A Short Course in the "Logic" of Bigotry--And the Indivisible Will to Take a Stand Against it

Photo, Wendy Lynne Lee, 2.3.17

The following is a comment posted in the regional newspaper, The Press Enterprise, call-in feature "30 Seconds." The caller identifies herself as Evy Lysk--a frequent flier whose anti-Islamic, racist, misogynist bigotry has a long and well-established history:

"Travel ban motovates BU protest. Student calls Trump moves "reminiscent of Nazi Germany." Save yourself and drop out of college Jessa Wood. You have been brain-washed by your liberal professors. I'll tell you who's moves reminiscent of Nazi Germany. It's ISIS. To Professor M. Safa I asked you way back. "Do you support sharia law?" I never did get an answer. Miss Wood ask him is he for Sharia Law. If you don't get an answer then that should tell you he is for it. Sharia law does not give women rights--that law kills women. Miss Wendy, yes wear a hijab, but have it cover you whole face and make America beautiful again. Go Trump!"

Let's analyze Ms. Lysk's comment:

Setting aside the poor grammar, misspellings, and the fact that she does not know Professor Saracoglu's name, Ms. Lysk does offer us an opportunity to sharpen our capacity to detect fallacies, unwarranted assumptions, and very poor logic.

1. Lysk claims that BU Professors are "liberal." But she neither defines what "liberal" means, nor does she offer any evidence other than that BU community members orchestrated a very successful protest, one, in fact, whose numbers were significantly under-reported by the Press Enterprise at 100, when the actual number was far close to 300. She appears to assume that BU professors organized the protest--flatly false--and that BECAUSE they did so, BU students must be "brain-washed." This assumes, of course that BU students are children. False, and that BU professors have some sort of magical "brain-washing" power. False. BU students organized this action--with very little time and to very powerful effect. They should be applauded for their initiative and discipline. BU is fortunate indeed to have such thoughtful and committed student citizens.

Photo, Wendy Lynne Lee, 2.3.17

2. While not bothering to check his correct name, Lysk refers to BU history Professor Safa Saracoglu as a defender of Sharia Law. But like "liberal," she fails to define what that means---she simply assumes we all know it's bad. To be clear, I am neither defending nor decrying Sharia Law--but it is question-begging to assume your audience knows and understands to what you're referring without any additional definition or clarification. The overwhelming likelihood is that, given Ms. Lysk's past history and references, she is appealing to a far right wing website like Infowars or NewsMax--neither of which are remotely credible sources for, well, anything.

3. Lysk commits fallacy of appeal to ignorance: She claims that because professor Safa Saracogluu did not answer her very likely loaded question about Sharia Law, that this means he supports it. But no such conclusion follows--and absence of evidence (his not providing an answer) is NOT EVER evidence for some other claim (such as, he supports Sharia Law). This is simply Lysk's way of making an accusation for which she has no evidence whatever--and it assumes a definition of Sharia she has not provided. In short: Lysk set a trap, and Professor Saracoglu didn't take her bait.

4. She then claims that Sharia Law "does not give women rights." But rights are NOT given. Rights are recognized, and Ms Lysk's own view of women's rights is made clear in the very next line where she refuses to address me as Professor Lee--a fact she has been aware of for at least 15 years. Indeed she does refer to "Professor Safa," but not to "Professor Lee." This makes very clear her own patent sexism, a fact confirmed by her claim that I should wear a hijab to cover my "whole face." In other words, I'm a legitimate target for ridicule because, according to Lysk, I'm an ugly woman--one not deserving of the recognition of human rights. This, of course, is ad hominem: attack the person instead of their argument--and it is the common recourse of the assailant who has nothing else to offer in defense of their claim.

Photo, Wendy Lynne Lee 1.3.17

Lastly, it's very unclear what Lysk's claim is other than "Go Trump!" But that's not a claim--it's just an exclamation, one as groundless as her comment.

Nonetheless, this is precisely the kind of frenzied, irrational, and bigoted fodder that far right supremacist groups like this one feeds on. 

White Nationalist Recruitment Posters Reported on Kutztown University Campus as Part of National Campaign | Raging Chicken Press

The point is not merely that Lysk is a racist and sexist bigot--she makes that clear on many occasions in 30 Seconds. The point is that she knows she has an audience for this horse-pucky--and that audience put a fascist into the White House.

That audience would ban Muslims from entering the United States because they are Muslims--and it has a president who will utilize every nefarious means at his disposal to fulfill that promise.

That audience holds that the drowned child of the Syrian refugee is less valuable than the child of a wealthy white real estate mogul.

That audience will remain silent as the new president makes it impossible for citizens to know whether their new puppies came from puppy mills.

That audience will allow the president to sell off the country's national parks as private drilling sites to his cronies.

That audience thinks reservations are the natural condition of Native Americans, and would just as soon see the bravery and citizenship personified in the siege at Standing Rock crushed as give up driving their Jimmies.

That audience confirmed the far-right charlatan and donor Betsy DeVos for education czar, a religious ideologue poised to destroy public education and use tax dollars to rape the separation of church and state. DeVos is more concerned about Grizzlies attacking classrooms than she is about whether children become literate. Come to think of it--far better for the Trumpledites that we remain illiterate and ignorant. That's what makes DeVos perfect for education secretary.

That audience celebrates ignorance as a virtue.

That audience silenced Elizabeth Warren for daring to read a letter written by Coretta Scott King that lays out the bigotry of Jeff Sessions who, if confirmed as Attorney General of the United States, is likely to preside over the most racist and repressive voting restrictions the country has ever seen.

That audience would foul its water and air beyond reclamation in order to deny climate change.

That audience mouths "Energy Independence" and "jobs" as if these were magic-bean words--even after the evidence is made clear to them that hydrocarbon exports will weaken national security.

That audience made a CEO of Exxon-Mobil and "Friend of Putin" its Secretary of State.

That audience would rather be ruled by the autocracy/kleptocracy of a psycho-maniacal child-king via Twitter than do the hard work of actually being citizens.

That audience would allow the complete militarization of the police--making our communities effective fiefdoms of martial law.

That audience mistakes power for justice--at the absolute peril of the latter and the ultimate self-defeat of the former.

I could of course go on. But this is surely sufficient to show how important it is we remain not merely vigilant but insurgent against this tyranny.

Perhaps Lysk thinks a desiccated environment dominated by uber-wealthy white guys is a suitable life.

I do not.

And I will resist the violent illogic of the Trumpledite Autocracy until that moment sanity returns to our civic discourse and to our country.

Wendy Lynne Lee


For more photographs of the inaugural Indivisible action at Bloomsburg University, please see:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/wendylynnelee/albums/72157679824860996

Williams Production Appalachia comes to Columbia County: An Environmental Disaster, and not just for Surgarloaf Township

To the editor,

The PE headline, ‘Fracking comes to area” hardly captures what’s coming to Columbia County now that Williams Production Appalachia (WPA) has struck gas “gold.” Let’s not speculate about the pollution threatening our wells, streams, and the Susquehanna River, the millions of gallons of water required for fracturing which will drain our rivers and creeks, further concentrating its carcinogens, the destruction of our roads, the 24/7 noise, congestion, and safety hazards produced by drilling operations and truck traffic, or that neither the gas nor the profits are destined for Pennsylvania. Let’s examine the facts:

1. The Citizen’s Voice reports that WPA is “poised to become a major player.” In fact, WPA’s spokesperson Helen Humphreys is lying to Sugarloaf Township residents. She claims WPA is “still ‘trying to determine how much gas might be in the rock formation.’” False: “State Department of Environmental Protection records show Williams has recently been issued two gas well permits for Benton and one for Sugarloaf Township in Columbia County… ‘Our plan is to develop those properties, that is, drill on those properties," Williams spokesman Jeff Pounds said…’” WPA leased 45,000 acres, mostly in Pennsylvania, paying $501 million, and added 10,00 acres in Columbia County—paying only $2,800 an acre. WPA effectively owns the PA State Game Commission who, economically strapped, continues to lease more land to the corporation in Bradford and Lycoming County. WPA owns the Gulfstream, Northwest, and Transco Pipelines—none of which deliver to Pennsylvania, and two of which deliver out of the country—raising the price of natural gas in Pennsylvania.

2. The Buffalo News reports that since 2008, “Marcellus Shale drillers in Pennsylvania amass[ed] 1614 violations,” “1056 identified as most likely to harm the environment.” WPA ranks at #11 of the 26 top violators: 32 violations/seven wells. A comparatively small operation compared to Chesapeake Appalachia (149 violations/190 wells) or Cabot Oil and Gas (93 violations/73 wells), yet 32/7 makes WPA not only a major player, but a major environmental violator. WPA’s average violation per well is 4.6, #6 of 26—well behind Cabot. Chesapeake doesn’t even make the top 26. Moreover, WPA is listed among the 55% of all gas corporations in Pennsylvania failing to meet production-reporting deadlines in 2010. Specific violations include: “Site conditions present a potential for pollution to waters of the Commonwealth,” “Pit and tanks not constructed with sufficient capacity to contain pollutional substances,” “Failure to properly store, transport, process or dispose of a residual waste,” “Failure to notify DEP of pollution incident,” and that’s just Franklin Township.


3. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 exempts BIG GAS from regulation under the Safe Drinking Water Act. “[S]hale gas drillers don’t have to disclose what chemicals they use.” Nonetheless, “fracking has already been linked to drinking water contamination and property damage in Colorado, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wyoming.” Of the 29 common fracking chemicals 13 are known carcinogens, 8 are regulated under the Safe Drinking Water Act, and 24 are hazardous air pollutants. Examples: methanol, formaldehyde, naphthalene, benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene xylene, lead, hydrogen chloride, ethylene glycol, 2-butoxyethanol, and diesel which, according to the EPA “poses the greatest threat to underground sources of drinking water.”

Sugarloaf Township could become the next Dimmock whose aquifer is so polluted that “one woman's water well spontaneously combusted, and horses and pets mysteriously began to lose their hair,” not to mention the obliterated property values of folks who’d like to sell their homes and move. Trouble is, some residents have already sold out. Bigger trouble is that we’re all going to pay for the environmental tsunami that’s coming if we don’t stand up NOW.


Wendy Lynne Lee
wlee@bloomu.edu

598 words

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)

How To Set-Up a Smear Shot, or What the Liber-Tea Party Shouldn't Have Been About

To the editor,

Less vitriolic than last year’s event, The Patriot’s Voice Liber-Tea party offered few thrills to PE reporters. Speakers spouted platitudes against “Obamacare,” and “out of control” government to a crowd of folks many of whom sat quietly in their hypocrisy—enjoying a beautiful park supported by taxes they don’t want to pay, returning home to health-care benefits they’d deny to others.

There were, however, stories to be told—just not those the PE wants its audience to hear. In her PE-letter (4.8.10), PV-Lysk writes that she “will keep an American flag” just for me—a letter in which she exploits the fact that I am a domestic violence survivor in order to imply that, because the abuser was Mormon, I am biased against Mormons, and that this informs my criticism of the PV’s association with the John Birch Society (Cleon Skousen and Glen Beck are Mormons). The claim is absurd, and we must consider what sort of person it is who’d exploit domestic battery to score political capital. Ms. Lysk cannot refute my claims (letter, 4.6) concerning the PV-mission. I quoted the website directly, and let Lysk speak for herself through her blog posts. All she’s got is character assassination.

This aside, what Ms. Lysk offered me in the park was not the American flag. Rather, it was bait disguised as the flag to score political capital for a picture obviously set-up by the Press Enterprise. Her “offering” was a calculated exploitation of the flag to smear an opponent, an example of the lengths to which the PV—and the Press Enterprise—will go to humiliate their critics. I was taking notes, and saw neither Ms. Lysk nor the photographer. Ms. Lysk claims that “[o]ur knees bumped slightly” (on WHLM, she says she bumped me accidentally with the flag stick). She is lying in both cases. She poked me with the flag-stick—twice—derisively calling me “Miss Wendy.” I said “Don’t touch me,” not yet realizing as I turned to Ms. Lysk—who was giggling as she skeetered away—that a PE photographer just ”happened” to be stationed right there to snap a picture. Friend and witness Jay Nixon asked the photographer whether the picture was set up. She denied it—but it cannot be otherwise. I asked whether I would be interviewed for this incident or the Tea Party generally; the photographer insisted that Mr. Bogdon would be over soon. I waited 2 ½ hours. He never materialized—but ran the story anyways. This is unconscionable. In a phone message response to my call the next morning, he insists that he intended to follow up. He didn’t. Instead, he included false material in a story set-up by the PE whose loaded caption is ”Outspoken liberal.”

Two issues: (1) a monopoly newspaper that colludes with the extreme theocratic right to smear a critic; (2) the extent to which fabricated “events” distract us from the real issues. The applause for “Patrick Henry’s” promotion of secession, June McWilliam’s praise for the racist Minutemen, William Reil’s insistence on the “Biblical Law” of the Constitution, James Bridge’s reference to Obama as a “Communist,” or Debra Smith’s incoherent rant about how, since she had healthcare during a “medical mess,” we ought not reform healthcare to make her access available to others—all of these were missed in favor of setting up a smear-shot—and then telling a story that’s not only a lie but was clearly intended to impugn the patriotism of someone who so obviously loves her country that not even this set-up can silence her.

Wendy Lynne Lee
wlee@bloomu.edu

592 words

A Spring Liber-Tea Party: The Patriot's Voice Latest Venture into the Far-Right

On April 10th, 2010. the Patriot’s Voice will hold their second Liber-Tea party in Bloomsburg Town Park. They have every right to conduct such a gathering, sponsor speakers, and have vendors.

Last year the gathering included a vendor selling Confederate Flags, and while PV “CEOs” Evy Lysk and Robert Runyon denied that they invited the vendor, the vendor knew where to find buying customers.

That was last year. Let’s take a look at what the PV stand for this year:

*In his 3.21 Op-Ed, Runyon waxes nostalgic for the good old days before the civil rights movement, promotes a nationalist theocracy, and insists that education “dumbs down” children.

*The PV-website’s “Special Bulletin” promotes the John Birch Society (The National Center for Constitutional Studies), and one of its fellow travelers Cleon Skousen: “A 1962 FBI memo described Skousen as affiliating with an "extreme right-wing" group which was promoting ‘anticommunism for obvious financial purposes.’ Skousen authored a pamphlet titled The Communist Attack on the John Birch Society, characterizing criticism of the Society as incipient communism” (Wikipedia).

As is well-documented, the JBS is simply a better-dressed version of the Klu Klux Klan. No wonder the Confederate Flag Vendor felt at home last year.

*The website calls Obama the “post-American president.” In a section of “Obama-Nation” titled “The coming battle,” they claim that Obama supports the end of marriage/family, and that he seeks to erect a one world government. Democrats are all socialists—and socialists are all evil.

*Evy Lysk calls “comrade Obama” a closet Muslim,” and insists “he appointed Communists, haters of white people, and socialist czars.” She claims his plan is to “delete” our nuclear arsenal, erect a “one world government,” “rid us” of patriotism and religion, and that he “hates America.” So sure is Lysk of her view she repeats it on www.resistnet.com and nowewont.ning.com. Last year she sported a placard promoting Glenn Beck—who recently hosted the JBS Sam Antonio on his FOX program. Beck promotes Skousen’s nationalistic screed, The 5000 Year Leap: “Skousen was too extreme even for the conservative activists of the Goldwater era, but Glenn Beck has now rescued him from the remainder pile of history, and introduced him to a receptive new audience” (www.salon.com).

*Last year’s Tea Party included speakers who called for the expulsion of gays from the country and claimed that the scourge of the nation were women who’d had abortions.

People applauded the death of Michael Jackson.

The Press Enterprise characterized the gathering as a peaceful assembly of anti-tax advocates.

What the Patriot’s Voice stands for is a matter of public record; it’s neither political conservatism nor libertarianism. The vast majority of Republicans don’t want to be associated with the patent racism, homophobia, fear-mongering and character assassination the PV deploys against its critics.

Here’s the question: Are these the views their speakers wish to be associated with? Or did Sam Rohrer, Peg Luksik, Lou Barletta, and Bloomsburg University’s Young Americans for Liberty, among others, not do their homework? The latter’s inexcusable—the PV mission is wholly accessible.

The Patriot’s Voice is no more the voice of conservatives than of liberals.

It IS the voice of xenophobic nationalism, racism, and a vision of Christianity closer to that of the Hutaree Militia than to any Christianity worthy of the name.

It’s supremely ironic that they plan to utilize a public space supported by tax dollars—to argue for the end of taxation—and their first amendment rights—to argue for the repression of liberty for all those who don’t fit their narrow vision of a patriot—or even a citizen.

Wendy Lynne Lee
wlee@bloomu.edu

594 words

A Case Study in the Forfeiture of Journalistic Intergrity: The Press Enterprise's Jim Sachetti

To the editor,


Were there any doubt that Jim Sachetti should be replaced as PE-Editor, that is now settled. The publishing of Carter Clews’ misleading, racist “Barack Hussein Obama” tirade concerning the Fort Hood massacre leaves no room to speculate on Sachetti’s editorial irresponsibility.

Clews’ claim that Obama “soft-peddles” on Islamic terrorism is false. Obama, 7.25.08, Berlin: “This is the moment when we must renew our resolve to rout the terrorists who threaten our security in Afghanistan…The Afghan people need our troops and your troops; our support and your support to defeat the Taliban and Al Qaeda…We have too much at stake to turn back now.” What Carter really means is that anyone who opposed invading Iraq, rejects the “Bush Doctrine,” or is circumspect about whether sending more troops to Afghanistan is a good idea, amount to “soft-peddlers.”

Despite Carter’s denials, the history of immigration in the U.S. includes a “dark underbelly”; the sacrifice of ethnic and religious diversity, including the 4,000 Muslim soldiers serving in the U.S. military, would be a tragedy. But this doesn’t prevent Carter, and now Sachetti, from fanning the flames of bigotry. Indeed, for those looking for an excuse to spew anti-Islamic hatred in the interest of promoting their own religious agenda, Hasan is a gift.

Clews deliberately conflates terrorizing actions with the motives of a terrorist. That Hasan’s rampage was horrific and inexcusable is clear—and he will be prosecuted accordingly. However, that he saw the war on terror to be anti-Islamic or that he attended services at a mosque whose Iman held Anti-American views (how does Clews know Hasan listened with “rapt attention”?) does not meet the criteria for what counts as a terrorist according to U.S. law: “premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents (U.S. Code, Title 22, Ch. 38, para. 2656f(d)).

There is no evidence that Hasan belonged to such a group; neither his mosque attendance or the people with whom he communicated demonstrates this. There’s no evidence that his actions were politically motivated; showing this requires evidence that Hasan was directed not merely by his apparent antipathy, but by an ideology he shared with others with whom he had planned the attack. There is copious evidence that Hasan suffered from psychopathology that went untreated, and while this is no excuse, it raises important questions that will remain unanswered while we busy ourselves barking up the wrong tree.

Americans for Limited Government is a fake grassroots “protest” group funded by real estate mogul Howard Rich; Clews is one of it charlatans. Clews has a colorful history: 1984, involved in the bribing of a “Spanish legislator believed to be working on energy legislation” benefitting a front corporation, Gray and Company, for which Clews was the primary lobbyist; 1985, Set up a PR firm called the Nicaraguan Refugee Fund that was directly involved in the Reagan administration’s “covert operations to supply the contras in violation of legislation passed by Congress”; 1985, “did the promotion and publicity for the World Anti-Communist League,” a fellow-traveler of the John Birch Society and associated with “assassinations, death squads, and sabotage”; 2003, sets up Laptoplobbyist.com for the Christian Coalition featuring “angry right-wing polemics aimed at stirring up visitors to send fax messages to …politicians it has selected.”

So why would Sachetti waste Op-Ed space on Clews? Is he too lazy to check out his sources? Does he agree with Clews’ ALG/JBS/WACL worldview? Will he just do anything to sell papers? The Op-Ed page IS for opinions. But surely this doesn’t mean that any syndicated pundit’s racist trash goes—unless, apparently, you’re Jim Sachetti.


Wendy Lynne Lee
wlee@bloomu.edu

599 words

It's not about "Socialism," It's About Racism

8.13.09

To the Editor,

I read with despair John-Eric Koslosky’s PE-article about the Socrates’ Café discussion over whether “socialism” is a “dirty word.” It has become so—despite the fact that much of what’s essential to our republic is socialized. How many of us could make intelligent election-decisions without public education? Where would many elderly, ill, intellectually disabled, or poor families be without Medicaid, Medicare, or Social Security? What about public libraries, roads, parks, CHIP? Would we enjoy even some protection against corporate greed, pollution, and labor-exploitation without government regulation?

Would Thomas Jefferson’s claim that “though the will of the majority in all cases is to prevail…the minority possess their equal rights, which equal laws must protect, and to violate would be oppression” be realizable without the equal representation that defines socialism’s inherently democratic character?

The answer’s “no.”

Yet we’re apparently so comfortable taking for granted the benefits of socialism that we pretend that they’re gifts from God or features of nature. However loudly Patriot’s Voice members insist that it’s an “excuse ideology,” or that the founders would have rejected these essential institutions, that the PV had a town park for their party is a benefit of “a political system in which the means of production are controlled by the people and operated according to equity and fairness rather than market principles,” AKA: SOCIALISM (Encarta). Could they have hosted the party at a privately owned park? Only if its owner were a Confederate Flag vendor or Cleon Skousen, “one of the legendary cranks of the conservative world, a John Bircher, a grand fanaticist…about secret conspiracies…to impose a one world government” (www.salon.com, 3.17.09)—and writer of “The 5000 Year Leap,” Runyon’s gift to Mayor Knorr.

So what drives the fanatical-right to call Obama’s health care plan “socialist”? NONE of their claims are true, and many are crazy fear-mongering nonsense. FALSE: that the plan includes euthanasia, “death panels,” rationing, diminished access for veterans, disadvantage for small businesses, forcing people to forfeit insurance, or that the HNN1 vaccine’s an extermination conspiracy.

It’s FALSE that “medical research…would become political.” Indeed, it’s refreshing to have an administration that finally takes science seriously and understands that the foundation of a democracy is its PEOPLE, not the profits of its Blackwater, etc. cronies.

Health care isn’t a commodity like a car or a house because health is not merely something desirable; it’s a necessary condition for the exercise of our human rights, hence health care must be accounted among the most basic of these.

The far right’s opposition to health care reform isn’t, in fact, about health care. It’s about Obama and the willingness to resort to ANY strategy to weaken him.

Why?

Obama’s black.

Substitute “black” for “socialist” and you’ve the truth about the Tea Parties, the “Birthers,” the corporate-sponsored town hall harangues, Palin’s psychotic “tweets,” and Glenn Beck’s Neo-Birchers. This isn’t to say you can’t disagree with Obama without being a racist.

I do.

I think we should go single-payer and get the insurance/pharmaceutical vultures out of health care entirely. The least we can do is provide a public option, and a little competition for those 46 million uninsured Americans.

The current “controversy” isn’t for a minute about “free” markets, Constitutions—or the dangers of “socialism.” It’s about FOX-and-friends “real” American: White, far-right, and nationalistic; it’s about how desperate Republicans are to regain power.

The Neo-Birchean tea-baggers would rather let people suffer from lack of access to a doctor than have a black president in the Whitehouse. But they wouldn’t for a second give up their own health insurance or Social Security.

Hypocrites all.

Wendy Lynne Lee
wlee@bloomu.edu
595 words.

The Patriot's Voice Tea Party: A Case Study in Hate Speech

Dear Mr. Sachetti,

This is not a letter to the editor.

It is an attempt to correct Michael Lester's tepid account of the Patriot's Voice Tea Party on July 4th at the Bloomsburg Town Park. I have no issue with Mr. Lester; however, his account seriously under-represents--and hence misrepresents--the speech and actions of the Tea Party participants. This record needs to be corrected, and it needs to be corrected publicly.

I attended the Tea Party from 1:30-2:50.

I took careful notes.

A friend was with me and, while I cannot of course speak to his interpretation of these events, he can vouch for the fact that I was there, that I took notes, and that I was approached by two Patriot's Voice members. Here are the events that took place at the podium:

1. Al Togno, self-identified speaker, claimed that without belief in a creator there could be no democracy--and that therefore atheists (as in the far past) ought not to be allowed to testify in courts. (applause)

2. Anonymous Speaker 1: refers to the Obama administration as a "gang." (applause)

3. Robert Runyon (especially rambling): The only moral government is based on natural law, handed down by God, whose specific aims are to realize God's plan on Earth. Without this God, there can be no government. (applause)

4. Anonymous Speaker 2: Identifies Obama with the Communist Party (repeatedly), referring to "Barack Hussein Obama." calls Obama a "Muslim Appeaser," and calls the Democrat Party "Socialists." (loud applause)

5. Anonymous Speaker 3: "The U.N. wants to disarm all people."

6. Robert Runyon thanks "his adversary Wendy Lynne Lee for coming and taking notes." (Laughter; crowd turns to stare, several boo).

7. Anonymous Speaker 4: claims that what's "wrong with America" is not the economy, but "homosexuality," that such persons must be "made to repent," and that "we must all come to repent...It is my desire to see people saved." (applause)

8. Anonymous Speaker 5: "All my news is from FOX." (loud applause)

9. Anonymous Speaker 6: "Republicans have failed because they have turned away from the Bible." (applause)

10. Anonymous Speaker 7: "Obama is good news because we're going to soon be raptured up." (applause)

11. Anonymous Speaker 8: "I want to talk about a delicate subject, abortion." The speaker then went onto deride Dr. Tiller as a "baby-killer." Claimed that "the media is controlled by liberals," and that what's coming is the "euthanasia of the elderly." (loud applause)

12. Anonymous Speaker 9: Claims that "Barack Hussein Obama is proud of his Muslim heritage," calls Michael Jackson a "pervert," implies that he's is glad that Jackson is dead, and claims a crowd in attendance of 200 people. I counted at that point, and the number was definitely not more than 70 (2:40). (very loud applause--despite dwindling audience)

Could the evidence of racism and religious bigotry really be any clearer?

There is no religious litmus test in the United States for becoming president, but what this speaker clearly implied is that if Obama were Muslim, this disqualifies him tout court.

Michael Jackson was acquitted for lack of evidence.

Could the evidence of bigotry towards homosexuals be clearer than in anonymous speaker 7's remarks (for which he received significant applause)?

Conservatives are not necessarily either homophobes or bigots. This was not an exercise in conservatism. It was an exercise in hate speech--protected by the 1st amendment, but as hateful, and as consistently hateful, as Kurt Smith mentions to Lester. Part of what I am trying to make clear here is that this speech characterizes ALL of the remarks made by the speakers at this event.

Patriot's Voice members can respond that they are not responsible for the specific remarks of the people they encourage to step up to the microphone.

But indeed they are.

This was their sponsored event; they applauded the speaker's remarks; they actively and repeatedly encouraged this group of speakers to "come forward" The passed around a petition to "fire" Arlen Spectre. They flew the Confederate flag directly next to the American flag. Could any African American person really feel comfortable at this event? A Jewish person? A gay person?

There are many African American, Jewish, and gay conservatives--they were not represented at this Tea Party.

Did Mr. Lester ask Mr. Runyon for proof that an invitation to Alan Keyes had been accepted? Perhaps it had--but it is unlikely in the extreme given that Keyes is a nationally known speaker who can command a significant speaker fee. Mr. Keyes could have offerred to do the event for free--but, again, hihgly unlikely. If the Patriot's Voice has access to this sort of revenue, they ought to file with the IRS--and it is highly unlikely that they either have such access or have so filed.

During the event, Evy Lysk walked directly up the the picnic table where Jay and I were sitting (we approached no one at any time before, during, or after the event), and took my picture (she did not ask permission). She called me "Miss Wendy." She told me to smile because it was Independence Day. I responded that her actions were not something to smile about. She laughed. I am sure this doesn't seem like a significant event, but the intent was clearly to intimidate.

What if they post that picture on their website along with the sort of language they routinely use to describe me in 30 Seconds? What if they post it on Facebook where Runyon remarks: "We are having a 4th of July Tea Party at the town park of Bloomsburg beginning at 12:00 noon till 4:00pm. This promises to be Memorable as we have an ahtiest, lesbian professor who wishes time to counter our party as she deems us as haters and homophobes. Come join the fun" (www.facebook.com/pages/The-9-12-Project-Pennsylvania-Chapter/57461030678). What was the point of this action? An event scrapbook?

No.

Along with another picture and text already available on their website (posted 4.9.09), their aims are hardly consistent with the first amendment rights professed by conservatives and liberals alike. Their aim is to encourage precisely more of the hate speech to which I was a witness at this event.

Lastly, Kathy Wells approached me and said "I hate your articles in the newspaper." She turned to walk away, but then turned again towards me and said that she "didn't hate me," but that "she felt sorry for me," and then she repeated that she "hated my PE articles." I did not respond to Ms. Wells.

Let me be very clear: I am in no way suggesting that this gathering should not have taken place. This was an exercise in the right to free speech, and I applaud that. But it is the responsibility of the PE to report on the events accurately.

I am also not suggesting that any of these events were in any important way about me. I do, however, represent (whether accurately or otherwise) much of what they regularly demonize, and as the hateful and bigoted remarks of the attendees demonstrate, I--among millions of others--am not included in their America.

Again, this is not conservatism.

One can oppose the stimulus plan without identifying it as the product of a Muslim/Communist/Socialist conspiracy. One can object to the policies of the Obama administration without resorting to the incendiary language of "Barack Hussein Obama." One can be a conservative without insisting that ONLY a Christian nation can be composed of a free people (and this is a logical contradiction). Many conservatives, moreover, have little to say in support of the hero of this event, Glenn Beck.

I would be happy to talk to Mr. Lester further about this, and what I have posted here is a complete account of my notes. Had I access to Mr. Lester's email address, I would gladly have included him in this missive. This was not simply another Independence Day event like the Millville parade or the fireworks display. To report it as if it were misrepresents its meaning.

Thank you for attending to this matter.

Wendy Lynne Lee
wlee@bloomu.edu

Why the First Amendment to the United States Constitution is so Important

*The following is a response to the Press Enterprise Editor, Jim Sachetti's threat to banish me from posting remarks on local and national issues. My aim in posting it here is to reiterate the point that until progressive change comes to small towns like mine--Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania--it cannot endure anywhere.

w


6.25.09

To the Editor,

Is it possible to condone an act of violence, even murder, through inaction? Through words that cry foul, but in fact excuse? Yes. Few who condoned the Ramirez murder used words like “his death’s OK with me.” But as the meaningless sentence, lack of local outcry for justice, and comments that begin in faux-condemnation but quickly give way to a “BUT, he had it coming,” show, it’s not NOT OK to murder undocumented workers.

As I point out in 30 Seconds (6.26), this same condoning posture informs J. Pushinaitis’ 6.20 O-Ed remarks concerning late term abortion.

Pushinaitis: “Dr. Tiller killed 60,000 babies with a saline-filled syringe,” and “not one word uttered by [Bruce] Rockwood to impose syringe controls, but instead he chooses to clamor over gun control.” Pushinaitis’ point is that while we ought to repudiate LTA, we ought not to regulate gun-ownership. He offers no defense of the assumption that LTA is murder—and none to support unregulated gun ownership. One’s evil, the other good; end of story.

There is much to be said about the gun ownership side of this strained analogy, but my aim is to concentrate on the subject of Sachetti’s “challenge,” or rather threat to banish me from 30 Seconds for claiming that Pushinaitis condones the murder of Dr. Tiller.

Pushinaitis’ assumptions: (a) although LTA comprises fewer than 1% of abortions, and (b) is performed to save the mother’s life/health and/or to prevent suffering for a hopelessly damaged fetus, that if (c) LTA nonetheless constitutes murder then (d) the fetus’ life-value outweighs the mother’s. It should thus be banned regardless the consequences for the mother. Given that ignorance of the facts is no excuse, “P. denies that women have an equal right to life/health.”

Pushinaitis thus condones Tiller’s murder on two grounds: first, in inciting public outcry against abortion, the “baby-killer” rhetoric fosters callousness towards the lives of doctors who perform them. We turn away, and say to ourselves, ‘Well, I didn’t kill him, BUT he had it coming.” Second, why else refer to Tiller only in the context of “baby-killing” except to imply that his murder embodies a certain justice—that Tiller deserved to be murdered?

Editor Sachetti claims my response to Pushinaitis is unjust, and challenges me to defend it on threat of banishment. Done. But isn’t this strange for someone who claims not only to be committed to free speech, but who publishes comments that border on libel? I neither impugn Pushinatis’ character nor slander him, yet not a day transpires that Sachetti doesn’t publish personal and professional assault aimed at me.

Does he forget that in 2007 he printed numerous false, potentially libelous, claims about my divorce, all without comment? In fact, although he had access to the evidence, he silently condoned this defamation and even defended the assassination of my character (October-December, 2007). I’ve never requested anyone’s banishment.

I BELIEVE in free speech.

But if it applies only to those whom Sachetti favors, it’s not freedom, not even for those who applaud his challenge. They’re in fact the biggest dupes of all in Sachetti’s game of “up the stakes.”

Perhaps 30 Seconds is really the Truman Show, its contributors unwitting sit-com actors. Maybe the show was getting dull for Sachetti, and he needed to ratchet up the anger at one of its antagonists. We’re about to find out—and it applies to us all. Will it matter that I’ve met the challenge? Probably not. Were Sachetti committed to free speech, he would never have leveled it.

Your move, Mr. Sachetti. Who’s next?

Wendy Lynne Lee

592 words.

Race-Baiting and the Far Right: The Obscene Assault on Barack Obama

It’s both astonishing and telling that among the questions far-right pundits like Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, Don Feder, David Horowitz, and Ann Coulter fail to ask about Barack Obama’s pastor Jeremiah Wright is whether Wright isn’t in fact right with respect to some of his claims about race relations in America.

So preoccupied with the opportunity to reign in Obama’s popularity through guilt by association, so stupified with indignance at the suggestion that African Americans still face racism in “our” America, so thrilled at the possibility that McCain could beat Clinton if she’s the democratic nominee, these self-appointed profits of righteousness are tripping over each other to trash Obama.

It doesn’t matter to the pundits whether Wright’s claims are true; all they needed to be was critical of the government, or of five years in Iraq, or of the ever-widening gap between the wealthy and the poor—all they needed to be was about the racial divide that still exists in America—and it was as if they’d been handed a noose. Ugly image? You bet; as ugly as it’s true.

More than merely reprehensible, the glee with which the far right has participated in this political lynching reveals just how opportunistic the conservative-controlled media like FOX “news” really is. And worse: their remarks exemplify the very bigotry which accrues to the willful forgetting of history in the interest of insisting that the playing field has been leveled. They know it’s not, and they know we needn’t return to slavery to substantiate it—the Bush Administration’s tardy and inadequate response to Hurricane Katrina’s quite convincing. Perhaps the pundits need to think that they’re victims of “reverse discrimination” to preserve the myth of their own entitlement. What’s certain is that when Sean Hannity implies that an Obama presidency is tantamount to having the Black Panther Party in the White House, he’s race-baiting.

No doubt, some of Wright’s claims are false; the Reagan administration, for example, surely lacked the competence to have created the AIDS virus to commit genocide. But the falsity of some of Wright’s claims is not the discrediting of them all, and we need look little further than our own local paper’s 30 Seconds to discover, for example, the ease with which a middle name can be deployed as a weapon when the candidate’s a black man.

It’s no accident that the firestorm over Wright comes on the brink of the Pennsylvania primary, but it’s hypocrisy at its most loathsome. John McCain accepts the endorsement of John Hagee who claims, among other absurdities, that Katrina was God’s punishment for sexual sin in New Orleans and that it’s a mandate of Islam to kill Christians (www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/02/28/hagee/index). Why aren’t the pundits condemning McCain? Is Hagee’s hateful god their god? Is it irrelevant whether Wright speaks truth to justice so long as the party of war, government corporatism, and religious fascism remains in power?

Whoever your candidate come April 22nd, Obama’s eloquent response to this calculated assault on his character exemplifies not what a Hagee or Coulter would do, but rather what a Jesus would do, namely, decency. Rising above the race-baiting, Obama spoke of his church’s ministry to the poor; he spoke as if we cared about justice; he spoke of his family, his pastor, his country. Obama knows as well as do his critics that what he represents is an America whose face isn’t one color, one religion, one language, one sex, and this must scare the “begeebers” out of those who think they’re discriminated against when they don’t get to have it all.

Wendy Lynne Lee
wlee@bloomu.edu