dumb and dumber -- no, dumber than that. a lot

[realthog]

Wanna know the breathless latest about Sarah Palin's interview with Glen Beck? Simon Maloy's got the poop, if you can swallow it, on the excellent Media Matters:

I'm watching the Glenn Beck interview of Sarah Palin, and it's really leaving me speechless that two people who are so woefully and determinedly uninformed have such an impact on the national discourse.

Beck just asked Palin if she'd heard about the Federal Reserve's record profits for last year, and then bemoaned that "nobody's having hearings on the Fed, nobody is looking for a windfall profit tax on the Fed, we can't even open the Fed's books." Palin responded by thanking Beck for "bringing this to light," adding: "I don't know anybody else who is."

There's a very simple reason why no one else is talking about taxing the Fed's profits or having hearings or even discussing this -- because people who care to know what they're talking about already know that 100 percent of the Fed's profits go to the Treasury. Every single cent. There is no talk of a windfall profits tax because it's already effectively at 100 percent.

Indeed, so wonderful are our rightwing media and punditocracy that FOX News is largely ignoring the earthquake disaster in Haiti, Pat Robertson is blaming the disaster on the Haitians themselves for incurring the wrath of God (they made a literal pact with the Devil, you see, in order to get rid of their French overlords), and Rush Limbaugh is advocating that none of us send any aid donations because ". . . we've already donated to Haiti. It's called the US income tax" -- part of perhaps the most disgusting piece of propaganda in billionaire Scumbaugh's long career of racist, neo-Nazi hatemongering.

I subscribe, for research reasons, to a bundle of faux-Christian rightwing organizations as well as a few more moderate ones. Today I've been bombarded with exhortations to donate funds by appallingly godless secular organizations (e.g., Alternet, MoveOn, Care2, Color of Change) and by out-and-out accursed rationalist/atheist ones (notably the Center for Inquiry, which has a subdivision, SHARE, precisely to funnel funds to Medecins sans Frontieres in emergencies like this). Moderate sites (e.g., Religion Dispatches) are at least putting links online to the aid charities.

Meanwhile, however, from the Christian rightists (e.g., the AFA, Focus on the Family, OneNewsNow) there's been an absolute bloody deafening silence. I find it impossible to reconcile this with their repeatedly bellowed claims that by definition atheists and agnostics -- indeed, anyone outside their own particular little cult -- lack the very possibility of a moral compass. Are they themselves so entirely devoid of moral values that they cannot recognize a correct course of action when it's standing there right in front of them?

By contrast, those disgusting secular degenerates at The Nation have mounted a useful resource page for those seeking the best way to send funds: it's here.

ETA: I'm not a huge Keith Olbermann fan, but sometimes -- as in this comment on the Robertson/Limbaugh obscenities -- he hits the nail right on the head.

Comments

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

I've donated a mite to Oxfam (https://secure.oxfamamerica.org/site/Donation2?df_id=3560&3560.donation=form1) a perfectly secular charity, which was up and running a Haiti donation site yesterday. I should note that a perfectly Anglican friend of mine has been soliciting aid from Selly Oak. She is Jamaican, by the bye. From Xtian rightists, on the other hand, as you say, nothing but bile.

[pds-lit.livejournal.com]

"Are they themselves so entirely devoid of moral values that they cannot recognize a correct course of action when it's standing there right in front of them?"

Yes.

[realthog.livejournal.com]

Oxfam was my first choice as well -- the UK version (which I went to because it was easier for me to use my Sterling account) was equally on the ball.

Later Alternet suggested AmeriCares (https://secure.americares.org/site/Donation2?idb=78993387&df_id=5083&5083.donation=form1), and having sussed that charity out I gave them some dosh as well: they apparently bully donations of supplies, etc., out of the pharma companies and the like, so that essentially what your money's doing is paying to get the stuff there and distribute it on the ground; i.e., every dollar you give translates into a shitload of actual relief.

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

I actually went to the UK version (which takes dollars as well as pounds) to donate yesterday, but found Oxfam America just now when I was looking for it.

[shweta-narayan.livejournal.com]

As far as I can tell, their notion of a moral compass has nothing to do with ethics or empathy, and everything to do with enforcing normativity according to their tenets. And their right to selfishness is part of that normativity.

So there's nothing to reconcile. They're entirely consistent.

[txtriffidranch.livejournal.com]

Sadly, I'm not surprised by the lack of response from these groups, considering that if they bring it up, then people just might start asking about their ongoing Haitian ministries. You know, the ones where they've allegedly been converting orphans for years, but never have any proof that any money has ever entered the country? (I remember when local underwear skidmark W.V. Grant used to make a big deal about his Haitian orphanage, and James Randi pointed this out in his book The Faith Healers. Haiti was a great way for Grant to pull in money, with the not-so-subtle hints to his audience that he was dealing with the White Man's Burden as best as he could by going out there. He could also rest assured that none of his contributors would ever go there to see if he'd spent a penny out there.)

And that's the problem with so many of those groups. They actually enjoy keeping people at that level of ignorance and poverty, because the benefits are twofold. Firstly, you're more likely to listen to the obligatory propaganda if it's a choice between propaganda and not eating. Secondly, the practitioners can pretend that they're accomplishing great things with a token effort, when building new churches doesn't do a damn thing other than take resources that could be used for wells or cattle pens or schools. (My wife was a Baptist missionary in Guatemala when she was in high school. Bring up the subject now, when she's had twenty-odd years to think about what she really accomplished, and she gets livid.)

[daisytells.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you used the term "faux-Christian right wing" here. I hope you are not one of those under the impression that all of us who profess a faith in Christ as savior and redeemer are in that camp. Most of us ask ourselves "what would Jesus do?" and proceed from there. We pay little or no attention to Jerry Falwell, Rush Limbaugh, and certainly not to the bimbo from Wasilla. Those who judge these disasters so harshly (as in "it's their own fault") will be judged just as harshly.

This from Limbaugh: "And Obama is asking “people who have lost their jobs because of his policies to donate.”
Question: How can these people pin the consequences of Bush-Cheney policies on Obama? Are they blind?
If there is a devil at work in these situations, it is in the hearts of the Limbaughs and the Robertsons, and Palin and Beck.

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

Crazy people. Not that we don't have those here, too (D*vid *cke, anyone?). But they do not do the image of the US good.

[realthog.livejournal.com]

Since I posted, one of the non-liberal/moderate Xtian newsletters I subscribe to has come through with an appeal: it's a newsletter aimed at charismatics, so I have a bit of difficulty working out where it fits into the (US) political spectrum! But it sticks out like a sore thumb amid the silence from the rightwing ones.

How can these people pin the consequences of Bush-Cheney policies on Obama? Are they blind?

No: they're just extraordinarily dishonest. They know the reality as well as you or I do. They prefer, however, to lie, because they find it profitable to delude the gullible.

[realthog.livejournal.com]

Sad to say, but I think that is exactly the answer.

[realthog.livejournal.com]

Obviously they've taken terms like "moral compass" and "moral values" and corrupted them beyond all recognition, very frequently reversing their meaning entirely. I was trying, probably confusingly, to use the term "moral values" in something like a correct sense in the same breath as I used "moral compass" in a reference to its corrupted sense. Or something.

I think, by the way, that your brief analysis here is more or less spot on.

[realthog.livejournal.com]

David Icke is in really quite a different category from faux-pious jerks like Robertson. Icke's a cult leader, recognized by all as having a tiny following and being Way Out There in his beliefs. Robertson, by contrast, is supposedly a pillar of a mainstream majority religion, has consulted seriously with and been talked of respectfully by US Presidents and other major political figures, has a massive following and a massive business empire, and once himself ran as a Presidential candidate. In other words, he is, unlike Icke, no mere extremist-fringe figure, even though his ideas -- because of both their counmter-reality loopiness and the degree of venom that powers them -- are obviously extremist and fringe . . . if we define "fringe" as "on the most tenuous fringe of sanity".

they do not do the image of the US good

I know this very well. A surprising number of Americans, though, including intelligent and well meaning people in among the boneheads, are startlingly unaware of the devastating damage these hatemongering creeps do to the international image of their country, and thereby to its foreign dealings overall.

[realthog.livejournal.com]

They actually enjoy keeping people at that level of ignorance and poverty

I think, taking this to a more general level, that's a requisite of free-market capitalism (and for that matter of the totalitarian forms of communism): it doesn't work unless the vast majority of those involved are too dumb and/or ignorant to realize they're being shafted. This is of course incompatible with democracy, which functions best with well educated and well informed populations.

[realthog.livejournal.com]

I've had difficulty persuading US sites that my NatWest card exists -- hence my automatic recourse to Oxfam UK.

[txtriffidranch.livejournal.com]

And now you understand the current foofarol about the textbook committee with the Texas Board of Education. The current loudmouths are certain of their worldview, and yet so insecure about how they can't back up their arguments that the only option they have is to keep anyone else from being exposed to contrary points of view. (For years, I've wondered why the most idiotic and vocal creationists in Texas were always dentists. I chalk it up to exposure to mercury.) That's part of the stink, as well, about Governor Rick Perry refusing federal stimulus money to keep Texas schools funded because of the proviso that Texas would have to bring its school standards up to the national level. Perry doesn't like anybody around him who knows more than he does, and if that means keeping everyone in the state from getting more than a second-grade education, well...

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

The inverse problem doesn't seem to exist.

[shweta-narayan.livejournal.com]

Hm.
What I'm trying to say is that there is no real sense of the term. There is our usage, and there is their usage. Both are linguistically valid because both are ways people use the language and assume meaning.

Theirs just happens to be despicable from our perspective. Oh, and vice versa.

Basically we're speaking warring languages, and that's an important thing to keep in mind when looking at their rhetoric & why it works better than ours on them.

[realthog.livejournal.com]

Oh, I meant to say: there's a fairly thoughtful Xtian take on the Robertson business at http://www.religiondispatches.org/blog/international/2192/the_theo-logic_behind_pat_robertson%27s_offense/.

[calizen.livejournal.com]

Thanks for this. My husband was just asking me about Oxfam and Haiti. He trusts Oxfam more than most charities (not bad for a Yank, eh?)

[calizen.livejournal.com]

Good heavens! And I thought California schools were bad!

[calizen.livejournal.com]

Their role in life is to be provocateurs. The hell with truth, let alone empathy and compassion. (Although I do wonder where Robertson gets his insight on the devil all the time. One would think he has a secret pipeline to Old Nick himself).

[calizen.livejournal.com]

"I know this very well. A surprising number of Americans, though, including intelligent and well meaning people in among the boneheads, are startlingly unaware of the devastating damage these hatemongering creeps do to the international image of their country, and thereby to its foreign dealings overall."

And a startling number are proud not to care.

[txtriffidranch.livejournal.com]

Oh, they're worse. The ongoing bitter joke in the state is "At least our schools are better than Mississippi's!" It's bad enough that every damn year, the school finance budget is declared unconstitutional because the kids in overwhelmingly white and privileged areas such as Highland Park and University Park get so much more money per capita than the kids in the Rio Grande Valley. (Highland Park and University Park are cities that are completely surrounded by Dallas, but keep themselves separate in the way that Beverly Hills is separate from Los Angeles. It's for the same reason, too: among other factors, this way the Highland Park schools don't become part of the Dallas system, with the horrors of Highland Park's elite snowflakes having to go to the same schools as the kids of the lawn crew.) What's worse is that we have a system where every little podunk town in the state has its own "Independent School District", so half of that money gets sopped up in administration. (The Dallas ISD, for instance, is notorious for getting a new supervisor every few years, and s/he brings in nothing but paid toadies who are then set with a job for life. I won't even get into the horrors in Houston.)

The really sad part is that any efforts to improve the situation are immediately scuttled thanks to one pet obsession: high school football. Several times in the last thirty years, the Texas Legislature has offered proposals to combine all of those ISDs into six mega-districts and save millions in administrative costs. Every time this happens, the people who like things just the way they are start squawking "So how will this affect high school football?" Immediately, every legislator in Austin is overloaded with incoherent and angry calls from Jukes and Kallikaks screaming that they'll kill everyone in Austin if anyone even thinks of messing with high school football programs, and the legislators back off. I have to admit that it's a great system, especially for producing more students whose concern for education in the state begins and ends with sports programs. (I myself went to a high school in Lewisville, a hellpit just north of Dallas, where the head football coach was making $60k at a time when the head English teacher was making $15k. It's only gotten much worse since I escaped in 1984: I'm regularly hit up to contribute money to allow teachers to buy essential school supplies, while the district pumps well over a million dollars per year into its high school and middle school football programs.)

[realthog.livejournal.com]

I remember decades ago, when Oxfam was young, there was some controversy over the percentage that went toward admin rather than directly in aid. They got their act together on that, and now seem to be among the best, if not *the* best.

[realthog.livejournal.com]

And a startling number are proud not to care.

Yeah, that's the part that's truly startling: "I'm damaging the interests of my country and myself and THIS IS A GOOD THING, so I'M GOING TO DO MORE OF IT."

It's like the cretinous TeaBaggers who're fighting like hell to shorten their own life expectancies.

[realthog.livejournal.com]

I've wondered why the most idiotic and vocal creationists in Texas were always dentists

I gather there's similar mystery about why so many of the "thousands of scientists" the deniers tout as skeptical of AGW are engineers. Engineers are of course no more qualified than any of the rest of us to judge climatological matters; but they're also (despite all the jokes when I was at university) definitely no stupider than other scientists/technologists. So why should this particular stupidity be so endemic amongst them?

[txtriffidranch.livejournal.com]

I suspect for the same exact reason why so many terrorists are engineers. I told you about the NASA engineer at the Johnson Space Center in the early Nineties who was ripping off Darwin Fish placards off cars and destroying them because his young-earth creationist sensibilities were offended, didn't I?

[calizen.livejournal.com]

Sorta boggles the mind, doesn't it.