In 1977, the Sex Pistols played their final UK concert in Huddersfield to benefit striking firefighters. If you like the Pistols, Christmas, firefighters, or even just good holiday vibrations, you should click through to the story “How the Sex Pistols Save Christmas” at Dangerous Minds, complete with video.
Nelson Mandela is dead. Mandela’s struggle to end the oppression of Apartheid in South Africa has been chronicled many times, but it’s important to remember that once upon a time he was labeled a terrorist. Many of the same voices praising him today were condemning him thirty years ago. The Reagan Administration actively fought to prevent action against the White Supremacist Apartheid regime of P.W. Botha. William F. Buckley famously compared Mandela to V.I. Lenin (and not as a compliment). Dick Cheney led opposition to sanctions in the House, aligning himself with notorious racists Jesse Helms, Strom Thurmond and Phil Gramm in the Senate.
Compare the way they treated Mandela to the way they treated Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. While both were actively working to end established racist social structures, Conservatives called them every name in the book (although “Communist” always seemed to be the dirtiest one they could deploy). They opposed any action in support of the cause of freedom and equality for people of color, even relatively mild economic sanctions. And now, after history has made its judgment on the struggles of these great men, Conservatives attempt to coopt their legacies. Well, despite what Mitt Romney may think, you can’t baptize someone after they’re dead. No amount of revisionist history changes the facts as they stand. When it mattered, Conservatives were on the wrong side, as always.
The last post got me to thinking about why Republicans always seem to end up eating their shoe just when they think they’ve got Obama where they want him. I’ve seen a few comparisons of the President to Br’er Rabbit, the trickster hero of Southern Black folklore. But if we are defined by our enemies, then I think a more apt analogy is Marty McFly of the “Back to the Future” trilogy. Because the perfect avatar of Republican thought and action is, without a doubt, Biff Tannen.
Much like Biff, the Republican Party has displayed an irrational animosity toward our protagonist President, opposing everything he does out of some instinctive dislike for him. If Obama proposed an anti-suicide initiative, Republicans would show up on TV promoting sleeping pills and Bourbon. But inevitably, they end up looking stupid. The Obamacare website problems are only the latest example. After spending a month telling America that the flawed rollout meant the end of Obamacare, they are now busily trying to shift the focus to something else. When President Obama threatened military action against the Assad regime in Syria after their indiscriminate and horrendous use of chemical weapons against a civilian population, Republicans openly spoke of impeaching him if he acted without Congressional approval. (So much for politics ending at the border, by the way.) When Obama’s stance resulted in Assad allowing the UN to dismantle his chemical weapons stockpile, Republicans were wiping egg off their faces again. Prior to that, the Republicans in Congress, led by latter-day Joe McCarthy Ted Cruz, decided to shut down the government under the insane delusion that they might force Obama to reverse the signature legislative achievement of his tenure in office. When this disastrous auto-pedal firing squad had finished its work, the Republican brand was as unpopular as it has ever been.
Time after time, Republicans try to bury the President and end up burying themselves in manure.
December 1st has rolled around and suddenly the naysayers are no longer saying nay. Or at least not saying it about Healthcare.gov, the official portal to the healthcare exchanges established by the Federal government in states run by Republican douchenozzles more concerned about earning Tea Party street cred than helping the most afflicted of the people who put them in office. So now, as they are wont to do, the stupid wing of the Republican party (protip: that chicken only has one wing) is trying to pivot away from criticism of the website rollout back to more generalized complaints about the law itself.
The problem with this tack is that the vast majority of currently insured Americans will see no change in coverage, while the remaining small percentage of the population will either be able to purchase insurance for the first time or see no change or a reduction in their rates, if currently insured. The only people who will be adversely affected are a small percentage of currently uninsured young people (those who think a gym membership makes you immortal) and those with current plans that really cover nothing at all. The fact is, even these people will be better off under Obamacare, because they will have plans that provide actual healthcare.
Eventually, after all the noise has subsided, people will begin to realize that Obamacare is a net good, at which point the Republicans who so vocally oppose it now will have egg on their face. Again.
One more before I sleep. I saw this on Raw Story, regarding this historic agreement Obama and Kerry negotiated with Iran:
“Some of my friends were talking over the weekend, isn’t that curious timing? Out of nowhere, you know, in the midst of Obamacare not unrolling correctly, the president’s poll numbers never been lower then, look, [Secretary of State] John Kerry pulls a rabbit out of his hat and changes the subject.”
– Steve Doocy on “Fox and Friends”
Just because you hadn’t heard about it before doesn’t mean it was “out of nowhere”, Steve. It just means that you are very bad at your job, and probably really dumb.
But it’s late now. Largely I’m curious why no one seems to be pointing out that the exchanges in California and Kentucky demonstrate how well the program works when you don’t have entire state governments (as in Texas) actively working to undermine it. If Republicans were actually concerned about the well-being of the most vulnerable Americans, they might put party loyalty behind actually doing what’s right for a change. Nah, that’s crazy talk….
Catholic League President and self-defeating moron Bill Donohue has opted to throw his support to Bill Maher following a Dan Savage appearance on HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher”. On that episode, Savage made some unkind remarks about the Catholic Church’s history of covering up child sexual abuse by priests in response to homophobic (and factually unsupported*) comments regarding the children of gay couples by a bishop in Hawaii.
The reason I can only conclude that Donohue wants to keep Maher on the air is his extraordinary effort to bring attention to the show. “Real Time” airs on HBO, a channel well-known for promoting provocative programs. Bill Maher has made his views on religion very public, most notably in the film “Religulous”, so it’s not as if HBO is unaware of his skepticism regarding matters of theology. Any sort of controversy around Maher or his program can only increase his notoriety and increased notoriety means more viewership. But even if viewership declines, HBO is unlikely to cancel a show that regularly grabs headlines. Nothing short of massive subscription cancellations by offended Catholics would even make a dent, and given that “Game of Thrones” is due to restart soon, that’s probably not in the stars.
Given these considerations, the only way Donohue’s actions make sense is if he’s looking to promote Maher’s show and keep it in the headlines. Which makes sense, since the Donohues of the world always need a Devil they can point to in order to justify what they do. Of course, there is always the possibility that Bill Donohue is just very, very stupid.
* The debunked claim that the children of gay couples have a higher suicide rate comes from George Rekers of South Carolina, a noted anti-gay activist who was at one time employed by the state of Florida to provide “scientific” evidence against gay adoption. Rekers was largely publicly repudiated by the homophobic community that had once championed him after he hired a gay companion on rentboy.com to accompany him on an extended trip to Europe.
I tried this once, many years ago. I enjoyed it right up until 9/11/01. Actually, it was a couple of weeks after that, when my darkest suspicions were confirmed and George W. Bush chose to exploit the benefit of the doubt given to him by me and many others to ram through policies unrelated to our national tragedy, that I lost my stomach for it. But like any good American would, I have decided to renew my efforts to cast light into the darkest depths of our political morass.
So here it is. I call this blog A Working Man’s Lunch because I hope it will give readers something to chew over or stew over in fairly bite-sized chunks. Also, I have a great fondness for the workers of the world and the efforts they put in despite the deprivations and predations of the overly entitled “investor class”. As a society, America needs to rediscover the values of shared reward and sacrifice. We have allowed ourselves to be swayed into selfish behaviors and mindsets by happy sounding words from essentially evil men. These men have convinced too many of us that a healthy economy is one where the haves are free to pillage the have-nots and where the worth of a man is measured by his wealth. That is a sick mentality that leads to the situation we have today, where our economic system is geared toward keeping the rich rich and the poor poor. Financial success should definitely be one of the rewards for hard work and smart entrepreneurialism, but these days we spend much more time rewarding sly men for being the best at gaming the system. The end result is a nation where CEOs make hundreds of times what their lowest paid workers do. A nation where cynical snake-oil salesmen steal the pension funds of honest citizens and suffer no consequences due to legal loopholes. A nation where the only thing stopping people from hurting others is what’s legal, rather than what’s right. And for the largest predators, even legality doesn’t matter. When the greatest penalty you’ll pay for stealing a billion dollars is that you have to pay half of it back, is there really anything protecting the average investor from the bandits?
Anyway, I’ll probably mostly just link to stuff that I find interesting or appalling, although occasionally I’ll post a rant. I hope you enjoy.