Inebriated Discourse

The Public Option Is Officially Dead, And Apparently It's Nobody's Fault

2010-03-13T16:40:00.011-05:00

Spare me the excuses, Pelosi.

Yesterday, Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that there would be no public option in the health care “reform” legislation that she will send to the House floor for a vote next week.

In the words of Sarah Palin, “How’s that hopey changey thing workin’ out for ya?”

Yes, it’s a sad day when the actions of the Democratic Party prompt me to quote the wordsmith of Wasilla, but this is what it’s come to in light of Pelosi declaring, “I’m quite sad that a public option isn’t in there. But it isn’t a case of it’s not in there because the Senate is whipping against it. It’s not in there because they don’t have the votes to have it in there.”

Pelosi made this statement on Friday, one day after Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin said if the House version included a public option, he’d whip for it. The White House meanwhile, is publicly keeping its distance from the proceedings, and clearly doesn’t mind the lack of a public option.

So this is it, huh? It seems that just about everyone in the Democratic Party is for the public option, but everyone’s against it. Pelosi is blaming the Senate. The Senate’s leadership is saying they’d try to make it happen if the House passes the public option. And Barack Obama doesn’t seem to care what passes at this point, as long as he can call it “reform.” Call me cynical, but I think this has been one big carefully orchestrated charade in which all of the major players have plausible deniability on the question of who really killed the public option.

The more I watch the Democrats exercise their majorities in Congress with Obama in the White House, the more I’m coming to believe that the Democrats are pathetic on purpose. No powerful organization is this inept and unsure of itself. It’s no secret the Democratic Party is a corporatist party, but nonetheless they are more likely than the GOP to enact laws that are beneficial to the average American. But with the GOP out of power, we can clearly see just how bought-and-paid-for the Democrats really are. A huge majority of registered Democrats want a public option, as does a majority of Americans when Independents and even Republicans are included. And yet the Democratic Party is telling me that they don’t have the votes? Why the fuck not? Especially now with things looking as if the senate is going to pass health care using reconciliation, which will require a simple 51-vote majority in the senate. That means that nine Democrats could defect and vote against the bill, and it could still pass, with Vice President Joe Biden voting for passage to break this hypothetical 50-50 tie.

But this isn’t going to happen because the Democratic leadership is basically saying, “We would really love a public option; it’s just that too many people in the party would oppose it. Only 86% of registered Democrats favor a public option, and the support in Congress just isn’t there.”

The “good news” is that the Democrats are going to implement near-universal care by mandating that people buy private insurance or face fines. With a public option, such a mandate is dubious. Without a public option, such a mandate is downright cruel. If the government wants to provide people with a cheaper alternative to private insurance in order to help working class Americans, I’m all for it. But where the fuck does this administration and this Congress get off telling me I have to purchase insurance? I can’t possibly see how that’s constitutional. While the health insurance mandate has been compared to auto insurance mandates, this is an inappropriate comparison. Drivers must buy auto insurance by virtue of having bought cars. Under the health care bill mandate, people would have to buy health insurance by virtue of simply being alive. Not even the broadest interpretation of the Necessary-and-Proper Clause arrives at a justification for mandating business transactions between private parties under such a circumstance. Of course, we’d like to think that if such a law passes, there would be a benefit in having a constructionist majority on the Supreme Court if the mandate were ever challenged and got that far. But the Roberts Court has shown itself to be so rabidly pro-business, I would not put it past the robed reactionaries to rule in favor of the mandate simply because it helps corporations.

In a recent letter to the Democratic Party, I suggested that I might stay home in 2010 if it didn’t clean up its act. Well, the Democrats aren’t going to clean up their act, so you can count me out of the November midterms. And unless Obama starts to push an actual progressive agenda, you can count me out of the 2012 presidential race too. I won’t legitimize this bullshit we call a political system anymore.

- Max

Hick High School Cancels Prom To Avoid Having To Allow In A Lesbian

2010-03-11T20:33:00.008-05:00

Forsooth

A Mississippi high school faces a lawsuit over its decision to cancel its prom rather than allow a lesbian high school student attend with her girlfriend…

...At the center of the lawsuit is a memorandum from the school to students, dated February 5, which states that prom dates must be of the opposite sex.

Also, when McMillen expressed a desire to wear a tuxedo to the prom, the superintendent told her only male students were allowed to wear tuxes, according to court documents.

Superintendent Teresa McNeece also told McMillen that she and her girlfriend could be ejected from the prom if any of the other students complained about their presence there, according to the documents.

The prom was canceled after McMillen and the ACLU tried informally to get the school to change its stance.

CNN

You may have noticed that at select points in some of my writings, I trash the American South. Several people have emailed me to complain about my “Northeast liberal elitism.” But this isn’t about elitism. It’s about the South being as backwards as shit. Whether it’s an attempt to teach creationism in science classes, or willfully telling a journalist that they don’t like Obama because “He’s a fucking nigger,” or treating gays like second class citizens, many Southerners of this fine nation have a serious problem. This isn’t to say that most of them are like this, but there sure are enough ignorant redneck fuckwits to give the whole region a terrible reputation.

Such is the case with Itawamba Agricultural High School in Fulton, Mississippi, which apparently is run by people so sexually repressed, that in the 21^st century they cannot bear the sight of two gay students attending a prom. As if the poor girl weren’t feeling ostracized enough by her school’s official policy to exclude her and her partner from the prom, the school has sinisterly cancelled the whole thing. Sane people will consider this episode and determine that it is the school officials who are being ridiculous and inconsiderate. But yours truly has spent some time today on the comments threads of the local Southern news media. The anonymous responses are astounding. Many people commenting from locations in Arkansas, Mississippi, Tennessee, and other red state backwaters have seen fit to blame the lesbian student for the cancellation. There wouldn’t be a problem, one of them says, if only gays wouldn’t try to advance “their perverted lifestyles down all of our throats. Are you really proud of your sickening selves?”

The claim that gays “flaunt it” is a ragged canard. It’s not as if gays go around unwelcomingly hitting on people of the same sex. When homophobics say that gays flaunt themselves, what they’re really complaining about is the fact that more gays are simply out of the closet. The haters liked the good old days when gays were afraid to let it be known who they are. Thankfully, gays are becoming increasingly accepted in American society. And some people just don’t like it.

Why? Who knows? Religion I’m sure plays a large role. Also, people who merely are different have often been the targets of social ridicule, especially in the South. Different religions, different skin colors, different languages, and different sexualities have never played well down there. These are important factors, as is another commonly overlooked motive because of its uncomfortable premise: the theory that homophobia is often (though not always) the product of repressed homosexual desires in the homophobic himself. Think Roy Cohn, Ted Haggard, Larry Craig, Roy Ashburn, or any other anti-gay religious or political figure who turned out to be a flaming homo.

So whenever I see rabid homophobia on display, I can’t help but ask myself, what’s really going there?

- Max

Guardian Writer Says Child Abuse By Priests Is Totally Overblown. (Did I Just Say "Blown?")

2010-03-11T13:24:00.012-05:00

[The Pope’s brother,] Georg Ratzinger, 86, said in a newspaper interview published Tuesday that he slapped pupils as punishment after he took over the Regensburger Domspatzen boys choir in the 1964. He also said he was aware of allegations of physical abuse at an elementary school linked to the choir but did nothing about it.

Child abuse in the Catholic Church. Nothing new here. But when I was reading the Guardian’s coverage on this story I came across Andrew Brown’s blog, where he rehashes an old argument about child fucking/hitting by priests. Titled “Catholic abuse in proportion,” Brown wonders, “Many Catholic priests and religious have abused children in their care. But is the church's record worse than the world’s?”

A more absurd or irrelevant question would be hard to formulate. Brown actually attempts to defend the Catholic Church by citing murky statistics on child abuse before concluding, “I think that objectively your child is less likely to be abused by a Catholic or Anglican priest in the west today than by the members of almost any other profession.”

Wow. And to think that for years I have railed against pedophile priests, condemned the Church for covering up their heinous abuses, and have attacked the practice of celibacy for priests, lest their biological urges to engage in sexual intercourse manifest themselves in such assaults. What have I done?

Please. These are priests, not plumbers. If the Catholic Church and its ministers are going to present themselves as the personification of piety and god’s representatives on earth, they ought to expect to be held to a slightly higher standard than the rest of the general population. Indeed, if, “We’re no more likely to fuck your kid than your stockbroker” is the best defense the Church and its apologists have to offer, color me unimpressed. If the leaders of Catholicism are just as moral or immoral as everyone else, which is most certainly the case, what is it for?

- Max

Peter Schiff's Cult Of Capitalism

2010-03-09T17:52:00.009-05:00

Nice scythe.

Peter Schiff, who is most famous for correctly predicting the housing collapse and subsequent financial fallout (among several incorrect predictions), has something of a cult following on the internet. Oftentimes his fans are younger people, particularly of the Ron Paul fan club variety, which is to be expected because Schiff was an adviser on Paul’s 2008 presidential campaign. Schiff himself has recently entered the political fray, running for the Republican nomination in this fall’s senate election in Connecticut.

As with Ron Paul, I admire Schiff’s candor. He does not kowtow to people by making pleasing and uncontroversial statements. One can generally count on Peter Schiff to say exactly what he thinks. However, this is where my admiration for him ends. I have been following his regular video blogs on YouTube for several months now, and I think I get the economic picture that Schiff would like to paint if it were up to him. It isn’t pretty.

Schiff, like most conservatives, thinks government is awful, and that if it would only get out of the way and deregulate, the markets would be able to function uninhibited and purely, and produce optimal economic outcomes. Everything you need to know about Schiff’s economic philosophy is summed up by the man himself in this video. The relevant portion is from 3:20 to 5:20. Schiff is discussing the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007, which mandated that U.S. minimum wage laws apply (piecemeal) to its overseas territories.

So Schiff thinks that it was wrong for the government to require that American Samoans be paid more than $3-something per hour because all the law did was prompt Star-Kist to lay off hundreds of workers, and Chicken of the Sea to shut down its tuna canning plant altogether.

Let’s just concede the obvious—that the people of American Samoa are worse off for this minimum wage law having been enacted, at least for now. Schiff and other conservatives would chalk up this episode to another instance of government intrusion in the free market that made most everyone worse off.

Or, one could view this ordeal as indicative of a very serious problem in the modern global economy: that there is an ongoing race to the bottom among countries to see who can have the most business-friendly climate. The United States is no longer considered the ideal place to produce clothes, toys, electronics, etc.; not because American workers have gotten incompetent, but because we have pesky labor laws on the books regulating things such as minimum wage and workplace safety conditions. In the age of mass production and expedient international transport, it is much more profitable for even U.S. companies to set up shop in Mexico or Indonesia to produce their widgets, even though Americans are the most insatiable consumers in the world.

The solution for Schiff and others, such as the like-minded porn-stached John Stossel of Fox Business, is to eliminate the minimum wage altogether.

It appears that Stossel is being serious when he asks, “If a minimum wage really does help workers, why be so cheap? Why only raise it to $14 [as one town has done] or $7.50—that’s the new national minimum [sic, it’s actually $7.25]. Why not a hundred dollars an hour?” He then notes that at that level, everyone would realize that people would be hurt, but that even at the lowly rate of $7.25, “the principle is the same.”

No it isn’t. That’s like asking why we don’t have a taxation rate of 90% across the board to increase government revenue. Because it wouldn’t. When it comes to taxation, the idea is to set a rate that will generate enough public revenue to cover operating costs, but not so much as to destroy supply and demand and all means and incentives to produce goods and services. Think of the Laffer Curve. Somewhere between 0% and 100% lies the ideal rate at which to tax people (and businesses). Is there such a thing as the “ideal minimum wage?” Many conservatives would say, “None.” While everyone can agree that if raised to a certain point, the minimum wage would inflict great harm rather than providing an overall benefit, I do not believe $7.25 is that point. Not even close. In fact, in inflation adjusted dollars, the minimum is right where it was in the early 1980s, and we’re still lagging behind the 1950s. So even though people like Peter Schiff and John Stossel talk about the disappearance of entry level jobs such as movie theater ushers and gas-pumpers, the fact is that back in the 1970s, those workers were making more money in real dollars.

For a guy who went to Princeton, Stossel often uses arguments so specious that one wonders how he could think them valid in the first place. Stossel is an unabashed apologist for outsourcing because, he says, that means lower prices for American consumers. Of course, he doesn’t address the issue of the millions of jobs, and billions of dollars in wages lost in America as a result of this. If your job has been outsourced, you may not have the kind of money you used to with which to buy these wonderful, now foreign-made products.

Then there was Stossel’s argument against sharing he once made in a 20/20 episode when he was with ABC. His argument—and I’m not making this up—was essentially:

The refrigerator in the staff room at my work is “shared” and the inside is gross and unclean.

Public restrooms are “shared” and they are also gross and unclean.

Sharing/socialism is bad.

Therefore, private ownership is the answer to everything.

Just as frightening as the undying faith that Schiff, Stossel, and other prominent conservatives have in corporations to collectively run the markets effectively and fairly, is that their message is resonating with people. Sure, the Federal Reserve kept interest rates irresponsibly low for way too long in the early 2000s, leading to a nationwide lending spree, but Schiff wants condemn the bartender who kept on serving the alcoholic. Yes, some fault lies with the barkeep, but ultimately it’s on the drunk to clean up his act. And sometimes, an intervention is needed.

But this isn’t how Schiff sees it. He is an enabler of financial terrorism. We ought not to tax the banks that were bailed out, Schiff and many Republicans say, because they will simply gouge their customers to compensate for the lost revenue. This is likely correct, but what does this say about our financial system? What they’re saying is that we can’t enact financial reform that could cut into banks’ profits because the costs will be passed on to the consumers.

Excuse me, but what the fuck? The idea that we shouldn’t attempt to reform financial services institutions, or energy companies, or HMOs because they’ll take it out on the customers is a very dubious and dangerous rationale. This is financial terrorism straight up: threatening a country or a people with economic harm in order to attain a desired (profitable) outcome—in this case, the maintenance of the status quo. Imagine if after 9/11 America had said, we’re not going to go into Afghanistan because that will only make al Qaeda angrier. What would we think of someone who made that argument? I mean, it’s one thing to make a case against war on the grounds that we shouldn’t do it for moral or practical reasons, but it’s quite another to make that decision based on whether you think your adversary will be pissed off or not.

The fact is, the financial services sector of this country needs serious reform. A year and half after the onset of the biggest economic crisis since the Great Depression, fundamentally, nothing has changed. The “too big to fail” problem has only gotten worse; and over-the-counter derivates, which are an integral part of our casino economy, are very badly in need regulation in the form of a central clearinghouse responsible for approving such transactions.

But incredibly, Americans don’t give a shit about the banks or banking reform. They’re worried about socialism. They’re worried that whatever wealth they have left will be distributed to poor blacks and Mexican immigrants. They’re for some reason worried about their taxes that have either gone down or stayed the same under the present administration. This country may be unreal, but it unfortunately doesn’t surprise me when a guy such as Peter Schiff develops a huge following for his market-knows-best-philosophy, even right on the heels of the real estate bubble burst where the market clearly did not know best. As with government, the fundamental problem with markets is that they rely on human decision-making. By definition, that makes them inherently flawed.

- Max

Catholicism Is A Hateful Doctrine

2010-03-07T22:16:00.011-05:00

And we’re sure the Catholic Church is anti-gay?

Catholicism’s bigotry reared its ugly head once again last week in two high profile reprehensible decisions by Catholic officials. First, in anticipation of Washington D.C.’s allowance of gay marriage which went into effect last week, Catholic Charities in D.C. announced that it would no longer provide health insurance to spouses of new employees or spouses of employees not currently enrolled in a plan with the organization. The reasoning is clear enough: gays are second class citizens and must be denied health coverage–even if it means denying straight employees insurance as well. Second, a Catholic preschool in Boulder, Colorado told a lesbian couple that their child may not re-enroll when next school year’s classes start because of their sexual orientation. As the abominable Archdiocese of Denver put it, “Parents living in open discord with Catholic teaching in areas of faith and morals unfortunately choose by their actions to disqualify their children from enrollment.”

Well fuck Catholic teaching.

I wonder if the Denver Archdiocese also checks public records to ensure that their schoolchildren’s parents aren’t divorced. I doubt it. And if they did, that would also be ludicrous.

It will be a cold day in hell when I take love and sexual advice from an institution comprised mainly of crusty old virgins. The preachers of the Catholic Church have no idea what it’s like to be married. They have no idea what it’s like to raise children; they only know how to fuck them. The ones who aren’t pedophiles still live in a celibate fantasyland—a very unnatural place where the biological urge to copulate is suppressed and labeled evil (but a necessary evil for the laity when procreation is the motive.) Hence the Church’s absurd position on contraceptives—that they are immoral—and Pope Ratzinger’s criminal assertion that condoms will only make the AIDS epidemic in Africa worse.

This transparent bigotry from the Catholic Church is astonishing given the dwindling number of church attendees in America and Europe. My late Catholic grandmother viewed the Church as a source for good for most of her life. But when a series of scandals involving pedophile priests hit the news in the early 2000s, even she was incredulous at the behavior of the molesters, as well as the Church officials who either willfully ignored the reality, or actively helped cover it up. Many Catholics like her put their hands up and finally said, “No thanks.” And yet, at a time when we’d think that the Church would be doing all it could to increase its ranks, its leaders cannot help but revert to their hateful ways, which is what the aforementioned incidents are: hate.

Religious bigotry is often excused because it generally has some biblical or koranic justification behind it. Let’s look at the Denver Archdiocese’s statement once again regarding the lesbian parents:

“Parents living in open discord with Catholic teaching in areas of faith and morals unfortunately choose by their actions to disqualify their children from enrollment.”

Translation:

“We hate fags and anybody else who violates our antiquated notions of morality.”

For those who do not think that this blacklisting is grounded in hate, then what do you call it when one group punishes banishes a child for who his parents are? Just because there is an emotionless, bureaucratic-sounding excuse behind the bigotry does not make it any less hateful or disgusting. In fact, it makes it worse. At least people with irreligious prejudices do not hide behind the dogmas of the bible or the koran to attempt to vindicate their Neanderthal worldview.

While I have a hard time understanding why any adult would ever call himself a Catholic, I particularly will never understand why any adult would ever call herself a Catholic. Women are, after all, second class citizens in Catholicism. The Church teaches that women are deficient because they cannot serve as ministers. It’s a total sausagefest. (Should it really surprise us that priests used helpless children as an outlet for their repressed sexual urges?) In the United States, the Catholic Church boasts the largest female membership of any officially sexist organization. Millions of women regularly attend mass, tithe, and count themselves among the faithful. How is this possible? Imagine an American or European political party of which anyone can be a member, but only men may run for office. The party would be a laughingstock, if not a reviled assemblage of chauvinistic buffoons.

The Catholic Church would be a laughingstock were it not for its sizeable following. But as mentioned, thankfully Church attendance is on the way down. The percentage of self-identifying Catholics in America has been stagnant as the Church remains unable to adapt to the changing social landscapes because of its rigid dogmas. In 2009, only 45% of Catholics said they went to church at least once a week (and even some of those were probably overstating), down from 54% in the mid-1970s, and 75% in 1955. The number of priests in America has gone down steadily since 1975. All signs point to a terminal Catholic decline. Although the Church has been making inroads in Africa, its power is waning. The once mighty institution that tortured and murdered those who dared to hold differing religious opinions, has been reduced to a shell of its former self; a curious novelty act in which the main players wear flamboyant attire and practice pagan rituals such as flesh-eating and blood-drinking.

I’ve never cared for cannibalism, or sexism, or homophobia for that matter. If you are a person who calls himself or herself “a Catholic,” then I strongly urge you to consider what that means. I personally know many Catholics who do not share the abhorrent views of their Church, but nonetheless continue to identify with it. How much disagreement must there be before there is a clean break? How many others must be discriminated against before Catholics across America and the world declare, “I no longer want anything to do with this organization”?

Hopefully not many. It is high time for a mass exodus from the Catholic Church, leaving behind only the most hardcore haters. As I see it, the main element that lends respectability to the Church is the laity, who collectively do not care much for doctrine, but describe themselves as Catholics merely out of habit. That pattern must be broken as soon as possible.

- Max

Angel Dust In The Wind- A Phenomenological Analysis of Death

2010-03-05T17:25:00.011-05:00

Existentialists are pros at making love with death.

The specter of death forever lurks in the shadows of the human psyche despite the fact that we seldom allow ourselves to be fully conscious of its presence. This is because, for us, death is usually conceived of as little more than an intellectual abstraction. What then would it actually look like to fully contemplate the ending of our existence free from such abstraction? To answer this question, we must turn to the phenomenological method used by existentialist philosophers. This is a method of analyzing our experiences by describing them accurately, sensitively, and perceptively, which is aimed at understanding “what it means to be alive or to exist as a human being in the world.” (Koestenbaum, 139) In other words, “the phenomenological technique prefers the more immediate and direct analysis of experience to account for life’s situations.” In order to describe an experience by this method, we have to bracket, or remove, as much as possible that we project onto the experience itself. In a sense, this allows us to reflect on what is normally pre-reflective. The descriptions we give when contemplating our own death exemplifies how we are accustomed to using projection to dilute the essence of our experience. By using the phenomenological method to analyze our conceptions death, we can get a clearer picture of what the prospect of death actually means and/or feels like to us as human beings.

From a phenomenological standpoint, there are two different meanings of the word “death.” There is the death of other people and our own death. The death of others—as seen from the perspective of our own subjectivity—is an occurrence that takes place within the world; we are still there to observe the world when another person dies. The death of the other is seen as just one possible event that can occur in this world of ours. Baring witness to this type of death is rarely accompanied by any overwhelming feelings of terror or dread. If it is someone close to us who dies, for example, we may think of making funeral plans, how we will cope with the loss, etc. The important thing to recognize is that, if examined closely, the death of the other “involves the elimination of an object within the world, and not of the observing ego or subject.” (141) In contrast, when subjected to the same kind of analysis, the conception of our own death means the total disintegration and annihilation of our subjectivity, or observing ego. Thus, the death of the other means the world still goes on and my own death means that the whole universe goes down with me.

When examining conceptions of our own death, we often confuse this with the dramatically different death of the other. This linguistic and semantic confusion serves the valuable psychological function of protecting us from the dangerous amount of terror and anxiety that naturally comes from confronting a phenomenologically accurate recognition of the meaning of our own death. In effect, “we hopefully maintain that the death of another is the only kind of death there is. In fact, we think of the death of myself as nothing worse than the death of another.” (145) For example, when contemplating my own death, this type of confusion may lead me to take comfort in the “fact” that, although I will perish, life will still go on without me. Although I know in a conceptual sense that it is “true” that life will continue without me, to entertain a picture of the world spinning after I am gone is adding something unnecessary to the concept of my own death. It is really implying that, in some sense, I will still be around to look down on this spinning world that keeps on trucking in my absence. From a phenomenological standpoint, this is considered no more than meaningless projection. This is but one common way that people confuse their own death with the death of others, and this confusion is no more than an escape from the reality of our fate. Again, when we die, so does the universe.

Just as some people often confuse the death of themselves with the death of others, many experience the reverse confusion of seeing the death of others as the death of themselves. A parent losing a child is perhaps the most powerful example of how this loss of the other can be experienced, phenomenologically, as the death of one’s self. “Since the death of myself is the disintegration of my world, the death of loved ones—who make up the world of mine—has many of the disintegrative features of the death of myself.” (144) This helps to explain how some people completely “fall apart” when the most important people in their lives pass away. Unfortunately, since we humans are a notoriously neurotic lot, this same “falling apart” in response to the death of a loved one also frequently occurs when the loss one experiences merely represents a symbolic death (i.e., the person lost is simply no longer present in one’s life).

Having worked in a psychiatric hospital, it never ceased to amaze me how many patients were admitted to my unit subsequent to attempting suicide after the breakup of a serious romantic relationship. Psychology provides us with many possible explanations for how such people can completely lose their shit when relationships end. For example, if a guy’s mother abandoned him at the age of three after running away with the Crystal Meth cooker down the street, he will likely experience a reopening of that wound in his adult romantic relationships; particularly when a lover breaks up with, or abandons him. Without even knowing the origin of this man’s dependency on his love interests, however, most psychologists would assume outright that somewhere along the line he has come to identify himself as worthless, and as a defense against such feelings, has sought a sense of self-worth through passionately (neurotically) identifying with his romantic partners. Although there is no doubt some truth to these explanations, a phenomenological analysis reveals a clearer picture of what this man is actually experiencing in response to the lost object; it shows us that the experience of being left by someone who has comprised an enormous chunk of one’s life-world (identification) is much akin to the disintegration we feel when confronted by our own death. Thus, it can be said the anxiety surrounding an accurate conception of our own death is the primary cause underlying the pain incurred by the loss of another.

Now that we realize how much of human suffering stems from a fear of self-annihilation, we can begin to see how important it is that we confront this specter of death in order to live life in the fullest way possible. When we adequately confront our own death there is no more room for self-delusion; “the immediacy of death leads to honesty with oneself.” (157) Ancient Stoic philosophers recommended that we detach ourselves to a healthy degree from others—“to avoid excessive projection onto them or ego-involvement—so their death can be accepted with equanimity.” (144) Speaking to this point, the Greek philosopher Epictetus went so far as to suggest that a father whisper into his beloved child’s ear upon leaving in the morning the sweet nothing “you may be dead tomorrow.” This illustrates how excessive attachments to that which we do not have total control (e.g., other people) can lead to despair and thus should be avoided.

A former professor and mentor of mine was diagnosed with prostate cancer about five years ago and was told that, with treatment, he would be lucky to live another ten years or so. Upon learning this upsetting news, he quickly reevaluated the priorities in his life and began making significant changes in accordance with this new shift in his perspective. Had it not been for the diagnosis, many of the important changes he subsequently made may never have been accomplished, or they would have at least been put off for some time in the indeterminate future. My professor was experiencing what Nietzsche called a “transvaluation of values;” in a sense, he saw things more clearly. One of the things he did in order to keep this change of values fresh in his mind was religiously play the song “Dust in the Wind” by Kansas every day just as he rolled out of bed in the morning. He wanted every single day of his existence to start with a reminder that someday soon he would cease to exist. Most people would say that such a practice is morbid, or at least quite depressing, but for him the experience was extremely uplifting. In fact, the act of confronting and accepting our own deaths is perhaps the most “therapeutic” endeavor we can engage in as human beings.

Confronting our own mortality is uplifting because it puts things into the proper perspective. It helps us to realize on an almost visceral level that we have but one life to live. If done effectively, procrastination loses its appeal and a determined, courageous spirit takes over. I remember reading once of a Buddhist monk in training who was instructed to care for dying people on a daily basis in order to fully get in touch with the reality of the impermanence of all things. Most of us may agree that this is a fine thing for a masochistic religious person to do, but would see no use in engaging in such a practice ourselves. We tend to view this type of action as depressing and therefore consider it something to be avoided.

Indeed, many of us can “get by” just fine in life without resorting to seemingly extreme practices like that of the Buddhist monk who surrounded himself with the specter of death. Furthermore, when discussing the topic of death and its impact on human existence, most of us vehemently proclaim that we are under no illusions about the fact that we and everyone else we love will someday die. Because we believe ourselves to fully accept death as a part of reality, we see no reason to dwell on such a morose topic. However, I do not think I have ever encountered a person (other than a psychotic) who is so much in denial of reality that they do not accept, on a conceptual level, the fact that human beings are mortal creatures. But seeming comfortable with the intellectual knowledge of this fact is not the same as being in touch with and really tasting the full flavor of death. Sometimes life forces us to taste this experience, but we can always choose to school ourselves by snacking on it a little more. Hell, give it a try. Becoming intimate with your own death might just save your life.

References

Koestenbaum, P. (1964). The Vitality of Death. Journal of Exisistentialism, 5, 139-166.

~Wolf

Reality REALLY Bites

2010-03-04T23:48:00.007-05:00

Just another day at the office at the WWE, which bears great responsibility for the scourge of reality television.

Ah, the realm of movable printed (or virtual) type. The blogosphere. The only place other than (insert government bureaucracy here) where everyone is so right and so wrong at the same time. It’s great to be here on Inebriated Discourse.com with my buddies Max and Wolf. I really appreciated the introduction I got from Max for my first submission. It felt like a strong endorsement, although not the ideal intro I was hoping for. I’ve always wanted my introduction to be scripted by Vince McMahon. Say some jackass on a rival “I write while I’m baked” blog starts ripping free speech or wants to end women’s suffrage. He’ll be talking all this shit on YouTube or something, then out of nowhere I come flying in and deck him over the head with the ring bell! Jim Ross would be screaming, “Good God Almighty! Who the hell is this?! This is a HEINOUS attack!” I’d drop a Hogan leg drop across his chest and my music would start playing while everyone went nuts in their cubicles and dorm rooms. I’ve still got the styrofoam Intercontinental Championship belt from like 1992. Don’t think I won’t bust that thing out.

My whole WWF fantasy got me thinking about how much “sports entertainment” has impacted my life. I still call it WWF too, because WWE still doesn‘t sound right. I had mentioned I still have some paraphernalia, and I still watch from time to time when there’s nothing else on. It’s nostalgic. I still occasionally pretend to kick my buddies in the gut and give them Stone Cold Stunners. I had Million Dollar Man Ted DiBiase’s entrance theme as my ringtone for awhile. In the 90’s I used to follow this shit religiously. People called it a “soap opera for men.” Essentially it was, but there’s a much better analogy that led me to realize that something I’d loved may be the inspiration to the current bane of my existence. WWF is responsible for awful reality television.

Now, by awful reality television I mean all reality television. I am, however, excluding Deadliest Catch and Ice Road Truckers because they contain little if any douchebaggery and are somewhat educational, therefore making them almost anti-reality TV. Reality shows are actually manufactured to eliminate previously attained knowledge. It’s like chomping ten Klonopins; your mind is being obliterated. I finally understand how my mom felt when she would catch me leaping off the back of the couch to drop an elbow on my Bret Hart Wrestling Buddy. The only thought entering my mind when VH1 is on is, “How can you watch this shit?”

These two entities rope their fans in with the same simple element: conflict. While pro wrestling lures in teenage males with violence, borderline profanity and scantily-clad women, reality shows will hook their female counterparts with chicks yelling at each other, talking about their feelings, crying on the phone with their head in their hands, and faggy blowouts wearing headbands and tight-ass, sleeveless shirts from Express For Men. You can’t blame them for trying to roll everything their main demographic desires into a single weekly show; it just makes sense. The problem is, there are only two wrestling companies. There are like 200 shitty reality shows. Wrestling shows are on once a week, live, with the closest thing to a repeat being a recap show. Fucking Jersey Shore is on all god damn day! And if it’s not that, it’s Teen Mom, or 16 and Pregnant, or Dumb Twats Club, or True Life: I’m The Reason The World Hates America.

Cable television has been invaded by reality shows depicting supposed normal shit for certain people. If you’re looking for reality, why don’t you walk out your door and into oncoming traffic. That ought to “real” things up for you. These people aren’t acting normal, they play for the camera. Most of them are hoping for landing an acting gig or recording a cookie-cutter pop album hoping for a quick payday and their fifteen minutes. They’re not real! Why else would they have names like Snooki and The Situation? These even sound like wrestling names! It’s completely fake and all its biggest fans think its real, while outsiders question their mindset and proclaim the truth, “Why are you watching that crap, its not even real!” The fans always reply, “Yes it is! I love this show! You watch, someday, I’m gonna be the BIGGEST loser on The Biggest Loser!”

This epidemic has destroyed TV as we know it. I’m sure you’ve seen previews for new shows and pilots coming out. How many of them have you thinking, “Hey, that show looks pretty good, I could get into that.” I’m sure it’s a number between zero and….well….uhh….probably just zero. As long as these networks keep pumping out the same friggin’ show with a different name every few months, I’m going to boycott them the best way I know how. By suplexing my pillows off the coffee table and illegally downloading Rocko’s Modern Life episodes. Now that is some fucking entertainment!

- Xavier MacTavish

Become An Ordained Minister Today!

2010-03-03T23:01:00.017-05:00

I, Wolfgang Spitzer, have just been ordained a minister through the Universal Life Church. My new status as a reverend is something I plan to take very seriously. This means that I will now be available to perform such sacred rites as marriage, baptisms, and funeral services. Hell, I will even do exorcisms if the price is right. I encourage all readers of this post to follow suit by becoming an ordained minister today. You are literally just one click away from being granted the same official status as those who have spent countless years studying useless religious dogma. And why shouldn’t you be a reverend? Give me one good reason.

Here is a quote from my new church’s website:

"The Universal Life Church believes that all faiths are best served by the freedom and choice to become ordained online. This includes the freedom to perform weddings, baptisms or funerals for friends and family, regardless of your spiritual or religious denomination. We believe that you have the right to worship your God without intolerance or antiquated religious dogma."

I will just go ahead and assume that the church’s stated belief in the individual’s “right to worship" any personal understanding of god must also include the right not to worship a god, which means that atheists should be worthy of reverend status as well. Does the idea of an atheist reverend seem like too much of an oxymoron for you? I can already foresee the skepticism of my hardcore atheist brethren out there. They may something like: “But Wolfgang, I am wary of aligning myself with any institution that calls itself a church or a religion.” Well, get the fuck over it. Just think of how fun it could be to remove your “official” ministerial business card from your wallet the next time you find yourself in a heated religious debate with a firm believer.

Seriously though, if enough people choose to become ordained this way, and at least pretend to take their new role seriously, the title of reverend may eventually become completely meaningless. And that is one goal I am happy to work towards.

Signed,

Rev. Wolfgang Spitzer

Islamic Theocrackpots At It Again

2010-03-02T23:11:00.015-05:00

You’ll have to kill me first.

The latest Islam-inspired violence can be found in southern India, where on Tuesday a mob of Muslims (not pictured) rioted “because a local newspaper published what it said was an article by controversial Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasrin challenging the traditional Muslim veil as curbing women's freedom.”

Oh the humanity.

Muslims vandalized shops and smashed automobiles, displaying their “religion of peace” for all to see. Two people have died, one of which was shot by police. Although a quasi-democracy, India occasionally curtails freedom of speech to ensure that Muslims do not have to learn to tolerate those who wish to criticize their wretched religion:

Nasrin’s work has sparked trouble in India in the past.

She fled Bangladesh for the first time in 1994 when a court said she had “deliberately and maliciously” hurt Muslims’ religious feelings with her Bengali-language novel “Lajja”, or “Shame”, which is about riots between Muslims and Hindus.

Reuters

Oh the irony.

These riots come less than two months after the bombing of Catholic churches in Malaysia by similarly offended Muslims, and less than a month after

Malaysian authorities...caned four Muslim men and, for the first time, three Muslim women this month after being found guilty of having sex out of wedlock.

The move to cane the women under the country’s Islamic Shariah laws has raised fresh concerns about the growing political and judicial influence of Islam in what traditionally has been one of the world’s more moderate Muslim nations.

The vibrant, resource-rich country came under intense international scrutiny last year after a Shariah court sentenced 32-year-old Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno to be caned after she was caught drinking beer in a hotel bar.

The Wall Street Journal

This is what we are up against. And I do not mean “we” as in “Americans.” I’m talking about those of us who are anti-theism, pro-liberty, pro-beer-drinking, anti-caning, and pro-fucking, both in, and out of, wedlock. Islam is a disgrace and ought to be rejected outright by every decent person. While I am aware that most Muslims do not commit violence, the book on which their faith is based teaches that women are inferior and may be struck, that apostates must be slain, and that war must be made upon infidels. Thankfully, most Muslims do not abide by these horrendous commands, which begs the question, why do they continue to identify with a religion to which they are morally superior?

Perhaps another question for another time. Suffice it to say, there are millions if not billions of people around the world who are better than the religions they practice and preach. The problem for unbelievers isn’t so much about getting theists to become less superstitious, but about getting them to realize this simple point: that the “great” religions of our day are relics from antiquity, grounded in bigotry and ignorance, and collectively represent one of the more shameful chapters in human history.

When will we turn the page on religion?

- Max

Readers Take Exception To Sports-Related Canada-Bashing, Need Lives And A Lesson On Sarcasm.

2010-03-01T16:34:00.020-05:00

“Waaa. Waaa. You insulted Canada.” - Some politically correct non-Canadian.

Last night, I posted a bit of raillery on this site under the title, “Fuck Canada.” (I have since changed the title to “Fucking Eh!” because I think it’s more apt.) The post was in response to the US-Canada men’s gold medal hockey game, which the US lost in a heartbreaker 3-2. Both sides played impassioned hockey and it was a great game to watch.

Unfortunately, several people—all non-Canadians—did not appreciate my post, which merely consisted of the following paragraph, and a Family Guy clip in which Peter Griffin says, “Canada sucks.”

Well, those filthy Canadians escaped with a squeaker over the U.S. today in the gold medal hockey game. That means the head-to-head is 1-1, but given the fucked up nature of the Olympic tournament, the Canadians win outright, despite being outscored 7-6 in a two game split. Take it away, Peter...

And then something happened. By the time I woke up this morning, several people had commented on the Facebook page. Here’s a sampling:

Nice, you just lost your credibility.

And,

oh Dude....your opening sentence is so ugly...you just freaing [sic] lost me......That's just not right!! Canada, those kids, those Athletes......are amazing......stay in politics where it is slimy...don't mess with the kids who worked so hard and deserve our absolute appreciation...........all countires [sic].....

And,

And your typical American hatred finally comes out. Too bad, agreed with the others, reputation just went down the shitter.

To which I replied,

People are so funny and thin-skinned. Does anyone honestly think I have anything against Canada outside of this hockey game?

Stephen, your comment is probably the most absurd. Tell me, what is "typical American hatred?" All I said was "Fuck Canada" because they won a hockey game. That was the extent of my "critique." But here you come talking about "typical American hatred." What I said was boorish, but clearly you have real issues with "typical" Americans that you feel necessary to lump together into a negative stereotype characterized by a hateful nature. If I were an American version of you, I'd say you're engaging in typical British snobbery. But because I'm not like you, I don't believe in such things and so I'm not going to say that.

Get over yourselves. All of you.

Then came,

Well congratulations, you just lost a fan. How about thinking about the bile you spew before you commit it to your blog? Take a moment to consider how you come across to people who are not privy to your personal thoughts if you wish to escape the judgement you so vehemently fight. Just a thought.

And,

You never just said "Fuck Canada", if you did I could see you were just slating harmlessly like millions do over other sports. But you took it a step further with the actual content of the blog post. Humour and sarcasm didn't exactly come across in your words.

I can’t believe this is necessary, but it looks like some of you need a lesson in sarcasm/satire/humor.

First off, I will admit that it can be difficult to discern a person’s tone when reading his written words. However, when reading this site (or any other), there are certain cues one should look out for. Let’s start with the (original) title, “Fuck Canada.” Given what the average reader of this site knows about Canada, said reader ought to be struck by the strangeness of such a remark. After all, Canada is a very peaceful country that has a wealth of natural beauty. Relatively speaking, as a nation, Canada has a rather uncheckered past. Prima facie, there seems to be nothing about Canada that would justify such an assertion. So at this point the reader ought to be thinking, “What an odd and perhaps vulgar thing to say” before reading on to see the writer’s justification for his statement.

At which point the reader would read,

Well, those filthy Canadians escaped with a squeaker over the U.S. today in the gold medal hockey game.

“Aha,” the reader should say to himself. “I see that this is about sports, and therefore likely not a serious commentary because sports—though fun—are relatively trivial. I also gather that this is being written by a disenchanted US hockey fan who is frustrated with the outcome of the game.”

Also, some of you have intimated that the phrase “filthy Canadians” is wildly offensive. Really? I mean, I could see if I had said “filthy Mexicans” or “filthy Arabs,” why that would be bad because those expressions have indeed been used by disgusting racists. But “filthy Canadians”? I do not know where you live, dear reader, but let me tell you something about Canada coming from someone who lives in Boston. While we here in the Northeast fully recognize Canadian sovereignty, the fact is, we tend to view Canadians as our international cousins. For my money, when someone says, “I’m from Canada,” to us in the Northeast, it’s not all that different from someone saying, “I’m from Vermont.” It’s not like there’s a huge cultural or ideological gap between the Northeastern United States and Canada. So really, in essence, the phrase, “filthy Canadians” carries the exact same connotation as “filthy Vermonters.” It’s ridiculous terminology, and should automatically convey to any quasi-astute reader that this remark is not at all serious and is meant in jest.

Lastly, the coup de grâce of my post:

That’s right, several people read my words about “filthy Canadians” followed by a clip of Peter Griffin saying, “Canada sucks,” and subsequently reacted as if this were the biggest international insult since the XYZ Affair.

People need to lighten up. I find it telling that none of the complainers are from Canada. They’re from the UK and the non-northeastern United States. And they’re being a bunch of drama queens. But I assure you, Canada will survive with or without these finicky protestations.

- Max

Fucking Eh!

2010-02-28T22:30:00.004-05:00

Will All The Real Fascists Please Stand Up?

2010-02-25T09:39:00.016-05:00

The Führer 2.0

The fact that a despicable man like Adolf Hitler was able to brainwash the majority of the German populace into buying his twisted worldview is a fact that still seems unbelievable over 70 years later. An analysis of the unique political and social factors present in Germany at the time is not sufficient to explain how the masses were so vulnerable to Hitler’s advances. For that we must also take psychological factors into account. Research suggests that there is a certain type of character structure, called the authoritarian personality, which makes one particularly prone to being submissive to authority. If it were not for the prevalence of this type of character in Nazi Germany, Hitler may never have assumed power in the first place. This is the same type of personality that we see displayed in many conservatives today. In contemporary American politics, the influence of this personality type wreaks untold havoc, effectively acting as a silent killer of democratic progress.

The authoritarian personality was first studied shortly after WWII in the early 1950’s by psychologists at UC Berkley. These researchers found that the authoritarian personality typically consisted of nine specific character traits: conventionalism, authoritarian submission, authoritarian aggression, anti-intraception (desire for status quo), superstition and stereotypy, power and ‘toughness,’ destructiveness and cynicism, projectivity, and exaggerated concerns over sexuality (sexual repression).” Although the validity of some of these specific traits have been debated over the years (i.e., they have not all been found to correlate highly with each other), it is now well accepted that authoritarians are generally people “who readily submit to the established authorities in society, attack others in their name, and are highly conventional.” The parallel here with extreme right-wingers in this country should be clear enough. An ironic example of authoritarian “conservatives” can be witnessed in the fans of Glenn Beck (i.e., the Obama is Hitler crowd); these folks represent a perfect example of potential Nazis in training. If cultural and political forces were tweaked in the right way, these are the characters that would jump at the opportunity to be cogs in the machine of any fascist dictator.

Many liberals assume that a lack of intelligence is primarily to blame for the conservative or authoritarian proneness to self-imposed slavery. The question is: what specific aspect of intelligence do they lack? Because there are many different facets of intelligence, there are no doubt plenty of half-retarded conservatives that can nonetheless display any amount of competency within various areas of expertise. Where conservatives do show evidence of mild to severe mental retardation, however, is in their lack of critical thinking skills and inability to tolerate ambiguity (i.e., creative problem solving). In other words, they tend to think in absolutistic, black and white terms. This closed-minded way of approaching the world makes the authoritarian character prone to things like excessive religiosity and/or patriotism. The common denominator for these conservatives is the excessive drive to submit to a grand authority figure. Questions of morals, for example, are either perceived to be absolutely dictated by the laws of men or by an almighty god; in either case, there is always an ultimate authority figure that dictates right from wrong. It is this lack of tolerance for ambiguity and the concomitant lack of self agency that makes many a conservative comparable to a childish thumb-sucker in constant need of a father figure to control their every whim. This, my friends, is real stupidity. And this is conservatism in the good old US of A.

It seems to me that the authoritarian’s inability to tolerate ambiguity (anti-intraception) is the most damaging character trait of all. This marked discomfort with uncertainty is what drives conservatives to cowardly strive for maintaining the status-quo, which to them is comfortable because it seems objective and real. Holding onto the status-quo negates the “need to seek subjective thought or imaginative resolution to problems. The solution is thought to be written somewhere in the policies and rules of the organization; if not the authoritarian can turn to a higher authority such as a superstition or myth. If the solution is not written, it is the job of the authority to decide, not the submissive.” It is this masochistic submission of will prompted by the fear of uncertainty that spawns virtually all of the other traits of the poisonous authoritarian/conservative personality.

The conservative mind’s special proneness to fearing uncertainty is also supported by an abundance of evidence suggesting that conservative ideologies serve to allay fears of death. By submitting their will to authorities, these characters can effectively bypass the experience of being alone in an uncertain and dangerous world. In effect, the drive toward conservatism can be boiled down to representing a defense against these basic existential fears. Of course, these are fears that every one of us grapples with just by virtue of being a fragile human being destined to be devoured by meal worms. Conservatives, however, represent the extreme end of this fear spectrum; they are the most fearful and cowardly among us. A horrendous example of a state ruled by such fear was witnessed in Nazi Germany. If it were not for those of us on the opposite end of the fear spectrum (e.g., progressives) to buffer the power of these cowardly conservative souls, we would all surely be fucked.

Franklin Deleano Roosevelt once said: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” In a sense, this is certainly a wise and true statement, for it is fear that spawns most of the evil perpetrated by our species. But fear itself only wreaks havoc when it is manifested by the human animal, so perhaps progressives should embrace and accept a healthy fear of those authoritarians among us who unknowingly have too much of it. Maybe we should start to get more paranoid à la Glenn Beck and find some charismatic personalities to go around ranting on popular news shows about the scourge of conservatism that is attempting to ruin our fine country. Only instead of pretending to be an academic by writing on a chalkboard and drawing insanely illogical conclusions in order to spread fear, the progressive paranoid could be a real academic that rants about the actual evidence which suggests that conservatives truly are the cancer eating away at our society.

So go out there and be afraid. Be very afraid. (Beck starts 1:00 in.)

Note

In this essay I have taken liberties with the use of generalization. Not all “conservatives” can be said to have authoritarian personalities. In fact, what I would consider real conservatives (e.g., Ron Paul) can often display the polar opposite traits of the authoritarian. The ones I am referring to are mostly those on the more extreme end of the social conservative spectrum (e.g., people who habitually watch Fox News, religious fundamentalists, George W Bush fetishists, etc). Furthermore, the fact that those with authoritarian personalities happen to exist primarily within the conservative and Republican camps in this country is not to say that these types always fall to the “right” of the political spectrum. Historically, authoritarian types have just as easily been swayed by Stalin’s brand of communism, for example. So yes, super “lefty” communists with authoritarian personalities can also be authority-humping assclowns. Again, it is the unique combination of contemporary social and political forces in this country that make these types gravitate towards the Grand Old Party.

~Wolf

White House Inexplicably Lets Lieberman Soak Up DADT Repeal Glory

2010-02-24T00:28:00.011-05:00

The face of douchebaggery

Independent Senator Joe Lieberman, long the bane of the left, is now taking the lead on a cornerstone Democratic issue: don't ask, don't tell. At the White House's request, Lieberman will sponsor Senate legislation to repeal the policy, which bans gay men and women from openly serving in the military and which Lieberman has long opposed. Liberals, wary of trusting Lieberman with a pet issue, are skeptical of his involvement and are asking why the White House would let him reap the glory.

Atlantic Wire

Boy, Barack Obama sure does have a funny way of dealing with recalcitrant legislators. I mean, Joe Lieberman has been nothing but one big pain in the ass for his administration, (a party he once belonged to but quit after he got his ass kicked in the 2006 primary, and ended up winning the general election as an Independent). He single-handedly killed the public option. He killed the Medicare buy-in. He campaigned for John McCain and Sarah Palin for shit’s sake. And yet, Barack Obama has asked Lieberman to sponsor a bill that would repeal the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy on sexual orientation, whose repeal is a fait accompli at this point. So the White House, advised by Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mike Mullen, just blasted a 320 yard drive that rolled up to within six inches of the cup and said, “Go ahead, Joe. Tap it in.” And to top it off, Lieberman opposes gay marriage. So it’s not even like he’s some great champion of gay rights.

If Obama were an actual progressive, he wouldn’t give Joe Lieberman the time of day. But the fact that the White House asks Lieberman to take the initiative on this shows just how unserious Barack Obama’s request for a public health insurance option was. I mean, think about it. If you’re the president and you truly believe that having a public option available would do millions of Americans a great service and maybe even save lives, and then Senator Droopy Dog who campaigned for your opponent comes out and says that as the potential sixtieth vote for a cloture resolution he couldn’t vote for something he actually once supported, how rip-roaring bullshit would you be?

But Barack Obama is going to let Joe soak up a lot of the glory on the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell repeal. The reason why is beyond me. It may be beyond everyone. Lieberman has walked all over Obama and yet gets to sponsor slam-dunk legislation and keep his committee chairmanship.

Obama has shown himself to be an inept, uninspired, uninspiring, run-of-the-mill, lackluster politician and president. Legislative treason doesn’t always have to be met with punishment, but Jesus Christ, don’t ever reward it. Even George W. Bush knew that much.

- Max

God Is For Thumbsuckers

2010-02-23T13:20:00.005-05:00

There may be nothing in the world more infantile than believing that one’s existence is the result of the workings of a paternalistic supernatural deity who watches over us all. If the prevalence of belief in god and religiosity in a country is any indication of its population’s maturation level, then the United States is a fetus.

Recently an incredibly disturbing poll was published indicating that 79% of Americans believe in miracles, 68% believe in the existence of angels and demons, and only 40% accept Darwinian evolution.

I am speechless. I am without speech. Thankfully, George Carlin is not (even though he’s dead).

- Max

Faux Conservatives Diss Ron Paul

2010-02-21T15:21:00.019-05:00

Disliked and mocked by many so-called conservatives, Congressman Ron Paul (R - Texas) is probably the closest thing to a conservative in Washington.

Take a look at the following clip from Fox “News” reporting the results of this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference straw poll. The winner was Ron Paul, which for Fox was the wrong result. Watch as they try to explain away Paul’s nine point first place finish last week over golden boy Mitt Romney.

This sorry-ass report tells you all you need to know about Fox “News.” Notice how the reporter tried to downplay Paul’s victory by saying that attendees weren’t just handed a ballot, but rather they had to go out of their way to booths in order to vote at the convention. In other words, Paul’s supporters are dedicated and they really believe in their guy. What does this episode say for the support for Mitt Romney or Sarah Palin or Tim Pawlenty? It says that maybe they don’t have too many supporters who are excited enough about their potential candidate to vote for self-serving, made-for-TV professional politicians.

Can you guess what the CPAC crowd’s reaction was when the results of the poll were announced? They booed loud enough to drown out the Paul supporters That’s pretty amazing considering that Ron Paul is arguably the most principled Republican in Congress. Unlike the phonies who comprise the GOP, there is no gap between what he says and how he votes. Personally I agree with Paul’s warnings about our interventionist policies in international affairs. I agree with him about the need to protect personal liberty. But we are at opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to the economy. Paul wants government out of the markets as much as possible, which I think will pave the way for a tyrannical takeover of America by big business. Obviously he would dispute this conclusion, but given the dysfunctional nature of American democracy, we are ripe for corporate picking.

Having said this, I admire Ron Paul for his consistency and willingness to stick to his principles, even when it is politically unpopular. And in the modern Republican Party, antiquated ideas such as personal liberty and retrenching our hegemonic ways in international relations are very unpopular. That’s because the GOP of today advocates a mild form of fascism characterized by extreme patriotism which is used to launch wars of choice to secure American (elites’) economic interests. It also seeks to foster an ever cozier relationship between corporations and the government (which Democrats also advocate), and also a gradual erosion of individual freedom via legislation such as the PATRIOT Act, as well as through debt slavery which has a very limiting effect on personal liberty.

Republican bigwigs would prefer that Ron Paul didn’t exist for the simple fact that he makes them look bad. If any one of the 200 plus Republican lawmakers in Congress can claim to be against “big government,” it’s Ron Paul. I find it absolutely hilarious that the CPAC attendees were cheering guest speaker Dick Cheney whose administration exploded the national debt and funneled billions if not trillions of taxpayer dollars into the big banks to bail their sorry under-regulated asses out. But what do you expect? The CPAC people are full of shit. All of them. Well, most of them anyway. How else can you explain their mindless applauses for people such as Cheney, and former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, who helped the Bush administration dig America into a giant hole? The same goes for Newt Gingrich. When he was Speaker of the House, Gingrich’s district was one of the biggest recipients of federal money (pork) in the country. So yeah, Newt said he wanted to reduce federal spending, but not on Cobb County, Georgia where Lockheed-Martin just happened to be the largest employer. Although the Lockheed plant there wasn’t actually in Gingrich’s district, thousands of his constituents were nonetheless employed there. As such, Gingrich helped secure a $503 million government contract with Lockheed to build nine C130-J transport planes that the Air Force said it didn’t need. I don’t remember reading that in the Contract with America.

This is American conservatism at work. Ronald Reagan, for which many conservatives have an almost neurotic fetish, has achieved a mythical status as a slayer of big government in defiance of what he actually did as president. But in order for Republicans to run against “big government,” they need to rewrite recent history in order to portray their party as one of small government. But that’s bullshit, and as soon as they’re in power they show just how full of it they were on the campaign trail. And the sad thing is, the people who voted for them never call them on it. The fact that the teabaggers came into existence the month following Barack Obama’s inauguration speaks volumes about their motivations. Indeed, if a Republican became president today, the majority of teabaggers would go away for the rest of the administration no matter what the new president did or how much he spent from here on in. Sure they’d keep their organizations and websites, but as for the mass protests against nonexistent tax hikes, kiss those goodbye. And if you think I’m wrong, you’re only kidding yourself.

- Max Canning

Appendix

As these charts clearly indicate, Republican presidents have done more to increase the size of government than Democrats.

Gross debt as a percentage of GDP

From the FY 2009 Government budget. Upper chart shows national debt in trillions of dollars. Lower chart shows national debt as percentage of GDP. Both are overlaid with party affiliation. Red = Republican president, Blue = Democratic president.

Charts courtesy of Wikipedia.

The Stoic Psychologist

2010-02-17T17:54:00.006-05:00

The following is an interview that I (Wolfgang) conducted in 2005 with the late psychotherapy pioneer, Albert Ellis. He is widely considered one of the three most influential psychologists of all time and was one of the founders of the now tremendously popular Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. His own particular brand of therapy is called Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy (REBT).

W: In “Sex Without Guilt,” you discuss the various reasons why Americans seem to be the most neurotic culture when it comes to sex. Although much has changed since 1966 when that book was published, sex education classes have remained similar, in that the emphasis is put on the dangers of sex without paying attention to the benefits. Could you briefly explain some changes that you would like to see implemented in sex education courses?

AE: The main thing is to tell the truth, to show them (youths) that sex has its dangers as everything does but that they can have a great deal of satisfaction and pleasure in intercourse, or in petting or anything, without the dangers. Therefore, they can enjoy it freely.

W: How, if at all can REBT help individuals with acute psychoses (e.g. schizophrenia)? For example, could a psychotic person use REBT to become significantly less disturbed by a hallucination?

AE: Normally psychosis is a matter of biology, so that they are born and raised disturbed and they are not going to change very much. You’re not going to talk them out of some of the schizophrenic ideas. So, you teach them, as we teach everybody, USA (Unconditional Self Acceptance). This teaches to accept yourself with your psychosis; to know that it is a handicap; to know that many people will criticize you for being psychotic, but still say I’m OK just because I am alive even though I have schizophrenia and am seriously disturbed. Then you’ll be able to not live as happy a life as other people, but you can still lead a quite happy life.

W: How do you define a vitally absorbing interest, and in your opinion, what degree of importance does having one play in your own mental health.

AE: Well, a vital absorbing interest means you pick something (art, science, music, etc) and you thoroughly get devoted to it, not obsessively or compulsively but thoroughly. You enjoy it just because you like it and you keep at it very often for the rest of your life. So, it helps distract you from all kinds of problems, but it gives you a meaning and a purpose. Your vital absorbing interest becomes a purpose and therefore it adds considerably to your life while other people without it don’t have as enjoyable of a time. You grow with it just because you’re absorbed in it and like it very much.

W: It is of my opinion that if the basic tenets and practices of REBT were preached nearly as much as that of the Bible, the world would be a much better place, or would at least be showing signs of significant improvement. That being said: Why has the public not substantially caught on to this rational and effective philosophy and therapy, and what steps would you like to see support this end in the future?

AE: Well, the Bible has some very good points such as the concept of accepting the sinner but not the sin, or as REBT calls it, Unconditional Other Acceptance. But, the Bible also has some pretty poor points. You damn people, you punish them, you send them into hell, etc. So therefore, I am naturally prejudice because I’m a nonbeliever, and I believe that people would be very much better off with the Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy than with the big biblical philosophy. I would like to see it tried, but I can be pretty sure that they wouldn’t be guilty, they wouldn’t be depressed, they wouldn’t be angry at other people, and they would be self accepting with the REBT philosophy. They might get some of that in the Bible, but they might not.

W: And what steps would you like to see taken to promote REBT in the future?

AE: I would like to see REBT taught in the school system, public and private from kindergarten or preschool on I would teach children Unconditional Self Acceptance (I can accept myself just because I’m alive), Unconditional Other Acceptance (I never hate other people, I just hate some of the things they do) and Unconditional Life Acceptance (The world is pretty rotten in many respects, but it’s not awful and horrible and I can still get a great deal of satisfaction out of it). Now, if every single child was taught that from preschool onward, they wouldn’t all get it, but a great many would get it and lead quite happy lives. They would lead much happier lives than they are presently, where they depress themselves with all kinds of anxiety, depression and horror.

W: In the past, your colorful use of profanity has certainly turned many people off. How would you respond to the notion that a professional-- certainly one of your stature-- should refrain from the use of foul language?

AE: Well, if they want to refrain let them refrain. I don’t force anybody to use my language and I don’t use it all of the time with everyone. But, I do use it with a great many people who know that I think it will do a lot of good. It is very direct, very honest, very frank, and people can see that there is no bullshit about it. Therefore, most people, much of the time, take to it and I think that anything a professional does that gets people to understand him/her and to get across to them better is beneficial. Therefore, I help people with my language and with other things such as writing that doesn’t have the language.

W: Why do humans seem to have considerable difficulty accepting the ultimate uncertainty of all the major philosophical and theological questions? Why is faith in an unfounded belief such a driving force in many peoples’ lives?

AE: Because people think they have to be safe, safe, safe, and if they had certainty then they would know everything and they would be safe. So they say: "I’d like some degree of certainty, security, or safety." That’s OK. But then they say: "I need absolute certainty all times under all conditions," and that’s impossible for anybody to have. So, by needing absolute certainty, they actually make themselves unsafe and follow all kinds of crappy ideas. So, we teach them that there is really no certainty because anything can change all the time. Therefore, you try to get a high degree of probability without needing certainty and then you do yourself pretty good.

W: In the interview cited in “The Road To Tolerance,” you stated that you have not had a miserable day since you created REBT in 1955. Has this remarkable streak continued up to the present day?

AE: Yes, I have unhappy days in the sense that something unfortunate happens. People sometimes object to me, fight me, or do me in actually. I don’t like that so I feel very sad, frustrated and annoyed. But I never, practically ever feel depressed, raging, or self hating. So in the sense of the usual major disturbances, I am not deliriously happy but I am not very unhappy either.

W: Also, please briefly explain your recent surgery and how you refrained from terribly upsetting yourself about it.

AE: Well, I had diarrhea and intestinal problems for about a year and it didn’t do me any good. But one day, when Debbie (his wife) fortunately was here, we called a doctor in on a Sunday and she didn’t think it was so bad until I started bleeding. So they got me to the hospital and within an hour or two they said I really needed to have an operation. So I said: "too bad, tough shit. Do it." So they performed the operation and I was in the hospital for the next several days unable to do very much and she (Debbie) slept over in the hospital and really took care of me and saved me from the nurses. After I got over it, I couldn’t travel very much because I had to have two nurses with me all the time. So that was a pain in the ass, but I was able to take it and do the best I could under difficult conditions and only again make myself healthfully sorry and regretful. I wish it hadn’t happened but it did. Too damn bad! So I still go on with life.

DJ: When you said I was protecting you from the nurses I think you mean from their neglect.

AE: That’s right.

DJ: He’s diabetic and they weren’t checking his blood often enough for the sugar level and he fell into a coma. He was so amazing. Within days of the major surgery after having his entire colon removed, he forced himself to write a little bit every day even though he was weak. Since then, he has written about six books.

W: One behavioral technique that is used in REBT is the shame attacking exercise. Could you provide an example of this experience as used in therapy?

AE: Well I invented it years ago when I was ashamed of doing things foolishly and getting rejected. I thought I was silly from a philosophical standpoint because if they reject me their not going to cut my balls off and their not going to shoot me. But, I didn’t get over it. So I deliberately did these things that I was ashamed to do because shame means self-downing. For example, I made myself go to cafeterias and ask for the check without having ordered anything. I also invented many other ironic ones where I instruct a male client to go to a drugstore and say: “I would like a gross of small condoms so they won’t fall off,” and help him not to feel ashamed afterward. I would have another client go up to a stranger on the street and say: “I just got out of the loony bin. What month is it?” and not feel ashamed. When they do these exercises and have the philosophy that: I do stupid things, but I am not a rotten shameful person, then they lose their anxiety and their depression and they function much better.

W: If you had to estimate, what percentage of people, if any, can cure themselves of a substantial neurosis (i.e. anxiety or depression), simply by reading and familiarizing themselves with the philosophy and practices of REBT without the use of a therapist?

AE: Well I believe that 90-100% can do it but they don’t because it’s too hard and they don’t follow it through. For instance, without a therapist’s support they might give themselves homework but not follow through with it. It is very hard to do given that the human condition is to be rather disturbed or neurotic. So, without a therapist, most of them can get somewhat better, but not as much better as they could get if they really forcefully, emotionally, vigorously and actively kept using the stuff in my self help books.

W: It seems to me that in today’s global situation, the various social evils that you name as intolerance, bigotry, absolutism, rigidity and fanaticism are still reigning supreme. Given that these social evils do not seem to be on the decline in today’s increasingly nuclear age; do you tend to hold an optimistic or pessimistic view of the fate of mankind?

AE: Well if we just let things go as they are right now I would be pessimistic. But, as I have said before, if we teach little children, adolescents and adults in businesses and organizations, even in the churches, the principles and practices of REBT, then I would take a very optimistic view. I would say that it would take a long time to reap the benefits and they will not all get it, but some will get it and teach others. The teachers will be able to teach the children and then the children will be able to teach the teachers. So in the long run I take an optimistic view if USA, UOA and ULA, which are taught in REBT, can be taught to practically everyone and will finally prevail.

W: If someone in the future were to publish a book called: “The Gospel According to St. Albert,” would you approve of or reject this title?

AE: Well, I would approve it because it is a humorous title. But I am not a saint. There is no St. Albert. I don’t think there is a St. anything. None of us are saints, but we are also not devils. We are fallible, screwed up humans who can un-saintly fight the nonsense that we are born with and that we learn, and get better and better and better.

W: In your writings, you blame many of society’s ills on the various types of fascists: including political, intellectual and sexual fascists. Briefly explain what you mean by intellectual fascists. Is there any particular place where these characters are usually found (e.g. academia)?

AE: Well an intellectual fascist not only puts others down, but puts him or herself up by being bright, attractive, informing, etc. So they say: “I’m a good person because I am so bright and capable,” and “You are a bad person because you’re not.” Therefore, whenever you act stupidly, I make you into a stupid person, and whenever you act incompetently, which at times you will, you are a totally incompetent person. So they culturally and actually use intellectual means of putting other people down for not being bright enough or talented enough. This is still a form of fascism or self downing and I call it intellectual fascism.

W: Well, I think that is about all the questions I have for you. Thank you so much for your time.

AE: It was my pleasure. I really enjoyed your questions. They made for a fun interview.

RIP Dr. Ellis

~Wolf

Open Letter To The Democratic Party

2010-02-16T10:40:00.012-05:00

Dear Democrats:

My name is Max Canning and I am a registered Independent. Although I usually avoid labeling myself, I can tell you that I’m on the progressive end of the political spectrum, if that helps you understand where I’m coming from.

On January 20, 2009, I was one of the two million people standing in the cold on the Mall in Washington D.C. for Barack Obama’s inauguration. On that day, my rank cynicism about American politics was tempered somewhat by the site of a black man from a modest background saying encouraging things about where he wanted to take the country after eight years of national misery and disgrace. And for one of the few times in my life, I was optimistic—albeit cautiously—about an elected official.

But now almost thirteen months later, my cynicism has returned tenfold. I don’t know how it happened, but you have managed to squander a clear mandate from the American people who gave you the White House and huge majorities in the House and the Senate, which, to remind you, are all you need in order to pass laws. For some reason, the Republicans continue to thoroughly kick your asses up and down the aisles and halls of the Capitol Building, in the media, in public forums, and any other place where it’s possible to get your asses kicked. Your performances in the policy and rhetorical arenas have been so weak, so unimpassioned, so mind-bogglingly pathetic, that I am ashamed to think I once believed that the Democratic Party could possibly bring about some real, positive changes for the majority of Americans who have been smashed by thirty years of deregulatory neoliberal economic policies.

Speaking of which, where is your banking reform legislation? I seem to remember Obama blowing a lot of hot air on the campaign trail and even in the early days of his presidency about how we needed serious banking reform:

When you see more and more of the financial sector basically churning transactions and engaging in reckless speculation and obscuring underlying risks in a way that makes a few people obscene amounts of money but doesn't add value to the economy—and in fact puts the entire economy at enormous risk—then something’s got to change.

President Obama

January 21, 2009

When the Democrats took the White House and expanded their majorities in Congress last year, the country was in the midst of economic nosedive brought on by the unbridled recklessness and greed of tunnel-visioned Wall Street oligarchs. Not surprisingly, most Americans were calling for their heads, especially after the banks received what is at this point, trillions of dollars in taxpayer money. Not since Franklin Roosevelt did a president have such a golden opportunity to pass serious economic reforms. The “too big to fail” problem had (and still needs) to be remedied. Over-the-counter derivates were (and still are) in desperate need of regulation. I imagine that if you really, truly wanted to, you could have rammed through all kinds of reforms designed to rectify these and other glaring problems with the gargantuan financial services sector. And yet over one year later, the Senate is still bickering about the details, including the “controversial” proposal to regulate the $450 trillion OTC derivates market. Republicans are leery of the idea, and representatives from the financial services industry are lobbying members of congress on both sides to keep the legislation as toothless as possible. For some strange reason I think they might succeed.

Then there is your effort to reform health care. What an unbelievable train-wreck that has been. Up until 2009, polls regularly showed that a majority of Americans wanted a single-payer, European-style, Medicare-for-all, national health insurance system. But not anymore. You have been on the defensive on this issue since day one. You have been getting your clocks cleaned as usual in the public debate by people advancing some of the craziest talking points ever to be offered in a policy discussion. Inexplicably, the issue of single-payer was never on the table. You never even considered it. If you had, you could’ve started with single-payer in the negotiations—even if you didn’t actually want that—in order to strike an eventual compromise at a public option. Instead, you started with a public option, and surprise, surprise, that’s been purged from the legislation thanks in part to your allowing Joe Lieberman and his spiteful ego to hold the entire party hostage. Pardon me for asking, but why is this man still the chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee? After all, this is the person most responsible for the death of the public option and the Medicare buy-in extension to people fifty-five and older. He also campaigned for John McCain against Barack Obama. What does this man have to do to get stripped of his chairmanship? Or are you just going to let him continue to run your party through the ringer whenever he feels like it without any repercussions whatsoever?

By the way, why is there no provision in any of the bills currently under consideration that allows the government to negotiate Medicare drug prices with pharmaceutical companies? Also, why is there is no provision that allows Americans to re-import cheaper drugs from other countries? Oh that’s right. Because the White House made a backroom deal with the pharmaceutical industry to oppose those measures in exchange for Big Pharma’s support and lobbying resources to pass health care reform. I’m so glad that worked out.

In case you couldn’t tell, I’m absolutely disgusted by your abysmal showing to this point. George W. Bush never had the majorities that the Democrats currently enjoy, and yet he managed to get even unpopular pieces of legislation passed. There was no concern about bipartisanship. No stopping to make sure that Democrats felt their ideas were being heard too. Just straight, cold, calculated political maneuvering in the White House and in both chambers of Congress—Democrats and the American people be damned.

All of this has reaffirmed my long-held belief that your party is simply a centrist party unwilling to go to bat for the very people who put you into office. People don’t vote for Democrats because your party has great candidates. People vote for them so they’ll stand up to the Republicans who started but could not finish two wars, spit on the Constitution of the United States, and racked up an unfathomable amount of debt during the last decade alone. Yet you haven’t delivered. While no one expected everything to reverse course in just one year, the Obama administration and congressional Democrats have been virtually invisible, which is strange considering the horrid state the country was in when Obama assumed office armed with a heavily Democratic Congress. Historically, in times of national crisis, the executive branch has taken charge with Congress to ensure that the necessary measures are enacted to deal with said crisis. But not this president and not this Congress. And it appears that your window of opportunity has closed. Not that that matters. Because in order to take advantage of an opportunity, you have to want to, and I just do not get that impression from this sorry excuse you call a political party.

You may have sensed that this was coming, but unless your party grows a set I will be staying home for the 2010 November midterm elections. You have given me no reason to vote for you whatsoever. If the best you can come up with in your defense is that you’re better than the Republicans, then that is not good enough. Not anymore. Not even close. I refuse to be a participant in this charade any longer, and I encourage my fellow progressives to do likewise. Maybe what this country really needs is the Republicans to regain control of all three branches so they can finally succeed in destroying the bottom 95% of this country by dismantling Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and implementing wonderful market-based reforms that will give this country’s corporatists even more power. That way there will be no doubt about what kinds of reforms need to take place in this country.

So even though I admit that you had me thinking that 2009 could be the start of good things to come, I can’t say I’m really surprised by any of this. I know how cozy you are with the soulless lobbyists who lurk around the capitol brandishing fistfuls of dollars to donate to your campaigns and PACs. Yes, you’re not as bad as the GOP, but that says virtually nothing about whatever real merits you may have. If this past year is any indication, I’d say you have none.

With sincerity and regret,

Max Canning

Doctor Claims To Prove Existence Of Immortal Soul

2010-02-16T00:13:00.021-05:00

Is there life after death Mommy? Of course there is you silly goose; Dr. Long said so on Bill O'Reilly’s show last night.

A massive douche has recently been making the rounds on popular news programs claiming to have proved the existence of life after death. In his new book, “Evidence of the Afterlife: The Science of Near-Death Experiences,” Dr. Jeffrey Long submits his “evidence” of the soul’s immortality, which is based solely upon a large accumulation of anecdotal reports from people that have had near-death experiences (NDEs). His research suggests that NDEs reveal fairly consistent themes across different age groups and cultures (e.g., approaching a white light, leaving one’s body, meeting a deity, revisiting long-forgotten memories, etc). Although these phenomena are certainly interesting and worthy of study, they do not in any way prove the existence of an afterlife.

Dr. Long’s wild claim that he has uncovered proof of an afterlife constitutes a shameless act of quackery. If he cared at all for the scientific method of which he was trained, he never would have dared to go public with such a bold statement. The title of his book really should be something like: Anecdotal Evidence of Afterlife-type Phenomena: The Phenomenology of Near-Death Experiences. This would be a scientifically honest title and represent an accurate assessment of the data that has been accumulated through his research. Of course, this title would not likely land his book on the bestseller list, nor would it attract the type of publicity he so obviously craves.

I suspect that Dr. Long was inclined to believe in an afterlife before he began researching near-death experiences. If this is true, then perhaps the “evidence” he has compiled serves to help him feel more secure in this belief. In any case, I think it’s clear that his primary motivation for writing this book was fame and fortune. The grandiosity inherent in his claims can also be viewed, ironically, as a herculean attempt to secure a taste of symbolic immortality. By championing himself as the first professional (official) person to “prove” the existence of life after death, Dr. Long must see himself as a renegade hero among the medical establishment. Indeed, his claims suggest that all who have ever grappled with the great spiritual mysteries of human life can breathe a collective sigh of relief now that he has scientifically proven that humans possess an immortal soul. Way to go Dr. Quackjob! The reality is, however, that his “evidence” really comes no closer to proving the existence of an afterlife than the billions of such claims that have been made from time immemorial.

Most of Dr. Long’s evidence of an afterlife is based upon the significant similarities of reports from people that have had NDEs, which by itself does absolutely nothing to support his main hypothesis. The most important question to consider is whether or not NDErs have any brain functioning at the time that they report having these lucid experiences. If we could be sure that all of the reports Dr. Long analyzed took place when the subjects’ brains had entirely ceased to function, the evidence for an afterlife would be much more compelling; however, this cannot be proven conclusively. Most of the subjects were surely close to death and thus were unconscious in the usual sense while having their NDEs, but that does not mean that their brains had stopped working entirely.

Human consciousness is a fascinating subject of which we are learning new things about all the time. Recent (2006) fMRI research has demonstrated, for example, how some comatose patients can actually be capable of processing thought. When a girl in a completely vegetative state was asked to imagine herself playing tennis, the same brain activity expected to be witnessed in healthy subjects showed up on her scan. This is just one example of how someone that is typically considered unconscious may still be capable of using various modes of perception. This same rule probably applies to those who are on the brink of death as well. Dr. Long, however, seems to have a fairly unenlightened perspective on what it means to be conscious (or unconscious). Here is a quote of him explaining perhaps his best argument for the existence of an afterlife:

“Medically, I can’t conceive of any meaningful experience that could occur near death. Aren’t people near death generally unconscious? Doesn’t the very term unconscious mean that there is no possibility of an organized conscious experience? Yet despite what should be a blank slate for NDErs, they describe highly lucid, organized, and real experiences.”

Dr. Long’s dimwitted explanation here leads me to believe that he would dismiss the aforementioned evidence that comatose patients can be capable of processing thought, simply because they appear to be unconscious. What a douche. People are also “unconscious” in this sense when dreaming. In fact, the experiences described by NDErs closely resemble the types of altered states of consciousness witnessed in lucid dreaming, for example. In this state, a certain level of consciousness is attained while in the dream, although this is still significantly different from usual waking states. As far as I can tell, Dr. Long is conveniently leaving out of his discussion the parallels between NDEs and various other altered states. This parallel, however, seems to indicate that at least some part of the brain remains functioning in NDEs. In other words, NDErs are never completely deceased and hence are likely still capable of generating some state of consciousness, even if we don't currently understand exactly how that process works. Thus, although NDEs certainly constitute an anomalous experience in the realm of human consciousness, there is no basis from which to assume that these experiences account for actual journeys to the great beyond.

Since the brain is likely still working on some level during the NDE, we should not view this as evidence of an afterlife any more than similar experiences brought about by other means. If we follow Dr. Long’s logic, however, we should probably consider afterlife phenomena brought about by psychedelic use, for example, to also be evidence of the soul’s immortality. While we’re at it, we could also conclude that the common experience reported by DMT smokers of communicating with aliens and machine-elves should serve as proof for the existence of both of these entities. Again, the fact that people who come close to death often have subjective experiences of an afterlife cannot be refuted. It cannot, however, be proven that those experiences are representative of any kind of objective reality, which is essentially what Dr. Long is claiming. Have fun quacking all the way to the bank you douche.

I would not be taking issue with Dr. Long’s beliefs had he not taken things a step too far by trying to pass off his research data as objective proof of an afterlife. I personally prefer to take an agnostic position on such things, which to me seems like the most honest way to go. Religious people have an easy enough time believing things based on faith alone; they do not need quacks like Dr. Long throwing around the label of science to add an air of legitimacy to their beliefs.

Here is a recent clip of Dr. Long on the O‘Reilly Factor. Despite his tossing around of words like “scholarly” and “evidence,” it is hard to tell whether or not Dr. Long is the more sensible one in this exchange.

~Wolf

Citing The Existence Of Snow, Right-Wingers Delcare Climate Change Bogus

2010-02-15T10:40:00.012-05:00

Doh! A polar bear reacts to Sean Hannity’s suggestion that the occurrence of snowstorms calls climate change into question.

Let me begin this post by saying that I am not at all qualified to speak in depth about climate change. Any person who wishes to investigate this matter will find an abundance of online resources from renowned climatologists and scientific academies that comprise the “climate change is real” consensus. What I would like to discuss here is the startling ignorance and gleeful anti-science sentiment displayed by some of the nation’s most visible conservatives.

Sean Hannity, whose highest degree is a high school diploma, presents himself as an expert on a whole variety of issues. The confidence with which he speaks on these topics serves primarily to mask the plain fact that his understanding of the problems of the day consist of predictable platitudes and right-wing talking points. One of the issues on which Hannity is an “expert” is climate change, as evidenced by his reasoning that because the eastern United States has recently experienced a slew of snowstorms, climate change is therefore a fake. “Global warming, where are you? We want you back,” was his ludicrous reaction. Glenn Beck, who also has no college degree, showed similar skepticism on his radio program by suggesting that climatologists commit mass suicide. And many Republican congresspersons, such as Jim Inhofe (R – Oklahoma) have made statements ranging from suspicious to outright disbelieving on the entire phenomenon.

The idea that because the month of February has brought snowstorms and cold weather to the eastern seaboard, this somehow imperils the science supporting climate change, is so stupid, so profoundly idiotic, that one wonders if the people who say such things are being serious. I am aware of no climate change theory that posits there will be no snowstorms or cold weather from here on in. Unfortunately in some circles, the science of climatology is as simple as looking out one’s window in order to gauge the feasibility of climate change. But fear not, my fellow climate change believers; summer is right around the corner. And if we use the skeptics’ own methodology, we should have no problem demonstrating an empirically verifiable warming trend starting very soon. That should buy us some time, at least until October.

These types of criticisms of climate change are quite curious. Hannity, Beck, et al. do not dare discuss or debate the actual science with reputable scientists who have researched and analyzed this problem because they would surely be exposed for the frauds they are. Listening to people like these rail against climate change, one gets the impression that they think believe the whole thing is a hoax perpetrated by an agenda-minded global scientific community. But cui bono? Whom does worldwide acceptance of global warming benefit? If climate change is real, it would seem to be a giant inconvenience to most everyone on the planet. Governments, businesses, individuals, everyone. It has been suggested that climate change is being pushed by the green industry, but this is an insane assertion when we consider the relative power of the non-green heavy-hitting lobbyists from oil companies, the auto industry, and other sectors who wish to see a status quo approach to climate change. The last time I checked, “Big Solar” does not occur in the Washington lobbying vernacular. And if you think climate change is simply a scheme to make money for Al Gore, please check yourself into the nearest emergency room and tell the receptionist that you require an immediate psychological evaluation.

It isn’t so much the skepticism of such individuals that irritates me. Rather, in denouncing climate change as a hoax and citing the recent snowstorms, people such as Hannity and Beck assume a rather giddy tone. It is as if they truly enjoy ridiculing the scientific professions. We saw the same thing a few years ago when theocrackpots were at their most vocal and obnoxious in attempting to insert creationist hogwash into the science curricula in public schools. President Bush himself supported the idea “so people can understand what the debate is about.” Of course, there is no debate—not a serious one, anyway—involving Darwinian evolution and creationism, or intelligent design, or whatever else the religionists want to call this horseshit hypothesis. When scientists—specifically biologists—across the country condemned this uninformed statement, the theocrackpots reverted to the standard line about the scientific community and its own problems with dogmatism. However, the only dogmatism involved in science is the unchanging adherence to the scientific method, which demands a staunch commitment to evidence, logic, and truth-seeking, even if it means drawing a conclusion that is unexpected or unwelcome. Scientists are in fact “dogmatic” in this sense, in that they are beholden to reality. Living such a life is not always convenient, but it is generally free of the delusional wishful thinking that often plagues the reasoning of so many people.

It’s funny. We’re constantly hearing fiscally prudent Americans denounce the massive debt their country has accumulated, because they say they don’t want their children and grandchildren to be saddled with that burden. But when it comes to climate change, the kids are on their own, which just goes to show that “The Children” talk is merely pious rhetoric masking a self-centered, I-don’t-give-a-flying-fuck worldview. It’s only the planet we’re talking about—the only humanly inhabitable piece of real estate in the known universe. And yet, there are some who would have us believe that the rapidly growing population of humans can burn increasing amounts of fossil fuels on a planet with an atmosphere that retains a good amount of heat, without any repercussions whatsoever. Indeed, in the Republican rebuttal to President Obama’s State of the Union speech last month, Virginia Governor Bob O’Donnell declared, “We are blessed here in America with vast natural resources, and we must use them all.”

Use them all? Really? All of them? Sadly that is the attitude of many citizens in this zombie consumer horror show we call America. People rarely think beyond what’s right in front of them at the time, let alone worry about the state of America and the world fifty or one hundred years from now.

- Max Canning

Happy Islamic Valentine's Day!

2010-02-14T23:50:00.011-05:00

Well hey, at least the ban on cards and flowers seems reasonable.

This picture was taken a couple years ago at Hussain Sagar Lake in Hyderabad, A.P., India by the author of an anti-Islam website. Apparently this poster was placed right outside of a park that was full of cute Indian couples doing their best to ignore it and enjoy a bit of privacy. They must have been blissfully unaware of the price that their ignorance will cost them. The same goes for all of you heathen infidels out there.

So I hope you all enjoyed showering your lovers with candy and flowers today, for it will surely cost your souls an eternal penance in blazing hellfires.

~Wolf

On Jesus Christ's Alleged Sacrifice

2010-02-11T19:24:00.010-05:00

It is a common assumption among many simple intellects that Jesus Christ sacrificed himself so that mankind could be “saved.” Ignoring for a moment the preposterousness of the Gospels as reliable historical accounts, let’s assume that Jesus existed, was the Son of God, and was crucified as a scapegoat for the alleged iniquity of humankind. Even when we grant all of this, we are left with a shamelessly authoritarian doctrine which describes not sacrifice, as Christians claim, but a despicable metaphysical servitude.

A “sacrifice” occurs when something valuable is given up for the sake of something else. As a corollary to this, the person performing the sacrifice does so selflessly in that he does not expect to be rewarded for his actions. One friend does not help another because she thinks it will increase the likelihood of him returning a similar favor in the future. A batter who drops down a sacrifice bunt to advance a runner does not figure his teammates “owe him one” for committing that act. A courageous soldier who uses his body to smother a live grenade to shield his buddies from the impending blast cannot possibly expect anything in return.

These are all examples of sacrifice, and to suggest that the beneficiaries of these magnanimous acts must somehow repay the favor debases the whole idea. Even in the case of friendship, which is in some sense predicated on the principle of reciprocity, friends do not keep a running tally between them of who is owed what from whom. An enduring friendship is founded on an intellectual or emotional affinity that each has for the other. In friendship, a favor is done not on pragmatic grounds or with future considerations in mind, but out of a sincere desire to see the other better off.

The crucifixion of Jesus is many things, but a sacrifice is not one of them. Recall this famous passage in John:

3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

3:17 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.

3:18 He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.

As well as this ominous advice in Ephesians:

2:8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:

2:9 Not of works, lest any man should boast.

2:10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.

And in Galatians:

2:16 Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ.

And then the somewhat contradictory line in James:

2:24 Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only.

Thus, god sent his only son earthward to be sacrificed in rather brutal fashion, so that humans could have their sins forgiven and be given eternal life. It is one thing to make this ridiculous claim that one man sacrificed himself—or was sacrificed by god, which was (confusingly) actually god himself—to absolve the sum total of every human transgression in history. It is quite another to say that in exchange for this act, Jesus/god demands that we recognize this “sacrifice” and accept him as the lord and savior of humanity. If we do, we are “rewarded” with an afterlife of perpetual groveling at the feet of the deity. If we do not, we are punished with everlasting torment and suffering. It is said that god has given humans free will. Well, that is some choice. But at that point the crucifixion of Jesus ceases to be a sacrifice and becomes an unsolicited quid pro quo. This arrangement is not all that different from the “protection” offered by mafia thugs who lend their “services” to business owners in exchange for a cut of the profits. Protection from what? From the very people who are offering it. Jesus and his father are offering you protection from hell. Pay up or that is what you are in for.

Christ’s “sacrifice” does not seem so selfless and benevolent when we pause to consider what he asks in return. Indeed, that he asks for anything defeats the purpose of a sacrifice. As I noted previously, many Christians have even taken to calling themselves “slaves” to Jesus. Perhaps that is a minority opinion, but the consensus on the matter of vicarious redemption entails some level of devotion to Jesus for what any decent person should consider an unwelcome offer. In our everyday lives we understand the importance—indeed, the necessity—of taking responsibility for one’s actions. Christianity is immoral for two main reasons. First, it teaches humans that they are by nature bad because Adam and Eve ate from a forbidden tree. Second, it teaches that people can be absolved of their alleged wickedness and their responsibilities if they will only commit themselves to Jesus and thank him endlessly for his “giving his life” for them. Notice how Christianity makes people a slave to history as the bible reveals it. Did you ever eat from a tree that god told you not to eat of? Did you ask Jesus to die for you on the cross? Too bad. It’s a done deal. The mafia don has spoken.

The entire premise of Christianity is scandalous and bunk. If the crucifixion actually happened under the above conditions, it would not be a noble sacrifice as Christians claim, but an act of totalitarianism designed to enchain humanity to forever serve a master. In this way, Christianity is much worse than the slavery humans practiced for thousands of years. At least then you could die and get out of bondage.

- Max Canning

Newt Gingrich Proves Our Point About Republicans Appealing To Emotions

2010-02-10T18:33:00.009-05:00

Newt Gingrich is a pathetic, carping has-been.

Last night on the Daily Show, former Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich made a surprising admission.

Gingrich was talking with Jon Stewart about the underwear bomber, and the former was belching the same tired lines about how absurd it was to read Amdulmutallab his rights. Stewart then pointed out that the Bush administration did the same thing with shoe bomber Richard Reid. Gingrich then falsely responded with all the confidence in the world, “Richard Reid was an American citizen.” Reid was not, and is not, a U.S. citizen. He’s a U.K. citizen, and as such has the same legal standing in the United States as the Nigerian underwear bomber. Unfortunately, Stewart did not correct him during the interview.

Is Gingrich lying? Does he really think Richard Reid was an American citizen? If he does, then clearly Gingrich’s opinions on counterterrorism warrant no respect whatsoever. If he was lying, then Gingrich himself deserves no respect whatsoever. Either way, we should not be taking policy advice from Newt Gingrich.

Shortly after Gingrich’s gaffe/lie, he blabbed some more about terrorism and the American people, and at one point the following exchange took place:

Stewart: That’s a very emotional way to put it.

Gingrich: That’s part of our job—is to reach out to the emotions of the American people.

Stewart: I think that’s wise. And don’t let reality get in the way.

Gingrich didn’t specify which “our” he’s a part of, but I think it’s safe to assume he means conservatives/Republicans. Here we have a crystal-clear admission from the most important Republican of the 1990s that appealing to people’s emotions is an important part of their M.O. Never mind that the underwear bomber is providing authorities with information despite being read his rights. All that matters to Gingrich and company is the opportunity to portray the other side as weak on terrorism. But it seems to me that conservatives are not nearly as interested in acquiring valuable intelligence as they are in meting out draconian punishments to satisfy a primal urge for revenge, even it comes at the expense of obtaining useful information. I mean, what else are we to conclude from this whole charade? The suspect is talking. He didn’t have to be sent to Gitmo. He didn’t have to be waterboarded. If he’s cooperating with the FBI what the fuck does it matter if he was read his rights?

Of course, we know that Gingrich and his ilk are playing politics with the underwear bomber because they raised no stink about the Bush administration’s handling of Richard Reid, which was the same. This is a calculated move by them. They are simply appealing to the lizard-brained folk. And it’s probably working. The politics of fear usually does.

- Max Canning

Scott Brown Votes Against Workers

2010-02-10T16:00:00.006-05:00

In due time, the people of Massachusetts will see just how full of shit Scott Brown was on the campaign trail.

Yesterday, new Senator Scott Brown voted in lockstep with his Republican colleagues and two Democrats to block President Obama’s pick for the National Labor Relations Board. The nomination of Craig Becker—a lawyer for the AFL-CIO and the Service Employees International Union—was effectively killed when the Senate failed to muster the sixty votes necessary to end debate on the nomination in order to take an up-and-down vote. Becker is viewed as a threat by the GOP because, among other reasons, he favors card check. Card check is considered “controversial” because it allows a majority of members in a bargaining unit to sign cards authorizing the formation of a union. And because Republicans love big business and hate unions—i.e., American workers—to them, Becker is bad news. They are also claiming that Becker would bring a “personal agenda” to the NLRB, which is another way of saying he’d stick to his convictions about looking out for the welfare of working class Americans.

So thank you, Scott Brown, for bravely casting a vote against the working people of America.

The minority has spoken.

- Max Canning

Obama Nominates Bush-Era Supreme Bitch To Head DEA

2010-02-10T11:36:00.015-05:00

Obama seems to be exhibiting short-term memory loss when it comes to his stated policies on federal marijuana laws.

Last night I posted about the difficulties facing researchers who are investigating the drug ecstasy (MDMA) as a possible medical treatment for post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Shortly after writing this, I discovered some similarly unsettling news from the war on drugs front. “Last week, President Obama quietly announced that he would nominate Michele Leonhart to lead the Drug Enforcement Agency.” This is the same power-crazed, drug-hawk bitch that was “initially appointed and promoted by George W. Bush and oversaw the Bush administration’s tactic of raiding the homes of desperately ill individual medical marijuana patients in California.” This type of action flies in the face of Obama’s claim that, under his watch, the federal government would no longer “waste justice department resources” on prosecuting marijuana offenses “that circumvent state laws.” Oh how the times they are a-changin.

Here is a quote from the Washington Times from February 5th of last year in response to some of the first medical marijuana raids of Obama’s presidency:

“Drug Enforcement Administration agents this week raided four medical marijuana shops in California, contrary to President Obama’s campaign promises to stop the raids.

The White House said it expects those kinds of raids to end once Mr. Obama nominates someone to take charge of the DEA, which is still run by Bush administration holdovers.”

The irony here, of course, is that Michele Leonhart was the primary “Bush administration holdover” who was essentially "in charge of the DEA” at the time. Apparently the president wants no part in appointing new leadership to this backwards federal agency. Oh ya, I almost forgot to mention that “Ms. Leonhart also has a record of adamantly fighting against allowing scientific research of the potential medicinal value of marijuana. She is on record as “ignoring the ruling of a federal judge” in a case where she “single-handedly blocked applications from respected university researchers studying medical marijuana.” This is yet another glaring offense Leonhart has perpetrated which directly contradicts Obama’s stated position on marijuana laws.

It seems that Obama is suffering from an acute case of the “fuck-its” syndrome with regard to these issues, which is exhibited by the symptoms of just not giving a shit, combined with a touch of cowardice in the face of potentially having to navigate politically murky waters at this most turbulent time in his presidency. A look at Obama speaking about marijuana laws in 2004 vs. 2008 tells this tale much better than I can.

In the following video, you can see how self-assured and to the point Obama is in this 2004 interview. This is Obama un-filtered, exhibiting that ray of hope that everyone who voted for change was expecting him to deliver.

Now notice how uncomfortable the president is when discussing these issues while on the campaign trail in 2008. The only bit of genuine honesty that appears to leak through is in the last 40 seconds when he discloses that, as president, he would simply have bigger fish to fry than to worry about silly marijuana laws.

In light of his new nomination of Ms. Leonhart to the DEA, Obama’s current position on federal marijuana laws seems all too similar to that of his predecessor. He is pushing to elect a woman with an abysmal track record for “using justice resources to circumvent state laws,” as she did in the aforementioned California raids in 2009. If any of this seems the least bit unsettling to you, please take a moment to sign the digital petition urging senators to block the appointment of Michele Leonhart to the DEA. At this point, however, the audacity of hope for significant drug law changes in this country seems beyond audacious; it may be delusional. Still sign the petition though. Seriously!

~Wolf

Ecstasy: A New Treatment For Psychological Trauma

2010-02-09T21:07:00.020-05:00

Illustration of a veteran being saved from the debilitating effects of war trauma by the drug ecstasy.

Anyone who has ever taken the infamous club-drug ecstasy (MDMA) knows how the intoxicating effects of the substance can frequently lead to overwhelming feelings of “love” towards most things the user comes into contact with, which often includes things that are normally disliked and thus typically avoided. Although long-term abuse of this drug can certainly be dangerous, researchers are beginning to find that, when used appropriately, this “love drug” can also be an important medicine for helping alleviate symptoms of certain mental illnesses. Specifically, studies are beginning to find that MDMA in combination with psychotherapy can be an effective treatment for post-traumatic-stress-disorder (PTSD). It is important to note, however, that this groundbreaking work would likely be non-existent if not for the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), a non-profit research and educational organization which funds various projects that investigate the therapeutic applications of psychedelic drugs. The fact that their research has recently been featured on major news networks like CNN is a glowing testimony to both the medical legitimacy and social relevance of their work.

So how exactly does MDMA help treat PTSD? Well, in layman’s terms, the “loving” effect of the drug causes one to be much more emotionally open than normal. This increased access to emotions can be extremely helpful in the process of breaking through various resistances or psychological defenses, which is essentially the goal of most therapeutic interventions. The ability to break through resistances is especially important when working with PTSD, given that a major part of this malady is perpetuated by a seemingly hard-wired instinct to avoid unpleasant emotions (e.g., fear) related to the initial trauma. Ecstasy can help with this by assisting “people in confronting memories, thoughts and feelings related to the trauma without increasing either fear or avoidance in response to this confrontation. An increase in self-acceptance and increased feelings of closeness to others may also assist people with PTSD in forming a therapeutic alliance with psychotherapists.” This suggests that ecstasy has the unique potential to considerably expedite the process of normal psychotherapy. {For more info on possible biological explanations for ecstasy’s success in treating PTSD click here.}

Besides the obvious factor of the negative stigma attached to ecstasy, the FDA is in no rush to fund research on MDMA-assisted psychotherapy primarily because the pharmaceutical industry has no compelling (i.e., financial) interest in making MDMA into a prescription drug. The financial incentive is lacking because MDMA-assisted psychotherapy consists of only a few administrations of the drug “within the context of a time limited course of non-drug psychotherapy over three to four months (8).” Again, ecstasy is being shown as an effective treatment for PTSD after being administered on only a small number of occasions. In contrast, drugs that are currently accepted by the FDA for treating PTSD (e.g., Paxil) are big money-makers because they are prescribed for daily use over long periods of time, if not for life.

And so it goes with Big Pharma’s monopoly on medical treatment. Thank Yahweh for the good people at MAPS for actively challenging this retarded system.

Check out one of their new promos:

~Wolf