Obama Schools Republicans

Republicans let cameras roll while Obama talked to their caucus last week.  Without the echo chamber they usually exist in, Obama schooled them.

From Sam Stein over at HuffPo:

Standing on a stage, looking down at his Republican questioners, Obama assumed the role of responsible adult to the GOP children, or, at the very least, of a college professor teaching and lecturing a room full of students

He chastised Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.) for calling his economic agenda radical and poked fun at the GOP's own platform. "I am not an ideologue, I'm not," he said. "It doesn't make sense if somebody could tell me, 'You could do this cheaper and get increased results,' then I would say, 'Great.' The problem is, I couldn't find credible economists who could back up the claims that you just made."

He rebuked a questioner who insisted that the monthly deficit is higher now than Bush's annual deficit. "That's factually just not true," he said. "And you know it's not true." He lampooned Republican lawmakers seated in front of him for portraying his health care legislation as "some Bolshevik plot." He mocked Republicans for railing against the stimulus package and then showing up at "the ribbon-cuttings for some of these important projects in your communities." And he did it all while calling for "a tone of civility instead of slash and burn will be helpful."

Jon Stewart also has a great segment on it:




What I thought was most telling about this is how Fox news cut away from the proceedings.  Watching Obama be reasonable and calm, and calling the Republicans out on their ridiculus talking points by using facts and logic, it was simply too much for them.  Once again, they prove they are not a news channel, but the media arm of the Republican party.

Prop 8 Irony

Anna Barnes over at Smile Politely's splog pointed out this news item: The Courage Campaign created a parody logo of the anti-gay marriage Proposition 8 official logo. Here are the logos:

Proposition 8 lawyers sent a cease and desist letter to the Courage Campaign saying that the two logos are “substantially indistinguishable.”

Hmm. A family with 2 moms is pretty much the same as a family with a mom and dad?  Yeah, that's what we've been saying for some time now.  And what Prop 8 made illegal. 

Thanks, Prop 8 lawyers, for your affirmation of gay marriage.

Supreme Court's Blow to Democracy

As if money and corporate influence don't already control too much of government policy, the Supreme Court, in a radical and astonishing display of judicial activism, has decided that corporations now have the rights of individuals.

New York Times Editorial:

With a single, disastrous 5-to-4 ruling, the Supreme Court has thrust politics back to the robber-baron era of the 19th century. Disingenuously waving the flag of the First Amendment, the court’s conservative majority has paved the way for corporations to use their vast treasuries to overwhelm elections and intimidate elected officials into doing their bidding.

Congress must act immediately to limit the damage of this radical decision, which strikes at the heart of democracy.

As a result of Thursday’s ruling, corporations have been unleashed from the longstanding ban against their spending directly on political campaigns and will be free to spend as much money as they want to elect and defeat candidates. If a member of Congress tries to stand up to a wealthy special interest, its lobbyists can credibly threaten: We’ll spend whatever it takes to defeat you.

........

The majority is deeply wrong on the law. Most wrongheaded of all is its insistence that corporations are just like people and entitled to the same First Amendment rights. It is an odd claim since companies are creations of the state that exist to make money. They are given special privileges, including different tax rates, to do just that. It was a fundamental misreading of the Constitution to say that these artificial legal constructs have the same right to spend money on politics as ordinary Americans have to speak out in support of a candidate.

.......

In dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens warned that the ruling not only threatens democracy but “will, I fear, do damage to this institution.” History is, indeed, likely to look harshly not only on the decision but the court that delivered it. The Citizens United ruling is likely to be viewed as a shameful bookend to Bush v. Gore. With one 5-to-4 decision, the court’s conservative majority stopped valid votes from being counted to ensure the election of a conservative president. Now a similar conservative majority has distorted the political system to ensure that Republican candidates will be at an enormous advantage in future elections.

Full text here.

As I noted in last week's Smile Politely column, the balance of power in this country is not just the three branches of government. The main struggle for power is between industry and government. The Supreme Court has now decided that industry can legally buy government policy.  It's a great victory for profit in this country, but a huge blow to the common good.

Jesus Rifles

Colbert has a hilarious take on those rifles with the Bible verses on them:

Too timid

Drew Westen lays the blame of yesterday's defeat on Obama and timidity:

It is a truly remarkable feat, in just one year's time, to turn the fear and anger voters felt in 2006 and 2008 at a Republican Party that had destroyed the economy, redistributed massive amounts of wealth from the middle class to the richest of the rich and the biggest of big businesses, and waged a trillion-dollar war in the wrong country, into populist rage at whatever Democrat voters can cast their ballot against.

...........

What happens if you refuse to lay the blame for the destruction of our economy on anyone--particularly the party, leaders, and ideology that were in power for the last 8 years and were responsible for it? What happens if you fail to "brand" what has happened as the Bush Depression or the Republican Depression or the natural result of the ideology of unregulated greed, the way FDR branded the Great Depression as Hoover's Depression and created a Democratic majority for 50 years and a new vision of what effective government can do? What happens when you fail to offer and continually reinforce a narrative about what has happened, who caused it, and how you're going to fix it that Americans understand, that makes them angry, that makes them hopeful, and that makes them committed to you and your policies during the tough times that will inevitably lie ahead?



The answer was obvious a year ago, and it is even more obvious today: Voters will come to blame you for not having solved a problem you didn't create, and you will allow the other side to create an alternative narrative for what's happened (government spending , deficits, big government, socialism) that will stick. And it will particularly stick if you make no efforts to prevent it from starting or sticking.

and more criticism of timidity from Joseph Palermo:

The Obama Administration cut far too many deals with the same corporate special interests that have dominated Washington since the Reagan years. Obama watered down his agenda. The Democratic base stayed home. The Republicans were energized beyond belief. And the Democratic candidate in a Democratic state lost the "Lion of the Senate's" seat.



Millions of Obama voters -- me included -- naively believed that he was going to stand up to corporate special interests in behalf of working people. He didn't. People do not like wimps who compromise their principles to stay in power.



The jubilant folks at FOX News et al. are correct that the Massachusetts election today has national significance -- but not for the reasons they claim. They think people are upset at "government" but they're really upset (whether they know it or not) with corporate control of government, which makes corporate interests synonymous with the national interest. The Democratic Party has been hollowed out by the same kinds of corporate interests that own the Republican Party. Progressives believed that after eight miserable years of George W. Bush and the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression we had an opportunity to create a stronger social safety net. But Ben Nelson, Max Baucus, Mary Landrieu, and Joe Lieberman put the kibosh on that.

Happy MLK Day

"Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane."

        -Martin Luther King, Jr. (1965)

Irrational Fear

I have a new Smile Politely column up: Rational distrust vs. irrational fear.  It's about health care, government, and capitalism.

Yes, I generalize too much in my writing.  It's always been a problem. And by "always," I mean there has never been a time nor a piece of writing that didn't suffer from it. 

Dang. I did it again.

Avatar Depression

I love Avatar. I've seen it twice now, once in 2D and once in 3D. It has such a mesmerizing quality to it that both times it stuck in my brain for days afterward.

Actually, that's not quite right. It stuck in my emotions or somewhere in that nether region of the self that is neither soul nor mind nor body. There is something about that movie that tugs at me.

Apparently, a lot of people are feeling this way, and many of them are crazy:

James Cameron's completely immersive spectacle "Avatar" may have been a little too real for some fans who say they have experienced depression and suicidal thoughts after seeing the film because they long to enjoy the beauty of the alien world Pandora.

It then goes on to quote a guy who wants to become Na'vi so much that he fantasizes about comitting suicide and then waking up on the planet Pandora.

I definitely understand the strong connection to the movie. Committing suicide as a way to visit Pandora? Not so much.

But for a movie whose storyline is Pocahontas and the Lion King meet The Transformers, one of the things that it gets right is human nature.  Where unimaginable riches exist, there will always be people willing to crush entire civilizations to get to them. And there will always be people who stand in the way, even though in real life they usually get crushed by tanks.

I have some advice for those who dream of Pandora:  Dream of Earth's rainforests instead, while we still have them.

The Good Ole Days

With the new year here, there’s no better time to look back at the good ole days and reminisce:

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Geez Magazine, The Jesus Issue

Geez Magazine, Issue 16, ("The Jesus Issue") is hot off the presses and includes an article by yours truly.  Of the 24 different flavors of Jesus in the issue, my Jesus was dubbed "Breath mint Jesus."

If you only have time to read one Geez article this month, read Context is Everything by Aiden Enns:

The transforming question is not, What do I believe about Jesus? It is, With whom do I gather to understand the life and impact of Jesus?

 Preach it, brother Enns.

My article was edited down for space and renamed to "Jesus comes with free ice cream bars." Since it isn't available on-line and also because blog space is infinite, the full article and original title are below:

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How Would Jesus Run a Bed and Breakfast?

My wife and I decided to spend a little extra money to stay at an old Victorian Bed and Breakfast during an anniversary weekend last year. It was exactly what we were looking for, with an amiable middle-aged couple providing generous touches that make B&Bs such cozy places to be.

There were mints on the pillows, chocolate covered strawberries on the dresser and free Klondike bars in a mini-fridge. The room was bloated with puffy pillows stuffed in every nook. The sitting room had an antique piano and was filled games, old books and soft, sweet music.

My inner cynic had almost been lulled into complacency when I noticed a card gently placed on the high four poster bed:

Our Mission is to give the very same wonderful Hospitality to our Guests as our Lord and Saviour would surely give to us. To open our home for shelter and warmth and a quiet sanctuary to strangers who are soon to become our friends.

In order for us to insure your stay is enjoyable we ask you to observe the following guidelines:

Check in hours
Quiet time hours
Breakfast hours
No smoking or drinking
No pets
You are responsible for any damages caused by you or other members of your party.
Any unruly guests will be asked to leave and will forfeit guest fees.
We assume no responsibility for lost or stolen items. Please keep your rooms locked when away.
In this home, we reserve the right to refuse service to anyone at any time.

I have no doubt that this nice couple was expressing the love of Jesus as best as they knew how. I even agree with some particulars. For instance, if Jesus does not serve up some chocolate-covered strawberries in heaven, I might be tempted to keep my options open.

And yet, their train of thought goes off-track somewhere around “Breakfast hours,” jumps the tracks entirely at “lost or stolen items” and crashes into a ravine by the time it gets to “refuse service to anyone at any time.” I wondered which Jesus they were referring to, since I didn’t recognize the one in the Bible from their card.

Don’t get me wrong – their rules are very reasonable and necessary when it comes to running a business, especially one that is a labor of love rather than a serious profit-making enterprise. You can’t run an inn if unruly people keep everyone awake. And like every other B&B in the world, the proprietors had a separate area of the house where they actually lived, behind lock and key - a very reasonable arrangement.

But the problem is that Jesus is not reasonable. He expects our public and our private lives to not be separated by locked doors. He asks us to give up our shirt when someone takes our cloak. To offer the other cheek when one is slapped. To sell all our possessions, use the lilies of the field as our retirement plan and a bunch of other things that make no worldly sense.

No, Jesus is a terrible example for a business owner, because he would open up the business to the hard suffering of Christian ethics. No business would survive very long if it provided lavish comfort not just to those who could pay, but to anyone in need. It’s pretty clear that if Jesus were running a B&B, he’d let anyone in, even if they had pets. I suspect he would let in people that were known to be smokers or drinkers.

Christian business ethics aside, I think my fine, well-meaning proprietors seem to be under the assumption that Jesus wants us to be comfortable in this life. In fact, the purpose of Jesus is more like the old saying about the purpose of journalism. He came to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.

And this is where I go awry as well, given how comfortable I usually am. It’s easy to point out someone else’s flaws from the comfort of my big puffy pillow, while spending money that Jesus would have given to the poor. Comfort can be like a drug, and I am but a drug user, criticizing my dealer for selling me comfort in a way that Jesus might have frowned upon.

So how would Jesus run a Bed and Breakfast? My answer is that he wouldn’t. I don’t think he is all that interested in the best way to provide a comfortable weekend to people of means like myself. Instead, he would be spending time at homeless shelters and soup kitchens, or living in a Catholic Worker House, giving aid and comfort to the poor. I can feel good about donating money to homeless shelters, but I have a nagging feeling that this doesn’t make me a follower of Jesus so much as a patron of followers of Jesus.

In my defense, I must note that Jesus enjoyed an occasional bottle of perfume poured over his head. He also seemed to go to a lot of wine-soaked wedding celebrations. So as much as I fail to directly follow his words much of time, I can only hope he’s OK with an occasional weekend pampering.

And despite my philosophical troubles with comfort, I didn’t let it distract me from a nice, enjoyable weekend away. My wife and I reconnected and reminisced over our lives together. I came to believe that a heaven without Klondike bars could be as theologically problematic as one without chocolate-covered strawberries. Everyone needs to recharge, and I should be allowed to partake without too much guilt. I suppose the important thing is to know what I am recharging myself for, and to not mistake my comfort for God’s will.

Humor beats Ideology

As a semi-pacifist, I know that violence is wrong, even more so when used to threaten schoolchildren. Jon Stewart just makes it so darn funny though (skip to 1:53 on the video):



This Thanksgiving, I remain thankful for Jon Stewart.

Charting the jokes

I've become addicted to GraphJam, where people make jokes via graphs and charts. 

For example:




They are funny because they are true:







My all-time favorite:

Government health care to the rescue

Amidst all the crazy at Michelle Bachman's GOP teabag party on the Capitol this week, Dana Milbank noted one bit of irony during the proceedings.  After displaying signs like this:

and, among other things, decrying government health care as more dangerous than terrorists and suggesting that Congress should be waterboarded, this happened:

More ominously, a man standing just beyond the TV cameras apparently suffered a heart attack 20 minutes after event began. Medical personnel from the Capitol physician's office -- an entity that could, quite accurately, be labeled government-run health care -- rushed over, attaching electrodes to his chest and giving him oxygen and an IV drip.

This turned into an unwanted visual for the speakers, as a D.C. ambulance and firetruck, lights flashing, pulled in just behind the lawmakers. A path was made through the media section, and the patient, attended to by about 10 government medical personnel, was being wheeled away on a stretcher just as House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) stepped to the microphone. "Join us in defeating Pelosi care!" he exhorted. A few members stole a glance at the stretcher. Boehner may have been distracted as well. He told the crowd he would read from the Constitution, then read the "we hold these truths" bit from the Declaration of Independence.

A Good Ol' Fashioned Book Burning

At some point, you have to admire a person's commitment to intolerance.

Sure, it's easy to condemn Brian McLaren and Shane Claiborne. After all, they have expansive views on Christian responsibility and don't condemn other religions.  And burning a pile of rock, rap and heavy metal records is just a cliche at this point.

All that is sissy stuff for Marc Grizzard, pastor of Amazing Grace Baptist Church in Waynesville, NC.  Their book-burning this past Halloween was the good old-fashioned kind.



Included was pretty much all music that is not sung in church to the glory of God, since it is all considered Satanic by AGBC.  The usual suspects were of course included, but they also burned country, pop, soft & easy, western, soul, jazz, southern gospel (including The Anchormen, because they performed at Dollywood, whose owner was in a movie called the "The Best Little Whore House in Texas"), contemporary christian (too popular and secular for their tastes, including Amy Grant, who once gave an interview to a Catholic magazine), and some category called "oldies but goldies," left unexplained.

Of course, you can't have a book burning without the books. Unsurprisingly, books by McLaren and Claiborne make the list. More surprising are books by Franklin Graham (soft on rock music), Mother Teresa (Catholic),  James Dobson (because Dobson is friends with Glenn Beck, who curses, and you are supposed to shun people who curse, which saddens him, because Glenn Beck's heart is in the right place), Rick Warren (who knows -- I stopped reading) and hundreds of other name-brand Christians.

However, their Pièce de résistance, the cherry on their ice cream sundae of purity, is their burning of Bibles.  Like many, they believe the King James translation to be the real deal.  Unlike others, they believe any other English translation of the Bible is a perversion, and needs to be burned.  Their list of perversions is quite long -- basically any Bible that is not the King James. Lest you think their intolerance is crazy, however, note that they do accept different versions of the King James, and also Bibles written in other languages.

Not reported was whether any witches were discovered in their midst, or whether there are plans for some kind of crusade to retake the holy land from the heretics who currently occupy it.

So, Poe's law strikes again, given that it is impossible to parody Amazing Grace Baptist Church.  I was once again fooled, as I thought for certain this was a parody when I first heard about it.

I'm probably making too much of this, given that the church only has 14 members.  On the other hand, they keep getting emails from people who agree with them.

I guess the only thing to say to Amazing Grace Baptist Church is: Congratulations.  The attention they are getting far outdistances their numbers or their influence, for now. Their commitment to intolerance should inspire us all, hopefully to a commitment to something other than intolerance.

Romans 13 in American Discourse

Romans 13:

Let every person be subject to the governing authorities; for there is no authority except from God, and those authorities that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists authority resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgement.

Although I heard this passage quoted almost continually during the Bush era, I've not heard it lately.  In fact, I have noticed a certain pattern regarding Romans 13 and public discourse over the last 30 years:

Conclusion: Sometimes, Romans 13 is relevant to American politics and sometimes it isn't. Once we find the right correlation, we can predict when it will be relevant again.