Pious Fig Leaves

Who'da thought America's highest paid low rent potty mouth would become my new hero?



And I think he's right. And I think Joe Jervis is right. These folks are monsters.

The Santorum, Michelle Bachman, Scott Lively, Bryan Fischer, just about the whole Catholic hierarchy these days (my last tiny bit of respect for them died with Cardinal Bernardin), Maggie Gallagher, Ruben Diaz Sr., the Anoka-Hennepin school district, any number of super-orthodox rabbis, all the "ex-gay" establishment, the quislings over at gaydom's own little Vichy, GOPproud, just about everyone at the CPAC convention now, etc., etc., etc., they're all monsters.

They all want me and my kind to die, in one form or another, whether it's through "therapy" to "kill the gay and save the man" (to paraphrase an infamous mission statement about another group of people from more than a century ago), or through raw violence and murder.

Paul Krugman this morning takes on the "values voters" from a different angle, discussing Charles Murray's latest scandal of a book. He argues that "values" is all smoke and mirrors to distract our attention from large systemic injustices created by decades of legislation that favored the advantaged over the disadvantaged.

Pardon my inner Marxist, but I think the whole "values" and "morals" issue is nothing more than a fig leaf barely concealing plain old supremacism. It's a very effective way to keep people down by persuading them that they are bad and lazy. It's a great way to enforce the class system by introducing a kind of caste thinking. The poor are unholy and "unclean" (that's how racism worked for a long time). Meanwhile, our Overlords persuade themselves that they are not just lucky, but virtuous, that they earned God's special favor above all other sinners. It's a way of pouring a fine sauce over winning the lottery or triumphing at the rat race. Milords and ladies can persuade themselves that they are noble and saintly, and not just top dog in a canine riot, a war of all against all.


I think this guy was a monster.



My dad thought Reagan was the greatest thing since Jesus on sliced Wonder bread with Miracle Whip. I agree with Charles Pierce from Esquire. He laid the groundwork for the colossal dysfunction that we have now, with the USA starting to look more and more like Europe of a century ago where privileged classes controlled everything for their own interests. I'll never forget or forgive his policy of malign neglect when AIDS hit. Thanks for nuthin' Uncle Ron.

We are not only alienated from our institutions these days, but we are alienated from each other. The latest crop of social darwinists among us think that's fine, that Herbert Spencer was right to describe life in capitalist society as "survival of the fittest." The rich and powerful are only the fittest and the rest of us survive at their sufferance. The extreme libertarianism that dominates so much political debate these days is the ideology of alienation.

But the Wheel of Fortune turns, and never more sharply and unpredictably as now. Today's winners frequently become tomorrow's losers as the fickle winds of economic psychology and consumer desire blow. The Lone Wolf becomes that much easier for some new predator to hunt down and kill. And no one chooses the circumstances that they are born into. The field of the Great Game is never level and never fair. Those who already won, always rig the game to their advantage. It was always thus and still is.
Leaving Fortune to determine who deserves to be human and who's a pack animal is a fool's errand that will always turn back on the fool.

The Wheel of Fortune on the floor of Siena Cathedral, 14th century