2

The Sad State of Television News

A news legend recently left us in Walter Cronkite.  The "most trusted man in America" at one time is officially gone, and behind him he leaves a television news landscape that scarcely resembles what he set out to do.

Television news, and especially cable news, now heavily dominates the way many Americans get their news.  Even the government itself is not immune to this; it's a well known fact that the current White House has MSNBC on constantly, and that the Bush people had FOX News on constantly during their tenure.  It's doubtful that either of them gleans much except the occasional ego boost from watching those networks, or that those heavily slanted organizations have greatly informed either of them about those that disagree with their policies.  Nor is it likely that those viewing at home truly take anything away from those networks but a feeling of validation in having their view of the world confirmed once again.

Out of the three main cable networks, CNN is by far the best, but that isn't exactly saying much.  CNN is still in many ways a joke of a network, an organization that does manage to achieve some level of "balance" but rarely of any depth, often focusing heavily on stories like celebrity scandals and taking Democratic and Republican Party talking points at face value (at least when it isn't vainly trying to be popular by plugging its Twitter feeds).  Like the other networks, CNN often props up partisan ideologues - one could say "puppets" - from both sides of a debate and has them battle it out, but it isn't honest debate.  These puppets on the cable stage are essentially just providing theater for the audience at home, shouting at each other but rarely informing.

I myself took a trip fairly recently to the FOX News studio in Washington and was able to see how it is done there.  One of the interesting things was seeing people who had just been fiercely shouting at each other on television enthusiastically shaking hands in the green room minutes later as familiar friends.  It's nothing personal, it seems, and they are perfectly capable of being civil and friendly in their discussion when they don't have cameras pointed at them.  Why, though, do they not extend the same courtesies on the air?  Would a calm, rational debate free of shouting matches somehow bring less to the issue?  It is likely that the viewer would be far better informed than they are when obscure political strategists merely shout over each other.

Of course, the cornerstone of any cable network is its commentators.  The leaders in the pack are most easily recognizable for their smug sense of superiority, their tendancy to cut off the mics of anyone who disagrees with them, and quick tempers that flare up whenever their parent company is attacked.  Bill O'Reilly, Keith Olbermann, Sean Hannity, and many others lead this pack, and for every mostly reasonable and well-articulated host like Rachel Maddow, there is a Lou Dobbs waiting in the wings to spout off paranoid nonsense.

The worst of any of them, though, may have to be Glenn Beck.  This man in many ways embodies everything that is wrong with the news business today.  Now, I have made jokes on the internet and in conversation with friends about Beck in the past, but I am not trying to be comical when I say that he exhibits clear signs of mental instability.  His on-air crying spells and tantrums, his wild conspiracy theories, and even his wildly fluctuating facial expressions seem to show a man who is not entirely "together" and whom, unfortunately, has been given a television stage by an employer that should probably be paying for therapy instead.  Beck's crazy ravings on the air display a certain sincerity but also a lack of a grasp on reality and an unhealthy tendancy to invoke emotions rather than facts.  What's worse, the audience hangs on every word, eager to see what crazy thing he'll do next, as Beck seems almost unaware that he and his rants against authority are being used by a corporation with no real interest in spreading truth as much as merely gaining ratings, even at the expense of the truth he feels he is spreading.  Beck is like a Howard Beale for the new millenium, a figure who stays on the air precisely because his crazy antics and mental instability drive more ratings from those eager to see what he'll pull next.  (Indeed, Beck himself has positively compared himself to the "Network" character, which would seem to indicate that he missed the point of that film entirely.)

With characters like Beck, the networks are not trying to spread information or even informed opinion but are simply being irresponsible and selling mindless sensationalism.  Each sells itself as the place to get the "truth," unfiltered by corporate overlords and government bureaucrats, but the reality is that it is those people whom are primarily running and benefiting from these networks.  They sell themselves as being tough on their subjects, but while FOX and MSNBC often pummel the opposing side, all of them are ultimately easy on the government and politicians they've supposedly set out to cover.  In interviews, their spin and deceptions are not called out, only occasionally countered by an equally disingenuous spinster from the opposite side of the aisle.  Politicians have become so coddled by the media, in fact, that on the rare occasion the media makes them look bad, it is often completely their doing; Sarah Palin, for instance, shocked us all when she made Katie Couric actually look like a real journalist, simply by being unable to answer Couric's most basic questions of her.  Following a debate or a press conference, the first place journalists go is "spin alley," where they quite literally receive the spin of politicians so that they can report if verbatim minutes later on television.

A recent survey found that many people trusted "The Daily Show" host Jon Stewart more than other television news anchors.  While I do the scientific nature of that survey, and I doubt it for other reasons as well, there is probably at least a grain of truth in it that speaks badly of the television news media.  While "Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report" are comedy programs, and not news programs, one thing they do that actual news networks have largely stopped doing is simply calling political figures, and for that matter media figures, on their bullshit.  A tape of Bush or Obama giving a recent address can be contrasted with an earlier quote in which they said something completely contradictory.  Cheney's claim that "no one could have predicted" the difficulties in Iraq can be contrasted with an interview in 1994 in which he basically admits that a total invasion of Iraq would be a bad idea.  While Stewart and his cohorts do not actively seek to inform, it is a sad reality that they are among the few media figures still willing to occasionally do that hard work and even call out those who appear as guests for their hypocrisy. 

The problems with the news business (which are not limited to the television networks) are incredibly numerous and complex, but with television in particular they thankfully raise some easy solutions.  The networks may have decreased their bullshit detectors over the years, and decreased spending on international reporting while upping the amount going into Michael Jackson and Carrie Prejean, but this business model is reliant on the viewer continuing to watch and reward their incompetence.  And there's one thing every one of us can do to get the networks to improve themselves.

Switch them off.

1

The Two Michelles: Bachmann and Malkin the Same Person?

Ever since the past election it seems that us on the left have lost our conspiratorial mojo.  Unsubstantiated rumors and ridiculous conspiracy theories, such as the government destroying the twin towers, Bush having a "feed" device on his back during a debate, and Dick Cheney living in an underground bunker somewhere (well, that one probably was true) used to belong to us.  True, we weren't all nuts, but the tinfoil wearers were primarily in our camp during the Bush years.

Now though, it seems the job of making up ridiculous stories and rumors has been taken away from us.  With "reports" of insidious ACORN plots, Obama forging birth documents, and secret government plots to bring us towards fascism through hidden images on the Dime, a question arises: why are conservatives suddenly getting all the fun?

Well, to that I say: let's not let them!  It's time to invent another crazy story of our own.  Let's selectively pick evidence, sit in our underwear for hours on end, and obsessively post stories to the internet to prove our crazy theory!  We won't rest until our theory reaches the mainstream media (lousy Republican shills...) and is investigated by the Congress!  Let's make our voices heard!

But what should our theory be?  Well, like any crazy theory, it should be based on loose, coincidental facts strung together with a heaving bowl of bullshit poured all over them.  Which is pretty much what Michelle Malkin and Michelle Bachmann are constantly spouting anyway, so let's start with them!  Yes, the conservative firebrand commentator Malkin and Republican Representative for Minnesota's 6th are the subject of our new crazy theory: that they are secretly the same person.

Let's examine the evidence:

-Similar names: Okay, are we really supposed to believe that they just "happen" to have such shockingly similar names?  Come on, they even rhyme!  If they were on a television panel together, imagine the confusion that would occur as the hosts tried to question one of them or the other.  Speaking of which, have either of them ever appeared together on TV or in public?  Hmmm...

-Crazy theories: As stated, both of them espouse ridiculous, unsubstantiated rumors and crazy theories on a regular basis.  Malkin recently stated that she thinks a question that completely derailed Obama's health care address was somehow planted on purpose.  Bachmann thinks that ACORN - one organization of hundreds simply hired to help out with the census - is running the whole thing as part of a nefarious plot to steal our phone numbers.  Malkin has made up garbage about the AP inventing a fake sourceperson.  Bachmann once suggested that Democratic presidents seem to cause Swine Flu given that the last big outbreak was under Carter in 1976 (of course, Bachmann forgot her history; the last one outbreak was that year, but under Gerald Ford).

-Blaming the culture:  Malkin apparently hates Akon for degrading women.  Bachmann tried to have "Aladdin" banned from schools for its supposed promotion of magic and paganism.  Okay, I might give Malkin that one at least.

-Promoting violence and hate: Bachmann has stated she wants Minnesotans to be "armed and dangerous" and to "fight back" on Obama's policies, as well as that "having a revolution every now and then is a good thing."  She has also promoted McCarthyist policies and allegations against anyone who disagrees with her as being "unpatriotic." Meanwhile, despite her racial background, Malkin has gone out of her way to suggest that Japanese internment camps were just fine and dandy, and that we should be interning all Arab and Muslim Americans.

-Dark hair color: Come on, it's not like it would be difficult for Bachmann to dye that brown hair into Malkin's black hairdo!

-They won't leave us alone: Both seem to have an unquenchable need to go on TV constantly to tell the rest of us what's what.  Seriously, it's getting annoying.

-Lack of documentation: Think about it, if they aren't the same person, where's the documentation?  Have we seen enough DNA testing, kindergarten records, testimony from their first sexual partners, fingerprints, social security numbers, videos of them in the shower, flight records, library records, medication purchase receipts, and probing of every other private detail of their lives to really prove they aren't the same person?

-Where were they on the day of JFK's assassination?: Well, this just says it all.

So there you have it!  Rest assured, we won't be silenced until the world knows the truth!  We'll shout it from the rooftops until the entire internet knows the real story!

And then, truly, our revolution will begin.

2

A Rundown of Liberal and Conservative Robots

With all the talk of "liberal robots" recently, it's worth actually examining the world of manmade automatons.  As it turns out, the robotic world is actually quite diverse in its political affiliations.  The following is a heavily-researched rundown of some notable robots throughout history and their political leanings.

Robbie - Was known to shout "Danger Will Robinson!" whenever Will came too close to a Democratic spending bill.

Wall-E - A noted environmentalist, Wall-E's accomplishments included successful lobbying for several environmental protection bills in Congress, as well as single-handedly saving all life on Earth.  Unfortunately, his later presidential run would be derailed by his past affiliations with the Communist Party.

C-3PO - Hard to pin down.  Though notably adverse to armed conflict and a proponent of multi-culturalism with fluency in over six-million forms of communication, 3PO was also remarkably conservative on social issues.  Some say this conservatism was sparked by his outrage upon learning of the incestuous relationship between Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia Organa.  Speculation still continues as to whether 3PO may have been a closted, self-hating gay robot.

The Terminator - Unknown, though rumors persist that The Terminator has since disguised itself and become a governor somewhere.   Of course, that would just be silly.

R2D2 - Unlike his counterpart, R2 was a known lefty, and successfully led the movement to allow gay robots to marry.

Data - Though a noted atheist, Data was generally coy about his political opinions.  It is possible that, not having any human emotions, he never formulated any.

Dick Cheney - Despite the occasional glitch causing him to support gay marriage or admit that invading Iraq might be a mistake, Cheney has been effectively programmed as a strict neo-con.

Bender - Though soft on crime, Bender's stance on killing all humans was notably hawkish.

1

The Hardy Boys in: The Mystery of the ACORN Conspiracy!

Ever since McCain openly questioned ACORN in the presidential debates last year, ACORN has been the subject of a lot of hand-wringing and conspiracy theory.  Allegations that they committed massive voter fraud the likes of which we haven't seen before, or that they will even take control of the census (despite only being one of many organizations being paid to help distribute and collect census information) have run rampant.

Now, believe it or not, I'm going to criticize ACORN in this piece.  Really.  However, I think that the criticism that should rightly be aimed at them isn't the criticism they are being given.  Where the angry right looks at last year's scandals and sees conspiracy, I look at ACORN and see something far more everyday: incompetence.

First, some background: I've worked with a number of political organizations in both paid and unpaid positions that do similar things to ACORN, at least in regards to election activities.  By that I mean that I have knocked on doors, circulated petitions, registered people to vote, and even raised money.  At FieldWorks, one of the more effective organizations I've seen, I drove petitioners to their locations and saw quite a bit of the workings of such an operation.  Furthermore, my sister actually did work for ACORN for a brief period of time - her experience was bad enough that she quit very quickly.

While I consider myself to be pretty good at what I've done at those organizations - at FieldWorks I was one of the top petitioners, and one of the most consistent - it is hard work.  Shockingly hard work.  See, the way these organizations, including ACORN, typically work is that they pay their employees based on how many petition signatures they collect, how many voter registrations they complete, or how much money they raise, depending on the exact task of the employees and the goal of the organization.  Some of the shadier organizations - typically the ones that are just hired guns and don't care what the cause is, and which often hire more shady people and drug addicts - will actually pay by the signature, e.g. 25 cents per signature collected.  The problem with this, as you can probably imagine, is that it encourages fraud; while the organizations don't necessarily advocate such fraud on purpose, the reality is that many employees will fabricate a number of signatures themselves in order to get a better salary that day.  More legitimate organizations, such as FieldWorks and, again, ACORN, will typically operate on a different model: they pay employees by the hour, but the scale of pay will be based again on the number of signatured attained or the amount of money raised.  For instance, a FieldWorks office might pay their employees 8 dollars per hour at the minimum, but require that they get 80 signatures a day in order to keep their job there; a failure to do so for too long may result in termination.  On the plus side for the employees, a scale will typically be built in that encourages them to achieve more for better pay: say, 90 signatures a day earns them 12 dollars per hour, 100 singatures earns them 14 per hour, etc.  Usually, there will also be a grace period of a few days so that the canvassers can learn what they're doing before they're expected to meet the minimums, but this doesn't last long and many won't pass through it. 

Now, no doubt this still encourages some attempts at employee fraud, but the better-organized and more effective these organizations are, the better and more diligent they are at monitoring for such fraud: often they will have a whole department that combs through signatures line by line to make sure employees aren't falsifying any of them.  Furthermore, since this pay is usually based on the averages over a week or so as opposed to day-to-day, and certainly not signature-to-signature, there is somewhat less material reason for employees to cheat; whereas at some organizations a few falsified signatures can give them a few extra dollars that day, at the better organizations they risk being fired for falsifying them, and furthermore would only be slightly increasing their weekly average or perhaps helping themselves keep a job they likely hate anyway for an extra day.

The paradox here is that the less an employee cares about the actual cause (whether it's to elect a politician, save the whales, or anything else), the more likely they are to try and commit fraud on their employer.  In other words, someone who genuinely cares about electing Barack Obama or getting an initiative on the ballot generally won't try to pull anything, because they know that their forgery will likely be caught in the long term and won't help the cause, even if they get paid.  Someone who is there merely because it is "a job," however, is more likely to try something because they only care about the money anyway; if a little forgery helps them pay their rent that month, so be it.  Even the better organizations, provided they pay their canvassers, face this dichotomy; about half the people will be there because they want to change the world, and the other half will be there only because they saw a flier somewhere and need the money.  With some exceptions, the latter tend to be poorer at the job, whether they commit fraud or not, and typically get the boot quickly.

On top of this, even the best and most honest canvassers will run into a recurring problem: people are jerks.  As a canvasser, you get people yelling at you, filling out half of a form and then abruptly leaving, and even filling them out completely with obviously false information just to mess with you.  Sometimes, it's ambiguous: I once got a signature from a person named "Beatrice Boop," and at the office my bosses and I looked it over for a while trying to figure out if it had been a joke or if the person really had the unfortunate luck to be named closely to a cartoon character.  As well, whether well meaning or not, many people will stop to listen and even debate with you despite not being eligible to sign or vote; at ACORN, my sister once got stuck talking to a homeless man for quite some time who turned out to not even be eligible to register, but whom nonetheless wouldn't leave her alone. 

Some organizations handle these obstacles better than others.  None of them can be perfect at it.  ACORN, as it turns out, was far from perfect last year; on the contrary, they widely dropped the ball.  In my sister's stint there, she found her chapter to be one of the most disorganized organizations she had ever worked with.  She was dropped at her location - a supermarket - on her first day with virtually no training and no guidance, and expected to try and meet her minimum requirements of registrations for that day.  There were virtually no people at the supermarket in question that day, and there was no way for her to meet her required goal and pass the initial training period.  Furthermore, her supervisor, whom had dropped her off (at any organization canvassers work mostly independently, but the better ones will at least train them for a little while their first day to show them the ropes), was too busy and overwhelmed to help her or even stay for a short while to show her any techniques or skills.  Thankfully, my sister is an honest person, but it is easy to see how, in such circumstances (which are quite common in canvassing), many would resort to forging some signatures to try and keep their job a little longer.  For my sister's part, she found her supervisors so unhelpful, and her experience so awful, that she quit very shortly after that by electing to just stop showing up at all, and she has spoken ill of ACORN ever since.

ACORN's real failure of responsibility is thus as such: by failing to create realistic goals for its employees, carefully monitor their activities, track for forged registrations and those filled out by pranksters, or create a more cohesive organization and strategy in general, they inadvertently created a situation in which more employees were able to commit fraud individually than normal.  The vast majority, if not all of, of this fraud was discovered and the false registrations thrown out - they aren't difficult at all for the offices to find - but ACORN's incompetence allowed a lot more false registrations than usual to go into the offices in the first place, thus sparking controversy.  They are required by law to hand over even the false ones to the registration offices, but they hadn't done good enough of a job of finding them and warning the offices ahead of time, or identifying the employees at fault and terminating them.  Just as any McDonald's restaurant will have some employees that steal food and spit in customers' burgers, any canvassing organization will have employees that try and pull a fast one on them and get away with not completing their work; the difference is that the better organization, or the better McDonald's manager for that matter, will work to identify these employees faster and punish them, and the worse-organized of them will submit more faulty signatures or sell more spit-tainted hamburgers.

Conservatives who criticize ACORN often believe that they have found a real-life illuminati, proof somehow of a larger leftist conspiracy.  The reality is that what they've found is really a lot closer to the Keystone Cops or the Three Stooges; potentially well-meaning but nonetheless incompetent (at least as last year's election activities go) people that failed at what they were set out to do.  While I can't claim to know the inner-workings of the Obama campaign, it wasn't of any surprise to me, in retrospect, that the campaign had stopped working with ACORN after the primaries; I have little doubt they found that ACORN's work and organization last year wasn't up to snuff, and a waste of their money.

1

Philip J. Berg and the Trouble With Lawsuits

A particular figure has gained some traction in the conservative blogosphere lately.  That man's name is Philip J. Berg, and he is a lawyer.

Now, to those singularly obsessed with the "birth certificate" issue, two basic truths seem to play a hand in this.  One is that they obviously never see natural sunlight. The other, and equally important, is they don't really care who this man is, provided of course that he is against Obama and gives their cause some play in the media.  Berg has met this criteria reasonably well.  What some don't seem to realize is this guy's actual history.

The first thing of note is that, before becoming obsessed with taking out Obama, Berg was obsessed with taking out BUSH.  That's right.  Phil was pretty mad about the 2000 election, and perhaps rightly so.  In 2001, he sought to remove all the Supreme Court justices that had voted in Bush's favor in the famous Bush v. Gore case.

Of course, Berg didn't stop there.  You see, he is a rampant 9/11 conspiracy theorist.  His ranting can be easily found online, as such:  http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5255032592388273934

As such, Berg filed a lawsuit against Bush and 154 others alleging that they had conspired to bring about the attacks that day. Despite a lack of real evidence, Berg pursued it with zeal, only, as in the case of his previous suit, to see it completely rejected in court.  As with his more recent Obama suits, Berg re-filed this suit only to have it rejected again.

Berg's bad behavior as a lawyer doesn't stop with conspiracies, though: unlike the suits he had filed, Berg himself was successful sued for malpractice by former clients 2005.  That's right.  In a lawsuit pertaining to ERISA (Employment Retirement Income Security Act), Berg had apparently failed to file a response to a complaint in the suit, resulting in his clients having a default judgement entered them.  These former clients decided to sue Berg for malpractice and won the case; the judge found that Berg's own charge of fraud "was inadequately pled, not grounded in fact, time-barred, and utterly irrelevant to the pending malpractice action against him."  In the end, Berg was fined $10,000 and forced to spend a little time in ethics training.  The whole case can be found here: http://www.paed.uscourts.gov/documents/opinions/05D0679P.pdf

This is the guy websites like "RepubX" have recently decided to align themselves with.  This, ironically, is also the sort of guy radical leftists were aligning themselves with not long ago.  He represents the problem with using a lawsuit as "proof" for a case's legitimacy; Berg himself has, consistently and constantly, proven not only his own cases but his very strategies and lawyerly ethics to be illegitimate.  As well, he's consistently and on multiple occasions proved what reasonable people already know.

That most conspiracy theorists are nuts.

1

Stray Observations As An Observer of The House

Spending the summer in Washington D.C. has its advantages.  One of those advantages is getting to see the Legislature in action.  Specifically, today I chose to take a couple vists to the House in the Capitol Building to watch them go about their legislaturing ways.  As it turns out, it was a particularly good day to do so, given a couple notable happenings.

Of course, I was just an observer with a House pass I'd gotten from Senator Udall's (from Colorado) office - I'd actually originally intended to watch the Senate today, but they gave me a House pass and I'd realized that the "Cap and Trade" climate change bill vote was today.  Spectators are only allowed to sit there for so long in the interest of keeping the line outside moving.  With that said, I was able to catch some notable moments just from going in a couple times, and was able to observe some things as well.  They included:

-The House takes quite a while to agree on things like rules for the debate and later vote.  This is already (hopefully) common knowledge, but they have to vote on this before jumping into debate and then the final vote.  They had a couple votes on amendments and rules that were basically the Representatives voting electronically as they walked around and talked among themselves.  It wasn't really heated and on the face of it there didn't look like there was anything notable going on.  There was also an electronic sign up on a wall that tallied the votes, and another on a higher wall that showed the name of each Congressperson and whether they had voted.  This sign would disappear by the time I went the second time.  In any case, the rules were approved at about the time I had to leave from my first visit.

-During my first visit, the news became official that the Senate had just confirmed someone whose name I couldn't make out, but whom turned out to be Rep. Ellen O. Tauscher, a Democrat from California, to a cabinet position.  Specifically, she is now to be the Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security; as such, today was her last as a Representative.  As soon as someone came in to announce the news, the whole champer erupted in applause and everyone stood as they clapped for her.  She gave a nice little speech thanking everyone she'd worked with over the years, and got some extra applause when she noted that she and her fiance plan to get married tomorrow.  Pelosi stood nearby wearing white and gave her distinctive awkward clap.  Tauscher hugged a lot of the Congresspeople near her as well.

-Debate, in my second visit, was very very funny.  It was very heated, sometimes more so from the Republican side.  On both sides, there were a lot of mutually exclusive statements (the basic tone was Democrats saying "this will create jobs," and Republicans saying "this will destroy jobs."  Which one is it?)

-The best moment - dare I say a potential "Daily Show" moment - was when one Republican Congressman I didn't recognize decided to use a visual aid.  He took out a big yellow box with cheap-looking blue writing on it that said "To China: From Pelosi."  He asked "what's in here?" and then took out a visual aid apparently meant to represent American jobs.  Whether he was right or wrong, you gotta wonder whether the visual really helped his case much.  The whole chamber and many of my fellow spectators laughed.

All in all, not a bad day on the Hill, though I had to wait with anticipation to find out later whether the bill passed (it did).  Nothing hugely surprising, but it was certainly entertaining watching the two parties battle it out and shout at each other.

0

When did Politics Become a Religion?

One of the interesting - and remarkably persistent - arguments that the right have been using lately is to try and claim that liberals treat our current president as some sort of "messiah."  It is also often assumed, by those on both the right and left, that the other side must support anyone on their "side" or in their party unequivocally.  Cases of fraud, marital infidelity, and even more trivial things like choices of pets or movie tastes somehow reflect, to many, an inherent failing from the other side of the political aisle that proves their uselessness and the inherent righteousness of the side that person subscribes to. 

Now, don't get me wrong.  On a nightly basis I drink the blood of my holy messiah, and pray to him to grant me forgiveness for my sins and lapses in loyalty.  But I'm not here to talk about Jon Stewart.

No doubt there is a certain cult of personality that is inherent in politics.  John F. Kennedy had it.  Ronald Reagan had it.  Our founding fathers most certainly have it.  Ron Paul has it even among people that don't seem to have any real understanding of he is, like people that read Infowars.  Every successful politician, particularly on any kind of national stage, has on some level managed to mine a cult of personality that leads people to follow them.  This is why people get riled up and excited at campaign rallies and plaster bumper sticker proudly on their cars.  It is why people get invested in campaigns and get into heated debates right up to election day and even beyond.  For any truly successful politician, there can't just be a derision of the other guy among your ranks but also a certain tendancy among supporters to like you and what your own policies are.  They have to feel that you truly represent them and their values.

However, the suggestion that the vast majority of people on either the right or left would universally condone every action of everyone on their side, let alone treat them as gods to be worshipped, is quite simply foolishness.  The vast majority of people fall SOMEWHERE in the middle of those extremes, even if they are predominantly on the right or left.  Some may extend further to the right or left of their given party.  Regardless, the point is that any free thinking person doesn't agree with even their own party or the people they vote for %100 of the time.  That would be lunacy, and it is something only a small proportion of people actually do.

And yet, while most people are able to identify some policies of even their supposedly "worshipped" leaders that they disagree with, there is always the assumption made by those on the opposite side of the aisle that a failing of those leaders is somehow a reflection on everyone who might have voted for them, that they MUST treat them as some sort of perfect leader because of the fact that they voted for them.  The irony of this is that it utilizes the same simplistic black-and-white thinking that it accusses the other side of using.  When one makes the assumption that everyone on the opposing side politically is uniform in their thinking, it commits the same fallacy that it is trying to place on the other guys.

Perhaps our divisive party system is largely to blame; the party line dictates that those elected into the statement focus their public statements on supporting the party and painting the opposition as wrong at all costs, even if behind the scenes, or at least at lower levels, things are actually much friendlier and legislators are able to compromise and cross party lines more than most people would think.  Furthermore, the news media has become overrun with pundits, who commonly if not always thrive on being partisan hacks; a Sean Hannity or Paul Begala may occasionally concede some minor point to the opposition just to maintain plausibility, but by and large any news item, no matter how innocuous or even non-political, will eventually be spun by them as concrete proof that liberals/conservatives are inherently right and conservatives/liberals are inherently wrong.

However, as our president himself as said, it is possible to disagree without being disagreeable.  Not every debate has to involve total demonization of the opposition.  And when you get past thinking that everyone on the other side is dumb and evil, you might just find that you can actually talk to them, learn some things...and maybe even get some things done.

5

The frightening nature of anti-muslim bigotry.

I should preface this by saying that I am an agnostic.  There may or may not be some kind of higher power out there.  I find most stories behind religions to be pretty implausible and I doubt I'll ever believe in any of them.  To me, people arguing over which religion is "right" is like arguing which person has the superior imaginary friend.  Harsh I realize, but that is my bias.

With that stated, I obviously don't have any preference for the religion of Islam.  I don't see it as being any more or less strange or crazy than the others.  It's just a set of beliefs like any other, which people have the right to believe or not believe in.  As with any religion, some will use that set of beliefs for good and others will use it to justify some pretty awful actions. 

With that stated, it is disturbing to see the level of hatred and inherent distrust that many people in our great country still have for the people of the Muslim faith.  People who are essentially just human beings like anyone else are still continually derided by some simply for subscribing to that faith instead of their own.  Even worse, there is a clear racial element to this prejudice; many people, often not understanding that there are many differences in the first place between arabs and people of middle-eastern descent, assume that anyone roughly of that descent is automatically a muslim.  They also assume that anyone from either group is automatically of a pro-terrorism mindset and can't be trusted.  These are just human beings, with the same emotions and imperfections and dreams and needs as anyone else.  And they are being treated as dangerous, sub-human individuals who must be deported at all costs for essentially no reason other than that they exist.  Oh, for the days when racists just wanted to keep other people off their lunch counters and away from their drinking fountains instead of advocating for them to get kicked out of the country entirely.

Some of the recent talk involves conspiracy theories as to President Obama's heritage and religion of choice.  All the actual evidence of course suggests that Obama is a Christian, as with every president before him.  But I'm not here to debate that point anyway.  What's disturbing about these theories isn't just the blatant disregard for fact and logic but the fact that anyone would care.  What exactly would it matter if we did have a Muslim president anyway?  Is it somehow bad for people of other races, creeds, and religions to want to serve the people and contribute to the American dream?  What does it say about the lingering hate in our country that the mere thought of someone of a different race or religion serving in our government still inspires such overt bigotry and fear?

Our constitution says that: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."  That means any religion.  Anyone, regardless of religious beliefs, can still participate in our society, enjoy the same rights, and, yes, openly serve the public.  Clearly, we have a long way to go before every one of our fellow citizens is willing to recognize that fundamental right.

2

Obama's Identity: Secret Hitler

For months we've been attempting to track down the secrets of Obama's elusive history.  I'm pleased to say that sources at the deli down the street from me have made a breakthrough, and they've finally discovered the true identity of Mr. Obama.

Here's the proof: not long ago, Obama spoke to an audience in Cairo, which I'm told is the place the nazis go to in the first Indiana Jones movie.  That's enough right there, people!  Deli researchers are working around the clock to examine VHS tapes, and we're confident we'll find Obama shooting at Indy somewhere in the footage.  More importantly, though, Obama rebuked deniers of the holocaust by asserting that it did, in fact, happen. 

Think about it, though.  Obama was born in 1961...or rather, so he claims.  But the holocaust and World War II happened in....dun dun dun....the 40s!!!!  How could Obama know something for sure that happened before he was even alive, unless...

We've found the missing link, people.  How else could Obama know it happened unless he was there?

Open up your eyes, people.  We've been lied to.  Examine the footage.  Don't you see the resemblance?  Has anyone checked Obama's birth certificate for nazi symbols?  And why won't Obama submit to strip-searches?  Could he be hiding a swastika tattoo on his ass?

We're through the looking glass people.  End your blindness and wake up.  We thought we'd stopped Hitler, but he's been alive the whole time, and looking remarkably young I might add.  In any case, we must stop him now.  For America.  For the world.  For Indiana Jones.

For the children.

3

Stop throwing around words like 'Socialism' and 'Fascism'

Recently, in political...let's generously call it "discussion," I've seen a lot of people on the internet and various talking heads on the ol' video box throwing around words like "socialism" and "fascism" as if they have almost any relevance at all to current American politics. Usually, they are applied to our President, Mr. Obama.

Now, I am no blind supporter of the current administration. Keeping "rendition" is pretty questionable. Failing (so far) to pursue prosecution for criminal behavior in the last administration is pretty questionable. Giving tons of money to the banks instead of people is pretty questionable. Not that I suddenly hate the guy, and I think the administration has done a lot of good as well, but I think there is room for constructive - even harsh - criticism of the administration as long as it comes from an intellectually honest place, and it doesn't just have to center on those items I listed either (which I realize largely fall under the category of "he's not liberal enough").

But the whole socialism and fascism thing is just really stupid. Now, I'm no expert in political theory, but as I tend to understand the political spectrum, there are a few truths that bear stating:

-Socialism is on the "liberal" end; as such, the Democratic party is closer to socialism than the Republican party is.

-Fascism is on the "conservative" end; as such, the Republican party is closer to fascism than the Democratic party is.

-Both parties are far closer to EACH OTHER (and the middle of spectrum) than they are to either socialism or fascism, which are at far extreme ends; indeed, neither is remotely close to either true socialism or true fascism.

-For that matter, fascism and socialism are not the same thing at all, and certainly do not go hand in hand.

Even Fox News star Glenn Beck, for all his paranoia, stupidity, and probable diagnosable insanity, at least understood this when he "corrected" himself on his assertion that Obama is marching us towards socialism; he understood, as he asserted that Obama is in fact leading us towards fascism, that there is a clear difference between the two. He's also prone to random crying spells, believes Woodrow Wilson inserted secret symbols into the dime to make us all fascist, and once claimed to hate the families of 9/11 victims' families for being sooooo upset by the deaths of their loved ones. But I digress.

Unfortunately, a lot of people entering the political discourse recently aren't quite as knowledgeable as Glenny boy, and believe (if their signs at "teabagging" rallies are any indication) that both are in fact one in the same. Not to mention, they don't seem to understand the distinctions between recent government policies and either the socialist or fascist extremes.

Perhaps more troublingly, they also don't seem to understand a little thing called "strategy." We on the left have finally found our groove again recently, but don't you guys remember what we were like just a few years ago? Arguably, one of the reasons the left failed to convince those on the fence about the Iraq war to join our side is that just enough dumbasses decide to show up at otherwise peaceful rallies and burn flags, wave "Bush=Hitler" signs, and sport fashionable "Anarchy" symbols on their t-shirts. They were perfectly within their rights to do such things, but they didn't seem to understand how this would play on news outlets that would choose to zero in on them. Other movements have been just as troubled. Even many animal lovers like myself (I spend every Saturday caring for homeless pets at a shelter) don't care for PETA because they choose to hurl fake blood at people and generally act like morons. Religious groups that show bloody pictures of dead infants just revolt people (often out with their own children) who might otherwise be sympathetic.

And now, we have the people equating a slight increase in the taxation of the wealthy as a move towards totalitarianism (or, they would if they could actually spell "totalitarianism"). They've got all the requisite rage, but not the ability to articulate their positions in an intelligent way that would be worth discussing. And they (however unintentionally) discredit the more intelligent people out there who might otherwise side with them, not to mention alienate anyone else who might otherwise be willing to engage with them.

So rightists: get out there and speak your viewpoints. Debate, discuss, and maybe even protest to make your voices heard. Enjoy some delicious tea. But remember that not long ago we on the left looked like the loony, unorganized, and outright hateful group that some of your lesser members are making you look like now. We had to join together, form a real agenda, and improve the quality of our discourse to get where we are here in 2009.

And for god's sake, stop saying "fascist" and "socialist" every five seconds. It makes you look like morons.