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Beck U 8 And 9: I Done Gradiated!

In Idiocracy, Politics, Propaganda on September 9, 2010 at 12:39 pm

The Government's Throwing An Inflation Party!

David Buckner’s final lesson was a party! An inflation party! With the government as host and taxpayers as guests. You see, the government has run up huge debt, and it can’t possibly pay it back – ever. And the federal government has only balanced its budget four times in the last 20 years.

Of course, those were the last four Clinton budgets, but let’s not get into the details. In fact, there were no sources or attribution to the numbers Buckner was tossing out, but I’m expecting too much. Okay, so here’s my attribution about Clinton budgets:

So according to Buckner, the government is secretly conspiring to dump a ton of currency into the system and drive inflation through the roof so that the debt is worth less and they can pay it down quicker.

No seriously.  The Great Inflation Scam.  Wait for it.  It’s coming.  Any day now.

Sure, the Fed has kept a low inflation target for the past couple of decades, but we’re not talking the Weimar Republic here. But I’ve read that many leading economist believe the real fear is the exact opposite… deflation.

Buckner also defended his right to cheap Big Macs (See Beck U 5: Blame Canada) when he once again railed against the evils of the minimum wage. He scoffed at the sheer ridiculousness of raising the minimum wage and then erecting a wall along our border to keep out all the illegals who flood across in order to secure those jobs.

Boy, I’ll say. Nothing pisses me off more than seeing undocumented workers insist on getting paid the federally mandated minimum wage and then filling out document after document that lets the United States government know they’re here illegally.

But Buckner had the perfect solution. Abolish the minimum wage, and let the market determine what employees can earn.

Brilliant! If we pay our workers less, then those dirty hordes won’t cross the border and steal all those high-paying jobs here in the United States. As Buckner put it:

Why would people from other countries come to the United States if they make the same as in their own country?

Amen, brother! Or we could just continue to ship all our jobs overseas so there are none left to steal.

Hey, Buckner did say that his Key Principle #4 was that we were all given permission to think.

So, here’s something to think about: your real market at work (via Health News):

The nation’s official poverty rate hit an eleven-year high, rising from 37.3 million, or 12.5 percent, in 2007 to 39.8 million, or 13.2 percent, in 2008, including more than 14 million children. That means more than one of every eight Americans fall below the poverty line…

But those are the lazy, good-for-nothing leeches in this country who simply want to live off of other people’s tax dollars. You know, like the folks on Wall Street. But the market has created a growing class of working poor.  From an article at Change.org:

In late July the Bureau [of Labor] put out a little-noticed periodic report detailing which private industries employ the most workers and what those workers earn.

[…]

Here’s the reality: it’s called retail sales and it pays an $11.84-per-hour average wage.

That’s right folks. More than four million people (or 3.86 percent of all private industry employees in the United States) work as retail salespeople. That’s more than any other single private-industry occupation in the United States. And on average, retail salespeople earn just under $25,000 a year.

Retail sales workers are followed closely by cashiers. That’s the kind of work that about 3.4 million Americans do. For it, they earn an average of nearly $19,000 a year.

See the pattern here?

The private industries employing the largest share of the American workforce don’t pay very much.

Now, brace yourself for the worst of it. It’s not until you get six occupations down the list to customer service agents that average annual wages top $30,000.

But don’t worry about that. Those workers can always buy their goods and services on their credit cards, or maybe even take out a second mortgage on their homes, or even re-fi, right?

Hmmm… Maybe there’s a reason David Buckner teaches education theory and not economics.

Bobo the Clown's New Serious Look

Beck changed his shirt! Perhaps the flop sweat from his “Party on the Mall” rendered his sharp Ralph Lauren polo dirty. Or maybe he simply wanted a new look. But also wearing his very serious glasses, he announced in the preamble to the final “lesson” that he and his staff were wiped out after all the festivities in Washington D.C. and that they were all going to take a nap.

And then he asked us all to put our heads on our desks and listen to the final “lesson,” which was a rambling, incoherent lecture by James Stoner on natural rights and common law.  Of course, like all good rights, they were really only intended to be vested in the states until the bullying federal government came around and stole them for their own.

And Stoner is a big one on common law because he seems to think that it’s all dependent on precedent and what the community thinks and no judicial review or activist judges and all that. Perhaps I’m missing his point, but his ramblings were entirely unclear.

But like clockwork, the horns popped out and the mask slipped about two-thirds of the way into the lecture when he railed against progressives and how they’ve soiled this great nation of ours with their do-gooder nature and their insistence on individual rights and their criticism of natural rights and civil rights.

Say what? Progressives are critical of civil rights?  Let’s parse this out.  There is a dangerous and felonious meme being developed by Glenn Beck and his cronies that it was actually the Republicans and the conservatives who helped bring civil rights to this nation in the mid-20th Century.

Beck claims that progressives and liberals have co-opted the civil rights movement from the true heroes – conservatives.  You know, the conservatives that called Martin Luther King a communist and worse and who tried to block a federal holiday in his name.  The conservatives who tried repeatedly to block important civil rights legislation in the 1940s, 50s, and 60s.  The conservatives who used racial code words in order to appeal to white voters in the South (and elsewhere) in order to win elections – the so-called Southern Strategy.

The very same conservatives who railed against judicial activism and screamed for state’s rights in order to preserve the status quo – Jim Crow laws, anti-miscegenation laws, anti-voting rights laws, et al.

In fact, Stoner takes a swipe at the Brown v. Board of Education decision by saying that progressives forced the notion on the country that “rights had to be created equally” and by the mistaken belief that “if the government provides funding, then the funding must be provided equally.”

Of course, this comes from a man who is a theocrat at heart and who advocates for a Constitutional amendment to allow school prayer, who rails against a woman’s right to choose, and who is deeply upset that the Supreme Court allowed non-married couples to use contraceptives (See Beck U. 3: It’s Not A Tumor), among other right-wing views.

Stoner ended by saying that it was “the people’s Constitution,” but let us hope that people like Stoner never get their hands on it.

Oh, right, one more thing. The newly coiffed Beck also announced that he would be bilking offering his subscribers more “lessons” starting in October.  But someone else is going to have to take one for the team.  I have turned in my last term paper and hit the beach.

I done gradiated with my Moronis Asinines.

-SF

Read the rest of the Beck U. series: Beck U, Beck U2, Beck U3, Beck U 4, Beck U 5, and Beck U 6 & 7.

Beck U 6 and 7: Double Creature Feature

In Idiocracy, Message/Framing, Politics, Propaganda, Religion on August 20, 2010 at 4:40 pm

I vowed to drop out of Beck University. The weekly “lessons” caused my migraines to flare up. They threatened me with expulsion (apparently talking back in class is a real Bozo No-No). And I had run out of bullshit repellant. But like John McCain to “Jersey Shore,” I couldn’t turn away from watching the train wreck of human ignorance.

So I girded my loins and braced for the most painful and frightening double feature I had ever endured. No, not “The Creeping Terror” and “Troll 2”, but Beck University “professors” James Stoner and David Barton. On second thought, perhaps it’s the same thing.

As with any double bill, the evening began with the “B” movie – still scary enough to give you a few chills but merely whetting your appetite for the hair-raising, spine-tingling, bladder-emptying feature attraction.

In the first “lesson,” James Stoner proceeded to give an 8th grade civics lesson on the Constitution, specifically the Separation of Powers and the system of checks and balances it created. Stoner is the most accomplished “faculty” member at Beck U (he is an actual professor at LSU), and he delivered his lecture in the same manner in which he would an ordinary lesson – boring, verbose, and repetitive.

And like all “B” movies, I kept wondering when the story would start.

Separation of powers creates a divided government… blah, blah, blah… Should I get up and get a soda?  Hmmmm… Checks and balances “checks” the powers of each individual branch against the other… Zzzzzzz… I think I still have a package of the Orville Redenbacher Ultimate Butter Microwave Popcorn… Yumm!

Finally… at end of the 2nd Act the monster comes out.  Here’s what Stoner snarled about the Necessary and Proper Clause:

Since the New Deal, there has been a presumption on the part of Congress and the president that, if there is a problem, the federal government is the first entity to look for a solution.

Damn right, Skippy. I’d say the government did a good job of bailing us out of the Great Depression, winning World War Two, creating a vibrant middle class, enabling millions to attend college, expanding civil rights… I could go on.

But the monster really popped out of the closet when Stoner wrapped up his lecture on judicial review. Boy, nothing gets a right-winger more worked up than Marbury v. Madison. The horns came out as Stoner spat out the following:

Judicial review was not understood at that time to be power given to the courts to roam through the statute books and strike down whatever injustice they saw.

But I guess in a monster’s world, slavery would still be legal, separate but “equal” would still apply, women and minorities would not have the right to vote, and single people wouldn’t be allowed to use contraception (see Beck U3: It’s Not A Tumor). But I digress.

Now let’s look at the true monster… The Roberts Court. The Alliance for Justice released a report earlier this year entitled “The Robert’s Court’s Record of Overreaching” that illustrates how the five conservative Justices twist the law to serve their corporate masters.  Nan Aron, President of The Alliance for Justice, writes on The Huffington Post that:

Our analysis looked at 13 cases in the period since John Roberts became Chief Justice and found a consistent pattern of the Court taking cases it does not need to hear, answering legal questions not squarely before it, making up new law out of thin air, and settling questions best left to fact finders in lower courts.

As retiring Justice John Paul Stevens said in his dissent in the notorious Citizens United case, “Essentially, five Justices were unhappy with the limited nature of the case before us, so they changed the case to give themselves an opportunity to change the law.”

Now that’s the true horror show.

Enjoy Intermission.  Be sure to visit the snack bar.

As we all know, the feature attraction is where we get all the pant-soiling goodness, with even bigger creatures lurking around the bend. And “Faith 103” did not disappoint.

The nasty critter in this one was none other than David Barton – the evil villain of Beck U.: Leave Those Kids Alone and Beck U. 4: Deconstruct This!

But this sequel on limited government was more of a Tingler.

Apparently, limited government = good government = God’s will.  And this was just the teaser.  I munched my Hot Tamales with renewed fervor. I wanted to hear more about how our Founding Fathers really wanted to create a theocracy based on Biblical Law – with none other than Thomas Jefferson leading the way.

Of course, Barton learned me in Faith 101 that Jefferson really just transcribed the Declaration of Independence, basing it on obscure cherry-picked sermons. And wasn’t Barton one of the leading forces behind diminishing Jefferson’s role in the nation’s founding in Texas textbooks?

So much for story logic.

But Barton rode Jefferson like Mothra into Tokyo to “prove” his case.  Here now is the…

Sum of Good Government (According to Jefferson via Barton):

1. Acknowledge and Adore God

As we learned in Beck U. 4, we apply the Transitive Property of Christian Fundamentalism and anytime anyone mentions God, Providence, Deity, etc., they are automatically talking about Christ, which means that they are in fact jonesing for a Christian Fundamentalist Theocracy. According to Barton:

[We aren’t] like France where the rights come from groups of people who decide what the rights are and they can change them whenever they want. [But] that’s what we see across Europe and other countries as well.

Holy Freedom Fries. In Barton’s scary world, rights come from God only, and the government cannot intrude on them or regulate them. I wonder if he realizes this sounds an awful lot like what the Islamic Fundamentalists want – an undying fealty to strict Sharia law.

But silly me, I learned in my hippie, communist private schools that Jefferson said the following about freedom of religion (emphasis mine):

…among the inestimable of our blessings, also, is that… of liberty to worship our Creator in the way we think most agreeable to His will…

Jefferson also penned the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom in which he wrote:

Be it enacted by the General Assembly that no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinion in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities.

2. Exercise Frugality

Again, Barton quotes Jefferson as saying that “public debt is the greatest of dangers to be feared.”  True.  Jefferson did say this, but if Barton is so frightened of the public debt, why was he a hired as a shill for the RNC and other Republican candidates when they were running up the deficit like strippers in the VIP room during the Smirking Monkey’s administration?

Here’s a visual aid about public debt and the frugality of Republicans:

3. Restrain Infliction Of Injury

Basically, Barton wants to abolish all those icky federal laws and replace them with these ten, which is all anyone really needs because I’ve been known to covet my neighbor’s ass donkey on occasion.

After all, Barton thinks you shouldn’t regulate the good people, just the perverts.

He then cites obstructionist speed limit laws that vary from state to state and how on earth is he to be expected to know the law from state to state and ignorance isn’t a defense and we’re all just screwed. Of course, his argument screams for federal regulations so that the law is consistent from state to state, but I’m expecting too much from the plot here.

4. Encourage Entrepreneurship and Free Enterprise

According to Barton, “the free market system came from the religious leaders in Europe and America” but he admitted that he didn’t have time to prove all that now.

After all, the recent taxpayer bailouts “happened to all the most regulated industries” because when the government gets involved in economics, it destroys economies. You know, industries as horribly regulated as banking, real estate, insurance, etc.

5. Protect Property and Earnings of Citizens

For the climax, Barton suggested that:

- God wants us to own property

- Property taxes are evil

- There are no homeowners in Europe because the government owns all the property

And then Barton ended with a quote from his true God:

The Right's Great God Reagan

And that’s when I soiled my pants and let out a bloodcurdling scream.

-SF

Here are Beck 2: Hope (In The Name Of Wealth) and Beck 5: Blame Canada.

Beck U. 5: Blame Canada

In Bed-Wetters, Idiocracy, Politics, Propaganda on August 6, 2010 at 8:21 am

Don't let on that I'm peddling bullshit.

Although my wife and I were enjoying a rare vacation, I recently braved local obscenity laws to stream the latest “lesson” from Beck U. on my computer, only to be subjected to yet another right-wing screed in Randian economic theory by David Buckner, the psychology professor turned economic “expert.”

Sadly, the local authorities did not burst into my hotel room to arrest me.

My real punishment was listening to Mr. Buckner rail against government-run health care, government regulations, and, oddly, minimum wage increases. Apparently, it’s really evil that the government insists workers are paid a “livable wage” because it will force fast food restaurants out of business, making it harder for Buckner to buy Big Macs at a decent price – or something like that.  And looking at Mr. Buckner, I believe he is an expert on Big Macs.

You can raise the minimum wage when you pry this Big Mac from my cold, dead fingers.

The same cannot be said for his grasp of economic theory, although I was impressed that he managed to complete the entire “lesson” without fainting.  Using visual aids that can charitably be described as an homage to 90s-era clip art, Buckner outlined his three main points.

1. “Profits are proof of a good deal.”

2. “Governments transfer wealth. They do not create wealth.”

3. “Governments foster black markets.”

Buckner first launched into an anecdote in which he described haranguing one of his Canadian relatives into finally agreeing that the Canadian health care system was a socialist nightmare in which looters get a free lunch on the backs of taxpayers who may never use the health care system. Apparently, these taxpayers are people who are somehow impervious to illness, disease, and death.

Here’s a clip:

Forget the fact that Canada’s single payer health care system:

- spends two-thirds less on administrative costs than in the U.S.

- spends 10 percent of its GDP on health care to insure 100 percent of its citizens, compared to almost 16 percent of GDP in the U.S. to leave tens of millions still uninsured (Source: World Health Organization Statistics 2009).

- has lower infant mortality rates and higher life expectancy rates than the U.S.

Of course, Canadians are taxed a hell of a lot more, right? Well, the average after-tax income of Canadian workers is equal to about 82 percent of their gross pay. In the U.S., that average is 81.9 percent.

But since I’m an American, I’d rather fork over almost $7000 a year in health insurance premiums for a policy with no doctor visit co-pays and an out-of-pocket deductible of $4000 before paying a dime more in taxes. After all, “profits are proof of a good deal.” It works for the health insurance companies, where the profits of the 10 largest publicly traded companies rose 428 percent from 2000 to 2007.  I’m just glad I could contribute.

But I do agree with Buckner that governments transfer wealth.  Just look at the wealth that was transferred to the rich in this country over the last ten years.  I have my own visual aid.

What’s more, Laura Bassett of The Huffington Post reports that a recent study by the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) showed…

…that the gaps in after-tax income between the richest 1 percent of Americans and the middle and poorest parts of the population in 2007 was the highest it’s been in 80 years, while the share of income going to the middle one-fifth of Americans shrank to its lowest level ever.

The CBPP report attributes the widening of this gap partly to Bush Administration tax cuts, which primarily benefited the wealthy.

Of course, that wasn’t really Buckner’s point.  He was pissed off that his tax dollars would ever go to any of those DFH looters, but I guess a redistribution of wealth back up the food chain is okey-dokey with him.

And I do agree that some government regulations foster black markets.  Here’s another visual aid to illustrate my point.

I am frightened, however, for Buckner and his fellow junk-food junkies.  If Congress ever raises the minimum wage again, Buckner may have to go underground in order to satisfy his Big Mac Attack.

He may even have to import them from (shudder) Canada!

-SF

All installments of our Beck U series are here: Beck U, Beck U2, Beck U3, and Beck U4.

The Nose Knows

In BP Oil Spill, Environment, Politics, Propaganda on August 2, 2010 at 9:54 am

The Original "Schnoz"

How bad has it gotten for BP? Their Chief Operating Officer, Doug Suttles, decided to put bolstering his company’s nose-diving balance sheet ahead of his family’s safety with this hard-to-digest statement:

When asked by a reporter whether he’d eat the Gulf’s bounty, Suttles didn’t flinch. “I absolutely would,” he told reporters after joining a flight over the Gulf to track the oil, which he insisted has dissipated dramatically.

“There’s been a tremendous amount of testing done by NOAA (the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) and the state agencies and the FDA and others. They’re not going to open these waters to either sport fishing or commercial fishing if it’s not safe to eat the fish,” he said.

“I have a lot of confidence in those agencies and I trust their recommendations and I would eat their food — the seafood out of the Gulf, and I would feed it to my family,” he said.

Not so fast, Suttles. You’re welcome to eat whatever you like but before you go feeding the “Gulf’s bounty” to your unsuspecting family check out this report about what your dispersant, Corexit, has found its way into. From Fox 8 in New Orleans:

Still want to feed your family from these waters? Here’s more on NOAA’s methodology in this fish-or-famine struggle:

Robert Downs leads the scientists who sniff at fish. Each day, his team of seven sensory experts dip their noses into large Pyrex bowls of snapper, tuna and other raw seafood to test for even a whiff of the pungent oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico. This is not Grand Cru wine. “We use specific terms for the aroma,” said Downs, who supervises the seafood smellers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s marine lab here. “Diesel oil. Bunker oil. Asphalt. Rubber-band-like. Tar.”

Each olfactory analyst has a super schnoz, able to smell oil diluted to one part per million. That’s 40 times more sensitive than your average proboscis.

Proboscis means nose. Had to look that one up myself.

It’s also more sensitive than science can explain. Last month, the team caught a faint scent in a red snapper that chemists and toxicologists could not confirm despite three days of testing at an NOAA marine science lab in Seattle. The result: A rich fishing area off Louisiana’s coast stayed off-limits.

“The nose knows,” Downs said.

“We have found tainted fish,” said John Stein, who runs the BP oil spill seafood safety testing program for NOAA. “It’s not uncommon.”

Under federal law, fishing is banned if oil is seen in the water.

This helps explain another reason for the use of the dispersant, Corexit, in unprecedented quantities. Because if there’s no oil “seen” in the water, Gulf fishermen by law can fish. And if Gulf fishermen can fish, then BP doesn’t have to pay them for sitting at home going slowly mad.

So most samples that are tested are caught outside the vast no-go zone or in other waters that are not visibly oiled. Pelagic fish, which migrate, pose a special concern for fear they may ingest oil and swim away.

So, in fact, NOAA has precious little information as to where the fish they are testing come from because fish migrate. That sucks. Where’s SB1070 when you need it?

And this olfactory discussion leaves out the most harmful substance entirely: Corexit.

I guess Scuttles has more faith in the NOAA schnozes than I do, or he has absolutely no soul and will inflict harm upon those he most loves in the world to gain a press clipping. Unless I have this completely wrong and he is protecting those he most loves in the world — his shareholders.

- SH

Note: Our other posts on the dispersant, Corexit, and the impact of the oil spill on the people of the gulf region are here, here, here and here.

8/3 3:00PM UPDATE What Digby said. Great video!

8/3 1:00PM UPDATE: NOAA is finally developing a test for Corexit in Gulf seafood:

NOAA, meanwhile, says its test for dispersants is being developed as a precaution. NOAA’s sensory experts are trained to detect a combination of dispersant and oil in seafood, said Scott Smullen, NOAA spokesman. “But out of an abundance of caution, NOAA is also developing a chemical test to detect COREXIT in marine species in the Gulf, and the test can be applied elsewhere if needed.”

He continued “it’s important to note this is precautionary research because we do not expect to find the components of COREXIT in fish. Dispersants have a low potential to bioconcentrate in fish.” NOAA’s test for dispersants will be introduced soon, and applied to Gulf seafood in the agency’s Seattle lab, he said.

I’d like to say better late than never, but considering that nearly 2 million gallons of Corexit have been dumped into the gulf since early May, I’ll simply say they’re really, really late to the game with this test. The rest of the article is here.

Beck U. 4: Deconstruct This!

In First Amendment, Idiocracy, Politics, Propaganda on July 29, 2010 at 12:41 pm

Bobo's Clown School Is Back In Session

During the latest “lesson” at Beck U, David Barton was up to his old tricks – cherry-picking historical details and isolated quotes to make his case that the Founding Fathers were devout Christians who really wanted to establish a fundamentalist theocracy.

And like most snake oil salesmen, he also talked really, really fast so no one would notice his bullshit.  He has a bright future as the next spokesperson for Goldline.

Barton beat his drum that most of the Founding Fathers held degrees from seminaries, conveniently forgetting that most colleges in those days were seminaries, regardless of discipline.

And he got really upset at the fact that all we’ve been taught about American history for the past 234 years is just nothing but a deconstructionist fantasy dreamed up by dirty liberal feminist hippies to thrust their communist agenda on the innocent youth of America.

I think someone’s still upset at “Granola” Grace for standing him up at the 1972 Aledo High School prom.

David Barton's Cassandra

Of course, the term deconstruction was coined in 1967 by French philosopher Jacques Derrida. But he was French, and everyone knows that the only good Frenchman was Alexis de Tocqueville and only because he talked about American exceptionalism. The rest of those Frogs can go suck it.

I suppose Barton is too stupid to realize that he’s actually the one who is deconstructing history through his unfounded premise that every Founding Father – all 250 of them by his count – were Christians and that they all intended for America to be based on religious teachings rather than common law.

He also got really torqued by the fact that most historians dismiss all 250 Founding Fathers by “only focusing on one or two.”

And then he proceeded to focus on two.

For twenty minutes, Barton railed that the most “secular” of the Founding Fathers, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, also wanted a Christian nation.  To his credit, Barton uses historical facts to bolster his case: he just doesn’t give you all the facts.

It is true that Benjamin Franklin proposed the country’s first motto be “Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God,” but it was soundly rejected by Congress, who ordered the design to “lie on the table.”

It is also true that Franklin asked the assembled members of the Constitutional Convention to have a prayer service every morning to guide them, but this suggestion was also soundly rejected.

And while Jefferson attended church service held at the Capitol building as President, he also sought “a wall of separation between church and state” and that religion should neither be persecuted nor given special status.

Here’s Jefferson himself (from the book “The Jeffersonian Cyclopedia: A Comprehensive Collection of the Views of Thomas Jefferson” edited by John P. Foley):

If anything pass in a religious meeting seditiously and contrary to the public peace, let it be punished in the same manner and no otherwise as it had happened in a fair or market…

Here’s where Barton begins to stamp his feet and throw a tantrum.  He whines that we’ve been told that Franklin and Jefferson were agnostics and deists.  But he insists that these actions prove they were true Christians who believed in a theocracy, dammit! Don’t believe those dirty librels and their deconstructionist ways.

I guess Barton’s using the Transitive Property of Christian Fundamentalism. Let me explain. If A = C and C = D, then A = B, which proves everyone is a secret Christian and that the Founding Fathers wanted us to separate church and state so that Christians were free to worship wherever they wanted and however they wanted so long as they were the right type of Christians.

Okay, everyone, pop quiz.  Let’s put this transitive theory into practice.  Who said the following?

Before the throne of the Almighty, man will be judged not by his acts but by his intentions. For God alone reads our hearts.

That’s right, it was Mohandas Gandhi.  Forget what you heard about the fact that Gandhi was a Hindu.  It is clear from this quote that he invokes God, which means that he is a Christian man.  He even fasted for Jesus, right?

A true Christian in David Barton's world

Here’s another interesting case.  Who said this?

“Against stupidity; God Himself is helpless.”

Well, nobody is really credited with this one, but we’ve been told all these years that it is a Jewish proverb. But it really sounds Christian to me. And besides, all the Jews are Christians anyway.

They just don’t know it yet.

-SF

All installments of our Beck U series are here: Beck U, Beck U2, Beck 3D, and Beck 5.

Beck U 3: It’s Not A Tumor

In Idiocracy, Politics, Propaganda on July 22, 2010 at 4:34 am

The circus act was back in town, and its unctuous ringmaster, the Ralph Lauren-clad Glenn Beck, warned ominously that tonight’s lecture was about charity and that, in today’s world, it is the government that takes your tax money and decides to whom to be charitable (cue kaliope music).

Scout's Honor: My Dog-Whistle Blows

Of course, this dog-whistle to the right invokes a Pavlovian response in every wing-nut. They hear government spending, and they immediately howl about their tax dollars supporting the good-for-nothing welfare queens and the lazy unemployed who are constantly looking for a government handout. And by lazy, unemployed welfare queens, they mean minorities.

But the night was filled with dog-whistles.

Tonight’s lecture was presented by the most educated and pedigreed of the three Beck U. “professors,” which also makes him the most dangerous.  His name is James Stoner, and he is a very smart man.  Mr. Stoner received his M.A. and PhD from Harvard University and has spent the past 22 years teaching political science at Louisiana State University, where he has recently taken over as Chair of the Department of Government. He has authored two books on common law and the American constitutional system, as well as countless articles on a variety of subjects related to political science.

And he has a Bible to thump.

During his thirty-minute, 9th grade-level civics lesson about the Constitution, its creation, and our Republican form of government, Stoner hit all the conservative talking points about judicial activism, strict constructionism, and small government being the AWESOME.

My favorite part of the lecture came when the nerdy but affable Stoner let his mask slip during a discussion on whether or not the constitution was a living document. With a sneer, Stoner maintained that it was doing just fine until the progressive era began, which was when the document metastasized into a tumor, making it something completely different from what it was intended. (Okay, I’m slightly paraphrasing here, but not by much.)

Who knew the progressives were a cancer on the body politic, subverting common law into some Dirty Fucking Hippie commune of free love, loose morals, and equality for all.

Even Arnie Knows That's Outrageous

But that’s not the way God intended it, according to Stoner, who is really pissed off that: kids are not allowed to pray in school (scroll down the page to find Stoner’s piece); women are allowed choice over their own bodies (Stoner gives the book a glowing review); gays are being allowed to marry; and unmarried individuals have the right to use contraceptives.

No, really, he’s very pissed off that those damned activist Supreme Court justices had the audacity to allow unmarried individuals the right to use contraceptives in the 1972 EISENSTADT v. BAIRD case.

Wayne D. Moore, Department of Political Science, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University reviewed Stoner’s second book, COMMON-LAW LIBERTY: RETHINKING AMERICAN CONSTITUTIONALISM, and highlighted this gem:

Even more reprehensible, according to Stoner, was the Court’s detachment of the right of privacy from marriage altogether through its holding in EISENSTADT that unmarried individuals had a right to use contraception. Once the Court made that move, in Stoner’s view, the ruling in ROE (v. WADE) was “merely an afterthought.”

I shudder to think what Stoner’s real thoughts are on integration, the civil rights laws, the voting rights acts, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid… In his mind, it must be the devil’s work.

But as a DHFer myself, I vociferously applaud the ruling in EISENSTADT, as I owe Trojan Condoms a huge debt of gratitude. And to Stoner, I would simply say: don’t hate the playa, hate the game.

-SF

UPDATE: You can find more three installments from the higher learning archives here: Beck U, Beck U2, Beck 4, and Beck 5.

Meg, Lies and Videotape

In 2010 Midterm Elections, Donkey Ad Watch, Idiocracy, Message/Framing, Politics, Propaganda on July 16, 2010 at 3:17 pm

I used to think that facts matter. You remember facts. The things that actually exist. Yup, I used to think that people could look at the facts objectively and see, for instance, that the reason they’re soaking wet is because they’ve been standing in the rain without an umbrella for over an hour. Or the reason we’re in such a deep debt hole is primarily because of the dynamic duo of Bush Tax Cuts and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I know the “very serious people” have decided to make national debt a hot topic these days (and why now, again?) but this chart should make that discussion pretty short. Simply get out of Iraq and Afghanistan and let the Bush Tax Cuts lapse at the end of the year and we will be back on the road to fiscal health (even Alan Greenspan agrees – look!)

Here’s another doozie of a chart that makes up look down and blue look red. It charts the increase in the national debt per president since before Jimmy Carter took office.


So, you mean that the notion of  “tax and spend Democrats” has no basis in reality? In fact the exact opposite is true: Republican presidents have run HUGE deficits compared to their Democratic counterparts. Where are those facts being touted in the “liberal” media?

This all brings me to Meg Whitman and her strategy to become the next governor of the Golden State. Last month E-Meg’s campaign put out this incredibly well-crafted buzz saw of an ad that lit up Jerry Brown like that awesome bag of weed we smoked when Moonbeam was elected in the 70′s.

Even KABC could wrestle this one down:

This is only one example. Lying is blanketed across Meg Whitman’s ads which have been criticized by factcheck.org and California Working Families. But this isn’t a big deal. It’s not the end of the world because facts will win the day, right?

Not so fast. The Oracle, Digby, referenced an article from the Boston Globe this week which will mess with your sense of right and wrong, literally: (emphasis mine)

Recently, a few political scientists have begun to discover a human tendency deeply discouraging to anyone with faith in the power of information. It’s this: Facts don’t necessarily have the power to change our minds. In fact, quite the opposite. In a series of studies in 2005 and 2006, researchers at the University of Michigan found that when misinformed people, particularly political partisans, were exposed to corrected facts in news stories, they rarely changed their minds. In fact, they often became even more strongly set in their beliefs. Facts, they found, were not curing misinformation. Like an underpowered antibiotic, facts could actually make misinformation even stronger.

Go on:

These findings open a long-running argument about the political ignorance of American citizens to broader questions about the interplay between the nature of human intelligence and our democratic ideals. Most of us like to believe that our opinions have been formed over time by careful, rational consideration of facts and ideas, and that the decisions based on those opinions, therefore, have the ring of soundness and intelligence. In reality, we often base our opinions on our beliefs, which can have an uneasy relationship with facts. And rather than facts driving beliefs, our beliefs can dictate the facts we chose to accept. They can cause us to twist facts so they fit better with our preconceived notions. Worst of all, they can lead us to uncritically accept bad information just because it reinforces our beliefs. This reinforcement makes us more confident we’re right, and even less likely to listen to any new information. And then we vote.

And then this:

On its own, this might not be a problem: People ignorant of the facts could simply choose not to vote. But instead, it appears that misinformed people often have some of the strongest political opinions.

So, we all know that there are lies. And when lies become memes and memes become policy then most everyone suffers, certainly the “small people” who lose our jobs, homes, retirements, and lives. The fact-deniers have known this for a long time. They’ve had decades of success getting their way by systematically lying which culminated in the Orwellian double speak which the Bush Administration took to new (and destructive) heights.

So at the end of the day, it’s simply a strategy. And, sadly, an effective one at that. If you keep telling lies to people who want to believe them they will continue believing the lies. They will also become the most passionate advocates of that lie because of the magic of the human brain. And the great part is that if the truth heads their way they will defend the lies with their lives. Often literally. It is that basic to human behavior.

Meg Whitman has chosen to follow this path. Lying as a strategy. Like dinner parties and fund raisers. Like Twitter and Facebook. She’s not the first, but she may be one of the best.

And I’m afraid it will work.

- SH

8/24 UPDATE: See our new ad that skewers Meg Whitman’s voting record here.

7/17 Update: Even the LA Times has picked up on the up on the fact that Meg lies with impunity in this story. She is full steam ahead in her “Campaign Which Facts Forgot” tour. They report on the “new” policy proposal booklet Meg put out yesterday:

The booklet, which features glossy pictures and graphics, is a mixture of Whitman’s policy proposals and criticisms of Brown. It contains some of the same falsehoods that have been featured in Whitman’s television ads or statements.

It continues:

The booklet is also disingenuous in its discussion of the economic conditions during Brown’s two terms as governor, from 1975 to 1983. It says Brown left the state with “record high” unemployment rate of 11.1%, Unemployment was higher both during the Great Depression and today, and the booklet fails to note that his departure coincided with a recession in which joblessness rose nationwide.

“It’s not new, it’s the same as her old one, just with more pictures, which I didn’t think was possible,” Brown spokesman Sterling Clifford said. “The attacks on Jerry are old lies, new format.”

7/17 Update: First she lies, then she spies. From the Sacramento Bee via the Miami Herald.

The leaders of the California Nurses Association had barely wrapped up a news conference recently slamming GOP gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman when they learned Whitman’s campaign had been watching them the whole time.A volunteer for the Republican had sneaked into the event held at the union’s downtown Oakland headquarters and sent live streaming video back to the campaign nearly 50 miles away in Cupertino. Within hours, Whitman aides were blasting to supporters an e-mail response to the event that featured clandestine video snippets.

The entire article is here.

7/19 Update: The horns are sounding. Seems like more people every day are on to eMeg. Phil Trounstine and Jerry Roberts have an excellent list of eMeg’s prevarications here and on their HuffPo piece this morning entitled “The Death of Truth: eMeg and the Politics of Lying” which details her flip-flops:

Indeed, when it comes to killing truth, eMeg is miles ahead in felony flip-floppery. The pro-Brown California Working Families tried to drive that point home last week with the release of an online ad titled “Lies.” detailing just a few recent examples of Megspeak:

Beck U 2: Hope (In The Name Of Wealth)

In Economics, Idiocracy, Message/Framing, Propaganda on July 15, 2010 at 11:46 am

The pseudo-intellectual beatings continue

First rule of Beck U: you do not learn at Beck U. Second rule of Beck U: you do NOT learn at Beck U. Third rule of Beck U: even if you yell “stop,” the pseudo-intellectual beating continues.

Last night’s faux intellectual was David Buckner, adjunct assistant professor of psychology and education at the Teachers’ College of Columbia University. Now I’m sure Mr. Buckner is an excellent instructor in his field of expertise, teaching courses in “Functions of Organizations” and “Special Topics in Organizational Psychology,” but when it comes to economics, Buckner’s visual aids and real-life examples make the “Dick and Jane” books look like “War and Peace.”

But what can you expect when passing out on the Glenn Beck’s show is your biggest claim to fame (no doubt from the overwhelming stench of the bullshit Beck was peddling).

Last night’s “lesson” started with a rambling seven-minute diatribe (I swear to God, it was seven minutes) about a horrible experience he once had with a gate agent in a busy airport terminal. The punchline of the story seemed to be that we needed to ask ourselves the “why” and not the “how” to get to our “purpose” in life.

The lesson I learned was that the persnickety Buckner would make a horrible traveling partner.

At the ten-minute mark, Buckner finally launched into his kindergarten-esque lecture on economics (pitched to the intellectual level of the average Beck viewer). Terms such as prosperity, profit, efficiency, investment, and corruption were thrown around without much context, meaning, or thought.

Buckner also kept referring to the “rules of the playground” throughout the lecture. But there was no explanation of the “why” or the “purpose.” So, I thought I would help Buckner out.

The school bullies (Republicans) constantly frighten (fear-monger) the other children (the middle and working class) with threats and lies (socialized medicine, the free market is self-correcting, the wealth will trickle down… I could go on) in order to steal their lunch money (tax cuts for the wealthy) so that they can spend it on candy (yachts, mansions, hookers and blow).

But perhaps I missed Buckner’s point.

Buckner then spent the last ten minutes riffing on planned versus market economies and how any government “investment in America” has no value (why do conservatives hate America so much?), creates monopolies that can’t compete in the global marketplace, and results in a transfer of wealth that creates a loss of control, freedom, and efficiency. In short, hope = purpose = wealth creation.  Yeah, I’m confused, too.

Of course, I could go on and on about the transfer of wealth from the middle and working class to the rich over the past 30 years or the corporate monopolies that have been created through deregulation or the loss of control over our democracy due to corporate money in politics, but I think I’ll let the gang from Monty Python explain how government investment works with their brilliant “What Have The Romans Done” scene from Life of Brian.  Simply insert the word “government” for “Romans” and enjoy.

-SF

UPDATE: Here are the other installments from my time at the “U”: Beck U, Beck 3, Beck 4, and Beck 5.

No Coke, Pepsi

In Message/Framing, Politics, Presidential Race, Propaganda on July 10, 2010 at 10:56 am

An all-nerds bulletin was put out this week over the inclusion of PepsiCo’s “Food Frontiers” blog on the ScienceBlogs network. The brouhaha fizzed out when the biggest names on ScienceBlogs’ network threatened to pull out and the Pepsi-ganda was put on ice. Obviously, the planners were one can short of a twelve-pack (or is it now a 15-pack?) on their strategy to infuse the dialog with their particular flavor of science. Loss: Pepsi.

Compare this approach to their archrival, Coke. Earlier this year, I was cajoled into paying $15 to enter the World of Coca-Cola in Atlanta. And what a world it is. Act One starts innocently enough in the Coca-Cola Loft where we are immersed “in the rich heritage of Coca-Cola.” The taste quickly turns sour as a mind-numbing Q&A about the history of Coke ensues. In a twist on the age-old museum model of you ask, they answer — in the World of Coke they ask the questions and you give the answers. In fact you must give the correct answers. Every. Single. Time. And the audience is drilled until they do. Only then do they mercifully move on to the next question and the Socratic process begins again. As I discovered, this was simply a precursor to my realization that this isn’t your typical museum.

Act Two is a film, “Inside the Happiness Factory”, which I blocked until this writing. It’s unlike any animated film you’ve ever seen. It’s supposed to be about funny characters who inhabit a magical world inside a coke machine and who make your coke one bottle at a time as soon as the money is dropped into the slot. Money in: fun-in-a-bottle out. What it actually is, is a brilliant dystopian animated nightmare that the creators made underneath the noses of the corporate bosses who didn’t get the subtext. In it a documentary crew interviews the slutty, unstable cheerleader; obese diabetic bottlers on the line; and a myriad of Juan Miro meets Spongebob Squarepants character types who are all neurotic, catatonic,  suicidal and HAVE NO EYES. No joke. No eyes. None of them. It’s so insane it would make Tim Burton say “Now, that’s fucked up.”

And yet that wasn’t the most traumatic film of the day. Act Three, “In Search of the Secret Formula” is a motion ride in 4-D which both flooded (yes, with actual water) and thrashed us about so insanely that it nearly detached my friend’s retina. Think Leni Riefenstahl meets a car wash on Space Mountain.

The denouement is bad sodas from many lands – hundreds of them. Have high fructose corn syrup, will travel! And in the middle of all of the madness, simply, elegantly stood a fountain of original Coke. I filled my cup and tasted as if it was Napa’s finest vintage. I thought about the secret ingredient –what is it? Vanilla? Black Cherry? I didn’t know, but I was asking the question. Suddenly, my programming and conditioning from the last hour kicked in and I remembered, the secret ingredient is “you”.

I am the secret ingredient.

I am in awe of Coke. Not only did I spend an hour and a half inside a giant Coke bottle of propaganda while engaging my lizard-brain in a fright or flight opera of mental and emotional fizziness, but I paid FIFTEEN DOLLARS for the privilege! Win: Coke.

Also this week, (it’s a long walk for this one but worth it my friends) Sarah Palin’s PAC sent out her “grizzly mom” video to the delight of her adoring hoards. In an astonishing, and frankly impressive, display of “there’s no there, there” anti-messaging-messaging, her image-makers created a 2 minute piece filled with “shucks” and fury signifying nothing. Watch:

But that’s not the point, is it? The video makes her look like a President but feel like a mom. Two tastes that taste great together.

Palin’s posse and the conservatives, who play a much better game of “hide the (legislative) sausage” than neo-liberals, get the simple truth that in our society emotion trumps reason. Fear trumps Facts. Terror trumps Wisdom. Which is why I have come to the conclusion that the conservatives are Coke and the neo-liberals are Pepsi.

You see, Pepsi (like Obama and his team in the blue can) always wants us to “take the Pepsi challenge”: just wait until you see the health care bill in action; log onto to recovery.gov and see for  yourself that the Stimulus worked. As if a little additional real-world fact checking, a little thought given to comparing and contrasting different points of view – as if our logic brain will finally, at long last, override our emotions, and we would finally be won over by the facts. Pepsi does taste better than Coke. The Stimulus did work.

Herein lies the problem with Pepsi’s marketing — they’re playing straight from the neo-Liberal playbook. As if logic matters. As if facts matter. They do. But not in a vacuum. And ideas don’t stick without emotion and passion. (Sidebar: Is there any coincidence that Pepsi stole the Obama campaign logo design in late 2008? Do you wonder if they regret that today?)

Coke and the conservatives (in the red can), on the other hand, don’t care because they believe there’s no need for logical comparisons only emotional connection. They’ve created a “museum” that is an anti-museum where we learn nothing. They’ve created a “candidate” that is an anti-candidate who knows nothing. Who believes that all that is needed is a “secret ingredient”: “American Exceptionalism”, “A Christian Nation”, “Drill, Baby, Drill”, “Honest, Hardworking Americans”, “Joe-Six Pack”, and “Hockey Moms” just to name a few.

And the kicker is, as Palin has told us all along and has done so again in “Grizzly Mom”, the secret ingredient is you.

Unfortunately for all of us, no matter whether it’s Coke or Pepsi, Neo-Liberals or Conservitives – the choice, in the end, is no choice at all.

They’re both just colas.

- SH

Beck U. – Leave Those Kids Alone

In First Amendment, Message/Framing, Politics, Propaganda, Religion on July 8, 2010 at 10:26 am

My wife and I already tens of thousands in debt from attending various institutes of higher learning, I figured another $9.95 wouldn’t matter, so I enrolled in Beck University. The expense was easily justifiable in my mind due to the riches I would mine in horselaughs, guffaws, and mockable moments – all of which I would pass along in the spirit of comic relief from these troubled times. And who wouldn’t want to add an M.A. (Moronis Asinines) to their list of accomplishments?

The modern-day P.T. Barnum conjures up his next circus act

But my right-wing funhouse soon turned into a house of horrors, as I was treated to an approximately 30-minute lecture (presumably the outer limits of a wing-nut’s attention span) that covered our Founding Fathers and the birth of our nation. I had clearly picked the wrong day to give up drinking.

What unfolded was a “lecture” about the so-called “Black-Robed Regiment” – apparently a band of Evangelical Christian preachers that invoked from the Bible the political and moral underpinnings upon which the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were based and that single-handedly defeated the British at the battles of Concord, Lexington, and Bunker Hill. Ever heard of the “Black-Robed Regiment”? Me neither. It sounds like an obscure 1990s Steven Seagal film.

Over one of the most harrowing half hours of my entire life, I also learned that the principles of American government were based on the “best forms of government listed in the Bible”; that these preachers were the true framers of the Declaration of Independence (Jefferson was merely its scribe); and that the Founding Fathers never really intended on a separation of church and state (despite what my lying eyes tell me when I read the First Amendment). I’ve killed off less brain cells at a Sigma Nu Mardi Gras party.

So who “learned” me all that? David Barton. A pseudo-historian with limited academic credentials who has peddled this Evangelical revisionist history in order to propagate a right-wing utopia of a Christian nation – all with made-up facts and thoroughly debunked quotes. People for the American Way have the details:

Academic historians, according to the New York Times, give Barton’s work at best a “B minus,” noting that while the historical facts he cites are more or less accurate, his biased interpretation of them is not. [17] The Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty said that Barton’s work is “laced with exaggerations, half-truths and misstatements of fact” [18] and the Texas Freedom Network calls him “a pseudo-intellectual fraud whose twisted interpretations of history are little more than propaganda.” [19]

[…]

Barton specializes in uncovering the “lost history” of America, a history that Barton claims shows that the Founding Fathers intended to create a government “firmly rooted in biblical principles.” But to do so, he relies on the writings of obscure figures such as Francis Hopkins and Benjamin Rush while ignoring or disputing the conventionally accepted history regarding the views of men such as Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, and James Madison. As [Texas Monthly’s Nate] Blakeslee correctly notes, it is “the big picture that Barton’s books deliberately ignore: that the views on religion and government of figures like Benjamin Rush fell into obscurity not because of some conspiracy but because they failed to carry the day.”[26]

Of course, the most frightening thing about this whole farce is that assholes like the Moral Majority, the Republican Party, and Glenn Beck give this guy a national forum that legitimizes him in the eyes of the public. The RNC does it purely for political gain. But what does Beck get out of this? Why your ten dollars, and the chance to sell you oodles and oodles of branded merchandise to feed his million-dollar empire.

But once this poison gets out into the public consciousness, it never goes away, especially among the true believers and the tin-foil hat crowd. That’s why we dismiss these crackpots and their propaganda at our peril. Once again, People for the American Way:

In 2005, Derek Davis, the director of the JM Dawson Institute of Church-State Studies at Baylor University, said of Barton: “He’s not a trained historian. He can be very convincing to an uninitiated audience. He’s intelligent. He’s well-spoken. But a lot of what he presents is a distortion of the truth.

[…]

[And] even though Barton was forced to publicly retract several statements, the false information had already been entered into the public domain where it continues to propagate unchallenged.

Unfortunately, Barton’s propaganda has already infected the body politic in a very harmful way. He was very instrumental in making sure this “lost history” was included in the new breed of textbooks coming out of Texas. And before we all comfort ourselves by thinking that only kids in Texas will grow up with a warped and wholly inaccurate view of American history (and screw them for choosing to live in a red state anyway, right?), these textbooks will be sold across the country and instituted in a school district near you.

Onward, Christian soldiers.

-SF

UPDATE: Check out our post on the second “lesson” at Beck U.

UPDATE 2: And here are lessons three, four, and five.

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