This Is My Body

This Is My Body from Jason Stefaniak on Vimeo.


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In an earlier post, I tried to explain how women in the USA are in grave danger from the religious right.

"The Republican Party, which has degenerated to little more than the political arm of the conservative religious right, has been striving relentlessly to ensure that women will be legally forced to bear all of the negative physical, social and most of the financial repercussions for any unplanned pregnancy, while the churches themselves underline and enforce the subordinate and inferior position of women in the culture. Through tireless efforts to withhold access to contraception from women, the religious right ensures that reproductive control remains primarily in the hands of men. Thanks to ideologically-driven appointments to the FDA and the business interests of both drug companies and the medical establishment, only male-controlled methods of reliable contraception are available without a prescription, forcing women to navigate (and pay for) "care" from layers of medical and pharmacy gatekeepers before they are permitted to obtain reliable female-controlled contraception...

In the Republican vision of the future - as in the past it idealizes - "freedom" and "rights" will only fully belong to men and to the potential offspring of men, while women will be, at best, reduced once again to second-class citizenship, and, at worst, returned to sexual and reproductive slavery. Political, financial and social oppression of women, reproductive slavery and viciously misogynistic church-mandated rules of correct behavior and dress (for women only) are the unceasing reality for millions of women in theocracies around the world.  All of these forms of oppression of women are rooted in the desire of these conservative societies to control the sexuality and reproductive freedom of their women. Almost without exception, societies based upon religious laws which both deny women fully human status and hold them accountable for the sexual activity of both genders strictly limit female freedom and impose exaggerated requirements for modest dress on their women and girls.  If a Christian theocracy is successfully installed by conservatives in the United States, ever-deepening oppression will become the inevitable future for women and girls here." Wait, Consent Means What?

This is not alarmist rhetoric; it is a fact.  Extreme religion induces people to behave in ways which they never would do if they were not under the pernicious influence of terrible supernatural belief.  Women themselves are complicit in their own oppression and the oppression of other women. Please wake up, American women!!!

Actually No, Bishop Giminez, America Is Not Morally Depraved

Evangelicals to America: You are a sick, morally depraved country and only we God can save you!

Recently, an astonishing number of prominent Christian hardliners (and their political arm, the Republican party) have been openly bashing America. If you close your eyes and just listen, you could be forgiven for thinking you were hearing Islamist hardliners spewing their hatred, so similar is the anti-American rhetoric. Claiming that the USA is mired in "moral depravity, Christian Evangelicals are planning a rally in September called "America for Jesus" which makes explicit the intention of the religious right to continue to interfere in domestic politics.  By staging the event against a backdrop of revered symbols of American liberty, they plan to link religious fervor with foundational ideals in a very concrete way, even as they work to dismantle the Constitutional protections of the very freedoms for which the founding fathers so bravely fought.

Christian fundamentalists - led by the usual wealthy, powerful religious elites - intendto reap the ultimate harvest from the seeds of religious tension that they have been sowing for the past three decades. The organizers include some members of the core group behind the original 1980 "faith" rally which not only helped propel Ronald Reagan into office, but launched unelected conservative Christian elites as a shadowy, behind-the-scenes political powerhouse. Their goal, as always: Christian theocracy in the most powerful country on the planet, with themselves - naturally - holding the keys to what they would privately call the restored "kingdom of God".

Vote for me... or else!

"We don't feel a man can save America," Giminez said, referring to the presidential contenders. "God is our only hope." But wait! Since they claim that no "man" can save America and God is the "only hope", are the rally organizers actually suggesting that Christians ought to step away from the political arena, forget about the apparently useless goal of electing a "man" and simply start praying to God to deliver America from this so-called "moral depravity"? Perish the thought:

"The history of "America for Jesus" suggests a Republican leaning, however."

Ah, there it is. Substitute "Mitt Romney" for "God" and the real motive behind all the devout posturing and nation-bashing is uncovered. The implication that "God" is represented through Republican candidates is just another example of the blatant and openly theocratic rhetoric that has been the hallmark of this most recent and deeply disturbing Republican campaign.

Abandoning once and for all any pretense that they love America or respect the founding principles upon which this country is built, conservative Christians are going for broke. They hate America - they hate the constitutional, democratic Republic that she really is - they always have hated America and they intend to break the country down, once and for all, and rebuild it to their own, narrow, Biblical specifications. In an all-out drive to whip believers up into a frenzy of fear of God and confusion about the causes of their very human problems, these Christianist leaders intend to prey upon the vulnerabilities and superstitions of a population whose ignorance and radicalization is a direct result of their own deliberate campaign to destroy public education and inject religiosity into every aspect of public life - and it is possible that they could succeed.

Got that, America? Be very afraid...

The power of religion is the psychological fear it holds over people - and the power of religious elites is their ability to use that fear to control people, thus securing political power for themselves. During times of social or economic upheaval, religious elites can tap into the terror of the belief in a punishing god that is planted in most Christian children before they are old enough to defend themselves against the permanent psychic harm.  Religious leaders point to the inevitable manmade and natural disasters which have always plagued humanity and declare them "God's judgement" on America. They appoint themselves God's intermediaries and - because "God" is always silent and invisible - the people accept the authority of these "men of God" in the absence of an actual God. These elite conservative Christian men intend to seize power as cowed and frightened people bow to what they believe is the authority of God coming through His intermediaries - none other than these elite religious men.

The American political system was developed, after a hard, bloody struggle, for the people, by the people and of the people - with the will of the people intended to be the final authority on national matters. It was this strong national effort toward the first real attempt in history at self-governance by ordinary people striving toward Enlightenment ideals which was the worst nightmare of religious authoritarians. It was the American dream itself, long before its realization, which posed the greatest threat to the methods and machinations of religious elites who had long exercised hidden power behind the thrones of kings and openly via popes throughout history. Religious groups who had fallen out of favor and had fled Europe for the New World intended to set up new kingdoms for themselves in America, which the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States forbade. For the first time in human history, an entire people had adopted for their system of government one which not only empowered the people but which explicitly denied religion the power to influence national affairs. Religious elites began to fight back almost immediately and their weapon of choice has always been to use the fear of God as a cover for the almost treasonous declaration that they are answerable not to the American people but only to their silent, invisible God, for whom they are (conveniently) the only righteous intermediaries.

Fear of God and social pressure prevents most people from wondering out loud why God would need intermediaries at all. Because of childhood indoctrination and the pernicious saturation of every corner of society with religious influence and intimidation, fear of social ostracism prevents most from questioning the authority of these powerful religious men. Like many overwhelmed peoples before them,  religiously indoctrinated Americans may vote against their own interests, against their neighbors and even against their country if they allow themselves to be manipulated by religious leaders with a political agenda. If there are enough believers, they may democratically hand over to the theocrats the absolute power they have been plotting to capture for decades.

We have too many examples of countries whose religious leadership managed to convince a majority of its population that they (or more specifically, others among them) were a morally depraved people, that only "God" could save them from destruction and that a small cabal of elite religious men were somehow God's representatives on earth - the only bastion of righteous holiness between a morally debased people and the terrifying fury of an angry god. Iran comes to mind. Islamists may come from a different branch of monotheistic Abrahamic religion, but they have the same modus operandi. One might say they learned it from their Christian and Jewish forebears. The belief among those Americans not yet directly affected by religious oppression - that somehow a descent into oppressive theocracy can't happen here - is self-delusion. It can happen here. It is already happening here.

This guy claimed to
speak for God, too.

Religion is fueled by the relentless human thirst for power and it has been an extraordinarily effective weapon in the constant war by elites on the rights and freedoms of the common people. It is the tragedy of humanity that the faith of so many is misplaced - that the human desire for a sense of control and belonging and the human willingness to follow those who exude power and dominance has repeatedly led to actual mass self-destruction as entire societies have thrown away their human rights and freedoms and handed political power to their religious elites.

One senses that Christian hardliners feel they can almost taste victory. They are confident that they can mobilize believers at least as well as they have done before, because in this election cycle they have been able to get away with a more open and shocking agenda of social regression and bigotry than they have ever before dared to reveal.  They are excited, inflamed with power and fiercely, unapologetically dogmatic.Their decades-long campaign of chipping away at the underpinnings of a society struggling to form a more perfect union of diverse, hard-working peoples under the banner of a great, free nation is at last bringing down secular protections at an accelerated pace.  The ultimate reward of a conservative Christian nation where homosexuality is persecuted, women are returned to the reproductive slavery mandated by the Bible and racial and religious bigotry will once again reign supreme is within their sights and they are giddy with exhilaration.

But, settle down there theocrats!  I have a message for Bishop Giminez and her eager co-conspirators:

No. America is not mired in moral depravity. America is a land of diverse people - hardworking, industrious, innovative, tolerant, forward-thinking people. We are red, brown, white, black, and every beautiful shade of human skin. We are all American. We are atheist, Christian, Jewish, Muslim and every religious and political stripe. We are all American. We are female and male, gay and lesbian, bisexual and transsexual and every gender identity on the wide, wonderful spectrum of human sexuality. And we are all American.

No. America is not mired in moral depravity. We coexist in relative peace, as imperfectly as current human limitations might predict and as transcendently as human aspiration can occasionally soar. We have succeeded as a country because America is founded on principles which limit the power of religions to divide, conquer and destroy us. As messy and imperfect and unjust as much of our history has been, it has still stood out as a beacon of hope in a world of messy, imperfect and unjust systems of government which - nearly always using religion - continued to oppress and abuse their people long after the American journey toward 'liberty and justice for all' was haltingly begun. For more than 200 years, we have struggled and fought and inched our way toward realizing the dream - toward living the ideals - that those founding documents point us toward. We are a people evolving, with a roadmap to liberty in the Declaration of Independence and a blueprint for achieving it in the Bill of Rights. We will continue to negotiate and argue and push and pull toward a more perfect union of equal citizens because this country is a work in progress. And we are all American.

America is not mired
in moral depravity.
WTF is the matter
with you, theocrats?

No. America is not mired in moral depravity. It is you, Bishop Giminez, and power-hungry religious elites like you who are mired in moral depravity. It is you and the power-hungry religious elites who call injustice "justice", who fight relentlessly against equality and human rights and who seek to enshrine bigotry and misogyny into our laws without a shred of remorse or compassion for the human suffering you have caused. It is the conservative religious right which seeks to overturn the natural order of things - calling myth "science", calling oppression "justice", calling evil "good", calling what is immoral "moral". Those who call themselves "righteous", who pretend to speak for God are the ones who are mired in moral depravity. They have lost their moral compass, but their fellow citizens can help them find their way again. Because, we are all Americans.

No. America is not mired in moral depravity. America does not need theocratic "saving". It needs protection from dangerous, ambitious, vicious religious power-mongers like you, Bishop Giminez, and the wealthy Christian elites that you represent. America needs saving from the approaching train wreck of Christian totalitarianism which you and your cohort wish to force upon us. America does not need "saving" by ambitious men claiming to represent their silent, invisible God. America needs saving from them. This nation has the tools to fend off this attack from the religious right. We have the diversity and the strength in numbers to resist a takeover attempt by one hardline fundamentalist faction among us. We can weather this storm. We are Americans!

No. America is not mired in moral depravity. America is mired in political and social turmoil which was deliberately created by the conservative Christian right-wing for their own political gain. It is you, Bishop Giminez, and the powerful, wealthy elites who seek to drag this entire country to the brink of disaster, just as religious extremists elsewhere in the world have done to their countries. It is you and the power-hungry religious elites you speak for who hope to precipitate a cultural crisis in this country out of which you hope to wrest ultimate control over everyone and everything that is American. You hope to destroy the America that is and build an America that you can control. But you underestimate the passion for liberty and justice in this country. You underestimate the American spirit. We are not all Christians. But we are all Americans.

Whether or not one believes there is a god - or any higher power that cares about the welfare of humanity - constant historical evidence has proven beyond the shadow of a doubt that it does not reside within the ruthlessly implacable ambition of religious elites. The success of the great American experiment in nationhood has only been possible - painfully, lurchingly, imperfectly and minimally -  not thanks to religious belief, but in spite of it. Before the ink had even dried on the founding documents, religious groups launched their efforts to subvert the American dream of a more just and democratic Republic to their own theocratic agenda. And they have never ceased in their efforts since.

We are red, brown, white, black...
every beautiful shade of human skin.
We are all American. 

There is a seat at the national table for conservative Christians just as there are seats for every other kind of American. The difference is that conservative Christians want to banish everyone else except conservative Christians from the American table and in that sense, they are profoundly unAmerican. I only hope the basic goodness and common sense of the American people is awakened by this looming crisis at last and that we can come together for the good of the country before it is too late.

America can only be saved by Americans. By performing our civic duty: educating ourselves on the crisis before us, registering and voting in every election and holding our elected representatives to their Constitutional responsibilities, the American people can save America.  Let's not allow one religious sect to hijack the ship of state and sink the hopes and dreams of freedom-loving people everywhere. It is not the silent, invisible God, nor the men who claim to represent ultimate godly authority who speak for America. Only Americans speak for America.

Educate yourself. Register. Vote. Let no one speak for you. Speak up for yourself. We are all in this together and the future of this country depends on all of us. We are all Americans.

But It Was Not Terrorism!

Horrific news from Colorado. Last night, a heavily-armed, masked gunman entered a movie theatre in Aurora, Colorado, threw a smoke bomb into the crowd and began shooting. By the time the murderer was apprehended in the parking lot behind the theatre, there were 12 people dead and more than 50 wounded.

"Aurora Police Chief Dan Oates said there was no evidence of a second gunman, and FBI spokesman Jason Pack said it did not appear the incident was related to terrorism."

This appalling eruption of violence was visited upon a crowd of excited, happy and innocent movie-goers enjoying the thrill of opening night at the movies. The killer had carefully planned and carried out a cold-blooded execution designed to inflict maximum casualties among innocent people. He targeted unsuspecting people who knew nothing of his personal grievances and intentions. People who felt safe enjoying a simple pleasure in life; who were in an ordinary place doing an ordinary thing.

The dictionary definition of "terrorism" is "the systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion". We usually associate terrorism with a political or ideological agenda; terrorists coerce people to submit to their demands using violence. When a killer turns out to be a white American, his ideological beliefs are never assumed until proven to be whatever they are, and everybody runs from the word terrorist. Even if a political/ideological agenda is proven beyond question - and with far more evidence than that with which instant assumptions of terrorism are made about people of color and non-Christians - it may still be denied.

We don't know yet what the murderer's motive was, but I think what happened in that theatre was terrorism. Call it what it is CNN, even if the officials did not.

Update:

As I feared and expected, the Christian right has swooped in with accusations that this tragedy was caused by non-Christians and non-believers.  Call me cynical, but I see a pattern in the constant drumbeat of fear-mongering, lying about and demonizing atheists and non-Christians, encouraging paranoia and violent rhetoric from the right.  One might almost call it "the systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion".

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) "Aurora shootings result of "ongoing attacks on Judeo-Christian beliefs". Huffington Post.

"You know what really gets me, as a Christian, is to see the ongoing attacks on Judeo-Christian beliefs, and then some senseless crazy act of terror like this takes place," Gohmert said.

Conveniently, "chaplains" were on hand to be "deployed" within hours of the shooting, ensuring a righteous and ideologically correct spin on the tragedy will be immediately reinforced within the shocked and vulnerable community, no matter what the truth actually turns out to be.

Gunman Kills 12 at Batman movie premiere, USA Today.

"Chaplains from the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, already in Colorado and New Mexico ministering to victims of the ravaging wildfires, redeployed to Aurora within hours of the shooting. The group's web site was uploaded with evangelical advice on "spiritual survival" in tragedy."

Do You Believe In ... ?

via NonStampCollector.

You really have to wonder at the arrogance of people who insist that there is a difference between their supernatural beliefs and those of other people. Bah.

When you understand why you dismiss all other possible gods,
you will understand why I dismiss yours. - Stephan F. Roberts

But, Climate Change Denial Is Better For Business!

Rising sea levels? What rising sea levels?

Another wave of wingnut stupidity from the Know-nothing/Do-nothing brigade: 

"Sometimes, you just can’t make this stuff up.  It’s really embarrassing for me to write this, but the legislature of my native North Carolina has made it illegal for public officials to consider current rates of sea level rise as they plan for the future."  Relax Outer Banks: NC legislature outlaws sea level rise, Kaid Benfield, NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council Staff Blog).

Although scientific evidence increasingly shows that fossil fuel consumption has caused the climate to change rapidly, the issue has grown so politicized that skepticism of the broad scientific consensus has seeped into classrooms.
Texas and Louisiana have introduced education standards that require educators to teach climate change denial as a valid scientific position. South Dakota and Utah passed resolutions denying climate change. Tennessee and Oklahoma also have introduced legislation to give climate change skeptics a place in the classroom.
In May, a school board in Los Alamitos, Calif., passed a measure, later rescinded, identifying climate science as a controversial topic that required special instructional oversight.  Climate change skepticism seeps into science classrooms,  Neela Banerjee, Washington Bureau, LA Times.

A survey of U.S. high school biology teachers published in the journal Science in 2011 that found about 13 percent of those surveyed "explicitly advocate creationism or intelligent design by spending at least one hour of class time presenting it in a positive light."
The survey found only about 28 percent consistently followed National Research Council recommendations for introducing evidence that evolution occurred.

The rest, about 60 percent, avoided controversy by limiting evolution instruction to molecular biology, telling students they need not believe in evolution to score well on tests, or exposing students to all positions, scientific and otherwise, to let them make up their own minds, the article said.  Tennessee teacher law could boost creationism, climate change denial, Deborah Zabarenko, Chicago Tribune.

Here is a link to the cached article in Science Daily which discusses the study findings mentioned in the quote above:  High school biology teachers reluctant to endorse evolution, Science Daily, January 2011.

This next article is frankly too depressing to quote. Just go read it and read the sources Ms. Boxall refers to in the article: Earth May be near tipping point, Bettina Boxall, LA Times.

I'll leave it to the finest skeptical wordsmith I know to sum up the last article above.  In hir own inimitable style, the Digital Cuttlefish describes our current situation as the industrial and religious agendas dovetail with human apathy and gullibility, creating the conditions for a perfect storm of global crisis for our children and grandchildren in verse:

"We could maybe make a difference
If we alter our behavior—
If we change the things we’re doing that are bad
But it’s easier and cheaper
Just to pray there’ll be a savior
And to put our faith in Jesus and His Dad"

Digital Cuttlefish, We Are All So Screwed

Now that would just be a waste of time and money, amirite?

Public Education - Public Enemy #1? Business Says Yes, Too!

Note: This is the second post in a series on public education. The first post in the series can be found here.

(Noah) Webster echoes the belief that proper education is the first defense against tyranny. “In despotic governments, the people should have little or no education, except what tends to inspire them with a servile fear. Information is fatal to despotism . . . In our American republics, where [government] is in the hands of the people, knowledge should be universally diffused by means of public schools.” He believed that “the more generally knowledge is diffused among the substantial yeomanry, the more perfect will be the laws of a republican state.” Minneapolis News Blog, September, 2011.

Public education levels 
the social playing field.

The ultimate result of good public education is a population which will not willingly allow itself to be subjugated and oppressed. Educated people are empowered people. Those who can not only read and write but have access to history, math, science and technology, are better able to think independently, to face challenges without the fearfulness that ignorance brings, and to come up with innovative ideas built on their education which can potentially elevate any person to a position of leadership in a society. 

Education increases opportunities for the common people while it pushes aside the veil of ignorance which has always been used to hide the agenda of the elites who have historically controlled society. The American public school system, imperfect though it is, has managed to foster an astonishing and prolonged era of unprecedented national intellectual growth, creative and scientific innovation and technological progress.

“The whole people must take upon themselves the education of the whole people and be willing to bear the expenses of it. There should not be a district of one mile square, without a school in it, not founded by a charitable individual, but maintained at the public expense of the people themselves.”  John Adams, 1785.

" ...the tax which will be paid for this purpose is not
 more than the thousandth part of what will be paid to 
kings, priests and nobles who will rise up among us
if we leave the people in ignorance." Thomas Jefferson

The ultimate goal of good public education is a society where the self-interest of millions of well-educated citizens will provide an effective counter-balancing effect against the potential tyranny of powerful religious and wealthy elites. The great American experiment was the attempt to build a society where liberty, justice and the pursuit of happiness by the common people would be made possible for the first time in human history because an informed and educated population would have at its disposal the tools for success which were formerly reserved for the privileged few.

In short: the ultimate goal of good public education is to create the conditions wherein the American Dream might actually become a reality.

At first blush, it would seem logical then, that business and industry would welcome and support a system of public education which has become the engine for innovative ideas and economic growth. But, they do not. They favor limited public access to education, preferably privatized for greater control by special interests, and never subsidized by public taxation.

There are at least three good reasons why the business sector, like the church, hates and fears public education: 1.Educated people can see through false, manipulative ideologies which have long been used to control and abuse them. 2. Educated people are more cognizant of their human worth and will insist on the personal respect to which they are entitled as citizens in a putatively egalitarian society. 3. Educated people know how to organize themselves to fight for a political voice, for better arrangements to encourage more social equality and for fair pay for their labor as the producers of the goods and services that provide the growth and wealth which drives the economy.

...and we can't have that!

The truth is that the American Dream - and especially the attempts to provide people with the means to fulfill it through public education - has always been more of a nightmare to wealthy and religious elites, even though they use this language today to convince their supporters that what is good for the elites will be good for everyone. Business and industry want a pool of uneducated or poorly educated workers whose cheap labor can produce the goods that create wealth for the elite. When public education reduced the number of Americans who were willing to work like serfs, Big Business simply took its production jobs offshore, where - wait for it - there are large pools of uneducated or poorly educated people whose cheap labor can produce the goods that create wealth for the elite.

“Learned Institutions . . . throw that light over the public mind which is the best security against crafty and dangerous encroachments on the public liberty.” James Madison, 1822.

The power, influence and wealth of elites depends upon a large population of ignorant, dependent and obedient poor workers and a small, well-controlled pool of talented staff who have been given a narrowly targeted indoctrination "education" in only the highly-focused areas cherry-picked for maximum utility to Big Business. People who are lifted out of the cycle of poverty and ignorance by freely accessible education will be none of these things. Graduates of a classical, broad, liberal college education are inclined to think too much and want to make the world a better place - lofty ideals which are in direct opposition to the ideal corporate environment. It is not for nothing that colleges all over the country are being "gifted" with attractive, brand spanking new business schools underwritten and overseen by wealthy donors.

What does a college degree
mean today?

A good, liberal, free public education system is inimical to the ambitions of wealthy elites, and therefore has always been the target of attacks from business and industry. Like religion, Big Business cannot realize its ambitions for power and wealth unless there is a large, permanent underclass of uneducated people to use as producers and consumers of their products and services. Like religion, Big Business favors a private (expensive) education model which will ensure that access to real education is limited to the privileged few, while the majority will receive just enough education to be of use to wealthy business and religious elites.

Thus was born an unlikely and unholy alliance between profit-driven, amoral Big Business and the elite upper echelons of the church of the most radical liberal of them all - the Christ who preached the moral virtues of poverty, humility and tolerance - the Christian right.

Recommended Reading (Did I merely say recommended?  Read these!)

Articles:

Founding Fathers: On the Importance of Public Education, Minneapolis Newsvine, September, 2011.

The Assault on Public Education, Noam Chomsky, readersupportednews.org

ALEC & Battle Over Public vs. Private Education, Bob Sloan, dailykos.com

Education and technology: Supply, demand and income inequality, Claudia Goldin, Lawrence F. Katz.

Prolonged Attack on Public Education and Unions Leaves Teaching Profession Woeful,  commondreams.org

The Price of a Free Society, Paul Starr, The American Prospect, May 2005

Which MBA? Paying the Piper, The Economist, July 2012

Books:

Righteous, Dispatches from the Evangelical Youth Movement, Lauren Sandler, 2007.

What's the Matter with Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heart of America, Thomas Frank, 2005.

American Theocracy: The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century, Kevin Phillips, 2007.

God's Politics, Jim Wallis, 2005

Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, Jared Diamond, 1999 (Pulitzer Prize winner).

Midweek Moment Of Sanity

via GrandUnifiedTheorist

Best quotes:

"Science has the potential to build a better world;  Religion has the potential to destroy it."

"The time is now for atheists to stand up for the future."

Did you see what thadguy did there?

via thadguy.com  (check it out for more excellent cartoons)

Register. Vote. Take A Stand!

"In the United States, voter registration is the responsibility of the people, and only 70 percent of Americans who are eligible to vote have registered." (RegistertoVote.org)

Let's do the math: There are more than 300 million citizens of the United States. 30% of 300,000,000 is 90 million people.  Even if only half of those people are over 18 years old and eligible to vote, there would be 45 million eligible voters who have not yet registered to vote.

Among the 70% of eligible citizens who have registered to vote, the number who actually do vote is shockingly low. The per centage of actual voters by age cohort ranges from less than 30% for registered 18-29 year olds, to a high of just over 60% for 60-69 year olds.  There is not a single age cohort from age 18-49 years old which has a voting record of more than 40%.

Why is it that in a nation that fought a historic battle for independence - not to mention the right to representative self-government - so few of the people today actually exercise that right by voting?  In a world where self-government and constitutionally-guaranteed individual freedoms are a rare and precious commodity, it beggars belief that people who have it do not appear to cherish it and fail to guard it vigilantly. The assumption seems to be that gains once made can never be lost. But history teaches another, grimmer, lesson.

"...that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth." Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address.

There is a lot of talk right now about a tiny cabal of extremely wealthy and influential people pouring billions into the upcoming election in order to ensure an outcome which will suit their own interests and not those of the people of the United States. In a democratic Republic, the idea that wealthy or religious elites could rise to such power and influence that they could establish a de facto feudal economic system and authoritarian theocracy - almost exactly the conditions over which this country fought the War of Independence - could only be possible if a majority of the people allow it to happen, through ignorance, through apathy, through intimidation. 

But the American people are made of sterner stuff than that. 

Don't just stand there...do it!

If every eligible voter in the country performed hir civic duty at every election, and if every eligible voter made it hir business to stay informed about the issues that face the nation, then it becomes far more difficult for any one group, no matter how well-organized and determined, to seize control of the government.

Make sure you are registered to vote. Don't assume that you are registered. During the primaries, thousands of people were shocked to discover that their names had been stricken from the voter lists without their knowledge. Florida has purged nearly 200,000 names from its voter list, including seniors and veterans. Pennsylvania is preparing to deny voting rights to nearly 10% of its eligible citizens. 

Voter suppression threatens our Republic, but there are still enough voters to put a stop to it, if only every citizen who can vote, does so. There are as many eligible voters who do not vote as there are who do -more, in fact. Voter turnout could potentially be double what it has historically been. The current voter suppression tactics - ambitious though they undeniably are - would not disenfranchise enough people to overcome the will of the people if only the majority would take a stand, register now and vote in November.

Your vote counts. It really is that important. 

Remind your friends and family to be sure to register and be sure to vote.  

Resources for Eligible Voters:

Can I vote?  Need help with voting? You've come to the right place. This nonpartisan web site was created by state election officials to help eligible voters figure out how and where to go vote. Choose a category below to get started.

Rock the Vote   Rock the Vote is a nonpartisan nonprofit organization in the United States whose mission is to engage and build the political power of young people.

Our Time.org   Declare Yourself is a national nonpartisan, nonprofit campaign to empower and encourage every eligible 18-29 year-old in America to register and vote in local and national elections.

League of Women Voters  The League is proud to be nonpartisan, neither supporting nor opposing candidates or political parties at any level of government, but always working on vital issues of concern to members and the public.

Register To Vote. org  In the United States, voter registration is the responsibility of the people, and only 70 percent of Americans who are eligible to vote have registered. RegistertoVote.org is a nonpartisan organization committed to reaching the remaining 30 percent. We simplify the voter registration process, making it faster and easier for you to get involved and become an active voice in our democracy.

Really, What's A Few Million Votes?

Read more at Center for American Progress

"Under the United States Constitution, states may not restrict voting rights in ways that infringe one's right to equal protection under the law (Fourteenth Amendment), on the basis of race (Fifteenth Amendment), gender (Nineteenth Amendment), or age for persons age 18 and older (Twenty-Sixth Amendment)." Voter Registration, wikipedia.

As the 2012 Election draws nearer, efforts to suppress the votes of the people most harmed by bad government policies will be ramped up to a fever pitch. Already in 2011 and 2012, twenty-four (24) laws and executive actions designed to make it more difficult for citizens to vote were passed in seventeen (17) states.  This legislative activity is justified as necessary to deter "widespread voter fraud", a non-existent phenomena for which even determined and prolonged investigation by the Bush administration could not produce evidence.  

The real effect of these laws will be the disenfranchising of thousands - possibly even millions - of American citizens. Election results are positively correlated with voter turnout.  Reducing the number of people who vote - especially poor people and people of color - has been shown to reduce the per centage of the overall popular vote for the Democratic party, while increasing the number of people who vote in an election increases the Democratic share of the overall popular vote.

This fact has implications for the Republicans.  In close elections, low voter turnout will work to their advantage, while high turnout is likely to swing the election in favor of the Democratic candidates. It is therefore in the interest of the Republican party to discourage voter turnout. And they have been doing their utmost to do just that.

"Ticking off a list of recent accomplishments by the GOP-controlled Legislature, he mentioned the new law forcing voters to show a photo ID at the polls. Said Turzai, with more than a hint of triumph: 'Voter ID, which is gonna allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania — done.'"
and
"Prodded by GOP political activists, the Justice Department under Bush conducted an extensive, nationwide, five-year probe of voter fraud — and ended up convicting a grand total of 86 individuals, according to a 2007 New York Times report. Most of the cases involved felons or immigrants who may not have known they were ineligible to vote.
  Not one case involved the only kind of fraud that voter ID could theoretically prevent: impersonation of a registered voter by someone else. Pennsylvania and other voter ID states have, in essence, passed laws that will be highly effective in eradicating unicorns."  The GOP's crime against voters, Eugene Robinson, Washington Post.

"Four years ago, Democrats expanded American democracy by registering millions of new voters — mostly young people and minorities — and persuading them to show up at the polls. Apparently, the GOP is determined not to let any such thing happen again. 
According to the nonpartisan Brennan Center for Justice at New York University, which keeps track of changes in voting laws, 22 statutes and two executive actions aimed at restricting the franchise have been approved in 17 states since the beginning of 2011. By the center’s count, an additional 74 such bills are pending."  A GOP witchhunt for the zombie voter. more excellent work from Eugene Robinson.

"More than two dozen states have some form of ID requirement, and 11 of those passed new rules over the past two years largely at the urging of Republicans who say they want to prevent fraud.
  Democrats and voting rights groups fear that ID laws could suppress votes among people who may not typically have a driver's license, and disproportionately affect the elderly, poor and minorities. While the number of votes is a small percentage of the overall total, they have the potential to sway a close election. Remember that the 2000 presidential race was decided by a 537-vote margin in Florida."  Voter ID laws designed to deter fraud may end up blocking thousands of legitimate ballots, Mike Baker, AP (via newser)

"'The numbers suggest that the legitimate votes rejected by the laws are far more numerous than are the cases of fraud that advocates of the rules say they are trying to prevent," writes reporter Mike Baker. "Thousands more votes could be in jeopardy for this November, when more states with larger populations are looking to have similar rules in place.'
  NYU Law School's Brennan Center For Justice has reached a similar conclusion after years of analysis, arguing that some five million potential voters will have difficulty casting their votes in 2012. They say the restrictions will hit young, low-income, minority and disabled voters the hardest." Report: Voter ID laws... Anna Merlan, Dallas Observer.

"Though the story was largely overlooked due to the July 4th holiday, we learned last week that Pennsylvania's voter-ID law is poised to disenfranchise more than 758,000 registered voters this year. In other words, 9.2% of the state's 8.2 million voters will be blocked from participating in their own democracy because Republicans are trying to rig the election." Pulling off an unconscionable crime,  Rachel Maddow, The Maddow Blog.

“As a national organization that closely monitors public affairs in the Latino community, in general, and the Dominican Community, in particular, we have witnessed disturbing allegations of voter suppression and lack of transparency in the 13th Congressional District election,” said Dr. Maria Teresa Montilla, President of the Dominican American National Roundtable (DANR). danr.org, July1, 2012. (help hotline: 1-888-240-1494).

Koch, The Kingmaker?

Protesters outside the estate of David Koch in Southampton, New York.

"Some 200 protesters, according to local law enforcement officials, gathered Sunday near the residence of billionaire David Koch, who held a private fund-raiser attended by Mitt Romney at his home in Southampton...David Koch, and his brother Charles are controversial figures in the Republican Party who support conservative and libertarian causes. Backers of the group Americans for Prosperity, the pair of industrialists are expected to spend tens - if not hundreds - of millions on Republican causes this year..."

"We're here because of David Koch and his vow to purchase a president,” said Anthony Zenkus, with Occupy Wall Street, pointing to the large amount of money the Koch brothers are speculated to spend. “It doesn't sound like democracy to me."

The rest of the CNN story can be found here.

New York Times:  Romney Donors Out in Force in Hamptons

Paul Krugman,  Mitt's Gray Areas,  New York Times OpEd

What's That, Mitt? If Elected, You Plan To Deliver the Death Blow to Public Schools? Quelle Surprise!

Hey, Mitt. Why not skip the slow torture and just raze them all to the ground?

Aaaannnndddd....Lynna from the commentariat at Pharyngula posted a link to this New York Review of Books review of Mitt Romney's campaign white paper, A Chance For Every Child: Mitt Romney's Plan For Restoring the Promise of American Education.

And what a paper it is. Vouchers!  Draining to public purse to fund private religious schools!  Public funding for teaching religious dogma as scientific and historical fact, ceasing the certification of teachers (and establishing no-fault firing), on-line for-profit "schooling"....oh the list of conservative red meat-flavored goodies is almost endless.

"The central themes of the Romney plan are a rehash of Republican education ideas from the past thirty years, namely, subsidizing parents who want to send their child to a private or religious school; encouraging the private sector to operate schools; putting commercial banks in charge of the federal student loan program; holding teachers and schools accountable for students’ test scores; and lowering entrance requirements for new teachers." Diane Ravitch, New York Review of Books, July 2012.

Our era's "civil rights" issue: take that you whiny women,
people of color and..wait, except latinos. I need latino votes
and really latinos can almost pass for white...

Most nauseating Best of all, Romney unblinkingly refers to the battle over public education as "the civil rights issue of our era".

"Romney claims that school choice is “the civil-rights issue of our era,” a familiar theme among the current crop of education reformers, who now use it to advance their efforts to privatize public education…."

Once again, Mitt Romney's utter lack of respect for the real issues which confront average Americans every day flabbergasts yet simultaneously doesn't surprise anymore.

In my post about education yesterday, I alluded to the fact that religious conservatives consider free, high-quality public education to be their number 1 enemy (although they portray it as the enemy of all the public, which is yet another instance of "evil is good" "black is white" obfuscation of reality which is such a fixture in Christian manipulation of the public discourse).  With this document, Mitt Romney has not merely signalled but trumpeted his intention to deliver the death blow to American public education.

"Another school [in Louisiana], the Eternity Christian Academy, which currently has fourteen students, has agreed to take in 135 voucher students. [Details from Bobby Jindal's education reform legislation that follows the Romney model --Louisiana enacted the reform law in April, 2012.] According to a recent Reuters article:
'...students in this school “sit in cubicles for much of the day and move at their own pace through Christian workbooks, such as a beginning science text that explains “what God made” on each of the six days of creation. They are not exposed to the theory of evolution.'"

The founding fathers would weep.

Public Education - Public Enemy #1? Religion Says Yes!

“Our species needs, and deserves, a citizenry with minds wide awake and a basic understanding of how the world works.”  Carl Sagan

This post is the first in a series on public education. The next post in the series can be found here.

"I think by far the most important bill in our whole code is that for the diffusion of knowledge among the people. No other sure foundation can be devised, for the preservation of freedom and happiness...Preach, my dear Sir, a crusade against ignorance; establish & improve the law for educating the common people. Let our countrymen know that the people alone can protect us against these evils [tyranny, oppression, etc.] and that the tax which will be paid for this purpose is not more than the thousandth part of what will be paid to kings, priests and nobles who will rise up among us if we leave the people in ignorance." Thomas Jefferson (letter to George Wythe, August 13, 1786).

Thomas Jefferson's lifelong belief in the importance of public education as the bedrock of a free Republic was shared by many of the founding fathers.  A major reason why most of humanity has lived in virtual enslavement for most of history is that the common people have been historically excluded from the education that was strictly reserved for the wealthy and priestly classes. As students of the Enlightenment, the framers of the Constitution of the United States of America understood from reading history - and through personal experience and observation - that the elusive key to greater liberty and equality for humankind has always been education.

Knowledge is power and education is the great equalizer. The founders knew that public education - the dissemination of the power of knowledge throughout a population of equals - was vital to a free and productive society. They believed that an educated citizenry was one of the foundational "common causes" behind which all citizens ought to throw their full support for the betterment of humankind and for the good of the new nation. 

They also knew that this public education - which would become the backbone of a more just and free society, the first of its kind in human history - must be protected from ideological influences and agendas. They had witnessed firsthand the oppression and tyranny that results when religious ideology is imposed upon a people, and they tried - via the establishment clause in the Constitution - to strike a balance between protection of an individual's religious liberty and the protection of the general population from any religious group which might seek to impose its religious ideology on the entire people. 

 "...kings, priests and nobles..."

"Kings, priests and nobles" -  and their modern-day equivalent: megachurch leaders, pastors and conservative religious hierarchies - have always known this and thus feared and hated the idea of an educated public. Elites do not want social equality. More social equality is seen by powerful elites as a zero sum game: more power and wealth for the general population means less power and wealth for them, which is why education has historically been the ruthlessly guarded privilege of those elites.  Throughout history, in many parts of the world, they made sure that it was actually illegal to educate the common people. 

Wealthy, religious elites - whose wealth is sucked out of the people over whom they have religious power - fear an educated population the most and, when public education is legally mandated (as in the USA), they will do their utmost to undermine and impoverish it. They know that an educated populace will inevitably lead to the disruption of their traditional power structures. They recognise that they cannot exploit the people if the people are educated. Educated people have access to the knowledge once exclusively owned by religious elites, and can separate facts from fiction. Educated people develop confidence, independence and aspirations. Educated people fight back against exploitation. 

A rare, true church sign slogan.

"Above all things I hope the education of the common people will be attended to ; convinced that on their good sense we may rely with the most security for the preservation of a due degree of liberty." Thomas Jefferson, 3rd US President (letter to James Madison, 4th US President, December 20, 1787).

Jefferson's insight no doubt informed religious conservatives in their strategy to undermine the Republic and reduce the United States to an authoritarian theocracy. They recognized that it really was education, primarily, which enabled millions of people to rise above the poverty and disenfranchisement which has been the fate of "common people" everywhere for all of human history. And it was education of the people which was helping millions of Americans enjoy a better standard of living - earned through their own well-educated efforts - which had been impossible when they were an uneducated peasantry whose life circumstances and well-being were entirely at the mercy of a culture which allowed all power and wealth to be concentrated into the hands of a very few, usually religious, elite groups.

...which is exactly what conservatives fear most!

It was this fact -  that free public education gives power to the people instead of to religious elites - which put the American school system at the top of the religious conservatives' hit list. Filtering information through their own self-interested Biblical lens, and keeping the vast majority of people fearful, ignorant and acquiescent because of the threat of eternal divine punishment had long been the primary means of concentrating power into the hands of the priestly classes, but public education -by giving the people access to the knowledge that once was the secret posession of the clergy, and the critical thinking skills with which to assess the claims and threats of religion - undermined the theological house of cards upon which church authority rests, breaking its stranglehold over the public psyche. 

Millions of educated people who are capable of understanding the ideologies and questioning the actions of powerful groups in their midst become far more difficult to control and exploit. Millions of educated people, who have been taught history and critical thinking skills, are able to recognise when the doctrine of a religious elite is immoral, self-interested power-mongering.  Therefore, it became the first priority of the religious right movement to undermine and discredit public education while simultaneously spearheading a parallel assortment of pseudo-educational systems with which to replace it.  The Christian homeschooling movement is not, and never was, a grassroots phenomenon. Likewise, the private Christian school and college campuses mushrooming up all over the country are a targeted investment in this strategy.

As they insinuated themselves into school boards across the country - running as fiscal conservatives to get elected only to turn around and concentrate on their religious agenda once in power - religious conservatives began a determined campaign to inject religious mythology into public school classrooms, inventing fake "controversies" over established scientific theories which conflicted with Christian beliefs, and often succeeding in forcing grossly misleading "information" into school curriculums. The ongoing effort of Christian conservatives to force the teaching of Biblical creationism in science classrooms, falsely presenting religious belief as a scientific theory to school children is a chilling example of this.

Who needs public school when all you'll ever need to
know can be found in the Bible?

In addition to these determined efforts to force schools to teach a generation of American children lies and mythology as "historical facts" and "scientific theory" (which may potentially handicap them for life), conservative school board members in key districts have also moved to prevent children from learning vital critical thinking skills. The reason why the religious right wants to reduce or eliminate higher order thinking skills in the general population is obvious - as mentioned above, properly educated people are equipped to see through the religious right's agenda - but the unintended consequence may very possibly be a population rendered incapable of meeting the demands of a competitive global race for technological and scientific innovation due to huge gaps in their education.

Consider this plank in the Texas Republican party platform:

Knowledge-Based Education – We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) (values clarification), critical thinking skills and similar programs that are simply a relabeling of Outcome-Based Education (OBE) (mastery learning) which focus on behavior modification and have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority. (from a position statement in the 2012 Texas Republican Party Platform).

The Texas Republican Party is openly calling for a ban on the teaching of vital critical thinking skills. They are not shy about saying this - it is right there in their published platform statement - and, thanks to the current climate of rising authoritarian anti-intellectualism, they are not shy about saying why they want to deprive Texas students (and ultimately all students) of the right to a full education, including the development of the ability to think for themselves. 

...and only This...

They intend to change Texas law so that religious belief will replace scientifically verifiable knowledge. They intend to enshrine into law that children cannot learn anything in school which will conflict with Christian teachings. The reference to "behavior modification" is a dog whistle thrown in to arouse right wing paranoia. HOTS have nothing to do with "behavior modification"; that sentence makes no sense whatsoever to anybody who actually understands educational theory, but pseudo-intellectual sounding claptrap is the stock in trade of Christian conservatives justifying their rejection of any secular initiative. Likewise, the jarringly inappropriate reference to "parental authority" and "fixed beliefs" makes no sense, unless the crux of the position is that schools will be prohibited from teaching pupils anything at all other than what parents and churches have already told them is all they need to know. That would make public schools unnecessary and redundant. 

Which is exactly the point.

Preventing a generation of children from receiving a proper education is precisely the goal of the religious right. For those children that they have already siphoned off into fundamentalist Christian homeschooling and private Christian schools, the pseudo-education has already been well underway for more than a generation. It is the public schools which still vex them. Limping along, greatly hampered by the constant attacks, the draining of resources through determined conservative legislative attacks on the value and sincerity of public education and teachers, and the bleeding dry of funding and student enrollments via school voucher campaigns redirecting public funds into religious schools, the public school system has been under constant, vicious attack for over three decades. Unless the American people wake up and put a stop to it, the religious right may succeed in completely dismantling public education, leaving students to the deliberate miseducation of religious schooling, thus plunging the country back into a new kind of dark age, with both intellectual and social liberty lost.

...before it's too late!

"I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society, but the people themselves: and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is, not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. this is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power." Thomas Jefferson (letter to William C. Jarvis, September 28, 1820).

Ironically, although President Jefferson's considered opinion that a free society depended upon a publicly-educated population was the insight upon which the religious right based its attack upon America, as soon as they had achieved their goal of majority influence over school boards and state legislatures, they acted to try to erase Thomas Jefferson and other progressive thinkers from the text books which American children will study, replacing them with conservative idols and religious ideology. 

Nearly destroying the public education system in the United States was never simply a mildly-regretted, unintended consequence of the conservative Christian campaign to "take back over" America.  Preventing people from having access to a free and intellectually rigorous education was always their goal.  Millions of publicly-educated people are the only safeguard standing between a free, democratic Republic and an authoritarian, theocratic oligarchy. The self-annointed "moral majority" understood this back in the late 1960's when they launched their campaign to undermine the foundations of American society and transform it into a theocracy with themselves (naturally) in control. The first and most critical stage of that campaign strategy was to destroy public education - the greatest threat to their power - and in that quest they have had alarming success. 

Recommended reading (No seriously, I'm begging you: read these things!): 

A thoughtful, in-depth and very readable article on the conservative Christian strategy to rewrite history, erase progressive contributions and undermine the entire foundation of American society: How Christian Were the Founders? Russell Shorto, New York Times Magazine, February 11, 2010

Why public education must be preserved, Valerie Strauss, Washington Post.

Texas textbook standards revision story here.

PBS, School: The Story of American Public Education.

Rev. Jesse Jackson Jr.  The moral imperative for education policy.

Dr. P Z Myers, A well informed citizenry is the only true repository of the public will.

Patrick Murfin's brief history of public education here.

Columbus Dispatch story

Louisiana private (religious) schools voucher story here.

"...improve the law for educating the common people...the people alone can protect us against...tyranny..."