progressive involvement

The radical idea that everyone ought to be treated exactly equal

Too bad it doesn't eat bonuses and kick out lumps of coal

No longer will plutocrats have to mess with--ick!--pawnshops to get their gold.  A German company has invented an ATM that dispenses gold bars, or gold coins.

The company installed its first machine at Abu Dhabi's Emirates Palace hotel in May and followed up with gold ATMs in Germany, Spain and Italy. Geissler said they plan to unroll a few hundred machines worldwide in 2011. He said the Abu Dhabi machine has been so popular it has to be restocked every two days.

The ATM can hold about $160,000 in gold, and is attended by an armed guard.  Personally speaking, I would not want to be that armed guard.

Falling in and out of love

The liberals are in an uproar.  President Obama is not the liberal champion they thought he was.  He is not striding through the land like a political colossus, rallying the country to new heights of progressivism. 

This was never an accurate assessment of Barack Obama.  In 2008, his positions on health care and the social safety net were arguably more conservative than Hillary Clinton's, and his much-vaunted anti-war speech of 2004 was so little-noticed at the time that no Chicago newspaper even made mention of it.  (There's the value of a good publicist for you:  Never has a state senator gotten more political mileage out of a single inconsequential speech.)

When they fall in love, liberals are no different than anyone else.  You overlook the potentially maddening little things you would ordinarily note.  Or, if you do notice them, you attribute them to the delightful quirkiness of your partner's stellar character. 

It should have given liberals pause that their candidate was, in actuality, the "establishment candidate" in 2008.  His largest single source of support was the banking and investment community.  He had the support of the establishment media and establishment money--even establishment bloggers.  He had a 19-8 vote on the Democratic Party's Rules Committee--you don't get any more "establishment" than the Rules Committee.

When liberals fall in love, as they did in 2008, the Age of Aquarius seems right around the corner.  When it proves not to be, what feels like unrequited love can be a painful thing.  Liberals have been seething for awhile, but now the pot is boiling over.  The blogosphere is awash with talk of a primary challenge to President Obama in 2012.  Said Joan Walsh today:

Still, the rush to proclaim Obama the one, true progressive in 2008 was foolish, and I'd suggest that those who wound up disappointed in Obama think more about what they can learn from that race, rather than plotting to bring him down in 2012.

She's getting flamed in the comments, but progressives should take her question seriously.  What could they learn from this experience?  First, don't fall in love with the candidate.  Second, don't believe all of your own propaganda.  Third, pining for a messiah is not a particularly progressive position to begin with.

Why does all this sound like a Stieg Larsson novel?

Judge denies bail to Assange, the Wikileaks leaker.

It's the "new normal"

Narcissistic personality disorder has been dropped from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, the basic guide for mental health professionals. 

The main feature of the disorder-previously-known-as-narcissism is failure to consider the feelings of others, or even to acknowledge that such feelings might exist--"self-centered jerk" is another way to put it.

Presented as a public service

ht: atrios

The piety of puritans and pharisees

David Hall, writing in the New York Times, makes a case that the puritans have been unfairly maligned as self-righteous prigs.  We typically think of puritans as legalists-with-a-vengeance.  Hall attributes this impression to Nathaniel Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter in which puritans are portrayed as authoritarian, "bent on making everyone conform to a rigid set of rules and ostracizing everyone who disagreed with them."

Actually, the puritans had many democratic impulses and practices, and were suspicious of all heirarchical authority.  Authority was vested in the local congregation--indeed, we call it "congregationalism."  The denomination which grew out of puritanism was the Congregational Church which later became today's United Church of Christ.

Contrary to Hawthorne’s assertions of self-righteousness, the colonists hungered to recreate the ethics of love and mutual obligation spelled out in the New Testament. Church members pledged to respect the common good and to care for one another. Celebrating the liberty they had gained by coming to the New World, they echoed St. Paul’s assertion that true liberty was inseparable from the obligation to serve others.

They did not, as it turned out, inaugurate the "New Jerusalem" that they desired.  All human systems fail.  In fact, the human systems which begin with the highest hopes usually are the ones that fall the furthest.

The biblical pharisees were similar.  Most people regard the pharisees as traditionalist, conservative, self-righteous legalists, but that is, at the very most, only partially true.

The pharisees were actually a renewal movement within Judaism, and the major rival to the powerful Sadducees, whose base was the Temple priests and the wealthy aristocracy of Jerusalem.  The power base of the pharisees was in the countryside among lay people.  Issues of class were obviously involved.

The pharisees believed that Judaism was for all the people, not just the priests.  Lay people were just as able as priests to love God, and they would do it through observance of the Torah.  As God cared for the world 24/7, the pharisees encouraged keeping Torah 24/7.  This is how Judaism would be renewed, they thought.

Jesus actually had some points of agreement with the pharisees.  He critiqued the Temple, as the pharisees did.  He believed in the general resurrection, as the pharisees also did.

Where the pharisees looked to Torah, however, Jesus looked to the prophetic tradition.  To put it a different way, where the pharisees tilted toward law, Jesus tilted toward the prophets, emphasizing compassion over law.  All four of the gospels portray Jesus in this way. 

The problem with both puritans and pharisees was not intent.  Indeed, in both cases, their intent was laudable.  With the pharisees, it was the renewal of Judaism.  With the puritans, it was the "new Israel" founding the New Jerusalem.

The problem is that renewal movements are charismatic and effervescent.  The early days are spiritual champagne.  After awhile, though, the champagne begins to lose its bubble.  The movement becomes a system.  The early effervescence hardens and grows rigid. 

Paul writes:  "The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life" (2 Cor 3:6).  Unfortunately, many renewal movements, including both puritans and pharisees, begin in spirit, but end in letter.      

 

 

Shed a tear for Cindy

This is not the first time that John McCain has publicly humiliated his wife.  During the run-up to last year's campaign, it surfaced that he had called her the-kind-of-name-that-cannot-be-posted-in-a-blog-written-by-a-pastor-whose-bishop-and-mother-might-be-reading and had done so publicly--and, not only that, but had also said that she put her make-up on with a putty knife.

Most recently, she was one of the celebrities who appeared in an ad created by the NOH8 campaign to encourage gay teens not to commit suicide.  Cindy McCain's lines were these:  "Our political and religious leaders tell LGBT youth that they have no future...They can't serve our country openly...Our government treats the LGBT community like second class citizens, why shouldn't they?"

Less than a day after the video was released, Cindy said publicly that she supported her husband's stand on DADT, even though she also believes that such a policy and attitude treats gay citizens as second-class.  There's no way she would have publicly contradicted herself, within hours, unless her own thuggish husband forced her to do it.

Where's all this nobility that John McCain is supposed to have? 

 

Most break-ups occur on a Monday

A scan of 10,000 Facebook updates reveals that these are the peak times for relationship break-ups:

Soon to be released

100-page report from the NAACP on racist and anti-semitic connections of tea party organizations.  Sample entry:

The list of out-front anti-Semites on Tea Party platforms includes an event in July 2009. One thousand people gathered in Upper Senate Park for a rally in D.C. A full line-up of speakers included representatives from several tax reform groups, FreedomWorks, and talk show hosts. Also on the platform that day was the band Poker Face, playing music, providing technical back up, and receiving nothing but plaudits from the crowd. The band, from Lehigh Valley, Penn- sylvania, already had a reputation for anti-Semitism. Lead singer Paul Topete was on the public record calling the Holocaust a hoax, and writing and performing for American Free Press—a periodical published by Willis Carto, the godfather of Holocaust denial in the United States. According to Topete, “The Rothschilds set up the Illuminati in 1776 to subvert the Christian basis of civilization.” Because of their bigotry, the band had been kicked off venues at Rutgers University in 2006 and a Ron Paul campaign event in 2007. But they made it to the stage of the Tea Party without any questions asked.