Politically-Correct Bullies

I'm just a soul whose intentions are good,
Oh Lord, please, don't let me be misunderstood 
--Please Don't Let me Be Misunderstood, 
The Animals  

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
 Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold 
--The Second Coming, W. B. Yeats
___________________

The outrage du jour in the comminteriat is the outed racial bigotry of Los Angles Clippers owner Donald Sterling. Sterling is now doing the requisite penance on his media rounds, insisting he is no racist. 

He is doing the walk of shame because the National Basketball Association Commissioner Adam Silver has moved to force Sterling to sell his NBA franchise. This is all very understandable on one level as Silver and Sterling are both Jewish, and there is nothing that says you are an American patriot if you are Jewish like forsaking one of your brethren (or better, the State of Israel).

Surely we are not a post-racial society. The U.S. is post-Civil Rights and the enforcement of those equalizing statutes, but the law may not operate on our minds -- our preferences and perceptions. While some may feel that an Orwellian sort of mind reaming might help maters, we are not yet there. 

What about Sterling's right to privacy? "Under California law, all parties involved have to consent to the recording of private remarks. Even bigots." 

What we are is a contentious society that knows how to come out slugging. We have our petty social networking platforms on which to disgorge our bile, or in a national publication if we are a bigger dog. The silent majority doesn't participate and just wants chips and dip and to watch a ball game.

The last civil rights frontier is gay rights, and the liberals are coming out slugging, there, too -- as though the enforcement of gay marriage will make our society a more civil one. But we in the United States have a strong division between Church and State, and forcing the Church to perform a rite against its dogma is just wrong.

Of course all should be entitled to a civil union with their beloved, even objektophiles like USAF veteran Erika Eiffel. All people in committed relationship should be afforded the dignity to do so, and to enjoy the respect of their state's rights as a couple; state-recognized civil unions meet that bar.

But pugilist liberals are trying to hose down differences that do not please them, and to force acceptance of said differences. In the case of gay marriage, this would be a rupture of the protection afforded by the Church-State separation, and an enforced annihilation of Church doctrine.

This misbegotten crusading gives them a purpose, and a rationale for hiving at Starbucks amongst their fellows. But this coercion is not in line with our Constitution's First Amendment, and freedom of speech and freedom of religion. The Fifth and 14th Amendments guarantee of equal liberty is only binding on the state and state employees. Constitutionally-speaking, everyone else is free to discriminate.

And for every push, there is a push back. The result is in an even more riven society, one which is already dangerously factionalized. Amongst the latest falls was the forced resignation of Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich after it was outed that he contributed $1,000 to a group supporting heterosexual marriage (which is to say, marriage.)

As an aside: Sorry women, but your day of equality has passed. Amusing in a slightly horrific way are the advertisements over the years for various household appliances-as-gifts for the married woman ("There need be no doubt in your mind as to what to give a lady ..."). The June Cleaver-like women are beaming in their cheery half-aprons, ready to do your bidding if you'll only bestow that new chrome appliance upon them.

But wouldn't we be appalled if the woman was black, with a rag tied around her head? The above ads says, "Merry Christmas. I'll be over for breakfast!" Just like that, the house frau is expected to perform. The Equal Rights Amendment could not muster enough votes to pass in 1972, and women still earn 77 cents for every dollar that a man does.

Interestingly, Mrs. Donald Sterling is calling the NBA sexist forcing her forfeiture of her 50% share of the Los Angeles Clippers if her husband does. Her voice as the little lady is very small, and shall be a footnote to history.

Gays are on top now, and our society seems more chastened, or perhaps, more vitiated. Societies behave like metronomes or perhaps, circle games, like Yeats' widening gyre, which eventually breaks apart.

It will all be coming around again, 'til the game stops.

Free Throw

We have fallen down again tonight 

In this world it's hard to get it right 

--Everybody, Ingrid Michaelson

 [NOTE: Due to an editorial error, yesterday's post 
incorrectly contained two different pieces of writing.

 Today, we will publish Jim's portion. --ed.]

_____________________

There's a lot of discussion and outrage about the racial remarks made by an 81 year-old billionaire  somewhere in a world uninhabited by people like this Ranger.

Even the President and Michael Eric Dyson have expressed their shock and ire at the comments. The NBA Commissioner Silver is moving to force Sterling to sell his team.

But wait a minute here. Doesn't Ranger remember 46 years ago taking an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States from all enemies, both foreign and domestic? Didn't I go off to war as a result of this oath?

Please correct my thinking, but isn't one of those things covered by this oath a little thing called "freedom of speech"? If a billionaire doesn't have freedom of speech then my oath of allegiance was certainly a wasted effort.

What is democracy without freedom of speech? Even if that speech is reprehensible.

Battle Buddy

The one fatal thing is to be a zombie,
and I think we're all in danger of
living that way
--Sister Wendy, Chiles High School

[H]e realized at once that he shouldn't
have spoken aloud, and that by doing so he had,
in a sense, acknowledged the stranger's right
to oversee his actions
--The Trial, Franz Kafka

This is surely the main problem of the twentieth century:
is it permissible merely to carry out orders
and commit one's conscience to someone else's keeping
--The Gulag Archipelago,
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
__________________

We have many friends and acquaintances here at RangerAgainstWar whom we have never met, save in the ether world. Among these is one each, Peter Van Buren, a true American patriot and razor sharp thinker.

We first heard Mr. Van Buren in an NPR interview regarding the topic of his book, We Meant Well -- How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People (2011), and were impressed with his cogency and wit. It convinced us that at least one person in the State Department uses his head as something other than a hat rack. To the Department's shame, he seems to be in the minority.

Peter was fired by State this week in a confusing welter of accusations suggesting improper leaks, but it looks like a simple case of bullying an employee for exercising his right of free speech -- Oh, yeah, that thing that Peter was supposedly spreading at the behest of the U.S. with those Provisional Reconstruction Teams (PRTs). He has laid the situation and players out well over the past several weeks at his blog, WeMeantWell. com.

Bottom line: The State Department (DoS) cannot brook free speech, and in that way is not unlike the Department of Defense (DoD), or any federal agency. So the U.S. spends Trillions of dollars exporting fanciful democratic ideals, all the while stomping on those very same concepts here in The Homeland ™.

The treatment of the Branch Davidians during the Clinton White House might reveal Secretary of State Clinton's proclivities when dealing with a DoS whistleblower. She will attempt to roll over him like an Engineer Assault vehicle crushing the Branch Davidian compound. Peter needs our support if that still has relevance in our democratic scheme.

His case is similar to that of Bradley Manning's in many respects, except Manning (being DoD) has less rights. At least Van Buren has not been charged with espionage (at least, not yet!)

Ranger finds it curious that there at least three Constitutions: One for domestic consumption, one for export, and one for DoD and DoS. We just presume that the military does not have free speech because they cannot criticize the Commander in Chief and Chain of Command (even if what they say is correct and factual.) If Van Buren is fired (following appeal), then free speech will not be tolerated in any government office, obviating the need for federal whistleblower laws.

Men who march in lock step to their next promotion talk the talk but don't walk the walk, and sadly, they will be the ones judging men like Van Buren, who do. Screw the War on Terror -- it's time to defend freedom over here.

Our best wishes go out to Peter Van Buren who is stuck out on point without a battle buddy.

Caustic Situation

--Unsuit Wall Street

Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and caldron bubble
--Macbeth, Shakespeare

Are you taking over
or are you taking orders?
Are you going backwards
Or are you going forwards?
--White Riot, The Clash

So where are the strong
And who are the trusted?
And where is the harmony?
--(What's So Funny 'Bout)
Peace, Love and Understanding?,
Elvis Costello
___________________

If U.S. police have used CS or CN (tear gas) against citizens in Occupy Wall Street (OWS) protests, they are violating current Chemical Weapons Conventions which ban the use of these chemicals on the battlefield.

But of course, citizens are not accorded the rights given combatants; if you protest here, you are at the mercy of a militarized police force which sees you as the enemy. If you're an American citizen protesting your economic betters, you are seen as scum of the earth, or hopelessly naive or fruity; doesn't everyone aspire to having country club membership and annual greens fees?

Flash bang canisters, stun grenades and beanbag rounds are also reported as having been used against the Oakland protesters (Tear gas and stun grenades used on 'Occupy Oakland' protesters). To express one's dissatisfaction publicly might earn you a skull fracture, like that sustained by former 24-year-old Marine and two-tour Iraqi War veteran Scott Olsen (Occupy Oakland protester Scott Olsen awake ahead of brain surgery).

One would think a higher level of care would be accorded to citizens exercising their First Amendment rights. Apparently, the memories of Kent State have been lost in the fog.

Strange days when the U.S. traipses halfway 'round the world to create ripe environments in which democracy might take root, while bashing those fruits at home. Apparently, freedoms accorded in a democracy have a shelf life, and we have exceeded ours.

What can be said? Democracy is a messy business?

Effing Wrong

Government Bureau, George Tooker

[H]e realized at once that he shouldn't
have spoken aloud, and that by doing so he had,
in a sense, acknowledged the stranger's right
to oversee his actions
--The Trial, Kafka

--We're going to have to ask you to leave, sir
--I did not watch my buddies die face down
in the muck so that this fucking strumpet could abridge
my right of free speech
--The Inimitable Walter Sobchak in
The Big Lebowski (1998)

Take away the right to say "fuck"
and you take away the right to say
"fuck the government"
--Lenny Bruce
__________________

Purple Heart Magazine (Apr. '11) featured Staff Sergeant Robert Miller's Medal of Honor and Florida's memorial commemorating his actions; in short, the plaque said Miller died fighting for freedom. I'll presume that means Floridian's freedom, too, since here is where the plaque resides.

However, Floridian Ranger's freedom was recently curtailed by the government of the free. He received a letter from the Social Security Administration claiming that his SSA benefits since April 2008 have been in error, and that he has received an overpayment of $350 per month, and that he now owes his government over $10,000.

No data was given to explain the overpayment; no figures produce or explanation given. Ranger has no idea the propriety of this allegation, and must now navigate the labyrinthine bowels of the SSA in order to find the origin of this alleged error.

In his initial foray into the SSA office he was told he needed to file an appeal to uncover the data behind the demand for payment of the $10,000+. The totality of his knowledge is that his payments have been fucked up since April 2008, and not by anything he did or did not do. The burden of proof is upon him to discover why the allegation of overpayment, all because some dumb-fuck SSA employee put him in this predicament, and he so stated: "This is fucked up!"

At this spirited summation of the incompetence surrounding him, the SSA representative told Ranger that swearing was not permitted as it violated office decorum, and "this is a public place." Well, that riled Ranger sufficiently to see the hypocrisy in his admonition. As Ranger saw it, he can BE fucked over by the functionaries, but he daren't declare it.

Ranger replied to SSA Rep Roberto that he would say what he pleased, (and, Walter Sobchak-like) that he carried scars reflective of his sworn duty to uphold The Constitution and asked Roberto if he was sworn to uphold The Constitution, also (came no reply.) Not only will Ranger possibly have to pay a great sum of money for the ineptitude of our government, he discovered the SSA was curtailing his civil rights, of which free speech is one.

What is freedom of speech if one cannot be profane in a government office? What is protected speech? Is the word "fuck" adequate justification to deny service to taxpaying citizen? Why have free speech if it really means, "polite free speech"? Being polite does not = free speech. Where is the freedom if we are all polite, if we all engage in that unctuous Southern practice of false politesse?

Ranger can understand a private employer putting certain constriction upon customer's behavior, but a government entity encroaching upon his freedom, at that moment, was too much. If SSG Miller died fighting for his freedom, why hasn't the SSA gotten the word?

We have addressed free speech as taught to our students (Fartwah) and in many posts as imposed upon our soldiers. Now it is clear we citizens are being muzzled, too. If our rights are "God-given" as postulated (*snicker, snicker*), how can a government agency's policy or employees restrict that free and open speech?

Fucked up might not be polite, but it sure does sum up the shooting match.

Fall Out

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned
--The Second Coming, William Butler Yeats

He [Okonkwo] had a slight stammer
and whenever he was angry
and could not get his words out quickly enough,
he would use his fists
--Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe
_______________

The center is not holding in America, and this bodes ill for a liberal democratic society.

Democracy prospers with a robust center. That median is the strength of any healthy social philosophy. The U.S. has lost it's play of liberal versus conservative views. In the bargain, we have become a reactionary society ruled by sound bytes which stamp out rational thought.

Looking at the center in a military manner, the center in both offense and defense is usually the center of axis, and is weighted for success. In today's political arena, this center strong concept has been dismantled.

The recent tempest over the proposed Koran burning at a small Central Florida church is instructive. That it became an issue at all could be blamed on the Dog days of Summer, but there is something more. The real issue here is not Freedom of Speech but that the fringes are controlling the center.

People like Reverend Wright, Glenn Beck, and Pastor Terry Jones have shifted the battlefield away from any logical array of forces or ideology. Of course, we have the constitutional right to burn a Koran - this right exists beyond the bounds of a Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©) and does not hinge upon the disapproval of any men, whether named Obama or Osama bin Laden.

The point is that burning a Koran should be a lunatic fringe activity, but at some level Ranger intuits that this is not a fringe act but rather an expression of frustration and helplessness which ha shifted our outlook and turned the former spectrum of thought into a fringe. What is something like a Tea Party if not a bacchanalia of discontent?

The religious Right has moved from fringe to mainstream in just one election and the Tea Party and Palin & Co. are the institutionalization of this fringe. It is possible to view the Obama presidency and its leadership as another fringe phenomenon, which in turn vitalizes its opposite. It seems everyday centrist citizens are marginalized and manipulated by these radicalized oppositions.

Minus a strong centrist position, the bonds of the U.S. will not hold.

Fartwah

--The Wall, Pink Floyd

A fart is a pleasant thing.
It gives the belly ease...
It warms the bed in winter and suffocates fleas.
A fart can be quiet. A fart can be loud...
Some leave a powerful, poisonous cloud

Shit, Piss, Fuck, Cunt, Cocksucker,
Motherfucker, and Tits.
Those are the heavy seven.
Those are the ones that'll infect your soul,
curve your spine and keep the country
from winning the war
—Seven Words You Can Never Say
on Television, George Carlin

Hey, teacher. leave them kids alone!
--The Wall, Pink Floyd
_________________

My first essay upon return is based upon a conversation at a dinner gathering while away, specifically, the comments made by 3rd grade teacher Ruth. Since Ranger is told he is weak in emotions and feeling I'll try to alleviate that here.

Ruth explained that she received an ovation from the parents at Welcome Back night when she unveiled her "10 Prohibited Words" list, to be distributed to the hapless recruits on their first day back in prison. Among the words not allowed to pass their lips is "fart", a thing which for Ranger is both a feeling and emotional thing. [Lisa commented that this list would remove half of Ranger's vocabulary.] The implications of the prohibition are profound.

Of course, Ruth has nothing on George Carlin, who assembled a list of 2,443 "Impolite Words". There really are some dooszies here, but fart is nowhere to be found. Lame, it is.

Steven Dowshen, M.D., explains at KidsHealth.org, "All people fart sometimes, whether they live in France, the Fiji islands, or Fresno, California!", and goes on to explain the etiquette of performing the natural act. It seems his less hung-up approach is the more healthy. But what are kids to think when they are told they have freedom of speech here in the Home of the Braves, but they can't say "fart"?

We can't have it both ways. There is no freedom of speech when there are no-say word lists. Skullduggery is sown early, as the biological necessity is fake-obscured by the prohibition of its utterance. Out of mind, out of sight, and the whelps are taught early to muzzle themselves. Things are o.k. if we say they are.

Ah, the insidious lie! One cannot not fart, but one is told to not utter the word denoting the actuality. Herein lies the seeds of all future deceptions. "I will do it, because I must, or because it feels good" . . . but, I will tell no one. It may or may not be a bad thing I do, but I know it is a bad thing to say it. Maybe, depending upon one's religion, it may be uttered in the darkness of a confessional booth. But never -- NEVER -- must it be said in the light of day. Politicians were probably all taught never to say "fart".

Are we teaching students to be polite, or free, or simply obedient? Maybe a combination. We hear the mantra that the troops are fighting for our freedom, but how can this be if kids can't say fart in a public school? Keep in mind, the parents applauded the list.

Considering the topic itself, what can be more life-affirming than a healthy beer or oyster fart? Farts are an affirmation of life, and one could define death as the absence of farts. Clearly, hedonism is not part of the public school curriculum, but the kids will soon be thrust into the world of Miley Cyrus and Twilight, and have to make sense of it all. And they will have to do so without the word fart in their verbal toolkit.

So what's the problem with farts?

All by Myself

Censorship reflects society's lack of confidence in itself.
It is a hallmark of an authoritarian regime
--Justice Potter Stewart

The test of democracy is freedom of criticism
--David Ben-Gurion

If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise,
we don't believe in it at all
--Noam Chomsky

Freedom of the press is not just important to democracy,
it is democracy
--Walter Cronkite
_______________

What follows is the transcript of a correspondence between myself and a die-hard Obama supporter whose acquaintance I have recently made. What is your opinion on the two positions?

My correspondent is extremely accomplished, erudite and liberal in his thinking. He has founded non-profit agencies to assist minorities on both the East and West Coast. But he could not countenance a major news outlet reporting on Georgia State Rep. Broun's suggestion that Obama's declaration for a "civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded [as the military]" is socialistic.


[E.]: Where does this crap come from? The media shouldn't give idiots like this a voice.http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27655039

[L.]: I believe you're wrong, E. Bad things thrive in an environment of secrecy. This article reports on the words of an elected U.S. Representative, Paul Broun (GA). If you silence him, you are every bit as Brownshirt as Hitler's bullies. If his words are outrageous, let them wither in the light of democracy. This is the job of a free press.

Give your fellow citizens enough credit to determine what they like and do not like. they are the one who voted Obama into office, all. Food for thought.

[E.]: History has seen the effects of this venom. The stuff that was spewed before the assassinations of Malcolm X, JFK, RFK, MLK aroused cowards who plotted to silence our best & brightest. In protecting the life of President Obama, we can err on the side of a free press protecting similar cowards like Broun. Obama’s protection trumps Broun’s freedom to spew & ignite.

[L.] You can't blackout an elected Representative and still call yourself a democracy.

Just because the press might put a gag order on all he says, as you suggest, doesn't mean he is not saying the things is saying. Dialog is the key to a vibrant democracy. We deserve the right to hear, and oppose, opinions of elected officials, don't you think? This country is strong enough to sustain that.

I do not want some editor deciding for me what elected officials I may and may not hear, just because I may be offended. That is patronization of the highest order. We are not juveniles.

Freedom of the press is part of the Bill of Rights. I don't want that rolled back by or for anybody. This is not Nazi Germany.

All Roads Also lead to Rove

But Love has pitched his mansion in
The place of excrement;
For nothing can be sole or whole
That has not been rent

--Crazy Jane Talks With the Bishop, William Butler Yeats

___________

This week's Time magazine comments on a recent appeals court ruling which struck down Federal Communications Commission fines charged against broadcasters for indecent and profane language, citing the ubiquity of such language in our current indecency climate (''How Bush Became the Curser in Chief.'')

Wrote the court, "In recent times, even the top leaders of our government have used variants of these expletives in a manner that no reasonable person would believe referenced 'sexual or excretory organs or activities.'"

''The decision cited Bush's remark to British Prime Minister Tony Blair last summer, in front of a live mike, that Syria needed to 'get Hizballah to stop doing this s___,' as well as Cheney's hearty invitation to Senator Patrick Leahy, 'Go f___ yourself.'"

GWB and Cheney should not be the standards of verbal excellence regarding what is acceptable speech.

''Bush ran in 2000 partly on the promise that he would restore dignity to the White House, appealing to social conservatives appalled over the Monica Lewinsky scandal and, broadly, the sexualization of American culture.''

Yet these men are now fellating our country, metaphorically speaking.

If their actions do not speak of moral rectitude, why would their spoken words be any more acceptable? They may hold power, but they are not moral arbiters, unless morality has become conflated with pecuniary profitability.

Clarity, and therefore, a consistent morality, is elusive for hypocrites. The current FCC and court definition of indecency is speech which references ''sexual or excretory organs or activities.'' The poet Yeats knew a while ago that all are but bodily functions, neither fair nor foul, nor exclusive of the whole.

The article points out that morality was ''part of the social-issues glue Karl Rove has counted on to hold together the conservative base, in spite of policy foul-ups and exploding deficits.''

But it was a selective morality, and by virtue of its selectivity, failed to qualify as a moral system at all. It has devolved into a tattered band of pet issues gaming under the banner of morality--issues like anti-homosexual unions, anti stem cell research, anti medical marijuana usage. Protestations which have the patina of a Christian rectitude, but which are embedded in a party otherwise characterized by such swill as to raise it to the level of a grand tragic comedy.

Aside from the abysmal inadequacy of these men to set the standard for decency in any form, isn't there a little thing called the First Amendment that guarantees Americans freedom of speech, and non-interference of government in its expression?

Does the Constitution guarantee free speech, except when it is indecent and offends the delicate sensibilities of the FCC? How can the government square with free speech and also FCC regulations clearly violating that privilege? Ranger's brain is confused.

Ranger clearly believes that as in the terrorism arena the administration wants it both ways with the FCC issue (isn't that urge something the fundamentalist base frowns upon?) We export democracy, but deny freedom of speech on the airwaves.

WTF?

--by Jim and Lisa