Things You Might Have Missed In the Class War: February 2012

About this blog:

What if they held a class war and nobody noticed? For decades, liberals and progressives have been bashed for conducting a "class war" every time they suggest that it would be appropriate for the extremely wealthy to shoulder a bit more of the burden of paying for government. Meanwhile, a swarm of far-right think-tanks and political action committees have been working tirelessly to promote the idea that taxes on the wealthy should be lowered further from their historic lows, and that entitlement programs such as social security and medicare are too expensive to sustain (and in any case, immoral). The latest attempts to delegitimize public employee unions are the logical next step in what genuinely appears to be the systematic dismantlement of the middle class. This blog will highlight some of the more extreme examples of this activity that may not always show up in your news feeds.

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Coincidence? I Think Not

I was recently contemplating Mitt Romney's plastic, father-knows-best demeanour, and it occurred to me that he really rocks a J.R. "Bob" Dobbs vibe. Dobbs, the figurehead and alleged founder of the Church of the Subgenius, usually sports a pipe. But issue Mitt a pipe, and I think you have a good candidate for the Dobbs character in any planned biopic.

I googled the two names, and discovered that I am not the first to make this connection. Below is an image I lifted from humboldtdave on cheezburger.com:

Saturday, February 11, 2012

Too Good To Excerpt

John Cole has a post today that is so good, and so short, that I am going to post it in its entirety. I know that's bad form, but I can't resist. Or, just go to Balloon Juice and read that, as well as the many other great posts.

When did the 1st Amendment change from basically saying that you can practice whatever religion you want and you won’t be burned at the stake as a heretic and we’re not going to form or recognize a national religion like the Church of England? When did it change to “everyone everywhere has to do what a bunch of old catholics in funny hats wants, because otherwise it hurts their feelings?” And why does it only apply to certain religions?

I seriously wish other religions would get in on the act. I wish Keith Ellison would start sponsoring bills that allow insurers to cut people’s benefits if they don’t pray to Mecca a certain number of times a day. Or someone Jewish proposing a bill requiring circumcisions or you can’t get health insurance. Just flood the zone with bullshit so people can see how out of control our concept of religious liberty has become.

And who gets to decide what religions are real? I’m going to form my own religion, and the central tenets of my religion will be pizza every Friday, the only thing you are allowed to do on Sundays is watch sports, and I am forbidden by my deity to pay taxes. I’ll call it Norquistism. How would the feds react to that? How is my religion any less real than burning bushes, virgin birth, transubstantiation, and the like?

Does no one realize how absurd the Catholic Bishops are behaving? They are attempting, by dictate, to do precisely what the 1st Amendment bans, which is the establishment of a national religion.

It’s obscene. And it is completely political. They are no longer functioning as a religious organization, but as a political party.

This madness has to stop.

Wednesday, February 1, 2012