Too many times a day I read or hear someone say that in order to preserve America we need to return to the values and lifestyles we had in the 50s. Sadly, some of these people, like me, are old enough to remember the 50s and still suggest those were the “good old days”.

Bullshit.

I lived through six years of that decade, and spent the 60s as a youngster raised on the values spawned in the 50s. So did my fellow baby-boomers, the same people who crafted the government that has succeeded in nearly bankrupting our nation and eroding our freedoms. Yet they have the gall to present these same values as something to be desired.

Let’s recall those 50s values and beliefs that so many on the religious right want us to return to.

• Blacks were second-class citizens. Segregation was accepted as a solution to equality under the law. Blacks couldn’t even piss in the same toilet as a white man.
• Women were expected to be stay-at-home moms with no aspirations beyond having and caring for babies and “their man”.
• Gays rarely if ever announced their orientation for fear of harassment and physical harm. Black jazz clubs and gay baths had a lot in common. Both were retreats from the predominant white, straight society.
• Fossil fuels were inexhaustible and meant for us to exploit. Only commies would worry about oil shortages or responsible stewardship of natural resources.
• The ideal family lived in a suburb surrounded by equally white families with two children, a gas-guzzling car, all supported by a sole-bread-winning father.
• Christianity was the norm. Catholics were Satanic and no one admitted to not believing in any god at all.
• Eisenhower warned us about the military-industrial complex, but no one listened.
• McCarthy labeled everyone who didn’t agree with the government a communist, and most people agreed with him.

There were a few good things about the 50s; children could wander almost anywhere in town and be safe, more people lived in rural areas and enjoyed a more stress-free way of life. But the best of the 50s were restricted to white, Christian, heterosexual males.

The 50s were only glorious in fiction, on television shows and in novels. The reality of the 50s has little in common with the stylized nostalgic version of the 50s so fondly remembered by those with selective memories. The reason white males want to return to the 50s is because modern society has disenfranchised them. They’ve lost their power to all the other Americans with whom they (reluctantly) share the nation. They want to go back in time to a period when they were the ideal. They don’t like having to share power and influence. They’re no better than a spoiled child who has been told to share his toys with the other kids.

Evidently to be conservative entails living in the past. I see no gain in that. Besides, it’s physically impossible to go back in time except in our imaginations and memory. We are bound by nature to move ever forward. The arrow of time only moves in one direction. We can enter the future with determination and hope, or we can enter the future fussing and refusing to accept reality. Either way, there’s no going back. And who would really want to when we recall what the 50s were really like for so many of us.

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I don’t approve spam comments here, but this one was so precious I just had to share it with you…

Heathen Queer » Glen Beck is better than you

Thank you. I agree. Beck’s got me beat in;

• douchebaggery
• cluelessness
• hysteria
• misinformation
• lying
• misrepresenting history
• inflammatory rhetoric

Try as I might, I simply cannot compete with the master.

But I haven’t lost any advertisers.

Oh, and Glen, to quote John Fuelsang, “Obama is not a brown-skinned anti-war socialist who gives away free healthcare. You’re thinking of Jesus.“

Image via Wikipedia

At fucking up.

Democrats, liberals and the sane have dismissed Beck’s hyperbole for years, but despite our best efforts, Beck loyalists have excused his racism, his bigotry, his emotional problem, his obvious character flaws and with an impressive lack of reason blame the left for all of Glen’s issues.

But now he’s managed to piss off a fairly mainstream branch of Christianity and they are calling for their followers and sympathizers to boycott Beck, Fox and maybe even Beck’s god.

An evangelical leader is calling for a boycott of Glenn Beck’s television show and challenging the Fox News personality to a public debate after Beck vilified churches that preach economic and social justice.The Rev. Jim Wallis, president of Sojourners, a network of progressive Christians, says Beck perverted Jesus’ message when he urged Christians last week to leave churches that preach social and economic justice.

Wallis says Beck compared those churches to Communists and Nazis.

Wallis says at least 20,000 people have already responded to his call to boycott Beck. He says Beck is confusing his personal philosophy with the Bible.

“He wants us to leave our churches, but we should leave him,” Wallis says of Beck. “When your political philosophy is to consistently favor the rich over the poor, you don’t want to hear about economic justice.”

Social and economic justice is at the heart of Jesus’ message, Wallis says.

“He’s afraid of being challenged on his silly caricatures,” Wallis says. “Glenn Beck talks a lot when he doesn’t have someone to dialogue with. Is he willing to talk with someone who he doesn’t agree with?”

Beck did not answer numerous requests for an interview. (Source-CNN)

Don’t rush the poor man. It takes more than a few days to come up with an explanation for such a major fuck-up that sounds contrite yet more importantly paints the sad man as a victim of left-wing fascist communists. He’s got to consult with speech writers, opinion pollsters, studio heads, the ratings, god and all the other sources of Glen’s opinions. Maybe next time he should talk to them first.

But this is a two-fer. Beck didn’t just loose a bunch of advertisers and now a portion of his religious base, he’s attracted the attention of god’s own best buddy, Jerry Falwell.

But a prominent evangelical leader says he, too, is suspicious of churches that preach economic and social justice.

Jerry Falwell Jr., president of Liberty University, a Christian college in Virginia, says Jesus wasn’t interested in politics. He says that those pastors who preach economic and social justice “are trying to twist the gospel to say the gospel supported socialism.”

“Jesus taught that we should give to the poor and support widows, but he never said that we should elect a government that would take money from our neighbor’s hand and give it to the poor,” Falwell says.

That’s right, Jerry. God wants you to be rich; to live in luxury while preaching poverty of spirit, to cash the checks from the poor and trusting, to build temples to yourselves. You are as delusional as Beck. You make a great team. Sort of like the religious-right’s version of Martin and Lewis.

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Another hypocritical “protect the family” politician has been outed by their own inept actions. This time, instead of a disingenuous denial of his orientation we get pathetic excuses for his actions which were directly opposed to the best interests of those like him.

A conservative US state senator who has voted against gay rights measures during his 14 years in office has confessed he is gay.

Republican Roy Ashburn came out during a radio interview in California, where he sits on the state legislature.

Roy Ashburn (Associated Press)

He has been on leave since his arrest last week on suspicion of driving under the influence.

Mr Ashburn said his votes reflected the way his constituents wanted him to vote, not his own “internal conflict”.

“I am gay… those are the words that have been so difficult for me for so long,” the 55-year-old divorced father-of-four told KERN radio.

Mr Ashburn said he felt the need to address rumours that he had visited a gay nightclub before his arrest on suspicion of drinking and driving in Sacramento on 3 March.

Last year, Mr Ashburn opposed a bill to establish a day of recognition to honour murdered gay rights activist Harvey Milk.

He has also voted in the statehouse against efforts to expand anti-discrimination laws and recognise out-of-state gay marriages.

Cue the exuberant queer cheers, “Another anti-gay gay politician gone”, “One less enemy in government”.

Mr Ashburn, who represents California’s 18th district, said he does not plan to run for any public office after his term ends later this year.

Outed and ousted, another victory for truth and justice.

But hold on a minute. Isn’t this counter-productive to the goal of having gay representation in the government? By applauding Ashburn’s decision to leave government service, we are essentially agreeing with the anti-gay crowd that anyone who is open and honest about their homosexuality like Ashburn is now shouldn’t be a politician. It’s reasonable to chastise him for his prior dishonesty and the harm he’s done the gay community. But now that he’s being honest about himself, shouldn’t we be the first to encourage him to stay in politics and to vote for him when he runs again?

We deserve representation; the same percentage of LGBT citizens of the population should be represented by an equal percentage in the Congress and most California legislatures.

1.51% of the total U.S. population identifies themselves as gay, lesbian or bisexual, or 4.3 total million Americans. These numbers are based on figures provided by a broad-based coalition of gay rights organizations and homosexual advocacy groups. The primary source cited was the The National Health and Social Life Survey (NHSLS), published in the book The Social Organization of Sex: Sexual Practices in the United States (1994), by Laumann, Gagnon, Michael and Michaels. (Source-U.S. Census 2000)

Most likely there’s one LGBT person in hiding for every one that was identified as such, so let’s double the percentage to 3%. Not exactly a threatening number. 3 people out of a hundred.

One advantage to electing and supporting gay politicians is that they also represent other minorities. A senator could be a woman who used to be a Black man, a congressman could be a gay Hispanic. The LGBT community embraces men and women of all races and national origin. There are gay millionaires and homeless lesbians. There are members of the clergy, those of all faiths and those with no religious faith at all who are also members of the LGBT community.  Yes, as hard as it is to believe, there are even gay republicans.

Whether they are dragged kicking and screaming out of the closet or openly disclose their orientation, we owe it to ourselves to judge the fitness to serve of these individuals by more than with whom they prefer to have sex.

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