Putting a bullet to the head of "America": November 8th, 2016

It is as gray and rainy in Northeast Pennsylvania this morning as befits the desolation of my mood. 

I ricochet between slack-jawed paralysis and an outrage that makes bloodless white-knuckled balls of my fists. 

The latter is better.

I reached out my front door to pick up my newspaper, and it occurred to me that I am now afraid of my neighbors. 

I'm afraid, and anyone who values reason should be, of anyone--everyone--who voted for Donald Trump.

They have elected the darling of the white supremacist, the Ku Klux Klan--the idolator of the lynch mob.

They have chosen a war-loving fascist whose "America First!" betokens an country with no place for civil discourse, for dissent, for self-reflection, or for humility.

They have deemed fit for the most powerful office of the land a man who regards half the human population as disposable fuckable toys.

They have chosen to condemn women who'd seek abortions to "some form of punishment" or hemorrhage.
 
They have authorized to speak for us a man who thinks reckless bravado signifies strength, that flag-wrapped warheads demonstrate patriotism, and who dog-whistles the "law and order" of the loaded gun.

They have chosen torture as a legitimate form of negotiation.

They have chosen surveillance, repression, paranoia, and that bitter flavor of institutionalized violence that would as soon eat its own entrails as acknowledge the humanity of "the other."

They have chosen the xenophobic white patriarchy of the "America" of the Commerce Clause, Citizens United, and the Panama Papers.

They have elected to privatize and commodify everything.

They have chosen that polite euphemism called a "trade war," you know--that "deal-making" that will make us nostalgic for the Transpacific Partnership's gentler kinder rape of the developing world.  

They have embraced that stinking religious bigotry that burns down the "other's" place of worship in the name of their vengeful god.

Ironic, they bill themselves as "Constitutionalists," but personify bottomless civic illiteracy.

More ironic, they'll burn down the house that is their own country to "Make America Great, again." 

They cannot tell the difference between a tabloid story about alien abduction and the science of anything-at-all, and they choose the former because it's more salacious. 

Their country is an episode of Jerry Springer: blowing it up is a reasonable solution to boredom.

We'll wring our hands about how this election reflects the "discontent of the hard-working white laboring classes," how the collapse of the manufacturing base has blighted this silent majority, compelling them to vote for change.

Bull shit to that. 

Economic hardship needn't seek scapegoats. It can unionize. It had heroes in decent human beings like Bernie Sanders. And they chose hatred instead.

And this time these folks didn't have to go looking for others to blame: Trump gave to every white man regardless his fortunes license to  invert the facts of history and see himself as a victim--a newly recruited soldier in the Great White Army ready to build The Wall.

Truth is--Trump has grabbed every white male sucker who voted for him by the pussy. But that warm little squeeze will quickly become a stone-cold vice once the euphoria starts to wear off. 

All but the whitest and wealthiest will be fucked. For Donald Trump is a liar of the most cancerous sort. He lies to himself. And then he lies to you. And then you wait for things to get better. They won't. 

That white nationalist may be patting himself on the back this morning,  smacking his wife on the ass and telling her to like it. 

But thinking he's won the lottery isn't going to bring back even one manufacturing job.

It's not going to put more coal in the ground.

It's not going to bring a single multinational corporation to heal. 

Nope. And the turgid greasy resentment he already feels is just going to fester once he figures that out.

Morning in America:

Hate. Crimes.

Rape.

Homophobia.

The militarization of everything.

The celebration of willful ignorance.

The gutting of public education in the name of "choice."

The deterioration of the last thin threads of civil public discourse.

Emergency room healthcare for those who cannot afford to be rimmed by health insurance profiteers.

Elderly folks who die held hostage by pharmaceutical companies.

Indigenous peoples whose lands and artifacts are ground-up by the backhoes of the fossil fuel behemoths.

Photo Wendy Lynne Lee

The continuation of a two-party system that makes a mockery of democracy.  

The debauchery of the United State's Supreme Court.

Global disbelief.


And worst of all:

To elect a megalomaniacal Troglodyte like Donald J. Trump is like hurling a Molotov Cocktail at the planet.

Global warming needs no accelerant.


Wendy Lynne Lee

The Big New Greenwash Governor and the "Environmentalists" Who Sold Us Out

Despite the fact that I won't be looking to solar panel the Lt. Gov's digs in Harrisburg any time soon, I have to say that the incredibly kind messages and comments I received yesterday in support of a Green Party platform was nothing short of a bright burst of sunshine on a politically bleak day.

Thank you. Thank you Thank you. 

I have much to say about last night's expected victory  for the Democrat Tom Wolf--but perhaps the most important, to me anyways, is this:

However much Corbett was a disaster for Pennsylvanians, for education, for social and economic justice, and for the environment--and he surely was--Tom Wolf portends nothing short of an even greater one.

There are at least two compelling reasons why:

1. While Governor Elect Wolf may indeed restore some funding for education, he will do it by robbing Peter to pay Paul. That is, he'll fund education via dollars soaked in the iniquity of gas money--and he'll do it in a fashion that will insure his re-election:

a) Tax the gas industry just enough to make a show of it. The gas thugs will feign distaste--but in fact they'll get everything they want and more.

b)  The "more" are the pipelines. As these have been the frontline in the struggle for clean air and water, so they shall remain, and the gas thugs know that whatever pittance they are forced to cough up in some sham of an extraction or a severance tax, they'll make up for that handsomely once the gas is flowing through high pressure arteries to the LNG export depots.

c) We can count on Wolf to talk--for a minute or so--about "tight regulation." but this will quickly be eclipsed by his work to restore funding to all the agencies and programs that will require that regulation to be effectively nullified. We need to be very clear about this: regulation will reduce the number of dollars Wolf can skim from the gas thugs via his sham tax. Therefore, the pressure to regulate less--and produce more gas to pump through these pipelines-- will be enormous. We will see a pretense to regulation, a smattering bit of hang-wringing to make it look like he cares. But with his other hand, Governor Wolf will be shaking the oil-stained fingers of the gas thugs who will pad his re-election coffers for 2018. 

2. Even more menacing are the Fake Greenie organizations--PennFuture, Food and Water Watch, Berks Gas Truth, Pennsylvania Voters Against Fracking, Pennsylvanians Against Fracking, The Responsible Drilling Alliance, COGENT, Save the Loyalsock Coalition, who--in the interest of insuring their own seats at the table of a Wolf administration--will work tirelessly to reassure us that the governor is not in the back pockets of the gas industry. 

They're already trying--some seem to really believe that they can move Mr. Wolf to a moratorium. But this is willful blindness of the worst sort--and while it might lure some folks into the complacency of believing that everything's gonna be alright, it is precisely that complacency that we cannot afford. 

Indeed, nothing could more endanger the movement to erect community ordinances that demand the recognition of the right to clean air and water than complacency. So if you are willing to settle for the pretext of "alrightness," Wolf and his faux-green advocates like Cindy Dunn of PennFuture or Sam Bernhardt of Food and Water Watch are your people:

"Cindy Dunn of the environmental group PennFuture says her group plans to hold Wolf to his promise.

“When Wolf is sworn in as governor, he will swear to uphold the state constitution, which includes the environmental rights amendment,” said Dunn. “And this is something that I think he will pay attention to.” Dunn’s group supports the 5 percent severance tax, because she says it will raise more money and benefit all Pennsylvanians" (http://stateimpact.npr.org/pennsylvania/2014/11/04/what-wolfs-win-means-for-energy-and-the-environment/).

But if you're not prepared to be fracked and pipelined into ecological oblivion, be prepared to fight.

Dunn's inane comments are a a variety of trying to have your cake and it it too--except that it's not even that since PennFuture knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that Wolf will not advocate for a state moratorium on drilling, is concerned not one iota with the environmental rights amendment beyond its value as a tool for getting re-elected, and will not act in any fashion that will endanger that prospect. 

Moreover, there will be virtually no pressure on him to press for a moratorium since he knows that these fake greenies will vote for him anyways.

Make no mistake about it: 

We will see a pretense to "holding Governor Wolf's feet to the fire." But behind this will be standing to one side the gas companies and to the other the fake greens who cannot be described in any other way--at least honestly--than as effectively colluding with the gas. I say "colluding" because they cannot NOT know better. Nonetheless, they'll also continue to be willing to stand by silently while those of us who have stood on principle instead of political expediency are surveilled, arrested, and demonized as much by them as by the gas thugs.

Governor Elect Tom Wolf does offer us a celebratory cake--but its layers are saturated with drilling waste, its frosting tinged with benzene. 

So when its celebrants offer you a piece, say "no thanks." Then tell them that you value you health, your property, your neighbors, your community, and your climate too much to eat from a banquet laid out in iniquity. 

Then ask them why they sold you out.

America, Inc's newest Corporatizing of a Fundamental Public Good: Education--Inc.

Editor Sachetti’s recent choice for an “education reform” Op-Ed is thin on fact and long on thinly veiled propaganda for America, Inc.’s newest appropriation of a public good: education. “Online schools do more with less” by The Heartland Institute’s Ben Boychuk and Bruno Behrend is a billboard for privatizing public education by replacing it with enterprises that use tax dollars to fund FOR-PROFIT ventures (Think: Phoenix). The “hybrid” examples B&B offer—the Khan Academy, for example—aren’t the schools your children would attend if B&B had their way (unless you’re rich).

In fact, there’d be no PUBLIC education at all, and this is the real message of this editorial.

The Heartland Institute: a rightwing think-tank whose “Tea Party Tool Box” mission is to promote corporate interests (major donors: Big-Tabacco/Big-Energy) and the conversion of public services into for-profits. In addition to denying climate change, opposing all environmental regulation (including clean water laws), and promoting the deregulation of healthcare, Heartland advocates “education reform” that would funnel tax dollars to private schools, including parochial schools.

Setting aside violations of the Establishment Clause, “letting the money follow the child,” and “parental choice” is code for transforming tax dollars into venture capital. As the hybrid examples show, moreover, “privatize” is code for transforming “brick and mortar” into cyberspace, and hence into a caricature of what an excellent educational experience should be.

No doubt, public education in the United States needs to be far better, but the notion that the solution is to privatize and corporatize a fundamental public good, vanquishing the classroom, makes about as much sense as allowing BP, Phillip-Morris, Aetna, the natural gas industry, or Bank of America to regulate themselves. We all know who gets screwed—our kid’s futures.

Privatizing public education is inconsistent with democratic principle: without the pressure of good public education accessible to every child, (a) curriculum will be determined by ideological, religious and/or market demands, and (b) only the wealthy will have the opportunity to become truly educated. Heartland includes pictures of brown kids on their website, but this isn’t because they’re looking to equalize education for the disadvantaged; it’s because they can leverage the fears of economically vulnerable families (and the racism that equates “brown” with “poor”) into accepting an inferior on-line “education” that comes with the false promise of jobs.

Boychuk claims that because the Constitution says nothing explicitly about education, it should be left to the states, that doing so will “empower parents.” Nonsense. He knows tax dollars siphoned away from public schools by edu-corporations will insure their demise, and thus the demise of their unions, the real obstacle to the rise of the edu-industry. He knows that poor kids will be left to the public schools whose languishing revenues will not be able to keep up with America, Inc’s education “market,” a “market” every bit as free as Big-Energy, Big-Box, Big-Bank, Big-Pharma, and Big-Health—that is, it will have us by the proverbial cojones.

No surprise, of course, that Sachetti would choose this editorial—if it opposes education, who cares about motives? But you’d think he’d do better research. Boychuk’s “Constitutionalism” is a lie; he advocates repealing the 14th amendment: “Birthright citizenship, a medieval idea, has no place in our Constitution.” He calls it “wrong and crazy,” revealing his real motives—a nation of citizens selected for their “rightness” for America, that is, for their ability to pay for America Inc’s newest product: education—Inc.

Wendy Lynne Lee
wlee@bloomu.edu (571 words)

1.31.09

To the Editor,

If the creationism/natural selection (NS) “debate’s” interesting, it’s not because there’s any debate here; it’s because what the real debate’s about is who gets to control the production and dissemination of knowledge—who gets to decide what counts as knowledge. Pretenders to an expertise clearly beyond their educations, would-be experts like Terry McAfee and Robert Runyon mimic bits and pieces of scientific-sounding jargon as if putting on academic garb could magically convert them into scientists so accomplished that their “arguments” against NS will prevail over decades of research, argument, and evidence. Responding, for example, to a point I made about NS and xenotransplantation, Runyon claims that if we cannot see evolution occurring—a creature “caught in the act”—it must not be! (www.the-patriot-s-voice.org). But this not only betrays willful ignorance with respect to the mechanisms of NS, it demonstrates a willingness to suspend common sense in order to cling to thread bare conviction. We don’t see the erosion of mountains directly either—but we surely don’t doubt its occurrence.

Runyon then resorts to the one strategy he can count on to have some effect so long as people aren’t really looking—self-righteous fallacy-pumping. He sets up the straw claim that I’m calling him “dumb” as if name-calling would make it magically true that NS is false—as if my being mean lends his position credibility. But I’ve neither said nor implied that he’s “dumb.” He’s not; it’s worse: Runyon’s strategy is a manipulative charade motivated by the arrogant smugness of one who thinks that, having a god in their pocket, that they’re required neither to do the hard work of comprehending alternative explanations of natural phenomena nor examine their own assumptions. Similarly, McAfee’s calling his opponents “Christian-haters” is just one more cynically deployed strategy to distract attention away from the real issues: who controls the content of science education.

And that’s just the point: the world’s McAfees and Runyons aren’t interested in education; it’s not about that. This is about the lengths one religious camp will go to enforce a worldview in direct conflict with the separation of church and state. McAfee, moreover, holds two beliefs that are plainly false: (1) even if NS were falsified (as is a possibility—however unlikely—for ALL scientific hypotheses—such is the very point of testing them), this would not verify creationism. The falsity of one theory is not verification of another; insofar as McAfee can produce no positive evidence, test, or opportunity for falsification for his view, it’s not even a scientific theory. (2) He apparently thinks that what ought to be taught in publicly funded schools is a matter for public decision, as if a “debate” of the merits of NS should determine science curricula—as if knowledge were merely a product of what folks want to be true. Good thing it’s not; after all, astrology, telekinesis, talking to the dead, and alien babies have no place in science education either.

What we’re left to conclude—if we’re honest—is that this “debate’s” not about knowledge; it’s about power. No one’s being kept from believing in gods, goddesses, flying spaghetti monsters, or alien babies. The issue is who gets to say what counts as science, and what counts as good science education. My vote goes to the folks soundly trained in scientific method—not because they’re always right, but because they—utterly unlike McAfee and Runyon—are willing to be wrong. What the creationists don’t get is that “willing to be wrong” doesn’t mean “ready to sign onto superstition,” but rather willing to be guided by the application of well-honed reason to evidence—not a creationist value.

Wendy Lynne Lee
wlee@bloomu.edu

594 words.