Money, Morals and the Bailout

We’ve heard lots of moralism about the economy recently from both ends of the political spectrum.  Wall Street is guilty of greed and homeowners in trouble are guilty of irresponsibility. Instead of offering a cogent systemic analysis of how we got into this financial mess, and the best way to change our economic and financial system in order to fix it, both parties seem to prefer preaching about the wages of sin.

But while wagging a self-righteous finger as you invoke the Seven Deadly Sins (Greed, Envy, Sloth, and Pride in particular, but we could also make a case for Gluttony and Lust) might be good politics, it is a terrible way to approach the current crisis.

We should not expect capitalists not to be greedy.  And we should not expect consumers to want fewer or less expensive goods, including fewer and less expensive homes and cars.

The desire for more, for bigger, and for better is not the enemy of capitalism.

Unregulated capitalism is the enemy of capitalism.

What we should expect, and what we need, is for the economic and financial system to be structured by law and regulation to channel the desires of both capitalists and consumers for more, for bigger, and for better into productive, sustainable economic growth.

Moralism won’t get us there, and will distract us from seeing the problem for what it is: a matter of systemic, not moral or individual, failure.

Palin’s New Jewish Problem — Pastor Calls on Christians to Take Banks Away from the “Israelites”

Sarah Palin has a new problem with Jewish voters.

I’ve written before about the appearance of Jews for Jesus leader David Brickner at Palin’s Wasilla Bible Church and how on August 17, 2008, with Palin in the audience, Brickner described terrorist attacks on Israelis as God’s “judgment of unbelief” on Jews who have not converted to Christianity.

I’ve also written about the video of Kenyan witch-hunter Thomas Muthee exorcising witches from Sarah Palin at her church, showing Muthee praying over Sarah Palin and calling on God to make her Alaska’s governor, drive away the witches who are attacking her, and saying that the Devil himself is behind the opposition to Palin in the Alaska gubernatorial election.

Now video has surfaced of Rev. Muthee at Palin’s church – again with Palin present and in the video — telling the congregation the Christians need to take over control of the business world, especially banking, from the Jews (Israelites).

Here’s what Muthee said:

“The second area whereby God wants us, wants to penetrate in our society is in the economic area. The Bible says that the wealth of the wicked is stored up for the righteous. It’s high time that we have top Christian businessmen, businesswomen, bankers, you know, who are men and women of integrity running the economics of our nations. That’s what we are waiting for. That’s part and parcel of transformation. If you look at the — you know — if you look at the Israelites, that’s how they work. And that’s how they are, even today. When we will see that, you know, that the top transporters (?) in the lands, we see, you know, the bankers, we see the people holding the parts (?), they are believers, we will not have the kind of corruption that we are hearing in our societies.

It certainly gives a new perspective on how Palin might handle the financial crisis.

The Debate at Ole Miss: The Times They Are A-Changin’

Now that John McCain has agreed to show up for tonight’s presidential candidate debate with Barack Obama at the University of Mississippi, we should recall why this debate, at this place, has such a special meaning for our nation.

White racists gather in Oxford, Mississippi. 1962

In 1962, it was here at Oxford, Mississippi, that one of the great battles of the Civil Rights Movement was fought and won.

On September 30, 1962, white segregationists — aided, abetted and incited by Mississippi Governor Ross Barnett, local officials, and the Klu Klux Klan — rioted on the university campus to prevent the enrollment of James Meredith, a black Air Force veteran from Kosciusko, Mississippi.

James Meredith guarded by federal troops and U.S. Marshals, Oxford, Miss, 1962

The events of 1962 are worth remembering:

“Meredith began his quest for admission in January 1961, after watching John F. Kennedy’s inaugural speech. Meredith sent a letter to the Registrar of The University of Mississippi requesting a catalog and an application for admission. University officials responded promptly with the materials and invited Meredith to apply. When officials learned from Meredith that he was African-American, his application was immediately rejected without comment, and Meredith’s legal battles with the University began. Meredith was finally admitted in the summer of 1962 by a federal court in New Orleans, and made preparations to begin his studies in the fall of 1962.”

“Meredith traveled to Oxford under armed guard to register in late September, 1962. Riots broke out in protest of his admittance. Late on the evening of Sunday, September 30, 1962, two men, a French journalist sent to cover the events, and a Lafayette County resident, Ray Gunter, were killed by stray bullets. During the riots by whites, cars were burned, federal marshals were pelted with rocks and bricks, and university property was damaged. The Mississippi Highway Patrol, on campus to supposedly provide security for the University and for Meredith, stood by passively while the riots were taking place.”

“President John F. Kennedy, after secret telephone negotiations with Governor Ross Barnett, ordered United States Marshals to protect Meredith. Order was restored to the campus with the early morning arrival of the U. S. Army. Although President John F. Kennedy had mobilized the Army and ordered them onto the campus early on the evening of the riot, but poor communication delayed their arrival in force until the following morning (Monday, October 1). Meredith enrolled that morning without incident and attended for the rest of the school year, graduating in August 1963 with a degree in history.”

James Meredith accompanied by two U.S. Marshals and surrounded by jeering white students after registering for entry at University of Mississippi on Sept. 1, 1962

“[S]tudents on the floor right above Meredith’s room tried to keep him awake all night by bouncing a basketball on the floor, he was constantly insulted with racial slurs whenever he left his room or the building, anonymous notes and letters were delivered to his mailbox on a daily basis. . . Two United States Marshals were with him 24 hours a day. Another contingent of marshals escorted him to class and anywhere else on campus that he went.”

I doubt that anyone will mention this history during the debate tonight, but you can bet that everyone in the audience, and Barack Obama, will know the special significance of a black man engaging in a debate at Ole Miss for the office of President of the United States.

Kenyan Witch-Hunter Exorcizes Demons from Sarah Palin

This video of Kenyan witch-hunter Thomas Muthee exorcising witches from Sarah Palin at her church in Wasilla, Alaska, is unbelievable.

Muthee, who founded of the fundamentalist Word of Faith Church in Kenya in 1989, gained notoriety when he determined that a local Kenyan woman known as “Mama Jane” was a witch who responsible for inciting people to commit crimes in the violent Nairobi slum area called Kiambu; Muthee gathered a mob of followers and drove the woman from town.

He has frequently been called to preach at Palin’s church in Wasilla, the Wasilla Assembly of God, appearing there at least ten times, most recently just this month.

In October 2005, Muthee prayed over Sarah Palin and called on God to make her Alaska’s governor and drive away the  witches who were attacking her.  Palin later told her church that she was wowed by Muthee’s hands-on performance, calling it “very, very powerful.”

Here’s what Rev. Muthee said when he was praying over Palin:

“Thank you, Jesus. Let’s all pray. Let’s pray for Sarah. Hallelujah! Come on, hold your hands up and raise them. Hold them and raise them up here! Come on, talk to God about this woman! Come on, talk to God about this woman we declare favor from today. We say favor, favor, favor! We say praise my God! We say grace to be rained upon her in the name of Jesus. My God, you make your judgement, you make room. You make ways in the desert, and I’m asking you today, we are asking you as the body of Christ in this valley, make a way for Sarah, even in the [inaudible]. Make her way my God. Bring finances her way, even in the campaign in the name of Jesus, and above all give her the personnel, give her men and women that will back her up in the name of Jesus. We want righteousness in this state. We want righteousness in this nation. Because you say [inaudible] in the name of Jesus. Our Father, use her to turn this nation the other way around. Use her to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the hearts of the children to the fathers so that the curse that has been there long can be broken. In the name of Jesus. Father, we thank you today. We come in the hindrance of the enemy, standing in her way to there. In the name of Jesus, in the name of Jesus! Every form of witchcraft, it will be rebuked in the name of Jesus. Father, make her way now. In Jesus’ name, Amen.”

Notice too that Muthee says that it is the Devil himself who opposes Palin’s victory in the Alaska gubernatorial election (“We come in the hindrance of the enemy, standing in her way to there.”).

Here is more.

And more.

And more.

Lest you think that the Palin’s Kenyan witch-hunter is a joke, here is a report from Fox News dated May 21, 2008, entitled Kenyan Officials: Mob Burned to Death 11 People Accused of Witchcraft:

“A group of up to 300 young men have burned to death 11 people suspected of being witches and wizards in western Kenya — in some cases slitting their victims’ throats or clubbing them to death before burning their bodies, officials said. The gang moved from home to home through two villages, identifying their victims by using a list with names of suspected witches and wizards and the kind spells they were believed to have cast on the community, said Ben Makori, a local councilor. ‘The villagers are complaining that the (suspected) wizards and witches are making the bright children in the community dumb … These (suspected) witches are not doing good things to us, Makori told The Associated Press on the phone. Deputy police spokesman Charles Owino said the gang hunted down the eight women and three men in the western Kenya villages of Kekoro and Matembe. Most of the victims were between 70 and 90 years old, Owino said. Senior administrator Njoroge Ndirangu said the gang hunted down their victims Tuesday night and Wednesday morning. In some cases the gang pulled the victims out of their homes, slit their throats or clubbed them to death, said a police officer, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media. The victims were then thrown back into their homes, which the gang had already set on fire, the officer said. He said 36 houses were burned.”

Here is a more detailed analysis (with video) of contemporary “witch” burning in Kenya.

As the Feminist Majority Foundation observed on May 30, 2008, there has recently been “an increase in news stories about the killing of women accused of witchcraft in Asia and Africa. While many consider ‘witch hunts’ a historical matter, they continue to affect women today.”

What the hell has happened to this country?

“I’ll tell you what’s walking Salem – vengeance is walking Salem. We are what we always were in Salem, but now the little crazy children are jangling the keys of the kingdom, and common vengeance writes the law!” Arthur Miller, The Crucible

Will the Republicans Suspend the Election?

I don’t want to be paranoid, but isn’t suspending the presidential election campaign because of a crisis perilously close to suspending the election?

We’ve had presidential elections – and bitterly fought presidential election campaigns – during times of far worse crisis: 1800 (during the Quasi-War with France), 1812 (war with England), 1864 (the Civil War), 1944 (the Second World War), 1952 (the Korean War), 1968 (the Vietnam War), and 1972 (the Vietnam War).

No candidate suggested during these elections that the presidential campaign should be suspended because of the crisis facing the nation.

My fear is that if McCain – now with the Bush-Cheney administration’s endorsement — gets away with “suspending” the election campaign because of the financial crisis, it is just a step toward suspending the election itself.

The Democrats, and the media, need to hammer McCain on this unprecedented stratagem, and hammer him hard.

McCain’s Economic Plan: Blame Minorities

Fox News’ Neil Cavuto made news of his own this week by suggesting that the credit crisis was caused by loans made to minorities. 

 

On Fox’s “Your World” on September 18, Cavuto asked Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-CA), “[W]hen you and many of your colleagues were pushing for more minority lending and more expanded lending to folks who heretofore couldn’t get mortgages, when you were pushing homeownership … Are you totally without culpability here? Are you totally blameless? Are you totally irresponsible of anything that happened?” Cavuto also said, “I’m just saying, I don’t remember a clarion call that said, ‘Fannie and Freddie are a disaster. Loaning to minorities and risky folks is a disaster.’” 
 
This wasn’t the first time that Cavuto blamed loans to minorities for the credit crisis.  In an exchange with House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) on September 16, Cavuto said “[Y]ou wanted to encourage minority lending — obviously, a lot of Republicans did as well. There was a lot of — expand lending to those to get a home,” Cavuto then rhetorically asked, “Do you think, intrinsically, it was a mistake, on both parties’ part, to push — to push for homeownership for everybody?”  Unlike Becerra, Hoyer either didn’t understand what Cavuto was saying or simply rolled over. “I think clearly what happened,” Hoyer replied, “ is Fannie and Freddie got caught up in trying to do what the Congress wanted done.”

This is not just a generic attack on minorities.

What is going on here is an attempt by Republicans to deflect public outrage from the credit industry, the investment banks and their Republican deregulators and to place the blame for the crisis credit on the government and the Democrats. 

That’s why John McCain and his Republican apologists have focused their ire on the quasi-governmental institutions Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac rather than on the wholly private companies and individuals behind the credit meltdown.

Every time McCain or one of the Republican talking-pointers blasts Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the message is: “These are government institutions, run by Democrats. They caused the credit crisis by pushing the Democratic Party agenda, including homeownership for minorities who could not afford to buy homes and should have been content to be renters. Blame them, not us.”

But are they right?  How big a problem are loans to minorities?  And should any future regulation of the credit and mortgage industry eliminate the mortgages that allowed so many minorities to become homeowners?

The answer is No.

The facts show that there has been tremendous racial disparity in lending is growing, and that the subprime mortgage crisis has disproportionately affected minority borrowers. Banks such as JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup, Bank of America, and Countrywide issued high-cost subprime loans to minorities more than twice as often as to whites and, at some institutions, the number of high-cost subprime loans issued increased even amid a growing credit liquidity crisis.

Citigroup in 2007 made higher-cost subprime loans 2.33 times more frequently to blacks than to whites. During the same period, JP Morgan Chase made higher-cost subprime loans 2.44 times more frequently to blacks and 1.6 times more frequently to Hispanics than to whites. Bank of America extended to blacks higher-cost loans 1.88 times more frequently, and Country Financial extended to blacks higher-cost loans 1.95 times more frequently than to whites. A study released in 2006 found that blacks and Hispanics were often two or three times more likely to receive high-cost subprime mortgages than were white borrowers.

So, yes, minorities were very much more likely to receive high-cost subprime loans than whites. Yet as Robert J. Shiller of Yale University and Austan D. Goolsbee of the University of Chicago have pointed out, although minorities have been hit hard by the subprime bust, the overall affect of the subprime mortgage boom for minorities was mostly positive.

Both Shiller and Goolsbee think that minorities benefited tremendously by financial innovations created by the mortgage and banking industries, and they have cautioned against reacting to the subprime crisis by restricting innovative mortgage practices that allowed minorities greater access to the American Dream of home ownership than ever before.

In testimony before Congress in September 2007, Robert J. Shiller, professor of economics at Yale, author of the bestseller Irrational Exuberance and co-developer of the Case-Shiller National Home Price Index, put the issue in context.  As the news of the study findings hits the media, Shiller’s nuanced Congressional testimony is worth recalling:

“The promotion of homeownership in this country among the poor and disadvantaged, as well as our veterans, has been a worthy cause. The Federal Housing Administration, the Veterans Administration, and Rural Housing Services have helped many people buy homes who otherwise could not afford them. Minorities have particularly benefited.”

“Home ownership promotes a sense of belonging and participation in our country. I strongly believe that these past efforts, which have raised homeownership, have contributed to the feeling of harmony and good will that we treasure in America.”

“But most of the gains in homeownership that we have seen in the last decade are not attributable primarily due to these government institutions. On the plus side, they have been due to financial innovations driven by the private sector. These innovations delivered benefits, including lower mortgage interest rates for U.S. homebuyers, and new institutions to distribute the related credit and collateral risks around the globe.”

 The same point was made by University of Chicago economics professor and Barack Obama economic advisor Austan D. Goolsbee in his essay in the New York Times entitled “‘Irresponsible Mortgages’ Have Opened Doors to Many of the Excluded.”

Barack Obama and Austan Goolsbee

Goolsbee cautioned against the “very old vein of suspicion against innovations in the mortgage market.”  He cited a study conducted by Kristopher Gerardi and Paul S. Willen from the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston and Harvey S. Rosen of Princeton, “Do Households Benefit from Financial Deregulation and Innovation? The Case of the Mortgage Market,” showing that the three decades from 1970 to 2000 witnessed an incredible flowering of new types of home loans.” “These innovations,” Goolsbee observed, “mainly served to give people power to make their own decisions about housing, and they ended up being quite sensible with their newfound access to capital.”

Goolsbee wrote that these economists “followed thousands of people over their lives and examined the evidence for whether mortgage markets have become more efficient over time. Lost in the current discussion about borrowers’ income levels in the subprime market is the fact that someone with a low income now but who stands to earn much more in the future would, in a perfect market, be able to borrow from a bank to buy a house. That is how economists view the efficiency of a capital market: people’s decisions unrestricted by the amount of money they have right now.”

In regard to racism in mortgage lending, Goolsbee noted that “Since 1995, for example, the number of African-American households has risen by about 20 percent, but the number of African-American homeowners has risen almost twice that rate, by about 35 percent. For Hispanics, the number of households is up about 45 percent and the number of homeowning households is up by almost 70 percent.”

He concluded that “When contemplating ways to prevent excessive mortgages for the 13 percent of subprime borrowers whose loans go sour, regulators must be careful that they do not wreck the ability of the other 87 percent to obtain mortgages.”

In the search for villains in the credit crisis, Congress should be careful not to  eliminate the mortgages that have opened doors for many who have historically been excluded from homeownership and the American Dream.

It is also important to recognize that it was the Bush adminstration that pushed for greater access to homeownership for minorities, and specifically tasked Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae with expanding home loans to minorities.

As CNN reported on June 17, 2002:

“President Bush touted his goal Monday of boosting minority home ownership by 5.5 million before the end of the decade through grants to low-income families and credits to developers. ‘Too many American families, too many minorities, do not own a home. There is a home ownership gap in America. The difference between African-American and Hispanic home ownership is too big,” Bush told a crowd at St. Paul AME Church in Atlanta. Citing data he used Saturday in his weekly radio address, Bush said that while nearly three-quarters of white Americans own their homes, less than half of African-Americans and Hispanic-Americans are homeowners. He urged Congress to expand the American Dream Down-Payment Fund, which would provide $200 million in grants over five years to low-income families who are first-time home buyers. The money would be used for down payments, one of the major obstacles to home ownership, Bush said. … Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the federal Home Loan Banks — the government-sponsored corporations that handle home mortgages — will increase their commitment to minority markets by more than $440 billion, Bush said. Under one of the initiatives launched by Freddie Mac, consumers with poor credit will be able to obtain mortgages with interest rates that automatically decline after a period of consistent payments, he added.”

In the political battle over blame for the credit crisis, Democrats need to be careful both to counter claims that the crisis was caused by loans to minorities and also not to allow conservatives and Republicans to use the crisis as a pretext to scuttle these programs.

Palin Rally in Florida Shows Support Among Really Old, Really White People

The McCain-Palin campaign is making a lot of noise about the large crowd that came to cheer Sarah Palin at her appearance in Lady Lake, Florida, last week.  Local fire officials estimated the crowd at 25,000 to 30,000, while the McCain-Palin campaign claims an audience twice that size.  By either estimate, that’s a lot of people.

Given those numbers, should the Obama campaign be concerned about the Palin Effect in Florida?

The answer is No.

The Palin event was staged in Lady Lake, Florida, a retirement community that, if it didn’t already exist, could have been invented by Karl Rove.

The median age is 68.

Nearly 95 percent of its residents are White. African Americans make up only about 3.5 percent of the population, and less than 3 percent are Hispanic (compared to more than 20 percent in Florida as a whole).

It is a town of vast economic disparity between the older majority and the younger minority of the population. Only 2 percent of those over 65 are below the poverty line, but the number in poverty swells to nearly 40 percent of those under 18.

Don’t let the description of Lady Lake as a Florida retirement community fool you into thinking that its Palin Effect politics reflects what is going on in the enormous retirement population of Southern Florida.

In sharp contrast to those South Florida communities, Lady Lake has a negligable Jewish population.  Jews make up only a minisule .01 percent of Lady Lake, compared with nearly 15 percent in Boca Raton, West Palm Beach, and Delray Beach.

Also in contrast to South Florida’s retirement communities, voter registration in Lady Lake is overwhlemingly Republican.  More than 60 percent of the voters in Lady Lake are registered as Republican, compared to 39 percent in Delray Beach, West Palm Beach, and Boca Raton.  George W. Bush crushed his Democratic opponents here in both 2000 and 2004.

Strikingly, Lady Lake is home to a disproportionate number of members of the Church of Latter Day Saints (LDS).  LDS members make up more than 1 percent of the population (compared with less than half that percentage in Florida as a whole).  The Mormon influence in the politics of Lady Lake probably accounts for the fact that Mitt Romney lead all primary candidates in fundraising by a wide margin.  According to the Washington Post, Romney raised more than $101,000 in Lady Lake, compared to just over $29,000 for John McCain and $7,700 for Mike Huckabee (and just over $29,000 for Barack Obama).  A large number of people at the Palin rally might also have been channeled from the LDS Orlando Temple, which claims 95,000 members in 22 LDS stakes (or LDS districts) in Florida and Southern Georgia.

So, is Lady Lake in any sense a typical Florida community?

No.

Do the politics of Lady Lake reflect the politics of Florida retirement communities or Florida as a whole?

No.

Should Barack Obama be concerned about the large turnout for Palin in Lady Lake?

No.

Now, here’s the kicker:

It is McCain, not Obama, who should be concerned about recent developments in Lady Lake.

Despite the fact that the demographics and political history of Lady Lake, Florida, overwhelmingly favor McCain, Barack Obama raised more money there than John McCain in the month for which the most recent data is available (July).

Reading the 2008 Election

I read several newspapers and numerous blogs every day, but I think my understanding of the 2008 presidential election has been shaped most deeply by a few books I read many years ago.

Here’s a short list of books that were written long before Sarah Palin entered our collective consciousness (the oldest is from 1933, the newest is from 1974), that help explain the social forces at work in the 2008 election:

Richard Hofstadter, Anti-Intellectualism in American Life.

Why do Americans hate smart people?  Why does Barack Obama need to downplay his Ivy League education, his Harvard Law degree and his presidency of the Harvard Law Review, while Sarah Palin’s ignorance about foreign policy, science, American history, and just about everything else is actually a positive on the campaign trail?  What are the roots of the Sarah Palin frontier myth, in which knowing how to hunt a moose is a more important leadership qualification than knowing how to read the Constitution?

Published in 1963 and inspired by the McCarthyism of the 1950s, this book traces the historical basis of the McCain-Palin attack on Obama as an intellectual and elitist, and the roots of that attack in Puritanism and evangelical Protestantism.  Hofstadter analyzes the 1952 presidential election in which Democrat Adlai Stevenson was positioned by the Republicans and the media as an elitist intellectual against the plain-speaking soldier Dwight Eisenhower — which calls to mind Marx’s famous quip that while history may repeat itself it does so “the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.”  A book that reactionaries still love to hate.

Also extremely helpful in understanding the 2008 election are Hofstadter’s The Paranoid Style in American Politics (1965) and Social Darwinism in American Thought (1944).

Harry Braverman, Labor and Monopoly Capital: The Degradation of Work in the 20th Century.

Why are Americans so stupid?  What is the correlation between crappy jobs and crappy people?  Why is the South so Red?  Why is Obama having such a hard time with blue collar voters in the Rust Belt and Appalachia?  Why is it that we can be pretty sure that nearly all of the redneck imbeciles who thought it would be a great idea to ride out Hurricane Ike in their mobile homes are voting Republican?

Braverman’s 1974 book establishes a correlation between the drastically reduced skill level, knowledge, and creative intelligence required for workers in the modern economy and the resulting drastic reduction in the workers’ ability to think for themselves.  He wrote about the rise of the factory system and the assembly line, but the degradation of work he describes has even more chilling consequences for our McJob “service economy.”

Wilhelm Reich, The Mass Psychology of Fascism.

Why do Americans worship the very powers that cut their wages, keep them without health care, ship their jobs overseas, foreclose on their houses, and send them to die in unnecessary wars?  What is the social-psychological basis of the sadomasochism inherent in the McCain POW mythology?  Why do Republicans and Country-Western singers act like fiercely independent tough guys while they slavishly prostrate themselves before authority figures and nationalistic symbols like the flag?  Why do white Americans love to hate black people, gay people, Jews, and Mexicans while they irrationally identify with and suck up to the powerful white people who are stepping on their necks?

Writing during the early years of the rise of Hitler, the Nazis and the fascist mass movements in Europe, Reich puts the blame on sexual repression, pervasive sexual abuse, the patriarchal-authoritarian family, patriarchal-authoritarian religion, and a totalitarian education system.  There’s lots of crazy stuff here, but also brilliant insights into the authoritarian psychology that pervades the Republican Party and much of the media, and that keeps Karl Rove in business.

Herbert Marcuse, Repressive Tolerance.

Why do crack-smoking, tattooed, heavy-metal listening, bail-skipping Wal-Mart shoppers overwhelmingly support McCain-Palin?  (The latest Rasmussen Report: “McCain leads 58% to 38% among those who regularly shop at Wal-Mart while Obama leads 61% to 36% among those who don’t frequent the retail giant.”) How did a society where almost everything is allowed (and shown on TV) produce the militaristic, sexually repressed, resentment fueled deformities on display at the Republican convention?  How does the ”objectivity” of the mainstream media regarding political and moral choices (even when real) favor the repressive, bellicose Right?

Written in 1965 with a post-script written in 1968, Marcuse’s theory of “repressive tolerance” incited the ire of some 60s radicals for critiquing as fundamentally repressive and authoritarian the then-nascent drug culture and sexual revolution of what would later be called the Woodstock generation. Marcuse writes: “The toleration of the systematic moronization of children and adults alike by publicity and propaganda, the release of destructiveness in aggressive driving, the recruitment for and training of special forces, the impotent and benevolent tolerance toward outright deception in merchandizing, waste, and planned obsolescence are not distortions and aberrations, they are the essence of a system which fosters tolerance as a means for perpetuating the struggle for existence and suppressing the alternatives.”

Or, as I’ve told a right-wing biker friend of mine: “The 60s died when assholes like you started smoking pot.”

Marcuse’s essay helps explain why.

Sarah Palin, Lipstick and the Bible: Beware the Wages of Sin

Now that lipstick has become the symbol of the Sarah Palin campaign, perhaps we should look more closely at the what the Bible and Christianity has had to say about this fundamental cosmetological device.

It is clear that the Bible isn’t very happy about cosmetics in general, condemning in several passages women who “paint their faces.”

For example:

“And furthermore, that ye have sent for men to come from far, unto whom a messenger was sent; and, lo, they came: for whom thou didst wash thyself, paintedst thy eyes, and deckedst thyself with ornaments…” (Ezekiel 23:40)

“And when thou art spoiled, what wilt thou do? Though thou clothest thyself with crimson, though thou deckest thee with ornaments of gold, though thou rentest thy face with painting, in vain shalt thou make thyself fair; thy lovers will despise thee, they will seek thy life.” (1 Timothy 2:9)

“And when Jehu was come to Jezreel, Jezebel heard of it; and she painted her face, and tired her head, and looked out at a window. And as Jehu entered in at the gate, she said, Had Zimri peace who slew his master? And he lifted up his face to the window, and said, Who is on my side? who? And there looked out to him two or three eunuchs. And he said, Throw her down. And they threw her down: and some of her blood was sprinkled on the wall, and on the horses: and he trode her under foot. And when he was come in, he did eat and drink, and said Go, see now this cursed woman, and bury her for she is a king’s daughter. And they went to bury her: but they found no more of her than the skull, and the feet, and the palms of her hands. Wherefore they came again, and told him. And he said, This is the word of the Lord which he spake by his servant Elijah the Tishbite, saying, In the portion of Jezreel shall dogs eat the flesh of Jezebel: And the carcass of Jezebel shall be as dung upon the face of the field in the portion of Jezreel; so that they shall not say, This is Jezebel.” (2 Kings 9:30-37)

“The whole city shall flee for the noise of the horsemen and bowmen; they shall go into thickets, and climb up upon the rocks: every city shall be forsaken, and not a man dwell therein. And when thou art spoiled, what wilt thou do? Though thou clothest thyself with crimson, though thou deckest thee with ornaments of gold, though thou rentest thy face with painting, in vain shalt thou make thyself fair; thy lovers will despise thee, they will seek thy life. For I have heard a voice as of a woman in travail, and the anguish as of her than bringeth forth her first child, the voice of the daughter of Zion, that bewaileth herself, that spreadeth her hands saying, Woe is me now! for my souls is wearied because of murderers.” (Jeremiah 4:29-31)

The Great Harlot is described in The Book of Revelation as “arrayed in purple and scarlet, and decked with gold and precious stone and pearls”:

“And he carried me away in the Spirit into a wilderness: and I saw a woman sitting upon a scarlet-colored beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns. And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet, and decked with gold and precious stone and pearls, having in her hand a golden cup full of abominations, even the unclean things of her fornication, on her forehead a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF THE HARLOTS AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.” (Revelation 17:3-5)

While I’m not a Bible scholar, with an outfit like that, I think we can assume that she was wearing lipstick as well.

If you believe that the Bible is the word of God, I don’t see anyway around it: Lipstick is sin, and the wages of sin are death.

As the late Herbert W. Armstrong, founder of the Worldwide Church of God and one of the fathers of modern American evangelism, taught his flock in Truth about MakeUp:

“[T]he custom of using PAINT to color and to change the looks of the face, to make it appear ‘prettier’, originated in harlotry… It was always used to seduce and lure men into LUST… In every single case where painting the face is mentioned in your Bible, GOD LABELS THE WOMAN A WHORE! Is that shocking? Yes, but TRUE! Painting the face is never once mentioned in connection with a virtuous woman! How does God label You? Every woman should ask herself that question.”

(In Sarah Palin’s case, the lipstick on her face might well be an especially egregious sin, if the story reported in Wonkette is true and Palin’s glossy red-state lips are the product of a tattoo.  Wonkette calls it “gross,” but apparently God would use stronger language.)

Armstrong exhorted women who wanted to be SAVED to wash that evil lipstick from their lips:

“Every woman who wants that deceitfulness and wickedness removed from her heart is going to remove that physical colored dirt from her face once and for all! Those yielded to the CHRIST who paid such a PRICE for this very cleansing will need no more. Those not so yielded would not repent and let the precious blood of Christ cleanse them, and their faces, though I write ten thousand pages! God lays down the LAW. God tells us WHAT IS SIN, and He tells us that this vain use of facial makeup is SIN! But God leaves it to YOU to decide whether to sin! And never forget the PENALTY for this sin is DEATH for eternity in a Lake of FIRE! It is truly, an AWFUL — a FRIGHTFUL FATE. YOU are WARNED! You are a free moral agent. That decision is now YOUR RESPONSIBILITY! What are you going to do with it?

Indeed.

Definitely something every Christian woman should think about before she lifts that little phallus in the air — or to her lips.

Can You Predict the Next Big Lie from the McCain-Palin Campaign?

The CNN headline said: “Rove: McCain Went ‘Too Far’ in Ads.”

(I had to read it several times, thinking there must be something wrong with my eyes.)

The latest lie from the McCain-Palin Lie Machine is a Spanish language ad that calls Barack Obama responsible for the nation’s failure to overhaul our immigration laws.

What do you think their next big lie will be?

Remember, this is a campaign that even Karl Rove has said has gone “too far.”

Here are some likely possibilities.  Please feel free to add your own.

Obama created AIDS. TV ad showing AIDS victims in Africa.  Voiceover tying Barack Obama to Kenya. Footage of Obama’s Kenyan ancestors and relatives. Footage of AIDS victims in Africa. Voiceover of AIDS statistics in Africa.  Footage of Obama with gay rights activists.  Voiceover of Obama calling for end to discrimination based on sexual orientation.  Footage of white people with AIDS.  Footage of Obama laughing.

Obama cost America the Vietnam War. TV ad showing former Weather Underground leader Bill Ayers with voiceover of the Obama-Ayers connection.  Footage of wounded U.S. soldiers in Vietnam. Footage of the SDS/Weatherman in 1968-1969. More footage of wounded U.S. soldiers in Vietnam. Footage of bombing of the U.S. Capitol in 1971. Footage of Barack Obama in U.S. Capitol.  Footage from the Sixties of Ayers calling for end to Vietnam War.  Footage of Obama calling for end to the Iraq War.  Footage of helicopters fleeing Saigon in 1975. More footage of wounded U.S. soldiers in Vietnam. Footage of POW John McCain in Hanoi prison. Footage of Obama laughing.

Obama is a Jew. (To be shown in selected counties in Missouri, Idaho, Montana, and Southern California). TV ad showing Obama’s African relatives with traditional head covering (tagiyah).  Footage of Jews wearing traditional head covering (yarmulke).  Footage of Barack Obama’s face morphing easily into the face of Jerry Lewis (Levitch).

Okay, your turn.