...in 10 minutes. Congrats to the Dems for getting the job done. Now, on to SINGLE PAYER!!
Monday, March 22, 2010
Healthcare passes
To hear the Republicans talk about it, the recent passage of healthcare legislation is the worst thing EVER to happen to this country. Their hyperbolic rhetoric is so overblown as to be comical. It would be hilarious, if they had not been whipping up the rubes out there to do violent things in response.
I wonder how long it will take before these same rubes come to love and covet the new healthcare program?
An Open Letter To Republicans from Michael Moore
To my fellow citizens, the Republicans:
Thanks to last night's vote, that child of yours who has had asthma since birth will now be covered after suffering for her first nine years as an American child with a pre-existing condition.
Thanks to last night's vote, that 23-year-old of yours who will be hit one day by a drunk driver and spend six months recovering in the hospital will now not go bankrupt because you will be able to keep him on your insurance policy.
Thanks to last night's vote, after your cancer returns for the third time -- racking up another $200,000 in costs to keep you alive -- your insurance company will have to commit a criminal act if they even think of dropping you from their rolls.
Yes, my Republican friends, even though you have opposed this health care bill, we've made sure it is going to cover you, too, in your time of need. I know you're upset right now. I know you probably think that if you did get wiped out by an illness, or thrown out of your home because of a medical bankruptcy, that you would somehow pull yourself up by your bootstraps and survive. I know that's a comforting story to tell yourself, and if John Wayne were still alive I'm sure he could make that into a movie for you.
But the reality is that these health insurance companies have only one mission: To take as much money from you as they can -- and then work like demons to deny you whatever coverage and help they can should you get sick.
So, when you find yourself suddenly broadsided by a life-threatening illness someday, perhaps you'll thank those pinko-socialist, Canadian-loving Democrats and independents for what they did Sunday evening.
If it's any consolation, the thieves who run the health insurance companies will still get to deny coverage to adults with pre-existing conditions for the next four years. They'll also get to cap an individual's annual health care reimbursements for the next four years. And if they break the pre-existing ban that was passed last night, they'll only be fined $100 a day! And, the best part? The law will require all citizens who aren't poor or old to write a check to a private insurance company. It's truly a banner day for these corporations.
So don't feel too bad. We're a long way from universal health care. Over 15 million Americans will still be uncovered -- and that means about 15,000 will still lose their lives each year because they won't be able to afford to see a doctor or get an operation. But another 30,000 will live. I hope that's ok with you.
If you don't mind, we're now going to get busy trying to improve upon this bill so that all Americans are covered and so the grubby health insurance companies will be put out of business -- because when it comes to helping the sick, no one should ever be allowed to ask the question, "How much money can we save by making this poor bastard suffer?"
Please, my Republican friends, if you can, take a quiet moment away from your AM radio and cable news network this morning and be happy for your country. We're doing better. And we're doing it for you, too.
Yours,
Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
MichaelMoore.com
P.S. I'll have more to say on this tonight, live on CNN, at 9pm ET. I'll be talking with Larry King about the health care bill and where we go from here, considering we still don't have universal health care.
P.P.S. In case you missed these photos in yesterday's NY Times Sunday Magazine... That's the results of seven years of madness. The Iraq War began its 8th year this weekend. How can we remove more of those responsible for this tragedy in November?
You can find the original Moore column here.
...and here's the recent Krugman....
FEAR STRIKES OUT
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: March 21, 2010
The day before Sunday’s health care vote, President Obama gave an unscripted talk to House Democrats. Near the end, he spoke about why his party should pass reform: “Every once in a while a moment comes where you have a chance to vindicate all those best hopes that you had about yourself, about this country, where you have a chance to make good on those promises that you made ... And this is the time to make true on that promise. We are not bound to win, but we are bound to be true. We are not bound to succeed, but we are bound to let whatever light we have shine.”
And on the other side, here’s what Newt Gingrich, the Republican former speaker of the House — a man celebrated by many in his party as an intellectual leader — had to say: If Democrats pass health reform, “They will have destroyed their party much as Lyndon Johnson shattered the Democratic Party for 40 years” by passing civil rights legislation.
I’d argue that Mr. Gingrich is wrong about that: proposals to guarantee health insurance are often controversial before they go into effect — Ronald Reagan famously argued that Medicare would mean the end of American freedom — but always popular once enacted.
But that’s not the point I want to make today. Instead, I want you to consider the contrast: on one side, the closing argument was an appeal to our better angels, urging politicians to do what is right, even if it hurts their careers; on the other side, callous cynicism. Think about what it means to condemn health reform by comparing it to the Civil Rights Act. Who in modern America would say that L.B.J. did the wrong thing by pushing for racial equality? (Actually, we know who: the people at the Tea Party protest who hurled racial epithets at Democratic members of Congress on the eve of the vote.)
And that cynicism has been the hallmark of the whole campaign against reform.
Yes, a few conservative policy intellectuals, after making a show of thinking hard about the issues, claimed to be disturbed by reform’s fiscal implications (but were strangely unmoved by the clean bill of fiscal health from the Congressional Budget Office) or to want stronger action on costs (even though this reform does more to tackle health care costs than any previous legislation). For the most part, however, opponents of reform didn’t even pretend to engage with the reality either of the existing health care system or of the moderate, centrist plan — very close in outline to the reform Mitt Romney introduced in Massachusetts — that Democrats were proposing.
Instead, the emotional core of opposition to reform was blatant fear-mongering, unconstrained either by the facts or by any sense of decency.
It wasn’t just the death panel smear. It was racial hate-mongering, like a piece in Investor’s Business Daily declaring that health reform is “affirmative action on steroids, deciding everything from who becomes a doctor to who gets treatment on the basis of skin color.” It was wild claims about abortion funding. It was the insistence that there is something tyrannical about giving young working Americans the assurance that health care will be available when they need it, an assurance that older Americans have enjoyed ever since Lyndon Johnson — whom Mr. Gingrich considers a failed president — pushed Medicare through over the howls of conservatives.
And let’s be clear: the campaign of fear hasn’t been carried out by a radical fringe, unconnected to the Republican establishment. On the contrary, that establishment has been involved and approving all the way. Politicians like Sarah Palin — who was, let us remember, the G.O.P.’s vice-presidential candidate — eagerly spread the death panel lie, and supposedly reasonable, moderate politicians like Senator Chuck Grassley refused to say that it was untrue. On the eve of the big vote, Republican members of Congress warned that “freedom dies a little bit today” and accused Democrats of “totalitarian tactics,” which I believe means the process known as “voting.”
Without question, the campaign of fear was effective: health reform went from being highly popular to wide disapproval, although the numbers have been improving lately. But the question was, would it actually be enough to block reform?
And the answer is no. The Democrats have done it. The House has passed the Senate version of health reform, and an improved version will be achieved through reconciliation.
This is, of course, a political victory for President Obama, and a triumph for Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker. But it is also a victory for America’s soul. In the end, a vicious, unprincipled fear offensive failed to block reform. This time, fear struck out.
You can find the original Krugman column here.
I wonder how long it will take before these same rubes come to love and covet the new healthcare program?
An Open Letter To Republicans from Michael Moore
To my fellow citizens, the Republicans:
Thanks to last night's vote, that child of yours who has had asthma since birth will now be covered after suffering for her first nine years as an American child with a pre-existing condition.
Thanks to last night's vote, that 23-year-old of yours who will be hit one day by a drunk driver and spend six months recovering in the hospital will now not go bankrupt because you will be able to keep him on your insurance policy.
Thanks to last night's vote, after your cancer returns for the third time -- racking up another $200,000 in costs to keep you alive -- your insurance company will have to commit a criminal act if they even think of dropping you from their rolls.
Yes, my Republican friends, even though you have opposed this health care bill, we've made sure it is going to cover you, too, in your time of need. I know you're upset right now. I know you probably think that if you did get wiped out by an illness, or thrown out of your home because of a medical bankruptcy, that you would somehow pull yourself up by your bootstraps and survive. I know that's a comforting story to tell yourself, and if John Wayne were still alive I'm sure he could make that into a movie for you.
But the reality is that these health insurance companies have only one mission: To take as much money from you as they can -- and then work like demons to deny you whatever coverage and help they can should you get sick.
So, when you find yourself suddenly broadsided by a life-threatening illness someday, perhaps you'll thank those pinko-socialist, Canadian-loving Democrats and independents for what they did Sunday evening.
If it's any consolation, the thieves who run the health insurance companies will still get to deny coverage to adults with pre-existing conditions for the next four years. They'll also get to cap an individual's annual health care reimbursements for the next four years. And if they break the pre-existing ban that was passed last night, they'll only be fined $100 a day! And, the best part? The law will require all citizens who aren't poor or old to write a check to a private insurance company. It's truly a banner day for these corporations.
So don't feel too bad. We're a long way from universal health care. Over 15 million Americans will still be uncovered -- and that means about 15,000 will still lose their lives each year because they won't be able to afford to see a doctor or get an operation. But another 30,000 will live. I hope that's ok with you.
If you don't mind, we're now going to get busy trying to improve upon this bill so that all Americans are covered and so the grubby health insurance companies will be put out of business -- because when it comes to helping the sick, no one should ever be allowed to ask the question, "How much money can we save by making this poor bastard suffer?"
Please, my Republican friends, if you can, take a quiet moment away from your AM radio and cable news network this morning and be happy for your country. We're doing better. And we're doing it for you, too.
Yours,
Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
MichaelMoore.com
P.S. I'll have more to say on this tonight, live on CNN, at 9pm ET. I'll be talking with Larry King about the health care bill and where we go from here, considering we still don't have universal health care.
P.P.S. In case you missed these photos in yesterday's NY Times Sunday Magazine... That's the results of seven years of madness. The Iraq War began its 8th year this weekend. How can we remove more of those responsible for this tragedy in November?
You can find the original Moore column here.
...and here's the recent Krugman....
FEAR STRIKES OUT
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: March 21, 2010
The day before Sunday’s health care vote, President Obama gave an unscripted talk to House Democrats. Near the end, he spoke about why his party should pass reform: “Every once in a while a moment comes where you have a chance to vindicate all those best hopes that you had about yourself, about this country, where you have a chance to make good on those promises that you made ... And this is the time to make true on that promise. We are not bound to win, but we are bound to be true. We are not bound to succeed, but we are bound to let whatever light we have shine.”
And on the other side, here’s what Newt Gingrich, the Republican former speaker of the House — a man celebrated by many in his party as an intellectual leader — had to say: If Democrats pass health reform, “They will have destroyed their party much as Lyndon Johnson shattered the Democratic Party for 40 years” by passing civil rights legislation.
I’d argue that Mr. Gingrich is wrong about that: proposals to guarantee health insurance are often controversial before they go into effect — Ronald Reagan famously argued that Medicare would mean the end of American freedom — but always popular once enacted.
But that’s not the point I want to make today. Instead, I want you to consider the contrast: on one side, the closing argument was an appeal to our better angels, urging politicians to do what is right, even if it hurts their careers; on the other side, callous cynicism. Think about what it means to condemn health reform by comparing it to the Civil Rights Act. Who in modern America would say that L.B.J. did the wrong thing by pushing for racial equality? (Actually, we know who: the people at the Tea Party protest who hurled racial epithets at Democratic members of Congress on the eve of the vote.)
And that cynicism has been the hallmark of the whole campaign against reform.
Yes, a few conservative policy intellectuals, after making a show of thinking hard about the issues, claimed to be disturbed by reform’s fiscal implications (but were strangely unmoved by the clean bill of fiscal health from the Congressional Budget Office) or to want stronger action on costs (even though this reform does more to tackle health care costs than any previous legislation). For the most part, however, opponents of reform didn’t even pretend to engage with the reality either of the existing health care system or of the moderate, centrist plan — very close in outline to the reform Mitt Romney introduced in Massachusetts — that Democrats were proposing.
Instead, the emotional core of opposition to reform was blatant fear-mongering, unconstrained either by the facts or by any sense of decency.
It wasn’t just the death panel smear. It was racial hate-mongering, like a piece in Investor’s Business Daily declaring that health reform is “affirmative action on steroids, deciding everything from who becomes a doctor to who gets treatment on the basis of skin color.” It was wild claims about abortion funding. It was the insistence that there is something tyrannical about giving young working Americans the assurance that health care will be available when they need it, an assurance that older Americans have enjoyed ever since Lyndon Johnson — whom Mr. Gingrich considers a failed president — pushed Medicare through over the howls of conservatives.
And let’s be clear: the campaign of fear hasn’t been carried out by a radical fringe, unconnected to the Republican establishment. On the contrary, that establishment has been involved and approving all the way. Politicians like Sarah Palin — who was, let us remember, the G.O.P.’s vice-presidential candidate — eagerly spread the death panel lie, and supposedly reasonable, moderate politicians like Senator Chuck Grassley refused to say that it was untrue. On the eve of the big vote, Republican members of Congress warned that “freedom dies a little bit today” and accused Democrats of “totalitarian tactics,” which I believe means the process known as “voting.”
Without question, the campaign of fear was effective: health reform went from being highly popular to wide disapproval, although the numbers have been improving lately. But the question was, would it actually be enough to block reform?
And the answer is no. The Democrats have done it. The House has passed the Senate version of health reform, and an improved version will be achieved through reconciliation.
This is, of course, a political victory for President Obama, and a triumph for Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker. But it is also a victory for America’s soul. In the end, a vicious, unprincipled fear offensive failed to block reform. This time, fear struck out.
You can find the original Krugman column here.
Friday, March 19, 2010
Gardening report
Spring is in the air, and so is the pollen. The tree pollen around Houston has been in the "EXTREME" range for weeks now, and people all over are sneezing, coughing and sniffling. But not me. Somehow, I escaped all of those allergies that drive my poor wife mad. I see the beauty in the green sprouts all over the landscape, but she can't see much through her runny eyes and nose.
So, what in the garden has survived this brutal winter we've had? Only cold-weather plants, for sure. We easily lost half of all of our plants, and it's taken quite a long time to clean out the dead stuff and haul it all downstairs.
This year, we tried some broccoli for the first time: some Green Goliath and Waltham. Both appeared dead for the longest time, or at least dormant, but then, about a month ago, they started sprouting broccoli heads! We snipped a few heads when they got fairly large, cooked them up for dinner (hey, they're DELICIOUS!), and in a few days, we had multiple side heads developing where we had cut! Pretty cool. It's a beautiful plant. And this one goes into the victory column!
One of our perennial "winners" is "winter purslane. We bought these seeds from "Gourmet Seed" a few years back. Aka "Miner's Lettuce." This has been one of the most successful and effortless plants we've grown. The plant is prolific as hell, and the little leaves are tender and tasty. It just needs a little bit of water and seems to like being left to its own devices. Very low maintenance. No pests at all.
We accidentally let a couple of them go to seed, and before we knew it, the pot next to the original purslane pot was sprouting purslane. It soon took over the entire pot, so we have winter purslane in abundance. Even though the seeds are several years old, it grows really well year after year, and we still have about 50,000 seeds left over!
This year we discovered the joy and ease of growing garlic greens. What is that, you ask? Well, you've seen a clove of garlic, right? Just leave a clove out on the counter and watch it. Eventually, it will sprout a little green shoot out of one end. When that shoot gets to be an inch or two long, plant it in the dirt, sprouting side up, with just a little of the clove showing above the soil line. Give it some water and watch it go to town!
The little green shoots can be snipped off when they get six or eight inches long and they are perfect for salads or soups, or sauteed with other things. Raw, it gives a wonderful garlic-y taste, and they grow rapidly. We put several down in the common herb garden in the front yard for the neighbors, put some on the deck, and even grew some inside, in the kitchen window, so you just snip snip snip. It couldn't be easier! And they taste great!
We successfully grew some carrots this year for the first time, after a couple of failures. We had about 20 "little finger" carrots, some pretty small, but some upwards of six inches long, and they taste more like carrots than any carrots I've ever tasted. Now, we have two batches in one pot: half "little finger" and half "parisienne." Both are Baker Creek heirloom varieties.
The endive, also a Baker Creek seed, is another easy and prolific plant. In this long pot, we put tons of seeds and thinned and thinned until we had about six plants. It's a beautiful plant, and it just keeps coming. It's in the "cut and come" variety: you cut it, and it just keeps coming back. We have given each plant two or three major chopping haircuts, and they all just keep coming back. It's awesome and perfect in salads. (Winter purslane + endive + avocado + Green Goddess salad dressing makes a great side salad).
The chard, some of the swiss variety and some of the Baker Creek single color types, have gone gangbusters all winter. Very colorful and fast-growing. Very nice sauteed in some oil. They cook down a lot, like spinach does, so it takes a good bit to make a side dish, but it just grows right back in no time. Very high in nutrients and very high in the "ease-of-growing" factor.
Kale is in the same boat (not pot) as the chard. It loves the cooler weather and grows and grows, no matter how many times you chop it for a salad or sauteeing. Too bad every plant can't be so maintenance-free.
Speaking of maintenance, it's time to get some tomatoes in the ground! We're late already!
So, what in the garden has survived this brutal winter we've had? Only cold-weather plants, for sure. We easily lost half of all of our plants, and it's taken quite a long time to clean out the dead stuff and haul it all downstairs.
This year, we tried some broccoli for the first time: some Green Goliath and Waltham. Both appeared dead for the longest time, or at least dormant, but then, about a month ago, they started sprouting broccoli heads! We snipped a few heads when they got fairly large, cooked them up for dinner (hey, they're DELICIOUS!), and in a few days, we had multiple side heads developing where we had cut! Pretty cool. It's a beautiful plant. And this one goes into the victory column!
One of our perennial "winners" is "winter purslane. We bought these seeds from "Gourmet Seed" a few years back. Aka "Miner's Lettuce." This has been one of the most successful and effortless plants we've grown. The plant is prolific as hell, and the little leaves are tender and tasty. It just needs a little bit of water and seems to like being left to its own devices. Very low maintenance. No pests at all.
We accidentally let a couple of them go to seed, and before we knew it, the pot next to the original purslane pot was sprouting purslane. It soon took over the entire pot, so we have winter purslane in abundance. Even though the seeds are several years old, it grows really well year after year, and we still have about 50,000 seeds left over!
This year we discovered the joy and ease of growing garlic greens. What is that, you ask? Well, you've seen a clove of garlic, right? Just leave a clove out on the counter and watch it. Eventually, it will sprout a little green shoot out of one end. When that shoot gets to be an inch or two long, plant it in the dirt, sprouting side up, with just a little of the clove showing above the soil line. Give it some water and watch it go to town!
The little green shoots can be snipped off when they get six or eight inches long and they are perfect for salads or soups, or sauteed with other things. Raw, it gives a wonderful garlic-y taste, and they grow rapidly. We put several down in the common herb garden in the front yard for the neighbors, put some on the deck, and even grew some inside, in the kitchen window, so you just snip snip snip. It couldn't be easier! And they taste great!
We successfully grew some carrots this year for the first time, after a couple of failures. We had about 20 "little finger" carrots, some pretty small, but some upwards of six inches long, and they taste more like carrots than any carrots I've ever tasted. Now, we have two batches in one pot: half "little finger" and half "parisienne." Both are Baker Creek heirloom varieties.
The endive, also a Baker Creek seed, is another easy and prolific plant. In this long pot, we put tons of seeds and thinned and thinned until we had about six plants. It's a beautiful plant, and it just keeps coming. It's in the "cut and come" variety: you cut it, and it just keeps coming back. We have given each plant two or three major chopping haircuts, and they all just keep coming back. It's awesome and perfect in salads. (Winter purslane + endive + avocado + Green Goddess salad dressing makes a great side salad).
The chard, some of the swiss variety and some of the Baker Creek single color types, have gone gangbusters all winter. Very colorful and fast-growing. Very nice sauteed in some oil. They cook down a lot, like spinach does, so it takes a good bit to make a side dish, but it just grows right back in no time. Very high in nutrients and very high in the "ease-of-growing" factor.
Kale is in the same boat (not pot) as the chard. It loves the cooler weather and grows and grows, no matter how many times you chop it for a salad or sauteeing. Too bad every plant can't be so maintenance-free.
Speaking of maintenance, it's time to get some tomatoes in the ground! We're late already!
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Jesus was a Nazi
The fact that FOX gives up one hour of its programming day every weekday to Glenn Beck is a little scary. Beck is dangerous. And embarrassing, or he would be, if Roger Ailes or Rupert Murdoch were capable of feeling that emotion. It's like we're watching Beck slowly spiral into insanity.
Problem is, there are loonies out there already on the edge and they get all fired up by Glenn and stagger across the fuzzy line and go fly planes into IRS offices, or shoot up Unitarians in church, or try to attack the Pentagon with handguns, or bomb women's health care clinics, or kill doctors who perform abortions, or ... any number of irrational acts.
Roger Ebert catalogues one of Beck's recent meltdowns. Geez, how long can you keep such a nutbag on the air?
I do have to say, however, that this little religious bitchfest has great potential!
"Jesus was a Nazi. So's your preacher"
What were Beck's unifying words? "I beg you, look for the words social justice or economic justice on your church web site," he told his audience. "If you find it, run as fast as you can. Social justice and economic justice, they are code words. Now, am I advising people to leave their church? Yes! If you have a priest that is pushing social justice, go find another parish. Go alert your bishop and tell them, 'Excuse me are you down with this whole social justice thing?' If it's my church, I'm alerting the church authorities: 'Excuse me, what's this social justice thing?' And if they say, 'yeah, we're all in that social justice thing'--I'm in the wrong place."
Problem is, there are loonies out there already on the edge and they get all fired up by Glenn and stagger across the fuzzy line and go fly planes into IRS offices, or shoot up Unitarians in church, or try to attack the Pentagon with handguns, or bomb women's health care clinics, or kill doctors who perform abortions, or ... any number of irrational acts.
Roger Ebert catalogues one of Beck's recent meltdowns. Geez, how long can you keep such a nutbag on the air?
I do have to say, however, that this little religious bitchfest has great potential!
"Jesus was a Nazi. So's your preacher"
Many other Christians were not so silent Dr. David P. Gushee, Professor of Christian Ethics at Mercer University, wrote: "He managed to do something few have been able to do -- speaking only of my own religious community, he has united Catholics and Protestants, evangelicals and mainliners, Christian progressives and moderates and conservatives."
I was on the brink of picking up the phone and asking Francis Cardinal George if he was down on this whole social justice thing, but then I recalled that I no longer use the telephone. Do you suppose the cardinal texts? I know some priests pretty well, and two ministers I went to high school with, and a rabbi, and I have a Muslim friend who teaches that faith in Chicago universities, and I work with a Buddhist, but it's no use asking them. They're all down on this social justice thing.
What are the words "social justice" code for? Why, Nazism and Communism, says Beck: "Social justice was the rallying cry--economic justice and social justice--the rallying cry on both the communist front and the fascist front." Beck even went so far as to cite Jesus Christ, saying, and I quote: "Nowhere does Jesus say, Hey, if somebody asks for your shirt, give your coat to the government and have the government give them a pair of slacks." Well, Beck has me there. It is quite true that nowhere does Jesus say that. Nor, for that matter, does he ever say, A wop bop a lu bop, a wop bam boom!
What I would enjoy hearing is one single clergyman from any faith in America, appearing on Beck's program to agree with him and denouncing social justice. Such a person might be a real piece of work. I suspect he might currently be in between congregations. Beck's oversight is that all religions teach social justice. That's sort of what they're about. "My church doesn't," said Beck, who is a Mormon. Not for the first time, he was dead wrong, and the mountains of Utah rang with the thunder of outraged Mormon elders. I know now, and did not know before, that before statehood the Mormons in the Utah territory provided universal health care and care for the poor as a matter of their duty.
What Beck has demonstrated, in a singularly inelegant way, is an increasing tendency of the extreme right to automatically describe its opponents in negative buzz words. You would think that if it's possible to be a conservative it's also possible to be a liberal. Not so. In the Beckian theology, a conservative is merely a conservative. Liberals are socialists, community organizers, Marxists, traitors, communists, haters, Nazis, elitists and, in general, liars. Conservatives, on the other hand, are moderates, patriots, reasonable, pro-American, and stand for family values.
I am proudly a liberal. I am also patriotic, reasonable, pro-American, and stand for family values. Sometimes I stray from moderation. I do not remotely identify with the ideologies Beck wants to tar and feather me with. Nor, for that matter, could a genuine conservative identify with a flywheel like Beck. Conservatism is a political and ethical philosophy that exists in another universe from Beck's shopping cart. Remember that TV show where couples raced up and down aisles seeing who could jam the most loot into their carts? Beck loads up from the shelves of the Discount Screwball Supermart. He needs material to fill his daily hours of air time and fuel his fans with one-liners they can pass off as thought.
What is social justice, anyway? I think it involves civil rights and liberties. It involves a trial in a fair legal system. It involves freedom of speech and the practice, or non-practice, of religion. It involves a living wage and decent working conditions. As my father often repeated, "A fair day's work for a fair day's pay." Which of these areas does Glenn Beck believe the Communists and Nazis excelled in? Is he holding in reserve a secret cache of obscure speeches by Hitler? If his listeners heard those words (which real liberals and real conservatives subscribe to) emerging from Hitler's mouth, would they be confused?
Another quote from Beck. The Communists and Nazis "talked about economic justice, rights of the workers, redistribution of wealth, and surprisingly, democracy." Why, that proves it! Those are the very same things Christians talk about. And Democrats. And liberals. And find me, please, one single genuine Republican who doesn't also talk about them. We can gather that Beck disagrees with all of them. Even -- given his maladroit syntax -- surprisingly, democracy.
Beck has strayed way, way off beyond conservatism, to a land where reason itself is an evil conspiracy. This is a growing trend. In Texas, I learn from prisonplanet.com, "A prominent insider has told Infowars that Texas Governor Rick Perry and other establishment neo-cons have decided to deliberately target grass roots constitutionalists with dirty tricks campaigns in an effort to derail and hijack the growing liberty movement whose influence is threatening to blow the Texas gubernatorial race wide open." Yes. Rick Perry, indistinguishable from Democrats, mainstream Republicans, liberals, socialists, Nazis, elitists and believers in social justice.
This whole argument is described by a term widely familiar on the internet, the reductio ad Hitlerum. It is also known, Wikipedia explains, as playing the Nazi card. Anyone using this argumentum, it is believed, is signaling that his logical facility has jumped the rails. It is frequently used in a reflexive sense, as when your opponent accuses you of doing the same thing: "You guys called Bush a Nazi, so it's all right for the Tea Partiers to call Obama a Nazi." To the extent that this is accurate, it is an appeal to -- why, one's sense of social justice, actually.
I am writing this because I have a blog and I needed to vent. I am told repeatedly that Fox News is fair and balanced, that it has the largest share of the (actually rather small) cable news audience, and that it speaks for ordinary Americans. To the degree that this is true, Beck has left them all behind, watching his figure shrink on the far horizon of fanaticism. He has finally, definitively, said something that is completely Wrong from every viewpoint.
Does Glenn Beck speak for average Americans? His logic indicates they must be attending churches that preach Communism and Nazism from the pulpit every Sunday. Why are they so slow to catch on? Now that Beck has alerted them, where can they flee to worship? What will become of them? They have been cast out into the wilderness, where nothing makes sense anymore. The lonely, barren, ignorant wilderness, silent but for the gnashing of Glenn Beck.
Go here for the original and the comments.
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