Re: Let the Book Burning Begin

Official transcript here.

OLBERMANN: Finally tonight, as promised, a special comment on the Supreme Court‘s ruling today in the case Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.

On the cold morning of Friday, March 6th, 1857, a very old man who was born just eight months and 13 days after the Declaration of Independence was adopted, a man who was married to the sister of the man who wrote “The Star Spangled Banner,” a man who was enlightened enough to have freed his own slaves and given pensions to the ones who had become too old to work, read aloud, in a reed-thin voice from a very long, handwritten document.

In it, he ruled on a legal case involving a slave brought by his owner to live in a free state yet to remain a slave. The slave sought his freedom and sued. And looking back over legal precedent and the Constitution, and the America in which it was created, this judge ruled that no black man could ever be considered an actual citizen of the United States. “They had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an inferior order and all together unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations. And so far unfit that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.”

The case of course was Dred Scott. The old man was the fifth chief justice of the United States of America, Roger Brooke Taney. The outcome, he believed, would be to remove the burning question of abolition of slavery from the political arena once and for all. The outcome, in fact, was the Civil War.

No American ever made a single bigger misjudgment. No American ever carried the responsibility for the deaths and suffering of more Americans on his shoulders. No American was ever more quickly vilified.

Within four years, Chief Justice Taney‘s rulings were being ignored in the south and the north. Within five, President Lincoln at minimum contemplated arresting him. Within seven, he died in poverty while still chief justice. Within eight, Congress had voted to not place a bust of him alongside those of the other former chief justices.

But good news tonight, Roger B. Taney is off the hook. Today, the Supreme Court of Chief Justice John Roberts, in a decision that might actually have more dire implications than Dred Scott v. Sanford, declared that because of the alchemy of its 19th century predecessors in deciding that corporations had all the rights of people, any restrictions on how these corporate beings spend their money on political advertising are unconstitutional.

In short, the First Amendment, free speech for persons, which went into effect in 1791, applies to corporations, which were not recognized as the equivalents of persons until 1886. In short, there are now no checks on the ability of corporations or unions or other giant aggregations of power to decide our elections. None.

They can spend all the money they want. And if they can spend all the money they want, sooner rather than later, they will implant the legislators of their choice in every office from president to head of the visiting nurse service. And if senators and congressmen and governors and mayors and councilmen and everyone in between are entirely beholden to the corporations for election and reelection to office, soon they will erase whatever checks there might still exist to just slow down the ability of corporations to decide the laws.

It is almost literally true that any political science fiction nightmare you can now dream up, no matter whether you are conservative or a liberal, it is now legal. Because the people who can make it legal can now be entirely bought and sold. No actual citizens required in the campaign fund raising process. And the entirely bought and sold politicians can change any laws. And any legal defense you can structure now can be undone by the politicians who will be bought and sold into office this November, or two years from now. And any legal defense which honest politicians can somehow wedge up against them this November or two years from now, that can be undone by the next even larger set of politicians who will be bought and sold into office in 2014 or 2016 or 2018.

Mentioning Lincoln‘s supposed ruminations about arresting Roger B. Taney, he didn‘t say the original of this, but what the hell. Right now you can prostitute all of the politicians some of the time, and prostitute some of the politicians all of the time, but you cannot prostitute all of the politicians all the time.

Thanks to Chief Justice Roberts, this will now change. Unless this near mortal blow is somehow undone, within ten years, every politician in this country will be a prostitute.

And now let‘s contemplate what the perfectly symmetrical money-driven world of that order might look like. Be prepared first for laws criminalizing or at least neutering unions. In today‘s court decision, they are the weaker of the non-human sisters unfettered by the court. So, as in ancient Rome or medieval England, they will necessarily be strangled by the stronger sibling, the corporations, so that they pose no further threat to the corporations‘ total control of our political system.

Be prepared then for the reduction of taxes for the wealthy, and for the corporations, and the elimination of the social safety nets for everybody else, because money spent on the poor means less money left for the corporations.

Be prepared then for wars sold as the new products, which Andy Card once described them as, year after year, as if they were new Fox reality shows, because military industrial complex corporations are still corporations.

Be prepared then for the ban on same sex marriage and on abortion and on evolution being taught and on separation of church and state. The most politically agitated group of citizens left are the evangelicals. Throw them some red meat to feed their holier than thou rationalizations and they won‘t care what else you do to this corporate nation.

Be prepared then for racial and religious profiling, because you have to blame somebody for all the reductions in spending and civil liberties, just to make sure the agitators against the United corporate States of America are kept unheard.

Be prepared for those poor, dumb, manipulated bastards, the Tea Partiers, to have a glorious few years as the front men, as the corporations that bank roll them slowly unroll their total control of our political system. And then be prepared to watch them be banished, maybe outlawed, when a few of the brighter ones suddenly realize that the corporations have made them merely the Judas Goats of American freedom.

Be prepared then for the bank reforms that President Obama has just this day vowed to enable to be rolled back by his successor, purchased by the banks, with the money President Bush gave them, his successor, presumably President Palin, because if you need a friendly face of fascism, you might as well get one that can wink. And if you need a tool of whichever large industries buy her first, you might as well get somebody who lives up to that word “tool.”

Be prepared for the little changes, too. If there are any small towns left to take over, Wal-Mart can now soften them up with carpet advertising for their Wal-Mart town council candidates brought to you by Wal-Mart.

Be prepared for the Richard Mellon Scaifes to drop such inefficiencies as vanity newspapers and simply buy and install their own city governments in the Pittsburghs.

Be prepared for the personally wealthy men like John Kerry to become the paupers of the Senate, or the ones like Mike Bloomberg not even surviving the primary against Halliburton‘s choice for mayor of New York City.

Be prepared for the end of what you‘re watching now. I don‘t just mean me or this program or this network. I mean all the independent news organizations and the propagandists like Fox, for that matter, because Fox inflames people against the state. And after today‘s ruling, the corporations will only need a few more years of inflaming people before the message suddenly shifts to everything‘s great.

Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh don‘t even realize it. Today, John Roberts just cut their throats, too. So with critics silenced and bought off and even the town assessor who lives next door to you elected to office with campaign funds 99.9 percent drawn from corporations coffers, what are you going to do about it? The Internet.

The Internet. Ask them about the Internet in China. Kiss net neutrality good-bye. Kiss whatever right to privacy on the net you think you currently have good-bye. And anyway, what are you going to complain about if you don‘t even know it happened?

In the new world unveiled this morning by John Roberts, who stops Rupert Murdoch from buying the Associated Press? This decision, which in mythology would rank somewhere between the bottomless pit and the opening of Pandora‘s Box, got next to no coverage in the right wing media today. Almost nothing in the middle and a lot less than necessary on the left.

The right wing won‘t even tell their constituents that they are being sold into bondage alongside the rest of us. Why should they? For them, the start of this will be wonderful. The Republicans, the conservatives, the Joe Liebermans, the Tea Partiers are in the front aisle at the political prostitution store. They are especially discounted old favorites for their corporate masters. Like the first years of irreversible climate change, for the conservatives, the previously cold winter will grow delightfully warm.

Only later will it be hot, then unbearable, then flames. Then the conservatives will burn with the rest of us and never know what happened.

What are you going to do about it? Turn to free speech advocates? These were the free speech advocates. The lawyer for that homunculus, one who filed this suit, David Bossie—the lawyer is Floyd Abrahams, Floyd Abrahams, who has spent his life defending American freedoms, especially freedom of speech. Apparently, his life was spent this way to guarantee that when it really counted he could help the corporations destroy free speech.

His argument, translated from self-satisfied legal jargon, is that as a function of the first amendment, you must allow for the raping and pillaging of the first amendment by people who can buy the first amendment. He will go down in the history books as the quisling of freedom of speech in this country. That is if the corporations who now buy the school boards which decide which history books get printed approve, if there are still history books.

So what are you going to do about it? Russ Feingold told me today there might yet be ways to work around this, to restrict corporate governance and how corporations make and spend their money. I pointed out that any such legislation, even if it somehow sneaked past this the last US Senate not funded by a generous gift from the chub group, would eventually wind up in front of a Supreme Court, and whether or not John Roberts was still at its head would be irrelevant. The next nine men and women on the Supreme Court will get there not because of their judgment nor even their politics. They will get there because they were appointed by purchased presidents and confirmed by purchased senators.

This is what John Roberts did today. This is a Supreme Court sanctioned murder of what little actual democracy is left in this democracy. It is government of the people, by the corporations, for the corporations. It is the dark ages. It is our Dred Scott.

I would suggest a revolution, but a revolution against the corporations? The corporations that make all the guns and the bullets?

Maybe it won‘t be this bad. Maybe the corporations, legally defined as human beings but without the pesky occasional human attributes of compassion and conscience, maybe when handed the only keys to the electoral machine, they will simply not redesign America in their own corporate image.

Let me leave you with this final question: after today, who is going to stop them? Good night and good luck.
---
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Sociopaths: The Predators Among Us.

This is a repost from a thread I started on SoulForce, in response to a request to elaborate on a statement I made about sociopaths:

But, I can’t stress enough, it needs to be understood and accepted that some people do not have the brain capacity to feel normal emotions, and are human predators, just as sure as the brutality of any wild animal. And they don’t wear a bell, but often times wear an air of disarming charm.

Here’s an article (quoted from below) with some excerpts from another book I just read: Without Conscience: the Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Among Us © 1993.

It pretty much confirmed what I had read in The Sociopath Next Door © 2005.

(Some simple Google searches will lead to a lot of articles on the subject.)

The subjects were asked to perform a simple task: hit a button as soon as they recognized a word flashed on a computer screen. While monitoring the subjects' brain waves, the researchers alternated nonsensical strings of letters with neutral words such as "table," and emotionally evocative words like "maggot" and "cancer." What they found was that normal subjects spent more time processing emotion-laden words than the psychopaths. "When you see a word like 'cancer,' you have all sorts of associations - fear, or you think of someone who's had cancer," says Hare. "But for psychopaths, the word 'cancer' and the word 'table' had the same emotional connotations - which is to say, not very many. It's as if they're emotionally color-blind."

Even more staggering were the findings of a study conducted by New York City psychiatrist Joanne Intrator, with Hare's collaboration, at the Bronx Veterans Administration hospital in 1993. The investigators employed the same language test, this time injecting the subjects with a radioactive tracer and scanning color images of their brains. As normal subjects processed the emotion-laden words, their brains lit up with activity, particularly in the areas around the ventromedial frontal cortex and amygdala. The former plays a crucial role in controlling impulses and long-term planning, while the amygdala is often described as "the seat of emotion." But in the psychopaths, those parts of the brain appeared to remain inactive while processing the emotion-laden words. That, says Hare, helps explain why a psychopath's conscience is only half-formed. "I showed the scans to several neurologists," recalls Hare. "They said that it did not even look like a human brain. One of them asked, 'Is this person from Mars?' "

Tests like these are scientific indicators, there are also checklists of behaviors that are taken into account in the attempt to diagnose a person as sociopathic/psychopathic.

(One caveat here, from what I’ve read, there’s little difference between sociopathy and psychopathy. In regard to the absence of conscience, they are essentially the same. The Wiki article on psychopathy has a section under the heading; Relationship to sociopathy, that helps to clarify.)

I think it's imperative that people become educated on this phenomenon of the human condition. Especially given its scientific nature. People may be much more inclined to accept that some people are inherently “bad” (at least by the standards of someone who does have a conscience), and that no amount of reasoning or love can “reach” them.

Which is not to say that we as a society should give up, but my point here is that if we can see the scientific/genetic factors involved in some of the worst human behaviors in this world, we can then also see that these people are not “bad” or “evil” per se.

Yet at the same time, we will also be able to accept the significance of the threat that people like this present, and by extension, examine and correct the societal influences that exploit the genetic potential that lies within these people.

In Without Conscience, Hare said that the only treatment at this point is first of all, catching it early, as in pre-adolescence. And even then the only practical “therapy” is to teach them that it’s in their own best interests to act in socially acceptable ways, and that EVEN THEN, that may only make the difference between a violent criminal and a white collar criminal.

Martha Stout said in The Sociopath Next Door that in the East, sociopathy is virtually nil, because their entire societies/religions are based on the connectedness of all life - so, though sociopaths/psychopaths there may still have little to no conscience, it is bred into them from an early age that it is in their best interests to behave in socially acceptable ways.

One practical example is that the promiscuity associated with sociopathy (as they are incapable of emotional connection) would be more noticed and less tolerated in such a society, thus passing on less of those genes.

Here in the west, especially the US, we have such an individualistic society, that any sociopathic genetic predisposition (35-50%, regarding any personality trait) will usually become fully expressed in that individual. And by the time they realize that the world is their personal oyster to be exploited, they’re basically lost for good. As I said before, it’s the only disease that does not cause dis-ease.

One point of note, she says that it’s about 4% of the population, whereas Hare and others say 1%.

So say that 1-4% of the population truly has no conscience. No remorse, no guilt, no embarrassment when found out about a lie, or any other horrific act they may have committed. These people have THE biggest human advantage. And the most intelligent among them are going to cause the most damage.

If you read the checklist in the Wiki article, you’ll see that manipulating others is one of the characteristics of psychopathy, as it naturally would be for someone who’s only goal is to get what they want. And manipulation, is really a form of domination.

Now here’s where I’m connecting all this with John Dean’s book, Conservatives Without Conscience. For more information I also have a thread on this here.

Dean talks about three groups, those who score high as Social Dominators (leaders), those who score high as Right Wing Authoritarians (followers), and those particularly “scary,” who score high as both:

...rare “Double Highs” want to be dominators. They probably endorse submission on the RWA scale because they like the idea of others submitting to them. High SDO-high RWAs would win the gold medal in a Prejudice Olympics, having even stronger prejudices than ordinary high SDOs and ordinary high RWAs. They are also more power hungry, more dominance-oriented, meaner, more Machiavellian, and more amoral than any other identifiable group in my samples. They have an almost magical ability to alloy the worst features of social dominators and rightwing authoritarians, and I have likened them to Hitler (Altemeyer, in press). They would seem to be the most likely persons to rise to the top of movements thickly sewn with high RWAs.

In other words, "double highs" are Social dominators who also score high on the follower scale because they’re thinking about how they would like to be followed.

What I’m thinking here is that your naturally manipulative sociopaths/psychopaths are typically going to fall under the Social Dominator category. And that the most intelligent and ambitious among them, are going to fall under the “Double High” category.

From the quote above: “They would seem to be the most likely persons to rise to the top of movements thickly sewn with high RWAs.” And remember, RWA’s are your Right Wing Authoritarian followers. For whatever reasons, they are prone to submitting to authority (think Bible, threat of hell, church think/group think), and as such, are RIPE for being dominated and manipulated by the most intelligent and ambitious sociopaths among us.

The public image of the leaders of the religious right I met with so many times also contrasted with who they really were. In public, they maintained an image that was usually quite smooth, In private, they ranged from unreconstructed bigot reactionaries like Jerry Falwell, to Dr. Dobson, the most power-hungry and ambitious person I have ever met, to Billy Graham, a very weird man indeed who lived an oddly sheltered life in a celebrity/ministry cocoon, to Pat Robertson, who would have a hard time finding work in any job where hearing voices is not a requirement. (p315)

~Frank Schaeffer, Crazy for God

1) For clarification, any personal examples I may use below, does NOT mean that I am saying that that person is a sociopath/psychopath. I’m trying to illustrate a pattern of behavior, the recognition of which lies foremost in the understanding of sociopathy - the absence of conscience.

2) For clarification: This is an almost exclusively conservative phenomenon, as liberal / progressive ideals are inherently egalitarian.

Egalitarian: believing in equality: maintaining, relating to, or based on a belief that all people are, in principle, equal and should enjoy equal social, political, and economic rights and opportunities

I’m not saying progressives are perfect, but I am saying that the heart of our ideals are based on our recognition of the emotional connections we have with others, and the rest of humanity; empathy, love, etc. All of which is the antithesis of a person without conscience.

That said, I’m also not saying that Right Wing Authoritarians are devoid of conscience, but that they are more adept at silencing their conscience. Which, under the right circumstances, most of us are capable of doing. See this post on the Milgram Experiment.

3) It’s generally easier to accept sociopathic behavior coming from a politician than it is from a religious leader. Even when a politician speaks of “moral values,” an air of bluster is a generally accepted accompaniment, as well as the assumption that any such statements were fashioned for the sake of political ends.

Look at David Vitter and Larry Craig, both republicans. Vitter was exposed for having cheated on his wife with prostitutes, and we all know about Larry “not gay” Craig. And after being found out and publicly humiliated, what do they do? Not only go right back to work, but team up to reintroduce the Federal Marriage Amendment as though absolutely nothing had happened!

As the joke goes:

Q: How can you tell when a politician is lying?
A: When his lips are moving

In the realm of politics, sociopathic behavior like that is to be expected. So I'm not saying that those two are sociopaths, as I do not throw the term around lightly. I would, however, consider Rob Blagojevich---in response to his corruption scandal---to be a case study.

4) Now, and this is what I’ve been wrestling with since I got involved in this equal-rights fight in ‘04, religious leaders are a whole different animal when it comes to explaining their sociopathic behavior. Mel White insists that they are sincere in their anti-gay beliefs, and he should know, as he served as ghostwriter to Falwell, Robertson and others.

When Falwell died, I started a thread called The end result of closet atheism? To be clear, it wasn’t meant as a slam on atheism, or atheists.

What I realize now, is that I was attempting to describe sociopathy in regard to the religious leadership that we are so familiar with. But at the time, I was still hung up on the idea that having no conscience must equal not having a belief in God. And I think I’ve figured out how that may not necessarily be the case.

Now, we know that Dobson/ilk they know that they lie, and that they do all that they can to demonize and spread hatred for those of us who are LGBT, and they do so without any regard or regret for the violence done to us or our families and friends. Nor do they take any responsibility when found out. Instead they further attack and play the victim.

A couple more examples before moving on, keeping in mind here that my point is that this behavior is especially perplexing when coming from those who vocally and vehemently attest to what amounts to adherence to the Golden Rule. In this case, Christianity, which admonishes to love, pray for, and do good unto one’s enemies.

Remember the shrieks and howls of victimization in response to the Prop 8 protests? Charges of mob violence were used to describe almost exclusively peaceful protests, and for awhile there, it was a daily occurrence. Box Turtle Bulletin tracked it well, and many LaBarbera awards were handed out. As I posted recently at BTB:

Martha Stout ph.d., author of The Sociopath Next Door, offers that the best clue to the sociopath without conscience is the repeated pity play.

"[A]fter twenty-five years of listening to victims, I realize there is an excellent reason for the sociopathic fondness for pity. As obvious as the nose on one’s face, and just as difficult to see without the help of a mirror, the explanation is that good people will let pathetic individuals get by with murder, so to speak, and therefore any sociopath wishing to continue with his game, whatever it happens to be, should play repeatedly for none other than pity."

Also, in Montgomery County Maryland, there is a group that seems to LIVE for the spreading of hatred against LGBTs. A non-discrimination ordinance was unanimously passed to protect transgendered individuals from discrimination -- the same as race, religion, disability, etc. -- and this group began a campaign to gather signatures to rescind the measure by having it put on last November’s ballot (they were unsuccessful btw).

The sticking point here is that they sold the effort by claiming that it would put women and girls at risk, because now male predators would have unprecedented access to female bathrooms and locker rooms, a bald faced lie. Yet when confronted with this misrepresentation, Michelle Turner, spokeswoman for the group (CRG) said: "If there was a misunderstanding, it was on the part of the individual signing the petition,"

And I’m not pulling this out of nowhere, I was on that blog the whole time, saw their antics and watched the whole thing unfold.

I mention that example, because in both of the books I read, it mentioned how sociopaths view the gullible, naïve and uninformed as deserving of being taken advantage of.

Which elucidates another point. The religious right leaders must despise their constituents. They have to. You don’t lie to people you respect. You don’t encourage people whom you value and cherish to act on false information, that in the end you KNOW will ruin their reputation, or possibly harm themselves and/or their loved ones.

5) A few more numbers here and I’ll sum up. John Dean’s book Conservatives Without Conscience estimates that about 23% of the population is in one of the groups described. Social Dominators, Right Wing Authoritarians, or both. As indicated above, your sociopaths, whatever their percentage may be, would also be included in this grouping.

So, generally speaking, 1-4% of the population has no conscience, and another 20% or so is highly skilled at setting aside their conscience. So let’s round it off to a cool 25% who are either sociopathic, or who are prone to sociopathic tendencies.

Empirically, last I heard (on Chris Matthews a few weeks ago), Bush’s approval rating was at 29%. I also heard that 70% of Americans were now against the war in Iraq (implying that 30% were still for it). So the numbers are similar. And for the sake of contrast, when the war began, it was about 70% in favor.

So here’s my theory, and hopefully my solution.

You’ve got the leaders of the “family” groups who are often sociopaths, and who may or may not believe in God.

Above and beyond the game of politics, what better place to get people to give you money? And tax free at that!

A crafty letter and a stamp is all it takes.

All of the elements are in play. Target those who “love God” and/or are afraid of eternal hell. Especially gullible and sedentary older folk, and housewives who are “too busy” to Google. They get to “protect marriage” and family for future generations, help to prevent the end of civilization, avoid hell, and please God, all by simply writing a check. Not to mention the boost it gives to their feeling of self worth - they may not be able to protest at school board meetings against the “promotion of homosexuality,” but through their donation, someone else can, which makes them a participant in the good fight and makes their lives effortlessly more meaningful.

And the worse the threat that the “homosexual agenda” is presented as, the more significant their donation becomes.

Now, if the leaders of these groups don’t believe in God, then they’re just frauds, and are as Christopher Hitchens described Falwell after his death: “He woke up every morning, as I say, pinching his chubby little flanks and thinking, I have got away with it again.”

Which, if sociopathy is a reality, then the above sentiment, in some circumstances, is a GUARANTEED reality.

Which brings us back to Mel White’s notion that these people are sincere (just sincerely wrong), which I now believe I may understand.

In one sense, sociopaths are just like the rest of us, in that they think that everyone else is just like them. We all tend to project like that. Just as the good hearted see the goodness in others, the person who comprehends only the human rat race of looking out for number one, is incapable of seeing that others are not like them, and do have feelings, and do love. Which may explain their justification in taking advantage of fools, the idea being that if they weren’t fools, they’d be trying to screw them over.

Which is why I feel that it’s imperative that we challenge our own beliefs and perceptions. We deserve to know the truth. And though the truth may be ugly, there is beauty in the desire to face it.

I think what I’m saying is that it’s entirely possible for someone without a conscience to believe in a god. They would just project their universe of meaninglessness and predation onto that god.

In that universe, one would need a written reminder not to kill, rape, rob or steal, and backed up by an ever watchful deity just waiting to pull the plug on your salvation to damn you to an eternity of suffering in a lake of fire.

I often wonder if those who scream so loudly of “God’s laws,” are really just trying to convince themselves. How much hell IS NOT unleashed unto this world, because of the threat of eternal damnation? How many sociopaths are constrained by that fear alone?

But from what I’ve read, even the fear of pain and/or death is a shallow emotion for the sociopath. They also tend to associate love with sexual desire.

So that’s another thing that is essentially a universal part of the human condition that we share with sociopaths, sexual desire. And since sociopaths/psychopaths are inherently devoid of anything but the shallowest of emotions, sexual desire would be the one feeling that would stand out (save perhaps for the fear of death).

And if this sexual feeling is equated with their definition of love, and love is God, then it would make perfect sense to match up their own revulsion for the idea of having sex with a member of their own gender (homosexuality), with “God’s” condemnation of it in the Bible.

Remember, in their world, everyone’s out to get everyone. Enter the gays, and now you have a movement that is trying to reverse the meaning of love itself. Which makes us capable of any and all evil. And just in case there’s any doubt, we can rest assured that even God says so.

Thus, all gay rights are seen as the intentional grossification of society, and are not only suspect, but are seen as Trojan-horses of infectious evil.

In other words, sexual desire is the only real deep feeling that they have. So it would follow that they would perceive God in the same manner. And that would explain why they feel no hypocrisy in focusing on the “sin” of homosexuality to the complete and utter exclusion of all others.

They can’t comprehend a god who really cares about those other sins, at least not like they can comprehend a god who hates homosexuality. Because as a heterosexual, that’s something they can relate to, they HATE the idea of having sex with someone of the same gender.

Now, on paper, the whole theory works out. Same sex attraction really is all about choosing to love what by nature can only be hated. Therefore we “love Satan” and “hate God,” and death and destruction God’s judgment blah blah blah, ensue… Until you get to know some of us, then, not so much.

Like it or not, we are ready made templates of sociopathy itself.

In essence, we have sociopaths, looking at the quintessential template of sociopathy (homosexuality as described above), and seeing themselves expressed in us.

They see our same gender attraction as choosing to reverse the order of conscience - to them, the best and most practical grasp they have on the meaning of conscience, is the “absolute truth” that they are attracted to the opposite sex. Their idea of love, and the deepest “feeling” that they can relate to.

Unlike we moral relativists who “choose” to be attracted to what revolts us the most, and thus choose to “love” the opposite of love itself.

So, again, in essence, we have sociopaths, recognizing and responding to the danger of sociopathy, but doing so by mistakenly equating it with homosexuality.

It’s as f___ed up as it gets.

Which is why I believe that the key to turning this world around for the better, is not in believing in the good in people -- as we already know that -- but in believing in the reality of the worst in people.

It’s not enough to accomplish a utopia in a predator world. In order for it to last it must also be built to withstand any foreseeable attacks.

I believe this is what our founding fathers attempted to do. Three branches of power (government), to minimize the chance that any one could overwhelm the others. And the constitutional, AKA fundamental right to exPRESSion, as in the press, the media, the so-called fourth estate of government to keep an eye on all three branches, in order keep we voting masses from becoming ignorami we’ve now become.

The Barack/Warren thing illustrates this mess so perfectly.

If this were just a disagreement on marriage, such as “marriage vs. civil unions,” then I really wouldn’t have a problem with the pick. At least not enough of one to be throwing the tantrum fit that I’ve been throwing of late.

What scares me -- above and beyond the whole promotion of hatred = promotion of violence = sends a message to other pastors to promote hatred/violence -- is that this scenario is the very breeding ground for another Bush Administration.

When Melissa Etheridge, her partner, Andrew Sullivan, Bob Ostertag, John Corvino, and plenty of others, here and abroad, see this culture war as a mere difference of opinion, I see that they are not seeing the full picture.

And I’m not just talking Rick Warren / Obama here.

I support efforts to reach out, if I didn’t, I wouldn’t be here at Soulforce, and I certainly wouldn’t put my money where my mouth is. Love is good, but sometimes love is also blind. And when love is blind, love can be evil, without even knowing it.

So, the biggest picture I can foresee here, is that to see the Warren pick, by Obama, as being an issue of even gay rights, is to guarantee another Bush Administration. Something that truly could result in the end of civilization. If it’s not already too late. I have the distinct impression that we have yet to even fathom the institutionalized and long term damage that has been wrought on this country over the past 8 years.

For our new president to send a message that “reaching out” to those who are proven to have every intention of molesting the constitutional freedoms that this country was founded on, is to mock his own victory, and all those who supported him.

Barack’s message, and those who support it, may be well intentioned, but I feel that it’s irresponsible in the worst way possible. And to not recognize that, is to not recognize the ever encroaching imminent threat to the free world as we know it.

This is no longer about sociopaths and "conservatives without conscience" - to varying degrees, they can’t help it. At this point it’s about we liberals and progressives who supposedly know better than them. And if we can’t even recognize and respond to the aspect of human nature that is capable of ensuring the downfall of civilization, then we truly are no better than them. At least in the sense that the effect will be the same.

But at least we’ll have the satisfaction of knowing “we did nothing” to cause it.

As the anti-gay bigots love to harp their "truth in love" song and dance, Well, I say that our understanding of love needs to start including the truth of evil.

Otherwise, we’re doomed.
_________
Back to Genocide For Jesus

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Movie: Explicit Ills -- Bonus Features

(This is a reference post containing the full text of the bonus features on the DVD Explicit Ills.)



EXPLICIT ILLS
1. Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign
www.economichumanrights.org

Mission Statement - The Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign is committed to unite the poor across color lines as the leadership base for a broad movement to abolish poverty. We work to accomplish this through advancing economic human rights as named in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, such as the rights to food, housing, health, education, communication and a living wage job.

2.Vision Statement - The Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign is building a movement that unites the poor across color lines. Poverty afflicts Americans of all colors. Daily more and more of us are downsized and impoverished. We share a common interest in uniting against the prevailing conditions and around our vision of a society where we all have the right health care, housing living wage job, and access to quality primary, secondary, and higher education.

The Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign includes people of many backgrounds. We are mothers, fathers, children, and grandparents; we are the unemployed, the working poor, the downsized, the homeless, the victims of welfare reform and NAFTA, the cast-asides of the new economy; we are social workers, religious leaders, labor leaders, artists, lawyers, and other people of conscience; we are young and old; we live in rural areas and in urban centers.

We are committed to uniting the poor as the leadership base for a broad movement to abolish poverty everywhere and forever. We work to accomplish theis aim through the promotion of economic human rights, named in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as Articles 23, 25, and 26. These articles state our right to such provisions as housing, health care, a living way job, and education/ The founding creed of the United States of America, which assures our rights to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness, inspired the formulation of these human rights. Our government sighed the UDHR in 1948; its full implementation would mean that our country would be living out the true meaning of its creed. This American Dream is possible because our county is the riches and most powerful in the world.

We do not seek pity. We do seek power to end conditions that threaten all of us with economic human rights violations denying us our birthrights to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.

We accept anyone or any organization in this campaign that unites with these principles.

3. A man, a Mom, and a Movement - by Mary Bricker-Jenkins, PhD

The old church in North Philadelphia, the size of a small cathedral really, was already bitterly cold in the fall of 1995. It was full of small tents and “family rooms” formed by pews, blankets, and sleeping bags. Taped around the entrance were notices: Sign up here for child care. Smoke outside & pick up your butts. Study Circle, 6pm, under the tarp. Twelve Step Meetings, 8am & 8pm.

The area under the tarp was the nerve center of this community of homeless people who had moved their tent city from an abandoned lot to an abandoned church for the winter. Cheri Honkala, , the leader of the group, was meeting there with her circle of advisors, community members who had agreed to take on responsibilities and duties for the group Beside her was a youth leader, a very articulate 15 year old boy named Mark. That’s how I first met him. I didn’t know for some time that he was Cheri’s son; I knew him only as one of the “go to” people in the community.

As a professional social worker with a doctorate in child welfare, I suppose I focused instinctively and immediately on the children and youth. Quickly satisfied that they were safe from every threat but poverty and homelessness, I was able to broaden my focus to this community and its leaders. I started “coming around” to attend the community meetings and educational sessions. Both Mark and his mom led many of them. Soon I realized that I was learning more from this welfare mom and her pubescent son about the systemic causes of poverty and homelessness than I had learned in decades of formal study. And I was watching a social movement forming in that old, cold church in the midst of Pennsylvania’s poorest community.

The organization running the tent-city-in-a-church, the Kensington Welfare Rights Union, was a little over 5 years old by that time. It had been formed by five “welfare moms,” including Cheri, who had spent some time living in cars and abandoned buildings with Mark. In 1998 KWRU sparked the formation of the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign, a national organization dedicated and determined to building a movement to end poverty. Cheri became its National organizer and Spokesperson.

By that time it was clear that Mark, ever self-defining and independent, now well into adolescence, would successfully pursue his passion for acting. Frankly, some of us assumed he’d be too busy for the marches, demonstrations, and interminable meetings demanded by the campaign. That he’d want to distance himself from the hardships of homelessness, police abuse, public ridicule. That at best he’d drop in to be a celebrity activist from time to time. Or, the worst possible outcome, that he’d be scooped up by the media as a protagonist in the kind of “rags to riches” story that obscures the real causes of poverty and cloaks the people that benefit from it. None of those has happened. Mark still marches at his mom’s side, organizes and educates his friends as well, holds fast to the vision and the strategy of the movement and its organizations, resides well within the circle of its leaders, and now uses his films to tell the truth about poverty and homeless[ness] in the USA.

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Look at 'em go!

I didn't even know that some of this stuff was humanly possible.

Fast Swing Dancing - ULHS 2006



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Sanctimonious, holier than thou, exploitative, undignified, pedantic, childish...

'Countdown with Keith Olbermann' for Friday, June 12

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

OLBERMANN: Good evening from New York.

Sanctimonious, holier than thou, exploitative, undignified, pedantic, childish, self-inflicting, insipid, backwards, embarrassing, over-reactive, overreaching, or as Peggy Noonan summed it up, with the succinctness I have obviously long since abandoned—yammering.

Our fifth story on the COUNTDOWN: Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska returning to national television to exploit her daughters pursuing a bizarre and unwinnable vendetta against the TV figure who has already apologized and whom she evidently does not realized is several times more popular than she is.
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Nothing further.
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Pat Robertson Overheard During Commercial

188,124 views
October 14, 2006
jimmiles

Pat Robertson Overheard During Commercial

YouTube info and video:

[[DISCLAIMER: I DID NOT MAKE THIS CLIP; this is from a 1995 documentary called SPIN by Brian Springer. see imdb.com/title/tt0114512/]]

The hypocrisy of this evangelical leader becomes evident when he tries to spin his hatespeech into what he is supposed to be saying as a gospel minister: God loves everyone, even sinners. But this video shows him to be every bit the politician and homophobe he really is, behind the scenes. Great insight into the inner workings of a professional spin machine!

UPDATE (November 17, 2007): I can't believe how many comments this video has attracted! Kinda cool, that little ole me had somepin to do with this long "conversation." I thank all of the commentors, even the rude and foul-mouthed ones, because (at least until this day) we Americans still cherish our right to free speech! Gotta love the USA! Let's remember to fight for that right when they may try to shut us up.


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How hate speech leads to violence, from someone who knows.

June 1: Frank Schaeffer, author, Crazy for God: How I Grew Up as One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Lived to Take All (or Almost All) of it Back” explains to MSNBC’S Rachel Maddow how hateful speech leads to violent acts.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

MSNBC transcript ot that segment below:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILL O‘REILLY, FOX NEWS HOST: Tiller the baby killer out in Kansas, acquitted—acquitted today of murdering babies. I wanted George Tiller, Tiller the baby killer, going—hey, I can‘t make more money killing babies now. Tiller the baby killer. As “The Factor” has been reporting, this man will terminate fetuses at anytime for $5,000.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What do you think about Dr. George Tiller?

KATHLEEN SEBELIUS, HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES SECRETARY: I don‘t think anything about Dr. George Tiller.

O‘REILLY: She doesn‘t seem to be real upset about this guy operating a death mill.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MADDOW: Death mill. That was FOX News host, Bill O‘Reilly then.

During the life of George Tiller, for four years, he repeatedly accused Dr. Tiller of murder, of infanticide. He publicly compared him to everything, from Nazis, to pedophiles, to al Qaeda. He described him as having blood on his hands.

Now that Dr. Tiller has been murdered inside his own church, here is Mr. O‘Reilly tonight.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

O‘REILLY: Anarchy and vigilantism will ensure the collapse of any society. Once the rule of law breaks down, a country is finished. Thus, clear-thinking Americans should condemn the murder of late-term abortionist, Tiller. Even though the man terminated thousands of pregnancies, what he did is within Kansas law.

The 67-year-old Tiller had performed abortions for more than 35 years. “The Washington Times” estimates he destroyed about 60,000 fetuses. Very few American doctors will perform the operation. None of that seemed to matter to Tiller, nicknamed “the baby killer” by pro-life groups, who stated he was helping women—Tiller stated that.

I report honesty. Every single thing we said about Tiller was true. My analysis was based on those facts. It is clear that the far left is exploiting—exploiting, the death of the doctor. Those vicious individuals want to stifle any criticism of people like Tiller. That and hating FOX News is the real agenda here.

Finally if these people were so compassionate, so very compassionate, so concerned for the rights and welfare of others, maybe they might have written something, one thing, about the 60,000 fetuses who will never become American citizens.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MADDOW: Do you think he‘s sorry that Dr. Tiller is dead?

Mr. O‘Reilly went on to claim he never tried to incite anything, he was just reporting.

Joining us now is Frank Schaeffer, who grew up in the religious far right, who made a documentary anti-abortion film series in the 1970s, and whose latest book is titled, “Crazy for God: How I Grew Up as One of the Elects, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Lived to Take All or Almost All of It Back.”

Mr. Schaeffer, thank you very much for your time tonight.

FRANK SCHAEFFER, AUTHOR, “CRAZY FOR GOD”: Thank you for having me on, Rachel.

MADDOW: Today, writing at “Huffington Post,” you apologized, as a former member of the religious right, for what happened to Dr. Tiller. Why did you feel the need to apologize?

SCHAEFFER: Well, words have consequences.

And what we did in the ‘70s and ‘80s, my father, Dr. Francis Schaeffer, Dr. C. Everett Koop, who became Reagan surgeon general, members of the Republican Party who worked with us to make abortion part of the Republican agenda, the Roman Catholic allies that we had in the church, various people—we talked and our talk got more and more extreme, and less and less democratic. Until, finally, my dad actually went so far as to write a book called “A Christian Manifesto,” where he said the use of force to change Roe v. Wade and roll back the law legalizing abortion would be legitimate and he compared Roe and the American government to Hitler‘s Germany in the 1930s.

And when you look at what happened to Dr. Tiller, there‘s a direct line connecting the rhetoric that I was part of as a young man and this murder. And so, people, like me, are responsible for what we said and what we did and the way we raised the temperature on this debate out of all bounds. And so, when O‘Reilly talks about the fact that these people of the far left are against FOX or against him or trying to muzzle the debate, he‘s telling a lie.

I am not a member of the far right—until I voted for Barack Obama in the last election, I am lifelong Republican. I am still pro-life. I also believe abortion should be legal, but I agree with Barack Obama when he says we ought to find ways to help women, help children, give contraceptives, sex education, to lessen the number of abortions. I think abortion is a tragedy.

But I also think that pretending that you can call abortion murder and Tiller the baby killer, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera—and that these worlds don‘ words don‘t have an impact, is crazy.

So, this is what helps unhinge a society, talking like this. And I

was part of that, and that‘s why I apologize—and I would apologize again

I am sorry for what I did.

And I think that people who say extreme things should stand up and take the consequences and admit when they were wrong. And in this case, we were wrong. We were wrong more really. We were wrong politically.

And as a believing Christian, I was wrong in terms of someone who says he follows Jesus Christ.

MADDOW: There are a lot of people in this country, obviously, who are part of the pro-life movement, the legal pro-life movement, and who hold pro-life views and who seek to change the laws of this country about abortion. There‘s obviously what I consider to be a terrorist movement who believes not that the laws should be changed but that the laws should—but that people who are legally engaged in providing abortion services are legitimately targets of violence that they should be intimidated, harassed and in some cases killed.

Those two movements are not the same thing. And it‘s important to me as an American that people who are pro-life feel that they can safely articulate those views and that they are not being attacked for what extremists have done.

SCHAEFFER: Right.

MADDOW: But I also don‘t want to excuse anybody who incites violence, or who, I guess, makes excuses for the violent wing of this movement, that has two very different wings. How do you see the connection there?

SCHAEFFER: Well, you know, the book you mentioned earlier, “Crazy for God,” has a number of chapters talking about the way we took the movement from its early stages when it was more a moral concern, not so much about politics and not so much about changing the law, and radicalized that movement. I follow the step by step process. Secret meetings with Pat Robertson down at the 700 Club, Jerry Falwell sending his jet up to me to bring me down to his church to speak a couple of times.

And what we did is we talked one game to the large public and we talked another game amongst ourselves. And amongst ourselves, we were very radical. And I don‘t think it takes much imagination to guess that, tonight, there are people who are publicly saying, “This is terrible, we never advocated killing, abortion is murder, but we didn‘t mean people to take us this seriously.” But in private, you know, if these folks popped champion bottles, they would be drinking a toast to this murder tonight.

I know that this is the case because of the fact that I was part of the movement, but also understood very well what we were doing back then was to attack the political issue when we talked to people like Ronald Reagan and the Bush family and Jack Kemp—the late Jack Kemp that we were very close to in all this. But on a private side, we also were egging people on to first pick at abortion clinics, then chain themselves to fences, then go to jail.

We knew full well that in a country that had seen the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther king, two Kennedy brothers and others, that what we were also doing was opening a gate here. And I think there‘s no way to duck this. We live in a country in which guns are all over the place. We have plenty of people with a screw loose, plenty of people on the edge. It only takes one.

And what scare me is that I see the rhetoric of the Republican Party right now—including the former vice president—about our newly elected African-American president has the same sort of coded stuff in it. He‘s not a real American. He‘s making America less safe. He‘s a secret Muslim. Some Christians in the same groups that are pro-life groups are running around saying he‘s the anti-Christ.

They also know full well that we have people out there who will take it to the next step and say, “Well, gee, if he‘s the anti-Christ, if he‘s anti-American, if he‘s a communist, maybe the best thing we can do is pull another trigger some other day.”

We live in a country where people get killed for their views sometimes. We‘re a very divided nation coming out of this culture war.

It is irresponsible for people to make these wild statements—like Bill O‘Reilly does—and then step back after it happens and say, “Oh, I never meant that.” Yes, they did mean it. They meant exactly what they said.

And when you start calling people those sorts of names—the way I did back in the ‘70s and the early ‘80s—for which I am apologizing today, not just because of this but other incidents like this, if people don‘t stand up and actually take back these words, take back these angry word, they are still culpable for the next event that happens. And we need to be able to just call it what it is.

MADDOW: Frank Schaeffer is author of the book, “Crazy for God: How I Grew Up as One of the Elects, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Lived to Take All or Almost All of It Back”—Mr. Schaeffer, it‘s just bracing testimony from you tonight. Thanks for—thanks for being here on the show.

SCHAEFFER: Thanks for having me on.

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