Quote of the Day

I do not know which makes a man more conservative—to know nothing but the present, or nothing but the past.
  - John Maynard Keynes

Quote of the Day

Much of the social history of the Western world over the past three decades has involved replacing what worked with what sounded good.
  - Thomas Sowell

Goodbye

For those of you who like your media with no cream or sugar, be sure to tune into C-Span:

Happy holidays everybody!!!!

Did I Say "Silent Majority?"

In my previous post I mentioned a song called "Okie from Muskogee" and how it was considered an anthem by Nixon's so called "silent majority."  Since then it has occurred to me that I have heard a similar term used during the 1980's referring to the Moral Majority.  While the silent majority was merely an abstract political term, the Moral Majority was an actual conservative Chrisitian-oriented lobbying organization.

It seems like the idea of an invisible majority could be considered a cynical attack on democracy itself.  Both the notion of an unofficial silent majority and the existence of the official Moral Majority organization were essentially asserting that there was this large majority of Americans that were somehow disenfranchised from the political process and needed to be heard.  Don't people get heard when they bother to go to the polls?  Of course they do, and our elections reflect the will of the voters who bother to show up and vote.  This doesn't appear to be good enough for some people.

Perhaps the idea of a silent or moral majority is really just a phenomenon of the American tendency to get wrapped up in culture wars.  The cultural warfare of the 60's was an all out brawl encompassing issues ranging from civil rights to ending the war in Vietnam.  Cultural warfare during the Reagan administration seemed to be about a resurgence in American conservatism.  Today there is definitely a culture war going on with people accusing the President of being a socialist, but I'm not sure how this culture war will get defined by the history books.  I haven't figured this one out.

Conservative Music

As a music and politics blog, I wanted to challenge myself to think of the most conservative song ever written.  I may have found it.  The song "Okie from Muskogee" came out during the Nixon administration and was considered by many to be the official anthem of Nixon's conservative "silent majority."  Listening to this I couldn't help admitting that conservatives have come a long way.  Sort of...



We don't smoke marijuana in Muskogee
We don't take our trips on LSD
We don't burn our draft cards down on Main Street
We like livin' right, and bein' free.

We don't make a party out of lovin'
We like holdin' hands and pitchin' woo
We don't let our hair grow long and shaggy
Like the hippies out in San Francisco do.

And I'm proud to be an Okie from Muskogee
A place where even squares can have a ball
We still wave Old Glory down at the courthouse
And white lightnin's still the biggest thrill of all.

Leather boots are still in style for manly footwear
Beads and Roman sandals won't be seen
Football's still the roughest thing on campus
And the kids here still respect the college dean.

And I'm proud to be an Okie from Muskogee
A place where even squares can have a ball
We still wave Old Glory, down at the courthouse
And white lightnin's still the biggest thrill of all.
We still wave Old Glory, down at the courthouse
In Muskogee, Oklahoma, USA.

Culture War or Class War?

If the Republican party cannot piece together an actionable economic agenda anytime soon, will their platform revert back to the relatively softer social issues like abortion and gay marriage?  Traditionally, the real red meat of Republican party platforms past and present has been social issues.  Even though their Tea Party wing claims to be focused on economics, the traditional way to rouse the GOP faithful is through cultural warfare, not the class warfare that emerges when you start talking economics.  One way to read the political "tea leaves" (no pun intended) is to watch whether or not Don't Ask Don't Tell becomes a big issue in the House floor debates of the next Congress.  That could very well signal which way the GOP wants to go.

Justice and No Health Care for All

According to Politico.com, two newly elected House Republicans have opted out of the Congressional health plan.  Apparently they were challenged to do so by Democrats who took exception to their plans to repeal health care reform. Congressmen elect Bobby Schilling of Illinois and Mike Kelly of Pennsylvania both said Thursday that they will not participate in Congress's health insurance plan.  Schilling said "My family and I are bringing our own health care to Washington, D.C.," he said. "Congress shouldn’t have anything better than the American people."

The interesting thing about this statement is that far too many Americans don't have any health insurance at all, and the ones that do often aren't covered sufficiently for the basic health care services they need.  So is this a Republican saying that all Americans should be equal?  Or is it just a cynical political stunt designed to disguise hypocrisy?




Source:

Politico.com

When Democracy Leaks

Writing an article about WikiLeaks in the op-ed section of the guardian.co.uk, Simon Jenkins makes an interesting point when he says that "The job of the media is not to protect the powerful from embarrassment."  Personally, I couldn't agree more.  If our government cannot keep something secret, why should the news media be required to back them up?  In other words, if the press has to be a partner with the government in protecting state secrets; why do we need the press in the first place?  Do we really have an independent, free press if journalists are expected to protect Uncle Sam from spilling the beans?  It seems to me that whoever gave this information to WikiLeaks in the first place is the real culprit here.  Let's not shoot the messenger.  We need the message.

Religion and State and the IRS

According to a recent article in Politico, the IRS appears to be investigating whether Jewish religious groups entitled to 501(c)3 tax exempt status have compromised their status by their "political" support for the State of Israel.  According to Politico, and unnamed Jewish organization received correspondence from the IRS asking "Does your organization support the existence of the land of Israel?" and "Describe your organization's religious belief system toward the land of Israel.""

Of all the religions protected by the Establishment Clause in the Constitution, Judaism is unique in that Jews actually have their own country.  Technically, the Catholics also have the Vatican, but there are very few if any geo-political issues compromising the Catholic Church in America and its relationship to the Vatican as an official state.  It seems a little bit unrealistic if not downright unfair to question the tax exempt status of a Jewish organization simply because they support the Jewish State and its right to exist.  On the other hand, if we are not going to extend tax exempt status to political organizations, which we don't; then how do we separate religion and state regarding tax policy?  This has also come up as an issue when conservative evangelical pastors and/or their churches have made endorsements for political candidates.  It appears that this is not an issue that is going to go away anytime soon.

Freedom of Press

Every time an article comes out about North Korea's crazy KCNA or Korean Central News Agency, they usually include the fact that newswires from KCNA are routinely blocked from display on TV or the internet in the supposedly democratic South Korea.  When you consider how patently ridiculous every word that comes from the KCNA actually is; it is remarkable that any government would be concerned about KCNA's content.  This is the news agency that said Hillary Clinton, "Sometimes...looks like a primary schoolgirl and sometimes a pensioner going shopping." If you wanted to parody a soviet era communist news agency in a screenplay, you could do no better than the actual content that comes from the KCNA.  So why should a democracy like South Korea actually care about blocking content from the North?

We must really take our press freedoms for granted here in America.  Just because you live in a democracy does not mean you have freedom of the press, or any other freedom for that matter.





Source:
cnn.com

Tanks for the Memories

Nine years and one thousand, three hundred and eighty four casualties and counting (Washington Post) after the war in Afghanistan began, we are just now getting around to delivering Abrams M1A1 tanks to our forces in Afghanistan.

According to Jim Garamone of the American Forces Press Service "servicemembers in Afghanistan’s Regional Command–Southwest will receive 14 M1A1 Abrams tanks to aid in the fight against the Taliban. The Marine Corps tanks, which pack a super-accurate 120 mm main gun, will begin to arrive in January."

Regardless of the controversy of whether we should be in Afghanistan or not, I thought we had learned in Vietnam what happens when a war is fought without a total, all-out commitment to victory.  We had no problem employing tanks in Iraq, so why are they just now delivering tanks to to our troops in Afghanistan?

I don't get it. Do you?

Another Perspective

You may have seen some of these hilarious animations coming from an online newspaper in Taiwan called Apple Daily that attempt to animate contemporary news stories.  These animations have a way of giving one a sense of how people outside the U.S. view a story that might be somewhat different from the American perspective.

Just when I had lost interest in taking any more cheap shots at Sarah Palin, they came out with this lovely little gem:




You can check out their latest offerings at the following link:
http://www.nma.com.tw/VideoSearch.aspx



Source:

www.nma.com

Katie gets Refudiated

Apparently Sarah Palin doesn't want to have to answer any more tough questions like naming one Supreme Court case or the name of a single newspaper she has read.  In an interview with Fox New's Sean Hannity she stated that she does not want to waste time with any reporters like Katie Couric that have a bias against her.

I could go on at this point to write something about how idiotic Sarah Palin's point of view is, but I am starting to feel that mocking her ridiculous remarks is becoming so easy; it's not satisfying anymore.  What really concerns me about her warped world view is that there are millions of people who think just like her.  The real tragedy of our failure to adequately educate our children in this country isn't that we are less competitive with other countries in science and math.  The real tragedy is that we have raised children who have grown up to be potential voters incapable of telling the difference between somebody who knows what they are talking about and someone who is a complete dingbat.



Source:
cnn.com

Fun and Games

I just discovered an entertaining way to spend about 15 minutes of your time.  It's called the Glenn Beck Conspiracy Theory Generator.  Check it out:

Many people think that Glenn Beck is brilliant, but the fact that his theories can easily be created by randomizing software code makes you wonder if he shouldn't go back to being a disc jockey.

I generated quite a few conspiracy theories, but the best one I came up with was this one:

Climate Nazis are seeking emergency powers that will enable them to burn teabaggers at the stake. It's all part of their plan. Burn them all and then buy carbon offsets to make their executions more green-friendly. 





Source:

politicalhumor.about.com

Blasphemy and Death

According to CNN a Christian woman in Pakistan faces the death penalty for something she allegedly said about the Prophet Muhammad.  She was angry at another villager for claiming that her use of the village well contaminated the water because she is not a Muslim.  She allegedly responded to this insult by declaring that the Prophet Muhammad died with "worms in his mouth."  For this she now faces the death penalty in Pakistan.

Reading this story doesn't make me angry at Pakistan or even Islam as much as it makes me angry at amateur politicians like Christine O'Donnell and Sarah Palin who don't understand why we should have separation of church and state in America.  Even though I am a Christian, it makes my blood boil when I hear someone say the United States is a "Christian" country.  Really?  Do we really want what Pakistan has; a state religion?



Source:

cnn.com

Pet Charities

Many members of Congress have created charitable foundations that do badly needed work for the communities they represent.  Making a large contribution to one of these foundations can put a donor into the good graces of the respective lawmaker who created that particular foundation.  This raises a interesting question.  While there is no dispute that these politician sponsored foundations have done important work; do the actual donations themselves constitute some kind of payoff to the lawmaker?  Since the donation does not go directly to the legislator, some might argue that this in not a form of bribery.  Still others might argue that when a foundation's charitable work benefits large segments of a lawmaker's district; he/she then benefits indirectly by gaining loyal voters who appreciate the work of his/her foundation.  Will a corporation giving a large contribution to a lawmaker's charitable foundation expect something in return when a critical issue is decided before Congress?  These charitable donations are far in excess of what would be permitted under campaign finance regulation, but so far both the Senate and the House have exempted them from any kind of oversight.

What do you think?  Is this bribery at its worst, or charity at its best?  Does it matter?



Source:

nytimes.com

Big Guys and Little Old Ladies

I have long been fascinated about the different thought processes that seem to be used by conservatives and liberals in the United States.  Setting aside the classical definitions of liberalism and conservatism, it is fascinating to compare the distinctive ways these two groups think about different issues.  It occurred to me that I may have found another distinction:  Conservatives seem to be more upset about individuals cheating businesses than businesses cheating individuals.  Here is a case in point:  Remember the little old lady who pulled into a McDonald's drive-thru, spilled coffee in her lap and sued successfully for 2.7 million dollars?  This case had the average conservative boiling under the collar (no pun intended...seriously) as an example of our overly litigious society run amok.  While I haven't conducted any scientific surveys; I can only imagine the average liberal saying "you go girl!", and passing over the idea that this case was clearly frivolous on its face.  While this case was an example of an individual sticking it to a multinational corporation; I never seem to hear the same righteous indignation coming from conservatives about corporations sticking it to the individual.  Our financial institutions, particularly the credit card companies, have become so predatory in their behavior toward consumers that the government was forced to pass the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act , which created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.  Needless to say, the Republican Party fought this legislation tooth and nail to the very end.  The conventional wisdom of the conservative mind is that a contract is a contract, and no consumer is ever forced to sign a contract.  Fair enough, except for the fact that when a credit card company throws your payment into a trash dumpster so that you will be hit with a late charge; that's not contractual, that's fraud.  This brings to mind that old saying that "what is good for business is good for America."  Is it really?

Civil Liberties after 9/11

I recently read the Espionage Act of 1917 to better understand the statutory basis of a famous Supreme Court decision known as Schenk v. United States. It occurred to me that this was an era when Congress and the Supreme Court statutorily and constitutionally accelerated the splitting of our Bill of Rights into two bodies of law; a peacetime Bill of Rights and a wartime Bill of Rights. Our legislators and judges decided that it was a matter of national security that Americans should have fewer liberties during a time of war. This new definition of civil liberties allowed the Court to accomplish some monumentally challenging feats of jurisprudence such as the Supreme Court’s decision in Korematsu v. United States, which declared the forced internment (i.e., ethnic cleansing) of Japanese Americans during World War II to be constitutional.

What are the consequences of this “dual” Bill of Rights on our civil liberties in a post 9/11 era where we find ourselves in a perpetual "war" against terrorism?  Despite later Supreme Court decisions such as Brandenburg v. Ohio, The Espionage Act of 1917 is still on the books as a constitutionally valid law. In this legal environment, does the potential exist for establishing a “new normal” in our definition of American civil liberties? This was a much more salient question eight years ago when the post 9/11 trauma was in full bloom and the popular American mind imagined a radical Muslim terrorist under every rock. Imagined or not, domestic terrorism is still a threat and Americans are still justifiably angry about 9/11. So what about our basic civil liberties? Will they diminish even more?

Minima de Malis

A recent poll out of Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut finds that most New Yorkers favor moving the proposed Islamic community center. While the poll indicates that a slight majority (54%) understand that this particular Muslim community has a constitutional right to build the community center / mosque at the proposed location; a similar majority (53%) feels that the “sensitivities of 9/11 relatives” should be a more significant consideration. This begs an important question:  While the emotional sensitivities of Americans who lost precious loved ones on 9/11 should be thoroughly considered as a matter of principle, what are the geopolitical implications for American foreign policy if we also fail to consider the thoughts and feelings of one fourth of the world's population that happens to be Muslim? Do we really want to give Al-Qaeda another talking point in their recruiting arsenal? Maybe as a country we have more to gain by allowing that community center to be built at its present location than we do by moving it. The United States still stands as the world’s last remaining superpower, and we didn’t get there with an inability to choose the lesser of two evils.