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Penn State Merely Reflects Our Culture.

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Whatever the legal outcome of the charges against former Penn State defensive coordinator, Jerry Sandusky, one thing is clear. The reaction of Penn State students to the firing of Joe Paterno reveals seriously twisted values. When the students filled the streets in protest, they were, in effect, saying we don’t care about the victims. Winning is more important.

We’ve seen this bankruptcy of values for many years in sports; particularly football. In places like Auburn, Iowa, Oklahoma, Ohio State, Nebraska, and USC, the institutions are expected to win at any cost. Athletes are allowed to assault, rape and rob with little consequence as long as they perform well on gameday. Boosters are allowed to make illegal payments under the table without fear. Coaches earn millions for finding ways around the NCAA’s rules. If they’re caught, they take the money and leave knowing they will be able to continue their careers at another school with the same values.

Before you think sports are unique in their lack of ethics, consider that the same kind of behavior is rewarded in politics. Politicians can lie and cheat without repercussions. They can pad their bank accounts and earn large pensions just by getting elected.

Business leaders are rewarded with multi-million-dollar salaries, stock options and bonuses for cutting employees and shipping jobs off-shore. The long-term health of their companies, or even our nation, mean little. After all, the executives can make enough in a year to retire comfortably.

This win-at-any-cost, ends-justify-the-means attitude permeates virtually every aspect of our society. For generations, the Catholic Church has swept child abuse under its sacramental rug then acted shocked by the outcry. Evangelical churches believe that it’s acceptable to lie to obtain new converts, to increase donations, or to rally adherents to their political causes. At the same time, they deny their political motivations and cover up their excesses.

Even worse than the excesses, themselves, is the fact that we all have been aware of them for decades. But we have done little to speak out or to try to change them. We not only accept that entertainers, sports stars and CEOs make millions a year while demanding even more. We admire them. We turn them into celebrities. And if they are caught for misbehaving or abusing their power and wealth, we turn on them. We vilify them. And we ask ourselves how we could have been so easily fooled.

If Sandusky actually did what he is accused of doing, he deserves our wrath. At the same time, we all need to look into the mirror and ask ourselves why his actions and similar actions of others are allowed to continue for so long.

Teapublican Lie #24.

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“Private schools perform better than public schools.”

Indeed, many Teapublicans consider public schools to be a form of socialism. They believe public schools exist only to indocrinate our children in such “liberal” concepts as evolution. They believe public schools are anti-religious. They believe that only private and parochial schools are willing to teach our children the truth. Some even believe that home-schooling is the only way to prevent their children from being exposed to evil (aka science).

And they rationalize this lunacy by convincing themselves that students in private schools out-perform those in the humble public schools.

Unfortunately, they are wrong.

According to a report entitled Multiple Choice Charter School Performance in 16 States, published by the Center for Research on Education Outcomes at Stanford University in June 2009, only 17 percent of charter schools performed better than public schools, 47 percent performed at roughly the same level as public schools, and 37 percent performed worse! In five states, Arizona, Florida, Minnesota, Ohio, New Mexico and Texas, gains in math and reading skills for students in charter schools were significantly worse than for those in public schools.

Given the performance of charter schools, it would seem that the parents who promote them are the ones in real need of an education.

Na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na Goodbye, Senator Pearce!

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This week, Boss Hogg wannabe, Russell Pearce was defeated in a recall election in Mesa, Arizona. You may remember him as the Godfather of SB1070, Arizona’s anti-immigration, anti-Latino bill. Thing is, he doesn’t deserve credit for writing the bill; only attaching his name to it and bullying it through the Arizona legislature.

One of the few things for which Pearce actually deserves credit is corruption and increased political devisiveness in Arizona. Yet, after the election returns were counted showing that he was defeated despite a litany of dirty tricks, Pearce was unapologetic. In a statement televised locally, he said, “If being recalled is the price for keeping one’s promises, so be it.”

Promises? Pearce didn’t promise anything. Promise is a term of hope. That hardly describes any of Pearce’s loathesome actions.

As former Chief Deputy for the self-proclaimed “nation’s toughest sheriff,” Pearce takes credit for having created “Tent City,” a Maricopa County jail located in the desert where prisoners are denied air conditioning despite 100+ degree temperatures and are served baloney sandwiches for every meal.

As President of the State Senate, Pearce not only unabashedly took $40,000 worth of free trips and football tickets from the Fiesta Bowl committee. He balanced the state’s budget on the backs of children and the poor. He demanded drastic cuts in education, while giving money to big business. He closed state parks in a state that depends on tourism. He drove tens of thousands of Latinos from Arizona further depressing the state’s economy. He fought to allow guns on school campus.  He challenged the 14th Amendment and President Obama’s birthplace. And he pushed for bills that would cement the Teapublican stranglehold on state politics for generations.

But despite the embarrassment of being the first Arizona legislator, and the first Senate president, to be recalled, Pearce vows a comeback. And if he’s ever successful, one suspects he’ll raise devisiveness and the corruption of power to entirely new levels.

The Fraud Of Voter Fraud.

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Following the 2008 presidential election, Republicans were convinced that President Obama could only have been elected as the result of massive voter fraud. They blamed ACORN (which they have since destroyed as the result of a fraudulent video scam) and labor unions (which are under attack by Teapublican-controlled legislatures throughout the country).

Now they have turned their attention to minority voters who overwhelmingly voted for Obama in 2008.

Despite the fact that there have been no proven instances of widespread voter fraud (a US Justice Department investigation in 2007 found only 86 instances of voter fraud nationally), Republican legislatures are pushing bills to require photo IDs.

Republican legislatures in Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio and Virginia have all considered photo ID legislation. Conveniently, these states all happen to be key battlegrounds for the upcoming 2012 presidential election. If the bills are successful, the new laws could have a profound effect on the outcome of the election.

Looking at just one of the key states, North Carolina, as many as 1 million registered voters currently lack a photo ID. African-Americans make up 22 percent of active voters, but are 32 percent of those without a photo ID.  And seniors over age 65 are 20 percent of active voters, but are 32 percent of those without a photo ID.

At least three scholarly studies have concluded that Voter ID laws lower voter turnout by throwing up an extra barrier to casting a ballot, particularly among less educated and lower income populations.

As Rev. Al Sharpton recently stated, “The current push for photo IDs is not intended to fix a problem, but to fix an election.”

7 Billion People. Now What?

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As of Monday, October 31, 2011, the world population officially reached 7 billion.  How appropriate that this milestone was reached on Halloween!

The statistic might not be so alarming if not for the fact that it took several million years for the population to reach one billion. It took just 123 years for the world to add the second billion. We’ve added the most recent billion in 12 years. And despite the fact that the world population rate has declined by half over the past 50 years, the world population is expected to reach 10 billion by 2050!

As the population grows, so will extreme poverty, food shortages and income inequality. So what can we do?

Ironically, those who are least able to afford it tend to have the most children. So the primary solution to our fast-growing population is to reduce poverty by investing in health and education. Second, we can promote women’s rights. As women gain knowledge and power, they tend to be less satisfied with being barefoot and pregnant. Obviously, we can promote family planning and the use of condoms. Finally, and perhaps most important, we can reject the idiocy of religions that disdain sex education and proven birth control methods for abstinance-only programs.

It may have made some sense for the Church to promote large families in the Middle Ages when infant death rates were high and large flocks of children were needed to help raise food. But that sort of primitive thinking is nothing less than global suicide in a world that has already over-exploited its natural resources.

Of course, any attempts to address over-population will be disdained by the simpletons who believe in the “rapture” or a heaven filled with virgins.  For them, the end of our planet can’t come soon enough.

More Political Bullying In Arizona.

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If you think Teapublicans have run amok in Washington or in states like Alabama, Ohio and Wisconsin, nothing compares to the political lunacy of Arizona.

This is the state that refused to acknowledge a Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday. It’s home to the so-called “nation’s toughest sheriff” who houses prisoners in tents in the middle of the desert and feeds them baloney sandwiches for every meal all the while misspending millions of his county’s budget.

It’s a state where handguns are a more common wardrobe accessory than wristwatches. It’s home to chronic liars John “McNasty” McCain and Jon Kyl. And it’s the state that introduced the Latino-bashing SB1070 anti-immigration bill.

Despite the apparent runaway lunacy, voter registration in the state is surprisingly reasonable. It’s almost equally divided between Teapublicans, Democrats and Independents. Yet, through a combination of vilifying immigrants, scare tactics and outright bullying, Teapublicans control virtually every major state office and hold a super-majority in the legislature.

Now that they’ve attained a death grip on state politics, Teapublicans are not about to let go. Which brings us to their latest shenanigan.

In the midst of the voter redistricting process dictated by the latest census, the self-proclaimed “scorpion-eating” Governor Jan Brewer called for impeachment of the chair of the Independent Redistricting Commission for “gross misconduct.” Of course, the Teapublican-dominated Senate went along with her recommendation thus removing the “I” from the IRC.

It seems Brewer and the Teapublicans were not satisfied with the proposed redistricting maps that would allow them to retain a majority of Congressional representatives, and all but guarantee Teapublican dominance of 16 of 30 legislative districts!

In Arizona, that’s what constitutes “gross misconduct” if you’re not a Teapublican.

The Planned Destruction Of Our Two-Party System.

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If you wanted to destroy the opposing political party – not just defeat it – what would you do?

You’d probably look to take away its source of funding while finding ways to dramatically increase yours, such as destroying labor unions while legalizing unlimited corporate contributions as “free speech.” You’d try to marginalize and delegitimize its leader by claiming he was not born in the US. You’d try to destroy its local organizers (ACORN). And knowing that most disputes will end up in court, you’d try to stack the courts with your own appointees while blocking the other party’s.

When the other party is in power, you’d try to block any attempts to improve the economy through filibusters. You’d try to destroy confidence in any media outlets that don’t support your point of view by eliminating the Fairness Doctrine and defunding public broadcasting. You’d try to eliminate as many regulations as possible, so when you regained power you could do whatever you want. And you’d try to destroy public confidence in a government run by the other party.

When your party is in power, you’d try to change the rules to favor your candidates. You’d try to redraw the congressional and legislative districts so you could get more candidates elected. And you’d try to suppress voting blocs that tend to vote for the other party’s candidates through voter suppression efforts such as those being pushed through Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Wisconsin.

Finally, to ensure your party’s future dominance, you’d try to control our schools so you could teach your own version of history and pseudoscience by rewriting textbooks such as those published in Texas.

If you think that I’m being paranoid, that these events are coincidental, or that both parties do the same things, you simply haven’t been paying attention.

The NRA Effect.

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Beginning in 1980, the National Rifle Association first inserted itself into politics by endorsing Ronald Reagan. Since then, the NRA has increasingly exerted its power and influence over both national and state politics. Nearly every year, the NRA writes proposed legislation then shops it around to state legislatures in hopes of finding sponsors.

Often the legislators who put their names on the bills never even read them!

An example is the Concealed Carry Law. In 1986, there were only 8 states that had legislation dictating that anyone who meets minimum requirements shall be issued a permit to carry concealed weapons. But thanks to the NRA, there are now 37 states that have “shall issue” permit laws and 4 states with no restrictions at all. Next month (November 2011), Illinois will be the only state left that does not allow concealed carry in any circumstances.

These laws were not demanded by the states’ citizens. Nor were they addressing real problems. They were written by the NRA merely to push its own narrow political agenda.

Of course, other special interest groups followed the NRA’s lead. For example, the Arizona anti-immigrant law was initially written by Kris Kobach, a professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law. It was embraced by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) which is headquartered in Washington, DC. FAIR (or, more precisely, UNFAIR) then shopped the bill around to the states until Arizona State Senator-In-Recall, Russell Pearce agreed to sponsor it as the infamous SB1070. It has since been brought before state legislatures in Alabama, Georgia, and South Dakota.

Now Kenneth Blackwell, an Ohio citizen and Senior Fellow for Family Empowerment at the Family Research Council in Washington, DC, is pushing an anti-abortion bill for the state of Mississippi. The bill, if the voters of Mississippi pass it, will ban all abortions in the state by extending First Amendment rights to fetuses. And this isn’t the first hayride for the bill. It was previously promoted, and defeated, in Colorado.

Now, I believe US citizens should be able to create and pass legislation to solve problems in their own states as long as they meet the standards of our US Constitution. But it is one thing for a state legislature to identify issues, and quite another for special interest groups to write and promote legislative solutions in search of a problem.

It’s time for this nonsense to stop.

Are We Now Officially Living In A Police State?

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When the American public watched televised scenes of non-violent black marchers being attacked by baton-wielding police and their dogs in the 1950s south, the public’s disgust virtually assured the end of the Jim Crow era.

When students at Kent State University were shot by National Guard troops for demonstrating against the Vietnam War, public outrage made the end of the war inevitable.

So what are we to make of the general indifference our citizens have shown toward the police brutality at Occupy Wall Street demonstrations?

If you haven’t been paying attention, New York police have routinely emptied pepper spray containers in the faces of non-violent demonstrators before hauling them off to jail. During one example of police brutality, an Iraq veteran confronted officers by asking, “Why are you doing this? You are supposed to be serving our citizens.” He went on to explain that he was in the Military Police in Iraq, and the military never treated Iraqis this way.

On the other side of the country, witnesses say another Iraq veteran was critically injured by police as he was demonstrating against Wall Street and the 1%. The Oakland, California police claim they were merely breaking up the demonstration with the use of rubber bullets and tear gas canisters because of “unsafe sanitary conditions.”

In other words, we gassed and beat you to ensure your safety!

Despite these horrible incidents, most of our citizens (particularly Teapublicans) have reacted with a collective ho-hum. Why? Perhaps it’s because scenes of police abusing demonstrators have become common-place.

Our Constitution guarantees the right to assembly and free speech. Yet many in Congress, the media, and our increasingly militarized city police departments seem to have conveniently forgotten that.

Instead, they blame the protestors for police violence.

It’s time for all US citizens to look at the police violence and ask, “Is this the future of our country? Are we now willing to accept brutality from Kevlar helmeted police armed with tear gas, assault rifles and even tanks? Are we willing to concede that corporations have freedom of speech, but ordinary citizens do not? Is it okay for big corporate interests to bankrupt our economy, ask the government to bail them out then pay themselves millions in bonuses with taxpayer money? Are we okay with living in a police state?

And if the answers are yes, what can we expect in the future?  Scenes similar to the military crackdown in Syria? Threats by our own Gaddafis to kill protestors like rats? Or a US citizen blocking a column of US tanks in a futile attempt to stop a violent attack on peaceful protestors? Where does it stop?