TO THE GOVERNOR OF NEW HAMPSHIRE (with attached note to Republicans)

(The first of two emails to Governor Lynch of New Hampshire. Unfortunately the email field for the governor limits each comment to 800 characters, including spaces. The emails printed here are rounded out more fully, though not completely, for clarity.)

Dear Governor Lynch,

HB 436 -- or the same-sex marriage bill -- is just bad legislation. It should be rejected in large part because it is poorly crafted. That is not your fault; you should veto it without remorse.

If same-sex marriage is a civil right, how can a bill conferring that right also include an exemption (HB 457:37) for those religious who do not wish to solemnize and confer such a right in their churches? Can anyone imagine a religious leader being given essentially a "conscientious objector exemption" because his/her church has a religious issue serving communion to African Americans?

In other words, if same-sex marriage is a CIVIL RIGHT, no one with the authority to confer and solemnize that right should be LEGALLY permitted NOT to confer that right.

It is truly astonishing that those legislators who have been most vocal about same-sex marriage being a civil right undermine their own argument by granting exemptions to people who don't believe it to be a right.

Governor Lynch, please veto HB 436. It is fraught with difficulties, legal AND religious. Signing it is to open a veritable Pandora's box. And please, don't accept the demonstrably false assertion that HB 436 won't be bad for the people of New Hampshire. It will be bad precisely because it contains a massive legal and religious contradiction that will only cause confusion, resentment, and bitterness. This is essentially divisive and not unitive legislation. It deserves your complete rejection.

Blessings to you in your decision. Follow logic and you will not make a mistake

PART TWO (the second of two emails to Governor Lynch)†

I need to point out that HB 436 also includes language that is ridiculously vague. I've already pointed out the problem with what could be called the "conscientious objector clause." But there is also a problem with the language in the bill listing who CANNOT marry, e.g. a man cannot marry his cousin, etc.

For example, what if the cousin is an adopted child, or the man's uncle or aunt was adopted, or a half-sibling to the man's biological parent? What if the man is adopted himself? And why is it illegal for a man to "marry" his cousin if the cousin is a gay male? There is no possibility of incest-related birth defects affecting their offspring if it is impossible for two men to procreate.

Because the law is poorly written, it cannot help us discern a clear path through these more complex marital arrangements.

What is clearly evident is that HB436 actually will create a NEW category of marital relations that ONLY gays and lesbians can enjoy. If we believe that a man should not marry his female cousin or a woman should not marry her male cousin because of the threat their shared DNA poses to potential offspring, then it follows that since two male or female homosexuals CANNOT procreate, they are legally permitted to marry each other if they are indeed cousins (and uncles and aunts). Or is there some arbitrary reason gays and lesbians cannot marry their same-sex cousins? What is that reason? Is it just about fairness?

Hence, since there is no legal or biological reason why two same-sex cousins (or other relations) cannot marry (and HB 436 says nothing about same-sex aunts and uncles who are adopted or only half-uncles/aunts), HB 436 has either imposed an arbitrary divide or it has opened the door to conferring legally protected special marital rights to gay cousins because its language is pathetically vague. If the latter, then we have not solved the marriage equality issue if gays and lesbians can marry their same-sex cousins and heterosexuals cannot marry their opposite-sex cousins.

HB 436 is rife with legal problems. Reject it.

Peace,

Bill Gnade

______________________

New Hampshire's HB 436 is another sad example of the rather problematic political model of LEGISLATE NOW, THINK LATER.º

_______________________

A NOTE TO REPUBLICANS AND CONSERVATIVESª

It is rather common to think that gay marriage has little to do with anything important. All kinds of people sigh that there seem to be more important things to worry about than gay marriage, and they may be right. But it should be noted that if ANYONE were to suggest that all Americans should set aside gay marriage for now so the MORE IMPORTANT things can be addressed, pro-gay marriage activists would scream to high heaven. It is a lie that gay marriage isn't important; it is THE most important thing, at least to gay activists who constantly ask Americans to worry about all those other MORE IMPORTANT things.

If you are a Republican solely because you would like to see government wastefulness and services reduced; if you are a Republican solely because you want lower taxes, a more vibrant free-market economy, and less government intrusion on your personal (and your business's) income, then you need to consider two things.

First, if the extent of your political activism is solely about money, spending, taxes, economics; if this is your constant concern, you appear, at least to your opponents, as a person fixated on yourself. In other words, you come across as greedy, avaricious, materialistic, selfish. And if economics, private and public, are your sole political concern, you MIGHT deserve to be called a heartless materialist.

Second, if you as a fiscally-minded Republican would broaden your mind, you would see that gay marriage IS a threat to your wealth, your good fortune or the rewards you've enjoyed as a result of your hard work. Why? Because the spirit of egalitarianism that is behind gay marriage is the same spirit behind higher taxation and expanding distributive government. Gay marriage is about what YOU have that "they" don't have -- unfair! unjust! unequal! -- just like the death or estate tax is about what YOU have that they don't have. It's unfair that you can send your kids to a school of your choice. It's unjust that you can leave your estate to your children in order to give them an advantage. It's unfair that you can afford health care when others can't (or that you can afford "better" health care). It's a gross inequality that you can have a bigger share and not be forced to "give back" your "fair share." (Even abortion rights are of the same spirit: it is not fair that a woman should be forced to bear the result of the sex act when the man does not.)

Alas, if you as a Republican neither see nor care to see this connection, then you should rethink your allegiance to the Republican Party. Sorry. For the GOP is really not about egalitarianism for the sake of egalitarianism: the GOP really believes that there are ontological differences between people, things, circumstances. The GOP really believes that FORCING charity, beneficence and equality, all by law, is to deny freedom. The GOP really believes that competition is OK, that not everyone deserves a blue ribbon. The GOP really believes in the possibility and the reality of gaining a just advantage over others and passing that advantage -- in accord with EVOLUTION -- to one's offspring. The GOP really believes that envy politics as embodied in legislative "reforms" such as reparations, or gay marriage, or increased taxation on the rich or corporations, is detrimental to the health not only of the individual but the collective as well.

In short, the GOP recognizes that where egalitarianism reigns, freedom MUST DIE. What are the most egalitarian systems in the world? Prisons, gulags, concentration camps -- where all men are equal.

Let me put it this way. When the founders of our country (I note Thomas Jefferson in the following clause) wrote that "All men are created equal," what was NOT written is that "All men ARE EQUAL." Nor was it written that "All men must be MADE EQUAL." No, the brilliance of Jefferson is that he saw that all are CREATED equal, by "nature's God." Naked is each of us born, and naked we shall die (from dust to dust). But nature, society, circumstance, God: all of these combine to make dynamic inequalities (some no doubt sad and unjust) that make each human -- and humanity -- stronger, better, more adaptable. SAMENESS and EQUALITY are anathema to survival; natural selection, or survival of the fittest, is only possible where there are inequalities.

In closing I note that Republicans fixated solely on moral issues are vulnerable to accusations that they only care about controlling what occurs in America's bedrooms. Fair enough; some people are overly fixated on minding others' private lives. But the fact is that the morality of egalitarianism, so to speak, does not stop in the bedroom or the boardroom. It is a pervasive morality. Once Americans allow egalitarians to codify the irrational assertion that two gay men in matrimony EQUALS a man and a woman; once Americans allow egalitarians to insist that it is unfair that 1+1 is NOT equal to 2+2, America has allowed envy and the irrational to gain a foothold. If the irrational is allowed to redefine what the demonstrable building block of all society is; if the envious are allowed to define marriage (and equality and fairness), then the irrational will rule throughout society, culture and government.

Stand against envy and the irrational. Please.


©2009/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

†Added at 4:53 pm EST
º Added at 5:53 pm EST
ª Added at 11:03 EST, May 10

Shifting Sands; Obama's Idealism; The Court; The Water Board

Perhaps the next party defection Americans will hear about is George McGovern, the once-upon-a-time "'most liberal' nominee for president in American history." Admittedly, this writer has over-stated the case. But Mr. McGovern sure sounds like a true free-marketeer in this comment:

My perspective on the so-called Employee Free Choice Act is informed by life experience. After leaving the Senate in 1981, I spent some time running a hotel. It was an eye-opening introduction to something most business operators are all-too familiar with -- the difficulty of controlling costs and setting prices in a weak economy. Despite my trust in government, I would have been alarmed by an outsider taking control of basic management decisions that determine success or failure in a business where I had invested my life savings.

Sounds like Michael Steele needs to make a phone call.

___________________

Mr. Obama is happy to talk about false choices, particularly those choices around America's ideals and national security. As already noted in this place, Mr. Obama is rather guilty of making his own false choices: national security is one of America's ideals. But excuse the digression.

What peeves about Mr. Obama's comment that ideals trump everything is the disembodied-ness of his philosophy. He speaks in terms that are rather neo-Platonic, where what is best, pure and (most) real exists outside the corporeality of life, of the stuff of the world. Mr. Obama has intimated in his discussions regarding the alleged "torture memos" that America's ideals would be compromised, sullied and damaged if the very corporeal and bodily act of slapping was ever committed against a known terrorist or enemy combatant. What is more important is not the flesh-and-blood reality of living and breathing Americans. What is important is a transcendent, intangible, theoria: a realm of perfect Ideas.

Another way to look at it is to simply think of pacifism. A pacifist -- really -- is a person interested in self-preservation, in moral self-preservation. The pacifist says that he would rather die -- or let someone else die -- than suffer a moral stain on his ideals. Turning the other cheek, then, becomes a practical act of self-congratulation, where the pacifist receives glory when measured against a reified abstraction: his moral code. To hell with the flesh-and-blood empiricism of life, the heart-beating apparatus of human existence. What matters is idealism, the realm of the disembodied spirit rapturously contemplating glorious principles. To the idealist, Smith must never compromise his values in protecting Jones, for if he does, he will lose his "moral standing" in the world.

Sadly, Jones beheaded by a terrorist using a jack-knife before a TV camera is a "thought" too mundane, too tactile, for the idealists among us. "Harsh" interrogation methods are an affront to America's disembodied self-congratulation. Americans must feel good about themselves; they must preserve their self-righteousness by never defending themselves in ways unbecoming.

Ultimately, it's not the actual people that make America great, that embody American exceptionalism. America's greatness is found in its cold, lifeless abstractions.

__________________

Some folks have suggested that U.S. Supreme Justice David Souter has been a disappointment. Perhaps he has been. But it's interesting how his legacy (so far) has been perceived. The common reprise by conservatives is that Mr. Souter was either a conservative who shifted radically to the left or he never was a conservative in the first place. Of course this sort of assessment is to be set against the apparent values of the president who nominated him. In this case, or so it goes, Mr. Souter did not meet the expectations of George H. W. Bush. Souter shifted his position or, even worse, he concealed his position from the light of day.

But something is missing from this assessment, and it is that George H. W. Bush himself shifted his position during the Reagan years on key political issues. In 1979-80, as G. H. W. Bush began his first campaign for president, Mr. Bush was deemed by many conservatives too liberal for the position. Interestingly, Mr. Bush shifted right, ever so slowly, on things like abortion. Cynics felt he did this solely for political expedience, and they may be correct. But if they are correct, then it follows that Mr. Souter is not at all a disappointment, since he, like his sponsor, actually believed something other than represented. Perhaps Mr. Souter behaved exactly the way a George H. W. Bush appointment should have behaved. Perhaps his jurisprudential legacy is not an embarrassment at all.

___________________

Remember, waterboarding is so torturous, so utterly evil, those who oppose its use water-board themselves in protest. It is also so horrific, so damaging, that journalists get paid to endure it so they can report about its dreadfulness. Clearly you can see how such a thing compromises America's loftiest ideals.

Peace.

BG

©2009. All Rights Reserved.

CONTRATIMES' HIATUS EXPLAINED (partly)

My dear readers,

Without any explanation or alerts, I closed this blog several weeks ago. Quite a few of you contacted me about gaining access to what appeared to be an invitation-only website. Unfortunately Blogger does not have a simple "Closed for Self-Reflection" sign that one can post on the front door; no amount of invitations would have helped anyone gain access here. The door was shut, and Blogger automatically tossed up the invite-only shingle.

I am quite torn about blogging. I wrote to some of you about why I had withdrawn. It was interesting to learn how many of you understood my position but felt I should continue despite my concerns, my self-doubts. I appreciate not only everyone's kind words, but also the sincere interest everyone has in what I do here and even who I really am. Thank you. And thanks for being patient with me.

My prevailing sense is that I am adding to the epidemic of distraction coursing through society. Our many forms of digital media have created, in my opinion, a culture of shallowness. We have become skimmers, no longer able to be, or caring to be, deeply and intentionally attentive (or so I fear). Readers who have been reading Contratimes since the beginning know that I've worried about this since I first clicked the "Publish Post" icon. But a book I recently read (and highly recommended to several of you) informs what I've just written here (in fact, I am probably lifting whole phrases). For a very good read, please check out Maggie Jackson's Distracted: The Erosion of Attention and the Coming Dark Age. It is a very compelling work (though imperfect). I cannot recommend it highly enough. While I have reservations about Ms. Jackson's final chapter, and while I wish she had more completely explored the perils of the impending dark age, I can say that, for me, the book is powerful, trenchant, and engaging. It offers great food for thought. I would love to hear what you all think after reading it for yourselves.

All this to say that I am thinking about Being again. And I am also thinking about when God is lost in sound.

Peace, always.

BG

Barack Obama And The "False Choice"

In Mr. Obama's inaugural address we find this statement:

As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals.

It's a stunning bit of vapidity: safety is one of our ideals.

And in Mr. Obama's speech regarding the use (and destruction) of human embryos for scientific inquiry, we find this statement:

But in recent years, when it comes to stem cell research, rather than furthering discovery, our government has forced what I believe is a false choice between sound science and moral values. In this case, I believe the two are not inconsistent.

The stunning vapidity apparently never ends: No one in the Bush administration ever created the false choice described by Mr. Obama. For President Bush, science informed his ethics, and vice versa: It is science that shows us that life begins at conception, and it is our ethics that draws a clear moral line between the willful destruction of human life for unknown medical gains and research that is not so inhuman. Mr. Obama even acknowledged the "unknown" in his speech the day he repealed Bush's ban:

At this moment, the full promise of stem cell research remains UNKNOWN, and it should not be OVERSTATED. But scientists believe these tiny cells† MAY have the POTENTIAL to help us... [emphasis added]

Of course, lost in Mr. Obama's emptiness is the unavoidable fact that the Bush administration PERMITTED embryonic stem cell research to continue; President Bush only limited the number of embryonic lines that could be generated (and the administration funded stem cell research as well).

In other words, only Mr. Obama has created the false choice: the choice between his false-choice straw man and the actual facts. There was no false choice save the one in his own imagination.

A REAL FALSE CHOICE

Lastly, the capstone: Here is what Michelle Obama said of her husband on the campaign trail; this was meant to sell him to us as something special. Check out this skewed logic:

The first major decision he had to make in his life, after college - "Do I go to Wall Street and make money, or do I work for the people?" - Barack worked as a community organizer in some of the toughest neighborhoods on the south side of Chicago.

Here, finally, we have evidence of a legitimate False Choice. Mr. Obama's alleged quandary is utterly manufactured. He is alleged to be unbelievably bright, and yet apparently not quite bright enough to see his false either/or. For there is no evidence that a man going to "Wall Street" to "make money" does not "work for the people." In fact, a good case could be made that a Wall Street job is far better for "the people" than community organizing in Chicago. Regardless, the point is clear: Michelle and Barack Obama presented themselves as better people than those who they falsely believe don't "work for the people"; and if Ms. Obama's testimony regarding her husband is to be trusted, then she and her husband have either fallen prey to their own false choice, or they've pandered to the envious masses by giving themselves props concealed in a false choice: We are for the people, and our refusal to work on Wall Street -- though we could have! -- proves this.

And yet, somehow, as workers for the people who rejected the allure of Wall Street, they've still managed to become millionaires.

It is now quite clear, I should think, that a colossal false choice was made some time around November 4, 2008.

Perhaps this also makes clear why Mr. Obama looks with such disdain on those who've been more successful than he. Envy nearly always poses as social justice -- for the good "of the people." In fact, it seems perfectly obvious that the whole of Mr. Obama's economic policies rests upon his most fundamental false choice.

_________________

†In the third Obama quote above, I placed a †. I wanted to draw your attention to the Orwellian diminution Mr. Obama provides: he uses a reductionistic euphemism to distract you from the fact that these are HUMAN EMBRYOS that are being destroyed; that these cells are the very rudiments and foundations of each and every human life that has ever existed or ever will exist. Each of us IS one of these "tiny cells", and each of us WAS one of these "tiny cells." This "great man" believes the weakest among us are strictly here to serve those who happen to have the privilege of walking around, you know, the advantaged; the strong. The embryos in power.

And why DID he repeal the executive order? You know why. The answer is almost genomic: $.

Mr. Obama is so disturbing precisely because he has been presented as anything but.

Peace through dissent.

©2009/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

Is GOOGLE the Beast of the Apocalypse?

A few years ago I speculated here that we are all doing data-entry for Google. It seems I am not the only who thinks this way.

There is nothing more individual in the world than a book, an author, a publisher, and the value of a contract. The aging baby boomers now flacking the settlement don't seem to understand that PDF scanning (how Google and everyone else digitizes books) isn't rocket science; it's cheap and easy. Books will be digitized without Google. But the Google settlement sets in amber today's overhyped role of the Internet, ruled by that great and magnificent Oz -- Google.

Sound like hyperbole? Consider this: Under the settlement, every rights-owner in America is supposed to hand over all their private contract data, on every edition of every work they ever wrote -- and every excerpt permission ever granted to others -- at the peril of losing the money Google will be making on their backs. This is a massive burden on everyone in the book industry, making us all, in effect, Google's data-entry slaves.

Do read Lynn Chu's powerful and ominous essay, "Google's Book Settlement A Rip-off For Authors."

My Name Is Mr. President

[Originally posted on March 14, 2009, at Political Pundoetry.]

In the classroom beneath the stairs
Along the hallway near the doors
Stands the substitute teacher
And all hell has broken loose.
Despite the texting of bad news
He still lectures all with bland glares
He spins the globe in his hands
-- He’s proudest of foreign lands --
But the weary world turns its back
Wiping chalk dust from its shoes.

Listen up, pupils, open wide
Today I have restored science
To its rightful and lovely place

A spitball is launched from North Korea
China throws milk cartons at the blackboard
Over Persia soars a middle finger
And beneath the metallic ticking clock
Russia gives America an atomic wedgie.
“Marijuana, Tijuana!” shouts a
Blue-haired boy in oily Caracas jeans
“It was an inside job,” sneers the bitter jock
(With all due nine-eleven certainty)
And they all think they’re cleverly daring and edgy.

The substitute never strays from
His teleprompted lesson plan
Picked safe from a cool Blackberry
He lectures all without blinking
About old Churchill and the Brits
About climate change and stem cells
About the vices of earmarks
The vile voices of talk radio
And all the wrong ways of thinking
(Ignoring certain sleeper cells)

But the class cannot listen well
Mired in economic hell
They’d rather see the principle
Paid on irreducible debt
Than ever show interest
In their always tired mid-terms
Hopeless for the day’s closing bell.


©2009/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

Wonders Of Man Kind

[Originally posted on March 4, 2009, at Political Pundoetry.]

A little girl
Barely old enough to dress herself
Or to know evil
Is stolen from her bed

And then raped through the night and
The next day, and then is freed
To the grave, her bogeyman burying
Her alive to smother in muffled
Hope the monster has gone

The family panics, despairs, reels
Lists
Her name and face posted
Waved, distributed to Justice
Everywhere alert
But nothing from the President
The Supreme Court
The compassionate Congress

Someone posts a website
Find The Little Girl Dot Com
All Proceeds Go To The Tireless
Search, We Promise

And Justice finds out it is a fraud
The love of stolen charity

Beneath the posters
The have-you-seen-my-child pleas
Tacked to the board at Wal-Mart
Where no one stops
To look for anything
That doesn’t resemble a bargain
Beneath the Amber signs
Stapled to curbside poles
Holding phone lines full of
Chatter about anything else
From room to room

We hear that there are more
Important things that call us
To attention
Than the trivialities of
Gay marriage
Abortion
Government Spending
Bailouts of imbalanced
Budgets and Graspers
Taking credit for what
They do not deserve

But never, NEVER
Is the abduction of
Children, the rape and
Murder and Live-interment
Of little girls
The MOST IMPORTANT THING
Tell a gay marriage activist
That gay marriage is NOT important
Go ahead, I dare you
And you’ll see that Amber is not
A color anyone cares to see
But they’ll see red over your
Alleged homophobia

And they’ll see green if you bring up
Tax cuts
They’ll see red, white, blue if
You mention the expansion of
War in Afghanistan
They’ll see hate if you aver
Child abuse and abortion
Are interbred “If I could kill
You then why can’t I smack you now?”
The despised offspring of moral incest

They’ll see blue states if
You cede them control of the
Census
And if you don’t see black
The right way then
You’re the wrong color white
Ignoring The Highest Virtue
In All The Land

They’ll trump YOUR BIG ISSUE --
Whatever it is --
With Poverty, with The Increasing Gap
Between Rich and Poor– the be all and end all
Of Social Vices – rebuking your provincial
Greed, your millionaire capitalist indifference
To Ghettos and Slums
Forgetting the savior said
“The poor you’ll always
Have with you.”

But little girls and women
Are not always with us
Shackled, stolen, sent off
To sex camps and consigned
To the Holocaust of the porn
Industry, slaves in some tropical
Paradise for men swollen, turgid
With Cash
Or buried alive with a Teddy
Or Pooh Bear
Or given a necklace of blood or
Gripped by fingers smudging life
With casual forensic evidence

This is never important enough
To fill the President’s teleprompter
He’ll talk about $$$ and $$$
And more $$$
And never EVER mention that
ANOTHER little girl (or boy)
Has met the monster under the bed that
We dismiss with a kiss
It’s only a dream
I have a dream, Mommy
Mommy’s right here
The nightlight never
Bright enough


©Contratimes/2009. All rights reserved.

Every Knee Shall Bow

[Originally posted March 4, 2009 at Political Pundoetry.]

Barney Frankly requests more spending
Fearing the day his King will deny
The petition
On the Hill, they’re all Baracknophobic
Frightened into quiescence by
The Baracktagon;
By the eight-legged stimulus
Stool distended like the Octomom
More kits than teats
To suckle on the wet nurse of
The borrowing State
Re-distributing your hard-earned milk money
But Frank’s constityouwants know
How to shed Barackodile tears
To get their tireless way

Olbermann and Matthews
-- both
Manifestly Sclerotic Newsmen Beneath Contempt
Masking Sedition Naming Barack Caesar
Making Sure Nobody Brings Clarity to the
Obfuscating habits of their Zeit-christ --

Epitomize the News Bending Capacity of
Loyal subjects enamored of their
Own astonishing goodness --
A trickle-down-the-leg Barackonomics –
The best persons in the world!
True believers in their own profoundly Barackative
Thoughts (and Olbermann becomes
Obaman with much self-flattery)

There need not be Obambastic rhetoric
(They’ll say)
Or biting Czarcasm
In this error of change
In the Barackalypse of hope
(Despite the expanding fronts
In northwest Barackistan
And the redeploying of troops
Down to east Yeswecan)

(They’ll say)
Enjoy the Barackanalian orgy
Of spending
Ignore the Barackollapse of
Markets
All’s well that polls well
And it’s all just one big
Party in hell

(He’ll say)

“We shall restore science
to its rightful place”
Which means science will become
Obamastrology – guiding the nation
By the Hollywood Stars --
and Baracket Science -- the gaseous
Launching of fact toward Algoreisgon
(And we recoil in Algoreaphobia
Or
The fear of the vast space inside
Al Gore’s head)

And then no one will be left
To descry Hussein and who isn’t
(Except perhaps the Weatherman
Who talks of patriotism
But only puts on Ayres)

©2009/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

Enslaved By Compassion

These few clips from an article in the Wall Street Journal are rather humbling:

Giving alms to Africa remains one of the biggest ideas of our time -- millions march for it, governments are judged by it, celebrities proselytize the need for it. Calls for more aid to Africa are growing louder, with advocates pushing for doubling the roughly $50 billion of international assistance that already goes to Africa each year.

Yet evidence overwhelmingly demonstrates that aid to Africa has made the poor poorer, and the growth slower. The insidious aid culture has left African countries more debt-laden, more inflation-prone, more vulnerable to the vagaries of the currency markets and more unattractive to higher-quality investment. It's increased the risk of civil conflict and unrest (the fact that over 60% of sub-Saharan Africa's population is under the age of 24 with few economic prospects is a cause for worry). Aid is an unmitigated political, economic and humanitarian disaster. ...

Over the past 60 years at least $1 trillion of development-related aid has been transferred from rich countries to Africa. Yet real per-capita income today is lower than it was in the 1970s, and more than 50% of the population -- over 350 million people -- live on less than a dollar a day, a figure that has nearly doubled in two decades. ...

A constant stream of "free" money is a perfect way to keep an inefficient or simply bad government in power. As aid flows in, there is nothing more for the government to do -- it doesn't need to raise taxes, and as long as it pays the army, it doesn't have to take account of its disgruntled citizens. No matter that its citizens are disenfranchised (as with no taxation there can be no representation). All the government really needs to do is to court and cater to its foreign donors to stay in power.

Stuck in an aid world of no incentives, there is no reason for governments to seek other, better, more transparent ways of raising development finance (such as accessing the bond market, despite how hard that might be). The aid system encourages poor-country governments to pick up the phone and ask the donor agencies for next capital infusion. It is no wonder that across Africa, over 70% of the public purse comes from foreign aid.

"Taxpayer Money" Nonsense: Right Or Left, They're Confused About AIG

Whether coming from the right or from the left, from conservative talk radio or from liberal blogger land, you have heard some form of the following:

AIG has taken "taxpayer" money and given it away in ridiculous bonuses. Such avarice is unconscionable. American taxpayers have bailed out a company that deserved to fall into bankruptcy or receivership; this whole scandal is the rewarding of failure and incompetence. The American people now own 80 percent of AIG, and hence should be entitled to dictate how AIG is to spend taxpayers' hard-earned cash. America is sick of keeping such companies afloat, companies that flagrantly disregard the expectations of those who have come to their rescue.

With all due respect to the American "taxpayer," let me gently admit that I have never heard such abject lunacy. The whole world has indeed gone mad, losing both a sense of proportion and the rudiments of logic. Right-wing nutjobs believe that AIG should have just failed, that AIG had no right being bailed out by "taxpayers" in the first place. Left-wing moonbats rage at AIG's alleged greed and crass materialism, and denounce the distribution of "taxpayer" funds for unjustifiable compensation.

Please let me point out something so apparently ridiculous no one else is saying it: AIG -- and all its American employees -- are taxpayers! Over the years AIG has paid the US Treasury billions if not trillions of dollars in taxes; if anything, AIG, and companies like it, have been keeping the United States government afloat for decades. The common taxpayer, that man or woman who is not the owner of a massive Blue Chip company, is able to pay taxes to the Treasury -- the very taxes used to help struggling companies like AIG -- because he or she has earned money as an employee of a company like AIG: it's businesses that make taxation even possible. The American "taxpayer" is nowhere if someone is not generating wealth that creates the jobs that enable that "taxpayer" to pay taxes.

Moreover, AIG, being a taxpayer, also is a member of that taxpaying set that has paid for the bailout: AIG is also a shareholder in that "80 percent" of Americans who "own" AIG. In other words, AIG has bailed out itself, and it owns both public and private stock in its own company.

The shrill cry that AIG is somehow holding cash that is not its own but entirely someone else's is simply ludicrous. Yes, one can argue that AIG is holding some cash that belongs to the American people, but it is absurd to construe this bailout scenario as if AIG is neither a taxpayer nor essential to the viability of the Treasury and the American people. Lost, too, is the very real fact that Barack Obama is bailing out these companies in large part because he knows -- as all thinking Americans know -- that the government does not make wealth that is then returned in taxes: private business and industry provide the Capitol with capital, so to speak. All of Barack Obama's budgetary plans are contingent on thriving businesses: the bailouts are designed to stimulate the economy so the government can collect MORE revenue through taxes from businesses and employed citizens. This proves that economies and markets are not contingent on the state; the state is contingent on economies. The chicken and egg riddle is easily answered here: the state DOES NOT come first. Simple history proves this: the American government was not first established and then economies and wealth followed. The markets and economies of this continent were vibrant and potent, and hence provided the infrastructure upon which a government could be built. The American people, living freely, privately and in personal contract, produce the wealth of this country, the very wealth Washington seeks. Washington is the result and not the cause; Washington is the recipient and not the source of wealth.

So, in short, we have before us a strange, paradoxical riddle: AIG has bailed out itself. Thus, it should be allowed to do with its bonus money as it sees fit.

But listen to the Democrats rush toward punitive, confiscatory taxes to take back money they believe they "loaned." That rushing sound is the true sound of incompetence, failure -- and greed.

Amazing. And sick.

Peace through dissent.

[Addendum: It's time that the talking heads set, the talk radio set (including the "heavyweights" like El Rushmo), and the blogging set quit this insanity. (I have not heard Rush Limbaugh, Michael Graham, Jay Severin, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, Glenn Beck, Greta Van Susteren, Laura Ingraham, or anyone else, get this right.) The common locutions, like "taxpayer money," "your hard-earned tax dollars" and "our money," need to stop. Such phrases and terms are fine for fomenting outrage and envy; they make for great radio ratings and political boilerplate. But they are intellectually embarrassing. Ayn Rand is screaming from her grave, and this despite the fact that she denied any afterlife. Seriously, this whole manufactured outrage over AIG is embarrassing enough to stir the atheistic dead.]



©2009/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

Contrabamadiction

Those nasty AIG bonuses have just stuck themselves in nearly everyone's craw. While I have no problem with them, countless others do. But the math is really interesting, and so is a glaring contradiction.

If we accept the numbers as given, we know that AIG has received $190,000,000,000 in government loans and has distributed $175,000,000† in bonuses. Hence, we can rightfully conclude that the total amount of money distributed as bonuses is less than one thousandth of that $190 billion, at .00092 or .092 percent. In strictly percentage terms, the amount given to employees in the form of bonuses is utterly trivial.

Barack Obama and his fellow Democrats (and a few Republicans) are fomenting outrage over this infinitesimal distribution of "taxpayer" money. But compare this current outrage to Mr. Obama's own defense of alleged pork in his stimulus bill; read what he said on February 3, 2009, in an interview with Katie Couric. Mr. Obama rebuffed critics who claimed his bill was filled with "pork":

So, what's happened, and this is what tends to happen in this town is people have plucked out this program or that program that doesn't look particularly stimulative, the contraceptives issue being a primary example. If you add all that stuff up, it accounts from less than 1 percent of the overall package. Now that doesn't mean that the package can't improve and that's what I said to the leadership last night, "Let's improve it. Let's make this a package that is big enough for the moment, and is really focused on the American people." But I also wanna make sure that people don't get some notion which I think has been systematically promoted out there that this is full of silly spending 'cause it's not.

In other words, Mr. Obama is content overlooking trivial amounts of "taxpayer" money used for porky or pet projects. But he is not so tolerant when someone else tries to get away with something similar, even if one factors in the very real fact that AIG IS A TAXPAYER! All AIG is doing is distributing its own tax money -- refunded in a set of loans -- to its employees (who will then be taxed on it). Yet Mr. Obama has a problem with that.

No doubt such absurd behavior by a government leader is precisely "what tends to happen in this town."


Peace through dissent.

†It is reported that the Connecticut attorney general has determined that the total amount of the bonuses is $218,000,000. But this hardly changes the math.
©2009/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

Bowling A Perfect Scorn

I left this comment on the Wall Street Journal's website in response to what seemed a rather dismissive editorial about Mr. Obama's "Special Olympics" gaffe:

It is self-evident that any president needs to safeguard the images of his or her most vulnerable constituents. Special Olympians are a particularly vulnerable set; the vast majority of Special Olympians are not capable of mounting much, if any, defense against ridicule. Moreover, it strikes me as particularly grotesque to lessen the severity of Mr. Obama's gaffe with comparisons to a Special Olympian who has bowled 5 perfect games. Those of us who have worked and lived with Special Olympians know that such a bowler is not the rule but rather the rare exception among the exceptional.

Lastly, Mr. Obama did not appear at all to struggle to find some funny analogue to his inadequacies as a bowler. My sense was that he had used this sort of locution before. It may have been meant as a joke, but, as Citizen in Chief, he has a responsibility to clip his tongue when tempted to mock -- or falsely self-identify with -- a group of Americans who struggle with some of life's simplest tasks. There are countless Special Olympians who would not only love to bowl a 129, they'd love to understand the significance of such a score. And they'd love to understand Mr. Obama's sense of humor -- and irony. But they can't. He should have apologized instantly, right then and there, in front of America and Mr. Leno.

Now THAT would have been a presidential moment, and a change.

One wonders whether Mr. Obama understands not only the value and import but the true vulnerability of the minority group he so glibly referenced in a joke. Imagine the outrage if a different occupant of the White House had identified himself with a minority group to which he or she did not belong.

Oh, that's right. That's different.

Peace through dissent.

©2009/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

Are We Yet Broken?

Americans who care about such things will recall what First Lady Michelle Obama said during her husband's presidential campaign:

[B]efore we can work on the problems, we have to fix our souls - our souls are broken in this nation.

Ms. Obama made this very same announcement in my hometown. I stood less than 25 feet from her when she told a gathering of 100 people that "our souls are broken."

I just want to know three things, really. First, is Barack Obama's soul broken? If so, how? If not, then doesn't it follow that Michelle Obama was profoundly wrong? And is her soul broken?

Second, Ms. Obama proclaimed that BEFORE America works on its problems, "we have to fix our souls." Amazingly, her husband has been touted from sea to shining sea as the man who is getting things done; he's the man of action instantly making huge changes to our fallen land. Has he forgotten that the healing of souls needs to come first? That, at least, is what his wife said.

Third, I want to hear from the First Lady The World Has Been Waiting For exactly when she thinks our souls will no longer be broken. When, pray tell, will we be whole? And when will she grant us the absolution we so desperately seek?

Please, First Lady! Just a copper for a pauper!


Peace through dissent.

©2o09/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

Do You Have A Problem With That?

AIG is under fire for distributing some of its cash "borrowed" from the US treasury in huge bonuses to its chief executives. Do you have a problem with that? I don't.

Of course, the neo-Marxists among us do have a problem; they are driven by implacable envy. Allow me to take a moment to show you how wrong they are for taking such umbrage with AIG's private decision to give bonuses. But first, this necessary admission: In strictly American terms, I am not a wealthy man, so I am not protecting any personal fortune in what follows.

1. AIG has been described over the past few days as being "kept afloat by the American taxpayer." The insinuation, of course, is that AIG should be more circumspect in its behavior: it should treat the American taxpayers' money with respect, distributing it equitably.
   
2. Since AIG is billions of dollars in the red, the distribution of bonuses and the bailout of AIG have both been described as "rewarding failure" or "rewarding incompetence."
3. Taking points 1 and 2 together, it is easy to note what is so readily and intentionally overlooked: Companies like AIG, GM, Chrysler, Ford, and all the truly big wealth producers (AIG does not actually fit this set directly), have been keeping the American government afloat for decades. The amount of tax revenue generated by these companies is astounding: the coffers of the US Treasury have been filled by these corporate giants, making America's governing successes possible. Moreover, these companies, who are now profoundly in the red, have been underwriting and rewarding incompetence and failure every time their corporations and employees pay their taxes: The American government -- even under Clinton -- is ALWAYS in the red; it is always living larger than life and beyond its means. The current administration is emblematic of corporate excess: the Obama administration is grotesque in its wastefulness and incompetence.
   
4. What is clear is nearly Reagan-esque in import: The government bailouts are an admission that tax cuts work. What do I mean? Each time the government dispenses money to a struggling industry or corporation, it is tacitly admitting that it does not need that money, at least at the moment. Hence, if it does not need that money, it need not have collected it. Giving corporations sweeping tax cuts would have the exact same effect on things as a loan, except for one thing: granting tax cuts precludes the government from attaching controls on business, whereas loans permit such attachments. In a very real sense then, tax cuts are actually a more effective stimulus than a loan since government loans necessarily require government spending -- bloat -- to "micromanage" the bailouts.
   
5. The Obama administration seems unable to understand the simple processes of taxation: If AIG takes $150,000,000 and disburses it to its top-tier executives as bonuses (for argument's sake let's say AIG's top ten workers), those bonuses will be taxed at a high rate. Though I am no accountant, it is clear that 10 people making $15,000,000 each will each pay -- at least -- $6 million in taxes. Hence, about $60,000,000 of the $150,000,000 will be immediately returned to the Treasury. However, if AIG DID NOT distribute this money and instead chose to purchase $150,000,000 in Swiss stationery and letterhead, we'd hear nothing about such a transaction -- even though NONE of that money would be recovered in tax revenue. Finally, if AIG chose to distribute $150,000,000 to all its lowest-paid workers, the part-timers and low-tiered full-timers in the lowliest service departments, it is likely that, since these folks pay NO income tax, that NONE of the $150,000,000 would be recovered by the Treasury.
6. Hence, it is clear that the hue and cry coming from the whiny Obama administration and Congress over the AIG bonuses is born of envy -- these folks themselves generate no wealth nor do they know how -- and incompetence. Plus, these are the folks who distribute annual raises to -- and provide the best health and retirement plans for -- themselves; AND they redirect federal funds to groups that support their "just causes."
7. And there is one more aspect of envy that is overlooked: the administration rebukes the excesses of those in the private sector largely to keep the envious eye away from themselves: Barack Obama is fabulously rich -- and will be when he leaves office (think of the speaking fees!) -- and yet he does not want his constituents to envy him: he's doing this work for them, after all. He's "giving back." Hence, he's entitled to his fortunes because they were "earned" nobly -- he became rich doing nice things, like his civic duty. Therefore, his wealth is purer, and hence is safe from censure. But don't envy him: Look at those guys over there. They make too much!

Peace through dissent.

©2009/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

What Is Truth, Mr. Obama?

Ahh, the Truth. Remember the good old days, you know, the days of the Obama campaign when a new dawn of truth was imminent? Remember the rosy days when Mr. Obama's people would tell us that he understood that "words mean something"?

Maybe you don't. I sure don't. But I sure remember John McCain being lambasted -- by the media, by bloggers, and by Barack Obama -- for saying last year that the "fundamentals of the economy are sound...the workers of America are the fundamentals of the economy."

Mr. McCain was right, the fundamentals were sound. People were buying and selling; people were exchanging labor for goods; people were trading fairly and honorably nearly everywhere in America. Workers were doing what they do, as were buyers.

Of course, falling stocks, red ink, bankruptcies, foreclosures, bailouts: all these suggested, at least to the Omniscient Obama Campaign, that Mr. McCain was clearly doddering, slipping into sputtering senescence.

And then magic happened. Thus Sprach Obama last week:

If we are keeping focused on all the fundamentally sound aspects of our economy ... then we're going to get through this.

And what did his chief economic advisor say on "Meet the Press"?

Of course, the fundamentals (of the U.S.) economy are sound in the sense that the American workers are sound, we have a good capital stock, we have good technology.

Definitely a confederacy of dunces. These are the voices of doom and gloom: they adopted that strategy in the campaign season -- they NEEDED the economy to tank in order to control the narrative and the electorate's mood -- and now they need the economy to thrive so they can control the narrative and the electorate's mood. The most depressing voice in the American economy -- Obama's -- is utterly new, pressed into action to invigorate things.

And his new voice is John McCain's.


Peace through dissent.

©2009/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

Monstrous Conceptions

I recently read about a scientist who discovered a new method of creating human babies in a laboratory. He begins simply by putting a baby in a test tube and adding a few enzymes. A few days later, he pulls the baby out into the open air. Presto! A baby.

This new process is a huge advance. Up until now, scientists could only create babies in the lab by taking fully grown adults and jamming them into test tubes. It was a very arduous process, especially for those adults unfortunate enough to find themselves in such a tight spot.

Forgive the absurdity.

If human life does not begin at conception, then it seems reasonable to assume that scientists could begin life in the lab at some later stage in human development. But scientists can do no such thing. Hence, it is safe to conclude that human life begins at the instant of conception.

Barack Obama, the loftiest intellect to ever lead the free world, promised that he would "restore science to its rightful place." He also pronounced that his administration would be based on "facts." Hence, he will repeal Bush Administration restrictions on the use of human embryos for research. To Mr. Obama, killing is the first step toward a healthy worldview.

How wonderful! How lofty! How noble! How progressive!

The incredibly attenuated, truncated, amputated view of the world represented by Mr. Obama is utterly monstrous. The most current advances in the medical sciences -- advances that have made international news for months and months -- prove that embryonic stem cell research is nearly antiquated. Besides, such research is purely speculative: there is nothing certain about any of the alleged gains gleaned from the harvesting of human life. Sadly, Mr. Obama is remarkably consistent on investing in phantoms: He's pouring billions of dollars into technologies and energy sources that do not yet even exist; and he's pouring monies -- during times of alleged desperation -- into biological speculations that reduce the beneficiaries of the apparent benefits of zygotic mutilation to cannibalistic parasites. We create and kill other humans solely for our benefit ... and profit.

Clearly, Mr. Obama DOES believe in building a society and economy from the bottom upward, using, and abusing, the poorest and most vulnerable to boost those of us who have the privilege of maturity on our side.

Bottom (bloody) line: This is all about $$$. That's it. $$$ distributed among allies. By Dr. Barackenstein.

And you thought Barack Obama was about a better world.

(Please take one moment to reflect on the monsters loosed upon the world by science -- "restored to its rightful place." Imagine a world where no one but embryos ever dies. It isn't hard to do.)

Peace through dissent.

(The Wall Street Journal published this excellent challenge to Obama's bold claim that he has removed politics from science.)

©2009/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

Holiday

I will be offline until April 13 (save a few uncertain Sundays). Sorry.

Be well. Know peace. Make merry. And love.

Gnade

"I Am So Angry!"

Last night, as I conversed with a woman perhaps 35 years my senior, my interlocutor expressed regrets for spending "the last eight years so angry." Her rage has passed: the election of Barack Obama and the end of the Bush terms has brought her peace.

I am glad for her. She is a sweet lady. It used to hurt me to see how much she suffered. I had seen her a few times crying in church; when I'd approach her to extend my sympathy, she'd actually denounce then-President Bush through her tears and clenched teeth. But that was some time ago. We no longer genuflect and sing in the same nave, as the consecration to the bishopric of a gay man severed me from the church in which she and I worshiped side by side. A man divided us. Another divides us again.

Why do I write against Barack Obama? Because he is not just a man: he is a dividing line. He is not just the proponent of political, social and cultural ideas: he is the incarnation of those ideas. He is a flash-point, a line of demarcation, a litmus test. How you view this man defines your status, your group identity, and even your value. Or so I've noticed.

It is a mere distraction to talk as if Barack Obama is just another politician. He isn't. People have never talked of an American politician as they have of this man. People have never ascribed so much promise to a mere man in the White House like they have with Barack Obama. He is the incarnation of more than the body politic. If you listen closely, he's the hope of the whole world (and his wife is the "First Lady the World's Been Waiting For").

Like my elderly friend, I, too, might regret the anger I've succumbed to since the election of someone with whom I so profoundly disagree. But my anger is not really directed at Barack Obama. I am actually angry at a specific group of people who helped him get into the Oval Office: I am angry at my Christian brothers and sisters who voted for this man. I am angry at my "evangelical," orthodox and Catholic brothers and sisters who set aside wisdom for some pop-culture affectation of change, tolerance, diversity and hope. I am angry because my Christian siblings seemed utterly indifferent to the role deception, false hopes and idolatry play on those who have not known the Savior Christians claim is essential to a truly healthy life. I am angry because a man who was so clearly presented as a competing savior was nonetheless received as a breath of fresh air by those who should know better. I am angry Christians should agree with the near-obsessive idea that materialism and consumerism are the remedy necessary to heal the poor. I am angry that Christians failed to predict that Barack Obama's presidency would be, and has been, solely fixated on wealth and money and "fairness"; that he would peddle the idolatry of goods and services, enslaving the weak and needy, telling them in words of alleged compassion that they are effectively second-class and unfulfilled because they are not at least "middle class." I am angry that my Christian friends would turn the other cheek to such crass materialism and hidden greed; I am angry they would not see the cynical attitude that works behind the curtain of beneficence; I am angry that they failed to understand the slavery of charity.

And I am angry at those Christians who campaigned for Mr. Obama would dismiss challenges against him by suggesting that "there are bigger problems" facing us than such trivialities. You've heard this trope, this deceptive trope: People get too hung up about trivial things, like gay marriage or the size of the stimulus or the beginning of life, when there are so many more important issues that need addressing. Never, of course, will you find anyone who makes this argument offer to give up their trivial support of gay marriage, abortion, or the size of the stimulus in order to finally deal with the big issues of the day. Imagine the outcry if gay rights activists were to say, "There are bigger issues than gay marriage; let us set it aside for now so we can tackle X and Y and Z." We will never hear such an outcry, because these things are THE BIG ISSUES of the day; and because we know that these represent a battle about life's most essential things, things comprising what it means to be human and moral. It is an obscene argument to make -- and yet I hear Christians make it all the time.

I see obscenity where others see leadership. Where others see wisdom, I see absurdity. Where some hear a sacred call, I hear blasphemy. I can't help it. It's who I am.

Christians, of all people, have one duty: to fight deception of the sort that damns souls, that blinds them to their true God. I believe deception is afoot. Many of my Christian brothers and sisters do not. It's a paradox we'll have to live with ... for now.

Peace through dissent.

PS. No, I am not for one second suggesting that John McCain was the more "Christian" choice.

©2009/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

WHAT OF MR. THOMAS SOWELL?

Because a radio talk-show host read the following essay last afternoon despite his own convictions that reading on the air is a radio black hole, I post this link to Thomas Sowell's "A Fatal Trajectory." I am curious to know what readers think: Is Mr. Sowell correct? Is he representative of "more-of-the-same" fear-mongering from the alleged right-wing lunatics recently voted out of office? Or is he on to something? Is it true that the best days of America have passed?

I find myself somewhat ambivalent, though not so much by the message but by its manner. I am quite certain the world is a far more dangerous place than most of my contemporaries seem to think. Many of my peers apparently feel that the problem with those who are mugged is not that they have been mugged, it is that they were jogging in the wrong park, or in the wrong clothing, or in the wrong way, and thus merited mugging because of their dereliction, ignorance, or presumption. What makes the world a dangerous place is the jogger, not the violent mugger.

Peace through dissent.

©2009/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

Is This True?

Barack Obama says he wants to rein in government spending but if what Mitch McConnell is saying right now on TV is true, then we must wonder what Mr. Obama means.

Mr. McConnell has just said that in the last 36 days, the US Congress has spent more money than the United States has spent in the entirety of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, AND the Katrina recovery.

Is Mr. McConnell right? If so, where's the outrage? Or should there be no outrage?

Peace through dissent.

The Great Hortatory, (Live Blogging the non-State of the Union Address - Pt. 2)

One can hardly go a paragraph without noting some stunning deficiency in the master linguist's rhetoric:

Now, I know there are some in this chamber, and watching at home, who are skeptical of whether this plan will work. And I understand that skepticism. Here in Washington we've all seen how quickly good intentions can turn into broken promises and wasteful spending. And with a plan of this scale comes enormous responsibility to get it right.

Let's put this into historical context here. We have heard from Mr. Obama nothing but dire warnings ever since he was sworn into office. He has told us we needed to act sooner rather than later. He told us we needed to do something -- anything -- rather than nothing. His 1,000 page bill was pushed through both the House and Senate in record time; he signed it into law. And yet neither he, nor anyone else who voted for it, had read this necessary and vital emergency bill.

Amazingly, Mr. Obama NOW says that "with a plan of this scale comes enormous responsibility to get it right." Astute thinkers ask whether the responsibility to get things right ought to have come BEFORE the all-important stimulus plan was signed. Surely if we want to get things right, Barack Obama himself might want to read the bill to ensure it meets the requirements he has set. Is that too much to ask of someone in a high place?

Yes, yes it is.

The Great Hortatory (Live blogging the non-State of the Union Address - Pt. 1)

(Live blogging the Obama speech)

What follows in bold is an Unprovable; such is perhaps the most vapid thing ever to come out of Mr. Obama's mouth. And that says a lot, considering this is a man gifted at making inanities sound deeply profound. Here's more of the great emptiness:

Over the next two years, this [economic stimulus] plan will save or create 3.5 million jobs.

If you do not see why this is both vapid and unprovable; if you do not see that this is essentially meaningless and is offered solely as a broad cover, then I feel sorry for you. But I know most if not all of my readers are rather adroit in these matters, so I will not over-analyze the point.

It is easy for Barack Obama's to assert his plan will "save" jobs, for the simple reason that the only scenario that could actually disprove Mr. Obama's assertion is the unlikely scenario that in two years no one is working at all. In other words, unless the unemployment rate reaches 100 percent (though a case could be made that an employed labor force that falls below 3,499,999 is also fatal to Obama's claim), we can pretty much conclude that Mr. Obama has promised us something we can NEVER prove or disprove. In that, we find that Mr. Obama is peddling, for political expedience, mere emptiness solely to control, not our destiny, but his. Well, yes, ours too, but only insofar as ours is determinable and controllable by him and his minions. His needs, political and ideological, must first be met. Ours come next ... somewhere down the line.

The Great Hortatory Begins (Live blogging the non-State of the Union Address -- Intro.)

The most well-trained precision team ever to lead America ONCE AGAIN stumbled over the simplest act of introduction. Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama spoke over each other tonight, with Barack Obama starting his speech before the Speaker of the House had introduced him.

There is an old adage about being trusted with little things. Surely an inability to manage the little things can't possibly translate into incompetency with the big things. No, never. How could it?

(Live blogging, by the way, as Mr. Obama works his mastery of the teleprompter.)

Love those Republicans refusing to clap or stand. Finally, they are doing something right.

©2009/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

The Bionic Country

This is what the President will say tonight, in part:

While our economy may be weakened and our confidence shaken; though we are living through difficult and uncertain times, tonight I want every American to know this: We will rebuild, we will recover, and the United States of America will emerge stronger than before.

I am sorry, but isn't this incredibly overwrought? "We will rebuild" reminds me of the "Six Million Dollar Man": We can rebuild him ... we have the technology. How dreadful.

Note the hyperbole in this excerpt:

"The weight of this crisis will not determine the destiny of this nation. The answers to our problems don’t lie beyond our reach. They exist in our laboratories and universities; in our fields and our factories; in the imaginations of our entrepreneurs and the pride of the hardest-working people on Earth. Those qualities that have made America the greatest force of progress and prosperity in human history we still possess in ample measure. What is required now is for this country to pull together, confront boldly the challenges we face, and take responsibility for our future once more.

What? Is Mr. Obama suggesting we were not taking responsibility until he gave his speech? Were we not taking responsibility yesterday, the day before, or last year?

What vapidity. Seriously, if you want to read excerpts chock-full of Democratic boilerplate, then go here.

Trickle-Down Wreckonomics: More Barack-ative Thought From ACORN

I have said before that Barack Obama DOES NOT believe -- as he says he does -- in building an economy from the bottom up. He believes in trickle-down economics as ardently as any Reagan-ite.

But there is a different trickle-down at work in America, and it is this: when incompetency holds high office, incompetency trickles down through the ranks.

Please, if you can manage to wend your way through the interruptions and barbs, listen to Stuart Varney's interview with the head of the New York chapter of ACORN, or the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. And while listening, please consider that Mr. Varney's guest is not some sort of anomaly; she is representative of millions and millions of people (black and white, but mostly white) who voted for Barack Obama.

Please, consider the video an example of what is a very Barack-ative argument:



And you thought an Obama presidency had nothing to do with chaos and anarchy.


Peace through dissent.

©2009/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

Henninger, Straight Up

The unintended consequences of the Obama Super-Duper Stimulus Plan are discussed in this incisive commentary by Daniel Henninger.

Mr. Obama's stimulus plan is in many ways a lot like a theological argument: it's based in faith and fraught with paradox. And then there's that fear element pushed at nearly every turn.


Peace -- and prosperity -- through dissent.


BG

The "Eternal Optimist"

Readers might recall the mild uproar over comments made last year when then-presidential candidate John McCain's economic advisor, Phil Gramm, described the recession in psychological terms. In fact, Mr. Gramm was forced to leave his post in the McCain campaign after making this shocking statement:

"You've heard of mental depression; this is a mental recession..."

Needless to say, Barack Obama and his minions seized on Mr. Gramm's apparent misstep and exploited it for vast political gain.

Perhaps you've heard analysts repeatedly say that Mr. Obama is actually something of an economic suppressant. What is meant by this is that his rhetoric has had a depressing impact on Americans and the economy. In fact, as I write this, the DOW has fallen nearly 300 points in response to Mr. Obama's signing of his stimulus package. Surely anyone paying attention to economic trends knows about market psychology and consumer psychology. Surely anyone with a radio has heard reports like "oil prices rose steeply today over fears that the conflict in Israel and Gaza will escalate," or reports of similar kind. Psychology plays a major, often THE major, role in markets. (Right now I see this on the TV screen: "Dow plunges nearly 4,000 points since first financial 'rescue' talks.")

Psychology is in many ways nearly everything. And Barack Obama has not helped one bit.

This morning, as I was traveling to a dentist appointment and listening to the radio, I heard Don Imus ask George Stephanopoulos about the need for someone in the White House to begin boosting consumer confidence with some encouraging words. Mr. Stephanopoulos, as you know, is both a political analyst with his own TV show and a fan of Barack Obama. In his answer to Mr. Imus, Mr. Stephanapoulos admitted that psychology is a "major factor" in an economic recovery; he added that Barack Obama, in order to push his agenda through, may have pushed too hard on the "fear pedal."

And Mr. Stephanopoulos is not the only person to criticize Barack Obama for this sort of thing. Mr. Obama is, without a doubt, a master of spreading fear.

INCREDIBLE STUFF!

Here's Mr. Obama last Monday night as he concluded his "prime time" news conference. Note how much better a speaker he is than his predecessor:

And so when I hear people just saying, "Uh, we don't need to do anything, this is a spending bill not a stimulus bill," without acknowledging that by definition, uh, part of any stimulus package would include spending, that's the point, then what I get a sense of is that there is some ideological blockage there that, that needs to be cleared up. But I am the eternal optimist. Uh, I think that over time people respond, uh, to uh, to civility and, and rational argument. I think that's what the people, uh, of Elkhart and people around America are looking for and that's what I'm, that's the kind of leadership I'm gonna try to provide. Alright? Thank you guys.

I must say it is nice to see civility demonstrated so impeccably, especially with locutions like "ideological blockage...that needs to be cleared up." And then there's the "rational argument" thing -- as if Obama's opponents are irrational and he in his gracious and conciliatory manner embodies reason at every turn.

Attentive readers know that Mr. Obama actually amended his own convictions to make his case. Earlier he said that a stimulus package and spending were identical. Now, spending is only "part" of a stimulus package ... "by definition." Of course, at least this writer laughs at Mr. Obama's audacity and cunning: "'By definition', sir? Really?"

Mr. Obama's rhetoric will brook no dissent: his definitions leave no room for stimulus plans constructed solely of cutting taxes and government largess. He knows his definitions, and they are static.

David Axelrod, chief Obama advisor and extremely highly-overrated thinker, told Chris Wallace Sunday the same sort of drivel, namely, that a stimulus package and spending are essentially identical. But that's the nature of propagandizing: say a thing just often enough to make it true. Mr. Axelrod is, after all, precisely where he is because he is expert in propaganda (which, of course, requires high-level thinking skills, albeit deceptive ones, so I concede, in part, that Axelrod might not be entirely overrated).

Mr. Obama believes the Bush tax cuts prove that such cuts don't stave off recession and that they may even cause recession. This from the same man who asserted on the campaign trail that Bush spent too much money. Moreover, if the "failed policies of the past," as Mr. Obama is wont to describe such things, led to this recession, then it must be asked which failed policies, the cuts or the spending. And if the New Deal was so effective, or increased spending under any president is an irrepressible inducement to economic growth, how come recessions still follow? If spending did not keep the economy in recovery under many different presidents, then why are we emulating the "failed policies of the past?"

The fact is this: the vast majority of Americans AND economists believe that the BEST stimulus package is one heavy on tax cuts combined with reduced spending. During hearings about the Bush tax cuts early in the Bush tenure, Allan Greenspan testified that the tax cuts would indeed work AS LONG AS THERE WAS A DECREASE IN GOVERNMENT SPENDING. It was a statement that still rings in my ears. And yet it was, and continues to be, utterly ignored. (It would be interesting to hear Greenspan now.)

But, alas! Barack Obama has everything in place: he has a package heavy on spending that also includes significant tax cuts. Hence, in the end, no one will be able to divine -- should the economy recover -- what portion of the stimulus was effective. Plus, as I've said in other posts here, the lower fuel costs we are all enjoying are part of a current windfall that can only assist recovery in ways profound and effective. And despite our inability to know whether this stimulus is ever effective, Barack Obama will insist that it was, will be, and ever shall be, effective. Perfectly effective.

In the end, it is all about psychology ... the psychology of fear, arrogance and conceit.

Peace through dissent.

©2009/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

Ecce Novus

It's so brazen it's almost funny in a tragic sort of way.

Mr. Obama is in a great struggle against his own beneficence and elevated sense of self. Such struggles do not end well, especially when self and public perception fail to conform to the truth.

Mr. Obama has told us that the economy is so dire that apocalyptic terms are necessary to describe our nation's situation. He has also told us his administration will be "based on facts," and that science will be "restored to its proper place."

Today, Mr. Obama has flown, at great financial cost, the American people's massive, global-warming-gas spewing jet-liner to Denver, Colorado,† so he can SIGN a bill that was printed in Washington, DC, for the sole purpose of emphasizing his stimulus package's huge fiscal commitment to research into alternative fuels.

This is one sick administration. Sick. Sick. Sick.

Behold, the New.

©2009/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

He Is A Liar

A few months ago I finished reading Miguel De Cervantes' amazing work, Don Quixote. The novel is 940 pages long, and it introduces to the reader 669 characters. It took me about four weeks to read it.

I did not read Cervantes' masterwork, arguably the first of all novels, because I had to. I did not read it because failure to do so would result in disaster. I did not read it because it claimed to contain all manner of remedy and solution. I did not read it because it promised to stave off some inevitable slide into depression, sorrow, or destitution. I read it simply because of desire: I had read a condensed version in college with the expressed aim of reading it in its entirety at some later date. That date has now come and gone.

Barack Obama is about to sign into law an emergency bill full of all kinds of promises; the bill is over a thousand pages long and promises to help in this time of economic recession. At the very least, or so it goes, if the bill does not turn the American economy around, it promises to ease all Americans' pain. It may not stop the recession -- the mother of all recessions, allegedly -- but it will ensure that the recession will be "less bad," less deep, less painful.

Mr. Obama has told everyone in America that unless the bill is passed, all hell MAY break loose, a hell so vile, so vulgar, we may never escape from it. This, in a real sense, is allegedly the Al Qaida of all recessions: We must act boldly and swiftly, without wavering, to preempt a disaster that may -- or may not -- come! Mr. Obama stands upon the trash heap of the American economy, shouting to the world through a megaphone.

The solution to our great worries is a "vital" bill over 1,000 pages long. This bill is so DESPERATELY needed for our DESPERATE times, that every person who voted in favor of it, and the person who will sign it into law, has not bothered to read it. In fact, there are no reports coming from the White House that Mr. Obama is holed up in his study poring over his first legislative masterpiece. No one has even announced that Mr. Obama -- or anyone else! -- has simpy read this massive, cumbersome and unwieldly tome. No one has even hinted that tomorrow, or Tuesday, Mr. Obama will probably come out with a revised and edited bill, one that conforms not only to his image of excellence in literature, but also one that has been analyzed to see if the work meets its objectives. And Mr. Obama's preface to his novel bill -- there really has never anything like it before -- has been at times petulantly and amateurishly presented; yet he boasts without knowing the contents of his own work that something -- apparently anything -- is better than nothing.

Welcome to the new politics, far more vapid than the old. Nihilism seems more attractively informing and engaging than this cynical approach to stimulate economic recovery.

And cynical is the apt word for what is going on. Mr. Obama is just cynical enough to have his minions denounce critics with the apparently incisive retort that "no one ever reads appropriations bills." He is just cynical enough to publicly and unabashedly proclaim that doing anything is better than doing nothing. He is just cynical enough to confidently swagger toward the podium and suggest that Americans don't mind enslaving themselves to his massive debt for generations -- in the land of the free. He is just cynical enough to tell Americans -- except for his own cabinet appointees -- that we all must show our patriotism by "giving back," by sacrificing through hard work and persistence the monies earned fairly and honestly. He is just cynical enough to earmark billions of dollars to many of his campaign's largest donors. He is just cynical enough to believe you don't really care.

Indeed, it may be true that no one reads appropriations bills, which is a shame. But this is no ordinary appropriations bill: this is nearly a trillion dollars in EMERGENCY outlays. This is SUPPOSED to work. But who believes Barack Obama when his own party has not read its own answer to his warnings? Attentive Americans respect in an instant those who voted against the bill BECAUSE they have not read it; Republicans who stonewalled did so largely because the NEW and IMPROVED president and his minions did not provide enough copies of the bill or even enough time to read it before putting it to a vote. (Apparently, it is historically [in a recent sense] the case that bills of this magnitude are presented in digital format so analysts can search for key words to expedite the analytical and editing process. Not with this bill, which came over the transom in print form. Moreover, the Obama administration promised all bills would be posted for five days on the White House website so the public could comment. But not this bill. Such actions and inactions prove how cynical and grotesque this new government actually is.)

The reality is that you've been deceived. Barack Obama is both a liar and a mere Yes Man. He has not read his own work; he has no idea what he is actually signing. Yet he tells us we live in desperate times and thus must act responsibly. His very actions speak against his own alarmism and moral convictions. And since he has not read his bill but will sign it anyway, we know he does not care that he puts his name to the work of ghostwriters. He is merely saying Yes to those who are REALLY leading him. He's not in charge. He's merely the front man. How else to explain his shameless signature on a bill he has not read -- or drafted -- that claims will heal all woes? This is supposed to be HIS bill, his legislative success. How can that be when he can't take the time† to read a manuscript presented in his name?

It is hard to believe that this man won an election. Any election.


Peace through dissent.

©2009/Bill Gnade. All Rights Reserved.

†Even if Mr. Obama reads the entire bill, his signature explicitly endorses the entirety of the bill. Can you imagine that this alleged master politician and this alleged master of language would read this bill and not hold it for further editing, emending and review? Yes, it is easy to imagine because this is not about his actual leadership. Clearly, he is not his own. Welcome to the "new."

I'd Suspect The Mayor

Love the headline:

Dutch city fears loss of pornography collection

Heilige koe!

But note what one person of the town says:

Mayor Ferd Crone of Leeuwarden, 87 miles (140 kilometers) north of Amsterdam, told local media he had been unaware of the collection's existence and was surprised it was gone.

Ah, hah! One would expect as much from a man called Ferd. Ferd Crone.

Ferd's remark reminds me of a quote (truly) highlighted on the front page of my local newspaper a few years ago:

"It's a lifelong dream I never knew I had."

Fork it over, Ferd.

Triskaidekaphilia: A Friend of the Jason Act

Barack Obama will have to be a true friend of Friday the 13th, particularly if Congress agrees today on the Great and Necessary Salvific Stimulus Package deemed absolutely essential by his presidential decree. If the Great and Necessary Salvific Stimulus Package does clear Congress today, one rather doubts Mr. Obama will sign the bill on Friday the 13th, despite his promise to sign it immediately. (And if he does not sign it today†, rumor has it that Stevie Wonder will be performing "Superstition" during the formal signing ceremony.)

The Friday the 13th bill, hereafter known as the Jason Act, is the economic equivalent of global warming legislation. Barack Obama's urgent and rather plaintive pleas for quick action, and his dire warnings about imminent disaster and catastrophe, have not been the least bit scientific. He has been warning us in religious terms: this MIGHT happen; this COULD be the consequence; repent, and follow me. His alarmist, fear-mongering rhetoric (I've long noted that the left, including Barack Obama, is the fear-mongering set in domestic and international politics) about stimulating the economy is built on the identical fallacies global warming activists rely on -- the non causa pro causa fallacies where correlations are confused with causalities (a word which, I note, looks a lot like casualities).

Since Barack Obama is unable to tell us what WILL happen if a stimulus package is not passed "immediately," he therefore cannot tell us what WILL happen if a stimulus package IS passed. Knowing this, he and his disciples, particularly those posing as economists, have already begun to change their language. This stimulus is not so much meant to get America out of recession. It is meant to prevent the recession from being as bad as it MIGHT be. This is not a stimulation of the economy as much as it is a bandage: it is not meant to make things better, only to make things "less worse." Sort of like Al Gore's pleas to make imminent global devastation "less worse."

Such vagueness is endemic to liberal political agendas; you find obfuscation and red-herrings rubbed all over the landscape of liberal political arguments. Liberals don't really want you to follow the actual logic trail. They'd rather cloud and misdirect. They'd rather you not actually ever catch the fox (because that would be cruel).

The stimulus package as it stands is set to hit the streets at about the same time the economy might be reviving -- on its own. The huge economic windfall that has hit America in the form of vastly lower fuel costs WILL show up in a few months as a recession of the recession; lower fuel costs are stimulating the economy right now though proof of such a stimulus will not be seen for some time. And all this WITHOUT Obama's stimulus package. But throw his package into the mix, and attempts to clearly discern what aided the soon-to-be lauded "Greatest Recovery Since Roosevelt" will be clouded by political pollution. Was it just the lower fuel prices that turned the economy around? Was it just the natural cycle of the market? Was it the tax cuts in the Obama stimulus package? Was it the expansion of government programs and projects? Alas, we will not know. And that is why this stimulus is a joke: Barack Obama and congressional Democrats have placed every idea, good or bad (mostly bad), into this package in hopes that, throwing it at America, something will stick.

One good thing: We've got nearly four weeks behind us of America's Great National Embarrassment.

Peace -- and prosperity -- through dissent.

†And if Barack Obama signs it tomorrow, will the Great And Necessary Salvific Stimulus Package be known as the St. Valentine's Day Massacre Package? One wonders.
©Bill Gnade 2009/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

The Complete Master Of Language

The god of language has spoken:

"Then you get the argument that this is not a stimulus bill, it is a spending bill. What do you think a stimulus is? That's the whole point." -- Barack Obama

Critics need not bother the master with clarity of meaning. His deliberate use of language precludes them from even exploring the nuances of words in his presence. That Mr. Obama fails to note that tax cuts, tax holidays, and the like are entirely stimulative without the nasty necessity of spending a cent, proves only how stiffly precise language is when he is in command. He is, after all, editor-in-chief. Linguistic flexibility, by the way, is not a quality of "change we can believe in."

He can stutter and stammer and stall all he wants; he can read everything from a tele-prompter or note card -- even the simplest announcements -- but we are reassured by his minions we can be confident he has his finger on the red pen of self-editing.

Peace -- and prosperity -- through dissent.

©Bill Gnade 2009/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

You Should Have Seen This Coming

Barack Obama may not be Pandora's Box, but surely he is the key -- and every lunatic is turning it. 

Peace -- and prosperity -- through dissent. 

©Bill Gnade 2009/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved. 

You Will Disagree

If a presidential term of office was three weeks long, then Barack Obama is the worst president in history.