Category: News

Current Events

California’s Budget Mess

Once more California is in financial crisis mode because the Assembly cannot pass a budget. The longer the budget is stalled, the more costly it is to the state. This situation occurs every year and it is one that the state can ill afford, especially at a time of economic downturn.

The reason why this happens is that because a shortsighted voter initiative requires the state budget to be passed by a two-thirds majority vote in the State Assembly and Senate. While one party can have a simple majority, it is impossible for one party to have two thirds. At present the Democrats hold the simple majority, but the dilemma will be exactly the same when the Republicans hold the majority. So even when they do reach a compromise, it is always a budget that cannot work, a budget that contains a large dose of wishful thinking needed to get it passed. Add to this an intransigent governor, as at present, and there is a triangle of opposites that must be accommodated. Since he has a line item veto, the budget is further compromised.

In a situation like this, a super majority is really not a majority. It flies in the face of basic democratic principles. The power is held by the minority party in order to make up the required two-thirds. The fate of the budget can therefore end up depending on the vote of one assemblyman in the minority party – a situation that has happened. It is unconscionable that one person should be able to hold the whole state at ransom. That is not democracy!

In addition to the impasses, there are no senior members on either side in the Assembly who can exert their influence to facilitate the budgetary process. This is due to another shortsighted voter initiative, which prevents assemblymen from serving more than three terms of two years each. So far-reaching decisions end up being made by rookies and sophomores.

The financial mess that California finds itself in cannot be fixed until both those initiatives are overturned.

There is a chance that the undemocratic two-thirds majority will be overturned this November through Proposition 25 (2010), which restores the simple majority to the budgetary process. Opponents of the proposition see tax increases implied in the initiative, or at least that is what they will use in an attempt to defeat it. Such increases are not in the proposition.

It is possible that following passage of Proposition 25 (2010), a budget could pass on a simple majority with tax increases, just as a budget could pass with deep cuts in social services. The governor still remains as a factor that has to be accommodated. And the electorate can vote out those who supported the undesired aspects in the budget, or recall the governor, or vote in a new governor next time. In other words, it is the democratic process at work.

Legalizing Marijuana

In November, California voters will decide whether to fully legalize marijuana (Proposition 19). The state has already legalized marijuana use for medical purposes. If the latest proposition is passed, the main benefit would be the decriminalization of marijuana together with a steep drop in prices that would make trafficking the drug unattractive to criminal elements, and there would be some state income from taxes. The main personal advantage would be that it will be much easier and cheaper to get high.

The disadvantages, however, are significant. Decreased social inhibitions mean an increase in risky behavior, leading to more accidents. And there are health risks similar to tobacco. Marijuana has toxic elements, like cyanide and tar that is higher than in cigarettes; it causes mouth cancer; it increases pressure on the heart and narrows arteries in the brain, reducing cognitive abilities; and there is more. As with tobacco and alcohol, the taxes are nowhere near enough to cover the health and safety costs to society.

Significant loss of cognitive abilities by long-term marijuana users was brought home to me as a college professor.

When I was teaching freshman English, I noticed a pattern among some of the argumentative essays. They were characterized by a curious but complete inability to present a cogent, reasonable argument. Since a number of the essays in this group advocated (poorly) the legalization of marijuana, I referred to these failures as the “pothead” essays.

One day when I was with a student who had written a classic “pothead” essay, though not on marijuana, I decided on an experiment. I said, “Would you mind if I asked you a personal question?” He answered, no. So I said, “How long have you been smoking pot?” A large smile spread over his face. “How did you know?! I’ve been smoking it since I was thirteen and it hasn’t affected me one single bit.” Well, my friend, it had! I had deduced that he was a hardened user from the essay he turned in.

California voters have not always voted in their best interests, so there is an excellent chance that Proposition 19 will pass this November. More is the pity. We are still struggling with the impact and costs of smoking. Legalizing marijuana will only increase the load on society.

Football and Video Replay II

After the blunder by the referees in the England vs Germany match, there have been more calls for video replay. The amazing error occurred when the referee disallowed what was clearly a goal by Frank Lampard against Germany. The ball hit the underside of the crossbar and bounced well across the goal line before German keeper Neuer snagged it on the rebound and continued the play. Neither the linesman nor the Uruguayan referee saw the goal.

News stories have made the comparison to another contentious moment in the 1966 World Cup when England played Germany in the final. A similar kick from England’s Geoffrey Hurst struck the bar and landed on the line. Hurst was awarded the goal, even though no goal had been scored, and England won.

After this last blunder, once again there have been calls for the use of video technology, including from England coach Fabio Capello.

FIFA has been reluctant to introduce technology, and with good reason. FIFA president Sepp Blatter says,

No matter which technology is applied, at the end of the day a decision will have to be taken by a human being. This being the case, why remove the responsibility from the referee to give it to someone else?

Fans love to debate any given incident in a game. It is part of the human nature of our sport.

Soccer is also a game that at its best is continuous. Interruptions from fouls and throw-ins are minimal, unlike the two or three minute stoppages that video replays would require.

The solution need not be the technology. FIFA is already considering adding two more referees to be placed behind the goals. This seems to be the best solution. The area patrolled by these referees would primarily be the penalty box, where many fouls occur that are missed by the main referee and the lineman who is at best 32 meters away. The goal referee would be positioned at the side of the goal away from the linesman, and he would have been in a perfect position to verify Lampard’s goal or deny Hurst’s “goal”. (He would also have seen the two handballs from Thierry Henry that put France into the World Cup competition in place of Ireland.)

The New Feminist Lie

As the Republican primary for the Governor of California reaches Election Day, the two main candidates continue to seek the conservative vote by trying to depict themselves as ultra-conservative on issues while trying to paint the other as essentially liberal. The truth is neither candidate is a true conservative. This race serves to illustrate the dilemma many Republicans face to get the support of their own people.

At the other end, there is the problem of broadening support beyond the Right. The easiest way to do this is to take a book from advertisers and misrepresent. Advertisers have long used the idea of female empowerment to sell products to women, with the empowerment being little more than sexism. Similarly, Sarah Palin now calls herself a feminist. But she is not a feminist in the established sense of the word. Her “emerging conservative feminist identity” is simply a new set of words to describe women who don’t agree with women’s rights, who are against the use of contraceptives and who are anti-abortion. The catch phase is nothing more than a lie, designed to get support for a party that consistently votes against women’s rights.

Feminists (not Palin’s faux feminists) are more intelligent than that to fall for the lie, but as advertisers know, you can fool people some of the time, and if you keep hammering away, you will fool even more. Eventually perhaps, we will reach a 1984 world, where catch phrases have lost their meaning, and we all mechanically respond to the lies that are being fed us.

Obama’s Waterloo?

The BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico may signal the end of trust in the President Obama, just as Hurricane Katrina damaged President Bush’s standing. Considering all the aspects of the oil disaster, it is difficult to see how the administration could have acted otherwise. But we the people expect more. Although the public’s general view of the government comes with a large dose of cynicism, when we find ourselves in a situation like the BP oil disaster or Katrina, we expect some superhuman solution to the crisis.

The truth of the matter is that there are some crises that are so great that they are beyond the ability of the government to deal with immediately and in a totally effective way.

The 9/11 attack was a major crisis that fell within the range of our ability to act, and the government did react swiftly and effectively identified the source of and responsibility for the attack. Until we were diverted into the irrelevant Iraq war, there were only small missteps that could be criticized.

In the case of Katrina, it is true that Bush made some goofs, but overall it was clear that the extent of the crisis was well beyond the country’s ability to deal with it immediately and effectively. When the waters retreated, most of the blame fell unfairly on the shoulders of Bush, and he and his administration will forever be marked by the failures of Katrina.

Will we see that same with Obama and the BP oil disaster? Obama’s main misstep has been not to be seen to be angry with BP. As the disaster develops more and more into a major catastrophe, I think it is quite likely that we will tar Obama with it as part of his legacy.

Arizona, USA and Illegal Immigrants

Arizona’s law against illegal immigrants is probably more of an expression of frustration than a law than can be comprehensively enforced. There has been nationwide condemnation of the law, but at the very least, it has put focus back on the pressing issue of illegal immigration.

Part of the outcry against the law is that it will lead to racial profiling. But the racial profiling, in this case, is mostly due to the “accidental” circumstances; after all, practically all the illegal immigrants come from south of the Arizona border with Mexico. Profiling is inevitable, whether there is racial bias or not.

Arizona’s frustration is understandable, even if one regards the law as extreme. US policy on illegal immigration is presently ineffective, and in many ways ambiguous. After making allowance for refugee and guest workers status (however the exceptions may be determined), it is absolutely imperative that the United States adopts a hard, consistent policy that the country sticks to – inflexibly! This would include no more amnesties, no way for an illegal immigrant to to legalize his status from within the United States, and in all cases, after due process, immediate deportation. Other countries do it. Why don’t we?

Take Australia, for example. Australia does have an advantage over the USA as regards immigration. The ocean forms a virtual moat around the country, but it still has its share of illegal immigrants, including a surprising number from the United States. Whenever the Department of Immigration identifies an illegal alien, after due process, that person is immediately flown out of the country back to his land of origin. There is no messing about as here with court hearings to see if he has bought a ticket, a situation that costs as much as a ticket and is nothing more than a waste of time.

If a child has the luck to be born in Australia and is therefore a citizen and the illegal parents are not, there is no way that the parents can stay. They are illegally in the country and have to be deported. They can leave the child or take him with them. (He will always have the citizenship in his back pocket, should he wish to return when he is older.)

The Department of Immigration discovered a Chinese family living a small town in conservative, rural Queensland. They were illegal immigrants and in due course, they ended up on a plane to Hong Kong, despite pleas from the residents of that town, for the family operated the town’s only Chinese restaurant. Since they were illegally in the country, there was no way that they could get their status changed to legal residency. The town’s people then followed the right procedure. They filled immigration applications, guarantees and sponsorship papers, and within a matter of months they were able to bring the family back to the town, now as legal immigrants. The town had a big barbecue for them and pretty soon, the Chinese restaurant was back in business.

Arizona’s move has signaled to the federal government that it is high time for real action. The government should look to other countries where there are immigration policies that work, some of the European countries and Australia for example, to help formulate a workable immigration policy.

Palin’s “Christian Nation”

So Palin thinks that this nation was founded as a Christian nation. She said this piece of fiction in a speech on Friday, April 16.

Sorry, Sarah, you just confirmed what I was saying in the last post, “Ignorance is Right,” because the United States was not founded as a Christian nation.

The founding fathers were at great pains to make sure that the Constitution established the government as a secular government, even though the founders themselves were at least nominally Christian (except for Thomas Jefferson who was not. He believed God created the world but after that took no further interest in it.)

To be founded as a Christian nation, the religion needs to appear in the founding documents, but the Constitution makes no mention whatsoever of Jesus, or Christianity, or any defined god that we could recognize as Christian. John Adams made it clear that the Government of the United States is NOT founded on the Christian religion.

When Palin quotes Washington’s farewell address that extols “religion, faith, morality [as] indispensable supports,” no mention is made of the Christian version of religion, nor of the Christian faith, nor of Christian morality.

Palin’s fiction is another example of the ignorance of the far right at work again. Ironically, she told the women in attendance at her speech that they should not listen to critics who would make them feel that their movement is “all a low-cost brand of ignorance.” But what she was asking them to swallow was exactly that – ignorance of the lowest kind!

Ignorance is Right

It is significant that ignorance plays a large role in the politics of conservatives. I wish I could define that as “of ultra conservatives”, but ignorance has spread beyond the extreme right.

Gross ignorance, for instance, is at the heart of the tea party movement. It is not always as obvious as, for example, when someone in a recent tea party protest against health reform held up a sign that said, “Govt, keep your hands off my Medicare.” (Someone should have told that moron that Medicare is a government program; without government, there would be no Medicare.)

There are many other indicators of ignorance. Tea Partyists like to see themselves as reincarnations of the original patriots who founded this country. But dressing up as them is as close as they ever get, for the founding patriots were not at all like the tea partyists. They were about unity, stability and working together; they were not about disunity and destabilization. Above all, they did not protest taxation. In Boston, after the real historic tea party, they continued to pay their taxes to the colonial government. What they were opposed to was “taxation without representation”, a different matter altogether. The present day tea partyists are actually the antithesis of the real tea party patriots.

The tea partyists do not want to accept the results of the last election. They are stridently anti-Obama, but to call him a Nazi and make him a latter-day Hitler is nothing short of absurd. Obama is the opposite of the extreme right wing that Nazism represents, and of the white race supreme leader of the Third Reich, whose minions set out to purge the land of non-white races, to destroy democracy, and to raid and smash homes and offices of opposition leaders. Uh oh! It’s beginning to sound like the behavior of some of the tea party’s very own members.

Other commentators have noted the racism that is at the heart of the tea party movement, so I’ll leave this one to them. “Take back America,” means in effect, “Take back America from a black president.”

Away from the tea party, conservatives are on the move to rewrite the history books in their own image, especially in Texas, but also on radio and TV and in written publications. This is not simply an exercise in cynicism. It is a genuine exercise of ignorance. In this Right version, Franklin D. Roosevelt caused the Great Depression. (He didn’t, but he was a Democrat, so let’s blame him.) Theodore Roosevelt, one of the great Republican presidents, turns out to be a socialist. (He wasn’t.) Jamestown in 1607 was a socialist experiment that (naturally) failed – ignoring the fact that Jamestown was the result of a capitalist venture that set out to make a profit; it did come close to failure, but eventually made it. Joe McCarthy, who led the anti-communist witch hunts of the early 1950s, was actually an American hero and should not have been censured by the Senate. (The censure, incidentally, was led by Republicans.)

More details on the conservative effort to rewrite history are to be found at http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/04/01/91478/some-conservatives-rewrite-history.html.

Of course, to some extent, history can be interpreted in different ways. For instance, one might debate the extent to which Ronald Reagan’s policies contributed to the breakup of the Soviet Union. The circumstances around this event are complex; some are open to interpretation, while others do not provide clear indications of significance. What are not open to interpretation are facts and first person statements. But these are exactly what the conservatives are fudging, glossing over, ignoring, or simply misrepresenting (that is, simply lying about) to make the case for their new version of history.

By politicizing history into their own image, they are doing what the very ideologies they most oppose do. These are precisely the activities that non-democratic totalitarian governments (such as Nazism and communism) indulge in to twist history into a model that supports and justifies their ideologies.

Palin Cleans Up

As we saw during the 2008 campaign, Sarah Palin, given even half an opportunity, helps herself. Though the McCain campaign worked hard to keep her in check, she was always on the verge of “going rogue.”

She also helped herself in another way. When the campaign wanted her to improve her image (i.e. her appearance), she went on an enviable shopping spree, spending over $150,000 of Republican campaign funds on herself and on her daughter. Not bad! And she wanted to keep what was tangible after the elections!

When she addressed a tea party convention in February this year, she gave them exactly what they wanted, that is, unrelenting attacks on Obama;  she presented herself as someone sympathetic to their “cause” (i.e. their anger) and a potential leader of the movement. She still charged them $100,000 for the privilege. There were complaints from many of the tea partyists. She fudged on the money, saying to trust her that it will go to a good cause. No doubt it will: Sarah Palin.

Recently at the Oscars Gift Suite, she and her entourage helped themselves to the freebies there. “They were like locusts,” it was reported. “They practically cleaned out the suite.” (That part may have been somewhat exaggerated.) Security would not allow any photos, which were expected by the companies donating items to use for product promotion. These items were then supposed to be donated back for auction (to support Red Cross efforts in Haiti and Chile), but Palin “did not give up any of of her swag.” (E! Online)

It seems that with Sarah Palin, there is no clear line between what is private and what is public. The same pattern seems to have existed in her public positions in Alaska, and it will no doubt continue wherever she finds herself. Perhaps she is also helping herself at Fox News. This trait is not necessarily a bad one. All the great dictators made no distinction in this respect. Their philosophy was, What was good for them was good for the nation.

God is Hate II

(See also the “God is Hate” post of January 31.)

Satan’s favorite Christians, homophobe Fred Phelps and his rabid band of followers at Westboro Baptist Church, Topeka, Kansas, (mostly members of his own family), have for some time emotionally and psychologically harassed grieving families of dead soldiers at their funerals. They do so by holding signs saying, “God Hates You,” “Thank God for Dead Soldiers,” “Thank God for IEDs,” “God Hates Your Tears,” “Fag Troops,” and many that are more offensive.

This happened at the funeral of Lance Corporal Matthew Snyder who was killed in combat in Iraq on March 3, 2006. Here the group also included a sign that said, “Matt in Hell.” It was never suggested that Snyder was gay, but Phelps claims he died because he fought for a country that condones homosexuality. He also said on his web site that Matthew’s father “raised him for the devil.”

Albert Snyder, Matthew’s father, sued for invasion of privacy and intentional infliction of emotional distress. The jury agreed, but this was later overturned by the 4th US Circuit Court of Appeal on the basis of the First Amendment, guaranteeing free speech. Now the matter is before the Supreme Court, and it is hoped that this court will find a way to do the decent thing.

It is unfortunate that basic human dignity and respect for intensely personal issues do not enter into considerations of free speech. But surely what Phelps and his minions have done is a gross violation of basic rights. They do have the right to express their views, however evil they may be, but one’s rights are limited when they intrude on someone else’s rights and privacy. Grief is a necessary step in restoring one’s self and one’s life; there is no question in my mind that in seeking to deny both the grief and the dignity of laying a loved one to rest, these hatemongers have intruded on the rights of the mourning family. It was not as if the family of Matthew Snyder could turn away. If someone wants to debase a funeral, the mourners are trapped, and the forces of evil are victorious.

If Phelps really wants to deal with the issue of homosexuality, he should look within himself. His extreme homophobia suggests that he is struggling to deal with strong homosexual urges of his own. Hopefully, the Supreme Court will rule to restore the judgment against him as well as the damages award that the original jury imposed, in effect curtailing his hate mongering. This will give him more time to examine his own deep motives.