Disappointed and Disillusioned with Obama

Paul Krugman's op-ed from ten days ago describes my feelings about Obama fairly well. Obama seems to be stuck in a fantasy where some sort of post-partisan middle ground that he can stand on actually exists. For the past couple weeks now Obama's (and the Democrats in Congress's) popularity numbers have been taking a nose dive (although from a very high place so his numbers are still very high overall).
When Obama makes concessions to conservatives it gains him nothing - they aren't going to support him no matter what he does, and half of them think he wasn't born in the US anyway. These folks are too busy getting excited over the latest fake Kenyan birth certificate to care that Obama is sacrificing his principles in order to win their support.

Krugman also mentions the bank bailout. It seems like a lot of people are confused over the difference between the bank bailout and the stimulus package. Just so everyone's clear the bank bailout was $700B to rescue the financial industry while the economic stimulus package was $700B to help the rest of the economy. I think the bank bailout was too big, and the stimulus too small. The line we were given about the banks was that they were too big to fail, that their failure would have led to much worse problems in the rest of the economy.

Perhaps that was the case at the end of 2008. However even if it was true it should have represented a terrible outcome to everyone. Our entire economy is dependent on the health of a handful of banks? And these banks have to award their executives millions of dollars in bonuses, even when they fail miserably? Obama's unwillingness to take a harder line against bank executives receiving millions was disappointing to me. Also maybe some of those banks should have been broken up into smaller, non-too-big-to-fail companies.

On the bank bailout, on health care, on accountability for torture, and on the military's Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Obama is going to have to start to walk the walk if he expects to hang on to the support of progressives like me. I know that it's not realistic to expect that we'll get everything done right away, but, as Krugman writes, "there’s a point at which realism shades over into weakness, and progressives increasingly feel that the administration is on the wrong side of that line." Aim big, Mr. President. Don't shy from the fights that need to be fought. Follow the example set by the late Senator Kennedy. That way if you only achieve half of what you wanted to, you'll still have accomplished a lot of positive change. That would be change I can believe in.

Government Bureaucracy Sometimes Sucks; Corporate Culture Much Worse

This story over at Pandagon says many of the things I've been thinking about the health care debate recently. She talks about recently proposed legislation that would legally limit the amount of time that an airline can force you to sit on a tarmac waiting for your flight to be able to leave. This legislation has been proposed before. The airlines killed it. What's interesting about this story is just how clearly it illustrates corporate culture: they're willing to allow their customers to suffer a lot if it will squeeze just a little bit more profit out.

Take this lesson to the health care debate. All the fictional horror stories that health care opponents are making up about the public option are in fact happening now. They're happening because the corporations that bring you health care care more about their bottom line than they do about you. Government can be annoying and inefficient, but at least their stated goal is not "maximize profit no matter the cost in human misery." A corporation's only responsibility is to the bottom line, and we hardly ever comment on how evil this system is.

A Million Texans in Tinfoil Cowboy Hats

So, I've asked my readers a couple of times now if anyone knows what sort of 'tyrrany' the teabaggers and wingnuts have been complaining about specifically. Finally, thanks to a blog post over at Think Progress, I get a few answers. Apparently they define tyrrany as:

• Social Security
• Medicare
• The federal highway system
• Federal currency
• Not being on the gold standard
• Enforcing the 1st Amendment's Establishment Clause
• Health care reform
• Federal education spending
• Almost all federal spending

So finally we have something like a list of complaints. These 'tenthers' are employing the narrowest possible reading of the Commerce and Welfare clauses, one that has been supported by almost no legal scholar. On the other hand, the use the broadest possible reading of the Tenth Amendment to claim that the Constitution gives Texas the right to secede if it feels like it.

The part that really gets under my skin is the fact that there's nothing new on this list. Nothing that has been enacted more recently than Medicare back in the 1960s. Suddenly and with vigor a movement arises to oppose... changes that have been in effect for decades.

Are we really supposed to believe that these secessionists actually give a shit about the constitutionality of Social Security? Is any reasonable person fooled by this so-called list of grievances to think that this movement is anything other than a bunch of racists pissed off that they lost the election to a black dude?

Teaching Science

Starting this week, I'm teaching a science class at a small private school here in Orlando. My students are middle and high school students of various ages (it's a very small school). This week my students are reading and commenting on a recent Michael Shermer column from Scientific American. In addition to lessons on skepticism, I'll soon be diving into one of the most contentious issues in modern American education: evolution. Depending on how you ask the question, about half of all Americans don't accept evolution. Also, I'm reading Doubting Darwin? just now. So this should be good times. Wish me luck!

Nation's Best Senator Dies

I'm sure everyone's heard the news about Ted Kennedy's death by now. I've been watching and listening to some of the commentaries about him and his life. One thing that stuck me is thinking about his career in the Senate is just how prepared he was, all the time. Ted Kennedy was a man of principle, a man who knew every issue inside and out, and a man who knew the politics of the Senate very well. He knew the meaning of sticking to your guns, and the meaning of compromise - the sort of compromise that brings your opposition on board while not sacrificing your principles.

Ted Kennedy's death is a tragedy, and America won't be the same without him. I do hope, however, that his death may have at least a silver lining. If some of the Democrats in the Senate meditate on Ted Kennedy's life and his career, then I hope that a few of them will be moved to follow his example. I'd like for the Senate Democrats to know their material better, be better prepared for their jobs, understand the political environment better, and do a better job of standing up for ordinary Americans.

Health care was Kennedy's issue for 40 years. In lieu of flowers, let's pass health care reform.

Hey Orlando Residents!

Thursday September 17 Christopher Hitchens will be debating Dinesh D'Souza at the UCF Arena. The tickets are free, and I'll be there! For a little perspective on Hitchens, see him passionately defending the right to free speech in the face of violent threats here. If you want to know something about D'Souza you should check out the quotes at the end of this article.

Inadequate Hardware

So, thanks to a generous gift/loan from my girlfriend's stepdad, our household now has two computers. I'm now posting to the Gripping Hand on a desktop computer. When I set this machine up the other day, I was excited to install and play my copy of Team Fortress 2 which I haven't played on PC for over a year owing to not having a computer up to the task of running it. I spent a fair amount of time installing and setting it up in order to find out... I still don't have a computer up to the task of running TF2. So, up until I can save up enough cash to buy a new video card, no game.

I'm Reading: What to Look For in a Classroom

Next week I'm about to start teaching classes part-time at a small private school. One of the things I've been reading in preparation is Alfie Kohn's book What to Look For in a Classroom. It's a collection of essays and articles on various topics, written in the late '80s to early '90s. Kohn writes about classroom discipline, cooperative learning, grading, ADHD, the effects of television, school choice and other topics.

Kohn keeps coming back to the idea of intrinsic rewards versus extrinsic motivations. It seems that the more extrinsic rewards that exist for a particular task, the less intrinsic motivation a student is likely to have. Kohn cites the psychological literature extensively and repeats this point in several of the chapters of the book. The presence of external punishments or rewards warps the student's perception of the school, the teacher, and the task. Positive reinforcement is better than punishment, but either one tends to have the opposite of the intended effect in the long run. In addition, tests, scores, and grades may be counterproductive to learning. Any time spent on the question of how well students are learning is time taken away from actually learning things, and in addition students come to see tests as the whole point of the experience instead of the learning itself.

The other section that really struck me was Kohn's discussion of self-esteem. This book was published in the mid-90s so his assessment of the popular debate may be a little out of date. In any event, Kohn summarizes how both the self-esteem movement of the early '90s as well as its critics are missing the mark. Self-esteem proponents may be targeting internal factors to the exclusion of external ones. How might an authoritarian classroom structure or pointless busywork in class contribute to low self-esteem? Trying to raise someone's self-esteem through mantras or positive praise while ignoring the systemic problems that might exist may be missing the mark. On the other hand, opponents of self-esteem programs seem to think that students do not deserve to have a positive opinion of themselves unless they have already proven their academic or athletic success. These critics sometimes talk about how 'failure is a motivator' while completely ignoring the evidence to the contrary.

It's not a book without flaws, but it has set me to thinking about some fundamentals of being a teacher. How do I nurture students' intrinsic motivation for learning and prevent obsessions about tests and grades? How do I build an environment that encourages students to have a positive self-image that is actually helpful, instead of just encouraging braggarts? And how do I pay attention to these questions while thinking about my subject material at the same time? I imagine that most first-time teachers feel this way, but that's hardly a comfort. I know enough about math and Biology to teach it, but do I know enough about educational and developmental psychology to do it well? We'll see!

Only the Christian Right Could Take Down the Family

And that does appear to be what is happening. Alerted to the existence of the secretive group by Jeff Sharlet's book and by the recent media reporting on the Family connections of several Washington politicians caught up in sex scandals, World Magazine has been doing its own reporting on the group. Right-wing politicians participating in sex scandals is nothing new, and would not particularly raise the ire or attention of Christian groups. Indeed Republicans seem to have no innate sense of hypocrisy when it comes to things like sex scandals, particularly when individuals who once called for Bill Clinton's resignation during the Monica Lewinsky scandal do not seem particularly inclined to do so when their own misconduct surfaces.

It is my opinion, having watched how these episodes unfold, that the Republican base does not particularly care whether or not Republican politicians maintain the same standards in their own lives as they advocate. In the book of Romans, Paul maintains that all have sinned and fallen short of grace. This provides a ready-made excuse: the temptations of the flesh are sometimes too much for even the most righteous of men. The only unforgivable sin in their eyes is to be the sort of person who thinks (as I do) that it isn't particularly the job of office-holders to advocate for or uphold a biblical morality. In short, the Republican voters don't care if you cheat, as long as you are still their man and you frame your apology in appropriately religious terms.

So what finally brings the Family to World's attention? It is, of course, the realization that this group does not really follow a mainstream theology at all. Some Christians may not agree with the Family that Jesus brought two messages, one for the common people and a secret message for the rich and powerful. The secretive nature of the Family has allowed its members to maintain the appearance of being religious people (they talk about God and Jesus a lot) while at the same time remaining outside of and unaccountable to any church. World writes that the Family is, "a 60-year-old, globally reaching organization that has muddy theology and a disdain for the established church."

The day of reckoning for the Family is finally here: more so than any amount of stink that I could raise the attention and questions of the larger religious right will be attention and questions that the Family cannot bear. I predict that soon we will begin to see a cascade effect as politicians begin to distance themselves from Doug Coe and his Christian Mafia bretheren. I'm specifically looking at you to get the ball rolling, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Florida Senator Bill Nelson.

No Public Option: No Bill

The prospects for a strong public option being included in a final bill have been looking weaker lately, especially as the White House is backing off the necessity of a public option. If it is the case that President Obama is giving up on Candidate Obama's pledge to work for a public health care option, then the onus is upon progressive congresspeople to refuse to vote for any "compromise" which does not include a public option.

And as for Obama, he should respect his words of barely a month ago when he said any attempt at reform must include a public option. To my mind, that means that he vetoes any legislation on this topic that crosses his desk that does not at least reach that mark of good policy. Incremental and half-assed change is not the sort of change I can believe in and it's not what I voted for last November. If the Democrats with huge majorities in the House and Senate cannot accomplish even this, then there may be little to recommend them over a third-party protest vote.

Finally, readers, I know that a lot of the content of this blog has been about health care recently and you may be getting tired of the same topic all the time. I apologize if it's been getting boring, but bear with me as there may still be a little more news about this in the future.

Creation Museum Debriefing

Last week I mentioned the then-upcoming visit by PZ Myers and the SSA to the Creation Museum in Kentucky. Today Pharyngula linked to the video of Myers' keynote address at the SSA event later on that weekend. The video is 35 mins long, and only talks briefly about the museum, but is still very worth watching if you've got a few minutes free.

On the topic of the museum, Myers showed a slide which was a photo of a display that the museum had. This large sign titled "Where did Cain get his wife?" was basically a long apology for why it is that Cain got to marry his sister, and how this is okay with God. Hilarious.

Obama's Mistake

Obama's mistake in the health care debate was to not open the discussions up by pushing a single-payer bill out of the White House. So far Obama has been content to give Congress only a bare outline of what he'd like to see in a final bill and let the representatives and senators wrangle over the details. This has been a huge handicap for those of us who favor health care reform. When the teabaggers and industry astroturf people start saying crazy untrue things, the only response that Democratic congresscritters have is to say, "no bill currently proposed has that provision." What does it say, the protesters ask? "Well, there is no it, there are a lot of different bills under consideration, the details are still being worked out in committee etc etc."

It would be a lot easier to be simply for something at this stage, rather than simply for the generic promise of reform. Furthermore, the protesters already call the proposals for reform "Obamacare." Obama hopes to escape the blame/credit for specific provisions in the bill coming from congress, but it's not going to happen. He's the president, so everyone will assume that he approves of any and all portion of any bill he finally signs.

The other issue is single-payer health care. From the rhetoric coming from the teabaggers, we know that they assume they are protesting against single-payer health care. I saw one video where a congressman said to the crowd, "this isn't single-payer!" and the crowd responded in unison with a shout, "we don't believe you!" What does it benefit us to adopt a compromise position (a public option) when the other side assumes that the compromise is in fact single payer in disguise? The discussion needs to be about single-payer, not this mash of weaker proposals.

I've talked about bipartisanship before. Now I think that not only has the bipartisan ship sunk, it's sitting at the bottom of the ocean growing coral. While Senator Grassley was pretending to be working on a bipartisan compromise, he was he now admits only working to delay a bill appearing before the Senate before the August recess. Not only that, but the politicians who are perpetuating the lie about 'death panels' know better. They know that the proposal for end-of-life counseling does not in any sense constitute death panels and in fact they have been on the record in favor of end-of-life counseling in the past.

Obama should send a new bill to the congress and the senate, something that is much shorter than 1000 pages and includes single-payer health care. Once he does that we progressives will have something we can really be for. It isn't too late to reboot this conversation by pushing a new White House bill! In the meantime, all we can do is keep on pointing out the lies and logical fallacies and inconsistencies of the the opposition.

Racist and Threatening Right-Wing Reactions

Cenk Uygur at The Young Turks covers the story of the man who showed up at an Obama rally with a visible gun strapped to his thigh and carrying a sign that reads, "It is time to water the tree of Liberty." This is in reference to a Thomas Jefferson quote which reads,

What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.

Timothy McVeigh also referenced this quote on the t-shirt he was wearing at the time of his arrest. The sign and the gun taken together send an unmistakable message: this man advocates advancing his political agenda through violent means, possibly even assasination. I cannot understand how he was not arrested. A commenter (padlok47) on the YouTube video writes, "and now everyone who quotes jefferson is a mcveigh?"

No. Everyone who shows up at a political rally packing heat quoting Jefferson or anyone else about the right to political violence is advocating the sort of political violence that McVeigh committed and should probably be arrested on charges of incitement and threatening the president.

Meanwhile Georgia Rep. David Scott's office sign was vandalized with a large swastika. I'm not quite sure of the intent here, but I assume that it means one of two things, both of which aren't good:

1. David Scott is being accused of being a Nazi. This makes no sense. Is David Scott the first black Nazi in history?
2. The vandal is a Nazi and is putting this black elected official "on notice". Apparently David Scott should stop provoking the Nazi party?

These incidents arrive within a storm of accusations of socialism, communism, tyrrany, dishonesty, death panels, eugenics, euthanasia, baby killing and elder killing. These things are being yelled by wingnuts uninterested in thoughtful debate at town hall meetings and political rallies. This time around there are two identifiable sources of all this vitriol. First, we have the teabaggers, still shouting about tyrrany and still upset that their guy lost the election. Second, the health industry astroturf paying people and paying travel expenses and issuing talking points. Millions of dollars are being spent by the companies who have a stake in this debate to make the reactionaries look stronger than they are. In the meantime all rational debate has been squeezed out and Obama has to spend his time answering questions about death panels instead of the merits and limitations of the policies being proposed.

One more time I'd like to put the question out there to any teabaggers who might be reading this. When the left accused the former president of tyrrany we pointed to specific examples such as the suspension of habeas corpus and the declaration of unilateral and preemptive war and the ordering of torture as acts of tyrrany because they threatened the republican institutions of this country. You shout 'tyrrany' at the top of your lungs but I don't understand what it is that Obama has done that you think counts as tyrrany! Which of Obama's specific actions taken since he took office do you view as tyrranical, and why? Quick caveat: proposing to extend medicare-type benefits to essentially everyone over 18 doesn't count.

Busy News Day

There's too much happening this week to cover all of it in much depth, so here are some more quick news stories.

• An city bus ad run by Iowa Atheists and Freethinkers got pulled by DART. This is a clear-cut case of religious discrimination and unconstitutional an illegal censorship. The existence of atheists and atheists groups is offensive? Get a hold of yourself, Iowa governor Chet Culver.
• Sonia Sotomayor was confirmed to the Supreme Court after a noticeable period of relative quiet from the Republicans on this issue. Apparently after the confirmation hearings were over they decided they had ridden that horse as far as it would take them, but that didn't stop them from taking a few parting shots at her as she sailed through the Senate.
• Teabaggers think that the proposed health care reform plan really really is single-payer even though it's not. If they believe that this really is single-payer, so we're having to fight for it as if it were, why wasn't single-payer put on the table to begin with? I'm sick of Democrats pre-compromising things, it doesn't help.
  
• Right-wing protesters at health care town hall meetings are being supported aggressively by health industry companies and incited towards violence by the right-wing media. Once again we hear accusations of tyrrany and comparisons to Nazis but very little policy discussion. The teabaggers have a lot of anger, and little else.
• Over two hundred freethinkers led by PZ Myers and the Secular Student Alliance will gather to tour Ken Ham's creationist theme park tomorrow morning. I wish I could be there, I'm looking forward to seeing the pictures and reading the blog posts about it.
• George Sodini is a terrible human being who walked into a Pennsylvania gym and murdered three women and wounded ten more before ridding the world of his disgusting existence Wednesday. This is a clear case of violence motivated by mysoginy. Sodini targeted women specifically, blogging about his hatred for women before the attack. Pandagon writes,

  George Sodini was angry at the entire world of "desirable" women for not up and volunteering to have sex with him, and every day anonymous men around the country and world beat, rape, and even kill women because said women were also considered insufficiently compliant, often to unstated demands that women were supposed to just anticipate and fill without complaint.

• Unscientific America is on the bookshelves now, and serious scientists are ripping it apart.
  

A Peacekeeping and Humanitarian Armada

I really enjoyed the recent Star Trek film, and I saw it twice in the theaters. Both times that I saw it, a particular line really caught my imagination. It's just after Kirk got in a bar fight, and Captain Christopher Pike is trying to convince Kirk to join up with Starfleet. About Starfleet he says,

"It's important, a peacekeeping and humanitarian armada."

This sentence has really stuck with me ever since then. This hasn't always been the vision of Starfleet that comes forward in Star Trek. Most of the time the emphasis is on science exploration, as in the opening monologue.

"Space... the Final Frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds; to seek out new life and new civilizations; to boldly go where no man has gone before."

This was from TOS, Picard recites it without the sexist language for TNG. The monologue, combined with the constant reference to the Prime Directive, makes it clear that the old Starfleet was uninterested in political action. Pike's line about a humanitarian armada is a new vision for Star Trek, and an exciting one as far as I'm concerned. As much as I think of myself as a scientist and value exploration and discovery, the idea of a peacekeeping and humanitarian armada really appeals to me.

And I'm not alone. In Orson Scott Card's Shadow series (Ender's Shadow, Shadow of the Hegemon, Shadow Puppets and Shadow of the Giant) he describes a similar idea. Hegemon Peter Wiggin forms the Free People of Earth, an international government and alliance of member states. What's important about the FPE is not just that it is an international government that guarantees democracy and human rights protection within member states, but importantly that it was willing to extend direct military aid - soldiers, not weapons sales - to oppressed peoples who asked for help. In Shadow of the Giant the FPE recognizes oppressed minorities of existing countries and allows them to apply for FPE membership. In the book the Thai and Rwandan soldiers of the FPE defeat the armies of Peru and Sudan.

So I've been asking myself, what if the world really did have a peacekeeping and humanitarian armada? I'm not really thinking of a quasi-governmental organization like the FPE or the UN. I'm thinking something more along the lines of the Red Cross, with guns. In March of this year Sudan expelled international aid groups from their borders. In 1994 the international community failed to respond to the genocide in Rwanda. What if there was somebody who could actually do something about it when things like this happen?

Any country could do it. Take a small European country with a reputation for human rights, like Sweden for instance. Announce the intention to form a humanitarian aid military force and start accepting donations. Come up with a good name, something like International Fleet (another nod to Card). When a country like Sudan boots the international aid groups out, the Fleet can step in to protect the International Rescue Committee and bolster their efforts.

Of course there are challenges and pitfalls to this idea. Mainly they fall into financial, political and ethical concerns. How would an International Fleet secure funding? Existing aid groups barely get enough cash to continue their missions in many cases nowadays. I think that a small demonstration of success might go a long way to opening the floodgates from wealthy investors.

Political hurdles concern questions of legality and interference from large powers. Suppose our Fleet has a procedure whereby oppressed groups within a nation can apply for aid. This may be enough to sidestep questions of treading upon national sovereignties, especially when you consider that some of these nations in turmoil essentially have no government at all. In addition the Fleet might need to be careful, especially at the outset, to avoid the appearance of disrupting resource flows in areas that China or Russia have interests.

Ethical concerns should remain the highest priority for the Fleet at all times. The Fleet may be dependent on the goodwill of generous donors and ideally would maintain a reputation for unimpeachable moral character. Above all I am not interested in seeing another group of muderous mercenary thugs like Blackwater.

There has never in the history of the world been a military force founded with a humanitarian purpose in mind. I think it might be time to give it a try.

King David and The Family

In my earlier post on Jeff Sharlet's book The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism At the Heart of American Power I briefly mentioned that King David is someone that the members of the Family sometimes talk about. I wrote,

This is why Mark Sanford referenced King David during a press conference about his recent affair. Remember that David was not at all a nice man - he had an affair and had his mistress's husband murdered, but God did not condemn him for that.

A reader e-mailed me about this, saying,

I just read your blog post about “The Family.” It seems clear to me that like many groups throughout the world (religious or not) they have misinterpreted some fundamental truths about the values that they claim to adhere to. I have one serious issue with what your wrote about the book. You mentioned that Mark Sanford referenced King David and that David was not condemned by God for his affair and the murder he committed. This is completely false.

“⁷ Then Nathan said to David, "You are the man! This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: 'I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you from the hand of Saul. ⁸ I gave your master's house to you, and your master's wives into your arms. I gave you the house of Israel and Judah. And if all this had been too little, I would have given you even more. ⁹ Why did you despise the word of the LORD by doing what is evil in his eyes? You struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and took his wife to be your own. You killed him with the sword of the Ammonites. ¹⁰ Now, therefore, the sword will never depart from your house, because you despised me and took the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your own.'

¹¹ "This is what the LORD says: 'Out of your own household I am going to bring calamity upon you. Before your very eyes I will take your wives and give them to one who is close to you, and he will lie with your wives in broad daylight. ¹² You did it in secret, but I will do this thing in broad daylight before all Israel.' " 2 Samuel 7-12

If you continue to read after this point God does bring about the things that He promised to David because of his sin. It is clear in the Bible that God does not allow the rulers that He puts in positions of authority to make up their own laws and rules. David is just one of many (nearly all) of the Kings of Israel who were immoral and were punished by God because of that immorality.

And I replied:

That interpretation of King David is the Family's, not mine. Jeff Sharlet went to the Family's 'Ivanwald' house on C street undercover and sat in for a conversation about King David. To quote from Sharlet's book (p.36)

"King David," David Coe [Doug Coe's son] said. "That's a good one. David. Hey, What would you say made King David a good guy?" He giggled, not from nervousness but from barely concealed delight.
"Faith?" Beau [a pseudonomyous Ivanwald resident] said. "His faith was so strong?"
"Yeah." David nodded as if he hadn't heard that before. "Hey, you know what's interesting about King David?" From the blank stares of the others, I could see that they did not. Many didn't even carry a full Bible, preferring a slim volume of New Testament Gospels and Epistles and Old Testament Psalms, respected but seldom read. Others had the whole book, but the gold gilt on the pages of the first two-thirds remained undisturbed. "King David," David Coe went on, "liked to do really, really bad things." He chuckled. "Here's this guy who slept with another man's wife - Bathsheba, right? - and then basically murdered her husband. And this guy is one of our heroes." David shook his head. "I mean, Jimminy Christmans, God likes this guy! What," he said, "is that all about?"
"Is it because he tried?" asked Bengt [another Ivanwald resident, fake name again]. "He wanted to do the right thing?" ...
"That's nice, Bengt," David said. "But it isn't the answer Anyone else?"
"Because he was chosen," I [Jeff Sharlet] said. For the first time David looked my way.
"Yes," he said, smiling. "Chosen. Interesting set of rules, isn't it?" He turned to Beau. "Beau, let's say I hear you raped three little girls. And now here you are at Ivanwald. What would I think of you, Beau?"
Beau, given to bellowing Ivanwald's daily call to sports like a bull elephant, shrank into the cushions. "Probably that I'm pretty bad?"
"No, Beau." David's voice was kind. "I wouldn't." He drew Beau back into the circle with a stare that seemed to have its own gravitational pull. Beau nodded, brow furrowed, as if in the presence of something profound, "Because," David continued, "I'm not here to judge you. That's not my job. I'm here for only one thing. Do you know what that is?"
Understanding blossomed in Beau's eyes. "Jesus?"

Yes, these folks have a different understanding of the bible than you do. Yes, I agree with you that they are wrong and that they do not have divine authority to make up their own laws and rules. But the Family doesn't see it that way, they think that the common morality in the bible is only for the commoners and that they are exempt because they are God's chosen. These men are wrong and they are evil. This is why I encourage you to do what you can to learn about them and expose them. I also encourage you to be skeptical when you hear a politician say, "God has chosen me to do this."

Results Are Better Than Bipartisanship

A while back I posted a conversation that I had with a friend about political compromise. Today my girlfriend and I were having a conversation about how the Obama Administration has been disappointing us lately. On the topic of health care in particular, the best position of single-payer health care (not health insurance) was taken off the table by the Democrats before the negotiations even began. Therefore the conversation has been between a weaker position (a public option) and the far-right crazy idea (do nothing).

In 2010 and in 2012 the public will not judge the Democrats based upon how many GOP or Blue Dog votes they managed to secure during the debate on health care. In 2010 and 2012 the voters will judge the Democrats based on whether or not we got change for the better. Obama was elected on a platform of change and change is what we expect.

Last night on Countdown Keith Olbermann outlined the issue: the American people overwhelmingly support health care reform while the health industry overwhelmingly supports the election finances of our members of Congress, both Democrats and Republicans. I share his outrage. The GOP and the conservative wing of the Democratic party are the wholly-owned subsidiaries of the health industry. No reasonable compromise is possible with the folks who are making money hand-over-fist under the current system.

There is only one path to reelection for the Democrats. Follow through on your campaign promises. Start showing real leadership and a real spine and get things done. If you show up to the 2010 election as the party that lost the health care debate twice then the progressive base that got you elected will not turn out for you again. In particular we will not show up to vote for obstructionist Democrats whose interests are transparently driven by corporate lobbying dollars. You weren't elected in order to build a Democratic majority, you were elected to get things done that help ordinary Americans. Gaining the White House and majorities in the House and Senate aren't the real victory, they're just the entry ticket to start working on it.

Wrapping things up, I'd like to mention a couple of the outright lies and distortions that have been thrown into this debate by the corporate interests and the do-nothings:

The government wants to take over medicare/medicaid. False. The government already runs these programs.
The government is going to kill senior citizens and ration medical care. False. The proposed public option extends coverage similair to medicare and medicaid to more Americans. Substantial changes to existing programs are not being seriously discussed right now. The government will no more ration care under the proposed plan than medicare does now (it doesn't now).
The government cannot run a safe and efficient medical system. False. Medicare, Medicaid and the VA are all currently government run. They have lower costs and better outcomes than private insurance plans. Veterans are overwhelmingly happy with their VA plans and want to extend the benefits to their families. The proposed public plan extends this type of system to more Americans.

I'm Watching: Big Love

My girlfriend and I went to the local library and borrowed the first two seasons of the HBO series Big Love on DVD. We've been watching them at a fairly quick pace, and we're about halfway through the second season now. For those of you who've seen more of it NO SPOILERS in the comments please.

In any event, the show follows the family of Bill Hendrickson, a polygamist from Utah. Bill was booted off his family's compound when he was 14. After living on the streets for a while, Bill eventually became successful and got married to his first wife Barb. Years later, when Barb was sick and nearly died Bill also married Barb's nurse Nicki who lived at the polygamist compound. Three years before the time of the first episode Bill married Margene, his newest and youngest wife. Bill bought three houses next door to each other, one for Barb, one for Nicki and one for Margene. Bill spends time in the three houses according to a set schedule.

Drama unfolds as this strange family struggles to fit in with a world that they have to hide their true relationships from. Bill tries to run his hardware-store business and the wives and children try to lead as normal lives as possible. Bill's family and Nicki's family live back at the polygamist compound, a quaint pastoral community rife with corruption and abuse. The protagonist family tries to hold on to their bonds to the compound while not being sucked into the nasty side of things there.

I can't stop watching Big Love with horrible fascination. The writing is excellent and the dialogue crisp and engaging, but that's not the only reason to watch. Some of the time you want to watch with revulsion (especially when the scenes show life inside the compound) but mostly you just want this family to succeed at trying to make their bizarre lives as normal as they can be.

Also, as normal as the Hendrickson's life seems compared to life inside the compound, the institution of polygamy as practiced by these folks still revolves around male ownership of women. The relationships among the sister-wives are sincere and really seem to work well for the characters in many scenes. Yet all of the true authority stays with Bill. He is free to date and look for additional wives but of course the same is not true for the women. Bill gets three sexual relationships at the same time, but the wives have no similar perk.

It occurres to my girlfriend that these folks are trying to destroy the communities that might actually be accepting of them. If they just moved to San Fransisco and said, I'm married to this woman but I also consider this woman and this woman my wife nobody would harass them about it. But the reality of polygamy as practiced by LDS splinter groups in this country nowadays is scary and evil.

I'm Reading: "The Family" by Jeff Sharlet

I've been chugging away at Jeff Sharlet's The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power for a couple of weeks now. It was difficult for me to read more than a bit of it at a time. I would read a little, then put it down for a couple of days to let it sink in. I wouldn't have thought that American fundamentalism required a conspiracy - everyone already knows they're out to run the country and they're not shy about saying so.

However, Sharlet's scholarship is unimpeachable. Behind the scenes a brotherhood of powerful men, sworn to secrecy, operate a network of cell groups. The largest and best known is the National Prayer Breakfast, which every US president has participated in since 1953. But the National Prayer Breakfast is just the public face. Family members also operate Senate and Congressional prayer beakfasts where powerful members meet to talk about God first and politics second. Hillary Clinton during her time in the Senate attended one of these. Now that The Family is in print, I do think it's time people start asking her questions about her connections. It does seem strange that the woman who coined the phrase "vast right-wing conspiracy" would be a member of it.

But who is the Family, and why is it scary? Founded in the 1930s by Abram Vereide and later run by Doug Coe up to the present day, the Family reinvented American revivalist fundementalism for the wealthy elite. In the '30s and '40s they ministered to corporate CEOs engaged in strikebreaking, telling the CEOs that they were doing God's will and that God wishes for the workers to be subservient. After World War II they helped ex-Nazis escape public criticism and criminal charges. During the '50s and '60s they really hit their stride, organizing anticommunist groups and setting national policies during the Cold War. In 1954 they added 'In God We Trust' to the currency and 'Under God' to the Pledge. During this period they also arrived at their strategy of secrecy.

In 1966, with the Christian Right just starting to emerge as a visible front for fundamentalism, Coe decided to go in the opposite direction. "The time has come," he instructed the Core, "to submerge." Thereafter, the Fellowship would avoid at all turns any appearance of an organization, even as Coe crafted ever more complex hierarchies behind-the-scenes.

In the '70s and '80s the Family built an international network of foreign diplomats and dictators who owed their American connections to Coe and his organization. Indonesian dictator and mass-murdered Suharto secured American weapons and funding through his Family connections. Conservative estimates put Suharto's death toll as at least 600,000.

Reading about the Family is a study in contrasts. Their causes are trupeted by their visible members, but the machinery of the organization gets the deals done in secret. They stress their subservience to God's will but shamelessly seek individual self-promotion. They talk about the love of Jesus, but cast him as a relentless warrior.

There is a lot that has happened in the history of this country over the past 75 years that only makes sense in light of these recent revelations about the Family. The truly scary thing is not that they want to turn America into a Taliban-style theocracy, the scary thing is the extent to which they have already succeeded. In order to understand the Family, you have to understand their reading of Romans 13 "The powers that be are ordained of God" and "For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God."

The Family approaches the question of authority backward. Whoever has gained power must have done so by the grace of God, so any acts that were done to attain or maintain power were sanctioned by God. In this way any sort of injustice can be justified. To the members of the Family, ethics or morality are only for the weak and the poor. Members - those in power - have recieved the blessings of authority and therefore mundane ethics cannot apply. This is why Mark Sanford referenced King David during a press conference about his recent affair. Remember that David was not at all a nice man - he had an affair and had his mistress's husband murdered, but God did not condemn him for that.

What do we do? Reading this book is likely to throw secular readers and kindhearted Christian readers into a sucking despair. How do we counter the corrupting influence of the Family?

• Develop a new mythology of religious freedom.

The fundamentalist movement has captured the public imagination by reinventing the meaning behind the stories of Jesus and the stories of American history. Biology is not the only academic subject under attack by fundamentalism - history also requires a vigorous defense and is in many ways the more important battle. We need a new narrative which can start to rebuild Jefferson's wall of separation. In the last chapter Jeff Sharlet recommends talking about the concept of exodus as a way of moving out of the old ways and into an unknown but promising future. Contrast this with the Family's salvation which requires submission to the order imposed by these self-proclaimed key men.

• Ask your politicans about their Family connections.

I mentioned Hillary Clinton earlier, but we can also ask our FL Sen. Bill Nelson about his participation in the Senate prayer breakfasts. One by one the questions can chip away at the veil of secrecy around this group.

• Shut down the offices of the faith-based initiatives.

Money that should go to the poor through welfare and medicare and head start is being funneled through many hidden channels to religious and fundamentalist groups. These organizations give preferential treatment to believers when they distribute aid. Unlike government agencies they are allowed to discriminate in their hiring practices.

• End the Family's tax-exempt status

The Family operates a house on C Street which is now categorized as a church. This house provides housing for members of Congress at below-market rates and operates as a center of operations for lobbying and political contacts. They should have to pay taxes and submit to the same rules as every other lobbying group.