machines. A unilateral search for security will simply not work. The problem is global. There will be no shelter behind walls.
To survive global warming we will have to learn to think in a new way. As never before, the future of each of us depends on the good of all, worldwide. It will require decades of cooperative international effort to solve. We cant simply scoff, stopping at denying that mankind has caused it. We have to join in a worldwide effort to temper it's devastation. And to do that we have to become citizens of the world.
Friday, October 22, 2010
It's Déjà vu all over again
A Grim Portrait of Civilian Deaths in Iraq
By SABRINA TAVERNISE and ANDREW W. LEHREN
Published: October 22, 2010 in the NYT
Well big surprise. WikiLeaks has revealed another dirty little secret of the Iraq war. The civilian death toll is considerably more than what has been reported in Iraq. Now they are saying 100,000 - 150,000. It will probably be closer to 500,000 when the truth is finally revealed.
Don't believe that? Vietnam may be a good historical example. At the time civilian death wasn't reported as it isn't being reported in Iraq. At the time estimates from our government put civilian deaths in South Vietnam at around 200,000. They didn't report on North Vietnam casualties. We now know that approximately 2 million civilians died in the south and another 2 million in the north. 4 million innocent civilian lives - babies, children, women, old men - died as a result of our asinine foreign policy. And to what end? We lost, and Vietnam prospers. Oops.
Why do we learn so little from past mistakes?
By SABRINA TAVERNISE and ANDREW W. LEHREN
Published: October 22, 2010 in the NYT
Well big surprise. WikiLeaks has revealed another dirty little secret of the Iraq war. The civilian death toll is considerably more than what has been reported in Iraq. Now they are saying 100,000 - 150,000. It will probably be closer to 500,000 when the truth is finally revealed.
Don't believe that? Vietnam may be a good historical example. At the time civilian death wasn't reported as it isn't being reported in Iraq. At the time estimates from our government put civilian deaths in South Vietnam at around 200,000. They didn't report on North Vietnam casualties. We now know that approximately 2 million civilians died in the south and another 2 million in the north. 4 million innocent civilian lives - babies, children, women, old men - died as a result of our asinine foreign policy. And to what end? We lost, and Vietnam prospers. Oops.
Why do we learn so little from past mistakes?
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Mr Obama and Mr GO
The Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet Canal (Mr. Go) is a 76 mi (122 km) channel constructed by the Army Corps of Engineers in response to pressure from Chevron and in part paid for by Chevron that provided a shorter route between the Gulf of Mexico and New Orleans inner harbor for oil tankers. In 2005, the MR-GO channeled hurricane Katrina's storm surge into the 9th ward contributing significantly to the failure of the levies.
Before the hurricane it was called the Hurricane Highway. Three months before Katrina, Hassan Mashriqui, a storm surge expert at Louisiana State Univ Hurricane Center, called MR-GO a "critical and fundamental flaw" in the Corps' hurricane defenses. Prior to Katrina environmentalists and others, including voters in St. Bernard Parish whom the channel was intended to help, called for its closure. When Katrina hit - and by the way it actually didn't hit New Orleans directly - the damage and loss of life was caused by the storm surge - not the wind and rain. Scientists now believe that the channel dramatically increased the storm surge, creating a funnel effect that contributed to the scouring that undermined the levees and flood-walls along the Gulf Outlet, the Intracoastal Waterway, and the Industrial Canal. Most have accepted the destructive contribution of Mr-GO to the disaster and it has since been closed to maritime shipping - and a permanent storm surge barrier is being built within the channel.
Despite knowing about the dangers of MR-GO for years, and despite knowing that most feel it caused a great deal of the damage and loss of life with Katrina, the Federal government, lead originally by George Bush, refuses to accept any blame or responsibility for the excessive damage caused by the channel. Since it was entirley an act of God the federal government has no responsibility to compensate loss.
This was challenged in federal court in a law suit brought by the people of New Orleans against George Bush, the federal government and the Corps of Engineers. The judge who heard the case agreed with the people of New Orleans in a decisive, historic decision.
Bush resisted and appealed. Apparently it wasn't enough that he delayed emergency aid to the primarily poor democratic black victims of Katrina for days despite the floating bodies and cries for help - a true international disgrace.
And now President Obama, despite overwhelming evidence of the Federal Government's and the Corps of Engineers' poor planning and lack of response to repeated warnings as to the damage that Mr-Go was causing to the protective marsh lands surrounding New Orleans prior to Katrina and to the overwhelming evidence that Mr-Go dramatically increased the severity of the damage and loss of life caused by Katrina - despite all of this - Obama has chosen to take up Bush's fight and is appealing the ruling. Obama doesn't want the Federal government to accept any responsibility for the Katrina disaster or to compensate the people of New Orleans - the 9th ward especially - for the damage years of Federal government blunder and the channel caused.
The picture below shows part of this channel. As others have pointed out, looks a lot like a rifle barrel pointed at New Orleans - heh?
Before the hurricane it was called the Hurricane Highway. Three months before Katrina, Hassan Mashriqui, a storm surge expert at Louisiana State Univ Hurricane Center, called MR-GO a "critical and fundamental flaw" in the Corps' hurricane defenses. Prior to Katrina environmentalists and others, including voters in St. Bernard Parish whom the channel was intended to help, called for its closure. When Katrina hit - and by the way it actually didn't hit New Orleans directly - the damage and loss of life was caused by the storm surge - not the wind and rain. Scientists now believe that the channel dramatically increased the storm surge, creating a funnel effect that contributed to the scouring that undermined the levees and flood-walls along the Gulf Outlet, the Intracoastal Waterway, and the Industrial Canal. Most have accepted the destructive contribution of Mr-GO to the disaster and it has since been closed to maritime shipping - and a permanent storm surge barrier is being built within the channel.
Despite knowing about the dangers of MR-GO for years, and despite knowing that most feel it caused a great deal of the damage and loss of life with Katrina, the Federal government, lead originally by George Bush, refuses to accept any blame or responsibility for the excessive damage caused by the channel. Since it was entirley an act of God the federal government has no responsibility to compensate loss.
This was challenged in federal court in a law suit brought by the people of New Orleans against George Bush, the federal government and the Corps of Engineers. The judge who heard the case agreed with the people of New Orleans in a decisive, historic decision.
Bush resisted and appealed. Apparently it wasn't enough that he delayed emergency aid to the primarily poor democratic black victims of Katrina for days despite the floating bodies and cries for help - a true international disgrace.
And now President Obama, despite overwhelming evidence of the Federal Government's and the Corps of Engineers' poor planning and lack of response to repeated warnings as to the damage that Mr-Go was causing to the protective marsh lands surrounding New Orleans prior to Katrina and to the overwhelming evidence that Mr-Go dramatically increased the severity of the damage and loss of life caused by Katrina - despite all of this - Obama has chosen to take up Bush's fight and is appealing the ruling. Obama doesn't want the Federal government to accept any responsibility for the Katrina disaster or to compensate the people of New Orleans - the 9th ward especially - for the damage years of Federal government blunder and the channel caused.
The picture below shows part of this channel. As others have pointed out, looks a lot like a rifle barrel pointed at New Orleans - heh?
Stupid is as Stupid Does
No Islamic center near ground zero as it is hallowed ground?
Muslims died at ground zero too on 9-11.
Let me say that again - Muslims died at the world trade center on 9-11.
But their lives don't count?
And just who's hallowed ground is it?
Ground zero and lower Manhattan is a desecrated burial site and sacred ground of enslaved Africans and African descendants.
Hallowed ground desecrated by our European decedents.
Before becoming Manhattan, it was called “Mannahatta” by the Lenni Lenape people who were the original inhabitants - who buried their dead there.
Hallowed ground desecrated.
The A-bomb dropped on Nagasaki ignited directly above the largest Christian church in Japan
No churches at their ground zero?
Hallowed ground nuked.
Should construction of Churches near the Oklahoma City bombing site be prohibited since McVeigh was a Christian?
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Saturday, October 16, 2010
Use The Net
Twenty-five years ago media outlets were owned and controlled by over 50 separate companies.
Today it's six. And all are owned by ultra-rich, ultraconservatives who do not appear afraid to impose their own bias.
Don't believe that or in their collective power? - ask Dan Rather.
Just about the time they figured out how to control TV, radio, newspapers and magazines with media consolidation - along comes the internet.
- Insert the Hallelujah Choir here -
I don't think anyone will ever be able to completely control it - so we must all learn how to use it to its fullest.
I encourage you to abandon old habits - TV, newspapers and get your information elsewhere
at the very least supplement it with the net.
Sounds easy - but I find that it actually takes discipline and a conscious effort
Old habits die hard but new ones can be oh so rewarding
Today it's six. And all are owned by ultra-rich, ultraconservatives who do not appear afraid to impose their own bias.
Don't believe that or in their collective power? - ask Dan Rather.
Just about the time they figured out how to control TV, radio, newspapers and magazines with media consolidation - along comes the internet.
- Insert the Hallelujah Choir here -
I don't think anyone will ever be able to completely control it - so we must all learn how to use it to its fullest.
I encourage you to abandon old habits - TV, newspapers and get your information elsewhere
at the very least supplement it with the net.
Sounds easy - but I find that it actually takes discipline and a conscious effort
Old habits die hard but new ones can be oh so rewarding
Charity, Love, Brotherhood
Many Christians feel they are better than you because they are Christian.
Fundamentalist Christians think that God thinks they are better than you.
Fundamentalist Christians think that God thinks they are better than you.
Friday, October 15, 2010
We Are Being Fleeced
How do you get a retired person dependent on social security to vote for a candidate who wants to do away with it?
How is it possible that an otherwise intelligent person can get so worked up and confused by a well funded campaign of lies and misinformation as to stand up in front of national media and say "Keep government out of my medicare"?
How do you get rationale middle class conservative America to seriously consider doing away with the minimum wage, public schools, fire departments, police, and government oversight?
I don't know. All I know is the movement is well funded and supported by renegade media such as Fox "News" and not seriously challenged by 'mainstream' media. Who is behind this? A major clue may be found in asking who is to benefit by it. Corporate big money interests - not the people supporting it.
I also know that if this continues many of these same people will wake up one morning and realize they no longer have social security, medicare or schools for their grand children to go to. Millions will not be able to obtain even the bare minimum of a living wage and will not have the tools available to them or their children to ever do so. Their food water air and land will have no protection or oversight. What will follow will be suffering , disenfranchisement and eventually civil unrest on a massive scale.
How is it possible that an otherwise intelligent person can get so worked up and confused by a well funded campaign of lies and misinformation as to stand up in front of national media and say "Keep government out of my medicare"?
How do you get rationale middle class conservative America to seriously consider doing away with the minimum wage, public schools, fire departments, police, and government oversight?
I don't know. All I know is the movement is well funded and supported by renegade media such as Fox "News" and not seriously challenged by 'mainstream' media. Who is behind this? A major clue may be found in asking who is to benefit by it. Corporate big money interests - not the people supporting it.
I also know that if this continues many of these same people will wake up one morning and realize they no longer have social security, medicare or schools for their grand children to go to. Millions will not be able to obtain even the bare minimum of a living wage and will not have the tools available to them or their children to ever do so. Their food water air and land will have no protection or oversight. What will follow will be suffering , disenfranchisement and eventually civil unrest on a massive scale.
Chris Dudely - Attacking the Minimum Wage
Can you imagine going after the minimum wage as a political candidate with a straight face? Especially if you yourself are wealthy? Chris Dudley can. Oregon enjoys one of the highest minimum wages in the country. But even at that, full time comes to ~ $17,000/year or $5000 less than the poverty line for a family of four. Where exactly will the corporate greed and the contempt for those less fortunate end? In the last 20 years Chris Dudley has gone from 16 years of being highly paid in the NBA, to Vice President of M Financial Wealth Management to partnering with Filigree Advisors in managing wealth. Mr. Dudley manages ultra-wealth - his and others - minimum wage earners unlikely to be his clients or apparently, even worth his compassion.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Pamela Geller - Hate, Fear, Money
Pamela Geller and her Atlas Shrugs blog.
Hate, fear, bigotry and money.
I wonder if she ever feels like all she's done is given in to temptation.
Built into each of us is a paranoia,
an evolutionary strategy selected for survival.
Fear of the unknown, the different, the 'strange'.
Allowing our cerebral cortex to temper and contain these instincts -
to control them with humaneness and tolerance
is part of what makes us human.
It's not clever to exploit the instinct - she's just a thug.
Hate, fear, bigotry and money.
I wonder if she ever feels like all she's done is given in to temptation.
Built into each of us is a paranoia,
an evolutionary strategy selected for survival.
Fear of the unknown, the different, the 'strange'.
Allowing our cerebral cortex to temper and contain these instincts -
to control them with humaneness and tolerance
is part of what makes us human.
It's not clever to exploit the instinct - she's just a thug.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
A Small World is a Beautiful World
Published: Saturday, October 16, 2010, 10:00 AM
Whenever I could I watched the rescue of the Chilean miners live throughout the day. I was struck that no matter how long I watched I could not help but get tears in my eyes whenever a man stepped out of his rescue capsule. Amazing. Beautiful. The best of us all, the power of us all, the grace, the hope and humaneness of us all.
As I thought about it later I realized that I had watched it all on the internet, never once turning on the TV. It was a video feed, no announcer - I felt like I was there watching and hoping and feeling the joy of those there and of the billions watching with whom I was sharing this with worldwide.
We now have the means to experience each other as fellow humans on this planet on a daily, intimate level in a way devoid of outside interpretation, bias, hate, nationalism. On the day of the rescue humanity in the billions, from all corners of the planet, experienced each other simply as humans - and it was good.
Monday, October 11, 2010
We're All Bozos On This Bus
I wrote this for my medicine colleagues - I think it applies to so much in life
We need to balance our need for overwhelming clinical evidence with the need to proceed as best we can in all that we do in the ICU - or we'd do precious little indeed
But we also must resist the urge to apply 'common sense' dogmatically - which as Einstein has told us is just really our lifetime cumulative bias
We must also resist the urge to always "know" what to do
Please see attached link
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20502866
I'm struck that even nutritional strategies can potentially cause harm
But I'm even more struck by the sheer volume of conflicting data
And ultimately at how little we really know
We need to balance our need for overwhelming clinical evidence with the need to proceed as best we can in all that we do in the ICU - or we'd do precious little indeed
But we also must resist the urge to apply 'common sense' dogmatically - which as Einstein has told us is just really our lifetime cumulative bias
We must also resist the urge to always "know" what to do
Please see attached link
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20502866
I'm struck that even nutritional strategies can potentially cause harm
But I'm even more struck by the sheer volume of conflicting data
And ultimately at how little we really know
Saturday, October 9, 2010
Friday, October 1, 2010
War is Not Inevitable
There are people who believe war is inevitable. It is in our nature, rooted in the more primitive, ancient aspects of our makeup and cannot be overcome. The territorial imperative. We are animals after all - and these instincts so deep, so ingrained we cannot hope to control them.
Comforting thoughts for those who have killed in war or for those trying to make sense of what is in the end completely senseless - war. Comforting thoughts - but untrue nonetheless.
The primitive brain from which our more basic reflexes and drives come from represents about 7% of the entire brain by volume. The more highly evolved cerebral cortex - where higher order thought processes occur - massively dwarfs it. We are not ruled by our primitive brain. It is not the seat of evil and temptation that eventually wears us down to face the 'truth' about our aggressive natures and makes war inevitable. It is our cerebral cortex that evolved to make us human. The more primitive aspects of our brain contribute to who and what we are but it is our cerebral cortex that makes us human, gives us sentience, and the ability to permanently avoid war and self-destruction if we so choose.
Comforting thoughts for those who have killed in war or for those trying to make sense of what is in the end completely senseless - war. Comforting thoughts - but untrue nonetheless.
The primitive brain from which our more basic reflexes and drives come from represents about 7% of the entire brain by volume. The more highly evolved cerebral cortex - where higher order thought processes occur - massively dwarfs it. We are not ruled by our primitive brain. It is not the seat of evil and temptation that eventually wears us down to face the 'truth' about our aggressive natures and makes war inevitable. It is our cerebral cortex that evolved to make us human. The more primitive aspects of our brain contribute to who and what we are but it is our cerebral cortex that makes us human, gives us sentience, and the ability to permanently avoid war and self-destruction if we so choose.
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