During a recent family tragedy, we were overwhelmed by messages from friends and relatives that they would “pray” for us. I understand the sentiment – they want to be helpful, but are miles away and can’t do anything but offer moral support. The closer to the victims of the tragedy, the more that wonderful people offered real help, support, hugs and tears and consolation. They did so because they could, because they are real, loving and caring people. Those who could not offer real help would do so if they were closer at hand. The “prayer” is really just a way of saying “I feel compassion for you, I hurt for you.” As I told one person who wondered if I, as a nonbeliever, appreciated his prayers, I said that I welcomed all good thoughts and feelings, no matter how he chose to express them.

As I have aged and endured suffering, as we all do, I’ve come to think of Christmas as a pagan holiday masked with our own religious mythologies. It is no coincidence that it happens around the solstice, and the wasting of perfectly healthy trees and references to virgin births go back far into our history, long before 6CE, the year of the Census of Quirinius that might be the one referenced in the Bible. In the modern era, the holiday is also swathed and swaddled in commercial ideology – the need to buy and wrap is deeply embedded in us. “What to buy for someone who does not need anything?” Well, I’ve got to buy him something, anything. I’ll spend an hour at COSTCO and find some Chinese merchandise that he will put on a shelf in his garage and someday donate to Goodwill.

Children are showered with gifts, but are not capable of true appreciation for things that they did not know they wanted, much less needed. A child is capable of expressing only so much appreciation, usually verbally expressed at the parent’s command. That same appreciation is divided by two with two gifts, and with ten gifts is hardly expressed at all, as the child is no longer grateful, but is instead looking for things that offer more than a moment’s satisfaction. Children are children, and I like them just like everyone else, but I deliberately avoid the unwrapping ceremonies. It’s a little unsettling.

The important thing is that I spent some money, so that merchants have a good holiday season. How does a good holiday season translate into our “common good”? It offers people some part-time employment without benefits, and is a great jobs program for the republic … of China.

So here is how we celebrate Christmas: We observe it, in the true sense of “observe.” Mostly, we just watch what is going on around us. We have a tree, because grandchildren expect that of us. We don’t go to church, just as with all other days. We have a nice meal, my wife and I exchange gift that we think really might bring some joy to one another. We devise a letter that tells of all the events in our small family over the past year, avoiding any reference to “straight A’s” and the invention of vaccines and work in Calcutta.

But the truth is that in our family we have one daughter who actually did pull straight A’s for two years (having belatedly discovering her inner student), and another who is working in Haiti for the Canadian Red Cross. She is witnessing true suffering and first world indifference to the third world, and thereby gaining true wisdom. We didn’t do those things, we didn’t cause those nice things to happen. But it was worthy of mention. The rest of our kids are just doing what they do, surviving and making their way.

And that’s about it. I want the holiday to end soon so that David Sirota and the Daily Show and Bill Maher return. It’s also a hump – six weeks after New Year’s day, pitchers and catchers report to spring training.

Now that should be a holiday!

Two things happened this week that merit some applause – ratification of the “START” treaty, which somewhat lessens our nuclear arsenal, but more importantly allows for Russian inspection to see that we are not violating the limits; and the elimination of “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.” That the latter was even controversial is an indication of how backward our leadership is in the advance of human rights.

The passage of the treaty surprised me, but I’m easily surprised. Our quest ought to be for total elimination of the weapons, as they, as opposed to conventional weapons, actually threaten our existence. Reduction of our stock from 2,100+ to 1,500 is hardly meaningful, given that one might set off a chain reaction that will end with our annihilation. And hidden in the details is a Bush-era initiative to gussy up our stock, spending $84 billion on making those weapons we are keeping even more threatening. This is a dramatic increase over what Bush initially asked for, $60 billion, as I recall. Again, Obama has out-Bushed Bush.

And then I heard on the radio yesterday that Obama praised the lame-duck session for accomplishing more than any lame-duck session in decades. And I heard radio liberals praise Obama, one saying that he “got his Mojo back.” Why? He gave a good speech. That’s all it takes to make these clowns happy.

What did he accomplish? Removal of DADT is nice, but has little effect on the larger issues of governance – militarism, taxes and rule by wealth – that affect our population. It has the feeling of a wedge issue, though I sympathize with those who suffered under it. I don’t minimize it for them, and congratulate the Congress for finally coming around on that one issue.

Obama’s big accomplishment was a massive betrayal of a campaign promise, for which he has gathered wide praise. While campaigning, he promised to allow the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy expire, while preserving them for anyone making less than $250,000 – virtually all of us. He didn’t “negotiate” or “compromise.” He screwed us with royal vigor. He saved the cuts for the wealthy, probably in perpetuity, while amazingly raising taxes on 45 million of our poorest households. He planted a time bomb in Social Security that will explode in two years.

It is a massive screwing! And done right out in the open. The 2010 elections did not reflect any kind of shift in voter sentiments. Voters with sentiments who voted in 2008 simply didn’t vote in 2010. Obama turned out to be, well, not so much.

Yes, he got his Mojo back. Democrats have to be proud that the old speech-maker is back on his game. For the rest of us, well, elections don’t matter in this country. Back to work now, folks. Nothing has changed.

GRAND JUNCTION — Colorado wildlife managers say they’re discussing whether to change hunting rules after a man reported shooting and killing a large black bear in its den.

Division of Wildlife spokesman Randy Hampton tells the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel the hunter didn’t break any rules. Hampton says the incident does raise “ethical issues.”

The hunter, Richard Kendall of Craig, defends his decision. He says he waited outside the northwest Colorado den for five hours, hoping the bear would emerge, before crawling about 6 feet into it and shooting the bear.

The Sentinel reports the bear weighed 703 pounds, about 50 percent more than most black bears.

The newspaper says preliminary measurements indicate the bear could set a state size record.

Good news today from film maker Michael Moore. He has put up $20,000 to guarantee bail for Julian Assange, Wikileaks founder. He has also offered use of his servers for Wikileak traffic*. It’s a move that would be unquestioned anywhere in the world, but probably puts him at legal risk here in the U.S., and perhaps if it were done in China.

In other news, Halliburton has reportedly agreed to pay $250 million to Nigeria to encourage that country to drop its bribery charges against Dick Cheney. (Sounds suspiciously like another bribe.) As with all well-connected criminals, Cheney walks free.

And isn’t it interesting that $20,000 is a blow for free speech, while $250 million allows a criminal to walk free. What’s wrong with this picture?
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*Moore’s web page

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“He’s a con man. I have no use for him.” Ralph Nader

The famous painting above is by Salvador Dali, Gala Contemplating the Mediterranean Sea. I saw the original at the Dali Museum in Figueres, Spain. It’s a beautiful image of a nude looking over the sea, but from twenty meters away you realize that it is actually a portrait of Abraham Lincoln. (I have to stand about twenty feet back from my computer screen for that effect to kick in.)

Clever, I suppose, like those Bev Doolitte paintings so popular in the west – eagles and bears concealed right out in the open among trees and snow banks.

Concealed in plain view … read here how the Obama Administration is now actually negotiating with his opponents, decorating a Christmas tree with goodies to sell tax cuts for the wealthy. They have a myriad of ways to make people vote their way. The open and obvious ones are the bribes – ethanol is the biggest scam going on right now. Underneath that and not discussed are threats – elected officials are told that their funding will dry up, that they will face a primary opponent or well-funded candidate from the other party. Committee positions are auctioned off and earmarks are used as carrots.

And then … one level below that … do you really think that wiretaps are benign, that call girls camped out on Capitol Hill are just for fun, that a little cash bribe here and there can’t be brought back to form a scandal? (When you see an abrupt resignation on Capitol Hill, it is a safe bet that someone has been cornered and threatened with exposure.)

But the point is that Obama could use all of these tools to pass bills favorable to the left. He has them all at his disposal. But with the Public Option … not done. With EFCA, not even introduced. But when a bad health care bill was finally on the docket, and now with tax cuts, the power is there, and he is flexing his muscles.

He’s negotiating with his opposition. Who are his opposition? Democrats.

He’s a con man. I bristle when I hear Democrats and others say that Obama is actually a “centrist” or a “moderate.” He is nothing like that – he is a right wing Republican. And it is right there, out in the open. All you have to do is take a view from twenty meters back.

[Sigh] – this is tedious, but must be done. I have had yet another “debate” with a person regarding Social Security. The trouble with the “debate” concept is that the person in question, assured of the rightness of his convictions, hasn’t a clue about the nature of the system. I’ll describe the nature of the system here yet again.

Social Security is not “retirement.” The “I” in FICA stands for “insurance.” That’s an important distinction. If I were to buy a life insurance policy and then die the next day, the company would have to pay off in full. If insurance were like retirement, the company would refund my premium plus earnings minus expenses.

Social Security is a “defined benefit” system. The private sector hates defined benefits, and insists on “defined contributions” like IRA’s and 401K’s and the like. With the latter, retirees are always in fear that their funds will expire before they do. Social Security benefits are available for so long as people live. That’s why it’s called “Security.”

Social Security is also survivor and disability payments – as much as a third of the payments are for widows and orphans and disabled people. Private plans offering such payments are not affordable for ordinary people. And there is nothing in the private sector that offers defined benefit retirement, survivor and disability benefits. It’s not feasible.

The private sector cannot afford to fund a program like Social Security. That sector is laden with bureaucrats, administrative costs, and high-bonus executives along with the regular assortment of Wall Street criminals who recently brought down the banking system. The boom-bust cycle means that a large percentage of privatized retirees would be regularly wiped out.

Social Security, in its eighty years, has never had a scandal or failed to pay a benefit. People have ripped it off, but the people who run the program have been remarkably honest, and (!!!) have not gotten rich off the system.

Social Security is affordable. It has survived for eighty years without debt (it is illegal for it to go into debt.) It is not in debt now, nor will it be for decades.

Social Security is paid for by the people who benefit from it. The tax is applied only against wages and current recipients, and not against corporate profits, dividends, rents and royalty and interest. There is no transfer involved from the wealthy sector to workers. It is entirely self-funded.

Social Security does not add to the deficit. Over the past thirty years, due to accounting legerdemain, the program has been used to mask the true size of general fund deficits. The government spends all excess Social Security funds, but using an accounting trick called the “Unified Budget” (where Social Security surpluses are combined with general fund deficits), funds borrowed from Social Security are not reported as such. The true general fund deficit over the last 30 years is $3 trillion higher than reported.

That $3 trillion is called the “Trust Fund.” Unlike generations before us, we baby boomers were asked, by Ronald Reagan and the Democrats in the early 1980’s, to pre-fund our Social Security benefits. We have been paying in excess tax for thirty years now based on his promise that those excess taxes would fund our own benefits.

Repayment of the debt to the Trust Fund is not Peter paying Paul. We boomers are now in a position where we expect all taxpayers, including those who live off the dividends and corporate profits etc. that have not been taxed, to repay the money borrowed from us, most of which was used to finance their Pentagon and its many wars.

The $3 trillion will be repaid over the come 20-30 years. Our country can easily afford it. (If not, we’re all sunk anyway.)

After we boomers are gone, Social Security will again be on pay-as-you-go funding, with no need for a Trust Fund. (Think of the boomers as a snake swallowing a pig. We will pass.) It will, in theory, survive indefinitely. However, it is constant need of adjustment. That’s all it takes to maintain it.

The Trust Fund is a legal obligation. In order to walk away from that obligation, the government is going to have to legally renege on us. Even though the reneging will be “legal,” it will be highly immoral and disreputable. The people who know how the systems works and still want to renege on us are the Wall Street bankers and their allies in both parties. They are criminals who never have to pay for their crimes.

Ronald Reagan was the first president to openly challenge Social Security. He fell on his face – the program is wildly popular. On failing to undo it, “he” (“he” being his people, as he was clueless) jacked up the FICA tax to recoup some of the massive revenues lost with his tax cuts for the wealthy. That was the “Trust Fund” promise. Many of us felt that he was lying at the time, and that there was never any intention of honoring the bargain.

The only way the bargain will be honored is if we, the people who fund the system, hold them, the people who want to plunder and loot the system, to our bargain. That takes organization and effort. A contract means nothing if there is no will to enforce it.

I expect to see no comments beneath this post for the following reason: I will insist on integrity. I will not suffer ignorance or empty arguments based on the false “facts” that are regularly spread about how the system is going to fail, how it “won’t be there for me when I need it” as young people have been taught to believe. If such comments are put up, I will not take them down, as I don’t do that. But I will edit the comment, not to change content, but only to embolden the part that has no substance. If you see a comment below and part or all of it is in bold, that is the part that has no substance.

Well, Obama has abused his base yet again, this time an open-handed bitch slap. Anyone with half a brain could see that the tax cuts were going to be extended, and the only question was how the Democrats would be made to fold their tent. Now we are going to see something that ought to bring to mind the word “contradiction” – Obama, the man who doesn’t know how to negotiate, who punts on third down, who expects the Republicans to repay his gestures of conciliation, will become a new man. He did this after the bad health care bill was a done deal. He becomes a street fighter. He’s tough, fights dirty, and is clever, kind of like a guy we would want fighting for us, instead of against us.

If they cannot see, as with Clinton, that he is a faux bonhomme, there is no hope for them. They are too stupid to live.

And if not then, maybe 2014. Or 2016. You know – just, not now, not while he still has large majorities in the house and senate.

Democrats barked in unison on hearing the news.

For those with any interest in the subject, I mentioned below that we cannot make jumps in understanding, that we have to progress along natural lines. I think that this applies to religion as well, and offer up five levels of passage into and through and then back to religion. No doubt others have described this better than me. But I’ll give it a shot anyway. It goes like this:

Level one: The words of holy texts are accepted as true without question, and the mythology, no matter how bizarre, accepted as reality. This is childish religious belief, or in adults, a kind of fundamentalism. It offers great comfort.

Level two, Path A: Cynical non-believers see the vulnerability of children and fundamentalists, and exploit them for financial gain. These are people like Pat Robertson, Swaggart, Haggard and Roberts and all the others. The low-hanging fruit is irresistible.

Level two, Path B: A less cynical setting aside of childhood fantasies without further research or wonder. Most people who call themselves religious are really in arrested development, having stopped believing, but also, sadly, having stopped wondering as well. People in arrested development often still feel a need for religious belief in others, for all our good. This is the stage where Catholic parents, for instance, send their kids to Catholic schools, even though they are too sophisticated to accept Catholic teaching for themselves.

Level three: Complete rejection of religious belief. For those like me, deeply indoctrinated in religion as a child when I was too young to reason, this rejection can be coupled with condescension and antagonism towards those who have faith, and especially towards those who who did the indoctrinating. (The “recovering Catholic.”) This is where we find Richard Dawkins and Sam Smith.

Level four: Reaching an understanding that people who are not fundamentalist and yet religious are as smart and thoughtful as non-religious ones, and perhaps even know a thing or two that non-religious people do not. This creates cognitive dissonance.

Level five: Resolution of dissonance, reaching an understanding that the search for truth has many forms, and that science is only one.

The progression through the levels ends with the elimination of antagonism between science and religion. Each is a search for truth. The scientific method is one way to advance knowledge, but mythology is also a vessel that carries important truths.

For myself, I cannot dwell in mythology, just as I cannot read fiction. I cannot be religious in that sense, and I like my Sundays too much anyway. But I do accept that those who are religious may well know more about life and living than my sterile science will ever give me.

There seems to be no bottom to the well of Democratic stupidity. I hear it every day, from otherwise smart people like Thom Hartmann*, who continually implores Obama to find his “inner FDR,” to bloggers like JC, also a smart guy, who apparently thinks there is a fight going on over extending the Bush tax cuts, rather than mere stage play.

Here’s Doug Coffin, apparently a real person (remember “John Firehammer”?), writing at Left in the West , who says the following regarding the pay freeze on federal employees:

In doing so, the President is guilty of a rookie mistake from a collective bargaining perspective i.e. he continually bargains against himself. He did the same thing with health care when he took “single payer” and then the “public option” off the table for nothing in return.

No doubt that he’s expecting the GOP to respond in-kind by agreeing to pass the much needed unemployment extension or giving in on extending tax cuts for the wealthy. They won’t…. and he’ll be stuck screwing his constituents one more time. It looks more and more difficult for him to rebuild the coalition that got him elected. He’s angered teachers, labor and now federal employees.

He’s not expecting anything of the kind. Again with the misunderestimation! He knows what the Republicans will do, and welcomes it. The machinations are there merely to befuddle the [rank and file] Democrats.

We are traveling to the People’s Republic of Boulder today, so I have to sum this up succinctly.

Ah, screw that. It’s takes less time to be verbose than succinct.

Obama was a brand. The powers behind the façade of two parties realized that people were fed up with Bush and company, and so knew that they had to pitch idealism to salve the wounds of eight years of Bush cynicism. Obama is no Lincoln – he did not rise up from obscurity based on intelligence and political skill. He was spotted … he spoke at the Democratic convention in 2004, and power brokers saw potential. He was run up the flag pole, along with many others, and found to have some real possibility. He was staffed, an advertising campaign was created, speeches were written, a book or two … and art became reality. Obama the image became Obama the president.

The president could well have been Hillary Clinton, or even Tom Vilsac. That’s not important. It would not change anything.

But he’s not in charge. He’s not bargaining behind the scenes, making “rookie mistakes.” He’s acting on a stage, reading scripted words to reinforce the illusion of two parties.

There’s no hope in two-party politics. Change has to come from without, and against amazing odds. It has happened before – slavery did end, FDR did allow social reforms (there were powerful social movements at that time, but not now), women got the vote and the 14th amendment passed. But rights are not given, and words have no power if not backed by people fighting for those rights. Our first amendment, or fourteenth, mean exactly nothing without fighters.

Obama’s election means nothing. The power brokers may have already abandoned him, as he doesn’t even seem to be trying to assuage his base these days. He’s looking like a one-termer. He probably had no concern over the election losses, as he’s not staked in any ideology. He’s merely depending on the bottomless well of Democratic stupidity to hold on the the presidency for four years beyond his allotted four.

He’s an actor on a stage. He, unlike George W. Bush, might actually understand that. He is smart.
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*Hartmann went to far as to suggest, in a recent interview with author Chris Hedges, that Obama might not be a liberal, but rather (gasp!), a “moderate.” He holds this view in the face of Obama’s conntinued out-rightwinging the right wingers, making bigger defense budgets, more war, and carrying forward with terror and torture just as before. The power of perception management extends right into the brain of this jabbering but otherwise intelligent radio host.