Silly Neo-Cons, Scripture’s for Libs November 5, 2007

Ann Coulter, not content with resting on the laurels of her already uber-ignorant statements, has upped the ante in her war of words with Jewish organizations. The JTA reports that Coulter “escalated” her remarks, blasting the ADL by saying not only do they not “represent” Jews, but that in general, liberal Jews have issues:

“Liberal Jews are on a collision course with themselves. They can’t reconcile the survival of Israel with their conception of themselves as liberals. The liberal coalition has turned against them. Jews are out; Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is in. The new king knows not Joseph.”

Oh touché! Way to throw in a verse and name drop Biblical righteous figures!

Ostensibly, the way that Coulter throws around words like “godless” and “atheistic” (chas v’shalom), one would think that she assumes that those who know G-d, are on the right wing, and knowing that “knowing” in Biblical Hebrew implies connection (usu. typified by sex, as we see from Genesis on down), ostensibly then, those in the GOP should be more connected to the Creator.

So then explain this:

“Woe to him who builds his house without righteousness and his upper chambers without justice, who makes his fellowman work without wages and his hire he does not give him. Who says, “I will build myself a wide house with spacious upper chambers, and he cuts out windows for himself, and it is ceiled with cedar and painted with vermilion.”

Shall you reign, for you compete with the cedar? Your father-did he not eat and drink and perform justice and righteousness? Then it was well with him.

He judged the cause of the poor and needy, then it was good. Is not that the knowledge of Me? says the L-rd. For your eyes and your heart are on nothing but your gain and on innocent blood to shed and on the oppression and on the crushing to do.” - Jeremiah 22:13-17

As soon as the Labor Review Board went Republican in 2002, one of the first things it did was to file a very employer-friendly amicus curiae (”friend of the court”) brief in a case supporting the US Chamber of Commerce, seeking to strike down a California Law and make it OK for employers to use tax dollars to fund anti-union campaigns. Last month, the AFL-CIO filed a complaint against the NLRB with the International Labour Organization:

“Under Bush, America’s labor board has so failed our nation’s workers that we must now turn to the world’s international watchdogs to monitor and intervene,” said AFL-CIO President John Sweeney. “The Bush board is kryptonite for America’s workers. There is no historic precedent for such aggressive efforts by the board to curtail workers’ rights of freedom of association and collective bargaining.”

Bush has cut Section 8 housing and Community Development Block Grants. The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities’ 2005 report on income inequality showed that for most of Bush’s presidency, gaps between rich and poor have gotten worse, and:

After adjusting for inflation, the after-tax income of the one percent of households with the highest incomes shot up in 2003 by an average of nearly $49,000 per household while the after-tax incomes of the bottom 75 percent of households fell on average.

This analysis finds that from 2002 to 2003, [t]he average after-tax income of the one percent of tax filers with the highest incomes increased 8.5 percent, from $572,000 to $620,700. Within the top one percent, moreover, the top sliver of this group (the top one-tenth of one percent) fared best of all…in contrast, the average after-tax income of the bottom 75 percent of tax filers fell slightly….

Census data show that the top five percent of households experienced income gains from 2003 to 2004 while the rest of households did not. Most other households, in fact, saw their incomes decline from 2003 to 2004.

Voting against S-CHIP and housing assistance, while at the same time the economic climate develops in such a way that the majority of Americans watch their pre-tax incomes and post-tax wealth decline? Is that called championing the judgment of the poor, “knowing G-d” as the Creator says in Jeremiah?

Only the wicked man — see Psalms 37:14 — draws his arsenal of weapons designed solely for the subjugation and destruction of poor people and communities, yet from Katrina to Medicaid cuts and tax cuts benefitting rich Americans, we see rightwing policy as being just that: a group of people utilizing resources in such a way that the poor are veritably glued to a treadmill of financial despair and hopelessness.

The lie of “if you work hard, you will succeed” has proven false for so many Americans, who were working hard for years, only to see their real income decline, or only to end up homeless because of a sub-prime mortgage (and we know that subprime mortgage debacles affected minority neighborhoods disproportionately).

Were we to merit having a prophet among us today, undoubtedly he would be marching along the streets, and intermixed with his exhortations to repent would be a Divinely inspired, “Go Dems!”