Self-Slaughtering Sheep, History Lessons, Bah Bah Bah

Aside from the fireworks in the Middle East and North Africa in the past weeks, the media in America has been focusing on the fun in Madison, Wisconsin. The new Republican governor of that state, Scott Walker, and the majority Republican congress in that state began work on pushing through a bill that would make state workers have to pay more into their own pension plans, pay more for their own health care plans, and basically lose the right as unions to engage in collective bargaining.

Union members, teachers, auto workers, etc. have been rallying outside the state house since last week pitted against smaller numbers of Tea Party, uh, patriots?

Let me say that I understand that there are some problems with modern unions in that they frequently demand too much. I do totally get that. They have to learn to meet in the middle on some issues when local, state, and federal budgets are strapped as they currently are.

What I'd like to discuss here though is those citizens who are aligning themselves against the unions: the far-right and Tea Party folks.

I'm talking about those people who are middle to low income workers and follow right-wing media for all of their "information". I discuss these people frequently because it's such an amazing dynamic. I don't know if they are so stupid that they think wealthy people are really concerned with their welfare or if they are so patriotic that tey think that labor unions are communist and anti-American.

These people make me imagine a herd of sheep. Somehow these sheep have been given the right to vote. There's a wolf at one end of their pasture and a shepherd at the other end. The shepherd tells the sheep he needs them to give him some money to fix their fence and keep the wolf out. The wolf tells them he's a vegetarian now and he'll let them keep their money if they let him kill the shepherd.

Well, history tells us that a wolf will not be a vegetarian for long if he ever actually was and common sense tells us he just wants to eat the sheep. But, because he's told him they can keep their money some of the sheep vote in favor of the wolf. After all, the shepherd's wearing a new coat and how did he pay for that? Why didn't that money go to fix the fence.

I'm currently watching season three of The Tudors which is focusing on the life of Henry VIII and what I watched last night was so timely I had to include it.

First you need to know that Gov. Walker in Wisconsin is firmly in the pocket of the Koch brothers. That's pronounced like coke if you're not familiar with them. They are billionaire industrialists, some of the wealthiest people in America, and they pour millions into right-wing political causes including Gov. Walker's election campaign. They are basically the heart and soul of many "grass roots" political movements in America right now.

A hilarious incident happened yesterday in which a liberal blogger got Gov. Walker on the phone posing as one of the Koch brothers and talked to him for twenty minutes, recorded it all, and put it out on the internet.

I must add that, in an attempt to delay passage of the bill in Wisconsin, Democrat law-makers have left the state so that no quorum can be reached and the bill in question can't be passed for now.

In the phone call Gov. Walker says he and his people have discussed telling the Democrats that he is willing to negotiate with them, having them come back to the state house, and, once they are in the building and a quorum is reached, quickly putting the bill on the floor and passing it. Like a trap. Hah! Got ya!

So back to Henry VIII. In 1536 Henry had passed all sorts of laws abolishing the Catholic Church in England, confiscating Papal lands, abbeys, churches, all their loot, etc. The people in the North of England, under the leadership of a lawyer named Robert Aske, started a rebellion and, with a fair sized army, set out for London on foot in order to bring their grievances before the king. This march came to be known as the Pilgrimage of Grace.

Henry got very concerned about the size of the group and sent mediators to talk with them. He promised them clemency if they disbanded, promised to hold a special parliament to hear their claims, and basically allowed them to think all would be cool and he would work things out with them.

Sound familiar? These trusting souls (sheep) took him at his word and, after they disbanded their army and went back home, Robert Aske was tortured and hung and hundreds of peasants, men, women, and children were taken from their fields and hung as an example to others.

These are the kinds of "Oh, I've seen something like this before!" realizations you get all the time if you know history. There are always examples of sheep exposing their necks to the butcher's knife and thanking him for taking care of them.

The labor movement in America was a reaction to abuses of a medieval magnitude. Workers in this country have not always been well treated. In the 19th and early 20th centuries there were great pockets of workers who were treated like chattel. Child labor, sure, eighty hour work week, check, no overtime, check, safety?, sorry. It was literally a war with many casualties that led to the rise of unions in this country and they forced companies to begin to treat labor with dignity and decency. The American prosperity of the 1950s through the 1980s was defined by these people, many who gave their lives for it, killed by scabs and Pinkertons who were the Blackwater contractors of that time.

The jackasses in Wisconsin, the commoners fighting against the unions, know nothing of the history of labor in this country. They view labor as an outside force trying to take their money and wanting to live the high life for doing no work. Their perception of the situation is so far out of whack that it freaks me out.

I would love to kidnap some of these folks and give them a history lesson. Make them watch the movie Maitwan, show them photos of union workers getting clubbed to death or shot with machine guns. The irony that the struggle of those early union members closely resembles that of the original Tea Partiers back in the 18th century isn't lost on me.

The fight in Wisconsin is against union members who are public sector employees: teachers, police, firemen, garbage workers, etc.

I think it's probably pretty important to gain some perspective on why these people are in unions to begin with.

Let's take teachers as an example. Public workers are maybe the one sector of our economy where, well in the case of teachers, public defenders, etc., you have to have a college degree and your earnings cap out at a ridiculously low level compared to similar levels of education in the private sector. These people are doing a job that must be done at economic disadvantage to themselves. The lack of salary is hopefully made up for in pension money and healthcare. Without these incentives we lose these people to the private sector.

Of course, this is what union busters want. They want it all to be privatized. BFI and Waste Management handling all trash collection, private security force rather than police, fire protection provided like a privately owned ambulance service, all that.

Many on the right have drunk the Kool-Aid and think this is the best and most cost-effective and "American" way to do things. It's the free market! Unfortunately these people have a total lack of knowledge of the way things worked when this was the norm, when all these things were handled by the private sector.

You think police unions are bad? I'd like to imagine a Blackwater run police force. Oh but they changed their name, hang on, they are now Xe Services. So if you can't pronounce the name you can't speak evil of them. (Xe is pronounced like zee if you have something bad to say)

Imagine having to call your child's teacher and speaking with a call center in India instead.

I could go on all day with scenarios like this but the bottom line is that we need to maintain a public sector and, in lieu of salary, these people deserve their benefits.

I don't think personally that a VP with Koch Enterprises should make a hundred times more money than a policeman who actually risks his life protecting his community every day.

I think people like that VP from Koch should share a huge tax burden to keep the public sector afloat.

Current poster child for this country's Right, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, says these people already meet far more than their fair share of the tax burden in his fight against the unions. Something like they are responsible for 40% of New Jersey's tax income.

Of course, this is that same argument you keep hearing from these people. They do the simple math that if I make x dollars and the tax rate is 30% then I've paid into the state and federal coffers by this equation: x x .30 = y and y is what they've paid in taxes.

This is just simply not the case. Business tax breaks, subsidies, loopholes, off-shoring of accounts, etc. are all discounted in this argument and it's just nonsense.

Until the sheep on the political right begin to understand that wolves aren't going to look out for their best interests, we can expect to see a lot more of this union busting in America. Welcome to the 1800s!

Obama the Muslim, 53rd Grammys, and Pot Luck Zen

Very fun week so far! First let me address a couple of incidents at work. In one encounter I had a husband and wife in on Friday night renting some movies. They looked completely normal except the wife had way too many highlights in her hair. It was that deal where the base color is brown and then you have really pronounced, one-inch-wide blond bits. Anyhoo, after my usual banter the guy gives me a card for some non-denominational church they go to or where he's the minister or what have you. I've opined here before about how I feel about proselytizing, so I told him, that I was Zen Buddhist or atheist or whatever and maybe if they started a Tuesday night Zen pot luck dinner there was a good chance I might pop in. It was pretty obvious that wasn't the response they expected but I've gotten so tired of people advertising their religions to me. I was nice about it at least and I do like pot luck dinners.

In the next episode I had an older woman in the store, say around seventy or so, who was very talky about a bunch of real estate issues. Nothing political was being discussed but near the end of the convo she said that if we didn't get some "pro-business" types in Washington D.C. very soon America would be dead.

Now this stuff just really freaks me out. She's obviously one of the people I talk about, the Beck, Limbaugh, Palin, Tea Party type. I was just thinking to myself, you mean like George W. Bush and a Republican Congress? They did everything short of making a porno tape with business. I'm not sure that "pro-business" thing got us very far as a nation. As a matter of fact, I'm pretty sure their pro-business agenda really screwed up this country.

I guess what this lady was talking about was the unicorn of Tea Party politics. That elusive beast is the politician who will go to Washington and represent the interests of American small businesses. Yeah, American small businesses flourished under George W. but they were only the ones who made profit off the use of illegal labor or the "small businesses" who were actually just the doctors' wives who had a real estate license. The mom and pop shops that are what we're really talking about when we discuss small businesses just keep getting screwed. If you don't have the money to influence legislation then you'll keep getting screwed.

You'll keep hearing about the HUGE tax burden U.S. corporations bear but it's the "real" small businesses and individuals who actually tote that load. The bigger the corporation the more tax loopholes, offshoring of accounts, tax breaks, etc. they can take advantage of. It's impossible to find the actual statistics but, in real money, the very large corporations can often end up being subsidized by the U.S. government rather than paying in to it.

Ladies like the one in my store will keep voting in the jerks who keep that system going because she thinks Obama is an anti-business, anti-American Socialist. No sense in trying to change her mind though. She'd just think I was a victim of those left-wing mind tricks.

Another bit of fun this week was on FOX News. There was a focus group of Iowans they were showing being conducted by right wing pollster Frank Luntz. Some question came up about Obama and a lady said, basically, that we couldn't trust him on any issue because he's a Muslim. Well, Luntz hopped on that and asked the group how many of them thought Obama was a Muslim. Out of 25 people in the group, ten raised their hands. That's a pretty scary 40%. Pretty much right along the lines of recent polls that asked that question. Another poll showed that something like 50% of Republicans think Obama was born outside the U.S.

Please, just let me say it, these people are freaking morons. They know absolutely nothing about what's really going on in this world and, rather than consume actual news, they are fed on a daily diet of right wing opinion and propaganda. It's just shocking to me that people are this freaking stupid. You know, God bless democracy and the right to vote and all that, but really, really, I'm not talking about Jim Crow stuff, but you should have to pass a test before you vote to see how freaking stupid you are. I honestly don't believe a country can run effectively if the representative part of our representative democracy is being elected by people like these absurd jugheads.

However, on this past Sunday's Face the Nation, NBC's David Gregory had Speaker of the House John Boehner on the show and suggested that he, Boehner, had some sort of responsibility to tell people that they were in error, that Obama is not a Muslim and is a U.S. citizen. I totally disagree. Not because I don't wish that these people could recognize the truth even though I don't think they'd accept it if it smashed them in the face. I don't feel it's the responsibility of Boehner to do it. There are a lot of things I think aren't true that a lot of Americans believe as carved in stone fact. I don't think there is a supernatural being who created us. In fact I think it's nuts to believe it. But I don't think it's a politicians responsibility to correct that thought.

It's basically the same thing. These moron Tea Party freaks believe Obama is a Muslim despite absolutely no proof for that belief at all. Same thing with the belief in a god. There is no proof of a supreme being; never has been. That belief is based solely on faith. Same thing with the right wing freak show. Their beliefs are based on faith because of their hatred of the Left and Obama.

You would just hope that education would result in people recognizing reality over faith but that's certainly not the job of John Boehner. Maybe Obama should just go on TV and try to tell these idiots that he's a U.S. citizen and a Christian. Not that it would do any good but at least the attempt would be made.

On a lighter note, as always, I DVRed the Grammy Awards Show. I know I'll be treated to an endless feast of self-congratulatory garbage but sometimes there is a chestnut that makes recording worth it.

First, the big "upset". Esperanza Spalding won best new artist knocking off clear favorites Justin Beiber and Mumford and Sons. I was rooting for Mumford and Sons. Unlike 99.9% of the viewing audience, I was actually already familiar with Esperanza Spalding because I'm an NPR listener. Yep, the same NPR that's about to be slashed into oblivion by Obama in yet another cave in to the Right.

Spalding is like a Norah Jones singer who plays upright bass and that's basically it. She's known to jazz enthusiasts and urban hipsters but that's it. The odds of her having a crossover hit are negligible and she'll probably never appear on any pop charts. Her style is pretty traditional but you rarely hear solo bass and vocals so there is that. I think what happened was people wanted to vote against Beiber and thought the name Esperanza Spalding sounded cool so .... here's a Grammy.

I was seriously wanting Cee-Lo Green to win for something with his song formerly known as "Fuck You". But he got passed over twice by Lady Antebellum with their massive hit "Need You Now". Don't get me wrong, I love that song. It's an amazing bit of pop songwriting and it totally pulls me in BUT hell, they performed the song at the LAST Grammy show! How long is a song supposed to be around? Shouldn't it have just won last year? I guess there are time frame issues I don't know about but I don't expect to hear the same song two years in a row.

Cee-Lo's performance of the song formerly known as "Fuck You" was very cool. He was pretending to play the piano in a HUGE red Elton John looking gorilla suit and, well, you'd have to see it, and backed up by a Muppet band. Unfortunately Gwyneth Paltrow came out to make the song a duet. Now, don't get me wrong, she's hot, really hot, but she sings like she talks and that's terribly unnerving. I guess she was making a little appearance to push her last movie "Country Strong" which will be on DVD soon? Whatever the case it was unnecessary.

Arcade Fire won album of the year. That's cool. I dig them and their whole aesthetic. I don't like everything they do but they consistently come up with something album to album that makes me want more and that's a good thing. They just come off as a bunch of friends having fun making music and that's sorely lacking in the modern music industry.

And now, on to the rap. At the risk of sounding racist, and let me add that I don't care if it sounds that way, I think the vast majority of rap sucks. I really don't consider it a legitimate art form. From what I can see, you take a song with a female vocal that's already popular and that's your "hook". Then you talk over other parts of the song and put in too much bass. From what I can tell you're more successful if you sound kind of tough or angry and you have to swagger around while you're talking. The parts of the songs I like, the hooks, are pieces of music I would like in the original version too and I find myself waiting patiently for the swaggering rap bits to end and the hook to come back.

Whatever, I just think it's crap and I'm obviously in the silent majority on that. I can't ever say things like this without getting jumped on and I don't care. I'm just going to call it like I see it. Public Enemy was interesting to me. I liked that "Hard Knock Life" thing Jay-Z did but I liked the musical Annie so ..... I think Kanye, Puff Daddy, Lil' Wayne and others like that are a waste of air time and promotional money. I think kids like it because it makes them feel rebellious, not because it's good or artistic. There, I've said it now I'm done with that.

I found it sickening that Band of Horses got nothing and they're one of my favorite bands. Radiohead should have won for In Rainbows when it came out as a digital download in 2007 but didn't get a nod until it was released physically in 2008. Just an illustration of what a dinosaur the Grammys are.

However, and yes, I've discussed this ad nauseum, there is occasionally a performance like Pink's at last year's show. Her song, "Glitter in the Air", written by Billy Mann, is amazing and her performance at the 52nd Grammy show freaking stunned me. The song is written very much in the Goodbye Yellow Brick Road era Bernie Taupin and Bat Out of Hell era Jim Steinman style, piano-centric and slowly progressing with gorgeous lyrics and melody. I'll post video of that monumental, show-stopping performance here.

Songs like that and artists like Pink are what make me feel okay about the current state of pop music. Even artists like Taylor Swift. These artists are a vehicle for amazing songwriting. It's refreshing to know that kind of thing is still out there. I wish Jim Steinman and Bernie Taupin would start working with performers like Pink and really bring back some of that kind of epic songwriting. I don't think it's impossible.

I could watch this performance every day!

Here We Go Again! Unleash the Lunatics! Culture Wars Renewed!

Leading off the evening, yet another Republican in a sex scandal. Rep. Chris Lee of New York got busted posting shirtless photos of himself on Craigslist saying he was single when he's, in fact, married. The shame is, he could have just kept his job but he resigned as soon as the thing came to light. He could easily have followed in the footsteps of Larry Craig, John Ensign, or David Vitter. It's not like he's a Democrat. Republicans are very forgiving when one of their own gets caught up in this sort of thing.

He was your typical politician. He's got an MBA. He was an executive in the company his daddy started. His family is very involved in party politics. This is all the same for most Dems and Republicans. He just couldn't keep it in his pants as is common among politicians as well. Most aren't stupid enough to post their photos online; that's unique. It still could have been painted as a liberal smear campaign but it's not like he doesn't have a nice chunk of money to fall back on so, whatever.

Much more this week has been made of the current state of affairs in the Republican party. Well, except for more fun news about Glenn Beck totally losing it. For many years now the Republican party has been involved in a nasty internal struggle. Not that the Dems haven't with the Blue Dogs vs. the Progressives, but in the Republican party it's much more volatile.

You have the traditional bank and business loving types, Episcopalian, button-down, country clubbers, versus the whacko far right fringe. The traditional Republicans have typically kept the rabble in check with occasional bills that they know will never be passed: going way too far in attempted abortion restrictions, the Ten Commandments, gun stuff, you know the routine.

The problem now is that the rabble has begun to organize and its voice is getting much louder in the form of the Tea Party. In fact, it's being suggested that the Republican party is looking more likely to go the way of the Whigs as it is increasingly marginalized. There just aren't enough people in America making enough money to keep voting for a party that only serves the interest of the wealthy. It's not enough to vote to put an assault rifle in every classroom to cover the other vote you made allowing some American company to offshore it's operations and pay no taxes. The Tea Party people want the assault rifles in the damn classrooms dammit!

So, while the new Republican controlled House of Representatives has made much of the storyline that they'll be voting to bring JOBS to Americans, their first weeks have been spent on abortion related issues in an effort to pander to the idiots.

The Tea Party is the voice of the real majority in the Republican party. A recent poll showed that something like 40% of Republicans believe that Barack Obama is a Muslim. The vast majority of those, I'm sure, are Tea Party people. Tea Party people are not intellectually curious in the least. They get their "facts" from Beck, Rush, Drudge, Palin .... in other words, they are fed and easily digest a strict daily diet of lies. This makes the Tea Party so dangerous that it scares the crap out of me.

These people know next to nothing about history or politics or even what's actually going on in the rest of the world. They live and breathe a fictitious, alternate reality. The bigger problem though is that mainstream Republicans are having to cater to these lunatics in order to save themselves politically.

There has never been a time in U.S. history when the media has so much on its shoulders. If the U.S. President won't even openly address this glut of misinformation, well, he did at first but FOX News bit back and he backed off in order to "play to the middle", then the media has the responsibility to try to educate the public. They need to stop worrying about the Kardashians, Charlie Sheen, Lindsey Lohan, et al, and get on with the business of actually reporting the news. Save the rest for trash like TMZ.

On a side note, I think it's hilarious how House Majority Leader John Boehner keeps harping on his humble beginnings. The life story we keep hearing is meant to show you how he's one of us, the little people. As if this would keep him in check on Capitol Hill and he would be looking out for our interests and not feeding at the buffet the lobbyists set up for him.

Not saying Boehner is Hitler but it's worth noting the Hitler came from humble beginnings as well. He wasn't part of the East Coast elite. He was from a family of little means, was in the military but never an officer, got started in a grass roots political campaign, etc. Just because you come from humble beginnings doesn't mean you'll always be humble. Just a thought.

I'd also like to say that I don't think Obama is actually religious at all. I don't think many politicians actually believe in any kind of God. I know they have to say that they do because they have to. Unless you're from San Francisco, you have to be part of some kind of organized religion or you're unelectable. Maybe I'm just cynical but I find it hard to believe that you can be in a situation where you've learned and seen so much and been so educated and still believe in the supernatural.

Chick-Fil-A and the American Love Affair With Hypocricy

Chick-Fil-A is under a lot of fire from gay and liberal groups this week due to an event that happened earlier in January. One of their Pennsylvania stores donated sandwiches and brownies to a gathering of the Pennsylvania Family Institute. This group is one of those conservative things where they are all family values, anti-gay, pro-American, all that awesome Tea Party stuff that people think only exists in the South and West of this country.

Before assailing the good intentions of the boycott, let me say that I am 100% in favor of gay marriage and a devout follower of Ru Paul's Drag Race as many of you already know.

Just for fun, checking out the PFI's whack-job website, I came across a thing they have called The Truth Project. It's a four hour seminar where you get to find out what the Bible "really" says about stuff like gay marriage and money and you get a set of DVDs. Price of admission is only $99 for adults or "married couples" (I'm assuming they mean hetero married couples.) It's worth noting that you can read the Bible yourself for free thanks to Gideons and you can actually find out what it says during the course of your reading.

You can also get information on the PFI website about their Golf Classic and see a list of former sponsors which includes Herr's chips which suck anyway so no loss there. The event is held at Bent Creek Country Club in suburban Lancaster County PA and membership there is only $6,000 a year plus expenses so you get to play a little golf at a nice, exclusive club, do a little gay bashing, have a drink or two. What's not to love.

Anyway, the Chick-Fil-A sponsorship has a bunch of people up in arms and planning on boycotting the company. I could point out here that there are so many people in this country who are anti-gay marriage, the boycott and all the news surrounding this little thing will probably be a boon to Chick-Fil-A. Boycotts like the ones being discussed usually have the complete opposite intended effect.

I would imagine that most pro-gay, boycotting types wouldn't frequent many fast food restaurants anyway, much less a Chick-Fil-A where just about everything is breaded and fried. So, yeah, it might feel good to say you're boycotting something but it's really just pointless.

I'm not a fan of Chick-Fil-A. In my estimation their sandwiches are okay but the chicken is not even close to Popeye's. Anyway, I began boycotting Chick-Fil-A years ago. I never knew that they closed on Sundays until I was near one and hungry on a Sunday afternoon and had one of those WTF? moments (thanks Sarah P.) when I found out it was closed. I thought it must be something with the health department or the plumbing or something.

Then I started to find out more about the Cathy family and their "Christian" values that made it imperative that they close the store on Sundays all over the country. So why do I claim hypocrisy?

I'm sure the Cathys don't just stay in the house on Sundays. I'm sure they expect many people around them to be working on the Lord's day: gas station workers, airlines, hospitals, police and firemen, etc. In my opinion, all they're really doing is reminding the world that they consider themselves to be Christian and not having to pay anybody for a day.

Bear in mind that most of the minimum wage workers hired by Chick-Fil-A would gladly work on Sundays so they could come a tad closer to making ends meet. It's quaint, outdated, BS.

So I still won't be eating Chick-Fil-A and their support of a "family values" group is no surprise to me. It's a shame this couldn't be a company like Whole Foods or Pinkberry where a gay and liberal boycott would really have some teeth. All the news around this event just serves to solidify Chick-Fil-A's base.