When did the Catholic Pedophile Priest Problem begin?

(updated two times, see below)

I've been meaning to do this post for a while so here goes...

By now, most folks who own a TV or subscribe to a newspaper know about the Catholic Pedophile Priest Scandal. Even the Catholic Church's own numbers from the scandal are shocking:

• 4,392 US clerics accused of abuse from 1950-2002:
• About 4% of the 109,694 priests serving in the U.S. during those 52 years were charged with abuse.
• Over $1 billion in settlements to victims of these priests.

The likelihood is that these numbers are a dramatic UNDERCOUNT of the actual problem. John Walsh reports that more reliable estimates peg the number of pedophile Catholic priests in the U.S. at closer to 10,000.

Okay but here's my question: When did the problem of pedophile priests begin in the Catholic Church?

We know from accounts of survivors and confessions by priests of cases that go back as far back as the memories of anyone living today (basically to the start of the 20th century). The statute of limitations is such that once an accused priest has died, the pending cases against him are dropped (which limits our ability to know about cases going back further in time). But surely the problem didn't magically start 80 years ago. Rather it seems more likely that this has been going on for a long long long time.

Those who know they can get away with a crime are more likely to commit one aren't they (power corrupts and all that)? So it seems likely that when the Catholic Church ruled all of Europe, taxed people through indulgences, and routinely tortured and burned people at the stake (particularly women) -- that sexual abuse was likely widespread too. When the church is the law and above the law at the same time, wouldn't abuse have been rampant -- even worse than today? And if the person abused is more likely to become an abuser, isn't it likely that the cycle of abuse in the church has been going on for over a thousand years? Literally.

So what's changed is NOT that the church suddenly developed a pedophile priest problem overnight (or even in the last 80 years). Rather, what HAS changed is that the rights of victims and the rights of children have become more advanced in the last 50 years -- allowing a problem that has always been there in the church to finally come to light.

The craziest thing to me in all the reporting on the pedophile priest problem is NOT ONCE have I ever heard a reporter ask the question as to when the problem began. It would seem in fact that any common sense guess as to the origins of the problem would trace it back to a time when the church first gained the power to commit abuse and get away with it -- which would trace it back at least a thousand years and even as far back as 1700 years ago.

Update #1:  Melinda Henneberger, on the March 19, 2010 Real Time with Bill Maher (Episode 177) on HBO said two things that support the assertions in this post.  Henneberger, a practicing Catholic, is the editor-in-chief of PoliticsDaily.com and was the Rome bureau chief for The New York Times.  She said: 1.) that 'Catholic priests don't view sex with boys as actual sex' -- just as some American politicians don't view oral sex as actual sex.  2.) 'that it has always been thus'; namely that the Catholic Church has had a problem of priests molesting boys for its entire history.  I found both of those details shocking, but Henneberger presented the information in a nonchalant -- everybody already knows this -- sort of way. Wow.

Update #2:  So now we have confirmation that Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict) was aware that a pedophile priest would be returned to pastoral work and did nothing to stop it.  "Pope Was Told Pedophile Priest Would Get Post: Informed as Cardinal Document Trail Shows Benedict Got Copy of Church Memo." March 25, 2010.  "The priest was later convicted of molesting boys in another parish."   If you drive the get away car in a bank robbery, you go to jail because you are an accessory to the crime.  So too, Pope Benedict, by not preventing a known pedophile priest from being transferred to another parish where he would strike again, should go to jail. 

Is Prozac causing all of these stock market bubbles?

Way back in March of 2000, Slate.com ran a story titled, "Is Prozac Driving Wall Street?" It included the following nugget which now seems prescient:

Randolph Nesse, author (with George Williams) of Why We Get Sick: The New Science of Darwinian Medicine, estimates that about 20 million Americans are on antidepressants. And at least some people who take these drugs "become far less cautious than they were before, worrying too little about real dangers. This is exactly the mind-set of many current investors." If indeed "investor caution is being inhibited by psychotropic drugs," a Wall Street bubble "could grow larger than usual" before popping "with potentially catastrophic economic and political consequences."

Prozac and other anti-depressant use became widespread starting in the early 1990s. In fact, according to the Washington Post, the use of such drugs by all adults has nearly tripled in the last decade (nearly 1 in 10 adults in one one of them). And the massive rise in antidepressant use also corresponds with the ending of one recession (1992) and three subsequent enormous stock market bubbles and busts (internet, telecom, and housing).

But while the correlation is dramatic, causation is difficult if not impossible to prove. I think a more likely explanation for all the stock market bubbles is that corporate power has grown so dramatically over the last 30 years that passing effective regulation became impossible. With the corporate titans, left to self-police, it became inevitable that we'd see a massive game of financial musical chairs as they pumped all of the wealth out of one sector of the economy after another (they basically sucked all of the wealth out of retirement funds, real estate, and the public treasury over the last 10 years).

But here's my point -- I believe it is precisely the rise in corporate power -- that is causing the rise in anti-depressant use (not the other way around). It is precisely the way that corporate power tears down communities and families and dehumanizes our world that plunges so many people into anomie and despair. So for example, when Wal-Mart comes into a town and destroys all of the small retail businesses and the middle class jobs and community that went with them -- and forces people to work at low wages so we can all buy cheap Chinese-made imported goods -- that has GOT to cause an increase in depression in a town. Now multiply that by thousands of sectors of the economy that have been overwhelmed by corporate power over the last decade or two and you have the depression epidemic we have now.

Look, I'm not saying that depression isn't a real medical condition. I believe it is and I want people who experience depression to find healing. If that's in the form of a pill, great. But, do 1 in 10 Americans suffer from this medical condition and has the rate of this rare medical condition suddenly trippled over the past ten years? I think not. My point is that -- IF indeed the leading cause depression is not some unexplainable medical phenomenon but rather the very real suffering caused by the very awful corporations who have come to dominate our lives -- THEN we've got a huge problem on our hands. Because under ordinary (pre-Prozac) circumstances the rise in human suffering might cause people to ask the question -- "Hey how come everyone is so miserable?" And we might reach for collective solutions that work to change the conditions in which we all live. Instead, the problem is now INDIVIDUALIZED AND MEDICALIZED -- "individuals have medical problems it's not society's fault" -- and through massive prescription drug use, we may be silencing the very canaries in the coal mines we need to save our society from further ruin.

Just some food for thought ya'll.

Will the last capitalist to leave please turn out the lights?

In the space of just 8 years, George Bush managed to destroy the entire capitalist system. Think about it -- AIG bankrupt, Lehman Brothers bankrupt, General Motors bankrupt, the entire banking system -- frozen or bankrupt, the housing industry -- in complete freefall. We often think of capitalism as this permanent, timeless, immovable force. And yet after just 8 years of George Bush, or rather, after 8 years of this experiment in almost complete Chicago School neoliberal economic policy with no regulation, minimal taxes, and no oversight -- the entire capitalist system is on the verge of collapse (and indeed would have collapsed if the federal government hadn't stepped in to take over). That's kind of incredible don't you think? Capitalism is in fact a very fragile system -- all it takes to kill it is to leave the wrong guy in charge for 8 years. It makes you wonder if perhaps communism might have survived if only Gorbachev hadn't decided to just say fuck it and sell out to the west.

Look, as Milton Friedman himself would probably say if he were still alive, capitalism was a great idea in theory, it just didn't work that well in practice.

All these years, lefties have been starting nonprofits and running NGOs and publishing journals full of revolutionary ideas that went nowhere -- when all they really needed to do to bring down the capitalist system was to let Republicans run all 3 branches of government for a few years.

So a couple lessons to draw from all of this. First, those who crowed about how the downfall of communism proved the virtues of capitalism can shove it up their ass. Capitalism would fellatiate itself to death if it wasn't for the occasional checks and balances provided by lefties (and indeed capitalism itself apparently has to be completely taken over by a massive federal intervention every 50 to 75 years or else it would not exist).

Second, if we can suddenly find a trillion here or a trillion there to bail out banks, investment banks, insurance companies, the auto industry, and the housing industry -- then we can sure as heck provide a trillion here and a trillion there for universal single payer health insurance, universal college education, social security, clean air, clean water, and decent roads, bridges, hospitals and schools.

Finally, before the Republicans run off to hunker down in the Hoover Institution to come up with a blueprint for how to once again unite Wall Street and broke ass conservative rural voters in another unholy alliance to take over the country and rob the treasury again -- before they lawyer up and grant each other pardons and send their surrogates out to the cable TV networks to preach the virtues of bipartisan cooperation -- before all that -- it'd be really nice if Republicans just stopped for a minute and gave us all an apology. An apology for being asleep at the wheel during 9/11. An apology for sending over 4,000 American men and women to their deaths in Iraq. An apology for completely blowing the federal surplus on tax breaks for people who own private jets. An apology for bankrupting the auto industry and killing the financial services industry, and bankrupting the treasury. Because before we can even talk about working together for the good of the country -- it'd be nice, really nice for Republican to take responsibility for COMPLETELY FUCKING UP EVERYTHING THEY'VE TOUCHED FOR THE PAST 8 YEARS.

A brother can dream right?

"This is your brain on morality"

Gosh this is good:

Sam Harris discussing "Bounded Utility."

Harris is such a great speaker, it seems like a simple idea. But it's really a revolution -- in just 15 minutes Harris articulates a higher order morality, beyond post-modernism, that brings the best brain research to bear on the most important questions in the world.

Some tuneage for Friday

If Joe Cocker and Michael Hutchence had a love child it would be:

Kings of Leon

Definitely worth a listen.

The Palin Phenomenon: "Like Care Bears meets Jenna Jameson"

For a woman with a net -10 favorability rating, people sure are talking a lot about Sarah Palin.

It seem to me that the Palin Phenomenon boils down to one simple fact: Sarah Palin is the first woman candidate for a national office in the United States who is sexy.

That has never happened before. We've had sexy candidates who are men -- John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, Barack Obama. But there has never been a sexy woman candidate for national office in the history of the United States.

Think about it:

On the Republican side:

Elizabeth Dole? Not sexy.

Condi Rice? Not sexy (nonwithstanding the fact that George Bush calls her his "office wife" -- the racial undertones of which are so creepy I don't even want to go there).

Barbara Bush. For the love of God, not sexy.

On the Democratic side:

Barbara Boxer? Diane Feinstein? I love 'em both (well Boxer more than Feinstein), vote for them every time. But, not sexy.

Madeline Albright? She stopped the genocide in Bosnia and probably deserves a Noble Prize but, not sexy.

Hillary Clinton? Probably the most skilled politician in the country, but I've never heard "Hillary Clinton" and "sexy" in the same sentence.

I'm not saying a woman candidate should or should not be sexy. I'm just saying we've never had a sexy woman candidate for national office before.

In some respects it could be seen as a sign of progress. It could be a sign that women can be viewed as both traditionally professional and sexy at the same time -- that those two traits are no longer seen as mutually exclusive. Except, by most accounts, Palin has not excelled professionally. She appears to have been a lousy mayor and her record as Governor is flimsy at best (corrupt and despotic at worst). No in fact, the Palin Phenomenon is not the realization of the feminist ideal of being able to have it all (respect as a parent, professional, and partner). Because all Palin is selling is Jenny McCarthy slutty girl next door sex appeal, the Palin pick reinforces the very worst of the existing sexist culture by turning women entirely into sexual objects -- your 401(k) and national security be damned.

As one Republican pundit after another writes these long love poems to Palin about how they want to fuck her, the soft misogyny of low expectations becomes sickening.

Rich Lowry at the National Review Online clearly wants to fuck her.

I'm sure I'm not the only male in America who, when Palin dropped her first wink, sat up a little straighter on the couch and said, "Hey, I think she just winked at me." And her smile. By the end, when she clearly knew she was doing well, it was so sparkling it was almost mesmerizing. It sent little starbursts through the screen and ricocheting around the living rooms of America.

[In reply, Kos commented: It's like Care Bears meets Jenna Jameson!]

David Brooks, judging from his column today, apparently was masturbating WHILE watching the VP debate. Money quote:

There are some moments when members of a political movement come together as one, sharing the same thoughts, feeling the same emotions, breathing the same shallow breaths.

And Donny Deutsch flat out said, "I trust her. I want her watching my kids. I want her laying next to me in bed." (The link has the video.)

The Palin Phenomenon has turned the men of the Republican Party into the drooling drunk banker at the strip club.

There's a reason why the McCain campaign appears to have bought the domain name VoteForTheMilf.com right after her nomination was announced. Now maybe it was just for defensive purposes (to keep it from being used by anyone else) but they clearly had a sense of the phenomenon they were about to set into motion.

Now all of this would merely be interesting from a sociological standpoint if the stakes weren't so incredibly high. The fact that the fate of the Supreme Court, national security, and the entire economy rests, partly, in the hands of voters who think they're in love with a sexy-librarian-stripper with a heart-of-gold, is a little bit frightening.

I think the day will come when we do have a woman candidate who is both smart and sexy. Michelle Obama fits that category and I'd be more than happy to vote for her in 2016. Heck, I voted for Hillary Clinton this cycle. But for now, we don't actually have a smart and sexy woman on the ballot. Just sexy. And for some voters, that's gonna be enough (and, like David Brooks, they'll come up with elaborate intellectual rationalizations for their vote after the fact). For others, not so much.

Update #1: "Bible Spice" has got to be the best nickname yet for Palin. (hat tip to JC)

Update #2: The nickname "Bible Spice" becomes a hit on Twitter. At least one writer credits Tbogg from Firedoglake for coining the term. Anyone want to make a wager as to whether Saturday Night Live uses this nickname tomorrow?

Update #3: Ooooo snap! A reader at Andrew Sullivan's The Daily Dish completely smacks down Rich Lowry's absurd Palin slobbering:

In reaction to Rich Lowry, I'm sure I'm not the only woman who, upon reading his words, sat up a little straighter and said, "Is he kidding? Is he goddamn kidding me?" Is this the kind of reaction the women in this country should want men to have to the possible first female Vice Presidential candidate in history? Holy hell.

I thought Palin's performance at the debate was downright embarrassing and on top of that I have to read this clown's blog, stating more or less that Palin gave him an erection? Little starbursts my ass. Here's what I thought when Palin "dropped" that first wink at us: "Did she just wink at us like she was America's cocktail waitress?" Rich Lowry is on the verge of slapping Sarah Palin on the ass and asking her for another of those fantastic whiskey sours.

Hat tip to Scout Finch at Dailykos for the catch. Also hat tip to Naked Capitalism (a fantastic progressive economics blog) for linking to this post.

Update #4: Double snap! Keith Olberman calls out Rich Lowry for his sexualized ode to Palin (hat tip to Attaturk at Firedoglake):



Update #5: Oh so THAT'S why the cable news networks talk about Palin so much -- it brings in the eyeballs. I just checked my Google Analytics and discovered that this post has been the most read post in the history of my blog -- setting a single day record that is FOUR TIMES HIGHER than my previous single day record. That's craziness (to be specific: it's crazy that more people would read a post on Palin than say, my illuminating writings on framing for example). The cable networks, newspapers, and magazines know that they need to sell advertising and that sex sells so that's what they are selling -- regardless of the polls, regardless of the national economic meltdown or the state of the endless quagmire in Iraq. Fascinating.

Million dollar idea

I'm gonna start a new online dating service. But instead of all those questions that they ask on eHarmony or all the essays you've gotta write on Match, my service is only going to have 3 questions:

1. How do you know when you are experiencing low blood sugar?

2. What techniques do you use to manage low blood sugar when it occurs?

3. What techniques do you use to prevent low blood sugar from happening in the first place?

I swear to goodness, low blood sugar ruins more human relationships than unfaithfulness, alcoholism, and money problems combined.

Can we talk about the Siddhartha Gautama's attitudes towards women?

So I just finished reading Karen Armstrong's biography of Buddha. I never quite know what to think about Karen Armstrong's work. On the one hand, she's clearly a brilliant writer, she's one of the foremost experts in the world on religion, and she invests massive amounts of time and energy into researching her subjects. But the problem I have when I'm reading her writing is that I don't know where she ends and the facts begin. In my experience, she retells the history of Christianity as if it's all been a bunch of post-modern mystical Unitarians getting together from the beginning -- and I have a hard time believing that's true. It seems to me she does the same thing with "Axial Age" world religions as well -- importing modern values back into the historical narrative -- and not separating out the two.

That being said, I really enjoyed reading Buddha, and was thankful for someone to take me through the entire story in 187 pages. I've studied a lot of Buddhism and done a fair amount of meditation but I've never read the story of the Buddha's life start to finish (Siddhartha back in high school doesn't count).

But what struck me most about the book was the following passage concerning the Buddha's attitudes towards women:

While he was living in the Nigrodha arama, the Buddha was visited by his father's widow, Pajapati Gotami: she was also the Buddha's aunt, and had become his foster-mother after the death of his own mother. Since she was now free, she told her nephew, she wanted to be ordained in the Sangha. The Buddha adamantly refused. There was no question of admitting women to the Order. He would not change his mind, even though Pajapati begged him three times to reconsider and she left his presence very sadly. A few days later, the Buddha set out for Vesali, the capital of the republic of Videha on the northern bank of the Ganges. He often stayed in the arama there, which had a hall with a high-gabled roof. One morning, Ananda was horrified to find Pajapati sobbing on the porch with a crowd of other Sakyan women. She had cut off her hair, put on the yellow robe and had walked all the way from Kapilavatthu. Her feet were swollen, and she was filthy and exhausted. "Gotami," cried Ananda, "What are you doing here in such a state? And why are you crying?" "Because the Blessed One will not have women in the Sangha," Pajapati replied. Ananda was concerned. "Wait here," he said, " I will asked the Tathagata about this."

But the Buddha still refused to consider the matter. This was a serious moment. If he continued to bar women from the Sangha, it meant that he considered that half of the human race was ineligible for enlightenment. But the Dhamma was supposed to be for everybody: for gods, animals, robbers, men of all castes--were women alone to be excluded? Was rebirth as a man the best they could hope for? Ananda tried another tack. "Lord" he asked, "are women capable of becoming 'stream-enterers' and, eventually, Arahants?" "They are Ananda," The Buddha replied. "Then surely it would be a good thing to ordain Pajapati," Ananda pleaded, and reminded his master of her kindness to him after his mother had died. The Buddha reluctantly conceded defeat. Pajapati could enter the Sangha if she accepted eight strict rules. These provisions made it clear that the nuns (bhikkhunis) were an inferior breed. A nun must always stand when in the presence of a male bhikkhu, even one who was young or newly ordained; nuns must always spend the vassa retreat is an arama with male monks, not by themselves; they must receive instruction from a bhikkhu once every fortnight; they could not hold their own ceremonies; a nun who had committed a grave offense must do penance before the monks as well as the bhikkhunis; a nun must request ordination from both the male and the female Sangha; she must never rebuke a bhikkhu, though any monk could rebuke her; nor could she preach to bhikkhus. Pajapati gladly accepted these regulations and was duly ordained, but the Buddha was still uneasy. If women had not been admitted, he told Ananda, the Dhamma would have been practiced for a thousand years; now it would last a mere five hundred years. A tribe with too many women would become vulnerable and be destroyed; similarly, no Sangha with women members could last long. They would fall upon the Order like mildew on a field of rice.

What are we to make of this misogyny? The Buddha had always preached to women as well as to men. Once to had given permission, thousands of women became bhikkhunis, and the Buddha praised their spiritual attainments, said that they could become the equals of the monks, and prophesied that he would not die until he had enough wise monks and nuns, lay men and lay women followers. There seems to be a discrepancy in the texts, and this has led some scholars to conclude that the story of his grudging acceptance of women and the eight regulations was added later and reflects a chauvinism in the Order. By the first century B.C.E., some of the monks certainly blamed women for their own sexual desires, which were impeding them from enlightenment, and regarded women as universal obstacles to spiritual advance. Other scholars argue that the Buddha, enlightened as he was, could not escape the social conditioning of the time, and that he could not imagine a society that was not patriarchal. They point out that despite the Buddha's initial reluctance, the ordination of women was a radical act that, perhaps for the first time, gave women an alternative to domesticity.

While this is true, there is a difficulty for women that should not be glossed over. In the Buddha's mind, women may well have been inseparable from the "lust" that made enlightenment an impossibility. It did not occur to him to take his wife with him, as some of the renouncers did, when he left home to begin his quest. He simply assumed that she could not be the partner in his liberation. But this was not because he found sexuality disgusting, like the Christian Fathers of the Church, but because he was attached to his wife. The scriptures contain a passage which, scholars agree, is almost certainly a monkish interpolation. "Lord, how are we to treat women?" Ananda asked the Buddha in the last days of his life. "Do not look at them, Ananda." "If we do not see them, how should we treat them?" "Do no speak to them Ananda." "And if we have to speak to them? "Mindfulness must be observed Ananda." The Buddha may not have personally subscribed to this full-blown misogyny, but it is possible that these words reflect a residual unease that he could not overcome.

--Karen Armstrong, Buddha, p. 151-154 [Armstrong uses the Pali spellings rather than the Sanskrit than many are used to seeing in writings about Buddhism.]

I want to make a few caveats before sharing my thoughts on this passage. To begin with there are a couple things we don't know. 1.) We don't know if Karen Armstrong got this section correct (that's a caveat we make with any author). 2.) We don't know if the various original authors of the sacred texts got the story correct (or if this was added later by overzealous and chauvinistic monks perhaps). Furthermore, it does seem that despite his initial reluctance, the Buddha did break important new ground. I imagine 2500 years ago it was a pretty tough sell to tell folks that women and men were equal (at least a tough sell to the men who benefited from patriarchy).

But here's what I want to say: IF this passage is a correct reflection of Siddhartha Gautama's views on women, it means that he never attained enlightenment. (As Chris Rock would say, Yeah, I said it!) Indeed it calls into question the entire concept of enlightenment -- because if the Buddha wasn't enlightened then who is? Buddhists are not simply claiming that Siddhartha Gautama was a great teacher who was ahead of his time. They are not claiming that he was a really swell guy who broke new ground. They are claiming that he attained enlightenment -- that he broke through to a timeless, universal, truth that transformed his whole being. But if this supposed enlightenment also retained a hatred of women, or a preference for patriarchy, or however you want to say it -- then by definition it's not timeless, universal, or true. It's not fucking enlightenment if you still discriminate against women.

Let's put an even finer point on it. There has never been a female Dalai Lama. Monks sitting in meditation for their whole lives, have never figured out what any six year old can tell you -- that women are just as good as men. By definition then, no Dalai Lama has attained enlightenment. The whole things starts to unravel at that point. If meditation can't teach you what a few hours of actual human experience can teach you -- then why place an emphasis on meditation?

Furthermore, those who brought the dharma to the U.S. aren't enlightened. Notorious alcoholic womanizer Chogyam Trungpa wasn't enlightened. I'm not saying he wasn't smart or charming -- I'm just saying you have to actually live your transformed self not just talk about it. His dharma heir Osel Tenzin sure as fuck wasn't enlightened.

Look, I love meditation and yoga and the whole nine. But it seems to me that the whole enlightenment industry, pales by comparison to the wisdom of actually living an ordinary modern life of experience.

In the end, Buddha the book and Buddha the man just felt terribly sad to me. I know Buddha claimed that by seeking nothingness he could experience a universal love for all of humanity. But I wonder if for most people it's not the reverse -- that through a particular love we experience a universal timeless love.

Update #1: Descartes' Error is often read as an indictment of Western rationalism (indeed, it's a very effective indictment of the rational tradition). But it seems to me that Descartes' Error is an equally effective indictment of Buddhism and Buddhism's denigration of the body, emotion, and the created world.

Modification on Lakoff -- the emergence of the "alcoholic parent model" in politics

So George Lakoff argues that there are two primary metaphors that orient how people think about politics -- the strict father model and the nurturant parent model. I've talked about this at length on this blog. But watching the political debate in the U.S. right now -- I don't think those two models precisely capture what's going on.

Specifically, over the last 8 years, I would argue that Republicans no longer adhere to a strict father model, rather, they adhere to an alcoholic father model. In a strict father model the father is still expected to demonstrate responsibility, honesty, morality, and discipline. But the Republicans have really abandoned that in favor of a strategy of covering for the alcoholic father at all costs. And it's not just Bush -- we're seeing the alcoholic father model show up in connection with support for Sarah Palin too. The bigger the lie the louder the cheers. The bigger the gaffe, the more they blame others. The worse the candidate, the more they proclaim that they identify with him/her.

For the most part, Democrats continue to follow the nurturant parent model of governance -- promoting empathy and care for others. But I wonder if some of the blue dog Democrats like Harold Ford, are following an alcoholic father model too -- the worse the Republicans behave, the more they lie and destroy our country, the more the alcoholic father model Dems urge bipartisanship and cooperation (trying to make everything appear normal even when it isn't).

A quick note to Dems -- if my theory is true, then it is also true that you cannot bargain with someone who adheres to an "alcoholic parent model" of governance. There can be no bipartisanship with the other side if the other side is pathological and won't take responsibility for their actions. All you can do is take the keys out of their hands, hide the checkbook and the wallet, and move forward without them.

Stuff white people like -- stealing the life savings of millions of people

One of the interesting things about the current financial industry meltdown (and really the last seven years in general) is to witness how totally fucking corrupt white people are. I'm not talking just any white people -- I'm talking respectable, Ivy League educated, head of their class, happy to go to their college reunion white people. Totally. Fucking. Corrupt. They will steal your grandma's life savings the moment no one is watching -- and go home to their families like nothing happened. It's really quite something when you think about it.

Update #1. A commenter pointed out that perhaps I had maybe over generalized a bit by blaming white people entirely for the financial industry meltdown. But the more I think about it, the more I think maybe I understated things. White people seem particularly skilled at the art of stealing a whole investment bank or robbing a whole country in the middle of the night (and getting away with it -- that's the crazy part!). Hell they stole THREE WHOLE CONTINENTS in the 16th century so I guess stealing the life savings of millions of Americans and THEN grabbing $1 trillion from the U.S. Treasury is just "par for the course" as they say.