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.

[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.