Ask Senator Santorum

By Steven Jonas, MD, MPH

Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum is steadily climbing the GOP polls (even though his standing versus President Obama is dismal). He may even win in Michigan, one of the several home states of former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney. (Whatever happened to “Willard?” But that’s another story). At any rate, having done “Ask” columns on Newt and the other Rick (Perry, remember him?) I believe that the Senator has risen far enough in the polls that he deserves one for himself. So here goes.

1. You frequently talk about your grandfather, a coal miner. I’m wondering why you never talk about the union he most likely belonged to, the United Mine Workers. Its President when it was at the height of its powers in the 1930s and 40s, when your grandfather was presumably working, was John L. Lewis, one of the most militant non-Communist labor leaders in US history. Or is the possible reason that you don’t talk about your grandfather’s union is that he belonged to the Communist-led Progressive Mine Workers?

2. Speaking of Communists, are you aware that members of your family still living in the north of Italy are ardent members the Communist Refoundation Party (Rifondazione), the successor to the former Communist Party of Italy?

3. Speaking of ancestors, while you talk frequently about your grandfather, you never seem to mention your parents. Could that be because both your father, a clinical psychologist, and your mother, a nurse, worked for the largest socialized medicine service in the U.S., otherwise known as the Veterans Administration Hospital system? Could that be because you have vowed to repeal even the modest changes to the world’s most expensive health care system contained in the Affordable Care Act? You have gone so far as to call the latter “socialized medicine,” or worse, when all it does is make some relatively modest changes to the health insurance system. It would bring another 30 or so million people under its umbrella eventually, a far cry from the coverage and services provided by the government-owned and operated system both your parents worked for. But you don’t talk about them.

4. You have referred to the science behind our understanding of global warming and the threats to humanity and indeed many of the Earth’s species that it presents as “punk science.” You feel that we should continue to rely on fossil fuels and indeed would vastly expand the extraction of same regardless of the pollution of the air, water and ground that such extraction causes. You are also against any government-supported development of alternative fuels and energy sources. But suppose you are wrong, and global warming is real (as virtually all scientists who have worked on the problem agree that it is). What then? But even if the science is wrong, we are going to run out of fossil fuels eventually. Why not work on the development of alternative energy, just as every other major power in the world, including China which has literally tons of coal, is, anyway? If you’re right, we would still derive the benefits of cheaper energy in the long run. So why not go for it?

5. You seem to be bothered by homosexuals and homosexuality to a rather extraordinary degree. You have compared homosexual intercourse to “bestiality,” for example, and would outlaw it. (One wonders how such a law would be enforced, but that is another matter.) You have a lot of sweater vests in your closet. Whole bunches of right-wing Republicans come out or are exposed as gay on a regular basis, the latest being Sheriff Paul Babeau of Pinal County, AZ. Is there anything else your closet we should know about?

6. Speaking of sex, you have said that the only reason for humans to have it is to engage in procreation. Your youngest child is four and you are 53. Does that mean that you and your wife have not had sex in over four years?

7. On the abortion thing, based on your religious belief about when life begins you are against it and want it to be criminalized, in the process criminalizing the religious/secular belief of those of us who hold that life begins at the time of viability (which criminalization would violate the First Amendment, but that is another matter). Would you be for sending just the abortion providers to prison, or would you include those women who have them too? And if the latter were sent to prison for violating the law, who would care for their children? Of course, since you think that abortion is murder, would you be going for the death sentence, for the providers, for the recipients? How would you go about paying for the massive increase in the size and scope of the criminal justice system that the criminalization of abortion in the way you contemplate it would entail?

8. Further on abortion, you are against it in all cases, including those resulting from rape and incest. In such cases, would the father be responsible for child support?

9. You want to keep US troops in Afghanistan until “victory” is achieved. How do you define “victory,” and how do you propose to keep paying for that war?

10. You have said that you would be in favor of bombing Iran over their supposed nuclear weapons program. Several questions. A) Do you remember the “WMD threat” from Iraq that turned out to be bogus? B) Have you given any thought to the massive loss of civilian life that would be incurred in any US/Israeli bombing raid massive enough to eliminate the Iranian nuclear program, whatever its true objectives? C) How would you explain to our nation the incredible rise in the cost of gasoline that would result from the closing of the Strait of Hormuz which would certainly occur should such raid take place and the resulting anti-American acts of violence that would invariably take place around the world? D) how would you pay from the vast expansion of war at home and abroad that would follow upon such raids?

11. Finally, you have been bombarded with the “contraceptive question,” so I won’t raise it here. Except to note that if you and your wife do still engage in sexual intercourse and she has not been pregnant for a while, either she is past menopause or you two are incredibly lucky at Vatican Roulette, and taking the literal meaning of the term, isn’t that a form of contraception?

———————————————————————————————————

Steven Jonas, MD, MPH is a Professor of Preventive Medicine at Stony Brook University (NY) and author/co-author/editor of over 30 books. In addition to being a Contributing Editor for The Greanville Post (https://www.greanvillepost.com/; he is Managing Editor and a Contributing Author for TPJmagazine; a Contributor to The Planetary Movement, a Columnist for Truthout/BuzzFlash (http://www.truth-out.org/, http://www.buzzflash.com), a Featured Writer for Dandelion Salad, a Contributor to Op-Ed News.com (http://www.opednews.com/), and a Contributor to TheHarderStuff newsletter.

 

 

_______________________________________________________________________________

ADVERT PRO NOBIS

IF YOU CAN’T SEND A DONATION, NO MATTER HOW SMALL, AND YOU THINK THIS PUBLICATION IS WORTH SUPPORTING, AT LEAST HELP THE GREANVILLE POST EXPAND ITS INFLUENCE BY MENTIONING IT TO YOUR FRIENDS VIA TWEET OR OTHER SOCIAL NETWORKS! We are in a battle of communications with entrenched enemies that won’t stop until this world is destroyed and our remaining democratic rights stamped out. Only mass education and mobilization can stop this process.

It’s really up to you. Do your part while you can. •••

Donating? Use PayPal via the button below.

THANK YOU.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________



The Republican Party and the Separation of Church and State: Change Does Happen

By Steven Jonas, MD, MPH      

Priggish, obscurantist parties like the Republican, with an unapologetic mean-spirited platform of reactionism, can only survive in nations where politics is hopelessly Orwellian.


Dolan, stirring the pot with more calls for medievalism.  
• 

For years progressives in the United States have been stating the Republicans and their platform simply don’t change over time.  That back to the time of Reagan and in certain respects back to Hoover and even before him to McKinley, the GOP has been the party of the rich and the Corporate Power.  That since Reagan, their platform, dressed up to be sure, has been focused on tax cuts for the rich, the destruction of the pitiful “safety net” that the US has for its poor, the turning back of the clock on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, the repeal of environmental, labor, financial markets and workplace regulation, in more recent times joined by a heavy emphasis on using the government to enforce particular religion-based positions on such matters as abortion rights, who can marry whom, the uses of stem-cell research. And so and so forth.

And then an issue bursts on the political scene, an issue that was thought to have been settled by a Supreme Court decisions back in the 1960s, the issue of the use of contraceptives (see Griswold v. Connecticut, 1965).  Now it happens that in the current context, whether non-church or closely church-related Catholic institutions can be required to provide full health insurance coverage for contraceptives is not a matter of religious freedom but rather of employment discrimination (as we shall explain briefly at the end of this column).  But here, with a full-throated roar, the Republican Party, and their Catholic Bishops wing (for the bishops do make a practice of making their views known in electoral matters form time-to-time, despite the tax exemptions granted to House of Worship, almost invariably coming out, when they do, for Republicans), is making a stand for the Separation of Church and State in no uncertain terms. 

Hurrah for them, for they are in the process of changing the while national debate on such matters as abortion and gay marriage.  Although, as noted, they have mis-interpreted the issue of what must be included in health insurance packages as a matter of religious freedom for the Catholic health care institutions, by so doing they have made as strongly as anyone could the arguments in favor of the protection of abortion rights, gay marriage legalization, contraceptive use without interference from the government, and the carrying out of stem cell research without government interference as to the use of the cells.  Just listen, if you will (or can stand it one might say), the speeches of Romney, Santorum, Boehner, Peggy Noonan, et al (and there is a very big “al”), on the matter. 

Now, how so? First as to abortion rights.  Since Roe v. Wade, (unfortunately in my view) the “pro-choice” forces have carried the battle forth solely on the basis of “protecting a woman’s right to choose.”  That is an important argument, but more fundamental than it is the right to hold the religious/secular position that life begins at some time other than conception up to the time of viability, one of the principles upon which Roe v. Wade rests, by both men and women.  In fact, the position that the GOP has held up to now is that not only does life begin at the moment of conception but that any other religious/secular belief, about the matter, whether held by women or men, is to be criminalized.

Thus at its base, the matter of freedom-of-choice in the outcome of pregnancy, up until the time of viability, is a fundamental matter of religious/secular belief for all persons, not just pregnant women, fully protected by the provisions of the First Amendment, to wit: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or pro­hibiting the free exercise thereof. “  Thus, fundamentally, since the so-called “pro-life” position is very clearly made on the basis of a particular interpretation of a particular version of the Bible and is widely preached upon by religious leaders of a variety of faiths (as they are fully entitled to do, in the persuasive sense), the right to an abortion is a matter falling under the First Amendment. 

There could not be a greater example of the interference of “big government” in the lives of ordinary Americans than what has been the GOP position on abortion rights almost since the day after Roe v. Wade was handed down.  And here is the GOP all of a sudden trumpeting the position (incorrectly in the particular instance) that the decision of the Obama Administration on insurance coverage for contraception violates the First Amendment and separation of church and state.  One can say only: “Hallelujah.  They have seen the light.”

Obviously similar arguments apply to the right of two people to marry under existing civil law, regardless of their sexual orientation (the opposition being based on purely religious grounds), the right to use contraceptives without interference on religious grounds (a right that Rick Santorum would like to allow states to eliminate, going back to pre-Griswold v. Connecticut times), and the right for stem cell research to be carried under the usual government regulations regarding biological research and the right of people who would like to take advantage of the results of that research to do so without religiously-based government interference.  

My-oh-my.  Cannot wait to see the GOP volte face on this one.  “You’ll be waiting a long time, until hell freezes over,” you say?  The GOP cannot see the utter contradiction in the position that it is suddenly taking on a matter which they (totally incorrectly) characterize as one of religious liberty when it is rather a matter of employment discrimination, you say?  Well, it seems to me that the position I have taken above is the only logical conclusion one can draw from the GOP passion on this issue.  They have suddenly discovered the First Amendment; they have suddenly discovered that David Barton and his “there is no wall” position has no basis in historical fact; they have suddenly come out in favor of religious liberty, which surely does apply to abortion rights, gay marriage rights, the use of contraceptives, and stem cell research.  Once again, I must say “Hallelujah.”

Oh yes, on the employment discrimination issue.  Given that no Catholic institution itself would be required under the law to provide abortion or contraceptive services (such a requirement would indeed violate their First Amendment rights), to deny insurance coverage for those of their employees, Catholic and non-Catholic alike, who use contraceptive services, is to discriminate against such employees, based on Catholic religious position of those institutions.  If that were to be allowed, next thing you know, an institution that follows Michelle Bachmann’s belief that immunization causes mental retardation, perhaps couched in religious terms, could be allowed to eliminate coverage for immunization services.  And there you go, right down that slippery slope.  So once again, hurrah for the GOP.  They have made the case for separation of church and state in matters of religious/secular belief so clear.  I just wonder what took them so long.

——————————————————————————————————-

**  I wrote the above column on Feb. 13, 2012.  On the 14th I received a communication from Moveon.org stating that Republican Sen. Roy Blunt has introduced legislation that would permit any employer to deny coverage for any health service to which they would claim a religious or moral objection.  And there I thought that I was making a sort of joke.  But these Republican Religious Authoritarians are not funny.

———————————————————————————————————

TPJmagazine; a Contributor to The Planetary Movement, a Columnist for Truthout/BuzzFlash (http://www.truth-out.org/, http://www.buzzflash.com), a featured Writer for Dandelion Salad,  a Contributor to Op-Ed News.com (http://www.opednews.com/), and a Contributor to TheHarderStuff newsletter.

_______________________________________________________________________________

ADVERT PRO NOBIS 

IF YOU CAN’T SEND A DONATION, NO MATTER HOW SMALL, AND YOU THINK THIS PUBLICATION IS WORTH SUPPORTING, AT LEAST HELP THE GREANVILLE POST EXPAND ITS INFLUENCE BY MENTIONING IT TO YOUR FRIENDS VIA TWEET OR OTHER SOCIAL NETWORKS!
We are in a battle of communications with entrenched enemies that won’t stop until this world is destroyed and our remaining democratic rights stamped out. Only mass education and mobilization can stop this process.

It’s really up to you.
Do your part while you can.
•••

Donating? Use PayPal via the button below.

THANK YOU.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________



Newt Gingrich: King Cracker

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford, with select comments

It is no longer unthinkable that Barack Obama could face Newt Gingrich in November. If that happens, the political lines will be unequivocally drawn around race – and only race. But Black people will have no defender. “The issue in a contest between Obama and Gingrich will be the same as between Gingrich and Juan Williams, a slimy Black right-winger who claims African Americans wallow in a culture of ‘victimhood.’” Sound familiar? Maybe that’s because “the coded language and euphemisms of white supremacy are deployed by both Republicans and Democrats, and forms the core of American political speech.”

For “cracker” references, read the story.

“Gingrich is drawing a racial line in the sand, just as the segregated Atlanta Crackers baseball team did on their playing field.”

It now seems possible that the presidential election could wind up being a contest between the quintessential corporate Democrat, Barack Obama, and Newt Gingrich, King of the Crackers.

Now, before any radio station considers pulling this commentary from their airwaves as some kind of hate speech, let me inform the listeners that “cracker” was a label proudly worn by masses of white folks, and especially popular in Gingrich’s state of Georgia. From 1901 until 1965, the Atlanta Crackers [6] was one of professional baseball’s most successful minor league teams. These Crackers played out of Atlanta’s Ponce de Leon field until the Braves moved to Atlanta from Milwaukee, in 1966.

Newt Gingrich knows all about Georgia Crackers. The Atlanta Crackers baseball team was still going strong when Gingrich went to high school in Columbus, Georgia, and they played their last game the year he graduated from Emory University, in Atlanta. It was very popular to be a “cracker” in Georgia in those days…and, apparently, it still is, throughout the South, including South Carolina, where Gingrich won the Republican presidential primary.

The former House speaker from Cobb County, Georgia, just outside Atlanta, won a standing ovation when he rejected reporter Juan Williams’ suggestion that Gingrich was purposely insulting Black people [7] with his rhetoric on food stamps and his urging that African American children be put to work as janitors in public schools. That’s the kind of talk that makes unreconstructed Georgia crackers and their soul mates everywhere proud. Gingrich is drawing a racial line in the sand, just as the segregated Atlanta Crackers baseball team did on their playing field. And, it is serving him well in the Deep South Republican Party, which began its transition to the White Man’s Party with Barry Goldwater’s presidential run in 1964, followed by Richard Nixon’s “southern strategy” in 1968.

“Gingrich’s verbal weapons are simply sharper than most, but President Obama deploys a milder version of anti-Black rhetoric.”

The problem that Gingrich presents is not so much that he pollutes the public conversation with raw rhetorical racism. The coded language and euphemisms of white supremacy are deployed by both Republicans and Democrats, and forms the core of American political speech. Mass Black incarceration, mass Black unemployment, and de facto housing segregation are the domain of both major parties. Gingrich’s verbal weapons are simply sharper than most, but President Obama deploys a milder version of anti-Black rhetoric, sometimes even on Fathers Day [8].

Except for those of us who know that building a movement is much more important than voting for evil.

For Black Agenda Radio, I’m Glen Ford. On the web, go to BlackAgendaReport.com.

BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com [9].

http://traffic.libsyn.com/blackagendareport/20120125_gf_Crackers.mp3

Share this [10]

 
Source URL: http://blackagendareport.com/content/newt-gingrich-king-cracker

_______________________________________________________________________________

ADVERT PRO NOBIS 

IF YOU CAN’T SEND A DONATION, NO MATTER HOW SMALL, AND YOU THINK THIS PUBLICATION IS WORTH SUPPORTING, AT LEAST HELP THE GREANVILLE POST EXPAND ITS INFLUENCE BY MENTIONING IT TO YOUR FRIENDS VIA TWEET OR OTHER SOCIAL NETWORKS!
We are in a battle of communications with entrenched enemies that won’t stop until this world is destroyed and our remaining democratic rights stamped out. Only mass education and mobilization can stop this process.

It’s really up to you.
Do your part while you can.
•••

Donating? Use PayPal via the button below.

THANK YOU.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________



A Family’s Cat Is Murdered In the Name of Politics and Conservatism

 

Time to recognize that “conservative” and “reactionary” are four-letter words. 

By Roger Shuler

 

Cross Posted at Legal Schnauzer

Associated Press reports that a complaint has been filed with the Russellville Police Department, and officials have no suspects at this time.

a press release issued by the Aden campaign:

The Russellville Police Department is investigating, and a report will be made to the Federal Bureau of Investigation Monday morning.

a staunch “pro life” Republican. Someone who apparently supports Womack, however, does not have much respect for life. Here is how the Aden press release describes the ugly scene at the Burris house on Sunday night:

Womack, the Republican nominee for United States Congress in the third district of Arkansas, said, he was pleased to receive the Arkansas Right to Life endorsement.


Submitters Bio:

I live in Birmingham, Alabama, and work in higher education. I became interested in justice-related issues after experiencing gross judicial corruption in Alabama state courts. This corruption has a strong political component. The corrupt judges are all Republicans, and the attorney who filed a fraudulent lawsuit against me has strong family ties to the Alabama Republican Party, with indirect connections to national figures such as Karl Rove. In fact, a number of Republican operatives who have played a central role in the prosecution of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman (a Democrat) also have connections to my case. I am married, with no kids and two Siamese cats. I am the author of the blog Legal Schnauzer. The blog is written in honor of Murphy, our miniature schnauzer (1993-2004)who did so much to help my wife and me survive our nightmarish experience with corrupt judges. I grew up in Springfield, Missouri, and I am pretty much a lifelong St. Louis Cardinal baseball fan. I’ve lived in Birmingham for almost 30 years and have adopted the UAB Blazers as my Southern college football and basketball team to follow. Also, follow East Tennessee State basketball. An avid reader, both fiction and non-fiction. Influential writers on public affairs are Kevin Phillips, Michael Lind, Thomas Edsall, E.J. Dionne, Molly Ivins, and Scott Horton.  

_______________________________________________________________________________

ADVERT PRO NOBIS 

IF YOU CAN’T SEND A DONATION, NO MATTER HOW SMALL, AND YOU THINK THIS PUBLICATION IS WORTH SUPPORTING, AT LEAST HELP THE GREANVILLE POST EXPAND ITS INFLUENCE BY MENTIONING IT TO YOUR FRIENDS VIA TWEET OR OTHER SOCIAL NETWORKS!
We are in a battle of communications with entrenched enemies that won’t stop until this world is destroyed and our remaining democratic rights stamped out. Only mass education and mobilization can stop this process.

It’s really up to you.
Do your part while you can.
•••

Donating? Use PayPal via the button below.

THANK YOU.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________



Why I Won’t Vote for Obama in November

SPECIAL—

By: Robert Meeropol Friday January 6, 2012 11:30 am

I have no intention of voting for Obama in November.  Based on what I’ve learned about environmental sustainability and the military industrial complex, as well as a series of discussions I’ve had with my wife, Elli, about this over the last year, I’ve come to understand that:

1.  We are careening towards a series of environmental catastrophes in the next 50 years which will substantially diminish our planet’s ability to support human and many other forms of life.  These disasters we face are likely to cut the productive power of the planet by more than a factor of ten.  (Deep Green Resistance, Aric McBay & Lierre Keith, Seven Stories Press, 2011, Pp 207-211.)

2.   The United States military is the largest single source of pollution on the planet.  The military is exempt from environmental regulation.  Tightening clean water and air regulations is fine, but it will accomplish relatively little if the military is not subject to these limits.  The demands of maintaining our empire pose the greatest environmental threat to the earth. (The Green Zone: The Environmental Costs of Militarism, Barry Sanders, A.K.Press, 2009)

3.   In order to prevent the looming planetary climate disaster, environmental reality must take precedence over our military and security concerns.  This shift will never take place unless we pull back from our empire and dismantle the military industrial complex.

4.   President Obama will do neither, because he is a defender of our empire and allied with the military industrial complex.

The next few generations face grave danger from drastic climate change and resource depletion.  Right now there are seven billion people living on the planet.  According to the authors of Deep Green Resistance and other leading environmental scientists, this number is already well beyond the sustainable carrying capacity of the planet.   I suspect many of those reading this will discount this last sentence, but I fear such rejection stems from wishful thinking rather than informed analysis.

This isn’t just about politics, it is intensely personal.  My granddaughter was born in 2008.  If this analysis is correct, the lives of over 90% of her generation will be jeopardized if we maintain the current primacy of the military industrial complex.

Even if Obama appoints better Supreme Court Justices, halts the Tar Sands Pipeline, and extends unemployment benefits, four more years of unfettered domination by the military machine trumps it all.  Nothing in President Obama’s record indicates that he will deviate from the dictates of empire.  How could I possibly vote for someone to run the country whose policy priorities place my granddaughter’s life, as well as those of your children and grandchildren, in such danger?  Given this reality, it is of little consequence to me if the Republican alternative is worse.

This does not mean that I am “dropping out.”  I intend to vote for a third party alternative candidate in November, and will continue to support and work for progressive causes.  I wish I had more answers.  I won’t give up groping for them, however, since I know that four more years of Obama will just bring us closer to disaster even if the Republicans would get us there even quicker.

I’m standing outside the two-party system because neither Democrats nor Republicans will challenge the military industrial complex and take on the direst threat to us all.  I hope it isn’t too late, and I will act as if it is not even if it might be, because despair serves no one.  The last year has demonstrated the rapidity with which masses of people can transform the debate, become ungovernable, and even bring hope of a new world order.  These developments are cause for optimism.

My generation took on the military industrial complex during the war in Vietnam.  We were the first to recognize the threat to our world’s environment.  We held the first “Earth Day.”  Now, young people all over the world are taking action.  It is their turn to direct the path of this new endeavor to revolutionize our priorities.  An innovative effort to change the world is underway and it is time for all of us who care about peace, social justice and our environment to get re-engaged. Whether it be organizing or third party activities, I hope we won’t waste this opportunity by working, contributing or voting for Obama when there are so many better things to do with our time and money.

ROBERT MEEROPOL is a lifelong activist in the cause against empire and for authentic democracy in the U.S.

ADVERT PRO NOBIS
________________________________________________________________________________________________________

IF YOU CAN’T SEND A DONATION, NO MATTER HOW SMALL, AND YOU THINK THIS PUBLICATION IS WORTH SUPPORTING, AT LEAST HELP THE GREANVILLE POST EXPAND ITS INFLUENCE BY MENTIONING IT TO YOUR FRIENDS VIA TWEET OR OTHER SOCIAL NETWORKS!
We are in a battle of communications with entrenched enemies that won’t stop until this world is destroyed and our remaining democratic rights stamped out. Only mass education and mobilization can stop this process.

It’s really up to you.
Do your part while you can.
•••

Donating? Use PayPal via the button below.

THANK YOU.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________