We’re Doomed, But Not by the Asteroid

NASA announced last week that they’ve found a good-sized asteroid on a trajectory that could impact earth in 2040, but by then it may not matter. Our planet is running out of everything but human beings. Fresh water, edible fish, petroleum, and land suitable for agriculture— these are only four items on a seemingly endless list of resources that are essential and finite, but rapidly diminishing. And make no mistake about it, competition for these scarcities has absolutely become a zero-sum game played out between the nations and cultures around the globe. For maybe the last century or two, this has always been the case (to a lesser degree), but until recently the winners in this game could keep their good fortune off the radar as their own dirty little secret— somewhat hidden and unknown to those who were losing out. But those days are gone. Now, with ubiquitous social media and telecommunication, everybody knows what everybody else has got.

For 30 years or more, Americans have been spoon fed on the mythological crapola that much of the world hates us because of our freedom. The real truth is that much of the world hates us because we have the disproportionate lion’s share of access to fresh water, petroleum, and good fertile cropland. Individual freedom in America isn’t a threat to anyone, but the prospect of losing out to a more powerful player in a zero-sum game is very much a threat.

This competition to see who gets the right to deplete the planet’s scarce resources is being played out against the backdrop of an even bigger problem— exponential population growth. In my lifetime (the last 70 years) the global population has more than tripled, going from 2 billion to 7 billion. Current educated estimates put the population at 9 billion within 15 to 20 years, and probably at 10 billion by 2040 when the asteroid may or may not stop the growth permanently. For those who are mathematically ignorant and who don’t understand exponential growth, here’s a little fact. There are more people alive today than the number of people who have died since the dawn of the human race 100,000 years ago. To put it another way, more than half of all the humans who have ever walked the earth are alive and walking the earth today.

Faced with the biggest problem to confront mankind in all of history, the last 10 days in America witnessed something truly remarkable. Two influential institutions came together. The political ideology that gave us Newt Gingrich, George W. Bush, and Rush Limbaugh teamed-up with the Italian religion that gave us 1000 years of unchecked child sex abuse, and together they came out against what they consider to be the scourge of modern mankind. They pooled their mutual influence and collective animosity to oppose— drum roll, please— CONTRACEPTION!!!

It just makes you weep with frustration and disappointment. We’re doomed, and not because of the asteroid..

Examining Just Why, Exactly, Sarah Palin is Electrifying

From the years 1932 until roughly 1964, citizens of the U.S.A. felt positive about their Federal government, and for the most part they invested trust in their elected leaders. But this was only a brief anomaly in the long history of our country, and it ended with Watergate and the Vietnam War before it could take hold and flourish. For most of our national history, the opposite sentiment toward Washington has prevailed and from the earliest years of our Republic, Americans historically viewed their government with suspicion, and even outright contempt. So I guess you could say that the Tea Party movement is really a throwback to another time. What’s new is the emergence of Sarah Palin.

Given this high percentage “anti-government” sentiment, it’s surprising that Sarah Palin hasn’t gained more traction with her message of suspicion and distrust of Washington. Recent polls put her disapproval rating at 55%, with fully 71% of Americans saying that she is unqualified to be the next President. Perhaps the reason for this can be found in the recent Tea Party convention in Nashville.

Never, in my recent memory, has so much adulation and applause been given to such simple utterances about simple-minded solutions to galactically unsolvable problems. Evidently, to be in lockstep with the Tea Party, one needs to believe that a speaker is “electrifying” and “galvanizing” when they observe that the United States Government spends too much, by borrowing too much, in order to deliver too little in the way of problem solutions. Knowing this, Sarah Palin is able to rally her troops by overstating the obvious about Washington. Okay, now we know that the Tea Party “gets it” — the Federal Government is inefficient, and generally doesn’t work as well as it did in the past. The thing is, mainstream Democrats and Republicans “get it” too. The only difference is, Republicans and Dems don’t feel that such self-evident truths are “electrifying.”

My politics are, admittedly, schizophrenic. My objection to Bill Clinton molded me into a rabid Conservative, then eight years of George W. Bush transformed me into a flaming Liberal. And after a year of Barack Obama, I’m now a dejected cynic who believes that America is basically ungovernable, and that even an outwardly decent and intellectual person in the Presidency can have very little positive effect on the problems that face the country today. Sarah Palin, we are told by the Tea Party members, should be elected as our next Chief Executive because she shares a certain folksy commonality with the average person. To this I reply, “Not so fast.” My advice is to go out into the street and talk to a lot of common, average Americans, and then ask yourself if you want your grandchildren to inherit a world that is shaped by the common, average American.

For the record, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and all the men who signed the Declaration of Independence were considered to be aristocratic at that time, and there wasn’t a single man among them who would have qualified today as a common average American. I suspect that none of these founding fathers of our country would fare very well in today’s modern Tea Party, and as the Tea Party goes, so goes Sarah Palin.

Killing for Conservatism (and Probably for Jesus, Too)

Conservative Republicans, knowing that they lack sufficient clout in the Senate to block the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor, are now talking about filibustering the process to —quote, “Demonstrate their differences.” The last thing that the world needs is another demonstration of Conservative “differences,” especially after the brazen murder last weekend of Doctor George Tiller. Tiller was the abortion doctor who was assassinated in church during Sunday morning worship because some Conservative pro-lifer thought that his murder would save the lives of late term fetuses. One caller to a Conservative radio talk show defended the murder by calling it “the very late term abortion of Doctor Tiller.” I guess he thought he was being clever.

Last Friday, on his afternoon three-hour rant, Rush Limbaugh spent most of his radio show whining that Liberals were “mean” and Conservatives were “nice.” I don’t know how Limbaugh defines the word, “mean,” but I think committing murder might qualify as one definition. Conservatives don’t need to oppose the Sotomayor nomination to demonstrate their differences. Conservatives are willing to kill for their beliefs. Liberals don’t do that. That’s the difference.

It’s Sad to Watch an Elephant Die

It fills me with a tinge of sadness, seeing the Republican Party as it tries to spin the defection of Arlen Specter. It’s like watching an elephant die— literally. It was exactly six years ago this week that I, too, made an abrupt switch and turned my back on the Republican Party and conservatism because it no longer made any sense to me. Last night as I watched The News Hour on PBS, everything about that decision came flooding back to me.

Reporting from St. Louis, PBS anchor, Gwen Ifill, was interviewing local citizens in the nation’s heartland to get their thoughts on Obama’s first 100 days in office. Not surprisingly, the liberal slant of PBS had generated a rather rosy picture, and so to offer some balance, she interviewed an unabashed young supporter of George W. Bush. He said, “I don’t trust the government to solve the nation’s problems. The government should just get out of the way and let the American people do what they do best. I trust the American people.” He actually sounded like Ronald Reagan. If his words are taken at face value, the stupidity of what he said is simply unbearable. Bernie Madoff is an American person. Trustworthy? Not on your life. And all those CEO tycoons of Citigroup and AIG— along with the other American people on Wall Street who devised subprime loans and credit default swaps— presumably these are the American people we should trust to solve our economic problems. There are more than 13 million American people currently unemployed and looking desperately for a job. I wonder if they would like for the government to just get out of the way and let them pull themselves up by their bootstraps. I doubt it.

It all comes down to this— conservatism today is nothing more than a systematized nostalgia for the 1980s of Ronald Reagan. Back then, conservatism worked. We had a clear enemy, The Soviet Union, so Reagan could denounce big government and get away with it because he could create millions of jobs by pouring billions of dollars into the military budget for defense projects. News flash to Reagan conservatives— the government and the military are the same thing.

In Reagan’s 1980s, America still had the world’s largest manufacturing base for durable goods. Not so anymore. In the 1980s, Islamic fundamentalism and global warming and the outsourcing of jobs to foreign countries— all these problems were off the radar screen. The 401K was only invented in 1982, so almost all American jobs offered the potential for a retirement income as a fringe benefit. As a result, only a comparatively few people were heavily invested in the stock market, and for the most part these were wealthy people who actually knew what they were doing when it came to finance. And as for China— the word that best described China in the 1980s was “quaint.”

This is the world that modern conservatives want to recreate. I, too, yearn for those days, and if the world could go back to the way it was then, I would be a conservative Republican in a heartbeat. But things change, and the days of Reagan are as gone as Hugh Hefner’s virginity. Modern conservatism is best defined by its champions. There are the raving egomaniacs like Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter who are easily dismissed, but there are also reasoned, brilliant men like George Will and David Brooks. I personally admire George Will and David Brooks, but with all due respect to these men, I personally believe that conservatism today is mostly for the weak minded and the overly nostalgic. It’s sad to watch an elephant die.

The Secret Is Out. CO2 Levels Were Even Higher In The Past.

At the Conference on World Affairs we were treated to a two hour lecture from Jim Hansen of NASA, considered by many to be the world’s leading expert on climate change. For those unfamiliar with his status in the intellectual community, Hansen is the guy who went to the New York Times four years ago and blew the whistle on a twenty-something political flunky with no college education who had been installed by the Bush administration in NASA to censor press releases and silence any reference to global warming. The terms “icon” and “hero” applied to Jim Hansen are insufficient descriptions of his status in the scientific community.

The good news for Rush Limbaugh and the conservative Evangelical Christians is that they are correct with their claim that CO2 levels fluctuate over time, and that the CO2 levels have been even higher in the past. They’re right (no pun intended). Hansen’s research shows that 10 million years ago, the CO2 level was 450 ppm (parts per million) because the subcontinent of India was starting to plow into Asia and push up the Himalayan mountain chain. This, in turn, unleashed intense volcanic activity around the Pacific rim, and volcanoes are a main source of CO2 emissions. Limbaugh and the Evangelical Christians are right about that, too.

Here’s the bad news. 10 million years ago, that 450 ppm CO2 level made the earth totally free of ice, and sea level was 350 feet higher than it is now. Currently, our atmosphere contains 385 ppm of CO2, and it has climbed from 325 ppm in the last century. Based on that rate of CO2 level climb, in another hundred years the earth can, once again, be ice free and sea level can be 350 feet higher. Of the earth’s 6.5 billion people, 4 billion of them live within a zone lower than 350 feet above current sea level.

Jim Hansen wants us to go down to a level of CO2 somewhere between 325 ppm and 350 ppm. The alternative is unthinkable. Of course, by the time the unthinkable happens, Rush Limbaugh will be dead, and the Evangelical Christians will be looking at the end times which they actually want.

Conference on World Affairs

This year’s international Conference on World Affairs was, by far, the best in the last decade, perhaps because so little time needed to be devoted to Bush and Cheney. Subjects covered ran the gamut— global warming, Charles Darwin, black holes in space, Islamophobia, economic meltdown, the demise of newspapers, Rush Limbaugh, dark energy discoveries in the universe, breast cancer, American education, terrorism, international traffic in sex slavery, Mexican drug wars, and the political danger of misunderestimating the Republicans. In the next couple of weeks I’ll be summarizing many of the best ideas that I picked up from this amazing annual gathering of intellectuals.

One of the highlights was a lecture by Bill Reinert, national head of advanced technology for Toyota. His subject, of course, was the auto industry, and his talk can be summarized in three numbers— 17 million, 14 million, and 8.5 million. Last year the global auto industry produced 17 million cars. After the latest round of cutbacks, the global auto industry now has the capacity to produce 14 million cars per year. This year, the global auto industry is on track to sell 8.5 million cars. Do the math. More than any other single element, it’s overcapacity which most frightens auto industry leaders. There are currently 16 auto companies building cars around the world, and Bill Reinert’s educated prediction was that, when the economic crisis has passed, there will be 6 auto conglomerates left to supply the car industry. Don’t look for GM and Chrysler to be among them.

Iowa Sets an Example for Other States

I fell in love with Iowa 35 years ago when I married a girl from that state. When the Iowa caucus came along to take its place as a keystone in the American political process, the idea made perfect sense to me. Iowa has conservatives, but they’re not like the red meat conservatives that tune in on Rush Limbaugh via radio stations down in Dixie. Iowa has its share of liberals, too, but they’re different from the liberals in Northern California and Boulder, Colorado. And the Christians in Iowa— and there are plenty of them—are nothing like the rabid fundamentalists who attend the mega churches in Texas and Colorado Springs. The thing about the people in Iowa is that they have a real authenticity about them. They seem to avoid becoming caricatures, and most of them will go to any lengths to avoid slipping into extravagance and excess. They’re the real deal.

That’s why it seemed so significant to me this week when gay marriage was legalized in the state of Iowa. This place, which is so typical of something we imagine to be “mainstream” America, has proclaimed to the world that anti-gay bias is the last great bigotry which needs to be erased from our culture.

Why Anti-Capitalism is a Good Thing

Wars are fought with more than just guns and bombs. In addition to these tried and true instruments of destruction, economic and financial “meddling” to disrupt an enemy economy has always been recognized as another effective lethal weapon. During WWII, European countries on both sides of the conflict flooded each other with counterfeit money to devalue the currency of the opposing side. In the late 1980s, toward the end of the Cold War and after the early ascendency of computers, all Pentagon WWIII war gaming included plans to hack into the Soviet computers which controlled the Soviet economy. Even today, as we’ve chased down Al Quaeda enemies following 9/11, a major part of our anti-terrorist strategy has been to go after their funding. And now we’re dealing with the fallout of destruction caused by a relatively small number— fewer than 20,000— Wall Street insiders who put personal enrichment above loyalty to country or old-fashioned American patriotism. What these people did in the name of American capitalism was nothing less than an act of war, and if these guys had been foreign nationals, then a proper response by our government would have been to bomb the capital of their host country into oblivion.

I contend that the “financial products” bombs that have been dropped on America by Wall Street have caused broader and deeper misery across the nation than the death and destruction of 9/11. Any system can go too far in a negative direction, and capitalism is not immune to this, and right now American capitalism has gone too far and it’s more of an enemy than a friend. Yesterday, Rush Limbaugh was on a rant in defense of capitalism, accusing President Obama of trying to dismantle capitalism. With his $400 million dollar bankroll, Limbaugh can be counted on to be on the wrong side of any economic issue, and yesterday was no exception. If Obama is anti-capitalism at the present time, that’s a good thing— at least until the economy is fixed. Right now, the capitalists are America’s enemy.

A Poster Icon for American Stupidity

I thought about weighing in on the current controversy surrounding Rush Limbaugh, but why bother? Thinking and writing about Rush is like wrestling with a pig— it makes me feel tired and dirty, and the pig likes it. He thrives on criticism. And here’s the sad and terrible thing about Limbaugh— he will never go away. Even after he dies, dittoheads will experience Limbaugh “sightings” in the same way that believers do with Elvis and The Virgin Mary.

The dittoheads don’t seem to realize that their hero is really just a comedian, like Jon Stewart, but without any sense of humor or appreciation of the comedy in the absurd, and for this reason I was going to nominate the average, cross-sectional dittohead as the iconic poster person for American stupidity. But then along came Nadya Suleman and Sandra Herold.

For those unfamiliar with these two names, Nadya Suleman is known as the “octomom.” Her claim to fame is that she expects society to pay the million-dollar medical bill for delivering her fatherless and ultimately-doomed octuplets which she brought into the world because she damn well felt like it. If that seems to qualify as stupid, Sandra Herold’s story is even worse. Her pet 200-pound male chimpanzee chewed the hands and face off a lady friend of Sandra Herold, literally eating her alive because she was perceived as a threat in a sex triangle. Sandra had taught the chimp to shower with her and sleep with her, and presumably share a cigarette after it was all over.

For most of a million years, human beings have practiced heterosex and homosex and procreation in a way that’s remained pretty much unchanged over time, and everybody seemed okay with that status quo until these two head-case women came along to prove that in 21st Century America, there is no limit to what stupid people can do.

Consumerism vs. Sufficiency

Advice from Rush Limbaugh about finance and economics is like advice from Hugh Hefner about dating, especially now that Limbaugh has a network deal that will pay him $400 million over the next few years. To put it mildly, he’s not hurting one damn bit, but that doesn’t keep him from trying to identify with his listeners when it comes to hard times. For those who don’t know, Rush is on board with the Republicans, pushing tax cuts as a way to save the nation from another depression.

I, myself, have absolutely no expertise in finance, economics, or business, but I am an expert on frugality. You often see those bumper stickers on ancient VW minibuses or old Volvos— they say, “Simplify,” and while I don’t display such a bumper sticker, I do support the sentiment wholeheartedly. I have my own opinion about the depression based only on what I see and read. I believe that it will get very bad and stay very bad for a very long time, and I believe that most people in government share this view but are prevented by political considerations from ever saying what they actually know in their hearts. The Democrats will get their massive spending, and the Republicans will be denied the pork reductions and bigger tax cuts which they want, and none of this will work the way it’s intended because the thing is so overwhelming that it’s like trying to shoot a housefly with a gun from 50 feet away. It doesn’t matter if you decide between using a rifle or a shotgun.

The people who survived the 1930s, and that includes the 75% who DIDN’T ever lose their jobs, were never able to part with hard-earned money as easily as the generations that came after them. I believe that as we go forward from this current depression, all of us will become experts on sufficiency, and less concerned with consumerism. That probably doesn’t apply to Rush Limbaugh, however.

Limbaugh says, “Compromise is Just for Gutless Liberals.”

Here’s the deal. America can cast its lot with Barack Obama or Rush Limbaugh. It’s one or the other. Everyone reading this blog knows Obama, but for anyone who is unfamiliar with Limbaugh, they need to tune in by radio for three hours each day where this onetime Missouri hillbilly pontificates on everything from politics to health issues to societal trends— armed, intellectually, with nothing but his own uneducated opinion and bias. A few years ago, during the Terri Schiavo episode, Limbaugh even became a self-proclaimed expert on neuro-biology. Here’s why knowing about Limbaugh is important— Republicans buy into what he says. When you understand Limbaugh, you understand the poverty of Republican conservative ideology. And here’s why that’s important—Republicans are standing in the way of the government’s feeble attempt to fix the broken economy.

The economy is declining into uncharted territory, something akin to entering a black hole. Lessons learned during the 1930s don’t apply today because America, back then, was a manufacturing economy, and today it’s a service economy. The fact is that nobody— not even Nobel Prize-winning economists like Paul Krugman and Joseph Stiglitz—knows what will work to turn things around. The Democrats think the stimulus infusion should be massive government spending, but they don’t really know if that will work. The Republicans think there should be plenty of tax cuts, but they, also, don’t know if that will work. History is of no help, here. Under Bush we had both tax cuts and massive spending, and the result was our current mess, and there’s no way of knowing if things would have been different had Bush left out one or the other. As of right now, the stimulus infusion is stalled because Republicans are insisting on tax cuts, and Limbaugh is telling them that, “compromise is just for gutless Liberals.” Meanwhile, Obama still wants compromise. Obama or Limbaugh, It’s one or the other.

Media Bias— Is It Real?

As January 20th approaches, the Right Wing radio ayatollahs are even more fanatic and livid than they were on election night. It’s not so much Limbaugh and Hannity who are seething as it is the local Conservative Rush wannabes that bombard their listeners in every large urban market outside of Oregon and New England. Having failed to gain traction with the Antichrist and the born-in-Kenya accusations against Obama, these modern-day Father Coughlins are now obsessed with the notion that Obama was elected only because of Liberal media bias. It’s inconceivable to them that the majority of the American people rejected the Conservative position based on fact rather than misinformation. Here’s my question. What— exactly— is their notion of media bias?

The Katy Couric interviews with Sarah Palin got a lot of television time, and the fact is that Palin’s performance was not digitally altered. What TV viewers saw was reality. Palin suffered greatly for her pathetic attempt to look well-informed, but the same can be said for Caroline Kennedy now that it’s her turn on the target end of the turkey shoot. Palin is Conservative and Kennedy is Liberal, so where’s the bias? Was Jon Stewart considered a media guy or a comedian? Was SNL parody considered media coverage? I would suggest that these comedy outlets lack any kind of political bias, and before the election they went after the candidates based on how ridiculous the candidates looked. I’ve always said that Conservatives just don’t do well with humor.

As for George W. Bush, the worst (and in my opinion, the truest) thing ever said about him didn’t come from the media. “Bush,” it was said, “Is like a combination of the Tin Man, and the Scarecrow, and the Lion in the Wizard of OZ. He has no heart, and no brain, and no courage.” The man who said this was John McCain in the 2000 primary election. McCain isn’t exactly a media mouthpiece.

Democracy depends on having the losing side in an election accept defeat. The Conservatives need to get over themselves.

“Barack the Magic Negro”— Is it Lighthearted Political Parody?

Conservative comedian, Paul Shanklin, perpetual water boy for Rush Limbaugh wrote a little ditty titled, “Barack the Magic Negro,” (set to the tune of “Puff, the Magic Dragon”) and fed it to the insatiable Right Wing comedy machine just in time for Christmas. Republican apologists immediately dismissed this as lighthearted political parody. In the past, Conservative Christians (a group renowned for mirth and merriment) have showcased their taste in humor with side-splitting, knee-slapper parodies like “Mission Accomplished,” fun and games at Abu Ghraib, and “You’re doin’ a heckuva job, Brownie.” Additionally, the candidacy of Sarah Palin erased, once and for all, the notion that Republican Conservative Christians are not ardent jokesters. The Shanklin parody, we are told, is just another lighthearted joke.

Paul Shanklin dropped his donation into the lap of Rush Limbaugh at an awkward time. The entire nation was freezing in some of the deepest cold in memory, and Limbaugh was using this inordinately bitter weather to disprove global warming. If that wasn’t enough, Liberal Caroline Kennedy was seeking Liberal Hillary’s vacant Senate seat. Limbaugh’s plate was already piled high with red meat. Nevertheless, he found time to have a little fun with the so-called parody.

Chip Saltsman heard the parody and decided to give out CDs containing the tune for Christmas stocking stuffers. For those unfamiliar with Chip Saltsman, his credentials as a first-class joke promoter were established when he ran Mike Huckabee’s Presidential primary campaign. Evidently, the only Right Wing honcho who lacks a sense of humor is the RNC Chairman, Mike Duncan. Duncan denounced the parody, and already Christian Conservatives are wondering if he might not be a closet Liberal.

You can tell from reading this that I’ve had a lot of fun writing it, but I’d like to shift gears and move away from this delightful sarcasm. The truth is that Christian Conservative Republicans are not lighthearted in the least, and they’re deadly serious about their bigotry and their ideology. When they delight in a song about a negro, there’s nothing humorous or innocent or cute about it.

It's Now Official

It’s now official. Yesterday, the members of the Electoral College met inside the 50 statehouses around the U.S.A. to certify the results of the November 4th election. This is a routine procedure that takes place every four years, and yesterday the event was remarkable only for what DIDN’T happen. The electors didn’t hesitate in the least.

For the last five weeks, the legislators who make up the Electoral College have been besieged with mail urging them not to ratify the election of Obama, on the basis that he was allegedly born in Kenya and is, therefore, ineligible to hold the office of President (see my blog of 11/11). This mail was generated by “the usual suspects”— those members of the political fringe who always think they have the inside track to the truth because they’re tuned into the voice of God, or the EIB network, or short wave radio. On one of last Sunday morning’s political talk shows, a pundit completely astonished me by giving a name to this fringe element, calling it “the Palin, Hannity, Limbaugh crowd.” Those of us who rant in the realm of blogs can get away with labels like this, but I never imagined that a mainstream TV talking head would utter such a phrase. If the fringe can actually be marginalized, maybe there’s hope for national unity, after all.

See also: Was Obama Born In Kenya? (11/11)

The Economy Is Just Fine?

Yesterday I wrote a piece that was conciliatory toward the Right, but if you read this blog routinely, you knew that would never last. My question for today is this. If your ideology helped lead the nation to totally needless war and national bankruptcy, and then the vast majority of the American people turned against your position, how do you keep going in the Right direction? I guess that depends on who you are.

If you’re Ann Coulter you probably make the decision to put a nude picture of yourself on the cover of your next book. Even liberals will go along with that. If you’re Charles Krauthammer you hope that people will give you a break because you’re in a wheelchair, and maybe they’ll even think that you’re as smart as Stephen Hawking. If you’re Sean Hannity or Bill O’Reilly you don’t need to worry about the future of your career because you’re on FOX, and FOX is to journalism what Mae West was to romance and sexual intimacy. And finally, if you’re Rush Limbaugh you just keep doing the same old thing because your fans expect nothing different.

According to Rush Limbaugh, the economy is just fine, and all the hype about doom and gloom is just scare tactics coming from the “liberal elite media.” This exactly matches his analysis on global warming which he believes is also a liberal myth. It’s easy for Limbaugh to come to this conclusion since— for him— the economy really IS just fine. Earlier this year, he signed a contract for 400 million dollars to stay on the radio a while longer. That’s more than the combined pay for the CEOs of GM, Ford, and Chrysler, and their institutions actually make a tangible product. For you “dittoheads” out there, bullshit is only metaphorical and can’t be considered a tangible product.

The demographic profile for Rush listeners includes a great many people who fall into the categories that are being hit hard by layoffs and foreclosures. I wonder how these people feel when they tune into the EIB network and hear their oracle tell them that the economy is just fine.

Maybe We Can All Make Nice

Last night, at a nationally televised awards ceremony, George W. Bush gave Barbra Streisand a very public smooch on her (right) cheek. Ms. Streisand did NOT recoil in horror, and this sent the subtle message that maybe now is the time for the Left and the Right to bury their differences. As a hardcore Lefty, I would now like to make some concessions of my own to my friends on the Right, and I do this in the spirit of reconciliation. Yes, I do have friends on the Right.

1. In retrospect, Jesse Jackson would have been a terrible choice to be a first black president.
2. Listening to NPR will not, automatically, make you intelligent, and listening to Rush Limbaugh will not, automatically, make you stupid. Those things happen, but they’re not automatic.
3. The fact that the concept of democracy was hijacked by the Neo Cons does not diminish the fact that democracy is still a pretty good system.
4. Labor unions are dysfunctional at best, and destructive at worst. The average UAW member with a high school education earns twice what the average university professor earns with a Ph.D. That situation is just plain nuts.
5. The worst patriotic song ever written will still be a more interesting piece of music than “Hey Jude” by The Beatles.

There! Now that I’ve gotten that off my chest, maybe we can all make nice.

Why Some Of Us Voted Against Our Own Self-Interest

Growing up in the 1950s, I was aware of a group of adults who were known as “The Country Club Set.” For the most part they were college educated, working at very high paying jobs, and they always voted Republican. They were the opposite of the poor blue-collar working class, and while my father toiled within this latter group and never belonged to a country club, he nevertheless always identified with the upper strata of society, probably because he was very intelligent. Intelligence seemed to be another quality of the Country Club Set, at least to the uninformed mind of a child in the 1950s, and for that reason I wanted to grow up and be a member of that group. Last Tuesday, the Country Club Set did an amazing thing. They voted for a man who will deliberately raise their taxes, probably by quite a lot. Understanding why these people voted against their own financial self-interest by switching their vote from Republican to Democrat is the key to understanding why the Republicans are in deep trouble.

Now that the election is over, the media pundits have been unusually candid and free in using the word, “incompetent,” to describe the Bush administration, although they are still reticent to use the other appropriate adjective, “stupid.” Whether or not the Country Club Set is truly intelligent I can’t say, but I do know that they understood at some gut level that the Bush incompetence was directly caused by his fundamental personal stupidity. I can say this since I’m not an official pundit, and speaking for myself, I can also say that it would be difficult to overstate the sheer dreariness and embarrassment of living for eight years in a nation governed by a globally-recognized fool. I don’t speak for the Country Club Set, but I myself finally came to the point when I wanted smart, intelligent governance more than I wanted governance which would be financially advantageous to me. The other alternative was to pick up and move to the Cayman Islands.

This discussion about intelligence leads back to the Republican Party. In the GOP, the Country Club Set was, until the last election, one of the two fundamental “base” groups that could always be counted on to pull the “R” lever. The other GOP base group has always consisted of those who are content to let James Dobson define the Word of God for them, and let Rush Limbaugh explain the Constitution as well as everything else. It was this latter group that was appeased by the pick of Sarah Palin, and was made to feel especially comfortable with the realization that she could never make them seem intellectually inferior. She was, after all, one of them, and it was good riddance to those intellectuals who were driven away by just her wink and a smile. The Republicans are now openly predicting that Palin will be a major force in their party in 2012, and this sends the message that the GOP is casting their lot with the dittoheads who tune in the EIB on radio stations down there below the Mason Dixon Line. I just can’t see this having much appeal for the rest of us, especially after we have four years to see a glow of grace and intellect in the White House.

Republican Conservatism — What Happened?

In 1994, when the Republicans swept into majority positions in the House and Senate, it seemed that a long-awaited Republican conservative era of dominance was at hand, and that it might last for a very long time. Back then, I hoped that such a scenario was actually the case. Back then, I listened to Rush Limbaugh. I admit that now with some degree of shame.

2008, by all accounts, promises to be a bloodbath for the Republican Party, and I fervently hope that’s the case. Needless to say, I no longer listen to Rush Limbaugh, and here’s the reason why. Somewhere in the early part of the 21st century, I realized that when I listened to Limbaugh for 3 hours, it made me feel stupid for doing it. Rush Limbaugh claims that his listeners are more informed politically than those who listen to NPR. He’s probably right, in much the same way that pure carnivores eat more red meat than those who eat a balanced diet. NPR listeners spend part of their time learning about things like foreign news and European politics and (dare I say it?) scientific discovery. In Limbaugh’s mind, how can that compete with the ranting of a man who professes to have one half of his brain tied behind him?

Which brings me to the question— if Republican conservatism was such a big deal, then how come it lasted for a measly 14 years? I think I have a five word answer: Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity. These two clowns have done more for Democratic Liberalism than all the Al Sharptons and Jessie Jacksons that ever graced then ranks of the Democrat Party. Limbaugh and Hannity have given a face to ideological fanaticism. It’s the fanaticism of Republican conservatism, but it could just as easily have been the face of fanatic socialism. They have reminded Americans why we’re not a Fascist nation. It’s because we just don’t like Fascists, but more than that, we just don’t like fanatics. In two weeks, The Republican Party gets to pay the price for having the wrong people on their team.

What Happened To Uncle Sam?

Those of us who look at The United States through cynical and realistic eyes have known for a dozen years or more that the U.S. government had both the willingness and the capability to bring down our nation. What we didn’t know, until the last two weeks, was that our government could pretty much destroy the whole world as well. I’m not talking about unleashing our nukes. I’m talking about exporting financial dysfunctionality and economic stupidity on a scale never before seen on the planet.

Bright people saw it coming. In a NY Times editorial two weeks ago, Paul Krugman described The United States as a “Banana Republic with nukes.” Like most of what Paul Krugman says, his words were attacked by the usual Bush apologists (BillO’Reilly, Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh) as NY Times liberalism. Then, yesterday, Paul Krugman won the Nobel Prize for economics, and for most of us this validated what we’ve always suspected about Krugman—that he knows what he’s talking about. The Bush-loving conservatives, however, are now saying that the Nobel Prize selection committee is just another egghead group dominated by liberals.

All of this brings me to a caricature poster that I saw over the past weekend. The image on the poster was a rendering of a naked man, and sitting on top of the shoulders was the head of Uncle Sam with his Lincolnesque gray beard, and his red, white and blue top hat. The implication of the cartoon image was that Uncle Sam has become the emperor with no clothes. This made me realize that we just never see Uncle Sam anymore. You would think that, with an all volunteer military, we might see the old familiar image of the bearded man pointing his finger out from the poster and declaring, “Uncle Sam Wants You.” But we never see that anymore, and I think I know why. I asked myself whether Uncle Sam represented a liberal, or a conservative. My answer was that he represented neither. He represented the government at a time when such ideological divisions—if they existed at all—were not the dominant features of the political landscape. Those days are gone.

Now that we have a Banana Republic with nukes, maybe we need a new personification of our dysfunctional and ideologically-divided government, and I can’t think of anything better than the caricature of naked Uncle Sam wearing nothing but his top hat.

Petroleum Science 101

There’s a political TV ad running in Colorado right now, and it claims that there’s more oil under the Colorado mountains than under the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. As Jack Parr used to say, “I kid you not.” Actually, this is more of a half truth than a falsehood. The deception lies in the fact that there’s such a thing as oil—and then there’s OIL. The stuff under the Arabian peninsula is called, “sweet crude.” It’s pure petroleum, and it’s in liquid form. The stuff under the Colorado mountains is called, “oil shale.” It’s petroleum that’s locked into solid rock layers. There’s lots of it, but here’s the deception, the oil needs huge amounts of water and heat to be released from the rock. Colorado, despite its winter snowpack, is a desert environment. There simply is not enough water available to unlock the oil from the oil shale in quantities that would be significant. The required electricity to generate the heat is also in short supply, so the oil is “there,” but unavailable. Petroleum industry honchos aren’t stupid people. They wouldn’t have spent the last half-century investing in petroleum infrastructure on the other side of the planet if their product needs could be met right here in this country (see my blog 7/28). Most of the political rhetoric about unlocking domestic oil sources seems to ignore this basic fact.

Everything about the global energy problem involves possible solutions that are deeply rooted in science and engineering, and thanks to the Christian Right’s influence working through the Bush administration, science has been crippled in the United States during the last eight years. Only 18% of our high school students study any kind of science, and the majority of the world’s scientists and engineers are no longer working in this country. By following influencers like Dobson and Limbaugh, a nation can’t let a fanatic religious and ideological fringe take it back to the Dark Ages, and then expect to face the challenges of the 21st Century with scientific enlightenment. We’re either going to be medieval, or we’re not, and we can’t have it both ways,

Also see: $4.00 Gas—Soon A Cause For Nostalgia