The Cruel And Unusual Punishment Of Making The Sick Work For Their Health Care

The GOP and Trump recently reached a new low when a number of Trumpie-dominated states began to pass laws in Medicaid expansion states to make recipients work for their health care. Never mind that 95% of the 70 million Medicaid recipients are either children or adults so severely physically or mentally ill that no one would hire them even if they wanted to work.

Take the case of Thomas J. Penister of Milwaukee, recently examined in The Denver Post (January 14, p. 14A, 'Debate Over Work Requirements Begins').  Penister suffers from such severe social anxiety disorder that he's been unemployed the past five years, unable to even stuff a letter in an envelope in the presence of coworkers without flying into a panic. Fortunately, with Medicaid, he's received help and has been able to see a behavioral health specialist to deal with his anxiety.

Penister also acknowledges that while he's made progress it simply hasn't been enough to enable him to satisfactorily return to the workforce. At the same time, he's "unnerved by the prospect of losing his Medicaid".  He doesn't believe, as millions like him, that one beset by physical or mental issues should have to go out and work for his health care. (His state, Wisconsin, is one of ten and counting, that applied for a waiver seeking to implement work requirements for single adults.)

But this is what our nation has come to, as evidenced by the farce of a state of the union address tens of millions were duped into watching - and believing the swine in chief could be a uniter not a divider.  In more specific terms, the GOP are quite okay with giving away enough huge tax cuts for the CEOs and corporate parasites to be able to afford luxuries like that shown below:



















But are averse to enabling a guy like Penister to receive Medicaid to take care of his mental health. Let us note here that - as reported in a Washington Post column  - the Republican tax bill  nominally delivers $3.7 trillion in tax breaks over the next decade.  However, nearly $1 trillion in Medicaid cuts are needed to support those tax breaks in case they don't deliver any growth or revenue. In other words, the GOOPs are hoping enough  sick Medicaid people put to work will croak and so cut down the rolls.

The claim made by the Repukes is that their plan isn't draconian or Scrooge like at all, but merely an attempt to "return Medicaid to its original intent".  That is, to act as a temporary stopgap until people can find work. The GOOPs appear to be oblivious to the fact that too many cheapo companies - like Walmart - instead of providing health care for workers, steer them into Medicaid!

But what the Reeps are most incensed about, and why they are driven to take cruel action, is that they were outsmarted by Obama - who implemented a significant expansion of the ACA by expanding Medicaid. SO that 70 million are now covered under the ACA- Medicaid umbrella, where things like preexisting conditions have no warrant. 

The clueless Reeps also miss the boat regarding the fact many people on Medicaid are working, but their health care and its ancillary costs can't be met by their incomes. Take the case of  Matthew Fischer and his wife highlighted in the Denver Post's extended look at Medicaid recipients in Colorado  back in July. As the Post noted, "both have health insurance and work full time".  It "covers major medical issues picks up substantial costs for their child's medical care" - though they inevitably hit their maximums in January each year.   But there is much it doesn't provide and that's where Medicaid comes in. That includes: the wheelchair ($25,000), the formula their 11 -year old (Cecilia) which needs to be ingested through a feeding tube. ($500 a month), and the nurse who accompanies their daughter to school and attends to her needs.  As the Post explains:

"All of that is covered through a Medicaid waiver, making Cecilia among the 45 percent of the state's Medicaid recipients who are age 20 or younger."

But that's the key characteristic of these Philistines on the Right:  they don't care that people are already working.  If they're not earning enough money it's all on them,  not the inequitable system,  which is geared more to Wall Street than Main Street.

I'll go one further: This GOP plan to make those on Medicaid work for their care is merely a cruel effort to punish the poor and infirm.  This attitude can mostly be traced to the Repukes' fondness for Social Darwinism. While they reject scientific Darwinism and evolution, they have a boner for Herbert Spencer's specious form.  Indeed, Richard Hofstadter, in his Social Darwinism in American Thought, (American Historical Association, 1955) observes that Spencer rejected all services for the poor and disabled as encouraging a fundamental weakness in society which induces corruption, sloth and all the other vices. It was also Spencer, not Darwin, who coined the phrase "the survival of the fittest". 

Oh, another choice saying of Spencer's was the following:

"If they are sufficiently complete to live, they do live, and it is well that they should live. If they are not sufficiently complete to live, they die, and it is best that they should die."

Hmmmm.... they "should die".   The basic GOP health care plan exposed, the death solution plan!

But this degeneracy of making sick people work is only the beginning of erosion of the general welfare as embodied in the Preamble of the Constitution. The Pukes ultimately want to cut Medicaid to the bone so even if the  chronically infirm want to work they can't get health care.  This is the goal of these barbarians:  to savagely slice all social services in line with Spencerian Social Darwinism so the poor and sick mostly die off. Then the country will be made safe for the rich parasites to do whatever they're doing now - including  screwing the poor fools still tying their wealth to phantom assets in the bubbling stock market. But then when it crashes and all those who couldn't afford to lose their saving are penniless,, no amount of caterwauling or imploring- say by their new employer Wal-Mart (to its low paid workers) will get them the gov't help they need. They will truly be on their own, to starve or at least be malnourished (for lack of food stamps) or perish in a nasty H5 N1 Bird flu pandemic because Medicaid lacked the federal matching funds to survive in their state.

GOP Distrusts College? What Manner Of Numskull Inhabits This Party?

Above: Loyola freshman Theology class, ca. 1964.

When I first arrived on the Loyola University (New Orleans) campus on scholarship, it was perhaps the headiest experience of my life up to then. Not only in terms of the new found freedom (from overly solicitous parents) but the sheer exposure to so many novel ideas in the courses. Apart from that, in the fall of 1964, there were the 'bull sessions' when opinions and ideas were exchanged with other students in the dorm (Biever Hall).

The college experience, then, was one to open a mind and also to excite it to plumb new depths. For this Loyola had the good sense to sponsor intellectual debates and lectures through the 1964-65 term, including one involving the French Existentialist, Jean-Paul Sartre.  That exposure, in fact, began my path to atheism after reading his book ('Being and Nothingness') available at the Loyola Bookstore.

No one at that time, certainly not me or even the conservatives attending Loyola as well (most of whom were backing Barry Goldwater in fall of 1964) could conceive of college being a 'bad thing' or causing "negative effects".  Yet that is exactly what the case seems to be now with the Republican Party's perception.

A new Pew Research Center poll released on Monday revealed that there is one U.S. institution perceived through a larger partisan divide than even the media: It’s college.

This is nothing short of astounding, especially given - for the first time ever- a majority (58 percent)  of Republicans believe  "colleges are having a negative effect on the way things are going in the country", according to Pew.

Specifically, the poll found that positive or affirmative views of college for Repubs under the age of 50 sunk by 21 percentage points from 2015 to 2017. This is nothing short of breathtaking. Even more flabbergasting, given conservos since William Buckley always strongly advocated the intellect,  65 percent of ALL identified conservatives now say colleges and universities have a negative impact on the country. (Positive  views of college even among Repub college graduates have declined 11 percent in the past two years.)

What gives here? What's going on? I suspect there are two primary perceptions at work: one is that colleges and universities are almost exclusively the preserve of the "left".  The other is that they are preserves of "political correctness" and all the academic theories the Right has come to hate, e.g. anthropogenic climate change, Darwinian evolution etc.

The former is more a pathetic excuse given most conservos have always been more interested in making money than the world of ideas.  Or teaching ideas.  Hence, they've leaned to business, becoming Wall Street big shots or CEOS, or running their own companies - not plodding the lecture halls of colleges with pay about one tenth what a banker earns -- so the whining rings hollow.

The second might have slightly more heft, but not much. This is because much of the Right reads into anything that isn't outright in the face as "politically incorrect".  Also, their opposition to highly intellectual theories have been known since the year  dot.

In his book, Anti-Intellectualism in American Life,  Richard Hofstadter delves into the reasons that intellectuals – mainly on the Left – have been historically detested  by the American Right. The reasons often aren’t pretty, or even comprehensible,  and in fact are often downright puerile and smack of envy, i.e. that the Right simply detests the brainpower of the nation’s liberals.

One of the best examples is provided in Hofstadter 's account of how Adlai Stevenson was relentlessly skewered ca. the 1952  presidential campaign. (pp. 221-22). This included barbarous and savage verbal assaults in the media(p. 225), portraying Stevenson as "a Harvard lace- cuffed liberal who trilled his speeches in a fruity voice.".  As Hofstadter notes (ibid.) Stevenson's wit was also detested even more than his intellect. Of course, wit often functions in the service of intellect, to amplify intellect's intent and render its goals more efficacious. Or to smooth the delivery of information related to weighty issues.

Fast forward to 2014 and one finds a National Review story by Charles C. W. Cooke entitled “Smarter Than Thou”. Therein, Cooke whined about “the extraordinarily puffed-up ‘nerd’ culture that has of late started to bloom across the United States.”

Then there  Fox host Greg Gutfield who, during one panel exchange on the news 'Cosmos' series,, burped out:

"I hate this guy! I remember hearing Chris Hardwick on a podcast talk about Neil deGrasse Tyson and he was just salivating. White liberal nerds love this guy so much, he could defecate on them like Martin Bashir’s fantasies and they would dance in the streets.”

This, spoken by a confirmed moron who isn’t fit to lick the soles of Tyson’s shoes. Which brings us to Cooke’s polemic against Tyson in the National Review.  We pretty well know what’s coming as we eye an illustration of Tyson on the cover, drawn to look like a self-satisfied Elite who looks down his nose at any and all crackers.  This despite the fact Neil deGrasse Tyson hardly gives off that vibe in real life. He's an affable gentleman who's accepting of all and that trait carried over into his Cosmos appearances.

The actual article (it’s more like recovered anti-intellectual dreck from the 1950s)  more than lives up to the cover art’s promise of the “green-eyed monster”, as Cooke expands his attack beyond one of the country’s pre-eminent scientists to include policy-oriented journalists, economists, other scientists, and “anybody who conforms to the Left’s social and moral precepts while wearing glasses and babbling about statistics.” (Cooke also drags in economist Paul Krugman and evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, neither of whom he considers the real deal. Instead, he argues that the emphasis by liberals, on things like evidence, rationality, and empiricism is purely insincere,  adding it’s “nothing more than a way to signal that you are better than southern, politically conservative, culturally traditional” types.)

If one critically reads much of the Right polemics against climate science or evolution, one finds the same sort of tawdry, two bit attacks. It is then but a small step to generalize the animus to the sources of funding and intellectualism that harbor such "nerds": Colleges and universities!

Sadly, with these latest Pew survey results the Repubs have merely shown even more convincingly they are the new "Whigs" - a party bereft of ideas and solidly anti-intellectual. Just look at their god-forsaken "health plan".

WSJ Provides A Reality Check For Trump And His "Paranoid-Style" Groupies

Trump screams at his followers to "punch the hell out of those bums" at a recent rally.

 Let us accept the proposition that Donald Trump (aka Donald Drumpf) is roughly the equivalent of a five year old pitching a fit in order to inflate his self esteem as Bill Maher portrayed him Friday night. As a corollary we can regard his supporters as also five year olds, or perhaps as Peggy Noonan  recently described them in her WSJ 'Declarations' column (March 19, A13):

"Maybe, to be charitable, a lot of Mr. Trump's supporters are 14 year old boys acting out on their mom's computer while she works her second shift"

Which occurs when you behold their over use of f-bombs and the like in their assorted blog screeds and tweets and especially the need to find scapegoats wherever they can, whether in immigrants,, "rag heads", Obummer "apes", "Bernie's  Gestapo", "Killary Feminazis" or sundry others they blame for wrecking Trump's assorted rallies. But funny thing, they never ever blame their Hitlerite hero himself for drawing this negative blowback by the use of violent language and even regarding it as some kind of "entertainment". ("This is fun! A lot better than a boring ol' rally!")

Thus Noonan's subsequent comment (ibid.):

"America is an imperfect country populated by imperfect people, but there would be a reason Mr. Trump draws the particular kind of garbage he draws, what is it?"

Well, it was once accurately described by historian Richard Hofstadter in his book, The Paranoid Style in American Politics as a streak of nasty, angry, scapegoating paranoia that's been seeded almost from the time of the nation's founding.  Many believed it had reached its apotheosis in the McCarthy commie witch hunts of the 1950s. (See the excellent movie 'Trumbo', starring Brian Cranston, to gain an insight.)

At that time the American Right was so paranoid about commies infiltrating the country and hiding under bedroom community beds that it even led to  TOPPS "Know Your Communists" trading cards, e.g..


 The aim was to inculcate ‘Communist Recognition’ in children  from 8- 10 years of age and get them to hate this system even before they knew what it was about. The garish depictions, such as that shown of Mao Tse-Tung with ghoulish green face, helped to reinforce the propaganda.   Hysteria grew as an admixture as grade schoolers - like I was in 1952 - had to duck under desks in regular drills to "escape the fallout from Communist atomic bombs". Oh, and btw, did you know commie H-bombs were much more devastating than the 'Murican variety?

"Commies" then - like Muslims now-  were the "devils" of the 1950s and even the 1960s as the term was unloaded  - usually by John Birchers - on any relatively liberal person and even John F. Kennedy. He came under suspicion first on account of making a hidden deal with Nikita Khrushchev to end the Cuban Missile crisis in October, 1962. (That was to remove all the Jupiter missiles from Turkey six months after the Russians removed theirs from Cuba.)  Then, in August, 1963, Kennedy signed a Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, also with Khrushchev. The Right went ape shit because it included bans on anti-missile defense systems. Third, JFK signed NSAM 263 to pull all personnel out of Viet Nam by 1965.  That definitely put him in commie territory as he ignored the "domino theory" circulating at the time.

But Kennedy's biggest faux pas - certainly to the then CIA and security state- was initiating a rapprochement with Fidel Castro. That probably sealed his fate as a "commie'" that had to be killed, by the same CIA that learned of it (the public didn't until decades later).

All this, as Hofstadter noted, served to spur on the "paranoid style". As he wrote then (ca.1964):

American politics has often been an arena for angry minds. In recent years we have seen angry minds at work mainly among extreme right-wingers, who have now demonstrated in the Goldwater movement how much political leverage can be got out of the animosities and passions of a small minority.


 But unknown to him, that presumed apotheosis was a mirage. In fact, it was postponed until the much later incarnation we're seeing now with the rise of Trumpism. No longer is this breed of paranoia confined to a radical right nut like Barry Goldwater - who had zero chance of winning the WH in 1964 anyway-  but to a brash, loudmouth demagogue who has already compiled so many delegates in primaries he could well nail the Reep nomination and also gain the White House.

Hence, it was gratifying to read a WSJ editorial ('A Trump Reality Check', Mar 18, p. A10) that put Trump's so called successes in perspective, not only for this wannabe Hitler but for his groupies too. Imagine if the Weimar German press, ca Jan. 1932, had delineated such a reality check on Adolf Hitler and his rabble rousing anti-Semitic, anti-Socialist, anti-Communist rants, and how that might have altered the outcome of the German elections that year and the next. Hitler, btw, always boasted he had used Weimar Democracy itself to gain power, after which he destroyed that democracy via the 1933 "Enabling Act" ( Ermächtigungsgesetz ) that dissolved the Reichstag and turned all its powers to the newly formed Reich government.

The WSJ editorial notes for example, that despite his claim to be "unstoppable" his actual numbers to date show him to be the "weakest Republican front runner since Gerald Ford in 1976."

For example, the Journal notes that by mid -March of 2012,  Mitt Romney "had carried the popular vote in 21 states and won 57 percent of the delegates."

By comparison, Trump "has 18 states and 47 percent of delegates" - not very unstoppable when one does the comparison. So one has to wonder how it his that the Trumpsters are so worked up  - even dissing on Mitt now - when their own guy is still three states behind and ten percentage point in delegate differential.

Are Trumpies' paranoid delusions messing up their brains? The argument of a divided field sucking up Trump's extra votes also doesn't wash because, as the WSJ notes: Romney "was in a three way race with Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich with Ron Paul also nabbing votes"

Adding:

"John McCain in 2008 was even more of a consensus pick ...by this point the Senator had won 24 states and 59 % of allocated delegates."

The WSJ goes on to point out Trump "has fervent support but equally passionate opposition among Republicans", noting his "net favorable rating in the  GOP is only 22 percent" (That is, the share of people with positive views minus those with negative views).

Going on to single out the Real Clear Politics polling average which shows twice as many adults have negative views (61%) as positive (32.5%).  Meanwhile, "Gallup reports he has a higher unfavorable rating than any other nominated candidate from either major party dating back to 1992".

And that includes that socialist guy Bernie Sanders, who the Trumpites believe is dispatching  guerrillas  to disrupt their stupid rallies. (Note: the main protest organizers, Moveon.org, have no relation to Sanders's campaign.)

Of course, none of this ought to make the Dems feel too smug. The reason is that Hillary has negatives almost as high as Trump's. While TIME's Joe Klein often gets things wrong because of his Neoliberal lens, he was correct that Hillary has to be a much better, more nuanced (and less rote - and screaming) persona if she faces Trump in the election (Mar. 28, p. 41).

Her planned appearance at the Israeli lobby (AIPAC) convention this next week (Mar. 20-22) is also not going to help her with the Dem left base, which is already leaning to either staying home on Nov. 8th, or writing in Bernie's name if he concedes or loses out to Clinton.   I mean, the mere sight of her appearing along side the likes of Trump, Cruz and Kasich is not designed to appeal to Left core supporters that she will need in the fall - assuming she still is the nominee.

Hillary in one forum (Town hall)  response conceded she isn't the political charmer who has the "poetry" of those like hubby Bill or Obama. But as Klein put it, "she's our own quinoa and kale salad, nutritious but bland. The human embodiment of the Establishment Trump is running against." In addition, she harkens back to the politicians of 20 or more years ago with "too many oratorical switchbacks"
"Our very own quinoa and kale salad, nutritious but bland". (Joe Klein, TIME, Mar. 28, p. 41)

Klein concludes that if she and Trump square off she will have to grow into a modern politician - with modern oratorical skills beyond that screechy loud voice ("only used if you're angry"), and in a hurry. That has to start now with  her remaining Town halls with Sanders, and also avoiding the wrong optics - especially to Sanders's supporters. (Hint: Stay away from that AIPAC meet which will be seen as blatant pandering for the Jewish national vote.)

Colorado Springs Gazette columnist, Barry Fagin, has described (Mar. 8)  politics as an "accepted form of violence between tribes of voters" in our society.  Charles Krauthammer in his recent column  says "politics is the civilized substitute for settling things the old-fashioned way- laying your opponent out on a stretcher".   He goes on to write: "What is so disturbing today is that suffusing our politics is not just an air of division but an air of menace"

 Indeed, and that menace may well spill over into more overt violence in this election cycle. This worry is real and so long as Trump incites violent memes with his rhetoric we are at risk. But don't look for his lackeys to support that because as one observer noted, he is channeling their Id - like Hitler did of too many Germans in 1932--33.

The problem is, reality check or not, who in the candidate field has the courage, principles, and ferocity to stop his advance and provide a real choice to the American people? I see no one other than Bernie Sanders, but alas, too many of my countrymen are too cowed to vote for him - as opposed to the much worse candidates (including one under current FBI investigation) they do know.

If we are cowardly (or ignorant) in our choice we shall have to live with the consequences after January 20 next year.

Obama Takes On "Trumpism" In His State of The Union

Obama educated Trumpsters on the nature of government, democracy, the limits of power and citizenship in his SOTU speech.

Lord knows Trumpsters need a clue. Unable to reason their way out of anything, they more or less follow their insane, splenetic blowhard no matter what he says. As one Trump follower put it in a recent TIME article on the Trump phenomenon, "It's time to get insane and shake things up!"  So given just "shaking things up" not a  useful prescription for much of anything it was superb to see Obama giving his best trying to educate these knuckle draggers to the role of citizenship in the United States.

As one UK Guardian lead article put it:

"Obama’s rhetoric reflects his study of the nation’s founding documents – the US constitution and Declaration of Independence – as well as basic texts of our civic culture, from the Bible to the speeches of Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D Roosevelt, John F Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr."

Which is more than needed, given most Trumpsters  in their hostile and arrogant anti-intellectualism, are proud not to be familiar with the basic texts of our civic culture. But then, this is the profile for those who can't even see that reducing the members of one the world's largest religions to "ragheads" plays into ISIS' hands. Or yapping that anyone who supports respect for the vast majority of this religion is "bending over for ragheads" - when in fact they are unwilling to take the vile path into dehumanization - which almost always precedes genocide and "ethnic cleansing".

Obama was no less severe in taking these knotheads to task for sabre rattling when the U.S. is clearly - bar none -the world's 'hammer' not anyone's 'nail'. As the Prez put it:

"The United States of America is the most powerful nation on Earth. Period. It's not even close,"

Hence, to idiotically proclaim "World War Three" or "the world is on fire" (as Paul Ryan did in one op-ed) actually confers on these vermin what they want: the equal power of a nation state - when they are merely parasites occupying a failed state. Obama's words:

"Masses of fighters on the back of pickup trucks and twisted souls plotting in apartments or garages pose an enormous danger to civilians and must be stopped. But they do not threaten our national existence.  That's the story ISIL wants to tell; that's the kind of propaganda they use to recruit. We don't need to build them up to show that we're serious, nor do we need to push away vital allies in this fight by echoing the lie that ISIL is representative of one of the world's largest religions,"

But again, his words likely were missed by the pseudo-macho Trumpsters.

Ahead of State of the Union speech, Obama has regrets over US political divisions

Obama's final foray into our toxic politics was a tour-de-force of intellectual power but which was likely lost on most of the audience.  As Lawrence O'Donnell of MSNBC put it, "the (TV) audience was dumbed down by Trumpism".  So when Obama said "the people should pick their representatives instead of the politicians picking their voters" it likely sailed over their heads.

Why this anti-intellectual strain? Where did it originate? Let's first agree that Trump isn’t the cause, just the symptom. In fact, a pervasive anti-intellectualism  runs through the roots of American culture and has for decades. Richard Hofstadter in his terrific book Anti-Intellectualism in American Life puts his finger (p. 133) on:

"such a thing as the generically-prejudiced mind. Studies of political tolerance and ethnic prejudice have shown that zealous church-going and rigid religious faith are among the most important correlates of political and ethnic animosity."

But it has to go beyond religious aspects, in order to account for the teeming millions who hate intellectuals but aren't necessarily religious. One possible insight  raised by Hofstadter was an engrained tendency by the undereducated to tie the exercise of intellect to being "effeminate". He presented the example of Adlai Stevenson and how he was mercilessly criticized by the media for his speeches and choice of words in the 1950s.

Hofstadter noted that especially during the 1952 presidential campaign,  Stevenson's wit was detested even more than his intellect. Of course, wit functions in the service of intellect, to amplify intellect's intent and render its goals more efficacious. Or to smooth the delivery of information related to weighty issues. For this Adlai was repeatedly slandered and referred to as a "comedian" or "clown" and portrayed in cartoons with a jester's cap and bells, e.g.



The New York Daily News (cf. p. 227) once referred to him as "Adelaide" and charged that he "trilled his speeches in a fruity voice."

Thereby rendering an additional slur - one that directly tied intellectual display or wit with homosexuality. Reinforced by the description of his followers as "typical Harvard lace-cuff liberals." In certain sectors of society today, this pernicious virus can still be seen - in many of our public high schools. There, day in and day out "geeks", "dweebs" and "dorks" are relentlessly assaulted by feeble-minded "jocks" for openly displaying any intellect. Many are also accused of being "gay" simply because they prefer the life of the mind and books- to football, gang hijinks, mailbox 'baseball' or cow-tipping.

Obama's confronting of the Trumpsters in his speech, was therefore somewhat like the class valedictorian confronting the high school football team and trying to teach them nuanced approaches - as in national security (forming a coalition instead of acting like the world's cop) - and respecting others even if their skin, religion or whatever is different. In other words a nearly impossible task given the jocks would likely take any such would-be educator and stuff him into a locker.

And so we have the basis for what now approaches nearly a civil war, given the partisan divide. Another element feeding the rampant anti-intellectualism (which also denies man-made climate change)  has to be the media - and here we come to FOX News. Incredibly, Fox News is currently the most trusted news network in the country. The problem is that “Fox News” is a misnomer. The network,  to quote Jon Stewart, is more of a “relentlessly activist” organization for conservative causes than an intellectually honest conveyor of information.

Don't take my word! There are to date at least seven academic studies that have found that Fox News’ viewership constitutes the most misinformed audience .  From climate change to healthcare, the Iraq War, to Obama's allegedly Muslim faith,  the zombies mesmerized by Fox News are more confident about falsehoods than viewers of any other news network. Several studies even found a positive correlation between how often one watches Fox News and the degree to which one’s worldview is misinformed.

Hence, one can regard FOX News as a breeding factory for anti-intellectuals, and given Obama's SOTU speech, the number one source of anti-citizens undermining the Republic. In this sense, Obama was far too generous when he insisted our citizen bonds "must be based on trust",  because well, how can you have a faithful discussion of facts with a purblind idiot who only accepts falsehoods from a propaganda factory? It's a non-starter. Citizen mutual trust must depend on all citizens having the same access to genuine facts, history and objective truth. If one side is co-opted by bullshit and anti-facts then all bets are off. 

But look, what’s most dangerous about Fox News isn’t its repeated failure to accurately report the facts, but its discouraging that all important form of rigorous curiosity called critical thinking. If people want a single cause to blame for the gradual decline of the American empire, direct your wagging finger at the devaluation of critical thinking skills.

Because make no mistake, any appreciation of Obama's State of the Union speech, whether his comparison of climate denialism to denial of Sputnik, e.g.

"Sixty years ago, when the Russians beat us into space, we didn't deny Sputnik was up there. We didn't argue about the science, or shrink our research and development budget. We built a space program almost overnight, and twelve years later, we were walking on the moon."

Or to his nuanced argument for confronting ISIL but not doing it alone and half-assed, requires at least a modicum of critical thinking. It cannot be appreciated by a brain stewed in endless propaganda so that its medial pre-frontal cortex sees Obama only as 'Obummer' or "Obozo'. In other words, as the "enemy" or  "the other" despite his having fought to prevent cuts to veterans' and other benefits - which their weak memories forget all the Reepos wanted.

Obama sounded a definite note of hope and optimism but that was predicated on all of us taking the citizenship seriously. Alas, that cannot happen when one half the population doesn't know which end is up and is prepared to follows so-called "news" networks - that are really propaganda factories - blindly.

As Thomas Jefferson put it in his 'Notes on Virginia':

"Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves therefore are its only safe depositories. AND TO RENDER THEM SAFE, THEIR MINDS MUST BE IMPROVED."

Jefferson understood that a citizen "depository" of false beliefs and misinformation would ultimately destroy the Republic on account of the regression of citizens' minds. He understood that citizens, as part of their duty, had to strive to attain mental improvement including being able to read in a focused fashion and not believe everything they read. Another Founder, John Adams, wrote:

“Facts are stubborn things,”

But epitomizing the blind stupidity of the Right, their favorite President,  Ronald Reagan,  famously misquoted him:

“Facts are stupid things,”

 Which could be the motto of all those who get their "values" regularly confirmed  via a reality filtered through FOX News or Limbaugh

Sadly, Obama's lofty goals to eradicate our toxic politics cannot be achieved until the source of that  toxicity is removed. As people learned after the Rwanda genocide, there is free speech and then there is hate speech. NO civil society can long tolerate the latter without facing destruction from within. The U.S. may well be able to put down every 'bully' around the world, but it cannot sustain division from within. United we stand, divided we fall - and it will be a long, hard fall.

One final note: Gov. Nikki Haley, who delivered the GOP response, even called out Trump and his angry bandwagon by admonishing followers to "resist the siren call of angry voices".  But, of course, anyone who's ever had to deal with a bunch of two years olds pitching tantrums knows that probably won't get very far before she's skewered by some of those angry voices. Most likely from right wing propaganda radio.

See also:
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/p-m-carpenter/65527/of-obamas-superb-sotu-and-supreme-fatheads

Excerpt:

"Pathologically playing today at your local Bund rally is the selfsame debauchery that sickens American politics from time to time — what with its "voices urging us to fall back into tribes, to scapegoat fellow citizens who don’t look like us, or pray like us, or vote like we do, or share the same background"; and always, in some rhetorical version, warning us of "existential threats" being slighted by the commander in chief."

Revenge on the Nerds II: Why Conservos Hate Smartiepants Liberals

In his book, Anti-Intellectualism in American Life,  Richard Hofstadter delves into the reasons that intellectuals – mainly on the Left – are detested with such verve by the American Right. The reasons often aren’t pretty, or even comprehensible,  and in fact are often downright puerile and smack of envy, i.e. that the Right simply lacks the brainpower of the nation’s liberals.

 One of the best insights into hatred of the Left intellectual is provided in Hofstadter 's account of how Adlai Stevenson was relentlessly skewered ca. the 1952  presidential campaign. (pp. 221-22). This included barbarous and savage verbal assaults in the media(p. 225).  As Hofstadter notes (ibid.) Stevenson's wit was detested even more than his intellect. Of course, wit often functions in the service of intellect, to amplify intellect's intent and render its goals more efficacious. Or to smooth the delivery of information related to weighty issues.

 For this Adlai was repeatedly slandered and referred to as a "comedian" or "clown" and portrayed in cartoons with a jester's cap and bells. The New York Daily News (cf. p. 227) once referred to him as "Adelaide" and charged that he "trilled his speeches in a fruity voice."  Fruity voice? Hmmmm…so the implication was that Adlai was also a “fruit” – eh? And hence the generalization might be inferred by the knuckle-draggers that all intellectuals were “fruits”.

 Thereby rendering an additional slur - one that directly ties intellectual display or wit with homosexuality. This was reinforced by the description of Stevenson’s followers as "typical Harvard lace-cuff liberals." At lower levels of society today, this pernicious virus can still be seen - in our public high schools. There, day in and day out "geeks", "dweebs" and "dorks" are relentlessly assaulted by feeble-minded "jocks" for openly displaying any intellect. Many are also accused of being "gay" simply because they prefer the life of the mind and books- to football, mailbox 'baseball' or cow-tipping.

No wonder little has changed.

 We now fast forward to the 21^st century  (“Revenge II”) and the latest screeds against smart people on the Left as embodied in a despicable article in the recent National Review story by Charles C. W. Cooke entitled “Smarter Than Thou”. Therein, Cooke whined about “the extraordinarily puffed-up ‘nerd’ culture that has of late started to bloom across the United States.”

 “Started of late”? You effing moron! It was always there, but only recently has occupied more public prominence because more of these Left intellectual voices are afforded platforms they weren’t before. We now have an intellectual president, after all, who really did earn his place at Harvard and wasn’t allowed in as  a “legacy” – as Bush Jr. A fact that continually eats at the Right’s innards.

Then there is the Nobel prize winning economist Paul Krugman, whose voice has consistently skewered the assorted shibboleths of the economic Right.  Finally, we beheld the charismatic and articulate Neil deGrasse Tyson who most recently provided perspective and voice to the remake of the Cosmos series. Tyson frequently interjected examples of scientific discoveries that infuriate the Right, especially to do with global warming, and evolution. (Presenting nearly one whole episode on each, with enough detailed, documented evidence to even educate a high school science flunk out).

But these presentations particularly enraged the Righties to distraction. A month ago, for example, it was none other than Fox host Greg Gutfield who, during one panel exchange, burped out:

I hate this guy! I remember hearing Chris Hardwick on a podcast talk about Neil deGrasse Tyson and he was just salivating. White liberal nerds love this guy so much, he could defecate on them like Martin Bashir’s fantasies and they would dance in the streets.”

This, spoken by a confirmed moron who isn’t fit to lick the soles of Tyson’s shoes.

Which brings us to Cooke’s polemic against Tyson in the National Review.  We pretty well know what’s coming as we eye an illustration of Tyson on the cover, drawn to look like a self-satisfied Elite who looks down his nose at any and all crackers.  This despite the fact Neil deGrasse Tyson hardly gives off that vibe in real life. He's an affable gentleman who's accepting of all and that trait carried over into his Cosmos appearances.

The actual article (it’s more like recovered anti-intellectual dreck from the 1950s)  more than lives up to the cover art’s promise of the “green-eyed monster”, as Cooke expands his attack beyond one of the country’s pre-eminent scientists to include policy-oriented journalists, economists, other scientists, and “anybody who conforms to the Left’s social and moral precepts while wearing glasses and babbling about statistics.”

 Oh, wearing glasses? So you don't know about the link between poor eyesight (myopia from young) and I.Q.? Babbling about statistics? Well perhaps because your I.Q. is too low to grasp even the most basic statistics, say like simple correlation and linear regression. So obviously you wouldn’t be able to handle Poisson statistics!

 Cooke, realizing that he’s fired a broadside against anyone who dares to actually do things like examine evidence or consider the logic of an argument, hastens to add:

 “The pose is, of course, little more than a ruse — most of our professional ‘nerds’ being, like Mrs. Doubtfire, stereotypical facsimiles of the real thing.”

Which is not only incomprehensible but misplaced. For one thing, if those like Tyson were mere “facsimiles” I am sure Cooke wouldn’t have been allotted so much prime magazine space to go after him and his cohort.  I mean why joust at a windmill facsimile of a “monster”? You’d have to be mad or crazies, as the well attuned former IRS official Ms. Lerner described the Right in a recent email to a friend. I mean, you have to be crazy to assert anyone (“nerd” or other) is a “facsimile” especially given you don’t know enough about their work to make that determination!

 But this is what Cooke – who’s probably never even taken a high school physics course-  argues!  That it’s all a big pose and all these people are just dummies pretending to be smart because they are “popular kids indulging in a fad.”

Hmmmm…..looks to me more like a pathetic excuse for a hack practicing a massive exercise in sour grapes, because he knows in his heart he will never be as gifted as those he mocks.  So he projects his obtuseness on his targets and hopes enough people will bite. Well, maybe the readers of the National Review and a bunch of FOX-ites but few people with any sense.

 How else explain calling Tyson a poseur, a stretch that even his extraordinarily gullible audience isn’t likely to buy. Oh, Cooke grudgingly admits that Tyson “has formal scientific training,”  you know the type that prepares one to do any kind of serious research?   But he refuses to go so far as to allow that the Director of the Hayden Planetarium is actually a scientist-  as opposed to some hipster in a lab coat costume.

 But the poseur scorn isn’t reserved only for Tyson.. This cornpone twit Cooke also drags in economist Paul Krugman and evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, neither of whom he considers the real deal. Instead, he argues that the emphasis by liberals, on things like evidence, rationality, and empiricism is purely insincere,  adding it’s “nothing more than a way to signal that you are better than southern, politically conservative, culturally traditional” types.

 WhAAAAT?   Well, if those “southern, political conservative, culturally traditional” types aren’t well versed in science then we are superior – at least in science! (I do grant them other superior advantages in: picking out the best pickups, hunting ducks,  collecting guns, and finding chapters and verses for Bible quotes…..oh and cooking up great pulled pork!)

 But to do like Cooke does, and declare a whole swatch of Left intellectuals “insincere” because he’s too dumb to grasp what the hell they’re doing, is well……pathetic to the point of sickening.

 Sadly, this  whining BWAAHAA! behavior is hardly an anomaly. “You think you’re so cool” actually became the basis for an entire book by the formerly named Fox News dunce, Greg Gutfeld (the same goober who declared white nerds love to be “defecated on” by black elites like Tyson.)  Gutfield wrote an entire book called Not Cool: The Hipster Elite and Their War on You.

 It’s main talking point is that it gives the delirious, brainless Right base a bunch of pointy-headed Left intellectuals on the coasts to hate – while the banksters and corporate tycoons like the Kochs (who really fucked them) get to walk free without any complaints. It’s called adjusting the target and generally works for the lowest quintile of intellects. The key is to head off hatred of the genuine elite targets at the pass, convince the base not to listen to the critics’ arguments in the first place. Hence, they can’t actually hear the evidence for global warming if they’re too busy slagging on the messenger for thinking he’s so smart with his PhDs and his facts.

 Which 'Romper Room' is exactly where conservative leadership wants their audiences to be, and where most of them (who can’t think for themselves and lack adequate education) are. So much also for the conservative claim that individuals who work hard toward the top should be rewarded for their contributions to society. Not if you’re a successful liberal scientist, writer, or even just an actor. Oh no!  You are now one of the “termites of life” – who presumably should be extinguished, if not physically then by prohibiting your words,  ideas from gaining a major forum. (You can, of course, blog to your heart's content for a few dozen people.)

There's no sign this hostility of the American Right to the intellect will change any time soon, so very likely we will soon have 'Revenge on the Nerds III'.

Atheists Still Among Most Hated in US Of A - Along with Muslims

How one Reepo blogger portrayed atheists.

According to a new survey by the Pew Research Center, we now know which groups have earned the most vitriol in the good ol' US of A.. Atheists and Muslims actually appear to be in a statistical tie. While atheism itself is not a religion (it has no consistent belief system or rituals or sacred texts) it is often included in religious polls to help account for those who reject religion, instead of just non-affiliated believers. My own take, and it's just me, is that such surveys usually succumb to a dog whistle type of approach that arouses the supercilious sanctimony of most of the American faithful who thereby  invoke their fantasized moral superiority.

 But let's not get too far ahead of ourselves.

Given the absurdly  high level of xenophobia in the United States toward Muslims since 9/11,largely fueled by the Fox-heads, Murdochites and other Reich wing media,  it is not surprising, but it's still depressing to find these two groups  - containing many upstanding citizens - to be ranked so unfavorably. Worse, atheists are shuffled to the bottom and universally disliked by just about every religious group there is. WHY?

Why are  ‘Muricans so damned scared of us? Well, I suspect for the same reason they’re terrified of Ed Snowden (61% see him more as ‘traitor’ than patriot) and also because they lack the cojones to live their lives as authentic, critically thinking individuals – not merely consumers. So, they amble through the day scared of their own shadows and anything that smacks of being a threat in their little consumer toy world. They are also the toddlers who most want the NSA to change their panties for them, and keep them "safe" - probably lest those nasty Muslims and atheists come after them.

 But that's just my jaundiced view and it could be wrong, or an over-generalization. Anyway, let's get to the finer details.

Among those polled, atheists received a rating of 33 or lower (on a scale between 0-100) from 40 percent of respondents and only 20 percent of respondents gave atheists a rating higher than 67. (I warrant that this 20 percent are actually among the upper quintile of I.Q. in the country, that is, roughly 120 on the Wechsler scale. Hence, the vast majority dissing atheists are uniformly DENSAN.)

Interestingly, while many tend to conflate the U.S. with its evangelical Christian base, Jews and Catholics ranked the highest on the list. Noted Hemant Mehta on the Friendly Atheist blog:

“[…] When you removed Evangelicals from the survey, their own approval rating dropped from 61 to 52, suggesting that Evangelicals think much more highly of themselves than the rest of us do.”

What makes that so interesting is no other groups in the poll have that kind of drop if you remove them from the list. Meaning they may have less political leverage than even they believe. But again, this isn't terribly surprising. As the old cliché goes: "The squeaky wheel always gets the attention" and the evangelicals have received top political attention for so long precisely because they keep so much noise.  Jews and Catholics would more likely be favored because together they comprise more of the populace, and are also much less obnoxious than evangelicals.

But dishearteningly, the data also shows that no religious group likes atheists very much, and also atheists and  evangelicals both seem to be the archenemies of the US religious spectrum, ranking each other under 30 on the scale. I believe in the case of the fundies it's probably because they're so obnoxious with their 'Elmer Gantry' style mode of proselytizing. In the case of the atheist, I believe most critics are simply terrified of us - well, because people by nature fear what they don't understand and most haven't a clue what an atheist really is. (Many imagining the depiction in the graphic)

When it comes to the political demographic, Republicans really hate atheists, which they ranked at 34. The only group Republicans hate more are Muslims, which they ranked one point lower at 33.  This is not surprising, really, because we all know repukes are the most intellectually bankrupt, infantile, anti-scientific, and xenophobic bunch there is in the USA while atheists are among the most scientific, intelligent and independent thinking.  Hence, a mutual hatred would be expected!

Naturally also, among Republicans the stock of evangelicals soared, to a ranking 71, a full 4 points over the second spot held by Jews. This also is not surprising since an anti-scientific, regressive and knuckle-dragger party would naturally be enamored of a religious group that most reflects its anti-scientific, knuckle-dragger values. Or as they say in Barbados, “scheit stick to scheit”.

Democrats were slightly more favorable to atheists, but not by much. They ranked them 46, pushing Mormons under at 44, but were slightly more trusting of Muslims at 47. This also is not too surprising given most Dems today are nominal and basically unthinking  toadies of the corporate state. Since consumption and making money are what’s most important to them, they would not trust a group that appears so “anti-American”, i.e. as to refuse belief in a deity.  (Besides still believing that “most atheists gotta be commies”)

Why is hatred for atheists so universal? This is far from the first poll to suggest that atheists are the most hated religious group (or non-religious group) in the US. For reference, a  2011 poll found that US citizens trusted atheists on par with rapists. With this kind of fervent hatred and distrust, what does the future hold for a group so hated in their own country? Not much – and I would advise any atheist who wants to run for office to latch onto a Potemkin religion – just for show – first. The large native nitwit populace certainly won’t cast votes for you otherwise, even if you’re running for the school board!

 Earlier, in March of 2006, a University of Minnesota study by Penny Edgell, Associate Professor of Sociology, and co-authors, Doug Hartmann and Joseph Gerteis  disclosed that atheists occupied  the bottom rung of social respect for minorities in American society. At that time, we were regarded as contemptuously as communists were in the 50s, and rated in social worth below Muslims, immigrants and homosexuals.[1]

The 2006 study noted that a significant number of respondents associated atheism with an array of moral misbehavior, including criminality and materialist emphasis. In addition, the findings “seemed to rest on a view of atheists as self-interested individuals who are not concerned with the common good.”[2] 

This take is nothing short of astounding given that as a nation and people, Americans are notorious for giving short shrift to the “common good” as evidenced by consistently voting for no-tax, low tax or tax cutting candidates. This despite the fact they know the outcome will starve government of the resources needed to advance the needs of the vulnerable, such as the 17 million kids currently on food stamps - and deprived of enough food because of last December's cuts to food stamps. Seems to me then that these Americans are projecting their own self-interest, miserliness and disrespect for the common good on atheists! We know that this psychological projection is a common device when people feel inferior to, or bested by another group. So they project their own defects onto the hated, perceived superior group.

The truer fact is that Americans (especially the Reeptard crowd who are hardest on atheists)  may not like to confront, is that the U.S. has been committed to a rugged individualism since the country’s founding. The historic confluence of free market capitalism (exalting such individualism) and evangelical Christianity probably occurred in the U.S. ca. 1885 with the publication of the Rev. Josiah Strong's book Our Country, Its Possible Future and Its Present Crisis, [3]

As author Richard Hofstadter notes, the acceptance of Social Darwinism in the U.S. coincided with the visit of Herbert Spencer in 1882, for a speaking tour. Spencer, for those unaware, was a British philosopher who sought to extend the principles of natural selection in Darwinian Evolution, to society as a whole.  As Hofstadter also points out[4], Spencer absolutely repudiated all state assistance to the poor, needy, physically feeble, or infirm. In terms of the role of natural selection in “social evolution” such aid amounted to unwanted artificial interference in nature. Not to mention, meddling in the “natural development” of a superior society.

We know the Rightist-corporate elite (including many of the ‘robber barons’) latched on to this as a kind of dogma, and then performed another “miracle” of sorts, by blending this hyper-individualism with Christian virtue (proto-Calvinism and its work ethic), and a strict, constructionist view of The Constitution.  That Americans forget this basis for rejecting the common good in the national zeitgeist, while blaming atheists for it, is nothing short of amazing in terms of hypocritical acrobatics. Or it perhaps discloses a tragic absence of historical knowledge or perspective. (Or psychological projection as I already noted.)

In general, the respondents believed they “shared a basic sense of moral right and wrong” with everyone but atheist fellow citizens. Difficult to comprehend when the bulk of those actually in prison for major felonies are members of one religion or the other! And this study emerged after more than 30 years, during which Americans have been led to believe by their media that the seeds of social tolerance had finally sprouted.

 That  these "Americans", who pride themselves as being inheritors of the principles of liberty from John Stuart Mill, Franklin, Jefferson and others, could descend to such an abominable level of prejudice was appalling in itself.  That it could still manifest in the 21^st century is even more outrageous.

Of course, author Morris Berman has noted another, more depressing alternative: that graciousness, tolerance and humanity may no longer be possible in a nation (in the words of Nicholas von Hoffman) rife with a collection of “asses, dolts and blockheads.”[5] A people that choose to live in a self-fabricated  consumer and media fantasyland, or a bubble cut off from all reality. The question is why any sane, rational and well-informed atheist should take a cue from such a forlorn lot or allow their prejudices to dictate future behavior.

The only response of a rational atheist is to laugh these demented yokels off and make common cause with the Europeans who at least have grown up enough (most of them) to doff the religious nappies..

---

[1] University of Minnesota News, March 31, 2006, “Atheists Identified as America’s Most Distrusted Minority, According to new U of M Study.”

[2] Ibid.

[3] See, e.g. ‘The Vogue of Spencer’, Chapter 2, in Richard Hofstadter: Social Darwinism in American Thought, American Historical Association, 1955.

[4] Op. cit., pp. 41- 42.

[5] Morris Berman: Dark Ages America: The Final Phase of Empire, W.W. Norton & Co.. page 282. Berman cites a number of authors, including Hoffman, who agree most Americans live in a bubble divorced from reality and take their truth directly from an untrustworthy government or corporate media allied with them, rather than finding it out by their own research and independent thinking.