If the National Rifle Association (NRA) were not so dangerous to the physical health and general welfare of the people of the United States, they'd probably qualify as some of the most unintentionally hilarious people on the planet. Seriously, you can't make this stuff up.

Take executive vice-president of the NRA, (the suspiciously French sounding) Wayne LaPierre. If you started from scratch and constructed an (at least theoretical in his case) human being, you couldn't find a better movie villain. A man who foams at the mouth when fetishising about guns on national TV, attacks sitting Presidents in terms usually reserved for dictators and inaugural-lip syncers and has the look of a howling mad member of Alphonse "Big Boy" Caprice's gang from Dick Tracy - replete with the beady eyes, vestigial rage and bad posture.

That Lapierre's little gaggle of government-fearing, 1970s-Death-Wish-obsessing miscreants actually claim they're trying to increase people's safety can almost make your sides hurt from the hysterics, as it carries with it the legitimacy of Manti T'eo giving lectures on Nigerian bank swindles.

These are the guys who released an iPhone app for kids as young as four to shoot at coffin-shaped targets on the one-month anniversary of the Newtown Massacre. That little high-capacity-magazine of brilliance has probably jetted them right past Applebee's on the sliding scale of public-relations brilliance, up next to Alex Rodriguez.

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What will Fox News do without Dick "Black Helicopters" Morris and Sarah Palin? And what are they still doing with Karl Rove?

Nobody tells me anything! I remember hearing that progressive activists Alex Lawson (executive director of Social Security Works, spearheading the drive to protect it) and Cliff Schecter (bloggger and progressive PR consultant) bought an AM radio station in DC, which they christened We Act Radio, but I had no idea this was where David Shuster landed after his colorful exit from MSNBC. (He's also on CurrentTV, and I didn't know that, either.) Good to have him back!

It's important, though, for progressives to keep pushing away to build progressive radio. Yeah, Air America didn't last, but a lot of their alumni (Sam Seder and Nicole Sandler, just to name a few) are still hanging in there. And as my dear departed friend Joe Bageant said in his book "Deer Hunting With Jesus," talk radio is the only access most poor people get to information about their government. They listen at work, where they spend the most time awake, and after a while, it seeps in and warps their brains. That's why it's so important for us to offer some alternative to the wingnut brainwashing:

Officially launched January 1, 2012, We Act is a 5,000 watt (“of full truth-telling power,” says Kymone) AM station that covers DC, northern Virginia, and southern Maryland, which, per FCC rules, drops to 500 watts after sunset. In the modern media landscape, however, those “terrestrial limitations” mean less than they used to. Listeners can tune in live online, or on a mobile device using the “Tune-in” app for mobile, or a host of other methods. “There are two separate individuals from New Zealand who listen to this station via some website that hosts radio shows.” Alex says.

We Act relies heavily on syndicated content from progressive radio stars like Thom Hartmann, Bill Press, Stephanie Miller, and Ed Schultz, who, Lawson points out, had no broadcast presence in Washington, DC before We Act, despite the fact that Hartmann and Press both broadcast from DC.

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Can I state outright that means testing and raising the eligibility age for Social Security and Medicare is a terrible idea? Stupid, backwards-thinking, anti-economic notion.

So it makes my heart sink to see Don Peebles, a member of President Obama's National Finance Committee, ape Republican talking points about means testing, "job creators at the top" and being skeptical about government purchasing power over the private sector. Thankfully, we have Sam Seder of the Majority Report there to strongly and forcefully speak for progressive solutions that make these social safety nets available for those who most need them and to front load the means testing by making the wealthy pay more by raising the income cap. But Peebles isn't having it. He's on the program (and the Finance Committee) to protect his and the rest of the 1 percent's tax rates

The fact that they're floating raising the eligibility age over eliminating the income cap shows the power the wealthy have to frame the debate. It's the "skin in the game" they demand of everyone other than themselves. It's the sacrifice that regular Americans have to make to get us out of the fiscal crisis created by their greed and selfishness. My buddy, Cliff Schecter:

It's in this atmosphere that we're now forced to confront a band of enormously wealthy people who've benefitted from - or bestowed upon others - large financial bailouts and ill-considered taxcuts who like lecturing Americans living on earned benefits about "shared sacrifice". As in, you give up a meal each day, and I'll give up a pair of yacht shoes! Deal?

It is this truth that often goes unreported during discussions of our so-called "fiscal cliff" (besmirching my good name, I might add), a supposed doomsday scenario where the economy will turn into some sort of a combination of the prom scene from Carrie and Fox News' "1/2 Hour News Hour", if we don't all sing kumbaya by year's end.

Or in the words of the great Peter Venkman "human sacrifice! Dogs and cats, living together! Mass hysteria!"

Meanwhile, back in reality-land, we're reminded that how people talk about the economy often leads to this madness. As cognitive linguist Anat Shenker outlines in her enormously insightful book, Don't Buy It: The Trouble With Talking Nonsense About The Economy, the economy isn't a living, breathing thing. It can't be hurt. In fact, as Shenker says, the problem is that the debate is still often about "who loves the economy more, when it should be about people".

Because, you see, people are actually hurt by layoffs, lack of health insurance and the austerity-police, or those plutocrats who'd consider it unclean to fly coach. Consider former Senator Alan Simpson and Wall Street Democrat Erskine Bowles, the travelling clown show of austerity. They wander the land preaching cuts to Social Security and Medicare, netting $40,000 per speech to do it. Or, three years of Social Security benefits. Oh self-awareness - where art thou?

It's going to take all of our collective voices to be heard over the special interest money. It will require us fighting on many fronts--to our congress critters, to the tradmed outlets pushing these memes, even to boycotts of business owners who advocate and donate to such regressive politics. We do have the power of our numbers, and we can't let them forget that.

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Honestly, let's all stop beating around the bush. Doing some simple math, when the last the mass shooting occurred at Texas A&M, before the most recent one at the Empire State Building--yes, many were shot by police, or those who are well trained with weapons, unlike, say, your local amateur yahoo who could've oh-so-definitely prevented the Aurora movie-theater shooting--a friend calculated how many of these incidents had happened since the May 31st Cafe Racer shooting in the University District in Seattle.

Once that was done, we divided by days and came to the number 8.8. That was the average number of days between mass shootings. Yet, nothing is done because the NRA likes the status quo.

Your basic dictionary definitions of a terrorist is the following:

1. a person, usually a member of a group, who uses or advocates terrorism.

2. a person who terrorizes or frightens others.

Board members of the National Rifle Association (NRA) have, on numerous occasions, explicitly advocated both overthrowing the U.S. Government and committing mass murder. If these were positions with which they disagreed, they wouldn't have a board and executive leadership filled with half-wit authoritarians advocating these things.

They threaten violence, sell paranoid conspiracy theories and incite riot by calling President Clinton a murderer or telling their members that Barack Obama's about to ride in on a big vacuum cleaner to suck up everyone's guns before enslaving them. They fight regulations that would help disarm criminals, drug cartels and terrorists.

Above is my discussion of this topic with Sam Seder.

Follow me on Twitter @cliffschecter

On this July 4, Independence Day, we celebrated that grand experiment in human progress and evolutionary biology known as self-government. In other words, we engaged in our yearly ritual of driving up to our cottage in New Hampshire -- after deciding against the beach house in San Diego - and posing for the pictures of eager reporters just after mounting our jet ski and slicing our way through the bubbling wake of Lake Winnipesaukee.

OK, you got me, I'm not talking about me. I'm talking about Mitt Romney. So here's a question -- is Mitt Romney insane?

I mean, what is it about Massachusetts politicians who run for president? Ever since President John F Kennedy (and his brothers), who connected with the common man like peanut butter and chocolate, we've had a series of guys run for chief executive from the Bay State who couldn't steal candy from a baby. Until Mitt, they were all Democrats -- Michael Dukakis, Paul Tsongas and John Kerry -- and would form the most aloof rock band one could ever create. Let's face it, there must have been times Bob Dole looked at these guys and thought: "Damn, they're boring."

But Romney has clearly decided he is going to turn it up to 11. In fact, I'm somewhat convinced at this point that Romney is actually a creation of Jon Stewart's The Daily Showjust for the gags. It isn't like the jet ski pose is the first I'm-richer-than-you thing that ole Mitt has done. I mean, who says stuff like this?

"I like being able to fire people" ... "I have some great friends who are NASCAR team owners" ...
"I bet you $10,000" ... "I am actually the stodgiest parts of the DNA that dripped off George Clooney in a Devito/Schwarzenegger, Twins-like experiment."

OK, one of those might not be true.

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Ultra-conservatives really love the closet. And no, I'm not just talking in a Larry-Craig-kinda way. Sure, some of them who use it to protect themselves, but many more use it to protect their agenda.

You see, the closet can hide all sorts of truths among its shadows. Americans and any facts about America that don't fit the right-wing narrative can be disappeared in this enclosed recess--either bullied into silence or simply ignored--and conservatism can continue to prosper. Because, quite frankly, conservatives need a big enough closet to house a combo Imelda Marcos/Carrie Bradshaw shoe collection if they're to continue prospering after the economic, foreign policy, and social destruction they've wreaked upon this nation.

Right wingers can then tell you that gays and lesbians are some strange breed of misanthrope intent on intergalactic sexual dominion, because if you've never met anyone who is gay before, you just might believe it. Enough of us to sway an election might, all polling to the contrary, be convinced by television advertisements that most Americans want to cut Social Security, think closing the gun-show loophole is unimportant or believe the Citizens United decision makes any sense whatsoever. On all of these, by the way, the "progressive" or non-Ted-Nugent position polls at or north of approximately 70 percent in "swing states" and nationally, making people possessing these ideas the silent majority Richard Nixon once considered worthy of song.

So the protectors of the status quo will fight like hell to keep you and your ideas safely behind the folded khakis or under the Etch A Sketch, you can bet on it. It is what makes Sandra Fluke, Ellen DeGeneres and interviews with those who've lost their jobs due to Mitt Romney's machinations, in a word, dangerous. Human faces, especially, serve to blow up their myths. Because if we see people with which we can identify going through a crisis, or having made what for them was a sensible decision, then it might not seem unreasonable to us. (The principle holds true with humans but not cyborgs. Hence, the reason most of us react to Mitt Romney in much the same way we do to a malfunctioning fax machine)

All of which brings us to last week, at a progressive blogger conference in Providence, Rhode Island, called Netroots Nation. At this conference, former Microsoft software developer and current Congressional candidate from Washington State's 1st District, Darcy Burner, stood up and courageously spoke about the issue of abortion during a keynote address.

Most people don't know that 1 in 3 women have had an abortion (in fact I had no idea until last week), because the Right has successfully shamed women who made a legal, medically-based decision into hiding in those shadows in the closet. Burner, not one for running meek campaigns (a breath of fresh air among Democrats), asked women in the crowd to stand if they had had an abortion, and felt comfortable doing so. She proceeded to ask if everyone else would join them and stand up, showing support for the courageous women around them. Then, Burner rightly said, "this is how we change the stories in people's heads."

Right wingers, as well as other various confused souls, felt that closet door opening ever so slightly. And they knew they needed to kick it closed, lest others cross the threshold and not feel ashamed. Enter comical right-wing blogger Melissa Clouthier (who likes to keep "doctor" in her official title, so we might think she possesses some sort of guidance for us on these and other matters--and as a chiropractor, I'm just sure she's an expert on the uterus), who misquoted Burner and claimed the women in the hall were "celebrating" abortion.

Common sense was also lost on Joe Connelly of the Seattle Post Intelligencer, as he took to Clouthier's misquote and spin. And of course Tucker Swanson McNear Carlson's publication, The Daily Caller, got in on the mythmaking too. But after being fired from most known television networks founded since about 1973, I guess Carlson has to do something to keep his 4 names in the press.

Lucky us, being able, in real time, to watch 1000 Mesozoic-Era intellects bloom.

Burner, on the other hand, was doing what must be done in an age dominated by right-wing moneymen, pouring millions of dollars into everything from telling us Jesus was a car-elevator-owning hedge fund manager to global warming isn't happening.

This is why it is so important that Burner brought some sunlight to the truth. And we'd be all be the better for it if there were many more like her in our politics.

Follow me on Twitter: @cliffschecter

This column first appeared at Al Jazeera English

Washington, DC - Last week we witnessed the capo di tutti capi of political and policy evolution. President Barack Obama, after Vice-President Joe Biden and Education Secretary Arne Duncan played the role of his social-issue Shofar, came out in favour of the equality of marriage for all in the US, regardless of sexual orientation. To put it in simple terms: for the first time in the history of this country, the president of the United States supports gay marriage.

This is obviously a big moment. For those seeking to enter loving relationships recognised by law, nothing has changed in that realm. But culturally, when the president or other major political figures make strong statements on issues, it changes everything. To quote Republican House Leader Shelley Runyon in the film The Contender: "What I say, the American people will believe. And do you know why? Because I will have a very big microphone in front of me."

This rhetorical power is why a concomitant devolution by many in the Democratic Party, in protecting one of the two or three most important programs of the past century, the creation of social security, is so disturbing.

During the 2011 debate over the cliched "Grand Bargain", when right-wing Congressman were doing their darndest to moonwalk this country into financial default, perhaps just as frightening is what Democrats were willing to put on the table to appease the economic Morlocks. Namely, Medicare and the aforementioned social security (an issue that I work on), the latter so successful and politically powerful that it was responsible for taking millions of seniors (and children) out of poverty and helping cement an economically populist coalition within the Democratic Party that lasted a half century.

Why would Democrats be willing to touch this program, the crown jewel of progressive accomplishment, to deal with people who don't believe in compromise and have been trying to destroy the programme for decades? Likely, because too many Democrats have done their own evolving into a form of species known as Midcenturia Republicanus. Or Washington GOPers from the 1930s-1970s, who went along to get along, tried to always seem more "reasonable" than Democrats and, most importantly, remained a loveable minority in the halls of Congress.

Today, the consensus is rigged in the other direction. As Trudy Lieberman pointed out in her great piece in The Columbia Journalism Review:

"For nearly three years CJR has observed that much of the press has reported only one side of this story using 'facts' that are misleading, or flat-out wrong, while ignoring others ... news outlets have given the public a skewed picture of the financial health of this hugely important programme, which is the sole source of retirement funds for millions of Americans and will continue to be for decades to come."

When President Obama seems willing to talk about cutting social security, House Democratic Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi refuses to rule it out and Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer seems like a lion on the Serengeti eyeing a gazelle, this just sends a signal that it is OK for others to go even further - which bodes very badly for the future.

As Lieberman goes on to say, "the program can pay full benefits until 2036, and three-quarters of the benefits after that without new revenues. Many experts believe small fixes like lifting the cap on income subject to payroll taxes - $110,100 for 2012 - will make Social Security solvent for decades. But that option is not on Washington’s table, nor has it been discussed much in the press".

Why not?

Then there are ideas such as trimming the bloated, out-of-control defence budget, or allowing the US government to bulk negotiate for lower-priced prescription drugs for Medicare (like virtually every other post-industrial nation does) - or not imprisoning a larger share of our population, per capita, than Ming The Merciless.

Save billions on these wastes of funds and human potential, sprinkle some taxes on Kimye and poof. No deficit.

Yup, I hate to ruin it for any adrenaline junkies reading this, but not only is there no deficit crisis, but there are myriad ways to cure any minor ills without defenestrating social security, a programme that protects the 99 per cent of us - or one that you could say is more streetcar than car elevator. Additionally, recent elections in France and Greece reminded their elites that austerity is not only completely unnecessary and economically ahistorical, but ridiculously unpopular. Even 76 per cent of self described Tea Partiers - or people who think Christian rock is cool and lipids are a food group - don't want anyone touching their social security. Clear enough?

The United States has only two major parties, but nobody can make voters who are unenthusiastic trudge on over to their local polling place this November. Democrats need to stand up and protect social security, because it is the right thing to do, because there is simply no reason to cut it and because it shows strength politically (especially to those older voters who might not like the gay marriage decision). In other words, when it comes to social security: re-evolve already!

Towards the beginning of the cult classic "Dazed & Confused," a high school senior named Slater, inquires of baby-faced freshman Mitch, "Are you cool?" What Slater was really asking—in this ode to 1970s youth and the counterculture—was, "Do you smoke pot?"

Ahh the '70s. Back before the Reagan Revolution kicked the kooky, corrupt and thoroughly counterproductive War On Drugs into high gear. Suddenly this country lost its collective mind, suffering a lapse in judgment that vaulted well past ill-advised and beyond "they have weapons of mass destruction" to what might best be labeled "the mind of Ted Nugent."

By any measure; economically, morally, democratically, we are the worse for allowing special interests—from private prisons to the security industry—to take us down this road. It has spiritually hollowed us out, while erecting a prominent prison culture that makes The People's Republic of China seem like Woodstock.

This was made all the more evident recently when a Harvard economist, Jeffrey Miron, released a study showing this exercise in dunderheadedness is costing us $13.7 billion a year. Ernest A. Canning points to some statistics reported on Democracy Now! showing that "over the last 40 years, more than 45 million drug-related arrests have cost an estimated $1 trillion."

Hmm, I can't think of any better way we could have spent this money, can you?

But I do know some neo-conservative types who seemingly kneel down in prayer a few times a day to make supple offerings to the graven idol of The Balanced Budget. You'd think they might notice a statistic like this and do something to save money being wasted on imprisoning people who take their mind altering substances through the beer bong, as opposed to a funnel, filter, or medically-approved prescription pill bottle. Although, as Paul Ryan has found out when weighing raising taxes on ascots vs. slashing social programs, it's just so much easier and more fun to cut basic healthcare programs from kids than to honestly tackle real problems.

Sadly, things have gotten no better under President Obama than they were under his predecessors. Back when he was running for President in 2008, Obama claimed to support the “basic concept of using medical marijuana for the same purposes and with the same controls as other drugs,” He even went further, claiming he would "not be using Justice Department resources to try to circumvent state laws.”

Yet, that is exactly what he has done, using the very same Justice Department to raid over 100 marijuana dispensaries during his term. It is shameful really.

The wasted potential of those who will go to our jails instead of our colleges (although at least Rick Santorum won't shake his head in not-so-subtle disapproval of their obvious snobbery) will not only cost these individuals and their families dearly, but our society as a whole. Much like with our health care system, when we ignore or create problems in the short term, they always come back to haunt us as the Ghost of Christmas past—and not the cool one played by Buster Poindexter in Scrooged, either.

Listen, if you don't want to believe any of this, just see what Pat Robertson had to say about this issue recently (yes, I too am stunned I just wrote that). Yes, he took some time off from blaming hurricanes on abortion and "The Way We Were," to come out for marijuana legalization. Now I'm not going to say I think his every neuron is firing in what one might call a fecund direction, but on this one, politicians should listen. They should pay even more attention to the people of this country, who, by a 47 percent plurality, favor marijuana legalization.

Because if we continue with the half-baked idea of expanding this war, we will also continue to watch our financial future, our moral fiber and our civil liberties go up in smoke.

This piece was first published at Al Jazeera English

Lock the doors. Pull down the shades. Bring in the exorcist, stat.

As I write this, my humble abode is being transformed into a puppet-occupied den of anti-democratic sin. Yes, my kids are watching the Muppets, with some newly-discovered zeal since the theatrical release of the film by the same name.

That is only part of the agenda, of course. Upon finishing and chowing down on some premium Borscht and Beluga, the plan is a mixture of Marxian performance art, Che Guevara hat fitting & then the coupe de grace (that's right, I used the language of the land of non-freedom fries!), finger painting images of Fidel Castro throughout the house in cigar-ash.

I know, I exaggerate. Slightly. But as the supremely hypocritical again begin what seems like a yearly ritual of complaining that kids' movies or tv shows are detrimental to their emotional or physical health (think of the children!), it is hard to respond with much other than contempt.

This time it is the right-wing Media Research Center going for the gold, with their Vice President For Business And Culture (redundant, judging by his belief system) Dan Gainor, making television appearances just freaking out about how "Hollywood, the left, the media, they hate the oil industry. They hate corporate America."

Gainor also throws Cars 2 (released recently) into the witch's brew of corporate-hating cacophony endangering our children, and then somehow moves onto railing about Syriana and There Will Be Blood--which presumably he screens for his kids just before the good stuff starts on Cinemax after midnight.

What is rather unfortunate about Mr. Gainor's argument--besides almost everything--is that Cars II and The Muppets were both released by The Disney Company.

See that word company, as in corporation, or in The Media Research Center's world, "an organization that enjoys all the benefits of being a person but none of the liabilities?" Yup, that kind of makes it hard for them to "hate corporate America." But, hey, let's not let facts get in the way of a good story.

This sentiment is consistent, however, with a long line of cultural and political hypocrisy served up by those on the Right. Whether it was the Late Reverend Jerry Falwell's cruelly criticizing that innocent and lovable Teletubby, Tinky Winky. Or Dr. James Dobson's crusade against that yellow sponge who lives in a pineapple under the sea, for not openly and loudly declaring his lust for Sandy Cheeks or another of her gender.

The key thing to keep in mind, however, is that its the very same people who constantly bellyache about how kids might be brainwashed by making an oil baron not so cuddly in a movie, who through vocal support or their vote, deprive children of health care. It is these same pearl-clutchers who deny financial aid to the 15 million children living in poverty, or just keep the environment in which they live buried in a Miss-Piggy-sized stew of toxins.

Because, you know, while your kid is gasping for air and looking for a sawdust snack, it's definitely the Swedish Chef you want to watch out for. My God, that Scandinavian culinary maestro must be a Socialist!

This is not to say our culture hasn't become a mess--it sure has. And that parents such as myself are not concerned about some of the things we see on television. We are.

But it is not movies like The Muppets that those of us in the reason-based community fear, but the values of selfish, rampant consumerism and corporatism pushed by organizations, like say, the Media Research Center. Groups that try and teach our children that there is no value in respect and virtue for its own sake. That everything is to be judged by its dollar value, and not its contribution to society.

This is what endangers our children, as it has increasingly, since the economic counterrevolution back in the 1980s. Ironically enough, conservatives used to get this. It might be why none other than Herbert Hoover once said "The only trouble with capitalism is capitalists - they are too damn greedy."

While even I wouldn't go that far, too-big-to-fail corporations and their hand maidens in Congress (and the conservative echo chamber) most certainly pose a far greater danger to our children than a green frog-like puppet.

This column was originally published at Al Jazeera English