We Have Met the Founders & They are Us

July 4, 2010 – 16:46

Some 234 years ago our country’s founders declared their independence from the British monarchy. In doing so they declared themselves traitors to one of the most powerful empires on earth. And after years of bloody battles, cunning diplomacy, and with the aid of geographic fortune they achieved an independent nation. And after some false starts and years of debate they laid the basic structure of the nation we have today. The cornerstone of that structure laid so many years ago is the simple and basic principle that We the People govern ourselves. That We are the government.

Around 30 years ago a mantra rose up from politicians seeking a quick path to electoral office: the notion that We aren’t the problem; rather, government is the problem. At the time, only a few questioned that premise. After all, weren’t We suppose to be the government? But the mantra stuck and for years afterwords we have lived with the Other  government. And the very idea of a government divorced from Us has allowed most of us to abrogate our responsibilities as part of We the People. It has allowed those with direct interests to craft laws in their favor; it has allowed politicians to become reactionary when called upon to act and often incompetent when ignored; it has allowed private and personal interests to send our fellow citizens off to die in foreign lands.

Our nation was never envisioned as a utopian paradise. It was never established as a perfect government or system. Rather, it was conceived of as an ongoing, constant, debate. And as new generations arrose their voices were to be added to the debate and their ideas would become part of the discussion. And through this endless debate would arise better ideas, compromises, and growth. Every epoch, every generation, re-founds our nation. It is far too important a task to leave to the British Petroleums, the Goldman-Sachs, the Limbaughs, or the Becks. It requires that We join the debate: join with the understanding that our nation is big, and complicated, and messy, and that rarely should one idea ever win out, and that though our voice seems like a whisper it remains part of the chorus of We the People.

Happy 4th of July.

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By sjk | Posted in Misc. Ramblings, Politics | Comments (0)

S’ Wonder-ful! S’ marvelous!

July 3, 2010 – 13:43

Well, DC actually…. Just when you thought things couldn’t get sillier, Fox News runs a hit piece on the newest incarnation of Wonder Woman. The All American patriotic news network has issues with the superhero’s new costuming. While it seems the conservative reporters had no problem with a shapely woman in red go-go boots, blue hot pants, and a gold bustier wielding a mind controlling lasso, Wonder Woman’s latest fashion would appear to represent the death of America and the rise of globalization:

Wonder Woman may have finally been given a pair of pants, but has she been stripped of her patriotism? The new and allegedly improved Wonder Woman (a.k.a Diana Prince), has been given a head-to-toe makeover by artist Jim Lee, replacing her signature American flag decorated briefs with skintight black pants and purging the super hero of all her trappings of Americana.

Of course, Fox watcher quickly saw the broader picture of this nefarious plot:

snipezilla
not with this administration in power..pop culture is also following suit! Liberal extreme prez apologizing for America on foreign soil first week in office, then again and again, makes me sick Liberal comic artist following suit, not surprised in the least

randy
If the libs want to remove the patriotic colors, maybe they should just make her costume that sickly UN blue color.

blsoft
Whos suprised???Another small step in taking America out of America. Loss of patriotism will result in loss of country. Beware. get rid of these left wing commies in Nov.

Susana Polo has pointed out other reasons Fox should have chosen to demonize Wonder Woman but she left out a couple, so I thought I’d mention them.
 Wonder Woman was created in 1940 by Elizabeth and William Marston.. William had become famous as the inventor of the polygraph  — the inspiration for the Wonder Woman’s magic lasso — and introduced the idea to All American Publishing. Marston saw Wonder Woman not simply as a female superhero, but as the embodiment of female liberation and supremacy. Early comics were ripe with these themes and often depicted the utopian gynarchy of the Amazons, which Wonder Woman heralded from. Additionally, Marston seemed to have no problem including a kind of fem-dom bondage (his own fetish) into these the early comics either. Panels regularly depicted other women binding or spanking Wonder Woman or vice verse. There is often an a strange mix of self-determination and domination in the early Wonder Woman art, and it’s hard to imagine that this would go unnoticed by readers in the 1940’s or today. In fact it’s hard to imagine that if the Fox reporters would have done 5 minutes of actual research on the subject they probably would have steered clear of Wonder Woman all together.
In her early comics, Wonder Woman represented not simply female inclusion, but a subversion of gender and sexual mores of her day. Many of those cultural mores are still with us today, and it will be interesting to see if Wonder Woman’s newest incarnation returns her to her more aggressive roots.

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By sjk | Posted in Misc. Ramblings | Comments (0)

We’re All Jacobins Now

June 27, 2010 – 12:01

Way back in 2004 Moveon.org ran a contest for people to create ads critical of President Bush; within the hundreds of submissions was one which compared George W. Bush to Adolf Hitler. At the time Moveon was roundly excoriated across the political spectrum: the RNC called the submission “the worst and most vile form of political hate speech.,” and Democratic candidates were called upon to condemn the ad and Moveon.org. This week congressman Gohmert (R-TX) took the floor of the US House of Representatives and quoted Thomas Sowell’s bizarre op-ed column comparing President Obama to Adolf Hitler:

There’s a brilliant man named Thomas Sowell. And, um, I didn’t vote for Barack Obama in 2008, but I sure would have voted for Thomas Sowell. This man, well, his article says quite a lot. His editorial, um, says here — and it’s just been posted this week — but it says, “When Adolph Hitler was building up the Nazi movement in the 1920’s” — and I’m quoting from Thomas Sowell in his editorial:

‘leading up to his taking power in the 1930s, he deliberately sought to activate people who did not normally pay much attention to politics. Such people were a valuable addition to his political base, since they were particularly susceptible to Hitler’s rhetoric and had far less basis for questioning his assumptions or his conclusions. ‘Useful idiots’ was the term supposedly coined by V.I. Lenin to describe similarly unthinking supporters of his dictatorship in the Soviet Union.’

And this isn’t in the article — this is my comment — but we do have useful idiots today, who are heard to say, ‘Wow, what we really need is for the president to be a dictator for a little while.’ They know not what they say

In the early 90’s Mike Godwin stated that argument, in Usenet, that went on long enough would eventually needlessly invoke Hitler or the Nazis, and that this was the moment for the argument to end – this has been known as Godwin’s Law. The law is now smashed, no longer applicable, a remnant a more pleasant time in American discourse. For today, every argument seems to begin and end with Hitler or Nazis. As Steve Benen put it:

Far-right rhetoric is routinely exasperating, but this Nazi preoccupation holds a special place in the lexicon. Remember when Obama’s efforts to rescue American auto manufacturing were compared to Hitler? And how many times did Republicans compare health care reform to the Nazis? Or how about the time a Republican congressman compared Obama to Hitler over national-service opportunities? Let’s also not forget Newt Gingrich’s recent assertion that Obama and his backers are actually worse than Nazis.

On its face, the fact that so many conservatives rely on Hitler comparisons so often is a reminder of an unfortunate truth — much of the discourse on the right has gone hopelessly insane.

As a rhetorical device Hitler/Nazi comparisons have nearly become passe and cliche, due to their over use. Like referring to an opponent as an Islamist, fascist, socialist, or communist (terms which are often strung together, but reflect radically incompatible political ideologies), the Nazi comparison only appeals to the  most extreme partisans and conspiracy mongers. This is a major problem: it softens the real horror of Nazi Germany and the ideology which brutally exterminated millions of human beings. Additionally, it makes any relevant use of the comparison impossible — such as when discussing white-power movements around the globe.

In order to reclaim Nazism to it’s proper place in our historical discourse I am proposing that those on the right substitute the term Jacobin or Jacobinism when hyperbolically denigrating their opponents. From a right-wing perspective the Jacobins seem have it all:

  • They helped to violently overthrow a conservative established order
  • They became rabidly opposed to the religious establishment
  • They  allowed women into the political discourse
  • They violently pursued a secular social order
  • They ‘redistributed wealth’ of the social elites to the masses
  • They helped spread the metric system
  • They were French

I am certain that people can think of many more reasons that the right-wing should choose Jacobinism as its newest pejorative.

Of course, Jacobinism also carries with it a rich heritage of conspiracy theories, most of which tie the Jacobins to the Illuminati, the Free-Masons, and a host of other secret, world dominating, societies. I believe we could if we get Glann Beck a copy of Abbé Barruel’s 18th century best seller Memoirs Illustrating the History of Jacobinism we could get the right-wing to adopt this new meme within days. After all, Barruel defined Jacobinism as a worldwide “conspiracy of impiety” against God and Christianity, and a “conspiracy of
anarchy” against society in general. This exaggerating rhetoric certainly fits the right-wing discourse more accurately then any Nazi comparison could.

Those of us who are progressives, or slightly left in our political leanings need to help return Nazism to it’s proper place in the historical discourse, and proudly proclaim “We are Jacobins”.

By sjk | Posted in Politics | Comments (1)

Whitening the Children

June 5, 2010 – 13:02

A public mural in Prescott, AZ has drawn the ire of racists who have demanded that it be destroyed, but as a compromise it’s been decided to simply caucasian-up the children depicted in the piece. As the Arizonia Republic reports, “The “Go on Green” mural, which covers two walls outside Miller Valley Elementary School, was designed to advertise a campaign for environmentally friendly transportation. It features portraits of four children, with a Hispanic boy as the dominant figure.” The children depicted in the mural are based on photographs of actual children who attend the school.

As the piece was being painted some passersby would stop and shout racial epithets at the artists and children working on the mural. Prescott City Councilman Blair then began to attack the mural on his radio talk show, and demanded that the mural be removed. Blair has said, “I am not a racist individual, but I will tell you depicting a black guy in the middle of that mural, based upon who’s president of the United States today and based upon the history of this community when I grew up, we had four black families … to depict the biggest picture on that building as a black person, I would have to ask the question, ‘Why?” Of his constituents Blair said, “What these people don’t like is somebody forcing diversity down their throats.” (note: it seems strange that people of color are always suppose to see themselves in representations of caucasians, but the reverse is never true.) In response to the “controversy” R.E. Wall, director of Prescott’s Downtown Mural Project, was asked to lighten the faces of the children depicted.

What’s particularly disgusting about this story is not that a bunch of bigots object to a prominent public depictions of darkly colored children, but that the paintings they object to are based on actual children who attend the school. Mr. Blair and his people have said to these children in this school, and within their city, that they are not the right color to represent their community. That these children should somehow consider their skin too political or too controversial to be represented in a public mural. Imagine, for one moment, what it would be like to be one of those children: to be told that because of your skin color your depiction offends a city councilman and parts of your community.

This type of racism is one of the most monstrous because it grinds down children and robs them of their belief that they are full fledged human beings with the same potential as any other. In the end, it robs all of us of their potential and diminishes our humanity.

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By sjk | Posted in Injustices | Comments (0)

Res Sacr

May 29, 2010 – 10:12

Not long ago, I wrote how the Catholic church said it was unwilling to take action against clergy who had molested children. It now seems, however, the Church is more than prepared to take action against a greater heresy: Saving the life of a pregnant woman. Recently Sister Margaret McBride of Phoenix, AZ was excommunicated by Bishop Olmsted for voting, as a member of the St. Joseph’s Hospital ethic committee, to allow a woman to receive an abortion to save her life. The woman, a mother of four, suffers from pulmonary hypertension, and it was determined that the continuation of the 11 week pregnancy endangered her life. In justifying  the excommunication, the Bishop’s office explained, “The mother’s life cannot be preferred over the child’s.”

The Church’s position on abortion and life is well known, and it is pointless to try to debate faith with reason. Still, for an organization which seems to show so much compassion and forgiveness for ordained child molesters to deny Sister Margaret the sacraments and Christian fellowship seems beyond cruel. It has taken a difficult decision by the mother of four and Sister Margaret and applied a simple manichean  template to it. The Church has abandoned any any  notion of the individual conscience and has replaced it with dogmatic execution. In do so the Church has also abandoned any claim it may have on compassion, forgiveness, or humanity.

By sjk | Posted in Injustices, Religion | Comments (0)

First, They Came for My Evening Wear…..

May 17, 2010 – 13:07

I actually find it hard to believe that the Miss America pageant continues to this day. It seems so antiquated and patriarchal that I had actually thought they’d discontinued it. Yet, I find that a new Miss. America was crowned last night. Rima Fakih, Miss. Michigan, is the first Muslim woman to win the prestigious title. My immediate reaction  was an apathetic “Ok” until I read the deep thoughts of ever insane Debbie Schlussel:

The Hezbollah-supporting Shi’ite Muslim, Miss Michigan Rima Fakih whose bid for the pageant was financed by an Islamic terrorist and immigration fraud perpetrator–won the Miss USA contest.

Yes, my friends, the evil terrorists plan to terrorize us into submission by taking over our beauty pageants, for why else would they be sponsoring terrorist pageant operatives? First, Miss Michigan then Miss USA, and next Miss Universe. Can nothing stop their onslaught against us?

By sjk | Posted in Politics, Religion | Comments (0)

Peep Party

April 4, 2010 – 14:57

From this year’s Peeps on Parade in the Chicago Tribune.

As the creator notes: “These peeps, holding signs based on actual tea party protest signs..”  What does it say about us when satire and reality mimic each other so closely?

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By sjk | Posted in Politics | Comments (0)