Sapere Aude!

The Daily Show Takes on Prejudice-Based Church Recruitment

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The Catholic Church should probably just go ahead an actively market themselves as the anti-gay, patriarchal, pedophile religion.

Jindals Calls for JP's License, Vitter Rebukes Activist Judges

Here in Louisiana things are often a little more than backwards.  Recently, a justice of the peace refused to marry an interracial couple based on nothing more than his personal opinion.

Keith Bardwell, a white justice of the peace in Tangipahoa Parish in southeastern Louisiana, wouldn't issue a license to or preside over the nuptials for Beth Humphrey, who is white, and Terence McKay, of Hammond, La., who is black.

The two were later married by another area justice of the peace.

Bardwell, who's held his post more than 30 years, said he refused to perform the ceremony because of his concern for the future of the couple's children.

Nice, huh?  To his credit, Gov. Jindal and other state officials have called for Bardwell's head.  But, David Vitter was slow to make a statement about the issue and when he did he simply stated that judges should follow the law and did not go as far as Jindal or Mary Landrieu in calling for the JP's removal.  I guess the question that is popping up in people's minds is whether Vitter's refusal to go as far as Jindal, et. al. is tantamount to condoning the JP's actions or the sentiments that motivated them.  But, shouldn't his statement that judges should follow the law be enough to show that he thinks there's been a wrongdoing?  I'm no fan of Vitter, but the absence of a call for his removal is not exactly the same as condoning the judge's actions.  Although perhaps it does raise the question of why he did not go that far.

Bill Maher: Repeal 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' Because It Will Make Rush Limbaugh "Explode" (VIDEO)

Bill Maher: Repeal 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' Because It Will Make Rush Limbaugh "Explode" (VIDEO).

Glenn Beck Blames Minority For Social Ills

Studies keep showing that religious belief is doing pretty well. It seems like increasing secularization of society is more of a myth an a reality.

Dear RightWingers, Do You Understand the Difference Between "Some" and "All"?

I'm a little late posting this clip from The Colbert Report.  In it Colbert takes on the "black-washing" of criticism against Obama.

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I remember a time not so very long ago when anybody that criticized Bush was labeled a "terrorist sympathizer" or "un-American" by many of the people who seem to have conveniently rediscovered their principles now that a Dem is in office.  Or they distort the claim for their own ends. Just check out how Morning Joe takes Carter's claim about some of the opposition to Obama and turns it into a claim about all the opposition to Obama.  What are we to make of somebody that takes a claim about some of the opposition to Obama and turns it into a claim about all the opposition to Obama so that they can accuse the person who made the original claim about some of it of falsely accusing people of racism?  I'm not inclined to think much of them as a critical thinker or a reliable source of information. 

Meanwhile back in reality it's pretty clear who is injecting race into our political discourse.  Limbaugh and Beck characterize Obama as prejudiced against white people and then claim that motivates his policies in order to generate opposition to his agenda.   Then they cry foul when somebody suggests that some of the opposition to Obama is racially motivated?  Seriously?  I'm supposed to think that Birthers, the folks that claim Obama is a Muslim, and think his policies are really a plan for reparations to take money from white people to black people have a "principled opposition" to Obama?  Give me a break.

I don't think all criticism of Obama is racially motivated or that there are no principled objections to his agenda. But, I very much doubt that people who refer to blacks as "niggers" or exhibit overtly racist attitudes about blacks have a principled objection to his policies since I imagine their racist beliefs and their political beliefs probably influence one another.

Feminists Face-Off Over Muslim Veil

Feminism is not monolithic.  Feminists disagree over all sorts of things including some things you might think they'd all agree, like whether all porn is degrading to women.  Salon.com's feminist blog Broadsheet reports on the dispute between two well-known feminists over the Muslim veil.

Pull up a chair and grab some popcorn, because there's another battle royal raging over the veil. In one corner, we have Naomi Wolf, third-wave feminist heavyweight and author of "The Beauty Myth," defending Muslim garb. In the other, we have Phyllis Chesler, second-waver and author of "The Death of Feminism," attacking both the veil and Wolf for daring to defend it.

The veil is considered a symbol of oppression by many, but symbols are contingent.  People should get to wear or not wear what they like.  No doubt some Muslim women have internalized the wearing of the veil as a means of control, it might function as self-subjugation.  But, on the other hand, many recognize the veil as a means of empowerment that subverts sexual objectification.  To be blunt, when dudes aren't looking at your tits, you tend to get taken more seriously.  It's difficult not to look at boobs when they are around.  So, I'm deeply skeptical of attempts to ban the veil in some Western societies.  Plus, it's a religious freedom issue.  So, I tend to agree with Wolf here rather than Chesler.  A little more from Broadsheet's commentary.

It's hardly the beginning, though. This feminist debate is long under way. The cultural relativists are firmly rooted on one side; the absolutists are on the other.

I do not care for this way of formulating the debate, but that's a longer blog post than I have time for at the moment.  What must be struggled against is the form of power that operates to control and subjugate women in ways that keep them from seeing what their 'bodies can do' as Gilles Deleuze would put it.  Freedom becomes self-subjugation when our individual choices erode the immanent and material conditions for governing ourselves.

Acting Like "Men" or Alcoholics?

What do you think about this headline on Salon.com's feminist blog, Broadsheet?

I think they're acting like alcoholics.

The Last Days of the "Dead White Male"?

Francis Schaeffer - the son of the famous Evangelical apologist of the same name - writes about the fascist strategies of right-wingers at town hall meetings:

The Republican Old Guard are in the fix an atheist would be in if Jesus showed up and raised his mother from the dead: Their world view has just been shattered. Obama's election has driven them over the edge. Consider Former Congressman Dick Armey. Several far right foundations and the multitrillion dollar health-insurance industry have teamed up with him  to organize the far right foot soldiers of the Republican Party to  intimidate people speaking on behalf of health-care reform.  They are using my old shock troops -- given many of these folks were first energized by the Evangelical pro-life movement that my late father and I started in the 1970s. What we did to clinics they are now doing to congressmen and others speaking out for health care reform.

[. . .]

I used to know Dick Armey quite well. One of my sons even worked for him as an intern. I knew Armey in the context of his being a fan of my late Evangelical Religious Right leader father Francis Schaeffer. (Back in the day when I was a right wing "pro-life"  organizer who has long since quit the Republicans in disgust at their -- our -- descent into extremism and hate.) Armey was once a decent guy, whatever his political views. How could he stoop so low as to be organizing what amounts to America's Brown Shirts today?

I think I know what happened to him, Gingrich and the rest: They can't compute that their white man-led conservative revolution is dead. They can't reconcile their idea of themselves with the fact that white men like them don't run the country any more -- and never will again. To them the black president is leading a column of the "other" into their promised land. Gays, immigrants, blacks, progressives, even a female Hispanic appointed to the Supreme Court... for them this is the Apocalypse.

The last presidential election (to paraphrase Bart Simpson)  "broke their brains." What else could explain their embrace of intimidation -- rather than discourse -- over the health care debate and such unsavory moments of madness as the Republicans accusing Obama and Judge Sonia Sotomayor of racism, knowing full well that they'd just destroyed their chances with the Hispanic community forever? 

I think there's something to this notion that the culture of the Dead White Male is coming to an end, and that it's an important element in what we are seeing post-election.  We saw this sort of stuff before the election at Republican campaign rallies and now that they've lots the election some of these folks are coming unhinged.  Things could get ugly.

Psychologists Reject Gay ‘Therapy’ - NYTimes.com

The American Psychology Association has finally announced they don't think you can pray away the gay.

The American Psychological Association declared Wednesday that mental health professionals should not tell gay clients they can become straight through therapy or other treatments.

In a resolution adopted by the association’s governing council, and in an accompanying report, the association issued its most comprehensive repudiation of so-called reparative therapy, a concept espoused by a small but persistent group of therapists, often allied with religious conservatives, who maintain that gay men and lesbians can change. No solid evidence exists that such change is likely, says the resolution, adopted by a 125-to-4 vote. The association said some research suggested that efforts to produce change could be harmful, inducing depression and suicidal tendencies. Instead of seeking such change, the association urged therapists to consider multiple options, which could include celibacy and switching churches, for helping clients live spiritually rewarding lives in instances where their sexual orientation and religious faith conflict.

Of course, I already knew this because I watch South Park.


Empirical research often does not jive with religious beliefs about sexuality. Shocking.

Maddow on Manfuctured Dissent

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I would not be surprised if they were doing this sort of thing. Although I had been studying political philosophy for a while, I do not think I had really become fully politically conscious until I watched the 2000 election go down. I was a registered Republican then, although I did not vote in that election. If they are orchestrating these protests, then effectively their political practices quite literally undermine the material conditions required for democracy, i.e. a public sphere where citizens can deliberate and engage in rational debate over the issues.