I think I’ve figured it out. I think I know why so many people watch Faux (which in French means “false”) News. (And yes, it really is Faux News since at least three different studies over the years have shown that the “news” that Faux reports is full of misconceptions and, dare I say it,  outright lies. Especially their “talk show hosts” like Glenn Beck and Bill O’Reilly who add their own “spin” to the “truth” they report.)

Psychologists suggest that people tend to do two things when it comes to information: think the worst (or at least think bad things) about people who are different than them (or situations they don’t agree with) and they tend to believe the bad things that are said about people (and situations) before they’ll believe the good things.

I have a bumper sticker that says something like “The truth is greatly influenced by what you want to be true.”

And herein is where Faux News excels. It plays to people’s prejudices, it plays to their fears, it plays to their biases and it plays to their greed.  (The entire Republican platform is essentially how to get government out of business and how to slash social programs so we can make more money. Ironic given it is in bed with the radical religious right, which claims to be Christian, and whose leader (Jesus) said that all his followers should give away everything they own to follow him. But that hypocrisy has been addressed elsewhere.)

So essentially, Faux News tells its viewers and listeners what they want to hear. That it’s all someone else’s fault (usually whatever minority has had the audacity to assert their equal rights) that they’re not richer, or have a bigger house or a faster car or a better job. It inflames their fears, which allows them to justify in their own heads their prejudices and bigotries.

But just since the election of Barack Obama, Faux News (through their broadcasts or their pundits) has called for the repeal of some very important constitutional amendments and the roll back of some very necessary programs. And unfortunately, given the nature of human beings (or at least of Americans), it’s likely that their viewers will soon be calling for such repeals and roll backs as well.

It’s sad, really, that so many people are so content to remain so misinformed, ignorant and fearful.

This was done by another AlterNet user, but I think it is such a fabulous interview that I wanted to make a blog post about it rather than just share it on face book. I have felt for a long time that the US has overstepped her bounds when it comes to military action. And this interview does a great job of explaining why. I’m gonna have to get me a copy of the book “Washington Rules”.

And as “proof” that the old ways aren’t working anymore, a poll by ABC News and the Washington Post found that most Americans don’t feel any safer now than they did before 9/11.

I have great admiration for Stephen Hawking. The man is a genius. But he recently said (ok, so it was last September when the article was written) that the laws of physics make it unnecessary for God to exist. Mind you, I do not consider myself a Christian. I do not believe the underlying tenet of the Christian faith (ie, that man needs redemption in the sacrifice of Yeshua on the cross). To me, “God” is not some supreme deity up there in heaven with a score card keeping track of what we do and how best to punish us for our “sins”. I believe more in the statement “God is Love”. The Divine has no gender, no ego, no need for revenge or no need to be worshipped. The only “need” the Divine has is to Love because that is the only thing the Divine can do. Love. Unconditionally. But I digress.

Even though I don’t believe in the “supreme being” model of God, I do not think that the laws of physics can explain Love. Unconditional Love. The kind of Love that says “I accept you for who you are even if I don’t like what you are doing.” It’s not something that has mass. It’s not something that can be measured. It’s not something that is reproducible in experiments. Therefore it has nothing to do with science. And for me, the only way to explain Love— to explain that spark that makes us more than the sum total of all the chemical reactions and chemical components in our bodies— is the Divine.

I have watched with sadness, frustration and almost helplessness as, for the past 35 years, partisanship and religious fundamentalism have polarized this nation.  I actually believe the seeds were sown during Viet Nam and Watergate. (Mind you, I was only about 3 when the US really began sending fighting troops to Viet Name and I was only 13 when Watergate occurred and 15 when Nixon resigned.) Here’s my vastly simplified beliefs as to the underlying motivations/reasons we’re in the position we are now.

However, I think that Nixon’s resignation deeply affected the Republican party. They became the first party in the history of the US to have a member of their party rise to the office of president and then be forced to resign. (Of course, they had Spiro Agnew, then vice-president to Nixon, resign as well. (While Agnew was not the first vice-president to resign— that honor goes to John Calhoun,  John Quincy Adam’s VP who resigned to take a seat in the Senate in 1832.) Agnew’s resignation was due to criminal misconduct to which he pled “no contest”.)

And then, of course, Gerald Ford took over as president. While Ford may have been a wonderful man, the public image of him, made famous by those Saturday Night Live sketches, was that of a bumbling idiot.

So in the midst of Watergate, the Republicans have a VP resign due to tax evasion, a president resign due to involvement in Watergate, and his replacement is considered a bumbling idiot who two women tried to assassinate!  (This might explain the Republican vendetta against women as well…) That’s like a triple whammy to the Republican party’s image.

But wait! It gets even worse (from the Republican perspective anyway)! Ford lost re-election (or more accurately, his first attempt at election to the presidency) to a former peanut farmer from Georgia whose brother is a beer-guzzling redneck! (Or at least that’s the way Billy Carter was portrayed in the media.) (Mind you, I think Carter was one of our best presidents in terms of portraying what it means to be an American.)

So the Republicans are in utter disgrace by the time the 1980 presidential election comes around. So who do they nominate? An actor…someone who can play a convincing role. Someone who appeals to mainstream America (who even then had an obsession with celebrity).  And he wins! And one of his first acts as president is to announce the release of the American’s held hostage in Iran. (Of course, this later went on to become the Iran-Contra scandal that sent Oliver North to jail. Reagan, for his part, when asked questions during testimony, simply said, “I can’t recall” (or words to that effect) and Americans were okay with that!?!?!?!)

Now, this is 1980. And drugs are becoming an ever increasing problem. While technically Richard Nixon first used the phrase “War on Drugs”, it was Nancy Reagan who really put it out in the pubic sphere with her “Just Say No” campaign in 1984. Beginning in 1980, convictions and incarcerations for drug charges began to climb at unprecedented rates and have continued at about the same rate until  about 2000 when they began to taper off slightly.  Of course, the “war on drugs” completely overlooked the fact that we’d once before attempted to legislate what someone could or could not put into their body and we called it Prohibition. And once Prohibition passed, gangs popped up all over the place fighting turf wars for who got to sell the illegal drug (in this case, alcohol.) And of course, the same thing happened when Reagan really began to crack down on drugs. But that’s another post…

Reagan is also known for his “innovative” economic theory called “trickle down economics” wherein, according to him, if we give the wealthiest people and big corporations tax breaks (ie, they don’t have to pay taxes), those people will spend even more money and that money will “trickle down” to all levels of society. Only thing is that he forgot to take into account “evaporation constant” and “diversion factor” : the principle where in money, like water, “evaporates” or is diverted before it gets to the bottom layer.

Reagan seemed to take the idea of corporate personhood to new heights, granting tax breaks not only to the wealthy but to corporations as well. Additionally, Reagan deregulated a lot of businesses claiming that over-regulation interfered with the free market and that was what was slowing the economy. Unfortunately, the real world doesn’t work like textbook economic theories predict and the money that was supposed to be reinvested in the economy ended up disappearing into the pockets of burgeoning salary packages and retirement packages of CEOs and upper management.

In 1980, the average CEO only made about 50 times the annual salary of the average worker. But in 1980, that started to climb and by the year 2000, when Bush was elected to office, it reached its peak of more than 500 times what the average worker makes each year.

Reagan’s election in 1980 marked the first time since the 1954 mid-term elections that Republicans gained control of one of the houses of Congress.  They retained control of the House for six years and the White House for twelve years before Clinton was elected in 1992 and swept Republican control away from both houses of Congress for a mere two years.  From 1994 to 2006, except for one two year period (when Sen. James Jeffords (R-VT) switched to Independent status in 2001 and decided to caucus with the Democrats, giving them de facto control of the House, which had been evenly split at 50-50), Republicans have been in control of both houses of Congress and partisanship has been the fashion of the day.

Nothing highlighted this partisanship more than the Republican “Contract with America” (1994) when the Republican party hijacked God and patriotism for their own political agenda.  This also opened the door for the radical religious right to get their foot in the bedroom door of the Republican party.  Pat Robertson’s Christian Coaltion began publishing a “voter’s guide” that was supposed to be “nonpartisan” but was anything but. The Coalition made it clear that in order to be considered a good Christian, one had to vote according to the Coalition’s stance, which was completely Republican.

Of course, one should not dismiss the influence of Focus on the Family and its founder, James Dobson. At one point, Dobson’s power was so great that the mere threat of leaving the Republican party and forming a third party was enough to cause Republicans to cave into his demands.

The marriage of religion and politics did not sit well with many Americans, especially those who did not consider themselves Christians. But even among more moderate and liberal Christians, this marriage was problematic. So the Republican party began to make use of a tactic that the radical religious right has used since the inception of monotheism: fear-mongering.

“Homosexual activists are on the verge of destroying the Boy Scouts of America— and your church could be their next target” the ACLJ screamed in a fundraising letter.

Fear-mongering is also a favorite tactic of another segment of society: conservative radio talk-show hosts. Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Michael Savage and a whole host of other wannabe’s love to say “What if…”, and unfortunately, a large portion of the American population doesn’t seem to realize that you can “what if” any situation to any conclusion. Limbaugh et al simply “what iffed” the situation to its most fearful conclusion and made it seem as if that was the only way it could be.

And then came September 11, 2001.

No matter that many Americans think that 9/11 is the result of years of unjust American foreign policies. Or that some of us think that our government knew about the impending attack and did nothing to stop it in order to further their own agenda. Or, alternatively (my own belief) that they knew, placed conditions on the attack (like it had to be before 9 when the buildings opened and were full and they had to hit the upper stories so that most people would have a chance to get out before the buildings collapsed and those kind of things) and then let it happen. Regardless, the Bush-Cheney regime made full use of the attack and took fear-mongering to new heights!

Not that fear-mongering is new in American society. But fear was used to push through the inappropriately titled “PATRIOT Act”, which did more damage to our constitutional rights than any single act of legislation in history. Our emails can be monitored and phones tapped without warrants now. And they convinced us that the people of Mexico are such a threat to us that we’re building a wall much bigger than the Berlin wall ever was. And while I don’t deny there are those Democrats and liberals who use fear-mongering, the radical religious right and the Republican party and conservative pundits have perfected the art of fear-mongering. And they’re using it to slowly erode away our civil rights. Our constitutional rights. And in doing so, they’re polarizing our nation into those who buy into the fear and those who do not. Into those who have hope and those who have none.

Fear is nothing but the absence of Love. When we Love, we do not fear. And where Love exists, fear cannot exist. It’s like light and dark. Darkness cannot exist in the presence of light unless something blocks that light. And fear cannt exist in the presence of Love unless something blocks that Love. By promoting fear-mongering, they’re making you forget that Love is more powerful than fear. They’re making you believe in the boogie man. They’re making you give up hope.

How do we fix it? For one thing, we turn off the channel or change the station when the fear-mongering pundits come on. We don’t need to have those negative thoughts reinforced any more than they have already been reinforced. And most importantly, we start treating other people the way we want to be treated.

When you get right down to it, we all want to be treated EXACTLY the same way.

We want to be respected.

We want to be free to live our lives according to the beliefs we hold dear.

We want to be safe in our homes, in our jobs, walking down our streets.

We want clean water, clean air and healthy food for ourselves and our children and their children for generations to come.

So if that’s what we want, then we need to make sure that the things we are doing are not interfering with those goals coming true. Which means changing how we each do things (or at least how most of us do things.) We are the only ones we can change. We can’t change our neighbors. We have no right to try to change someone’s beliefs if we don’t want people trying to change ours. So the only thing we can change is what we do, what we think, what we say.

Who’s gonna help me change the world one person at a time?

According to a report about private security firm, Blackwater, they created about 30 different shell companies in order to get more work from the government after the incident in which Blackwater forces killed 17 Iraqi civilians.

Now, I know that when we ordinary folk try to get a job, we often have to have a criminal background check and on the form you fill out, you have to put down what other names you may have used, like your maiden name or an alias. So why don’t the Blackwater shells have to be upfront and forthcoming with who their parent company is?

Oh, and for what it’s worth, Halliburton, the company the former VP Dick Cheney ran for so long, hired Blackwater for some of their security for them….

I read a story by another AlterNet blogger about child porn and the Pentagon. According to the story, in the course of an investigation into contractor corruption, the Pentagon discovered more than 260 employees who had purchased or viewed child pornography online. But because the focus of the investigation was fraud and not child porn, only a fraction of those cases (52 to be exact) were investigated further and only 10 of them were ever charged!

The Pentagon says that it dropped the investigations because they did not have the time, money or personnel to continue the investigations since their main focus was contractor fraud.

Now how the hell does that make any sense whatsoever? If you don’t have the resources to prosecute, then give the information to the FBI! That’s their job! To investigate crimes! And the last time I checked, child pornography was still a crime!

No wonder hammers sold to the government by private contracts cost upwards of $900: the people they’re selling them to have no common sense!

Remember last year when the so-called “Ground Zero mosque” thing was happening? All that hateful speech aimed at the Muslim faith and at Muslims in general made the news and was followed by a whole lot of hate crimes (acts of terrorism, really) against Muslims, mosques,  Muslim businesses and anyone who even remotely looked like they might be Muslim. A coalition of faith groups, both Muslim and non-Muslim, met with Justice Department officials last year to request that the White House take a more public and proactive stand against what they saw as hate speech. The ABC News story that covered this meeting was titled “Anti-Muslim Rhetoric: Free Speech or Hate Speech?” To that I answer, “Both.”

Is the anti-Muslim rhetoric hate speech? You betcha. Is it protected free speech? You betcha. Here in the US, free speech means free speech (unless of course you’re doing the equivalent of yelling “fire” in a crowded theater when there really is no fire) no matter how repulsive, repugnant or hateful the message may be. I know I’ve posted this quote before, and I’m sure I’ll post it again because it is the quintessential “speech” made by a “politician” (in this case, Michael Douglas as the president in “The American President”).

America isn’t easy. America is advanced citizenship. You’ve gotta want it bad, ’cause it’s gonna put up a fight. It’s gonna say, “You want free speech? Let’s see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil, who’s standing center stage and advocating at the top of his lungs that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours.” You want to claim this land as the land of the free? Then the symbol of your country cannot just be a flag. The symbol also has to be one of its citizens exercising his right to burn that flag in protest. Now show me that, defend that, celebrate that in your classrooms.

Hate speech is really just a form of bullying. The speaker is trying to intimidate not only the group they’re berating but also anyone who is listening to them. They are trying to get you to change your mind about what you believe and start to accept what they believe as the truth. Unfortunately, most of what they tell you (and much of what they believe) is based on lies, misinformation, out-dated stereotypes and deeply-held prejudices.  Michael Moore wrote a great piece that reminds us that America is not a nation of bullies.

But this all raises an interesting point, as expressed by Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer: do we have to redefine what the “crowded theater” is? Justice Breyer references the pastor whose name I have forgotten  who threatened to burn copies of the  Qur’an on 9/11 if  Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf continued with plans to build the community center 2 blocks from Ground Zero. A bigoted pastor from a church with 30 members was directly responsible for riots and killings halfway around the world! His ignorance is the match that caused the explosion. Should he not be held responsible? Is this not akin to screaming “fire” in a crowded theater because people died from his words just as surely as people die when someone screams “fire” when there is no fire. The person who screamed it is not the one who trampled on them any more than the pastor is the one who killed the victims of his words. And yet we legally hold the person who screamed “fire” responsible for those deaths. Should not this pastor also be held legally responsible?

And if he should be held responsible, even if he is speaking what he holds to be “God’s truth”, then where does that leave the ubiquitous Fred Phelps & Co.? Fred and his band of merry followers first began protesting at funerals when they showed up at Matthew Shepard’s funeral in 1998. Now they protest at funerals of soldiers who died in Iraq and Afghanistan because they believe those soldiers are dying because we are a “fag-enabling” nation.

About four years ago, the father of one of those fallen soldiers sued Fred Phelps for damages for protesting at his son’s funeral. The father originally won, but Phelps appealed and the ruling was unanimously overturned. The appeals court  ordered Albert Snyder to pay the Phelp’s attorney fees, which amounted to about $16,000 at that point in time. (Four years and a whole lot of court cases later, including an appearance before the Supreme Court, who knows what the number is now.)

Just this past week, the US Supreme Court, in an 8-1 decision, upheld the US Constitutions protections on free speech. (The only dissenting justice was Samuel Alito, whose main argument seems to be that upholding Phelps’ right to protest was just plain mean.) Snyder claims his son didn’t die to protect the kind of free speech that Phelps et al engage in. And to a certain extent, I agree, because his son died for a bunch of lies, but that’s another story.

Free speech is one of the cornerstones of this nation and as such, it must be protected even when we find what is being said to be verbal diarrhea. Yeah, sometimes we have to put up with a really awful smell, but the alternative is even worse. If we prevent speech simply because its offensive, we’re going to end up like Huck Finn, white-washed by the broad brush of popular sensibilities, which changes from generation to generation.

However, we must make the distinction between religious beliefs and rhetoric spewed just to keep one’s name in the news and make more money. Like all the mouthpieces of the radical religious right: Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, Michael Savage, et al. These people are mere hate-mongerers and fear-mongerers, spewing lies that, for some reason, the American people seem to accept without question. They fan the flames of hatred and fear to make a buck and the Republican and Tea Parties, through their lack of condemnation for this fear-mongering and hate-mongering, are complicit accomplices.

However, as grim as the outlook may appear when the story is told in the media, I still maintain a belief that everyday, ordinary Americans know the truth. Like the residents of Corvallis, Oregon, who came out to support the members of a mosque that was damaged by arson. Not only do they demonstrate the real values of America, but they also demonstrate how to teach those values: by living them.

The Obama administration— mind you, this is the Obama administration, NOT the Bush-Cheney regime— is contemplating an executive power of ordering the “targeted killing” of US citizens living abroad who they (the administration) feel pose a threat to national security!

Yes, you read that right.

The Obama administration seems to think that it has the right to simply order the murder of one of its own citizens without any charges being filed, without any trial being undertaken…just the “intelligence” communities word that this person is dangerous and needs to be taken out.

Wow.

So the ACLU and the Center for Constitutional Rights filed a lawsuit challenging the government’s “right” to order these “targeted killings”, especially when they’re not even in the context of a war. But the lawsuit was tossed out by a federal judge on procedural grounds. The group, Human Rights Watch, wants the US to clarify their position and explain how they can legally justify that position. But so far, no word from the White House.

What happened to the oath of office the president takes to uphold the US Constitution? How is this in any way, shape or form constitutionally permissible?

I am reminded once again of words attributed to Ben Franklin: “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

There’s a lot of talk in this country, especially among conservatives and the radical religious right, about Islamic terrorists. And yes, there are Islamic terrorists. But there are also terrorists of other faiths. It wasn’t all that long ago that the terrorism in Ireland, between two groups of Christians, was making headlines.  But there is something happening in this country that is rather frightening: ordinary citizens are in training to become or have already become terrorists.

I want you to read each of the five stories I link to hear. Each of them will open in a new window, so you won’t lose your place here. And when you’re done, come on back and let me say a few closing words.

The Big Hate by Paul Krugman of the New York Times

Feeding the Lone Wolves by Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post

The Terrorists Among Us by GriperBlade (a blogger)

The Oath-Keepers by Joshua Holland (an Alternet blogger)

Al Qaeda and U.S. Homegrown Terror Threat by Jason Ryan on ABCNews.com

I have been saying for the last 9+ years that the problem is not Islam. The problem is fundamentalism— I don’t care what kind of fundamentalism. And yes, I include environmentalists, gay rights activists, feminists, animal rights activists and every other kind of fundamentalist out there in this. Fundamentalism, when left to grow unattended, will mature into some form of terrorism because the underlying belief in fundamentalism is that my way is THE best way bar none and everyone who doesn’t see that isn’t worth the time of day and are therefore inferior.

You don’ t think that when a group of AIDS activists comes into a church screaming and throwing condoms around that’s not some form of terrorism? Or when feminists refer to all men as sperm donors that’s not a from of terrorism? Or when animal rights activists break into a business and throw red paint all over the store that’s not terrorism? Or when a radical Christian fire bombs a  women’s health center that’s not terrorism?

We’ve had our own form of terrorism in this country for a long time. The big problem now is that they’re organizing into large groups…not small special interest groups like before. But large groups that claim to be patriotic Americans who believe in God! And that’s the really scary part because when you believe you have God on your side, you are really okay with doing just about anything to further your cause.

Until we recognize our own role in promoting terrorism in this country, nothing is going to be resolved or solved.

I have never been a fan of “professional wrestling” (or boxing for that matter) because it is a barbaric form of “entertainment”. I find the idea of watching two human beings beat the shit out of each other, sometimes to the point of death, to be no different than the Roman gladiator fights or tossing Christians to the lions. It highlights the violent-loving, blood-thirsty side of humanity and I find it repulsive. I feel much the same way about the fights in hockey. But, once again, I digress.

I’m taking paramedic class right now and it never ceases to amaze me how when you do something to one area of the body, it affects all the other areas. Sometimes in ways you don’t want it to.  And the most amazing part of the whole body from my perspective is the brain. It’s just a bunch of tissue, blood vessels, nerves and nerve endings and from that comes every single thing we’ve ever said, felt, done, seen, heard, tasted or thought. The brain is a very delicate organ and therefore the body protects it not only with the skull but with three layers of protection under the skull. We know from both scientific study, horrendous experiments and horrific accidents that when there is damage done to the brain, a whole lot of things can go wrong with what we say, feel, do, see, hear, taste and think.

And so we come to the tragic story of Chris Benoit, who became a “professional wrestler” at the age of 18 until his untimely death at age 40. Twenty two years of getting bashed in the skull by chairs, fists, feet, knees, steel cables, poles, ladders and any other thing his opponent could hit him with. Granted, he was inflicting the same kind of damage. But one thing we have also learned from our scientific study, horrendous experiments and horrific accidents is that no two humans react to something in exactly the same way.

There will never be any definitive answer as to why Benoit bound and strangled his wife, sedated then strangled his son, placed Bibles beside both of them and then hung himself from his weight machine. But there is no doubt in my mind that all the head trauma that man suffered was a contributing factor. I personally feel it was probably a rather large contributing factor because I’ve worked in a nursing home where seemingly sweet little old 85 year old ladies with dementia beat the living shit out of you because you’re trying to help them onto the toilet. While I have no scientific evidence to back it up, I think the biggest factor with dementia is the loss of social inhibitions against certain behaviors. Couple this with someone whose very career was all about inflicting violent harm on others and, IMHO, you have a toxic combination.

No, not every professional wrestler turns into a murderer. But Chris Benoit did. Although truth be told, I would not call him a murderer because murder involves the ability to distinguish right from wrong. In a brain as battered as Chris Benoit’s is reported to have been, I don’t think that was possible.