1/2 Kracked Kup: Those Swingin' Cats in America!

As the pendulum swings back
America slowly wakes up...

Sooner or later the pendulum had to begin swinging back the other way. I’ve been saying for some time now that it had to come sooner than later otherwise we were going to find ourselves on the wrong end of a right wing dictatorship. Well, according to the latest Pew Research Center for People & the Press/Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life poll (story appended to end *1) we are seeing the first stirrings of the move away from the strong public support of the far right’s policies. The American people are finally beginning to notice that everything that was promised to them by the GOP (once initials for the “Grand Old Party”, now it’s more like the “God Only Party”) not only hasn’t come through, but if anything it’s been the opposite of what was promised that’s been rammed down our throats. We Americans may be a bit slow to react as a whole, but there is only so long we’ll take being lied to... and when that point has been reached we tend to overthrow some people’s apple carts, and often those folks are the ones who believe that they can’t be overthrown. And so it is with the Un-Holy Trinity that has hijacked the GOP for so long... The Ultra Rich, The Ultra Right, and The Religious Right. The rich will always be there, that’s the nature of this particular political beast. But their other two partners in crime are as disposable as modern diapers, and if they become too much of a load the rich will dump them just like a dirty diaper... that is to say fast and putting just as much distance as possible between them and the dumpees.

It hasn’t helped the Republican Cause to have the once vaunted “moral unassailability” of their incumbents and challengers disintegrating one indictment at a time beginning with DeLay and his crew... Nor does it help that the Democrats are outstripping them in donations for the first time since the invention of the computer. The Democratic war chest is so intimidating that in many local, state, and even some congressional races, Democratic candidates are going unchallenged.

What is even more destructive to the Republican stranglehold on America is that the once feared Republican unity is beginning to splinter, as we are seeing in California with the competing hate amendments designed to strip gay families of their rights, protections and responsibilities (Christian Right Press Release appended *2). I think Former Republican Senator Alan Simpson (R-Wyoming) put it best when describing the destructive tendencies of the right wing extremists who control his party:

"I've been a Republican all my life.? They'll never throw me out.? But they have an amazing ability to eat their young.? They give each other the saliva test of purity every once in a while, and then they lose.? And then they just sit around and bitch for four years.? It's a fairly fascinating party."

The Republican take on these problems is quite different from mine. And like their take on the state of the economy, it has very little resemblance to reality. It’s kinda like arguing with your mother-in-law; at the time her explanations seem to make sense, but the moment you are out of her immediate influence and have a chance to think about those explanations logically away from the heat of emotion, you realize that what had seemed so rational at the time was really nothing but pretzel logic making no sense whatsoever!

But it's no time to relax and watch the show by any means!

What does it mean when I say “The days of the Religious Reich are nearly over”? For one thing, now is the time for everyone to roll up their sleeves and get involved to help shape this mess of left-overs before the loonies get control of it. Cripes... anyone who doesn't get involved and get involved NOW doesn't have any room to gripe when they don't like the way things turn out in 2006 and especially again in 2008! For another thing, it means that it’s more important than ever that everyone speak out against the abuses of the Bush administration and the Members of Congress who have blindly supported the agenda of the Religious Reich. The more who speak out now, the more who will feel free to speak out!

No opinion is too “out there” to be spoken (so long as it does not qualify as a “terrorist threat”), just ask my friend Noel Adamson, who in the course of expressing his view earned the honor of receiving an unannounced visit from the Secret Service. All he did to warrant this visit was to express his opinion that he wished the President would be tried for war crimes and if found guilty executed in the best tradition of the Far Republican Reich. You see, there was no threat there. No “terrorist threat”. And certainly no threat either actual or implied that wished for the President to be murdered. No what Noel wished for on his blog (see appendix * for url) was for President Bush to be afforded the full legal process, to be tried in the International World Court in The Hague for the war crimes much of the world believes he is guilty of, and IF found guilty, executed just as the Allies had the Nazi war criminals executed at the close of World War II. But it would seem that someone in the Secret Service didn’t like someone talking about holding their boss accountable for his actions.

Now I’m not saying that everyone needs to express an opinion as radical as Noel’s by any means! What I AM saying is that if Noel has the guts to continue to express his opinion after such an extreme attempt to silence him, then it should be no problem for others to speak out who have a slightly less extreme opinion. If you don’t, then you deserve exactly what you get. And if you get that, I’m gonna be really, really pissed at you... because I don’t deserve that at all!

That's my opinion and you are welcome to it.

Julie Johnson aka “The Great Spoon“

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Appendix:

*Noel Adamson’s Blog “Treason Incorporated”

http://treasonincorporated.blogspot.com/

Noel’s report about his visit from the Secret Cervix:
http://treasonincorporated.blogspot.com/2005/08/visit-from-men-in-black.html

*1 U.S. poll: Support grows for gay marriage
Jen Christensen, PlanetOut Network
Monday, August 8, 2005 / 10:38 AM

SUMMARY: New poll results show an increasing number of Americans support marriage rights for gay couples -- the highest support since July 2003

The marriage equality movement may be gaining momentum in the United States, as new poll results show an increasing number of Americans support marriage rights for gay couples -- the highest support since July 2003.

According to the new Pew Research Center for People & the Press/Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life poll, 35 percent of Americans polled were in favor of allowing gay couples to get legally married. Fifty-three percent still opposed marriage for gay couples, but that same number of people polled, 53 percent, said they wanted gay couples to have some kind of legal arrangement, such as civil unions.

"This is exactly what the right wing is afraid of," Evan Wolfson, executive director of Freedom to Marry, said. "People have had a year of legal marriage in Massachusetts to see how ending marriage discrimination helps gay and lesbian families and hurts no one."

During 2003, Massachusetts' high court ruled that gay couples in that state could get married, which they began doing in 2004. Following that decision, 11 states passed anti-gay marriage amendments, and poll data showed a slip in support for marriage rights.

The poll also showed a slight increase in religious groups' support for marriage rights.

The poll questions were part of a broader study of national issues that may face the incoming U.S. Supreme Court nominee. Marriage rights for gay couples did not figure in the top five issues people were concerned would come before the Supreme Court. Abortion was the biggest interest, followed by the rights of imprisoned terrorists.

The poll also touched on stem cell research, religious displays in public forums, affirmative action and physician-assisted suicide.

Gay rights advocates such as Wolfson suggest these latest poll results on the marriage issue show the effectiveness of gay activism and the impact of equal marriage rights in Massachusetts.

"The long-term trend in America's civil rights discussion, including this recent rebound of public support for marriage equality, which follows the ferment and barrage of the past several months, demonstrates the power of engaging the public and showing them the reality of marriage equality, rather than right-wing rhetoric and scare tactics."

Copyright © 1995-1999 PlanetOut Corporation.

*2 Christian News Wire (press release), DC, August 11, 2005
http://www.earnedmedia.org/vym0811.htm

Fatally-Flawed California Marriage Amendment Won't Protect Marriage
'California Marriage Protection Act' doesn't protect marriage rights,
allows 'gay marriage by another name'

To: National Desk

Contact: VoteYesMarriage.com, 916-265-5643

SACRAMENTO, Aug. 11 /Christian Wire Service/ -- The proposed California
constitutional marriage amendment named the "California Marriage
Protection Act" will not protect marriage. Several constitutional
attorneys have determined that the deeply flawed initiative sponsored by
the Protect Marriage group does not protect marriage rights for a man
and a woman, allows homosexual "marriage" by a different name to
continue or be created by the Legislature, and is unconstitutionally
vague.

"Pro-family Californians will be shocked and disappointed when they find
out that the amendment by the Protect Marriage group won't protect
marriage," said former California Assemblyman Larry Bowler, a proponent
of the Voters' Right to Protect Marriage Initiative sponsored by
VoteYesMarriage.com. "Sadly, the Protect Marriage group is inadvertently
permitting 'gay marriage by another name' by allowing marriage rights to
go to unmarried persons. This poorly-drafted initiative won't protect
marriage; it'll give counterfeit marriage to our children and
grandchildren."

"Despite what people are hearing on the radio and reading in emails and
newsletters, nowhere does the text of the 'Protect Marriage Amendment'
spell out that the rights of marriage are for marriage," said veteran
California pro-family leader Randy Thomasson, one of the organizers of
VoteYesMarriage.com. "This is a big mistake, since the courts already
require marriage initiatives to specifically protect the rights of
marriage in order to prevent 'gay marriage by another name.'"

The problem is what the Protect Marriage group's amendment won't do. The
"California Marriage Protection Act" reads as follows: "A marriage
between a man and a woman is the only legal union that shall be valid or
recognized in this state." Leading pro-family constitutional attorneys
have determined that the California Marriage Protection Act sponsored by
ProtectMarriage.com will:

1. Leave marriage a mere word by only protecting the licensure of
marriage.

2. Continue "gay marriage by another name" in California. The phrase
"legal union" is unconstitutionally vague and includes labor unions,
credit unions, business unions, etc. A judge will not be able to read
"domestic partnership" into the phrase without banning other
partnerships, such as business partnerships. Both overly broad and
nonspecific, the "California Marriage Protection Act" means "gay
marriage by another name" (AB 205, a California law that went into
effect January 1, 2005, awarded virtually all the statutory rights of
marriage to same-sex "domestic partners") will continue to diminish
marriage by hijacking marriage rights.

3. Permit the State Legislature to create a new type of "counterfeit
marriage." Because the ProtectMarriage.com amendment does not explicitly
protect the "rights of marriage," the California State Legislature could
easily invent a new type of "agreement" under contract law, declare it
is not a "union," and insert into it 100 percent of the rights of
marriage. This creation of homosexual "marriage" by yet another name
would reduce marriage for a husband and wife to a mere word without
exclusive legal value.

4. Allow the courts and the Legislature to force private businesses and
organizations to undermine marriage by requiring them to grant full
marriage benefits to unmarried persons, despite any moral or religious
convictions that marriage is only for one man and one woman. (The
intolerant August 1, 2005 ruling of the California Supreme Court would
continue forcing business owners to undermine marriage.)

5. Even allow a future Legislature to someday abolish the legal
institution of marriage in the name of "equality," "non-discrimination"
and "tolerance" for all. Last year and this year, legislation to abolish
marriage has been introduced in New York (A01823 by Assemblymember
Deborah Glick).

"The only thing that ultimately matters is the legal effect -- what an
initiative will accomplish once the courts have looked at it," said
Thomasson. "Despite its good intentions, the amendment by the Protect
Marriage group is fatally flawed and legally unsound; it won't protect
marriage rights. California pro-family voters cannot in good conscience
support this counterfeit marriage initiative. Fortunately, voters have a
choice and can support the true-blue marriage amendment sponsored by
VoteYesMarriage.com. The Voters' Right to Protect Marriage Initiative
will protect everything about marriage – marriage licenses, marriage
rights, and all legal aspects of marriage – for one man and one woman."
(The text is posted at www.VoteYesMarriage.com).

The failure to write the "rights of marriage" into Proposition 22
(passed in March 2000) is why California has counterfeit marriage today.
The California Court of Appeal, Third Appellate District, in its April
4, 2005 decision upholding AB 205 (California Family Code, Section
297.5), ruled that the legal status of marriage for only a man and a
woman does not prevent unmarried couples from being awarded all the
rights of marriage under a different name:

"Because the plain, unambiguous language of Proposition 22 is concerned
only with who is entitled to obtain the status of marriage, and not with
the rights and obligations associated with marriage, section 297.5
(which does not grant the legal status of marriage to registered
domestic partners) does not add to, or take away from, Proposition 22."
-- Knight v. Superior Court, 128 Cal. App.4th 14, 26 (2005)

Leading pro-family constitutional attorneys have signed a public letter
endorsing the Voters' Right to Protect Marriage Initiative as "the only
(proposed amendment) that will fully protect marriage for a man and a
woman."

The VoteYesMarriage.com coalition has an August 18 court hearing in
Sacramento to challenge Attorney General Bill Lockyer's inaccurate and
prejudicial title and summary before gathering signatures to place the

Voters' Right to Protect Marriage Initiative on the 2006 ballot.

More from Dr. Bob...

REAL Conservatives can
say "I made a Boo-Boo",
Heck, they can even admit

To MISTAKES!

In all the years I have been following the whole modern neo-con evangelism era we find ourselves living in the last days of now, I have never heard a neo-con pundit ever make a serious apology for anything they have ever said. No matter how minor that indiscretion it may have been. Oh wait! There is one exception. If they truly believe it is going to keep their self important keester out of trouble with the law (See Rush Limbaugh and his Oxy Cotin bust) or they think they can fool their shills when they know there is a scandal heading their way that there is NO WAY they can wriggle out of (ala Jimmy Swaggert and his string ‘o hookers). They will swear up and down that by some perverse pretzel logic they are the victim (ala Rush) while apologizing for what the evil (fill in the blank) made innocent, law abiding them do OR they will actually fall down on bended knee and with heart wrenching sobs admit to everything they have done and how Satan lead them away from the path of righteousness and made him into a depraved animal...

HEY, wait...notice anything about these “apologies?”

Notice that vibrato like echo? Neo-cons call it the “Ring of Truth!”. I call it an empty echo echo echo. Notice how even though they admit that they did it, that it really wasn’t their fault... OH NO! It was the evil drug that made them do it!It was Satan that made them do it! It was never because they enjoyed what they were doing and were having a ball thumbing their noses at the rest of the world while getting away with it! OH NO! Personal responsibility, it would seem, is not a neo-con value... interferes too much with the cash flow.

But for those of us 50 or older we can still remember when it was no big thing for a politi-pundit to admit that they had messed when they got caught with their hand (much less when it was their arm up to their waist!) in the old cookie jar. Then again, in those days the press pretty much kept quiet when a politician or one of their own got caught if they could help it. Still, it would be refreshing to hear a little honesty from one of these self appointed mouth pieces of the people.

Ahhh... Now before I forget what got me going off on this moralistic rant, I would remind you of the last issue of the 1/2 Kracked Kup which I turned over to Dr. Bob and his column on “The Law of Unintended Consequences”. It seems Bob made a minor faux pass for which he makes his Mia culpa today as follows...

Hi all:
In defense of mediocrity.
 
Dr. Bob
 
I made a mistake in my column last week. Maybe you caught it. Maybe you didn't.

 

Maybe you don't care. Maybe your mind is so made up about the whole abortion controversy, on one side or the other, that nothing anyone could say or do would induce you to even look at the thing again.

 

Such is your right. My intention with these columns is not to butt heads with people who are so intransigent in their thinking that they won't even acknowledge the legitimacy of opposing points of view. This is an opinion column. If you don't want to hear another's opinion, why would you even bother with this?

 

And conversely, nothing deflates me faster than to have people simply agree with me about stuff without even questioning my logic.

 

Any kick I get out of putting my ideas out here for public scrutiny comes from the chance to stimulate a little thinking. Just arguing, or simply having readers' heads bob up and down in agreement, gives me no satisfaction, whatsoever.

 

Thinking about the complex issues of modern life can be fun. It can be instructive. It can certainly be frustrating. But it is never going to make all those complex issues go away.

 

Thinking is just that. Thinking, debating, teaching and learning, are what separates us from those cattle up on the hill. We think, therefore we are.

 

Thinking can induce uncertainty. Ah, but uncertainty is so unsettling for us. We are supposed to know all the answers, so we can mark a or b or all of the above in the box and move on to the next question. We need to know what is right or wrong, so we can chose the one correct way to think or behave or live. We are frustrated, even paralyzed by unanswered questions.

 

Thus it is so easy to let others do our thinking for us, if they will give us those answers or simply not to question at all.

 

People stop me on the street, and tell me they read this column. When they say they don't always agree with me, but I make them think, I know that on occasion I have done my job.

 

Others drop me a letter, or an e-mail, and they tell me I am a Nazi or a jerk or some similar expletive, and I know I have not stimulated them to think. Perhaps I have failed on these occasions, or perhaps they are out of the habit of thinking, and just don't wish to start.

 

Nobody has to play this game. I do it for fun. Other people do other things. That's fine.

 

My job is not to change anyone's mind. Heck, I may change my own mind next week, so it would be pretty silly of me to expect anyone to copy me. Changing our minds is what we sometimes do as the world itself changes. Not ever changing our minds is what rocks do.

 

So what was this mistake I made in last week's column? I was talking about the possible link between the rise in the number of abortions post Roe v. Wade and the drop in crime rates. And might one have actually caused the other.

 

I said there was a drop of 50% in some crime rates. Well, crime rates didn't fall that much. What I should have said was that up to 50% OF THE DROP in crime rates might be attributed to the rise in abortion numbers. Subtle difference, but possibly significant.

 

For what if we are willing to think, and we haven't cemented our ideas pro or con about say, abortion, and what if we count things up and we put one bad thing, abortion, in one column and say the other bad thing, crime rates, in the other column. And we compare the bane and benefit. At what point do we as a society, or as only one thinking person, choose the lesser of evils as the better choice?

 

Well, if we are willing to go this far, we should at least have the right numbers to compare. For only then can we think, and conclude, and enter legitimate debate.

 

So, sorry about that.

 

Because as long as we live in an imperfect world, we are going to be faced with such debates. For this is not just about abortion, or guns or pitbulls or prayer in school or who is allowed to marry or any of dozens of other hot button topics in this world.

 

We are faced with a myriad of serious issues, and some people are going to think about them, and the more accurate information they have as ammunition for their brains, the better their thinking can be. And then maybe, just maybe, we will chose the best solutions.

 

I suggested last week, that when we do get around to selecting the next Supreme Court justices,  we should ask the candidates more than just one question. That is simply because we are hiring them for only one purpose: to think.

And people wonder why this old dyke loves this straight man so much.

That's my opinion and you are welcome to it.

Julie Johnson aka “The Great Spoon“

Dr. Bob and The Law of Unintended Consequences

Dr. Bob and The Law of
Unintended Consequences

For those of you who have been regular readers of mine over the years you have already been introduced to the writings of our family vet and my good friend Dr. Robert Hallstrom. Bob’s column can be found every Friday in the Ledger Dispatch, the East County insert in the CC Times.

Now Bob and I don’t always agree on things, such as I think he’s weak on concealed carry laws and he thinks the three strikes law is the next best thing to sliced bread... but hey, despite such deep philosophical differences we’ve managed to remain friends ever since Andrea and I moved out here to to this hell hole of a place and we needed a vet. Bob’s writing never fails to cause me to sit up and take notice, and once again he has hit the proverbial nail squarely on it’s proverbial head.

This one is all yours Bob!

Julie

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Hi all:
Life is sure simple, ain't it?
Dr. Bob
 
Sociologist Robert K Merton is one of those people with whom I wouldn't mind spending some time. I fancy myself a dispassionate observer of the human condition, but this guy beats me hands down.

I wish I had coined such phrases as "role model" and "self-fulfilling prophecy". Mr. Merton beat me to it in his writings. I'm sure he's had lots of other great ideas, and I can imagine long evenings spent talking around a campfire, just feeding the man questions, and then waiting patiently while he explained the workings of the human mind to me. Alas, he died in 2003, long before I had even heard of him.

Arguably the most famous idea Mr. Merton came up with was a little thing he called the Law of Unintended Consequences. He was aware of the propensity of politicians to oversimplify things, by coming up with uncomplicated solutions that can be presented in uncomplicated ways to a relatively uncomplicated public. Politicians like to pretend to solve our problems, and thus stay in our good graces.

But Merton noticed that just about every time somebody sets out to fix some malady that infests our society, they end up inadvertently setting some other problem loose upon us, that is often as bad or worse than the thing they tried to fix.

Consider Prohibition, as one example. Hoping to rid society of the scourge of social drinking, our lawmakers came up with the 18th amendment, which made the whole alcohol thing illegal. Bars closed, and the makers of booze went out of business. Problem solved, right?

Well, not quite. It seems that quite a few people still wanted a drink once in a while, and if they couldn't do it legally, they simply found another way. That other way was supplied and protected by organized crime families, who grew wealthy and powerful off the proceeds. Crime flourished, bribery corrupted law enforcement and the government, and much of the public lost all respect for law and order.

Not only did people not stop drinking, but some suggest they drank more. And with the growth of organized crime, our society ended up with a whole new pestilence loosed upon us. After prohibition was finally repealed, The Mob simply switched to illegal drugs, and they went on to corrupt America in virtually the same way for decades more.

When women's rights advocates finally got abortion on demand laws passed in the early 70's, they used the argument that society would be better off if a bunch of unwanted pregnancies didn't result in a bunch of unwanted children. Arguments for and against abortion have raged continuously since then.

Proponents claim that no good could come from forcing women to bear children they couldn't or wouldn't properly care for. Opponents look sadly at all those forever unborn kids and wonder if in spite of a bad beginning, they might have become doctors or famous baseball players, poets or nuclear physicists, or just plain folks who could live out reasonably happy lives like the rest of us. And of course, no one could prove any of these arguments, one way or another.

A study published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics suggests however, that in one sense the legalization of abortion may have actually accomplished something. For it turns out that the precipitous decline in violent crime rates, approaching 50% in some studies, that started around 1990 and is continuing up to the present, might well have come about in large part because of legal abortion.

Roe v. Wade was settled in 1973. Abortion rates sky-rocketed from that point on. And many of those unwanted pregnancies went away, taking with them the unwanted babies that would have been the perfect age for criminal activity, 15-25 years old, right when the crime rate started falling.

In fact, the states that were the first to legalize abortion saw the earliest decline in crime, and those states where more abortions were performed saw the greatest declines.

The statistics are compelling, although they may not tell the whole story, and controversy still rages over this conclusion. We may never know the truth.

The resignation of Justice O'Connor has again begun the process of selecting a new Supreme Court justice, but the debate seems to have settled upon abortion as the only issue that should determine which judge gets in. No one seems to care if the candidates have even read the Constitution.

And since the next two or three Supreme Court justices will probably be appointed by an avowed anti-abortion President, we may soon see an end to legal abortion in this country.

Perhaps this will be a good thing. Perhaps one of the unwanted children will now be born and grow up to invent cold fusion or some such thing.

But what might be the unintended consequences of such a change?

Who can say, but we can always just wait 15-25 years, and then check the crime statistics.

Dr. Bob
Bob Hallstrom <flashdr@starband.net>

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Like I said, sometimes Bob just hits the nail on the head and makes you think... without even knowing you are doing it.

That's my opinion of his opinion and you are welcome to it.

Julie Johnson aka “The Great Spoon“