Bankrupt!

The Administration push for Social Security “privatization” is obviously a scam — since when is the Administration interested in something that will only be a problem long after Georgie is out of office? Global warming? Nope. Energy independence? Nope. Global competitiveness? Nope. Water shortages? Nope. Health care? Nope. Long- term structural deficits? Nope.

But what kind of a scam? Everybody who actually looks at the numbers seems to agree that it's a horrible idea; Brad DeLong (who has economic credentials out the wazoo) has been particularly energetic in tracking this piece of idiocy.

Well, the obvious answer is that they're paying off their Wall Street supporters and propping up the stock market. All those accounts will buy stocks and bonds, which will drive up stock and bond prices. They'll need to be managed, which means management fees. Big return on investment for Wall Street's campaign contributions. As with all “privatization” schemes, it “privatizes” only the profits for the Administration's friends, leaving the risks for the rest of us to deal with.

But there's another barb in this hook, and it also ties in with “personal medical accounts”, another little “privatization” oddity being pushed by the Bush administration.

One of the many potential train wrecks in our current economy is the consumer debt level. Far too many people are carrying far too much debt, especially unsecured credit card debt. American bankruptcy laws are by far the most liberal in the world, and the credit card companies are terrified of a wave of personal bankruptcies. They've been worried about this for a good number of years now.

Problem is, if a bank makes an unsecured loan (like on a credit card) and the person getting the loan goes bankrupt, the bank is simply out of luck. The creditors divvy up the assets as far as they will go, but they're not going to come anywhere near to covering the debts. Enough people declare bankruptcy and the banks are in Real Trouble. Doesn't seem to slow 'em down sending out “you have already been approved” credit card offers, though.

Now, there is a movement to tighten up bankruptcy laws. Personal bankruptcy is being portrayed as a way of simply writing off one's debt and starting over, with essentially no penalty. It ain't. It's a process that nobody in their right mind would go through voluntarily, but that's not the spin. I've even seen suggestions of bringing back debtors' prison. I dunno how serious they were; debtors' prison seems to be an ideal way of guaranteeing that you'll never get your money back.

Bush's “ownership society” generates a bunch of new “assets” that can be attached by creditors. Declare bankruptcy or lose a lawsuit, and not only are your savings gone, so are your future Social Security and medical benefits.

Now, Social Security is supposed to provide a minimum level of support. If somebody has their “assets” confiscated as the result of a bankruptcy or lawsuit, they no longer have that minimum level of support. So what are we going to do? Let them starve in the streets? (I get the impression from some of the more radical Neocons that that's exactly what they want to do.)

BushCo looks to be willing to spend a lot of political capital on this one. Best to pay off your credit cards now .... But that's good advice in general.

The Literal Meaning of Genesis

I wandered into a discussion of “creationism” on Steve Gilliard's blog a while back. Now, as I can vouch for experience, it's impossible to argue with a Creationist. Their attitude is “I am right and you are wrong. My devastatingly clever responses demolish your feeble arguments”. They'll just keep repeating their nonsensical arguments and ignore anything you say.

It seems that this isn't a new problem. It's old enough that one of the heaviest hitters in the history of Christianity got bit by it, and wrote the definitive refutation:

Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he hold to as being certain from reason and experience. Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men. If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods and on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason? Reckless and incompetent expounders of Holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertion.

— St. Augustine, De Genesi ad litteram libri duodecim (The Literal Meaning of Genesis)

Or to summarize in less flowery language, “Shut the bleep up about stuff you know nothing about. You not only look like a jerk, you make the rest of us look like jerks, too”.

Coupla random comments:

• This has no relationship to Satanism, as described in the previous post. Creationism isn't Satanic, it's just dumb.

• The current euphemism for Creationism is “intelligent design”. This seems to be the basic Deist argument: God wound up the Universe like the ultimate Marvelous Toy, set it running, and then went away. This, unfortunately, does not provide that most fundamental function of any religion, which is how to get people to contribute to the church building fund.

• One of the first things on my road to getting run out of the Southern Baptist Church was a little pamphlet called Roadblocks to Evolution. The Powers that Be handed it out with great pomp and ceremony as the thing that would crush this “evolution” nonsense once and for all; I handed it back with the errors highlighted. They weren't pleased. The arguments weren't just wrong, they were ridiculous.

• The folks I've met who preach the gospel of Creationism seem less concerned about being related to Koko the gorilla (who seems rather sweet) than they are with being related to other Homo sapiens sapiens whose ancestors left Africa later than theirs did.

Satanism is Alive and Well

No, not Satan. The big guy with the batwings and hairy legs is a figment of the Fundie imagination. Fundies who talk about Satan tend not to get this monotheism business — one god. One. Not a good- guy god and a bad- guy god. Not one for Us and one for Them. Not one Big Guy and a Little Guy who got too big for his halo. One.

A note: I am using the term “Fundie” here to refer to a specific type of pseudo- Christian. It's not synonomous with “Fundamentalist” at all. See the Note on Terminology for details.

Now, the whole point of theology is trying to figure out what this God character has in mind. You can ask all the questions you want; the answers you get will usually be ambiguously phrased, contradictory, and not what you wanted to hear. (Ever deal with the Internal Revenue Service? Same thing.) In Christianity, the Bible (and especially the New Testament) is the equivalent of the instructions for the 1040 Long Form. Some of it is crystal clear, some of it is obscure, and some just makes you say “Hunh???”. All of it is there for a reason.

Now, a lot of the Bible is perfectly clear. Help the poor and the weak. Don't kill people or steal. Don't get too big for your sandals. Watch out for false prophets. Even more becomes clear if you know something about the historical periods in which the various parts were written.

Now, where does Satanism come into this? It has nothing to do with the Church of Satan, the Temple of Set or any of the other New Age chain- yankers who call themselves Satanists. I've found them to be a mixture of sexually frustrated adolescents and middle aged Goth wanabees. Their “theology” is the equivalent of putting a paper bag of dogshit on your doorstep, lighting it on fire, ringing your doorbell, and running away. Boring.

Real Satanism is nothing more or less than an inversion of Christianity. Take the obvious sense of the Bible and turn it around. Note that this isn't just denying the Bible (like an atheist might), it's inverting it.

As an example, let's take one of the clearer passages in the New Testament:

And they send unto him certain of the Pharisees and of the Herodians, to catch him in his words. And when they were come, they say unto him, Master, we know that thou art true, and carest for no man: for thou regardest not the person of men, but teachest the way of God in truth: Is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar, or not? Shall we give, or shall we not give? But he, knowing their hypocrisy, said unto them, Why tempt ye me? bring me a penny, that I may see it. And they brought it. And he saith unto them, Whose is this image and superscription? And they said unto him, Caesar's. And Jesus answering said unto them, Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's. And they marvelled at him.

— Mark 12:13-17 (KJV)

Now, this is pretty darn obvious. Pay your taxes. Worship God. Don't get the two mixed up. It's also pretty important — it's repeated in Matthew and Luke, essentially unchanged.

So what would the corresponding Satanic version be? Obviously, worship Caesar and pay taxes to God.

Now, let's take a little look at the current situation. “Faith- Based Initiatives” take tax dollars and give them to religious organizations. (I've been amused watching them squirm, trying to come up with a way of denying funds to Muslim organizations. I can't wait until the Scientologists try to get in on the party.) On the other hand, look at the attitude a lot of churches have toward George W. Bush. The veneration that he's getting from the Fundie churches is starting to look a whole lot like idolatry to me. You might also notice that there's a big dose of “I shouldn't have to pay taxes” in there, too.

Fred Clark of Slacktivist does a similar “deconstruction” of the Fundie attacks on the UN; “Blessed are the peacemakers” doesn't apply in their view. This is a part of Fred's page- by- page analysis of “Left Behind”, the bestselling Fundie action- adventure series. LB might well serve as a textbook of “inverted Christianity” aka Satanism.

How do they get away with it? Well, your friendly average churchgoer is not into theology. He'll go with what the preacher says his religion is. Fundie preachers have a really good line of why they ignore perfectly obvious New Testament passages and elevate minor, out of context (both textually and historically) Old Testament passages to the status of Critical Doctrine. It's another inversion; figure out what you want to do and then look for Bible passages to justify it. Some go even further, depending on arcane symbolic interpretations of otherwise unremarkable passages.

One of the major strengths of Christianity is that it isn't a “mystery cult” like most of the other religions floating around when it got started. There is no “secret doctrine” available only to initiates; there are no “secret scriptures” to tell initiates what Jesus “really” had in mind. Everything's right out in the open.

Unfortunately, this is not comfortable for a certain type of priest. So we get elaborate justifications of bizarre doctrines that make sense only in the context of a sadistic God that tries His best to trap people into Hell, by having a “real” doctrine that directly contradicts the “public” doctrine.

I got started on this from a long essay by Brad Hicks called “Christians in the Hands of an Angry God” in five parts; Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, and Part 5. His take is that in 1964, at the Republican Convention, the Republican Anti-Communist Caucus had two core beliefs:

1. The most important thing in the world for the United States was the defeat of world Communism
2. The only force in the United States capable of defeating Communism was the Republican Party.

Therefore, the only way to defeat Communism was for the Republican party to become the majority party in American politics. To get to this point, the Anti-Communist caucus enlisted some heavy- duty Fundamentalist theologans to convince Christians that the Republican party platform was really the “true” meaning of the Bible. They've been working on this ever since. And now they've won.

If Brad's story is true (and I'm not questioning his sources), there's an amusing coda. World Communism is dead and gone, defeated by the Truman Doctrine of stopping its expansion and waiting for it to collapse from its own contradictions. There are only four governments left in the world that are officially Communist, and Cuba and North Korea are classic “cult of personality” dictatorships. Both of them are on the verge of starvation. Vietnam is trying to get into the commercial world, with some success. The last one is China. And who do the Republicans dearly love to do business with? Right the first time. “Destroy Communism, unless we can make money by not destroying it ....”

My own take is considerably more cynical. The Satanic doctrine promises that Christianity is easy. No changes needed in lifestyle or attitudes. Just call the toll-free number on the bottom of your screen, and have your credit card ready. Operators are standing by. No need to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, or visit the sick or imprisoned, just slap a “Bush/Cheney '04” sticker on your car. This is exactly Bonhoeffer's “cheap grace”:

Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion, without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.

And we all know how much Americans love cheap stuff ....

As to the connection with the Republican Party, I see it as exactly backwards from Brad's view. The Fundies I've met loathe blacks, with the depth and intensity that you normally associate with pre-WWII Central Europeans and Jews. About 1964, it started becoming obvious that the Democratic Party was taking this “civil rights” business seriously. The Fundies couldn't stay with the Democrats and keep their racism, so they jumped ship. Since then, Fundies have been the core of the Republican Party. For forty years now, they've stuffed envelopes, made phone calls, put up posters, and done all the other campaign scutwork for the Republican Party.

And now it's payback time.

A Note on Terminology

I use the term “Fundie” to describe the right- wing Fundamentalist- Literalist- Millenialist Protestants who can't seem to figure out that Jesus might just possibly have meant what he said. This is distinct from Fundamentalism, which is a doctrine that came out of a series of conferences in Buffalo, NY (called the Niagara Conferences) in the late nineteenth century. These conferences eventually came out with a series of pamphlets called “The Fundamentals”, which attempted to come up with a series of doctrines that everybody could agree with. They came up with a series of fourteen “fundamentals”. While they are considered rather conservative, they are not ridiculous by any means. (It turns out to be amazingly difficult to find out what they really are. Seems there are some serious differences of opinion among those who call themselves Fundamentalists.)

All Fundies are Fundamentalists. Not all Fundamentalists are Fundies. And all Fundies that I've met are, by the definition in this essay, Satanists. They believe that God will Rapture them away from trouble, that charity is harmful, that God wants them to buttonhole people on the street, that the best prayers are loud, long, and public, that certain people are “unclean” and must be kept out of churches, that George W. Bush is inerrant and without sin. All of these are specifically contradicted by the Bible.

Some Resources

The Preacher is a prime example of an old- fashioned Christian preacher. No inversions here; just some of the best stories on the Web.

Kit, of Kit's Concatenation, keeps track of the rather nasty relationship between the Fundies and the Feds.

Sojourners Magazine provides an alternative to what passes as Christianity in the mainstream press. They've been around for quite a while; it's surprising (or maybe not) that they're not better known.

The Revealer is a daily review of religion in the press.

I've already mentioned Fred Clark of Slacktivist. His takedowns of Left Behind are funny but theologically accurate.

Odd Spam

Turn the handle the way it's supposed to go, only further.

— Eric Frank Russell, Still Life

I got a rather odd spam message the other day:

A week ago, we sent you an email asking for help debunking anti-Bush documents. After receiving hundreds of responses, it become clear that all the documents were actually real: the Bush/Cheney DUIs, the Ken Lay letters, and even the bin Laden memo. For more information visit the documents page: http://www.yesbushcan.com/falsedocs.shtml

We also received hundreds of emails from concerned bloggers that eloquently expressed the problems with the Bush administration. And as we traveled across America campaigning for Bush, we learned more than we wanted to know about Bush's policies. We came to see that this administration is a catastrophe for most people.

As a result, we are abandoning our support of Bush and officially endorsing John Kerry for President. You can read more at the Yes Bush Can web site: http://www.yesbushcan.com/ We deeply regret our misguided support and apologize for our previous email. This will be the last email we will send directly to bloggers. If you want to join us in supporting Kerry, you can find out more here: http://www.yesbushcan.com/act.shtml

Thank you for your understanding,

Yes Bush Can

Now, I don't remember getting anything from these people before. Might not be surprising; my spam filters are rather aggressive. Their Web page doesn't give me a feeling that these are Bush partisans who have changed sides; rather, they seem to be people who try to point out the effects of Bush's policies by talking glowingly about their more extreme effects. Why they'd send this to me is a bit strange; I don't think anybody would mistake me for a Bush supporter.

The first time I remember seeing this tactic was in George Wallace's Presidential campaign in 1968. He had a fine old time with hecklers — anything they'd yell, he'd throw back at them with his extreme right-wing slant. Until a bunch got the idea of throwing his own talking points back at him. Vietnam? "Kill 'em all!" Draft resistance? "Send the commies back to Russia!" Civil rights? "Bring back slavery!" Now Wallace couldn't say anything, because a lot of his supporters agreed with this stuff — trying to distance himself from these attitudes would offend his strongest supporters. But he couldn't not respond without looking like a wacko. (For the record, he chose to ignore the hecklers and ended up looking exactly like the wacko that he was.)

I'm surprised that nobody's used this tactic. Go to a Bush rally and yell "kill the faggots" when he talks about gay marriage, for example. I've seen no evidence that Bush & Co have attempted to put a throttle on their more, uh, enthusiastic supporters. Could get interesting.

"So What's So Bad ..."

" ... about a second Bush term? We survived the first one."

The question is "how bad can it get", and the answer I come up with is "pretty damn bad":

1. Since Bush thinks the economy is just fine, it will continue to tank. More big corporations will move offshore, along with more white- collar work. Ya want fries with that?
2. We'll have a military draft by May. Since BushCo is as butt- ignorant about the military as they are about everything else, they'll assume that they can run recruits through six weeks of basic and turn them loose in Iraq. Hey, it worked in Vietnam! For a rather strange value of "worked"
3. Before the disaster created by filling Iraq with draftees becomes so obvious that even the neocons can't ignore it, they'll attack somebody else. Main bet is Iran, with a side bet on Syria.
4. They'll continue screwing the pooch with North Korea. Israel will continue to be a disaster area.
5. More tax breaks to campaign contributors, of course, paid for by jacking up the deficit. How long will East Asia be willing to lend us money for cheap? Also clearcut forests, mineral leases on National Parks, and pollution, pollution, pollution.
6. Bin Laden is operating essentially unchecked. Expect him to clock in again. Won't be hijacked airliners this time. What'll it be? I don't know and I'll bet BushCo don't either.
7. Expect a "moral" crackdown. The "outrage" over Janet Jackson's nipple was nuthin'. Expect more crackdowns on naked statues and celebrity bong sellers.
8. So far, the rest of the world has been understanding about our little leadership problems. After all, most countries have experience with leaders they'd really rather forget about. But if we re- elect this clown, I'm guessing that some of the hatred and contempt directed toward Bush will start to be directed toward individual Americans. Don't plan on a European vacation.
9. That European vacation is going to get expensive. The dollar is in the toilet compared to the euro, and it's going to go a lot further.
10. Education is gonna take it in the neck. Eliminating public education is a cornerstone of a lot of right- wing philosophy. Expect more underfunded mandates like "No Child Left Behind", more cuts in university funding, and attacks on tenure.
11. More efforts to "privatize" Social Security. This one may not go anywhere; nobody wants their SS money in Enron stock.
12. Throughout Bush's term, the Republicans have been running out as many high- level career civil servants as the can and replacing them with Party loyalists. Remember why we have "civil service" in the first place? We needed a civil service that would actually do their jobs. The political hacks aren't very good at that.
13. Gas prices will continue to go up. When Bush was first elected, a lot of folks said "Well, yeah, he's a doofus, but at least, with two oilmen in the White House, gas prices will go down." Oops.

Now, you can make the case that these aren't really all that bad — after all, they can be reversed when the country comes to its senses. But if the country doesn't come to its senses on 2 November, it may not have the chance for a long time:

1. Imagine the Supreme Court with Justices Rehnquist, Stevens, O'Connor, and Bader Ginsburg replaced with Scalia/Thomas clones. Essentially, a total rubber stamp. The appointment of wingnuts to lesser courts will continue, of course. Will the Senate roll over and play dead? Probably. Democrats still seem to have this idea of bipartisanship. The Republicans don't.
2. Expect more gerrymandering from Republican- controlled state legislatures.
3. Expect the mainstream news to become even more of an outlet for Administration press releases. The Press has shown some signs of waking up, and if there's one thing this administration is good at, it's revenge. Expect crackdowns on the corporate parents of ABC, NBC, and CNN.
4. So far in this campaign, the Republicans have been able to get away with all sorts of nasty things — throwing away Democratic voter registrations, sending out absentee ballots with Kerry's name left off, mounting massive challenges to voters in black districts, assorted disinformation/intimidation tactics.
5. And then there's the computerized voting machines. Unauditable, unrecountable, unverifiable. "Trust us!" they say. "The computer can't be wrong!" All these machines are made by companies controlled by right- wing Republicans, except one that has ties to the Russian Mafia, which is not an improvement. Already one has shown up "preloaded" with 16,000 votes for Bush (Florida, of course).

Oh, and while you're at it, take a good long look at Dennis Hastert, Speaker of the House. Why? Well, he's second in line for the Presidency if something happens to Bush. Why should we worry? Well, VP Cheney has a famously bad ticker, and Bush has been showing some rather unfortunate physical signs. There's a measurable chance that neither of them will survive for four years.

Woof!

The latest Bush ad shows a bunch of wolves being spooky. Sheesh! What are these guys thinking? Wolves are not a scary image to Americans. There is no record (including Native American legends) of a North American wolf ever attacking a human. Nature programs have rammed the picture of warm fuzzy lovable wolves down our throats for years. It's only been in the last couple of years that you'd know that wolves are carnivores. Before then, you'd think they ate nothing but Alpo.

Hypothesis: the Republicans are outsourcing their ads to Russia.

North American wolves are harmless.

Unless you're a sheep.

LATER — Now, of course, we have Wolfpacks for Truth:

They told us we were shooting a Greenpeace commercial!

As We Dodge Another Bullet ...

Cards top Astros, to face BoSox in World Series

If the Astros had won, the national media would probably have collapsed with a case of terminal Metaphor Overload. I don't think they could stand having both the Presidency and the World Series be Massachusetts vs. Texas.

Quote of the Day

From the Head Girly Man:

I don't know why I watched the presidential debates. If I want to watch a smart liberal Democrat and a Republican leader argue, all we have to do is go out to dinner. They were lucky. They only had to do it three times.

— Arnold Schwarzenegger

Seems Ahnold got to sleep on the sofa for a couple of weeks after his RNC speech ...

The Congressional Evaluation Project

Over there on the right, you'll notice that one of the “You should read this” blogs is Kit's Concatenation. There's a good reason for this. Kit is a journalist and public policy analyst, and she's put together a doozy. “The Congressional Evaluation Project” is a massive compilation of information on the voting records of all Congresscritters and all Senators who are up for re- election. Want to know what that bozo in Washington is doing in your name? Here's where you can find out.

From the blog post announcing the Project:

This is a comparison of the evaluations publicly available from a wide range of evaluating groups, from Americans for Demorcratic Action to the Christian Coalition. It includes each lawmaker's voting record on issues including civil liberties, education, health care, abortion, the environment, firearms, neoConservatism and the Religious Right. There are omnibus tables with all the information available; following those are tables that examine specific issues. I've spelled out the assumptions I made in creating the project, the sources of the information, and the limitations.

Anyway, good stuff. Check it out.

“Winning” the Debates

Well, the next big Campaign Events are the “debates”. “Debates” is in quotes because they don't resemble any real debate format I'm familiar with. They're rigged for Georgie, both in format and, especially, in terms of expectations. The format is ideal for his “off- the- cuff” speaking style, which is to blather incoherently until he hits on a (possibly) relevant memorized talking point. Georgie will “win” if he manages to avoid peeing in his pants or throwing up on the moderator.

Fortunately for Kerry, he just might be able to make Georgie do this:

• Georgie hero-worships Poppy. Criticizing Poppy might be enough to make Georgie lose it. Some ideas:
  • Poppy gave the go- ahead for Saddam Hussein to invade Kuwait.
  • Poppy didn't finish the job in Iraq. Now, anybody with a long memory knows exactly why he didn't finish it, but there aren't many long memories around.
  • Poppy encouraged the Marsh Arabs to revolt and then stood back and watched them get massacred.
  • Poppy stood by and let the former Soviet Union slide into chaos. They needed help in setting up a modern economy; they didn't get it.
• Bring up Ken Lay. Last time somebody did this, Georgie stormed off in a huff.

I'm sure that Kerry's advisors can come up with more. Point is, they need to.