Seed Newsvine
Actually, sort of disconnected rants about women and gays in teh military and the forced fundamentalism in the US military.
This stupidity started in the late '70s when the far right evangelicals began to take over the military. The first thing was deglamorization of alcohol, which destroyed the Club system. The club system was rank specific, and acted as a way to teach and monitor drinking. It wasn't perfect, but we looked out for each other.
Then the brass decided to make it impossible to drink on base - the military police waited outside the Clubs to arrest drivers. And being stopped on post was a career killer.
By the mid-80s, the brass had managed to institute rules that you couldn't drink while deployed in Bosnia. Then it became you couldn't drink on any deployment. In other words, they would trust us with people's lives, but not with a beer.
In our current debacle, beer is rationed out like morphine. Imagine combat and having nothing to let you relax your screaming brain. No wonder we have so many PTSD cases coming out of the theatres.
Now that they think they have a cadre of teetotalers, they're going to kill off the last of the smokers.
The idea is to have a Puritanically biased military force without those distracting nasty vices - a Crusader ideal of the Christian Soldier. They want religious cultists to replace an apolitical, professional military cadre. They want a armed cult that owes allegiance to what they think their god wants, not to the Constitution and the rule of Law.
This is the model for other cult driven militias such as the Taliban, Al-Qaeda, the SS of Nazi Germany, Serbian nationalists, Chinese Communists, North Korean Army, etc.
It's Un-American.
Note: Iran/Kuwait as a means of isolating and conditioning the military, ala Dune. Isolation, control of access to vice. Computer links normalize harsh conditions and enhance susceptibility to influence.
Sets up a we/other relationship with an esoteric and Puritanical enemy which does not (apparently ) display vices except extreme brutality and mindless violence. (cartoon/graphic/computer aspect) death by remote and video game point system.
Showing posts with label Constitution. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Constitution. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Sunday, July 10, 2011
George Lakoff on the Christofascist Worldview
http://georgelakoff.com/2011/02/19/what-conservatives-really-want/
What Conservatives Really Want
Posted on February 19, 2011 by georgelakoff
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—Dedicated to the peaceful protestors in Wisconsin, February 19, 2011
The central issue in our political life is not being discussed. At stake is the moral basis of American democracy.
The individual issues are all too real: assaults on unions, public employees, women’s rights, immigrants, the environment, health care, voting rights, food safety, pensions, prenatal care, science, public broadcasting, and on and on.
Budget deficits are a ruse, as we’ve seen in Wisconsin, where the Governor turned a surplus into a deficit by providing corporate tax breaks, and then used the deficit as a ploy to break the unions, not just in Wisconsin, but seeking to be the first domino in a nationwide conservative movement.
Deficits can be addressed by raising revenue, plugging tax loopholes, putting people to work, and developing the economy long-term in all the ways the President has discussed. But deficits are not what really matters to conservatives.
Conservatives really want to change the basis of American life, to make America run according to the conservative moral worldview in all areas of life.
In the 2008 campaign, candidate Obama accurately described the basis of American democracy: Empathy — citizens caring for each other, both social and personal responsibility—acting on that care, and an ethic of excellence. From these, our freedoms and our way of life follow, as does the role of government: to protect and empower everyone equally. Protection includes safety, health, the environment, pensions and empowerment starts with education and infrastructure. No one can be free without these, and without a commitment to care and act on that care by one’s fellow citizens.
The conservative worldview rejects all of that.
Conservatives believe in individual responsibility alone, not social responsibility. They don’t think government should help its citizens. That is, they don’t think citizens should help each other. The part of government they want to cut is not the military (we have over 800** military bases around the world), not government subsidies to corporations, not the aspect of government that fits their worldview. They want to cut the part that helps people. Why? Because that violates individual responsibility.
But where does that view of individual responsibility alone come from?
The way to understand the conservative moral system is to consider a strict father family. The father is The Decider, the ultimate moral authority in the family. His authority must not be challenged. His job is to protect the family, to support the family (by winning competitions in the marketplace), and to teach his kids right from wrong by disciplining them physically when they do wrong. The use of force is necessary and required. Only then will children develop the internal discipline to become moral beings. And only with such discipline will they be able to prosper. And what of people who are not prosperous? They don’t have discipline, and without discipline they cannot be moral, so they deserve their poverty. The good people are hence the prosperous people. Helping others takes away their discipline, and hence makes them both unable to prosper on their own and function morally.
The market itself is seen in this way. The slogan, “Let the market decide” assumes the market itself is The Decider. The market is seen as both natural (since it is assumed that people naturally seek their self-interest) and moral (if everyone seeks their own profit, the profit of all will be maximized by the invisible hand). As the ultimate moral authority, there should be no power higher than the market that might go against market values. Thus the government can spend money to protect the market and promote market values, but should not rule over it either through (1) regulation, (2) taxation, (3) unions and worker rights, (4) environmental protection or food safety laws, and (5) tort cases. Moreover, government should not do public service. The market has service industries for that. Thus, it would be wrong for the government to provide health care, education, public broadcasting, public parks, and so on. The very idea of these things is at odds with the conservative moral system. No one should be paying for anyone else. It is individual responsibility in all arenas. Taxation is thus seen as taking money away from those who have earned it and giving it to people who don’t deserve it. Taxation cannot be seen as providing the necessities of life, a civilized society, and as necessary for business to prosper.
In conservative family life, the strict father rules. Fathers and husbands should have control over reproduction; hence, parental and spousal notification laws and opposition to abortion. In conservative religion, God is seen as the strict father, the Lord, who rewards and punishes according to individual responsibility in following his Biblical word.
Above all, the authority of conservatism itself must be maintained. The country should be ruled by conservative values, and progressive values are seen as evil. Science should NOT have authority over the market, and so the science of global warming and evolution must be denied. Facts that are inconsistent with the authority of conservatism must be ignored or denied or explained away. To protect and extend conservative values themselves, the devil’s own means can be used against conservatism’s immoral enemies, whether lies, intimidation, torture, or even death, say, for women’s doctors.
Freedom is defined as being your own strict father — with individual not social responsibility, and without any government authority telling you what you can and cannot do. To defend that freedom as an individual, you will of course need a gun.
This is the America that conservatives really want. Budget deficits are convenient ruses for destroying American democracy and replacing it with conservative rule in all areas of life.
What is saddest of all is to see Democrats helping them.
Democrats help radical conservatives by accepting the deficit frame and arguing about what to cut. Even arguing against specific “cuts” is working within the conservative frame. What is the alternative? Pointing out what conservatives really want. Point out that there is plenty of money in America, and in Wisconsin. It is at the top. The disparity in financial assets is un-American — the top one percent has more financial assets than the bottom 95 percent. Middle class wages have been flat for 30 years, while the wealth has floated to the top. This fits the conservative way of life, but not the American way of life.
Democrats help conservatives by not shouting out loud over and over that it was conservative values that caused the global economic collapse: lack of regulation and a greed-is-good ethic.
Democrats also help conservatives by what a friend has called Democratic Communication Disorder. Republican conservatives have constructed a vast and effective communication system, with think tanks, framing experts, training institutes, a system of trained speakers, vast holdings of media, and booking agents. Eighty percent of the talking heads on tv are conservatives. Talk matters because language heard over and over changes brains. Democrats have not built the communication system they need, and many are relatively clueless about how to frame their deepest values and complex truths.
And Democrats help conservatives when they function as policy wonks — talking policy without communicating the moral values behind the policies. They help conservatives when they neglect to remind us that pensions are deferred payments for work done. “Benefits” are pay for work, not a handout. Pensions and benefits are arranged by contract. If there is not enough money for them, it is because the contracted funds have been taken by conservative officials and given to wealthy people and corporations instead of to the people who have earned them.
Democrats help conservatives when they use conservative words like “entitlements” instead of “earnings” and speak of government as providing “services” instead of “necessities.”
Is there hope?
I see it in Wisconsin, where tens of thousands citizens see through the conservative frames and are willing to flood the streets of their capital to stand up for their rights. They understand that democracy is about citizens uniting to take care of each other, about social responsibility as well as individual responsibility, and about work — not just for your own profit, but to help create a civilized society. They appreciate their teachers, nurses, firemen, police, and other public servants. They are flooding the streets to demand real democracy — the democracy of caring, of social responsibility, and of excellence, where prosperity is to be shared by those who work and those who serve.
**This number was incorrectly reported as 174 in an earlier version of the article. Thanks to my many readers who contacted me with a more accurate number.
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3 Responses to What Conservatives Really Want
What Conservatives Really Want
Posted on February 19, 2011 by georgelakoff
Bookmark and Share
—Dedicated to the peaceful protestors in Wisconsin, February 19, 2011
The central issue in our political life is not being discussed. At stake is the moral basis of American democracy.
The individual issues are all too real: assaults on unions, public employees, women’s rights, immigrants, the environment, health care, voting rights, food safety, pensions, prenatal care, science, public broadcasting, and on and on.
Budget deficits are a ruse, as we’ve seen in Wisconsin, where the Governor turned a surplus into a deficit by providing corporate tax breaks, and then used the deficit as a ploy to break the unions, not just in Wisconsin, but seeking to be the first domino in a nationwide conservative movement.
Deficits can be addressed by raising revenue, plugging tax loopholes, putting people to work, and developing the economy long-term in all the ways the President has discussed. But deficits are not what really matters to conservatives.
Conservatives really want to change the basis of American life, to make America run according to the conservative moral worldview in all areas of life.
In the 2008 campaign, candidate Obama accurately described the basis of American democracy: Empathy — citizens caring for each other, both social and personal responsibility—acting on that care, and an ethic of excellence. From these, our freedoms and our way of life follow, as does the role of government: to protect and empower everyone equally. Protection includes safety, health, the environment, pensions and empowerment starts with education and infrastructure. No one can be free without these, and without a commitment to care and act on that care by one’s fellow citizens.
The conservative worldview rejects all of that.
Conservatives believe in individual responsibility alone, not social responsibility. They don’t think government should help its citizens. That is, they don’t think citizens should help each other. The part of government they want to cut is not the military (we have over 800** military bases around the world), not government subsidies to corporations, not the aspect of government that fits their worldview. They want to cut the part that helps people. Why? Because that violates individual responsibility.
But where does that view of individual responsibility alone come from?
The way to understand the conservative moral system is to consider a strict father family. The father is The Decider, the ultimate moral authority in the family. His authority must not be challenged. His job is to protect the family, to support the family (by winning competitions in the marketplace), and to teach his kids right from wrong by disciplining them physically when they do wrong. The use of force is necessary and required. Only then will children develop the internal discipline to become moral beings. And only with such discipline will they be able to prosper. And what of people who are not prosperous? They don’t have discipline, and without discipline they cannot be moral, so they deserve their poverty. The good people are hence the prosperous people. Helping others takes away their discipline, and hence makes them both unable to prosper on their own and function morally.
The market itself is seen in this way. The slogan, “Let the market decide” assumes the market itself is The Decider. The market is seen as both natural (since it is assumed that people naturally seek their self-interest) and moral (if everyone seeks their own profit, the profit of all will be maximized by the invisible hand). As the ultimate moral authority, there should be no power higher than the market that might go against market values. Thus the government can spend money to protect the market and promote market values, but should not rule over it either through (1) regulation, (2) taxation, (3) unions and worker rights, (4) environmental protection or food safety laws, and (5) tort cases. Moreover, government should not do public service. The market has service industries for that. Thus, it would be wrong for the government to provide health care, education, public broadcasting, public parks, and so on. The very idea of these things is at odds with the conservative moral system. No one should be paying for anyone else. It is individual responsibility in all arenas. Taxation is thus seen as taking money away from those who have earned it and giving it to people who don’t deserve it. Taxation cannot be seen as providing the necessities of life, a civilized society, and as necessary for business to prosper.
In conservative family life, the strict father rules. Fathers and husbands should have control over reproduction; hence, parental and spousal notification laws and opposition to abortion. In conservative religion, God is seen as the strict father, the Lord, who rewards and punishes according to individual responsibility in following his Biblical word.
Above all, the authority of conservatism itself must be maintained. The country should be ruled by conservative values, and progressive values are seen as evil. Science should NOT have authority over the market, and so the science of global warming and evolution must be denied. Facts that are inconsistent with the authority of conservatism must be ignored or denied or explained away. To protect and extend conservative values themselves, the devil’s own means can be used against conservatism’s immoral enemies, whether lies, intimidation, torture, or even death, say, for women’s doctors.
Freedom is defined as being your own strict father — with individual not social responsibility, and without any government authority telling you what you can and cannot do. To defend that freedom as an individual, you will of course need a gun.
This is the America that conservatives really want. Budget deficits are convenient ruses for destroying American democracy and replacing it with conservative rule in all areas of life.
What is saddest of all is to see Democrats helping them.
Democrats help radical conservatives by accepting the deficit frame and arguing about what to cut. Even arguing against specific “cuts” is working within the conservative frame. What is the alternative? Pointing out what conservatives really want. Point out that there is plenty of money in America, and in Wisconsin. It is at the top. The disparity in financial assets is un-American — the top one percent has more financial assets than the bottom 95 percent. Middle class wages have been flat for 30 years, while the wealth has floated to the top. This fits the conservative way of life, but not the American way of life.
Democrats help conservatives by not shouting out loud over and over that it was conservative values that caused the global economic collapse: lack of regulation and a greed-is-good ethic.
Democrats also help conservatives by what a friend has called Democratic Communication Disorder. Republican conservatives have constructed a vast and effective communication system, with think tanks, framing experts, training institutes, a system of trained speakers, vast holdings of media, and booking agents. Eighty percent of the talking heads on tv are conservatives. Talk matters because language heard over and over changes brains. Democrats have not built the communication system they need, and many are relatively clueless about how to frame their deepest values and complex truths.
And Democrats help conservatives when they function as policy wonks — talking policy without communicating the moral values behind the policies. They help conservatives when they neglect to remind us that pensions are deferred payments for work done. “Benefits” are pay for work, not a handout. Pensions and benefits are arranged by contract. If there is not enough money for them, it is because the contracted funds have been taken by conservative officials and given to wealthy people and corporations instead of to the people who have earned them.
Democrats help conservatives when they use conservative words like “entitlements” instead of “earnings” and speak of government as providing “services” instead of “necessities.”
Is there hope?
I see it in Wisconsin, where tens of thousands citizens see through the conservative frames and are willing to flood the streets of their capital to stand up for their rights. They understand that democracy is about citizens uniting to take care of each other, about social responsibility as well as individual responsibility, and about work — not just for your own profit, but to help create a civilized society. They appreciate their teachers, nurses, firemen, police, and other public servants. They are flooding the streets to demand real democracy — the democracy of caring, of social responsibility, and of excellence, where prosperity is to be shared by those who work and those who serve.
**This number was incorrectly reported as 174 in an earlier version of the article. Thanks to my many readers who contacted me with a more accurate number.
Bookmark and Share
This entry was posted in Political. Bookmark the permalink.
3 Responses to What Conservatives Really Want
Sunday, July 3, 2011
ABC sides with Reality
http://www.politicususa.com/en/constitution-religious-document
As humans re-start using both sides of their brains to mass communicate, the Power of the Word wains.
Damn, sounds all LTR.
The point is, people are still trying to use just words to control others. The Bible is out of their hands, but they would like to replace it with a mythology of the Founding Fathers and their Sacred Words - The Constitution.
Hm - Ben Franklin as Bacchus or Priapas. I can see that.
The same old language - Latin - but the new priests are lawyers, who speak together and dispense law from their esoteric knowledge of the mysteries of the Bill of Rights.
They will, of course, fail. They've learned nothing from the Arab Spring or Rep. Weiner. The private is once again public.
Or at least our notions of what 'private' is are changing. We'll probably go more Japanese, or at least European.
Americans and the notion of the suburbs have created notions of entitlement to space. (Virgin Land, Machine in the Garden, John Ford, etc.) Which is why the cities are considered corrupting - because they ignore your obvious insight and wisdom and do strange things you're not comfortable with.
We haven't run out of land, but we've made that irrelevant. YouTube. CNN. Comcast. You can't escape the gazillion stimuli your brain processes daily. The trick is, we're using the right brain now, which isn't used to non-linear thinking. It's learning, though.
Used to lecture Korean Exchange students on American Culture. 10 hour series. Wonder if I still have my notes...
I suspect new taboos will take their place.
As humans re-start using both sides of their brains to mass communicate, the Power of the Word wains.
Damn, sounds all LTR.
The point is, people are still trying to use just words to control others. The Bible is out of their hands, but they would like to replace it with a mythology of the Founding Fathers and their Sacred Words - The Constitution.
Hm - Ben Franklin as Bacchus or Priapas. I can see that.
The same old language - Latin - but the new priests are lawyers, who speak together and dispense law from their esoteric knowledge of the mysteries of the Bill of Rights.
They will, of course, fail. They've learned nothing from the Arab Spring or Rep. Weiner. The private is once again public.
Or at least our notions of what 'private' is are changing. We'll probably go more Japanese, or at least European.
Americans and the notion of the suburbs have created notions of entitlement to space. (Virgin Land, Machine in the Garden, John Ford, etc.) Which is why the cities are considered corrupting - because they ignore your obvious insight and wisdom and do strange things you're not comfortable with.
We haven't run out of land, but we've made that irrelevant. YouTube. CNN. Comcast. You can't escape the gazillion stimuli your brain processes daily. The trick is, we're using the right brain now, which isn't used to non-linear thinking. It's learning, though.
Used to lecture Korean Exchange students on American Culture. 10 hour series. Wonder if I still have my notes...
I suspect new taboos will take their place.
Saturday, June 4, 2011
Citizenship and pregnancy - both are all or nothing
Am I a full citizen, or not? According to GOP's anti-woman law proposals, I'm only 3/5s a citizen. 3/5s a citizen was the degree assigned to slaves.
If the government can regulate my uterus, which I was born with, then I'm only 3/5s of a citizen.
It's a body part, no different from my skin color. If the government rules that I'm not worthy of dying for my country as a full member of the United States military because of my uterus, I'm 3/5s a citizen.
If my liberty and rights depend on the comfort level of strangers, rather than my Constitutional rights as a full citizen, I'm only 3/5s a citizen.
Twentieth Century Jim Crow laws disenfranchised technically 'equal' citizens. Under the guise of States rights, they enforced a government based discrimination which continues today. Anti-abortion laws are no different than Jim Crow laws. They seek to create an enslaved class of people based on physical characteristics. It reeks of the same patronizing theory that full citizenship is beyond what I can aspire to.
Same old song - but it's gender this time, instead of race.
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