The Misdirected Anger of the Tea Party

or The Myth of Conservative Republican Fiscal Responsibility

There are all kinds of things that I hear on the political front that, frankly, I get tired of hearing. When I get tired enough of a mantra, I get the itch to start looking up things that will either substantiate or refute the rhetoric.

One of the things that has troubled me has been the assertion that Conservative Republicans are "fiscally responsible" while Liberal Democrats only want to "tax and spend". Its a mantra that's repeated often but, rarely is any proof offered in the discussion. I thought I'd look up the numbers. Numbers are great. They have sources that we can all refer to so that we're all singing from the same sheet, so to speak.

It struck me that the mounting National Debt (as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product) might be a good measure of overall fiscal responsibility. If we're being responsible, then logically the National Debt %GDP should be decreasing during a given administration. On the other hand, if we're being irresponsible that number should be on the rise ... that is to say, as it goes down, we're living more within our means. If it is increasing, we are borrowing and mortgaging the future of the country and of future generations. So, who has done their part to see that we're at least trying to live within our means and who has been on a spending spree?

Conventional wisdom would have it that Republican administrations, being fiscally responsible, would be the administrations that reduced our collective indebtedness while Democrats, who we all KNOW only want to "tax and spend" would be the ones who are increasing our overall debt.

The surprise is that the numbers don't support that proposition.

The graph below outlines which administrations lowered the national Debt as a percentage of GDP and which increased it relative to the previous administration. The Blue columns represent Democrat (sic) administrations between the end of World War Two (1945) and 2009. The Red columns represent Republican administrations.



The pattern becomes clear when you draw a picture of it! Every single Democrat (sic) administration since the Second World War has managed to decrease the National Debt as a percent of GDP while every Republican administration since Nixon's second term (1973-1977) has managed to raise our level of indebtedness - not just by a little - in most cases by a lot - while at the same time telling us they know how to manage money! Sort of like pissing on your head and telling you that its only raining out!

Now, the Tea Party is angry ... and they have every cause to be angry. We're in deep du-du and there's no easy way out. They're angry about the state of our indebtedness. They're angry that they have to pay taxes (though the ones who seem most angry seem to be the ones who pay the least). They're angry at Democrats because they've been told, ever since Reagan, that Democrats "tax and spend" ... and they're gullible enough to believe it without checking the numbers. They're angry with government because they've been told, ever since Reagan, that "government isn't the solution. Government is the problem!" And they've believed it ... without bothering to check the facts.

If they looked at the facts ... where the national financial problems originated ... they would be taring and feathering Republicans instead of inviting them to their rallys. If anyone is responsible for the current debt situation (touted by Republicans as something on the order of $100,000 per household, at this point) its Republicans! Their ideas about "free enterprise" ... which, as a result of their ideas of deregulation is really a free-for-all bordering on piracy have almost sunk our banking industry and have driven the nation into a deep recession.

Then they say that they know how to create jobs. So, I looked at the numbers ... because it seemed to me that when people are unemployed cutting their taxes dose nothing to put food on their tables. I looked at the Jobs Created numbers to see who, historically, might have a better idea of how to create jobs ... because the only way out of this mess is for us to earn our way out ... and the only way to earn our way out is if people - real, everyday people - have jobs.



Again, the Blue columns represent Democrat (sic) administrations while the Red columns represent Republican administrations. You spend a little time studying the chart and figuring out who might have a better idea about creating jobs, how to do it and what it takes! I won't even bother to give you a hint.

The State of the Union will be a little different this year ...

... or watch the video on HuffPo after the click.

Problem of evil and religion's double standard

Daniel C. Dennett in The Washington Post

"One of the striking differences between modern, "organized" religion and tribal or folk religions--religions without seminaries and theologians and official books--is that in tribal religions they have no double standard! They thank their gods for the good stuff that happens and blame them for the bad. The idea that God is a worthy recipient of our gratitude for the blessings of life but should not be held accountable for the disasters is a transparently disingenuous innovation of the theologians. And of course it doesn't work all that well. The Problem of Evil, capital letters and all, is the central enigma confronting theists. There is no solution. Isn't that obvious? All the holy texts and interpretations that contrive ways of getting around the problem read like the fine print in a fraudulent contract--and for the same reason: they are desperate attempts to conceal the implications of the double standard they have invented."

Read more in The Washington Post after the click ...

A Fault Is Not a Sin

It's idiotic to blame anything other than geology for the Haitian earthquake.

On Nov. 1, 1755—the feast of All Saint's Day—a terrifying combination of earthquake and tsunami shattered the Portuguese capital city of Lisbon. Numerous major churches were destroyed and many devout worshippers along with them. This cataclysmic event was a spur to two great enterprises: the European Enlightenment and the development of seismology. Voltaire and Jean-Jacques Rousseau were only some of those who reasoned that no thinkable deity could have desired or ordained the obliteration of Catholic Lisbon, while other thinkers—Immanuel Kant among them—began to inquire into the possible natural causes of such events.

Today, we can clearly identify the "fault" that runs under the Atlantic Ocean and still puts Portugal and other countries at risk, and it took only a few more generations before there was a workable theory of continental drift. We live on a cooling planet with a volcanic interior that is insecurely coated with a thin crust of grinding tectonic plates. Earthquakes and tsunamis are to be expected and can even to some degree be anticipated. It's idiotic to ask whose fault it is. The Earth's thin shell was quaking and cracking millions of years before human sinners evolved, and it will still be wrenched and convulsed long after we are gone. These geological dislocations have no human-behavioral cause. The believers should relax; no educated person is going to ask their numerous gods "why" such disasters occur. A fault is not the same as a sin.

More on Slate after the click.

Experts Concerned About Backward Jesus Fishes

Experts on Christianity have become increasingly alarmed about reversed car Jesus fishes, an accidental plague threatening the very ideals the fish represent. Thousands of Americans choose to put the famous fishes on their cars to express their Christian beliefs, but many fail to attach them in the proper, left-facing manner.

“This common mistake is a hazard to us all,” said Rev. Billy Graham, a world-renowned preacher. “Thousands are inadvertently displaying a symbol of Satanism on their cars.”

The backward, right-pointing fishes are thought to encourage evil among the owners of the plaques and those who view them in traffic. Perhaps the most frightening point is that most of those with backward fishes don't even realize they are Satanists, nor that they are infecting the country with anti-Christian symbolism.

... read it all after the click.

(spacial thinks to MM for passing this one along)

I Am Woman, Hear Me Roar

While the C-5 was turning over its engines, a female crewman gave the G.I.s on board the usual information regarding seat belts, emergency exits, etc.



Finally, she said, 'Now sit back and enjoy your trip while your captain, Judith Campbell, and crew take you safely to Afghanistan '

An old MSgt. sitting in the eighth row thought to himself, 'Did I hear her right? Is the captain a woman'

When the attendant came by he said 'Did I understand you right? Is the captain a woman?'

'Yes,'! said the attendant, 'In fact, this entire crew is female.'



'My God,' he said, 'I wish I had two double scotch and sodas. I don't know what to think with only women up there in the cockpit.'

'That's another thing, Sergeant,' said the crew member, 'We no longer call it the cockpit ... it's the box office.'

Quote of the day:

'Whatever you give a woman, she will make greater. If you give her sperm, she'll give you a baby. If you give her a house, she'll give you a home. If you give her groceries, she'll give you a meal. If you give her a smile, she'll give you her heart. She multiplies and enlarges what is given to her. So, if you give her any crap, be ready to receive a ton of shit.'

(With special thanks to mh for sending this one along.)

More: Why Republicans Can't Govern (Part III)

from The Washington Post

So, let's review a little history:

The day the Bush administration took over from President Bill Clinton in 2001, America enjoyed a $236 billion budget surplus -- with a projected 10-year surplus of $5.6 trillion. When the Bush administration left office, it handed President Obama a $1.3 trillion deficit -- and projected shortfalls of $8 trillion for the next decade. During eight years in office, the Bush administration passed two major tax cuts skewed to the wealthiest Americans, enacted a costly Medicare prescription-drug benefit and waged two wars, without paying for any of it.

To put the breathtaking scope of this irresponsibility in perspective, the Bush administration's swing from surpluses to deficits added more debt in its eight years than all the previous administrations in the history of our republic combined. And its spending spree is the unwelcome gift that keeps on giving: Going forward, these unpaid-for policies will continue to add trillions to our deficit.

This fiscal irresponsibility -- and a laissez-faire attitude toward the excesses of the financial industry -- helped create the conditions for the deepest economic catastrophe since the Great Depression. Economists across the political spectrum agreed that to deal with this crisis and avoid a second Great Depression, the government had to make significant investments to keep our economy going and shore up our financial system.

(emphasis added)

Read the full piece in The Washington Post after the click ...

Haiti, a brief history

When I was living in upstate NY in the 70s, I owned a frame shop and gallery. One of my customers was a former USAID worker - her husband was a former Haitian consulate officer. They beat it out of Haiti a couple hours before Papa Doc's thugs, the Tonton Macoutes, arrived at their home in Haiti with submachine guns and burned it to the ground.

One of the few possessions she she was able to bring from Haiti was a pane of glass from one of the windows in their home that her husband had engraved with an original poem he'd written for her.

My friend, Eva, through her contacts in Haiti, brought paintings by Haitian folk artists into the US. We framed them, she showed them and, when they sold, she sent the profits back to Haiti. She grew and sold the most beautiful shallots in her garden in the hills of upstate New York, too - those profits went back to Haiti as well.

When the people Haiti prevailed in the only successful slave revolt in history, they were forced to pay reparations to France for their independence. The reparations were draconian and, eventually Haiti began to default on payments. A number of countries came to the rescue ... with high interest loans, high enough that for a time Haiti was making loan payments equal to fully 80% of the nations GDP.

And then there were François "Papa Doc" Duvalier and his son, Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier, Haiti's "Presidents for Life" who raped what was left of the nations treasures and killed it's people with impunity ... kept in power by their secret police, the Tonton Macoutes. But they were vigorously anti-communist, a factor that, in the time of Castro, allowed American foreign policy to turn a blind eye to the plight of the Haitian people.

From Wikipedia:

In December 1990, the former priest Jean-Bertrand Aristide won the election by more than two thirds of the vote. His mandate began on 7 February 1991. In August 1991, Jean-Bertrand Aristide's government faced a non-confidence vote within the Haitian Chamber of Deputies and Senate. Eighty three voted against him, while only 11 members voted in support of Aristide's government. Following a coup d'etat in September 1991, President Aristide was flown into exile. In accordance with Article 149 of Haiti's Constitution of 1987, Supreme Court Justice Joseph Nerette was named Provisional President and elections were called for December 1991. These were blocked by the international community and the resulting chaos extended into 1994.

In 1994, Haitian General Raoul Cédras asked former U.S. President Jimmy Carter to help avoid a U.S. military invasion of Haiti. President Carter relayed this information to President Clinton, who asked Carter, in his role as founder of The Carter Center, to undertake a mission to Haiti with Senator Sam Nunn, D-GA, and former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Colin Powell. The team successfully negotiated the departure of Haiti's military leaders and the peaceful entry of U.S. forces under Operation Uphold Democracy, paving the way for the restoration of Jean-Bertrand Aristide as president. Aristide left the presidency in 1995.

In the over two centuries of Haiti's independence there has hardly been a day the country hasn't been subjected to the international or domestic plunder of its resources. The current crisis is only the latest and most visible disaster in their history.

For a more detailed history of Haiti between 1990 and the present, click here.

From American foreign policy point of view, Haiti has only two small problems. 1.) The people are black and 2.) they don't have any oil. From that policy standpoint, if they could only overcome those two small problems, we'd be more than happy to be supportive in normal times. But, until then ....

My friend Eva and her husband passed away many years ago, but I will always remember them, the paintings .... and the shallots.

Allen Grayson (D-FL) sums it up nicely

(from the floor of the House - responding to Rudy Gu911iani's memory lapse stating that there were no terrorist attacks during the Bush administration.)



And I realized that I was witnessing the birth of a new form of political discourse from the right wing in this country: The Exception. The Exceptional Exception -- the exception that proves the rule or disproves the rule, as the case may be.

So in the future I'm expecting that we'll hear from the right wing the claim that no cities drowned under the Bush administration -- except for New Orleans. And that there were no wars that were started by mistake under the Bush administration -- except for the war in Iraq. And that the Bush administration added nothing to the federal debt -- except for a half-trillion dollars, which works out to $15,000 for every man, woman and child in this country. And that they respected all of our constitutional rights as Americans -- except when they didn't.

I think we'll hear Republicans claim that the Bush administration managed the economy quite well -- except when they brought it to the brink of national bankruptcy. In fact, they'll claim that the Bush-Cheney administration was a complete success, except for the fact that it was an abject failure -- an abject failure.

In fact, what we learned in Washington for eight years is that the reason why Republicans hate government so much is because they're so bad at it.

Guantanamo guard reunited with ex-inmates

Why would a former Guantanamo Bay prison guard track down two of his former captives - two British men - and agree to fly to London to meet them?

"You look different without a cap."

"You look different without the jump suits."

With those words, an extraordinary reunion gets under way.

... catch the video from BBC after the click.

Religious no longer a protected class

Q: Is there widespread media bias against Christianity? Against evangelicals such as Brit Hume and Sarah Palin? Against public figures who speak openly and directly about their faith? Against people who believe as you do?

... find the answer in The Washington Post after the click.

The Bull and the Bull Fighter

The "war on terrorism" is a significant example of the effectiveness of asymmetrical strategies; the "David and Goliath Effect". Like toreadors, waving a cape at a raging bull in the bull ring, al-Qaeda fields a single operative with explosives in his underwear at the cost of a plane ticket and we spend a billion dollars installing scanning machines in airports all over the country.

Al-Qaeda abandons Afghanistan for the tribal regions of Pakistan leaving us to spend billions of dollars fighting the Taliban who's goals don't extend beyond the national boundaries of Afghanistan. Al-Qaeda's cost is next to nothing but the cost to us is immeasurable.

A large military presence in a foreign country only serves to inflame indigenous resentments. Our presence in Iraq and in Afghanistan is a recruiting tool that al-Qaeda could only imagine in their wildest dreams and, over the better part of the last decade, they've learned how to push the right buttons to keep things going.

They don't need to "win". They only need to keep us chasing our tails to achieve their goal of driving us to bankruptcy. For them to merely survive is the big win for them.

We cannot "win" as long as we continue trying to "fight terrorism" on their terms ... as long as we pursue al-Qaeda as if it were a military entity by putting our military force into the field we are playing to their strengths. Like the art of jujitsu, they are using our sheer weight against us. They count on our macho bravodo that dictates, once committed, we cannot back away. Like a bull in a bull ring, we cannot stop chasing the illusive capes.

One Year in 120 Seconds

... or catch this amazing video on YouTube after the click ...

The Way the Wind Blows

New Years Pow Wow, Rialto Park, Tucson, AZ

I Love the Smell of Blasphemy in the Morning

Atheist Ireland Publishes 25 Blasphemous Quotes

From today, 1 January 2010, the new Irish blasphemy law becomes operational, and we begin our campaign to have it repealed. Blasphemy is now a crime punishable by a €25,000 fine. The new law defines blasphemy as publishing or uttering matter that is grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters held sacred by any religion, thereby intentionally causing outrage among a substantial number of adherents of that religion, with some defences permitted.

This new law is both silly and dangerous. It is silly because medieval religious laws have no place in a modern secular republic, where the criminal law should protect people and not ideas. And it is dangerous because it incentives religious outrage, and because Islamic States led by Pakistan are already using the wording of this Irish law to promote new blasphemy laws at UN level.

We believe in the golden rule: that we have a right to be treated justly, and that we have a responsibility to treat other people justly. Blasphemy laws are unjust: they silence people in order to protect ideas. In a civilised society, people have a right to to express and to hear ideas about religion even if other people find those ideas to be outrageous.

Publication of 25 blasphemous quotes

In this context we now publish a list of 25 blasphemous quotes, which have previously been published by or uttered by or attributed to Jesus Christ, Muhammad, Mark Twain, Tom Lehrer, Randy Newman, James Kirkup, Monty Python, Rev Ian Paisley, Conor Cruise O’Brien, Frank Zappa, Salman Rushdie, Bjork, Amanda Donohoe, George Carlin, Paul Woodfull, Jerry Springer the Opera, Tim Minchin, Richard Dawkins, Pope Benedict XVI, Christopher Hitchens, PZ Myers, Ian O’Doherty, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor and Dermot Ahern.

... get your dose of blasphemy after the click!