Category Archives: Culture

Marketing Guns To Kids.

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For many years, I’ve used mock guns to teach disarms to martial arts students. Some time ago, government agencies banned the sale of such items if they too closely resembled a real gun. They dictated that they be colored red, orange or yellow, and that they not include any detail so that no reasonable person would mistake them for a gun.That meant that they pretty much resembled a colored block of rubber or wood with a handle. The fear was that, if they were too realistic, criminals might use one of these training aids to hold up a convenience store.

Yes, I know, it never made much sense to me, either.

Now gun manufacturers have made such restrictions pointless. It seems that bluing, silver and black are not exciting enough to attract women and kids to the shooting “sports.” So, the murder-for-sale industry is now marketing guns in a variety of colors. This trend began when they began offering pink guns to women, presumably so that attackers wouldn’t know whether to back off in fear or simply curl up in laughter.

Not satisfied to stop there, the gun industry decided to offer guns in a full range of candy-like colors, such as red, blue, green and yellow. Of course, the new colors made them much more attractive to young children. And since they look like toys, when a young child discovers a colored gun in mommy’s or daddy’s nightstand, the child is almost certain to play with it.

What did the gun industry do when it was made aware of the potential danger of these guns? Did they immediately stop marketing them? Did they recall the lethal “toys” already on the market?

Of course not.

These upstanding Second Amendment absolutists simply encouraged parents to give guns to kids so they could start shooting them at targets (and each other) at ages as young as 5! Thanks to the NRA and their Teapublican supporters, there is virtually nothing that can be done to stop them.

On the other hand, it’s still illegal to sell or own a rubber or wooden “gun” that appears too realistic.

From Kathie Lee To Bangladesh.

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Nearly a decade ago, the media were awash with stories tying Kathie Lee Gifford to sweatshops in Honduras. It seems she had endorsed a line of clothing sold at Walmart and, when it was discovered that Walmart outsourced the clothing manufacture to sweatshops using children, Kathie Lee was vilified. Walmart, on the other hand, emerged from the scandal unscathed.

Of course, much has changed since then. Such clothing lines are no longer made in Honduras. They are now outsourced to countries with even cheaper labor and even more deplorable working conditions…countries like Bangladesh where more than 1,100 recently died while working in an unsafe building.

But one thing hasn’t changed. The retailer, clothing brand and contractors are still held blameless for outsourcing their brands to sweatshops.

As long as they offer clothing at low prices, we simply shake our heads at such tragedies and continue to shop for the next bargain. It doesn’t matter that the clothing is as disposable as the workers forced to make it. All we really seem to care about is price. We’re seemingly unconcerned that adding a few pennies to the cost of a garment would improve working conditions. Likewise, we seem unconcerned that the owners of Walmart and other large retailers pressure manufacturers to continue to cut costs in order to line their own pockets with millions more.

This, of course, is a never-ending cycle.

As long as there are regions of desperate, impoverished people in the world, manufacturers and retailers will take advantage of them. And, as long as consumers reward those corporations by continuing to purchase their junk, the practice will continue.

The sad truth is that we’re all as responsible for the deaths of the workers in Bangladesh as the owner of the building and the brands being made there.

Sex, Politics, Religion And Poverty.

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According to a new Census Bureau report, Social and Economic Characteristics of Currently Unmarried Women With a Recent Birth: 2011, more than 6 out of 10 women who have children in their early twenties are unmarried. That number has accelerated in recent years – up 80 percent since 1980. Overall, 36 percent of all births in the United States were to unmarried mothers in 2011.

The Census Bureau attributed the increase, in part, to changing norms for sexual behavior and a decrease in marriage rates. But before you religious zealots decry the alleged decline in our nation’s moral values, you should know that teen mothers are far more common in the US than in Europe, despite the fact that, according to studies, US teens have less sex than European teens.

Obviously, there are reasons beyond the imagined moral decline. The most important is economic. Women with college degrees and higher incomes are far less likely to be single mothers. And according to many studies, the greater the gap between the poor and the middle class in any particular region, the more likely an unmarried woman is to have a baby while she’s young!

Pushing the mother to marry the child’s father often makes matters worse. It results in a variety of associated problems including domestic abuse, early divorce and children who are traumatized by parental conflict, broken households and overall instability.

Given the fact that most of those in the US who are living on public assistance are single mothers and their children, it’s in all of our best interests to find a solution to this phenomenon. In searching for answers, we should first look at sex education and contraception. Several studies have found that education on correct contraceptive use works best in preventing teen pregnancy. These studies also conclude that abstinence-only education may, in fact, contribute to an increase in teen pregnancies.

A 10-year government study found that that “students in abstinence-only programs were no more likely to have abstained from sex, had similar numbers of sexual partners, and had sex for the first time at around the same age as students not in abstinence-only programs.”

All of this shows that, instead of allowing Teapublicans to cut sex education in public schools, we should be increasing it. Instead of allowing the Catholic Church and evangelists to deny easy access to contraceptives, we should be making them more available. And instead of cutting public assistance and food stamp programs, we should be improving them. Studies prove that doing otherwise only perpetuates the problem.

As usual, the right is wrong!

Tea Party Conspiracy Theories: Tinfoil Hats Recommended.

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Apparently, one of the criteria for becoming a Tea Party “Patriot” is to believe that our federal government is out to get you. These people actually believe that the Freemasons, beginning with our Founding Fathers, are intent on creating a New World Order in which our nation will become subservient to a New World government. Under this scenario, black-shirted thugs will arrive in black helicopters to take away our guns and our freedom.

But Tea Party paranoia doesn’t end there. These people also believe that the moon landings were staged by NASA, that the government blew up the federal building in Oklahoma City, that the government intentionally set fire to the religious compound in Waco, that 9/11 was an inside job, that Obama is a foreign-born Muslim who is the leader of al Qaeda, that the mass murders in the Aurora movie theater and the Sandy Hook Elementary School were staged by the government in order to take away our guns, and that the Boston bombings were staged by Obama in order to create more surveillance so he can take away our sovereignty and our guns.

The latest conspiracy theory being pushed by the Tea Party, Fox News Channel and right wing radio is that Homeland Security is buying up ammo to keep it out of the hands of individuals.

All of these theories have been embraced by the most paranoid Tea Party Patriots. But, seemingly, the most widely accepted conspiracy theories involve the United Nations. Paramount among them is the UN treaty on small arms sales, intended to keep weapons out of the hands of terrorists. This treaty does not regulate or interfere with gun sales within the borders of any nation, yet the wing nuts are convinced it will make the US subservient to the UN.

Perhaps, the most bat crap crazy theory of all involves Agenda 21. Evangelists for the politically insane, such as Glenn Beck, Alex Jones and Michael Levin, have worked the nitwits into a frenzy over this non-binding plan which resulted from the UN Conference on Environment and Development held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1992.

Agenda 21 sets goals for (gasp) combating poverty, promoting human health, promoting sustainable development, protecting the atmosphere, combating deforestation, managing fragile ecosystems, conserving biological diversity and much more. In other words, Agenda 21 hopes to preserve our environment so that our species, along with most others, will not become extinct.

Who wouldn’t oppose such a devious plan as that?

Aside from the Tea Party, the groups most opposed to the goals of Agenda 21 are those whose profits depend on extracting resources from the environment without regard to the long-term consequences. The major opponents are big oil, mining companies, lumber companies, corporate farming, commercial fishing, and real estate developers.

Even so, Agenda 21 includes no regulatory mechanisms. There are no punitive measures and no policing. The only consequences for nations and industries failing to follow the proposed guidelines are paid by the individuals who will suffer as the result of the water and air being polluted, forests being clear-cut, fisheries being depleted, and agricultural land being depleted or forced out of production by runaway development.

Nevertheless, the conspiracy nuts want you to be afraid…very afraid…of Agenda 21. Because, in their feeble minds, sustainability is just another word for tyranny.

Trial By Media.

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For some Americans, this promises to be a big week…a very big week.  You see, this may be the week the media circus, also known as the Jodi Arias trial, reaches a climax…er, verdict.

For weeks on end, Americans have been glued to their TVs to make certain they wouldn’t miss a single salacious detail of the trial. They were riveted by testimony regarding the sexual relationship between Arias and her murder victim. They hung on every word of testimony from expert witnesses. They posted their theories on Facebook and Twitter. Many stood in line for hours in hopes they could grab a seat in the courtroom. A few even traveled to Phoenix so they could be near the event and, perhaps, catch a glimpse of some of the participants.

In short, the Arias trial was a media outlet’s dream, certain to increase ratings. The trial had it all…sex, bondage, betrayal, murder, intrigue…it was almost as if Fifty Shades of Grey had come to life.

Of course, murder trials take place daily in courts across the country. But only the most sensational garner such attention. The Arias trial is but the latest in a long line of sensational, made-for-TV trials, such as the OJ Simpson trial, Amanda Knox trial, and the Casey Anthony trial. Only the trials with the most famous celebrities, the most beautiful defendants, the cutest victims, or the most aberrant behavior draw such attention.

Whatever the verdict, such trials say far more about our society and our media than they do about the defendants.

Imagine if that kind of media attention was focused on real issues and problems. Imagine if the homeless and the hungry were covered relentlessly by news outlets. Imagine if the media spent as much time on public policy, politicians and corrupt officials. Imagine if network TV reporters covered the murders of innocent civilians caused by our lax gun laws as voraciously as they covered the murder of OJ’s wife.

Imagine if the public cared.

A Message To Tea Party “Patriots.”

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There’s simply no nice way of saying it. You are a bunch of self-serving, gun-toting, conspiracy promoting, anti-intellectual, anti-education, anti-evidence, anti-American nitwits.

You call yourselves Tea Party Patriots, but you’re neither patriotic nor even a party. You are the lunatic fringe. You wrap yourselves in the flag and spout quotes from a select few of our Founding Fathers all the while undermining the very principles they stood for. You say you’re strict Constitutionalists, but it’s apparent that the only part of the Constitution you’ve read is the Second Amendment (and you can only quote half of that). The other principles you attribute to the Founders are actually from the Articles of Confederation, the document our Constitution replaced.

You didn’t have the guts to stand on your own, so you decided to backdoor the Republican Party. Your angry rhetoric and Koch brothers’ millions managed to drive most moderate Republicans from office. As a result, you and your wealthy supporters have destroyed the party of Lincoln.

Now you’re trying to destroy our nation.

Your economic theories not only defy economics, they defy logic. They’re hurtful to children, the elderly, the poor, even veterans. You claim to be worried about the national debt, yet you sat idly by while the previous administration ran up enormous deficits through two ill-conceived wars and the collapse of our economy. Then you blamed President Obama for our economic ills. You watched as President Bush expanded the size of government by creating the government’s second-largest agency, the Department of Homeland Security, then screamed about the growth of government when the new administration took office.

You ignored the bailout of “too big to fail” banks, which saved the jobs of Wall Street millionaires and the assets of billionaires. But you howled in disgust when President Obama loaned money to US automakers, saving tens of thousands of jobs for middle class workers. You whined that you are “Taxed Enough Already” and blamed President Obama for raising taxes, even though tax rates were at a 60-year low.

You claim that you’re not racists, yet every single one of your rallies includes blatantly racist depictions of our democratically-elected president. You call him a Muslim, a socialist, a communist, a fascist and worse. You compare him to Hitler. You have even called him the leader of al Qaeda.

When you’ve failed to win elections, you’ve tried to change the rules. You have tried to suppress the votes of minorities and your political opponents. You have tried to deny women the right of equal pay for equal work. You have tried to deny women the right to control their own bodies. You have held our economy hostage in order to get your way. You have undermined democracy through use of the filibuster and gerrymandering. As a result, our nation now suffers from tyranny by the minority.

Thanks to your tactics, Congress has been turned into a venomous body devoid of compromise. Thanks to your representatives, the approval rating of our duly-elected Congress is lower than that of cockroaches. Thanks to your policies, the very wealthy have become wealthier while the rest of our citizens have suffered. Thanks to you, our nation is on the verge of becoming a plutocracy.

All of that is bad enough. But your real “triumph” is that you have made millions of Americans fearful of their government and of each other. Thanks to you, according to a new poll, 44 percent of Teapublicans now believe that an armed revolution against our government may be necessary…our own democratically-elected government!

Your entire movement is based on lies and meanness.

That said, it’s difficult to determine who is most at fault…you…or those who tolerate you, especially the media that give you undeserved credibility. One thing is certain…your movement would be more accurately called the Tea Not-Really-A-Party Traitors.

Proof That Greed Kills.

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For some time, Americans have taken greed for granted. Many have believed that greed is an inevitable outgrowth of free market capitalism. Even following Mitt Romney’s speech about the 47 percenters and revelations of his offshore tax havens, many Americans said it didn’t matter.

But greed has real world consequences.

As the top one percent have gained more and more wealth, the other 99 percent have seen their incomes stagnate or diminish. As CEOs of multinational corporations have pushed for increased productivity and offshore manufacturing, working Americans have lost their jobs and their homes. Workers in the countries that claimed the jobs have been subjected to impossible hours and terrible working conditions.

Where will it end?

In the last few weeks, we’ve seen two deadly examples of the consequences. In West, Texas, a fertilizer company stored massive amounts of explosive ammonium nitrate in the middle of town. The company owners not only failed to notify the townspeople of the danger. They failed to notify Homeland Security that they had amassed 1,350 times the amount that is supposed to trigger investigations. As a result, many of the owners’ neighbors lost their lives. Many others lost their homes.

Halfway around the world, in Bangladesh, textile workers were packed into an unsafe building in order to cut production costs on clothing intended for retail stores in the United States. When the building inevitably collapsed, more than 1,100 people lost their lives.

Certainly, these events were the result of bad decisions made by unscrupulous people. But the real culprit was unfettered greed.

We need to understand that those who chase greater and greater wealth will not change unless forced to. We need to understand that safety regulations are a legitimate responsibility of government. We need to understand that many companies are bad citizens and neighbors. And we need to remember that an employer is not doing employees a favor by allowing them to work for him. All employees have a right to safe working conditions, respectful treatment, reasonable hours and a real living wage.

Caution With Syria Justified.

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Despite the right wing warmongers’ calls for war with Assad’s Syria, President Obama is correct to move cautiously. There are many questions to be answered. Who are the rebels? What are their aims? What will be the future of Syria if the rebellion is successful? What will be the cost to the US if we do intervene?

The truth about the Syrian situation is that it’s a civil war between Hezbollah and Al Qaeda. Neither of these groups will further the interests of the US. In fact, the best outcome may be for both sides to do serious damage to each other.

The bigger question is why the drumbeat for yet another war? Why do people such as Senators McCain and Graham seem so anxious to send our troops into battle? Aren’t these some of the same people who are horrified by the deficit and national debt? What effect would yet another war have on our economy? How many lives would be lost? How many lives changed?

Until the warmongers can provide answers to these questions, President Obama is right to ignore them. If McCain, Graham, McConnell, Boehner, Cantor, Ryan, Bush, Cheney and all of the Tea Party members are so impatient to join the fight in Syria, maybe they should just grab one of their numerous assault weapons and book a flight to Damascus.

We should never again choose to send our military into battle without serious debate and a full understanding of the goals and consequences.

Turning History Into Fiction.

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Last week’s opening of the George W. Bush presidential library was remarkable in one respect. With the opening, Teapublicans began their attempts to rewrite history in earnest.

Last week, you heard Bush state that he still considers our invasion of Iraq a great achievement for exporting democracy to the world. There was no mention, of course, about the tens of thousands of casualties, the war’s estimated $3 trillion price tag, and the fact that the invasion actually strengthened Iran’s influence in the area.

You heard some Teapublicans speak glowingly of Bush’s economic policies, which will, in their opinion, make history. They view Bush as the greatest president in recent decades. (In case you’ve forgotten, when Bush assumed office, there was an annual surplus. And when he left, our economy was in absolute free fall.) You even heard Karl “Turd Blossom” Rove state that Bush’s image should be carved into Mount Rushmore alongside Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Roosevelt!

Does this mean that, in the feeble minds of Teapublicans, Bush has now displaced Reagan as the greatest president ever?

Given the amount of b.s. being generated in Texas last week, no wonder it’s known as the Longhorn state.

Government Of The Gun, By The Gun And For The Gun.

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You probably thought our government was “of the people.” Not anymore. The NRA, the Republican Party and the Tea Party Parrots have changed that. When gun-lovin’ senators decided to filibuster a bill that would expand background checks on gun sales, they went against the will of 90 percent of the people.

It’s now abundantly clear who these politicians represent, and it’s certainly not us. They have chosen to represent the minority over the majority. They have chosen gun manufacturers over citizens. They have chosen campaign donations over lives.

To show exactly how far this nonsense has gone, in Arizona, the Teapublican-controlled legislature recently passed a bill making it illegal for cities to destroy guns collected as part of gun buy-back efforts, guns seized in crime investigations, even guns used in murders.

No gun shall meet its end before its time!

People, on the other hand, are treated much differently. These same Teapublican legislators have literally voted to withhold Medicaid from the poor that would have saved lives. As a result of the legislators’ decision, a number of people were allowed to die prematurely…people who could have been saved by a simple operation.

Of course, Arizona legislators have also refused to reconsider the death penalty, even in the case of the severely retarded, even when there are serious questions of guilt.

But, in Arizona, all guns will live to shoot another day; maybe even another innocent person; maybe you!