Mitt Romney says U.S. is “only inches away from ceasing to be a free market economy.”

The U.S. ranked ninth out of 179 nations on the list, with a score that placed it near the top of the “mostly free” category. The only nations to be considered more “free” than the U.S. were, in descending order, Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland, Canada, Ireland, and Denmark.

If the results of this study — which, we’ll remind readers, was produced by a staunchly conservative think tank — suggest that the U.S. is on the verge of socialism, then Lenin must be partying in his mauseoleum. For the U.S. to fall into the “mostly unfree” category, which is only the third-lowest category in the study, it would have to drop a whopping 83 slots, to a perch below such nations as Albania, Rwanda and Kazakhstan.

A reminder about what Ron Paul has said about religion:

The Founding Fathers envisioned a robustly Christian yet religiously tolerant America, with churches serving as vital institutions that would eclipse the state in importance.

It’s all a big fucking mess. Two untenable ideas going at it – fundamentalist free marketers vs. fundamentalist Christians, both with corrupt interpretations of their particular dogma. And I’ll call bullshit on Ayn Rand saying she’s created a reality “not based on faith.” Objectivism is totally faith-based, with herself as the Christ figure. She’s just another L. Ron Hubbard.

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Perhaps lost in the Wisconsin shuffle is the story of what exactly is happening in Michigan. Newly elected Republican governor, Rick Snyder, is set to pass one of the most sweeping, anti-democratic pieces of legislation in the country – and almost no one is talking about it.

Snyder’s law gives the state government the power not only to break up unions, but to dissolve entire local governments and place appointed “Emergency Managers” in their stead. But that’s not all – whole cities could be eliminated if Emergency Managers and the governor choose to do so. And Snyder can fire elected officials unilaterally, without any input from voters. It doesn’t get much more anti-Democratic than that.

Except it does. The governor simply has to declare a financial emergency to invoke these powers – or he can hire a private company to declare financial emergency and take over oversight of the city. That’s right, a private corporation can declare your city in a state of financial emergency and send in its Emergency Manager, fire your elected officials, and reap the benefits of the ensuing state contracts.

Perhaps, once again, the tyranny-screaming Tea Party will finally recognize which is the party of big government.

Centers around a hard-right fanatic, who turns out is a fan of Robert Anton Wilson, which is baffling to every degree.  He also decries “stealth jihadis” based on limited information but doesn’t seem to care whatsoever about fanatical Christians like Hagee, fanatical Jews who murdered Rabin in Israel, or even the fanatical edge in our own government who murdered hundreds of thousands in Iraq based on false intelligence.  So yeah, while fanatical Islam is a nightmare, saying that Pamela Gellar is one of the reasonable voices on the right pretty much defies debate.  But it’s still a fun debate to read.  Some great comments act as an epilogue:

On right wing Christianity:

Picture yourself as a Christian having dinner at Red Lobster, sitting there in your mixed fabric outfit, adjusting your reading glasses to better see the menu before reaching out to touch the hand of your menstruating wife.  You’ve just broken a series of biblical laws here, but you rationalize that the 3000 year old Book of Leviticus was sort of crazy, and that you’d have to be a nutcase to follow rules like that, even if they come from your holy book. After all, it said it’s perfectly fine to own slaves, and we don’t regard that as being civilized anymore (or sane, for that matter).  Neither do we stone adulterers anymore (if we did, the bulk of Right-wing evangelical ministers would meet with a gruesome end).

You see, the thing about old religious writings is while they may have a deep wisdom in them (somewhere, if you look hard enough), the truth is that they are loaded with crazy talk, even when they are claimed to be ‘the word of God’.

That’s an important truth to know, because it’s a universal truth.  Muslims are no different than Christians in turning a blind eye to the crazy talk in their religious writings.  Instead, they hold on to the things that still resonate today, the deep wisdom that speaks of peace and love, and they ignore the violent words just like Christians ignore the admonition to stone a man to death for being stubborn *because those asinine words are completely fucked up, and everyone knows that*, unless one is a Right-winger of either religion, clinging to hate that should’ve died out long ago.

This ancient crazy talk is the major source of what drives war today.  For example, Zionists use it to attempt to justify a ‘Right of Return’ after 2000 years when they won’t grant the same right of return to the people they drove off the land six decades ago.  The insanity of that and the continuing occupation of Palestine has pulled the US into a political/religious morass that, for all intents and purposes, now pretty much spans the globe.

The greater part of the Tea Party that you support is made up of Christians and Jews that cling to a lot of the crazy talk, rather than ignoring it like sane people do (and though I’m an atheist, I do count sane Christians and Jews among my friends, so I know this first hand).  I can understand your horror at the evangelical nature of Right-wing Muslims and their desire to push everyone to follow Koranic law, but there is something perversely envious on the part of Right-wing Christians who observe this, as they’d like to force us all to follow the rules of their crazy talk, but are less successful as Western society is generally more sophisticated and therefore, more immune to crazy talk.

Talking about the dangers of Sharia law or the threat of Islam is paranoid and psychotic, as manifested by the lack of military power in Islamic nations.  The US, (the last superpower on the planet) on the other hand, is in the midst of a crusade that has killed an unknowably large number of Muslims, wars fought in the midst of an undercurrent of anti-Islam crazy talk shouted non-stop by the likes of you and your “colleagues” (ick, as someone said earlier).

You charge the Leftists here as having lost their open-mindedness, whist you, Davis Swindle, have fallen into a Right-wing feedback look of continual self-reinforcement of every belligerent notion that pops up and every misguided fear.  Every radical statement by a Muslim outlier becomes a representative statement of Islam in the twisted worldview of your ilk, while parallel statements by extremist Christian pastors/priests/ Jewish rabbis are either blinkered out or adopted as gospel, with not the slightest awareness of hypocrisy.

On RAW:

I just wanted to comment on how disappointing a day it is that we are finally seeing people now using RAW’s theories on reality tunnels to justify holding your basic-run-of-the mill-asinine-reactionary right wing beliefs.

I guess it was inevitable, but it doesn’t make it any less pathetic looking.  It’s also indicative of this new culture of hackneyed blogger pundits that delude themselves into thinking they are writers, but have the literary instincts of autistic software programmer.  (OK, that one was aimed at Swindle.)

I think it’s fair to say most so called leftists here have enough disdain for religious fundamentalism that when it actually counted (and wasn’t just masturbatory barking like the right) they would not tolerate any legality of Sharia Law. Deep down most conservative pundits know this, but they lament leftists so called lack of fear mongering to justify they’re own cowardice, bigotry and general loudmouth asshole behavior.

In the coming years Islamic culture may make leaps and strides in becoming what we would call more progressive, enlightened, and democratic.  There may be a myriad of reasons for this.

However, one thing I can guarantee is that none of those reasons will have anything to do with the simplistic, uncreative , paranoid, ape-like zealousness of the current right wing ideology being espoused by reactionary robots like David Horowitz, and his flunkies, jerking themselves off in there own Oedipal filth.  (Anybody that’s seen Horowitz interviewed knows this dude’s running on daddy issues)

So Jesus Freaks, sorry to break it to you, but if you identify as a right wing christian the probability that your ideas will have any positive effect on the progress of our future society is pretty slim.

As far as RAW himself, anybody that followed his writing and statements after 9/11 up until his death knew that he retained what could be considered a “Chomsky like” leftism.  Remember “The War on Some Terrorism?”  Remember him saying something to the like that if the U.S. Government was consistent in trying to eradicate terrorism the first thing they would do is bomb the CIA headquarters at Langley?

Witty incendiary statements like these(which are to be revered in coming from such a counterculture saint as RAW) make people like Horowitz shit their pants and grab their pitchforks so they can espouse from their molehill how liberals are disintegrating American culture.

So, new rule:  If you’re going to use RAW as some kind of intellectual precedent…get some fucking creativity.  And if you’re going to question your “Leftist Realty Tunnel,” don’t replace it with a reality tunnel that excretes ideas that make you look like a third rate Ann Coulter.

Terrifying propaganda – beginning with Michelle Bachmann looking thoughtful and reasoned, instead of footage of her claiming people are going to be rounded up into camps. I’ve wondered why the big three of the most-troublingly batshit on the right are women: Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachmann, and now Christine O’Donnell. You can now add this congressional candidate to the mix. On the one hand, women might feel the need to out-hawk men in order to prove themselves – that was leveled at Hillary Clinton – but these women seem to come upon it honestly. They’re sincerely batshit.

This isn’t a huge surprise, as women are more religious than men, but it’s troubling, because women aren’t just “more religious” they’re more apt to believe in something with “absolute certainty” – i.e. be fundamentalist.   So the video above is absolutely true – the right-wing revolution happening right now is very much being fueled by women. You can argue that it’s good news that more women are in positions of power, but not if it means the melting line between church and state.  So it’s not really women of the world take over, or atheists of the world take over – it’s non-insane of the world take over. I don’t care what gender, just happen.

Reminds me of this scene from Fritjof Capra’s Mindwalk – which is pretty stilted but still thought-provoking. I’m not sure the Sarah Palin model fulfills what Liv Ullman is saying here. Scroll to around 40:15.

Her main point that the aggressive male mindset needs to be replaced with the nurturing female mindset. That’s true, but while the Mama Grizzlies tout that they’re mothers (”Motherhood is a political act,” whatever that means) it’s not as though they’re nurturing of the poor, or are anti-militant. The pro-war, anti-immigrant, anti-gay, conservative woman is hardly “taking it the patriarchy” – they’re encouraging it. Not a great insight – but it’s possible that a militantly far-right woman could come to power more easily than a man. Sarah Palin is proving that. It’s not sexist to say that the only reason she’s so successful is because she looks like a hot librarian. She’s more Paris Hilton than politician. It should be no surprise that the “Awakening of the Conservative Woman” has come right at the time when the media has fallen asleep.

The thing that attracts me to both issues is the implications, which overwhelm the faults.  With self-publishing, the ability to give power to the writer, where it should be, is a great one.  That overwhelms the terrible books that are inevitably being produced.  The possibility that UFOs are real is so gigantic that the whole issue can’t be discarded because of a few – or many – lunatics.  Basically, the stigma for both is exactly the same (which isn’t great news for someone who self-publishes books about the UFO issue).

So the argument could be made that I’m doing the same with the Tea Party.  Saying they’re all equally stupid because of the handful who can’t spell the word “socialism.”  The difference though is the implications.  The implications of the anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim, fundamentalist right wing controlling the debate is not a good one.  Yeah, there’s the Ron Paul wing, but pretty much everyone can agree that this is Sarah Palin’s Tea Party.  I’m not sure there are any good implications for Sarah Palin’s Tea Party, short of showing the far right’s true colors.  A cab driver was stabbed more than likely as a result of anti-Muslim rhetoric.

To go Godwin, it’s fairly easy to say “All Nazis are bad.”  Of course, there are many reasons that might’ve led to a person to become a Nazi – parental abuse, lack of education, and so on.  So there’s room for pity and understanding, but there’s also room for opposition, as ceding power to Nazis would be horrible.

I guess the question is: at what point do the minority morons come to accurately represent the majority?  I think with the Tea Party we have the answer.  And that’s when the minority morons’ actions are never decried.

All this controversy and vitriol are not only encouraged; they’re welcomed. Extremists and radical clerics posted a stream of “I told you so” messages: After years of telling followers that Islam was under attack by the West, the harsh reaction to a simple community center seemed to prove it….

This year alone, the FBI has intercepted nearly a dozen young American Muslims who allegedly were on their way to terrorist training camps in Pakistan or Somalia. They have come in all shapes and sizes and ages. But in nearly every case, the young men said America’s so-called war on Islam was one of their big reasons for deciding to leave. The Bush administration mantra had been that the U.S. was at war with al-Qaida, not Islam. And the Obama administration has echoed that call; but somehow that has been muffled in the current debate.

Somehow.  The same media that looked away in the run-up to the Iraq war is now fostering the rancor of extremists.  That Pamela Gellar can get on TV without counter – a woman who has a history similar to David Duke – shows how one of the media’s jobs is to fan the flames of fear and violence.  The slippery slope where any sort of lying extremist can get on TV and spread propaganda is a terrible one, as the media is weighted more by punditry than fact.  Gellar can say, “4 out of 5 mosques preach hate” and it has no basis – but given that pundits are there to give their opinion, these “facts” are rarely refuted.

And this is what the far right wants – to continue this war against Islam.  So if another terrorist attack does occur due to the growing hysteria, they get to continue their war. Heard the point the other day – it doesn’t even matter if 9-11 was literally an inside job.  Intellectually it was, as the Project for the New American Century expressed that a “catalyzing event” like Pearl Harbor was necessary to remake the Middle East.  That should make anyone pause.  Not that they planned 9-11, but that they wanted it.  The same people actively want this kind of rancor against Islam.  They don’t even need a catalyzing event anymore – the media is doing the job nightly.

Which is why it’s so puzzling that someone like Howard Dean weighed in against the mosque.  He’s not even up for re-election, but he’s as unprincipled as anyone.  This has been a pretty big eye-opener to not trust any politician.

Though I disagree with the non-regulation of corporations of libertarianism, Ron Paul is very good on the anti-war effort.  He says,

If Islam is further discredited by making the building of the mosque the issue, then the false justification for our wars in the Middle East will continue to be acceptable.

Last week Jonah Goldberg had this post, which makes the case that anti-Muslim bigotry is not that rampant in this country.  I’d make this argument: The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are anti-Muslim backlash.  Hundreds of thousands have died – and there’s hardly concern on the part of the American public, likely due in large part due to who we’re killing and the residual hate and fear unleashed on 9-11.  Even if there were no hate crimes on our home soil, there’s continuing violence against Muslims on theirs.  For many, this is a war against Islam – and the idea “we’re fighting them there so we don’t fight them here” is satisfying their anger.

Begala’s wrong. The problem isn’t Fox – though Fox News is detestable. The problem is networks like CNN that pick up this story and report it like it’s legitimate news. And the strategist saying, “People didn’t know…” implies that the 20% who believe Obama is a Muslim are people who voted for him. They’re not – they’re the right wing base, the dead-enders who supported Bush till the last moment, the 20% who think Sarah Palin’s an intellectual.

I’m sure if you polled people, a lot of people think Obama’s a reptilian. 20% think we should bomb Iran to start the war of Armageddon. 20% think Sammy Hagar’s better than David Lee Roth. The moral: people believe a lot of stupid shit. Vast, distressing numbers, but they’re still in the minority.

The worse moral, though, is that the media is picking up a story about the minority and talking about it as if it’s believed by the majority. So it’s not 20% anymore, it’s “people believe,” until it becomes lost that it’s a minority opinion, and other people start to think, “Hey, maybe he is a Muslim.” This is what happens on the “less biased” networks like CNN. Fox already reaches the dead-enders. CNN legitimizes their propaganda.

The real question is what percentage of people who voted for Obama think he’s a Muslim. Smaller. Now, the percentage of those voters who think that’s a problem. Even smaller. The implication is not just that Obama’s a Muslim, but if he is, that must be bad. As a result, you get things like the mosque controversy.

And you get appearances like this, where a nutcake is able to pontificate about his insidious beliefs:

I think the president’s problem is that he was born a Muslim. His father was a Muslim. The seed of Islam is passed through the father like the seed of Judaism is passed through the mother. He was born a Muslim. His father gave him an Islamic name. Now it’s obvious that the president has renounced the Prophet Muhammad and he has renounced Islam and he has accepted Jesus Christ.

This is not reasonable, intellectual discussion about religion – it’s lighter fluid on the bonfire of stupidity. The question shouldn’t be “Is this a problem for Obama?” it should be “Why are people so fucking stupid?” But then they’d have to point the finger back at themselves.