jimrigby.org

This is a link to a wonderful study on social animals reacting to inequality. The clip lasts just under three minutes and gives a visceral sense of a monkey’s natural reaction to receiving one kind of “wage” while a friend is treated better. The political implications seem clear. Even if the monkey has no abstract sense of justice, it clearly reacts violently to the situation of seeing someone receiving better rewards for the same task.

Thanks to Leslie Harper for link.

The IRS singling out the Tea Party for special scrutiny is wrong. It is also the kind of treatment that group has long advocated for Muslims and immigrants. If the principle is sound that frisking Muslims because they are more likely to be terrorists, and pulling Latino and Latina drivers over because they are more likely to be undocumented, then it make perfect sense to audit anti-tax groups assuming they are more likely to be tax cheats. If profiling is wrong for one group, it is wrong for all.

There was precious little conservative hue and cry when peace groups and Occupy Wall Street protesters were singled out for government investigations and spying during the Reagan and Bush years. That silence helped lay the legal foundation for oppressing conservatives today. And it is liberal silence about these very abuses against conservatives during the Clinton and Obama years that will build their own future pit of misery.

Don’t get me wrong, I will defend the rights of Tea Party members against this kind of injustice, I would just have more enthusiasm if they offered the same rights to others.  In a democracy, it is our willingness to withhold justice from our enemies that prepares the path to our own future oppression.

Finally! The people of Guatemala have waited decades for justice. Yesterday, a Guatemalan court convicted dictator Efrain Rios Montt of charges of genocide and crimes against humanity.  The brutal war in Guatemala cost an estimated 200,000 lives. Montt lead that nation for about a year during the worst of the violence.

Matthew Kennis, Amnesty International’s chair for Central America-Mexico Coordination Group, said “This is an incredibly important step forward for justice and accountability in Guatemala. Rios Montt being found guilty … is a significant step forward for justice and accountability.” -AP

“A U.N. truth commission said state forces and related paramilitary groups were responsible for 93 percent of the killings and human rights violations that it documented, committed mostly against indigenous Maya. Yet until now, only low or middle-level officials have been prosecuted for a war that ended in 1996.” -AP

The trial marked the first time a South American dictator has been convicted of such crimes and could conceivably re-open conversation about the US role in such genocide in Guatemala and other nations. The US has backed such dictators the world over to prevent land reform by the indigenous people that would hurt US business interests.

While most Americans have been unable to find one tear for the millions of victims of our empire, some retain hope that as Gandhi awakened England to the monstrosity of empire, that some person or event will awaken us to the atrocities of our own.

Live and let live– the word “pagan” can mean “country dweller” or “non-militant.”

Fairly take and fairly give– Modern American paganism tends to be egalitarian.

Nature is our best teacher– Modern paganism spirituality is ecological.

Speak little, listen much– The religion tends toward awareness rather than dogma.

Harm ye none, and do what ye will. -Augustine said, “Love God and do what you will.” Pagans say “harm not, and do what you will.”

(Taken from various Wiccan Redes)

Since the beginnings of the Obama administration I have watched his appointments with sadness. From the very start, Obama loaded his cabinet with people who made his promises of change impossible to fulfill. Norman Solomon has a nice summary of three of the nominees which I will summarize even further. The entire article is linked below.

President Obama has nominated Penny Pritzker for Secretary of Commerce. She has been a major fundraiser for Obama. She also serves on the board of Hyatt Hotels which her family began. Both Pritzker and Hyatt have a history of bad relations with unions. She is mentioned by Forbes as among the 300 wealthiest Americans.

“Her pioneering sub-prime operations, out of Superior Bank in Chicago, specifically targeted poor and working class people of color across the country. She ended up crashing Superior for a billion-dollar cost to taxpayers, and creating a personal tragedy for the 1,400 people who lost their savings when the bank failed.” -Dennis Bernstein

Tom Wheeler, another fundraiser for Obama, has been nominated to chair the Federal Communications Commission.

“Wheeler’s background is as a trade association representative for companies appearing before the Commission, a lobbyist in Congress for other FCC customers, and a venture capitalist investing in and profiting from others whose requests he’ll have to pass on. He has no record, of which I am aware, of challenging corporate abuse of power on behalf of consumers and the poor.

 “Nor does Wheeler’s membership on the president’s Intelligence Advisory Board bode well for those who believe Americans’ Fourth Amendment privacy rights should be getting at least as much attention as the government’s perceived need to engage in even more secret snooping.” -Nicolas Johnson, former FCC chair.

Finally Mary Jo White was appointed as chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission. Solomon concludes:

Obama’s recent appointment of Wall Street insider Mary Jo White as SEC chair is playing out in predictable fashion. Days ago, in an editorial, the New York Times faulted her role in an SEC decision on regulating the huge derivatives market: “Last week, in her first commission vote, Ms. White led the commissioners in approving a proposal that, if finalized, could leave investors and taxpayers exposed to the ravages of reckless bank trading.”

Liberals can blame some of Obama’s compromises on the Republicans, but that does not explain why he keeps nominating foxes to watch the hen house, in exactly the same manner Bush did before him. If only we could find a leader who says what Obama says, and actually believes it. Better still, if only we could find voters who vote on issues not personalities.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/05/09/obama-in-plunderland/

I mentioned a while back that First Baptist Church in Pflugerville has run a campaign against providing equal benefits to domestic partners and same sex couples in the Pflugerville Independent School District. If you are Baptist in the Austin area and are tired of supporting this kind of bullying in the name of Jesus Christ, you are in luck. Austin has some great Baptist Churches that support equal rights for all people.

Church of the Savior in Cedar Park made the news some years back by refusing to discriminate against GLBT people. They eventually left the Southern Baptist Convention, but have remained a faithful witness to the true Baptist tradition of live and let live tolerance.

University Baptist Church has been a leader in separation of church and state issues in Austin and is also fully inclusive.

First Baptist Church has not been as vocal as the others, but maintains an atmosphere of tolerance and openness of thought. Its pastor, Roger Paynter is open minded and kind.

There is no reason to invest in a church that does not work for a world that is fair to all of God’s children. If you are a Baptist in the Austin area, and want to work for inclusivity and justice for all, I’m sure any of these 3 churches would embrace you with open arms.

Amy Jones had enough of her father, Reverend Jones. She decided to convert to Buddhism. One humid afternoon, she went to see Texas Buddha who was working on a blue ‘53 Ford. TB responded to her question from under the hood. “What makes you think I am a Buddhist?”

Amy tried to peer through the engine to find TB’s face. “But everyone calls you that.”

“And how is following me going to lead to your true self?”

Amy reflected for a moment, and then leaned further over the engine. “You are so wise and gentle, how can I get to be like you?”

“If you want to be wise and gentle, do not imitate another. Imitation leads only to foolishness and cruelty. Almost any religion can lead you to gentleness and wisdom if you do not allow beliefs to replace your perception nor rituals replace your creativity. Learn from others, but not to let them replace your own eyes and heart.“

“What if I don’t know my own heart?”

“For that very reason, you must stop trying to see through anyone else’s eyes. A teacher can remove obstacles, but only you can find your own heart. It is not so important which religion you pick so much as whether that religion leads to your own heart.”

“What happens after I find my heart?”

“Then you must give your heart to the world. Take whatever path you find yourself upon and widen it until it belongs to the whole world, then deepen it until it is your very life. Do this and you will be wise and gentle.”

The uglier aspects of capitalism are removed from history as it is written by people who have succeeded in corporately driven universities and media outlets. So, it is helpful, as we try to make sense of foreign policy, to move back in time and read the actual words spoken at the time of historical events and not to trust modern redactions.

When we try to understand why the US has a certain policy, say toward the Palestinians or Venezuelans, we might first ask, “why did we actually support South African apartheid? What was the propaganda used to sell such an immoral policy to the American people?” The reasons and the propaganda may be surprisingly similar.

Back when the U.S. was supporting South Africa, the policy was called “constructive engagement.” The argument went like this, “poor nations need US businesses to help build their own economies, so working with tyrants is better for the people in the long run than boycotts which will hurt the poor most of all.”

Margaret Thatcher was a great proponent of the policy of constructive engagement:

“I think a policy of sanctions would harm the very people in South Africa you are trying to help…I agree with a policy of trying to influence South Africa by other means. The present Government is moving forward in the direction we wish them to go, faster than any other. Sanctions will harm, not help.”

It was an effective argument at the time, but some saw through it, like MIT professor John E. Parsons:

“US corporations continue to operate in South Africa because it is profitable. Apartheid makes it very profitable. These corporations pay millions of dollars in taxes which pay for the police, prisons, weapons, and armaments that maintain the apartheid system. They sell the government its armored personnel carriers, its computers and communications technologies. Westinghouse has sold South Africa several licenses for the manufacture of nuclear power facilities. And every US industrial facility is integrated into the civil defense plans of the South African government…includ[ing] turning over its facilities for military production at the direction of the South African government. That’s “constructive engagement.” Perhaps we should try disinvestment.”

Looking back, no one takes the Reagan/Thatcher argument for constructive engagement at face value. We now know the point was for corporations to make as much money as possible. U.S., English and Israeli businesses profited obscenely from the oppression of the South African people, so Reagan and Thatcher speeches were merely infomercials for exploitation by Western corporations of the South African people.

As we move back to the present moment we must keep that same discernment. We must remember that every US president, no matter how charming, probably got to the top by lobbying for corporations and probably for weapons makers. His or her job is not only to lead our nation, but also to convince us of policies demanded by his or her corporate sponsors.

So when the president comes up with good reasons not to support a democratic election in Venezuela or the statehood of the Palestinian people, we must assume that presidential appeals to “constructive engagement” are usually disingenuous. If the people themselves cry for freedom, we have no right to sell them out for their own good.

http://mondoweiss.net/2013/04/constructive-engagement-zionists.html

A Michigan mother contends that the unabridged version of Anne Frank’s diary is “pornographic.”

At issue are sections left out of the version published by her father where the young woman describes the changes taking place in her body as she goes through puberty.

“There are little folds of skin all over the place, you can hardly find it. The little hole underneath is so terribly small that I simply can’t imagine how a man can get in there, let alone how a whole baby can get out!”

The accusation, fortunately, has been roundly criticized, but it raises an incredibly important point. This mother was prepared for her daughter to learn about the Nazi holocaust, but not to hear an objective description of a vagina. What does it mean that our nation is so numb to violence and so over-reactive to anything that deals with sex? Bill Clinton killed perhaps half a million Iraqis as a result of policies that included an illegal medical embargo of that nation. Almost no one in this nation obatted an eye to his violence, but when it was found that he had an extra-marrital affair, our nation was  paralysed for months. Before we consider this mother to be an anomoly, perhaps we should consider what this nation does and doesn’t protest.

I do not believe that the two phenomena are separate- our national proclivity to violence and our discomfort with our own animal bodies seem intimately bound together. Why else could the Diary of Anne Frank be considered acceptable as long as she explored the unspeakable cruelty of her time, but obscene if the young teen explored her own body?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/may/02/anne-franks-diary-pornographic-uncomfortable-truth