Stupid, stupid conservatives.

I was raised on the supposed stupidity of liberals and the glory of the conservative movement, born in the 70’s and a child of the 80’s. But as I age so does the conviction that, although there might have been some truth to that reality (while Clinton didn’t help, the sex-capades-impeachment was a early warning signal of the neo-con-absurdity to come), it certainly isn’t the case anymore. In fairness to conservatives whom I respect (family members included), this is mostly in regards to the rise and proliferation of the conservative media.

Cases in point:

Fox front man Bill O'Reilly was beside himself over the handshake, indignantly claiming that former President Richard Nixon never met with Chinese leader Mao Zedong. Perhaps O'Reilly would benefit from a refresher in Political History 101, because it's a well-established fact that Nixon met with Mao in 1972, a point Keith Olbermann drove home in naming O'Reilly "Worst Person" on Thursday for his historically challenged comment.

Conservative leader and radio host Rush Limbaugh asserted, "If you look at what we are calling torture, you have to laugh," said that "if somebody can be water-tortured six times a day, then it isn't torture," and claimed that "appeasers" have "water[ed] down" definition of torture like "NOW gang" did with definition of domestic violence.

County Fair, the official Media Matters blog, last week called out the conservative Washington Times for its bizarre, fact-free editorial that claimed President Obama's job approval ratings were "in the basement" and that he was historically unpopular. True Alice-in-Wonderland stuff since recent polling data suggest the exact opposite about the president's popularity. Well, it took a whole week, but the Times finally walked back that nonsense retracting the entire editorial noting, "We hereby retract our April 28 editorial 'Barack's in the basement' because we misapplied several polling comparisons of various presidents after their first 100 days in office." That's being generous when you consider the entire piece was completely made up.

[W]hen Gov. John Baldacci (D) signed a marriage equality law, Maine became the fifth state to allow legal same-sex marriage. On the Christian Broadcasting Network today, Pat Robertson responded by claiming that the “ultimate conclusion” of legalizing same-sex marriage would be the legalization of polygamy, bestiality, child molestation and pedophilia. “You mark my words, this is just the beginning in a long downward slide in relation to all the things that we consider to be abhorrent,” said Robertson.

Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, and Rush Limbaugh Show guest host Mark Steyn criticized the president as an elitist because he ordered a burger with "spicy mustard" or "Dijon mustard." Hannity claimed that Obama ordered a "fancy burger" with a "very special condiment," while Steyn asserted Obama is trying "to enlighten us" through his order. Ingraham asked of Obama: "What kind of man orders a cheeseburger without ketchup but Dijon mustard? ... The guy orders a cheeseburger without ketchup? What is that?" In their discussions of Obama's burger order, Hannity, Ingraham, and Steyn all referenced a Grey Poupon commercial featuring actors portraying wealthy British men expressing desire for the mustard.

David Feherty, in an essay for a Dallas magazine wrote, "From my own experience visiting the troops in the Middle East, I can tell you this, though: despite how the conflict has been portrayed by our glorious media, if you gave any U.S. soldier a gun with two bullets in it, and he found himself in an elevator with Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Osama bin Laden, there's a good chance that Nancy Pelosi would get shot twice, and Harry Reid and bin Laden would be strangled to death."

As Olbermann has explained, the point would not be to watch Hannity suffer. Rather, it would be to prove to him — and perhaps his viewers — that waterboarding is in fact “cruel, inhuman” torture — that it is what an adviser on terrorism to the departments of Homeland Security, Special Operations, and Intelligence called “slow-motion suffocation.”

Indeed, the 2005 torture memo written by Steven Bradbury required the CIA to have a tracheotomy kit on hand to revive a detainee who had effectively drowned:

[A] detainee could suffer spasms of the larynx that would prevent him from breathing even when the application of water is stopped and the detainee is returned to an upright position. In the event of such spasms, a qualified physician would immediately intervene to address the problem, and, if necessary, the intervening physician would perform a tracheotomy. …we are informed that the necessary emergency medical equipment is always present - although not visible to the detainee — during any application of the waterboard.

A footnote to the memo warns, “for reasons of physical fatigue or psychological resignation, the subject may simply give up, allowing excessive filling of the airways,” and “aggressive medical intervention” may be required to restore breathing. And yet Hannity continues to insist, “It’s not drowning.”

Indeed, the fact that conservatives and the Task Force in particular feel the need to lie about the history and traditions surrounding the NDP [National Day of Prayer—ew!] suggests that they are less concerned with promoting prayer in America than they are with taking every possible opportunity to “slam Obama” for political gain.

I wish it were true that Obama was in some way—any way—anti-religious, but unfortunately that’s just not the case. In fact, as I suggested about Bobby Jindal’s necessary conversion to an Anglo-religion, so too did Obama need the sanctification and protection of J.C. to win the White House. Half black? Sure. Absentee father? Well, OK. Muslim absentee father? Ummm… Community organizer. What’s that? But (god forbid) had Obama ever waiver in his devotion to some imaginary Father and his ghost-Son—not to be confused with “Ghost-Dad,” the ridiculously horrible Bill Cosby movie—he could have forgotten about the presidency.

Why? Because the equally ridiculously horrible reality in this country, indeed most the world, is that, even as religion slowly ebbs from humanity and even the transgendered get civil rights, atheism remains a pox in our houses.

The Land of Milk and Money

"A pair of ultra-orthodox Jewish newspapers altered a photograph of the new Israeli Cabinet, removing two female ministers from the shot, the BBC reported. The papers printed the doctored images last week.

In one of the newspapers, female ministers Limor Livnat and Sofa Landver were replaced by two men in the inaugural photo of Israel's new 30-member Cabinet, which is headed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The other publication blacked out the women.

Why? Because many ultra-orthodox Jews view publishing photos of women as a violation of female modesty."

Good to see it noted that crazy-ass-Jews are as crazy as crazy-ass-(insert belief system based on imaginary forces, here).

Iran isn't nearly as bad about this stuff (the repression of women) as many of our "allies," say, like parts of Pakistan, India, Saudi Arabia or some of the smaller Gulf States. No, Israeli women don't have to wear a head-scarf in public by law, like in Iran, but many must have their head's covered according to orthodox Judaism, anyway.

Similarly, restrictions on where and with whom women are allowed exist in both countries. Indeed, because this, and more, is compulsory under law in Iran—not just culturally/traditionally, as in Israel—it’s argued women are more repressed in the Islamic country.

But if the ultimate affect on women is the same, is there a difference? And if so, what?

With Western culture bound by the "rule of law," instinctively, we think that religious tradition made into law is always more of an affront to personal freedom.

Perhaps.

Yet, what is more stultifying to a youngster's identity formation: a law that, while generally followed superficially and publicly by the majority, is derided by them privately as dated at best and oppressive at worst, or a situation where the fear of supernatural retribution is pushed as communal tradition, with no dissenting voice of reason?

Forward looking, it might be that laws can be changed more readily than an ingrained cultural paradigm.

So, maybe, reform could come easily to an ever increasingly globalized Iran. Remember, in the country’s pre-Islamic-revolution history, only about 30 ago, they were as modern as most "western" countries—except, of course, that they had a corrupt military dictator installed by the U.S.

From Wikipedia.com:

"In 1953 the United States played a significant role in orchestrating the overthrow of Iran's popular Prime Minister, Mohammed Massadegh. The Eisenhower Administration believed its actions were justified for strategic reasons; but the coup was clearly a setback for Iran's political development. And it is easy to see now why many Iranians continue to resent this intervention by America in their internal affairs."

-U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright, 2000

Ironic how the Taliban, as opposed to the Shah, came to power. Hmm. The first filled the vacuum left after the Cold War ended, by suddenly uninterested "super powers." The other was a direct result of Cold War-era non-detente mishigos.

Perhaps, historically, the U.S. couldn't care less what kind of regime they support/install (or depose, for that matter)--democratic, dictators, religious crazies, secular, oppressors, good or bad--as long as privatization and “free” markets were a result.

One of the CIA's first big successes after its inception, post-WWII, the role it played in Iran also (mentioned above) showed to what degree the government would act as proxy for corporate interests in controlling access to natural resources, which would go on to be duplicated again and again in Latin America for decades. You could argue, what is going on now in the Gulf is, in part, related to this competition for resources (oil).

What I'm getting at is this: exactly where does Israel fall on the spectrum above? Perhaps this revelation about Israel will, at least, allow us to question the unquestionable: is Israel simply a good, non-crazy-religious, non-oppressive democracy?

Not if all residents aren't voting citizens--ala Jim Crow South or, as Jimmy C. likes to say, S. African apartheid. Ha!

Some is better than none.

17,000 or so people, mostly but not all Cambodians, entered a small high school in downtown Phnom Penh, in the second half of the 1970's. The three main buildings of relatively equal size in a U-shaped layout, are a couple of blocks off a main avenue. The three or four stories had balconies connecting the doors to the rooms facing the court yard enclosure of the buildings on three sides, the street on the fourth.

They weren't students; they were prisoners. They didn't ask questions, but were asked them. They didn't write; instead, they dictated long personal histories, transcribed by others who were not teachers. Not taught, these "confessions" were elicited by torture; there was no exercise, except that of the others who were not teachers, in its administration.

They didn't paint, but years later one man would. That man was made to sculpt the image of another man, Pol Pot, over and over again. Because of this, the artist, Van Nath, would be one of the dozen or so who would live through the reign of the Khmer Rouge. Still, some is better than none.

Look familiar? Indeed, it should. The above is one in a series made by Nath of the varied tortures used in Tuol Sleng, as the school became known, referring to the once school as "poison." It is a depiction of a man being waterboarded. Looks like torture to me. Apparently it felt like it as well to Christopher Hitchens, who allowed himself to be waterboarded by ex-military trained in the practice. You can watch the video here. He lasted a only few seconds. But, some is better than none.

Today, the former head of the prison, Comrade Duch, will go on trial, more than 30 years after its opening. This represents the first major figure in the Khmer Rogue to ever be put on trial. Pol Pot, the Stalin/Mao figure of Cambodia was allowed to die in the same jungle from which he waged his campaign of terror.

No wonder: the democratically (sort-of) elected, current and long-time Prime Minister of Cambodia was himself a high-ranking comrade in the Khmer Rouge. For this and other reasons, some in the country say this will be the only trial of a top official to be allowed to take place. In custody, waiting for trial sit a handful of other top Khmer Rouge. And, still, some is better than none.

Here at home, there are similar calls for justice for some of past Administration. At least a "truth and reconciliation," if not criminal charges for Rumsfeld, Cheney, Bush, et al. There doesn't seem to be much interest for this in Congress, from the press, or from the President. But, who knows, maybe they'll get Colin Powell on knowingly lying to the U.N. or Condi Rice on her incompetence as National Security Advisor before 9-11 (hm, funny, they're both black.) My vote is for George "slam dunk" Tenet, or some other higher-up at the CIA; less for the bad intel concerning Sadam's (lack of) WMDs and more about the Company's failure to alert the FBI--or someone--to their knowledge that the 9-11 hijackers were in the country.

Now, even 30 years down the line, some would be better than none.