Color-coded Morality

One thing we learned from the recent unpleasantness––otherwise known as the presidential election––is that folks in the Red States live lives centered around family values that are stronger and fundamentally more moral than the liberal lifestyles of those Blue State people in, say, Massachusetts. Right?

The political pundits insist that this regional morality gap explains George W's Red-State victory and has altered American politics for the foreseeable future. Democrats, they say, are hopelessly out of touch with the deep family values practiced by born-again Christians in the South and Midwestern heartland.

Interesting if true. But, quick: Name the state with the lowest divorce rate in the nation. It's the very state that Bush, the Pat Robertson-style political preachers, and others on the ultra-right constantly denounce as the absolute nadir of decadent liberalism: Massachusetts. It's divorce rate is barely half that of George's home state of Texas, for example.

Nor is Massachusetts some sort of statistical anomaly. The region with the lowest rate of family breakups in America is the Northeast, including such blue, blue states as New York, New Jersey, Maine, and leftie-crunchie Vermont. The highest rates are in, of all places, the Bible Belt, where you still see billboards piously proclaiming: "The family that prays together, stays together." George Barna, a born-again Christian and the head of a research group that does surveys among faith groups, finds that only 19 percent of Northeasterners have divorced, compared to 27 percent of Southerners and Midwesterners.

Barna's surveys also revealed another surprise––the divorce rate among conservative Christians is much higher than for other faith groups. Twenty-seven percent of born-again Christians have been divorced, as opposed to 24 percent of other Christians, and––Holy Moly!––only 21 percent of atheists and agnostics.

Maybe the pundits should just quit trying to color-code America.
Jim Hightower, 12/20/2004

Quick: Name a Government-Run Program That Works Well

There really is at least one government program that works well. The current group of "reformers" in the feral government won't touch the pork-barrel projects and the boondoggles. Nope, the one they have in their sights is the the shining star of government programs. Let's look at what Jim Hightower has to say about it.

"In 1939, two-thirds of America's senior citizens lived their "golden years" in cold, hard poverty. Just a decade later, that percentage was down to half. By 1959, it was only one-third. Today, the number is less than 10 percent.

That's progress. What's progressive about it is that this decline in poverty is the result of the New Deal's passage of our nation's landmark Social Security program.

Yes, the very same program now under attack by Wall Street wolves and congressional opportunists of both parties who insist that Social Security is doomed to failure and facing an imminent financial crisis.

Horsedooties. First, this is a program that actually works, providing the modicum of income so our gray-haired citizens have a basic level of decent living when their earning years are over. Second, Social Security is a model of efficiency, requiring only a single percent in administrative costs. Compare that to the insurance corporations that suck out one-third of our healthcare dollars to pay for their corporate bureaucracies, executive salaries, marble palaces, and advertising."

1% administrative costs vs. 33%. Imagine that.

"But, no, cry the Chicken Littlers, Social Security is going broke! Hogwash. Without changing anything, Social Security is financially sound for the next 40 years. Name me a corporation that can claim that!

Yet, the Bushites – on behalf of Wall Street finaglers – seek to privatize this public treasure, pushing people to put their Social Security nest egg into the stock market. Hello – these are the same investment geniuses who only three years ago would have advised you to invest in Enron – a stock that fell from $97 a share to 57 cents in only one year!

Wall Street hustlers, members of Congress, and other 'reformers' already have their own golden retirements covered. I say no one should be allowed to 'reform' Social Security unless they actually need it."

Jim Hightower

So why the rich and mighty want to destroy Social Security?
1. They hate government (except when it benefits them). So they have to hate the best example of a government program that works.
2. By tying a universal program to Wall St., they enable the Wall St. wealthy to milk the program dry - at least until the whole scheme crumbles. Then they'll move on, like gypsies chasing scams. (Don't give me any crap about demeaning gypsies - my grandfather was a Gypsy).

Adventus: There is no power without resistance

Adventus: There is no power without resistance:
"And never wonder for a moment about what freedom is, or whether we ever had it, or what it takes to keep it. Or about the paradox of power: that to have it, is always to exert it, because you will lose it if you don't. And yet, once you exert it, you have lost it, and lost what power promised to secure for you. All you have left is power, and resistance. And neither of those is freedom; or security."

Go Grand Wizards!

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FOXBlocker Foxin' Rox

Send A Message To The Advertisers At FOX. Let them know that most of America has NOT gone nuts.... and that we vote with dollars, too.

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By the way, read the "Hate Mail" and the "Privacy Policy". What a hoot. And what a reminder that we all really should read the fine print.

Tom Burka of Opinions You Should Have has a great NY Times OpEd.

As the result of a bureaucratic slip-up, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was inadvertently included in the United States government delegation sent to comfort tsunami victims in Southeast Asia.

"Waves happen," Mr. Rumsfeld told survivors. "Weather is untidy. Sometimes you have to make do with the weather you get instead of the weather you want."

Mr. Rumsfeld also criticized the news coverage of the disaster. "They just keep showing the same wave over and over again," he said.

Despite considerable alarm and protest in Asia over Mr. Rumsfeld's comments, President Bush expressed his confidence in the secretary. "Beneath his gruff, brusque exterior, Donald Rumsfeld is a sensitive, caring man," he said. Presidential sources later said Mr. Rumsfeld was scheduled to return to Washington "as soon as we can get him out of there."

To read the whole thing, take the long way around, and check out Pacific Views. At Pacific Views you'll find a link to this wonderful parody.

What Was It They Said About The Election?

Sore Loser.
Get over it.
Should we keep counting until you get the result you want?

When Did Jesus Become A Republican?

THE POLITICAL JESUS
12/23/2004

In the recent presidential run, much was made by George W and his handlers of his supposedly superior moral values based on his commitment to Jesus. But before we let Bush steal away with the robe of Jesus and don it as a Republican garment, let's reflect a moment on the moral teaching of this man from Nazareth.

I must confess that my memory is slipping away, and further, that I don't look to the Bible very often. But let's give it a go.

• I recall many a sermon that began with Jesus's words in Matthew 19:24: "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God."
• I recall that the greatest sin of all, "the root of all evil," Jesus said, is "the love of money."
• I recall the passionate retelling of how Jesus threw the money changers out of the temple – threw them out for charging interest rates for less than usurious bankers now charge us on our Visas and Mastercards, by the way.
• I recall also that Jesus fed all of the masses that day on the hillside at the Sea of Galilee, not turning away anyone who lacked a platinum card to buy fishes and loaves.
• I recall that Jesus flatly said: "You cannot serve with both God and Mammon."

In the good book, Jesus talks more about economic justice than nearly any other subject, and the apostles make clear that the most important ethical/religious test of Judeo-Christian faith is in how we treat the least wealthy, least imporant among us.

All of this leads me to believe that Joe Republican is on shaky ground when s/he says that s/he is a Christian AND says that his candidate (the politician, not Jesus) is better because he will lower taxes. It's amazing how often I hear such rubbish.

This rant is based on a recent rant by Jim Hightower