Rethinking the 1-to-99% Divide

Posted: January 21, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: The Bonus Class | 16 Comments

The WSJ and an author–Charles Murray–from the AEI weren’t exactly the sources that I thought I’d get an interesting perspective on class inequality and America, but it’s there and I did.  The Republican war cry of class warfare on every person that tries to point out that we are suffering hugely from income inequality and differences in burden for the responsibility of our country’s defense and continuation has been knee jerk and shallow. I’ve especially seen it play out in Willard’s deer-in-headlights performance when he tries to say he relates to the streets of America when no one can even enter most of the gated communities that shelter his houses and he casually offers bets of more money than most families see in months. Oh, and don’t forget those inconsequential speaker fees that represent more income in one year than most families see in ten.  You don’t have to watch VH1’s Housewife Horror show to know that these people are just not like the rest of the country.  I actually never get the feeling that Willard or the Wives care about the state of the country.  The Wives just want access to botox and champagne.  Willard just wants another entry on his resume.

I honestly don’t believe that most Americans want Mitt Romney’s life.  I don’t feel any envy towards him.  He seems so stilted and shallow that I frequently wonder how he functions without a wind up key.  Most Americans want their own lives with good paying, secure jobs that can help them meet their modest, American middle class dreams.  It’s hard to obsess on the benefits botox and vacation homes when you can’t figure out how you’re going to get all your kids through college and retire some day.

Now, I’ve read Murray’s assertion in the editorial that woman’s lib and civil rights caused all these problems and I don’t agree at all.  Most women went back to work because their husbands’ salaries couldn’t handle all the bills. I also don’t think that government programs bail out criminals and create them on a large scale.  Thankfully, he doesn’t spend much time in print blaming the working class for becoming poor and the poor for turning to crime. There are a few things he mentions that are worth thinking about.  The first is the idea of these 1 percenters that are sitting in this “super Zips”.  These are basically the gated communities where the ultra rich hide from reality.  He also suggests that every one try being a bit moral about their choices.  It’s like he’s talking to Newt Gingrich who is on his third wife who had how many affairs going on about the sanctity of marriage for every one else.  He’s also talking to Newt who goes on about poor folk and blah people living on food stamps while taking multimillion dollar checks from Freddie Mac to espouse his viewpoint as a history professor. Food stamps show lack of character.  Taking multimillion dollar consulting fees because you know the right people shows character?  C’mon. These folks are great at tut tutting the little people while doing completely dishonorable things themselves.

Changing life in the SuperZIPs requires that members of the new upper class rethink their priorities. Here are some propositions that might guide them: Life sequestered from anybody not like yourself tends to be self-limiting. Places to live in which the people around you have no problems that need cooperative solutions tend to be sterile. America outside the enclaves of the new upper class is still a wonderful place, filled with smart, interesting, entertaining people. If you’re not part of that America, you’ve stripped yourself of much of what makes being American special.

Such priorities can be expressed in any number of familiar decisions: the neighborhood where you buy your next home, the next school that you choose for your children, what you tell them about the value and virtues of physical labor and military service, whether you become an active member of a religious congregation (and what kind you choose) and whether you become involved in the life of your community at a more meaningful level than charity events.

Everyone in the new upper class has the monetary resources to make a wide variety of decisions that determine whether they engage themselves and their children in the rest of America or whether they isolate themselves from it. The only question is which they prefer to do.

So, while half of this ‘editorial’ got me steamed, this particular part got me hoping a few of the 1 percenters read the damned thing. We’re beginning to look like Bourbon France and that didn’t end too well as I recall.  Obviously, there’s the examples of Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffet that show the gilded set can pay it forward. But, I think we have far too many Kardasians and far too many people that enable the cult of the Kardasians.  Murray should think long and hard about his diatribes against women working outside the home when they have to and a little more on the lunching lady set that leaves their kids bonded to their Nicaraguan Nannies.  He should spend a little bit more time on Daddy’s that run hedge funds that run up commodity prices and run banks that do illegal foreclosures on millions of people.  He focuses a bit too much on that stupid right wing meme of lazy selfish poor.  I’m sure the Kardasian clothing line is made by young girls kept in slave conditions some where in Asia. Also, what do you call Paris Hilton? What does her existence contribute to anything?

The deal is there is a cultural divide and we do need to reevalute our commitment to our society and country.  I do think the ultra rich are getting less honorable all the time.  Just as an example, look at the numbers of young men and women that serve in the military these days.  Military colleges used to be places where very rich and socially well-placed young men wound up. That just doesn’t happen any more.  I think that we’ve quit instilling service to country in people. I doubt we’d hear JFK’s words “ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country” coming from the lips of any of the wealthy denizens in congress these days.  If a WSJ lecture from an AEI fellow gets that conversation started, then I’m all for it.

Farewell Miss James

Posted: January 20, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: just because | Tags: | 7 Comments

Etta James has died at the age of 73.

Etta James, the earthy blues and R&B singer whose anguished vocals convinced generations of listeners that she would rather go blind than see her love leave, then communicated her joy upon finding that love at last, died Friday morning, said her son, Donto James. She was 73.

She died of complications from leukemia at a hospital in Riverside, said Dr. Elaine James, her personal physician.

James had been in failing health for years. Court records in the singer’s probate case show she also suffered from dementia and kidney failure. Her two sons had been in a court battle with their stepfather over conservatorship of her $1-million estate. Doctors announced in December that she had chronic leukemia.

The first time I heard Etta James sing “At Last”, I went weak at the knees.  Her voice was like an entire choir of angels.  I was fortunate to be able to work with Miss James at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival awhile back.  I’d already heard a lot about what it was like to work with her since I had a longstanding relationship with one of her drummers.  I did all the mics on the Gentilly Stage and helped with the front of the house mixing and speakers.  If you ever go to a concert, you don’t even know all that’s going on because it’s the sound stuff for the performers not the audience. You may have to give one person a bit more drum or a bit more bass or whatever it is they need to hear.  You can also add a little reverb for that angelic feel.  Anyway,  what a performance and what Etta James did with that Mic!  Not only did she sing into it, but she mimicked all kinds of sex acts with it.  She tongued it quite a few times and it went quite a few places that were surprising to me.   Needless to say, I put my work gloves on before I put the Mic back in the box.  But, I have to admit, that sitting on that stage, hearing that voice up close, was one of the real treat of my life.  I put a video down there.  You can see me on the left if you look really hard.

Sweet Dreams Miss James!!

Friday Reads

Posted: January 20, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: morning reads | Tags: , , , | 48 Comments

Good Morning!

I’m still sick so that’s why I’ve not been around much this week..  That flu led to a secondary infection and I’m really sick now.  I’m trying to negotiate the world of Health Care with no Insurance at the moment.  It’s awful.  This put me in the hospital last year when I had insurance.  Now, after a shot and some horse pills, I’m trying to improve on my own.

The Justice Department has moved against a file-sharing site just one day after the SOPA protests. Interesting timing, isn’t it?

The Justice Department seized Megaupload.com, one of the world’s most popular file-sharing sites, and several of its related sites on Thursday.

Prosecutors charged seven employees of Megaupload with criminal copyright infringement, conspiracy to commit racketeering and other charges.

Each faces up to 55 years in prison.

Megaupload, which operates sites such as Megavideo.com and Megapix.com, claimed to receive 50 million daily visitors, accounting for 4 percent of total Internet traffic. According to court documents, Megavideo.com was the world’s 52nd most frequently visited website.

The crackdown comes just one day after a massive Web protest against legislation to expand the power of law enforcement and copyright holders to go after infringing websites.

Prosecutors accuse Megaupload’s owners of generating more than $175 million in criminal proceeds and more than half a billion dollars in harm to copyright owners.

The authorities seized 18 domain names related to Megaupload and $50 million in assets.

New Zealand police arrested four of the alleged Megaupload employees in New Zealand on Thursday at the request of U.S. officials. Three of the alleged employees remain at large.

The NYT has some interesting details about the company.

According to a grand jury indictment, Megaupload — one of the most popular “locker” services on the Internet, which lets users anonymously transfer large files — generated $175 million in income for its operators through subscription fees and advertising, while causing $500 million in damages to copyright holders.

Four of the seven people, including the site’s founder Kim Dotcom, born Kim Schmitz, have been arrested in New Zealand, the Justice Department and Federal Bureau of Investigation said on Thursday; the three others remain at large. The seven — who a grand jury indictment calls part of a “Mega Conspiracy” — have been charged with five counts of copyright infringement and conspiracy, the authorities said.

The charges, which the government agencies said represented “among the largest criminal copyright cases ever brought by the United States,” come at a charged time, a day after online protests against a pair of antipiracy bills being considered by Congress — the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA, in the House, and the Protect I.P. Act, or PIPA, in the Senate.

In response to the arrests, the hacker collective known as Anonymous said it had taken down the Web sites of the Justice Department,the Motion Picture Association of America, and the Recording Industry Association of America. All three sites were inaccessible late Thursday afternoon.

I got a really good laugh out of this James Kwak post responding to news of big spending Republicans at the  NYT.  All the spending proposals of the Republican candidates for president will increase the deficit.  Most of them are the usual huge tax cuts for megawealthy “job creators”.  Romney himself would be a big beneficiary of Gingrich’s plan.

The tax cuts proposed by the Republicans would more than wipe out the budget-balancing effects of the cuts that were agreed to as part of the compromise that was ultimately reached last summer to raise the debt ceiling. One part of that compromise called for a series of automatic cuts to begin next year with the goal of reducing the deficit by $1.2 trillion over a decade — cuts that some members of Congress are trying to avert on the grounds that they are too onerous. The Tax Policy Center has calculated that by extending the Bush tax cuts, Mr. Romney’s tax plan would add $1.2 trillion to the deficit in just two years. The tax plans offered by Mr. Gingrich and former Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania would add more than that to the deficit in just one year, the center found.

“The amounts of revenue loss we’re talking about in one year is the kind of thing we’re used to seeing over a decade,” said Roberton Williams, an analyst at the Tax Policy Center.

Experts from across the spectrum acknowledge that the Republican tax proposals would benefit the wealthiest the most. Polls have repeatedly shown that a majority of Americans favor raising taxes on households earning more than $1 million a year to reduce the deficit

Kwak-writing at baseline scenario called his response the “Department of Duh” and had these figures. So, who is the fiscal conservative, hmmmm?

Surprise, all the Republican candidates’ tax plans increase the national deficit! The numbers(reduction in 2015 tax revenues, from the Tax Policy Center):

  • Romney: $600 billion
  • Gingrich: $1.3 trillion
  • (Late lamented) Perry: $1.0 trillion
  • Santorum: $1.3 trillion

I guess that makes Romney the “fiscally responsible” choice, at least among the Republicans. But President Obama’s tax proposals would only reduce 2015 tax revenues by $222 billion. (That’s $385 billion in Table S-4 less $163 billion in Table S-3.)

Second surprise: The big winners in all of these tax plans are the rich! (That’s not just in dollars, but in percentage increase in after-tax income.)

Leave it to Nebraska to try to figure out a way to deny sexual preference status as a protected class.  This would deny legal protection against all kinds of things for members of the GLBT community in that state.  Religionists are interested in being exempted from civil rights legislation and would like to freely discriminate based on sexual orientation.

A new debate is brewing at Omaha City Hall and in the State Capitol over who can qualify as a “protected class” under discrimination laws.

City Councilman Ben Gray says he plans to place a measure to ban discrimination against homosexual and transgender people on the council’s agenda — as early as the end of the month or by late February.

But an Omaha state senator wants to bar cities and local governments from unilaterally creating such protected classes. Instead, the bill would grant such authority solely to the state.

The conflicting proposals are likely to reignite debate about more than a municipality’s rights. The conversation will center on sexual orientation, the rights of private enterprise, religion and civil rights.

Local business groups and religious-based organizations were pitted against a cadre of supporters of the anti-discrimination ordinance during Gray’s first attempt to place a similar measure on city books in 2010.

State and federal governments and the court system continue to wrangle with such issues. The U.S. Supreme Court last week upheld a “ministerial exception” to employment discrimination laws, a move that would often clear religious institutions to dismiss their leaders with legal impunity.

In the Legislature, State Sen. Beau McCoy’s Legislative Bill 912 would amend state law to prohibit local governments from creating new classes of residents protected from discrimination.

Such changes could only come from the Legislature, the proposed law says.

“It just merely says that if we’re going to change the protected classes … we need to come to the Capitol to do it so that it’s consistent across the state,” McCoy said. “If it’s the right thing to do, it ought to be the right thing to do border-to-border, not just in one city or municipality.”

In Omaha, Gray said he knows of gay or transgender people who have left the city “because they saw it as an unfriendly place towards them.”

“I’ve seen enough smoke that I think there’s a fire,” Gray said. “If we have a segment of our community that is not enjoying those freedoms, or are in fear of not enjoying those freedoms, government has an obligation to act.”

It’s nice to know there are a few reasonable people left in government there.  Nebraska is also in the limelight over the Keystone Pipe line decision made by President Obama. The governor believes the president made a mistake.  Interestingly enough, it was the complaints of Nebraska officials that put the project on hold.  Partisan politics any one?

Nebraska’s Republican Gov. Dave Heineman, whose state is a key part of the Keystone XL oil pipeline debate, expressed his disappointment with the final decision the Obama administration made yesterday to kill the project.

“I want to say I’m very disappointed,” Heineman told POLITICO. “I think the president made a mistake.”

“Really what he was saying in denying the permit was ‘no’ to American jobs and ‘yes’ to a greater dependence on Middle Eastern oil,” he said. “We want to put America back to work.”

The White House has used Heineman as political cover in the fight, pointing to the fact that the original route approved by the State Department was opposed by Heineman for ecological reasons. He said that his Legislature and his administration were working to get the final approvals in place and that the State Department should have approved conditionally while Nebraska worked out the final route. The company seeking to build the pipeline, TransCanada, was perfectly willing to begin construction at either end and finish in Nebraska, according to Heineman.

The administration pushed back yesterday that Heineman’s suggestion was wise but wouldn’t elaborate on whether it was legally possible to grant such a conditional approval.

Somebody must’ve gotten to the governor.  It certainly wasn’t the farming community.

So, that’s it for me today.  What’s on you reading and blogging list?

Time for Governor Goodhair to Go

Posted: January 17, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Foreign Affairs, Republican politics, Republican presidential politics | Tags: , , | 26 Comments

I’m having a difficult time understanding why Rick Perry is still allowed into the debates.  He’s shown himself to be pretty damned ignorant on a lot of things.  Plus, he shoots his mouth off with gusto.   I think you might remember his comments on Fed Chair Bernanke.  Back in August, he implied that the central banker was guilty of treason and was basically “treacherous”.  He’s also had the “oops” moment when he forget which government agencies he’d eliminate.  Then, there were the giddy moments and the sleepy moments. Rick Perry is what we’d call a horse’s patoot where I come from.

Rick Perry’s antics have just gone international. He has truly earned a top place in the annals of stupidity.

Turkey’s foreign ministry condemned Texas Gov. Rick Perry Tuesday for saying that Turkey was a “country that is being ruled by what many would perceive to be Islamic terrorists.”

Perry made the statement during a spirited debated between Republican presidential candidates in South Carolina Monday night.

Most of Turkey was fast asleep during the live broadcast, and Turkish newspapers had already gone to print by the time Perry declared that Turkey had moved “far away from the country I lived in back in the 1970s United States Air Force. That was our ally that worked with us, but today we don’t see that.”

The Texas governor also argued that it was time for Washington to cut foreign aid to Ankara.

A spokesman for Turkey’s foreign ministry fired back Tuesday, accusing Perry of making “baseless and improper claims.”

In a statement e-mailed to CNN, Selcuk Unal said presidential candidates should “be more informed about the world and be more careful their statements.”

Turkey is a member of NATO and as such is our ally. They play a key role in our anti-ballistic missile defense that shields many of our allies from Irani attacks. I just had to love this official Turkish statement.

While the United States recently deployed four Predator drones to Turkey from Iraq to aid Ankara in its fight against the autonomy-seeking Kurdish rebels, Turkey does not receive U.S. foreign aid.

The Turkish statement said Turkey’s leaders were “personalities respected not only in the United States, but in our region and in the world and whose opinions are strongly relied on.”

The Turkish statement said Perry’s low standings in polls were proof that the Republicans in the U.S. do not endorse his opinions.

“Figures who are candidates for positions that require responsibility, such as the U.S. presidency, should be more knowledgeable about the world and exert more care with their statement,” the Turkish statement said.

The Turkish ambassador to Washington, Namik Tan, said: “We do hope this episode in last night’s debate leads to a better informed foreign policy discussion among the Republican Party candidates, one where long-standing allies are treated with respect not disdain.”

All he needs to do is announce that he can see Turkey from his front porch and I’d think this was an SNL skit.

Monday Reads

Posted: January 16, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: morning reads | Tags: , , , , | 27 Comments

Good Morning!

Wow.  I almost feel human this morning!  I spent the last few days with a terrible flu.  First, I couldn’t get warm, then I couldn’t cool down.  My joints and muscles hurt like crazy.  I also had congestion and stuffiness everywhere possible.  I gave up on trying to accomplish anything on Friday and just took to bed.  Watching TV was too much effort even!   Hope you can avoid whatever that was because it made me miserable.

There is one bit of new news.  Huntsman is quitting the GOP race for President. 

Jon M. Huntsman Jr. informed his advisers on Sunday that he intends to drop out of the Republican presidential race, ending his candidacy a week before he had hoped to revive his campaign in the South Carolina primary.

Mr. Huntsman, who had struggled to live up to the soaring expectations of his candidacy, made plans to make an announcement as early as Monday. He had been set to participate in an evening debate in Myrtle Beach.

It looks like I missed a lot of theatrical politics for the benefit of the American Taliban this weekend.  I did enjoy hearing about the Broncos-Pats games.  The Saints outcome was gut and heart wrenching.  Tewbow’s endzone piety leads to a good question, imho.  Can’t we have at least one area of our lives where we don’t have to be subjected to endless shows of self-righteousness?  Do football players really have to wear hairshirts on the field?  We certainly would take see many folks take issue with football players insisting on prayer rugs and bowing to Mecca down there on the field.  Wouldn’t people fight the idea that we stop playing games on Friday night so Jewish football players don’t disrespect the Sabbath?  This is getting worse than those nasty Mel Gibson movies.

Sports used to be a refuge from the division and hatred which permeates the media nowadays. Not anymore. This all began in 2010 when Tebow and his mother starred in a controversial pro-life commercial sponsored by FOTF during the Super Bowl aired by CBS. What made it so controversial is that CBS had already turned down ads from left-leaning organizations like PETA and MoveOn.org. There was no room for their message on Super Sunday, but just like last night CBS has no problem airing evangelical right wing messages.

Of course the reason the FOTF commercial was aired in the first place was because Tebow was playing in the game. The Tebowization of the NFL will continue in this year’s Super Bowl as Randall Terry (Who is running as a conservative Democrat challenging President Obama) plans to air a gruesome commercial featuring aborted fetuses. The Right has found their savior in Tebow and the NFL, which is obviously willing to turn Denver Bronco games into Christian recruiting lovefests.

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m sure that Tim Tebow is a nice guy. However when you make the decision to wear your religion on your sleeve, you are pushing your beliefs on people who do not want to hear or see them, especially during an NFL playoff game. I don’t begrudge anyone their own personal beliefs. When you push them and use your position as an NFL player as a platform to foist them on the public, that’s out of bounds. Tebow also energizes the evangelicals who see him as a vessel to push their political agenda. (Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann have already co-opted the Tebow mystique.)

Thanks to CBS and Tebow’s followers, we are headed down a slippery slope. Would it be too much to ask that sports be declared a no-religion zone?

You just can’t get away from the sanctimonious these days. Our local ABC affiliate has now picked up the slogan “God Bless Louisiana”. They’ve got it festooned on billboards and TV.  Why this sudden urge to play Pharisee every where I look?  I refuse to watch the entire line up now on that station.  It’s like an assault.  Sorry ABC.  I don’t care what you run.  I’m not watching until you tell your affiliate to put a sock in it.

I couldn’t even watch TV news this weekend with out enduring the Christian Taliban Hate Fest down there in Texas.  We’re fricking infested with these pests!  Somebody grab the Constitution and swat them please!  At least, remove take tax exempt status away from these guys so they have less money to throw around!

Right now, there’s a somewhat frantic effort among some on the Christian right to corral their movement behind Santorum, who has already proved to be the favorite of evangelicals in Iowa. Many religious right figures are still haunted by their failure in 2008 to rally to Mike Huckabee, which they feel enabled the victory of John McCain, who they distrusted even more than they do Mitt Romney.

On Saturday, more than 150 leading religious conservatives gathered in Brenham, Texas, to see if they could agree, this time, to coalesce behind a single candidate. Perry was eliminated on the first ballot. By the third, when some attendees had already left, Santorum won the group’s imprimatur with 85 votes, compared to 29 for Gingrich. In a conference call about the results, Tony Perkins, head of The Family Research Council, said we could expect fundraising drives and other sorts of activism on Santorum’s behalf from the group’s participants.

Gloria Hein, one of my prayer breakfast tablemates, said the Texas group’s Santorum endorsement made her more likely to vote for him. “I’ve been rooting for Santorum, but I thought he didn’t stand a chance,” she said. “I think that’s a great encouragement that they’re behind him. I’m getting chills right now!”

Maybe she’s just got the flu that I had.

So, today is MLK day.  It seems we have a long way to go on all fronts of civil rights.  The current discussion over FLOTUS is just one example. Women get the bitch and anger labels whenever they have strong opinions.  The usual suspects lined up to point fingers.

The political downsides for both of the Obamas are clear enough. In using the words she did, she risked reactivating an entire narrative that had surrounded her in 2008. This idea that she was in some nebulous way radical and less-than-fully American had been a corrosive one, buttressed most powerfully by her now-infamous campaign trail statement that “for the first time in my adult life I am proud of my country.”

That image was one that it took a great deal of time and work to undo — beginning, perhaps, with her ostentatiously patriotic address to the 2008 Democratic National Convention and continuing with her signature White House initiatives on the most uncontentious of issues: childhood obesity and the welfare of military families.

Last week’s remarks opened the door for ideological opponents of Obama to argue that she was up to her old antics. They needed no second invitation to march through it.

“She comes from a very angry, black nationalist background,” David Webb, a conservative radio talk show host and Tea Party activist who is himself African-American, told The Hill.

In Webb’s view, Obama had emerged from a family of modest means, had been afforded “enormous opportunities” and had gone on to the crowning heights of the White House. Given her official role, he said, she ought to realize that “you have to couch your views, because you’re representing the nation.”

Webb added that the danger in Obama’s remarks was their capacity to turn off even the ideologically uncommitted.

“It’s un-American,” he said, referring to her raising of racial issues. “The majority of Americans do not like that approach, this underhand way of doing things.”

So, here’s a great story from The Christian Science Monitor that highlights 8 peaceful protests that usheredin civil rights laws.  One of the most effective was the Montgomery Bus Boycott that

Rosa Parks and Doctor Martin Luther King

lasted a year.

The protest began, on Dec. 1, 1955, after African-American Rosa Parkswas arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a bus to a white person. The next day, Dr. King proposed a citywide boycott of public transportation at a church meeting.

The boycott proved to be effective, causing the transit system to run a huge deficit. After all, Montgomery’s black residents not only were the principal boycotters, but also the bulk of the transit system’s paying customers. The situation became so tense that members of the White Citizens’ Council, a group that opposed racial integration, firebombed King’s house.

In June 1956, a federal court found that the laws in Alabama and Montgomery requiring segregated buses were unconstitutional. However, an appeal kept segregation intact until Dec. 20, 1956, when the US Supreme Court upheld the district court’s ruling. The boycott’s official end signaled one of the civil rights movement’s first victories and made King one of its central figures.

This made me think about the gender-segregated buses in Israel.   I think the US should refuse to fund any country that allows this kind of thing. Here’s a link to the New Israel Fund that is committed to democracy, justice and equality for all Israles.  It’s hard to believe a modern democracy could do this to women, isn’t it?

  • Israel’s High Court of Justice has given Transport Minister Israel Katz (Likud) until December 27 (update: the deadline has been extended) to present his position on gender- segregated bus lines. The order followed a report by a special committee set up by the Ministry of Transport, which ruled that these bus lines are illegal because they humiliate and discriminate against women passengers.
  • The Ministry of Transport committee was set up following a petition in 2007 by veteran New Israel Fund grantee Israel Religious Action Center (IRAC) for Progressive Judaism (Reform) and novelist Naomi Ragen against the gender-segregated bus lines. The court ordered the committee to consider, rule on and regulate the matter.
  • More than ten years ago, the ultra-Orthodox (haredi) community asked Israel’s public bus company, Egged, to provide segregated busses in their neighborhoods.  By early 2009 more than 55 such lines were operating around Israel.  Typically, women are required to enter through the bus back doors and sit in the back of the bus, as well as “dress modestly.”
  • Some buses operate in or through mixed neighborhoods and are the only buses running on particular routes.  In Jerusalem, the segregated buses actually charge lower fares than ordinary Egged busses.  Women who refuse to sit in the back of the bus are frequently threatened verbally and physically by haredi men who “enforce” the segregation system.
  • In October, the special Ministry of Transport committee recommended a year-long trial in which men and women could choose to enter the buses by separate doors and sit separately, but stressed that all seating on public buses must be voluntarily and no coercion must be used. The committee further stressed that there is no separate, publicly-run bus system for haredi communities, and every member of the public has the right to use buses in accordance with basic human rights and the principle of equality.
  • Many Israelis fear that the right-wing governing coalition, which includes all but one of the major religious parties, will pressure the Minister into rejecting the committee report and supporting the continuation of segregated and discriminatory public transportation.

It seems that a lot of countries are having problems with their fundamentalist religious sects who are demanding that discriminatory, hateful, and unreasonable practices be enacted.   Our country must respect the right of each individuation to practice their beliefs, but our laws, civil rights, and culture should not be skewed to bow down to these narrow beliefs.

Happy MLK Day!  I can hear the parade going down Claiborne as it goes through the Ninth Ward to Down Town.  Let’s remember the dignity of no person should be limited due to the narrow views of any religion.

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

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