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"Homophobia is like racism and anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry in that it seeks to dehumanize a large group of people, to deny their humanity, their dignity and personhood." - Coretta Scott King
From those tireless equality advocates at the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force:
"The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
(Editorial cartoon courtesy Rob Rogers of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)
I can't tell you how many songbird feeders I've bought over the years. I chose them simply because they were pleasing to the eye - and then when I filled them up with seed the birds stayed away like there was a cat crouching nearby. But this deceptively simple "bird swing" is brilliant.
It's been noted that the modern-day Republican Party, if given free reign, would create a society which would make the prophetic futures of George Orwell and Margaret Atwood seem benign. While occasional bouts of extremist posturing can be written off as the delusions of overwrought individuals, a pattern of paranoia has emerged that cannot be ignored: Shoot undocumented workers, bring back segregation, encourage anti-gay bullying in schools. (Republican leaders in Texas, not satisfied with simply recriminalizing intimacy between same-sex couples, want felony charges brought against any person - including LGBT-friendly pastors - who officiates at a non-heterosexual wedding.) These calls for violence and oppression will eventually coalesce into a Religious Right police state.
Case in point. Below is the latest howl of insanity from an elected official in the Tar Heel State ...
A lawmaker in North Carolina says doctors who perform legal abortions should be executed. Not only that, he would like to see them hanged by the neck in public. Larry Pittman, a conservative representative from Cabarrus County, recently sent emails to every member of the state's General Assembly declaring that he supports capital punishment carried out in town squares. ("Get yer hot dawgs here!" "Candied apples for the kids!") From WRAL: A Cabarrus County lawmaker wants to bring back public hangings in North Carolina as a deterrent to crime, and he says doctors who perform abortions should be in the line to the gallows. Pittman wrote in the email, "If murderers (and I would include abortionists, rapists, and kidnappers, as well) are actually executed, it will at least have the deterrent effect upon them. For my money, we should go back to public hangings, which would be more of a deterrent to others, as well." He confirmed to WRAL News on Thursday that he wrote the email ... (On the official webpage for the North Carolina Legislature, Pittman lists his current occupations as "pastor, shipping worker, and company chapman.")
Although the "pro-life" pols waging war against the female womb promise they'll only target physicians who terminate pregnancies (often because an expectant mother's health is threatened), at the very moment abortion becomes illegal and "personhood" is granted to fetuses, these same lawmakers will turn their self-righteous wrath on pregnant women. We're already seeing examples of this. (Pictured: Pittman)
The wags over at Think Progress compiled the following video which demonstrates the racial insensitivity of conservative politicians. The speakers in these clips are not Tea Party activists or evangelical zealots (although that's the GOP's target audience) - they're mainstream presidential candidates and elected officials. They are the faces of right-wing ideology.
"At the heart of racism is the religious assertion that God made a creative mistake when He brought some people into being." - Friedrich Otto Hertz
Elizabeth Warren - The Best and Definitely the Brightest Candidate
Elizabeth Warren is running against Massachusetts Republican Scott Brown for the United States Senate in what pundits are predicting will be the costliest congressional election in history. Warren, a veteran Harvard law professor, has a special knack for addressing voters' concerns without talking down to them. Scott Brown's superior airs are obvious to all but the most credulous GOPers. He cleverly used Tea Party activists in order to get himself elected, then he abandoned many of the movement's unhinged positions. (This naturally enraged the teabaggers, whose patriotic zealotry is invariably linked to southern white privilege. I suspect even now the Obama haters are busily constructing more racist signs and preparing to superglue fake Uncle Sam goatees to their chins.)
Elizabeth Warren is honest, and she speaks from her heart. Following the 2008 financial crisis, the author of nine books served as Chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (aka TARP). Her efforts to hold Wall Street tycoons accountable for the misery they caused middle-class families have been praised by both progressives and fiscal conservatives.
The Boston Globe named Elizabeth Bostonian of the Year in 2009 in response to her sharp dealings with corrupt lending institutions. Also in 2009, Warren became the first professor at Harvard University to win the law school's prestigious Sacks-Freund Teaching Award - twice - for "teaching ability, openness to student concerns, and contributions to student life at Harvard." Time and again, the National Law Journal has named Warren as one of the Fifty Most Influential Women Attorneys in America, and in 2010 she was honored as one of the 40 most influential attorneys of the decade.
As full as Warren's schedule undoubtedly is, this amazing woman has stepped up to the plate and made an anti-bulling video for the "It Gets Better Project." (Senator Brown refused to participate because he's miffed about some unkind but true things the campaign's founder, Dan Savage, once said about him.)
Below you'll see Warren's "It Gets Better" video, followed by a clip in which Warren talks about taxing the wealthy:
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Money Quote from the second video: "There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. You built a factory out there, good for you. But I want to be clear - You moved your goods to market on roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You are safe in your factories because of police forces and firemen the rest of us pay for... Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea - God bless. Keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is, you take a hunk of that and pay for the next kid who comes along." (Warren isn't talking showering their offspring with limitless wealth.)
Interestingly, Elizabeth Warren, who supports the Occupy Wall Street Movement, was a Republican until the mid-1980s. She says: "I was a Republican because I thought that those were the people who best supported markets. I think that is not true anymore... The people on Wall Street broke this country. And they did it one lousy mortgage at a time. It happened more than three years ago, and there has still been no basic accountability, and there has been no real effort to fix it. That's why I want to run for the United States Senate."
Elizabeth Warren on Social Issues
Karen Suffredini, executive director of MassEquality, reminds us of Warren's commitment to equality: Elizabeth Warren shows that she understands the needs of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community. Last month, Elizabeth Warren announced her support for marriage equality; repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act which discriminates against married same-sex couples (Brown supports DOMA); passage of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act with full protections for transgender residents; safe schools for LGBT youth; and full support for LGBT families. These positions are consistent with the legacy of the US Senate seat for which she is running, as well as the values of Massachusetts voters.
Warren would make a splendid future President of the United States. (Political caricatures, top, courtesy Kerry Waghorn)
... without actually mentioning the practice.
Still, I guess something is better than nothing considering the GOP's hands-off approach to environmental disasters.
From President Obama's State of the Union speech last night:
"We have a supply of natural gas that can last America nearly 100 years, and my Administration will take every possible action to safely develop this energy. Experts believe this will support more than 600,000 jobs by the end of the decade. And I’m requiring all companies that drill for gas on public lands to disclose the chemicals they use. America will develop this resource without putting the health and safety of our citizens at risk."
We already know which toxic chemicals natural gas companies are pumping into the ground (thanks in part to corporate files obtained by filmmaker Josh Fox for his award-winning documentary Gasland). We already know that those same chemicals are contaminating the water table and causing cancer in human beings, farm animals, pets, and wildlife.
The environmentally calamitous process is called hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking." President Obama's SOTU remarks were a step in the right direction - but what he should have said is this: "I’m requiring companies that drill for gas on public and private lands to disclose the chemicals they use - and if any of those chemicals are found to contain cancer-causing agents, federal permits to engage in hydraulic fracturing will be withheld until safety issues are resolved to the satisfaction of the communities involved." (Everything else aside, carcinogens blasted into the ground have been known to pollute metropolitan water reserves.)
Needless to say, Republican presidential candidates (and certain Religious Right leaders) are opposed to any regulatory restrictions on energy corporations. If the water of multi-millionaires is contaminated and flames start shooting out of their kitchen faucets, they can simply move to another area. Most rural residents don't have that option.
Conservatives cling to the ludicrous notion that greedy corporate executives will, out of the goodness of their hearts, make sure that the American public is protected while they rape the environment. But of course this would mean they value consumers' health over their personal profit - and everybody knows which greyhound wins that race.
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