Ocassional Thoughts of an Independent Progressive Atheistic Humanist
Republicans went apoplectic when President Obama stated July 13th that people don’t build businesses in a vacuum. He said the government and indirectly all Americans help build those businesses. That idea isn’t a new one. Back in 2011 Elizabeth Warren expressed the same thoughts and it seems that even founding father Thomas Paine stated that idea in a pamphlet published in 1795.
As a reminder here is what President Obama actually said on July 13th:
Living in Ohio I have been exposed to an avalanche of political advertisements so far this election season. A majority of them are negative, play loose with the facts, and are from 3rd parties who hide where their money comes from. All of those elements, to me are un-American. What really pisses me off is when an ad is actually a lie. What makes me even more mad is when that false ad was put out even after the facts were known. Mitt Romney released such an ad with the tagline of “Where did all the Obama stimulus money go?” Now because my local journalists seem to refuse to fact check this false ad I’ll have to do it here.
The ad starts:
Vandana Shiva was on Moyers & Company on July 13th talking about her fight against genetically modified (GM) seeds and other attempts by industrial agriculture companies, like Monsanto, to monopolize the production of food not only in her native India but also here in the US. It’s a great interview and gives a basic overview about our broken our food system. GM seeds and industrial agriculture is making us all sick and less able to afford healthy food while the corporations game the system and rake in huge profits and tax subsidies.
In the first part of the interview Shiva talks about the control of the food system by the big corporations who gain profit from it but show little to no concern for the people who have to buy the food or the small farmers who grow the food who are forced to buy seed from the big corporations:
On June 7th the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) reaffirmed their policy to deny membership to LGBT people. There was a chance they would reconsider but the consensus of a secret committee decided it was “absolutely the best policy” for the organization. Once again religious right bigotry trumps the actual American values that the BSA claims it is teaching to the boys.
Earlier this month a German court banned the practice of circumcision on the grounds it causes bodily harm to babies. The decision upset Jewish and Muslim communities in Germany because they claimed making the ritual criminal violated their religious freedom. While I believe that circumcision on babies shouldn’t be performed by the medical community unless the child consents or it is medically necessary, I’m not sure if the practice by religious practitioners should be made criminal.