Dante Gabriel Rossetti - Pandora (1869)
Aside from the sheer biological ludicrousness of Todd Akin’s ideas on female physiology, one unsettling subplot to the debacle is his presence on the House of Committee on Science, Space and Technology. That’s right: A man who, to put it gently, ignores what science tells us about how babies are made, helps shape the future of science in America. It would be shocking, but for the fact that many of the committee’s GOP members have spent the last several years displaying comparable contempt for climate science. Todd Akin and the Anti-Science House Science Committee, Wired, 8-24-12
Fear and Loathing in 2012: Not Only the Sociopathy of the Right that Threatens Us, But Also the Dysfunction of the Left. THIS IS NOT A SHELL GAME, THIS IS AN END GAME.
By Richard Power
To those in the progressive movement who are resolved not to vote in 2012, or to vote for a third party candidate with no chance of thwarting the Hollow Man and his catfish-strangling boy toy, I say this: if you insist on such folly, you will be living proof that not only have the Zombie Cult and its Death Eater Overlords gotten the sheeple to vote against their own self-interest, they have also gotten you to vote against your own self-interest.
You may think that you are not voting or voting third party to register your profound dissatisfaction with POTUS and the corporatist bent of his policy choices and his leadership style; BUT the rise of corporatism within the Democratic Party correlates directly with the rise of the Death Eaters and their minions in the Zombie Cult, which all started with the Reagan Counter-Revolution in 1980. (Another fateful year ...) You are eating out of their hands, again.
Julian Assange is trapped inside the Ecuadorean Embassy, but you and I are trapped inside Atlas Shrugged. Assange is safe(r), for the moment, because the Ecuadoreans are courageously shielding him; you and are not so safe at all, because mark my words the Randian cultists have come to drag us back into the Hell-world of their minds.
Unfortunately, it is not only the sociopathy of the Right that threatens us, but also the dysfunction of the Left.
It is a pervasive and false meme of the puer "left" that so-called "social issues" (e.g., women's reproductive rights, gay civil rights, etc.) are "wedge" issues simply used to divide the populace in a pretend two-party system. But this is, as I said, a false meme, and it reveals the puer behavior of those who say "there is no difference" between the "R" and the "D" ... I say "puer" because this notion of "no difference" between Romney and Obama (as before with Bush and Gore) reveals a resistance to acknowledging where we really are, accepting responsibility for what actually is and making serious choices based on the grim options available.
Women's reproductive rights is not a "social issue" it is a HUMAN RIGHTS ISSUE, as is gay rights, as are the rights of soon to be not minority racial and ethnic groups. We are confronting MISOGYNY, HOMOPHOBIA and RACSISM. These are human rights issues. Just as the Climate Crisis is not just an "environmental issue" but also a human rights issue and a economic issue and a national security issue. These are also all spiritual issues. These so-called "social issues" are not meant simply to distract and divide the electorate, they are meant to debase this kulchur and dehumanize this populace.
We already tolerate far too much from the religious right and its obsessions with women's bodies and people's gender orientations, just as we already have suffered far too much from the obscene affront of corporate personhood. To turn the entire federal government of the U.S.A. over to them is unthinkable, and someone who does not vote, or votes for someone who can't defeat them, is just as complicit in what will follows as someone who votes for them.
I vowed years ago that I would sustain this narrative, that I would provide context and continuity as long as there were those deserving of the moniker "human being" who were still willing to stand for the highest good in us all. And so I have, and so I will.
Here are three stories you simply must take in and share with others.
The Devil's Budget
First, in stark and poignant terms, George Lakoff articulates how far we have fallen and how much we have lost.
America was born with a great soul, a moral view of Democracy in which citizens care about their fellow citizens and join together to take responsibility not just for themselves but for each other, for America as a union, a joint enterprise. The government's job was to carry out that moral vision and to do so it created what we call The Public, the provision of basic protection and empowerment for all. From the beginning of America, the Public provided roads and bridges, public schools, hospitals, a national bank, a patent office, police, a justice system, public buildings and records, and more. Since then the Public has expanded as public needs have expanded -- sewers, clean water, public transportation, public health and disease control, scientific research, the internet, GPS, an energy grid, parks, and much, much more. The Public provides freedom, the freedom to use what the Public provides to live a decent life and to start businesses. Without the public, there would be no American way of life, no freedom to live a decent life, to run or work in businesses, or work as a public servant. The Public carries out the work of America's soul. Budgets are moral documents. National, state, and local budgets are commitments about where and how to carry out the work of America's soul, or to abandon it. A national budget that abandons the Public and the freedoms it gives us is selling America's very soul. Such a budget is the Devil's Budget. It uses numbers for an evil purpose: to rob us of our basic everyday freedom. George Lakoff, How Romney-Ryan's Budget Would Destroy America's Soul, AlertNet, 8-22-12
Inside Karl Rove’s Secret Kingdom
Next, an update on the activities of Karl Rove.
Please understand, not only is Karl Rove NOT in the docket fighting against conviction on multiple Federal charges, or better yet already languishing in some prison somewhere, Karl Rove is actually more powerful today than in the grim years when he was acting as "Bush's Brain."
(This second piece of evidence is also yet another reminder of how much Amy Goodman and Democracy Now do with so little; as opposed to how little CNN does with so much.)
This is a very important story. Please take the time to read the transcript or watch the segment (VIDEO EMBEDDED BELOW), before it is too late ...
In a new book, author Craig Unger examines the return of Karl Rove, the man who masterminded the rise of George W. Bush from governor of Texas to a two-term presidency, who advised Bush during two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and who was at the center of two of the biggest scandals of the Bush administration: the Valerie Plame Wilson affair and the U.S. attorneys scandal. While Rove was almost indicted for the Plame affair, he has reinvented himself to become the most powerful political operative in America. Heading up the American Crossroads super PAC and the affiliated nonprofit, Crossroads GPS, Rove has built up a war chest that has given Mitt Romney a significant cash advantage in the fundraising race with President Obama. In "Boss Rove: Inside Karl Rove’s Secret Kingdom of Power," Unger writes that Rove’s ambitions are not simply about winning elections, but represent "a far more grandiose vision — the forging of a historic re-alignment of America’s political landscape, the transformation of America into effectively a one-party state." Amy Goodman, Democracy Now, Inside Karl Rove’s Secret Kingdom: Craig Unger on Stolen Votes, Political Attacks, Billionaire Ties, 8-22/12
"And the world was watching because you were watching ..."
Our government is on the wrong side of history. But are you? Listen to Assange's speech from the threshold of the Ecuadorean embassy in London (VIDEO EMBEDDED BELOW).
When the world is watching, the world is not just watching it is ACTING, it is birthing a new world through witnessing the desperate struggling of the dying world. This is not about Assange or Manning, neither are heroes, or villains, they are just people, for better and worse. This is about the FUTURE of sentient life on this planet.
Here are a few excerpts from the transcript of Assange's remarks ...
On Wednesday night, after a threat was sent to this embassy and the police descended on the building, you came out in the middle of the night to watch over it, and you brought the world's eyes with you. Inside the embassy after dark I could hear teams of police swarming up into the building through the internal fire escape. But I knew that there would be witnesses. And that is because of you. If the UK did not throw away the Vienna conventions the other night that is because the world was watching. And the world was watching because you were watching. I ask President Obama to do the right thing. The United States must renounce its witch-hunt against Wikileaks. The United States must dissolve its FBI investigation. The United States must vow that it will not seek to prosecute our staff or our supporters. The United States must pledge before the world that it will not pursue journalists for shining a light on the secret crimes of the powerful. There must be no more foolish talk about prosecuting any media organization be it Wikileaks or the New York Times. The US administration's war on whistleblowers must end ... On Wednesday Bradley Manning spent his 815th day of detention without trial. The legal maximum is 120 days. On Thursday my friend Nabeel Rajab, president of the Bharanian human rights center, was sentenced to three years for a tweet. On Friday a Russian band were sentenced to two years in jail for a political performance. There is unity in the oppression. There must be absolute unity and determination in the response. Full Transcript of Julian Assange August 19th 2012 Speech Outside the Ecuadorian Embassy, 8-19-12
Inside Karl Rove’s Secret Kingdom: Craig Unger on Stolen Votes, Political Attacks, Billionaire Ties
Assange Speaks
Do you know why 350 is the most important number in your life and the lives of everyone you love? Go to 350.org for the answer.
Richard Power is the author of eight books, including Humanifesto: A Guide to Primal Reality in an Era of Global Peril, Between Shadow and Night: The Singularity in Anticipation of Itself and True North on the Pathless Path: Towards a 21st Century Yoga. Power writes and speaks on spirituality, sustainability, human rights, and security. He blogs at http://words-of-power.blogspot.com and http://primalwordsofpower.blogspot.com, and is a member of the Truthout Board of Advisors. He also teaches yoga.
