Hundreds of people rallied outside a theatre in Sacramento today in support of the artistic director who resigned over his stand on Proposition 8.
After 25 years with California Musical Theatre, Scott Eckern, a BYU graduate and distinguished alumnus, has left his position as artistic director because of how he voted.
Ticket holders, donors and friends rallied outside the theatre supporting Eckern.
"Freedom should be respected, and they haven’t respected his freedom to do what he would with his funds," said supporter Jaynie Dufort.
Freedom? Like…freedom to marry? That freedom?
Look…it’s simple. You kick me in the face, I will not work with you. I will not shake your hand. I will not walk in your door. I will not patronize your business. I will not give you my hard earned money, just so you can take it and buy a knife to cut my ring finger off. Don’t kick me in the face one day lady, and then expect me to forget you did it the next.
"This is a witch-hunt," said Lance Christensen, who says he’s a regular patron of the theater and took off work to show his support for Eckern.
Witch hunt…did you say? Witch hunt? Like telling everyone that homosexuals are going to storm the schools and start recruiting everyone’s kids? That kind of witch hunt? Like telling everyone that their ministers will be thrown in jail if they don’t marry same sex couples? That kind of witch hunt? Witch hunts like this …?
The woman continued to poke at my face with her sign and call me "nasty." Genuinely disturbed by the complete lack of rational behavior I’d seen up to this point, wanting to look into her face and possibly connect on some level with her as a fellow human being, I pulled a corner of the sign down away from my eyes and asked "why are you calling me nasty?"
That’s when she attacked, clawing, grabbing and then shoving. I didn’t fight back; she was much bigger than me. Calling me a "nasty fucker" and threatening to kick my ass, she pried my phone out of my hand and tried to break it in half while her friends egged her on.
Please note that I never touched or threatened her in any way (unless you want to consider my pulling the edge of her sign out of eye-poking territory a threatening gesture).
As she grabbed at my phone, I stood there stunned, not really sure what to do. One of the counter-protesters (the woman who you see saying "No on Prop 8" towards the beginning of this clip) quickly intervened and calmed the attacking woman down enough that I felt safe enough to try to take my phone back. After a second or two of grappling, she let go and went back to screaming at cars from a lawn chair near the side of the road.
(Big love and gratitude to the kindly counter-protester who pleaded for calm. I don’t think my phone would have survived without you!)
I stood there for another minute or two, checking the phone’s applications for damage. One of the other sign-wavers, a teenage boy standing nearby, leaned over and whispered "fuck you, dyke."
Even though I wasn’t hurt besides a small scratch on my hand, and my phone was okay, being attacked definitely shook me up. I was a bit tearful. Call me naive, but I never thought I’d actually be in physical danger just for shooting footage of their activity and pulling the edge of a person’s sign out of my eyes. Verbal insults, sure. But attacked by an anti-gay activist? In one of the most queer-friendly neighborhoods in the bay area? Yikes.
The man holding the "Vote No" sign noticed that I was in tears and approached me. We hugged to a chorus of jeers, exchanged some reassuring words, and I turned to leave. Someone called after me: "keep crying, and keep walking."…
James Dobson dedicated his radio program today to explaining his sudden decision, which we mentioned earlier, to go to California this weekend to join Lou Engel, Tony Perkins and others for a massive "The Call" rally of prayer and fasting in the name of saving "traditional marriage."
In the clip below, Dobson has just explained that he received a letter from Rev. Jim Garlow, one of the leading organizers of the "yes on 8" movement pleading with Dobson to attend and, after reading it, felt God’s hand on his back telling him to attend "The Call." Dobson chokes up explaining that despite having been on the go for weeks and being exhausted, he knew God wanted him there. Dobson had to call his son to tell him he couldn’t babysit for his grandson this weekend as planned and his son Ryan then confirmed that God wanted him in California instead. Dobson could barely keep it together when he explained that "the Lord must be involved in this" and then hands over the program to Garlow, who also gets choked up and speaks of their level of spiritual desperation and their constant "crying out to God" to save California because they are "watching the destruction of Western civilization."
The destruction of Western civilization. The destruction of Western civilization. The destruction of Western civilization. You people spewed a torrent of venom on people whose only crime was being in love and wanting to get married, and now you’re complaining that we’re angry. Bullies always complain when their playthings start fighting back don’t they? It’s so…unfair. We’re supposed to just accept our station in life, as their punching bags.
I know…I know… We were supposed to just keep crying and keep walking, weren’t we? You didn’t think there would be any hard feelings the morning after, because homosexuals don’t have any feelings. We’re all so…flighty. We were supposed to just go back to cutting your hair, redecorating your homes and waiting on your tables. Fine. Hello…I’ll be your server tonight. My name is Fuck You.
The blowback from last Tuesday’s passage of Prop. 8, which prohibits same-sex marriage in California, has hit the California Musical Theatre, a major nonprofit stage company in Sacramento, following the revelation via the Web that its artistic director gave $1,000 to back the state constitutional amendment.
Among those weighing in with dismay over Scott Eckern’s donation are Tony winners Jeff Whitty, who wrote the book for "Avenue Q," and Marc Shaiman, composer and co-lyricist of "Hairspray." Shaiman said Tuesday that he phoned Eckern on Friday to protest, then e-mailed more than 1,000 contacts to alert them about the donation.
"Of course it’s his right to donate the money," said Shaiman, who was disappointed that Eckern, a California Musical Theatre employee since 1984 and its artistic director since 2003, had benefited from last season’s touring production of "Hairspray," then piped money to a cause the L.A.-based Shaiman deplores. In their conversation, Shaiman said, "he basically gave me that thing we’re just sick of hearing — ‘these are my religious beliefs, but it’s nothing personal’ " against gay people. "I don’t want to hear that anymore. I just told him I’m disgusted at that use of money that came in some way from a show I created." (Update: The “Hairspray” production at California Musical Theatre last August was not a touring production, but one mounted by CMT itself. A touring version of “Hairspray” was seen at the theater in 2004.)
Whitty, whose "Avenue Q" is scheduled to play the Sacramento theater in March, was among those alerted by Shaiman’s e-mail. On Monday, he wrote in his whitless.com blog that "like Marc, I’ll work to prevent CMT from producing any of my future shows with Mr. Eckern at the helm. To me, he’s one of those hypocrites who profits from the contributions of gays … but thinks of us as ultimately damned."
Emphasis mine. Religious beliefs are the all-purpose excuse for doing anything you want to your neighbor, except loving them.
Via Pam’s House Blend… The jackass artistic director of a California music theater who donated money in support of Proposition 8 has made a statement…
I understand that my choice of supporting Proposition 8 has been the cause of many hurt feelings maybe even betrayal. It was not my intent. I honestly had no idea that this would be the reaction. I chose to act upon my belief that the traditional definition of marriage should be preserved. I support each individual to have rights and access and I understood that in California domestic partnerships come with the same rights that come with marriage.
I definitely do not support any message or treatment of others that is hateful or instills fear. This is a highly emotional issue. I have now had many conversations with friends and colleagues and I now have a better idea of what the discrimination issues are, how deeply felt these issues are and I am deeply saddened that my acting upon my religious convictions has been devastating to those I love and admire… I am deeply sorry for any harm or injury I have caused.
Intent. Intent. "It was not my intent." What it was, was one-thousand dollars.
So just how do you support forcibly divorcing devoted, loving couples, without intending harm? So you’ve had "many conversations with friends and colleagues", have you? And now you "have a better idea of what the discrimination issues are", do you? Swell. Just swell. But you couldn’t have talked with those "friends" and "colleagues" about this first could you. You took a thousand dollars of money you earned on the backs of their talent, and you cut their ring fingers off with it, and now you’re telling them you didn’t mean any harm.
Is it a conscience you’re missing, or a brain? How would you feel if all your "friends" and "colleagues" voted to undo your marriage? Your religious convictions, was it? That would be the religion that said, Do Unto Others As You Would Have Them Do Unto You? That religion?
Intent. Intent. If the road to heaven is paved with the hopes and dreams of your "friends" and "colleagues", you can’t say you didn’t intend to walk over them to get there. You knew what you were doing. You just didn’t think other people’s hearts mattered more then paradise. But what paradise did you think you were walking toward, whose road was paved with other people’s hopes and dreams of love? Are you a greedy bastard for Christ, or just an idiot?
[Update…] Apparently…he has now quit his position at the theater. I guess he had to have figured all those "friends" and "colleagues" just wouldn’t work with him anymore after this. One thousand dollars isn’t pocket change.
Oh…and apparently his sister is a lesbian "in a committed relationship". Nice guy.
Bitterness generated by the bruising battle between Betsy Markey and Marilyn Musgrave apparently lingers days after voters decided the winner of the 4th Congressional District.
Incumbent Republican Musgrave, who lost to Democrat Markey by a 56 to 44 percent margin Tuesday, has yet to call and congratulate Markey on her win.
Musgrave also hasn’t conceded the race, said Markey spokesman Ben Marter. "She has yet to admit defeat," he said. "It’s a little bizarre."
Calls to Musgrave’s campaign and congressional office went unanswered Friday.
And Now…A Word From Some Useless Fucks Who Need To Just Go Away Now…
This came in the mail just a little while ago. And here I thought I wouldn’t be hearing any more from these folks…
Dear Bruce,
This has been an incredibly difficult week for Californians who are disappointed in the passage of Proposition 8, which takes away the right to marry for same-sex couples in our state. We feel a profound sense of disappointment in this defeat, but know that in order to move forward we must continue to stand together as one community in order to secure full equality in California.
In working to defeat Prop 8, a profound coalition banded together to fight for equality. Faith leaders, labor, teachers, civil rights leaders and communities of color, Republicans, Democrats, and Independents, public officials, local school boards and city councils, parents, corporate law firms and bar associations, businesses, and people from all walks of life joined together to stand up against discrimination. We must build on this coalition in order to achieve equal rights for all Californians.
We achieve nothing if we isolate the people who did not stand with us in this fight. We only further divide our state if we attempt to blame people of faith, African American voters, rural communities and others for this loss. We know people of all faiths, races and backgrounds stand with us in our fight to end discrimination, and will continue to do so. Now more than ever it is critical that we work together and respect our differences that make us a diverse and unique society. Only with that understanding will we achieve justice and equality for all.
Dr. Delores A. Jacobs
CEO
Center Advocacy Project
Lorri L. Jean
CEO
L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center
Kate Kendell
Executive Director
National Center for Lesbian Rights
Geoff Kors
Executive Director
Equality California
This is all well and good…especially the part about not putting all this on African-Americans. Yes, they voted heavily for it, but they didn’t put four out of very five dollars into the kitty for Proposition 8 either. They didn’t get it on the ballot. They didn’t donate vast amounts of logistical support for it.
But…leaving all that aside… You know…you folks lost the fight...
I worked for both the No on 8 campaign and the Obama campaign this year and cannot tell you how far apart those two were in style and substance. One was top down, the other bottom up. Ironically, it was the presidential campaign that was the grassroots model, not the state-level proposition campaign. As soon as I started working for the No on 8 campaign I was amazed at the level of scripting: "don’t say ‘civil rights,’ don’t say ‘constitution,’ don’t say ‘gay.’" I couldn’t believe it.
One of the most brilliant things about the Obama campaign was that they didn’t expect callers and canvassers to be policy wonks. They just said "tell your story, let people know why you’re voting for him. Connect with people." I can’t help but feel at this point that if the gloves were taken off we could’ve helped people get a grip on the real issues at stake here, which I happen to think is a matter of soiling the state constitution.
What was even more confounding was the No on 8 campaign’s decision to stay away form polling places at churches and schools. First of all, most polling places are at churches and schools, and second, that mentality buys right into the Yes on 8 brainwashing campaign that same sex marriage is going to corrupt our morals and our children. This idiocy was obvious to everyone that I worked with on the campaign. What was going on with the leadership upstairs?!!!
I don’t think I’m the only one who gave you a lot of money I couldn’t really afford who is wondering now why you let a substantial lead over the yes vote when this campaign started just…evaporate. So why don’t all of you to just shut your traps now and stay out of this. I’d rather watch ten hours of James Dobson gloating then one second of you pathetic milksops lecturing us about respecting the people who just cut off our ring fingers. You don’t bring a handshake to a knife fight.
So I Guess Giving Your Best Employees A Choice Between A Pay Cut Or Fired Wasn’t A Plan After All…
Circuit City…March 29, 2007…
Circuit City lays off 3400 employees because they make too much!
Circuit City Stores Inc. has a message for some of its best-paid employees: Work for less or work somewhere else.
The electronics retailer on Wednesday laid off 3,400 people who earned "well above" the local market rate for the sort of jobs they held at its stores.
In 11 weeks they’ll be able to apply for their old positions – which will come with lower hourly wages.
The move put Richmond, Va.-based Circuit City, which has more than 40,000 employees in the United States, at the forefront of a new way of controlling labor costs in the service industry. Employers determine the prevailing market wages for particular jobs in various geographic regions and then find ways to make sure that their workers’ salaries stay within that range.
…
Company spokesman Bill Cimino said Circuit City wanted to be honest with its sales associates so they would understand the reason for the layoffs.
"It had nothing to do with their skills or whether they were a good worker or not," Cimino said. "It was a function of their salary relative to the market."
Circuit City expects to reap $110 million in savings in the next year, partly as a result of the layoffs and other changes announced Wednesday, including the outsourcing of about 130 information technology jobs to IBM Corp.
Circuit City…Today…
Circuit City to Close 155 Stores, Lay Off Thousands
Electronic retailer Circuit City plans to shutter 20 percent of its U.S. stores by December 31 and evaluate other cost reduction initiatives, it announced today, citing waning consumer confidence and the struggling financial markets.
The move will close about 155 of its 700 stores, and result in layoffs of about 17 percent of its workforce. It will also reduce future store openings and renegotiate some leases.
“The weakened environment has resulted in a slowdown of consumer spending, further impacting our business as well as the business of our vendors. The combination of these trends has strained severely our working capital and liquidity, and so we are making a number of difficult, but necessary, decisions to address the company’s financial situation as quickly as possible,” said James A. Marcum, vice chairman and acting president and CEO.
It had nothing to do with their skills or whether they were a good worker or not… Jackass. Treat your people like shit and don’t be surprised to find one day that you’re the CEO of a company that isn’t worth shit.
In what the Washington Post called "perhaps the most ill-timed press release of the 2008 campaign," the California Republican Party announced that they’d filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission alleging that Sen. Barack Obama had illegally funneled funds from his campaign account for his personal use.
The use? Visiting his dying grandmother, whose passing was announced this afternoon.
The GOP sent the release at 1:30 pm ET, a few hours before Obama’s grandmother’s death was announced.
"Obama for America violated federal law by converting its campaign funds to Senator Obama’s personal use," the release stated. "Senator Obama recently traveled to Hawaii to visit his sick grandmother. This was the right thing for any grandson to do — at his own expense — but it was not travel that his campaign may fund."
Federal law prohibits campaigns from using campaign funds for personal travel. Obama’s campaign said beforehand that they had reviewed the trips with their lawyers and believed it was allowable. Republicans, meanwhile, contend that because Obama did not campaign in Hawaii, it should not have been budgeted as a campaign expense.
We have our far right nutcases here in Maryland, but I rest easy at night knowing my brother can go about his day with absolutely batshit wingnuts like these babbling in his face constantly and still keep a mellow attitude.
Nutball Congressman Chris Cannon (R-UT) tried to hire an Oxford don to use his special computer program to prove that Obama’s memoir was actually written by Bill Ayers. The program "can detect when works are by the same author by comparing favourite words and phrases." Apparently, he got cold feet after the he learned that the Oxford academic, Dr Peter Millican, would release the results publicly no matter what they showed.
No sense in letting the voters know something if it isn’t something you want them to know. The soul of a political movement isn’t the faces at the top of the ticket, or the rhetoric of its intellectuals. Its soul, its heart, resides in all the people who do its day-to-day grunt work. The grass roots. The rank and file. The True Believers. It’s not the headline grabbing crimes that reveal the character of an ugly movement…it’s in all the little moments of casual mendacity by its grass roots. There is where the people are. There is where the movement is.
It’s Not About Teaching Children That Gay Couples Are Alright…
Andrew Sullivan almost gets it from time to time…
Althouse makes marriage equality opponent Dean Broyles’s argument clearer:
Let me see if I can make Broyles’s point. I think he means to say that if same-sex marriage remains a legal right, enshrined in state constitutional law, then homosexual relationships will come to be regarded normal and good, and, consequently, anyone who objects to them will start to look like a bigot who should not be permitted to have his way. Thus, in order to preserve the right to discriminate against gay people and to keep schools from teaching children that gay couples are perfectly nice and so forth — all things Broyles wants — it’s important to outlaw gay marriage, because it will be a powerful force in changing perceptions about gay people and those who think gay people are doing something terribly wrong.
Yes! That’s it. One reason I favor marriage equality is that the simple public fact of gay married couples will in itself teach something about the reality of gay people and our lives – without any school or parent having to say a thing. It gives us a way to talk about gay couples for the first time in human history without talking about sex acts.
There is something else that the haters don’t want happening in schools, beyond teaching children that gay couples are perfectly nice and so forth as Althouse puts it. Look more closely. Kids don’t usually socialize with adult couples other then those of their own immediate family. Yes, we can hope the next generation grows up without hate in their hearts. But if they are immersed in anti-gay hate at that age, it’s their peers, those who are gay and those who are only thought to be gay, who will feel the impact of that.
And that’s what Broyles and his kind are adamant must never happen. Gay kids must be hated. And that is because gay kids must hate themselves. What the example of same sex couples living normal, decent, whole lives will do is this: show the gay kids a future where love is possible to them too. That cannot be. Gay kids must never feel loved. Because they are vermin. More despicable even then the gay adults they will eventually become. Because their hearts are sincere. Ever wonder why right wingers seem to hate children so much?
Or to put it in a way that might appeal to social conservatives: grant marriage equality and we can stop talking about homosexuality. We can start talking about love and friendship and commitment and family – for gays and straights. We can leave this horrible identity politics division behind.
Why would social conservatives want to do that? Identity politics is their creation. It’s a belly laugh listening to you blame liberals for it. When people are discriminated against based on things like race, religion, national origin, gender and sexual orientation, when doors are closed to them again and again and again, when they are driven from neighborhoods, job opportunities, when a decent education is denied them, simply for being different, do you really think they’ll continue to see themselves as a part of the whole, or as one of the outcast? They are supposed to see themselves in terms of their assigned identity. You can’t marry…you’re a homosexual. Your very presence in the house of marriage defiles it. We don’t want no faggots in our community. I’m just telling you Bruce that there is no place in this company for homosexuals… That’s the whole point of prejudice. Not to elevate the bigot, but to make hated other feel hated, cast out, separate.
I would love to see my sexual orientation as just another random, and not particularly important aspect of my being. But I can’t. Bigots like the ones pushing anti same-sex marriage amendments keep telling me that it’s the only part of me that matters. You need to stop blaming the victims of identity politics, for being imprisoned in it.
That said, I’m really heartened to see you acknowledging that the breaking down of real barriers in this election cycle will go a long way towards the day when we see and end to identity politics. I agree. Liberals have been trying hard to break down these barriers for decades now, so that we can all be Americans one day…free and equal.
Your staff plants a recording device on your opponent’s podium prior to your debate, so they can record any off the cuff remarks he makes while the mics are off. Your opponent finds the device and erases the tape before giving it back to them. Do you: a) Apologize and assure your opponent that the responsible parties will be punished? b) Deny everything and point to your opponent’s support for the militant homosexual agenda? c) File criminal charges against your opponent for destruction of property for erasing the tape?
I guess you file this under the heading of Deep, Late Election Comic Relief. And not surprisingly it comes from a Senate Republican who should have been coasting but now finds himself with a real chance losing his seat.
Last week, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R) squared off in a debate with Democratic challenger Bruce Lunsford. But on Lunsford’s podium a GOP operative had placed a small voice recorder, presumably to pick up some off-mic comments Lunsford might make — apparently a violation of the debate rules.
(The recorder itself — sans recording — was eventually returned.)
Now, from here the accounts differ. According to the Lunsford campaign, Lunsford actually didn’t see the recorder. But since it was nestled in among his papers it was included when he handed his papers off to his staffers after the debate — staffers who say they later erased the recording since it violated debate rules to have a planted recorder on the opponents podium.
According to the McConnell staffers, however, Lunsford did see the recorder during the debate and essentially confiscated it. Richard St. Onge, II (who, in a separate story, may have absconded with his name from some neo-gothic southern novel) is the GOP operative who planted the recorder. And according to St. Onge, when he went up to Lunsford after the debate to demand his recorder back, Lunsford said, "No you won’t get it back."
And now St. Onge and the chairman of McConnell’s campaign have filed a criminal complaint against Lunsford for petty larceny and destruction of property — because of the erasure.
To be included in The Updated Book Of Virtues by William J. Bennett: It’s Not Cheating If You Do It To Win …or… Extremism In The Defense Of The Party Is No Vice…
In Which Bruce Let’s His Inner Arrogant Elitist Technocrat Out To Vent For A Bit…
Ahem…
To The Three Dim Bulbs With Full Shopping Carts Who Monopolized The Self Checkouts At The Superfresh Just Up The Street: Thank you for wasting the precious minutes of the lives of everyone in the long line that developed behind you, watching you struggle to cope with a device even someone with a lead pipe shoved through their brains could figure out how to use. But not you apparently. Oh…and with shopping carts half full of unlabeled produce no less. Which means you have to flail around for five or ten minutes trying to figure out what you have in your hands and then how to enter the produce code for it, and then ohmyfuckinggod how to weigh the motherfucking thing and then remember that you have to put it in the fucking bag when your done. Nice. I’m talking to you Mrs Upscale Granola Lady, who probably knows the precise nutritional value of every motherfucking one of those bananas and carrot sticks and broccoli heads and other produce section crap you loaded your shopping cart up with, but can’t be bothered to learn how to use a goddamned self checkout machine before you fucking walk up to it. Oh…and You, Mr. Middle-Aged Overweight Sports Slacks Polo Shirt And Golf Cap. The patient as a saint lady behind the service counter had to walk up and help you fourteen, count em, fourteen times while you tried valiantly to do what the goddamned screen prompts were telling you to fucking do in the first place. Like…you know…place the item in the bag after you’d scanned it. Let me give you a hint…just between you and me… Scan your motherfucking coupons in by placing the bar code face Down. Moron. Oh…and swipe your credit card on the side with the goddamned magnetic strip on it. You didn’t have to try another card. The first one you picked out of that wallet full of plastic would have worked if you’d just…you know…swiped correctly. Jackass. Do you even Know what that magnetic stripe on the card is for? No…it’s not for sticking your credit card to the refrigerator door. I hope your wife is paying your bills because you’d be licking the wrong side of the envelope flap before you mailed them. With the wrong checks inside the envelops. When you were done the bagging side of that self checkout machine was so full I swear I thought it was going to tip over. And sure enough it took you another…what…five minutes…to carefully…meticulously…re-pack your shopping cart while the self checkout machine just sat there waiting for the next customer. Good thing the lady behind the service counter came over to help you with that mentally challenging task or you’d have been there for the rest of the afternoon. Let me guess…it was too much like having to put the square pegs in the square holes in kindergarten wasn’t it? The bags…they don’t fit…maybe if I placed the one with the bread in it underneath the one with the three two-liter bottles of Coke in it… Golly…the line behind you folks sure cleared out fast once you got the hell out of the way didn’t it? I have a wee suggestion. Next time you’re buying groceries, use the regular checkout lines. The time you save getting to the front of the self checkout lanes, because most of the people using them are only buying just a few items, you loose in spades because you just don’t fucking have a clue. Admit it. Embrace your destiny. You are not qualified to check yourself out of a mental hospital, let alone a grocery store. Use the regular checkout lines. Trust me…the folks who are being paid to scan your items, weigh your produce, enter the produce codes, and bag everything, do it a hell of a lot faster then you. You will get out of the store quicker, even if you don’t get to the head of the line quicker. And you won’t have a long line of people behind you, all picturing how good it would feel to cut your empty head off, place it on the scanner tray, enter the produce code on the touch screen for Inconsiderate Time Sucking Asshole and stuff it in one of those little plastic grocery bags.
Via SLOG… Oh look..the wingers are all going to go live on a commune…
From The National Review, we have the Republican version of “I’m moving to Canada if their side wins”:
Canada or Galt’s Gulch? [Lisa Schiffren]
So, what happens if McCain really does pull it out and win? After the urban riots, might this be the year that all those libs with Bush derangement syndrome actually make good on their threat to leave the country? What if Canada had a special policy to lure them in? (Win-win-win situation —them/us/Canada )
…
Of course conservatives don’t threaten to leave the U.S. as a rule. However, on more or less the same subject, I haven’t heard so much about John Galt since …well, ever. (And objectivists were thick on the ground in D.C. during the Reagan administration.) I suppose, with all the projections of the Obama administration and its confiscatory tax rates on people and businesses, subordination of the productive to the dependent, public schools turned into training camps for radicals and legions of speech/thought police — i.e. — the end of liberty as we knew it — it might be time to start thinking about the mechanics of Galt’s Gulch. Actually, this is probably a great time to buy property in the Rockies. Love to see the video for that…
For those of you who are unaware, Galt’s Gulch is where all the world’s libertarian intellectuals flee to in the novel Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand. In the novel, the resulting lack of intellectuals and competent businessmen causes the rest of the world to nearly die in an apocalypse of mediocrity. I’m willing to take the gamble that it’s not going to work out that way in the real world, and I implore the conservatives to move to the Rockies and start working on their conservatopia. I’ll even donate to a fund in their honor.
Rand’s idea of a strike against totalitarianism by society’s business and engineering elite only works if you believe that only completely moral and rational people excel in business and engineering and that isn’t true. Both the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany were full of engineering geniuses who happily worked for them, and in Nazi Germany corporations thrived. Totalitarian states can eventually collapse for a lot of reasons, but a lack of smart people willing to lend their minds to the Omnipotent State isn’t one of them. Werner Von Braun happily worked for both Adolph Hitler and John F. Kennedy.
Rand simply had no curiosity, and it severely limited her imagination. She was a romantic in the worse sense, the ivory tower sense, not the enraptured by life sense. And you really see that, in the Galt’s Gulch chapters of Atlas Shrugged. Question: in the utopia of the mind that is Galt’s Gulch…where are the laborers…?
When he put her plate before her, she asked. "Where did you get that food? Do they have a grocery store here?"
"The best one in the world. It’s run by Lawrence Hammond."
"What?"
"Lawrence Hammond, of Hammond Cars. The bacon is from the farm of Dwight Sanders – of Sander’s Aircraft. The eggs and the butter from Judge Narragansett – of the Superior Court of the State of Illinois."
The Country Club set puts down their golf clubs and takes up farming. Except these aren’t hobby farms…they’re trying to be self sustaining here. So the automobile executive, the aircraft company CEO and the Superior Court Judge also happen to be able to run production farms too because…well…because they’re The Men Of The Mind and farming really isn’t all that hard after all. You just get a few pigs and chickens and cows and the whole operation pretty much just runs itself…right? I mean…how hard could running a farm be anyway…all those country bumpkins manage to do it after all. And we are Men Of The Mind. This is, seriously, Rand’s thinking here.
And it gets worse. A couple pages later the two heroes of the novel, Galt and Dagny Taggart, encounter the former CEO of Sander’s Aircraft, who says he can fix her small airplane…the one she crashed and nearly totaled. On his pig farm. In between slopping the hogs I guess…
He pointed across the road. Glancing through the tops of the pine trees, she saw the concrete rectangle of an airfield on the bottom of the valley.
"We have a few planes here and it’s my job to take care of them," he said. "I’m the hog farmer and the airfield attendant. I’m doing quite well at producing ham and bacon, without the men from whom I used to buy it. But those men cannot produce airplanes without me – and without me, they cannot even produce their ham and bacon."
Okay…first of all…who poured the concrete for that airfield? And…where did the concrete come from? The town brain surgeon?
Hey…it’s just concrete. Anyone can pour concrete…right? I mean…look at the low class dimwits who do it for a living. And we’re The Men Of The Mind. We can do that…piece of cake. We can pour whole runways and taxiways and parking pads of concrete level enough for aircraft to safely use that won’t crack apart here in the Rocky Mountain winters because we’re The Men Of The Mind. Hell…just mix and pour and it’s done. Er…who makes the cement mixers around here? And those…things…concrete workers use…trowels I think they’re called. Who makes that stuff. I know…the town philosopher! No…wait…he runs the diner…
Hey…same thing with raising pigs. Anyone can raise pigs. No…wait…even pig farmers can’t raise pigs without help from The Men Of The Mind…
But wait…there’s more. Are you wondering where the tractors come from for all these farms The Men Of The Mind are running? Well wonder no more…
"…Since the time I saw you last, I have designed and manufactured just one new tractor. I mean one – I tooled it by hand – no mass production was necessary. But that tractor has cut an eight hour workday down to four hours on" – the straight line of his arm, extended to point across the valley, moved like a royal scepter; her eyes followed it and she saw the terraced green of hanging gardens on a distant mountainside – "the chicken and dairy farm of Judge Narragansett" – his arm moved slowly to a long, flat stretch of greenish gold at the foot of the canyon, then to a band of violent green – "in the wheat fields and tobacco patch of Midas Mulligan" – his arm rose to a granite flank striped by glistening tiers of leaves – "in the orchards of Richard Halley."
Behold Moses showing the promise land to the faithful. No wait…that’s a Royal Scepter there. Never mind where he got the tools to work the steel to make tractor motor, let alone a tractor. Hey…this guy’s not only an aircraft maker and a hog farmer. He’s a lathe maker and foundry operator…And a tool and die maker. And a tire maker. He can build motors and transmissions and differentials. From just the simple everyday raw materials you find just laying around in the middle of the Rocky Mountains for the taking, Dwight Sanders can make gaskets and seals and sealing compound and springs and rubber. He can manufacture gauges and radiators and hoses and belts. Or someone else there can. Possibly the town dentist. But look at it closer. Rand here seems to think that running a farm or an orchard, consists of running a tractor back and forth all day long and if you build a better tractor you can cut the farmer’s workday down by half.
I mean…because farmers work an eight hour day just like everyone else don’t they? When they’re not running the local airport. Ask a tobacco farmer how long their day is.
But it’s gets better. A page or two on and they meet the man who produces the oil for Galt’s Gulch. And presumably, the gasoline, the kerosene, the motor oil, all the lubricants, and the petroleum-based plastic grocery bags for the grocery store Lawrence Hammond runs…between building the automobiles the folks in Galt’s Gulch drive…
There were two other men working with him: a big muscular roughneck, at a pump halfway up the wall, and a young boy, by the tank on the ground. The young boy had blond hair and a face with an unusual purity of form. She felt certain that she knew his face, but she could not recall where she had seen it. The boy caught her puzzled glance. grinned, and as if to help her, whistled softly, almost inaudibly the first notes of Halley’s Fifth Concerto. It was the young brakeman of the Comet.
She laughed. "It was the Fifth Concerto by Richard Halley, wasn’t it?"
"Sure," he answered. "But do you think I’d tell that to a scab?"
"A what?"
"What am I paying you for?" asked Ellis Wyatt, approaching; the boy chuckled, darting back to seize the lever he had abandoned for a moment. "It’s Miss Taggart who couldn’t fire you, if you loafed on the job. I can."
"That’s one of the reasons why I quit the railroad, Miss Taggart," said the boy.
There is so much there to unpack, not the least of which is the delicately beautiful, artistic youth in a book by the notoriously homophobic Rand. Who…ah…quits his job on the railroad so he can work where common laborers have absolutely no legal rights. I hope you like working for 1/10th of a living wage in Galt’s Gulch kid. Maybe Lawrence Hammond gives him a place in the alley behind his grocery store to spend the night after he sweeps the floors. Or maybe he has a night job cleaning the hog pens at Dwight Sanders’ farm.
But wait…there’s more…
The roughneck was watching them from above, listening with curiosity. She glanced up at him, he looked like a truck driver, so she asked, "What were you outside? A professor of comparative philology, I suppose?"
"No, ma’am," he answered. "I was a truck driver."
Oh look…a touch of humor in an Ayn Rand novel. But wait for it…
He added, "But that’s not what I wanted to remain."
Because…you know…only a looter would want to earn a living as a truck driver. So…who transports the goods in this Utopia Of The Mind? I know, I know…! Dwight Sanders runs goods around from all the farms to Lawrence Hammond’s grocery store on his new super tractor. In half the time. When it’s not saving Judge Narragansett time on his chicken farm, and Midas Mulligan time on his tobacco patch and Richard Halley time in his orchard. Between working on his hog farm and running the town airport.
So. Who is growing the cotton here, in the middle of the Rocky Mountains, for the textile mill that somebody is running, to produce the cloth that somebody who is making everyone’s clothes there needs? Who made the textile mill? Who made the tools to make the textile mill? Who made the lumber but build the textile mill? Who made the saws for the lumber mill to make the lumber for the textile mill? Who transported the lumber? Wait…Sanders again… Who makes the soap that the blond-haired delicate of face artistic but not gay really he isn’t gay no way is he gay kid uses to clean himself off after working in Ellis Wyatt’s oil field? Assuming he can afford the luxury of soap on the slave labor wages Wyatt is perfectly free to pay him? Or maybe soap isn’t needed in Galt’s Gulch, because the Men Of The Mind just will their bodies not to get dirty.
The right wingers yap, yap, yapping now about starting their own Galt’s Gulches are the same hypocrites who are fond of saying "There is no free lunch." Meanwhile, Atlas Shrugged is about a man who invents a motor that’s powered by atmospheric static electricity. Hey everyone…free energy! Its pivotal moment is when the heroine discovers Galt’s Gulch, and sees for herself that the work of producing the basic necessities of life that modern civilization depends on is so easy even the CEO of an aircraft company can do it…in his spare time. And machine an entirely new tractor out of raw materials with the rest of his spare time. Who needs actual farmers? Or truck drivers? Some day, the heartlanders, the blue collar workers, the Joe The Pumbers, should really take a look at the depth of the contempt the brains of the republican party view them with. Nobody really needs you worthless morons…er…now give us your votes praise Jesus or the homos will sodomise your children…
Rand claimed to idolize New York City. Pity she never actually took a stroll through its streets to watch what makes it all work.
So…I’m with Paul Constant on SLOG. Let them try it. By all means. Every little upper middle class rebel child needs their go live in a commune period. Who knows…when they come straggling back ragged and hungry from their adventure, maybe they’ll consent to give the people who pick their cotton, keep their grocery store shelves stocked, make their clothes and keep their floors clean a livable wage then. Yes, as a matter of fact, there is no free lunch. So pay your server enough to make them want to keep feeding you.
Welcome To Planet Earth Mr. Greenspan. And How Was Your Stay On Planet Rand…?
In my college years I succumbed to the rhetoric of Ayn Rand. So did a lot of folks, some well before me. Alan Greenspan for one, who was at one time a member of her inner circle. I became a Libertarian. Fiercely so. But to my credit I think, I never let my new found ideology interpret reality for me. Eventually Ronald Reagan showed me what sort of people make money synonymous with morality, and the kind of government we were likely to end up with with them in charge. So I shrugged…and left both Rand and her bastard child, the Libertarian party. Is it so insufferably arrogant of me to say that I’ve been waiting for the rest of them to wise up ever since?
For years, a Congressional hearing with Alan Greenspan was a marquee event. Lawmakers doted on him as an economic sage. Markets jumped up or down depending on what he said. Politicians in both parties wanted the maestro on their side.
But on Thursday, almost three years after stepping down as chairman of the Federal Reserve, a humbled Mr. Greenspan admitted that he had put too much faith in the self-correcting power of free markets and had failed to anticipate the self-destructive power of wanton mortgage lending.
“Those of us who have looked to the self-interest of lending institutions to protect shareholders’ equity, myself included, are in a state of shocked disbelief,” he told the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
I had my Damascus moment twenty years ago you drooling moron and it was called the Silverado Savings and Loan Scandal. You could have seen then if you’d just taken a look at it, that what happens when financial institutions are deregulated is a mad rush to stuff other people’s, mostly working people’s money into their pockets. Self interest after all, is about Self, not about the institution you work for, let alone the communities they serve. It doesn’t matter if the whole shitpile collapses if you can get out of it with enough cash to live in the lap of luxury for the rest of your life, does it? If self-interest is all there is to it, then you’ve done pretty good haven’t you…even if thousands of other people had to loose everything so you could live high on the hog.
Greed is, contrary to Randian dogma, Not Good. Ambition is good. But ambition is self actualizing. You want to become something. Something better. Greed is just wanting what someone else has. There was a time when I believed that Rand’s attempt to redefine Greed as Ambition was just an artifact of her not knowing English natively. But no…she knew what she was doing. It was from the beginning, all about raping the working class for the benefit of the rich and powerful. Her revenge for the communist appropriation of her father’s pharmacy. If she couldn’t stick it to the Russian proletariat, she could at least help the rich here in America carpet their mansions with the life savings of working Americans. She raised a generation on her Greed Is Good religion. And when they got the power they craved, they put her ideas into practice. The only practice they could have been put to. The only practice they were ever meant to be put to…
Along with the rest of America, Rep. George Miller has watched the value of his retirement investments plummet in recent weeks.
"I’ve lost 30 percent like everybody else. This hits home with the Miller family, too," the California Democrat said in a recent interview.
In recent years, Congress has promoted the dramatic movement in corporate America away from defined-benefit pensions to 401(k)s with policies encouraging automatic enrollment and raising contribution limits. Under 401(k) plans employees contribute to their own investment accounts and assume the risks and rewards that go with them. Lately, with the crisis on Wall Street and across the globe, it’s been more risk than reward.
Earlier this month, Miller’s House Education and Labor Committee found that Americans’ retirement plans, pension plans and 401(k)s included, have lost as much as $2 trillion in the past 15 months– about 20 percent of their value. At a committee hearing Wednesday in San Francisco, Miller cited new research suggesting that the losses might be as much as double that.
And they almost got Social Security during the Bush administration too. Remember that? They were going to let individuals "invest" their retirement money. Basically, give it to Wall Street to play with. It was going to be better then Social Security…just like our 401ks were going to be better then real pensions. When the butcher’s bill for decades of Randian inspired market deregulation is added up, a lot of folks are going to be Real Glad they didn’t get their hands on that trust fund too.
In the coming years, as the folks who lined their pockets during the past few decades with other people’s life savings are made to pay some of it pack, there is going to be a lot of bellyaching from the high and mighty about class warfare. As though they haven’t been engaging in it themselves. Once upon a time the robber barons lived by the simple maxim that might makes right. If they thought of it at all in moralistic terms they saw themselves as a kind of Darwinism in action…survival of the fittest and all that. Then Rand came along and told them that anyone who isn’t rich is a leach on those who are. Capitalism, by which she meant the unrestrained greed motive of the rich and powerful, was not only the best economic system, it was the only Moral one. Now in the higher echelons of wealth, raping the rest of us isn’t merely something you do because you can. Now it’s your moral obligation.
But no amount of apologetics can make what is essentially a pillage and conquest based economic model work for very long, now that we’re not living in caves anymore. Cooperation is necessary. Trust is necessary. For there to be rewards for industriousness, there also need to be guards against perdition. The marketplace needs a cop on the block, or it simply degenerates into gang warfare and shear thievery and collapses. Preying on other people, trusting people, naive people, weaker people, is not made into a workable, sustainable economic model simply by calling it good. Greed is not good.
Message From Starfleet Captain: The Center Of The Universe Has Been Discovered…And You’re Not It…
You know how it is that some Über heterosexuals just have this…overwhelming need…to project their cheapshit character flaws and emotional infirmities onto gays? Yeah…it’s like that…
William Shatner is aiming his phaser at his former "Star Trek" colleague George Takei, calling him "sick" and "psychotic" in a YouTube rant.
Ticked off that Takei didn’t invite him to his recent California wedding, Shatner trashed the actor who played Mr. Sulu on the 1960s sci-fi series as if he were a villainous Klingon.
"The whole thing makes me feel badly, poor man," Shatner said in the video. "There is such a sickness there. It’s so patently obvious that there is a psychosis there. I don’t know what his original thing about me was."
…
"He has continued to speak badly about me for all these years," Shatner continued. "Obviously, hiding his homosexuality – talk about festering and not living the truth of your life and feeling badly about yourself – and being fearful somebody would find out about this terrible, terrible secret, so he thought."
Geeze Bill…Ego much? I like the response of Takei’s spouse, Brad Altman…
Altman later told the News that the pair "definitely" sent an invitation to Shatner through his manager, Larry Thompson.
"Maybe he thought it was junk mail," Altman said.
KaPow!
And in other news…at least one happy gay man out there managed to land an Altman. Not that I happen to know anyone by that name myself…precisely…
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