Category Archives: Flames

The Coming of the Red State Apocalypse

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Gov. Rick Perry, the champion of smaller federal government, elimination of Social Security, and all sorts of other fun things is complaining that the federal government is slow in responding to Texas’ fire problem. Maybe he should complain to Eric Cantor, or to to John Boehner…. or to himself:

Perry and other Republican lawmakers have recently argued that federal disaster relief — such as aid for states hit by tornadoes and hurricanes — must be offset by federal spending cuts, but they have yet to make that argument in fire-ravaged Texas. The state recently cut funding for volunteer fire departments by 75% as a cost-saving measure.

FEMA’s budget got chopped by budget negotiations, and by debt ceiling wrangling. And then along came tornadoes, and Irene, and more rain and flooding and natural disasters, and some fires in Texas that budget-reduced firefighters couldn’t control. And now Perry is trying to turn the Texas fires into a Katrina moment for Obama.

Good luck with that, Rick.

In fact, good luck to everyone. Because since state and local governments across the country are on the precipice thanks to the recession and aided by a decade of fighting wars while cutting taxes, the whole country is running the risk of looking like the South Bronx circa 1982. No wonder fundamentalists keep talking about the Rapture– they’re ready to get the hell out of here before what was sowed by right-wing ideology is reaped.

Sunday’s Reading

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The pastor recites the reading
“Give unto Caesar what is Caesar’s

And unto God what is God’s”
But he mangles the meaning

He says that Jesus taught us to
be obedient to two masters
and to serve the heads of state
wherever they are leading

Serving under arms when called
to kill foreigners on foreign soil
who worship God a different way
A cross all Christians carry

But to speak up respectfully
when the church says God’s law is higher
like when babies are aborted
or homosexuals marry

Is this where we are?

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Carl of Baltimore blogs:

For an interesting civil rights/racism analog to ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ see ‘The Space Traders,’ a story by Derrick Bell (visiting law professor at NYU) about what would happen if aliens came to earth offering to trade oil (ed: actually, energy and gold and all the answers to the country’s woes) for black people. It’s available on-line within an article length commentary by Bell himself at:
http://tarlton.law.utexas.edu/lpop/etext/lsf/bell23.htm

(Via carlofbaltimore.)

Note when the story was originally pubished.

I’d like to think that we as a society wouldn’t let that happen. But we’ve let New Orleans happen. We’ve let poverty happen. We’ve let all manners of intolerance and hate happen, and we mask it over with patriotic bullshit. When 60% of African-Americans (or more) agree that George Bush doesn’t care about their fate — and 30% (me included) of white America agrees with them based on the evidence– there’s no hiding the fact that there is an almost unbridgeable divide in America. On one site is, disturbingly, what now appears to be the majority of American culture: not just Red state, but redneck America, which waves the Bible and the flag in the face of anyone who disagrees with it. On the other is the disenfranchised of all creeds, but especially minorities and especially the urban poor.

And it looks like even Bill Clinton agrees:

The Ex-President: Clinton Levels Sharp Criticism at the President’s Relief Effort: “Former President Bill Clinton said the storm highlighted class divisions in the country that often played out along racial lines.”(Via NYT > Most E-mailed Articles.)

How do we change this? How do we bring America’s pieces back together? If you buy what Professor Bell has to say, we can’t–it’s a permanent condition, and the patient cannot be cured , only be made more comfortable.

I suspect that it can be cured, but only through radical means. John Brown knew what that meant.

Two ways to the same conclusion: government is irrelevant

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Back in the heady, go-go 1990′s, when the Internet was bubbling and Capital could do no wrong, we all looked at what was going on in the US federal government, and saw deadlock. Nobody could get anything done because they were all wrestling for control. Bill Clinton squandered whatever political capital he had on the whole Monica thing, the government got shut down a few times over budget deadlocks, and we all thought,”What the hell? Maybe it’s better that they can’t get anything done–that just lets the status quo roll, and the Internet/stock market/wealth-generation zeitgeist will make everything alright. Government is irrelevant. People (business, the Internet, stock options) can get together and fix things on their own.”

Today, we look at New Orleans post-Katrina, at the arguments over funding, at the ongoing war in Iraq, and we say:”What the hell? Government can’t do anything right. They just let the status quo roll while people are dying and the crap gets deeper, and they keep giving the money to allegedly fix everything to their friends. But if you want to get anything really done, the government is irrelevant at best, and a hindrance at worst. People have to get together and fix things on their own, because we aren’t getting any help from those idiots.”

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Assholes Rule The Earth

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I have come to what may be a painfully obvious conclusion about our world–it’s one I reached quite some time ago but have only found the words to express it now. That conclusion is: while nice guys don’t necessarily finish last, they never finish first.

Generally speaking, if you want to succeed in the world–gain power, wealth, fame, etc.–you need to be a total asshat. The rules of civil society are there to make sure sheep don’t wander off and forget to pay taxes. If you want more, you should lie, defraud, steal, and betray on a regular basis.

That’s not to say that there’s no risk involved with that course of action. A significantly larger percentage of asshats end up as tenants of our nation’s growing housing market known as the prison system than end up as, say, President.

But the risk is directly proportional to your starting social position and race–not too many rich, white asshats end up in prison. Rich, white nice people generally end up less rich, or have enough money to allow themselves the luxury of separating their behavior from their tax bracket. Noblesse oblige is a sport for only those with the oldest of money.

Take, for example, the rich white men who currently run this country. Dubya is a profligate liar, and he lies with such boldness that it has left the press stunned. He and his underlings repeat the lies so often that people end up believing them (or at least parroting them). And he’s used his bogus piety and flag waving to ensure that anyone who publicly disagrees with him will be Mao-maoed into submission.

Take, for example, the Newsweek Koran-Flushing Story. After the White house went ballistic over the story, and the right went nuts over “irresponsible journalism”, the whole thing turned out to be, well, largely true. And there hasn’t been a peep about that from the White House, really–other than the aptly named Dick Cheney saying that the detention center at Gitmo will remain open.

It’s not an ideological thing, either. Clinton was a major league asshat himself, which he covered for (like Bush does) with his aw-shucks charm. Carter was a Nice Guy elected in response to the ultimate presidential asshat (Nixon), and he got absolutely nothing done.

Then there’s the business world. Generally speaking, those who reside at the top of the corporate food chain generally get there by constantly, agressively pressing on other’s sense of propriety and discomfort with conflict. They make shit up as they go along, and then find ways to sidestep the consequences. They change plans and contend that they always had actually been aiming for their new target. They are insufferable bastards.

So, if you want to get ahead in the world, remember–it will have to be at the expense of your moral, ethical, and social comfort zones. Because only total pricks ever get to the top. But make sure you pick the right rules to break (and make sure you’re white, or rich enough that no one cares), or you’ll just end up as a cautionary tale used to keep us sheep in the pen.