During the Terry Schiavo fiasco, when a small number of reckless politicians, ignorant or disdainful of the Constitutional doctrine of separation of powers, sought to derail judicial reiterations of the right to privacy and the right to die, Kansas Senator Sam Brownback was right there in the forefront, along with Sen. Rick Santorum (a blithering halfwit with the morals of a slug) and Rep. Tom DeLay (an unscrupulous, degenerate bigot who'd sell his mother for a golf junket), and, lurking in the wings, Brownback's buddy and Operation Rescue founder, Randall Terry. In a blog supplement to his mammoth Rolling Stone portrait of Brownback, Jeff Sharlet pointed up the inconsistencies -- double standards, really -- that characterize Brownback and Company's position on capital punishment, on the one hand, and such end-of-life issues as discontinuance of life-sustaining treatment on the other.
Brownback co-sponsored, with another of his Prayer Breakfast group senators, a bill called the Streamlined Procredures Act, which would short-circuit -- foreclose, actually -- the right of a person convicted of capital punishment to appeal from state courts to federal by way of writ of habeas corpus. (Curiously, Brownback is a "reformed evangelical," having switched from fundamentalist protestantism to Catholicism at some point, and, like a majority of American -- if not worldwide -- Catholics, conveniently ignores the Vatican's condemnation of the ultimate penalty.) As Sharlet points out, habeas corpus was appropriate for intervention in the Shiavo Affair to keep a basket case alive, but not for a convicted murderer, no matter how weak (or even trumped up) the evidence.
But Brownback's Number One Pet Peeve, hands down, is homosexuality and especially the attempts of gays and lesbians to attain "special rights." Special rights are nothing more than the same privileges and perks enjoyed by stright people, including marriage. If the Sam Brownbacks have their way (and they have to a great extent), gays could never marry; a gay or lesbian partner cannot keep vigil with their significant other in a hospital room; they cannot become beneficiaries of retirement plans, and so on and on ad infinitum. The only justification offered by such bigots is that the sacred American Family must be protected, which is what marriage is all about, isn't it? The Brownbacks of this world want to have their cake and eat it, too. Gays and lesbians are unstable and can't maintain longterm relationships, so it's best to deprive them of the main thing that tends to cement relationships, the commitment of religious vows. The instability argument, vis-a-vis denial of the right to marry, just won't wash. About 50% of all straight marriages end in divorce. So, just exactly who is unstable?
The right wing religious nuts' positions on homosexuality boil down to one thing and one thing only: bigotry. They claim that gays have an "agenda" that is designed to recruit youth and initiate young people into a perverted lifestyle. This ignores medical science just as creationism ignores biology. Granted, nurture plays at least some role in the process of becoming gay, but nature dictates a genetic predisposition. One cannot "make" another person gay. Neurobiology says otherwise. But, then, no one ever accused the Brownbacks of this world of being educated or intelligent. They would rather wallow in ignorance and superstition than subject their silly notions to the cold light of scientific experimentation and confirmation of theory by statistical analysis.
The Brownbacks include such Senator Sam associates as Robert Wasinger, his chief of staff, who led a college crusade to rid Harvard of gay and lesbian faculty members, writing in a student review -- sponsored by the right wing Heritage Foundation -- that he was anti-gay because he hated to see sperm cells "swimming in feces." Perhaps aware that Biblical condemnations of homosexuality have been questioned as mistranslations of Aramaic and outright distortions, Brownback claims that his negative position on the matter is dictated by "natural law." This concept, as it is used by Brownbacks, derives from an epistle of Paul. Paul was the greatest misongynist in history and a sexually crippled closet queen who interiorized the homophobic attitudes of his fellow Zealots and illegitimated the religion he founded by perverting the Truths of its prophet. Although you might think that the word, "natural," is intended in the sense meant when someone refers to a practice as "unnatural," Paul meant an innate ability to discern between right and wrong. (Aquinus took it up, too, but it was thoroughly, wittily, devastatingly examined by Robert Anton Wilson, in Natural Law, or Don't Put a Rubber on Your Willy.) Suffice to say, natural law is about as sensible a justification for being down on queers (you should pardon the expression) as a preference for tea makes Coca-Cola unpotable.
Finally, Brownbacks view the Revelations of John of Patmos as self-fulfilling prophecy -- easily the scarriest and most dangerous idea they maintain, much worse that their desire to see women go back to coat hanger abortions in dark alleys and gays put in concentration camps or simply executed, &c. To the Brownbacks (I was going to call them Brown Shirts, but that one has already been taken), Armageddon will be the final conflict of Muslims on the one hand and a Judeo-Christer coalition on the other. Hey, I always suspected a nuclear holocaust would ensue sooner or later, burning the planet into a cinder. I just don't think Brownbacks should hurry it up.
Friday, March 17, 2006
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
God and Country - Part I
I may only be showing my age, and it is entirely possible that such things are no longer taught in American history or "civics" classes, but I seem to recall my grade school teachers informing us that the First Amendment's anti-establishment clause (no "official" religion) grew out of the Founding Fathers' fresh recollections of the persecution (even, in some cases, the forced conversion) of religious minorities. France may have been the Champeen pogromist, slaughtering Huegenots, Cathari, and witches during what the latter, after the favorite method of execution, called "the Burning Times."
In a mere 230 years since the forefathers brought forth a more perfect (read: free) union, a nation taking pride in its freedom from religion, we are witnessing an unprecedented clamor for theocracy, a movement marked by hypocritical lip service to the idea of religious freedom, but with unmistakable subtexts of Christian fundamentalism. Maybe fundamentalist Christers are by nature reactionary, and the more we assert our right to be agnostics or atheists, the more they push an agenda that is little more than a thinly disguised plot to make the USA the Jesus Freak equivalent of Iran. Fundamentalism is bad no matter who the prophet and what the gospel. A right wing evangelical with a "pro-family" agenda is no different than an obdurate Shi'a mullah who finds in Shari'a law an agenda for keeping great numbers of the world's population firmly ensconced in the 18th century.
When this sort of thing is allowed to flourish, unabated, it results in things like the mutaww'un, or "enforcers of obedience" of Wahhabism, who've been characterized as "a kind of private religious police, monitoring not only public but also private conformity to Islam." (The Oxford Dictionary of World Religions, emphasis added.) With the establishment of a Christer theocracy in the USA, we may see the return to such early American practices as hitting people with rods when they doze off in church, and putting them in stocks on proof they worked on the Sabbath. Who are the front men for this nonsense? Would it surprise you to know that the Number One Bull Moose Looney just happens to be a United States senator?
Yep. He's Sen. Sam Brownback, GOP, Kansas. (Where else?) Senator Sam plans to run for chief exec, and he's got most of the Christer voting block -- the same evangelicals who helped put Dubya in the White House -- backing his efforts. If any one individual epitomizes the follies and evils of theocratic political philosophy, it's Brownback. A February 9th Rolling Stone portrait of the man had me screaming and puking at turns, as Brownback represents everything sick and evil in post-Vietnam America. The author of the "National Affairs" piece in Rolling Stone, Jeff Sharlet, a New York University professor, says that Brownback (1) held off on signing Newtie's contract on America "not because it was too radical but because it was too tame," (2) once told a group of businessmen "he wanted to be the next Jesse Helms -- 'Senator No.' who operated as a one-man demolition unit against godlessness," and (3) compared Roe v. Wade to the Dred Scott decision, although the former legalized abortion -- an expansion of freedom -- while the latter legitimated slavery, a curtailing of it.
Sharlet portrays Brownback and spouse as plain vanilla Americans, she in the kitchen while he is fiddling with the remote to block those channels on TV deemed "too sexual," including, at times, the nightly news. After all, it was Brownback who, in the wake of Janet Jackson's unfortunate tit-plop at Super Bowl halftime, introduced $325,000 fines for such shenanigans in his Broadcast Decency Reform Act! Senator Sam is a member of the Promise Keepers, portrayed by Sharlet as proselytizers not only for Christeranity but worldwide conversion. Theirs is "a vision of manly Christianity dedicated to the expansion of American power as a means of spreading the gospel," Sharlet writes. So this is what the Bush Bunch are up to in the Mideast! And just when one is starting to wonder how dangerous such twits can really be, Sharlet lays The Biggie on us. He claims that Brownback is a member of a secret group called The Fellowship, headed by a lunatic named Doug Coe.
"They [strive] ultimately, for what Coe calls 'Jesus plus nothing,' a government led by Christ's will alone. In the future...everything -- sex and taxes, war and the price of oil -- will be decided upon not by democracy or the church or even Scripture. The Bible itself is for the masses; in the Fellowship, Christ reveals a higher set of commands to the annointed few. It's a good old boy's club blessed by God...." (Emphasis added.) I've highlighted some select clauses in this part of Sharlet's report in hopes you'll note that this scenario is already being followed by Rev. Robber's Son and Rev. Faultwell. When disaster strikes, it's God's punishment on America for our sinful ways. Never mind that such thinking commits the logical fallacy of post hoc ergo propter hoc, best illustrated by reference to the aboriginal tribe whose chief kicked the bucket during a total solar eclipse. Lest the Gods look down unfavorably on them, they made sure that later chiefs were whacked whether sick or well.
Wait, there's more. But I will reserve it for Part II. (Although I dearly love Mr. Google's Blogger, longish pieces become cumbersome, difficult to edit, and hard to keep stable. It's probably easier to break a long blog into parts.)
In a mere 230 years since the forefathers brought forth a more perfect (read: free) union, a nation taking pride in its freedom from religion, we are witnessing an unprecedented clamor for theocracy, a movement marked by hypocritical lip service to the idea of religious freedom, but with unmistakable subtexts of Christian fundamentalism. Maybe fundamentalist Christers are by nature reactionary, and the more we assert our right to be agnostics or atheists, the more they push an agenda that is little more than a thinly disguised plot to make the USA the Jesus Freak equivalent of Iran. Fundamentalism is bad no matter who the prophet and what the gospel. A right wing evangelical with a "pro-family" agenda is no different than an obdurate Shi'a mullah who finds in Shari'a law an agenda for keeping great numbers of the world's population firmly ensconced in the 18th century.
When this sort of thing is allowed to flourish, unabated, it results in things like the mutaww'un, or "enforcers of obedience" of Wahhabism, who've been characterized as "a kind of private religious police, monitoring not only public but also private conformity to Islam." (The Oxford Dictionary of World Religions, emphasis added.) With the establishment of a Christer theocracy in the USA, we may see the return to such early American practices as hitting people with rods when they doze off in church, and putting them in stocks on proof they worked on the Sabbath. Who are the front men for this nonsense? Would it surprise you to know that the Number One Bull Moose Looney just happens to be a United States senator?
Yep. He's Sen. Sam Brownback, GOP, Kansas. (Where else?) Senator Sam plans to run for chief exec, and he's got most of the Christer voting block -- the same evangelicals who helped put Dubya in the White House -- backing his efforts. If any one individual epitomizes the follies and evils of theocratic political philosophy, it's Brownback. A February 9th Rolling Stone portrait of the man had me screaming and puking at turns, as Brownback represents everything sick and evil in post-Vietnam America. The author of the "National Affairs" piece in Rolling Stone, Jeff Sharlet, a New York University professor, says that Brownback (1) held off on signing Newtie's contract on America "not because it was too radical but because it was too tame," (2) once told a group of businessmen "he wanted to be the next Jesse Helms -- 'Senator No.' who operated as a one-man demolition unit against godlessness," and (3) compared Roe v. Wade to the Dred Scott decision, although the former legalized abortion -- an expansion of freedom -- while the latter legitimated slavery, a curtailing of it.
Sharlet portrays Brownback and spouse as plain vanilla Americans, she in the kitchen while he is fiddling with the remote to block those channels on TV deemed "too sexual," including, at times, the nightly news. After all, it was Brownback who, in the wake of Janet Jackson's unfortunate tit-plop at Super Bowl halftime, introduced $325,000 fines for such shenanigans in his Broadcast Decency Reform Act! Senator Sam is a member of the Promise Keepers, portrayed by Sharlet as proselytizers not only for Christeranity but worldwide conversion. Theirs is "a vision of manly Christianity dedicated to the expansion of American power as a means of spreading the gospel," Sharlet writes. So this is what the Bush Bunch are up to in the Mideast! And just when one is starting to wonder how dangerous such twits can really be, Sharlet lays The Biggie on us. He claims that Brownback is a member of a secret group called The Fellowship, headed by a lunatic named Doug Coe.
"They [strive] ultimately, for what Coe calls 'Jesus plus nothing,' a government led by Christ's will alone. In the future...everything -- sex and taxes, war and the price of oil -- will be decided upon not by democracy or the church or even Scripture. The Bible itself is for the masses; in the Fellowship, Christ reveals a higher set of commands to the annointed few. It's a good old boy's club blessed by God...." (Emphasis added.) I've highlighted some select clauses in this part of Sharlet's report in hopes you'll note that this scenario is already being followed by Rev. Robber's Son and Rev. Faultwell. When disaster strikes, it's God's punishment on America for our sinful ways. Never mind that such thinking commits the logical fallacy of post hoc ergo propter hoc, best illustrated by reference to the aboriginal tribe whose chief kicked the bucket during a total solar eclipse. Lest the Gods look down unfavorably on them, they made sure that later chiefs were whacked whether sick or well.
Wait, there's more. But I will reserve it for Part II. (Although I dearly love Mr. Google's Blogger, longish pieces become cumbersome, difficult to edit, and hard to keep stable. It's probably easier to break a long blog into parts.)
Monday, March 13, 2006
The Stark Frist of Removal
One certainly hopes Sen. Bill Fist doesn't really think he can take over where Dubya left off in 2008! (Yeah, yeah, I know, it's Frist with an "r," but I've gotten into the habit of playing around with the surnames of boobs, nits, crooks, and swindlers, as witness my fondness for "the Rev. Jerry Faultwell," "the Rev. Pat Robber's Son," and so forth.) Sen. Fist bussed in hordes of Republicans so he could win a straw poll in Memphis, beating off a challenge by John McCain, considered by some an early front runner and the man to beat in the GOP primaries in '08.
Silly John McCain. Didn't he learn his lesson in the 2000 race, when he allowed Rove-inspired rabbit punches to humiliate him in debates with Bush? Haven't the more astute pundits hinted that McCain's mainstream middle-of-the-road pronouncements cannot get him ahead in Republican primaries because the party itself has been hijacked by far right wing nut cases who think that the First Amendent means nothing and it's high time we established a theocracy of blithering idiot snake oil salesmen pounding Bibles and denouncing everything from abortion to gay rights.
No, McCain would best be advised to take the Perot route and start a third party with a platform appealing to sensible folk. I really cannot see McCain stumping at places like Bob Jones University (as Shrub did in '00). Many of McCain's positions on various issues place him in a position of anathema to bussed-in bigots from the rabid religious right -- abortion, for example. At least two other participants in the Memphis poll stand a better chance in the long run: sappy, half-witted Sen. George Allen, and Sen. Sam Brownbeck of Kansas, a liberal's worst nightmare, the epitome of the nuclear-familied Christer breeder geek eager to junk the Constitution, initiate forced conversions, and round up anyone who believes differently than he does, putting them in concentration camps. (See the wonderfull -- if harrowing -- Rolling Stone portrait of Brownbeck if you question my suppositions. Penned with surprising objectivity by Jeff Sharlet, it nevertheless manages to skewer "God's Senator," surely the religious right's man with a theocratic plan and a very likely nominee if the party fails to see the light of reason.)
Fist has some moderate views as well, but his straw poll front-run begs the question of whether the GOP thinks it can keep its House majority in '06 and win in '08 by maintaining the status quo, by conducting business as usual. The lessons of K-Street, DeLay, Abramoff, &c. have already been lost, and the Republican Party seems condemned to repeat their own sordid history. Fist, too, is part of the Culture of Corruption that Sen. Nancy Pelosi spoke of. Fist's own cultural contribution concerns his insider trading of family-owned for-profit hospital stocks that were supposed to be in blind trusts, so that no communication could be had by beneficiary to trustee. Then why, when HCA stocks were set to take a tumble due to lowered earnings announcements in June, 2005, did Fist order his trustee to sell off all his HCA shares -- two weeks before a 15% drop in value. Seems to me that this is just the sort of thing for which Martha Stewart narrowly avoided conviction (although, of course, she was sent to prison -- for obstruction of justice).
The point is simply this. Sneaky little twits like the flaccid Sen. Lindsey Graham are saying that of all the participants in the Memphis straw poll, McCain alone can expand the party's base to embrace Democrats and independents. "[The straw poll voters] are looking at electibility. Republicans are smart enough to know that the trends right now are not favorable for us." This is as disingenuous as it is miscalculating. McCain has no appeal to the neo-conservative element of the GOP, the people who make such hoopla over that nebulous sillyness called American family values -- and especially the people Rove pulled into the polling places to cast ballots for Dumb-Ass Dubya: the religious right. Now that both the S.E.C. and United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York are looking into Fist's follies, it's almost certain that he will be so besmurched in coming months -- if not pilloried to prison -- he will lose any chance of beating even the despised Hillary in '08. Besides, he takes stands on some issues at odds with the Christer bigots as well, e.g. stem cell research.
It's going to be interesting to say the least! Five will get you ten that Fist will not set foot in the Oval Office as chief executive.
Silly John McCain. Didn't he learn his lesson in the 2000 race, when he allowed Rove-inspired rabbit punches to humiliate him in debates with Bush? Haven't the more astute pundits hinted that McCain's mainstream middle-of-the-road pronouncements cannot get him ahead in Republican primaries because the party itself has been hijacked by far right wing nut cases who think that the First Amendent means nothing and it's high time we established a theocracy of blithering idiot snake oil salesmen pounding Bibles and denouncing everything from abortion to gay rights.
No, McCain would best be advised to take the Perot route and start a third party with a platform appealing to sensible folk. I really cannot see McCain stumping at places like Bob Jones University (as Shrub did in '00). Many of McCain's positions on various issues place him in a position of anathema to bussed-in bigots from the rabid religious right -- abortion, for example. At least two other participants in the Memphis poll stand a better chance in the long run: sappy, half-witted Sen. George Allen, and Sen. Sam Brownbeck of Kansas, a liberal's worst nightmare, the epitome of the nuclear-familied Christer breeder geek eager to junk the Constitution, initiate forced conversions, and round up anyone who believes differently than he does, putting them in concentration camps. (See the wonderfull -- if harrowing -- Rolling Stone portrait of Brownbeck if you question my suppositions. Penned with surprising objectivity by Jeff Sharlet, it nevertheless manages to skewer "God's Senator," surely the religious right's man with a theocratic plan and a very likely nominee if the party fails to see the light of reason.)
Fist has some moderate views as well, but his straw poll front-run begs the question of whether the GOP thinks it can keep its House majority in '06 and win in '08 by maintaining the status quo, by conducting business as usual. The lessons of K-Street, DeLay, Abramoff, &c. have already been lost, and the Republican Party seems condemned to repeat their own sordid history. Fist, too, is part of the Culture of Corruption that Sen. Nancy Pelosi spoke of. Fist's own cultural contribution concerns his insider trading of family-owned for-profit hospital stocks that were supposed to be in blind trusts, so that no communication could be had by beneficiary to trustee. Then why, when HCA stocks were set to take a tumble due to lowered earnings announcements in June, 2005, did Fist order his trustee to sell off all his HCA shares -- two weeks before a 15% drop in value. Seems to me that this is just the sort of thing for which Martha Stewart narrowly avoided conviction (although, of course, she was sent to prison -- for obstruction of justice).
The point is simply this. Sneaky little twits like the flaccid Sen. Lindsey Graham are saying that of all the participants in the Memphis straw poll, McCain alone can expand the party's base to embrace Democrats and independents. "[The straw poll voters] are looking at electibility. Republicans are smart enough to know that the trends right now are not favorable for us." This is as disingenuous as it is miscalculating. McCain has no appeal to the neo-conservative element of the GOP, the people who make such hoopla over that nebulous sillyness called American family values -- and especially the people Rove pulled into the polling places to cast ballots for Dumb-Ass Dubya: the religious right. Now that both the S.E.C. and United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York are looking into Fist's follies, it's almost certain that he will be so besmurched in coming months -- if not pilloried to prison -- he will lose any chance of beating even the despised Hillary in '08. Besides, he takes stands on some issues at odds with the Christer bigots as well, e.g. stem cell research.
It's going to be interesting to say the least! Five will get you ten that Fist will not set foot in the Oval Office as chief executive.
Sunday, March 12, 2006
Guess Who's NOT Coming to Dinner
It took me a day or two to get over the slight of seeing a cloying, manipulative, "safe" film like Trash -- oops, I mean Crash -- win the Best Picture Oscar a few nights back (03-05-06). There, I had been thinking, I was fairly certain, that this particular Academy Award belonged to the gay-themed Brokeback Mountain. I should have guessed the outcome when the voting members handed out the Best Screenplay award to Crash, many of my objections to it having their basis in the movie being an annoying concatenation of unlikely, unbelievable plot twists, "coincidences" that called attention to their own improbability. But of equal concern to me was the "dated," almost anachronistic subject matter. I mean, Crash would have been daring and even radical in, say, 1967. That's when the studios gave us Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, a cloying, manipulative, "safe" picture (which, incidentally, did not get the Best Picture Oscar, either). No wonder the hype for Crash emphasized that it was "years in the making." It might have been groundbreaking 20-30 years ago.
Although it initially suffers a tad from the sort of wishful thinking and wouldn't-it-be-pretty-if... tone of optimism that mars some "gay lib" rhetoric today (an equal amount of it being marred by shrill, "bruised fruit" rhetoric), the following in some respects sums up my feelings about Oscar's slighting of the story of Ennis and Jack ("Homo on the Range," as one wag dubbed it). That is to say, the posting (I was not informed if it came from a blog, an email, whatever) sums up my feelings about why the skittish Academy members ignored the mountain for the hills of racist Los Angeles. I suspect this will come as a bit of a surprise to right wing pundits and fundamentalist religious bigots, but Hollywood remains a bastion of homophobia. In any case, this missive was written by someone named Lamar Damon, and it came to me from a friend of a friend under the subject line, "Could Not Have Said it Better Myself." Neither could I. Here it 'tis:
"Sometimes you win by losing, and nothing has proved what a powerful, taboo-breaking, necessary film 'Brokeback Mountain' was more than its loss Sunday night to 'Crash' in the Oscar best picture category.
"Despite all the magazine covers it graced, despite all the red-state theaters it made good money in, despite (or maybe because of) all the jokes late-night talk show hosts made about it, you could not take the pulse of the industry without realizing that this film made a number of people distinctly uncomfortable.
"More than any other of the nominated films, 'Brokeback Mountain' was the one people told me they really didn't feel like seeing, didn't really get, didn't understand the fuss over. Did I really like it, they wanted to know. Yes, I really did.
"In the privacy of the voting booth, as many political candidates who've led in polls only to lose elections have found out, people are free to act out the unspoken fears and unconscious prejudices that they would never breathe to another soul, or, likely, acknowledge to themselves. And at least this year, that acting out doomed 'Brokeback Mountain.'
"For Hollywood, as a whole laundry list of people announced from the podium Sunday night and a lengthy montage of clips tried to emphasize, is a liberal place, a place that prides itself on its progressive agenda. If this were a year when voters had no other palatable options, they might have taken adeep breath and voted for 'Brokeback.' This year, however, 'Crash' was poised to be the spoiler.
"I do not for one minute question the sincerity and integrity of the people who made 'Crash,' and I do not question their commitment to wanting a more equal society. But I do question the film they've made. It may be true, as producer Cathy Schulman said in accepting the Oscar for best picture, that this was 'one of the most breathtaking and stunning maverick years in American history,' but 'Crash' is not an example of that.
"I don't care how much trouble 'Crash' had getting financing or getting people on board, the reality of this film, the reason it won the best picture Oscar, is that it is, at its core, a standard Hollywood movie, as manipulative and unrealistic as the day is long. And something more.
"For 'Crash's' biggest asset is its ability to give people a carload of those standard Hollywood satisfactions but make them think they are seeing something groundbreaking and daring. It is, in some ways, a feel-good film about racism, a film you could see and feel like a better person, a film that could make you believe that you had done your moral duty and examined your soul when in fact you were just getting your buttons pushed and your preconceptions reconfirmed.
"So for people who were discomfited by 'Brokeback Mountain' but wanted to be able to look themselves in the mirror and feel like they were good, productive liberals, 'Crash' provided the perfect safe harbor. They could vote for it in good conscience, vote for it and feel they had made a progressive move, vote for it and not feel that there was any stain on their liberal credentials for shunning what 'Brokeback' had to offer. And that's exactly what they did.
"'Brokeback,' it is worth noting, was in some ways the tamest of the discomforting films available to Oscar voters in various categories. Steven Spielberg's 'Munich'; the Palestinian Territories' 'Paradise Now,' one ofthe best foreign language nominees; and the documentary nominee 'Darwin's Nightmare' offered scenarios that truly shook up people's normal ways of seeing the world. None of them won a thing.
"Hollywood, of course, is under no obligation to be a progressive force inthe world. It is in the business of entertainment, in the business of making the most dollars it can. Yes, on Oscar night, it likes to pat itself on the back for the good it does in the world, but as Sunday night's ceremony proved, it is easier to congratulate yourself for a job well done in the past than actually do that job in the present."
As Ennis or Jack might say...'Nuff said.
Although it initially suffers a tad from the sort of wishful thinking and wouldn't-it-be-pretty-if... tone of optimism that mars some "gay lib" rhetoric today (an equal amount of it being marred by shrill, "bruised fruit" rhetoric), the following in some respects sums up my feelings about Oscar's slighting of the story of Ennis and Jack ("Homo on the Range," as one wag dubbed it). That is to say, the posting (I was not informed if it came from a blog, an email, whatever) sums up my feelings about why the skittish Academy members ignored the mountain for the hills of racist Los Angeles. I suspect this will come as a bit of a surprise to right wing pundits and fundamentalist religious bigots, but Hollywood remains a bastion of homophobia. In any case, this missive was written by someone named Lamar Damon, and it came to me from a friend of a friend under the subject line, "Could Not Have Said it Better Myself." Neither could I. Here it 'tis:
"Sometimes you win by losing, and nothing has proved what a powerful, taboo-breaking, necessary film 'Brokeback Mountain' was more than its loss Sunday night to 'Crash' in the Oscar best picture category.
"Despite all the magazine covers it graced, despite all the red-state theaters it made good money in, despite (or maybe because of) all the jokes late-night talk show hosts made about it, you could not take the pulse of the industry without realizing that this film made a number of people distinctly uncomfortable.
"More than any other of the nominated films, 'Brokeback Mountain' was the one people told me they really didn't feel like seeing, didn't really get, didn't understand the fuss over. Did I really like it, they wanted to know. Yes, I really did.
"In the privacy of the voting booth, as many political candidates who've led in polls only to lose elections have found out, people are free to act out the unspoken fears and unconscious prejudices that they would never breathe to another soul, or, likely, acknowledge to themselves. And at least this year, that acting out doomed 'Brokeback Mountain.'
"For Hollywood, as a whole laundry list of people announced from the podium Sunday night and a lengthy montage of clips tried to emphasize, is a liberal place, a place that prides itself on its progressive agenda. If this were a year when voters had no other palatable options, they might have taken adeep breath and voted for 'Brokeback.' This year, however, 'Crash' was poised to be the spoiler.
"I do not for one minute question the sincerity and integrity of the people who made 'Crash,' and I do not question their commitment to wanting a more equal society. But I do question the film they've made. It may be true, as producer Cathy Schulman said in accepting the Oscar for best picture, that this was 'one of the most breathtaking and stunning maverick years in American history,' but 'Crash' is not an example of that.
"I don't care how much trouble 'Crash' had getting financing or getting people on board, the reality of this film, the reason it won the best picture Oscar, is that it is, at its core, a standard Hollywood movie, as manipulative and unrealistic as the day is long. And something more.
"For 'Crash's' biggest asset is its ability to give people a carload of those standard Hollywood satisfactions but make them think they are seeing something groundbreaking and daring. It is, in some ways, a feel-good film about racism, a film you could see and feel like a better person, a film that could make you believe that you had done your moral duty and examined your soul when in fact you were just getting your buttons pushed and your preconceptions reconfirmed.
"So for people who were discomfited by 'Brokeback Mountain' but wanted to be able to look themselves in the mirror and feel like they were good, productive liberals, 'Crash' provided the perfect safe harbor. They could vote for it in good conscience, vote for it and feel they had made a progressive move, vote for it and not feel that there was any stain on their liberal credentials for shunning what 'Brokeback' had to offer. And that's exactly what they did.
"'Brokeback,' it is worth noting, was in some ways the tamest of the discomforting films available to Oscar voters in various categories. Steven Spielberg's 'Munich'; the Palestinian Territories' 'Paradise Now,' one ofthe best foreign language nominees; and the documentary nominee 'Darwin's Nightmare' offered scenarios that truly shook up people's normal ways of seeing the world. None of them won a thing.
"Hollywood, of course, is under no obligation to be a progressive force inthe world. It is in the business of entertainment, in the business of making the most dollars it can. Yes, on Oscar night, it likes to pat itself on the back for the good it does in the world, but as Sunday night's ceremony proved, it is easier to congratulate yourself for a job well done in the past than actually do that job in the present."
As Ennis or Jack might say...'Nuff said.
Fred's Freudian Slip
I sometimes find myself watching one of Fox News' "buried" pundit programs ("buried" because stuck in one of the forgotten, unwatched slots: 5 p.m. Saturdays. The name of the show is The Beltway Boys. It features Fred Barnes. I might say that it features Fred Barnes and Mort Kondracke, but Mort's presence is neglible, he is so cowed by the far right wing views of Barnes. (In fact, in case you've failed to notice -- and the documentary movie, Outfoxed certainly noticed -- Fox systematically hires unattractive, nerdy, unlikeable, or ineffectual persons to be the fall guys and stooges for its mainstream crypto-fascist commentators. Hannity and Combes has its Combes, and The Beltway Boys has its Kondracke, just to name a couple. (Of course there are major exceptions: Bill O'Reilly will brook no regularly appearing liberal dissent, no matter how mealy-mouthed, on his dictatorial, monomaniacal program, probably because no one wants to sign on knowing they will have to play the stooge, their every pronouncement subjecting themselves to being characterized as a "pinhead" -- itself an abhorrent, insensitive epithet, since actual pinheads are victims of congenital defects; in a word, a type of mongoloid.)
If I bother to examine my motives for even watching The Beltway Boys, I find it appeals to my sadistic streak; that is, I enjoy watching Kondracke -- the dummy liberal -- squirm. I like to see how far Kondracke will go to carefully, painfully, almost pathologically, avoid any direct disagreement with Barnes. This past Saturday (03-13-06), Barnes made a bizarre comment that either completely slipped Kondracke's notice, or else the latter simply let it slide, possibly (again confirmed by Outfoxed) fearing the network's retaliation. (At Fox News, you tow the line or you move on. Certainly gives falsity to their claim of fairness and impartiality!) Barnes treated the TV audience to a photo of George Bush embracing a foreign dignitary by placing his palms on the man's cheeks. Never mind that in most of the world's countries, this would go unnoticed. In fact, men in most countries feel no shame but rather closeness of friendship when touching each other -- even hugging and kissing, on the cheek at least. (For all their notorious macho, it is only apocryphal that the Mexicans invented the abrazo to prevent the other guy from drawing his six shooter.) Why should they not be as forward as women toward each other? They're secure in their self image. They know who and what they are.
Barnes took issue with the photo, blurting, "What's he DOING there? If he tried that with me, I'd knock him out!" Kondracke let it go. Strange, since he has, in the past, voiced quite tolerant attitudes toward gays. If it had been a true debate (as rare as hen's teeth on Fox), he might have pointed out that Barnes's outburst showed nothing so much as how insecure Barnes is about his own sexuality. Freud had a word for it: "projection." It's the imparting to others traits one dislikes in oneself. The incident suggests that Barnes might have repressed homosexual traits and that he acts macho-straight to ward off his (mostly imaginary) suggestions he might be a homo himself.
If I bother to examine my motives for even watching The Beltway Boys, I find it appeals to my sadistic streak; that is, I enjoy watching Kondracke -- the dummy liberal -- squirm. I like to see how far Kondracke will go to carefully, painfully, almost pathologically, avoid any direct disagreement with Barnes. This past Saturday (03-13-06), Barnes made a bizarre comment that either completely slipped Kondracke's notice, or else the latter simply let it slide, possibly (again confirmed by Outfoxed) fearing the network's retaliation. (At Fox News, you tow the line or you move on. Certainly gives falsity to their claim of fairness and impartiality!) Barnes treated the TV audience to a photo of George Bush embracing a foreign dignitary by placing his palms on the man's cheeks. Never mind that in most of the world's countries, this would go unnoticed. In fact, men in most countries feel no shame but rather closeness of friendship when touching each other -- even hugging and kissing, on the cheek at least. (For all their notorious macho, it is only apocryphal that the Mexicans invented the abrazo to prevent the other guy from drawing his six shooter.) Why should they not be as forward as women toward each other? They're secure in their self image. They know who and what they are.
Barnes took issue with the photo, blurting, "What's he DOING there? If he tried that with me, I'd knock him out!" Kondracke let it go. Strange, since he has, in the past, voiced quite tolerant attitudes toward gays. If it had been a true debate (as rare as hen's teeth on Fox), he might have pointed out that Barnes's outburst showed nothing so much as how insecure Barnes is about his own sexuality. Freud had a word for it: "projection." It's the imparting to others traits one dislikes in oneself. The incident suggests that Barnes might have repressed homosexual traits and that he acts macho-straight to ward off his (mostly imaginary) suggestions he might be a homo himself.
Monday, May 02, 2005
Problems With Basing Anti-Same Sex Marriage Views on the Bible
A few days ago, in our daily paper, a visitor to our fair city expressed the opinion that as all Creation was designed by God, we're all God's creatures, even if we're lesbians or homosexuals. Then, an Austin-based columnist for the paper wrote that proposed legislation banning same sex foster parents was "misguided." Having experienced first hand the homophobia that is so rampant in Nueces City, I can only conclude that the place is crawling with closet homos and dykes. (Yes, I am a Freudian at least to the extent that I believe in his theory of projection, the putting off onto others those unwanted traits one cannot acknowledge in oneself). In any case, almost all op-ed items supporting lesbian and gay rights draw the fundamentalists and Bible thumpers out of the woodwork -- in droves.
One responded to the columnist's article by saying that the "reason" she was against homosexual marriages was that Genesis 2:23 reports that Adam created Eve from a bone, and "[t]herefore, shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave unto his wife; and they shall be one flesh." In other words, as expressed in that old bumper sticker adage, "It says Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve." In the same epistle, the writer also quoted Leviticus 18-22 for the proposition that a man lying with a man is an abomination. The other letter writer made reference to exactly the same Biblical books, chapters, and verses, but he threw in his opinion that Lucifer was to blame and that the notion that nature rather than nurture produces homosexuality is "blasphemy."
Since I agree with Huxley that one should believe in nothing without evidence to support it, and that for the man of science, faith-based ideas like the existence of "God" are not only illogical but immoral, I considered writing a letter to the editor of my own, but the Nueces City Times is not in the habit of publishing the blatherings of curmudgeonly agnostics. Had I written to the paper, I would have pointed out the blatant fallacies of the two similar letters, beginning with the obvious fact that Creationism flies in the face of all geological, biological, and other scientific evidence showing that the "Miltonian" version of our origins is naive at best and nonsensical at worst. I certainly would have adumbrated the reasons why it is downright silly to cite the Old Testament book of Leviticus for much of anything.
Leviticus 18:22 is almost always pressed into service of the arguments against homosexuality by fundamentalist Christians, but it is hardly the only passage frequently cited. The story of Sodom and Gomorrah is similarly employed, although more learned Biblical scholars now believe that the actual "sin" of the Sodomites was their refusal of hospitality in an age when the Hebrews were nomadic and had to rely on the graciousness of urban folk for food, shelter, and even, where local custom allowed, the companionship of one's wife or daughter. I find it strange that Fundamentalist Christians read homosexuality into this passage in Genesis almost entirely because the "men" of Sodom surrounded Lot's house and asked him to send the Angels out "so that we might know them," assuming, as the Bible thumpers do, that the word, "know" is used in its Biblical sense, perhaps a palimpsest of the concordancers.
It is risky to "read into" the O.T. anything one wishes, not only because it was written in Greek, translated, retranslated, and translated again. Not only that, but the ancient form of Greek in which it originally appeared (as Robert Anton Wilson has deftly pointed out, may Discordia praise him!) was koine Greek. Koine Greek had no punctuation. Hence, the words, "God is now here" could just as easily have been "God is nowhere." Every day the Fundamentalists make fools of themselves just as surely as do Fundamentalist Muslims, who, for example, seem to be unawares that Arabic scholars differ as to the meaning of that passage in the Qur'an promising "seventeen virgins" as attendants to martyrs who enter Paradise. It seems that the word for virgin in 7th century Syriac was the same, or greatly similar, to the word for a rare and therefore prized white grape. Can you imagine the silly get who straps bombs to his chest, goes into an infidel establishment, and blows himself (and the crowd) to smithereens in order to ascend immediately to Heaven for 17 white grapes?
But that is the least of problems giving scripture literal meaning on a claim it is the Word of God. Not only can one find support for any proposition soever by resort to holy writ, one can remove pronouncements from their context and make a selective choice of quotable passages to the disregard of all else in the same book or even chapter. Why, for example, is it wrong for the Sodomites to "know" their own sex -- if in fact that is their "sin" -- when it is perfectly all right for Lot to impregnate both of his daughters upon their flight to Zoar? Is the message thus, it is all right to commit incest but a no-no to lie with your own sex? (It should be clear by now that if homosexuality was prohibited by God, it was only out of the perceived necessity of tribal survival, as is suggested by Genesis 19:31-32.
This same selective culling of prejudices greets us when we read the condemnations of lesbianism and homosexuality based upon Leviticus. As it is a catalogue of ancient Hebraic law, chock full of "thou shalts" and "thou shalt nots," and as almost all of the proscriptions against this or that refer to the practices as "abominations" and mete out the penalty of death, Fundamentalist Christians should consider the multitude of other sins set out therein. Would we stone a person to death for violent opposition to slavery when Leviticus 25:44 says that it is perfectly all right to own human beings so long as we purchase them from another country. (Exodus 21:7 even allows one to sell his own child into bondage.) If we dare touch a woman during her menstrual cycle, have we committed an abomination per Lev. 15:19-24. Working on Saturday (Sunday for Christians) is an abomination; should we stone our neighbor for mowing his lawn?
There are other ludicrous proscriptions such as the eating of shellfish (certainly akin to the prohibition against pork, which in Biblical times was bound to be laced with trichina). Should we stone persons with astigmatisms or other defects of sight just because Lev. 21:20 says so? What about Lev. 19:27's condemnation of trimming one's hair, especially that around the temples (a sanction still followed by orthodox Jews). Will God smite all football players for touching the skin of a dead hog? (Lev. 11:6-8.) How about farmers who dare to grow two different crops on the same parcel of land in defiance of Jehovah in Lev. 19:19. I think you get the picture.
Nowhere in the New Testament do we find Reb Yeshua saying anything at all about homosexuality. This fact is usually subjected to Fundamentalist spin in the form of one or two passages from the epistles of Paul, but we now know enough about him to safely conclude that Saul of Tarsus was a dedicated misogynist with latent homosexual tendencies. His attitude toward women, especially, is odd when it is considered that Reb Yeshua is said to have not only taken a prostitute under wing, but his first appearance upon supposed resurrection was before a female. Many wags have also wondered what this fellow was doing roaming around the Levant with twelve males accompanying him. Was there something more to the kiss of Judas than met the eye? Why was John called "the beloved Disciple" and "the one whom God loved best," &c. Some of the Gnostic (e.g. the Cainites) even believed that the "raising" of Lazarus referred not to resurrection after death but erection after detumescence.
No, no, it just won't do to rely upon Biblical authority to condemn homosexuality and claim that it is a choice and not a birthright. To quote a latter-day sect of Magdalenic votaries who organized in San Francisco in the 60's, calling themselves C.O.Y.O.T.E., come off your old tired ethics!
One responded to the columnist's article by saying that the "reason" she was against homosexual marriages was that Genesis 2:23 reports that Adam created Eve from a bone, and "[t]herefore, shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave unto his wife; and they shall be one flesh." In other words, as expressed in that old bumper sticker adage, "It says Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve." In the same epistle, the writer also quoted Leviticus 18-22 for the proposition that a man lying with a man is an abomination. The other letter writer made reference to exactly the same Biblical books, chapters, and verses, but he threw in his opinion that Lucifer was to blame and that the notion that nature rather than nurture produces homosexuality is "blasphemy."
Since I agree with Huxley that one should believe in nothing without evidence to support it, and that for the man of science, faith-based ideas like the existence of "God" are not only illogical but immoral, I considered writing a letter to the editor of my own, but the Nueces City Times is not in the habit of publishing the blatherings of curmudgeonly agnostics. Had I written to the paper, I would have pointed out the blatant fallacies of the two similar letters, beginning with the obvious fact that Creationism flies in the face of all geological, biological, and other scientific evidence showing that the "Miltonian" version of our origins is naive at best and nonsensical at worst. I certainly would have adumbrated the reasons why it is downright silly to cite the Old Testament book of Leviticus for much of anything.
Leviticus 18:22 is almost always pressed into service of the arguments against homosexuality by fundamentalist Christians, but it is hardly the only passage frequently cited. The story of Sodom and Gomorrah is similarly employed, although more learned Biblical scholars now believe that the actual "sin" of the Sodomites was their refusal of hospitality in an age when the Hebrews were nomadic and had to rely on the graciousness of urban folk for food, shelter, and even, where local custom allowed, the companionship of one's wife or daughter. I find it strange that Fundamentalist Christians read homosexuality into this passage in Genesis almost entirely because the "men" of Sodom surrounded Lot's house and asked him to send the Angels out "so that we might know them," assuming, as the Bible thumpers do, that the word, "know" is used in its Biblical sense, perhaps a palimpsest of the concordancers.
It is risky to "read into" the O.T. anything one wishes, not only because it was written in Greek, translated, retranslated, and translated again. Not only that, but the ancient form of Greek in which it originally appeared (as Robert Anton Wilson has deftly pointed out, may Discordia praise him!) was koine Greek. Koine Greek had no punctuation. Hence, the words, "God is now here" could just as easily have been "God is nowhere." Every day the Fundamentalists make fools of themselves just as surely as do Fundamentalist Muslims, who, for example, seem to be unawares that Arabic scholars differ as to the meaning of that passage in the Qur'an promising "seventeen virgins" as attendants to martyrs who enter Paradise. It seems that the word for virgin in 7th century Syriac was the same, or greatly similar, to the word for a rare and therefore prized white grape. Can you imagine the silly get who straps bombs to his chest, goes into an infidel establishment, and blows himself (and the crowd) to smithereens in order to ascend immediately to Heaven for 17 white grapes?
But that is the least of problems giving scripture literal meaning on a claim it is the Word of God. Not only can one find support for any proposition soever by resort to holy writ, one can remove pronouncements from their context and make a selective choice of quotable passages to the disregard of all else in the same book or even chapter. Why, for example, is it wrong for the Sodomites to "know" their own sex -- if in fact that is their "sin" -- when it is perfectly all right for Lot to impregnate both of his daughters upon their flight to Zoar? Is the message thus, it is all right to commit incest but a no-no to lie with your own sex? (It should be clear by now that if homosexuality was prohibited by God, it was only out of the perceived necessity of tribal survival, as is suggested by Genesis 19:31-32.
This same selective culling of prejudices greets us when we read the condemnations of lesbianism and homosexuality based upon Leviticus. As it is a catalogue of ancient Hebraic law, chock full of "thou shalts" and "thou shalt nots," and as almost all of the proscriptions against this or that refer to the practices as "abominations" and mete out the penalty of death, Fundamentalist Christians should consider the multitude of other sins set out therein. Would we stone a person to death for violent opposition to slavery when Leviticus 25:44 says that it is perfectly all right to own human beings so long as we purchase them from another country. (Exodus 21:7 even allows one to sell his own child into bondage.) If we dare touch a woman during her menstrual cycle, have we committed an abomination per Lev. 15:19-24. Working on Saturday (Sunday for Christians) is an abomination; should we stone our neighbor for mowing his lawn?
There are other ludicrous proscriptions such as the eating of shellfish (certainly akin to the prohibition against pork, which in Biblical times was bound to be laced with trichina). Should we stone persons with astigmatisms or other defects of sight just because Lev. 21:20 says so? What about Lev. 19:27's condemnation of trimming one's hair, especially that around the temples (a sanction still followed by orthodox Jews). Will God smite all football players for touching the skin of a dead hog? (Lev. 11:6-8.) How about farmers who dare to grow two different crops on the same parcel of land in defiance of Jehovah in Lev. 19:19. I think you get the picture.
Nowhere in the New Testament do we find Reb Yeshua saying anything at all about homosexuality. This fact is usually subjected to Fundamentalist spin in the form of one or two passages from the epistles of Paul, but we now know enough about him to safely conclude that Saul of Tarsus was a dedicated misogynist with latent homosexual tendencies. His attitude toward women, especially, is odd when it is considered that Reb Yeshua is said to have not only taken a prostitute under wing, but his first appearance upon supposed resurrection was before a female. Many wags have also wondered what this fellow was doing roaming around the Levant with twelve males accompanying him. Was there something more to the kiss of Judas than met the eye? Why was John called "the beloved Disciple" and "the one whom God loved best," &c. Some of the Gnostic (e.g. the Cainites) even believed that the "raising" of Lazarus referred not to resurrection after death but erection after detumescence.
No, no, it just won't do to rely upon Biblical authority to condemn homosexuality and claim that it is a choice and not a birthright. To quote a latter-day sect of Magdalenic votaries who organized in San Francisco in the 60's, calling themselves C.O.Y.O.T.E., come off your old tired ethics!
Sunday, May 01, 2005
How Do People Like This Get Elected?
That Republican Senator George Allen of Virginia keeps appearing on the pundit talk shows surely suggests he thinks he's presidential material, but it's difficult if not impossible to believe his party put him up to it, for surely the GOP can find someone who can think logically, understands English, and doesn't argue in circles. On Meet the Press, May Day, 2005, Allen, debating Sen. Dodd of Connecticut, found himself boxed into a corner vis-a-vis King George II's refusal to back down on privatization of Social Security. Asked by moderator Tim Russert if he could support sending an S.S. reform bill to the Prez that did not contain privitization, thus chancing a veto, Allen deadpanned: "I support what I'm for." Duh! One would certainly hope so! Now, who does this leave for nominations? Sen. Fist? Puleeeeeeze!
Saturday, April 30, 2005
Proof of God?
A dumbass Protestant preacher in the Georgia home of a missing bride-to-be says that he and his congregation prayed to Jesus to grant their collective wish that the woman was only missing because of premarital jitters, and God "answered our prayers." Seems that Jennifer Wilbanks, the missing woman, just couldn't cope with the thought of a big wedding, where 1,200 eyes would be checking her out, so she took off via bus and ended up in Albuquerque before relenting and informing authorities of a ruse she had concocted about her "kidnapping." Peace officers and search parties "turned over probably every leaf in the city" of Duluth. Imagine how silly they felt when Ms. Wilbanks turned up unharmed, announcing that she's mislead everyone and that she was OK.
I would like to be the first to suggest that Jennifer immediately dye her hair blonde and take all of her blouses and coats to a tailor, requesting that inflatable shoulder pads be sewn into the clothing so that she would not hurt herself when bobbing her head from side to side in answer to the simplest questions, saying, "I don't know!" The only person more clueless than Jennifer is the man who was to preside over her wedding, the aforementioned Protestant pastor. Apparently, he obtained his D.D. without studying logical fallacies since, in his pronouncement about prayer for Jennifer's survival, he resorted to one of the most common, and the one most often exposing weaknesses in the arguments for the existence of God.
It's called post hoc ergo propter hoc, which means "after this, therefore because of this." It's the error of assuming that just because Event B follows Event A, then Event B was caused by Event A. A wonderful illustration that comes to mind is that of the aboriginal tribe whose Emperor died following an eclipse of the sun. From then on, the tribe believed that when a solar eclipse occurred, their king would die, and when this prophecy failed to come through, the tribe decided to kill their king with each eclipse the better to please the gods. Same principle at work in the Duluth minister's thinking. That Jennifer turned up unharmed in Albuquerque explaining that she concocted her own kidnapping because she had cold feet over the impending wedding proves nothing so much as the gullibility of the preacher and his flock.
Interestingly, although she did not kill anyone and lie about how the victims met their unjust deserts, Ms. Wilbanks succumbed to a variation of the implied racist claims of a predecessor in stupidity, Susan Smith, who drove her two small sons into a lake, then claimed that the children were kidnapped by "a black man." Jennifer Wilbanks told authorities that one of her kidnappers was "a Hispanic male." If she wanted to invent a kidnapping, why did the perp have to be a Mexican-American? (Or Cuban-American, or Puerto Rican-American -- you get the idea.) Stupidity, blind faith, and racism have much in common.
You have to forgive me, I am reading Thomas Henry Huxley's essays on agnosticism and agreeing with them wholeheartedly. Huxley thought that religion is bunk. As the late Anton Szandor LaVey (or someone) said, "The only god there is is the one between your ears." Of course, in Jennifer's case, it could be argued that there is no god because there is obviously nothing between her ears.
I would like to be the first to suggest that Jennifer immediately dye her hair blonde and take all of her blouses and coats to a tailor, requesting that inflatable shoulder pads be sewn into the clothing so that she would not hurt herself when bobbing her head from side to side in answer to the simplest questions, saying, "I don't know!" The only person more clueless than Jennifer is the man who was to preside over her wedding, the aforementioned Protestant pastor. Apparently, he obtained his D.D. without studying logical fallacies since, in his pronouncement about prayer for Jennifer's survival, he resorted to one of the most common, and the one most often exposing weaknesses in the arguments for the existence of God.
It's called post hoc ergo propter hoc, which means "after this, therefore because of this." It's the error of assuming that just because Event B follows Event A, then Event B was caused by Event A. A wonderful illustration that comes to mind is that of the aboriginal tribe whose Emperor died following an eclipse of the sun. From then on, the tribe believed that when a solar eclipse occurred, their king would die, and when this prophecy failed to come through, the tribe decided to kill their king with each eclipse the better to please the gods. Same principle at work in the Duluth minister's thinking. That Jennifer turned up unharmed in Albuquerque explaining that she concocted her own kidnapping because she had cold feet over the impending wedding proves nothing so much as the gullibility of the preacher and his flock.
Interestingly, although she did not kill anyone and lie about how the victims met their unjust deserts, Ms. Wilbanks succumbed to a variation of the implied racist claims of a predecessor in stupidity, Susan Smith, who drove her two small sons into a lake, then claimed that the children were kidnapped by "a black man." Jennifer Wilbanks told authorities that one of her kidnappers was "a Hispanic male." If she wanted to invent a kidnapping, why did the perp have to be a Mexican-American? (Or Cuban-American, or Puerto Rican-American -- you get the idea.) Stupidity, blind faith, and racism have much in common.
You have to forgive me, I am reading Thomas Henry Huxley's essays on agnosticism and agreeing with them wholeheartedly. Huxley thought that religion is bunk. As the late Anton Szandor LaVey (or someone) said, "The only god there is is the one between your ears." Of course, in Jennifer's case, it could be argued that there is no god because there is obviously nothing between her ears.
Thursday, April 28, 2005
Conciliatory Bush?
In a rare press conference April 28, 2005, King George II gave a short (10-minute) speech about overhauling Social Security and passing energy policy legislation, then opened the forum to questions from reporters. The only time he allowed the press to ruffle his feathers was when one Fourth Estatist asked whether use of a means test to determine eligibility for Social Security benefits would mean that Cheney would be eliminated; a somewhat testy Shrub snapped, "Hey, let's not get personal here, we're on network TV." Bush seemed in a somewhat conciliatory mood. For one thing, he didn't think that refusing to support a rules change to do away with the filibuster in imbroglios over judicial consent marked the refusenick as anti-Christian, a position bound to cost him support among the religious right.
On the other hand, he surprised the pundits when he announced, in questions concerning radical reform of Social Security, that privitization was anything but off the table. Those of us who assumed that provision for private accounts was nothing more than a conservative trial balloon, and since the barnstorming Prez had encountered such heavy opposition to the idea in all his travels across the land, meant certain death to the notion were surprised to say the least. The nod to means testing was even more unlike anything we could have expected since that proverbial one percent at the top holding something like 90 percent of the wealth would be the first to see their benefits forfeited for the public good.
But, as usual with George II dealings with the media, the most important ideas concocted by the administration were never addressed. It is no secret that the G.O.P. in general, and the far right wing conservative element in particular, has long dreamed of dismantling every last vestige of New Deal liberalism so that entitlements become a thing of the past, and money and land are tied up in the hands of a select few in perpetuity. Enter right wing fundamentalist Christians and such constitutional guarantees as separation of church and state and the separation of powers doctrine become imperiled as well.
On the other hand, he surprised the pundits when he announced, in questions concerning radical reform of Social Security, that privitization was anything but off the table. Those of us who assumed that provision for private accounts was nothing more than a conservative trial balloon, and since the barnstorming Prez had encountered such heavy opposition to the idea in all his travels across the land, meant certain death to the notion were surprised to say the least. The nod to means testing was even more unlike anything we could have expected since that proverbial one percent at the top holding something like 90 percent of the wealth would be the first to see their benefits forfeited for the public good.
But, as usual with George II dealings with the media, the most important ideas concocted by the administration were never addressed. It is no secret that the G.O.P. in general, and the far right wing conservative element in particular, has long dreamed of dismantling every last vestige of New Deal liberalism so that entitlements become a thing of the past, and money and land are tied up in the hands of a select few in perpetuity. Enter right wing fundamentalist Christians and such constitutional guarantees as separation of church and state and the separation of powers doctrine become imperiled as well.
It is also no secret that these same forces have on their agenda abolition of the United Nations. Although George II professed admiration for the organization during the press conference, he showed total disregard for it during the period before the invasion of Iraq, when he took the position that the U.S. should act unilaterally when its interests were at stake -- despite the fact that Saddam posed less a problem for us than either Iran or North Korea; despite the fact that the U.N. had ongoing monitoring for WMD; despite the fact that no American blood would have been spilled had a diplomatic solution been found. Shrub is no friend of the U.N. If he were, he would not have put up the current nominee for ambassador, an ideologue and toady with a volcanic temper and penchant for belittling underlings.
When history writes its accounts of the administration of Shrub, it will note that his administration was characterized by secrecy, obfuscation, and outright lying to advance its Neo-Con agenda. Doing away with Social Security and the U.N. are at the top of the list.
(This blog was about three times as long as this, but it's my first effort and, somehow, I managed to delete a good portion of it.)
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