Category Archives: Politics

Right and Left: Wrong

Posted on by The Old Wolf

I saw this posted on Facebook last year and it raised my eyebrow:

226077_1000

This spread like wildfire around conservative circles, but unfortunately its an oversimplification based on a misunderstanding.

The original Hebrew text of Ecclesiastes 10:2 is “לֵב חָכָם לִימִינוֹ, וְלֵב כְּסִיל לִשְׂמֹאלוֹ” (lev hakam lemino ve lev kesil lesmolo), or “wise heart to right, and foolish heart to left.” The historical meaning of right and left to the Jewish nation is more complex than the intructions to World of Warcraft, but if you’re really interested, a good summary is at the Jewish Virtual Library; long story short, from a biblical standpoint, the right has always been the place of honor or wisdom.

We see this concept reflected in many New Testament references (Matthew 25:33 states “And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left,”) but even biblically the analogy is not consistently used. In Mark 10:37, two presumptuous disciples asked Jesus, “Grant unto us that we may sit, one on thy right hand, and the other on thy left hand, in thy glory.” [1] Thus in this reference, both right and left were considered places of privilege and esteem.

A further disconnect of the biblical usage with modern politics arises when we realize that current usage of left and right began with the French revolution; Wikipedia states that “The terms ‘left’ and ‘right’ were not used to refer to political ideology but only to seating in the legislature.”

Unfortunately, vast numbers of people who see an image like this will say “Oh, wow, that’s cool, I never knew that,” and spread the message far and wide without bothering to question its validity.

226351_600

It’s hard for me to independently verify everything I see, and these days elections are won and lost with the votes of people who don’t even make the effort. We deserve better.

The Old Wolf has spoken.

[1] “It was regarded as a boorish lack of etiquette to walk on the right of one’s teacher; but when he was accompanied by two, he walked in the middle and the greater of his companions walked on the right (Yoma 37a).”

Stay the hell out of Syria

Posted on by The Old Wolf

To whom it may concern in the halls of power:

In 2007, President Obama said the following to the Boston Globe:

“The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat.”

I share with you here a comment I made elsewhere, but which bears repeating:

It is very hard to express the depth of my feelings about the escalating situation in Syria without resorting to blasphemy and profanity. I remain astonished at the obtuseness and pig-headedness of my legislators and my executive branch. They claim that the populace is demanding action; instead, the populace is demanding jobs, is demanding food, is demanding universal access to healthcare, is demanding that we stop throwing away money on unwinnable conflicts in countries where we don’t belong, for the sole purpose of enriching the oligarchs who are heavily invested in oil companies, security companies, and the military-industrial complex.

The people want peace and prosperity, not frivolous military actions. Surely nobody wants the people of Syria to suffer from the actions of a brutal tyrant, but as a nation we simply don’t have the resources or the moral mandate to play global cop any longer. There’s too much wrong at home, and we can’t afford for the Fed to print more fiat money to finance the insanity. I am ready to march on Washington with pitchfork and torch, if I thought it would do any good.

Let me be clear:

The United Nations has not passed a resolution supporting military action in Syria. I do not support action in Syria, and neither do most Americans.

There is no legitimacy to the mistaken conception that “action is demanded” in Syria. The only people who are demanding action are the ones who stand to profit from it, either financially or politically. I refuse to support the spending of my tax dollars or the creation of artificial money or the incurring of additional debt for fruitless military pursuits that threaten to drag us into yet another interminable conflict,

Stop this madness. I demand better; I demand responsibility and accountability to the American people to whom you are duty bound to answer. None of you have political capital to spend; your reputations and approval ratings are already in the toilet. For the love of whatever you consider holy, be it gods or humanity – do not pull the chain.

stf164_mob

To the lords of the castle: you are getting closer to this every day. Do not test the patience of the American people.

The Old Wolf has spoken.

An Open Letter to Kim Jong-Un

Posted on by The Old Wolf

Asshole

Excuse my French. I usually try to express myself in more civilized terms. For the moron currently running North Korea (at least in name – most of us know that the military leadership is calling the shots), nothing else will do.

Kim, stop being such a 바보[1]. Your country is a shambles, your people are starving, nobody envies you, nobody wants what you have, you are the laughing stock of the world, and you’re just making yourself look like a bloody great wanker. Stand down, open your borders, join the rest of civilization and give your people a chance at happiness and prosperity. There is no other way.  “It is no concern of ours how you run your own country – but if you threaten to extend your violence, this nation of yours will be reduced to a burned-out cinder.”

The Old Wolf (and Klaatu) have spoken.

[1] Korean: “pabo” means “fool” or “jackass”.

Must Sell

Posted on by The Old Wolf

QfvBoyP

 

To look at the country, I’d almost say times are as tough now as they were then. Economic terror is snapping at the heels of far too many of us, and our leaders seem interested in only one thing – fortifying their fiefdoms and filling their re-election war chests. I have a message for them:

“This is not what you were elected for. You were elected to serve the nation and improve the lives of your constituents. Do this, and you shall endure. Do it not, and every last one of you will be out of a job. America is angry. We will not see our Constitutional rights eroded – a storm is coming that even the lobbyists and attorneys of Monsanto and friends will not be able to withstand. The only thing that will protect you is doing the right thing, which is: stop thinking about yourselves, and do the job you were elected to do.”

The Old Wolf has spoken.

Reblog: Things I learned in Scouts.

Posted on by The Old Wolf

Reblogged from Tarin Firepelt at Livejournal. Because it’s awesome.

Back in my youth I spent many years in Boy Scouts. I am an Eagle Scout, for those who don’t know, and I can’t tell you how many life lessons I learned in this wonderful organization. Stuff I certainly didn’t learn in public school.

As I watch what is going on in Congress right now I think back to these days. In my scout troop, we went camping one weekend of every month, regardless of the weather. Our scout master correctly knew that these camping trips were the main vehicle in which scouts were taught leadership, and bad weather made it even better a teaching experience. Of the 3 times that temperatures dropped below freezing in Florida during the 4 years I lived there, 2 of those times I was on a camping trip. But I am digressing from the point I want to talk about.

Scout troops are broken up into smaller units called patrols. We had about 40 boys in our troop that were broken up into 5 patrols of 8 boys each. Each patrol is led by one of the middle ranked scouts, the patrol leader, who organizes the young scouts in the camping trips, and helps teach skill awards and other basic scout principles.

One of the responsibilities of a patrol is the planning and organization of the meals on the camping trip. Our trips began Friday after school, and went to mid day on Sunday. So we had to plan for Friday dinner, Saturday breakfast, lunch and dinner, and Sunday breakfast plus a snack for lunch as we rode back to civilization. To pay for this each scout donated $5 in 1980’s money, so we can say about $10 in modern coin.

During the patrol meeting before the campout, the scouts would decide what they were going to eat, covering the 4 food groups in each meal, and realizing the limitations of the cooking apparel and campfire. Roles would be assigned to each boy, covering Cook/Assistant Cook, Fire Tender, Wood and Water Supplier, and the much hated KP. These would be varied so people could gain the experience needed for their skill award and merit badge check lists.

Finally, and the point of this post, the scouts would meet at the grocery store where they would purchase the food. Notice I say the scouts. Mom or Dad would drive them to the grocery store to meet, and usually wait outside for us, but it was the SCOUTS that did all the purchasing.

I think back to one of the trips we made when I was patrol leader. We had 6 scouts going on the trip I think I was the oldest in the patrol at the time at around age 13 or 14. When we showed up at the Grocery store we had $30 with which to feed 6 kids over 5 meals and a snack. Following the lead of something I had learned from an earlier patrol leader, I let the scouts go down the aisle, grabbing all the things needed for the trip, making certain they let me know the price of everything they were getting so I could tally it on my clip board. We finished the walk through and when we got up to the front for check out I held up the clip board.

We had a $70 dollar cart of groceries and only $30 bucks worth of cash.

The scouts eyes bugged out. Keep in mind we are talking 10-14 year olds here who for the most part had never done any grocery shopping beyond tossing cereal and cookies in the cart while tagging along with mom on the family trips. Once it was made clear that we couldn’t take more money the hard reality of trimming that cart down began.

Out went all the cookies and twinkies. Proportions were cut. The cart was divided into the 4 food groups as we still had to meet our basic rules for scouts as per the cooking and camping skill awards. Scouts were introduced to the price difference between name brands and generics, and then that little “price per unit” number came into play as scouts realized that 2 big cans equalled 5 smaller cans and was cheaper by the ounce to boot. Desserts were removed from breakfast and lunches so we had the luxury of sweets for dinner. Haggling ensued between the scouts as we decided and compromised on menu changes on the spot.

And in a half an hour we managed to get that $70 dollar cart down to $30 so we could meet our budget.

The camping trip came around that weekend and we had our meals. And we didn’t starve. I was a hyperactive 14 year old, running around in the woods like a lunatic and I didn’t starve. We were mostly teenagers, and you know how teenagers eat. We didn’t starve. As a matter of fact I remember a lot of good nights, sitting around the campfire, bloated on the food we ate, toasting marshmallows to make the smores we had managed to squeak in the budget during the grocery run. We had bought our food, cooked our food, cleaned up after ourselves, and the average age in my patrol was 12.

This life lesson has stayed with me to this day. I remember the lean years of college when I was trying to stretch my $25/week budget to cover food gas and leisure. I remember how I would look at the price per oz on the generic brand vegetables and buy the bigger cans rather than the smaller and proportion them into zip lock bags at home. I remember buying bottle sodas rather then cans, because if I returned the bottles I would get 10 cents back on each, cutting the price per oz of the soda by a third. I am blessed to be beyond that stage now, but this frugality has allowed be to “Be Prepared”, for the hard times the country is suffering now.

As a 12 year old, I learned how to convert a $70 dollar cart of groceries into something that could support a $30 budget. Its a shame the majority of our current leaders didn’t go to scouts. If they did we wouldn’t be running the deficit we have now.

The Old Wolf has spoken. Thanks, Tarin.

Berlusconi, more hated than Bush II… and that’s a tough challenge.

Posted on by The Old Wolf

Edit: This did not age well. Donald Trump is orders of magnitude worse than Berlusconi ever was.

Berlusconi is at it again. Americans pay very little attention to the politics of other countries [1], but this guy is a train wreck of the first water. “Douchebag” is an insult to all the douchebags in the world. It makes me realize it’s time to dust off this old bit of genius, and I’m only sorry I can’t give the proper attribution to the author.

Ode to Berlusconi

L’onorevole Berlusconi si puo’ definire un por-
tento di abilita’, oltre che un uomo politi-
co di prim’ordine. Meriterebbe di essere de-
cantato con rime sacre come ad altri è gia’
capitato. Meriterebbe un monumento di ster-
minata mole marmorea che fungesse da e-
co indistruttibile nei secoli, in modo che il fe-
lice e caro nome di questo grande comunica-
tore potesse tramandarsi in eterno. Stron-
catore di malgoverni e uomo tutto d’n pez-
zo come nessun altro, il cavaliere ci incu-
te rispetto e ammirazione. Di Berlsconi si par-
la in lungo e in largo e ci condurrà fino alla mi-
tica era di benessere con la sua onesta faccia e
seria. Tutti noi cittadini dell’europa unita scor-
giamo in lui l’uomo del destino e perciò lo sor-
reggeremo con tutte le nostre forze nel mu-
tevole clamore delle folle, alzando un applau-
so a Lui e al suo Governo!		 Prime Minister Berlusconi can be defined as a marvel of ability, and in addition, a first-class politician.  As has been done for others in the past, he deserves to be extolled with sacred rhymes. He is worthy of a marble monument of immense size which would serve as an indestructible echo through the centuries, so that the beloved name of this great communicator might be known throughout eternity. A man who crushes misgovernment, a man of impeccable character like no other, this knight arouses within us feelings of respect and admiration. Berlusconi is spoken of far and wide, and with his honest and serious face, he will lead us into that mythical era of prosperity.
All citizens of a united Europe see him as a man of destiny, and as a result we support him with all our energy amidst the ever-changing clamor of the crowds, raising plaudits to him and his government!

Now…
Read Every Other Line…
L’onorevole Berlusconi si puo’ definire un por-
co di prim’ordine. Meriterebbe di essere de-
capitato. Meriterebbe un monumento di ster-
co indistruttibile nei secoli, in modo che il fe-
tore potesse tramandarsi in eterno. Stron-
zo come nessun altro, il cavaliere ci incu-
la in lungo e in largo e ci condurrà fino alla mi-
seria. Tutti noi cittadini dell’europa unita scor-
reggeremo con tutte le nostre forze nel mu-
so a Lui e al suo Governo!		 Prime Minister Berlusconi is a first-class pig. He deserves to be beheaded. He is worthy of a monument of dung, indestructible throughout the centuries, so his stench might be passed down through eternity. A turd like no other, he buggers us far and wide and will lead us into misery. With all our energy, we citizens of a united Europe will fart in the face of Berlusconi and his government.

The Old Wolf has spoken.

[1] Why should I care? I care because half my family is from Italy, and a big percentage of my relatives still live there. They deserve better than this festering heap of camel ejecta.

Congressional Approval Ratings

Posted on by The Old Wolf

Found over at Public Policy Polling, it appears that Congress is really not popular at all, especially when more people approve of cockroaches. The following chart, digested from the article, shows Congressional approval compared to some other things:

 Compared with Opponent Congress
North Korea 26 61
Meth Labs 21 60
Lobbyists 30 58
Communism 23 57
Fidel Castro 32 54
Gonorrhea 28 53
Ebola 25 53
Kardashians 36 49
Lindsey Lohan 41 45
Telemarketers 35 45
John Edwards 29 45
Playground Bullies 38 43
Cockroaches 45 43
Donald Trump 44 42
France 46 37
Genghis Khan 41 37
Traffic Jams 56 34
DC Pundits 37 34
Root Canals 56 32
Used Car Salesmen 57 32
Nickelback 39 32
Colonoscopies 58 31
Carnies 39 31
NFL Replacement Refs 56 29
Brussels Sprouts 69 23
Lice 67 19

Congress can take comfort in knowing that they are more popular than LiLo or North Korea, but that’s meagre comfort, given that they are less than 1/3 as popular as lice.

Think they’ll pay attention to this recent poll?

Nah.

The Old Wolf has spoken.

Why I Voted Democratic in 2012

Posted on by The Old Wolf

The last two years have been brutal on all of us. Now that it’s all over but the shouting, I can get these thoughts down “on paper” (how long will that expression endure, now that we write with electrons?) so that they are no longer rattling around in my head.

It’s all rather counter-intuitive, you know. I’m a Mormon; Mr. Romney is a Mormon; Mormons are supposed to vote for Romney. Q.E.D.

But it wasn’t as simple as that. In fact, I was agonizing about my choice even as we drove to our polling station, as I had since both nominees were declared official, and didn’t make my decision until my finger was hovering over the choices.

I voted for Mr. Obama in 2008 for one reason: the thought of Sarah Palin any closer to the White House than 3718 miles was absolutely petrifying. I still ask myself what the hqiz John McCain was thinking when he signed off on such an abysmal running mate. My two penn’orth is that he singlehandedly threw away the election with that one move.

But that was then, and this is now.

I volunteered during the 2002 Winter Olympics, and watched Mr. Romney turn the event from a scandal-plagued bid process into a public relations success, a brilliant sporting event (despite the Russian judge-buying debacle), and a money-maker, the latter quite a rarity as far as Olympic games go. There’s no question that he has business acumen, and from where I sit, someone with his kind of experience was just what our country needed to pull itself out of a frightening economy burdened by a massive debt load. Despite my own pain, I was all ready for some sorely-needed austerity measures to stop the tsunami of red ink gushing from the national ledgers. So I supported Mr. Romney’s campaign, contributed what few shekels I could, and hoped for the best… and then the campaign started in earnest.

Each election cycle, I think to myself that the politicking couldn’t possibly get any uglier. Each election cycle, I am wrong. The parties and the pundits and the talking heads savaged and gutted and demonized each other to an extent I would never have thought possible. The rumors, innuendo, outright lies and saber-rattling pronouncements about the character, parentage, habits, beliefs and intentions of both candidates made me wonder if old Solferino had come again.

Through it all, I tried to keep remembering that neither man is a saint nor a demon. Obama is a Chicago politician (a breed not known for high ethical standards), but seems to be a decent person as an individual; Romney is a member of my own faith and I trust that he is a good man at heart, but there are some things about his business dealings which give me pause. That said, I have no doubt in my mind that both men sincerely believe that they have the best interests of our nation at heart. Trim off the lunatic fringes of the bell curve, and I think most Americans want basically the same things, although there is no solid consensus about how to get there.

So once the irrational calumny is subtracted from the equation, I was left looking at overall philosophies and party platforms, and even that was not an easy call to make.

Our nation is struggling economically; our outgo far exceeds our income, and businesses and people are failing right and left. Republicans in general and Mr. Romney in particular are bullish on business, and one of the Republican candidate’s skills is knowing how to turn a failing corporation around. Unfortunately, if a corporation is to survive and become competitive and profitable, that usually involves layoffs; taken to a national scale, the idea is sound for the corporation but lousy for the employees. The other downside is that you favor business, you favor the wealthy, and engender abominations like Citizens United. As I mentioned here,

“This level of disparity [between the wealthy and the rest of us] is mind-boggling, and even moreso that it continues to be permitted. Demanding that corporations and the wealthy pay a fair share of taxes is not “forced redistribution” of wealth – it’s just plain old human decency and common sense. As I’ve said elsewhere, “trickle down” economics is insulting even at the semantic level. If our nation is going to regain any sense of the greatness it once had, and the equality of opportunity implied in “lifting a lamp beside the golden door,” the trickle must of necessity become a torrent.”

Then there’s the “morality” question. First, let’s put to rest the idea that we can’t legislate morality, because we regularly do. Rape is against the law, child abuse is against the law, stealing is against the law, murder is against the law, and people are afforded all sorts of legal protections that fall under the rubric of the protection of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That said, the Republican party and the Tea Party (it’s extreme subset) have been co-opted by the religious right to an untenable extent. They seem bound by their covenants not only to live whatever religious laws they have accepted as right and good, but to impose those conditions on society in general. Some of the pronouncements about rape and abortion from right-wing candidates this cycle have been absolutely chilling, and that doesn’t sit well with me.

I have my own thoughts about these matters. I think the ideas outlined in the LDS Church’s Proclamation on the Family are sound. I wish every child could be born into a stable, loving, supportive family; I wish people would opt for adoption instead of abortion, which I consider the shedding of innocent blood. But those are my ideas, which cease to have any validity beyond the tip of my own nose. I can exhort, invite, and entice, but curtailing the agency of others is not a box I feel comfortable living in. The Church’s 12th Article of Faith states “We believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates, in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law.” Last time I looked, Roe v. Wade was the law of the land, which as far as I’m concerned is the end of that debate.

On the other side, the Democratic platform has some planks in it that disturb me. I’m all for providing equal opportunity for all, and a safety net so that no citizen of our country is deprived of basic necessities, but I’m not sure where the money is going to come from, and I’m diametrically opposed to adding to the national debt. I think we need a more rigorous approach to the issue of immigration, and I’m opposed to blanket amnesty for illegal immigrants, which is unfair to all those who came to our country through the front doors, in the duly appointed way. There are other party positions that I don’t agree with as well, so my vote for Mr. Obama should not be construed as a blanket approval of all the party stands for.

But in the end, as my finger hovered over that screen, I asked myself one question: “Which candidate will work to build a world that works for everyone, with no one left out?” That is my goal, my reason for living, my passion. Today’s Republican party strikes me as essentially elitist and exclusionary, and the Democratic party continues to be more egalitarian and inclusive.

If I was to vote my conscience, I had no other choice.

The Old Wolf has spoken.

Prop 37: For and Against

Posted on by The Old Wolf

I’ve written about Prop 37 and GMO foods before. It’s a complex issue. But as California goes to the polls on Tuesday, the vote on Proposition 37 looms larger than many other issues.

As of October 27, 2012, the total donations to each side were $7,300,000 in support, and $41,300,000 in opposition. A breakdown of the top 12 for and against donors (from Wikipedia) follows:

For
Organic Consumers Fund $1,334,865
Mercola Health Resources $1,115,000
Kent Whealy $1,000,000
Nature’s Path Foods $610,709
Mark Squire $448,000
The Stillonger Trust $440,000
Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps $370,883
Wehah Farm $251,000
Ali Partovi $102,893
Great Foods of America $102,000
Alex Bogusky $100,000
Amy’s Kitchen $100,000

Against

MONSANTO COMPANY $7,115,237
E.I. Dupont De Nemours & Co. $4,900,000
PepsiCo, Inc. $2,145,400
Dow AgroSciences $2,000,000
Bayer Cropscience $2,000,000
BASF Plant Science $2,000,000
Syngenta Corporation $2,000,000
Kraft Foods $1,950,500
Coca-Cola North America $1,465,500
Nestle USA $1,315,600
ConAgra Foods $1,176,700
General Mills $1,135,300

It’s interesting to see who’s supporting and who’s fighting.  Obviously, opponents are the ones who will have to shell out money to adhere to new labeling standards. There will be societal costs, including government oversight (and California’s been broke pretty much since forever), increased court fees as challenges arise, and others. Still, the incredible outpouring of opposition money, outspending supporters 8 to 1 at this point, seems a bit questionable to me: “methinks they do protest too much,” leading me to believe that there’s more at stake here than just trying to avoid administrative overhead.

As I’ve mentioned before, the long-term effects of GMO foods on human health have not yet been determined, because they haven’t been around for the long term. But I support a consumer’s right to know and choose, and so I fall squarely in the “for” camp, even though I’m not in California. The vote there will set precedent and have repercussions for all states, so it behooves us all to be informed and take a stand.

The Old Wolf has spoken.