by Lee Camp

Hopefully you’ve heard mentions of the LIBOR scandal – the biggest banking scandal in years. I need to tell you two things about it. 1) It’s not as complicated as it sounds. 2) It does not stand for “Ladies Intimately Bending Over, Rearview.” If it did, you would see a lot more coverage of it on the mainstream media.

– Lee Camp, July 2012

Related Posts:
Moment of Clarity: The Shadows Are Taking Over

by Nicole Powers

“Why are we giving any credence to anybody who says ‘I would like to reduce the number of abortions and the way that I want to do that is to remove all access to birth control.’”
– Lizz Winstead

Lizz Winstead is one of the bravest comedians around today. She talks about abortion with a rare candor, as is a staunch supporter of Planned Parenthood. Her work raising awareness and funds (over a million dollars to date!) for the organization has not surprisingly raised the ire of the religious right, but she stands firm, fighting for women’s reproductive rights at a time when in recent history they’ve never been more in peril.

In her new book, Lizz Free Or Die, she devotes a chapter to her own experience as a frightened and bewildered teenager who discovered she was pregnant, and who was even more frightened and bewildered by the reactions of the adults she trusted to give her honest advice, help, and support.

The book also features essays, which are poignant and hilarious in equal parts, on her upbringing in a conservative Catholic family, her coming of age as a stand up comedian in Minneapolis, the roots of The Daily Show which she co-created, and the rise and fall of Air America which she co-founded.

We caught up with Lizz by phone. Though the native Minnesotan currently calls New York home, she spoke to us from Texas where she’d just done one of her numerous Planned Parenthood stand up fundraising shows. This particular one raised money for a clinic that had recently lost every penny of its state funding for essential community services such as teen pregnancy testing and health care.

Read our exclusive interview with Lizz Winstead on SuicideGirls.com.

by Steven Whitney

[Last week, the “Fighting Back” series began with a simple question: given their minority status for most of the last 80 years, why is the GOP not only still viable but so successful at winning elections? Over the next several weeks, we’ll examine answers in a myriad fields, some obvious and others more subtle, and then offer solutions aimed at turning the tables on the party that favors corporations and the 1% over the vast majority of Americans. The series is intended to be a discussion, not a monologue – so in the spirit of participatory democracy, feel free to share your ideas in the comments section as we move from topic to topic.]

With the death of the Lee Atwater in 1991, the GOP lost their most effective election strategist in decades – the “bad cop” who miraculously overcame a mid-summer 41% polling deficit and, many observers believe, single-handedly pushed “good cop” George H.W. Bush (President #41) into the White House via a mixture of mendacious tactics and Machiavellian strategies. Without Atwater, Bush lost badly (370-168 electoral votes) to Bill Clinton in his 1992 re-election bid – even as Republicans gained seats in the Democratically controlled House and Senate.

Spotting opportunity, Karl Rove – a crafty political “advisor” who had been biding his time, waiting in the wings for more than a decade after his involvement with the Watergate scandal – made his move. Although little known outside of Texas, he had already cultivated a nationwide network of GOP operatives and, more importantly, had long ties to the Bush family. Amping up Atwater’s dirty tricks, “take-no-prisoners,” and “divide and conquer” playbook, Rove ran the dirtiest, most negative, and most successful campaigns in anyone’s memory, electing hardline right-wingers Senator Phil Gramm, Senator John Ashcroft, Agricultural Commissioner Rick Perry, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson and, of course, Governor George W. Bush, the incurious son of the former President. (Anyone still not aware of the many sins of Karl Rove – too numerous to list in this or any other post – should read selected posts of the late Molly Ivins here and here, and/or watch the fine documentary Bush’s Brain).

During this string of unprecedented wins, Rove slowly gained invisible control of the Republican National Committee and successfully courted Fox News, Fortune 500 corporations, and individuals like the Koch brothers, bringing them into the Big Money Tent of the GOP. So when it came time for the puppet-master to run “W” for President, he had all the tools – lies, smears, dirty tricks, misdirection, and the money to implement them – and resources needed to run an Atwater Times Ten campaign, including the advocacy of James Baker (who later admitted to fixing the election), the Supreme Court, Florida Governor Jeb Bush (W’s brother) and his cohort Kathryn Harris, who carried out voter suppression while introducing the now infamous butterfly ballots to the Sunshine State. The election was literally stolen from Al Gore, marking the first time in a hundred years that a President was elected without winning the popular vote.

But it was during his years as Senior Advisor and then as Deputy Chief of Staff to President Bush (#43), that Rove actually reconfigured the GOP, transforming it from a conservative bloc that generally venerated the values that fuel democratic politics – pragmatism, bipartisanship, mutual respect, the twin arts of negotiation and compromise, and at least a semblance of civility – to a hard line, far-right party intolerant of and punitive to even the smallest form of dissent or rank breaking.

Once in the White House and in possession of real power, Rove continually mimicked and reinforced a career trajectory not dissimilar to that of Joseph Goebbels, the Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda of Germany’s Third Reich from 1933 to 1945 and almost universally considered the “father of modern political propaganda.”

After living through World War II and witnessing first-hand the disastrous effects of Goebbels’ stunning misuse of language for political ends, George Orwell wrote the 1946 essay “Politics and the English Language,” in which he newly defined the agitprop of Goebbels’ Ministry: “Much political language – by means of circumlocution, euphemism and other doctorings, was designed to make lies sound truthful.”

That sentence became the basis of Newspeak – a language Orwell created to illustrate the power of words and phrases to control the thoughts and actions of the people – in his classic novel, 1984, published in 1948. And Newspeak – the seductively reassuring “branding” of party policy combined with the outrageously false and incendiary defining of any alternative views – was and is a central foundation for both Goebbels and Rove.

Let’s be clear – I am not calling Rove a Nazi – excrementous, yes; a Nazi, no. I am merely pointing out that Rove has employed almost exactly the same tactics – updated for the electronic age and streamlined for contemporary American culture – as did Goebbels.

Curiously, there are a few personal similarities between them as well. Both men first ascended to power as acolytes in the service of, and instrumental to, their masters’ political success. Both chose to travel the lowest campaign roads imaginable and, perhaps because of that, both men were – despite their obvious intelligence, skills, and success – vehemently disliked by almost everyone with whom they came into contact. George W. Bush, the greatest beneficiary of Rove’s political acumen, even nicknamed him “turd blossom” (it is lost to history if Hitler ever called Goebbels scheisskopf).

In politics especially, every single study of voting habits shows that emotion trumps reason in almost every election. For that reason, almost all propaganda targets emotion rather than intellect. So, like Goebbels, the focus for Rove is on often imaginary or contrived wedge issues (fear, xenophobia, homophobia, misogyny, racism, and false patriotism) that negatively arouse strong and even hysterical emotions rather than on real political concerns that require positively-charged and reasoned responses.

Using emotions like fear as their cornerstones, both Goebbels and Rove created horrendously effective propaganda factories built on the dogma of Indoctrination, Intimidation and Revenge, and Distraction and Disinformation, coupled with Divide and Conquer strategies.

By institutionalizing these immoral agendas, both men created the most divisive and destructive societies in their nations’ histories – and drove a great percentage of their fellow citizens absolutely batshit crazy.

In 1945, with Soviet troops advancing on Berlin, Joseph Goebbels had the very good sense to kill himself. Since Karl Rove will probably not grace us with such a similarly joyful outcome, it’s mandatory to deconstruct his schemes so we can figure out how to successfully overcome his shameless but effective brand of politics without ourselves becoming indecent.

This, I’ll tackle in my next column, Fighting Fire With Fire.

Related Posts:
Fighting Back
The Electoral Scam
Being Fair
Occupy Reality
Giving. . . And Taking Back
A Tale Of Two Grovers
A Last Pitch For Truth
America: Forget it, Jake. It’s Chinatown.
Gotcha!

by Lee Camp

My latest Moment of Clarity rant could easily have been entitled “Distractions Will Be The Death Of Us” because we are allowing the distractions to take us away from the important conversations. Some would argue that this is hypocritical of me, since I myself am a comedian. However, I hope my comedy can act as a gateway drug to the important topics. I try to bridge the deadly canyons between distraction and crucial issues…You can decide if I succeed.

– Lee Camp, July 2012

by Steven Whitney

July 4th commemorates both our Declaration of Independence and the call to arms that eventually freed our nation from British dominion. Today we find ourselves bound in the shackles of economic enslavement and a Republican agenda dedicated to handing our country over – lock, stock, and barrel – to corporate and 1% rule.

The Republican “record” is a litany of disgrace. Their doctrinaire invasion of Iraq, renditions, secret prisons, black ops, and torture policies brought shame upon America. Their tax cuts for the rich and concomitant borrowing brought our nation to the precipice of an all-out economic disaster. They slashed funding to education and welfare, and wanted to “reform” (get rid of) disaster relief, Social Security, Medicare, and all other programs they successfully (but mistakenly) labeled “entitlements.” They supported the criminals of Wall Street while they persecuted minorities and repressed women (or “sluts,” in their vernacular). Via an all-time record of filibusters they willfully obstructed all legislation that might kick-start jobs and our economy – not out of loyalty to their country but solely from a goose-stepping allegiance to their ethically-challenged party. They filed egregious lawsuits against any passed legislation that might help the poor and middle-class, like the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act…or they pledged not to implement such measures in states they control. Their actions resulted in the most dysfunctional Congress in our history. Their false words and Neanderthal manners poisoned our civic discourse as surely as toxic clouds gathered from their denial of climate change.

So why are they still in the game?

It can’t be the issues. Republicans can’t garner votes from issues because they don’t have any they can honestly air in the public forum. Besides, judging by both polls and American lifestyles from the 1970s onward, it’s clear that liberals have won the so-called culture war.

So why is almost every election – local, state, and national – so close?

For the last 50 years, Republicans have consistently been the minority party, with significantly fewer registered voters than Democrats.

So why, since 1968, have they occupied the White House for 28 years compared to the Democrats’ 16, 75% more years running the Executive Branch?

Throughout that time, Republican policies have aggressively favored the rich and the newly-created “persons” of Citizens United – ExxonMobil, Halliburton, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and the rest of the Forbes 500 biggest corporations from which they have literally received countless billions of dollars. Everything they do is for the 1% and against the interests of the 99%.

So why do so many in the 99% vote for them?

Ranting and raving about “stupid” voters – correctly or not – won’t help and will probably only arouse their contempt. To get their valuable votes back, we have to realize that the answers are myriad and more complex. Besides, if we’re so smart, why aren’t we winning the hearts and minds of the entire 99%?

Face it, given our 99 to 1 advantage (some would estimate it is closer to 90 to 10, but still overwhelming), we must be doing something spectacularly wrong.

So the real question is: what is it we’re doing wrong and how can we fix it?

When solving problems, Marcus Aurelius encouraged students always to look to their first causes. In this instance: when and how did the playing field get so imbalanced?

From 1860 through 1928, the White House was pretty much the permanent residence of Republican Presidents – Democrats Grover Cleveland (1884) and Woodrow Wilson (1912) ascended to the Presidency largely because of split votes in the Republican ranks. But after 58 years of dominance, Republican free market policies, unfettered by regulation and oversight, led to the Great Depression, just as the Reagan through Bush policies walked us down the economic plank 80 years later. In 1932, FDR’s New Deal turned the tide of the nation, solidified 16 years later by Harry Truman’s promise of a “Fair Deal” for all. Finally, it was an era of Democratic sensibilities.

But after signing the Civil Rights Act of 1964, LBJ turned to another longtime Democrat and announced: “We have lost the South for a generation.” As it turned out, he underestimated by two generations. Building on the white flight of Dixiecrats, the GOP focused on a “Southern Strategy” that eventually turned the former Confederacy into an unbreakable Republican stronghold. It was a match made in heaven (or, more probably, hell) – for the last half-century, opaque (and hotly denied) racism, xenophobia, and homophobia have been ugly realities within the GOP. Think “birther,” “undocumented aliens,” “border fences” not unlike the Berlin Wall, and what they term “the abomination of gay marriage” (although envisioning gay honeymoons probably sticks in their craws even more). And the South has been the GOP base ever since.

We can’t regret the political fallout from the Democrats’ historic civil rights legislation – we were on the right side, both morally and historically. And, after almost 50 years, the GOP stranglehold on Southern states is finally loosening, if just a bit

But to take advantage of the concentration and rise, respectively, of Black and Latino voters in the South, and the fact that Democrats still have more registered voters in their column than do Republicans, we need to prepare for and combat the Republican tactics and strategies that have been so disgracefully yet successfully employed over the last 40 years.

Beginning with Nixon’s criminal cover-ups, burglaries and dirty tricks crews through Lee Atwater (“the Machiavellian godfather of modern take-no-prisoners Republican politics”) to Karl Rove (the chief strategist first known as “Bush’s Brain” and the puppet master behind the GOP and its money-laden SuperPACs), their often despicable tactics have time and again caught us standing still, almost cowering in shock – like deer in the headlights – awaiting their next outrageous gambit. Indeed, ruthless indecency is part and parcel of the modern GOP, not to mention their relentless hypocrisy.

For the last 44 years, being more morally motivated and better informed citizens has not made Democrats better at winning elections. Thinking us no more than wusses, Republicans have stuck as fiercely to their guns as Dirty Harry, expecting us to eventually roll over and play dead. Sadly, and to our everlasting shame, they’ve been right more often than not. We have been wusses – the good, gentle, moral brainiacs with coke-bottle glasses – even as the GOP relentlessly pushed an agenda of fear, intimidation, and more power and money to their 1% benefactors.

Yet the keys by which the 1% lock us to their interests lay beyond simple aggression, dishonorable electoral politics, numbers, and ideology, and instead inhabit ancillary fields of human behavior – the social, cultural, historical, religious, psychological, educational, linguistic, and even genetic issues. Because we need to find workable answers and solutions, over the next few weeks (and posts) we’ll survey not only political science but all the social sciences, plus voting patterns and election cycles so we can implement new and effective strategies and tactics.

A lot has changed since FDR’s time. Now, as Republicans have declared war on our country’s principles and its people – the poor, the middle class, and women – we need to bring a little cold-bloodedness to the game. No more wusses, no more cowering liberals, no more whimpering progressives. Instead, we sorely need smart, effective, and relentless attacks and counterattacks, more cojones and less apologia…perhaps even a small insurgency or two.

Let today mark the beginning of a newly-found independence from the forces that aim to render us both impotent and expendable. Without surrendering the high ground of our social morality, it’s time to counter with a bold offensive, hitting Republicans with all we’ve got, both in the streets and at the ballot box.

Let this Independence Day transform us into savage warriors for the cause of true freedom – the values of democracy and fair play for all – that began 236 years ago today…on July 4, 1776.

It’s time to fight back.

Related Posts:
The Electoral Scam
Being Fair
Occupy Reality
Giving. . . And Taking Back
A Tale Of Two Grovers
A Last Pitch For Truth
America: Forget it, Jake. It’s Chinatown.
Gotcha!

by Steven Whitney

“One man, one vote” loosely incorporates the founding principles of our country and the exaltation of the individual. The democratic notion behind it is that every single voter is equal – no more, no less – to every other voter. Legally, it is the basis of “equal representation” over which the original Tea Party (“No Taxation Without Representation”) rebelled in 1773, a decisive shot across Britain’s bow that led to the Revolutionary War. In emerging nations and in those with similar revolutions, it has since become a slogan for universal suffrage.

Of course, from the beginning it was more fantasy than fact, more a rallying cry than a real policy. In our first national elections, only white male adult property-owners were allowed to vote. Slaves couldn’t vote. Women couldn’t vote. Native Americans couldn’t vote. New immigrants, white or not, were discouraged from voting by the strongest possible means.

In 1850, property and tax restrictions were removed so all white adult males were, by law, eligible to vote (although immigrants still found it hard to cast a ballot).

Twenty years later, the 15th Amendment paved the way for former slaves (and adult males of any race) to vote. This gave rise to Jim Crow literacy tests and poll tax requirements in many states that successfully targeted minorities.

It was only in 1920 that adult women got the vote. And in 1924, Native Americans – ironically, the original Americans – were also granted voting rights.

But despite the 15th Amendment, it wasn’t until the 1950 Civil Rights Act and 1965’s Voting Rights Act that all adult American citizens actually held the right to vote, free of any tests and/or taxes that might exclude them.

Does that mean “one man, one vote” finally became a reality?

In theory and law, yes. In local and state elections, we do have equanimity, even as certain states under Republican leadership, like Florida, try their damndest to suppress minority voters.

But because our founders created a Federalist Society more than a truly democratic ideal, there exists one remaining restraint to equal voting that has been with us from the beginning and never repealed – the Electoral College that decides each and every Presidential election.

The Electoral College is comprised of “electors” from states and the District of Columbia. The number of electors for each state is decided by the total population of individual states as determined every ten years by the Census (the same formula used in determining the number of Representatives in the House) plus 2 electors for each state (to match their seats in the Senate). California, our most populous state, receives 53 electors based on population plus 2 for their Senate representation; Wyoming, our least populated state, receives 1 elector based on population plus 2 for each Senator. That’s 538 electoral votes in all, with 270 needed to win.

A tie at 269 sends the deciding vote to the newly elected House, where each state casts 1 vote until a candidate receives a majority.

This system was instituted by our founding fathers to protect the interests of rural states and, at first glance, it appears fair. But it was initiated at a time when America was a small nation with only 16 states – Virginia and Pennsylvania the largest at just over 110,000 “free white male adults” each – pretty much evenly divided between urban and rural. In the first contested Presidential election in 1796 – Washington had previously run unopposed – the total number of popular votes was 66,841 for the entire country, fewer votes cast than in my own small Congressional district today.

In 2012, it is sorely outdated and the cause of much inequality. Take California, with a population of well over 37 million. Then group together the 20 states lowest in population – Alaska, Wyoming, Vermont, North and South Dakota, Delaware, Montana, Hawaii, Idaho, Maine, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, West Virginia, Arkansas, Kansas, Mississippi, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah – for a combined total population of just over 32 million. In a representative democracy, and by dint of population, California should have just one or perhaps two more electors than those 20 states combined.

But because each state gets a uniform 2 electors above and beyond their census-calculated electors, the 20 smallest states, with a combined population of 5½ million less than California, actually have 40 “extra” electors to the Golden State’s 2, a plurality of 38 additional electors from small rural states that are largely Republican strongholds.

How is it fair that 5½ million fewer people are granted 64% more electoral votes in determining the course of our future? Does that sound like equal representation – “one man, one vote?” Or is it just another example of a rigged game?

This grievous imbalance was fully taken into account when Republicans of the 1970s first devised their “Southern Strategy.” And without those “extra” votes, George Bush would have handily lost the 2000 election, even with Florida in his pocket…meaning no Bush Tax Cuts, no Iraq “Shock and Awe,” no renditions or torture, no national security state, and no Dick Cheney.

There are only two viable options to fix the system. The first, and most democratic, is to decide the Presidential race, like all others, by the majority of the popular vote. The second, less egalitarian but still fairer than the present system, is to eliminate the two “extra” votes for each state, bringing the electoral vote down to 436 (the same number as the House membership plus 1 for D.C.) with only 219 needed to win. Only by these two adjustments would one vote anywhere in the U.S. be equal to a vote anywhere else in the country.

Supporters of the electoral system say that it prevents urban-centric victories, but at the same time they cannot explain why a candidate winning with fewer popular votes is either democratic or fair. They also state that the Electoral College encourages stability through the 2-party system without understanding that many citizens feel the 2-party system is more stale than stable – and that, ironically enough, when the electoral system was devised, American was divided into many parties, not just two. Lastly, they argue that it maintains the federal character of our nation without apparently realizing that it was just this “federalist” notion under which only property-owning white male adults were allowed to vote.

Detractors often point to the fact that of 123 democracies in the world today, ours is the only nation still using this antiquated system, the only one in which the candidate receiving a majority of the popular vote can lose the election (a la Al Gore in 2000). And that instead of favoring the smallest states, a popular vote counts all votes equally…and, dare I say it, democratically.

A popular vote solves other problems as well. It allows the federal government to penalize states that attempt to disenfranchise voters. It would boost voter turnout and participation and give 3rd parties a more active, nationwide platform. And in one fell swoop, it would both eliminate the insane focus on so-called swing states and do away with all the red state / blue state crap forever, which in turn would return us to a United States of America.

There is, of course, no time to put changes into effect this year…especially since Republicans shudder at the mere mention of a nationwide referendum on any issue. But perhaps sometime in the not too distant future we can set for the course for a truly equal voting standard.

Until then, the next time you ask yourself why the vote of a racist, gun-totin’, meth-smokin’, homophobic cracker who fucks donkeys while screaming “Praise Jesus!” is worth more than yours, look no further than the electoral scam.

Related Posts:
Being Fair
Occupy Reality
Giving. . . And Taking Back
A Tale Of Two Grovers
A Last Pitch For Truth
America: Forget it, Jake. It’s Chinatown.
Gotcha!

by Blogbot

This Sunday (June 24th at 10 PM PST) on SuicideGirls Radio, in celebration of Pride month we welcome three guests who have enlightened views on what it means to love. Filmmaker Cassie Jaye (Daddy I Do and Right To Love) and inspirational speaker and lifestyle coach Jesse Brune will be joining SG radio host Nicole Powers (SG’s Managing Ed) and co-hosts Darrah de jour (SG’s Red, White & Femme post-feminist sex & sensuality columnist) and Moxie Suicide (SG model and self proclaimed sexpert) live in studio. Acclaimed author Inga Muscio (Rose: Llove in Violent Times and Cunt: A Declaration of Independence) will also be joining us by phone.

Listen to the world’s leading naked radio show live on Sunday nights from 10 PM til Midnight on suicidegirlsradio.indie1031.com/
(Hit the top right “listen Live” button!)

For updates on all things SG Radio-related, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.

[..]