Idiocracy in Action, II

I don’t see how these 5 Supreme Court justices can face their family.  I don’t see how their friends can face them. 

Kennedy, Alito, Scalia, Roberts, Thomas – what a bunch of…conservatives.  That Corporations have the same rights as people?  Even a child would be able to distinguish such a thing.

This move certainly has the ability and the power to strike down rights and liberties across all races in the near future. It is the worst Supreme Court decision since the Dred Scott case led by Chief Justice Roger Taney.

These conservative judges are gauling.   It’s a slap in the face to the common man.  Here is a Special Comment on the verdict:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/vp/34985508#34985508

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Idiocracy in Action

In the highly under-rated movie Idiocracy, a private company buys the FDA and replaces the food pyramid with ads for its products. 

Recently the Supreme Court has decided to allow companies to spend whatever they want sponsoring political campaigns, giving big business “an enormous new foothold in U.S. politics,” said Howard Rubenstein, a public relations executive who has advised numerous large corporations over the past five decades and opposes the ruling. “We shouldn’t have a ‘For sale’ sign on these elections.”

 “The Supreme Court has given a green light to a new stampede of special interest money in our politics,” [President Obama] said. “It is a major victory for big oil, Wall Street banks, health insurance companies and the other powerful interests that marshal their power every day in Washington to drown out the voices of everyday Americans.”  

“The Supreme Court’s decision to loosen campaign finance restrictions on corporations means a tsunami of company cash is likely to flood through the political system, giving big firms and labor unions even more influence over candidates.

“That could have a chilling effect on candidates on the campaign trail, who may be less willing to take strong positions on issues for fear of drawing fire from well-funded corporate opponents, said Edwin Bender, executive director of the National Institute on Money in State Politics”, says John Schoen, Senior Producer at msnbc.com. 

If you’re running for office to represent the citizens in our republic, and your stance runs counter to the desires of a business, you could then see big business spending millions of dollars against you.  And it could be not just a single business, but an entire industry.  Take a stance on our banking system and you would face the entirety of Wall Street resources drowning you out.

It’s not just about today’s existing politicians.  As Schoen notes, “In the extreme, some companies might decide to endorse their own slate of candidates.”  Think Halliburton and Cheney…on steroids. 

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34983042/ns/business-answer_desk

Throughout American history there are examples of corporate negligence harmful to society in the long term, examples of corporations running over the American citizen.  The United States government should be by the people, for the people, something the Supreme Court seems to have forgotten.  The government should help large corporations to the extent that it in turn helps the citizens – not just for the sake of helping the business. As an entity unto itself, the Business is not interested in the concerns of individuals or society.  The business does not have emotions or thoughts.  It does not have a conscience and it does not know guilt.  While the humans in charge possess these characteristics, they are most often overridden by greed.

The large corporation does not have the ability to speak.  The large corporation is more like a bullhorn.  Protecting the right of “free speech” of a bullhorn is farcical.  The right to free speech is an American (i.e., the ability to be a citizen) right.   The businesses themselves have no ability to speak, only the humans can do that.  Prior to today, those humans had a relatively similar ability to influence politics through their own individual voice.  This decision drastically alters that relative equality.  By protecting the bull horn’s “free speech”, you are simply allowing the voices of a few powerful American citizens to be greatly magnified…by an entity with a long history of running roughshod over citizens. 

And so the Idiocracy marches on.

Face of the GOP

Makes you proud to be a Republican?  Rush may be the voice of the party, but Palin is the face of it.  And…wow, what a dumbass.   

When asked to name her “favorite” founding father, Palin took a page from her infamous campaign interview with CBS’ Katie Couric and told Beck, “all of them” without a hint of irony. Apparently Palin likes her founders like she likes her newspapers.

Of Palin’s founding fathers answer, MSNBC’s Chris Matthews later asked, “how come she can’t answer the most simple questions?”

http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201001130039?lid=1089268&rid=40223423

No Minorties in America?

What if the USA had no more minority groups?  

Glenn Beck’s Worst Nightmare: An America Without Minorities

By: Kai Wright | Posted: January 11, 2010 at 6:46 AM 

A new study, released last week and reported in the New York Times, reveals that white students are no longer a demographic majority in the 15 states of Dixie (fitting).

This is exactly the kind of thing that’s making the Sarah Palins and Glenn Becks of the world so damn crazy.

The Census Bureau estimates our national demographics will defy majority/minority groupings altogether by 2042. Among kids, the white majority will disappear by 2023.

The number of white Americans is likely to shrink over the next 40 years, the number of Latinos is expected to nearly triple. By 2050, 66% of Americans would be Latino.
http://www.theroot.com/views/glenn-becks-worst-nightmare-america-without-minorities?gt1=38002 

This assumes that Mexico remains the shithole, cesspool of violence and corruption that it is today.  I wouldn’t want to live their either.  I’m sure I’d swim a river or climb a fence, too.  Of  course, this doesn’t bode well for the anti-

Iraq War Casualties

Soldiers killed in combat in Iraq

Since the war began: ……………….3,478

Since “Mission Accomplished”: ….3,371

Since capture of Saddam: …………3,173

Since Obama (01/20/09): ………..74

 

http://www.antiwar.com/casualties/

Al Qaeda Aviation Network

Its kinda like how that administrtion ignored the threat reports regarding Bin Laden that it received in early 2001. 

updated 11:54 a.m. CT, Wed., Jan. 13, 2010

By Tim Gaynor and Tiemoko Diallo

In early 2008, an official at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security sent a report to his superiors detailing what he called “the most significant development in the criminal exploitation of aircraft since 9/11.” The document warned that a growing fleet of rogue jet aircraft was regularly crisscrossing the Atlantic Ocean. On one end of the air route, it said, are cocaine-producing areas in the Andes controlled by the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. On the other are some of West Africa’s most unstable countries.

The report, a copy of which was obtained by Reuters, was ignored, and the problem has since escalated into what security officials in several countries describe as a global security threat.

No one can ignore threats like Republicans (while crowing about how they are better at security, of course).  While Clinton was attacking Bin Laden’s training camps, Republicans ridiculed the attacks against Al-Qaeda as a waste of tax dollars.  Later they charged that Clinton was only going after Al-Qaeda to divert attention from Monica.  If a Democrat had kept pressure on Al-Qaeda instead of ignoring warnings, things would be different. 

The first Al-Qaeda attack on US soil, that could be understood, many Republicans say – because it was a surprise.  But a 2nd successful attack – that would be on the President.  As another shining example of Republicans ignoring history, the 1st attack on US soil by middle-eastern terrorists was not on 9/11.  The first attack was in 1993.  Not only did Bush oversee the 2nd attack, but the attack was in the exact same location.  Not just the same city – the same building.  So don’t crow about how “there hasn’t been a 2nd successful attack”. 

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34840622/ns/us_news-security/?ns=us_news-security 
http://www.antiwar.com/casualties/ 

Making the USA a Theocracy

Texas wants to make the USA a theocracy and it’s starting by teaching school children that it already is a theocracy.  At least, it’s attempting to.  By teaching that it is a theocracy, it will pave the way for children to later create laws that re-

When the State Board of Education meets this week to tackle revisions to the social studies curriculum in Texas public schools, some of the most contentious public debate is likely to center on recommendations by two men who want more emphasis on the role of Christianity in how the nation was formed.  The ideas submitted by well-known Christian conservatives David Barton and the Rev. Peter Marshall could influence how social studies is taught in Texas for the next decade, teaching that the USA was built on “biblical principles”. 

“I’m an evangelical Christian, and I think David Barton and Peter Marshall are completely out to lunch,” said John Fea, a history professor at Messiah College in Pennsylvania, a Christian institution. “They are not experts on social studies and history. Neither of them are trained in history. They are preachers who use the past and history as a means of promoting a political agenda in the present.”
http://www.statesman.com/news/texas-politics/christianity-s-role-in-history-of-u-s-172516.html 

“When a Religion is good, I conceive it will support itself; and when it does not support itself, and God does not take care to support it so that its Professors are obliged to call for help of the Civil Power, it is a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one.” – Benjamin Franklin (from a letter to Richard Price, October 9, 1780;)

Perhaps Republicans need to stop putting their hands out for the government.  They clamor for government employees to do things they don’t want to do.  They want government to teach religion to their kids, instead of doing what clearly should be doing with their children themselves.  If you want your kid to have more religious influence, take him to church more than once a week.  Take him to religious-based after-school programs.  Do Christian activities with him after school and/or on weekends.  If you really want it taught in school – enroll him to a private school.  These are your options.

But these options aren’t good enough. Probably because they require work, they require time, they require sacrifice.  So instead, they want Big Government to come their aid, to teach their religion to their kids.  Of course, religious experience varies greatly by individual.  Biblical interpretation varies greatly even within a single religion.  Much less than dozens of various branches of Christianity. 

Religion is a belief.  Every definition includes that word.  For a driver’s license, we go to government offices.  For education, we go to schools.  For beliefs, we go to a church.  You have to do the first two things (more or less).  But you don’t have to go to church, or send your child to religious after-shcool programs, or send him to private school.  There lies the problem. These Republicans want the choice removed from others.  Supporters want the responsibility lifted from themselves and placed in the hands of the government that they so repeateadly claim can’t do anything helpful and should stay out of private lives of citizens. 

Republicans should stop expecting government to parent their children.  If they want their child to have conservative Christian teachings, they can stop howling for the government, and do it themselves.  If they want to train kids to be soldiers, as Peter Marshall himself said to the Wall Street Journal,  “in an all-out moral and spiritual civil war for the soul of America”, they can do it themselves.  To me, it sounds similar to what the clerics in the middle east are telling their youth. 

Keep theocracy out of democracy.  Some quotes from our Founding Fathers:

“The civil rights of none shall be abridged on account of religious belief or worship, nor shall any national religion be established, nor shall the full and equal rights of conscience be in any manner, or on any pretence, infringed.” – James Madison (Original wording of the First Amendment; Annals of Congress 434 (June 8, 1789).)

“Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the word of a demon, than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness, that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind.” – Thomas Paine (The Age of Reason, 1794-1795.)

“During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution.” – James Madison (Memorial and Remonstrance against Religious Assessments, 1785.)

Every man “ought to be protected in worshipping the Deity according to the dictates of his own conscience.” – George Washington (Letter to the United Baptist Churches in Virginia in May, 1789)

“Question with boldness even the existence of a god.” – Thomas Jefferson (letter to Peter Carr, 10 August 1787)

I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of… Each of those churches accuse the other of unbelief; and for my own part, I disbelieve them all.”– Thomas Paine (The Age of Reason, 1794-1795.)

“Is uniformity attainable? Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half the world fools and the other half hypocrites. To support roguery and error
all over the earth.” – Thomas Jefferson (Notes on Virginia, 1782; from George Seldes, ed., The Great Quotations, Secaucus, New Jersey: Citadel Press, 1983, p. 363.)

“Where do we find a precept in the Bible for Creeds, Confessions, Doctrines and Oaths, and whole carloads of other trumpery that we find religion encumbered with in these days?” – John Adams

“As the Government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of Musselmen; and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.” – (Treaty of Tripoli, 1797 – signed by President John Adams.)