Saturday Cartoon Fun: These Colors Don't Run Edition

Wednesday Cartoon Fun: Knowledge Edition

“America can do whatever we set our mind to.”

Celebrating death? Death is nothing to celebrate, but we seem to do it well. We do killing real good, too. Poverty? We just haven't set our minds to it, apparently.

Perhaps the only thing more disturbing than the celebrations unleashed in the wake of bin Laden’s demise was the cynical way in which the president suggested that his killing proved “America can do whatever we set our mind to.” If this is, indeed, the lesson of bin Laden’s death, then this only suggests we clearly don’t want to diminish, let alone end, child poverty, excess mortality rates in communities of color, rape and sexual assault of women (including the many thousands who have been victimized in the U.S. military), or food insecurity for millions of families; because we aren’t addressing any of those things with nearly the aplomb as that put to warfare and the killing of our adversaries.

We are, if the president is serious here, a nation that has narrowly constricted its marketable talents to the deployment of violence. We can’t manufacture much of anything, but we can kill you. We can’t fix our schools, or build adequate levees to protect a city like New Orleans from floodwaters. But we can kill you. We can’t reduce infant mortality to anywhere near the level of other industrialized nations with which we like to compare ourselves. But we can kill you. We can’t break the power of Wall Street bankers, or jail any of those bankers and money managers who helped orchestrate the global financial collapse. But we can kill you. We can’t protect LGBT youth from bullying in schools, or ensure equal opportunity for all in the labor market, regardless of race, gender, sexuality or any other factor. But we can kill you. Booyah, bitches.

Tim Wise

Capitalist Industrial Commodity Disease

Joe Bageant on American acquiescence:

...One new favorite ["condition" "requiring" a psychoactive drug] is ODD, oppositional defiant disorder, in which children act like -- surprise, surprise -- the young assholes that children can sometimes be. Teenage rebellion becomes a psychological disorder. Diagnostic manual symptoms include "often argues with adults," an unheard of behavior of teenagers calling for antipsychotics such as Risperidone. Side effects of Risperidone include a mild speed like buzz, a super erection lasting hours, lactation and suicidal tendencies. Phew!

Big Pharma makes billions more in the name of alleviating the people's suffering. Obviously many millions are indeed suffering, but if that is the case, then American society is suffering. Never will it be asked publicly just what psychic anguish our society is suffering from. Because the answer is capitalist industrial commodity disease, and the psychic pathology of Americaness. That would mean consulting Mr. Marx, who predicted much of it, or Arthur Barsky, who brought the definition up to date.

For Americans, self-examination is not just rare, it is nonexistent, which one source of our pathology. Missing from our national character is love of the common good, and our collective civic responsibility toward one another. But if we acknowledged collective responsibilities to the individual members of our society, then we would have to deal with the issue of class in this country. Better to medicate the entire nation. To do that, you need big government....[emphasis mine]

BP: The Juice Gatherer

According to Senator Nelson, top-kill may have blown out the part of the well casing under the sea bed. This means that the well can never be capped. The only way to stop the flow is to drill relief wells.

Since we are clearly not going to stop drilling for oil in the Gulf, the least we can do is require that relief wells be simultaneously drilled from now on, and all existing wells also have relief wells drilled. I assume this would cost a shitload of money, but if we want to protect ourselves, we pay.

All the boom being touted by BP isn't doing much, and from what oil cleanup experts say, it simply won't. But it could at least get tended to better, or at all.

I have 6 of the 8 feeds on the live BP feeds page and watch them frequently.  I have not noticed much change in anything.  I mean, the feeds are cool, but they don't show how the oil is being captured that BP says is being captured.  There must be other feeds--they don't have any other way to do their work down there.

BP totally screwed this up. They are the 4th largest company in the world.  They are so big they have virtually nothing to fear.  Their greatest asset is the American people.  Until we don't need them, or want them, they do what they are supposed to do--make money extracting our juice.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali On American Academy of Pediatrics New Love Of Female Genital Mutilation: Updated, AAP Changes Its Mind

The American Academy of Pediatrics recently put forward a proposal on female genital mutilation. They would like that American doctors be given permission to perform a ceremonial pinprick or “nick” on girls born into communities that practice female genital mutilation.

Read the whole thing here.

Update: It appears the AAP has changed its mind. Good for it.

Praying Before Legislating: America's Oxymorons

Texas State Board of Education member Cynthia Dunbar opens debate on new social studies standards with a politically divisive prayer on May 21, 2010.

I always get uneasy when I see prayer in a government office. America's Constitution makes the separation explicit. Why the fuck are government employees praying to Jesus in a government building as they begin government business? A new Facebook group may be in order: Stop Praying At Government Meetings. Someone go start it.

A Nice Graphic Of Health Care Spending

From Newshoggers:

What Hath The SCOTUS Wrought?

Dear Readers,

With today's ruling by the Supreme Court, it has now become financially feasible for me to seriously run for public office.

As you are probably well aware, my aspirations to become a powerful, feared member of the oligarchic elite have been stymied, partially because of those pictures of me and John Edwards' mistress, but mostly because the salary for an unsuccessful candidate is so poor. Indeed, as I have a wife and three kids to feed, I felt that I could not take the risk of running for higher office and lose, leaving my family destitute. We do have need for bare necessities (food, water, cable modem), and while the children would probably be tasty if they were slow cooked, I felt that the tradeoff was one I could not make.

Today's Supreme Court ruling, however, changes the game... and it's now an opportunity for you, the freedom of speech enabled citizenry, unions, or corporations to take advantage of me.

First, let me say that I have principles: valuable, deeply held principles that I will gladly abandon for cold, hard cash. You want an amendment to stop flag burning: for $5,000, I can be your candidate. You want to put electronic monitoring devices on liberals: for $5,000,000 I can be your candidate. You want to invade countries populated by brown people and forcibly convert them to Pepsi-Colaism... brother, for a mere $50,000,000 I can make that happen.

Of course, my real platform if totally up to you.

For a nice chunk of change I can be against gay marriage, but for a little bit more, I can be for it.
Don't like stop signs? For a generous contribution, neither do I?
Think that we need to drill baby seals in ANWR for their oil? A cool million from Exxon-Mobil would make me agree.
Want to waterboard people in contravention of the Geneva Convention? For a campaign plane, I'll hold the bucket for you.

I can be a Democrat, a Republican, a Libertarian, a Tea-Bagger, a Trash Bagger, A Stinking Badger, or anything else your greedy little hands want me to be.

This is a great opportunity for democracy. Think of me as your, squishy, pliable, political Gumby whore, willing to do anything and contort anyway that you want me too.

But wait, there's MORE!

If you are one of the first 300 contributors, I will give you the opportunity to actually vote FOR ME. I mean, literally, if you decide that I'm going to be a congressman, I will let you push the little red button on the floor of the House for me. You want to have my vote on Global Warming? Bam! You literally have my vote on global warming.

Hurry though, as there are only so many positions for sale. Contribute now before someone else buys up your democracy!

-O
The Angry Drunk Bureaucrat

A Good, Socialist Rant

I really enjoy Joe Bageant's rants:

Bass Boats and Queer Marriage
The battle for the American soul is over and Jay Leno won

By Joe Bageant
Ajijic, Jalisco, Mexico

Holy smoking Jesus, America is losing its middle class! "We're taxing the middle class out of existence," charge the conservatives. "The middle class is being hollowed out," wail the liberals, pouring forth great mock turtle tears (although one wonders how such a vacuum, as middle class life in America could be further hollowed).

For both political camps, high dudgeon over "the vanishing middle class" is supposed to represent some sort of "new populism." Not that the populace disagrees with them, mainly because the populace, if we are referring to the genuine America populace, hasn't the slightest notion of the definition of populism. But the word sounds like it has to do with popularity, the highest virtue in the American mind, and can even lead to the celestial heights called celebrity. So what the hell, they're willing to run with it.

Read the whole thing here.

American Maps

In Darwin We Trust: Another Study In Contrasts

A stark contrast in the division of church and state:

US twenty dollar note with God emblazoned on it

British ten pound note with Darwin on it.

h/t Hendrick Hertzberg