Could the US be on a path to bankruptcy?
By Carlos T Mock
December 10, 2010.
The recent deal extending Bush-era tax cuts is flawed because it fails to send a “signal of austerity” from the US about its ability to reduce its mounting debt burden. Market reaction was swift and devastating. US Treasuries suffered their biggest two-day sell-off since the collapse of Lehman Brothers, following a torrid month that has seen borrowing costs for western governments soar. Germany, Japan and the US have all seen their benchmark market interest rates rise by more than a quarter in the past month while the UK’s has risen by nearly a fifth.
The yield on 10-year US Treasuries hit a six-month high of 3.33 per cent on Wednesday, up 0.39 percentage points from Monday and 1 percentage point higher than its October low. The first toxic consequence of this is increase mortgage rates (which are based on the 10 year Treasury interest rates) thus hurting the housing recovery.
Japanese five-year yields also rose the most in two years, while Germany’s benchmark borrowing costs hit 3 per cent. “People are getting out of the market and moving to the sidelines, feeling shell-shocked at the speed of the rise in yields,” said David Ader, strategist at CRT Capital. US 10-year yields have risen by about 0.76 percentage points since November 8, those of Germany by 0.62 percentage points, the UK by 0.53 percentage points and Japan by 0.29 percentage points as the prices of the bonds has fallen.
Yields are still relatively low compared with long-term trends but investors are starting to fret that they could continue to move sharply higher. “Yields at this level are clearly unsustainable,” said Paul Marson, chief investment officer at Lombard Odier, the Swiss private bank. At what point will the US get stuck in a Japanese styled economy with a very prolonged recovery?
The market moves came after President Barack Obama agreed with Congressional Republicans to extend Bush-era tax cuts and combine them with a $120bn payroll tax holiday. The primary explanation is that growth expectations have increased because of better economic data and the “second stimulus” provided by the US government. But others argue it could be due to fears that the US Federal Reserve will not follow through on asset purchases or because of higher government deficits. “It is probably all three,” said said Steven Major, global head of fixed income research at HSBC.
Bucking the leadership of his own party, Tom Coburn, the Oklahoma senator who last week voted in favor of a sweeping plan to cut US budget deficits by $3,900bn during the next decade, said in an interview with the Financial Times the tax cuts deal did not “address our real problems and the real problem is we are in a hole financially”. The focus of Mr. Coburn’s criticism of the deal was not the overall cost of the tax cut extensions, which he supports, but that no spending cuts were included in order to offset some of the cost.
Dr. Mock has published four books with Floricanto Press, Berklety, CA. His articles have appeared on publications like The Chicago Tribune and several gay and lesbian newspapers. He was inducted in The Chicago GLBT Hall of Fame in 2007. He can be reached at: www.carlostmock.com
Friday, December 10, 2010
Monday, November 8, 2010
The Fed's Quantitative Easing 2 (QE 2) By Carlos T Mock
The Fed's Quantitative Easing 2 (QE 2)
By Carlos T Mock
November 5, 2010
Remember when we all were idolizing Fed chairman Alan Greenspan? When we thought he was the champion of our economy and the provider of prosperity?
In retrospect, we now know he is responsible for the housing bubble that brought the economy to its worst disaster since the Great Depression.
Now comes Ben Bernanke and his act of desperation called Quantitative Easing 2 (QE 2), in which the Fed will buy up to $600 billion dollars in treasuries to pump cash into the economy. To do this, the Fed MUST print the money to pay for it, an act that carries the consequence of devaluating the dollar.
By signaling its intention to purchase another $600bn of longer-term Treasury securities by the end of June 2011, the Fed hopes its injections of cash will lower interest rates, bolster asset prices, increase wealth and encourage households and companies to spend and hire. Moreover, by noting the possibility of doing more if the data disappoint, it is also hoping that markets could price in the institution’s future asset purchases, turbo-charging the direct policy impact before those purchases have even been specified.
While willing to act, the Fed should be aware that the potential benefits come with the certainty of collateral damage, and the probability of unintended catastrophe, just like Alan Greenspan brought forth to our economy before.
The Fed faces three problems, with its solo role being the first. Having warned in late August in Jackson Hole that “central bankers alone cannot solve the world’s economic problems”, Ben Bernanke, the Fed’s chairman, is now leading an institution that is virtually on its own among US policymakers in meaningfully trying to counter the sluggishness of the US economy and the stubbornly high unemployment.
Other government agencies are paralyzed by real and perceived constraints, seemingly happy to retreat to the sidelines and let the Fed do all the heavy lifting. But liquidity injections and financial engineering are insufficient to deal with the challenges that the US faces. Without meaningful structural reforms, part of the Fed’s liquidity injection will leak right out of the US and result in yet another surge of capital flows to other countries—thus worsening our trade imbalance.
Neither the rest of the world, nor our banks need this extra liquidity, and this is where the second problem emerges. Several emerging economies, such as Brazil and China, are already close to overheating; and the Eurozone and Japan can ill afford further appreciation in their currencies. Our banks are overloaded with cash that they simply refuse to lend—and further easing will not be an incentive to do so.
But the biggest risk to our economy is that as soon as the economy recovers and inflation kicks in, those bonds will be worth less—the value of the bond is inversely related to the yield it pays—thus leaving the Fed with bonds that are worth a lot less than what they paid and in turn increasing our deficit.
Despite polite rhetoric to the contrary in the lead up to the Group of 20 leading economies summit in Korea this month, other countries are likely to counter what they view as an unnecessarily disruptive surge in capital flows caused by inappropriate and short-sighted American policy. The result will be renewed currency tensions and a higher risk of capital controls and trade protectionism.
China has responded by stating they will not work with the US and impose current account targets. They have also criticized US monetary policy (QE 2), undermining hopes that the governments of the world’s two largest economies will find common ground at the G20 summit in Seoul next week.
Brazil, the country that fired the gun in the so-called “currency wars”, is girding itself for further battle. Brazilian officials from the president down have slammed the Federal Reserve’s decision to depress US interest rates by buying billions of dollars of government bonds, warning that it could lead to retaliatory measures.
The third issue relates to the gradual erosion of America’s central role in the global economy – including as the provider of both the world’s reserve currency and its deepest and most predictable financial markets. No other country or multilateral institution can displace the US, but a combination of alternatives can serve to erode its influence over time. No wonder commodity prices surged higher and the dollar weakened markedly in anticipation of QE2, pointing to increased input costs for American companies and unwelcome pressures on their earnings.
The unfortunate conclusion is that QE2 will be of limited success in sustaining high growth and job creation in the US, and will complicate life for many other countries. With domestic outcomes again falling short of policy expectations, it is just a matter of time until the Fed will be expected to do even more. And this means Wednesday’s QE2 announcement is unlikely to be the end of unusual Fed policy activism.
The Fed would be well advised to prepare for this possibility now. In doing so, it should insist that any further use of its balance sheet be subject to two overriding conditions.
First, rather than constitute yet another solo effort, the use of the Fed’s balance sheet should be one component of a more holistic US policy approach that addresses both demand and structural reform issues; and second, that such a policy response be accompanied by correlated, if not coordinated, actions in other countries. Without that, the Fed risks finding itself crossing the delicate line that separates a courageous policy approach from a counterproductive one. Other wise, Ben Bernanke will be our next Alan Greenspan.
Dr. Mock has published four books with Floricanto Press, Berklety, CA. His articles have appeared on publications like The Chicago Tribune and several gay and lesbian newspapers. He was inducted in The Chicago GLBT Hall of Fame in 2007. He can be reached at: www.carlostmock.com
By Carlos T Mock
November 5, 2010
Remember when we all were idolizing Fed chairman Alan Greenspan? When we thought he was the champion of our economy and the provider of prosperity?
In retrospect, we now know he is responsible for the housing bubble that brought the economy to its worst disaster since the Great Depression.
Now comes Ben Bernanke and his act of desperation called Quantitative Easing 2 (QE 2), in which the Fed will buy up to $600 billion dollars in treasuries to pump cash into the economy. To do this, the Fed MUST print the money to pay for it, an act that carries the consequence of devaluating the dollar.
By signaling its intention to purchase another $600bn of longer-term Treasury securities by the end of June 2011, the Fed hopes its injections of cash will lower interest rates, bolster asset prices, increase wealth and encourage households and companies to spend and hire. Moreover, by noting the possibility of doing more if the data disappoint, it is also hoping that markets could price in the institution’s future asset purchases, turbo-charging the direct policy impact before those purchases have even been specified.
While willing to act, the Fed should be aware that the potential benefits come with the certainty of collateral damage, and the probability of unintended catastrophe, just like Alan Greenspan brought forth to our economy before.
The Fed faces three problems, with its solo role being the first. Having warned in late August in Jackson Hole that “central bankers alone cannot solve the world’s economic problems”, Ben Bernanke, the Fed’s chairman, is now leading an institution that is virtually on its own among US policymakers in meaningfully trying to counter the sluggishness of the US economy and the stubbornly high unemployment.
Other government agencies are paralyzed by real and perceived constraints, seemingly happy to retreat to the sidelines and let the Fed do all the heavy lifting. But liquidity injections and financial engineering are insufficient to deal with the challenges that the US faces. Without meaningful structural reforms, part of the Fed’s liquidity injection will leak right out of the US and result in yet another surge of capital flows to other countries—thus worsening our trade imbalance.
Neither the rest of the world, nor our banks need this extra liquidity, and this is where the second problem emerges. Several emerging economies, such as Brazil and China, are already close to overheating; and the Eurozone and Japan can ill afford further appreciation in their currencies. Our banks are overloaded with cash that they simply refuse to lend—and further easing will not be an incentive to do so.
But the biggest risk to our economy is that as soon as the economy recovers and inflation kicks in, those bonds will be worth less—the value of the bond is inversely related to the yield it pays—thus leaving the Fed with bonds that are worth a lot less than what they paid and in turn increasing our deficit.
Despite polite rhetoric to the contrary in the lead up to the Group of 20 leading economies summit in Korea this month, other countries are likely to counter what they view as an unnecessarily disruptive surge in capital flows caused by inappropriate and short-sighted American policy. The result will be renewed currency tensions and a higher risk of capital controls and trade protectionism.
China has responded by stating they will not work with the US and impose current account targets. They have also criticized US monetary policy (QE 2), undermining hopes that the governments of the world’s two largest economies will find common ground at the G20 summit in Seoul next week.
Brazil, the country that fired the gun in the so-called “currency wars”, is girding itself for further battle. Brazilian officials from the president down have slammed the Federal Reserve’s decision to depress US interest rates by buying billions of dollars of government bonds, warning that it could lead to retaliatory measures.
The third issue relates to the gradual erosion of America’s central role in the global economy – including as the provider of both the world’s reserve currency and its deepest and most predictable financial markets. No other country or multilateral institution can displace the US, but a combination of alternatives can serve to erode its influence over time. No wonder commodity prices surged higher and the dollar weakened markedly in anticipation of QE2, pointing to increased input costs for American companies and unwelcome pressures on their earnings.
The unfortunate conclusion is that QE2 will be of limited success in sustaining high growth and job creation in the US, and will complicate life for many other countries. With domestic outcomes again falling short of policy expectations, it is just a matter of time until the Fed will be expected to do even more. And this means Wednesday’s QE2 announcement is unlikely to be the end of unusual Fed policy activism.
The Fed would be well advised to prepare for this possibility now. In doing so, it should insist that any further use of its balance sheet be subject to two overriding conditions.
First, rather than constitute yet another solo effort, the use of the Fed’s balance sheet should be one component of a more holistic US policy approach that addresses both demand and structural reform issues; and second, that such a policy response be accompanied by correlated, if not coordinated, actions in other countries. Without that, the Fed risks finding itself crossing the delicate line that separates a courageous policy approach from a counterproductive one. Other wise, Ben Bernanke will be our next Alan Greenspan.
Dr. Mock has published four books with Floricanto Press, Berklety, CA. His articles have appeared on publications like The Chicago Tribune and several gay and lesbian newspapers. He was inducted in The Chicago GLBT Hall of Fame in 2007. He can be reached at: www.carlostmock.com
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
In Defense of Same Sex Marriage
In Defense of Same Sex Marriage
Filed by: Guest Blogger
July 23, 2010 9:30 AM
http://www.bilerico.com/2010/07/in_defense_of_same_sex_marriage.php
Editors' Note: Guest blogger Dr. Carlos T Mock is a native Puerto Rican who resides in Chicago, IL and Three Oaks, MI. He has published four books and is the GLBT Editor for Floricanto Press in Berkley, CA.
carlos mock.jpgSince Same-sex marriage in the U.S. began on May 17, 2004 in the State of Massachusetts; for 14 years courts and many Americans began to change their minds on the subject. However, the Federal government has clung to its official definition of marriage as only between a man and a woman. On Thursday, one of the most conservative federal judges, Judge Joseph L. Tauro--named by Reagan--in the same state where it all began, finally stood up and said there was never a rational basis for that definition. The outcome he reached is long overdue.
The unsustainable Federal definition of marriage is contained in the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1996. At the time, there was no legal same-sex marriage in the United States. But now five states and the District of Columbia issue licenses to all couples. Because of the federal law, thousands of couples in those states cannot receive the same federal benefits as opposite-sex couples, including Social Security survivor payments and spousal burials in national military cemeteries.
Even though there were two cases brought to the judge, Judge Tauro arrived at his conclusions from a case brought by a gay rights group, that the marriage definition violates the equal-protection provisions of the Constitution. There is no rational basis for discriminating against same-sex couples, he ruled, discrediting the reasons stated by lawmakers in 1996, including the encouragement of "responsible procreation" and traditional notions of marriage and morality. In this argument, he was helped by the Obama administration's obligatory but half-hearted defense of the law, which since last year no longer supports Congress's stated reasons.
In their wisdom, our Founding Fathers established a government ruled by separation of powers, with one branch specifically dedicated to protect the rights of minorities, like homosexuals--from the whims of the majority: The Judicial Branch of our government. Courts should generally give Congress wide deference in writing laws, but should not be afraid to examine them when challenged, to make sure they do not discriminate unfairly against an unprotected minority. The Defense of Marriage Act was passed and signed as an election-year wedge issue, and the brief debate leading up to it was full of bigoted attacks against homosexuality as "depraved" and "immoral." One congressman said gay marriage would "devalue the love between a man and a woman." Laws passed on this kind of basis deserve to be upended, and I hope Judge Tauro's equal-protection opinion, which, for now, applies only to Massachusetts, is upheld on appeal.
In his 2003 dissention of the famous Lawrence v. Texas case, Justice Antonin Scalia actually predicted this moment would arrive. That decision left laws prohibiting same-sex marriage "on pretty shaky grounds," he warned, since it undercut the traditional moral basis for opposing homosexuality. The Justice Department cited those words when it abandoned its defense of the law as related to procreation, which, in turn, helped lead to Thursday's decision. The process of justice can take years, but in this case it seems to be moving in the right direction.
Dr. Mock has published four books with Floricanto Press, Berklety, CA. His articles have appeared on publications like The Chicago Tribune and several gay and lesbian newspapers. He was inducted in The Chicago GLBT Hall of Fame in 2007. He can be reached at: www.carlostmock.com
Filed by: Guest Blogger
July 23, 2010 9:30 AM
http://www.bilerico.com/2010/07/in_defense_of_same_sex_marriage.php
Editors' Note: Guest blogger Dr. Carlos T Mock is a native Puerto Rican who resides in Chicago, IL and Three Oaks, MI. He has published four books and is the GLBT Editor for Floricanto Press in Berkley, CA.
carlos mock.jpgSince Same-sex marriage in the U.S. began on May 17, 2004 in the State of Massachusetts; for 14 years courts and many Americans began to change their minds on the subject. However, the Federal government has clung to its official definition of marriage as only between a man and a woman. On Thursday, one of the most conservative federal judges, Judge Joseph L. Tauro--named by Reagan--in the same state where it all began, finally stood up and said there was never a rational basis for that definition. The outcome he reached is long overdue.
The unsustainable Federal definition of marriage is contained in the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1996. At the time, there was no legal same-sex marriage in the United States. But now five states and the District of Columbia issue licenses to all couples. Because of the federal law, thousands of couples in those states cannot receive the same federal benefits as opposite-sex couples, including Social Security survivor payments and spousal burials in national military cemeteries.
Even though there were two cases brought to the judge, Judge Tauro arrived at his conclusions from a case brought by a gay rights group, that the marriage definition violates the equal-protection provisions of the Constitution. There is no rational basis for discriminating against same-sex couples, he ruled, discrediting the reasons stated by lawmakers in 1996, including the encouragement of "responsible procreation" and traditional notions of marriage and morality. In this argument, he was helped by the Obama administration's obligatory but half-hearted defense of the law, which since last year no longer supports Congress's stated reasons.
In their wisdom, our Founding Fathers established a government ruled by separation of powers, with one branch specifically dedicated to protect the rights of minorities, like homosexuals--from the whims of the majority: The Judicial Branch of our government. Courts should generally give Congress wide deference in writing laws, but should not be afraid to examine them when challenged, to make sure they do not discriminate unfairly against an unprotected minority. The Defense of Marriage Act was passed and signed as an election-year wedge issue, and the brief debate leading up to it was full of bigoted attacks against homosexuality as "depraved" and "immoral." One congressman said gay marriage would "devalue the love between a man and a woman." Laws passed on this kind of basis deserve to be upended, and I hope Judge Tauro's equal-protection opinion, which, for now, applies only to Massachusetts, is upheld on appeal.
In his 2003 dissention of the famous Lawrence v. Texas case, Justice Antonin Scalia actually predicted this moment would arrive. That decision left laws prohibiting same-sex marriage "on pretty shaky grounds," he warned, since it undercut the traditional moral basis for opposing homosexuality. The Justice Department cited those words when it abandoned its defense of the law as related to procreation, which, in turn, helped lead to Thursday's decision. The process of justice can take years, but in this case it seems to be moving in the right direction.
Dr. Mock has published four books with Floricanto Press, Berklety, CA. His articles have appeared on publications like The Chicago Tribune and several gay and lesbian newspapers. He was inducted in The Chicago GLBT Hall of Fame in 2007. He can be reached at: www.carlostmock.com
Friday, July 23, 2010
What The Tribune won't tell you about the war on drugs
What The Tribune won't tell you about the war on drugs
By Carlos T Mock, MD, F. A. C. O. G.
Chicago, IL
July 25, 2009
The unfortunate truth Americans can't deal with is despite tough anti-drug laws, a 2009 survey by The World Health Organization (WHO) shows the U.S. has the highest level of illegal drug use in the world.
The survey of legal and illegal drug use in 17 countries, including the Netherlands and other countries with less stringent drug laws, shows Americans report the highest level of cocaine and marijuana use.
For example, Americans were four times more likely to report using cocaine in their lifetime than the next closest country, New Zealand (16% vs. 4%),
Marijuana use was more widely reported worldwide, and the U.S. also had the highest rate of use at 42.4% compared with 41.9% of New Zealanders.
In contrast, in the Netherlands, which has more liberal drug policies than the U.S., only 1.9% of people reported cocaine use and 19.8% reported marijuana use.
"The use of drugs seems to be a feature of more affluent countries. The U.S., which has been driving much of the world's drug research and drug policy agenda, stands out with higher levels of use of alcohol, cocaine, and cannabis, despite punitive illegal drug policies, as well as (in many U.S. states), a higher minimum legal alcohol drinking age than many comparable developed countries," write the researchers.
Drug users in this country show a stubborn indifference to whether their preferred vice comes from Colombia, Mexico, Bolivia, Ecuador, Paraguay or Pluto, as long as it comes from somewhere. It always does.
Unfortunately, the drug cartels control much of Congress and public opinion. Hiding behind “ulterior motives,” protecting our youth from drug exposure, they have bought most politicians and conservative newspapers—like The Tribune. I personally think that because so much money is at stake, the cartels would “eliminate” any opposition to strict drug rules. It’s the only way they can stay in business. The minute the government legalizes drug use, they are out of business.
We are also forgetting that the majority of drug addiction in this country is to legal substances—tobacco, alcohol, and prescription drugs —the two most common examples of this later category are Hollywood stars like Michael Jackson, and public figures like Rush Limbaugh
It is time that the American public accept the truth: drug addiction is a disease, not a crime. Legalizing and treating addicts is the only way to stop the flow of drugs. Not to mention the savings achieved from the war on drugs plus the revenue on the taxation of such substances.
With our national debt at 10% of GDP—and growing—it may be time for the US government to rethink its drug policies. There is enough revenue and savings to balance our debt, if we eliminated the costs of the war on drugs—by legalizing it—and then add the revenue of taxation to the sale of all abuse substances.
Carlos Mock, MD has published three books and is the Floricanto Press editor for its GLBT series. He was inducted in the Chicago Gay & Lesbian Hall of Fame in October of 2007. He grew up middle-class in the suburbs of San Juan, Puerto Rico. His website is: www.carlostmock.com
By Carlos T Mock, MD, F. A. C. O. G.
Chicago, IL
July 25, 2009
The unfortunate truth Americans can't deal with is despite tough anti-drug laws, a 2009 survey by The World Health Organization (WHO) shows the U.S. has the highest level of illegal drug use in the world.
The survey of legal and illegal drug use in 17 countries, including the Netherlands and other countries with less stringent drug laws, shows Americans report the highest level of cocaine and marijuana use.
For example, Americans were four times more likely to report using cocaine in their lifetime than the next closest country, New Zealand (16% vs. 4%),
Marijuana use was more widely reported worldwide, and the U.S. also had the highest rate of use at 42.4% compared with 41.9% of New Zealanders.
In contrast, in the Netherlands, which has more liberal drug policies than the U.S., only 1.9% of people reported cocaine use and 19.8% reported marijuana use.
"The use of drugs seems to be a feature of more affluent countries. The U.S., which has been driving much of the world's drug research and drug policy agenda, stands out with higher levels of use of alcohol, cocaine, and cannabis, despite punitive illegal drug policies, as well as (in many U.S. states), a higher minimum legal alcohol drinking age than many comparable developed countries," write the researchers.
Drug users in this country show a stubborn indifference to whether their preferred vice comes from Colombia, Mexico, Bolivia, Ecuador, Paraguay or Pluto, as long as it comes from somewhere. It always does.
Unfortunately, the drug cartels control much of Congress and public opinion. Hiding behind “ulterior motives,” protecting our youth from drug exposure, they have bought most politicians and conservative newspapers—like The Tribune. I personally think that because so much money is at stake, the cartels would “eliminate” any opposition to strict drug rules. It’s the only way they can stay in business. The minute the government legalizes drug use, they are out of business.
We are also forgetting that the majority of drug addiction in this country is to legal substances—tobacco, alcohol, and prescription drugs —the two most common examples of this later category are Hollywood stars like Michael Jackson, and public figures like Rush Limbaugh
It is time that the American public accept the truth: drug addiction is a disease, not a crime. Legalizing and treating addicts is the only way to stop the flow of drugs. Not to mention the savings achieved from the war on drugs plus the revenue on the taxation of such substances.
With our national debt at 10% of GDP—and growing—it may be time for the US government to rethink its drug policies. There is enough revenue and savings to balance our debt, if we eliminated the costs of the war on drugs—by legalizing it—and then add the revenue of taxation to the sale of all abuse substances.
Carlos Mock, MD has published three books and is the Floricanto Press editor for its GLBT series. He was inducted in the Chicago Gay & Lesbian Hall of Fame in October of 2007. He grew up middle-class in the suburbs of San Juan, Puerto Rico. His website is: www.carlostmock.com
Friday, July 16, 2010
In defense of Same Sex Marriage
In defense of Same Sex Marriage
By Carlos T Mock, MD
July 10, 2010
Since Same-sex marriage in the U.S. began on May 17, 2004 in the State of Massachusetts; for 14 years courts and many Americans began to change their minds on the subject. However, the Federal government has clung to its official definition of marriage as only between a man and a woman. On Thursday, one of the most conservative federal judges, Judge Joseph L. Tauro—named by Reagan—in the same state where it all began, finally stood up and said there was never a rational basis for that definition. The outcome he reached is long overdue.
The unsustainable Federal definition of marriage is contained in the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1996. At the time, there was no legal same-sex marriage in the United States. But now five states and the District of Columbia issue licenses to all couples. Because of the federal law, thousands of couples in those states cannot receive the same federal benefits as opposite-sex couples, including Social Security survivor payments and spousal burials in national military cemeteries.
Even though there were two cases brought to the judge, Judge Tauro arrived at his conclusions from a case brought by a gay rights group, that the marriage definition violates the equal-protection provisions of the Constitution. There is no rational basis for discriminating against same-sex couples, he ruled, discrediting the reasons stated by lawmakers in 1996, including the encouragement of “responsible procreation” and traditional notions of marriage and morality. In this argument, he was helped by the Obama administration’s obligatory but half-hearted defense of the law, which since last year no longer supports Congress’s stated reasons.
In their wisdom, our Founding Fathers established a government ruled by separation of powers, with one branch specifically dedicated to protect the rights of minorities, like homosexuals—from the whims of the majority: The Judicial Branch of our government. Courts should generally give Congress wide deference in writing laws, but should not be afraid to examine them when challenged, to make sure they do not discriminate unfairly against an unprotected minority. The Defense of Marriage Act was passed and signed as an election-year wedge issue, and the brief debate leading up to it was full of bigoted attacks against homosexuality as “depraved” and “immoral.” One congressman said gay marriage would “devalue the love between a man and a woman.” Laws passed on this kind of basis deserve to be upended, and I hope Judge Tauro’s equal-protection opinion, which, for now, applies only to Massachusetts, is upheld on appeal.
In his 2003 dissention of the famous Lawrence v. Texas case, Justice Antonin Scalia actually predicted this moment would arrive. That decision left laws prohibiting same-sex marriage “on pretty shaky grounds,” he warned, since it undercut the traditional moral basis for opposing homosexuality. The Justice Department cited those words when it abandoned its defense of the law as related to procreation, which, in turn, helped lead to Thursday’s decision. The process of justice can take years, but in this case it seems to be moving in the right direction.
Dr. Carlos T Mock is a native Puerto Rican who resides in Chicago, IL and Three Oaks, MI. He has published four books and is the GLBT Editor for Floricanto Press in Berkley, CA. He contributes columns regularly to Windy City Times in Chicago, Ambiente Magazine in Miami, Camp Newspaper in Kansas City. He's had several OP-Ed published at the Chicago Tribune. Inducted in the Chicago Gay & Lesbian Hall of Fame October 18th, 2007. He can be reached at: http://www.carlostmock.com/
By Carlos T Mock, MD
July 10, 2010
Since Same-sex marriage in the U.S. began on May 17, 2004 in the State of Massachusetts; for 14 years courts and many Americans began to change their minds on the subject. However, the Federal government has clung to its official definition of marriage as only between a man and a woman. On Thursday, one of the most conservative federal judges, Judge Joseph L. Tauro—named by Reagan—in the same state where it all began, finally stood up and said there was never a rational basis for that definition. The outcome he reached is long overdue.
The unsustainable Federal definition of marriage is contained in the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1996. At the time, there was no legal same-sex marriage in the United States. But now five states and the District of Columbia issue licenses to all couples. Because of the federal law, thousands of couples in those states cannot receive the same federal benefits as opposite-sex couples, including Social Security survivor payments and spousal burials in national military cemeteries.
Even though there were two cases brought to the judge, Judge Tauro arrived at his conclusions from a case brought by a gay rights group, that the marriage definition violates the equal-protection provisions of the Constitution. There is no rational basis for discriminating against same-sex couples, he ruled, discrediting the reasons stated by lawmakers in 1996, including the encouragement of “responsible procreation” and traditional notions of marriage and morality. In this argument, he was helped by the Obama administration’s obligatory but half-hearted defense of the law, which since last year no longer supports Congress’s stated reasons.
In their wisdom, our Founding Fathers established a government ruled by separation of powers, with one branch specifically dedicated to protect the rights of minorities, like homosexuals—from the whims of the majority: The Judicial Branch of our government. Courts should generally give Congress wide deference in writing laws, but should not be afraid to examine them when challenged, to make sure they do not discriminate unfairly against an unprotected minority. The Defense of Marriage Act was passed and signed as an election-year wedge issue, and the brief debate leading up to it was full of bigoted attacks against homosexuality as “depraved” and “immoral.” One congressman said gay marriage would “devalue the love between a man and a woman.” Laws passed on this kind of basis deserve to be upended, and I hope Judge Tauro’s equal-protection opinion, which, for now, applies only to Massachusetts, is upheld on appeal.
In his 2003 dissention of the famous Lawrence v. Texas case, Justice Antonin Scalia actually predicted this moment would arrive. That decision left laws prohibiting same-sex marriage “on pretty shaky grounds,” he warned, since it undercut the traditional moral basis for opposing homosexuality. The Justice Department cited those words when it abandoned its defense of the law as related to procreation, which, in turn, helped lead to Thursday’s decision. The process of justice can take years, but in this case it seems to be moving in the right direction.
Dr. Carlos T Mock is a native Puerto Rican who resides in Chicago, IL and Three Oaks, MI. He has published four books and is the GLBT Editor for Floricanto Press in Berkley, CA. He contributes columns regularly to Windy City Times in Chicago, Ambiente Magazine in Miami, Camp Newspaper in Kansas City. He's had several OP-Ed published at the Chicago Tribune. Inducted in the Chicago Gay & Lesbian Hall of Fame October 18th, 2007. He can be reached at: http://www.carlostmock.com/
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Independence Day and the separation of powers: The Legal Branch
Independence Day and the separation of powers: The Legal Branch
By Carlos T Mock, MD
July 4th, 2010
As we celebrate the birth of our country, I especially celebrate the wisdom of our Founding Fathers in establishing a government ruled by separation of powers, with one branch specifically dedicated to protect the rights of minorities, like me—a homosexual—from the whims of the majority: The Judicial Branch of our government.
In Elena Kagan's confirmation hearings, conservative senators have made two things clear: their disdain for "liberal activist" judges and their fear she will be one. When conservatives talk about judicial activism, they have in mind a variety of Supreme Court decisions — legalizing abortion, hindering the death penalty, allowing flag-burning and preventing officially sponsored prayer in public schools. All these, they believe, ignored the plain words or the original meaning of the text.
But there is another decision that fits any definition of a liberal, activist approach. It came in a 2003 case, Lawrence v. Texas involving two men who were prosecuted after being caught by police having sex in a bedroom in a private home. Lawrence v. Texas, is a landmark United States Supreme Court case. In the 6-3 ruling, the justices struck down the sodomy law in Texas. The court had previously addressed the same issue in 1986 in Bowers v. Hardwick, where it upheld a challenged Georgia statute, not finding a constitutional protection of sexual privacy. Lawrence explicitly overruled Bowers, holding that it had viewed the liberty interest too narrowly. The majority held that intimate consensual sexual conduct was part of the liberty protected by substantive due process under the Fourteenth Amendment. Lawrence has the effect of invalidating similar laws throughout the United States that purport to criminalize sodomy between consenting same-sex adults acting in private. It also invalidated the application of sodomy laws to heterosexuals. This is a clear example of a minority being protected from the majority through judicial acts. Even though not decided upon equal protection grounds, sexual liberty supporters still hope that the majority decision will call into question other legal limitations on same-sex sexuality, including the right to state recognition of same-sex marriage, and the right to serve openly in the military.
Helped by the landmark civil rights case, Loving v. Virginia, in which the United States Supreme Court, by a 9-0 vote, declared Virginia's anti-miscegenation statute, the "Racial Integrity Act of 1924", unconstitutional, thereby overturning Pace v. Alabama (1883) and ended all race based legal restrictions on marriage in the United States by ruling that Virginia's anti-miscegenation statute violated both the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
“Marriage is one of the "basic civil rights of man," fundamental to our very existence and survival.... To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State's citizens of liberty without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discrimination. Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State.” Loving v. Virginia
That’s why the lawyers from both sides of Bush v. Gore—Theodore Olson a Washington, D.C. lawyer and Republican Solicitor General, and David Boies a liberal lawyer who argued for Mr. Gore, joined forces in fighting for same sex marriage in California. The lawsuit was filed by four same-sex couples after California voters approved Proposition 8 in November 2008. The measure, which affirms that marriage is between one man and one woman, was placed on the ballot after the California Supreme Court ruled same-sex marriage to be a right in May 2008.
Again, The judicial branch is defending the rights of minorities (gay and lesbian tax paying citizens) to be denied a constitutional right by a suffrage referendum from the heterosexual majority. Attorney Ted Olson, making the closing argument against Proposition 8, contended that proponents had failed to show that same-sex marriage would harm the institution of marriage or impede society's interest in procreation. He compared the situation of gay couples to that of slaves. Under slavery at the time of the nation's founding, slaves could not be married legally, and that being prohibited from marrying was "the very essence of slavery," he said. Mr. Olson said there was no logical reason for voters to support Proposition 8, and therefore they must have acted out of "animus."
Dr. Carlos T Mock is a native Puerto Rican who resides in Chicago, IL and Three Oaks, MI. He has published four books and is the GLBT Editor for Floricanto Press in Berkley, CA. He contributes columns regularly to Windy City Times in Chicago, Ambiente Magazine in Miami, Camp Newspaper in Kansas City. He's had several OP-Ed published at the Chicago Tribune. Inducted in the Chicago Gay & Lesbian Hall of Fame October 18th, 2007. He can be reached at: http://www.carlostmock.com/
By Carlos T Mock, MD
July 4th, 2010
As we celebrate the birth of our country, I especially celebrate the wisdom of our Founding Fathers in establishing a government ruled by separation of powers, with one branch specifically dedicated to protect the rights of minorities, like me—a homosexual—from the whims of the majority: The Judicial Branch of our government.
In Elena Kagan's confirmation hearings, conservative senators have made two things clear: their disdain for "liberal activist" judges and their fear she will be one. When conservatives talk about judicial activism, they have in mind a variety of Supreme Court decisions — legalizing abortion, hindering the death penalty, allowing flag-burning and preventing officially sponsored prayer in public schools. All these, they believe, ignored the plain words or the original meaning of the text.
But there is another decision that fits any definition of a liberal, activist approach. It came in a 2003 case, Lawrence v. Texas involving two men who were prosecuted after being caught by police having sex in a bedroom in a private home. Lawrence v. Texas, is a landmark United States Supreme Court case. In the 6-3 ruling, the justices struck down the sodomy law in Texas. The court had previously addressed the same issue in 1986 in Bowers v. Hardwick, where it upheld a challenged Georgia statute, not finding a constitutional protection of sexual privacy. Lawrence explicitly overruled Bowers, holding that it had viewed the liberty interest too narrowly. The majority held that intimate consensual sexual conduct was part of the liberty protected by substantive due process under the Fourteenth Amendment. Lawrence has the effect of invalidating similar laws throughout the United States that purport to criminalize sodomy between consenting same-sex adults acting in private. It also invalidated the application of sodomy laws to heterosexuals. This is a clear example of a minority being protected from the majority through judicial acts. Even though not decided upon equal protection grounds, sexual liberty supporters still hope that the majority decision will call into question other legal limitations on same-sex sexuality, including the right to state recognition of same-sex marriage, and the right to serve openly in the military.
Helped by the landmark civil rights case, Loving v. Virginia, in which the United States Supreme Court, by a 9-0 vote, declared Virginia's anti-miscegenation statute, the "Racial Integrity Act of 1924", unconstitutional, thereby overturning Pace v. Alabama (1883) and ended all race based legal restrictions on marriage in the United States by ruling that Virginia's anti-miscegenation statute violated both the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
“Marriage is one of the "basic civil rights of man," fundamental to our very existence and survival.... To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State's citizens of liberty without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discrimination. Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State.” Loving v. Virginia
That’s why the lawyers from both sides of Bush v. Gore—Theodore Olson a Washington, D.C. lawyer and Republican Solicitor General, and David Boies a liberal lawyer who argued for Mr. Gore, joined forces in fighting for same sex marriage in California. The lawsuit was filed by four same-sex couples after California voters approved Proposition 8 in November 2008. The measure, which affirms that marriage is between one man and one woman, was placed on the ballot after the California Supreme Court ruled same-sex marriage to be a right in May 2008.
Again, The judicial branch is defending the rights of minorities (gay and lesbian tax paying citizens) to be denied a constitutional right by a suffrage referendum from the heterosexual majority. Attorney Ted Olson, making the closing argument against Proposition 8, contended that proponents had failed to show that same-sex marriage would harm the institution of marriage or impede society's interest in procreation. He compared the situation of gay couples to that of slaves. Under slavery at the time of the nation's founding, slaves could not be married legally, and that being prohibited from marrying was "the very essence of slavery," he said. Mr. Olson said there was no logical reason for voters to support Proposition 8, and therefore they must have acted out of "animus."
Dr. Carlos T Mock is a native Puerto Rican who resides in Chicago, IL and Three Oaks, MI. He has published four books and is the GLBT Editor for Floricanto Press in Berkley, CA. He contributes columns regularly to Windy City Times in Chicago, Ambiente Magazine in Miami, Camp Newspaper in Kansas City. He's had several OP-Ed published at the Chicago Tribune. Inducted in the Chicago Gay & Lesbian Hall of Fame October 18th, 2007. He can be reached at: http://www.carlostmock.com/
Monday, July 5, 2010
Health care crisis: Lack of Therapy for HIV/AIDS patients
Health care crisis: Lack of Therapy for HIV/AIDS patients
By Carlos T Mock, MD
July 1st. 2010
The weak economy is crippling the government program that provides life-sustaining antiretroviral drugs to people with H.I.V. or AIDS who cannot afford them.
As with other safety-net programs, ballooning demand caused by persistent unemployment and loss of health insurance is being met with reductions in government resources. Without reliable access to the medications, which cost patients in the AIDS Drug Assistance Program an average of $12,000 a year, people with H.I.V. are more likely to develop full-blown AIDS, transmit the virus and require expensive hospitalizations.
In many states, there is a sense of reverting to the 1980s and early 1990s, before the development of protease inhibitors reversed the rise in AIDS deaths.
Is this an example of “The best health care system in the world?” We are been reduced to a third world status where a lack of antiretroviral drugs is the "biggest" problem facing HIV/AIDS treatment programs in Africa, according to Robert Colebunders, a Belgian researcher at Uganda's Infectious Disease Institute at Mulago Hospital in Kampala.
Dr. Carlos T Mock is a native Puerto Rican who resides in Chicago, IL and Three Oaks, MI. He has published four books and is the GLBT Editor for Floricanto Press in Berkley, CA. He contributes columns regularly to Windy City Times in Chicago, Ambiente Magazine in Miami, Camp Newspaper in Kansas City. He's had several OP-Ed published at the Chicago Tribune. Inducted in the Chicago Gay & Lesbian Hall of Fame October 18th, 2007. He can be reached at: http://www.carlostmock.com/
By Carlos T Mock, MD
July 1st. 2010
The weak economy is crippling the government program that provides life-sustaining antiretroviral drugs to people with H.I.V. or AIDS who cannot afford them.
As with other safety-net programs, ballooning demand caused by persistent unemployment and loss of health insurance is being met with reductions in government resources. Without reliable access to the medications, which cost patients in the AIDS Drug Assistance Program an average of $12,000 a year, people with H.I.V. are more likely to develop full-blown AIDS, transmit the virus and require expensive hospitalizations.
In many states, there is a sense of reverting to the 1980s and early 1990s, before the development of protease inhibitors reversed the rise in AIDS deaths.
Is this an example of “The best health care system in the world?” We are been reduced to a third world status where a lack of antiretroviral drugs is the "biggest" problem facing HIV/AIDS treatment programs in Africa, according to Robert Colebunders, a Belgian researcher at Uganda's Infectious Disease Institute at Mulago Hospital in Kampala.
Dr. Carlos T Mock is a native Puerto Rican who resides in Chicago, IL and Three Oaks, MI. He has published four books and is the GLBT Editor for Floricanto Press in Berkley, CA. He contributes columns regularly to Windy City Times in Chicago, Ambiente Magazine in Miami, Camp Newspaper in Kansas City. He's had several OP-Ed published at the Chicago Tribune. Inducted in the Chicago Gay & Lesbian Hall of Fame October 18th, 2007. He can be reached at: http://www.carlostmock.com/
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Taxation without rights
Taxation without rights
June 15, 2010
Dear DNC,
Today, as I mail my quarterly tax checks to the IRA I am reminded that I am not an “Equal Citizen Under the Law.” I can’t get married, I can’t defend my country at war, and I don’t have equal protections in the workplace under the law.
When WE elected you in 2008, you were supposed to make us Equal Citizens. You’ve failed miserably and until you correct this injustice our ATM is closed to the DNC.
Please stop asking for money until you repeal DADT, you passed ENDA, repeal DOMA, and have our President state that he believes in marriage equality.
Sincerely,
Carlos T Mock, MD and William R, Rattan
501 N. Elm Street
Three Oaks, MI 49128
Dr. Mock has published four books with Floricanto Press, Berklety, CA. His articles have appeared on publications like The Chicago Tribune and several gay and lesbian newspapers. He was inducted in The Chicago GLBT Hall of Fame in 2007. He can be reached at: www.carlostmock.com
Who Can The LGBT Community Support in 2010!
May 10 2010
LGBT people are great citizens - responsible, diligent and knowledgeable. We know and value the ability to be able to participate fully in the election process. None of us would even consider sitting out an election knowing ramifications on not only our issues but those facing our planet. So the option of boycotting any election should not be one that we embrace in protest. However, as we progress through this political year, several factors are clear to us.
1. There is simply no longer any benefit in giving to the national Democratic entities such as the Democratic National Committee (DNC), Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Fund. Because of their apparent love affair with Blue Dog Democrats, most who oppose LGBT rights, we would only be freeing up money for candidates who will hurt us instead of help us. Even 'special funds' set up inside those committees only help create money for those who oppose us.
2. Second, we don't have to support those committees to be good citizens and to help our community. There are now enough candidates who support full equality, including marriage equality, that we no longer have to accept second best. We can raise money, awareness and support for candidates who believe in us. We don't need to go through Committees to support them, we can write checks directly.
In this year's United States Senate races, there at least five candidates (maybe more later), who support full equality including marriage. They deserve our direct money, support and praise. I will do my best over the next weeks to point out other candidates who are supporting us fully. This is a beginning list:
Senator Barbara Boxer (California):
Senator Russ Feingold (Wisconsin):
Candidate Lee Fisher (Ohio): Fresh off a primary victory, this Democrat nominee for senate is totally on board with full equality. Don't believe me? Just go to his website and see his positions! Lee Fisher is a strong advocate for marriage equality.
Candidate Alexi Giannoulias (Illinois): The youngest candidate for US Senate this year is a huge champion for full equality for LGBT citizens. Campaigning before straight audiences he has advocated strongly for marriage equality, repeal of DOMA and repeal of DADT just for openers!
Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (New York):
This is just the first in a series presenting to you candidates who you can feel comfortable in supporting. If you have choices and they support full equality (including marriage equality and not civil unions), please send them to me with documentation.
Illinois Senate Candidate on GLBT Issues http://salsa.wiredforchange.com/o/5932/t/6348/thankYou.jsp?key=1271
June 15, 2010
Dear DNC,
Today, as I mail my quarterly tax checks to the IRA I am reminded that I am not an “Equal Citizen Under the Law.” I can’t get married, I can’t defend my country at war, and I don’t have equal protections in the workplace under the law.
When WE elected you in 2008, you were supposed to make us Equal Citizens. You’ve failed miserably and until you correct this injustice our ATM is closed to the DNC.
Please stop asking for money until you repeal DADT, you passed ENDA, repeal DOMA, and have our President state that he believes in marriage equality.
Sincerely,
Carlos T Mock, MD and William R, Rattan
501 N. Elm Street
Three Oaks, MI 49128
Dr. Mock has published four books with Floricanto Press, Berklety, CA. His articles have appeared on publications like The Chicago Tribune and several gay and lesbian newspapers. He was inducted in The Chicago GLBT Hall of Fame in 2007. He can be reached at: www.carlostmock.com
Who Can The LGBT Community Support in 2010!
May 10 2010
LGBT people are great citizens - responsible, diligent and knowledgeable. We know and value the ability to be able to participate fully in the election process. None of us would even consider sitting out an election knowing ramifications on not only our issues but those facing our planet. So the option of boycotting any election should not be one that we embrace in protest. However, as we progress through this political year, several factors are clear to us.
1. There is simply no longer any benefit in giving to the national Democratic entities such as the Democratic National Committee (DNC), Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Fund. Because of their apparent love affair with Blue Dog Democrats, most who oppose LGBT rights, we would only be freeing up money for candidates who will hurt us instead of help us. Even 'special funds' set up inside those committees only help create money for those who oppose us.
2. Second, we don't have to support those committees to be good citizens and to help our community. There are now enough candidates who support full equality, including marriage equality, that we no longer have to accept second best. We can raise money, awareness and support for candidates who believe in us. We don't need to go through Committees to support them, we can write checks directly.
In this year's United States Senate races, there at least five candidates (maybe more later), who support full equality including marriage. They deserve our direct money, support and praise. I will do my best over the next weeks to point out other candidates who are supporting us fully. This is a beginning list:
Senator Barbara Boxer (California):
Senator Russ Feingold (Wisconsin):
Candidate Lee Fisher (Ohio):
Candidate Alexi Giannoulias (Illinois):
Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (New York):
This is just the first in a series presenting to you candidates who you can feel comfortable in supporting. If you have choices and they support full equality (including marriage equality and not civil unions), please send them to me with documentation.
Illinois Senate Candidate on GLBT Issues http://salsa.wiredforchange.com/o/5932/t/6348/thankYou.jsp?key=1271
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Open letter to Senate candidate Mark Kirk.
Dear Congressman:
I find it offensive that Republican Andy Martin claimed you are a homosexual in a radio ad or that Mike Rogers—who has a reputation for outing politicians—is claiming that you are a closeted gay man. I am a gay man and I get offended because there is nothing wrong with being gay. As a a matter of fact I’m very proud of it!
However, a “single, good looking 50 year old man” is no longer called a “bachelor” in our society. When you voted against repealing don’t ask don’t tell policy in congress, you hurt the gay and lesbian community. And as such, the gay and lesbian community has the “right and duty” to ask if you are gay.
If openly gay Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Jacob Meister criticizes me for the question, that’s fine by me; but based on your recent lies about your military career, I an starting to think that you’ll say and do anything to get elected.
Where’s your strong support for a woman’s right to choose? Gone in this election. As a fifth-term congressman who is running for U.S. Senate, you received an 85% rating from the Human Rights Campaign, the largest Gay and Lesbian organization in the US, in part for your support of hate-crimes legislation and the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. However, now that you are running for the Senate, you lost the group's endorsement for the race to fill the seat to be vacated by Roland Burris, after the DADT vote last week.
Mr. Kirk, before this election in November, voters have a right to know the truth about you!
Dr. Carlos T Mock is a native Puerto Rican who resides in Chicago, IL. He has published four books and is the GLBT Editor for Floricanto Press in Berkley, CA. He contributes columns regularly to Windy City Times in Chicago, Ambiente Magazine in Miami, Camp Newspaper in Kansas City. He's had several OP-Ed published at the Chicago Tribune. Inducted in the Chicago Gay & Lesbian Hall of Fame October 18th, 2007
Carlos T Mock, MD
Uptown Chicago
June 10, 2010
I find it offensive that Republican Andy Martin claimed you are a homosexual in a radio ad or that Mike Rogers—who has a reputation for outing politicians—is claiming that you are a closeted gay man. I am a gay man and I get offended because there is nothing wrong with being gay. As a a matter of fact I’m very proud of it!
However, a “single, good looking 50 year old man” is no longer called a “bachelor” in our society. When you voted against repealing don’t ask don’t tell policy in congress, you hurt the gay and lesbian community. And as such, the gay and lesbian community has the “right and duty” to ask if you are gay.
If openly gay Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Jacob Meister criticizes me for the question, that’s fine by me; but based on your recent lies about your military career, I an starting to think that you’ll say and do anything to get elected.
Where’s your strong support for a woman’s right to choose? Gone in this election. As a fifth-term congressman who is running for U.S. Senate, you received an 85% rating from the Human Rights Campaign, the largest Gay and Lesbian organization in the US, in part for your support of hate-crimes legislation and the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. However, now that you are running for the Senate, you lost the group's endorsement for the race to fill the seat to be vacated by Roland Burris, after the DADT vote last week.
Mr. Kirk, before this election in November, voters have a right to know the truth about you!
Dr. Carlos T Mock is a native Puerto Rican who resides in Chicago, IL. He has published four books and is the GLBT Editor for Floricanto Press in Berkley, CA. He contributes columns regularly to Windy City Times in Chicago, Ambiente Magazine in Miami, Camp Newspaper in Kansas City. He's had several OP-Ed published at the Chicago Tribune. Inducted in the Chicago Gay & Lesbian Hall of Fame October 18th, 2007
Carlos T Mock, MD
Uptown Chicago
June 10, 2010
Saturday, June 5, 2010
What’s wrong with the GLBT Movement?
What’s wrong with the GLBT Movement?
By Carlos Mock, MD
May 24, 2010
Perhaps you are like me, wondering what happened to all those promises by the young Obama administration about equal rights for the GLBT community.
We were assured that ENDA would be passed in 2009. President Obama spoke at the HRC dinner last year in NYC and announced the repeal of DADT by year’s end. Many local Equality organizations have been announcing marriage equality, only to see New Jersey, New York, Illinois, and many others fail miserably.
Are you wondering what’s going on? For the last year, over and over again in the blogosphere, we have written about how 2009 was our year. We understood that never again would we have the kind of Congressional margin the Democrats had, that it wasn't an election year and it was time to act. The Obama team, and yes HRC, told us to wait; that they had a grand plan and everything would take place in time.
Well the time is over for poetic words and empty promises. Our patience has run out. If HRC has a master plan and time schedule, we at this stage, have a right to know what it is and what the Obama team promised to get them to back off. Simply put, enough of these political games and giving our friends permission to take detours, prolong the trip and deny us our equality.
As our president memorably said a while ago, "Enough." Really and seriously - enough.
Close your ATM to the Democratic Party and any GLBT organization that fails to deliver:
As if we needed more reason not to give to the Democratic National Committee (DNC), Ben Smith of Politico.com, gave us yet another one. It turns out the DNC recently gave Ben Nelson (D-Nebraska) over $500,000 to pay for ads for his re-election. Nelson stands against the LGBT community at every opportunity. Not only that, but he was also a major reason we are in the current health care situation. We don't need to be financing Democrats who act like Republicans. Why in the world would we give money to the DNC simply to free up their funds to give to Blue Dog Democrats?
How long has your local Equality organization promised you Equal rights and an end to discrimination? How long have you been waiting for them to deliver? Try asking questions about their failure or how they are spending your hard earned contributions and what results they’ve achieved. They immediately get defensive or even angry. When was the last time you saw an annual report detailing how your hard earned money was spent? With the Obama revolution, most state houses achieved Democratic majorities—yet, local organizations can’t convince the Democrats they helped to elect to deliver for them.
Tired of the status quo, a major new civil rights organization was formed in our struggle for freedom. Kip Williams and Robin McGeehee, Co-chairs of the National Equality March in October, announced the formation of "Get Equal." http://www.getequal.org/ The talented organizers have spent months since the March on Washington, carefully putting together an effective national network of activists to battle for civil rights for the LGBT community. They have traveled across the country, held retreats with young leaders and worked with march participants to create an entity that will fill the vacuum of the absence of a 'direct action' organization in our movement.
I encourage every GLBT person to carefully analyze where you will put your money in 2010. Do you want a repeat of 2009? Chose well and make sure you get accountability from the organizations you support. Don't budge and continue to only give money directly to candidates who are for full equality including marriage equality. To add insult to injury, our President is still against same sex marriage!
Dr. Carlos T Mock is a native Puerto Rican who resides in Chicago, IL and Three Oaks, MI. He has published four books and is the GLBT Editor for Floricanto Press in Berkley, CA. He contributes columns regularly to Windy City Times in Chicago, Ambiente Magazine in Miami, Camp Newspaper in Kansas City. He's had several OP-Ed published at the Chicago Tribune. Inducted in the Chicago Gay & Lesbian Hall of Fame October 18th, 2007. You can find more information on Dr. Mock at: http://www.carlostmock.com/
By Carlos Mock, MD
May 24, 2010
Perhaps you are like me, wondering what happened to all those promises by the young Obama administration about equal rights for the GLBT community.
We were assured that ENDA would be passed in 2009. President Obama spoke at the HRC dinner last year in NYC and announced the repeal of DADT by year’s end. Many local Equality organizations have been announcing marriage equality, only to see New Jersey, New York, Illinois, and many others fail miserably.
Are you wondering what’s going on? For the last year, over and over again in the blogosphere, we have written about how 2009 was our year. We understood that never again would we have the kind of Congressional margin the Democrats had, that it wasn't an election year and it was time to act. The Obama team, and yes HRC, told us to wait; that they had a grand plan and everything would take place in time.
Well the time is over for poetic words and empty promises. Our patience has run out. If HRC has a master plan and time schedule, we at this stage, have a right to know what it is and what the Obama team promised to get them to back off. Simply put, enough of these political games and giving our friends permission to take detours, prolong the trip and deny us our equality.
As our president memorably said a while ago, "Enough." Really and seriously - enough.
Close your ATM to the Democratic Party and any GLBT organization that fails to deliver:
As if we needed more reason not to give to the Democratic National Committee (DNC), Ben Smith of Politico.com, gave us yet another one. It turns out the DNC recently gave Ben Nelson (D-Nebraska) over $500,000 to pay for ads for his re-election. Nelson stands against the LGBT community at every opportunity. Not only that, but he was also a major reason we are in the current health care situation. We don't need to be financing Democrats who act like Republicans. Why in the world would we give money to the DNC simply to free up their funds to give to Blue Dog Democrats?
How long has your local Equality organization promised you Equal rights and an end to discrimination? How long have you been waiting for them to deliver? Try asking questions about their failure or how they are spending your hard earned contributions and what results they’ve achieved. They immediately get defensive or even angry. When was the last time you saw an annual report detailing how your hard earned money was spent? With the Obama revolution, most state houses achieved Democratic majorities—yet, local organizations can’t convince the Democrats they helped to elect to deliver for them.
Tired of the status quo, a major new civil rights organization was formed in our struggle for freedom. Kip Williams and Robin McGeehee, Co-chairs of the National Equality March in October, announced the formation of "Get Equal." http://www.getequal.org/ The talented organizers have spent months since the March on Washington, carefully putting together an effective national network of activists to battle for civil rights for the LGBT community. They have traveled across the country, held retreats with young leaders and worked with march participants to create an entity that will fill the vacuum of the absence of a 'direct action' organization in our movement.
I encourage every GLBT person to carefully analyze where you will put your money in 2010. Do you want a repeat of 2009? Chose well and make sure you get accountability from the organizations you support. Don't budge and continue to only give money directly to candidates who are for full equality including marriage equality. To add insult to injury, our President is still against same sex marriage!
Dr. Carlos T Mock is a native Puerto Rican who resides in Chicago, IL and Three Oaks, MI. He has published four books and is the GLBT Editor for Floricanto Press in Berkley, CA. He contributes columns regularly to Windy City Times in Chicago, Ambiente Magazine in Miami, Camp Newspaper in Kansas City. He's had several OP-Ed published at the Chicago Tribune. Inducted in the Chicago Gay & Lesbian Hall of Fame October 18th, 2007. You can find more information on Dr. Mock at: http://www.carlostmock.com/
Why I should be the Next President of the USA
Why I should be the Next President of the USA
By Carlos T Mock, MD
May 30, 2010
The Tea Party movement things that Sarah Palin should succeed president Obama as the 45th President of the United States. In my opinion my qualifications are superior to hers.
I know that Africa is a continent, not a country.
I read every morning, The Financial Times, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, and The Chicago Sun-Times.
I know the difference between North and South Korea. The Korean War (1950–53) was the first major proxy war in the Cold War (1945–91), the prototype of the following sphere-of-influence wars such as the Vietnam War (1959–75). The Korean War established proxy war as one way that the nuclear superpowers indirectly conducted their rivalry in third-party countries. The NSC-68 Containment Policy extended the cold war from occupied Europe to the rest of the world. Fighting ended at the 38th parallel and the DMZ, a strip of land 248x4 km (155x2.5 mi), now divides the two countries—but neither of the Koreas officially ended the war.
I know that Africa is a continent, not a country.
I know that the Boston Tea Party was a revolt of Americans against the British Empire for taxation without representation—and had nothing to do with the size of our government.
I’ve actually been to Russia, which is better than seeing it from afar.
Ms Palin was elected to office—namely Governor of Alaska—but she abandoned her post as soon as she realized she could become a millionaire. She placed money over her constituency, and that is something I would never do.
There is one big area I can’t compete against her—for at 54, I don’t think I qualify as “hot.” If beauty is a qualification for the presidency of the United State, then I nominate Beyoncé; not only she is much more younger and beautiful than Ms. Palin—she can also sing and act. Besides, Beyoncé was born in Houston, Texas—and you can’t get more American than that.
Finally, I don’t exploit my family for political purposes—and I would NEVER allow my daughter to get pregnant before being married by a priest or minister.
There might be one problem, I was born in Puerto Rico—and in the midst of one of the most precipitous political crashes in the Mountain West, Sarah Palin made a mad dash into Boise on Friday, urging the election of a man who had plagiarized his campaign speech from Barack Obama, had been rebuked by the military for misusing the Marine uniform and had called the American territory of Puerto Rico a separate country.
Dr. Carlos T Mock is a native Puerto Rican who resides in Chicago, IL and Three Oaks, MI. He has published four books and is the GLBT Editor for Floricanto Press in Berkley, CA. He contributes columns regularly to Windy City Times in Chicago, Ambiente Magazine in Miami, Camp Newspaper in Kansas City. He's had several OP-Ed published at the Chicago Tribune. He can be reached at http://www.carlostmock.com/
By Carlos T Mock, MD
May 30, 2010
The Tea Party movement things that Sarah Palin should succeed president Obama as the 45th President of the United States. In my opinion my qualifications are superior to hers.
I know that Africa is a continent, not a country.
I read every morning, The Financial Times, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, and The Chicago Sun-Times.
I know the difference between North and South Korea. The Korean War (1950–53) was the first major proxy war in the Cold War (1945–91), the prototype of the following sphere-of-influence wars such as the Vietnam War (1959–75). The Korean War established proxy war as one way that the nuclear superpowers indirectly conducted their rivalry in third-party countries. The NSC-68 Containment Policy extended the cold war from occupied Europe to the rest of the world. Fighting ended at the 38th parallel and the DMZ, a strip of land 248x4 km (155x2.5 mi), now divides the two countries—but neither of the Koreas officially ended the war.
I know that Africa is a continent, not a country.
I know that the Boston Tea Party was a revolt of Americans against the British Empire for taxation without representation—and had nothing to do with the size of our government.
I’ve actually been to Russia, which is better than seeing it from afar.
Ms Palin was elected to office—namely Governor of Alaska—but she abandoned her post as soon as she realized she could become a millionaire. She placed money over her constituency, and that is something I would never do.
There is one big area I can’t compete against her—for at 54, I don’t think I qualify as “hot.” If beauty is a qualification for the presidency of the United State, then I nominate Beyoncé; not only she is much more younger and beautiful than Ms. Palin—she can also sing and act. Besides, Beyoncé was born in Houston, Texas—and you can’t get more American than that.
Finally, I don’t exploit my family for political purposes—and I would NEVER allow my daughter to get pregnant before being married by a priest or minister.
There might be one problem, I was born in Puerto Rico—and in the midst of one of the most precipitous political crashes in the Mountain West, Sarah Palin made a mad dash into Boise on Friday, urging the election of a man who had plagiarized his campaign speech from Barack Obama, had been rebuked by the military for misusing the Marine uniform and had called the American territory of Puerto Rico a separate country.
Dr. Carlos T Mock is a native Puerto Rican who resides in Chicago, IL and Three Oaks, MI. He has published four books and is the GLBT Editor for Floricanto Press in Berkley, CA. He contributes columns regularly to Windy City Times in Chicago, Ambiente Magazine in Miami, Camp Newspaper in Kansas City. He's had several OP-Ed published at the Chicago Tribune. He can be reached at http://www.carlostmock.com/
Israel and the USA, A similar situation like Korea and China
Israel and the USA, A similar situation like Korea and China
By Carlos T Mock, MD
June 2, 2010
The USA is demonstrating to its neighbors, and the world, that being the only superpower is not necessarily to be welcomed. Though it has become undeniable that its ally and client, Israel, raided naval vessels that killed nine people, many of them Turks, on an aid flotilla bound for Gaza, no direct condemnation by US Official has come forth.
When the U.N. Security Council Condemned ‘Acts’ in the Israeli Raid, the wording (influenced heavily by the US) seemed designed to dilute demands for condemnation of Israel, which argues that its soldiers acted in self-defense in response to violent resistance from passengers on board the vessels they intercepted. After the raid, Israel seized hundreds of activists as well as their ships.
Einat Wilf, a Labor Party member of Parliament who sits on the influential Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, said that she had warned Mr. Barak and others well in advance that the flotilla was a public relations issue and should not be dealt with by military means. “This had nothing to do with security,” she said in an interview. “The armaments for Hamas were not coming from this flotilla.” It is well documented that the arms that are the supposed cause for the blockade are actually flowing freely through tunnels under the Egyptian border.
Israel’s deadly commando raid on Monday complicated President Obama’s efforts to move ahead on Middle East peace negotiations and introduced a new strain into an already tense relationship between the United States and Israel.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel canceled plans to travel to Washington on Tuesday to meet with Mr. Obama. The two men spoke by phone within hours of the raid, and the White House later released an account of the conversation, saying Mr. Obama had expressed “deep regret” at the loss of life and recognized “the importance of learning all the facts and circumstances” as soon as possible.
In the short term Israel’s behavior has damaged the United States. Watching the US defend the indefensible probably helped provoke the multiple worldwide demonstrations against the US and Israel.
An end to the crisis in the Middle East will require a more responsible approach by Mr. Obama. Abstaining from a Security Council resolution is not enough; the US must act decisively to restrain Israel from further provocations. The events of the past week are a sign that the US cannot continue to be seen as propping up a criminal client state and also be regarded as benign in its growing power. Sooner rather than later, it will have a choice to make.
Dr. Carlos T Mock is a native Puerto Rican who resides in Chicago, IL and Three Oaks, MI. He has published four books and is the GLBT Editor for Floricanto Press in Berkley, CA. He contributes columns regularly to Windy City Times in Chicago, Ambiente Magazine in Miami, Camp Newspaper in Kansas City. He can be reached at http://www.carlostmock.com/
By Carlos T Mock, MD
June 2, 2010
The USA is demonstrating to its neighbors, and the world, that being the only superpower is not necessarily to be welcomed. Though it has become undeniable that its ally and client, Israel, raided naval vessels that killed nine people, many of them Turks, on an aid flotilla bound for Gaza, no direct condemnation by US Official has come forth.
When the U.N. Security Council Condemned ‘Acts’ in the Israeli Raid, the wording (influenced heavily by the US) seemed designed to dilute demands for condemnation of Israel, which argues that its soldiers acted in self-defense in response to violent resistance from passengers on board the vessels they intercepted. After the raid, Israel seized hundreds of activists as well as their ships.
Einat Wilf, a Labor Party member of Parliament who sits on the influential Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, said that she had warned Mr. Barak and others well in advance that the flotilla was a public relations issue and should not be dealt with by military means. “This had nothing to do with security,” she said in an interview. “The armaments for Hamas were not coming from this flotilla.” It is well documented that the arms that are the supposed cause for the blockade are actually flowing freely through tunnels under the Egyptian border.
Israel’s deadly commando raid on Monday complicated President Obama’s efforts to move ahead on Middle East peace negotiations and introduced a new strain into an already tense relationship between the United States and Israel.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel canceled plans to travel to Washington on Tuesday to meet with Mr. Obama. The two men spoke by phone within hours of the raid, and the White House later released an account of the conversation, saying Mr. Obama had expressed “deep regret” at the loss of life and recognized “the importance of learning all the facts and circumstances” as soon as possible.
In the short term Israel’s behavior has damaged the United States. Watching the US defend the indefensible probably helped provoke the multiple worldwide demonstrations against the US and Israel.
An end to the crisis in the Middle East will require a more responsible approach by Mr. Obama. Abstaining from a Security Council resolution is not enough; the US must act decisively to restrain Israel from further provocations. The events of the past week are a sign that the US cannot continue to be seen as propping up a criminal client state and also be regarded as benign in its growing power. Sooner rather than later, it will have a choice to make.
Dr. Carlos T Mock is a native Puerto Rican who resides in Chicago, IL and Three Oaks, MI. He has published four books and is the GLBT Editor for Floricanto Press in Berkley, CA. He contributes columns regularly to Windy City Times in Chicago, Ambiente Magazine in Miami, Camp Newspaper in Kansas City. He can be reached at http://www.carlostmock.com/
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Have Republicans Been Out-Foxed?
A Text Message for Republicans... http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=108356952517874&ref=mf Editor’s note – X rated language
April 15, 2010: Tea America http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-april-15-2010/tea-america
Have Republicans Been Out-Foxed? Some conservatives are beginning to question whether Fox News is good for their movement
By Eve Conant
© 2010 Newsweek
Apr 13, 2010
http://www.newsweek.com/id/236309
GOP Sen. Tom Coburn scored a perfect 100 on the American Conservative Union's rankings for lawmakers last year. That makes him one of the last people you'd expect to criticize what liberals see as the GOP's most notable media mouthpiece, Fox News, but that's exactly what he did at a recent town-hall meeting in Oklahoma. When an audience member fretted about going to prison for not buying health insurance, Coburn responded, "The intention is not to put anyone in jail. That makes for good TV on Fox, but that isn't the intention." When discussing disagreements with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, he described her as a " nice lady" and warned the jeering crowd to be civil and to get their news from more than one source: "Don't catch yourself being biased by Fox News that somebody is no good."
Coburn's calling out of Fox was notable precisely because it's rare for Fox and Republicans to find their messages out of sync. The image of Fox that one gets from liberal critics such as The Daily Show's Jon Stewart is that it parrots Republican talking points, pushes conservative ideas into the mainstream, and keeps the base animated. But some conservatives are asking whether the news channel has become too extreme and whether, by angering and agitating the base, it may be making it harder, rather than easier, for Republicans to win elections.
David Frum, a prominent conservative pundit and former speechwriter for George W. Bush, led the charge last month when he lambasted Republicans’ handling of health-care reform. In a piece about the health-care vote titled “Waterloo,” Frum wrote, "We followed the most radical voices in the party and the movement, and they led us to abject and irreversible defeat. There were leaders who knew better, who would have liked to deal. But they were trapped. Conservative talkers on Fox and talk radio had whipped the Republican voting base into such a frenzy that deal-making was rendered impossible…By mobilizing them with hysterical accusations and pseudo-information, overheated talk has made it impossible for representatives to represent and elected leaders to lead." On Nightline, Frum noted, "Republicans originally thought that Fox worked for us, and now we're discovering we work for Fox…The thing that sustains a strong Fox network is the thing that undermines a strong Republican Party."
A Fox News representative declined to comment for this story. Despite the criticism, Fox News is hardly suffering. It has seen its best quarter yet in terms of ratings, even as CNN suffers a steep decline in viewership At the National Press Club last week, Rupert Murdoch was asked if it was appropriate for Fox News to be promoting tea-party events, including—according to one questioner—one Fox business host's directing viewers to a tea-party Web site to buy merchandise. "No, I don't think we should be supporting the tea party, or any other party," Murdoch responded, adding that he would investigate the tea-party coverage.
Fox's promotion of tea-party protests might be a case in point. While publicizing anger at President Obama may have seemed to serve the GOP's short-term interests, there are now prominent Republican officeholders with strong chances in a general election, such as Charlie Crist and John McCain, battling in competitive primaries against tea-party favorites who might be less likely to win over Democrats and independents this fall.
Bruce Bartlett, a veteran of the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations, notes that when Fox News first began airing, it presented itself as a counterweight to the left-leaning mainstream media, but as the mainstream media moved more to the center in recent years (CNN, for example,just hired prominent right-wing blogger Erick Erickson), Fox, to maintain its distance, moved further to the right. "I have no problem with a network that wears its politics on its sleeve," says Bartlett. "What bothers me is [Fox] pretends not to be that." With so many conservatives watching only Fox, says Bartlett, "people are wearing blinders; they hear no fact that conflicts with their world view. All day long their views are reinforced that Obama is a socialist crackpot."
And, as Coburn and others have recently learned, Republicans who challenge Fox may be picking a fight they cannot win. GOP Rep. Bob Inglis was booed by the crowd at a town-hall meeting in South Carolina last August when he suggested people turn off their TVs when Glenn Beck comes on. Beck's adoption of fringe claims seems to particularly irk moderate, establishment Republicans. "Bill O'Reilly might look like a clown compared to a traditional news anchor," says Bartlett, "but compared to Glenn Beck he looks like Edward R. Murrow."
Bartlett wonders if ultimately "an inherent conflict of interest is growing, in which the very success of Fox makes it harder for Republicans to get out of the echo chamber, to have arguments that go beyond their base, and to reach out to independents and Democrats who might vote for them."
At least one Republican seems unwilling to surrender to Fox just yet. John Hart, a Coburn spokesman, explained the senator's comments at that town-hall meeting and hardly backed off: "A lot of politicians are afraid of offending or alienating people who cater to their base. Coburn is one of the few people in Washington who says what he really believes." And, Hart added, "he wishes that other senators would spend more time on the floor and less time on talk shows."
Dr. Mock has published four books with Floricanto Press, Berklety, CA. His articles have appeared on publications like The Chicago Tribune and several gay and lesbian newspapers. He was inducted in The Chicago GLBT Hall of Fame in 2007. He can be reached at: www.carlostmock.com
April 15, 2010: Tea America http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-april-15-2010/tea-america
Have Republicans Been Out-Foxed? Some conservatives are beginning to question whether Fox News is good for their movement
By Eve Conant
© 2010 Newsweek
Apr 13, 2010
http://www.newsweek.com/id/236309
GOP Sen. Tom Coburn scored a perfect 100 on the American Conservative Union's rankings for lawmakers last year. That makes him one of the last people you'd expect to criticize what liberals see as the GOP's most notable media mouthpiece, Fox News, but that's exactly what he did at a recent town-hall meeting in Oklahoma. When an audience member fretted about going to prison for not buying health insurance, Coburn responded, "The intention is not to put anyone in jail. That makes for good TV on Fox, but that isn't the intention." When discussing disagreements with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, he described her as a " nice lady" and warned the jeering crowd to be civil and to get their news from more than one source: "Don't catch yourself being biased by Fox News that somebody is no good."
Coburn's calling out of Fox was notable precisely because it's rare for Fox and Republicans to find their messages out of sync. The image of Fox that one gets from liberal critics such as The Daily Show's Jon Stewart is that it parrots Republican talking points, pushes conservative ideas into the mainstream, and keeps the base animated. But some conservatives are asking whether the news channel has become too extreme and whether, by angering and agitating the base, it may be making it harder, rather than easier, for Republicans to win elections.
David Frum, a prominent conservative pundit and former speechwriter for George W. Bush, led the charge last month when he lambasted Republicans’ handling of health-care reform. In a piece about the health-care vote titled “Waterloo,” Frum wrote, "We followed the most radical voices in the party and the movement, and they led us to abject and irreversible defeat. There were leaders who knew better, who would have liked to deal. But they were trapped. Conservative talkers on Fox and talk radio had whipped the Republican voting base into such a frenzy that deal-making was rendered impossible…By mobilizing them with hysterical accusations and pseudo-information, overheated talk has made it impossible for representatives to represent and elected leaders to lead." On Nightline, Frum noted, "Republicans originally thought that Fox worked for us, and now we're discovering we work for Fox…The thing that sustains a strong Fox network is the thing that undermines a strong Republican Party."
A Fox News representative declined to comment for this story. Despite the criticism, Fox News is hardly suffering. It has seen its best quarter yet in terms of ratings, even as CNN suffers a steep decline in viewership At the National Press Club last week, Rupert Murdoch was asked if it was appropriate for Fox News to be promoting tea-party events, including—according to one questioner—one Fox business host's directing viewers to a tea-party Web site to buy merchandise. "No, I don't think we should be supporting the tea party, or any other party," Murdoch responded, adding that he would investigate the tea-party coverage.
Fox's promotion of tea-party protests might be a case in point. While publicizing anger at President Obama may have seemed to serve the GOP's short-term interests, there are now prominent Republican officeholders with strong chances in a general election, such as Charlie Crist and John McCain, battling in competitive primaries against tea-party favorites who might be less likely to win over Democrats and independents this fall.
Bruce Bartlett, a veteran of the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations, notes that when Fox News first began airing, it presented itself as a counterweight to the left-leaning mainstream media, but as the mainstream media moved more to the center in recent years (CNN, for example,just hired prominent right-wing blogger Erick Erickson), Fox, to maintain its distance, moved further to the right. "I have no problem with a network that wears its politics on its sleeve," says Bartlett. "What bothers me is [Fox] pretends not to be that." With so many conservatives watching only Fox, says Bartlett, "people are wearing blinders; they hear no fact that conflicts with their world view. All day long their views are reinforced that Obama is a socialist crackpot."
And, as Coburn and others have recently learned, Republicans who challenge Fox may be picking a fight they cannot win. GOP Rep. Bob Inglis was booed by the crowd at a town-hall meeting in South Carolina last August when he suggested people turn off their TVs when Glenn Beck comes on. Beck's adoption of fringe claims seems to particularly irk moderate, establishment Republicans. "Bill O'Reilly might look like a clown compared to a traditional news anchor," says Bartlett, "but compared to Glenn Beck he looks like Edward R. Murrow."
Bartlett wonders if ultimately "an inherent conflict of interest is growing, in which the very success of Fox makes it harder for Republicans to get out of the echo chamber, to have arguments that go beyond their base, and to reach out to independents and Democrats who might vote for them."
At least one Republican seems unwilling to surrender to Fox just yet. John Hart, a Coburn spokesman, explained the senator's comments at that town-hall meeting and hardly backed off: "A lot of politicians are afraid of offending or alienating people who cater to their base. Coburn is one of the few people in Washington who says what he really believes." And, Hart added, "he wishes that other senators would spend more time on the floor and less time on talk shows."
Dr. Mock has published four books with Floricanto Press, Berklety, CA. His articles have appeared on publications like The Chicago Tribune and several gay and lesbian newspapers. He was inducted in The Chicago GLBT Hall of Fame in 2007. He can be reached at: www.carlostmock.com
Are Catholics in denial as much as The Church?
Are Catholics in denial as much as The Church?
By Carlos T Mock, MD
April 16, 2010
Chicago, IL
I had a very troubling interchange with my sister, who is a practicing a Puerto Rican Catholic in Connecticut. The conversation started because a bill in Connecticut's legislature that would remove the statute of limitations on child sexual abuse cases has sparked a fervent response from the state's Roman Catholic bishops, who released a letter to parishioners Saturday imploring them to oppose the measure. My sister is strongly opposed to the law and, as we talked, she accused The New York Times of starting a smear campaign against the Catholic Church. I pointed out to her that this was not a vendetta from the NYT against the church. The article that talked about the law in CT was written by CNN News. I even brought up an editorial from the Financial Times which stated: “The response of the Roman Catholic Church to the wave of shameful child abuse revelations engulfing it across Europe and the US is ‘hopelessly inadequate’. That is the view of Diarmuid Martin, Archbishop of Dublin, who has worked courageously to bring the history of abuse in the Irish Church into the open. It is also the view of the Financial Times. Serious sexual crimes against defenseless children by priests entrusted with their care are an outrageous crime. The betrayal is deepened by a pattern of covering up for these child molesters, who were in some instances left free to keep preying on their charges. The responsibility for this goes to the top: not only of local hierarchies but to the Vatican itself.”
I tried to appeal to her motherly instincts—”you have young children, don’t you want them protected from pedophiles?” Her answer was that: “If you go to the Bridgeport website (her parish) and look under ‘safe environments’ you will see exactly how the Connecticut church is protecting our children.”
I pointed out to her that rules have been in place for many years but that they don’t get enforced—she went ballistic: “How quickly you dismiss the efforts of others. And how harsh is your sentence. The Church is not perfect and the people in it are not either. But, from my perspective, I believe their effort is sincere. Connecticut is a very liberal state and the legislature has a slant specifically against the Catholic Church. The state has no business in meddling with the ‘sanctity’ of The Church”
I am still baffled by her response. When Catholics are willing to put the welfare and reputation of the Church ahead of their own children—does this constitute brainwashing? I am a Christian, not a Catholic—I was tortured by The Church for my sexual views. As I grew up in San Juan, I saw them abuse children in my Catholic High School and was always too afraid to talk for fear of being expelled.
When I came out as a gay adult, this same pious sister asked me to give up homosexual sex because Christ died on the cross for my sins. My mother disowned me, I’m no longer in her will. Yet, my mother married a divorced man, so she lived in adultery most of her adult life, and my sister married while pregnant. See a pattern?
Unfortunately I grew up with the Catholic Church's values, so I can only feel remorse as I watch the spectacle of the hypocrisy in which The Church finds itself embroiled. As a gay man, I strongly believe that the cover-up of child molester priests—either heterosexual or homosexual—has no place in The Church.
True, Pope Benedict last month issued an unprecedented apology in a letter to the Irish Church. I find the letter to be as hollow as the institution of The Church itself. The letter promised an investigation, it stopped substantially short of a mea culpa. Instead, it appeared to blame “secularism” for the phenomenon of child abuse. This is intellectually dishonest. The pattern of abuse was detectable in Ireland long before an identifiably secular lifestyle took hold—and when Church authority went virtually unquestioned. The Vatican is in denial, denouncing what is in their view an attempt to discredit the Church and to smear the Pope.
To put it in simple to understand words: “This is an authoritarian isolation in which Benedict and his predecessor, John Paul II, have lived, surrounded by like-minded dogmatics possessed of their infallible truth. They have rolled back the reform process set in train by the Second Vatican Council of 1962-1965. With flinty doctrinal rigidity they have shut down debate on married priests and celibacy, the ordination of women, sexual relations outside marriage and homosexuality—all issues germane to the scandal in which they are now enveloped. They expect unquestioned obedience to their authority, and in the case of these crimes, they imposed absolute secrecy and resisted co-operation with the properly constituted civil authorities. In practice, that means being accountable to no one—at least on earth.”
At first, I was puzzled by Pope Benedict’s response. Now, I think I understand. The pontiff is a globalizer. He can feel the world’s geopolitical plates shifting. The dismal reality is that the Pope does not care. If the eventual choice is one between the implosion of the church in the west and a dilution of the blind obedience he sees as an anchor of papal authority, Pope Benedict is ready to stand in the ruins. The thread that runs through all this—the reactionary dogma and the refusal to admit any complicity in the cover-ups—is a willingness to sacrifice truth to an unthinking, and futile, defense of the authority of the church. It is my condemnation for being a practicing gay against Church doctrine, and my sister’s salvation, because she confessed her premarital sex and got absolution.
Catholicism is booming in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Europeans and North Americans now number only 350m in a church of some 1.2bn. About two-thirds of Catholics live in what is the emerging world—about 400m of them in Latin America. Brazil boasts twice as many communicants as Italy. Mexico and the Philippines have larger congregations than Germany or France.
This perhaps is where Pope Benedict’s gaze is fixed. Catholics in the emerging nations, after all, have been largely untroubled by the scandal that has rocked his authority in the west. They are less inclined to challenge the pontiff’s moral absolutism and his demand for unquestioning obedience to Rome—just look at my mother and sister.
The future lies beyond the decadent materialism and moral bankruptcy of the richest societies. In the manner of a corporate executive reaping the rewards of globalization, the pontiff is gathering new recruits in the spiritual markets of the emerging world. The pews may gather dust in Europe and the US, but elsewhere—albeit for a few skeptics—the future of The Church is secure and untouched by any laws of man. If they have to sacrifice a few children, so be it!
Dr. Mock has published four books with Floricanto Press, Berklety, CA. His articles have appeared on publications like The Chicago Tribune and several gay and lesbian newspapers. He was inducted in The Chicago GLBT Hall of Fame in 2007. He can be reached at: www.carlostmock.com
By Carlos T Mock, MD
April 16, 2010
Chicago, IL
I had a very troubling interchange with my sister, who is a practicing a Puerto Rican Catholic in Connecticut. The conversation started because a bill in Connecticut's legislature that would remove the statute of limitations on child sexual abuse cases has sparked a fervent response from the state's Roman Catholic bishops, who released a letter to parishioners Saturday imploring them to oppose the measure. My sister is strongly opposed to the law and, as we talked, she accused The New York Times of starting a smear campaign against the Catholic Church. I pointed out to her that this was not a vendetta from the NYT against the church. The article that talked about the law in CT was written by CNN News. I even brought up an editorial from the Financial Times which stated: “The response of the Roman Catholic Church to the wave of shameful child abuse revelations engulfing it across Europe and the US is ‘hopelessly inadequate’. That is the view of Diarmuid Martin, Archbishop of Dublin, who has worked courageously to bring the history of abuse in the Irish Church into the open. It is also the view of the Financial Times. Serious sexual crimes against defenseless children by priests entrusted with their care are an outrageous crime. The betrayal is deepened by a pattern of covering up for these child molesters, who were in some instances left free to keep preying on their charges. The responsibility for this goes to the top: not only of local hierarchies but to the Vatican itself.”
I tried to appeal to her motherly instincts—”you have young children, don’t you want them protected from pedophiles?” Her answer was that: “If you go to the Bridgeport website (her parish) and look under ‘safe environments’ you will see exactly how the Connecticut church is protecting our children.”
I pointed out to her that rules have been in place for many years but that they don’t get enforced—she went ballistic: “How quickly you dismiss the efforts of others. And how harsh is your sentence. The Church is not perfect and the people in it are not either. But, from my perspective, I believe their effort is sincere. Connecticut is a very liberal state and the legislature has a slant specifically against the Catholic Church. The state has no business in meddling with the ‘sanctity’ of The Church”
I am still baffled by her response. When Catholics are willing to put the welfare and reputation of the Church ahead of their own children—does this constitute brainwashing? I am a Christian, not a Catholic—I was tortured by The Church for my sexual views. As I grew up in San Juan, I saw them abuse children in my Catholic High School and was always too afraid to talk for fear of being expelled.
When I came out as a gay adult, this same pious sister asked me to give up homosexual sex because Christ died on the cross for my sins. My mother disowned me, I’m no longer in her will. Yet, my mother married a divorced man, so she lived in adultery most of her adult life, and my sister married while pregnant. See a pattern?
Unfortunately I grew up with the Catholic Church's values, so I can only feel remorse as I watch the spectacle of the hypocrisy in which The Church finds itself embroiled. As a gay man, I strongly believe that the cover-up of child molester priests—either heterosexual or homosexual—has no place in The Church.
True, Pope Benedict last month issued an unprecedented apology in a letter to the Irish Church. I find the letter to be as hollow as the institution of The Church itself. The letter promised an investigation, it stopped substantially short of a mea culpa. Instead, it appeared to blame “secularism” for the phenomenon of child abuse. This is intellectually dishonest. The pattern of abuse was detectable in Ireland long before an identifiably secular lifestyle took hold—and when Church authority went virtually unquestioned. The Vatican is in denial, denouncing what is in their view an attempt to discredit the Church and to smear the Pope.
To put it in simple to understand words: “This is an authoritarian isolation in which Benedict and his predecessor, John Paul II, have lived, surrounded by like-minded dogmatics possessed of their infallible truth. They have rolled back the reform process set in train by the Second Vatican Council of 1962-1965. With flinty doctrinal rigidity they have shut down debate on married priests and celibacy, the ordination of women, sexual relations outside marriage and homosexuality—all issues germane to the scandal in which they are now enveloped. They expect unquestioned obedience to their authority, and in the case of these crimes, they imposed absolute secrecy and resisted co-operation with the properly constituted civil authorities. In practice, that means being accountable to no one—at least on earth.”
At first, I was puzzled by Pope Benedict’s response. Now, I think I understand. The pontiff is a globalizer. He can feel the world’s geopolitical plates shifting. The dismal reality is that the Pope does not care. If the eventual choice is one between the implosion of the church in the west and a dilution of the blind obedience he sees as an anchor of papal authority, Pope Benedict is ready to stand in the ruins. The thread that runs through all this—the reactionary dogma and the refusal to admit any complicity in the cover-ups—is a willingness to sacrifice truth to an unthinking, and futile, defense of the authority of the church. It is my condemnation for being a practicing gay against Church doctrine, and my sister’s salvation, because she confessed her premarital sex and got absolution.
Catholicism is booming in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Europeans and North Americans now number only 350m in a church of some 1.2bn. About two-thirds of Catholics live in what is the emerging world—about 400m of them in Latin America. Brazil boasts twice as many communicants as Italy. Mexico and the Philippines have larger congregations than Germany or France.
This perhaps is where Pope Benedict’s gaze is fixed. Catholics in the emerging nations, after all, have been largely untroubled by the scandal that has rocked his authority in the west. They are less inclined to challenge the pontiff’s moral absolutism and his demand for unquestioning obedience to Rome—just look at my mother and sister.
The future lies beyond the decadent materialism and moral bankruptcy of the richest societies. In the manner of a corporate executive reaping the rewards of globalization, the pontiff is gathering new recruits in the spiritual markets of the emerging world. The pews may gather dust in Europe and the US, but elsewhere—albeit for a few skeptics—the future of The Church is secure and untouched by any laws of man. If they have to sacrifice a few children, so be it!
Dr. Mock has published four books with Floricanto Press, Berklety, CA. His articles have appeared on publications like The Chicago Tribune and several gay and lesbian newspapers. He was inducted in The Chicago GLBT Hall of Fame in 2007. He can be reached at: www.carlostmock.com
The Catholic church Pedophilia Scandal - The forgotten victims
The Catholic church Pedophilia Scandal - The forgotten victims
By Carlos T Mock, MD
April 3, 2010
I was never molested by a priest.
To this day I feel inadequate that I did not meet the criteria—it feels like my biggest failure in life.
I grew up in San Juan, Puerto Rico. I went to a Catholic High School. Late in my junior year I had a very public crush on a classmate. I confessed it to a priest—unbeknownst to me he was gay and reveled in all the gory details.
After that, I was invited to the night parties at the high school swimming pool. There was lots of sex going on between priests and students, but I was too afraid to act on my impulses. I was on the swimming team, so I developed a crush on a young Jesuit seminarian who was also a swimmer. At the parties, we both spent time swimming together. Let’s call him Larry for sake of this article. He was six foot one, dark straight hair that he wore short and preppy. He had a Greek nose—he bragged to me that it was a “perfect” nose—he had done sexual favors to the head of the order to have it shaped by a plastic surgeon. He had the deepest blue eyes—those that looked into your soul and immediately unarmed you. To this day, those eyes haunt me.
At the pool, we had hugged and developed some sort of rapport. One night, he invited me to come to his residence for a drink. I drove my mother’s beaten up station wagon. Once inside his small quarters, he offered me a drink. I told him I was in love with him and that I wanted to hug and kiss him. Abruptly, he stopped the conversation and asked me to drive him to Old San Juan. I was more than happy to oblige, excited that he was finally paying attention to me.
We went to a gay bar—of course I did not know that ahead of time. He ordered rum and cokes for both of us and, about five minutes into the conversation, he excused himself and disappeared to a back room. I got plenty of attention, either because of sympathy, or pity—since everyone in the bar saw what happened; but I had no idea what was going on and I was afraid to leave the bar without my “friend.” Finally, I walked inside the dark room with a lit match and saw him having oral sex with several people. I started to cry and told him I was going home. I ran out. He followed me and asked for a ride back, which I obliged. All the way home, not a word was spoken. I dropped him back at the seminary and cried for days—never understanding what I had done wrong. We never talked to each other again, and I never went back to the swimming pool parties.
I came out as a gay man at the age of 23 in New York City while I was doing electives in my senior year of medical school. I was helped by my uncle Henry and his lover, Peter, who built my damaged self esteem by hosting parties in their wonderful flat in the Upper West Side in Manhattan. At every party they held, they made sure I slept with the boy of my choice.
Peter even came up with the idea to write a questionnaire for people who rejected me, so I could figure out why I was being rejected and avoid future Larry’s. (I published the questionnaire in my first book: Borrowing Time: A Latino Sexual odyssey.) Slowly the damage was repaired. My confidence grew—I now was able to go to any man and seduce him. However, in all the faces attached to the bodies I had conquered, I was looking for Larry’s eyes. I could not get them out of my head.
Few people pay much attention to the importance of eyes when it comes to seduction. To me, eyes are essential, just like music to a good opera, or the image captured in a painting—I needed to find Larry’s eyes. I had left my soul in there! I believe that I slept with everyone available in New York during my three month stay there but I never found eyes like Larry’s.
Finally I found Larry’s eyes in my present lover—the day we met, I knew he had been hurt in his youth just as badly as I was. That’s why we connected immediately. I finally got my soul back at age 44. Ten years together they are still there comforting me and guiding me.
The funny thing is that it was always the straight boys who had sex with the priests. Was I not good enough? Was I a burden? Perhaps because they knew I would not keep my mouth shut? I think the Church needs to address the needs of those of us who never made the cut and were crushed by their rejections. I’ve often thought of starting a support group—as I said I was never molested by a priest.
Dr. Carlos T Mock is a native Puerto Rican who resides in Chicago, IL and Three Oaks, MI. He has published four books and is the GLBT Editor for Floricanto Press in Berkley, CA. He contributes columns regularly to Windy City Times in Chicago, Ambiente Magazine in Miami, Camp Newspaper in Kansas City. He's had several OP-Ed published at the Chicago Tribune. Inducted in the Chicago Gay & Lesbian Hall of Fame October 18th, 2007
Dr. Mock has published four books with Floricanto Press, Berklety, CA. His articles have appeared on publications like The Chicago Tribune and several gay and lesbian newspapers. He was inducted in The Chicago GLBT Hall of Fame in 2007. He can be reached at: www.carlostmock.com
By Carlos T Mock, MD
April 3, 2010
I was never molested by a priest.
To this day I feel inadequate that I did not meet the criteria—it feels like my biggest failure in life.
I grew up in San Juan, Puerto Rico. I went to a Catholic High School. Late in my junior year I had a very public crush on a classmate. I confessed it to a priest—unbeknownst to me he was gay and reveled in all the gory details.
After that, I was invited to the night parties at the high school swimming pool. There was lots of sex going on between priests and students, but I was too afraid to act on my impulses. I was on the swimming team, so I developed a crush on a young Jesuit seminarian who was also a swimmer. At the parties, we both spent time swimming together. Let’s call him Larry for sake of this article. He was six foot one, dark straight hair that he wore short and preppy. He had a Greek nose—he bragged to me that it was a “perfect” nose—he had done sexual favors to the head of the order to have it shaped by a plastic surgeon. He had the deepest blue eyes—those that looked into your soul and immediately unarmed you. To this day, those eyes haunt me.
At the pool, we had hugged and developed some sort of rapport. One night, he invited me to come to his residence for a drink. I drove my mother’s beaten up station wagon. Once inside his small quarters, he offered me a drink. I told him I was in love with him and that I wanted to hug and kiss him. Abruptly, he stopped the conversation and asked me to drive him to Old San Juan. I was more than happy to oblige, excited that he was finally paying attention to me.
We went to a gay bar—of course I did not know that ahead of time. He ordered rum and cokes for both of us and, about five minutes into the conversation, he excused himself and disappeared to a back room. I got plenty of attention, either because of sympathy, or pity—since everyone in the bar saw what happened; but I had no idea what was going on and I was afraid to leave the bar without my “friend.” Finally, I walked inside the dark room with a lit match and saw him having oral sex with several people. I started to cry and told him I was going home. I ran out. He followed me and asked for a ride back, which I obliged. All the way home, not a word was spoken. I dropped him back at the seminary and cried for days—never understanding what I had done wrong. We never talked to each other again, and I never went back to the swimming pool parties.
I came out as a gay man at the age of 23 in New York City while I was doing electives in my senior year of medical school. I was helped by my uncle Henry and his lover, Peter, who built my damaged self esteem by hosting parties in their wonderful flat in the Upper West Side in Manhattan. At every party they held, they made sure I slept with the boy of my choice.
Peter even came up with the idea to write a questionnaire for people who rejected me, so I could figure out why I was being rejected and avoid future Larry’s. (I published the questionnaire in my first book: Borrowing Time: A Latino Sexual odyssey.) Slowly the damage was repaired. My confidence grew—I now was able to go to any man and seduce him. However, in all the faces attached to the bodies I had conquered, I was looking for Larry’s eyes. I could not get them out of my head.
Few people pay much attention to the importance of eyes when it comes to seduction. To me, eyes are essential, just like music to a good opera, or the image captured in a painting—I needed to find Larry’s eyes. I had left my soul in there! I believe that I slept with everyone available in New York during my three month stay there but I never found eyes like Larry’s.
Finally I found Larry’s eyes in my present lover—the day we met, I knew he had been hurt in his youth just as badly as I was. That’s why we connected immediately. I finally got my soul back at age 44. Ten years together they are still there comforting me and guiding me.
The funny thing is that it was always the straight boys who had sex with the priests. Was I not good enough? Was I a burden? Perhaps because they knew I would not keep my mouth shut? I think the Church needs to address the needs of those of us who never made the cut and were crushed by their rejections. I’ve often thought of starting a support group—as I said I was never molested by a priest.
Dr. Carlos T Mock is a native Puerto Rican who resides in Chicago, IL and Three Oaks, MI. He has published four books and is the GLBT Editor for Floricanto Press in Berkley, CA. He contributes columns regularly to Windy City Times in Chicago, Ambiente Magazine in Miami, Camp Newspaper in Kansas City. He's had several OP-Ed published at the Chicago Tribune. Inducted in the Chicago Gay & Lesbian Hall of Fame October 18th, 2007
Dr. Mock has published four books with Floricanto Press, Berklety, CA. His articles have appeared on publications like The Chicago Tribune and several gay and lesbian newspapers. He was inducted in The Chicago GLBT Hall of Fame in 2007. He can be reached at: www.carlostmock.com
March 30, 2010: 2 Girls 1 GOP/Lady and the Gramps/This, from the man who defeated Cynthia McKinney - Daily Show
March 30, 2010: 2 Girls 1 GOP http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-march-30-2010/2-girls-1-gop
March 30, 2010: Lady and the Gramps http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-march-30-2010/lady-and-the-gramps
This, from the man who defeated Cynthia McKinney …http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNZczIgVXjg&feature=player_embedded
Dr. Mock has published four books with Floricanto Press, Berklety, CA. His articles have appeared on publications like The Chicago Tribune and several gay and lesbian newspapers. He was inducted in The Chicago GLBT Hall of Fame in 2007. He can be reached at: www.carlostmock.com
March 30, 2010: Lady and the Gramps http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-march-30-2010/lady-and-the-gramps
This, from the man who defeated Cynthia McKinney …http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNZczIgVXjg&feature=player_embedded
Dr. Mock has published four books with Floricanto Press, Berklety, CA. His articles have appeared on publications like The Chicago Tribune and several gay and lesbian newspapers. He was inducted in The Chicago GLBT Hall of Fame in 2007. He can be reached at: www.carlostmock.com
Financial Times Editorial Comment: Vatican’s evasions on child abuse/Pope Benedict has turned his back on a church in crisis
"Pope Opera" Daily Show http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-april-7-2010/pope-opera
Financial Times Editorial Comment: Vatican’s evasions on child abuse
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010
Published: April 2 2010 19:29. Last updated: April 2 2010 19:29.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/bb61ca12-3e7d-11df-a706-00144feabdc0.html
The response of the Roman Catholic Church to the wave of shameful child abuse revelations engulfing it across Europe and the US is “hopelessly inadequate”. That is the view of Diarmuid Martin, Archbishop of Dublin, who has worked courageously to bring the history of abuse in the Irish Church into the open. It is also the view of the Financial Times.
Serious sexual crimes against defenceless children by priests entrusted with their care are an outrageous crime. The betrayal is deepened by a pattern of covering up for these child molesters, who were in some instances left free to keep preying on their charges. The responsibility for this goes to the top: not only of local hierarchies but to the Vatican itself.
True, Pope Benedict last month issued an unprecedented apology in a letter to the Irish Church. There is no reason to doubt his contrition or his anguish. But, even though the letter promised an investigation, it stopped substantially short of a mea culpa. Instead, it appeared to blame “secularism” for the phenomenon of child abuse. This is intellectually dishonest. The pattern of abuse was detectable in Ireland long before an identifiably secular lifestyle took hold – and when Church authority went virtually unquestioned. This week, clerical documents going back nearly 50 years discussing “problem priests” were produced in the US. The Vatican is in denial, denouncing attempts to discredit the Church and to smear the Pope.
This is all of a piece with the authoritarian isolation in which Benedict and his predecessor, John Paul II, have lived, surrounded by like-minded dogmatics possessed of their infallible truth. They have rolled back the reform process set in train by the Second Vatican Council of 1962-1965. With flinty doctrinal rigidity they have shut down debate on married priests and celibacy, the ordination of women, sexual relations outside marriage and homosexuality – all issues germane to the scandal in which they are now enveloped.
They expect unquestioned obedience to their authority, and in the case of these crimes, they imposed absolute secrecy and resisted co-operation with the properly constituted civil authorities. In practice, that means being accountable to no one – at least on earth.
As Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the Pope was the Church’s chief enforcer as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith from 1981 to 2005. It seems he was better at pursuing dissident theologians than child molesters. By his own lights, he has acted honourably in protecting the Church from scandal. That will not do. The Church must account fully and transparently for these abuses of minors, in co-operation with the courts where there are well-founded charges. That is how to restore the honour of the Church.
Pope Benedict has turned his back on a church in crisis
By Philip Stephens
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010
Published: April 15 2010 20:11 | Last updated: April 15 2010 20:11 http://iretiredfromnewsletters.blogspot.com/2010/04/pope-benedict-has-turned-his-back-on.html
For a time I was puzzled by Pope Benedict’s response to the crisis in the Catholic church. We might disagree about the course of Catholicism. In uncharitable moments, I might mutter that the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was politician as much as priest; his piety merged with ambition some time ago. Yet the Pope indisputably was highly intelligent. Surely he could see what was happening.
Now, I think I understand. The pontiff is a globaliser. He can feel the world’s geopolitical plates shifting. He grasps as well as any politician or business leader that the west has had its day. The opportunities to spread the gospel lie elsewhere – in societies more respectful of authority and less questioning of past crimes.
Pope Benedict, after all, cannot be blind to the crisis of faith among his flock in Europe and North America. He must have known as well as anyone else how many tens of millions had walked away even before the revelations of clerical child abuse and episcopal cover-ups.
He has seen what has happened in Ireland where unerring fealty to Rome has given way to revulsion and disillusionment. He knows seminaries across Europe are empty, and Catholicism in the US convulsed.
No, the dismal reality, I now think, is that the Pope does not care – or at least does not care enough to bend from the unflinching defence of temporal power that described his personal path to the throne of St Peter. If the eventual choice is one between the implosion of the church in the west and a dilution of the blind obedience he sees as an anchor of papal authority, Pope Benedict is ready to stand in the ruins.
The future lies beyond the decadent materialism and moral bankruptcy of the richest societies. In the manner of a corporate executive reaping the rewards of globalisation, the pontiff is gathering new recruits in the spiritual markets of the emerging world. The pews may gather dust in Europe and the US, but elsewhere – albeit for obvious reasons with the exception of China – business is booming.
The storm engulfing the Vatican predates the latest allegations of paedophilia and the efforts at concealment in the church’s high echelons. Pope Benedict has been waging a war against liberal Catholicism for many decades. What has happened now is that the backlash against his doctrinal absolutism has merged with growing disgust about the handling of the controversy over paedophile priests.
As a cardinal and prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Pope warned anyone who challenged the authority of the Holy See that they were putting themselves outside of the church. Man-made laws – about personal relationships, contraception or clerical celibacy – were elevated into sacred truths. Those who challenged this self-serving primitivism were told to take their faith elsewhere.
Pope Benedict dates the beginning of the church’s decline to the social and sexual revolutions of the 1960s; to the passing of the age of deference and the concomitant challenge to traditional authority. It was the secularisation of society, he once said, that had seen Catholic ethics and morals fall into grave decline.
This message was evident in his recent pastoral letter to the church in Ireland. The stated purpose of the address was to express “shame and remorse” about the abuse of Irish children by predator priests. It did so with sincerity. Yet Pope Benedict felt compelled to make another connection – this time between paedophilia among the clergy and the “rapid transformation and secularisation of Irish society”. One problem, he implied, had been the liberalising instincts of the second Vatican Council.
The absurdity of this supposed link is exposed by a simple chronology. Most of the crimes against children uncovered by investigations in Ireland long pre-dated that country’s embrace of what the Pope sees as a lethal moral relativism. To the contrary, it was the opening of Irish society that exposed the sins that had been inflicted on its children.
The Vatican narrative casts the church as victim – as an institution assailed by secularism, the media, and just about everyone else. Thus the Pope’s insistence that his faith will shield him from the “petty gossip of dominant opinion”. One close adviser has compared recent criticism to anti-semitism. Others, just as scandalously, have sought to blame the crisis on Jews and homosexuals. How much further can they fall?
The thread that runs through all this – the reactionary dogma and the refusal to admit any complicity in the cover-ups – is a willingness to sacrifice truth to an unthinking, and futile, defence of the authority of the church.
The right response would be to abandon victimhood and extend to all communicants the apology offered to Ireland’s Catholics. Even the authority of an absolute monarch rests ultimately on legitimacy. The Vatican should abandon the pretence that someone other than the church is responsible by opening the Vatican’s secret archives to full public scrutiny.
But this is a step too far for the present occupant of the Holy See. John Allen, a biographer of Pope Benedict and analyst for the US National Catholic Reporter, recently told the FT’s Rome correspondent that the Holy Father was untroubled by crises of the moment because he had the “great gift of thinking in terms of centuries”.
Mr Allen, as it happens, has also charted the shift in the church’s demographic centre of gravity. Catholicism is booming in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Europeans and North Americans, Mr Allen calculates, now number only 350m in a church of some 1.2bn. About two-thirds of Catholics live in what is the emerging world – about 400m of them in Latin America. Brazil boasts twice as many communicants as Italy. Mexico and the Philippines have larger congregations than Germany or France.
This perhaps is where Pope Benedict’s gaze is fixed. Catholics in the emerging nations, after all, have been largely untroubled by the scandal that has rocked his authority in the west. They are less inclined to challenge the pontiff’s moral absolutism and his demand for unquestioning obedience to Rome.
So what of the Catholics left behind in a declining west? Many will join those who have already departed. Others will conclude that Pope Benedict can rob them of their church, but not of their faith.
Send your comments to philip.stephens@ft.com
More columns at www.ft.com/philipstephens
Dr. Mock has published four books with Floricanto Press, Berklety, CA. His articles have appeared on publications like The Chicago Tribune and several gay and lesbian newspapers. He was inducted in The Chicago GLBT Hall of Fame in 2007. He can be reached at: www.carlostmock.com
Financial Times Editorial Comment: Vatican’s evasions on child abuse
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010
Published: April 2 2010 19:29. Last updated: April 2 2010 19:29.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/bb61ca12-3e7d-11df-a706-00144feabdc0.html
The response of the Roman Catholic Church to the wave of shameful child abuse revelations engulfing it across Europe and the US is “hopelessly inadequate”. That is the view of Diarmuid Martin, Archbishop of Dublin, who has worked courageously to bring the history of abuse in the Irish Church into the open. It is also the view of the Financial Times.
Serious sexual crimes against defenceless children by priests entrusted with their care are an outrageous crime. The betrayal is deepened by a pattern of covering up for these child molesters, who were in some instances left free to keep preying on their charges. The responsibility for this goes to the top: not only of local hierarchies but to the Vatican itself.
True, Pope Benedict last month issued an unprecedented apology in a letter to the Irish Church. There is no reason to doubt his contrition or his anguish. But, even though the letter promised an investigation, it stopped substantially short of a mea culpa. Instead, it appeared to blame “secularism” for the phenomenon of child abuse. This is intellectually dishonest. The pattern of abuse was detectable in Ireland long before an identifiably secular lifestyle took hold – and when Church authority went virtually unquestioned. This week, clerical documents going back nearly 50 years discussing “problem priests” were produced in the US. The Vatican is in denial, denouncing attempts to discredit the Church and to smear the Pope.
This is all of a piece with the authoritarian isolation in which Benedict and his predecessor, John Paul II, have lived, surrounded by like-minded dogmatics possessed of their infallible truth. They have rolled back the reform process set in train by the Second Vatican Council of 1962-1965. With flinty doctrinal rigidity they have shut down debate on married priests and celibacy, the ordination of women, sexual relations outside marriage and homosexuality – all issues germane to the scandal in which they are now enveloped.
They expect unquestioned obedience to their authority, and in the case of these crimes, they imposed absolute secrecy and resisted co-operation with the properly constituted civil authorities. In practice, that means being accountable to no one – at least on earth.
As Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the Pope was the Church’s chief enforcer as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith from 1981 to 2005. It seems he was better at pursuing dissident theologians than child molesters. By his own lights, he has acted honourably in protecting the Church from scandal. That will not do. The Church must account fully and transparently for these abuses of minors, in co-operation with the courts where there are well-founded charges. That is how to restore the honour of the Church.
Pope Benedict has turned his back on a church in crisis
By Philip Stephens
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010
Published: April 15 2010 20:11 | Last updated: April 15 2010 20:11 http://iretiredfromnewsletters.blogspot.com/2010/04/pope-benedict-has-turned-his-back-on.html
For a time I was puzzled by Pope Benedict’s response to the crisis in the Catholic church. We might disagree about the course of Catholicism. In uncharitable moments, I might mutter that the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was politician as much as priest; his piety merged with ambition some time ago. Yet the Pope indisputably was highly intelligent. Surely he could see what was happening.
Now, I think I understand. The pontiff is a globaliser. He can feel the world’s geopolitical plates shifting. He grasps as well as any politician or business leader that the west has had its day. The opportunities to spread the gospel lie elsewhere – in societies more respectful of authority and less questioning of past crimes.
Pope Benedict, after all, cannot be blind to the crisis of faith among his flock in Europe and North America. He must have known as well as anyone else how many tens of millions had walked away even before the revelations of clerical child abuse and episcopal cover-ups.
He has seen what has happened in Ireland where unerring fealty to Rome has given way to revulsion and disillusionment. He knows seminaries across Europe are empty, and Catholicism in the US convulsed.
No, the dismal reality, I now think, is that the Pope does not care – or at least does not care enough to bend from the unflinching defence of temporal power that described his personal path to the throne of St Peter. If the eventual choice is one between the implosion of the church in the west and a dilution of the blind obedience he sees as an anchor of papal authority, Pope Benedict is ready to stand in the ruins.
The future lies beyond the decadent materialism and moral bankruptcy of the richest societies. In the manner of a corporate executive reaping the rewards of globalisation, the pontiff is gathering new recruits in the spiritual markets of the emerging world. The pews may gather dust in Europe and the US, but elsewhere – albeit for obvious reasons with the exception of China – business is booming.
The storm engulfing the Vatican predates the latest allegations of paedophilia and the efforts at concealment in the church’s high echelons. Pope Benedict has been waging a war against liberal Catholicism for many decades. What has happened now is that the backlash against his doctrinal absolutism has merged with growing disgust about the handling of the controversy over paedophile priests.
As a cardinal and prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Pope warned anyone who challenged the authority of the Holy See that they were putting themselves outside of the church. Man-made laws – about personal relationships, contraception or clerical celibacy – were elevated into sacred truths. Those who challenged this self-serving primitivism were told to take their faith elsewhere.
Pope Benedict dates the beginning of the church’s decline to the social and sexual revolutions of the 1960s; to the passing of the age of deference and the concomitant challenge to traditional authority. It was the secularisation of society, he once said, that had seen Catholic ethics and morals fall into grave decline.
This message was evident in his recent pastoral letter to the church in Ireland. The stated purpose of the address was to express “shame and remorse” about the abuse of Irish children by predator priests. It did so with sincerity. Yet Pope Benedict felt compelled to make another connection – this time between paedophilia among the clergy and the “rapid transformation and secularisation of Irish society”. One problem, he implied, had been the liberalising instincts of the second Vatican Council.
The absurdity of this supposed link is exposed by a simple chronology. Most of the crimes against children uncovered by investigations in Ireland long pre-dated that country’s embrace of what the Pope sees as a lethal moral relativism. To the contrary, it was the opening of Irish society that exposed the sins that had been inflicted on its children.
The Vatican narrative casts the church as victim – as an institution assailed by secularism, the media, and just about everyone else. Thus the Pope’s insistence that his faith will shield him from the “petty gossip of dominant opinion”. One close adviser has compared recent criticism to anti-semitism. Others, just as scandalously, have sought to blame the crisis on Jews and homosexuals. How much further can they fall?
The thread that runs through all this – the reactionary dogma and the refusal to admit any complicity in the cover-ups – is a willingness to sacrifice truth to an unthinking, and futile, defence of the authority of the church.
The right response would be to abandon victimhood and extend to all communicants the apology offered to Ireland’s Catholics. Even the authority of an absolute monarch rests ultimately on legitimacy. The Vatican should abandon the pretence that someone other than the church is responsible by opening the Vatican’s secret archives to full public scrutiny.
But this is a step too far for the present occupant of the Holy See. John Allen, a biographer of Pope Benedict and analyst for the US National Catholic Reporter, recently told the FT’s Rome correspondent that the Holy Father was untroubled by crises of the moment because he had the “great gift of thinking in terms of centuries”.
Mr Allen, as it happens, has also charted the shift in the church’s demographic centre of gravity. Catholicism is booming in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Europeans and North Americans, Mr Allen calculates, now number only 350m in a church of some 1.2bn. About two-thirds of Catholics live in what is the emerging world – about 400m of them in Latin America. Brazil boasts twice as many communicants as Italy. Mexico and the Philippines have larger congregations than Germany or France.
This perhaps is where Pope Benedict’s gaze is fixed. Catholics in the emerging nations, after all, have been largely untroubled by the scandal that has rocked his authority in the west. They are less inclined to challenge the pontiff’s moral absolutism and his demand for unquestioning obedience to Rome.
So what of the Catholics left behind in a declining west? Many will join those who have already departed. Others will conclude that Pope Benedict can rob them of their church, but not of their faith.
Send your comments to philip.stephens@ft.com
More columns at www.ft.com/philipstephens
Dr. Mock has published four books with Floricanto Press, Berklety, CA. His articles have appeared on publications like The Chicago Tribune and several gay and lesbian newspapers. He was inducted in The Chicago GLBT Hall of Fame in 2007. He can be reached at: www.carlostmock.com
Get Equal: Major New LGBT Civil Rights Organization Formed/Is This The Birth Of A Civil Rights Movement....?
Get Equal: Major New LGBT Civil Rights Organization Formed
Copyright by David Mixner
Mar 17, 2010
http://www.davidmixner.com/2010/03/get-equal-major-new-lgbt-civil-rights-organization-formed.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+DavidMixnerCom+%28DavidMixner.com%29
On Monday, the LGBT community saw a major new civil rights organization formed in our struggle for freedom.
Kip and robin at march Kip Williams and Robin McGeehee, Co-chairs of the National Equality March in October, announced the formation of"Get Equal." The talented organizers have spent months since the March on Washington, carefully putting together an effective national network of activists to battle for civil rights for the LGBT community. They have traveled across the country, held retreats with young leaders and worked with march participants to create an entity that will fill the vacuum of the absence of a 'direct action' organization in our movement.
In many ways, this is the first major "Prop 8 Generation" to emerge on the national level. Williams and McGeehee (photograph) have already proved they are two of the new bright young talents to emerge from that generation. In just two days, over 2,500 young activists have joined the group. Many expect Get Equal to have significant impact on the tactical direction of the LGBT civil rights movement.
You can sign up for this new organization by going to the"Get Equal Facebook Page" or to their website. Don't forget to stop and check out their amazing 'store'.
Without a doubt it is one of the largest organizations to form outside the Beltway of Washington, DC.
In their press release this past Monday they stated:
Emphasizing direct action and people power, the mission of GetEQUAL is to empower the LGBTQ community and its allies to take action to demand full legal and social equality and to hold accountable those who stand in the way.
"All over the country we are under attack," said McGehee. "From the recent actions of the Attorney General in Virginia to strip away protections for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender people on college and university campuses to the young lesbian student in Mississippi who is being denied the right to take her date to the prom. Nearly, every day there is a new story, but the subject is always the same: we are being bullied. We are no longer willing to sit back and wait - we want change now."
Get Equal GetEQUAL's organization model is based first and foremost on empowerment. The organization will provide vehicles for people to take action around key moments and connect the narrative of those moments into a powerful movement for change. Tactics will be multifaceted, including centralized online campaigns that build up and empower the LGBTQ and allied national base, and coordinated offline actions that allow people to collectively take to the streets.
"When properly served, we believe these people can create a groundswell of energy that will fundamentally change the current political dynamic, restrict support for those who stand in the way of full equality, and embolden those who want to do the right thing," said Williams. "No longer must we settle for empty promises while our young commit suicide, our rights are stripped away at the ballot box, and we are treated as second class citizens. The time has come to unequivocally say that we are more than a political movement � we are a civil rights movement."
Is This The Birth Of A Civil Rights Movement....?
Copyright by David Mixner
Mar 19, 2010
http://www.davidmixner.com/2010/03/is-this-the-birth-of-a-civil-rights-movement.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+DavidMixnerCom+%28DavidMixner.com%29
There will be temptations within the LGBT community to have decisive and strong opinions on the effectiveness of the campaign of civil disobedience launched by GetEqual.org in Washington, DC and San Francisco. Like a wildfire, the news of the arrests in front of the White House and the occupation of both of Speaker Pelosi's offices spread across the Internet and major blogs. The images were startlingly powerful with two soldiers, each in a crucified position, chained to the fence of the White House willing to bear great sacrifice for this community.
Are these the beginning stages of a new civil rights movement? Are we willing to escalate our tactics in order to press those in power to show leadership and demand our freedom? I honestly don't know. But I have hope. I have hope that over the next months these initial actions will build to a modern day civil rights movement that is as unique as our community. The stirring for non-violent civil disobedience has been building since the National Equality March late last year. Most of it has originated within the ranks of our youth. Their impatience is a powerful message that the failure to make our freedom a priority in Washington is just no longer acceptable.
As I write this, Lt. Dan Choi and Captain Jim Pietrangelo are still in jail. GetEqual.org CoChair Robin Pelosio McGeehee has been released from jail. Kip Williams and those who have occupied Pelosi's office have been arrested. Kip is the other CoChair of GetEqual.org.
Getting arrested in uniform is serious business with real consequences. These men give new definition to courage and bravery in our community. Dan could face a Court Martial and military prison. I am, at this time, not sure of Captain's Pietrangelo status. Having visited at length with Dan Choi on the phone before he made his fateful decision, I was totally comfortable that he understood the consequences and was willing to bear this burden on behalf of us. Anyone who belittles their sacrifice, even if they disagree with their tactics, belittle bravery and honor.
Pelosi22 Not only was their message to the decision makers in Washington but it was to all of us as well. Hopefully their acts of sacrifice will inspire all of us to make greater efforts for our own freedom. Clearly what has been happening up to now is simply not enough. Robin McGeehee upon being arrested shouted, "It is time to fight back" and I couldn't agree with her more. My educated guess, based on near 50 years of activism, is that we are indeed seeing the beginning stages of a new civil rights movement. With our young leading the way with courage, conviction and honor, By autumn we might very well see non-violent civil disobedience on behalf of LGBT freedom occurring in most states.
When I struggle to find the words why this is important and why these young brave leaders from GetEqual should be heard, I hit a dead end. Then Marylouise Oates reminded me of Dr. King's "Letter From A Birmingham Jail" and that I didn't have to create new words. The words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr still resonate today for all those around the world struggling against oppression. The greatest honor I can bestow upon these bright young minds is to put their actions in context with Dr. King's words.
For those of you who view their actions as ineffective, grandstanding or even ego-driven, I ask you to listen carefully to these words written by Dr. King in "The Letters From A Birmingham Jail":
My friends, I must say to you that we have not made a single gain in civil rights without determined legal and nonviolent pressure. Lamentably, it is an historical fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily. Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but, as Reinhold Niebuhr has reminded us, groups tend to be more immoral than individuals.......
We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct action campaign that was "well timed" in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word "Wait!" It rings in the ear of every Negro (LGBT) with piercing familiarity. This "Wait" has almost always meant "Never." We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that "justice too long delayed is justice denied.
Many have said to me that civil disobedience is not the way. King said,
You deplore the demonstrations taking place in Birmingham(Washington and San Francisco). But your statement, I am sorry to say, fails to express a similar concern for the conditions that brought about the demonstrations. I am sure that none of you would want to rest content with the superficial kind of social analysis that deals merely with effects and does not grapple with underlying causes.,....
One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that "an unjust law is no law at all...
Of course, there is nothing new about this kind of civil disobedience. It was evidenced sublimely in the refusal of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego to obey the laws of Nebuchadnezzar, on the ground that a higher moral law was at stake. It was practiced superbly by the early Christians, who were willing to face hungry lions and the excruciating pain of chopping blocks rather than submit to certain unjust laws of the Roman Empire. To a degree, academic freedom is a reality today because Socrates practiced civil disobedience. In our own nation, the Boston Tea Party represented a massive act of civil disobedience.
We should never forget that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was "legal" and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was "illegal." It was "illegal" to aid and comfort a Jew in Hitler's Germany. Even so, I am sure that, had I lived in Germany at the time, I would have aided and comforted my Jewish brothers. If today I lived in a Communist country where certain principles dear to the Christian faith are suppressed, I would openly advocate disobeying that country's antireligious laws.
And of course there are the apostles who caution us to wait, insist now is not the time and predict we can only hurt ourselves by being forceful in our actions and demands for freedom. Listen carefully to these words. Please savor them carefully:
...who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro (LGBT) to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.
I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and that when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress. I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that the present tension in the South is a necessary phase of the transition from an obnoxious negative peace, in which the Negro (LGBT) passively accepted his unjust plight, to a substantive and positive peace, in which all men will respect the dignity and worth of human personality. Actually, we who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive. We bring it out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with. Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured.
These dedicated, brave and inspirational protesters who came of age yesterday have my unequivocal support. No longer will I be silent in the face of this growing injustice. Whether they are the beginning of a new wave and new tactics for this community has yet to be seen. This much I do know: I plan on giving money, signing up and supporting GetEqual.org to see where it leads us. They have proven to me they deserve a chance. After all, eighteen years later we still have "Don't Ask, Don't Tell". What are we waiting for?
The issue isn't just DADT, it is freedom for LGBT people. The issue is full and complete equality. The time is now. In fact, it is long overdue. As Dr. King said:
We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right.
Thanks to Pams House Blend for the Pictures and Omar Clarke of GetEqual.org. They are greatly appreciated. Pam has the scope all the time!
Dr. Mock has published four books with Floricanto Press, Berklety, CA. His articles have appeared on publications like The Chicago Tribune and several gay and lesbian newspapers. He was inducted in The Chicago GLBT Hall of Fame in 2007. He can be reached at: www.carlostmock.com
Copyright by David Mixner
Mar 17, 2010
http://www.davidmixner.com/2010/03/get-equal-major-new-lgbt-civil-rights-organization-formed.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+DavidMixnerCom+%28DavidMixner.com%29
On Monday, the LGBT community saw a major new civil rights organization formed in our struggle for freedom.
Kip and robin at march Kip Williams and Robin McGeehee, Co-chairs of the National Equality March in October, announced the formation of"Get Equal." The talented organizers have spent months since the March on Washington, carefully putting together an effective national network of activists to battle for civil rights for the LGBT community. They have traveled across the country, held retreats with young leaders and worked with march participants to create an entity that will fill the vacuum of the absence of a 'direct action' organization in our movement.
In many ways, this is the first major "Prop 8 Generation" to emerge on the national level. Williams and McGeehee (photograph) have already proved they are two of the new bright young talents to emerge from that generation. In just two days, over 2,500 young activists have joined the group. Many expect Get Equal to have significant impact on the tactical direction of the LGBT civil rights movement.
You can sign up for this new organization by going to the"Get Equal Facebook Page" or to their website. Don't forget to stop and check out their amazing 'store'.
Without a doubt it is one of the largest organizations to form outside the Beltway of Washington, DC.
In their press release this past Monday they stated:
Emphasizing direct action and people power, the mission of GetEQUAL is to empower the LGBTQ community and its allies to take action to demand full legal and social equality and to hold accountable those who stand in the way.
"All over the country we are under attack," said McGehee. "From the recent actions of the Attorney General in Virginia to strip away protections for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender people on college and university campuses to the young lesbian student in Mississippi who is being denied the right to take her date to the prom. Nearly, every day there is a new story, but the subject is always the same: we are being bullied. We are no longer willing to sit back and wait - we want change now."
Get Equal GetEQUAL's organization model is based first and foremost on empowerment. The organization will provide vehicles for people to take action around key moments and connect the narrative of those moments into a powerful movement for change. Tactics will be multifaceted, including centralized online campaigns that build up and empower the LGBTQ and allied national base, and coordinated offline actions that allow people to collectively take to the streets.
"When properly served, we believe these people can create a groundswell of energy that will fundamentally change the current political dynamic, restrict support for those who stand in the way of full equality, and embolden those who want to do the right thing," said Williams. "No longer must we settle for empty promises while our young commit suicide, our rights are stripped away at the ballot box, and we are treated as second class citizens. The time has come to unequivocally say that we are more than a political movement � we are a civil rights movement."
Is This The Birth Of A Civil Rights Movement....?
Copyright by David Mixner
Mar 19, 2010
http://www.davidmixner.com/2010/03/is-this-the-birth-of-a-civil-rights-movement.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+DavidMixnerCom+%28DavidMixner.com%29
There will be temptations within the LGBT community to have decisive and strong opinions on the effectiveness of the campaign of civil disobedience launched by GetEqual.org in Washington, DC and San Francisco. Like a wildfire, the news of the arrests in front of the White House and the occupation of both of Speaker Pelosi's offices spread across the Internet and major blogs. The images were startlingly powerful with two soldiers, each in a crucified position, chained to the fence of the White House willing to bear great sacrifice for this community.
Are these the beginning stages of a new civil rights movement? Are we willing to escalate our tactics in order to press those in power to show leadership and demand our freedom? I honestly don't know. But I have hope. I have hope that over the next months these initial actions will build to a modern day civil rights movement that is as unique as our community. The stirring for non-violent civil disobedience has been building since the National Equality March late last year. Most of it has originated within the ranks of our youth. Their impatience is a powerful message that the failure to make our freedom a priority in Washington is just no longer acceptable.
As I write this, Lt. Dan Choi and Captain Jim Pietrangelo are still in jail. GetEqual.org CoChair Robin Pelosio McGeehee has been released from jail. Kip Williams and those who have occupied Pelosi's office have been arrested. Kip is the other CoChair of GetEqual.org.
Getting arrested in uniform is serious business with real consequences. These men give new definition to courage and bravery in our community. Dan could face a Court Martial and military prison. I am, at this time, not sure of Captain's Pietrangelo status. Having visited at length with Dan Choi on the phone before he made his fateful decision, I was totally comfortable that he understood the consequences and was willing to bear this burden on behalf of us. Anyone who belittles their sacrifice, even if they disagree with their tactics, belittle bravery and honor.
Pelosi22 Not only was their message to the decision makers in Washington but it was to all of us as well. Hopefully their acts of sacrifice will inspire all of us to make greater efforts for our own freedom. Clearly what has been happening up to now is simply not enough. Robin McGeehee upon being arrested shouted, "It is time to fight back" and I couldn't agree with her more. My educated guess, based on near 50 years of activism, is that we are indeed seeing the beginning stages of a new civil rights movement. With our young leading the way with courage, conviction and honor, By autumn we might very well see non-violent civil disobedience on behalf of LGBT freedom occurring in most states.
When I struggle to find the words why this is important and why these young brave leaders from GetEqual should be heard, I hit a dead end. Then Marylouise Oates reminded me of Dr. King's "Letter From A Birmingham Jail" and that I didn't have to create new words. The words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr still resonate today for all those around the world struggling against oppression. The greatest honor I can bestow upon these bright young minds is to put their actions in context with Dr. King's words.
For those of you who view their actions as ineffective, grandstanding or even ego-driven, I ask you to listen carefully to these words written by Dr. King in "The Letters From A Birmingham Jail":
My friends, I must say to you that we have not made a single gain in civil rights without determined legal and nonviolent pressure. Lamentably, it is an historical fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily. Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but, as Reinhold Niebuhr has reminded us, groups tend to be more immoral than individuals.......
We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct action campaign that was "well timed" in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word "Wait!" It rings in the ear of every Negro (LGBT) with piercing familiarity. This "Wait" has almost always meant "Never." We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that "justice too long delayed is justice denied.
Many have said to me that civil disobedience is not the way. King said,
You deplore the demonstrations taking place in Birmingham(Washington and San Francisco). But your statement, I am sorry to say, fails to express a similar concern for the conditions that brought about the demonstrations. I am sure that none of you would want to rest content with the superficial kind of social analysis that deals merely with effects and does not grapple with underlying causes.,....
One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that "an unjust law is no law at all...
Of course, there is nothing new about this kind of civil disobedience. It was evidenced sublimely in the refusal of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego to obey the laws of Nebuchadnezzar, on the ground that a higher moral law was at stake. It was practiced superbly by the early Christians, who were willing to face hungry lions and the excruciating pain of chopping blocks rather than submit to certain unjust laws of the Roman Empire. To a degree, academic freedom is a reality today because Socrates practiced civil disobedience. In our own nation, the Boston Tea Party represented a massive act of civil disobedience.
We should never forget that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was "legal" and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was "illegal." It was "illegal" to aid and comfort a Jew in Hitler's Germany. Even so, I am sure that, had I lived in Germany at the time, I would have aided and comforted my Jewish brothers. If today I lived in a Communist country where certain principles dear to the Christian faith are suppressed, I would openly advocate disobeying that country's antireligious laws.
And of course there are the apostles who caution us to wait, insist now is not the time and predict we can only hurt ourselves by being forceful in our actions and demands for freedom. Listen carefully to these words. Please savor them carefully:
...who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro (LGBT) to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.
I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and that when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress. I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that the present tension in the South is a necessary phase of the transition from an obnoxious negative peace, in which the Negro (LGBT) passively accepted his unjust plight, to a substantive and positive peace, in which all men will respect the dignity and worth of human personality. Actually, we who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive. We bring it out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with. Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured.
These dedicated, brave and inspirational protesters who came of age yesterday have my unequivocal support. No longer will I be silent in the face of this growing injustice. Whether they are the beginning of a new wave and new tactics for this community has yet to be seen. This much I do know: I plan on giving money, signing up and supporting GetEqual.org to see where it leads us. They have proven to me they deserve a chance. After all, eighteen years later we still have "Don't Ask, Don't Tell". What are we waiting for?
The issue isn't just DADT, it is freedom for LGBT people. The issue is full and complete equality. The time is now. In fact, it is long overdue. As Dr. King said:
We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right.
Thanks to Pams House Blend for the Pictures and Omar Clarke of GetEqual.org. They are greatly appreciated. Pam has the scope all the time!
Dr. Mock has published four books with Floricanto Press, Berklety, CA. His articles have appeared on publications like The Chicago Tribune and several gay and lesbian newspapers. He was inducted in The Chicago GLBT Hall of Fame in 2007. He can be reached at: www.carlostmock.com
An open letter to conservatives By Russell King. Copyright bhy Filtered News. March 22, 2010.
An open letter to conservatives
By Russell King
Copyright by Filtered News
March 22, 2010
http://filterednews.wordpress.com/2010/03/22/an-open-letter-to-conservatives/#com-head
Dear Conservative Americans,
The years have not been kind to you. I grew up in a profoundly Republican home so I can remember when you wore a very different face than the one we see now. You’ve lost me and you’ve lost most of America. Because I believe having responsible choices is important to democracy, I’d like to give you some advice and an invitation.
First, the invitation: Come back to us.
Now the advice. You’re going to have to come up with a platform that isn’t built on a foundation of cowardice: fear of people with colors, religions, cultures and sex lives that differ from yours; fear of reform in banking, health care, energy; fantasy fears of America being transformed into an Islamic nation, into social/commun/fasc-ism, into a disarmed populace put in internment camps; and more. But you have work to do even before you take on that task.
Your party — the GOP — and the conservative end of the American political spectrum has become irresponsible and irrational. Worse, it’s tolerating, promoting and celebrating prejudice and hatred. Let me provide some examples – by no means an exhaustive list — of where the Right as gotten itself stuck in a swamp of hypocrisy, hyperbole, historical inaccuracy and hatred.
If you’re going to regain your stature as a party of rational, responsible people, you’ll have to start by draining this swamp:
Hypocrisy
You can’t flip out — and threaten impeachment – when Dems use a parliamentary procedure (deem and pass) that you used repeatedly (more than 35 times in just one session and more than 100 times in all!), that’s centuries old and which the courts have supported. Especially when your leaders admit it all.
You can’t vote and scream against the stimulus package and then take credit for the good it’s done in your own district (happily handing out enormous checks representing money that you voted against is especially ugly) — 114 of you (at last count) did just that — and it’s even worse when you secretly beg for more.
You can’t fight against your own ideas just because the Dem president endorses your proposal.
You can’t call for a pay-as-you-go policy, and then vote against your own ideas.
Are they “unlawful enemy combatants” or are they “prisoners of war” at Gitmo? You can’t have it both ways.
You can’t carry on about the evils of government spending when your family has accepted more than a quarter-million dollars in government handouts.
You can’t refuse to go to a scheduled meeting, to which you were invited, and then blame the Dems because they didn’t meet with you.
You can’t rail against using teleprompters while using teleprompters. Repeatedly.
You can’t rail against the bank bailouts when you supported them as they were happening.
You can’t be for immigration reform, then against it .
You can’t enjoy socialized medicine while condemning it.
You can’t flip out when the black president puts his feet on the presidential desk when you were silent when the white presidents did the same. Bush. Ford.
You can’t complain that the president hasn’t closed Gitmo yet when you’ve campaigned to keep Gitmo open.
You can’t flip out when the black president bows to foreign dignitaries, as appropriate for their culture, when you were silent when the white presidents did the same. Bush. Nixon. Ike. You didn’t even make a peep when Bush held hands and kissed leaders of a country that’s not on “kissing terms” with the US.
You can’t complain that the undies bomber was read his Miranda rights under Obama when the shoe bomber was read his Miranda rights under Bush and you remained silent. (And, no, Newt — the shoe bomber was not a US citizen either, so there is no difference.)
You can’t attack the Dem president for not personally* publicly condemning a terrorist event for 72 hours when you said nothing about the Rep president waiting 6 days in an eerily similar incident (and, even then, he didn’t issue any condemnation). *The Obama administration did the day of the event.
You can’t throw a hissy fit, sound alarms and cry that Obama freed Gitmo prisoners who later helped plan the Christmas Day undie bombing, when — in fact — only one former Gitmo detainee, released by Dick Cheney and George W. Bush, helped to plan the failed attack.
You can’t condemn blaming the Republican president for an attempted terror attack on his watch, then blame the Dem president for an attempted terror attack on his.
You can’t mount a boycott against singers who say they’re ashamed of the president for starting a war, but remain silent when another singer says he’s ashamed of the president and falsely calls him a Maoist who makes him want to throw up and says he ought to be in jail.
You can’t cry that the health care bill is too long, then cry that it’s too short.
You can’t support the individual mandate for health insurance, then call it unconstitutional when Dems propose it and campaign against your own ideas.
You can’t demand television coverage, then whine about it when you get it. Repeatedly.
You can’t praise criminal trials in US courts for terror suspects under a Rep president, then call it “treasonous” under a Dem president.
You can’t propose ideas to create jobs, and then work against them when the Dems put your ideas in a bill.
You can’t be both pro-choice and anti-choice.
You can’t damn someone for failing to pay $900 in taxes when you’ve paid nearly $20,000 in IRS fines.
You can’t condemn criticizing the president when US troops are in harm’s way, then attack the president when US troops are in harm’s way , the only difference being the president’s party affiliation (and, by the way, armed conflict does NOT remove our right and our duty as Americans to speak up).
You can’t be both for cap-and-trade policy and against it.
You can’t vote to block debate on a bill, then bemoan the lack of ‘open debate’.
If you push anti-gay legislation and make anti-gay speeches, you should probably take a pass on having gay sex, regardless of whether it’s 2004 or 2010. This is true, too, if you’re taking GOP money and giving anti-gay rants on CNN. Taking right-wing money and GOP favors to write anti-gay stories for news sites while working as a gay prostitute, doubles down on both the hypocrisy and the prostitution. This is especially true if you claim your anti-gay stand is God’s stand, too.
When you chair the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children, you can’t send sexy emails to 16-year-old boys (illegal anyway, but you made it hypocritical as well).
You can’t criticize Dems for not doing something you didn’t do while you held power over the past 16 years, especially when the Dems have done more in one year than you did in 16.
You can’t decry “name calling” when you’ve been the most consistent and outrageous at it. And the most vile.
You can’t spend more than 40 years hating, cutting and trying to kill Medicare, and then pretend to be the defenders of Medicare
You can’t praise the Congressional Budget Office when its analysis produces numbers that fit your political agenda, then claim it’s unreliable when it comes up with numbers that don’t.
You can’t vote for X under a Republican president, then vote against X under a Democratic president. Either you support X or you don’t. And it makes it worse when you change your position merely for the sake obstructionism.
You can’t call a reconciliation out of bounds when you used it repeatedly.
You can’t spend tax-payer money on ads against spending tax-payer money.
You can’t condemn individual health insurance mandates in a Dem bill, when the mandates were your idea.
You can’t demand everyone listen to the generals when they say what fits your agenda, and then ignore them when they don’t.
You can’t whine that it’s unfair when people accuse you of exploiting racism for political gain, when your party’s former leader admits you’ve been doing it for decades.
You can’t portray yourself as fighting terrorists when you openly and passionately support terrorists.
You can’t complain about a lack of bipartisanship when you’ve routinely obstructed for the sake of political gain — threatening to filibuster at least 100 pieces of legislation in one session, far more than any other since the procedural tactic was invented — and admitted it. Some admissions are unintentional, others are made proudly. This is especially true when the bill is the result of decades of compromise between the two parties and is filled with your own ideas.
You can’t question the loyalty of Department of Justice lawyers when you didn’t object when your own Republican president appointed them.
You can’t preach and try to legislate “Family Values” when you: take nude hot tub dips with teenagers (and pay them hush money); cheat on your wife with a secret lover and lie about it to the world; cheat with a staffer’s wife (and pay them off with a new job); pay hookers for sex while wearing a diaper and cheating on your wife; or just enjoying an old fashioned non-kinky cheating on your wife; try to have gay sex in a public toilet; authorize the rape of children in Iraqi prisons to coerce their parents into providing information; seek, look at or have sex with children; replace a guy who cheats on his wife with a guy who cheats on his pregnant wife with his wife’s mother;
Hyperbole
You really need to disassociate with those among you who:
* assert that people making a quarter-million dollars a year can barely make ends meet or that $1 million “isn’t a lot of money”;
* say that “Comrade” Obama is a “Bolshevik” who is “taking cues from Lenin”;
* ignore the many times your buddies use a term that offends you and complain only when a Dem says it;
* liken political opponents to murderers, rapists, and “this Muslim guy” that “offed his wife’s head”;
* say Obama “wants his plan to fail…so that he can make the case for bank nationalization and vindicate his dream of a socialist economy”;
* equate putting the good of the people ahead of your personal fortunes with terrorism;
* smear an entire major religion with the actions of a few fanatics;
* say that the president wants to “annihilate us”;
* compare health care reform with the bombing of Pearl Harbor, a Bolshevik plot , the attack on 9/11, or reviving the ghosts of communist dictators;
* equate our disease-fighting stem cell research with “what the Nazis did”;
* call a bill passed by the majority of both houses of Congress, by members of Congress each elected by a majority in their districts, as “the end of representative government”;
* shout “baby killer” at a member of Congress on the floor of the House, especially one who so fought against abortion rights that he nearly killed health care reform (in fact, a little decorum, a little respect for our national institutions and the people and the values they represent, would be refreshing — cut out the shouting, the swearing and the obscenities);
* prove your machismo by claiming your going to “crash a party” to which you’re officially invited;
* claim that Obama is pushing America’s “submission to Shariah”;
* question the patriotism of people upholding cherished American values and the rule of law;
* claim the president is making us less safe without a hint of evidence;
* call a majority vote the “tyranny of the minority,” even if you meant to call it tyranny of the majority — it’s democracy, not tyranny;
* call the president’s support of a criminal trial for a terror suspect “treasonous” (especially when supported the same thing when the president shared your party);
* call the Pope the anti-Christ;
* assert that the constitutionally mandated census is an attempt to enslave us;
* accuse opponents of being backed by Arab slave-drivers or being drunk and suicidal;
* equate family planing with eugenics or Nazism;
* accuse the president of changing the missile defense program’s logo to match his campaign logo and reflect what you say is his secret Muslim identity;
* accuse political opponents of being totalitarians, socialists, communists, fascists, Marxists; terrorist sympathizers, McCarthy-like, Nazis or drug pushers; and
* advocate a traitorous act like secession, violent revolution , military coup or civil war (just so we’re clear: sedition is a bad thing).
History
If you’re going to use words like socialism, communism and fascism, you must have at least a basic understanding of what those words mean (hint: they’re NOT synonymous!)
You can’t cut a leading Founding Father out the history books because you’ve decided you don’t like his ideas.
You cant repeatedly assert that the president refuses to say the word “terrorism” or say we’re at war with terror when we have an awful lot of videotape showing him repeatedly assailing terrorism and using those exact words.
If you’re going to invoke the names of historical figures, it does not serve you well to whitewash them. Especially this one.
You can’t just pretend historical events didn’t happen in an effort to make a political opponent look dishonest or to make your side look better. Especially these events. (And, no, repeating it doesn’t make it less of a lie.)
You can’t say things that are simply and demonstrably false: health care reform will not push people out of their private insurance and into a government-run program ; health care reform (which contains a good many of your ideas and very few from the Left) is a long way from “socialist utopia”; is not “reparations”; and does not create “death panels”.
Hatred
You have to condemn those among you who:
* call members of Congress n*gger and f*ggot when they disagree with them on policy;
* elected leaders who say “I’m a proud racist”;
* state that America has been built by white people;
* say that poor people are poor because they’re rotten people, call them “parasitic garbage” or say they shouldn’t be allowed to vote;
* call women bitches and prostitutes just because you don’t like their politics ( re - pea -ted - ly );
* assert that the women who are serving our nation in uniform are hookers;
* mock and celebrate the death of a grandmother because you disagree with her son’s politics;
* declare that those who disagree with them are shown by that disagreement to be not just “Marxist radicals” but also monsters and a deadly disease killing the nation (this would fit in the hyperbole and history categories, too);
* joke about blindness;
* advocate euthanizing the wives of your political opponents;
* taunt people with incurable, life-threatening diseases — especially if you do it on a syndicated broadcast;
* equate gay love with bestiality — involving horses or dogs or turtles or ducks — or polygamy, child molestation, pedophilia;
* casually assume that only white males look “like a real American”;
* assert presidential power to torture a child by having his testicles crushed in front of his parents to get them to talk, order the massacre of a civilian village and launch a nuclear attack without the consent of Congress;
* attack children whose mothers have died;
* call people racists without producing a shred of evidence that they said or done something that would even smell like racism — same for invoking racially charged “dog whistle” words (repeatedly);
* condemn the one thing that every major religion agrees on;
* complain that we no longer employ the tactics we once used to disenfranchise millions of Americans because of their race;
* blame the victims of natural disasters and terrorist attacks for their suffering and losses;
* celebrate violence , joke about violence, prepare for violence or use violent imagery, “fun” political violence, hints of violence, threats of violence (this one is rather explicit), suggestions of violence or actual violence (and, really, suggesting anal rape with a hot piece of metal is beyond the pale); and
* incite insurrection telling people to get their guns ready for a “bloody battle” with the president of the United States.
Oh, and I’m not alone: One of your most respected and decorated leaders agrees with me.
So, dear conservatives, get to work. Drain the swamp of the conspiracy nuts, the bald-faced liars undeterred by demonstrable facts, the overt hypocrisy and the hatred. Then offer us a calm, responsible, grownup agenda based on your values and your vision for America. We may or may not agree with your values and vision, but we’ll certainly welcome you back to the American mainstream with open arms. We need you.
Update: I’ve cross-posted this at TalkingPointsMemo and Street Prophets. Someone has written a DailyKos diary about it and Lizz Winstead, creator of the Daily Show, and formerly on Air America (She did the morning show with Rachel Maddow and Chuck D when Air America started) put link to my TPM post on her fan page. Apparently this piece has gone viral through Facebook, email and other blogs. This is fun, but — man! — you should read what some people who have never met me but disagree with my post are saying about my character!
Dr. Mock has published four books with Floricanto Press, Berklety, CA. His articles have appeared on publications like The Chicago Tribune and several gay and lesbian newspapers. He was inducted in The Chicago GLBT Hall of Fame in 2007. He can be reached at: www.carlostmock.com
By Russell King
Copyright by Filtered News
March 22, 2010
http://filterednews.wordpress.com/2010/03/22/an-open-letter-to-conservatives/#com-head
Dear Conservative Americans,
The years have not been kind to you. I grew up in a profoundly Republican home so I can remember when you wore a very different face than the one we see now. You’ve lost me and you’ve lost most of America. Because I believe having responsible choices is important to democracy, I’d like to give you some advice and an invitation.
First, the invitation: Come back to us.
Now the advice. You’re going to have to come up with a platform that isn’t built on a foundation of cowardice: fear of people with colors, religions, cultures and sex lives that differ from yours; fear of reform in banking, health care, energy; fantasy fears of America being transformed into an Islamic nation, into social/commun/fasc-ism, into a disarmed populace put in internment camps; and more. But you have work to do even before you take on that task.
Your party — the GOP — and the conservative end of the American political spectrum has become irresponsible and irrational. Worse, it’s tolerating, promoting and celebrating prejudice and hatred. Let me provide some examples – by no means an exhaustive list — of where the Right as gotten itself stuck in a swamp of hypocrisy, hyperbole, historical inaccuracy and hatred.
If you’re going to regain your stature as a party of rational, responsible people, you’ll have to start by draining this swamp:
Hypocrisy
You can’t flip out — and threaten impeachment – when Dems use a parliamentary procedure (deem and pass) that you used repeatedly (more than 35 times in just one session and more than 100 times in all!), that’s centuries old and which the courts have supported. Especially when your leaders admit it all.
You can’t vote and scream against the stimulus package and then take credit for the good it’s done in your own district (happily handing out enormous checks representing money that you voted against is especially ugly) — 114 of you (at last count) did just that — and it’s even worse when you secretly beg for more.
You can’t fight against your own ideas just because the Dem president endorses your proposal.
You can’t call for a pay-as-you-go policy, and then vote against your own ideas.
Are they “unlawful enemy combatants” or are they “prisoners of war” at Gitmo? You can’t have it both ways.
You can’t carry on about the evils of government spending when your family has accepted more than a quarter-million dollars in government handouts.
You can’t refuse to go to a scheduled meeting, to which you were invited, and then blame the Dems because they didn’t meet with you.
You can’t rail against using teleprompters while using teleprompters. Repeatedly.
You can’t rail against the bank bailouts when you supported them as they were happening.
You can’t be for immigration reform, then against it .
You can’t enjoy socialized medicine while condemning it.
You can’t flip out when the black president puts his feet on the presidential desk when you were silent when the white presidents did the same. Bush. Ford.
You can’t complain that the president hasn’t closed Gitmo yet when you’ve campaigned to keep Gitmo open.
You can’t flip out when the black president bows to foreign dignitaries, as appropriate for their culture, when you were silent when the white presidents did the same. Bush. Nixon. Ike. You didn’t even make a peep when Bush held hands and kissed leaders of a country that’s not on “kissing terms” with the US.
You can’t complain that the undies bomber was read his Miranda rights under Obama when the shoe bomber was read his Miranda rights under Bush and you remained silent. (And, no, Newt — the shoe bomber was not a US citizen either, so there is no difference.)
You can’t attack the Dem president for not personally* publicly condemning a terrorist event for 72 hours when you said nothing about the Rep president waiting 6 days in an eerily similar incident (and, even then, he didn’t issue any condemnation). *The Obama administration did the day of the event.
You can’t throw a hissy fit, sound alarms and cry that Obama freed Gitmo prisoners who later helped plan the Christmas Day undie bombing, when — in fact — only one former Gitmo detainee, released by Dick Cheney and George W. Bush, helped to plan the failed attack.
You can’t condemn blaming the Republican president for an attempted terror attack on his watch, then blame the Dem president for an attempted terror attack on his.
You can’t mount a boycott against singers who say they’re ashamed of the president for starting a war, but remain silent when another singer says he’s ashamed of the president and falsely calls him a Maoist who makes him want to throw up and says he ought to be in jail.
You can’t cry that the health care bill is too long, then cry that it’s too short.
You can’t support the individual mandate for health insurance, then call it unconstitutional when Dems propose it and campaign against your own ideas.
You can’t demand television coverage, then whine about it when you get it. Repeatedly.
You can’t praise criminal trials in US courts for terror suspects under a Rep president, then call it “treasonous” under a Dem president.
You can’t propose ideas to create jobs, and then work against them when the Dems put your ideas in a bill.
You can’t be both pro-choice and anti-choice.
You can’t damn someone for failing to pay $900 in taxes when you’ve paid nearly $20,000 in IRS fines.
You can’t condemn criticizing the president when US troops are in harm’s way, then attack the president when US troops are in harm’s way , the only difference being the president’s party affiliation (and, by the way, armed conflict does NOT remove our right and our duty as Americans to speak up).
You can’t be both for cap-and-trade policy and against it.
You can’t vote to block debate on a bill, then bemoan the lack of ‘open debate’.
If you push anti-gay legislation and make anti-gay speeches, you should probably take a pass on having gay sex, regardless of whether it’s 2004 or 2010. This is true, too, if you’re taking GOP money and giving anti-gay rants on CNN. Taking right-wing money and GOP favors to write anti-gay stories for news sites while working as a gay prostitute, doubles down on both the hypocrisy and the prostitution. This is especially true if you claim your anti-gay stand is God’s stand, too.
When you chair the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children, you can’t send sexy emails to 16-year-old boys (illegal anyway, but you made it hypocritical as well).
You can’t criticize Dems for not doing something you didn’t do while you held power over the past 16 years, especially when the Dems have done more in one year than you did in 16.
You can’t decry “name calling” when you’ve been the most consistent and outrageous at it. And the most vile.
You can’t spend more than 40 years hating, cutting and trying to kill Medicare, and then pretend to be the defenders of Medicare
You can’t praise the Congressional Budget Office when its analysis produces numbers that fit your political agenda, then claim it’s unreliable when it comes up with numbers that don’t.
You can’t vote for X under a Republican president, then vote against X under a Democratic president. Either you support X or you don’t. And it makes it worse when you change your position merely for the sake obstructionism.
You can’t call a reconciliation out of bounds when you used it repeatedly.
You can’t spend tax-payer money on ads against spending tax-payer money.
You can’t condemn individual health insurance mandates in a Dem bill, when the mandates were your idea.
You can’t demand everyone listen to the generals when they say what fits your agenda, and then ignore them when they don’t.
You can’t whine that it’s unfair when people accuse you of exploiting racism for political gain, when your party’s former leader admits you’ve been doing it for decades.
You can’t portray yourself as fighting terrorists when you openly and passionately support terrorists.
You can’t complain about a lack of bipartisanship when you’ve routinely obstructed for the sake of political gain — threatening to filibuster at least 100 pieces of legislation in one session, far more than any other since the procedural tactic was invented — and admitted it. Some admissions are unintentional, others are made proudly. This is especially true when the bill is the result of decades of compromise between the two parties and is filled with your own ideas.
You can’t question the loyalty of Department of Justice lawyers when you didn’t object when your own Republican president appointed them.
You can’t preach and try to legislate “Family Values” when you: take nude hot tub dips with teenagers (and pay them hush money); cheat on your wife with a secret lover and lie about it to the world; cheat with a staffer’s wife (and pay them off with a new job); pay hookers for sex while wearing a diaper and cheating on your wife; or just enjoying an old fashioned non-kinky cheating on your wife; try to have gay sex in a public toilet; authorize the rape of children in Iraqi prisons to coerce their parents into providing information; seek, look at or have sex with children; replace a guy who cheats on his wife with a guy who cheats on his pregnant wife with his wife’s mother;
Hyperbole
You really need to disassociate with those among you who:
* assert that people making a quarter-million dollars a year can barely make ends meet or that $1 million “isn’t a lot of money”;
* say that “Comrade” Obama is a “Bolshevik” who is “taking cues from Lenin”;
* ignore the many times your buddies use a term that offends you and complain only when a Dem says it;
* liken political opponents to murderers, rapists, and “this Muslim guy” that “offed his wife’s head”;
* say Obama “wants his plan to fail…so that he can make the case for bank nationalization and vindicate his dream of a socialist economy”;
* equate putting the good of the people ahead of your personal fortunes with terrorism;
* smear an entire major religion with the actions of a few fanatics;
* say that the president wants to “annihilate us”;
* compare health care reform with the bombing of Pearl Harbor, a Bolshevik plot , the attack on 9/11, or reviving the ghosts of communist dictators;
* equate our disease-fighting stem cell research with “what the Nazis did”;
* call a bill passed by the majority of both houses of Congress, by members of Congress each elected by a majority in their districts, as “the end of representative government”;
* shout “baby killer” at a member of Congress on the floor of the House, especially one who so fought against abortion rights that he nearly killed health care reform (in fact, a little decorum, a little respect for our national institutions and the people and the values they represent, would be refreshing — cut out the shouting, the swearing and the obscenities);
* prove your machismo by claiming your going to “crash a party” to which you’re officially invited;
* claim that Obama is pushing America’s “submission to Shariah”;
* question the patriotism of people upholding cherished American values and the rule of law;
* claim the president is making us less safe without a hint of evidence;
* call a majority vote the “tyranny of the minority,” even if you meant to call it tyranny of the majority — it’s democracy, not tyranny;
* call the president’s support of a criminal trial for a terror suspect “treasonous” (especially when supported the same thing when the president shared your party);
* call the Pope the anti-Christ;
* assert that the constitutionally mandated census is an attempt to enslave us;
* accuse opponents of being backed by Arab slave-drivers or being drunk and suicidal;
* equate family planing with eugenics or Nazism;
* accuse the president of changing the missile defense program’s logo to match his campaign logo and reflect what you say is his secret Muslim identity;
* accuse political opponents of being totalitarians, socialists, communists, fascists, Marxists; terrorist sympathizers, McCarthy-like, Nazis or drug pushers; and
* advocate a traitorous act like secession, violent revolution , military coup or civil war (just so we’re clear: sedition is a bad thing).
History
If you’re going to use words like socialism, communism and fascism, you must have at least a basic understanding of what those words mean (hint: they’re NOT synonymous!)
You can’t cut a leading Founding Father out the history books because you’ve decided you don’t like his ideas.
You cant repeatedly assert that the president refuses to say the word “terrorism” or say we’re at war with terror when we have an awful lot of videotape showing him repeatedly assailing terrorism and using those exact words.
If you’re going to invoke the names of historical figures, it does not serve you well to whitewash them. Especially this one.
You can’t just pretend historical events didn’t happen in an effort to make a political opponent look dishonest or to make your side look better. Especially these events. (And, no, repeating it doesn’t make it less of a lie.)
You can’t say things that are simply and demonstrably false: health care reform will not push people out of their private insurance and into a government-run program ; health care reform (which contains a good many of your ideas and very few from the Left) is a long way from “socialist utopia”; is not “reparations”; and does not create “death panels”.
Hatred
You have to condemn those among you who:
* call members of Congress n*gger and f*ggot when they disagree with them on policy;
* elected leaders who say “I’m a proud racist”;
* state that America has been built by white people;
* say that poor people are poor because they’re rotten people, call them “parasitic garbage” or say they shouldn’t be allowed to vote;
* call women bitches and prostitutes just because you don’t like their politics ( re - pea -ted - ly );
* assert that the women who are serving our nation in uniform are hookers;
* mock and celebrate the death of a grandmother because you disagree with her son’s politics;
* declare that those who disagree with them are shown by that disagreement to be not just “Marxist radicals” but also monsters and a deadly disease killing the nation (this would fit in the hyperbole and history categories, too);
* joke about blindness;
* advocate euthanizing the wives of your political opponents;
* taunt people with incurable, life-threatening diseases — especially if you do it on a syndicated broadcast;
* equate gay love with bestiality — involving horses or dogs or turtles or ducks — or polygamy, child molestation, pedophilia;
* casually assume that only white males look “like a real American”;
* assert presidential power to torture a child by having his testicles crushed in front of his parents to get them to talk, order the massacre of a civilian village and launch a nuclear attack without the consent of Congress;
* attack children whose mothers have died;
* call people racists without producing a shred of evidence that they said or done something that would even smell like racism — same for invoking racially charged “dog whistle” words (repeatedly);
* condemn the one thing that every major religion agrees on;
* complain that we no longer employ the tactics we once used to disenfranchise millions of Americans because of their race;
* blame the victims of natural disasters and terrorist attacks for their suffering and losses;
* celebrate violence , joke about violence, prepare for violence or use violent imagery, “fun” political violence, hints of violence, threats of violence (this one is rather explicit), suggestions of violence or actual violence (and, really, suggesting anal rape with a hot piece of metal is beyond the pale); and
* incite insurrection telling people to get their guns ready for a “bloody battle” with the president of the United States.
Oh, and I’m not alone: One of your most respected and decorated leaders agrees with me.
So, dear conservatives, get to work. Drain the swamp of the conspiracy nuts, the bald-faced liars undeterred by demonstrable facts, the overt hypocrisy and the hatred. Then offer us a calm, responsible, grownup agenda based on your values and your vision for America. We may or may not agree with your values and vision, but we’ll certainly welcome you back to the American mainstream with open arms. We need you.
Update: I’ve cross-posted this at TalkingPointsMemo and Street Prophets. Someone has written a DailyKos diary about it and Lizz Winstead, creator of the Daily Show, and formerly on Air America (She did the morning show with Rachel Maddow and Chuck D when Air America started) put link to my TPM post on her fan page. Apparently this piece has gone viral through Facebook, email and other blogs. This is fun, but — man! — you should read what some people who have never met me but disagree with my post are saying about my character!
Dr. Mock has published four books with Floricanto Press, Berklety, CA. His articles have appeared on publications like The Chicago Tribune and several gay and lesbian newspapers. He was inducted in The Chicago GLBT Hall of Fame in 2007. He can be reached at: www.carlostmock.com
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