Last night, Trump’s disgraced former national security advisor Michael Flynn spoke at the “Reawaken America” conference in San Antonio, Texas, designed to whip up supporters to believe the 2020 election was stolen and that coronavirus vaccines are an infringement on their liberty.
A favorite quote from “Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life” by Anne Lamott
“…my priest friend Tom […] said you can safely assume you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.”
I find it so interesting that is how I view most religion.
So many things man has created has brought nothing but misery and sorrow that at times my heart gets so heavy I feel like it is full of tears that are yet to be shed and it's sinking from the weight of it.
But then I step back and look at the people in my life and realize that there are good people out there and there is hope.
One of the things I love about the Old Testament is that it is a very well-preserved document that goes all the way back to early tribal mythologies of the origin of the world, and documents much of the transition from band hunter-gatherers, through pastoralists, through agriculturalists, through kingdom and empire building.
There was a book by Reay Tannahill, years ago, titled Sex In History. It was a fascinating read, but the overall impression I gained from reading it is that traditional American views on sex are historically-atypical and grotesque perversions of the rather more commonsense views and practices of sex throughout history -- and most startling of all is our complete ignorance of how unnatural and perverse our views are.
It's much the same with religion. The chief clue, in my mind, is in the Roman Latin word for religion, religio, which derives from the root we use as ligament, and could (in my mind, at least) be viewed as "re-binding."
Consider: among band hunter/gatherers, the band is the family. Simple. Intimate. Co-dependent for survival. There are origin stories that vary from band to band, but are passed down in a context of simple survival needs. There rules that vary for trading men and women to other bands, to prevent inbreeding, ranging from trade to warfare. This model moves fairly well into pastoral societies, which herd, but are generally migratory. But as soon as you form an agricultural society, you are stuck in one place. You have to become more militant to defend the land, and then you end up attracting other bands and tribes that are starving because they have become too populous and have stripped Eden of its treasures, so you either have to kill them, drive them away, or appropriate them into your culture. Only the latter is stable. You have to re-bind them under a common origin story.
Re-read the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible) in this light: Cain and Abel, the farmer and the hunter, where the farmer slew the hunter and was then expelled from Eden to till the soil. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, and their interaction with, and assimilation under, the great agricultural civilization of Egypt. Their independence under Moses, the conquest of Canaan, and eventual creation of an Israelite Kingdom. It's all there.
Villages give way to city-states, which give way to kingdoms, which give way to empires, which give way to nation-states. Every increase in scope requires a new organizational structure, and a new re-binding under some kind of common origin story.
Catholic (universal) Christianity was the great binding story of the late Roman Empire, and as that empire split between East and West in decades after Constantine, the Catholic story broke into the Roman and Orthodox varieties. The Roman Church church grew deeply corrupt as the remains of the Western Empire fell and then rebuilt, and was challenged repeatedly by "heresies" -- many (all?) of which were reform efforts targeting the overt corruption of the Church. The Protestant Heresy successfully broke off in the 16th and 17th centuries, and created an entirely new model of belonging, with allegiance to "individual conscience" carrying an equal stature to the Word of God and the Authority of the Church, enabling the creation of an increasingly technological/economic/secular society.
The United States -- post-1776 -- was one of those secular societies, and one of the first European societies (I believe) to prohibit religion as a basis for governance. It was aided in this by the utterly fragmentary nature of Protestantism, owing to its elevation of individual conscience. In the US, diverse religions sprang up like weeds: Mormonism; Christian Science; Theosophy; Fundamentalism(s). None recognized any contrary religious authority. None had secular authority to force acceptance of its own religious authority.
So what did the US do to re-bind its individual elements, and tribes, and religions? I think it's this word, "Liberty," which only has meaning in the context of its antonym, "Tyranny."
"Tyranny" was the iron hand of the Roman Empire. It was the brutal corruption of the Roman Church. It was the petty squabbles of all the European Monarchs, and most notably, the Damned British Empire. When the Leninists decided to create a worker's paradise based on a totalitarian model, it was the Damned Communists. And then, of course, the Damned Nazis.
Since 1991, when the Damned Soviet Union fell, what Tyranny are we fighting? What binds us as a people? What ARE we, in the absences of either a coherent religion, or a nation seeking Liberty in the face of Tyranny?
I think what is happening right now is EXTREMELY deep.
Like the search for a theme that connects. It may be that we are in the throughs of defining what connects us in this individualistic, you make it yourself, I am not my neighbors keeper secular society.
What religion could they possibly espouse? They aren’t interested in healing the sick, housing the homeless or feeding the hungry. It seems their religion is bound by guns…
And the grandest of all is power, such are all the false Gods that most religion’s commandments warn against. God is nothing more than force field of energy created by each of us loving each other. “Thou shalt have no other God”. How to prevent people from using their false Gods to destroy each other and our home is the answer we need and quickly.
Interestingly enough, I've seen an argument that the closest actual religion to the Republican viewpoint is Satanism. By which I mean the modern (late 1960's), Anton LaVey, worship of Satan.
Key tenets of LaVey's Satanism are: selfishness, material success, whatever-it-takes determination, rejection of "mushy" moral precepts, cleverness, personal power, the list goes on....
Democrat Beto O’Rourke, onetime presidential candidate, announces bid for governor in Texas
The 49-year-old O’Rourke, who nearly ousted Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) in 2018, made the announcement in a video. The Democrat is hoping to capture the governorship held by Republican Greg Abbott in the GOP-leaning state.
I heard Beto speak when he was running against Cruz. He visited EVERY county in this state and met (literally spent HOURS) with people of every party. I sat in our little theater, with an overflow crowd (over 300) right next to a GOP friend (she was and is not a trumplican) and she told me she would definitely vote for him. He made a great showing and scared the bejeezus out of Cancun Cruz. If you don't live in Texas, you might be unaware of how deeply respected Beto is and how deep his supportive "base" is. It comprises people from every walk of life and various parties and religions. Don't underestimate him. Support him AND Matthew Dowd for Lieutenant Governor.
Add in the fact that he helped organize a phone bank to contact senior citizens during the February freeze, making sure that they were connected with resources to help them during that scary 10+ days.
He does need to work on his recorded comments about 'coming for the guns', though. That is going to be spun HARD against him. For the record, I am definitely for deep background checks and safety precautions prior to being able to acquire a weapon.
Thanks, Ellen, That's encouraging. I live in PA, so can't vote for him, but an ex-girlfriend who now lives in Humble north of Houston would certainly vote for Beto. From what I had gathered from when he ran against nasty Cruz, the national Democratic elite didn't seem to have given him much support. I wish him much success, but the way the GOP has gerimandered the voting districts into being white dominated in a state that has a large brown and other minority population, it will be difficult. I hope the national Dems truly work to get him elected.
The Senate recently introduced the Freedom to Vote Act, a revised version of the For the People Act, to protect Americans freedom to vote in each and every election.
With state lawmakers introducing more than 500 voter suppression bills to make it harder to get registered and cast our ballots, passing federal voting rights legislation is the single most important thing we can do to protect access to the ballot box.
The Freedom to Vote Act incorporates key measures that are urgently needed, including automatic voter registration, protecting and expanding vote by mail, and other steps to modernize our elections and protect the right to free and fair elections for all. This bill is just one step we need to take to ensure every American can make their voices heard in our elections, especially Black, Brown and young voters, and voters with disabilities, who are disproportionately impacted by voter suppression laws.
Among other things, the Freedom to Vote Act will:
Allow for same day voter registration,
Establish automatic voter registration,
Protect and expand access to voting by mail,
Establish 15 days of early voting, including at least two weekends,
Restore voting rights to individuals who have been previously incarcerated,
Prevent partisan gerrymandering, and
Protect against voter intimidation.
TAKE ACTION — CONTACT YOUR MEMBERS OF CONGRESS NOW
That's good. I encourage you in your effort to get Beto elected. He certainly might be far better than any Texas governor in recent history. "Hope is a thing with feathers."
This atheist thinks we’re headed into territory never seen before. These Republican traitors are poisoning the well all of us depend on for health and well-being.
They are indeed. No one in MSM calls them a cult, which they truly are. People keep looking for logic in a cult. Nobody seems to remember Jim Jones, or David Koresh. Chumps take down will be the best ever. His putrid ego will accept nothing less.
The last section of this letter explains the essential difference between us and them. We support successful efforts of a president of any party if those efforts sincerely lead to human betterment. When 45 announced "Operation Warpspeed" to find a vaccine for Covid I applauded. When 45 announced the withdrawal from Afghanistan, I applauded. Not the timing or the manner...but the idea.
I hated and condemned almost every other utterance from him (it). But when a leader leads properly, we are apt to support him.
Republicans are anti-anything that a Democrat might get credit for - even if it was an idea that they had created themselves. Obamacare was modeled on Romneycare in our state. It worked. Highly popular. Add Obama's name and it became bad. Infrastructure was a pitch from 45 and now it is a bad thing because...
The hypocrisy is almost as stunning as the obvious stupidity of it all.
The entire locus of the Republican party is cognitive dissonance based on hating and fearing the other. Democrats, non-Christians, people of color, immigrants, foreigners, etc.
And then they get those diehard Republicans from birth that think they know everything about life as long as it adds to their purse to agree with Fox News. Their American Dream! This greatest dream is to hate all Democrats! And never work with Democrats on anything big or small even if it is for the better good!
Trump never followed through with anything as he did prior in his life as President. He has always looked for the easy buck! I wonder how much Putin put in his personal pocket!
At this point, the Republican party is happy to destroy the country - even get a million people killed by a pandemic - as long as it improve their chances at power over whatever is left.
And President Biden is continuing to build The Wall. An idea I opposed but that turned out to at least be an attempt at resolving the issues at the southern border.
It would be more effective to pass a national, mandatory E-Verify. That would slow the floods of people crossing the border to a trickle. But a wall is better than nothing. Too many low/no-skilled workers boost unemployment and reduce wages--which is why business has always favored mass immigration, and at this point, our country is environmentally unsustainable, and global warming is making it more so. In the next couple of decades Americans--especially those in California and other parts of the west, will become climate refugees https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/09/15/magazine/climate-crisis-migration-america.html
Is it too much to ask Democrats to raise hell and launch a media blitz about the danger posed by Republicans blocking what should be routine confirmations of NATO and EU ambassadors? After all, Putin's last intrusion into Ukraine was likely a warmup for something bigger and more perilous. Then again, would the media pay attention?
At least the House and Senate are in session this week after leaving town last week. And then it's another vacation next week. Not that there's any other important business at hand, like stopping an ongoing coup and saving democracy.
Real leaders would look at the never-break-a-sweat Congressional Calendar and make some adjustments, holidays be damned.
We don’t have real leaders. The people in Congress are panderers who follow what they think their base wants. Colin Powell once said that a real leader often has to piss people off. The idjts in government at all levels are not leaders.
"Is it too much to ask Democrats to raise hell and launch a media blitz about the danger posed by Republicans blocking what should be routine confirmations of NATO and EU ambassadors?"
Is it too much to ask Democratic voters to raise hell with their Senators?
Cruz and Cornyn my Senators, Granger my Rep. a more evil trio there never was. No billionaire me, my school counselor retirement can’t donate enough, but I will keep on plugging. Dems need to read Frank Luntz’ recommendations to republicans. Words matter, but apparently they must be screamed from the rooftops. Rupert does it for Republicans, still paying back Ronnie for his largesse and for making him the power behind the throne(s). W/Dickie know what I mean…
Unlike you, my personal nationally elected officials are Merkley, Wyden, and DeFazio; all of them are absolutely on board with Biden and his administration. I let them know that I appreciate them on a monthly basis.
I prevail upon all of us to view every effort, as of late, to upend our cherished American experiment, its flaws notwithstanding, as an initiative driven by a relatively small minority that has become very vocal. Surely, our Founders never intended the creation of congressional or county district gerrymandering wherein an entire voting bloc could be of one opinion and not have to compromise on their candidate nor even have to participate. Neither could they imagine a 50-50 Senate wherein 50 Republican Senators would represent 41 million fewer Americans than the 50 Democratic Senators or an electoral college wherein Republicans would win the popular vote only once in the past 32 years, despite having won 4 presidential elections since 1988.
As a final point, it’s worth noting that celebrated radio show host and activist Joe Madison is entering his 6th day of a fast that will not end until Congress passes either the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act or the Freedom to Vote Act. In Madison’s own words: “When history is written 50 years from now, or 25 years from now, I don’t want my children…and our children shouldn’t have to say, ‘What did you all do to protect our voting rights’”?
I think the operative word is 'experiment.' The Founders were men of the Enlightenment who understood the scientific method and essentially introduced it to government procedures. Provisional truths and contextual interpretations Not hidebound eternal 'truths' and monolithic/unilateral directives.
Thanks - it's a very chilling picture. Why the Democrats can't get the moxie to repudiate the Rethug activity, I fail to understand. Where's Warren Buffet's contribution (to counter the Koch and Mercer (and other) funding? Others?
Are there any younger billionaires who weren’t raised in the “me, me, me, what’s in it for me?” generation and are willing to speak out to preserve our democracy?
I love reading your pieces. There is such a depth of knowledge that reading you becomes an education for me, trying to understand the United States. Please keep writing, and having the odd rest day, too!
Basta! Enough already. We are losing our democracy and it’s past time for everyone, not just us on this forum, to start defending it. As David Pepper says in his great book, “Laboratories of Autocracy, a Wake Up Call from Behind the Lines”, Madison and the founders created a firewall, a commitment to “guarantee to every state in the Union a Republican form of government “ (Republican meaning government by the people, not a few powerful). It’s time for Congress to pass the 2 voting rights bills. It’s time for all media…..newspapers, TV, even 60 Minutes to start telling everyone how dangerous these people are and warn their viewers of what’s really happening. Its time to stop saying the sky is falling because of inflation and the shortages in the stores and start saying the sky is falling because the autocrats are taking over the country. It’s time for lots of news stories reminding everyone of what happened in Nazi Germany, and now Hungary and Belarus and warning everyone that it’s happening here. It’s time to invoke that “Guarantee Clause” that the founders gave us.
James Madison continues to be our touchstone and a guide as we sort out how America moves in and out of the Constitution and away from Democracy
'The U.S. Constitution was an exercise in intelligent design. The Founding Fathers knew that most previous democracies had been unstable and short-lived. But they were excellent psychologists, and they strove to create institutions and procedures that would work with human nature to resist the forces that had torn apart so many other attempts at self-governance.'
'For example, in “Federalist No. 10,” James Madison wrote about his fear of the power of “faction,” by which he meant strong partisanship or group interest that “inflamed [men] with mutual animosity” and made them forget about the common good. He thought that the vastness of the United States might offer some protection from the ravages of factionalism, because it would be hard for anyone to spread outrage over such a large distance. Madison presumed that factious or divisive leaders “may kindle a flame within their particular States, but will be unable to spread a general conflagration through the other States.” The Constitution included mechanisms to slow things down, let passions cool, and encourage reflection and deliberation.'
'Madison’s design has proved durable. But what would happen to American democracy if, one day in the early 21st century, a technology appeared that—over the course of a decade—changed several fundamental parameters of social and political life? What if this technology greatly increased the amount of “mutual animosity” and the speed at which outrage spread? Might we witness the political equivalent of buildings collapsing, birds falling from the sky, and the Earth moving closer to the sun?'
'America may be going through such a time right now.'
'In other words, social media turns many of our most politically engaged citizens into Madison’s nightmare: arsonists who compete to create the most inflammatory posts and images, which they can distribute across the country in an instant while their public sociometer displays how far their creations have traveled.'
“If you actually want to find the truth—if you’re a scientist or if you’re working at, say, the Defense Intelligence Agency, where your job is really to find the truth—you have to overcome each person’s preferred way of thinking, which is, find evidence for why I am right,” he replied. “You have to overcome that, and the only known way to overcome confirmation bias is with other people. There’s been research trying to train people to question their assumptions. Nobody’s found a way. It’s very hard to train people to do that. The only way to do it is to have someone who doesn’t share your confirmation bias engage with you. That’s why the Catholic Church created the devil’s advocate. They literally said, ‘Your job is to find reasons why we’re wrong.’”
“The relationship matters more than the message. That’s why a university, especially one that includes a diversity of viewpoints, can be so powerful—because you cultivate these relationships within a community that says our job is not to win, our job is to learn. That’s why the internet.... the worst places for this, because you don’t have relationships and people are trying to show how smart they are. They’re trying to show how devoted they are to their team. So the kind of political engagement, the kind of public square that we get from social media, is generally terrible.'
“Does anyone really think we are going to win people over by insulting them and spouting hatred toward them?” he added. “Or are we going to win them over by listening, one on one, as individuals, human to human, American to American?”
The thoughts expressed are those of Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist at the New York University Stern School of Business. He is the author of The Righteous Mind and the co-author of The Coddling of the American Mind, The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom. His main areas of study are the psychology of morality and moral emotions.
As we examine the divisions in America and the county's shaky relationship with Democracy on the forum, I will sometimes bring Jonathan Haidt with me. These subjects have been at the forefront of his learning, writing and teaching
Thank you Fern. I much appreciate your sharing of your reading and understanding in these commentaries.
Ironically my first thought as I read your Johnathan Haight quote was to forward it to a friend who I was disagreeing with to show him how his wrong thinking came to be and to “… offer evidence of why I am right.”
To paraphrase the end of your quote, “developing my empathy and listening skills may have much more effect.”
The Madison, soon to be canceled, would have been horrified by the cabal known as the Russian hoax. Nice little faction where just about everyone in the progressive press, Clinton campaign and the intelligence services were in on it. You bring up a good point. It is happening in such a way now that when it happens we are no longer shocked.
Very interesting, thank you. My first thought was how churchs are now being taken over to spread political propaganda. A place where people feel united and feel they know and trust the church staff for guidence. Seems Republicans figured out what a great place they are for manipulating political thought.
Kathy, To inform subscribers, 'The Righteous Mind' by Jonathan Haidt, the 'bestseller that challenges conventional thinking about morality, politics, and religion in a way that speaks to conservatives and liberals alike'—a “landmark contribution to humanity’s understanding of itself” (The New York Times Book Review).
Flynn, the lying weasel that he is, attempted to deny that he made such as statement about an all-Christian nationalist nation, but of course, his ugly statement was recorded.
Traitor Flynn's attempt to dehuminize and delegitimize millions of Americans who don't practice Christianity, or, in this case, Christian triumphalism, is not a new phenomenon in this country, and fits in perfectly with Trump's various schemes to accomplish the same smoke and mirrors act during his presidency and his Big Lie afterwards; in fact, I see a pattern between Trump's increasing legal jeopardy and the rising extremism and violence in much of the country (thanks to your newsletter), from religion to school boards, to name but a few.
A quote that is attributed to Ghandi sticks with me: "I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."
While I don't practice any religion, I am acquainted with wonderful people who are, and their fight for social justice is ongoing and transformative.
In my conversations with evangelical christians, (I live in Missouri, they’re everywhere,) I tell them to ‘try not to be a Christian that makes Jesus weep.’ It makes them think for a minute.
BTW, I live a deeply spiritual life; just don’t care for organized religion.
Well, well, Judas Flynn, which ones of the over 200 Christian denominations that exist in the US alone will you find acceptable and which will you eliminate at the altar of your man-made God? Surely, knowing you and your bigoted consiglieri, you will not find all of them acceptable, especially those who welcome the inclusion of our BIPOC and LGBTQIA kin in their congregations and to positions of leadership. So, will some be more "Christian" than others?
Will the people attending church shun the person in the pew next to them because they are a different political party or race? We know if Black families (for example) started attending an all white church they would put on a face during service then walk outside and treat that same family with all the racial prejudice in their hearts. You could apply that to political party of level of wealth. I don’t attend church anymore for these very reasons. People aren’t there to uphold God’s word. They go to appease their conscience. I know this doesn’t include everyone but I’ve seen it happen repeatedly. My sister talks about her small church in her small town in Maine and it’s never about God. None of it is good, even from the stream of pastors that come and go.
General Flynn has gone completely off the deep end. Between his assertion of the vaccine requirements being an "infringement" of liberty and the "one nation under God under one religion" he is the poster child for this abhorrent idea of "government".
What scares me most is this:
"But, as Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) pointed out this morning, “Senate Republicans are blocking the confirmation of our NATO and EU Ambassadors so as to deliberately hamper global security…because they believe global instability will hurt Biden, and hurting Biden is all that matters.”"
We have one elected party that is motivated simply to confound the duly elected President and is completely abdicating its responsibility. We have a substantial percentage of our country that sees nothing wrong with this. This is terrifying.
There isn't much good news politically these days, is there? And meanwhile, I saw over the weekend that Pastor John Hagee's megachurch was heartily screeching out "Let's go, Brandon" on Sunday...........and the chants were being led from the pulpit.
Good heavens. That's appalling. And when those sweet little children look up at mommy and daddy (since there will be no mommy and mommy or daddy and daddy families in attendance) and ask what that means, well...
How can such a blatant TRAITOR, such as a 3-star general still be walking free in the United States to foment attacks on established tenets of our Constitution? How can he be free to consort with enemies of the United States? IDK how officers are governed. I know they are different than us enlisted ranks, but when I left the U.S. Air Force as an E-4 in 1967, I had worked with Top Secret information at NSA and had travel restrictions for that. I assume Ex-General Flynn had access to more useful classified information for his dinner buddy (and possible patron) Vladimir Putin. Benedict Arnold escaped to Canada & England. If the U.S. government can’t reign in this Qanon conspiracy theorist, Russian Television propaganda whore, I at least hope to see Michael Flynn become a fugitive living in infamy in Russia.
On the irrelevant side, he has so thoroughly debased himself that he is in the unenviable position of having to take more and more outlandish positions in order to get continued attention. Even in the case of ultimate Republican triumph he would assume at best the role of useful idiot.
But he is symptomatic of a kind of mad energy from the Right that is purposeful and I fear will be effective in the long run. Somehow, even granting the fact that all branches of government save the Supreme Court are nominally in Democratic control, it is they who are always on the defensive. The Republicans attack, attack, attack. They own the news cycle.
They are the faction of constant outrage. Each crazy act they promulgate promotes another group to imitate it or go further. They are a firehouse of clickbait for the nation to drink from constantly. Michael Flynn flows from that stream.
The Democrats are, rather desperately I fear, trying to be the model of restraint and sanity and good government. They chase their tails in order to avoid being caught in even the mildest imprudent action that will be hurled back at them a thousand times in whataboutism attacks by the Right. The media, too, is complicit. Fox and and their ilk we take for granted, but the MSM feeds the fire, piling on to an absurd extent for example over the mistakes made in the heat of the withdrawal from Afghanistan. They too are becoming the cats paw of the Right, slavishly and unsuccessfully trying to prove their evenhandedness.
We are in the position of death by a thousand cuts. Gerrymandering is the topic du jour in today’s NYT. A while back it was the unprecedented abortion law in Texas. The Kyle Rittenhouse trial is a forum for national outrage on the Right. Who could not be moved by the tears of a baby-faced killer?
There is always something to shock. Something to edge Republicans nearer and nearer to regaining power. Something to push the Right into the news and the Democrats into the background. If one is quite objective, the answer to “Who ‘won’ the anime assassination event”? is quite clear. The Democrats were wrong-footed again. It is ever thus in a land where bread and circuses only matter.
Joe Biden? He’s become the dad who won’t let his 18 year old have the car keys and be free to run amok. He’s a spoilsport and ineffective at that - it seems clear that he is being vested by President Manchin.
But there is hope. And it doesn’t lie in today’s news that O’Rourke will contest Abbott for the governorship of Texas. Poor Beto is beginning to have the air of a Don Quixote tilting at windmills.
The hope lies in what started out as a pebble in the Republican shoe. This would be that pesky House Committee taking seriously their remit to investigate 1/6. They are beginning to gain momentum, and if things break well for them, they could vaporize much of the Right’s clear momentum. This would be a feat for the history books. Saving democracy would be a giant leap forward from the trash pile of clickbait we are currently enduring.
A favorite quote from “Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life” by Anne Lamott
“…my priest friend Tom […] said you can safely assume you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.”
Wow.
I find it so interesting that is how I view most religion.
So many things man has created has brought nothing but misery and sorrow that at times my heart gets so heavy I feel like it is full of tears that are yet to be shed and it's sinking from the weight of it.
But then I step back and look at the people in my life and realize that there are good people out there and there is hope.
All too many wars have been fought over religion! What happened to ‘Thous shall not kill!’ Or ‘Love thy neighbor…’!
Love that book and the quote!
Yes! Jan…read long ago. An admired writer. ❤️🤍💙
One of the things I love about the Old Testament is that it is a very well-preserved document that goes all the way back to early tribal mythologies of the origin of the world, and documents much of the transition from band hunter-gatherers, through pastoralists, through agriculturalists, through kingdom and empire building.
There was a book by Reay Tannahill, years ago, titled Sex In History. It was a fascinating read, but the overall impression I gained from reading it is that traditional American views on sex are historically-atypical and grotesque perversions of the rather more commonsense views and practices of sex throughout history -- and most startling of all is our complete ignorance of how unnatural and perverse our views are.
It's much the same with religion. The chief clue, in my mind, is in the Roman Latin word for religion, religio, which derives from the root we use as ligament, and could (in my mind, at least) be viewed as "re-binding."
Consider: among band hunter/gatherers, the band is the family. Simple. Intimate. Co-dependent for survival. There are origin stories that vary from band to band, but are passed down in a context of simple survival needs. There rules that vary for trading men and women to other bands, to prevent inbreeding, ranging from trade to warfare. This model moves fairly well into pastoral societies, which herd, but are generally migratory. But as soon as you form an agricultural society, you are stuck in one place. You have to become more militant to defend the land, and then you end up attracting other bands and tribes that are starving because they have become too populous and have stripped Eden of its treasures, so you either have to kill them, drive them away, or appropriate them into your culture. Only the latter is stable. You have to re-bind them under a common origin story.
Re-read the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible) in this light: Cain and Abel, the farmer and the hunter, where the farmer slew the hunter and was then expelled from Eden to till the soil. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, and their interaction with, and assimilation under, the great agricultural civilization of Egypt. Their independence under Moses, the conquest of Canaan, and eventual creation of an Israelite Kingdom. It's all there.
Villages give way to city-states, which give way to kingdoms, which give way to empires, which give way to nation-states. Every increase in scope requires a new organizational structure, and a new re-binding under some kind of common origin story.
Catholic (universal) Christianity was the great binding story of the late Roman Empire, and as that empire split between East and West in decades after Constantine, the Catholic story broke into the Roman and Orthodox varieties. The Roman Church church grew deeply corrupt as the remains of the Western Empire fell and then rebuilt, and was challenged repeatedly by "heresies" -- many (all?) of which were reform efforts targeting the overt corruption of the Church. The Protestant Heresy successfully broke off in the 16th and 17th centuries, and created an entirely new model of belonging, with allegiance to "individual conscience" carrying an equal stature to the Word of God and the Authority of the Church, enabling the creation of an increasingly technological/economic/secular society.
The United States -- post-1776 -- was one of those secular societies, and one of the first European societies (I believe) to prohibit religion as a basis for governance. It was aided in this by the utterly fragmentary nature of Protestantism, owing to its elevation of individual conscience. In the US, diverse religions sprang up like weeds: Mormonism; Christian Science; Theosophy; Fundamentalism(s). None recognized any contrary religious authority. None had secular authority to force acceptance of its own religious authority.
So what did the US do to re-bind its individual elements, and tribes, and religions? I think it's this word, "Liberty," which only has meaning in the context of its antonym, "Tyranny."
"Tyranny" was the iron hand of the Roman Empire. It was the brutal corruption of the Roman Church. It was the petty squabbles of all the European Monarchs, and most notably, the Damned British Empire. When the Leninists decided to create a worker's paradise based on a totalitarian model, it was the Damned Communists. And then, of course, the Damned Nazis.
Since 1991, when the Damned Soviet Union fell, what Tyranny are we fighting? What binds us as a people? What ARE we, in the absences of either a coherent religion, or a nation seeking Liberty in the face of Tyranny?
I think what is happening right now is EXTREMELY deep.
Like the search for a theme that connects. It may be that we are in the throughs of defining what connects us in this individualistic, you make it yourself, I am not my neighbors keeper secular society.
What wills bind us in the face of Tyranny might be a wish for freedom from the tyranny of the tech revolution and its surveillance capitalism.
Yes, indeed. I must share this as a reminders to myself about my own penchant for conviction of the crime of equating my opinion for truth.
What religion could they possibly espouse? They aren’t interested in healing the sick, housing the homeless or feeding the hungry. It seems their religion is bound by guns…
Money is a religion now, too.
Moved away from KS, not sorry.
Has always been. “Le veau d’or” from Gounod’s Faust based on the story from Goethe. Start about a minute in. https://youtu.be/xRuGNal1ie0
Yup, perfect. The irony. Money is the religion. Strike down Citizen’s United.
Not money. Power. But they are cousins in a capitalist system.
Siamese Twins
Satan leads the dance!
The party of god, guns, and greed
And the grandest of all is power, such are all the false Gods that most religion’s commandments warn against. God is nothing more than force field of energy created by each of us loving each other. “Thou shalt have no other God”. How to prevent people from using their false Gods to destroy each other and our home is the answer we need and quickly.
The religion of the mafia.
...which consists of tyrants, dictators and and traitors to anything decent.
Interestingly enough, I've seen an argument that the closest actual religion to the Republican viewpoint is Satanism. By which I mean the modern (late 1960's), Anton LaVey, worship of Satan.
Key tenets of LaVey's Satanism are: selfishness, material success, whatever-it-takes determination, rejection of "mushy" moral precepts, cleverness, personal power, the list goes on....
VERY GOOD BREAKING NEWS in the Washington Post:
Democrat Beto O’Rourke, onetime presidential candidate, announces bid for governor in Texas
The 49-year-old O’Rourke, who nearly ousted Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) in 2018, made the announcement in a video. The Democrat is hoping to capture the governorship held by Republican Greg Abbott in the GOP-leaning state.
And I intend to do everything I can from my State outside Texas to see O'Rourke elected.
I heard Beto speak when he was running against Cruz. He visited EVERY county in this state and met (literally spent HOURS) with people of every party. I sat in our little theater, with an overflow crowd (over 300) right next to a GOP friend (she was and is not a trumplican) and she told me she would definitely vote for him. He made a great showing and scared the bejeezus out of Cancun Cruz. If you don't live in Texas, you might be unaware of how deeply respected Beto is and how deep his supportive "base" is. It comprises people from every walk of life and various parties and religions. Don't underestimate him. Support him AND Matthew Dowd for Lieutenant Governor.
National voting rights bills must be passed.
Yes Please! GA just approved gerrymandered map giving GOP 59% of seats Biden won with 49.5%. https://twitter.com/AriBerman/status/1460279786081820676?s=20
We need a decision from the Supreem Court
… that over rides State gerrymandering
Add in the fact that he helped organize a phone bank to contact senior citizens during the February freeze, making sure that they were connected with resources to help them during that scary 10+ days.
He does need to work on his recorded comments about 'coming for the guns', though. That is going to be spun HARD against him. For the record, I am definitely for deep background checks and safety precautions prior to being able to acquire a weapon.
Thanks, Ellen, That's encouraging. I live in PA, so can't vote for him, but an ex-girlfriend who now lives in Humble north of Houston would certainly vote for Beto. From what I had gathered from when he ran against nasty Cruz, the national Democratic elite didn't seem to have given him much support. I wish him much success, but the way the GOP has gerimandered the voting districts into being white dominated in a state that has a large brown and other minority population, it will be difficult. I hope the national Dems truly work to get him elected.
The Senate recently introduced the Freedom to Vote Act, a revised version of the For the People Act, to protect Americans freedom to vote in each and every election.
With state lawmakers introducing more than 500 voter suppression bills to make it harder to get registered and cast our ballots, passing federal voting rights legislation is the single most important thing we can do to protect access to the ballot box.
The Freedom to Vote Act incorporates key measures that are urgently needed, including automatic voter registration, protecting and expanding vote by mail, and other steps to modernize our elections and protect the right to free and fair elections for all. This bill is just one step we need to take to ensure every American can make their voices heard in our elections, especially Black, Brown and young voters, and voters with disabilities, who are disproportionately impacted by voter suppression laws.
Among other things, the Freedom to Vote Act will:
Allow for same day voter registration,
Establish automatic voter registration,
Protect and expand access to voting by mail,
Establish 15 days of early voting, including at least two weekends,
Restore voting rights to individuals who have been previously incarcerated,
Prevent partisan gerrymandering, and
Protect against voter intimidation.
TAKE ACTION — CONTACT YOUR MEMBERS OF CONGRESS NOW
https://whenweallvote.org/action/freedom-to-vote-act/
Thanks for the info.
Good to hear from you Mike and hope to learn how your son is doing from time to time. Cheers!
Yup! 💃 I've already sent a donation and will do so again when I've got some to spare!
Me too! I have also registered with his campaign.
That's great, Barbara!
We are with Texas on this!
I doubt that Beto will win.
Thankfully, I doubt you'll discourage us.
That's good. I encourage you in your effort to get Beto elected. He certainly might be far better than any Texas governor in recent history. "Hope is a thing with feathers."
Appears we are plenty encouraged from top to bottom.
He just announced a few hours ago. Lets give the man a chance.
I'm fine with him running, but I just wrote my opinion about his chances.
He just announced. Lets see how things evolve. Amazing thing how much can happen so quickly.
I believe kick off support and positivity is important.
I agree.
I just saw this, and couldn't be happier!
This atheist thinks we’re headed into territory never seen before. These Republican traitors are poisoning the well all of us depend on for health and well-being.
They are indeed. No one in MSM calls them a cult, which they truly are. People keep looking for logic in a cult. Nobody seems to remember Jim Jones, or David Koresh. Chumps take down will be the best ever. His putrid ego will accept nothing less.
Cult is an accurate descriptor.
The last section of this letter explains the essential difference between us and them. We support successful efforts of a president of any party if those efforts sincerely lead to human betterment. When 45 announced "Operation Warpspeed" to find a vaccine for Covid I applauded. When 45 announced the withdrawal from Afghanistan, I applauded. Not the timing or the manner...but the idea.
I hated and condemned almost every other utterance from him (it). But when a leader leads properly, we are apt to support him.
Republicans are anti-anything that a Democrat might get credit for - even if it was an idea that they had created themselves. Obamacare was modeled on Romneycare in our state. It worked. Highly popular. Add Obama's name and it became bad. Infrastructure was a pitch from 45 and now it is a bad thing because...
The hypocrisy is almost as stunning as the obvious stupidity of it all.
The entire locus of the Republican party is cognitive dissonance based on hating and fearing the other. Democrats, non-Christians, people of color, immigrants, foreigners, etc.
And then they get those diehard Republicans from birth that think they know everything about life as long as it adds to their purse to agree with Fox News. Their American Dream! This greatest dream is to hate all Democrats! And never work with Democrats on anything big or small even if it is for the better good!
Ban the Murdochs. Strip them of their business and citizenship.
Strategy straight from the fascist's playbook..
Trump never followed through with anything as he did prior in his life as President. He has always looked for the easy buck! I wonder how much Putin put in his personal pocket!
I wonder how much he's in debt to Putin.
At this point, the Republican party is happy to destroy the country - even get a million people killed by a pandemic - as long as it improve their chances at power over whatever is left.
That was the same reaction when it was Stacey Abrams who said the voting rights bill content was great.
And President Biden is continuing to build The Wall. An idea I opposed but that turned out to at least be an attempt at resolving the issues at the southern border.
https://www.npr.org/2021/10/05/1043458068/biden-promised-to-halt-building-trumps-border-wall-but-new-construction-has-begu
It would be more effective to pass a national, mandatory E-Verify. That would slow the floods of people crossing the border to a trickle. But a wall is better than nothing. Too many low/no-skilled workers boost unemployment and reduce wages--which is why business has always favored mass immigration, and at this point, our country is environmentally unsustainable, and global warming is making it more so. In the next couple of decades Americans--especially those in California and other parts of the west, will become climate refugees https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/09/15/magazine/climate-crisis-migration-america.html
Is it too much to ask Democrats to raise hell and launch a media blitz about the danger posed by Republicans blocking what should be routine confirmations of NATO and EU ambassadors? After all, Putin's last intrusion into Ukraine was likely a warmup for something bigger and more perilous. Then again, would the media pay attention?
At least the House and Senate are in session this week after leaving town last week. And then it's another vacation next week. Not that there's any other important business at hand, like stopping an ongoing coup and saving democracy.
Real leaders would look at the never-break-a-sweat Congressional Calendar and make some adjustments, holidays be damned.
We don’t have real leaders. The people in Congress are panderers who follow what they think their base wants. Colin Powell once said that a real leader often has to piss people off. The idjts in government at all levels are not leaders.
Quoting HCR, "…because they believe global instability will hurt Biden, and hurting Biden is all that matters.”
They have made that crystal clear, the American people be damned
1. Who owns the media?
2. It’s almost never worked in modern Dems favor because: see #1
Oligarchs such as Bezos who owns the Washington Post.
"Is it too much to ask Democrats to raise hell and launch a media blitz about the danger posed by Republicans blocking what should be routine confirmations of NATO and EU ambassadors?"
Is it too much to ask Democratic voters to raise hell with their Senators?
Cruz and Cornyn my Senators, Granger my Rep. a more evil trio there never was. No billionaire me, my school counselor retirement can’t donate enough, but I will keep on plugging. Dems need to read Frank Luntz’ recommendations to republicans. Words matter, but apparently they must be screamed from the rooftops. Rupert does it for Republicans, still paying back Ronnie for his largesse and for making him the power behind the throne(s). W/Dickie know what I mean…
Unlike you, my personal nationally elected officials are Merkley, Wyden, and DeFazio; all of them are absolutely on board with Biden and his administration. I let them know that I appreciate them on a monthly basis.
Here's the 2021 calendar: https://www.nab.org/documents/advocacy/2021CongressionalCalendar.pdf
So our, ahem, representatives of Democracy will work an exhausting EIGHT DAYS in the month of December? Shame on both parties...
And the clock ticks…
Wow! Practically THREE MONTHS OFF per year! No wonder… so many “no wonders!”
Mammon.....
Had to Google that, debasing influence of material wealth. Have to add the the taste of absolute power
I prevail upon all of us to view every effort, as of late, to upend our cherished American experiment, its flaws notwithstanding, as an initiative driven by a relatively small minority that has become very vocal. Surely, our Founders never intended the creation of congressional or county district gerrymandering wherein an entire voting bloc could be of one opinion and not have to compromise on their candidate nor even have to participate. Neither could they imagine a 50-50 Senate wherein 50 Republican Senators would represent 41 million fewer Americans than the 50 Democratic Senators or an electoral college wherein Republicans would win the popular vote only once in the past 32 years, despite having won 4 presidential elections since 1988.
As a final point, it’s worth noting that celebrated radio show host and activist Joe Madison is entering his 6th day of a fast that will not end until Congress passes either the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act or the Freedom to Vote Act. In Madison’s own words: “When history is written 50 years from now, or 25 years from now, I don’t want my children…and our children shouldn’t have to say, ‘What did you all do to protect our voting rights’”?
“All the authorities on American democracy who spoke to the Guardian were united about the urgency of the moment. New protections need to be put in place, right now, or else the nation will enter the 2024 presidential election cycle with its democratic structures already bloodied and vulnerable to further attack.” https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/nov/14/trump-president-2024-election-coup-republicans?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
Today
I think the operative word is 'experiment.' The Founders were men of the Enlightenment who understood the scientific method and essentially introduced it to government procedures. Provisional truths and contextual interpretations Not hidebound eternal 'truths' and monolithic/unilateral directives.
You packed a lot of punch into not a lot of words, Barbara Jo.
Link to Joe Madison?
Link to this?
Thanks - it's a very chilling picture. Why the Democrats can't get the moxie to repudiate the Rethug activity, I fail to understand. Where's Warren Buffet's contribution (to counter the Koch and Mercer (and other) funding? Others?
Surely, Dems have a few billionaires. My retirement salary won’t hack it.
Mine neither. Darn. : )
Warren Buffett is 91-years old and his billionaire, Berkshire colleague, Charles Munger, is 97. It's time for the younger billionaires to speak out.
Are there any younger billionaires who weren’t raised in the “me, me, me, what’s in it for me?” generation and are willing to speak out to preserve our democracy?
https://news.yahoo.com/amphtml/radio-host-says-going-hunger-183037605.html
Thank you Barbara Joe!!! I Hope EVERYONE here reads This!!!😊
I Always Share these Letters from Dr.Richardson to Facebook.
I love reading your pieces. There is such a depth of knowledge that reading you becomes an education for me, trying to understand the United States. Please keep writing, and having the odd rest day, too!
Hear, hear, Mr. Eccles!
(Yup, that's the correct usage of “hear, hear.” Interesting, right?)
Most interesting…
Basta! Enough already. We are losing our democracy and it’s past time for everyone, not just us on this forum, to start defending it. As David Pepper says in his great book, “Laboratories of Autocracy, a Wake Up Call from Behind the Lines”, Madison and the founders created a firewall, a commitment to “guarantee to every state in the Union a Republican form of government “ (Republican meaning government by the people, not a few powerful). It’s time for Congress to pass the 2 voting rights bills. It’s time for all media…..newspapers, TV, even 60 Minutes to start telling everyone how dangerous these people are and warn their viewers of what’s really happening. Its time to stop saying the sky is falling because of inflation and the shortages in the stores and start saying the sky is falling because the autocrats are taking over the country. It’s time for lots of news stories reminding everyone of what happened in Nazi Germany, and now Hungary and Belarus and warning everyone that it’s happening here. It’s time to invoke that “Guarantee Clause” that the founders gave us.
Agree. “Basta” for sure.
Spot on!
James Madison continues to be our touchstone and a guide as we sort out how America moves in and out of the Constitution and away from Democracy
'The U.S. Constitution was an exercise in intelligent design. The Founding Fathers knew that most previous democracies had been unstable and short-lived. But they were excellent psychologists, and they strove to create institutions and procedures that would work with human nature to resist the forces that had torn apart so many other attempts at self-governance.'
'For example, in “Federalist No. 10,” James Madison wrote about his fear of the power of “faction,” by which he meant strong partisanship or group interest that “inflamed [men] with mutual animosity” and made them forget about the common good. He thought that the vastness of the United States might offer some protection from the ravages of factionalism, because it would be hard for anyone to spread outrage over such a large distance. Madison presumed that factious or divisive leaders “may kindle a flame within their particular States, but will be unable to spread a general conflagration through the other States.” The Constitution included mechanisms to slow things down, let passions cool, and encourage reflection and deliberation.'
'Madison’s design has proved durable. But what would happen to American democracy if, one day in the early 21st century, a technology appeared that—over the course of a decade—changed several fundamental parameters of social and political life? What if this technology greatly increased the amount of “mutual animosity” and the speed at which outrage spread? Might we witness the political equivalent of buildings collapsing, birds falling from the sky, and the Earth moving closer to the sun?'
'America may be going through such a time right now.'
'In other words, social media turns many of our most politically engaged citizens into Madison’s nightmare: arsonists who compete to create the most inflammatory posts and images, which they can distribute across the country in an instant while their public sociometer displays how far their creations have traveled.'
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/12/social-media-democracy/600763/
“If you actually want to find the truth—if you’re a scientist or if you’re working at, say, the Defense Intelligence Agency, where your job is really to find the truth—you have to overcome each person’s preferred way of thinking, which is, find evidence for why I am right,” he replied. “You have to overcome that, and the only known way to overcome confirmation bias is with other people. There’s been research trying to train people to question their assumptions. Nobody’s found a way. It’s very hard to train people to do that. The only way to do it is to have someone who doesn’t share your confirmation bias engage with you. That’s why the Catholic Church created the devil’s advocate. They literally said, ‘Your job is to find reasons why we’re wrong.’”
“The relationship matters more than the message. That’s why a university, especially one that includes a diversity of viewpoints, can be so powerful—because you cultivate these relationships within a community that says our job is not to win, our job is to learn. That’s why the internet.... the worst places for this, because you don’t have relationships and people are trying to show how smart they are. They’re trying to show how devoted they are to their team. So the kind of political engagement, the kind of public square that we get from social media, is generally terrible.'
“Does anyone really think we are going to win people over by insulting them and spouting hatred toward them?” he added. “Or are we going to win them over by listening, one on one, as individuals, human to human, American to American?”
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/05/jonathan-haidt-pandemic-and-americas-polarization/612025/
The thoughts expressed are those of Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist at the New York University Stern School of Business. He is the author of The Righteous Mind and the co-author of The Coddling of the American Mind, The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom. His main areas of study are the psychology of morality and moral emotions.
As we examine the divisions in America and the county's shaky relationship with Democracy on the forum, I will sometimes bring Jonathan Haidt with me. These subjects have been at the forefront of his learning, writing and teaching
Thank you Fern. I much appreciate your sharing of your reading and understanding in these commentaries.
Ironically my first thought as I read your Johnathan Haight quote was to forward it to a friend who I was disagreeing with to show him how his wrong thinking came to be and to “… offer evidence of why I am right.”
To paraphrase the end of your quote, “developing my empathy and listening skills may have much more effect.”
Thank you, Fern.
Good to see you, Becky
The Madison, soon to be canceled, would have been horrified by the cabal known as the Russian hoax. Nice little faction where just about everyone in the progressive press, Clinton campaign and the intelligence services were in on it. You bring up a good point. It is happening in such a way now that when it happens we are no longer shocked.
Just pass this one by subscribers.
Why Fern?
To cut off the oxygen
Your right, a bit of oxygen in the room can be an uncomfortable thing ;)
Interestingly I think Fern makes a good point.
Very interesting, thank you. My first thought was how churchs are now being taken over to spread political propaganda. A place where people feel united and feel they know and trust the church staff for guidence. Seems Republicans figured out what a great place they are for manipulating political thought.
The Righteous Mind was an eye opener for me. The reality is most people are poor listeners, including me, at times.
Kathy, To inform subscribers, 'The Righteous Mind' by Jonathan Haidt, the 'bestseller that challenges conventional thinking about morality, politics, and religion in a way that speaks to conservatives and liberals alike'—a “landmark contribution to humanity’s understanding of itself” (The New York Times Book Review).
powerful ideas. Thank you for sharing!
Flynn, the lying weasel that he is, attempted to deny that he made such as statement about an all-Christian nationalist nation, but of course, his ugly statement was recorded.
Traitor Flynn's attempt to dehuminize and delegitimize millions of Americans who don't practice Christianity, or, in this case, Christian triumphalism, is not a new phenomenon in this country, and fits in perfectly with Trump's various schemes to accomplish the same smoke and mirrors act during his presidency and his Big Lie afterwards; in fact, I see a pattern between Trump's increasing legal jeopardy and the rising extremism and violence in much of the country (thanks to your newsletter), from religion to school boards, to name but a few.
A quote that is attributed to Ghandi sticks with me: "I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."
While I don't practice any religion, I am acquainted with wonderful people who are, and their fight for social justice is ongoing and transformative.
Thank you for this wonderful testament to truth.
Ghandi knew what he was talking about! So much evil has been carried out throughout the history of the world in the name of Christianity…
In my conversations with evangelical christians, (I live in Missouri, they’re everywhere,) I tell them to ‘try not to be a Christian that makes Jesus weep.’ It makes them think for a minute.
BTW, I live a deeply spiritual life; just don’t care for organized religion.
Well, well, Judas Flynn, which ones of the over 200 Christian denominations that exist in the US alone will you find acceptable and which will you eliminate at the altar of your man-made God? Surely, knowing you and your bigoted consiglieri, you will not find all of them acceptable, especially those who welcome the inclusion of our BIPOC and LGBTQIA kin in their congregations and to positions of leadership. So, will some be more "Christian" than others?
Rowshan, I just realized Flynn may be referring to DJT as the god.
Not out of the realm of possibility, Grace! 😂😂😂😂
wow
Will the people attending church shun the person in the pew next to them because they are a different political party or race? We know if Black families (for example) started attending an all white church they would put on a face during service then walk outside and treat that same family with all the racial prejudice in their hearts. You could apply that to political party of level of wealth. I don’t attend church anymore for these very reasons. People aren’t there to uphold God’s word. They go to appease their conscience. I know this doesn’t include everyone but I’ve seen it happen repeatedly. My sister talks about her small church in her small town in Maine and it’s never about God. None of it is good, even from the stream of pastors that come and go.
General Flynn has gone completely off the deep end. Between his assertion of the vaccine requirements being an "infringement" of liberty and the "one nation under God under one religion" he is the poster child for this abhorrent idea of "government".
What scares me most is this:
"But, as Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) pointed out this morning, “Senate Republicans are blocking the confirmation of our NATO and EU Ambassadors so as to deliberately hamper global security…because they believe global instability will hurt Biden, and hurting Biden is all that matters.”"
We have one elected party that is motivated simply to confound the duly elected President and is completely abdicating its responsibility. We have a substantial percentage of our country that sees nothing wrong with this. This is terrifying.
I agree! How did they get elected? They have been doing this to every Democrat President!
Since 2010...Tea Party and Gingrich.
Flynn is quoted as saying "One nation under God, and one religion under God.”
That immediately triggered my memory to recall the slogan of a German political party from nearly a century ago.
“Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer.”
For those who don't read German, it means
"One nation, one empire, one leader."
Bingo.
There isn't much good news politically these days, is there? And meanwhile, I saw over the weekend that Pastor John Hagee's megachurch was heartily screeching out "Let's go, Brandon" on Sunday...........and the chants were being led from the pulpit.
If churches are going to be political, tax them.
Good heavens. That's appalling. And when those sweet little children look up at mommy and daddy (since there will be no mommy and mommy or daddy and daddy families in attendance) and ask what that means, well...
Tax them, indeed.
FORGET GEN. BENEDICT ARNOLD
GEN. MICHAEL FLYNN IS THE NEW
TRAITOR TO THE UNITED STATES.
How can such a blatant TRAITOR, such as a 3-star general still be walking free in the United States to foment attacks on established tenets of our Constitution? How can he be free to consort with enemies of the United States? IDK how officers are governed. I know they are different than us enlisted ranks, but when I left the U.S. Air Force as an E-4 in 1967, I had worked with Top Secret information at NSA and had travel restrictions for that. I assume Ex-General Flynn had access to more useful classified information for his dinner buddy (and possible patron) Vladimir Putin. Benedict Arnold escaped to Canada & England. If the U.S. government can’t reign in this Qanon conspiracy theorist, Russian Television propaganda whore, I at least hope to see Michael Flynn become a fugitive living in infamy in Russia.
Can’t he be brought back into the military and then court martialed? Then thrown into the brig or Gitmo? Asking for a friend.
Michael Flynn is both irrelevant and symptomatic.
On the irrelevant side, he has so thoroughly debased himself that he is in the unenviable position of having to take more and more outlandish positions in order to get continued attention. Even in the case of ultimate Republican triumph he would assume at best the role of useful idiot.
But he is symptomatic of a kind of mad energy from the Right that is purposeful and I fear will be effective in the long run. Somehow, even granting the fact that all branches of government save the Supreme Court are nominally in Democratic control, it is they who are always on the defensive. The Republicans attack, attack, attack. They own the news cycle.
They are the faction of constant outrage. Each crazy act they promulgate promotes another group to imitate it or go further. They are a firehouse of clickbait for the nation to drink from constantly. Michael Flynn flows from that stream.
The Democrats are, rather desperately I fear, trying to be the model of restraint and sanity and good government. They chase their tails in order to avoid being caught in even the mildest imprudent action that will be hurled back at them a thousand times in whataboutism attacks by the Right. The media, too, is complicit. Fox and and their ilk we take for granted, but the MSM feeds the fire, piling on to an absurd extent for example over the mistakes made in the heat of the withdrawal from Afghanistan. They too are becoming the cats paw of the Right, slavishly and unsuccessfully trying to prove their evenhandedness.
We are in the position of death by a thousand cuts. Gerrymandering is the topic du jour in today’s NYT. A while back it was the unprecedented abortion law in Texas. The Kyle Rittenhouse trial is a forum for national outrage on the Right. Who could not be moved by the tears of a baby-faced killer?
There is always something to shock. Something to edge Republicans nearer and nearer to regaining power. Something to push the Right into the news and the Democrats into the background. If one is quite objective, the answer to “Who ‘won’ the anime assassination event”? is quite clear. The Democrats were wrong-footed again. It is ever thus in a land where bread and circuses only matter.
Joe Biden? He’s become the dad who won’t let his 18 year old have the car keys and be free to run amok. He’s a spoilsport and ineffective at that - it seems clear that he is being vested by President Manchin.
But there is hope. And it doesn’t lie in today’s news that O’Rourke will contest Abbott for the governorship of Texas. Poor Beto is beginning to have the air of a Don Quixote tilting at windmills.
The hope lies in what started out as a pebble in the Republican shoe. This would be that pesky House Committee taking seriously their remit to investigate 1/6. They are beginning to gain momentum, and if things break well for them, they could vaporize much of the Right’s clear momentum. This would be a feat for the history books. Saving democracy would be a giant leap forward from the trash pile of clickbait we are currently enduring.
Yes, I believe he can but being full of chocolate cake and sleepy I'm too lazy to look it up and confirm it.
I would rather see him pay the full penalty for treason - at the end of a rope.
I’d be happy with him in stocks in Lafayette Park, and a bucket of cabbages nearby.
I would rather not see the United States descend into the kind of violence being promulgated by the FRP (former Republican Party)
The good news is in a Democracy we don't haul people in for speaking openly; no matter how bizarre or threatening.
The bad news is that we have to tolerate this awful rhetoric booming through a microphone and spewing from mass media rebroadcasting it.
Arnold was brilliant though. And disregarded because of class. Big difference with Flynn. He’s just mad.