428 Comments

What a contrast—one potential 2024 presidential candidate meeting with service members and their families to thank them for their service and another signing a deal with a foreign company to enrich himself (he has said in the past that soldiers are suckers https://www.militarytimes.com/news/pentagon-congress/2020/09/03/report-trump-disparaged-us-war-dead-as-losers-suckers/ ).

Expand full comment

And making a deal with an enemy of America. Surprise surprise.

Expand full comment

Tfg doesn’t care that he’s dealing with a hostile country while he’s “running” for president. It’s all about acquiring more money and power. It’s all about the grift.

Expand full comment

It's always about the grift!

Expand full comment

Saudi's have learned a lot from the Russians.

Expand full comment

Fox News does not appear to be reporting today's good information about Trump on his knees at the feet of the Saudi Prince (or any Saudi with money or anyone with money to give him period).

Hence, all 73 million people who voted for him are not aware of that fact and Trump love remains a significant threat to our society, along with Fox News (and, Trump love may, again, ruin a few Thanksgiving dinners).

Those 73 million people ARE aware, however, that there was tremendous "voter fraud" in the last election and by God they are going to make sure it does not happen again.

So, stay tuned.

Expand full comment

Rupert has not rejected chump, he has hedged his bets. He burnished chump’s image with not a whiff of truth from the moment Jeb Bush flamed out. Chump’s bottomless pit of Saudi money puts the heads of evil on a swivel…

Expand full comment

Chilling.

Expand full comment

It’s an error to assume that T___p’s voters only get information from Fox News, or that they are uninformed about what goes on. Remember what happens when we assume.

Expand full comment

Most of them have no idea. They just follow what their friends say. They have a big base in Clay County, Indiana. Most have no clue what is happening in the USA...except that gasoline to fill their pickup trucks with their TFG flags flying from the back. They have no idea that the Republicans in Indiana government raised the gasoline tax! Oh yes, they are upset that Thanksgiving dinner this year according to the local news will cost them an extra less than $12.00 over the cost last year. Of couse that is President Biden's fault. Those on the news complaining do not look like they are having trouble getting food. Most should be on a diet! Shame on me!

Expand full comment

I just read the end of your post more closely. I am a Hoosier escapee living in Oregon and I did smile. I haven't been to Indiana in a few years, but when I was a regular visitor, I noticed quantity and not quality was the watch word. My parents used to take us to a fried chicken place in Michigan and it was huge platters of fried chicken and sides being chowed down by overweight people. My relatives (many of whom are overweight) post pictures of food full of calories and desserts that no one should ever eat. I just sigh.

Expand full comment

Given what I see on other threads, most of them have no clue and some of them go deliberately looking for items they can post which tear down anything knowledgable people are doing. They want to own the libs and often hear dreck from their pastors who in my opinion, are merely on power trips.

Expand full comment

DeSantis did the same in FL. Just before Election Day, FL State gasoline/diesel taxes were added back on to the cost at the pump. MAGAts believed it was Biden’s fault.

Expand full comment

I agree. Many of them are getting their news from talk radio shows which are spreading lies like wildfire.

Expand full comment

Oh, you mean like from Charlie Kirk or Steve Bannon? Yep, that’s where they get their news.

Expand full comment

Not sure where you get that notion Jon. In my experience, that is exactly true, for the most part. Quite a while back I would tune in to Fox News every now and again just to study the enemy, or listen to Rush on the radio. No longer. I just could not stand it anymore. The extent of the lies and mischaracterizations became too much to take. I felt violated. So now it is MSNBC, CNN, WaPo, etc for me, with no input what so ever from the likes of Fox, OAN, Drudge, WSJ opinion, etc. You could not pay me to listen or watch news from those sources. I think the opposite is true of the Trumpian crowd.

Expand full comment

What I meant was that it's a mistake to generalize, and also that we underestimate our opponents at our peril. And stereotypes are wrong, and can be dangerous. Note for instance that Ron DeSatan and Stewart Rhodes (on trial for sedition now) went to Yale Law.

Expand full comment

Perhaps it is Yale and Harvard we should blame. They allow the Federalist Society to set up shop there to indoctrinate law students in “their” way of thinking. These lawyers basically sign a lifetime pledge to FS, which means now whatever Leonard Leo commands, goes.

Expand full comment

IMHO, the fact that such individuals have attended and graduated from such storied institutions proves they are well schooled, but not necessarily well educated.

Expand full comment

I agree with you for the most part, but when it comes to immigration, the NYT, NPR, etc., (although not the WaPo anymore) function as PR for "immigration advocates" while Fox, Washington Examiner, and others of that ilk often write the (often true--and available on the Center for Immigration Studies website--CIS.org0 the leading think tank on immigration) stuff that's not appearing on NPR et al.

I wrote to the NPR public editor. After writing me back, sounding like she saw my points, she had one of her "assistants" interview me. The young woman--daughter of immigrants--practically refused to believe that someone with my views could be a Democrat, and insisted that the Center for Immigration Studies was a nefarious, untrustworthy organization (they frequently testify before Congress, and when the National Academy of Sciences, the nation's premier scientific organization, did their 2016 study on The Economic and Fiscal Impact of Immigration, NAS chose CIS as its outside reviewer). (I had told the young woman that NPR needed to interview people from CIS in order to get information on immigration that would give listeners a much more complete story.)

Expand full comment

David,

I’m not familiar w/the CIS so I googled it. It screamed right wing to me.

So I googled reviews on the organization.

check this out: https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/group/center-immigration-studies

Perhaps the young lady from NPR had already done her homework and interviewed people from CIS.

Expand full comment

Angela,

It's mixed, with staffers on both sides of the aisle. Jerry Kammer, a Pulitzer-prize winning former journalist, now on the staff of CIS, and author of the recent book, Losing Control: How Left-Right Coalition Blocked Immigration Reform and Provoked the Backlash That Elected Trump, would fit right in among HCR's readers.

Reasons I oppose mass immigration: 1) mass immigration leads to an oversupply of labor, which is why Mark Zuckerberg, the Koch organization, and big biz generally support it, and why I oppose it. I come from a family that has supported American workers on both sides (my great uncle ran the Colorado Democratic Party for most of the first half of the 1900s. 2) I studied environmental issues in a 1975 UC Berkeley class taught by John Holdren, later Pres O's Science Advisor, in which I also learned about climate change. The US population is currently environmentally unsustainable at current levels of consumption and climate change is fast worsening that unsustainability.

As for the SPLC they are well known for tarring people and groups with opposing ***political*** views with their hate group moniker, a strategy adopted by Morris Dees, whose main interest was making money (there was an article in the left-wing Nation about that).

IF CIS were a genuine hate group, don't you think the National Academy of Sciences would have avoided having it as an outside reviewer of their 2016 immigration study, as I mentioned in my previous comment?

In his book, Kammer writes about the failure of an NPR and an NYT reporter to investigate SLPC's "hate group" claim about CIS:

"...Joel Rose of NPR and Nicholas Kulish of the New York Times... reported the reputational assault on CIS as if it were the well-considered judgment of a responsible arbiter. Neither subjected it even to a rudimentary credibility check."

"I thought of a pertinent admonition from one of the heroes of modern journalism, the late Murray Marder of the Waashington Post. In the 1950s, Marder broke away from the pack of reporters who spread the hysterical red-baiting accusations of Sen. Joseph McCarthy. "The press can't simply report flatfooted a smearing accusation against someone's loyalty," said Marder. "The press should ask the accuser, "what do you mean? What justification do you have? That's real work, and it's called journalism."

"There was no such skepticism in the work of Joel Rose, despite NPR's commitment, spelled out in the NPR Ethics Handbook, to "rigorously challenge... the claims that we encounter," and to "take special care with news that might cause grief or damage reputations." Nor at the New York Times..."

"But Rose did nothing to examine the accuracy of Beirich's claims. This gaping hole in his story was a flagrant violation of NPR's commitment to rigorous reporting, which its Ethics Handbook makes explicit under the heading "These are the standards of our journalism."

pp. 164-165

Expand full comment
Comment deleted
November 22, 2022
Comment deleted
Expand full comment

I am with you. I get so upset about the lies and disinformation broadcast by the likes of Fox, OANN, et Al - I can’t bear to watch. Life is too short.

Expand full comment

Jon,

You are, of course correct. However, we can also not deny the impact that Fox News minus the Fairness Doctrine, eliminated by Reagan, has had on America.

Expand full comment

Whewww.. "votor fraud"... sounds like a job for Rottenman....taaataataaaadoooshhhh... whoa-lo... it's Kyle..inflated by the mutant-reprobates of the big R... here he comes.

But don't laugh folks. Education may actually result in a behavioral change. Look out.

Expand full comment

Education can indeed result in behavioral change. I have a very good friend, a former special ops guy (Rangers), former fire chief in his home town after the military, actually the definition of the guy you want beside you in an emergency. And a solid conservative. Until he went back to college. He majored in Cold War and Russian Studies (since he had a lot of first hand experience) and came out a flaming liberal. Still has his beliefs about service (that should be nonpartisan) and even the Krazies in SOF still respect him to the point they elected him national vice president of the Ranger association a few years back. But he came out of school with - as he said - "my eyes open."

Expand full comment

Mary, you compared the behavior of our president, Joseph R. Biden, with that of the last one. I did the same, covering two very different situations, which elicited the following quotes.

After one of Bidens's debates with the former president, moderator Chris Wallace asked Trump if he was willing to condemn white supremacists and militia groups, and Biden interjected to mention the Proud Boys in particular, Trump said: "Proud Boys, stand back and stand by.”

‘… the president and First Lady Jill Biden had a “Friendsgiving” dinner this afternoon at the Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point, North Carolina, with service members and military families, greeting them table by table and then thanking both the “best fighting force in the history of the world” and those at home who, in the words of poet John Milton, “stand and wait.” (Letter)

Expand full comment

Mary As an American who was a ‘sucker’ and almost a ‘loser’ in service to his country, I am not surprised that Bone Spur Donald is wallowing in Arab bakshesh (pay offs) while President Biden and his wife are honoring American servicemen

I recall why the widow of John McCain—a military hero—excluded Trump from the funeral service at Washington Cathedral. Trump, a coward and a bully, would have been unwelcome.

Expand full comment

Thank you, Keith, for being a continuing warrior for truth -- and for your service!

Expand full comment

We have a Thanksgiving blessing upon us. The opportunity to support Senator Warnock’s re-election in Georgia. Do whatever you can do to support the people of Georgia voting to give a true majority to the Democrats in the Senate. Very important for approval of judicial appointments without time delays.

More importantly, a Senator that is competent…..or not.

Leigh McGowan, Politics Girl, just posted a sizzlin’ account from her kitchen.

Let’s stay united and active for democracy.

https://youtu.be/PtB2zREt014

🗽🙋🏻‍♀️🙋🏼‍♀️🙋🏽‍♀️🙋🏾‍♀️🙋🏿‍♀️

Expand full comment

Thanks for the link, Christine. Leigh once again shows her brilliance. I've shared the link on Facebook.

Expand full comment

Thank you and great….we move forward informing others of truth and possibilities.

🗽

Expand full comment

Gawwwd...I love her!! Thanks, Christine!

Expand full comment

Thanks for the link. I reposted it on my FB page.

Expand full comment

Christine,

Thanks so much for the link! Somehow, I’d missed that one.

Expand full comment

It continues to amaze me that tens of millions of Americans who have lost family members in wars actually support, defend, and even worship this guy -- despite his being so outspoken about his contempt for THEM/their families.

Expand full comment

I remember all too well watching the news as millions of the Orange Sadist's followers cheered when he said that not paying taxes "makes me smart, right? Right!" These are the same ones (who despite having served in the military and/or having family members who served in the military, voted for him despite calling soldiers -- serving, imprisoned, or dead -- "losers" and "suckers". I've always wondered: "What were they thinking?!"

Expand full comment

I believe "thinking" is "a fact not in evidence" since these people obviously lack the necessary equipment to carry out such an action.

Expand full comment

And that IS a fact!

Expand full comment

Thank you Heather.

It occurs to me that if Jesus was here in this time and place, he might not identify as Christian.

Expand full comment

I think he’d identify Jewish. Wouldn’t he? But I understand what you mean! Christians walking the conservative line, are not Jesus like.

Expand full comment

Absolutely. He claimed no cult-name.

Expand full comment

Or as a woody Allen character said once... if he saw what what was happening in his name he would never stop throwing up.

Expand full comment

I am stealing this.....

Expand full comment

ahhhh, woody, the plato of our times

Expand full comment

💜👍

Expand full comment

Gandhi didn't like Christians much either.

Expand full comment

How did he feel about Hindus?

Expand full comment

Jesus was isolated enough to not know about Hindus, but if he did he would respect those who cared for others in the name of any "faith" but would not be pleased with "religion", he did overturn the money tables in the temple after all. And preached good news to the poor....

Expand full comment

I am reading this to mean how did Gandhi feel about Hindus.....not Hindu enough as he was assassinated by a Hindu nationalist extremist when India was separating from Pakistan and he was working for equitable solutions. We can thank the Brits for a lot of the problems that ensued when they (finally) left the subcontinent.

Expand full comment

Well, for sure he would not be a member of the Republican Jewish Coalition, a group of people who have forgotten where they came from.

Expand full comment

Well, he was Jewish and better understood in that context. He was everything the so-called "Christians" are not. I suspect he would be very busy throwing moneychangers out of the Temple and calling out Pharisees.

Expand full comment

Jean-Pierre, with deep sadness I find myself in acknowledgement with you on that possibility, at least to the far-right fundamentalist evangelical white nationalist community. A terrible pronouncement to consider.

On the other hand, it is equally possible that believers who are caught up in his love--for the marginalized and outcast, the persecuted and lame, the victims of all kinds and causes--would doubtless recognize Jesus through no matter what disguise, as they know him in those to whom they humbly minister.

Expand full comment

We (some of us) are taught that to "find" Jesus we must not look for him in palaces or halls of power. He will not be there. We will find him among the lowest of the low..."what you do to the least of these, you do to me..." If one really reads the Gospels and what he is recorded as saying, one is continually confronted with so many uncomfortable truths that so many modern day Christians tend to ignore. He would undoubtedly be reviled by the right as a "woke radical socialist", which is why they will never see him. He wouldn't set foot in their churches. He doesn't seek glory or praise. He would urge people to use their energies and wealth to help fellow human beings, and, as I am directed in my baptismal covenant, "to respect the dignity of every human being." As you said, it's about love...love your neighbor as yourself, and people just cannot seem to understand that. I don't always succeed, but I do try. It is certainly not easy to "love your enemy" this day and time--the recent tragic event in Club Q in Colorado would sorely test anyone's capacity to feel that way. That showed what hate can do. We cannot react with even more hatred. Jesus tells us to resist it or we will die in it. Trying times indeed...

Expand full comment

Exactly, Bruce! Hatred betrays Christianity. The hypocrisy and double standards of some so-called Christians is what drove me away from organized religion and its churches.

Expand full comment

Dear Bruce -

Yup.

Expand full comment

Profoundly spiritual, Gus. You’re probably right!

Expand full comment

Brought up very young as Episcopalian. Went to a Quaker Boarding school where I learned there is a part of god in every man. Hard to see that in many. I haven’t had any church affiliation in about 50 years. I now live my life picking the values of religions, Marine integrity and brother/sisterhood and the example of animals from wolves to my cat. I try to care, help, be compassionate and lead a worthy life.

Expand full comment

But they lack the bull horn and the big bucks. A corruption of ideals unmatched in history; well, maybe not

Expand full comment

Dear Gus -

Yup.

Expand full comment

He'd have a hard job finding anyone following his teachings. On the other hand, he'd find hypocrites everywhere, the ones he said looked fine from the outside but were really tombs full of carrion.

Expand full comment

Matthew 24:24 KJV

For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect.

Expand full comment

Matthew 21:12 or thereabouts:

That carpenter also threw out those who sold Doves in the Temple.

Dylan: Highway 61 or thereabouts.

... to "flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark ... not much is really sacred'.

Expand full comment

Disillusioned words like bullets bark

As human gods aim for their mark

Make everything from toy guns that spark

To flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark

It’s easy to see without looking too far

That not much is really sacred

While preachers preach of evil fates

Teachers teach that knowledge waits

Can lead to hundred-dollar plates

Goodness hides behind its gates

But even the president of the United States

Sometimes must have to stand naked

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBNWkCsmqAY

Expand full comment

above lyrics and link song from Bob Dylan - It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding) - With Lyrics.

Expand full comment

Yes. And we are all atheists in that believers only believe in the latest version, while atheists don't believe in any of them.

Expand full comment

Steady with that incision.

Expand full comment

bow down to the standard white jesus on the cross

timbuk 3

Expand full comment

Pharisees all

Expand full comment

Good to see you posting, Allen. Wishing you, Tanya and Lucky a blessed Thanksgiving. I am sure that there are a lot of heavy thoughts and worries in your mind, I hope knowing that the entire world is watching the Ukraine can give you some peace.

Expand full comment

Thank you. Wars are supposed to happen far away and to people of whom we know little. Ukraine is just one of many wars. It hurts.

Expand full comment

Good to see you back. And I'm happy that you were reunited with Lucky. Can't imagine life without my dogs.

Expand full comment

Nelson Mandela, Bishop Curry and so many others. Open up a bit and appreciate those who are not of interest to the media much but do follow seriously the teachings, as we like to say we take the Bible seriously but not literally. Take a look at Faith in Public Life. rev William Barber, repairers of the Breach, and the Poor Peoples Campaign with Liz Theo-Harris, Bishop Vashti MacKenzie Interim General Secretary of the National Council of Churches, and so many other progressive Christians laboring in the vineyards but the media does not find them interesting unless they do something outrageous. When Was on the staff of the National Council of Churches and the Ecumenical (progressive) community had a press conference in DC the media would rarely show up. They are enthralled with hypocrites, like their addiction to quoting DJT. Sad but true. Bring back the Fairness Doctrine! (Look it up, equal time)

Expand full comment

​JP,

There are, indeed, many churches who have failed to focus on the message of love, acceptance, valuing diversity, tolerance, and kindness that Jesus brought to his society.

But, when I grew up in East Texas, you would be surprised at the many folks I met, interacted with, worked for and worked with, who role modeled, for the most part, the values that Jesus brought.

Those old Baptist Churches, both black and white, DID offer some scorching sermons about the evils of alcohol (I don't disagree), how easy it is to stray off the the path of "righteousness". Those churches did offer some judgemental pronouncements (sex before marriage may get you placed in hell, and, honestly, given some of the outcomes I am now aware of, maybe that is true).

However, many, many of the people I grew up with were the most kind people of my life.

I left East Texas at age 18 for college. Since then, I have had the good fortune to work at reasonably paying jobs, but, the bad fortune to live in cities and suburbs.

Now, ladies and gentlemen, I can tell you the worst behaviors, nastiest people, least trustworthy folks I have encountered are right in those nice, all white, suburbs......and......LOTS of them do not go to church.

I think, on balance, if you want to find a Christian behaving as Jesus taught, the probability of finding one in a Christian church is higher than finding one in an all white suburb raising hell about his neighbor's grass or his neighbor's house color or his neighbor period (might be the wrong "sort" of neighbor).

Expand full comment

While raised in the lower middle class suburbs of a big city in the North, I was taken to a Southern Baptist church by my grandparents. The congregation were all transplants from rural Kentucky who had migrated to get jobs in the auto industry. While they may have been very kind to those who belonged, they were very cruel if you hadn't been "saved," or if, like me, your parents had left the church. It was like a club that only supported its own members. The ladies talked about me and my family right in front of me, and once when I went back after a long absence, the Sunday school teacher looked at me, and changed her lesson for the day, having each girl talk about when she got saved and baptized. She asked me last because she knew I would have to say, "I haven't been," and they would all look at me with pity or scorn. I never went back. Sure do miss the music, though.

Expand full comment

Janet, Thanx for telling the inside truth about the Southern Baptists judgment, hypocrisy, sanctimony and rabid cruelty. At the age of 9, I was Baptized at the St. Louis Park Baptist Church. Even then I saw thru the hypocrisy of religion, when another kid threatened to beat me up after Sunday School.

Since then I have seen too much racism, xenofobia, misogyny and un-Christian hatred by Southern Baptists and other organized "Christian" churches. My own uncle, who was a deacon in his Southern Baptist church in rural Mississippi was a member of the KKK. WWJD? is a valid question for these Poser Christians.

Expand full comment

Morning Mike! I had a very similar experience growing up in rural NH. There were no suburbs in NH then, as there were no communities big enough to be a suburb of. What we had were lots of churches. Irish and French Catholic, Lutheran, Episcopal, Congregationalist, Methodist, Baptist, LDS, Greek Orthodox, Maronite, Friends (Quaker), and Temple Israel - all standing within a few blocks of each other in a town (City by NH standards) of 20,000.

No one said WWJD? Instead, most expressed their faith in everyday actions of kindness, hard work, and cooperation.

I have found folks not grounded in some type of faith in something larger than themselves to be much more likely to get lost in judgement (aka hypocrisy, aka pride), anxiety (fear), and limited thinking (sloth). This is a recipe for sanctimony at best, but can also lead to rabid cruelty.

I do not know what Jesus would think about the state of our world. I do know I need to attend to my own spiritual condition using the sage lessons practiced by all those people in all the churches of the town I grew up in.

Expand full comment

Religion then should be a personal thing.

Expand full comment

Which is why the founding fathers saw the potential conflicts when members of different faiths implored them to be sure to include their religion in the Constitution. Solution? Freedom of religion and separation of church and state. No losers, all winners. Fast forward to today's conservative Supreme Court - maybe they need a lesson in Originalism.

Expand full comment

Jack, Religion...faith is a personal thing....deeply personal. It's fruits should be seen in the way the individual lives....I hope my faith honors my Savior but too often I am reminded how much I need to reexamine myself and to be reminded of His demonstraton of sacrificial love towards me and towards everyone. My Savior is a gentleman; He never forces His way into our lives, into our hearts. That deep personal faith within an imperfect creation forces me to look to Him......to experience His love and forgiveness over and over again.

The Jesus I know has allowed me to reject Him but has never left me.....He is "my all in all".

I have a responsibility to love and encourage those He places in my life: to forgive as I have been forgiven, to feed the hungry, to encourage the prisoner, to listen to and comfort friend or stranger who shares with me...to support good according to His standards, not from an organization that may try to use me to vote a certain way for a particular candidate...etc

Expand full comment

Emily,

Thank you, extremely well written, and, I have saved your words.

Expand full comment

"I do not know what Jesus would think about the state of our world. I do know I need to attend to my own spiritual condition using the sage lessons practiced by all those people in all the churches of the town I grew up in."

Me too.

Expand full comment

Front row pew has some of the worst offenders, although I have met some authentic jewels farther back in the crowd. Of course, it’s been awhile…

Expand full comment

Well said. The entirety of Christianity cannot/ should not be defined by the radical evangelicals that misappropriate Jesus’ teachings. Stereotyping Christianity , or any religion based on anecdotal hypocrisy is a logical failure

Condemn those who fail at living the Word, but don’t pre judge the rest

Expand full comment

Jesus"s teachings inspired me to be good, charitable, kind, honest, fair, healing, and an advocate for those who could not advocate for themselves. And that there is a strength, a spirit, beyond just me, that I can draw on for support and guidance. The Catholic Church's Christian teachings instructed me to be scared (was it Sister Alfrieda, Sister Humiliana or Sister Bunonia who told us 7 year olds that we would be struck dead if we received communion if we had a mortal sin on our souls), obedient to tyrants with wooden rulers, and to always honor men above women. So I became a Jesusist.

Expand full comment

I am not only Catholic, I worked for the church for 11 years, product of Catholic school religious sisters. I have to say, though, I now have a much better appreciation of what Jesus taught and what it means to be of service to my fellow humans after many conversations with priests and, above all, with religious sisters who display a deep spirituality with pragmatism. One taught me I did not work for the bishop, who was respected only for the position he held and nothing else, but for Jesus. In other words, look over the heads of the hierarchy.

Expand full comment

Yes. In highschool we had a much better order of nuns, as you so eloquently describe, with "a deep spirituality with pragmatism." I was then mostly able to unlearn what the first set taught me before graduating.

Expand full comment

I also suffered in Catholic School. Now I happily live in a Buddhist country.

Expand full comment

Kristin, I'm glad you are happy, but I hope you don't mean you live in Myanmar, a Buddhist country, where the Rhohingya have been so brutalized. We should not blame Buddha for what people do any more than we should blame Jesus for what people who self-describe as Christians do to harm others.

Expand full comment

Very well said.

Anyone can corrupt anything in anyone's name.

Expand full comment

But the hypocrisy is stifling

Expand full comment

Agreed. I am distinguishing between the heart of good teachings and good models on the one hand and what corrupt and ignorant people do with them on the other.

Expand full comment

I have friends in Myanmar who are suffering terribly under the military government but I don’t live in that country. I’m sure the military government officials aren’t Buddhists.

Expand full comment

I am not Catholic, but have a patron Saint, Francis and made a pilgrimage to Assisi Italy in 1975. I am not Christian, but in 1970 living in the woods in my shack read the 4 books of gospel, Matthew, Mark, Luke & John by kerosene lamp and saw how it fit with my Buddhist leanings at the time. My Puja table had icons of Meher Baba, Buddha, St. Francis with Muslim & Hindu prayer beads from my travels to India. I am still Agnostic with strong Atheist leanings as I have been since my teen years.

All those Religions have their own dreadful histories of hate & cruelty & murder despite their teachings otherwise. And that continues today.

Expand full comment

Wait, "to always honor men above women".

What's wrong with that??

:-) :-) :-)

Expand full comment

I have a highschool friend who went to the seminary for 1 year. The seminarians were required to take their turns serving dinner to the priests, whose chef prepared lavish 4 course meals with a different wine for each course. The nuns made their own macaroni and cheese. My friend left with no respect for priests.

Expand full comment

Easy big fella.

Expand full comment

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

Expand full comment

Or he would have called Christian and Evangelical leaders Pharisees.

Expand full comment

Been doing that for decades.

Expand full comment

Indeed. And scribes! (It was a long time before I got rid of the feeling that "scribe" was a derogatory expression...)

Expand full comment

I was the minute taker at our non-profit board of directors meetings. One of the Jewish board members once addressed me as the Scribe. I took it as an honor. :)

Expand full comment

And so it was! I trust you scribed correctly. :)

Expand full comment

The religion of Jesus was Judaism. Christianity is a religion about Jesus. But I get your meaning here. I'm not even sure what a Christian is anymore. From what I've read, mostly in the synoptics, Jesus wouldn't be happy at all with many of those who currently claim that title. Frankly, I think things really took a slide from Constantine on. The practice of using the power of the state to force a religion down the throats of others is called constantinianism. Ironic huh?

Expand full comment

No worries...

There is no such thing as immaculate conceptions and half-human, half-god babies which means christians themselves are as fake as their beliefs.

Expand full comment

My parents were the good Catholics.

Expand full comment

I wasn't going to add this, but JC wasn't necessarily a good guy, and in many ways his followers reflect this. I attended a parochial school run by Southern Baptist Evangelicals. I call myself a parochial school survivor. That term is delivered without a smile. I survived, but barely. I remember well the division between the sexes, the mind games, the twisted reasoning, the abuse. So many people say the Right aren't Christians, but in my experience and study (MS Comp Religion), I find they are indeed following in their leader.

Matthew 10:34-36

34 Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.

35 For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law.

36 And a man's foes shall be they of his own household.

Expand full comment

Problem with quoting the New Testament is that we don't always know who wrote, or said, what. Then you have the problem of scribes who would add in things in places, or out and out change things. Add to that the fact that none of the books were written at the time Jesus lived. This corruption of the text makes it difficult to impossible to discern who Jesus was. Translation from Koine Greek to English also takes it's toll. So at best we get a blurry outline. Because of all of this Jesus is a bit of a Rorschach blot. People tend to see what they want.

Expand full comment

Very very good post, esp the last line!

Expand full comment

Thanks. First time I've written anything here. I've been a lurker for awhile.

Expand full comment