This topic is and always has been beyond idiocy to me. So the fact that I feel compelled to expend not one, but two whole posts on this fills me with a sense of deep revulsion for the state of our society.  I strongly agree with Peter Daou who tweeted:

Or similarly there is Ezra Klein’s take on why this controversy really ought not even be worthy of our attention.

Well, yes. I can’t imagine that world for unemployment, or financial-regulation reform, or the Afghanistan Wikileaks. But it absolutely could’ve been the case that Imam Feisel Abdul Rauf decided to build an Islamic community center and no one really noticed, or cared, and maybe a few local politicians from both parties showed up to help cut the ribbon. As it happened, a few opportunists went after it, which brought it to the attention of a few sensationalistic media outlets, and then some opportunistic politicians jumped on board, and then their colleagues felt compelled to comment, and then more legitimate media outlets had something to cover, and on and on. The story is a story because of the incentives of the people making it a story, not because there’s something about an Islamic community center a few blocks from Ground Zero that just screams out for national attention.

Don’t believe me? Then ask yourself why you’ve never heard anyone complain about the halal food carts parked outside the Ground Zero construction site. This didn’t need to become a polarizing national issue. It was made into a polarizing national issue. And now the only thing to do is to wait for it to pass.”

Only I don’t really agree with Klein. While Klein’s explanation of why this mosque non-issue became an issue is absolutely true, his belief that we shouldn’t talk about it now too so as to not feed into the media frenzy I disagree with. As much as I would love to leave this topic rest and never have to talk about it again, I think it’s become really important. Religious freedom really IS important. Not because religion has any special status of significance in our society. But because religious beliefs are just a subset of beliefs in general. And we must defend our freedom to come together and express our beliefs no matter what form they happen to take. That includes the psycho crazy beliefs. That certainly includes the beliefs of those who follow a mostly peaceful religion.

What’s more this anti-Mosque business has gotten and continues to get really really ugly. It has nothing to do with the so called “ground zero” mosque (in reality neither at ground zero nor really a mosque) itself. It’s about hatred. There is a deep desire by some to promote and continue this idea of a grand war of the religions. Islam vs Christianity! And they want to paint Muslims as the badguys. Evil. Dangerous. Scary. They’re engaging in a great global jihad determined to as one commenter on my blog suggests “destroy free society” itself.

So of course since those are the badguys, of course it’s fine for us to take away their rights. I mean they’re bad right? Who cares! Lock-em up and torture them!

And that’s the ugliness. It’s two fold. On one side it’s the tarring of anyone who practices or is associated with Islam as evil. On the other it’s saying that because we don’t agree with them we have the right to do whatever we want to them including take away their fundamental human rights.  They’re the other. They don’t matter.  Only WE matter.

To be fair, there are a lot of 9/11 families who are passionately against this Mosque (though there are others who oppose them). And I agree that we should be somewhat sensitive to their feelings but not to the point where we deny other people’s rights and freedoms.  Muslims died on 9/11 too. If someone who is ordinarily reasonable thinks that this mosque is a risk to free society, then it stands to reason that someone has been riling them up with lies and distortions. And there are. There are a lot of people who try to use people for their own gains and don’t give a damn about the truth.

Glenn Greenwald explains the sheer ugliness of this business well quoting an exchange on CNN here:

“Lemon:  I think that’s apples and oranges - I don’t think that black people were behind a Terrorist plot to kill people and drive planes into a building.  That’s a completely different circumstance.

That sums it up about as well as anything I’ve heard.  Nothing related to Muslims should be near Ground Zero, because it was Muslims generally — not the handful of extremists — who flew the planes into those buildings.  It’s just amazing that that last point from Patel even needs to be uttered, but it does.  This campaign is nothing different than all of the standard, definitively bigoted efforts to hold entire demographic groups of people responsible for the aberrational acts of a small percentage of individual members.  Congratulations to CNN’s Don Lemon for laying it all out in its naked clarity. This whole controversy is exactly that disgusting.”

Challenging this “disgusting” rhetoric is immensely important. We can’t afford to become a country wherein this kind of thing is considered “normal”. That’s why one of the most disturbing facts I’ve ever learned was the fact that this ridiculousness was compelling enough to convince some 64% of the population to oppose the mosque.

Which is why I and many others were pleasantly surprised when President Obama came out pretty strongly against this kind of hatred and villainy.

This was a powerful statement and it’s incredibly important to have a President going out there and saying something like this in spite of the extreme opposition to the mosque being whipped up by the dangerous hatemongers who oppose it. 

Of course, sadly this cannot be the end of this story with regard to Obama since later he “clarified” by specifying:

I’m honestly not entirely sure what that even means. But even so, I’m glad the President said something on the issue even if it could have been a lot stronger. 

His party, sadly, though has been even worse. Senate majority leader Harry Reid came out with this statement:

Glenn Greenwald again documents a number of other Democrats caving to majority will on this issue rather than trying to stand up for their principles.

Others have been better at truly challenging the spread of this hatred. The best, I felt was the Special Comment by Keith Olbermann on the issue:

Almost as good is Sam Seder’s That’s Bullshit video on the Ground Zero mosque here:

The best politician on the matter has been Michael Bloomberg who said:

“The simple fact is, this building is private property, and the owners have a right to use the building as a house of worship, and the government has no right whatsoever to deny that right. And if it were tried, the courts would almost certainly strike it down as a violation of the U.S. Constitution.

“Whatever you may think of the proposed mosque and community center, lost in the heat of the debate has been a basic question: Should government attempt to deny private citizens the right to build a house of worship on private property based on their particular religion? That may happen in other countries, but we should never allow it to happen here.

“This nation was founded on the principle that the government must never choose between religions or favor one over another. The World Trade Center site will forever hold a special place in our city, in our hearts. But we would be untrue to the best part of ourselves and who we are as New Yorkers and Americans if we said no to a mosque in lower Manhattan.

“Let us not forget that Muslims were among those murdered on 9/11, and that our Muslim neighbors grieved with us as New Yorkers and as Americans. We would betray our values and play into our enemies’ hands if we were to treat Muslims differently than anyone else. In fact, to cave to popular sentiment would be to hand a victory to the terrorists, and we should not stand for that.

“For that reason, I believe that this is an important test of the separation of church and state as we may see in our lifetimes, as important a test. And it is critically important that we get it right.”

Another fairly detailed defense I found posted in the comments of my last entry by Christopher Hitchens:

Now Hitchens I’ve always found to be fairly interesting. His intellect and skill with language is clear but I don’t often agree with him completely. This case is no exception either. While I do agree with him that it isn’t the case that we should always automatically assume good faith and accept the idea that any project whatsoever should be considered acceptable. There probably IS a level of obnoxiousness that a project could reach that would even sicken me even if it were technically in line with the tenants of religious freedom. For example I would oppose someone creating a monument to the glory of the KKK just about anywhere in the United States. But I would not support creating any laws against it or any violence done to the perpetrators. I would simply find it appalling and would expect and want the people to protest such a project because it is offensive. But even so you shouldn’t necessarily decide a policy decision on whether or not to allow the KKK monument based solely on my or anyone else’s feelings on the matter. I simply would hope that enough pressure is brought to bear that the creators of such a project change their mind on the wisdom of it. Hence I agree with Obama in that sense.

Similarly, if this Mosque were built on the exact grounds of ground zero, were funded by and created by Al Qaeda and were a huge monstrous monument to terrorism, then I’d be opposed to it too.  Of course the reality of the project is vastly far from this as has been demonstrated again and again and again above. This is a made up controversy that exists because it is is some people’s interest to keep stoking the flames of anti-islamic hatred.

Which brings me to thing that I disagree with Hitchens on. Earlier in his piece he describes the Imam who is behind the Mosque as shady and adopts the right wing smears against him to show it.  I don’t know anything about this Imam person but Hitchens arguments, at least, are grossly unconvincing:

The refusal to designate Hamas as a “terrorist” group is not the least bit damming.  Terrorism is a term thrown around and over used in an immensely dangerous fashion. It is often used to denigrate people unjustly, to paint the many as guilty of the crimes of the few, and to create some sort of superior “holier than thou” attitude in the speaker.  Hamas is a complex organization that has done terrible, even horrible things. And we should condemn them for those acts. But so do a lot of organizations that we explicitly avoid using the “terror” designation for because they happen to be seen as our allies.

I believe in taking actions exactly as they are and not wasting time with ridiculous labels. The facts are that Hamas is the lawfully elected government of Gaza. The facts are that Hamas is responsible for kidnappings and rockets that have killed. Similarly the facts are that the United States is responsible for killing many civilians through drone attacks. And it is a fact that Israel has captured many palestinians and held them without charge or due process. Just as we have in the United States with people we accused of terrorism in Guantanemo Bay.

Those facts are what matter. Not whether or not someone uses the word “terrorism”.  Refusing to use the term “terrorism” is not at all “creepy”, especially when that McCarthyeque question “Is or is not organization X a terrorist organization” is so often used as a distraction from the issues of importance as a kind of “gotcha” politics. It is used to explicitly attempt to either force the debate into terms where the speaker can control or else failing that paint the speaker as a “terrorist sympathizer” on those grounds alone.

Unfortunately there’s no video on it up on youtube that I could find, but there was a fascinating interview where Cenk Uygur of the Young Turks interviews an adamant opponent of the so called ground zero mosque.  During this interview the interviewee does exactly as I’ve described here by demanding that Cenk answer the question of whether or not Hamas is or is not a terrorist organization! Cenk answers the question by talking about the facts of who Hamas is, not some capitulating to his opponents framing. Even though, by all rights he had no reason to answer at all since it manifestly has absolutely zilch to do with the issue at hand. But during the course of the interview Cenk had to deal with so many disturbing evasions and twisted manipulations of the facts that he became utterly frustrated with the interviewee that he totally lost his temper and finally just cut the guy off.  It wasn’t the most professional thing Cenk has ever done but it was genuine and understandable I thought, when dealing with this kind of manipulative testimony.  The interview was on the August 11th show of the Young Turks which you need to be a member to download at theyoungturks.com.

As for the other Hitchens points about the imam suggesting that US policy actually does have something to do with 9/11 I don’t see why people would be upset or disturbed by that. It should be, by now accepted fact. Indeed it’s the position of the CIA that blowback over US policy partially contributed to 9/11.

But the best answer to that comes, of course,  from Jon Stewart who tackled the whole Mosque controversy the other day:

Stewart nails it in so many ways.  The last part of that interview I thought was fascinating because it reminded me of this controversy described here, here, and here between Roger Ebert and the right wing over whether or not kids can wear American Flags to school on cinco de mayo without getting sent home by the school administration.

It’s sort of amazing that the same people who were outraged by the idea that this principle might dare to send a few kids home for a day over possibly offensive American flags are the same people who want to deny the muslim community their right to build a a community center with a place of muslim worship in it two blocks away from ground zero. So you’re free to wear American flags no matter who it offends, but political correctness has to come back enforce when it comes to muslims? How does that make sense.

Undoubtedly there are those who are equally hypocritical on the other side. Those who will defend the right of muslims to build their mosque but will not defend the right of the children to wear whatever close they’d like.

But most I think have a more rational and nuanced approach to the entire thing. The children on Cinco De Mayo were highly likely being deliberately provocative. Personally I think they were probably being dicks. But not knowing their motivations or even if they were aware of what day it was we can’t even say that with any certainty. Nevertheless, even if we could, they have every right to wear whatever they want in accordance with the school’s dress policy.But the school also has a right to try to maintain order and create a safe learning environment for their kids. Where you thread the needle on that issue depends largely on the conditions on the ground. Is wearing the flag shirts causing a big promotion, disrupting class, making it difficult for people to learn? Well then perhaps the school can ask that the kids change clothing just as they could if they were wearing any other offensive kind of dress. Or else separate the kids on both sides. Perhaps by sending any kids who make an issue of the clothing AND the kids wearing the clothing home. But if the dress is causing no  real harm, just upsetting people, then the administration has no grounds to send the students home on a mere whim or simply because they fear it might cause harm.

We thread the needle in ways like this all the time. We allow bigots and monsters to march and express themselves freely because it causes no direct harm and it is their right to freedom of speech and expression. But at the same time we do what we can to minimize any possible harm often by sending police escorts to ensure that the marchers don’t provoke or get provoked into a violent confrontation. And if a group marches with the intent to create a violent clash then that group would not be excused from the consequences of those actions simply because they claimed first amendment rights.

Similarly with the not quite a mosque formerly known as Cordoba. This is not a thing that would cause any real harm to anyone, nor is there any convincing or compelling evidence that I have seen that it was designed to do so.  The mere fact that some find it offensive is no grounds by itself to restrict their ability to build a mosque. If it were any of the things the critics were claiming it was, maybe it would be a different story. But its clearly not.

But let’s get back to what the REAL problem is. It’s not whether or not this mosque gets built. It’s the fact that this mosque is just a proxy for fundamental religious intolerance that some want to revel in.  Indeed when you look at the history of the mosque controversy you can see how clearly it was made up. In this time line by Justin Elliott he shows how the Cordoba project started getting press waaaay back in early December of 2009 but back then nobody cared. Indeed the project was praised as a stance against extremism in the early days of the press coverage, even on Fox News.  However, Pamela Geller a viciously anti-muslim blogger pushed it until it started to get traction. Soon, other right wing noise machines picked it up because they started to see a way to spin it in classic demagogic fashion to inspire people’s fear and distract people from the real and more pressing issues in the country. In short, you could win a few news cycles and get people to not talk about stuff that really matters. Like suffering. Like jobs. So suddenly it became a big deal and Fox started pushing the evil and scariness of the mosque, relentlessly.

It had its effect by creating outrage accross the country, not just at THIS Mosque, but at ALL mosques proving that it’s really an anti-Islam campaign, not just about this one issue.

The whole thing was best described in yet another Jon Stewart segment:

Do you see the pattern?  Hatred just spreads piece by piece, day by day. Fears are invoked and people become terrified of the “other” because it’s easier to be angry and afraid at them then to figure out what has really gone wrong in their lives and in this country and try to fix it.  Hint. It has nothing to do with this ground zero community center project.

To end off I’ll leave you with a segment from Cenk Uygur on MSNBC that I felt, also, correctly identifies why we should all find this hatred campaign so offensive and dangerous.

Dear Muslims,

Please understand. We’re not trying to FORCE you not to open a community center that contains a mosque two blocks from ground zero. You have a right to build a mosque anywhere you want. We totally believe in religious freedom and tolerance! We’re in favor of Islam! We love muslims! We only questioned the “wisdom” of you building it in precisely that location. 

And if, in so doing, we just happened to whip up so much anger, fear, hatred, and resentment directed toward muslims that you became downright afraid that if you did build a mosque you’d have a mob of people with torches and pitchforks knocking down your door… well that’s hardly OUR fault is it? I mean just because we said that Islam is our enemy and the muslim faith and the koran are totally to blame for 9/11… that obviously doesn’t make us anti-Islam. Any idiot with half a brain would know we’re talking about Osama Bin Laden and his crew! … and hezbollah…  and hamas…  and the entire muslim parts of the populations of Iran, Syria, and Pakistan… and members of the Nation of Islam… and any muslims working for Al Jazeera… and any other muslims we don’t like. But definitely not muslims in general. 

And of course the fact that people are enraged across the country at the very idea of building a mosque *anywhere* near them, well that can’t possibly have anything to do with our campaign against THIS mosque. How dare you even think to accuse us of that! Those protests are all independent actions. We can hardly control those people and for all we know they might have legitimate reasons to question the “wisdom” of building those mosques too! You have to look at it on a case by case basis.

All we’re saying is it’s like totally your constitutional right to build a mosque anywhere in the country if you own the property on which it will sit. Just make sure you decide where and when to build your mosques “wisely” And of course we’ll be the judge of what’s wise or not. If you choose wrongly we’ll just make sure everybody knows and that everybody rightfully hates you for it. And, although we won’t have anything to do with it, because we’re very peaceful people who never ever advocate or instigate violence… I’d still watch your back if I were you.

Sincerely,

The 70% of Americans who are against the ground-zero Mosque

A few questions for you. 

1.  What are the MBTI or Keirsey Temperament scores of various Awesome people in Literature, Fiction, and History?
Such as:  President Obama, John McCain, Gandalf, Frodo, Charles Xavier, Magneto, Batman, The Joker, Spiderman, Superman, Lex Luthor, Ironman, Sherlock Holmes, Professor Moliarty, Dumbledore, Grindwald, The Cast of Stargate Atlantis and SG-1, Captain Picard, Q, Harry Potter, Ron, Hermione, Snape, etc.

2.  For a particular hero of a particular type, what type makes their perfect villain?  Is a Mastermind best matched up against a Promoter? Or a Protector best matched up against a Champion? 

3.  If the 16 Types were all to get into a Gigantic WORLD WAR!!! Which type would totally PWN all the others?

These things and more we discussed the other day in Episode 2 of our new podcast (working title Getting Thinky). Which you can download and listen to and subscribe to here:   http://gettingthinky.blogspot.com/2010/08/episode-2-myers-briggs-type-indicator.html

Participants:  elvesdoitbetter, moonlitsage, the44thHour, and nephyo

Your thoughts are much appreciated.

(My extreme apologies in taking so long to post this. The podcast was recorded on 07/17/2010 but it took a long time for me to edit it and put it out there. I have no excuse for this. I just got caught up in other things. But I promise to attempt to do better next time.)

preview:  Episode 3 of the Podcast’s topic will be:  What Makes Music Great?

BTW you don’t have to listen to the entire podcast to comment to this subject here or answer the questions I’ve put forth.

Judge Walker lifted his Stay on his ruling to strike down Proposition 8 and allow gay couples to marry, but he gave the lawyers like a week to ask the 9th circuit to place their own stay pending a ruling.  So a long story short, we still don’t know with a certainty whether any gay couples will be able to be married in California yet.

However, assuming the 9th circuit doesn’t interfere now, then on the 18th gay couples will be able to be married again in California and continue to be married there until something changes either in the 9th circuit or the supreme court. As I believe firmly that both courts will side with reason and rationality and strike down proposition 8, it seems likely that August 18th might be the day that gay couples re-gained their right to marry. And since there are nowhere near the votes for a nationwide bigoted anti-gay constitutional amendment, it will, hopefully be a right they keep for good this time.

But it might not be.

One thing I’ve always wondered that a lot of people don’t talk about is what effect this anxiety about whether or not you’ll even be able to get married has on gay couples?  I mean you hear a lot about the people who have been in stable relationships for a long long time and have been just waiting to get married and how they’re suffering, but you don’t hear a lot about the couples who aren’t that certain about the whole “marriage” thing.

I wonder if it isn’t the case that a lot of these couples will rush to get married on and after August 18th simply because they fear that if they don’t, then in the future, if prop 8 is reinstated, they won’t be able to for God knows how long. 

Will this create a flood of somewhat less stable marriages, rushed marriages engaged in out of anxiety rather than a certainty that this person is the most suitable long term mate?

Or will it create the opposite effect? Will people simply, out of disgust, not bother to even try to get married rather than face the disappointment and hurt they would feel should their marriages in the future be struck down or rendered meaningless by some kind of stupid bigoted law or ruling the people or Judges chose to support?

Marriage has considerable benefit, so I would suspect that the former scenario is more likely. If I’m right then we’ll see an unnatural jump in the divorce rate amongst gay couples in future statistics that will directly correspond with this period of anxious prop-8 related uncertainty which instigated rushed relationships and marriages.

And if that’s the case, how much do you want to bet that some crazy anti-gay marriage zealots will try to use that statistic absurdly as proof that gay marriages are somehow unstable and less meaningful than the heterosexual ones?

The good news is it would take a gargantuan leap in divorce rates for gay couple divorce rates to exceed that massively high divorce rate that straight couples have.  So that line of attack will probably fall flat on its ass. As it should.

But it never hurts to be prepared. You have to be ready to answer whatever line of attacks bigots will use to attack your fundamental rights and freedoms. There will be people out there savvy enough to keep track of things like this.

But besides that, I just think it’s an interesting thing to consider from a social and economic perspective.  How much is marriage demand increased when the right of marriage is a scarce resource?  And how does economic uncertainty play into the equation?

I guess my overall point is that there are a lot of factors that go into determining whether or not or when a particular couple will get married that have little or nothing to do with that couple’s love and devotion to one another. Anxiety about the future is certainly one of those factors. It’s definitely a good thing for people regardless of their orientation, to keep in mind.

To understand who Glenn Beck is, only one anecdote is really required. This came from a detailed profile of Glenn Beck.

This is how Beck treats a family that were his friends.

But perhaps you think this was a long time ago and it was back in his “dark days”. Surely he’s evolved and grown a great deal since then right?

But just look at his TV and radio programs. He has attacked President Obama, Obama’s children, Obama’s wife, Obama’s father,  Obama’s grandfather and many members of Obama’s staff in nearly as cruel and baseless terms.

Here’s just one example:

Most recently he did a segment where he equated the Obama administration with Planet of the Apes! 

Do you really think he’d beyond saying something or doing something equally as vicious and cruel as he did back then today? Or worse? 

This is who Glenn Beck is. He delights in hurting people.  Surely even if you agree with some of his politics, surely you can see something fundamentally wrong with that careless cruel attitude toward people’s lives and emotions?

The popularity of Glenn Beck is the most terrifying thing I can think of that is happening in this country. Mark my words, he is one very dangerous entity.

I’ve prided myself on never banning anyone on this blog and never deleting anyone’s comments. I still believe in that. I believe everyone has a right to speak no matter how wrong, vile, hate filled, or repulsive their comments might be. I say let readers judge for themselves.

Moreover, I don’t like changing the historical record. It’s far too easy for someone to delete comments in such a way as to pattern an argument so that they seem smarter or in the right. I have no interest in doing that. I can’t stand it when others on other blogs do that to me.  And I never want to be accused of doing that myself.*

I don’t even delete the obvious spam comments. I mean those are just fun for everyone anyway.

But just because I don’t delete comments or ban users, doesn’t mean that I will always engage with you if you comment on my blog. I believe firmly in this one overriding principle: Never waste your time arguing with idiocy.

Don’t get me wrong. I believe comments are a great resource. You can learn a lot from the things that people say on your blog. Sometimes the readers have amazing insights. Sometimes the readers say things you meant to say in ways better than you could have ever said it.

What’s more, sometimes innocent comment discussions can lead to lasting valuable friendships, especially when you find like minded people whose opinion you respect.

But not all comments are created equal. Nor are all commenters worthy of an equal level of regard or consideration.

Now there are, in my experience four kinds of comments. There’s mild statements of opinion, mild factual statements, and discussion building comments. The opinion statements I don’t usually reply to except for maybe an equally mild response. The factual statements I’ll generally feel the need to respond to only if they are clearly false or need clarification. Discussion building comments I will almost always eventually reply to unless they are wildly off topic, in which case I will wait to respond in a separate blog entry.

And then there’s the fourth category. There’s the idiocy.

Now not all who leave idiotic comments start off with their idiocy. Sometimes they start off with interesting discussion topics which I engage in and then the discussion quickly devolves into idiocy.

What do I define as idiocy?  Largely it is comments that project something so utterly and obviously wrong that to take even a moment to refute it is to waste a moment too much of my life.

Usually it goes something like this:

Other Person:  I think X
Me: X is not true because of A and B
Other Person:  I still think X
Me: Why?
Other Person:  X has to be true because The sky is green, when you drop pens they always fly up, there is a half monkey, half unicorn cyborg living under my bed, and 1+1=29,423,177 in base 10.

Me: …

No really. Some things people say are really that stupid. And it’s usually not just one stupid false statement. It’s a whole stupidity story. An entire set of incoherent, irrational, blatantly false, ignorant, prejudiced and often just plain mean spirited ideas all wrapped up into one. When I read these comments it just makes me feel really tired. Like the very thought of what would be required to correct this complex web of idiocy drains me of energy and sometimes even my very will to live.

I don’t know where they get their stupidity and at that point I’ve stopped caring. I honestly don’t even care if other people believe their stupidity. At some point people have to be responsible for knowing or at least looking up the basic truth about things on their own. It’s not like we’re living in the stone ages. We have libraries. We have schools. We have telephones. That’s not even to mention the fact that if you are reading this then you’re on the internet, the greatest repository of knowledge in human history. It can’t be the case that I should have to walk everyone through every tiny little obvious detail of history or math or basic science that I thought everyone learned in grade school just because some idiot decided to challenge the most apparent truths for obviously self serving reasons.

That sounds really super arrogant, but really I’m an extremely patient person. It’s very rare that I feel that something is so intolerably stupid that I am so disgusted that I can’t even be bothered to comment. And honestly, I think everyone is entitled to a moment of absolute stupidity here and there. I’m not inclined to judge you if you say something stupid or wrong now and then. We all have.

But it does happen. Sometimes people say things that are just beyond the pale and I am left speechless. And it’s happening much more frequently lately over the last year or so than in the past even though I haven’t been posting very much.  Not just on my blog but on all the blogs I read too. It’s quite strange.

I got to thinking about this whole attitude I have toward blog comments and decided to write about it when I had a conversation the other day with a friend about the changes in the xanga community and how much less fun I have on here now then I used to. I mentioned the idea that idiots aren’t to be responded to.

Then, a few days later one of my favorite bloggers, digby, covered and explained this principle of not arguing with idiocy much better than I ever could.  She was responding to an absurd false “scandal” I noticed people talking about on my twitter feed.  Namely, people noted that Conservapedia, a repository of user generated lies, had content describing relativity as a liberal plot.  I’m serious. Apparently these people believe Einstein just made it up because he wanted to turn the country communist!

Here’s digby:

Personally I don’t like ridiculing people. I learned the whole, “if you don’t have anything nice to say” principle… What’s more I find it boring. I’ll laugh on the inside sure, and in private when talking to friends. But I have zero interest in publicly humiliating anyone, even my worst enemies. I’ll let that be someone else’s job.

But I do accept and understand that some comments really deserve nothing more. I might quible about the extent to which you should ridicule them or how helpful doing so is. But certainly we can all agree that arguing against that kind of idiocy is a total waste of time. Digby is dead on on that. So I won’t engage with those people. I’ve got better things to do. I hope that my readers have better things to do. I hope that everyone has better things to do. People who say such nonsense should be ignored by everyone until they disappear or die off. Or until they start saying different things.

Basically what I’m saying is that there really is a level of idiocy that stands on its own and warrants no further comment.

*The ONLY time I will ever delete a comment is when it is directed at another viewer of my blog and is extremely hateful, mean spirited or cruel. In particular a personal comment designed to hurt someone by exposing that person’s information to the public, that I will not hesitate to delete. And then, generally I will post a comment explaining that the entry was deleted and why I deleted it.  Basically if a comment causes measurable harm to someone, I will consider deleting it. But for the most part, I will let people say whatever they want and so far I’ve been lucky enough not to have to delete a comment. 

Step 1:  Plant the idea in the people that Government sucks and can’t do anything right. They are just taking and wasting your money. Taxes are teh evil!!!!!!!

Step 2:  Gain power. Cheat. Lie. Spy. Steal. Defame. Rig elections. Or do whatever else is necessary to achieve this. You only have to succeed at this once.

Step 3:  Once in power, make government ACTUALLY suck by hiring incompetent, idiot people and contracting out services to corrupt business people whose personal goals are completely contrary to the goals of government. Make sure you cover every branch of government from the lowliest to the highest level position.

Step 4:  Start a few wars. Or do something otherwise extremely extremely expensive. (wars on ideas like drugs and terror work just as well as wars on poor countries around the world)

Step 5:  Give away all the money so you can’t pay for those wars. Preferably through tax cuts and bailouts. Also cutting programs that help regular people like unemployment insurance and social security and public education are a great source for war funds.

Step 6:  Let someone else gain power. Doesn’t matter who just so long as it’s not you.

Step 7:  When those other people are in power, do whatever you can to prevent them from doing anything to fix your now increasingly sucky, broke, at war government. Obstruct. Obstruct. Obstruct.

Step 8:  Blame everything that goes wrong on the evil GOVERNMENT, hence validating everything you told people in Step 1. Stress that this is the fault of those people you let gain power who don’t realize how much government sucks like you’ve been saying all along.

Step 9: When the poor deluded people gratefully give you power again, REPEAT steps 3 through 8. Continue until the government is totally overextended and out of money.

Step 10:  If anyone starts to suspect what you are doing, make sure to refocus their anger on the Gays, Jews, Blacks, Hispanics, Muslims, Atheists, “Illegals”, Poor People, Druggies, Criminals, Unions, ACORN, or Foreigners. Or anyone else who is an easy powerless target and is not you.

There you have it. It’s so easy a child could do it!

With the assistance of Mari (inaneinsanity), Jimmy (moonlitsage), Andrew (the44thHour), and Kaiti (elvesdoitbetter), I have created a Podcast where we discuss many random things.

The first episode we talked broadly about the Internet. We’re still finding our footing here so please excuse any issues you might find.  The second ep has already been recorded and will be posted in the next couple of days. In that one we discuss MBTI theory.

Here is the Blog on which the Podcast will be posted for now:  http://gettingthinky.blogspot.com/  (Name possibly subject to change in the near future)

To subscribe in itunes just click the link on that blog.  If you want to subscribe in a different rss reader here is the feed link: http://gettingthinky.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

Let me know what you think. Suggestions, ideas, assistance, criticism, etc. is accepted and appreciated. Rudeness however will be rewarded with my pointy hat death ray. Trust me, you don’t want to see that in action!

If you take the time to read one lengthy piece on politics this year, I strongly  recommend Eric Alterman’s Kabuki Democracy: Why a Progressive Presidency Is Impossible, for Now.

It’s 17000 words. It’s extensive. It’s detailed. It’s extremely well written. 

And I don’t agree with it at all.

Okay. That’s not fair.  I actually agree with the VAST majority of it.  I think Alterman does an extroardinary job describing in great detail what can be called the Progressive Critique of the current state of our Democracy. If you don’t understand where Progressives and Liberals are coming from and what they are going on about when they rail against a system gone haywire, you would do well to read this piece. It will paint the complete picture for you in the way we liberals and progressives see it. The corruption. The imbalance of power. The disgusting cravenness of the media. The broken Senate. The revolving door. The disproportionate influence of lobbying. It’s almost all there.

In fact much of the middle of this piece should ring true in the ears of many conservatives and libertarians and independents as well who perceive the very same problems with nearly the same roots. Certainly I should think that anyone who looks at things honestly would be outraged at the way the system we live in has continuously broken down over the last thirty+ years thanks to the greedy dishonest actions of perverse men with power. The facts really are hard to assail.

However, it’s Alterman’s overall argument that these facts are meant to support that I totally find difficult to accept.  Basically he asserts that all of these systemic problems he’s described are reasons why we need to cut President Obama a little slack. It’s because of all these things that it is impossible for Obama to be any more progressive than he has been.

OK… Why? 

It’s true, structural problems limit what a President can do. True. We’ve all known that. But there’s an assumption in Alterman’s piece that in lieu of those many structural problems, Obama would be a Progressive President. That half of the argument he has far from proven. And many many people on the left present arguments on a daily basis based on concrete actions the current administration has done and is doing that certainly seem to suggest he wouldn’t be progressive even given a chance.

Just to give the simplest example, there was extraordinary consternation amongst the gay rights community when the Obama administration chose to vigorously defend the Defense of Marriage Act in court.  There was no reason to do that. It’s hard to see how he scores any political points short or long term because of that action. In effect it seems like he’s just throwing gay people under the bus just because he wants to or thinks that’s the best thing to do.

Now perhaps he is doing some deeper calculation in order to prevent greater risks down the line. Maybe he’s playing “4 Dimensional Chess” as Jon Stewart likes to say in order to outsmart and outwit the structural constraints Alterman has described.

But I find that very hard to believe. 

If the drubbing the Democrats are about to face in the November election are a sign of 4-Dimensional Chess brilliance, I think I’ll stick with the good old fashioned kind.

There really is another possible explanation. It could be not just that these structural factors are impeding Obama from doing what HE wants to do. It could very well ALSO be the case that the Obama administration is itself a structural factor impeding our ability to get what WE want done. Both can be true at the same time.  Both likely are true at the same time. Obama might be more progressive if there weren’t quite so many forces allied against him. But at the same time… probably not all that much more progressive. Probably only a little bit more progressive. Because in truth, if you examine his speeches and his policy proposals, Obama himself is not and never was particularly progressive.

Is it so hard to imagine that part of the struggle to have a progressive President might also entail a struggle against an administration that thinks progressivism and liberalism are “f-ing retarded”? That this administration might be nearly as much of a hindrance to having a truly progressive presidency as any of the republican presidents we’ve had in the past? Indeed, isn’t it possible that he might even be MORE of a hindrance, since he legitimizes radical conservative ideas by making them seem bi-partisan? It’s ALWAYS harder to fight against your own friends and family who might support Obama initiatives BECAUSE it is Obama proposing and supporting them than it is to fight against a clear enemy that is proposing the same.

That being said, so what? Maybe despite that Alterman is right that we have no choice really but to assume that Obama is really playing the long game and is brilliantly playing within the confines of the system better than anyone else could be expected to. And our only real hope if we want to see a Progressive Presidency is to create a movement for change so large in 2012 that it compels Obama to be the President that he deep down wants to be or else has no choice but to be because of the strength of our movement. Maybe…

But I want to note that Alterman is asking progressives to take a pretty HUGE risk. It seems like a pipe dream to me, but let’s imagine it anyway.  What if we do  abide by this strategy and we create that movement and in 2012 there really is his massive progressive movement?   What happens when Obama still chooses not to govern progressively? What he slaps away the hands of liberals, calls them “f-ing retards”, proceeds to cut social security, start a war with Iran, and hires the most industry friendly people he can fine. And when we try to pressure him with our “movement” we run into another structural impediment created by Bush and Obama and the last few prior presidents the excessive power and unaccountability of the Executive branch. He just laughs at our “pressure”.

Can you imagine the extraordinary sense of despair and disillusionment that would capture hold of the left? It’s one thing to be disappointed now when we know in the back of our head that things are sooo hard that there might be an excuse for all the things we see that are going wrong.  But it’s quite another to try *again* and be slapped in the face again and for NO reason!! People would explode. Who knows what kind of blow that would do to the long term prospects of the left?

Admittedly it’s all speculation on my part. But so is Alterman’s more positive suggestions.  The real question is SHOULD progressives and liberals take the risk?

Regardless, it’s clear to all of us that we need to organize around progressive ideals and push to get people to understand that the lies coming out of Fox News are in fact NOT what liberalism are about. The only question is, is the more effective strategy for doing that to organize around the Obama administration or AGAINST the Obama administration. 

This is not an academic choice. Liberals are not generally the type to be inclined to withhold their critique of injustices.  If we are, however, to use Obama as a rallying point we would of necessity have to speak our praises of his administration louder than our critiques in the hopes that he get re-elected or in fear of saying something that might hurt his chances of re-election. That Health Care turned out weak we would have to stress is a result of Republican obstructionism and corporate interest (which is true)  but also de-emphasize that it was the Obama administration’s cow-towing to those interests that partly made it possible (also true). And similarly in our defensive of the Democratic party on any number of issues. That idea doesn’t sit well in my stomach. It sounds kinda sick. I’d do it if it were the only choice, but barring that I’d much rather approach issues honestly than engaging in that sick kind of pragmatism.

Alternatively we really could try to throw our support around a third party or a primary challenge or an independent candidate. We could push very hard to oust Democrats who haven’t served our interests up to and including the President even at the risk of possibly helping conservative candidates. It might even be substantially in our long term interest to push the debate further to the left and defeat the grotesque false narratives arising out of the Right even if it results in some minor republican victories. It could easily be the case that putting more pressure against Obama might cause the Obama administration to govern in a more left wing fashion. Right now, they seem to react only to those critiques levied by Fox News. Maybe we should focus far more on changing that dynamic.

Of course the risk of that is the more you criticize Obama on real topics the more likely people are also to believet he ridiculous false criticisms coming out of the right. The time we spend attacking him instead of defending him just allows false narratives to flourish distorting the national conversation. And that too feels a little sickening and wrong. It’s sort of like throwing Obama to the wolves in order to push a better candidate.

I honestly don’t know which strategy makes more sense. Honestly I think it’s probably neither. Rather I think the game will need to be played in much smaller dimensions with tiny movements sparking up across the country fighting injustice and intolerance without a thought to how it plays in the media circus and Washington politics.  If the movement gets big enough and united enough and influential enough, it won’t matter whether they support Obama or someone completely different. As long as the movement doesn’t get suckered the way the Tea Party is being suckered by the Republicans and the way many in the Elect Obama movement currently feel suckered by the Obama administration.

But right now I only see the smallest of stirrings of that kind of movement here and there. People are discouraged and disheartened (not to mention broke) and with good reason.

So there’s one further aspect of the Alterman piece I think is incredibly important. The message of hope. It is right for Alterman to remind us that not long ago it would have been seen as an impossibility for a very young, inexperience mixed black man with a name that rhymes with Osama and a middle name of Hussein to actually win the Presidency. But he did. WE did. We got him elected against all odds.

And throughout history all meaningful change seems impossible before it actually happens.  There’s no reason to think that at this time we can’t make it happen to. We just need to engage in the boring day to day activity of learning, understanding, building communities, organizing, protesting, sharing, teaching, dispelling ignorance, and growing as we day by day continue to make this world, just a little bit at a time, better.

50 years ago if I were alive I wouldn’t have had the right even to vote. 150 years ago I would have been a slave. In the grand scheme of things, that’s not all that long ago. If you could time travel back to 1960 it would be a world unrecognizable to the world we live in today. We enjoy extraordinarily more freedom as a society now than people could ever have imagined back then.  And sure not everything is better now. Change always cuts both ways. But it’s hard to say the overall history of the last century as not being primarily a time of great social progress around the world. 

In 50 or a hundred more years who knows what more social progress we might achieve if we fight to achieve it? We just can’t let the fear and despair overwhelm us. I often find that a tall order myself especially of recent days. But we all have to continue to pick ourselves up and do our part. Again and again and again.

So I agree wholeheartedly with the quote Alterman borrows at the end of his extroardinary piece. “If not now, when? If not us, who?”

Keith Olbermann pretty much perfectly captures my feeling on the whole Shirley Sherrod affair.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Weirdly despite all the nonsense that has happened during the last year and a half, I think this was the one incident in which the Obama administration disappointed me the most.

I mean Shirley Sherrod in this speech presented exactly Obama’s philosophy on race and social justice. At least she expressed a view perfectly congruent with the one Obama expressed during the campaign. So the whole thing comes off as seeming as if Obama will sacrifice any ideal, any principal, and any sense of Justice if it will protect him from criticism so he can win more votes and get more democrats in office. I don’t know why I didn’t fully believe this before, but I guess now I do.

I want my Presidents to care about what’s true, first. I want them to care about what’s right.  And I want them to lead other people to care about those things to.  I want them to protect the powerless when they are set upon by the wolves, especially if it’s one of the people who work for you.  At the very least, I want them to try.  But they didn’t.  The administration comes off as the same as any of the worst most feckless bosses in the country who will fire you at the very first hint of complaint from a customer. They don’t have anyone’s back.

I’m glad the President at least called Sherrod to apologize in person. For a second I thought he wasn’t even going to offer her that minimal courtesy. Of course the administration only changed course after this was covered in like every major newspaper and television network in the country and was even starting to get international coverage. Of course that makes it seem like they didn’t apologize because it was right. They apologized because not apologizing would have looked bad. It’s twisted.

It’s like he just didn’t care if a woman who did no wrong’s character was deliberately assassinated by monstrously grotesquely evil people.

But I’m being a bit unfair. It’s not just him who didn’t care enough. Lots of people didn’t care enough. Her boss didn’t care enough. The entire hierarchy above her didn’t care enough. The media didn’t care enough. The viewers who swallowed the bait hook line and sinker didn’t care enough. Almost nobody cared enough. And we haven’t been caring enough month after month after month as these tactics of lies and deception capture the national debate and destroy people’s lives over nothing.

There are always people saying that dark times are coming, etc. etc. etc.  There’s always doomsayers in every age in history, but I’ve always been an extreme optimist. People generally find a way to reach a better state against all odds.

But for the first time I’m starting to believe them. We seem to be heading to a really dark place filled with prejudice and fear and intolerance and I don’t know how we are going to change course.

Keith Olbermann is right. There’s a fucking war going on out there. And Hate is winning.