Amos's River of Justice

Our Season of Creation

  • We call our movement progressive. Most progressives know what that means. It’s clear to the candidates and it’s clear to the voters. Unfortunately, the Right seems to think ‘progressive’ is a synonym for ‘woke,’ and they happily use it to malign everyone, from the Democratic establishment to socialists. Progressives are not the Democratic Establishment. In addition they don’t represent the Socialist Party. However, some progressives lean toward solutions that are more socialist than capitalist.

    We Are Not Twentieth Century Progressives

    In our most important policy positions, we don’t really resemble the progressive movement of the early twentieth century either. For example, progressive reformers of that period accepted the suppression of voting rights, as well as policies restricting immigration.  On those two issues alone, we are miles apart from them. Again, this doesn’t seem to be important to the progressive candidates in the trenches. They know who they are. The Right doesn’t appear to know it however. It insists on lumping today’s progressives with today’s political establishment as well as yesterday’s socialists and communists.

    Is The Right Just Pretending it Doesn’t Understand?

    Is the Right pretending that progressives and their policies are the problem, or do they really believe it? Maybe it is a mistake, after all. Or maybe both bourgeois parties, the Democrats and the Republicans, use each other as straw men so that they don’t have to respond to the common-sense demands of progressives.

    The Church of England Thinks Same-Sex Marriage is a Progressive Project

    The easiest way to demonstrate the resulting problem in the conversation is to return to Gavin Ashenden, who with many other members and clergy of the Church of England, has left the Church over its decision to bless same-sex marriage. I don’t necessarily disagree with him on this issue, but I disagree with his analysis of the problem. I also disagree with his assumption that same-sex marriage is a progressive project.

    Same-Sex Marriage is Blamed on Feminism

    Ashenden argues that feminism is the root of the problem, and that it was always going to lead to same-sex marriage, or at least to the acceptance of homosexuality. This is an obvious disconnect. Acceptance of homosexuality is not identical with same-sex marriage. And the legalization of same-sex marriage does not naturally imply that the Christian Church must bless these unions. However, he may have a point about feminism.

    Modern feminism is a product of the bourgeois Democratic establishment. Inconveniently for our right-wing critics, progressives disagree with most of the policies of the Democratic establishment. This includes CFR and CIA feminists. They are really just meritocratic, elite hawks. That is not who progressives are.

    The Issue of Gender Rights Did Not Originate with Progressives

    Ashenden follows his logic to also lay the issue of gender at our doorstep. However, many progressives disagree that this issue is progressive. It is true that some well-meaning progressives accept it as progressive, but whatever you think of this issue it didn’t originate with us. It sort of appeared out of nowhere. That should inspire more curiosity than it has.

    So, Who are Progressives?

    Progressives today are big-picture, internationalist progressives. Climate change, food and water insecurity, and class warfare are global problems, and it simply won’t work to save privileged islands of the global population and leave others to die. Aside from being cruel and self-centered, the world is too connected for that. We all need each other.

    Same-sex marriage and transgender acceptance, on the other hand, are not big-picture issues. Their function seems to be to annoy religious and conservative men. I think it also serves to distinguish the Democratic establishment from the Republicans.This is necessary because their policies are similar.

    The statements made in this article might decrease the confusion for progressives. Unfortunately, if the Right is purposely categorizing progressives with the bourgeois establishment, they will probably continue to do so. Nothing I have said will make any difference to them.

  • After Cardinal Pell passed away, I happened to watch a 1993 debate between Pell and Father Uren SJ. Also participating in the debate were Catholic lay people and priests on both sides of the debate. (The two sides sat in separate groups.) The debate was published by Church Militant Australia. Judging by the comments, this organization expected viewers to be sympathetic to Pell and his group. I thought it demonstrated Cardinal Pell’s delusions of grandeur.

    Fighting Vatican II and the Jesuits

    As a non-CatholicI knew nothing about the debates taking place in the decades following Vatican II, so I didn’t realize that Pell was part of a faction that has been fighting Vatican II since the beginning. Nor did I know that this faction is fighting the Jesuits in particular.

    Pope John Paul’s Encyclical on Contraception

    The debate centered on an encyclical letter from Pope John Paul, which contains his teachings on contraception. It became clear that Pell thought it was his job to bring members in line with this encyclical, even though it contradicted previous teachings. His response to objections from other participants, was to act as thought his word should be final. Many of the participants seemed insulted by this approach.

    Father Uren Explains That an Encyclical Can Be Debated

    Father Uren explained that an encyclical letter is not supposed to be above debate. But Pell argued that it should not be debated at all, at least not on television. He stopped short of demanding obedience.

    Why Did This Video Shock Me?

    I am not going to argue any of these points because I am aware that this Pell faction still exists today. What I hope to do is explain what shocked me about this video.  I was shocked because I realized that the insults Cardinal Pell has given to Pope Francis were part of this old debate. Even though this debate is now more than 30 years old, this faction is still determined to keep the Church captive to its own idea of what the Church should be. It wouldn’t matter to me if not for the fact that these people have been successful.

    Hubris is not a strong enough word. Arrogance is better. This is one of the most outrageous things I have ever witnessed. And it may even explain Pell’s support of Donald Trump.

    I thought highly of Cardinal Pell when I saw how he conducted his debate with a well-known atheist, so it pained me when he publicly supported Donald Trump’s bad behavior and criticized Pope Francis.

    There was more than one occasion when he was publicly disrespectful to Pope Francis. Now we know that he was also disrespectful in private. It has come out since his death that he was the author of an anonymous letter criticizing Pope Francis.

    Pell Tries to Influence a Our Election

    Pell’s insults to Francis were hurtful to me when I first heard them. Now that I understand what was going on I can hardly believe this man would carry his fight into the Vatican and rail against a sitting pope. And it wasn’t just Pope Francis who he opposed. He opposed the Jesuits as a group. The conservative Catholics seem to blame the Jesuits for Vatican II.

    You could say that when Pell tried to influence our election It was as if the rest of us didn’t exist. Regardless of Pope Francis’s contributions to the world, all Pell cared about was this obscure debate. Pell lost touch with everything but his own delusions of grandeur. It’s embarrassing.

  • There are three main concerns that might affect the way people vote in the coming election. My thoughts on the eve of the election include: fascism versus mafia rule; The Supreme Court’s abortion ban; and the question of how people who disagree with each other can live peacefully together.

    Fascism, Mafia Rule, or Liberalism

    In the 1924 general election in Italy, Mussolini won nationally, but the Popular and Liberal Parties won in Sicily, with the help of the mafia. So Mussolini launched an anti-mafia campaign to defeat them. He started with abolishing parliamentary elections–a main source of mafia currency. The end result was a 28 percent decrease in agricultural wages. “The fascists merely replaced the mafia as enforcers of the landowning class.”1

    The Abortion Ban

    On the Supreme Court’s new project of saving fetuses from their mothers, I think it’s amusing how young conservative men, as well as old men on the Supreme Court, assume that banning abortion will result in more babies. I think it’s more likely that single women and married couples will change their sexual habits. It’s not just the fact that they won’t be able to end an unwanted pregnancy. That will probably be a very small part of it. But thanks to the Supreme Court, the possibility of maternal death has become much greater.

    A change of sexual habits will be much harder on men than on women. You might enjoy chapter three of Stefan Zweig’s book, The World of Yesterday. 2 The social expectations of his time were nothing like today. The middle class youth of that day were expected to be celibate until marriage.Zweig tries to empathize with the women of his time, but the trials of middle-class men as he describes them were much worse.

    French Catholics and Rene Guenon

    According to Peter Brooke, Guenon believed in a “great world tradition of which Christianity is simply a part. Guenon himself, in Cairo, became a Muslim, but he argued that the only two valid expressions of the tradition in Western Europe (for ‘Frenchmen and occidentals’) were Roman Catholicism (not any form of Protestantism) and Freemasonry. For other peoples other religions constitute the ‘religious reality and sole traditional spirituality’. But perhaps more obviously dangerous from an ordinary Catholic point of view is the idea that at a particular point in history, and a long time ago at that, Christianity ceased to radiate spirituality.” 3 (p. 221)

    …[Albert] Gleizes had definite ideas about Thomas Aquinas. He saw him as the intellectual personification of a period, the thirteenth century, in which the primacy of spirit is giving way to the primacy of the senses…

    Gleizes lost some valuable friendships over his adherence to these convictions, and much of the blame falls on his loyalty to Guenon.  In his last letter to Gleizes, Pere Jerome apologizes for his part in the breakup of their friendship. But then he says,

    On the other hand, you can’t be surprised that I react when I hear you say, for example, that ‘the whole of theology needs to be taken up again’, or certain ideas on the subject of the Person and of the reality of Christ which the Church does not and never will allow…

    I read Peter Brooke’s biography of Albert Gleizes as history, but not as a historian. I was sympathetic to Gleizes’s discoveries in art but more so to his Catholic friends who disagreed with him and at the same time, commissioned work and gave him opportunities to teach. But I didn’t see it as a current debate. When I first mentioned Guenon I thought he was part of an old conversation that had been settled, but apparently not. I recently read that King Charles III has taken up Guenon’s ideas.

    When you vote tomorrow, vote for a world where we have the time and the will to talk about such things.

     

    1. James Cockayne, Hidden Power: The Strategic Logic of Organized Crime. Oxford University Press; 1st edition, October 1, 2016. ↩︎
    2. Cassell and Company LTD. London, Toronto, Melbourne and Sydney. ↩︎
    3. Peter Brooke, Albert Gleizes For and Against the Twentieth Century. Hong Kong and Italy, 2001, p. 221. ↩︎

  • It seems to me the American left has some housecleaning or path-clearing to do, historically speaking.  Important questions must be asked if we want to feel confident about our course of action. Hopefully, answering these questions will supply the energy the left is lacking.  These questions have to do with the basis of American democracy and what is required of American citizens. In other words, what is necessary to preserve American democracy and what can be changed? For example, is it logical to criticize the Enlightenment, as I have done in the past and at the same time defend American democracy, which is based on Enlightenment principles? If we question the Enlightenment, what philosophical basis do we have for defending democracy? This question is a matter of self-defense today.  A main focus of the Enlightenment was to defend the right of self-governance against the influence of organized religion and the regime it supported.

    Is the left on solid footing regarding the Enlightenment? I think it’s safe to say Marxism didn’t experience the Enlightenment in the same way the West experienced it. Does the Marxist left have a philosophical basis for defending American democracy? What is that basis and what would their democracy look like? We should talk about that.

    The claim that we owe American democracy to the Enlightenment has definite implications about organized religion as well. The institution of the Catholic Church was part of the ruling regime the Enlightenment helped to replace. The Church doesn’t have that role any more, but historically the rise of democracy was at odds with organized religion and especially with the Catholic Church. Luckily, we’re not talking today about religious allegiances or beliefs. Thanks in part to the Enlightenment, we’ve overcome that inflammatory epoch. I propose that we should be talking about what makes political sense in our nation’s past, and therefore what makes sense for American defenders of democracy moving forward.

    The basic problem remains–American religion doesn’t play nice with democratic politics.  The Trump regime is a case in point, not to mention the Supreme Court. The justices are not at all conflicted in their adversarial relationship  with American democracy. As we contemplate their blatant efforts to enslave the population, it must be understood that the civilization they have in mind has nothing in common with Christian civilizations of the past. And even if it did, the United States doesn’t share any of the history behind the European civilization they claim to love. When the left resists their efforts it is truly conservative in the American context.

    By contrast, a faction of America’s so-called “conservatives” wants to obliterate American democracy. It’s as if their ‘Church’ has become the United States.  Strangely, these Conservatives ignore their pope’s efforts to guide the Church on the path of Vatican II, and instead they spend all their time and energy strong-arming a democratic people into religious obedience. Considering they don’t hold themselves to an ethical Christian standard, they seem to be cementing in place an upside down world. How can we hope to have a coherent narrative if we fail to mention such incoherence?

    Maybe because of its history, the left resists religious sympathies in the progressive conversation. It seems to me this is a peculiar weakness on their part. And what about Marxism? Not only does America not share Europe’s feudal past, she doesn’t have a strong Marxist or atheist tradition. On the other hand, the Christianity they use to oppose Marxism is not quite Christian in many ways. Americans are products of the Enlightenment, whether they know it or not. They are also religious.

    I can’t end this post without talking about the Freemasons. The Freemasons were at the forefront of the Enlightenment. Furthermore, they had a lot to do with the formation of our government. Does that translate into authority on their part?  Is this nation tied to the mythical past of the Freemasons’ and their peculiar version of democracy and religion?  Can their mythical (and secretive) past lead to the future we need?

    The point of all of this is to sound the alarm. We don’t have a coherent notion of where we’ve been and where we’re going.  Worse, we on the left are not clear about the basic assumptions of our allies. The future has never been so hazy, and we can’t afford to remain unclear about our foundations. Hopefully the political right is not beyond our reach, but at the least we can try to shape our own faction. Together we must clear the path ahead.

     

     

     

     

     

  • Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil is one of the men who have stepped up to bristle and bar their teeth at the new sane direction the world is heading. If saying outrageous things and playing the media were enough to make things go his way he would have already won, but now he feels his hold on power slipping away. To drive his point home (his point of being the boss) he does real harm by stirring up his followers into a frenzy. He will happily damage democratic institutions beyond repair if that’s what it takes. He’s already tried to destroy the land. Bolsonaro has relished demonstrating his power over the entire world by harming everyone on it. He has satisfied his ego by destroying the Amazon, the very thing needed for the survival of the human race. He does this I suppose, because…then…he wins.

    And now he has shown the depth of his madness.  While caught up in some kind of diabolical frenzy, he publicly challenged God to “oust” him. He clearly has no conception of the sheer evil he has demonstrated as president of Brazil. Does he think he is waging war against the left, that he’s making a political statement?  Does he think God approves of such cruelty in the name of his right-wing hubris? If Bolsonaro had any self-understanding at all, if Bolsonaro knew God at all, he never would have uttered those words.

     

     

  • Accusations of leftist magic leveled by right-wing members of Congress led me to research the question of whether magic is really a leftist thing. The closest connection I was aware of was the association of the drug culture of the 1960s with shamanism. But I have always understood the Right’s connection to magic to be more of a thing. I think it would be more more correct to call right-wing magic ‘the occult’. In the end, I was not  really surprised to find that the story of magical politics in America begins by blaming the Left for the whole phenomenon. Both-siderism is apparently the handmaid of American politics, even its weirdest manifestations. This is the story of Rosicrucians, Fallen Angels, and American politics.

    Egil Asprem’s Magical Theory of Politics

    One of the first results on Google was Egil Asprem’s article about the magical theory of politics. True to historical patterns, the magic war serves a right-wing agenda. It seems the Left is only included in the discussion because it’s such a perfect target.

    The Cult of Kek, The Magic Resistance, and the Magic Reaction

    Asprem distinguished three camps of ‘belligerents’ in the magic war over Donald Trump: The Cult of Kek; the Magic Resistance; and the Magic Reaction. The Magic Resistance is where the Left comes in. He cites an article published February 16, 2017 on Medium by Michael M. Hughes, a left-leaning author and lecturer. It was entitled A Spell to Bind Donald Trump and All Those Who Abet Him. The article suggested that a ritual be performed at midnight on every crescent moon until Trump is removed from office.

    The Left’s Social Medial Coordinated Protest Movement

    It can’t be determined from Hughes’s own comments how serious he intended this effort to be. Asprem defines it as “a social media-coordinated protest movement leveraging the trappings of magic and witchcraft to mobilize resistance against the incumbent United States president and his administration.” But however you look at it, the magical resistance was hard to ignore. The first event took place on February 24, 2017. The ‘movement’ was given coverage on social media and in magazines such as Elle, Dazed, Vanity Fair, and Vox. It’s not clear how many people actually participated in the initial event, and the numbers quickly diminished. But the movement had enough participants, or enough publicity, to earn it equal billing with the Right in the magical drama. And this supposedly inspired the Magical Reaction.

    4chan’s Ominous Numbers

    But in my opinion, the most disturbing discovery in Asprem’s article is a date that connects Donald Trump’s nomination as GOP presidential candidate, with 4chan’s /pol/ board. It is possible that intelligence operatives are fueling political divisions, and the magical war in particular, including the Cult of Kek, 4chan, 8chan, and q anon. Consider an unlikely occurrence on 4chan concerning Trump’s coming victory in the presidential race. Asprem explains that there is “a particular form of playful superstition on 4chan”.

    Posts on 4chan are consecutively given an identifying number (currently nine digits, reflecting the fact that the total number of posts number in the billions). Due to the very high posting frequency (over one million a day, in 2018), it is impossible for a user to predict exactly what the last few digits will be when posting. This has given rise to a phenomenon where certain numbers, patterns, and repetitions of numbers–especially repeating digits, labeled “dubs,” “trips,” “quads,” and so on–are considered particularly auspicious. This phenomenon is related to a wider practice known as GET, by which posters on an image board would attempt to score certain integer sequences considered “special” (e.g. posts number 123456789, 1000000, or 555555555). Themes, memes, or users that frequently “GET,” or that just score many dubs and trebs, are considered special, allowing for hidden patterns and connections to emerge in the minds of users. During the primaries and the presidential campaign, a perception formed on /pol/ that Trump and Pepe memes were doing just this. For example, on 19 June 2016, a post on 4chan’s /p/ board with the text “Trump will win” achieved the remarkable GET 77777777. A web of significance was gradually spun, in the usual post-ironic way, in which Trump was divinely selected, the god selecting him was Kek, and the Pepe meme was one of the god’s many manifestations.

    Trump’s Nomination and the Fallen Angel Azazel

    Asprim may not be aware that July 19, 2016 also connects the Rosicrucians to the current political turmoil.  That is the date when the fallen angel Azazel was supposed to rise from his earthly imprisonment.

    There was an unusual scene at the Republican National Convention surrounding Trump’s nomination.

    Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions put Trump’s name up for the nomination shortly before 6 p.m. ET. The nomination was seconded by New York Rep. Chris Collins, the first member of Congress to endorse him.

    “Donald Trump is the singular leader that can get this country back on track,” Sessions said while nominating Trump.

    (It is likely Jeff Sessions is a 33rd Degree Freemason.)

    Particularly outraged was the Washington, D.C., delegation, which held its convention in March and attempted to award 10 votes to Marco Rubio and nine to John Kasich. But convention officials announced the rules merit Trump be award all 19 delegates from the nation’s capital.

    “This is an outrage, and this is a reason the Republican Party is turning off a lot of voters,” a Kasich delegate from D.C. said on MSNBC.

    After Trump had clinched the nomination, the Alaskan delegation contested how its vote total was recorded. They originally requested 12 votes go to Ted Cruz, 11 to Trump and 5 to Rubio, but the RNC recorded all 28 votes to Trump. However, the appeal was unsuccessful because, Republican National Committee Chair Reince Priebus said, all the votes went to Trump because Rubio and Cruz suspended their campaigns…

    The official nomination came on the second day of what has been a rocky start to the convention. An effort Monday to protest Trump’s candidacy on the convention floor fell short, but not before images of chaos unseen in recent conventions played out on live television.

  • Rosicrucians, Fallen Angels and American Politics

    Accusations of leftist magic leveled by right-wing members of Congress led me to research the question of whether magic is really a leftist thing. I have always understood the political right’s connection to magic to be more of a thing, and it wasn’t hard to find evidence of this association. This is the story of Rosicrucians and Fallen Angels.

    (more…)

  • I recently found a key date that confirms my suspicions about Steve Bannon’s so-called Traditionalism.  I’ve long suspected that Bannon isn’t a real traditionalist. To be clear, Bannon is not a real traditionalist in the same sense that Donald Trump was never a real candidate.  Bannon piggy-backed on this conversation in the same way that Donald Trump piggy-backed on Bernie’s campaign.  We know Trump had no constituents when he started.  He had to hire actors to attend his first rallies. Steve Bannon is a pretend Traditionalist. He’s just trying to give depth and meaning to his audacious power-grab.

    Teitelbaum’s Book Probably Gives Bannon Too Much Credit

    In his book about Steve Bannon and the populist right, The Return of Traditionalism and the Rise of the Populist Right, 1 Benjamin R. Teitelbaum says he first became aware of Bannon’s Traditionalism in 2016. On the one hand, he gives Bannon too much credit as a traditionalist. But I’m comparing Bannon’s version to the Traditionalism of the early twentieth century. It’s always had authoritarian tendencies, but it used to have a coherent worldview.  He’s right as far as he goes–as an ideology it has shed its coherent worldview and lost much of its luster. All that’s left is its claim to authority.

    Amid startling political gains for nationalist, anti-immigrant forces in the twenty-first century, Traditionalists on the right appeared to be carrying on with a fantasy role-playing game-like Dungeons & Dragons for racists…It was the sort of thing that “serious,” practical-minded activists on the radical right fled from as they charged toward burgeoning political opportunities and the chance to brand themselves as viable leaders.

    Teitelbaum goes on to describe his surprise that ‘an individual with such remarkable power and influence’ (Steve Bannon) had been recorded name-dropping Traditionalism’s key figures (like Rene Guenon).  He couldn’t believe someone like Bannon would even know about Traditionalism.

    What is Bannon Really Up To?

    Teitelbaum was right the first time.  Steve Bannon fits his definition of a typical Traditionalist on the right. However, Bannon represents its modern guise. He has no ideas of his own so he uses Traditionalism as a cloak.  He’s really a hyperactive trickster whose first impulse in 2016 was to steal the show.

    At the Least, Traditionalism Deserves to Be Correctly Represented as a Historical Phenomenon

    I’ve been talking about Rene Guenon since 2015. I wrote What Does Theology Have to do with Life? in March of 2015.  I wrote Transgender Rights, Same-Sex Marriage and Women in November of 2015.  I wrote Can We Talk About Patriarchy? in May of 2016.

    We would do well to ignore the piggy-backers and freeloaders on the conversation.

  • The right wing’s narrative describes a world in which evangelical Christians and their allies have God on their side.   Normally I wouldn’t disagree–according to Christian doctrine, God is on the side of the human race.  But they are actually saying God approves of their politics.  They apparently assume this will convince believers to vote for them and paint the political opposition as evil.  In my opinion, the left must respect religion enough to question the far-right’s claim to God’s favor.  This doesn’t require a personal calling from God.  It just requires the patience to listen to the far-right’s claims and compare them to the Bible.

    Since Evangelical Christians believe Donald Trump is a messianic figure, the relevant verses would be those that refer to the messianic age.  In Ezekiel 47 the Lord God showed Ezekiel a vision of abundance and blessing and joy.

    Afterward he brought me again unto the door of the house; and, behold, waters issued out from under the threshold of the house eastward: for the forefront of the house stood toward the east, and the waters came down from under the right side of the house, at the south side of the altar.

    Then brought he me out of the way of the gate northward, and led me about the way without unto the utter gate by the way that looketh eastward; and, behold, there ran out waters on the right side.

    And when the man that had the line in his hand went forth eastward, he measured a thousand cubits, and he brought me through the waters; the waters were to the ankles.

    Again he measured a thousand, and brought me through the waters; the waters were to the knees.  Again he measured a thousand, and brought me through; the waters were to the loins.

    Afterward he measured a thousand; and it was a river that I could not pass over: for the waters were risen, waters to swim in, a river that could not be passed over.

    And he said unto me, Son of man, hast thou seen this?  Then he brought me, and caused me to return to the brink of the river.

    Now when I had returned, behold, at the bank of the river were very many trees on the one side and on the other.

    Then said he unto me, These waters issue out toward the east country, and go down into the desert, and go into the sea: which being brought forth into the sea, the waters shall be healed.

    And it shall come to pass, that every thing that liveth, which moveth, whithersoever the rivers shall come, shall live: and there shall be a very great multitude of fish, because these waters shall come thither: for they shall be healed; and every thing shall live wither the river cometh.

    And it shall come to pass, that the fishers shall stand upon it from En-gedi even unto En-eglaim; they shall be a place to spread forth nets; their fish shall be according to their kinds, as the fish of the great sea, exceeding many.

    But the miry places thereof and the marishes thereof shall not be healed; they shall be given to salt.((Ezekiel 47:1-11))

    Ezekiel is then told that the fruit of the trees will be for meat and the leaf will be for medicine.  The leaf will not fade and the fruit will never be consumed because their waters issued out of the sanctuary.  And finally, the Lord God describes the borders whereby the twelve tribes of Israel will inherit the land.  This is not a Zionists’ dream, however.  At least not the Zionists we know.  Nor is it the dream of American wall-builders and imprisoners of immigrant children.

    And it shall come to pass, that ye shall divide it by lot for an inheritance unto you, and to the strangers that sojourn among you, which shall beget children among you: and they shall be unto you as born in the country among the children of Israel; they shall have inheritance with you among the tribes of Israel.

    And it shall come to pass, that in what tribe the stranger sojourneth, there shall ye give him his inheritance, saith the Lord God.((Ezekiel 47:22,23))

    This does not sound like Donald Trump and his supporters at all.  Instead, it seems to describe the hopes of progressive supporters of Bernie Sanders.

    Some say the Son of man is not a single person.  The Son of man is a collective.   Of course, Bernie has no intention of being a messiah.  You may recall the day he waved away Birdie Sanders, the bird that landed on his podium during a campaign speech.  He is a politician after all, not a religious leader.  But what about the rest of us?  We thought for a few glorious moments we saw the end of the old regime, and we projected all our hopes on this amazing candidate who appeared out of nowhere.  And they were hopes of peace and fairness and inclusion.

    See also: The Israel Lobby is Spending Millions to Defeat Progressive Democrats https://youtu.be/djZVm1n_XNA
                       Is the GOP Morphing into Christian Nationalism? https://youtu.be/kQQd90mbbDs
                         Reverend Calls Out Marjorie Greene  https://youtu.be/OExYtrfXotQ
                            Lauren Boebert Wants a Biblical Citizenship Test  https://youtu.be/oDQyj8C8PoE
                             American Heretics: The Politics of the Gospel (Christian Nationalism Documentary)  https://youtu.be/B-ePCiUgD0Y
                                The Founding Myth: Why Christian Nationalism is Un-American  https://youtu.be/nVEqYk-hjNM
                                  The Psychology of Christian Nationalism  https://youtu.be/nVEqYk-hjNM
                                     Baptist Leader Speaks Out: Christian Nationalism is Not Christianity https://youtu.be/vZukWuT9lcA

  • The Republicans have spent decades trying to repeal Roe v Wade.  They were out of step with reality when they started.  Now that their cherished conservative dream has finally come true, they are even more out of step with reality.  Although Republican madness is obvious to millions of people, five conservative justices, including Amy Coney Barrett, Supreme enabler who voted to repeal Roe v Wade, are bursting with pride.  Pro-life organizations are also touting this as a victory.  Their stupidity is exceeded only by their short-sightedness.

    The decision to repeal Roe v Wade was made with the help of a doctrine called Originalism.  It’s not clear if anyone really believes in Originalism, least of all, its inventors in the Federalist Society, but it doesn’t matter.  It has been very useful for conservatives who are intent on getting their way.  In fact, that has become the definition of conservatism: People who are intent on getting their way.  If only their ‘way’ was good.

    What is Originalism anyway?  In the 1980s John M. Olin set up the Federalist society and paid it to make the courts rule in his favor in cases involving his polluting company.  The Society promptly wined and dined judges, sponsored university courses to teach Originalism, and generally helped Olin avoid the nasty consequences of his polluting ways.  Amy Coney Barrett has been a member of the Federalist Society twice.  Nevertheless, the blind and the stupid applaud her latest ruling.

    What does Originalism say?  It says that the original public meaning of the constitution is binding today.  Given that the people who wrote the Constitution saw the world very differently than we do today, it is reasonable to fear that this doctrine will have regressive and oppressive effects on American society.  Confronted with this fact, Originalists agree that some amendments to the Constitution might be in order, but the constitution has to be amended democratically.  Democratic principles are the basis of their doctrine after all.

    There are a few problems with this defense.  The media is not democratic.  Neither is the electoral system.  If they were people of good will, Originalists would assure themselves that democratic institutions and principles are working before they impose binding meanings on their society.  But although Originalists claim neutrality, they act as if the proper functioning of democratic institutions is beside the point.  In fact, they deliberately weaken those institutions.  That is not a neutral position.

    This shady, cut-rate, half-baked doctrine is not the sum total of the problem.  There is also the dishonesty and irresponsibility of the politicians who foisted Originalist justices on the Supreme Court, in plain sight of the people whose democracy they have stolen.  Last but not least there are the simple, lazy, complicit souls who have failed to develop their capacity for discernment.

     

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