Trading Jesus for Caesar

Andrew Sullivan has a provocative thought: That the politicization of Christianity in the US is turning people away from the faith (hat tip Pam). I think there is a lot of truth to this.  The union of conservative politics and conservative Christianity has created a brand. A very strong brand that is associated with denying [...]

Assumptions of Believers and Post Death Sports

A very popular post death sport of believers is to foist their beliefs upon atheists – those sexy little blank slates.  In life atheists “have a faith in science!  ZOMG They worship science!” but in death there are secret prayers to assign, desperate conversions to gloat over (Pandagon): humans have invented thousands and for all [...]

Act Blue Turned Conservadem

I was reading a post on Crooks and Liars about Maddow blasting Conservative Democrats when a familiar name popped up (source TPM): “Conservadems like Jon Tester and Ben Nelson and Joe Lieberman are siding with the Republican senators, who are siding with no voters — not even their own!” Maddow exclaimed, noting a recent CNN [...]

Herman Cain’s Whining Point by Point

Herman Cain caught some well deserved flak for telling the Occupy Wall Street movement to “stop whining”.  He attempted to defend his statement during a debate (TPM via Digby): “I still stand by my statement and here’s why. They might be frustrated with Wall Street and the bankers,” Cain continued, “but they’re directing that anger [...]

Fun With Rhetoric, Communism and the Far Right

Its been far too long since we’ve checked in with SPLC’s Hate Watch, and there’s a wealth of new stories (quite the uptick in insane sovereign citizen stories).  But today I want to talk about an extraordinary piece of ultra conservative insanity. Anti-Muslim crazy from SPLC (emphasis mine): Frank Gaffney, an anti-Muslim activist who in April told [...]

Cisco Helps China Censor

Cisco Helping China Monitor its Citizens isn’t so much new as a stark reminder of the nature of corporations.  Corporations are by definition sociopathic, which makes me feel all warm and fuzzy about the amount of power they command in today’s society.  Boycott Cisco if you like, not that it would do anything.

American Politics: How Doomed Are We?

What we’ve got going for us in the ol’ US of A: Massive corruption across all branches of government, with conflicts of interest between politicians, judges, and corporations. Politicians who regularly fail to represent their constituents, with laws being passed a majority (sometimes a vast majority) of Americans oppose. An electoral system that keeps people [...]

Selective and Brutal Enforcement

Some thoughts about my last post…  I’ve been on subways where NYPD officers ignore people breaking the law in a number of ways.  They’ve done nothing.  Which leads to a situation of selective, yet brutal, enforcement of laws. What does that do to citizens, knowing that the police might beat you and arrest you for [...]

At the Mercy of the Church

Franklin Graham’s assertion that the government needs to leave the care of the jobless and the needy to the Church asks us to cede the care of all Americans to religious authority.  This brings us to an appropriate topic for this Blog Against Theocracy 2011  post: Charity vs Social Justice and how it feeds into [...]

DC Should Suspent Garbage Collection for Congress

Since Congress is going to shut down to appease the Republicans (who will settle for nothing less than complete Democratic obedience) – this means DC will need to cut services: The city would close Department of Motor Vehicles locations and suspend public works operations like street sweeping, and the city would let a week go [...]

There Are No Fiscal Conservatives

Quick Hit: We need to kill the term Fiscally Conservative, and replace it with Fiscally Responsible. Because Fiscal Conservatives are never Fiscally Responsible, and its Fiscal Responsibility that we need.  That means not cutting off your source of funding with tax cuts, not cutting off programs that provide social services and ignoring the negative long [...]

TSA’s Bigotry Towards Wicca

The TSA – apparently deciding it wasn’t doing enough to earn the active hate of the public – has decided to indulge in a little anti-Wiccan bigotry.  And come on, who hasn’t wanted to spend a lazy Sunday hating on “those witches” and their evil witch powers?  We’re only human for heaven’s sake.  MSNBC via [...]

Making the Political Personal

crunktastic asks a great question: Can I feel safe in the softness of your touch if you don’t feel led to question a culture where other men routinely touch other women violently? Its a great question, and one worth considering beyond gender politics as well. ps – Note to crunktastic, throwing in a historically inaccurate [...]

Are There ANY POSITIONS Republicans Don’t Hold Hypocritically?

Apparently many of the pundits at Fox and Sarah Palin are union members!  So let’s get this right.  Republicans oppose abortion (except for their own families – unless they are true believers like Palin), oppose government health care (while indulging in it themselves), oppose “illegal” immigrants (while carving exceptions for cleaners and yard workers for [...]

Why is Tradition Ever a Defense?

This article exposing the cruel mass murders of dolphin by Japanese fisherman brings a question to mind: The Japanese government defends the killings for meat as traditional. Why do we give even a moment’s thought to “tradition” as a defense for such horrific acts?  Many cultures – our own definitely included – have truly evil [...]