The Consequences of GOP Policies: Racism, Religious Extremism, Poverty, Obesity and Incarceration

While the Republican Party holds itself out as the guardian of "American values" - as do the Christofascists who control much of the GOP's policies - when one looks at the consequences of the GOP's policies and agenda, the picture is pretty ugly.  Among the consequences/fruits are racism, religious extremism and bigotry, poverty, obesity and incarceration (this latter one is tied to the first, racism).  Yes, some of these problems are historic ones, but over all decent Americans over time have sought to lessen their impact and poisonous consequences.  That changed when the Christofascists hijacked the GOP.  A piece in the Daily Kos looks at these ill fruits.  Here are excerpts:

Evangelical Christians and their willingness to force their beliefs on the rest of us through vociferous political activism and promotion of Biblically based public policies are a huge problem for the future of the planet. . . . . They believe all other religions are false; that science is only good so long as it doesn't contradict a literal interpretation of the Bible, that the Constitution is a Christian document and all non-believers are going to hell. Therefore they vote faithfully for candidates who will govern accordingly. Republicans and even some Republican-lite Democrats, are only too willing to pander to this constituency.

The GOP's leveraging of white evangelicals into Republican votes fits right in to the divide and conquer playbook of the Southern Strategy, which was designed and implemented 40 years ago by Richard Nixon. This strategy of stoking the fires of ignorance and racism has delivered the southern states to the Republicans ever since. 

An internet search of pretty much any demographic data regarding the South, quickly reveals the harm this Southern Strategy has inflicted upon the region. In addition to being highly religious, racist and Republican, the region also suffers the blight of poverty, obesity, incarceration, and almost any other social malady you care to type into your browser. Of course these maladies exist in the other states, some in high ratios, but none rival the depth and intensity of the southern infection.

Evangelicals and racists have walked hand-in-hand for over two centuries. The region has had a strongly entrenched evangelical movement since the nation's founding, long before being referred to as the Bible Belt by American journalist and social commentator H L Mencken in 1924.

While the practice of Christianity, unlike racism, has redeeming qualities the evangelical practitioners have often been complicit in the holy blessing of slavery, lynching and institutional discrimination. Slaveholders justified slavery by citing the Bible: "slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling" (Ephesians 6:5), or "tell slaves to be submissive to their masters and to give satisfaction in every respect" (Titus 2:9).

The former Party of Lincoln has had its grips on the South since 1968 and no doubt owns the abject misery of the region. The maps and graphs below the fold reveal in stunning visual relief the desperate circumstances in which many of the citizens of the former Confederacy find themselves.

1. Southern states are the most religious: Earlier this month, Gallup released a survey based on more than 175,000 interviews that asked residents of each state how often they attend a weekly religious service. What they found was that the most religious states were in the South, which was home to all but one of the top 12.

2. Southern states are the most evangelical: Evangelical Christians are the base of the Republican party and of that group the Southern Baptists are the dominant sect in the region. 

3. Southern states have the most racist residents: Analysts at Floating Sheep, a website run by a group of independent cyber-geography researchers, found there was a spike of racist tweets on Twitter during and after President Obama’s 2012 re-election.

4. Southern states are controlled by Republicans: The Republican Party is the chef that stirs the pot of racism and evangelical religiosity in the south, and as you can see, where those ingredients are strong so is the GOP. This is no accident. This is the insidious result of "The Southern Strategy". 

5. Southern states have the lowest wages:  In 2010, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Arkansas had the largest share of people earning sub-povery wages, EPI [Economic Policy Institute] found.

6.  Southern states are the most impoverished: This is an obvious side effect of low wages.

7.  Southern states have the highest food stamp usage of any region: An obvious side effect of poverty. In fact, contrary to what Republicans would like you to think, of the 32 states that receive more federal dollars than they contribute, 27 of them are controlled by Republicans, which includes 15 southern states. (Ref:AATTP) 

8.  Southern states have the highest rates of teen pregnancy:  Also contrary to what the teen-mother-shaming Republicans want you to believe, teen pregnancies do not cause poverty, rather poverty causes teen pregnancy.  Teens who get pregnant tend to come from more disadvantaged families than those who do not become pregnant. Moreover, among pregnant teens, those who choose abortion tend to be more advantaged than those who opt to carry the baby to term.

9.  Southern states have the highest rates of obesity: Obesity is a risk for all groups of Americans, but is especially high among Americans with the lowest levels of education and the highest poverty rates

10.  Southern states have higher rates of heart disease and stroke:  Studies have consistently shown that people with low incomes and less education generally have higher rates of heart disease than their more-educated, higher-income counterparts.

11.  Southern states have higher rates of cancer mortality:  According to Dr. Samuel Broder, former director of the National Cancer Institute, "Poverty is a carcinogen". Research cited in the annual Cancer Facts and Figures 2011 released by the American Cancer Society, showed that poverty rivals both tobacco and obesity as a carcinogen.

14.  Southern states have the highest rates of incarceration:  Since the 1980s the attitude of many law and order types has been lock 'em up and throw away the key, "three strikes and you're out" that will solve the problem. But actually this policy of increased incarceration has actually exacerbated the problem of poverty, which has been shown to be the root of so many other miserable statistics.
The shift to tougher penal policies three decades ago was originally credited with helping people in poor neighborhoods by reducing crime. But now that America’s incarceration rate has risen to be the world’s highest, many social scientists find the social benefits to be far outweighed by the costs to those communities. 

“Prison has become the new poverty trap,” said Bruce Western, a Harvard sociologist. “It has become a routine event for poor African-American men and their families, creating an enduring disadvantage at the very bottom of American society.”

Among African-Americans who have grown up during the era of mass incarceration, one in four has had a parent locked up at some point during childhood. For black men in their 20s and early 30s without a high school diploma, the incarceration rate is so high — nearly 40 percent nationwide — that they’re more likely to be behind bars than to have a job.

There are non-southern states that pop in and out of the list of misery to be sure, some even controlled at least in part by Democrats. But the pattern is clear. This is no coincidence. These are the states that consistently show up either at the top of a bad category or at the bottom of a good one. These are the consequences of sustained Republican control.

Democratic leaders have not forcefully called out the GOP for their Southern Strategy and faith-based idiocy, possibly fearing offending moderate Christians. Well it is time to start offending people. Democrats need to put Republicans on the defensive by pounding on the disastrous results of Republican policies over and over and over again, instead of getting drawn into false equivalency debates on Sunday morning talk shows.

The GP and evangelical Christians are toxic to the nation's future.  Their dominance and any deference they receive needs to end.

World Bank Suspends $90 Million Loan to Uganda Over Anti-Gay Law

Uganda douche bag President Museveni

Actions need to have consequences and thankfully some nations and some international organizations are making Uganda's passage of an American Christofascist backed draconian anti-gay law have consequences.  Particularly because the law violates international treaties to which Uganda is a signatory.  I've made it clear that I would like to see every penny of aid provided to Uganda by western nations stop completely.  Would it cause harm to average Ugandans?  Likely yes.  But perhaps a rapid decline in conditions might wake these people up to the fact that it is not gays who are a threat to them but instead it is their corrupt and grossly incompetent political leaders.  Even if such a revelation did not occur, at least modern democracies would no longer be financially underwriting the foul government of Uganda and similar horrible nations.  The Guardian reports on the World Bank's decision to freeze an aid loan to Uganda.  Here are excerpts:

The World Bank on Thursday postponed a $90m (£54m) loan to Uganda's health system over a law that toughened punishment for gay people, an unusual move for an institution that typically avoids wading into politics.

"We have postponed the project for further review to ensure that the development objectives would not be adversely affected by the enactment of this new law," World Bank spokesman David Theis said in an email.

The World Bank, a poverty-fighting institution based in Washington, usually refrains from getting involved in countries' internal politics or in issues such as gay rights to avoid antagonising any of its 188 member countries.

World Bank president Jim Yong Kim, however, sent an email to bank staff saying the bank opposes discrimination, and would protect the safety of all employees.

He said passage of the Ugandan law was not an isolated incident, as 83 countries outlaw homosexuality and more than 100 discriminate against women.

"In the coming months, we will have a broad discussion about discrimination with staff, management, and our board on these issues," Kim said in the email. "Now is the right moment for this conversation."

The loan postponement follows the announcement by Norway and Denmark that they would hold back donations to Uganda because of the law. Other donors have also threatened to follow suit, and the United States said it was reviewing ties.

Western anger over the law has triggered a sharp fall in Uganda's shilling currency, leading the central bank to intervene for two days in a row.

Uganda is one of the rectums of the world largely due to the ignorance, corruption and utter incompetence of the Ugandan government, including douche bag in chief, President Museveini.  Uganda was not always like this - it was prosperous under British rule.  So-called self-governance has been a disaster for Uganda and most of its citizens.  For a brief overview of what self-rule has wrought, see this Wikipedia article.

The Great Divide: Race and Neighborhood Well Being

A piece looks at an issue that certainly is visible in the Hampton Roads area: poor neighborhoods sometimes mere blocks from affluent neighborhoods where the poor inhabitants are often condemned to never being able to escape early years disadvantages.  In Norfolk, the contrast between the wealthy Ghent neighborhood and Park Place (which is literally on the other side of the railroad tracks) is but one example.  The result of the disparity is that ultimately, we all suffer either directly or indirectly.  We all pay a price economically and in terms of costs of health care and city services.  The Republican Party response, of course, is to simply cut off all aid to the poor in the apparent hope that they will disappear.  While that approach may satisfy the greed and racism of the GOP base, it is not an ultimate solution.  A column in the New York Times looks at the lingering problem.   Here are some column excerpts:

We don’t talk much about “the wrong side of the tracks” in public anymore, but the distinction between one place and another is implicitly understood and often explicitly specified. That location matters greatly for housing values, for example, is taken for granted. Less appreciated is the persistence of neighborhood inequality and its extensive reach into multiple aspects of everyday life. An increasing separation at the top has intensified the effect of spatial divisions on everyone else.

[I]t is still common in American cities to find neighborhoods struggling with poverty rates well above the national average, sometimes just streets away from neighborhoods brimming with affluence. While racial segregation has modestly declined in recent decades, the latest data reveal that approximately 60 percent of blacks or whites in metropolitan areas across the United States would have to relocate to achieve racial integration. In New York City, an eye-popping 81 percent of whites or blacks would have to move.

Fifty years after the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. pointed to African-Americans on a “lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity,” racial and economic disparities by place not only remain but are closely connected. Nationwide, close to a third of African-American children born between 1985 and 2000 were raised in high-poverty neighborhoods compared with just 1 percent of whites. Crucially, income does not erase place-based racial inequality — affluent blacks typically live in poorer neighborhoods than the average lower-income white resident.

The great neighborhood divide extends to many of the fundamentals of well-being. Violence, poor physical health, teenage pregnancy, obesity, fear and dropping out of school are all unequally distributed. Getting ahead economically is also shaped by where you live, even more than you might think.  . . . . the odds of a child raised in the bottom fifth of income rising to the top fifth as an adult — is lower for those who grew up in cities characterized by racially and economic segregated neighborhoods. 

What many have come to call “mass incarceration” has a local face as well — only a small proportion of communities have experienced America’s prisoner boom whereas others are relatively untouched. I was taken aback to learn that the highest incarceration rate among African-American communities in Chicago was over 40 times higher than the highest ranked white community.

The stigmatization and widespread social exclusion of poor neighborhoods is corrosive. Cynicism toward institutions is high despite the commitment of residents to conventional values. In Chicago, for example, lower income and minority residents are more likely to condemn smoking, drinking and fighting among teenagers than upper class or white residents. Yet concentrated poverty lowered perceived trust and social cohesion among fellow residents, reinforcing a negative feedback loop.

Less visible are the long-term consequences of growing up in concentrated poverty for human capital development. In Chicago we found that early exposure to severely disadvantaged communities was associated with diminished verbal skills later in childhood. We estimated that living in concentrated disadvantage depressed the rate of future verbal learning by about four I.Q. points, akin to missing a year of school.

Neighborhood disadvantage can extend across surprisingly long periods of time in the lives of children and families. My colleagues and I just completed a long-term follow-up of over 1,000 children from the study in Chicago that we began in 1995. We tracked a birth cohort, 9-, 12-, and 15-year-olds, no matter where they moved in the United States. Among the near-majority of black infants born in high poverty neighborhoods in 1995, more than half remained there in 2012; 13 percent had “moved up” to low poverty.  What about downward mobility? Over a third of black infants born in low poverty ended up in high poverty neighborhoods, compared with 2 percent of white children.

The phenomenon [gentrification] is real but the fact that it makes the news is precisely the point — “rags to riches” is no more common among neighborhoods than it is among people. For every poor neighborhood on the move, more struggle out of the media glare. And while large cities like Detroit have been much in the news for spectacular failure, smaller cities and towns like Flint, Mich., and Port Clinton, Ohio, contain some of America’s poorest and hardest-hit neighborhoods.

Unfortunately, many social policies tend to accentuate these trends rather than mitigate them. The persistent geography of inequality is reinforced by exclusionary zoning, persistent red lining, selective withdrawal of public services, the segregation of low-income public housing, “stop and frisk” policing concentrated in minority areas, school funding tied to property values and the political fragmentation of metropolitan areas. The city line is more than just geography, it typically means a sharp social boundary.

We live in a free society, of course, but the high-end spatial concentration of income and its associated resources, like well-endowed schools, security, abundant services and political connections, in effect pulls up the drawbridge from our neighbors. The hypersegregation of “the truly advantaged” speaks volumes about the continuing significance of place and raises important questions about what kind of society we want to be.

Yes, it is disturbing.  Even more disturbing is that the political party that claims to honor Christian values is the main opponent to efforts to change this bleak picture.   I continue to respect the Gospel message, but when I see what so many self-proclaimed Christians are doing, I really find it increasingly difficult to call myself a Christian.

The GOP War on the Suburbs

If one looks at the agenda of the modern day Republican Party, its main focus is on tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations and a severe slashing of social programs and government infrastructure spending.  Ironically, these policies increasingly attack the suburbs which are the trues battleground for political victory.  Outside of rural areas and wealthy enclaves, it's the suburbs that elect Republicans.  Yet despite this reality, poverty is increasing in suburban areas and the GOP is adverse to any policies that might help the battered middle class.  The question becomes one of when will suburban voters realize that the GOP is actually their enemy.  A piece in Politico looks at the changes over taking the suburbs and the damage being done by the GOP's policies.  Here are excerpts:

[S]uburbs define our politics, too. While city dwellers overwhelmingly vote Democratic, and residents of small towns and rural areas vote for Republicans by large margins, suburbs are the quintessential political battlegrounds.

But now suburbs are helping define another American phenomenon: poverty. Over the past decade, America’s major suburbs have become home to the largest and fastest-growing poor population in the country. Between 2000 and 2011, the number of poor residents in suburbia grew by almost two-thirds, or 64 percent — more than double the pace of poverty growth in the large cities that anchor these regions. For the first time, more poor people in America live in suburbs than in big cities.

Despite poverty’s increasing suburbanization and bipartisan character, it is not exactly catching fire as a key issue on Capitol Hill. One recent debate in which poverty has surfaced most prominently concerns the reauthorization of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, with the House GOP leadership advancing a proposal to cut $40 billion in spending over 10 years. The burden of those cuts would fall more squarely on suburbs than ever now that 55 percent of SNAP participants in major metro areas live in suburbs. Programs like SNAP, the Earned Income Tax Credit and Medicaid already deliver the majority of their benefits to suburban communities, many of which are squarely in the GOP column.

The ways in which the current system approaches initiatives such as neighborhood economic development, community health centers and affordable housing construction are often a poor fit for suburban areas where poverty is more spread out, public and nonprofit capacity is thin and hundreds of small municipalities routinely compete with one another rather than collaborate to address shared challenges like growing poverty.

 

Over the past few decades, poverty has become an increasingly structural feature of the American economy. In all likelihood, suburban poverty is here to stay. The battleground character of suburbs could set the stage for more ideological trench warfare and gridlock over federal anti-poverty policy and a suburban replay of the challenges that have beleaguered our inner cities over the last few decades. Or it could spur a bipartisan effort to convert top-down federal programs of old into support for new bottom-up solutions to urban and suburban poverty alike. The future of suburbs — as an American ideal and political keystone — may hang in the balance.

Democrats: Romney's Foreign Trip Played Horribly In Swing States

Following up on the Washington Post's dishing of Romney's foreign policy exhibition trip, the Democratic National Committee has collected brutal local news reports to prove that the trip played very badly in critical swing states.  Here's a video clip via You Tube:

As a reader on my earlier Romney post stated, Romney's world view is troubling:

In effect they are a version of "blaming the victim."   .   .   .  there are a lot more important reasons for poverty -- and few of them can be overcome by rejecting one's own culture.    .   .   .   .  But Romney [does] understand this? That takes empathy, sensitivity to others, and other traits he lacks to the same extent he lacks tact and the 'common touch.'  

More on the Texas Unmiracle

Now that Dominionist Rick Perry has officially entered into the GOP presidential contest focus on what has really happened in Texas is growing - a trend that hopefully will continue to intensify. Why? Because when one looks at the real economic situation in Texas, it's something far different that what is being advertised by Perry and his sycophants. Yes, the gross job numbers look good - that is until you look at the types of jobs involved. And as for the policies that attract new businesses, they may be great for business owners but not for the employees and their families. An op-ed in the Washington Post looks at the real data behind what Perry would pretend he can bring to the nation as a whole, not that we'd want it or that it's even workable. Here are some highlights:

Rick Perry’s Texas is Ross Perot’s Mexico come north. Through a range of enticements we more commonly associate with Third World nations — low wages, no benefits, high rates of poverty, scant taxes, few regulations and generous corporate subsidies — the state has produced its own “giant sucking sound,” attracting businesses from other states to a place where workers come cheap.

Perry’s calling card in the presidential race is his state’s record of job creation at a time when the national economy floundered. Yes, Texas has created lots of jobs, though that’s partly a reflection of the surge in oil prices, which in turn created tens of thousands of jobs in the oil and gas industries. What Perry touts in his stump speech, however, isn’t the oil boom but, rather, the low-tax, low-reg, handouts-to-business climate that prevails in Texas. It’s the kind of spiel that businesses hear every day from leaders of developing nations — Mexico and, even more, China.

Consider the Texas that Perry holds up to the rest of the nation for admiration. It has the fourth-highest poverty rate of any state. It tied with Mississippi last year for the highest percentage of workers in minimum-wage jobs. It ranks first in adults without high school diplomas. Twenty-six percent of Texans have no health insurance — the highest percentage of medically uninsured residents of any state. It leads the nation in the percentage of children who lack medical insurance.

Consider his indifference toward education: . . . . when confronted with a $27 billion budget deficit, Perry did not raise taxes but instead slashed $4 billion from K-12 schools. In this regard, the equation of Perry with China’s leaders is unfair to China: The Chinese understand that the better educated their people become, the more high-skill and high-compensating jobs their nation will attain. No such understanding seems to have permeated Perry’s brain.

What Perry either ignores or doesn’t know is how greatly Texas has benefited from the investments and regulations of the federal government he despises. . . . The New Deal threw money at Texas, bringing it dams, highways and schoolhouses. The cumulative effect of policies such as the federal minimum wage has been to diminish the disparity that long existed between the industrialized North and the more poverty-stricken South.

Perry wants to unravel the national social contract and once again have us go state by state, with the low-wage, low-reg states dragging down the others, much as Chinese mercantilism has dragged down wages and living standards across the United States. He is the 21st-century, homegrown version of the Manchurian candidate.

As is increasingly the norm for Republicans, objective facts and a knowledge of accurate history and the true effects of government programs doesn't matter. It's all about sound bites and PR spin. It's scary and if not stopped is leading the USA long term to third world status.

One in Five Americans Raiding Retirement Funds Early

As the GOP seeks to perpetuate tax breaks for the extremely wealthy and totally dismantle the social safety net for everyone else, a new report indicates that nearly one-fifth of full-time employed Americans have raided retirement accounts in the past year to cover financial emergencies. I know I had to take that step when I was forced from a law firm for being gay only to find myself penalized by the IRS and having it held against me in my divorce - even though it's what kept our home from heading towards foreclosure (the rest of my retirement was stripped from me by an anti-gay black judge who stated that sexual orientation was a choice). I suspect most Americans who have had to take this action were faced with either huge medical costs not covered by insurance or faced with job loss and plummeting income. The obvious question becomes WTF are people doing when they fall for the GOP lies and demagoguery? Here are some highlights from Bankrate.com:

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19 percent of Americans -- including 17 percent of full-time workers -- have been compelled to take money from their retirement savings in the last year to cover urgent financial needs, the Financial Security Index found.
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The potential consequences of tapping retirement funds include early withdrawal fees, taxes and the loss of compound earnings -- not to mention the prospect of being unable to retire.
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While workers might be able to replenish the funds pilfered from tax-advantaged accounts once they regain their financial footing, one of the main benefits of long-term savings is time and compound interest. An early withdrawal of $10,000 is not just $10,000. It's actually $10,000 plus whatever that money would have earned over the lifetime of the account. Furthermore, with penalties and taxes an early $10,000 withdrawal may only yield $6,500 if you're in a 25 percent tax bracket.
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While it's fortunate that people do have the retirement savings to fall back on when they absolutely have no alternatives, they may be just delaying the day when they truly have no more resources and working is no longer be an option.
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"That's the scary thing. People are turning to this as a last resort; they have exhausted their other resources. At that point there is very little in the way of alternatives," says Greg McBride, CFA, senior financial analyst at Bankrate.com.
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"Consumers are pessimistic on all five components of financial security. When you look at gasoline prices closing in on $4 a gallon and other events taking place around the globe, it can be unsettling."
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It's a sad commentary on where this country is headed and, if the GOP is successful, suggest that many more Americans will find themselves living in poverty in the elder years. Once again, the party of alleged Christian values is showing its utter disdain for the central Gospel message of love and care for one's neighbor.

2 Million Lose Unemployment Benefits As Holidays Arrive

Ebenezer Scrooge looks pretty loving and charitable compared to the Congressional Republicans who are blocking an extension of unemployment benefits for 2 million Americans - even as they threaten to block ALL legislative action unless and until the Bush tax cuts for the top 1% of Americans are extended. The cost of unemployment benefits is $18 billion. The cost of the tax cuts for the 1% richest Americans is $700 billion. But guess which expenditure the GOP insists be payed for while the bigger ticket items gets funded via deficit spending. It's ridiculous, but guess who is missing in action in terms of using his bully pulpit. You guessed it, the spineless Liar-in-Chief. The man truly makes Jimmy Carter look like the most forceful of presidents. Nancy Pelosi condemned the GOP's f*cked priorities but not so the White House. With the threat from the GOP Senate contingent one would think Obama would finally get his head out of his ass, but apparently not so based on his smiling idiot routine when discussing his meeting with GOP representative the day before - where NOTHING was accomplished. Here are highlight from the Washington Post on what the GOP is doing to real, everyday Americans. It's obscene and readers need to read the full article to see what is happening to people whom the GOP apparently sees as less than human since they are not multi-millionaires (and people ask why I left the GOP?):
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Shawn Slonsky's children know by now not to give him Christmas lists filled with the latest gizmos. The 44-year-old union electrician is one of nearly 2 million Americans whose extended unemployment benefits will run out this month, making the holiday season less about celebration than survival.
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Things used to be different for Slonsky, who lives in Massillon, Ohio. Before work dried up, he earned about $100,000 a year. He and his wife lived in a three-bedroom house where deer meandered through the backyard.
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Then they lost their jobs. Their house went into foreclosure and they had to move in with his 73-year-old father. Now, Slonsky is dreading the holidays as his 99 weeks run out.
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The GOP didn't pay any political price for stalling efforts earlier this year to extend jobless benefits that provide critical help to the unemployed - including a seven-week stretch over the summer when jobless benefits were a piece of a failed Democratic tax and jobs bill. But bad publicity because the benefits end over the holidays has long been forecast.
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Ninety-nine weeks may seem like a long time to find a job. But even as the economy grows, jobs that vanished in the Great Recession have not returned. The private sector added about 159,000 jobs in October - half as many as needed to reduce the unemployment rate of 9.6 percent, which the Federal Reserve expects will hover around 9 percent for all of next year.
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"When you try to apply for retail or fast food, they say 'You're overqualified,' they say 'We don't pay that much money,' they say, 'You don't want this job,'" she said.

Is America On the Edge of a Financial and Political Cliff?

There was a time when political parties of all stripes seemed to have concern for the overall well being of the country and some minimum shred of compassion for more unfortunate citizens. Sadly, that description seems no longer to apply to the Republican Party that seems concerned with the interests of two groups: (1) the extremely wealthy who want to pay less in taxes no matter the impact on the nation as a whole and (2) social conservatives who would be happy to see the nation revert back to a 17th century or earlier time frame when no social safety net existed. As for the nation's infrastructure or the health - indeed, the very lives - of the poor and down trodden, the mantra seems to be "who gives a damn, its all about me." As I have noted before many times, those who seem to care the least about the unfortunate (other than the extremely wealthy who have a Marie Antoinette mind set) are conservative Christians who display no compassion towards their fellow citizens. Indeed, hatred and open contempt are the main characteristics of how the "other" is viewed by these truly un-godly folk. Paul Krugman has a column in the New York Times that looks at the possible blood bath that may approach as the GOP controlled House of Representatives seeks to weak havoc on the nation. Here are highlights:
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[O]ur nation is in much worse shape, much closer to a political breakdown, than most people realize. . . . Some explanation: There’s a legal limit to federal debt, which must be raised periodically if the government keeps running deficits; the limit will be reached again this spring. And since nobody, not even the hawkiest of deficit hawks, thinks the budget can be balanced immediately, the debt limit must be raised to avoid a government shutdown. But Republicans will probably try to blackmail the president into policy concessions by, in effect, holding the government hostage; they’ve done it before.
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Now, you might think that the prospect of this kind of standoff, which might deny many Americans essential services, wreak havoc in financial markets and undermine America’s role in the world, would worry all men of good will.
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[T]he G.O.P. isn’t interested in helping the economy as long as a Democrat is in the White House. Indeed, far from being willing to help Mr. Bernanke’s efforts, Republicans are trying to bully the Fed itself into giving up completely on trying to reduce unemployment. But, no . . .
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[O]n matters fiscal, the G.O.P. program is to do almost exactly the opposite of what Mr. Bernanke called for. On one side, Republicans oppose just about everything that might reduce structural deficits: they demand that the Bush tax cuts be made permanent while demagoguing efforts to limit the rise in Medicare costs, which are essential to any attempts to get the budget under control. On the other, the G.O.P. opposes anything that might help sustain demand in a depressed economy — even aid to small businesses, which the party claims to love.
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Right now, in particular, Republicans are blocking an extension of unemployment benefits — an action that will both cause immense hardship and drain purchasing power from an already sputtering economy. But there’s no point appealing to the better angels of their nature; America just doesn’t work that way anymore.
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My sense is that most Americans still don’t understand this reality. They still imagine that when push comes to shove, our politicians will come together to do what’s necessary. But that was another country. It’s hard to see how this situation is resolved without a major crisis of some kind.

America: Less Social Mobility Than We Like to Pretend

The chart set out above via Frum Forum shows a reality that most Americans like to pretend is not the case - much of "Old Europe" now has more social mobility that the USA. The chart comes originally from Brookings Institution study, published in 2009. And with the wealth disparity growing markedly in this country, the problem will likely increase. Faux religious freedom and declining social/class mobility - not exactly what the Founders supposedly had in mind.

Anti-Gay Bill Circulating In Uganda

Like many nations in Africa Uganda has many problems that need attention and coordinated efforts between the country's government and liberal outside agencies that can provide needed services and funding. Abject poverty is one such problem. All too typically, however, the national government and Christian extremists within the country are focused on demonizing gays and working on punitive anti-gay legislation. Actions that will only give the country a bad name and likely discourage some sources of aid to look to different countries in which to concentrate their efforts. Just as in backwards areas of the USA - e.g., Southwest Virginia, Alabama, Mississippi, etc. - this type of governmental action only makes Uganda LESS attractive for foreign investment and activities that will promote education and jobs. This, of course is fine with Christianist religious leaders because an ignorant populace is key to their continued power and control. It is truly a sick situation and personally, other than a pro-gay organization, I would not give even a dime to an organization that would spend my money in Uganda. Here are highlights from Box Turtle Bulletin:

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Uganda appears to be inching closer to “strengthening” its already draconian anti-gay laws which already provide for a possible life sentence for those convicted of homosexuality. A draft of the proposed bill obtained by Box Turtle Bulletin indicates that Ugandan lawmakers intend to go much further.

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In a draft dated April 20, 2009 and being circulated surreptitiously, the proposed bill creates an offense of “aggravated homosexuality” and provides for the death penalty under specific circumstances. It also provides for at least five years imprisonment (and no apparent maximum) for advocating on behalf of LGBT people. This extends not just to activists and organizations, but to individuals as well, including bloggers or anyone else using the internet or mobile phones — as well as anyone who makes a donation or offers a safe refuge for LGBT people. Furthermore, if anyone is “aware of the commission of any offense under this Act” and fails to report it to the police, they will be liable of up to six months imprisonment.

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The accompanying memorandum calls on the Uganda government to withdraw from any international obligations or treaties which the government interprests as running counter to the country’s anti-gay policies.

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In July, Uganda’s Minister of State for Ethics and Integrity James Nsaba Buturo confirmed their intention to eliminate free speech for and on behalf of LGBT people. Meanwhile, a full-fledged public vigilante campaign was released on Uganda’s gay community, leading to several reports of arrests and reports.

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A full copy of the proposed bill can be found at Box Turtle Bulletin. Candidly, the country is going to Hell in a hand basket and the anti-gay jihad appears to be yet one more way for the national government to distract people from its failed rule. Likewise, the Christianist extremist once again are using LGBT lives to further their own goals and thirst for power. I find it all sickening.