Cat Blogging

Gladys's Christmas present was the wrapping paper from everyone else's presents.

Cars and class warfare redux

I thought I should note this date down, because it's not often I can say these words: William Kristol agrees with me.

Cars and class warfare

There's been a lot of talk lately, both in Congress and in the media, about Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization as a strategy for General Motors. While this has worked well for airlines, I don't think it's an option for GM, for two reasons:

• Buying a car is a long-term relationship. When people buy an airline ticket, they only care if the airline is around long enough to make the trip. When they buy a car, though, they want some reassurance that the company will be around long enough to make good on the warranty. If people hear that GM has declared bankruptcy, they will flee dealerships in droves, robbing the company of the income it needs to rebuild itself.
• AIG issued credit default swaps on GM. A lot of credit default swaps, apparently; according to Forbes.com, estimates are that AIG's exposure is about 10 times the outstanding debt. If GM declares bankruptcy, AIG is on the hook for that money, and guess who currently owns AIG? That's right, the government. In a nutshell, if we let GM go bankrupt, we taxpayers are likely to end up paying out eight to ten times as much as if we bail them out.

While we're on the subject, I'm distressed at the level of classism that's hidden in this debate. One of the benefits being touted for bankruptcy is that it would allow GM to bust the United Auto Workers Union by eliminating its labor contracts. When insurer AIG was bailed out at a cost of more than twice what the auto industry is asking for, I don't recall anyone questioning what workers there earned; yet it's taken as given by everyone involved in this debate that auto factory workers are overpaid. We're apparently happy with white collar workers making whatever they can, but heaven forbid that a blue collar worker might make a middle class wage.

There's also a lot of deliberate misinformation going around about what auto industry workers are actually paid. For example, the $70/hour figure repeated by many conservative pundits is completely misleading. No factory worker makes that; in fact, UAW workers on average make about $28/hour, only slightly more than workers in Toyota plants, and wages and benefits for current workers are only 10% of GM's budget. The $70/hour figure includes money used to pay the pensions and health care benefits of retirees — effectively, deferred compensation for work done in the past, when GM had a much larger workforce. (This is a burden the UAW has agreed to take off GM's hands in 2010, in exchange for a lump-sum payment.) The much-maligned UAW "job banks" also make an easy target, but their cost to GM is minuscule — at present, only about 1,000 idle workers are drawing salaries this way, less than 0.3% of GM's total workforce. In any event, the job banks are likely to be one of the UAW's first concessions in any bailout plan.

The rhetoric we're seeing used against the middle and lower classes in this recession is really toxic. As Media Matters points out, the conservative media have blamed minorities and undocumented immigrants for the housing downturn, and union members for the auto industry's problems; groups that have little or no influence in the marketplace, and have benefited little and suffered greatly in the last eight years.

Marriage

I'm a bit late with this one, but a couple of weeks ago the NPR show On the Media had an interesting interview about marriage — how it became both a civil and a religious institution, and when the current ideas about "traditional" marriage formed. (Surprisingly recently, as it turns out.) It also touches on why civil unions will never really be an acceptable substitute for gay marriage. Well worth a listen.

Religion and morality

Religious conservatives are all worked up about some pro-atheism ads recently placed on buses by the American Humanist Association. The ads caused them to trot out the usual argument against atheism — the idea that morality can only come from religion:

"Codes of morality, of course, have always been grounded in religion. For those of us in Western civilization, its tenets emanate from the Judeo-Christian ethos. By casting this heritage aside, and replacing it with nothing more than the conscience of lone individuals, we lay the groundwork for moral anarchy." — Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League

"How do we define 'good' if we don't believe in God? God in his word, the Bible, tells us what's good and bad and right and wrong. If we are each ourselves defining what's good, it's going to be a crazy world." — Tim Wildmon, American Family Association

This is one of those arguments that people just accept as true without thinking about it; to people of a religious background, it seems obvious. I don't think it stands up to scrutiny, however.

First of all, religion itself often follows the lead of conventional wisdom. The Bible has always been interpreted in ways that reinforce existing social prejudices. When slavery was considered moral, Biblical passages were used to support it. The same was later true of segregation. When Henry VIII found Catholicism too binding, he simply created a new church with a moral code that he found more palatable. Far from being a solid grounding for society's moral code, religion is in fact more often used to rationalize and defend a set of values society has already agreed upon.

It's also false to assert that, without a set of moral rules handed down from heaven, it's somehow every man for himself. Nowhere in the Bible does it say "thou shalt not cut in line," but try it at your local supermarket checkout and see what kind of moral outrage you generate. Every society has a moral code, and no central authority necessarily needs to provide it. In fact, societies nearly always adhere to certain moral absolutes, like a prohibition on murder, regardless of whether or not their culture includes commandments carved on stone tablets.

The argument that religion is necessary for morality is a particularly pernicious one because it leads to suspicion of atheists. In one Pew Research poll, 47% of Americans indicated they believed faith in God was necessary to be a good person, and 54% had a negative view of atheists. This all stems from the idea that humans are incapable of following any moral code unless it comes from a deity. I find this a depressing, cynical view of humanity; it's as if we're a bunch of children who can't be trusted unless they know their parents are watching them.

Olbermann for gay marriage

As always, Keith says it so, so well.

I do not hate you (an open letter)

I got an e-mail from a longtime fan who is also a Mormon, who was deeply offended by my screed about Proposition 8 passing.

I did try to respond in a way that would walk the difficult tightrope of standing by my point and making it clear that my gripe was not with people like her, but I probably failed; I usually do in such situations.

But, to the rest of you, Mormons and everyone else, my gripe is never with you individually. I want that on the record. I mean, yes, as an atheist, I think what you believe is ridiculous and improbable, but there pretty much isn't a religion I don't think that about, which is how I wound up becoming an atheist in the first place. I'm not singling you out.

You know, I bet we atheists have to listen to more crap about our (lack of) beliefs than any other group. It's still considered basically okay, or at worst mildly offensive, to say horrible things about us, things you wouldn't dream of saying about even the most maligned religious groups in the country. I'm used to it, really.

So, to the woman I offended, well, I'm sorry I offended you, and I'm sorry for the crack about the underwear. But, it would seem you basically agree with me about proposition 8 passing. Understand that, whatever offense you felt reading a blog entry from a basically powerless person that said not-nice things about your church, it surely is nothing compared to the offense that I and millions like me felt when millions of supposedly decent and upstanding people voted like modern day George Wallaces last week.

And I suppose, what I want to know is, why doesn't that offend you more? Why aren't you livid with your church for having provided 40% of Yes On 8's funding, presumably the difference between passage and failure? You say you have gay and transgender friends...why are you, apparently, angrier with me for saying something you agree with in an intemperate way than you are with your church for doing something you seem to feel is a profound and terrible injustice?