Palin: Flailin' failin' and probably bailin' -- a sign from the Hold Palin Accountable Rally, 27 Sep 2008, Anchorage, AK. Prophetic, too: she bailed 10 months later.

I don’t usually read Conservatives for Palin.  For one thing, I don’t have much use for unmitigated laudatoriness toward my former governor about whom I have all manner of reasons to be unfavorably impressed — her incessant untruth-telling, her vindictiveness, her Christianist/Dominionist views, her habit of quitting jobs half-done (though to tell the truth, I’m glad she quit as governor — Sean Parnell ain’t no superhero, but he’s a vast improvement over both his last two predecessors), & her speeches full of the same old tired conservative talking points over & over & over & over [yawn] again.  Oh yes, & let us not forget her famous 2 million dollar meme, which has the distinction of having led to the most popular post on my blog to date. [Ref #1] It also has a nice pie chart that I made, which I will take the opportunity to show off now.

The 2 million dollar meme pie chart, which I created to demonstrate what it cost the Alaska Personnel Board to investigate ethics complaints against Sarah Palin. Notice how 63% of costs were from Troopergate, including the "frivolous" ethics complaint Palin made against herself. Click through on the pie chart to get to my Flickr photostream, where it can also be viewed full-size.

It was with some bemusement, then, that I learned that on Sunday one of C4P’s bloggers took it upon himself to congratulate me for being one of those “with the courage to criticise [sic] those whose lives seem committed to a downward spiral of abusive tabloideeze about all things Palin.”

Why, sir! I do believe that you’re trying to coopt me!

The blog post, “Skinny White Sunday: Alaska Palm Pilot Rocks!” by Rich Crowther [Ref #2], was a sort of Sunday wrap-up of Palin-related news, which in this case included discussion of Phil Munger’s use of the word “slut,” for which I had criticized him. [Ref #3] Interestingly, Crowther said very little about my criticism of Phil, instead choosing to highlight comments I’d made at Phil’s post about Gryphen of Immoral Minority.  Also of interest was that while Crowther made use of the term Steve Aufrecht used in his post criticizing Phil for the same thing — Blogger Tourettes [Ref #4] — Crowther not only didn’t credit him, but even linked to another C4P post (critical of Phil) instead of to Steve’s post. [Ref #5] I’m sure there are a number of C4Pers who now think Crowther is oh-so-very-clever for coining a clever phrase that in fact he just snagged uncredited from another Alaska progressive blogger.

Here’s the relevant section of Crowther’s post.  All the stuff in green is him quoting me.  Links are as they appear in the original.

Mr M has recently been struck down by a bad case of Blogger Tourettes and the issue of the week over at his blog has been “to swear or not to swear”. Is it nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of Sarah Palin’s outrageous good fortune, or to cuss with aggressive, sexually charged, misogynistic language in trying to oppose that?

They accuse C4P of meddling in Alaskan affairs, but here’s what we don’t understand, how can it be more acceptable for those Eurozone sludgers Patrick Hogwash and Regina la Cochon Rose (at Palingates) to involve themselves in matters Alaska? How can it be appropriate to link to that bilious European blog? Huh?

Interestingly, reader, there are now some Alaska Bloggers (eg Mel@Henkimaa) with the courage to criticise those whose lives seem committed to a downward spiral of abusive tabloideeze about all things Palin:

“[I] think that Gryphen frequently goes over the top & over the line, especially with regard to Palin. (But not only with regard to her. For example, I was pretty sickened by his post a week or so ago about Lesil McGuire & Tom Anderson’s divorce.)”

“I’m not a Trig Truther — I have better things to do with my time than to scrutinize photos of her to see how big her ‘baby bump was’…”

“I don’t care if Gryphen is more worried about this than I am; my concern is mainly where his (or anyone else’s) interest might have a negative impact on the life of innocent people. (As with the more recent ‘Track Truther’ rumor, which questions the facts of Track’s parentage — never mind the impact such reckless rumor-mongering might have on the lives of Track or the family of the supposed ‘real’ father. I think it’s Palingates where I’ve seen this stuff.)”

“I think that Doogan was wrong for outing her [Jeanne Devon]. I think the language Jeanne has used to cut him down is frequently insulting, but not as deeply so as Phil’s slut slur. I think that a lot of Alaska progressive bloggers are just participating in the general level of political incivility that is part of the general culture now.”

“I do have a problem with personal attack & demeaning insult… On that basis too I have lots of problems with Immoral Minority. I have often felt that Gryphen is so caught up in his dislike of Palin that he goes overboard in seeking out things to criticize her about, even on slow Palin news days. I often feel he goes over the top & over the line.”

“Gryphen’s blog, to my eyes, is one of the biggest offenders in the ‘gratuitous insult’ & ‘criticize for the sake of criticism’ category that the Alaska lefty blogosphere has to offer.”

The person who wrote all that is no admirer of C4P, far from it, but she is certainly the first liberal blogger in Alaska to address openly and honestly the very real problems which some of the leftist bloggers have – not least in the way in which they have been supporting those reaching beyond decency in their sometimes color-blind desperation to build a conspiracy… any conspiracy. [Ref #2]

I appreciate that Mr. Crowther was kind enough to point out that I’m “no admirer of C4P, far from it,” and also to recognize that I’m a she, not a he (since I sign a lot of posts with my nickname Mel, some people erroneously assume that I’m male).  But I also noticed that Mr. Crowther was very careful to take my comments out of their context, particularly to omit anything I said that was critical of Palin or her followers, even if it was part of the same sentence or comment that he elected to quote, or complimentary to any Alaska progressive blogger.   Since Mr. Crowther never linked to the post where my comments were made, it also made it that much more difficult for any C4P reader to check the quotes & place them in context. The result is to give a very unbalanced representation of my views — perhaps in tribute to that favorite news source of conservatives, Fox News: fairly unbalanced.

So here I am to restore the balance of what I was saying.

The most egregious example was Mr. Crowther’s first quotation of my words:

“[I] think that Gryphen frequently goes over the top & over the line, especially with regard to Palin. (But not only with regard to her. For example, I was pretty sickened by his post a week or so ago about Lesil McGuire & Tom Anderson’s divorce.)”

“I’m not a Trig Truther — I have better things to do with my time than to scrutinize photos of her to see how big her ‘baby bump was’…”

“I don’t care if Gryphen is more worried about this than I am; my concern is mainly where his (or anyone else’s) interest might have a negative impact on the life of innocent people. (As with the more recent ‘Track Truther’ rumor, which questions the facts of Track’s parentage — never mind the impact such reckless rumor-mongering might have on the lives of Track or the family of the supposed ‘real’ father. I think it’s Palingates where I’ve seen this stuff.)” [Ref #2]

Here, typos and all, i’s the portion of my comment on “PA’s Palin Poll – Another Critical View by Another Close Friend” [Ref #6](which was a crosspost of Steve Aufrecht’s post “Blogger Tourettes”) from which Mr. Crowther was selectively quoting.  (Note: all the quotes Mr. Crowther made of my words were from my comments to that same post.):

You ask,

Do you support “Gryphen” (Jesse Griffin) (http://theimmoralminority.blogspot.com/)? Have you read his stuff? What do you think? He may be hung up about Palin’s child’s birth certificate. What do you think about Palin’s kid’s birth certificate? Do you think the birth certificate is a fraud?

I answered about Immoral Minority in my comment immediately prior to your comment. Yes, I read it. Sometimes I appreciate it. Sometimes I don’t. As I said above, I think that Gryphen frequently goes over the top & over the line, especially with regard to Palin. (But not only with regard to her. For example, I was pretty sickened by his post a week or so ago about Lesil McGuire & Tom Anderson’s divorce.)

As for Palin’s kid’s birth certificate — how would I know if it’s a fraud? I’ve never seen it, nor has anyone that I know, since Palin has never released it. It would be nice if she would, because then maybe it would put to rest all the Trig Truther stuff. That she hasn’t released it might indicates that either

(1) she thinks it’s nobody’s business, even though she’s brought Trig & the manner of his birth so much into the public spotlight that she’s made it other people’s business; and/or

(2) she for some reason thinks it serves her interests to keep the Trig Truther rumors alive by not putthing a quash to them once & for all with a disclosure of the birth certificate; and/or

(3) one or more of the claims she has circulated about Trig & the circumstances of his birth is a lie.

Maybe all three. I’m not a Trig Truther — I have better things to do with my time than to scrutinize photos of her to see how big her “baby bump was” — but her tale of the long plane rides from Texas to Anchorage after her water broke certainly seems suspect. And if true, certainly demonstrates her irresponsibility.

I don’t care if Gryphen is more worried about this than I am; my concern is mainly where his (or anyone else’s) interest might have a negative impact on the life of innocent people. (As with the more recent “Track Truther” rumor, which questions the facts of Track’s parentage — never mind the impact such reckless rumormongering might have on the lives of Track or the family of the supposed “real” father. I think it’s Palingates where I’ve seen this stuff.) [Ref #6, comment at 6:24 PM]

Notice how Mr. Crowther carefully leaves out the context of my criticism of Palin’s own behavior with regard to Trig, including the famous account of the “my water broke & then I endangered the life of my child by taking a long journey from Texas so my child could be born in Alaska” airplane trips. And then even a drive from Anchorage to Wasilla.  Oh please.  Notice how he makes me seem even more critical of Gryphen than I am by omitting what I say about sometimes appreciating his blog.

From the same comment at Progressive Alaska, Mr. Crowther quotes this:

“I think that Doogan was wrong for outing her [Jeanne Devon]. I think the language Jeanne has used to cut him down is frequently insulting, but not as deeply so as Phil’s slut slur. I think that a lot of Alaska progressive bloggers are just participating in the general level of political incivility that is part of the general culture now.” [Ref #2]

The full context of that portion of the comment:

What about Devon cutting down Mike Doogan, over and over again, for identifying her?

I think that Doogan was wrong for outing her. I think the language Jeanne has used to cut him down is frequently insulting, but not as deeply so as Phil’s slut slur. I think that a lot of Alaska progressive bloggers are just participating in the general level of political incivility that is part of the general culture now. I think I’ve done so at times myself, & I’m trying to do better. But I also think the incivility & attack language is routinely far worse & more virulent on the right. I’m still appalled that Palin nominated to be attorney general someone like Wayne Anthony Ross, who has a long history of demeaning the personhood of people with whom he disagrees.

But that’s just the humble opinion of a “lima bean.” [Ref #6, comment at 6:24 PM]

Alaskans might remember that during a confirmation hearing before the Alaska House Judiciary Committee, Wayne Anthony Ross compared lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transsexual/transgender Alaskans to “lima beans,” a vegetable he “hates” but would still “represent” if he was hired to be the advocate for “United Vegetable Growers.” [Ref #7] That’s on top of other slurs he’s used, not only against LGBT Alaskans [Ref #8] but also against victims of domestic violence and sexual assault, as I detailed in a letter I wrote to members of the Alaska Legislature last April. [Ref #9] But, gotta make sure that Palin supporters don’t see any of my criticism of Palin’s disastrous & embarrassing choice of WAR — embarrassing especially because the Alaska Legislature resoundingly rejected her poor choice for attorney general [Ref #10] — not exactly a high point for Palin’s record as governor of Alaska. Better not remind Palin fans of that, or anything else I said that might remind them of embarrassing truths about Palin — which may well be one reason that Mr. Crowther didn’t link to the post where my comments were originally made.

Y’think?

Mr. Crowther also chose to ignore my later comment, in which I retracted & corrected the error I made in describing Jeanne Devon’s posts about Alaska State Representative Mike Doogan:

On the other item — Jeanne Devon of the Mudflats coming down on Doogan for removing her anonymity — I’ve got to revise my earlier answer.

Earlier I wrote that “I think that Doogan was wrong for outing her. I think the language Jeanne has used to cut him down is frequently insulting, but not as deeply so as Phil’s slut slur.” Now, having gone through her blog for stuff she’s said about Doogan, I must correct myself to say that I only once found her actually “insulting” him, but not directly. To the extent she did so, it was in reporting on the fact that Doogan was among those legislators whose name was apprearing on little flags put in dog poo in Juneau, such that he had attained the nickname “Doo Doo Doogan.” I.e., she was reporting on an insult others had dreamed up, not originating it. Mudflats is actually one of my favorite blogs to read, because Jeanne is witty & creative in her writing; & seldom if ever lowers herself to engage in ad hominem attacks.

I’ve met her only a couple of times, once at the True Diversity Dinner where she took my picture with Brian the Moose. It hasn’t appeared on her blog though. [Ref #6, comment at 11:48 PM]

Jeanne wrote me privately to thank me for making the correction, & also told me where she had in fact posted the pic of me with Brian the Moose (about halfway down: I’m the one in orange between Republican Gomorrah author Max Blumenthal and Air America’s Richard Green).  Could Mr. Crowther’s ignoring this have anything to do maybe possibly perhaps maybe have something to do with the fact that Palin fans also don’t like Jeanne, whose blog The Mudflats is one of the principal blogs that brought the attention of non-Alaskans to what a dangerously unqualified candidate Palin was for vice president?  How nice to be able to coopt the comments of a liberal blogger like me to put her down!  How inconvenient that I later corrected my incorrect remarks!  How convenient for Mr. Crowther that all he had to do to keep most C4P readers ignorant of my correction was by simply not mentioning it!

Mr. Crowther next quoted from the very first comment I made that mentioned Gryphen:

“I do have a problem with personal attack & demeaning insult… On that basis too I have lots of problems with Immoral Minority. I have often felt that Gryphen is so caught up in his dislike of Palin that he goes overboard in seeking out things to criticize her about, even on slow Palin news days. I often feel he goes over the top & over the line.” [Ref #2]

My full comment:

Anonymous @ 3:40 PM asked,

I wonder if those who are complaining about Phil’s poll also take the same critical look at blogs such as The Immoral Minority where the criticism of Palin runs along the same lines and I see plenty of expletives and worse.

I don’t have a problem with expletives exactly (the f-word for example, which I occasionally use myself); I do have a problem with personal attack & demeaning insult — which is the main basis upon which I criticized of Phil’s poll. On that basis too I have lots of problems with Immoral Minority. I have often felt that Gryphen is so caught up in his dislike of Palin that he goes overboard in seeking out things to criticize her about, even on slow Palin news days. I often feel he goes over the top & over the line.

Your other examples (Keith Olbermann, Jesse Jackson, MLK, Kennedy) all involved personal private relationships that (1) I don’t know enough about to judge & (2) had nothing to do with any of those people’s presentations in public discourse. You’re comparing apples & oranges. I do look unfavorably on people abusing their power in sexual relationships & also when they violate their agreements (such as vows of fidelity) with their partners or spouses. But it’s up to the people they have those agreements with to hold them accountable, not me — since I don’t know exactly what their agreements were; nor do I know whether or not whatever Olbermann did actually violated the consent of any of his sexual partners.

Obviously Phil has no obligation to explain anything unless he really wants to. Seems like Phil wants to. Isn’t that what he just said in crossposting this? [Ref #6, comment at 4:12 PM]

In this case, Mr. Crowther’s selective quote served to leave out my the qualification of what I was criticizing Phil for, or the fact that I don’t really give that much of a shit about expletives.  (See? I just used one.)  But this wasn’t as bad a selective quotation as some of his others.

Mr. Crowther’s final quote of my words:

“Gryphen’s blog, to my eyes, is one of the biggest offenders in the ‘gratuitous insult’ & ‘criticize for the sake of criticism’ category that the Alaska lefty blogosphere has to offer.” [Ref #2]

What I said in that comment in full, in which I was replying to an anonymous conservative commenter who took exception to me saying that despite my criticisms of Gryphen’s blog, I still liked him & read his blog:

Anon @ 10:08 AM –

“Be it known that while I think he frequently goes over the top & over the line on his blog, I still like him & I still read his blog — I just wince a lot.”

Translation for non-leftists.” This guy says stuff I would find hateful and vile on right-wing sites but because he’s one of ours I’ll go along with it.”

For the Left, convictions mean nothing and the end always justifies the means.

I guess you haven’t been reading, Anon. I’ve been calling loudly & persistently ever since Phil posted his “slut” remarks & poll for progressive bloggers to refrain from demeaning insults, & to stop excusing their use of them by the hypocritical justification that “the right does it so we can too.”

Gryphen’s blog, to my eyes, is one of the biggest offenders in the “gratuitous insult” & “criticize for the sake of criticism” category that the Alaska lefty blogosphere has to offer.

But that doesn’t, nor has it ever, meant that I have tossed him on the garbage heap. He’s like a brother whose uglier language I abhor. But however much I abhor his language, that doesn’t’ mean he ceases from being my brother. Same for Phil.

But back to the question of hypocrisy: I have said a number of times that lefties are behind hypocritical when they justify their incivility & ugly language against righties because “the right does it to us.”

Unsurprisingly, almost all of the right wing commenters who have commented on this issue on Phil’s blog over the past few days, including you, are using the same hypocritical strategy: you continually show up, usually in anonymous guise, to gripe at lefties for being uncivil & using “hateful and vile” language, while never once condemning the hateful & vile language from your own side.

So rail as much as you like, but your arguments will continue to have no merit until you stop behaving with such hypocrisy. [Ref #6, comment on February 11 at 10:37 AM]

Better not let C4P readers know that I was also criticizing rightwingers for their “hateful and vile” language — which, in fact, occurs with some frequency in comments at C4P.

In fact, the post Mr. Crowther linked to when he borrowed Steve Aufrecht’s term “Blogger Tourettes” without so much as mentioning Steve was to his own February 6 post critical of Phil’s first post where he referred to Palin as a “slut.”  Comments on that post were rife with “hateful and vile” language.  And also a commenter called Kjanlady suggesting,

Kjanlady: Can we get his address and post it on the web….along with a picture of him, his house, and the car he drives? ) [Ref #5, comment 02/08/2010, 09:26:54]

Though I credit two other commenters, the first a couple of hours after the suggestion was made, the other by Rich Crowther himself the following day, for saying no to this idea –

section9: No. We don’t do that crap. Much as we’d like to, Philip Munger is a pathetic assclown who, despite his efforts to destroy Sarah Palin, is a private citizen. [Ref #5, comment 02/08/2010, 11:20:51]

Rich : I have the impression that Kjan. is probably making a sarcastic reference to the way in which Palingates published personal information about two former C4P contributors recently.

For the record, Mr Munger is a private citizen whose privacy must be respected.

My post sought to challenge his use of language as a blogger. Implicit in that is the hope that he might re-think his approach to blog posting, and be less deliberately inflammatory when he next writes critically about Governor Palin. [Ref #5, comment 02/09/2010, 01:26:31; emphasis added)

But, for the record, not before someone apparently decided to take Kjanlady up on her suggestion, as reported by Phil shortly after she made it.  (Though of course no one has actual proof that the men taking photos of Phil's house & car were C4P readers, because they skedaddled on out of there as soon as they realized Phil had seen them.)

None of this is to say that Rich Crowther or anyone else at C4P is wrong for calling upon Phil or Gryphen on anyone else to be less inflammatory when they write about Palin, or about anyone else.  But notice how seldom they call upon their own side to use less inflammatory language.  Same hypocrisy I was decrying throughout the discussion of civility.  As, for example, when I wrote last week,

It’s clear that just as much on the left as on the right, too many people are willing to excuse their “own side” for employing the same tactics that they condemn the “other side” for. [Ref #3]

Same hypocrisy I was decrying when I wrote — in that last comment Mr. Crowther selectively quoted from –

But back to the question of hypocrisy: I have said a number of times that lefties are behind hypocritical when they justify their incivility & ugly language against righties because “the right does it to us.”

Unsurprisingly, almost all of the right wing commenters who have commented on this issue on Phil’s blog over the past few days, including you, are using the same hypocritical strategy: you continually show up, usually in anonymous guise, to gripe at lefties for being uncivil & using “hateful and vile” language, while never once condemning the hateful & vile language from your own side.

So rail as much as you like, but your arguments will continue to have no merit until you stop behaving with such hypocrisy. [Ref #6, comment on February 11 at 10:37 AM]

That, in particular, is a message that Mr. Crowther’s selective quoting of my comments left out.

Now, since I don’t typically read C4P, it’s possible that I have missed such condemnation from Mr. Crowther or other conservative bloggers there of the hateful & vile language that so often comes out of the mouths or keyboards of C4P readers and other conservatives & Palin fans.  If so, please point them out to me in comments, & I will stand corrected.  I ask that you please refrain from namecalling as you do so.

Meantime, I’ve got to say that it turns out there’s a whole lot of work to restore fairness & balance to the record when C4P writes about one in laudatory terms.  I wonder if Rich Crowther will still think I have “courage” after he’s read this post.  It’s nice to be called courageous, sure, but even better is to be coopted represented honestly and in context.

References

1. 7/7/2009. “The 2 million dollar meme” by Melissa S. Green (Henkimaa).
2. 2/14/2010.  “Skinny White Sunday: Alaska Palm Pilot Rocks!” by Rich Crowther (Conservatives for Palin).
3. 2/8/2010. “Progressive bloggers on Palin: Civility versus namecalling” by Melissa S. Green (Henkimaa).
4. 2/10/2010. “Blogger Tourettes” by Steve Aufrecht (What Do I Know?); crossposted as “PA’s Palin Poll – Another Critical View by Another Close Friend” at Progressive Alaska.
5. 2/6/2010. “Foul Mouthed Alaska Democrat In New Low” by Rich Crowther (Conservatives for Palin).
6. 2/10/2010. “PA’s Palin Poll – Another Critical View by Another Close Friend” — crosspost at Progressive Alaska of Steve Aufrecht’s post “Blogger Tourettes”.
7. 4/14/2009. “Anti-WAR letter: Opposing Wayne Anthony Ross” by Melissa S. Green (Henkimaa).
8. 4/15/2009. “WAR’s antigay letter to the Alaska Bar Association, 1993″ by Melissa S. Green (Henkimaa).
9. 4/16/2009. “WAR goes down! 23 yeas, 35 nays!” by Melissa S. Green (Henkimaa).
10. 2/8/2010. “Midwinter Snow Pictures – and a Comment on C4P Meddling – Updated” by Phil Munger (Progressive Alaska).

Related posts:

1. Conservatives for Palin: A rich field of study for anyone interested in the practical application of intellectual dishonesty & logical fallacy
2. Progressive bloggers on Palin: Civility versus namecalling
3. Progressives, civility, & Palin: Anatomy of an apology

We have to be absolutely clear that this tragedy — which is part natural, part unnatural — must, under no circumstances, be used to, one, further indebt Haiti and, two, to push through unpopular corporatist policies in the interest of our corporations. This is not conspiracy theory. They have done it again and again. [Ref #1]

Democracy Now has a video and rush transcript of her talk:

As if to underscore Klein’s warning about the danger of allowing corporatist exploitation to become enmeshed with efforts to help Haiti and its people, Max Blumenthal — who visited Anchorage last September shortly after publication of his book Republican Gomorrah — appeared yesterday on the Thom Hartmann program discussing Haiti’s recent political history [Ref #2]:

Blumenthal described on his blog what he said on the show:

In 2004, when the national press corps failed to report the American hand in the coup that overthrew Haitian President Jean Bertrand Aristide, I embarked on a long and exhaustive investigative report on role of right-wing operatives in Washington and Haiti in toppling the government. My report, which I just discussed on the Thom Hartmann Show, is also the story of how lawmakers in Washington — including President Bill Clinton, who forced Aristide to sign free trade agreements that would destroy the rural economy as the condition for returning him to power — undermined Haiti’s capacity to support a viable governing structure. Not surprisingly, we are seeing the corporate sweatshop owners that Clinton and others had posited as the future stewards of Haiti’s economy fire their employees en masse and flee the country for safer environs instead of helping out. [Ref #3]

The report to which he refers was originally published at Salon.com in July 2004. [Ref #4]

Number Three in Bill Quigley’s list of “Ten Things the US Can and Should Do for Haiti”, is one crucial step toward rebuilding Haiti for Haitians — instead of as a feeding trough for corporate exploiters:

Three. Give Haiti grants as help, not loans. Haiti does not need any more debt. Make sure that the relief given helps Haiti rebuild its public sector so the country can provide its own citizens with basic public services. [Ref #5]

One way we as individuals can help is to include the grassroots charity Yéle Haiti in your giving plans.  Yéle Haiti was founded in 2005 by Haitian-American musician Wylcef Jean.  Its purpose:

to restore pride and hope to the Haitian people through projects that will allow citizens to ultimately help themselves, such as the creation of scholarships, support for the arts, food distribution and emergency relief. [Ref #6]

Currently all funds donated are being directed toward the earthquake relief effort.  You can donate by:

• texting Yele to 501501 (which donates $5 to the effort; amount will be added to your cell phone bill); or
• donating directly at the Yéle Haiti website (for larger amounts)

As of this morning, MTV.com reports that Yéle Haiti so far has raised $2 million through mobile donations. [Ref #7]

It’s my payday today.  Yelé!

Wyclef Jean on Ground in Haiti (Fox News… I know…)

Another good Haiti-based organization to support is the Lambi Fund of Haiti, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit founded in 1994 by 1994 by Haitians, Haitian-Americans, and North Americans which has as its organizational goal

to help strengthen civil society as a necessary foundation of democracy and development. The fund channels financial and other resources to community-based organizations that promote the social and economic empowerment of the Haitian people. [Ref #8]

The Lambi Fund’s earthquake relief effort is to help Haitian communities recover beyond the immediate response to the earthquake emergency:

The Lambi Fund of Haiti is not a first responder, but a second responder. Lambi Fund will be there to help Haiti rebuild long after the relief service providers leave.

If you want to give to a first responder group, we recommend the following: Doctors without Borders, International Red Cross, and Partners in Health.

As a second responder, here are our plans for helping communities recover, today and tomorrow:

• We expect a tremendous outmigration from Port au Prince back to the rural villages. This will stretch the capacity of peasant organizations with which Lambi Fund partners. We will help members of peasant groups get food and essentials for their families to re-establish their lives.
• Provide seeds, tools and equipment for peasant groups to plant more crops to feed local communities.
• Rebuild grain mills, sugar cane mills, and other economic development community enterprises lost in the earthquake. These buildings are the centers of communities’ economic livelihoods.
• Recapitalize micro–credit funds run by peasant organizations so that people can replenish and continue their small businesses.
• Repair rainwater cisterns so people will have a supply of safe drinking water. [Ref #9]

Donations can be made by credit card or Paypal through the Lambi Fund of Haiti Earthquake Recovery page.

References

1. 14 Jan 2010. “Naomi Klein Issues Haiti Disaster Capitalism Alert: Stop Them Before They Shock Again” (Democracy Now).
2. 14 Jan 2010. “Max Blumenthal on Haiti’s political history” (Thom Hartmann Program, YouTube).
3. 14 Jan 2010. “How Washington’s Plot Against Haiti Worsened The Earthquake Disaster” by Max Blumenthal (maxblumenthal.com).
4. 16 Jul 2004. “The other regime change: Did the Bush administration allow a network of right-wing Republicans to foment a violent coup in Haiti?” by Max Blumenthal (Salon.com).
5. 14 Jan 2010. “Ten Things the US Can and Should Do for Haiti” by Bill Quigley (Common Dreams).
6. 14 Jan 2010. “Wyclef Jean helping through ‘Yéle Haiti’” by Jo Piazza (CNN).
7. 15 Jan 2010. “Wyclef’s Yele Haiti Tops $2 Million In Text Donations: Americans’ charitable donations on track to set fund-raising records” by Gil Kaufman (MTV.com).
8. “About The Lambi Fund of Haiti” (lambifund.org).
9. “Lambi Fund of Haiti Earthquake Recovery” (lambifund.org).

Related posts:

1. The Daily Tweets, 2010-01-13: Haiti earthquake
2. The Daily Tweets, 2010-01-15: Haiti relief efforts
3. Helping Haiti (& telling Pat Robertson to STFU)

Max Blumenthal in Anchorage: click on picture for full-size poster with details on where & when you can hear him during his visit.

Crossposted at Celtic Diva’s Blue Oasis

Thanks to some problems with a print job I was needed to help solve, my lunch yesterday was late, & to compound frustration it was interrupted by a fire drill, which meant having to shut down my computer, do a quick pack-up, & join everyone else in the office — faculty, staff, students — in a walk in the rain.

But the worst of it was that it interrupted me in my reading: having learned at Phil Munger’s blog Progressive Alaska about the upcoming visit to Anchorage of Max Blumenthal, & further detail about the same at some of the other Alaska progressive blogs like Celtic Diva’s Blue Oasis, What Do I Know, Immoral Minority, and the Mudflats, I decided to check further into his recently published book, Republican Gomorrah: Inside the Movement that Shattered the Party. [Ref #1-6]

Palin's in here too, in case you were wondering.

Well, lunchtime wasn’t enough to get the full skinny out of what is something of a fat book (416 pages in hardback)  I ended up buying the book for my Kindle.  Didn’t have my Kindle with me, actually — but I did have my iPod Touch, with the Kindle for iPhone app, so after work found me reading at the bus stop at Prov Hospital, then on the bus, & then some more over dinner.  Per my Kindle, I’m now 14 percent of my way through the book at locations 1110-1119. That tells you a lot, doesn’t it? Sorry, Kindles don’t come with page numbers (I sure wish they did).  Okay, so another way of saying it: I’m at the beginning of chapter 8, “The Killer and the Saint,” which is about to describe to me how serial killer Ted Bundy got some last-minute attention prior to his execution in January 1989 by blaming his sociopathic ways on an addiction to pornography, & by seeking absolution from the father-confessor he’d chosen, Focus on the Family leader James Dobson.

That chapter should be interesting.  Back in the ’80s I’d read at least two or three books about Bundy, & I remember the date of his execution well — I was in Seattle at the time, where a lot of people were discussing him that day, especially women who lived in King County when Bundy was raping & murdering women there. Having read those books about Bundy, having read 7 chapters of this book already, I know even without having yet read chapter 8 that Bundy’s confession to Dobson was nothing more than self-aggrandizing publicity on both their parts. Bundy might claim to have been “born again” as a Christian on Florida’s death row, but best I can figure in all I’ve read about sociopaths of his ilk he had no soul to save: it had been, for whatever reasons, lost long ago — perhaps as a result of the abuse he himself had experienced as a child.  Dobson might be claiming to be witnessing Bundy’s salvation, but best I can see is he was either (1) a chump; or (2) delighted to have Bundy’s assistance in promoting his distorted idea of Christianity, which itself is marked by a promotion of child abuse (what Dobson called “discipline”).  Maybe both.  Y’think?

I hadn’t actually known before starting this book that James Dobson got his start as a child psychologist & was even a professor of pediatrics at USC School of Medicine in the late ’60s/early ’70s.  Then in 1970 he published his child-rearing manual, Dare to Discipline — his answer to the “permissive” child-rearing advice of Dr. Benjamin Spock.  Blumenthal quotes from Dobson’s book:

A little bit of pain goes a long way for a young child…. However, the spanking should be of sufficient magnitude to cause the child to cry genuinely.  After the emotional ventilation, the child will often want to crumple to the breast of his parent, and he should be welcomed with open, warm, loving arms. [Ref #6]

Wow.  If my partner & I had followed that advice in disciplining the already-abused boy who came to live with us at age 9, guess what would have happened to us?  We’d've been charged with child abuse. And rightly so.

Blumenthal makes a case that Dobson’s beliefs about corporal punishment extends into his views about — & indeed the overall Christianist view about — the Christianist believer’s relationship to (their version of) God. Blumenthal quotes from Philip Greven’s book Spare the Child: The Religious Roots of Punishment and the Psychological Impact of Physical Abuse:

The persistent ‘conservatism’ of American politics and society is rooted in large part in the physical violence done to children…. The roots of this persistent tilt towards hierarchy, enforced order, and absolute authority — so evident in Germany earlier in this century and in the radical right in American today — are always traceable to aggression against children’s wills and bodies, to the pain and the suffering they experience long before they, as adults, confront the complex issues of the polity, the society, and the world. [Ref #6]

Blumenthal points out that many Christianist leaders — including Dobson — were themselves subjected to corporal punishment and/or outright physical abuse as children.

Now, this doesn’t surprise me.  I’ve felt for a long time that the God worshiped by Christianists was your basic big bully.  And that the fear of God’s bullying punishments & the threat of eternal damnation were the only things that many Christianists felt could keep them in line — if indeed they did keep them in line.  When you’re taught from babyhood that “responsibility” is no more than blind obedience under the threat of a slapping hand or a belt or a “board of education” (which I remember seeing in use two or three times in junior high: yes, teacher-administered corporal punishment with a wooden paddle was allowed in public schools when I was a kid), what kind of responsibility do kids really learn?  Do they learn the internal strength needed to make truly moral decisions? Or are they merely running scared from Mom’s or Dad’s or the (so-called) Lord God Almighty’s whiphand?

People in Anchorage probably won’t be too surprised, either, to learn that at least as of 1985, even preschool children in the Anchorage Baptist Temple-affiliated Anchorage Christian Schools were subject to corporal punishment. From an October 1985 story in the Anchorage Daily News:

The Rev. Jerry Prevo announced Thursday that pre-school children will no longer be paddled at the Anchorage Christian School following Wednesday’s sentencing of a school employee for child abuse.

Prevo, whose Anchorage Baptist Temple runs the school, said corporal punishment will no longer be used on the pre-schoolers, “based on the fact it’s hard to spank and not take a chance of accidentally bruising.”

“When that happens, it puts our employees in an awkward position, and it’s not worth the hassle,” Prevo said.

Mary Lou Love, 52, a secretary with the school, was given a six-month suspended sentence for bruising a 2-year-old child’s bottom. Love swatted the child, Jennifer Wheeler, three times with a wooden paddle last May when she refused to eat.

… During her sentencing hearing, Love testified that she had been deeply disturbed over the incident and said that she never meant to bruise the child. She said she spanked her only because her job required her to do so.

“I would not have swatted her if I’d knew it would have bruised,” she said, adding that she will never paddle another child even if it means losing her job.

In 1983, Love’s supervisor, Robert Moreland, was charged with bruising the bottom of a 2-year-old child who also refused to eat….

Prevo said the bruising incidents were isolated cases.

“The parents sign a permission slip knowing that corporal punishment will be used.

“We’ve had as many as 800 kids a day and in the 13 years (the school has been open) and we’ve had two incidents. We would think that’s pretty good.”

He said corporal punishment will continue to be used at the grade school, junior and senior high school levels. [Ref #7]

That was, of course, 24 years ago, in 1985 — I have no idea if Anchorage Christian Schools still hits older-than-preschool kids with wooden paddles for serious crimes against the Lord Bully Almighty like refusing to eat. It is, after all, possible that ACS has learned over the years using wooden paddles on older kids is just as much of a “hassle” as hitting two-year-olds with them. But then again… maybe not.

(Did I say I remembered seeing wooden paddles in use in my junior high days? Much more do I remember hearing them: the hard loud thwack of wood against a kid’s behind, & the kid crying out with each swat. None of the cases involved a kid having been violent. No, only the teacher was violent. This was in 1971–72. It’s a practice I hope the Columbia Falls, Montana school system has dropped long since.)

People in Anchorage will possibly also not be surprised that ABT’s pastor Jerry Prevo, like James Dobson, grew up in a household where incidents of abuse occurred:

Born Jan. 12, 1945 in Oak Ridge, Tenn., Jerry Prevo grew up as the eldest of two sons to a pious mother and an alcoholic father who worked at a nuclearfuel processing plant.

One of his earliest childhood memories is rooted in a latenight argument between his mother and father when he was 3. Prevo’s father was in a drunken rage and threatened to kill the boy to get back at the mother.

She retreated, dragging young Jerry across the family bed to safety. He stills bears a scar on his chin from hitting the bedstead in the frantic escape effort.

His father, Prevo says, was abusive only when drunk. When sober, he taught Jerry how to hunt and fish and other fatherson things. During Prevo’s high school years, his father tempered his drinking somewhat and life was a little easier at home.

But when Prevo went away to college, the drinking began again and his father eventually deserted the family for a barmaid.

In 1976, the day he received a letter from his son in Alaska that spoke of how he still loved him despite the drinking, Prevo’s father hung himself in a shower stall.

Prevo speaks openly about the alcoholism, the abuse, the desertion and the suicide. But the arrival at his decision to reveal the final chapter of his father’s life, which he did to his congregation upon returning from his father’s funeral, was not easy.

“The biggest problem I had,” he says, “was the pride factor. I asked myself, “Are you going to share that with others? . . . Well, no one is perfect and sometimes people expect perfection in a pastor and get hurt . . . But it was an example that everything doesn’t always go my way, that people don’t always speak highly of me, that I have personal problems that everyone else has.”

His childhood experiences hardened many of his current beliefs, including total abstention from alcohol. [Ref #8]

What really strikes me here is the apparent assumption on Prevo’s part that his father’s alcoholism, abuse, desertion, suicide — somehow had something to do with Prevo‘s lack of perfection: as if the young Jerry Prevo was somehow at fault for his father‘s imperfections.  For imperfections that, in fact, harmed Prevo’s mother & Prevo himself.

This isn’t just irony — although it is that, too.  But mainly: his is a common reaction in people who have been abused as children: they take the responsibility for the parents’ abuse of them upon themselves. They blame themselves: something must be wrong with them for their parent to hurt them so.

And then, all too often, unless someone helps them to learn differently, they grow up to pass that belief on, in word & in deed: the cycle of violence.  Some of them even teach that it’s what God wants.

What a horrible teaching.  What a horrible God. But this is the God Jerry Prevo, as much as James Dobson, calls upon us to believe in.

Sorry, but a Big Bully Child Abuser in the Sky is not anyone I want to worship.

I have more to say about what I’m learning from Max Blumenthal’s book, but it’s way past midnight & time for sleep — so it’ll have to wait.

But before I shut my laptop & shut my eyes, I want to reiterate what the other folks have been saying: Max Blumenthal is coming to Anchorage this weekend, & you have a chance to see & hear him. Phil Munger has the full lowdown on where he’ll be. [Ref #9] And if you’ve got a spare dime, please consider donating using the PayPal link on Phil’s site to help cover costs of Mr. Blumenthal’s plane ticket up here!

References

1. 9/21/09. “Max Blumenthal Returns to the Land of Queen Esther” by Phil Munger (Progressive Alaska).
2. 9/18/09. “Now THAT’S what I call some down-home ‘indoctrination’!” by Linda Kellen Biegel (Celtic Diva’s Blue Oasis).
3. 9/21/09. “Frank Schaeffer on Evangelicals – Max Blumenthal in Anchorage Next Weekend to Tell us Personally” by Steve Aufrecht (What Do I Know?).
4. 9/21/09. “Help Max Blumenthal receive the Alaska Bloggers bump” by Gryphen (Immoral Minority).
5. 9/21/09. “Max Blumenthal is Comin’ to Town!” by AK Muckraker (The Mudflats).
6. Republican Gomorrah: Inside the Movement that Shattered the Party by Max Blumenthal (Nation Books, 2009).
7. 10/18/1985. “Children won’t be paddled” by Kim Rich (Anchorage Daily News, p. C1).
8. 10/30/1986. “No middle ground” by Andrew Perala (Anchorage Daily News, Lifestyles section p. 1).
9. 9/18/09. “Max Blumenthal in Anchorage Next Week” by Phil Munger (Progressive Alaska).

Related posts:

1. No Questions, Questions (poem)
2. Illimitable god, & related thoughts about why I’m not a Christian
3. I’m not a mother, but I am. And then there’s Anya James.