Welcome to the occupation.

Lehman Bros has filed for bankruptcy. Just another casualty from the sub-prime, credit crunch mess. Lynch is hanging on by a thread. WaMu is probably going to fall.

The question on Wall Street is ‘will the government bail out any other banks?’. Over the weekend the Feds told Lehman ‘no way Jose’ and that precipitated the filing.

Our government is turning into quite the diversified conglomerate. They’ve started an investment banking wing (Bear Stearns), a mortgage business (Freddie & Fannie) and have promised to get into the automotive business. (There are preliminary agreements for the government to make low-interest loans to the Detroit automotive companies.)

What we’ve been hearing over and over is these companies are too important and Too Big To Fail. The libertarians scream and gnash their teeth over these bailouts. I do too. I disagreed with the Bear Stearns bailout. I don’t support low-interest loans to the automotive companies.

But Freddie & Fannie…..oh that’s a horse of a different color. Allowing those two to falter would have sent massive shockwaves throughout the financial system. People way smarter than me have no idea how bad it would get if suddenly half the mortgages were held by two bankrupt companies.

I’ve heard the usual suspects trotted out. Corrupt CEOs, greedy shareholders, meddlesome liberals, but none of these scapegoats are the real perp.

You know who’s at fault? We are. Me & You.

George Carlin once said “They call it the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe it.”

Well George, you were right and we’re being rudely awaken right now.

We have allowed ourselves to buy into this American dream bullshit. Specifically the part about everyone owning a house with a white picket fence in the suburbs. I hear it over and over again during this campaign. Comments praising “small town Americans”, the suburban campaign stops, it goes on and on. Obama is being rediculed for being ‘elite’ because he’s well-read and well-spoken.

As I’m fond of saying…anyway….

Owning a home. That’s one of the most basic tenants of the American Dream. A place where a man can be free to do as he wishes. People do not realize how much this ideal is supported by the federal government. Our highways that allow longer commutes – federal government. Cheap housing outside of the city – again the federal government is behind that. That’s what Freddie and Fannie did. They bought up mortgages. Almost half of them to be exact. They allowed banks to loan money, collect the transaction fees and then sell the loan so it became someone else’s problem. Namely, the federal government.

Add to this the federal practice of redlining, which restricted federally-backed mortgages in the city, and you have the federal government practically screaming “ATTENTION WHITE PEOPLE IT IS TIME TO MOVE TO THE SUBURBS!!!!!”.

So we did. Or a lot of us did. Enough to cripple cities. Some have recovered (New York, Chicago, Boston) and some have not (Detroit).

Why would the government want the population arranged in this manner? I don’t generally believe in government conspiracy theories, but I do believe the government had ulterior motives.

One; it played on the racism of white people. By getting white people out of the city and keeping black people in, the government could count on the support of racist, wealthy and politically active whites. Gerrymandering helped minimze the impact of the black vote. Score one for the feds.

Two; by dividing us by race, we identified with race rather than class. The government has almost always been terrified of organized labor. A good way to weaken organized labor is to convince people that racial concerns are more important than economic ones. Score two for the feds.

Three, spreading people out destroys a sense of community. I’ve lived both in the suburbs and the city. In the city, you identify with your neighborhood much more closely. There is a sense that if something bad happens to the neighborhood, it happens to everyone in the neighborhood. That’s why community organizers exist. Living in Chicago, I’ve seen my fair share of byzantine neighborhood fights. There’s one involving a soccer field that I still haven’t gotten my arms around.

Anyway, by destroying a sense of community, the individual has been elevated. This has allowed the “get mine and get out” brand of right wing politics to flourish for the last 30 years. This is why every speaker at the G.O.P. convention made fun of community organizers. To them and their white, suburban constituancy, there is no community to organize. The concept is foriegn to them.

Score three for the feds.

So the government sold the American Dream to us and made it easy to live far away and easy to buy a home. Now it’s all unravelling and the costs are starting to become insurmountable. The federal highway budget is a complete mess and the government has just become the worlds largest backer of mortgages. We’ve suffered through nearly 30 years of right-wing rule and likely to suffer through at least 4 more.

I don’t know about you, but I think it’s time to mow the lawn.

 

What’s love got to do with it?

Hurricane Ike is ravaging Texas.

Quick aside; best joke I’ve heard in a while:

“Ike is coming, better run for it, Tina.”

Hah.

Anyway…Why do I have the feeling that FEMA’s response is going to be whole lot better than Katrina? I don’t think Bush is going to let a bunch of chaw-chewing, back-assed-woods cracker white boys drown.

As long as it’s decent white people who vote republican and hate gay people, the full faith and credit of the federal government is at your disposal. Otherwise, you are on your fucking own.

I’m supremely annoyed at my country right now. While many people are weighing the careful decision of voting for John “Grandpa” McCain or Barack “It’s probably a good idea if I run my campaign exactly like John Kerry and Al Gore” Obama, I find myself weighing the decision of voting or not voting.

I’m serious. The idea of pulling a George Carlin and dropping out of this sick mess appeals to me. I’m on the verge of losing faith in my countrypeople. People around me are seriously considering voting for Grandpa because his twit of a VP has spent a large amount of her downtime shooting animals and having children.

This country is very nearly beyond all hope. We are sinking because we have rejected science, reason, and economics and replaced it with Jesus. It’s a strange version of Jesus though. (Full disclosure, I was raised by God-fearing conservative Christians and I probably know the Bible better than most churchgoers.)

This version of Jesus is all about exclusion, hatred and conformity. This Jesus is all about judgment and very little about love and acceptance. In my churchgoing days, those were the qualities that made me think Christianity was a pretty great religion.

Jesus hung out with the poor and the sick. He healed them. His followers were whores, cowards and tax collectors. For those of you not in the know, Matthew (yes, he wrote one of the gospels), was a tax collector for the Romans. Essentially he was a Nazi sympathizer.

If Jesus showed up today the conservative Christians would rally. Specifically, they would rally to kill him again. That’s what annoys me about today’s religious right. They are entitled to their beliefs, of course, but they’re wrong. They don’t even get the basics of their own religion down. They use is it as an excuse to hate.

And those people are winning. That’s why I want to drop out. I can’t change them and there’s no point in trying. Let the American Taliban turn this country into a third world country. Who am I to stand in their way?

 

A monopoly of two.

Gotta hand it to Dr. Dobson. This guy really has that compassionate conservative thing down.

“The media is already trying to spin this as evidence that Governor Palin is a hypocrite, but all it really means is that she and her family are human.”

article here.

Another one:

“Being a Christian does not mean you’re perfect,”

Article here.

He’s really getting behind McCain-Palin. He now claims he’s ready to vote for them.

This is a guy who was extremely vocal about not supporting John McCain. His exact words were that he would not support McCain “under any circumstances.”

Why the big change, Jimmy boy? I thought Christians were steadfast; God is unchanging and his rules are forever. You know, like those rules about gay people. If it was good enough for an ancient nomadic society, it’s good enough for us.

There’s other rules in the Bible as well. Rules about not eating pork. And rules that require killing the children and infants of your enemies (1 Samuel 15-3.) Hmm…maybe we don’t exactly follow every single rule….However it does make one think why conservative Christians don’t support abortion for liberals. I mean, they are the infants of your enemies.

Anyway, I digress.

The question is why Dobson has changed his tune. He is easily the most important man on the Christian Right and he’s singing the praises of an unwed, teenage mother.

The answer is simple. He’s scared Obama will win. Dobson wants his followers to vote for McCain. Otherwise the Supreme Court will become stacked with pro-choice judges. Then the fire and brimstone will start.

Essentially Dobson is making the exact same calculation that I am. He’s voting for the lesser of two evils. We are just diametrically opposed on who the lesser evil is.

I imagine I could sit down with Dobson and have a chat about politicians. I bet we could find that we have many things in common. We could complain about politicians that pander to us but are really beholden to their contributors. We could complain about our support being taken for granted. We could complain about being ignored the day after the election.

You hear the ‘lesser of two evils’ comment all the time in the media. Is it really any wonder why over 40% of people don’t vote in presidential elections. Why is it I can walk into a grocery store and find seven varieties of flour, but our country can only manage two candidates?

The two party system is the culprit. The Dems and the GOP rely on each other more than their own constituencies. They work hard to keep third party candidates out of debates and other events. Then they work extra hard to scare us to death about the other guy.

No one is actually voting for someone. We’re all voting against someone else. The only vote that I have cast that was for someone was in 2000. I voted for Nader.

Since then I have voted against Bush and will vote against McCain.

The mountains win again.

 

Petty.

I know she’s not even married yet – she’s not even legal voting age yet – but I really can’t wait until Bristol Palin’s messy divorce. Which will probably involve some scandal which her mother will try to cover up. And then her impending single motherhood.

There, I said it.

Yes, I am petty.  I’m also not pregnant.

Thank you.

 

Hanging in the balance.

I found these on one of the PUMA-associated websites. Slate also ran an interesting article about Clinton supporters who are planning to sit this one out or vote for John McCain. This story has been kicking around for quite some time now, but I find very little discussion about the worst legacy of a McCain administration; The Supreme Court.

Listen up PUMAs; there are 9 Supreme Court Justices and they break down like this:

Crazy Right Wing

John “Big Chief” Roberts: Age 53

Sam “Scalito” Alito:  Age 58

Clarance “I Don’t Like Black People. At All.” Thomas: Age 60

Antonin “Big Tony” Scalia: Age 72

Middle Of The Pack

John Paul “George & Ringo” Stevens: Age 88

David “Hackett-Jacket” Souter: Age 68

Anthony “Little Tony” Kennedy: Age 72

Crazy-Out-Of-Touch-Elitist-Tax-And-Spend-I-Hate-America Liberals

Steven “Tyler” Breyer: Age 70

Ruth “Who’s Bader Than Me?” Ginsberg: Age 75

OK, for those of you who still think voting for McCain is a good idea, let me simplify. All the young dudes are on the right. The old people are all in the middle or the left. Look at Kennedy. That poor bastard’s been cheating death just to see a president elected who can read something more complicated than “My Pet Goat.”

This means campaign finance, environment, civil rights, government wiretapping, war powers, detainees, gay rights, gun control, all of it can get blown up if the court decides to take the case.

The Democratic congress will roll over for McCain. They will confirm his appointees. You are delusional if you think otherwise.

If you’re a woman and thinking about voting for McCain you are, in effect, saying “Please John McCain, this is my uterus, and I want you to tell me what to do with it.” 

If that’s what you’re really after, knock yourself out. It doesn’t matter to me because if Grampa gets elected, I’m getting a vasectomy.

 

His untruths are marching on.

More anger geared at the religious types.  I am doing some scouring of designs for work, and looking at big corporate sites, but, y’know, cool ones… Unlike Dell, which sucks and is boring.  GM, Apple, etc.  Good stuff.

I surf to Pepsi’s site, thinking that they are an enormous corporation, but also have some interest in keeping their finger on the pulse of the younglings of our nation and the world.

And I see this big red area in the left-hand corner, stealing your eye from every other design element on the page (none of which are particularly great anyway, but that’s not the point.) “False Rumor Alert.”

Hmm.  Pepsi’s not campaigning for President (whatever Slate says), so I’m wondering why they need to Fight The Smears, too? I click.

And apparently there’s an email forward going around – has been going around for years – telling people to send angry letters to Pepsi because they left the words “under God” out of the Pledge of Allegiance.

Double-Yew.

Tee.

EFF.

YOU PEOPLE HAVE NOTHING BETTER TO DO WITH YOUR TIME??? THAN WRITE PEPSI ABOUT THIS??

Not to mention that this whole thing is really distorted entire out of proportion – Dr. Pepper had a can that had THREE words from the Pledge after 9/11 – and that’s what started this whole mess.  Three words.  And you’re not satified enough that one of the three isn’t GOD, so you have to WRITE LETTERS?

I’m going to pray right now.  To God, Jesus, the more enigmatic Holy Spirit… or Ganesh, or Ahura-Mazda, or whoever, to take care of these people.  Or at least make them unable to get to the polls on all important voting days from here on out.

 

Your faith or your job? It might be time for a new job.

Maggie Gallagher annoys me. She annoys me a great big heap. Of course, that means I read her column with a religious devotion. Most weeks, I start some kind of post rebutting her latest  insanity. Usually I get so irritated that I can’t finish it.

This week, however, I can’t let it pass.

Her column is here. Go ahead and read it, but I will summarize. A lesbian in California wished to be artificially inseminated. Her doctors, being devout Christian types would not allow the procedure on moral grounds. I.E. ‘We devout Christian types don’t like gay people, and they shouldn’t have children’.

The woman sued, alleging discrimination.

The California state supreme court ruled that the doctors cannot deny the procedure because of their moral objections.

Ms. Gallagher’s column is making the point that this ruling is an infringement on the religious liberties of the doctors. Variations of this issue have been bouncing around for a while. Pharmacists refusing to sell birth control..ect.

This is not an issue of religious freedom. This is an issue of professional responsibility. Allow me to make a few analogies:

A criminal defense lawyer has a client who is accused of murder. This lawyer opposes murder on moral grounds. (Wasn’t there something like…thou shall not kill?…anyway). During the course of the trial, the lawyer doesn’t give his client a proper defense. Let’s say, in the extreme, the lawyer doesn’t cross-examine a single prosecution witness or call a single defense witness.

After all, this lawyer has a religious objection to murder. Hell, most people, religious or otherwise, have an objection to murder.

Isn’t this lawyer just following his beliefs? Sure. But the state bar association has another word for this type of activity; disbarment. If you don’t act in your client’s best interest, you can lose your job. Religious concerns do not factor in. At all. If you don’t wish to be in those kinds of situations, do not go to law school, or at the very least, practice another kind of law.

A second example; a man joins the Marine Corps and is sent to Iraq. Let’s say while he’s there he undergoes a religious transformation and becomes a Muslim. Then, suppose he is sent to the front lines and ordered to take out an enemy position.

He decides that killing fellow Muslims is wrong. He informs his superiors that he’s not going to follow orders. Again, this man is following his religious beliefs.

And the Marine Corps would call it treason.

No one forced these doctors to go to med school, and no one forced them to work at The North Coast Women’s Medical Group for crying out loud.

My message to these doctors:

Do your job. This is exactly what you signed up for. Don’t like it? Go do something else.

 

Lies, Damn Lies & Statistics

Everyone knows that nearly 50% of marriages end in divorce. Right?

Check out this analysis from the Freakonomics Blog.

It’s actually more like 1 in 3. Not sure what my point is in posting this, just liked the analyis.

Sidebar: While the Chicago School of Economics annoys me to no end on the ideological front, (Note to Milton – uhh that whole I.M.F. & World Bank thing didn’t work out so well) one has to admire their dedication to slicing the numbers all the way down to the bone. Also, I dig the idea that basic economic theories can be applied to almost anything.

 

The Costs of Marriage

I plan to do more research on this, but this is interesting

Beginning next week, Illinois counties will begin collecting an extra $5 from those seeking marriage licenses. The money will be used to pay for legal counseling and services aimed at the state’s growing number of domestic violence cases.

more

 

When you’re right, you’re right: against marriage and motherhood.

Found this 12-year-old but still entirely relevant essay by Claudia Card, Against Marriage and Motherhood. You should read it, because a) she’s a lesbian, and she’s anti-marriage – gay and straight, so in case you thought we were bigots, think again, and b) she’s just right.

I really tired, so I haven’t delved into the motherhood bit yet, but some great quotes from the first portion of the piece:

About same-sex marriage I feel something like the way I feel about prostitution. Let us, by all means, decriminalize sodomy and so forth. Although marriage rights would be sufficient to enable lovers to have sex legally, such rights should not be necessary for that purpose. Where they are legally necessary and also available for protection against the social oppression of same-sex lovers, as for lovers of different races, there will be enormous pressure to marry. Let us not pretend that marriage is basically a good thing on the ground that durable intimate relationships are. Let us not be eager to have the State regulate our unions. Let us work to remove barriers to our enjoying some of the privileges presently available only to heterosexual married couples. But in doing so, we should also be careful not to support discrimination against those who choose not to marry and not to support continued state definition of the legitimacy of intimate relationships. I would rather see the state deregulate heterosexual marriage than see it begin to regulate same-sex marriage.

And:

Among the trappings of marriage that have received attention and become controversial, ceremonies and rituals are much discussed. I have no firm opinions about ceremonies or rituals. A far more important issue seems to me to be the marriage license, which receives hardly any attention at all. Ceremonies affirming a relationship can take place at any point in the relationship. But a license is what one needs to initiate a legal marriage. To marry legally, one applies to the state for a license, and marriage, once entered into, licenses spouses to certain kinds of access to each other’s persons and lives. It is a mistake to think of a license as simply enhancing everyone’s freedom. One person’s license, in this case, can be another’s prison. Prerequisites for marriage licenses are astonishingly lax. Anyone of a certain age, not presently married to someone else, and free of certain communicable diseases automatically qualifies. A criminal record for violent crimes is, to my knowledge, no bar. Compare this with other licenses, such as a driver’s license. In Wisconsin, to retain a driver’s license, we submit periodically to eye exams. Some states have more stringent requirements. To obtain a driver’s license, all drivers have to pass a written and a behind-the-wheel test to demonstrate knowledge and skill. In Madison, Wisconsin, even to adopt a cat from the humane society, we have to fill out a form demonstrating knowledge of relevant ordinances for pet-guardians. Yet to marry, applicants need demonstrate no knowledge of the laws pertaining to marriage nor any relationship skills nor even the modicum of self-control required to respect another human being. And once the marriage exists, the burden of proof is always on those who would dissolve it, never on those who would continue it in perpetuity.

[Note: Bold text styling is my own.]