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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on October 5, 2018 at 12:11 am
Starting in 2016, traveling by air in the United States got more complicated. But not necessarily safer.
In 2005, Congress passed the Real ID Act as a counter-terrorism measure. Its goal was to set security standards for government-issued IDs.
The Act started to be introduced in late 2013. Now in the last phase of its implementation, its enforcers have decided that some states haven’t complied with its requirements.
As a result, driver’s licenses from those states will no longer suffice to pass through airport security. And that includes domestic flights as well as international ones.
Those states: New York, New Hampshire, Minnesota, Louisiana and American Samoa.
The reason: Licenses issued by those states don’t contain enough identifying information to pass muster with the Transportation Security Administration (TSA).
So how are residents of these states supposed to cope? The Federal Government is advising them to get a passport.
But, as one New York traveler outlined:
“To get a passport I’ll first need to get a certified copy of my birth certificate.
“And to get a copy of my birth certificate I need only to submit a copy of my driver’s license. A copy, no face-to-face, is-that-really you?
“So a New York driver’s license isn’t good enough for flying but it is good enough to get a birth certificate, which gets me a passport, which allows me to fly.”
Sample state ID card that’s acceptable under the Real ID Act
So much of what passes for security is actually security theater. It doesn’t actually make us safer, but it makes us feel safer.
And it makes us feel the government is keeping us safe, even when it isn’t.
For example: In the months after 9/11, National Guard troops were stationed in American airports. They certainly looked impressive.
What passengers didn’t know was that the Guardsmen carried unloaded assault rifles.
Consider this advice posted on the State of California Department of Motor Vehicles website:
“A valid California driver license or ID card can be used for federal purposes, including boarding a domestic flight and entering military bases or secure federal facilities, until October 1, 2020. After that date, only a REAL ID card or other federally approved documents will be accepted, such as a valid U.S. passport, passport card or military ID.”
To apply for a REAL ID card:
- Make an appointment (recommended) to visit a DMV field office.
- Provide proof of identity, such as a certified copy of a U.S. birth certificate, U.S. passport, employment authorization document, permanent resident card or foreign passport with an approved form I-94.
- Present proof of your Social Security number, such as an SSN card, W-2 or paystub with full SSN.
- Show a California residency document, such as a rental or lease agreement, mortgage bill, utility bill or employment, medical or school document.
- An original or certified copy of a name change document, such as a marriage certificate or divorce decree, may be required.
How does showing a “utility bill” document prove your integrity?
No doubt Mohammed Atta—the ringleader of the September 11, 2001 attacks—faithfully paid his utility bills—right up to the day when he highjacked American Airlines Flight 11 and crashed the plane into the North Tower of the World Trade Center.
And what does a “school document” reveal about the character of the person?
That s/he attended school? So what?
Theodore Bundy attended the University of Puget Sound and the University of Washington—before embarking on his career as a burglar, kidnapper, rapist and serial killer.
Or take the checking of photo IDs that has become routine to enter State and Federal office buildings.
What exactly does this tell the security guard?
If you’re John Dillinger or Osama bin Laden, it tells him: “This is a very wanted man.”
But if you’re John Q. Public, who’s not notorious as a bank robber or terrorist, showing him your ID tells him nothing.
But people watching the guard performing this security theater ritual assume: “The guard must know what he’s looking for. So we have to be safer for his checking those IDs.”
In fact, most security guards have little training and even less experience. Many of them don’t carry firearms and lack self-defense skills.
According to Salary.com: The median annual Security Guard salary is $29,204, as of July 29, 2016, with a range usually between $25,857 and $33,522.
Not exactly a salary geared to attract “the best and the brightest,” is it?
Or suppose you want to report a crime to a field office of the FBI.
A secretary asks why you’ve come.
If she considers your reason legitimate, she requires you to show your driver’s license or State ID card. Then she makes a xerox of this and hands the card back.
Then you must fill out a single-page form, which requires you to provide your:
- Name
- Address
- Phone number
- Social Security Number
- Reason to speak with an FBI agent
The FBI has always encouraged Americans to report anything they consider a threat to national security or a violation of Federal law.
But demanding so much private information just to report a crime will almost certainly decrease the number of people willing to do so.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on October 4, 2018 at 12:05 am
Frank Brandenburg had just turned 16 in 1979 when he saw the NBC mini-series Holocaust, depicting the Third Reich’s extermination of six million Jewish men, women and children.
He was stunned. Had such atrocities really taken place?
His parents, friends and teachers refused to talk about Adolf Hitler and his Nazi party that had tyrannically ruled Germany for 12 years.
“No one wants to talk today about that! Let the past sleep,” he was repeatedly told.
Frank Brandenburg had a deeply personal reason for pursuing the truth. He was a citizen of West Germany, growing up in a country that was still divided in two for having lost World War II—a war Hitler had started.
He started reading such books about the Holocaust as:
- Inside the Third Reich, by former Reichminister for Armaments Albert Speer, stated that it had happened.
- David Irving’s Hitler’s War, on the other hand, seemed inconclusive on the subject.
- The Auschwitz Lie, by Thies Chrostophersen, flatly asserted that the victorious Allies had concocted this slander to blacken the good name of Germany.
So Brandenburg did something no other teenager had dared attempt: He set out to meet and interview as many former members of the Third Reich as possible.
Among those he interviewed:
- Lina Heydrich, the widow of Reinhard Heydrich, the #2 man in the Schutzstaffel, or SS.
- Otto Remer, who put down the July 20, 1944 generals’ plot against Hitler.
- SS General Karl Wolff, a close confidant of SS Reichsfuhrer Heinrich Himmler.
- The widow and sons of Deputy Fuhrer Rudolf Hess.
- Hans Baur, Hitler’s personal pilot.
These interviews ultimately became a 1990 book: Quest: Searching for Nazi Germany’s Past, co-authored by Brandenburg and Ib Melchior. It is a book that can never be duplicated, because those interviewed by Brandenburg are now dead.
Of his encounters with so many former Nazis, Brandenburg reflected:
“Today I know that in some cases…I was confronted with defensive statements, evasion, self-exoneration and prejudiced portrayals of the facts.
“But when I began my project, at the age of 16, I—naively—had no conception that this might be the case. Not one of the people I talked to expressed any kind of guilt or remorse. Not one of them had regrets or concern for their victims.
“Yet, it is easier for me to understand that. Who, in his old age, wants to admit having committed such misdeeds? To admit that everything one had believed in, worked for and lived for, had been corrupt?”
Nazi SS soldiers marching
Which helps explain the reaction historians will receive when, in the future, they interview supporters of Donald Trump.
The Original Nazis were guided by Hitler’s belief that the world was polluted by corruption and ugliness—and their mission was to remove that ugliness and corruption.
This meant removing those peoples they deemed inferior—Jews, Slavs (Poles, Serbs, Russians), Communists, liberals, gypsies, the physically and mentally handicapped.
Today’s Republicans believe themselves to be the only legitimate political party. And so do their supporters.
No sin—or even crime—is intolerable if it’s committed by a Republican.
On October 7, 2916, The Washington Post leaked a video of Republican Presidential nominee Donald Trump making sexually predatory comments about women:
You know I’m automatically attracted to beautiful—I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star they let you do it. You can do anything.
Donald Trump
Right-wingers rushed to excuse Trump’s misogynist comments as mere “frat boy” talk.
- Corey Lewandowski, a former Trump campaign manager and now CNN commentator: “We are electing a leader to the free world. We’re not electing a Sunday school teacher.”
- Jerry Falwell, Jr., president of Liberty University: “When they ask [if Trump’s personal life is relevant] I always talk about the story of the woman at the well who had had five husbands and she was living with somebody she wasn’t married to, and they wanted to stone her. And Jesus said he’s–he who is without sin cast the first stone. I just see how Donald Trump treats other people, and I’m impressed by that.”
- Ralph Reed, founder and chairman of the Faith & Freedom Coalition: “People of faith are voting on issues like who will protect unborn life, defend religious freedom, grow the economy, appoint conservative judges and oppose the Iran nuclear deal.”
In 2017, Roy Moore, the twice-ousted former chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, ran for the state’s U.S. Senator.
Four women, in a Washington Post story, accused Moore of seeking romantic relationships with teenage girls while he was in his 30s, and even trolling malls for such dates.
Kay Ivey, the state’s Governor, offered the real reason why Republicans supported Moore:
“I believe in the Republican party, what we stand for, and, most important, we need to have a Republican in the United States Senate to vote on things like the Supreme Court justices, other appointments the Senate has to confirm and make major decisions. So that’s what I plan to do, vote for Republican nominee Roy Moore.”
In short: The mission of the Republican party is to attain absolute power over the lives of American citizens. Compared to that, electing even accused sexual predators shrinks to insignificance.
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In Bureaucracy, Entertainment, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on October 1, 2018 at 12:35 am
A war is flaring in football stadiums across the country.
It’s a symbolic war—with football players literally “taking a knee” on one side and with President Donald Trump and his Right-wing minions symbolically waving the Stars and Stripes on the other.
And it’s fueled, on both sides, by a stadium-sized dose of hypocrisy.
For players, “taking a knee” during the playing of the National Anthem before the start of a football game means protesting against racial injustice and police brutality aimed at blacks.
For the Right, refusing to stand for “The Star Spangled Banner” is unpatriotic, perhaps treasonous. They claim it’s insulting to the military—and especially those soldiers who have died in America’s wars.
San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick first took a knee on August 14, 2016.
Colin Kaepernick
During the 49ers’ first game of the pre-season, Kaepernick sat on the bench during the National Anthem both then and in their next game.
On August 26, he did so again. The next day, he explained his reason for ,it: “I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color. To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder.”
On August 29, Trump—still a Presidential candidate—thrust himself into the budding controversy: “I think it’s personally not a good thing. I think it’s a terrible thing. And, you know, maybe he should find a country that works better for him. Let him try. It won’t happen.”
Donald Trump
One year later, on August 12, 2017, Oakland Raiders running back Marshawn Lynch sat for the anthem during preseason, on his first game back post-retirement.
The next day, Seattle Seahawks defensive lineman Michael Bennett sat for the anthem. He gave as his reason the “Unite the Right” rally of white racists in Charlottesville, Virginia.
On September 17, Trump—now President—told a rally in Alabama that refusing to sing the National Anthem showed “disrespect of our heritage. Wouldn’t you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, ‘Get that son of a bitch off the field right now, out, he’s fired.'”
On September 23, Trump, on Twitter, called for NFL players who “disrespect our great American flag” to be fired. Later on in the day, he called for a boycott of the NFL.
On September 24, infuriated by Trump’s insults, NFL players across the country linked arms, took a knee, or stayed in the changing room during the National Anthem. Every game featured some form of demonstration.
Since then, the confrontation between players “taking a knee” and Trump and his Right-wing shills has mushroomed.
Oakland Raiders Kneeling
By Keith Allison from Hanover, MD, USA [CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons
During 2017, there were 987 fatal police shootings; 223 blacks were shot and killed by police (23% of all fatal shootings), and 68 of the victims were unarmed.
Yet these protests have not led one police department to change its “use-of-deadly-force” policies. No State legislature has offered reform legislation. Nor has Congress.
Blacks are still getting shot by trigger-happy police—often while they’re unarmed and unresisting
So where does the hypocrisy come in?
On the part of the players:
- These protests have caused police shootings to be largely forgotten—while the kneeling players are claiming the media’s attention.
- The kneeling players consider themselves heroes—and are considered heroes by many within the black and white communities.
- Yet there is nothing remotely heroic about kneeling for about a minute before you’re about to earn tens of thousands of dollars just for knocking a ball around a stadium. It’s a cheap and easy way to win applause while risking nothing.
- These players’ celebrity could be put to far better use by appearing before legislative committees urging reforms in police “use-of-deadly-force” policies.
On the part of the Right:
- Donald Trump, for all his boasts of patriotism, was a five-deferment draft dodger during the Vietnam war. Four deferments cited academic reasons and the fifth cited bone spurs—which usually result in small pointed outgrowths of bone—in his heels.
- Many of those attacking the patriotism of the kneeling players have similarly refused to enter military service.
- Standing for the National Anthem is likewise a cheap and easy way to declare yourself a patriot.
- It’s akin to taking forced loyalty oaths: You take the oath, “prove” your integrity—and can then betray national security secrets almost with impunity.
Finally, there is one truth takes precedence over all others: There is no reason to play “The Star Spangled Banner” at football games—or any other sports event.
The reasons:
- There is nothing inherently patriotic about attending any sports game:
- The country isn’t being threatened.
- No one is risking anything in its defense.
- There are no casualties (save those suffered by athletes earning kingly salaries).
- No one’s life is made any better by watching the game—or the protests.
Police brutality remains a serious matter. But “taking a knee” and its opponents most definitely isn’t.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on September 27, 2018 at 12:10 am
On February 18, 2012, Republican Presidential candidate Rick Santorum warned about the “phony theology” of President Barack Obama.
“It’s not about you,” Santorum told supporters of the Right-wing Tea Party in Columbus, Ohio. “It’s not about your quality of life. It’s not about your jobs.
“It’s about some phony ideal. Some phony theology. Oh, not a theology based on the Bible. A different theology.”
What would a Bible-based agenda mean for the country?
The death penalty would be vastly expanded to cover such “crimes” as:
- Sabbath-breaking: Because the Lord considers it a holy day, anyone who works on the Sabbath must be put to death. (Exodus 31:12-15)
- Adultery: If a man commits adultery with another man’s wife, both the man and the woman must be put to death. (Leviticus 20:10)
- Fornication: A priest’s daughter who loses her honor by committing fornication and thereby dishonors her father also, shall be burned to death. (Leviticus 21:9)
- Nonbelievers: They entered into a covenant to seek the Lord, the God of their fathers, with all their heart and soul; and everyone who would not seek the Lord, the God of Israel, was to be put to death, whether small or great, whether man or woman. (2 Chronicles 15:12-13)
- Homosexuality: If a man also lies with mankind, as he lies with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination. They shall surely be put to death. Their blood shall be upon them. (Leviticus 20-13)
A modern-day stoning–in Somalia
The Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution—which forbids slavery—would be repealed. 
The Bible not only permits slavery but lays out rules for its practice—such as:
Almost all scientific progress would be discarded, since most of its findings conflict with the Bible:
- One generation passes away, and another generation comes: but the earth abides forever. (Ecclesiastes 1:4).
- This claim is totally contradicted by what astronomers now know about the eventual fate of the Earth: In about 7.6 billion years, the sun will exhaust its nuclear fuels. This will vastly increase its heat and gravitational pull, and at least Mercury, Earth and Venus will be vaporized.
The sun
- The Bible speaks of a world where physical laws are often violated by the will of God. Thus, Jesus turns water into wine and raises Lazarus from the dead; Jonah lives inside a fish for three days; Noah dies at 950 years; and demons are exorcised.
- In Biblical times, mental illness was seen as a manifestation of demonic possession. Today we know that mental illness has nothing to do with evil spirits.
Laws guaranteeing equal rights for women would be repealed:
- I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent. (1 Timothy 12:10)
- Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. (Ephesians 5:22)
- A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. (1 Timothy 2:11)
- But if…and evidence of the girl’s virginity is not found, they shall bring the girl to the entrance of her father’s house and there her townsman shall stone her to death. (Deuteronomy 22:20-21)
Military conflicts would be fought without regard to the Geneva Convention–as the Israelites did:
- “You are my battle-ax and sword,” says the Lord. “With you I will shatter nations and destroy many kingdoms. With you I will shatter armies, destroying the horse and rider, the chariot and charioteer. With you I will shatter men and women, old people and children, young men and maidens. With you I will shatter shepherds and flocks, farmers and oxen, captains and rulers.” (Jeremiah 51:20-23)
Depiction of the taking of Jericho by the Israelites
- Samuel said to Saul, “This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt. Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.’” (1 Samuel 15, 1-3)
* * * * *
Yes, a nation governed by “a theology based on the Bible” would be one far different from the United States we know today.
Since a number of Old Testament practices might lend themselves to easy abuse, this is not a matter to be taken lightly.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on September 26, 2018 at 12:03 am
Bernardo Gui was the chief inquisitor of the Dominican Order during the Medieval Inquisition (1184 – 1230s).
Gui closely studied the best methods for interrogating “heretics.” He set forth his findings in his most important and famous work, Practica Inquisitionis Heretice Pravitatis. or “Conduct of the Inquisition into Heretical Wickedness.”
Here’s how such an interrogation might go:
When a heretic is first brought up for examination, he assumes a confident air, as though secure in his innocence. I ask him why he has been brought before me. He replies, smiling and courteous, “Sir, I would be glad to learn the cause from you.”
Interrogator: You are accused as a heretic, and that you believe and teach otherwise than Holy Church believes.
Accused Heretic: (Raising his eyes to heaven, with an air of the greatest faith) Lord, thou knowest that I am innocent of this, and that I never held any faith other than that of true Christianity.
Interrogator: You call your faith Christian, for you consider ours as false and heretical. But I ask whether you have ever believed as true another faith than that which the Roman Church holds to be true?
Accused Heretic: I believe the true faith which the Roman Church believes, and which you openly preach to us.
Interrogator: Perhaps you have some of your sect at Rome whom you call the Roman Church. I, when I preach, say many things, some of which are common to us both, as that God liveth, and you believe some of what I preach. Nevertheless you may be a heretic in not believing other matters which are to be believed.
Accused Heretic: I believe all things that a Christian should believe.
Interrogator: I know your tricks….But we waste time in this fencing. Say simply, Do you believe in one God the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost?
Accused Heretic: I believe.
Interrogator: Do you believe in Christ born of the Virgin, suffered, risen, and ascended to heaven?
Accused Heretic: (Briskly) I believe.
Interrogator: Do you believe the bread and wine in the mass performed by the priests to be changed into the body and blood of Christ by divine virtue?
Accused Heretic: Ought I not to believe this?
Interrogator: I don’t ask if you ought to believe, but if you do believe.
Accused Heretic: I believe whatever you and other good doctors order me to believe.
Inquisitor: Those good doctors are the masters of your sect; if I accord with them you believe with me; if not, not.
Accused Heretic: I willingly believe with you if you teach what is good to me.
Inquisitor: You consider it good to you if I teach what your other masters teach. Say, then, do you believe the body of our Lord, Jesus Christ to be in the altar?
Accused Heretic: (Promptly) I believe that a body is there, and that all bodies are of our Lord.
Interrogator: I ask whether the body there is of the Lord who was born of the Virgin, hung on the cross, arose from the dead, ascended, etc.
Accused Heretic: And you, sir, do you not believe it?
Interrogator: I believe it wholly.
Accused Heretic: I believe likewise.
Men like Bernard Gui—and Franklin Graham—do not seek a golden future. They crave to return to a “golden” past—which includes the power Christians once held to forcibly impose their religious beliefs on others.
Among those slated for forced conversions by the Religious Right:
- Atheists
- Jews
- Women
- Homosexuals
- Lesbians
- Non-Christians
- Liberals
To gain absolute secular power over the lives of their fellow Americans, the Religious Right will support any candidate, no matter how morally despicable.
During the 2016 Presidential race, evangelicals—and their leaders such as Franklin Graham and Jerry Falwell, Jr.—fervently supported Donald Trump, despite:
- His being twice divorced;
- His multiple affairs (including one with porn star Stormy Daniels);
- His documented ties to Russian oligarchs and Mafia chieftains;
- His viciousness, greed, lying and egomania.
Donald Trump and Jerry Falwell, Jr., at Liberty University
And they continue to fervently support him.
They expect Trump to sponsor legislation that will—-by force of law—make their brand of Christianity supreme above all other religions.
Legislation such as The Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
This was signed into law on March 26, 2015, by Mike Pence, then Governor of Indiana.
This allows any individual or corporation to cite its religious beliefs as a defense when sued by a private party.
Officially, its intent is to prevent the government from forcing business owners to violate their religious beliefs.
Unofficially, its intent is to appease the hatred of gays and lesbians by the religious Right, a key constituency of the Republican party.
Thus, a bakery that doesn’t want to make a cake for a gay wedding or a restaurant that doesn’t want to serve lesbian patrons now has the legal right to refuse to do so.
And a hospital can legally turn away a gay patient if it wants to.
Islamic countries are notorious for their persecution of non-Muslims. Now the Religious Right wants to impose its own version of sharia law on American citizens.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on September 25, 2018 at 12:23 am
American Right-wing elements relentlessly claimed that President Barack Obama was waging “a war on religion.”
GOP candidates like Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney intended to make this a major theme of their respective campaigns for President.
Obama supported a woman’s right
- to obtain abortion—including in cases of rape and incest;
- to obtain birth control; and
- to obtain amniocentesis (pre-natal testing).
By promoting women’s rights, Obama was “waging a war against religion”—according to American fascists.”
Since access to such medical procedures as birth control and pre-natal testing has long been entirely legal, what’s all the fuss about?
It’s simple: The Right is not waging a “war for religious liberty.”
It’s waging a bitter struggle to establish a government that uses force or the threat of it to impose reactionary religious beliefs on religionists who do not share such religious beliefs.
And on atheists or agnostics, who share none at all.
These Rightists and their theocratic allies have less in common with Jesus Christ than with Tomas de Torquemada (1420 – 1498), the infamous Grand Inquisitor of the Spanish Inquisition.
Christ never ordered the torture or death of anyone. Torquemada—claiming to act in “defense” of the Roman Catholic Church—presided over the deaths of at least 2,000 “heretics.”
Tomas de Torquemada
Nor did these unfortunate victims of religious fanaticism meet their death quickly or painlessly. They died by perhaps the cruelest means possible—by being burned alive at the stake.
Torquemada didn’t hesitate to pronounce someone a heretic. He “knew” who such people were. They were Jews, Muslims, atheists. They were “lapsed Catholics” who, in his view, failed to show fervent devotion to the religious authorities—like himself—who tyrannically ruled their lives.
For such people, Torquemada believed, the only road to salvation lay in being “cleansed” of their sins. And nothing burns away impurities like fire.
But before the fire-stakes came the fire-mindset: The arrogance of “knowing” who qualified as “saved” and who would be forever “damned.”
Unless, of course, his or her soul had been “purified” by fire.
“Heretic” burned at the stake
Fundamentalist Christians can no longer sentence “heretics” to the stake.
But the mindset that ruled the Spanish Inquisition has not disappeared. It has been vividly displayed by no less a religious authority than Franklin Graham, son of America’s most famous preacher, Billy Graham.
Franklin Graham
Appearing on the MSNBC program, “Morning Joe,” on February 21, 2012, Graham was asked if he thought that Barack Obama, Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney qualified as Christians.
On Obama: “Islam sees him as a son of Islam… I can’t say categorically that [Obama is not Muslim] because Islam has gotten a free pass under Obama.”
On Santorum: “I think so. His values are so clear on moral issues. No question about it… I think he’s a man of faith.”
On Gingrich: “I think Newt Gingrich is a Christian, at least he told me he is.”
On Romney: “Most Christians would not recognize Mormons as part of the Christian faith. They believe in Jesus Christ. They have a lot of other things they believe in too, that we don’t accept, theologically.”
Thus, Graham pronounced as “saved” a notorious multiple-adulterer like Gingrich. He also gave a pass to Santorum, who married a woman who had lived “in sin” with an abortionist for six years.
But he unhesitatingly damned a longtime churchgoer like Obama or a devout Mormon like Romney (whose faith, most evangelicals like Graham believe, is actually a non-Christian cult).
Six years later, in 2018, Graham defended President Donald Trump, a notorious womanizer and multiple-adulterer, against charges that, in 2006, he had slept with porn star Stormy Daniels.
“I believe at 70 years of age the president is a much different person today than he was four years ago, five years ago, 10 years ago. He is not President Perfect.”
This differs greatly from his position on President Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky: “If he will lie to or mislead his wife and daughter, those with whom he is most intimate, what will prevent him from doing the same to the American public?”
It’s easy to imagine Graham transported to the French city of Toulouse in the 14th century. And to imagine him wearing the robes of Bernardo Gui, the chief inquisitor of the Dominican Order during the Medieval Inquisition (1184 – 1230s).
Gui closely studied the best methods for interrogating “heretics.” He set forth his findings in his most important and famous work, Practica Inquisitionis Heretice Pravitatis. or “Conduct of the Inquisition into Heretical Wickedness.”
In this, he offered a vivid example of how such an interrogation might go. The following is taken from that manual:
When a heretic is first brought up for examination, he assumes a confident air, as though secure in his innocence. I ask him why he has been brought before me. He replies, smiling and courteous, “Sir, I would be glad to learn the cause from you.”
This is not a dialogue between equals. The Inquisitor literally holds the power of life or agonizing death over the man or woman he is interrogating.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on September 24, 2018 at 12:08 am
Hamza Kashgari, a 23-year-old columnist in Saudi Arabia, decided to celebrate the birthday of the Islamic prophet Muhammed in a truly unique way.
Hamza Kashgar
In early February, 2012, he posted on Twitter a series of mock conversations between himself and Muhammad:
“On your birthday, I will say that I have loved the rebel in you, that you’ve always been a source of inspiration to me, and that I do not like the halos of divinity around you. I shall not pray for you.”
“On your birthday, I find you wherever I turn. I will say that I have loved aspects of you, hated others, and could not understand many more.”
“On your birthday, I shall not bow to you. I shall not kiss your hand. Rather, I shall shake it as equals do, and smile at you as you smile at me. I shall speak to you as a friend, no more.”
“No Saudi women will go to hell, because it’s impossible to go there twice.”
The tweets sparked some 30,000 infuriated responses. Many Islamic clerics demanded that he face execution for blasphemy.
Kashgari posted an apology tweet: “I deleted my previous tweets because…I realized that they may have been offensive to the Prophet and I don’t want anyone to misunderstand.”
Soon afterward, Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, then King of Saudi Arabia, ordered his arrest.
Saudi King King Abdullah
Kashgari fled to Malaysia, another majority-Muslim country. He was quickly arrested by police as he passed through Kuala Lumpur international airport. Three days later, he was deported to Saudi Arabia.
Human rights groups feared that he would be executed for blasphemy, a capitol offense in Saudi Arabia.
After nearly two years in prison, Kashgari was freed on October 29, 2013. Kashgari used Twitter to inform his supporters of his release.
Outrageous? By Western standards, absolutely.
Clearly there is no tolerence in Saudi Arabia for the freedoms of thought and expression that Americans take for granted.
Meanwhile, Right-wing American ayatollahs are working overtime to create just that sort of society—where theocratic despotism rules the most intimate aspects of our lives.
One of these is the former GOP Presidential candidate and U.S. Senator Rick Santorum. In early January, 2012, he said that states should have the right to outlaw birth control without the interference of the Supreme Court.
Rick Santorum
In an interview with ABC News, Santorum said he opposed the Supreme Court’s ruling that made birth control legal:
“The state has a right to do that [ban contraception]. I have never questioned that the state has a right to do that. It is not a Constitutional right. The state has the right to pass whatever statutes they have.
“That’s the thing I have said about the activism of the Supreme Court—they are creating rights, and it should be left up to the people to decide.”
In the landmark 1965 decision, Griswold v. Connecticut, the Court struck down a law that made it a crime to sell contraceptives to married couples. The Constitution, ruled the Justices, protected a right to privacy.
Two years later, in Eisenstadt v. Baird, the Court extended Griswold by striking down a law banning the sale of contraceptives to unmarried couples.
Santorum has left no doubt as to where he stands on contraception. On October 19, 2011, he said:
“One of the things I will talk about that no President has talked about before is I think the dangers of contraception in this country, the whole sexual libertine idea. Many in the Christian faith have said, ‘“Well, that’s okay. Contraception’s okay.’
“It’s not okay because it’s a license to do things in the sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be. They’re supposed to be within marriage, they are supposed to be for purposes that are, yes, conjugal, but also…procreative.
“That’s the perfect way that a sexual union should happen. We take any part of that out, we diminish the act….And all of a sudden, it becomes deconstructed to the point where it’s simply pleasure.”
“How things are supposed to be”—according to Right-wing fanatics like Santorum and the evangelicals who support them.
Like the Saudi religious religious zealots who demand the death of a “blasphemer,” they demand that their religious views should govern everyone. That means Jews, Catholics, Islamics, atheists and agnostics.
American Christian fundamentalists and Islamic fundamentalists fervently agree on the following:
- Women should have fewer rights than men.
- Abortion should be illegal.
- There should be no separation between church and state.
- Religion should be taught in school.
- Religious doctrine trumps science.
- Government should be based on religious doctrine.
- Homosexuality should be outlawed.
The important difference—for Americans who value their freedom—is this:
The United States has a Supreme Court that can—and does—overturn laws that threaten civil liberties. Laws that GOP Presidential candidates clearly want to revive and force on those who don’t share their peculiar religious views.
Eleanor Roosevelt once said: “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”
The same holds true—in a democracy—for candidates who seek dictatorial power over their fellow citizens. Don’t give them your consent.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on September 21, 2018 at 12:30 am
Another way an Employers Responsibility Act (ERA) could promote fulltime employment: It would nicely dovetail with the 1946 Employment Act.
Codified as 15 U.S.C. § 1021, this is a United States federal law. It states: “It is the continuing policy and responsibility of the Federal government…to promote maximum employment, production, and purchasing power.”
Unfortunately, that act has been seriously neglected, according to the late Wallace C. Peterson, George Holmes Professor of Economics Emeritus at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
Peterson, who died in April, 2012, was a proponent of Keynesian economics and authored a textbook on macroeconomics that was widely adopted in colleges and universities through eight editions.
He authored a second economics textbook, five specialized economics books and over 60 articles.
He was elected president of the Association for Evolutionary Economics (AFEE), president of the Association for Social Economics, president of the Midwest Economics Association and was the 1992 recipient of the Veblen-Commons award.
“No administration since the Kennedy-Johnson presidencies in the 1960s has taken the Employment Act seriously,” wrote Peterson in a letter to this columnist.
“President Kennedy established a 4% unemployment rate as an interim target on the road to a full employment economy. But after President Johnson left office in 1969, full employment has not been an important policy objective for any administration, Democrat or Republican.
“The nation needs a modernized full employment policy.”
Wallace C. Peterson
Such a full-employment policy “would not only seek to bring the unemployment rate down to 3% or less, but would also aim at the creation of ‘good jobs’—jobs that carry with them an income appropriate to middle-class hopes and aspirations,” wrote Peterson.
“Too many of the millions who have lost good jobs in the last two decades have not been able to find new, fulltime jobs. or have had to take significant reduction in pay even if they were able to find fulltime work.
“Government through the 1946 Employment Act has a major responsibility to promote conditions that tmake full employment possible. Workers have a major responsibility to educate and train themselves for the jobs that become available in a society characterized by rapid technical change.
“What of employers? What is their responsibility?
“Such an [Employers Responsibility] Act would require employers to demonstrate as much responsibility for hiring as job-seekers are expected to display in finding work.
”This “is certain to be controversial, but it adds yet another dimension to the debate on how an adequate number of good, well-paying jobs can be created….”
“An Employers Responsibility Act, in combination with existing legislation such as the 1946 Employment Act and the 1935 National Labor-Relations Act, could be a powerful force in moving labor-management relations in this country away from its current adversarial character, toward a more harmonious and cooperative climate.”
* * * * *
For thousands of years, otherwise highly intelligent men and women believed that kings ruled by divine right. That kings held absolute power, levied extortionate taxes and sent countless millions of men off to war—all because God wanted it that way.
That lunacy was dealt a deadly blow in 1776 when American Revolutionaries threw off the despotic rule of King George III of England.
But today, millions of Americans remain imprisoned by an equally outrageous and dangerous theory: The Theory of the Divine Right of Employers.
Summing up this employer-as-God attitude, Calvin Coolidge still speaks for the overwhelming majority of employers and their paid shills in government: “The man who builds a factory builds a temple, and the man who works there worships there.”
America can no longer afford such a dangerous fallacy as the Theory of the Divine Right of Employers.
President Donald Trump has repeatedly crowed over the passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, passed by the Senate on December 19, 2017, and signed into law by him on December 22.
Yet former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich warned before the bill became law:
“What corporations have done [with past tax cuts] is raise executive salaries and also buy back shares of stock, in order to raise stock prices. They don’t invest the money in additional jobs or additional machines or additional equipment or things like that because there is no reason for them to unless they have got more demand for their goods and services. And this bill is not going to create more demand.”
In short: The powerful never voluntarily behave responsibly or surrender their privileges.
Americans did not win their freedom from Great Britain—and its enslaving doctrine of “the divine right of kings”—by begging for their rights.
And Americans will not win their freedom from their corporate masters—and the equally enslaving doctrine of “the divine right of employers”—by begging for the right to work and support themselves and their families.
And they will most certainly never win such freedom by supporting right-wing political candidates whose first and only allegiance is to the corporate interests who bankroll their campaigns.
Corporations can—and do—spend millions of dollars on TV ads, selling lies—lies such as the “skills gap,” and how if the wealthy are forced to pay their fair share of taxes, jobs will inevitably disappear.
But Americans can choose to reject those lies—and demand that employers behave like patriots instead of predators.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on September 20, 2018 at 12:05 am
The last five provisions of an Employers Responsibility Act (ERA) would cover the following:
(11) Employers who continue to make such overtures would be prosecuted for attempted bribery or extortion:
- Bribery, if they offered to move to a city/state in return for “economic incentives,” or
- Extortion, if they threatened to move their companies from a city/state if they did not receive such “economic incentives.”
This would protect employees against artificially-depressed wages and unsafe working conditions; protect the environment in which these employees live; and protect cities/states from being pitted against one another at the expense of their economic prosperity.
(12) The U.S. Departments of Justice and Labor would regularly monitor the extent of employer compliance with the provisions of this Act.
Among these measures: Sending undercover agents, posing as highly-qualified job-seekers, to apply at companies—and then vigorously prosecuting those employers who blatantly refused to hire despite their proven economic ability to do so.
This would be comparable to the long-time and legally-validated practice of using undercover agents to determine compliance with fair-housing laws.
(13) The Justice Department and/or the Labor Department would be required to maintain a publicly-accessible database on those companies that had been cited, sued and/or convicted for such offenses as
- discrimination,
- harassment,
- health and/or safety violations or
- violating immigration laws.
Employers would be legally required to regularly provide such information to these agencies, so that it would remain accurate and up-to-date.
Such information would arm job applicants with vital information about the employers they were approaching. They could thus decide in advance if an employer is deserving of their skills and dedication.
As matters now stand, employers can legally demand to learn even the most private details of an applicant’s life without having to disclose even the most basic information about themselves and their history of treating employees.
(14) CEOs whose companies employ illegal aliens would be held directly accountable for the actions of their subordinates. Upon conviction, the CEO would be sentenced to a mandatory prison term of at least ten years.
This would prove a more effective remedy for controlling illegal immigration than stationing tens of thousands of soldiers on the U.S./ Mexican border. With CEOs forced to account for their subordinates’ actions, they would take drastic steps to ensure their companies complied with Federal immigration laws.
Without employers eager to hire illegal aliens at a fraction of the money paid to American workers, the invasions of illegal job-seekers would quickly come to an end.
(15) A portion of employers’ existing Federal taxes would be set aside to create a national clearinghouse for placing unemployed but qualified job-seekers.
* * * * *
Right-wing capitalists and their paid shills in Congress would attack such legislation as radically Communist. But an Employers Responsibility Act (ERA) would greatly increase America’s economic strength.
With a fully-employed workforce, far more consumers could afford the wide array of goods and services turned out by American business.
When consumers can’t afford these, companies are forced to cut their employees and produce fewer goods, which creates an ever-downward spiral.
An ERA would allow Democrats, to address the needs of blue-collar workers who once served as one of their primary constituencies.
During the 2016 Presidential campaign, Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton voiced the frustrations of millions of poor and middle-class Americans who felt abandoned by their employers and Washington policymakers.
Hillary Clinton
On September 26, Clinton said:
There “are people who feel that the government has let them down, the economy has let them down. Nobody cares about them. Nobody worries about what happens to their lives and their futures, and they’re just desperate for change. It doesn’t really even matter where it comes from.
“They don’t buy everything [Donald Trump] says, but he seems to hold out some hope that their lives will be different. They won’t wake up and see their jobs disappear, lose a kid to heroin, feel like they’re in a dead-end. Those are people we have to understand and empathize with as well.”
Eloquent words. But then she made no effort to follow up.
She could have used this moment to offer an economic package to quickly and effectively address their vital needs for jobs and medical care.
In May, 2016, Democratic pollster CeLinda Lake had warned Clinton to revamp her economic platform.
But Clinton had made no such effort. As a result, all she had to offer was boilerplate rhetoric, such as: “Education is the answer.”
Meanwhile, Republican Presidential nominee Donald Trump appealed to blue-collar voters as a populist. He visited “Rustbelt” states like Michigan and Pennsylvania, and vowed to “bring back” jobs that had been lost to China, such as those in coal mining and manufacturing.
Clinton didn’t deign to show up, assuming she had those states “locked up.”
“Democrats simply have to come up with a more robust economic frame and message,” Lake said after the election.
“We’re never going to win those white, blue-collar voters if we’re not better on the economy. And 27 policy papers and a list of positions is not a frame. We can laugh about it all we want, but Trump had one.”
And he used it to win those states Clinton had refused to visit.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on September 19, 2018 at 12:05 am
America can end this national disaster—and disgrace—of willing-to-work Americans being unable to find willing-to-hire employers.
The solution: A nationwide Employers Responsibility Act (ERA).
Such legislation would legally require employers to demonstrate as much initiative for hiring as job-seekers are now expected to show in searching for work.
Among its provisions:
(2) Large companies (those employing more than 100 persons) would be required to create entry-level training programs for new, future employees.
These would be modeled on programs now existing for public employees, such as firefighters, police officers and members of the armed services. Such programs would remove the employer excuse, “I’m sorry, but we can’t hire you because you’ve never had any experience in this line of work.” After all, the Air Force has never rejected an applicant because, “I’m sorry, but you’ve never flown a plane before.”
This Nation has greatly benefited from the humane and professional efforts of the men and women who have graduated from public-sector training programs. There is no reason for the private sector to shun programs that have succeeded so brilliantly for the public sector.
(3) Employers would receive tax credits for creating professional, well-paying, full-time jobs.
This would encourage the creation of better than the menial, dead-end, low-paying and often part-time jobs which exist in the service industry. Employers found using such tax credits for any other purpose would be prosecuted for tax fraud.
(4) A company that acquired another—through a merger or buyout—would be forbidden to fire en masse the career employees of that acquired company.
This would be comparable to the protection existing for career civil service employees. Such a ban would prevent a return to the predatory “corporate raiding” practices of the 1980s, which left so much human and economic wreckage in their wake.
The wholesale firing of employees would trigger the prosecution of the company’s new owners. Employees could still be fired, but only for provable just cause, and only on a case-by-case basis.
(5) Employers would be required to provide full medical and pension benefits for all employees, regardless of their full-time or part-time status.
Increasingly, employers are replacing full-time workers with part-time ones—solely to avoid paying medical and pension benefits. Requiring employers to act humanely and responsibly toward all their employees would encourage them to provide full-time positions—and hasten the death of this greed-based practice.
(6) Employers of part-time workers would be required to comply with all federal labor laws.
Under current law, part-time employees are not protected against such abuses as discrimination, sexual harassment and unsafe working conditions. Closing this loophole would immediately create two positive results:
- Untold numbers of currently-exploited workers would be protected from the abuses of predatory employers; and
- Even predatorily-inclined employers would be encouraged to offer permanent, fulltime jobs rather than only part-time ones—since a major incentive for offering part-time jobs would now be eliminated.
(7) Employers would be encouraged to hire to their widest possible limits, through a combination of financial incentives and legal sanctions. Among those incentives: Employers demonstrating a willingness to hire would receive substantial Federal tax credits, based on the number of new, permanent employees hired per year.
Employers claiming eligibility for such credits would be required to make their financial records available to Federal investigators. Employers found making false claims would be prosecuted for perjury and tax fraud, and face heavy fines and imprisonment if convicted.
(8) Among those sanctions: Employers refusing to hire could be required to prove, in court:
- Their economic inability to hire further employees, and/or
- The unfitness of the specific, rejected applicant.
Companies found guilty of unjustifiably refusing to hire would face the same penalties as now applying in cases of discrimination on the basis of age, race, sex and disability. Employers would thus fund it easier to hire than to refuse to do so. Job-seekers would no longer be prevented from even being considered for employment because of arbitrary and interminable “hiring freezes.”
(9) Employers refusing to hire would be required to pay an additional “crime tax.”
Sociologists and criminologists agree that “the best cure for crime is a job.” Thus, employers who refuse to hire contribute to a growing crime rate in this Nation. Such non-hiring employers would be required to pay an additional tax, which would be earmarked for agencies of the criminal justice system at State and Federal levels.
(10) The seeking of “economic incentives” by companies in return for moving to or remaining in cities/states would be strictly forbidden.
Such “economic incentives” usually:
- allow employers to ignore existing laws protecting employees from unsafe working conditions;
- allow employers to ignore existing laws protecting the environment;
- allow employers to pay their employees the lowest acceptable wages, in return for the “privilege” of working at these companies; and/or
- allow employers to pay little or no business taxes, at the expense of communities who are required to make up for lost tax revenues.
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THE REALITY OF REAL ID
In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on October 5, 2018 at 12:11 amStarting in 2016, traveling by air in the United States got more complicated. But not necessarily safer.
In 2005, Congress passed the Real ID Act as a counter-terrorism measure. Its goal was to set security standards for government-issued IDs.
The Act started to be introduced in late 2013. Now in the last phase of its implementation, its enforcers have decided that some states haven’t complied with its requirements.
As a result, driver’s licenses from those states will no longer suffice to pass through airport security. And that includes domestic flights as well as international ones.
Those states: New York, New Hampshire, Minnesota, Louisiana and American Samoa.
The reason: Licenses issued by those states don’t contain enough identifying information to pass muster with the Transportation Security Administration (TSA).
So how are residents of these states supposed to cope? The Federal Government is advising them to get a passport.
But, as one New York traveler outlined:
“To get a passport I’ll first need to get a certified copy of my birth certificate.
“And to get a copy of my birth certificate I need only to submit a copy of my driver’s license. A copy, no face-to-face, is-that-really you?
“So a New York driver’s license isn’t good enough for flying but it is good enough to get a birth certificate, which gets me a passport, which allows me to fly.”
Sample state ID card that’s acceptable under the Real ID Act
So much of what passes for security is actually security theater. It doesn’t actually make us safer, but it makes us feel safer.
And it makes us feel the government is keeping us safe, even when it isn’t.
For example: In the months after 9/11, National Guard troops were stationed in American airports. They certainly looked impressive.
What passengers didn’t know was that the Guardsmen carried unloaded assault rifles.
Consider this advice posted on the State of California Department of Motor Vehicles website:
“A valid California driver license or ID card can be used for federal purposes, including boarding a domestic flight and entering military bases or secure federal facilities, until October 1, 2020. After that date, only a REAL ID card or other federally approved documents will be accepted, such as a valid U.S. passport, passport card or military ID.”
To apply for a REAL ID card:
How does showing a “utility bill” document prove your integrity?
No doubt Mohammed Atta—the ringleader of the September 11, 2001 attacks—faithfully paid his utility bills—right up to the day when he highjacked American Airlines Flight 11 and crashed the plane into the North Tower of the World Trade Center.
And what does a “school document” reveal about the character of the person?
That s/he attended school? So what?
Theodore Bundy attended the University of Puget Sound and the University of Washington—before embarking on his career as a burglar, kidnapper, rapist and serial killer.
Or take the checking of photo IDs that has become routine to enter State and Federal office buildings.
What exactly does this tell the security guard?
If you’re John Dillinger or Osama bin Laden, it tells him: “This is a very wanted man.”
But if you’re John Q. Public, who’s not notorious as a bank robber or terrorist, showing him your ID tells him nothing.
But people watching the guard performing this security theater ritual assume: “The guard must know what he’s looking for. So we have to be safer for his checking those IDs.”
In fact, most security guards have little training and even less experience. Many of them don’t carry firearms and lack self-defense skills.
According to Salary.com: The median annual Security Guard salary is $29,204, as of July 29, 2016, with a range usually between $25,857 and $33,522.
Not exactly a salary geared to attract “the best and the brightest,” is it?
Or suppose you want to report a crime to a field office of the FBI.
A secretary asks why you’ve come.
If she considers your reason legitimate, she requires you to show your driver’s license or State ID card. Then she makes a xerox of this and hands the card back.
Then you must fill out a single-page form, which requires you to provide your:
The FBI has always encouraged Americans to report anything they consider a threat to national security or a violation of Federal law.
But demanding so much private information just to report a crime will almost certainly decrease the number of people willing to do so.
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