Big Sky

Today I’m toying with the idea that paranoid delusions are the only rational response to the world we live in. Attempting to understand what’s going on around us in a sensible, scientifically responsible manner is just too discouraging. I mean, how anybody in the Republican Party could possibly take themselves seriously, without either throwing up or collapsing in helpless laughter — there really is no way to make sense of it.

I’ve been forced, rather against my better judgment, to conclude that space aliens are doing something really awful to Republicans’ brains.

This theory has the advantage that it’s tidy. We can’t possibly understand the motives or methods of space aliens, so we don’t need to try to explain what they’re up to. It’s enough to grasp that they’re doing it. Because, really, what other explanation could there be?

You may say, “But Jim, there are no space aliens! All of those purported sightings are either deliberate lies by attention-seekers or the result of bad brain wiring. Those thousands of photographs of flying saucers — all of them are 100% fake.” That’s an interesting theory, of course, but it has difficult features. For one thing, it’s

Reality? Irrelevant.

Pardon me while I fumble around a little. I’m trying to understand something that is fundamentally at odds with anything that I would normally concede as being possible. I may have to toss out a few untested hypotheses.

I’d certainly be happier if Rick Santorum were just “an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato,” as Dickens put it. If there were “more of gravy than of grave” about him, it would be a cause for celebration. But alas.

I’m contemplating three or four bits of indigestible Santorum at the moment. In a 2008 public appearance, he asserted that Satan is attacking America. He is on the record as claiming that climate change is a hoax, a position in which he is supported and encouraged by quite a number of other highly visible opinion-makers. According to a well-researched opinion piece by college president Brian Rosenberg in Huffington Post, Santorum wants to see fewer young people going to college, because colleges are “indoctrination mills”; in Santorum’s view, “The indoctrination that is going on at the university level is a harm to our country.” The very act of educating young people is, in his view, dangerous. As if that weren’t enough, Santorum has stated in public (and quite erroneously) that forced euthanasia is practiced in the Netherlands.

We pause now for context: In the Republican debate this week, Newt Gingrich accused Barack Obama of infanticide. On what grounds? Who knows? Are rational grounds even needed any longer?

There’s no shortage of news items along these lines. I could go on for days. And that fact leads to the question I want to look at tonight: What’s going on here? How is it possible that a leading contender for the office of President of the United States can

Freedomolatry

Among the news flashes this morning, I read a report that the Heartland Institute, a Libertarian-leaning think tank in Chicago, is funding the development of a K-12 “science” curriculum that will tout the non-existent “controversy” over global warming. The Heartland Institute, according to this article, is funded by biggies like AT&T and Microsoft.

Meanwhile, Jon Carroll’s column in today’s San Francisco Chronicle discusses the End Agenda 21 movement. Agenda 21 is a United Nations white paper (that is, it’s not even a policy statement, it’s just a set of recommendations) on ways to promote sustainable growth. That is to say, attempting to curb the more disastrous of human enterprises so that our great-grandchildren may perhaps have something to eat besides sand and toxic waste. There are apparently people in the United States who feel that Agenda 21 is a vile encroachment on their individual freedoms.

What’s going on here? How can so many people be so disastrously and willfully wrong-headed? How can they be so evil?

I can see several contributing causes. Wrap them all up in a ball together, and the prospects are truly frightening.

First, freedomolatry. A significant slice of the Republican electorate worships individual freedom. They don’t simply value it — they worship it. Now, I value freedom too. I also value

Ripped from the Headlines

Sometimes … well, fairly often … I despair of the world I live in. Sometimes I get mad.

Today’s bulletins included a story about a Tennessee legislator who defended low pay for teachers on the grounds that teaching is a “calling,” so we wouldn’t want people going into teaching for the wrong reasons (i.e., because of the pay), and then, in the next breath, defended giving legislators a raise on the grounds that it was important for them to be able to resist corruption.

Then there was the cute little graphic someone put up on Facebook showing the states in the U.S. where you can be fired from a job simply for being gay. More than half of the states.

I have not researched either of these stories in detail. Either of them could be fabricated. But even if they’re inaccurate in their details, they certainly illustrate what’s really going on in the world.

I watched a clip in which the head of Susan Komen for the Cure defended, or attempted to defend, her organization against the outrage over their de-funding of Planned Parenthood. She claimed, with a straight face, that they’re not de-funding Planned Parenthood, but she did it in a way that included careful phrasing. The MSNBC interviewer failed to ask

Baby, Look at You Now…

I’ve tended to ignore the ongoing assaults on women’s reproductive rights. As abhorrent as these efforts are, they haven’t moved me to take action. (But then, very little does.)

Today’s bulletin about how the breast cancer people (“Susan G. Komen for the Cure”) are going to stop funding the breast cancer screenings at Planned Parenthood got to me, though. I got into a sort of mud-slinging match with an anti-abortion idiot on Facebook, and my blood is still boiling.

What bugs me most, I think, is the fact that this “debate” (and I use the quotation marks advisedly) isn’t really about saving the lives of unborn children. That’s a smoke screen. It’s a lie. The real, unadmitted agenda of the anti-abortion knuckle-draggers is that they want men to have control over women’s bodies. Women exist, in these morons’ view, strictly as incubators and infant-feeders whose lives are to be governed by men. The fact that the anti-abortion forces are drawn overwhelmingly from conservative religious denominations makes this pretty obvious.

And no, I’m not willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. Here’s why: Russian orphanages. In Russia and other parts of the former Soviet bloc, there are thousands of unwanted babies languishing in orphanages. These children suffer horrendous

Remaining Tolerant

Among today’s headlines, an Indiana state legislator has introduced a bill that, if enacted into law, would allow local school boards to force teachers to teach Creationism in science classes.

The legal niceties of this don’t interest me. I’ve read that such a law would clearly be unconstitutional, based on an existing Supreme Court decision — but on the other hand, I don’t trust the current Court not to overturn that decision. I regard the legal situation as essentially fluid. If the law were passed, and if a school board chose to act on it, the lives of teachers and children would be disrupted for years, whatever the Court’s eventual determination.

What I am concerned about is whether it’s possible, or desirable, to remain tolerant of religion, given the fact that a person who is so manifestly a dangerous lunatic (a) has a passionate commitment to a religious faith and (b) has, in the 21st century, been elected to high public office.

I try to be tolerant; honestly, I do. I have friends and professional colleagues who are deeply religious, and I almost never discuss religion with them. Such a discussion would only lead to

Why Not? Here’s Why Not.

I don’t have a TV, nor do I subscribe to a newspaper. But lately I’ve become a regular reader of Huffington Post. (A news junkie always finds a way to get his fix.)

Over on the right flank, we have a bunch of rich, arrogant morons competing for the Republican presidential nomination by advocating ideas based on religious zealotry and economic dogma, neither the zealotry nor the dogma having the remotest connection to reality. These people are extremely dangerous.

On the left flank we have a disorganized bunch of idealistic young people who have no leadership and are in constant danger of being beaten up by the police. These people have not, as yet, shown any interest in actually governing. Their message seems mostly to boil down to, “Not this — we need something better.”

In the middle we have the shamelessly corrupt Democratic Party, whose sole claim to our loyalty is, “Vote for us! We’re not nearly as scary as those other guys!”

It seems to me there’s something missing from this picture, and I think I know what it is —

Something’s Happening Here

Watched about 20 minutes of a live video stream from Occupy Oakland tonight. Nothing much to be seen except people standing around on streetcorners, a bunch of cop cars lined up along a curb, assorted signs, whatever. What was interesting was not the video, which was frankly dull, but the meta-messages in the video:

(1) The whole world is watching, or at least can watch. This is one of the things that makes the police crazy, I’m sure — they don’t get to beat on people’s heads and then claim they didn’t.

(2) The invisible people who rule the world are runnin’ scared. Why else would they send out bunches of police in the middle of the night to bust the heads of folks who are doing nothing but stand on the street carrying signs?

(3) It isn’t local. Thanks to Twitter and other social media, people who are doing things in widely scattered places can stay in touch, pass ideas around, and support one another (emotionally or even financially).

(4) Ordinary people can make a difference.

I found myself singing, “Something’s happening here, and you don’t know what it is, do you, Mister Jones?” A very early Bob Dylan song, from back when Bob Dylan was still cool — a period that ended in 1969, about the time “Lay, Lady, Lay” was a hit. The social protests of the ’60s pretty much coincided with the Vietnam War; when the war ended, the movement dissolved. What we have now may prove to have more legs. For one thing, the economic injustices are more broad-based. More diffuse than young men getting killed in a jungle somewhere, but also a lot more broad-based.

Also, the religious right has become a potent negative force. I haven’t noticed anybody in the Occupy movement pointing a finger at the religious right, but I think it’s implicit. There are no Jesus freaks in Occupy; the two movements are diametrically opposed.

If you look at the Republican candidates for President (I’m writing this the week of the New Hampshire primary), what you see is a bunch of plastic men who are loudly and proudly championing vicious regressive social policies of the Christian persuasion, and they’re doing it as a smokescreen. It’s a conscious attempt to whip up fervor over things that don’t matter, in order to minimize the discussion of things that do matter.

In calling attention to the things that matter, Occupy is engaged in demonstrating that the concerns of the religious right are irrelevant. Something’s happening here.

Ron Paul

Having seen Ron Paul and Ralph Nader agreeing with one another in a cordial way on some video clip or other, I was prepared to take a closer look at Mr. Paul, without prejudging him. Having learned a little more, I have to say — the guy makes my skin crawl. He’s your worst nightmare.

I went over to ronpaul2012.com, his campaign website, and read through some of the pages outlining his positions on matters of public policy. What follows is all the analysis I could manage without throwing up.

The problem with conservative ideologues like Ron Paul is that they adopt positions based on abstract doctrine, without examining whether their positions are likely to lead, in the real world, to justice and happiness. Sometimes their doctrines may have this effect, but often their doctrines will surely lead to misery, or simply make no sense at all. Conservatives can’t tell the difference.

Ron Paul’s position on national defense is sensible (though I’m not sure about the idea of securing the national borders, which he strongly favors). He wants to end wasteful military spending and bring troops home. Good!

In every other area, unfortunately, the guy is a basket case. He’s a brainless turd. Let’s take a closer look. The quotes below are drawn from the ronpaul2012.com page, which presumably has his endorsement.

Energy

We should probably note at the outset that ronpaul2012.com has no Issues page on the environment. It’s not hard to see why. The results of letting private corporations destroy our air, water, land, and oceans are plain for anyone to see, but reining them in would require government action. It would mean a reduction in freedom — freedom, in this case, for giant corporations. Like other Libertarian-oriented conservatives, Ron Paul positively worships freedom. (Except when he doesn’t — see the section on Abortion, below.)

According to the web page, “…much of the ‘pain at the pump’ Americans are now feeling is due to federal policies designed by environmental alarmists to punish traditional energy production — like oil, coal, and natural gas — in hopes of making energy sources they favor more ‘economical.’” Shorn of rhetoric (the word “alarmist” and the quotation marks around “economical”) that statement is not too far off the mark. Yes, Ron — gas would be cheaper if it weren’t taxed. And yes, a modern nation needs a comprehensive energy policy that includes the development of alternate forms of energy production, even if they are not currently economical.

More than half of the gasoline and diesel tax, however, is levied by states, not by the federal government. And more than half of the federal fuel tax goes to pay for highway and bridge construction, as is, I’m sure, a good deal of the state fuel tax. Thus, if the federal government stopped taxing gasoline, the primary result would be that our highway system would become decrepit more rapidly than it is doing already. (The website has no statement on infrastructure maintenance.) We should also note that the federal fuel tax is not indexed to inflation, so in constant dollars it has been steadily declining for a number of years.

“As President, Ron Paul will lead the fight to remove restrictions on drilling, so companies can tap into the vast amount of oil we have here at home.” There it is, in black and white. Ron Paul wants

I Read the News Today, Oh Boy…

I really should avoid reading The Huffington Post. I’d be in far better spirits if I didn’t know what’s going on in the world.

The administration at a Pennsylvania high school (including the principal) seems to be intent on blaming one of the victims of Jerry Sandusky’s molestation. They had been allowing Sandusky to remove this kid from high school without notifying the kid’s parents, they tried to discourage the mother from calling the police, they ignored reports that the kid was later being bullied for having reported the abuse — and now they’re lying about what they did and didn’t do. And these people are in charge of the education of hundreds of children. If these reports are accurate, they should all be taken out behind the gymnasium and quietly strangled.

Mitt Romney’s opening foray against Barack Obama is an ad that contains a blatant lie — and neither Romney nor his campaign people sees anything wrong with that. But let’s not forget the context: Romney is a Mormon. Mormons, or so I’ve been told by a friend who is an ex-Mormon, are required to stand up in church and vocally assert as known truths things that they cannot possibly know to be true. Thus it’s clear that Romney has been lying all his life, and has reaped substantial social rewards for lying. Why should his campaign be held to a higher standard than his spiritual life?

This week’s Nation has a long and enlightening piece by Naomi Klein about climate change deniers. Klein’s central point is that the deniers know something the progressives haven’t yet figured out, which is