Gaak, Well, There Goes California

            Once again, the forces of  destruction are about to rain down on poor California.  People are going to run riot in the streets.  Whole towns will be swallowed whole.  Small children will weep and run amok.

            Yes, once again, judges have ruled that Prop 8 is unconstitutional.  This time it was the Ninth Circuit court.  So, the state Supreme Court and now one clump of judicial feds have basically found that “Proposition 8 serves no purpose, and has no effect, other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gay men and lesbians in California.”

            Let’s repeat that:  “Proposition 8 serves no purpose, and has no effect, other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gay men and lesbians in California.”

            So what is it about that brief, honest observation is so impossible for so many people to accept?

            Besides the inability to be honest about one’s true feelings and motives, may I suggest another reason this battle has been so fierce and long and irrational?  Words.  Wrong words that describe the wrong issue and hence create a wrong reality.

            Take the acronym, “DOMA.” Defense of Marriage.  Defense.  Did anybody recall gay people saying they wanted to eliminate marriage?  Destroy it? Get rid of it?  Change the laws so the states wouldn’t be allowed to marry anybody any more? Kaput, no more marriage anywhere?

            I didn’t either.  All I saw was a bunch of people who wanted to join the ranks of the married, have marriage ceremonies of their own, so the net result was MORE marriage, not less.  How do you “defend” against people who want to join you as fellow participants?  You don’t “defend” a castle against friends who show up and say, “Hey, we want to join you.”  You “defend” against enemies who are trying to destroy you.

            So, there was the false reality – gay people as “the enemy” that needed “defending” against because, somehow, their getting married would “destroy” marriage. Yet, not once during this whole battle, did I hear from any straight couple explaining just how, exactly, their marriage would be “destroyed” if a gay couple next door got married.  Not a single explanation that made any sense. Not one.

            If a whole gaggle of people had been honest from day one (We don’t like gay people and anyway, full civil rights and privileges go only to the people the dominant majority says should receive them; nobody else.), they wouldn’t have deceived and trapped themselves and others in the false language of their own making.

            Luckily, the courts have seen through those lies.  Unfortunately, gay people will still have to wait for their full rights for several more years and pray that the Supreme court will also concur that, “Although the Constitution permits communities to enact most laws they believe to be desirable, it requires that there be at least a legitimate reason for the passage of a law that treats different classes of people differently. There was no such reason that proposition 8 could have been enacted.  All that Proposition 8 accomplished was to take away from same-sex couples the right to be granted marriage licenses and thus legally to use the designation ‘marriage.’  Proposition 8 serves no purpose, and has no effect, other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gay men and lesbians in California.”

            Meanwhile, the hate and fear continues. Comedian Ellen Degeneres is now the subject of a boycott by a so-called “Million Moms,” who want her removed as the spokesperson for J.C. Penny.  Ellen noted dryly on her TV show, the Million Moms’ Facebook page shows a membership of 45,000 so she guessed they just rounded up to get their fake number.

Meanwhile, Never Miss An Opportunity To Gin Up The Culture Wars 

            The Republican culture wars heated up over the issue of the “Obama Care” program requiring that insurance companies offer full, comprehensive coverage for all women’s health issues, including birth control, to all businesses that offer insurance to their employees, including Catholic institutions that primarily “serve the public interest,” with exemptions made for institutions that are primarily religious and not serving “the public.”  These provisions are already in place at Catholic institutions in 28 states and these institutions have made different kinds of “wink-nudge” accommodations.  Like Hawaii, “where the rule is in effect, but where employees at religious institutions that do not offer free contraception can get birth control through side benefits, which the employees nominally pay for but which often end up being free.”

            Considering that polls show that the vast majority of even Catholic women use birth control of some kind, and a good number of people working at Catholic institutions such as hospitals are not Catholic, all this “wink-nudge” has been going on under the Bishop’s noses for years. 

            But, it’s an election year, so you can be sure that a Church under real scrutiny for years of child molesting that went unexamined at best, and covered up at worst, won’t lose an opportunity to flip the frame and come out playing the role of victim here – Christianity under assault! And Republicans sure aren’t going to miss a chance to portray our Muslim Kenyan Christian-Hating President as a man out to “Destroy Religious Freedom!”  

            The issue is simple:  Equal insurance coverage requirements for all employees whose employers offer insurance, with exceptions for primarily religious institutions, and all kinds of wink-nudge accommodations to allow Catholics to pretend that the wink-nudge accommodations aren’t there.  Win-Win. 

            But in the culture wars, the political wars, women’s bodies, women’s reproductive health, will once again be used as a fake battlefield. While Catholics suit up in fake hair-shirts to play the fake victim card, and Republicans gin up the fake outrage.

            The real question is this:  Are women stupid enough to fall for this?  Stay tuned. 

Congress/Prez for Sale.  Cheap, Considering.

           

            Stephen Colbert gave formal thanks for the 22 rich guys who, to date, have financed the Republican Primary via the Super PACS.  Then wittily declared that he sure those 22 will pick a president he likes.

            Twenty-two.

            At the same time, President Obama, who originally decried Super PACS, has succumbed to unleashing the Democratic PACS and so turned into Omar Sharif in “Lawrence of Arabia.”  Remember the scene, the Turkish retreat from Deraa, the demoralized army fleeing while behind them massed Lawrence’s band of fierce Bedouin and Lawrence declared, “No quarter! No quarter,” and at first Omar objected, then, caught up in the moment, brandished his sword and galloped into battle.  No quarter!  And the slaughter commenced.

            We will now see what will be unleashed by the Roberts’ Supreme Court and their Citizens United disaster.  Battle of the Super PACS.  Government by Twenty-Two?  Forty-Four?  Which returns us to the pre-Jacksonian America: Rule by Rich Aristocrats. 

            Who needs One man, one vote, anyway? 

Spending Spree

Calhoun’s Can(n)ons for February 3, 2012

Happy Days are heeeeere again, The sky’s of blue are cleeeeear again

            Oh, thank goodness.  We’re saved!  Our economic woes are finally over.  The worst crash and burn since the Great Depression is about to lift.  We’ll soon be rolling in money.   The mighty economic engines of our various newly formed political super PACS have been unleashed in the recent Republican primaries and if the waterfall of moolah keeps up at the same pace it did in Florida, we’ll all be on Easy Street.

            Who would have thunk?  Here we’ve all been mooning around begging for Jobs! Jobs! Jobs! Begging somebody, somewhere to plueeeze, plueeze bring manufacturing back, restore our great Rust Belt, put people to work. And all the while, there it was, staring us in the face all along --the greatest Rain Maker in history, thanks to the Supreme Court.  Yes, the Super PACSs!

             Mitt Romney’s “Restore Our Future” super PAC blew through nearly $17 million in Florida alone, while Newt Gingrich’s “Winning Our Future” super PAC got a good run at spending its $10 million donation from gambling tycoon, Sheldon Adelson. Talk about Trickle Down.

            And look what all that money bought: Ron Paul mostly skated outside the thundering elephant rumble, poking the candidates with sharp pointy “issues” questions that nobody wanted to address. Rick Santorum was exposed as a dead-baby-hugging, gay-on-dog homophobe loony who can’t wait to nuke Iran to keep it from getting nukes. Mitt exposed his primary rival as a hypocritical, bloviating, philandering, sleazy, untrustworthy Washington lobbyist whack-a-doodle who wants to colonize the moon.  Newt exposed his rival as a flip-flopping, hypocritical, wooden-headed, tin-eared, job-destroying, blood-sucking Bain Capital predator Mormon who loves to fire people.  Oh, and a . . Massachusetts Moderate.

            Well, who knew?  In total, the GOP candidates and/or their PACS have spent about $53 million, with $25 million on TV ads alone. Oh, lucky Florida and South Carolina!  Heck, even comedian Stephen Colbert’s PAC has reported out that it raised $1.02 million and spent a nice chunk of that in Colbert’s South Carolina faux campaign. All that nice money raining down on the primary states.  Keep that up for a few more months – next up, Nevada! Arizona! - – and single-handedly the Republican PACS will lift the economy, state by state, all without raising a single tax. 

            And soon, President Obama’s campaign war chest and PAC, which is nearing $82 million in donations, will meet up with “American Crossroads,” Karl Rove’s Pac, which already has over $51 million, with more coming in, and you’re looking at a real job-creating economic engine of unimagined power.

            Think of all the trickle-down jobs what will be created – precinct walkers, phone callers, mailer stuffers, poster printers, Quick Response Teams of copy writers, rumor mongers (and rumor blockers), and all those jobs required to create TV ads stuffed to the gills with innuendo, spin, flat out Swift-Boaty lies and scary music.

            And what will we get for all that money?  Well, we’ll learn that President Obama is a Kenyan muslim socialist who wants to make abortion mandatory, kill old people with his “Obama Care death panels,” give rich people’s money to dirty, lazy, undeserving Saul Alinsky poor people, become a surrender monkey by appeasing Iran and turn America into . . . France.  While Mitt Romney will destroy the unions, reduce the minimum wage to zero, turn the major corporate players of American business into one big Bain Capital predator which will devour all small business, destroy Medicare and Social Security, fire the 99% to further enrich the 1% (his peeps) and make Mormonism the official national religion.

            And frugal little Ron Paul with his tiny war chest will nimbly keep dancing just off stage asking annoying “issues” questions that nobody will answer.

            But, really, who cares if all that money is basically going to be wasted on sheer crap?  Or that the American electorate is about to be badly served, at best, or grotesquely misled, at worst. Or that the voters still seem blissfully unaware that Congress is still the dog that wags the presidential tail; unless they change Congress, they’ll just end up with more do-nothingness.  Which is what happens when the focus moves away from imperfect real people imperfectly trying to solve real problems and becomes the faked-up persona in thrall to the deadly Cult of Political Purity  – election autos-de-fe, American style.   

            No, nobody cares about all that.  It’s raining money and for a few minutes, which seems to be the maximum extent of our attention span, happy days are here again. Until the political money rain stops and it becomes clear once again that despite the billions, the balloons, the confetti, the clowns with their toootle horns, the wolf is still on the doorstep.         

ColBEAR! ColBEAR!

Calhoun’s Can(n)on for January 20, 2012

The true axis of evil in America is the brilliance of our marketing combined with the stupidity of our people

                                                                        Bill Maher

            Do you suppose Stephen Colbert will save America from itself? As a comedian/satirist playing a blowhard right wing pundit on TV, his latest stunt just might do the trick.

            Months ago, Colbert sat with his attorney on air, discussed the unbridled, unfettered, astounding benefits and hilarious lack of rules or restraints of a political Super PAC and then, right there on air, started his  own.  And the money from his gleeful, in-on-the-joke fans poured in.

            That was part one.  Part two came a few days ago when his “Daily Show” compadre-in-comedy arrived, and with Colbert’s lawyer standing by with the papers all drawn up, he transferred control of his Super PAC to Jon Stewart.  Then he announced that he was thinking about running for President of the United States of South Carolina.

            After which he and Jon solemnly pledged that, of course, they would have NO COORDINATION between themselves as “candidate” and “Super PAC” administrator.  Nossir.  Absolutely no coordination since that would be . . . illegal.   But, if Colbert discussed in great detail all of his campaign strategies on his TV show and Stewart just happened to tune in and took detailed notes and followed through with everything Colbert discussed, well, that wouldn’t constitute “coordination” under the law and would be perfectly legal, wink-nudge, wink-nudge. And in short order, spoofing “political” ads showed up on the South Carolina airwaves in time for the Republican primary election.

            It was a perfectly delicious comic skit, with only one problem.  Everything they were setting up was absolutely real and legal and already at work in the current presidential race.  The Supreme Court has decreed that money is speech so there can be no limits on political money since it’s “speech,” and if it does not specifically mention a particular candidate (wink-nudge) there can be no limit on it.  So, Super PACs, formed by often unknown people and groups funneling unlimited amounts of money to organizations with fake names, no accountability, and with no requirement to report either the amount or source of those donations, are now the real drivers of our political campaigns.  Indeed, the amount of PAC money available to support a candidate is often two or three times the amount that’s in the candidate’s official campaign coffers. 

            It’s an oligarch’s wet dream.  Rich individuals, corporations, unions, various affinity organizations, even foreign governments, are now effectively free to “buy” any candidate they want and win any political race they want.  It’s all in the numbers.

            For example, a well-funded PAC can buy/bid up all the print space and airtime in a specific district to tout their candidate, thereby forcing any opponents to make do with the few ad spaces left in some small local advertorial publications read by nobody. Strategically target Congressional districts and you can effectively pack Congress with your minions.  Get a sufficient number of hand-picked Congresspersons beholden to you for their new, cushy jobs, and you’ll soon get legislation beneficial to your interests. All it takes is money. Which is speech.  Which is free.

            And it’s all perfectly legal.    

            The media savvy and political junkies are hip to what too many ordinary Americans apparently don’t understand:  Control the narrative and you almost always control the outcome.  If that means you falsify the narrative, then that’s what you do, since politics is no longer about educating and informing the voter, or competing with the best vision or policies; it’s about winning by any means necessary. And the voter too often goes along with the deception, even when the outcome will harm him or her in very real ways.

            And that’s where PACs have their real power: Unlimited funds to hire the expertise needed to create those false narratives with no way to hold them to account.  If voters thought the “death panels” lie was bad, they haven’t seen anything yet. Well-financed Big Lies can be half-way on their way to becoming Received Wisdom before Poor Truth can put on his shoes.  It’ll be one multimillion-dollar Swift Boating campaign after another.  It’s a good bet that pollster Frank Luntz, Republican political strategist/False Narrative meister extraordinaire, already has his clients all lined up.  America, The Uninformed, The Badly Informed, The Falsely Informed is now up for sale to the highest bidder.

            Unless a pair of comedians performing a piece of theatrical satire wake up enough voters who will ask: Is this any way to run a country?  And do it before American democracy is put up on the auction block.