Who is really keeping us safe?

November 19, 2015November 19, 2015 / Christopher Cudworth / Leave a comment

“If you’re not a liberal at twenty, you have no heart, and if you’re not a conservative by the time you are forty, you have no brain.” –Winston Churchill

Years ago I read a massive two-volume biography of Winston Churchill. It was with great disappointment that I learned that the author of those first two books had died. The third would have covered the period including World War II, and that would have been fascinating to study the actions and philosophies of the man that ushered Great Britain through the war.

Yet even with Churchill, his strong points as a war leader turned out to be challenges of a sort in the political realm. He was initially defeated for the role of Prime Minister after the war, yet returned to that role again before suffering physical and mental decline that may have resulted from strokes and heart issues.

A wealth of protectors

While obviously a man to admire, Winston Churchill’s determination that conservatism was the ultimate form of philosophical sophistication may have been formed more from his upbringing in a wealthy English family than his own evolution as a military man and spokesman. He was great at both those things, but there is an abiding factor to how these were developed and sustained that made it possible for Churchill to think like a conservative at all.

That factor was the presence and alliance of both the United States and the Soviet Union in World War II. Without that partnership, Great Britain would have been sunk under the pressures of Germany to take over much of Europe.

It was the liberal support of America’s Democratic President Franklin Roosevelt and the hard right determination of Joseph Stalin that fought back Germany’s considerable will to conquer and subjugate. That enabled Churchill to essentially occupy an important middle ground from which he could flexibly consider and pursue his necessary options. That is conservative in the good sense of the word, in being considerate.

Modern times

Fast forward to the current world perspective in which we live. America’s President Barack Obama has behaved as a noted centrist on the world stage. And like Churchill, there have been wins and losses, risks and seeming triumphs associated with that centrist position. Obama has been the considerate if quietly brusque leader, not prone to launch off new wars, yet capable of effecting deadly drone strikes that many people protest as cruel and miscalculated.

Such are the risks of all world leaders. The apparently noble fight of America, Britain and the Soviets against the Germans, Italians and Japanese Axis was full of death and destruction. And while Germany clearly committed war crimes, the rest of the fighters were not a group of innocents. America ultimately dropped a massive nuclear weapon on Japan’s big cities, killing thousands of civilians in the process.

During the leadup to that event, America engaged in some rather heinous efforts to protect itself, ushering many of its own citizens of Japanese descent into camps. The object at the time was to “keep us safe” from perceived threats because Japan itself was such a threat.

Fear and strange decisions

Fear drives all kind of strange decisions in this world. And while some of our fears are very real, the collective anxiety of a culture can often be extremely misguided.

Such is the case wth current concerns over America’s possible acceptance of Syrian refugees. While France opens its borders willingly to Syrian refugees even on the heels of the terrorist attacks on its own soil, America’s arch-conservative population wants to ban them from entry into the country. All of this is based on the idea that terrorists will somehow disguise themselves as refugees and come to this country to kill Americans.

Raging debates

Having engaged in considerable political debate with a number of anxious conservatives on social media, a few simple things have emerged in the argument. 1) They don’t trust Obama or the government 2) They don’t trust the government or Obama 3) They really don’t trust either Obama or the government. That’s the substance of their arguments.

In the process of defending those arguments they also engage in considerable name-calling while simultaneously denying that the Bush administration or any conservative before him had anything to do with creating the terrorist problem in the Middle East. We all know that started with the Reagan administration, was fostered by the Bush relationships with the Saudis, and carried on with the patsy treatment of the bin Laden family right through the 9/11 terrorist attacks when our first priority was flying remnants of that family out of the United States when all other flights were suddenly banned. Conservatives also created the Saddam Hussein we overthrew, and set up the Shah of Iran that led to that country being so pissed off at the Western World.

Yet somehow it’s all Obama’s fault that we have problems in the Middle East.

Brotherly love

Of course, Jeb Bush, the equally inept brother of George W. Bush, is now running for President of the United States. And like any conservative worth his radical salt he has publicly claimed that his brother “kept us safe.”

So for the sake of analysis, we should examine what he might mean by that statement. The expectations of conservatives about what “keeps us safe” clearly breaks down into categories that were demonstrated by the Bush administration’s actions in the Middle East. And we’ll get to those in a minute.

But first we must admit there was little resistance by the Democratic Left to any of Bush’s policies overseas. That was a sick and sad chapter in our political history as well. Either by choice or by fear, the Left stood down under considerable pressure from conservative dominance of all three branches of government. That included the power of the Presidency, a willing Congress and Senate and even the Supreme Court that handed Bush surveillance powers that broke every rule in the Constitution about personal privacy.

So Bush and Cheney were given free license to engage in a series of cynical acts of aggression designed, in their minds, to “keep us safe” from terrorism. These included:

Bomb first, ask no questions later. When faced with threats, conservatives love to bomb things because it makes them feel as if they are taking action against that threat. Of course, civilian casualties resulting from those bombings inflamed hatred for the United States as innocents perished. But that’s the apparent price of thoughtless war. “Collateral damage” they call it. The ultimate euphemism of course. Conservatives bomb, and then move on without a second thought about what the real effects of such bombings could be in terms of perception among enemies or friends.
Torture is acceptable. Arguments in favor of torturing Iraqis and potential terrorist focused on the fact that such tactics were necessary to extract information that could “keep America safe.” That connection between information and actionable intelligence really never happened in any substantial way. And yet the apparent thought that our supposed enemies were being tortured made a certain segment of our society feel happy because we were “doing something” about terrorism. Never mind that many of the people we tortured and even killed through torture and mistreatment were in fact completely innocent.
Spying on your own people is desirable. How ironic it is that the political force in America that claims to hate government most and wants to reduce its influence in our lives should choose to open a surveillance program that brought government into the very conversations we all hold over our telephones and cell phones. It seems a common phenomenon that the things conservatives most hate in others they ultimately become themselves. It happens on the social front when people who claim to stand for family values turn out to be serial wife cheaters or sexual predators. This repression haunts the conservative party like a ghost of unvirtuous fact.
Always blame the other side. For all these insane actions and remorseless activities, conservatives have developed denial of responsibility for the evil outcomes into a very fine art. The virtual memo that says “never admit you were wrong” has been hard-wired into the consciousness of political, military and civilian conservatives. In fact, it is perhaps the greatest social conspiracy ever contrived as a political strategy. Its level of secrecy is protected by a devotion to denial and an entire lack of accountability. It is thus quite breathtaking in its scope and effect on civil discourse. Its main mouthpiece, of course, is Fox News, whose claims of being “fair and balanced” as a “news organization” are the absolute expression of the virtue of lying with a smile on your face and putting tits above the fold as a distraction of the very audience you intend to recruit.

There’s a reason for all this aggression, repression and secession going on within the conservative cult in America. Only when a conservative breaks completely free of the party entirely, which means they can never go back, do we hear an ounce of truth and admission about what really goes on behind the scenes. The recent inadvertent confession of a certain Congressman on the real reasons for the Benghazi investigation of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton are just one such example of politically motivated use of government to harangue and discredit anyone that dares resist the conservative cartel in America.

It goes back a ways

John_F_Kennedy Resistance to this secret society of Conservatism with a Capital A (and its apparent arm, the CIA) is what got President Kennedy killed back in the 1960s. So the phenomena of killing threats to the cabal is not new.Kennedy was no saint, that’s for sure. But what he also represented as a political liberalism that some perceived as a threat to the security of America. But again, the considerations shown by John F. Kennedy in negotiations with the Soviets in the Cuba Missile Crisis are likely what prevented nuclear war. In other words, his small “c” conservatism kept us safe, just like Winston Churchill’s small “c” conservatism helped guide the Allies through World War II. It is this conservatism to which I believe Winston Churchill is referring in the quote above this column.

But it keeps happening that large “C” Conservatism is trying to kill its perceived enemies. And true to form, the conservative cabal went after Bill Clinton over engagement in a harmless blow job. The ensuing scandal turned into a political spectacle that distracted from Clinton’s ability to do his job, and keep us safe.

At that time, Clinton wanted to take action against bin Laden and potential terrorists in the Middle East, but was discouraged from doing so because it would appear he was attempting to “wag the dog” and escape accusations and impeachment over his extramarital affair. We seriously need to ask what would have kept us more safe in that scenario, the Starr Report or actually paying attention to real threats to our security. Capital A Conservatives clearly chose the former over the latter. America has paid the price ever since for this selfish, politically motivated debacle.

Fear, loathing and power

New House Speaker Paul Ryan

So you see, the goal of conservatism is never really to keep us safe. It is to gain and keep power, and that is all. Conservatives use fear to accomplish that mission all the time. That is why the call to war is so strong among them. War creates a deep tide fear in the populace, accentuated by methods such as “terror alerts” that the Bush administration turned on and off as needed to sway political will and push the perception of power in their direction. These are all tricks to get people to fall in line. Authoritarian thinkers on both the proactive and responsive side love these methods because it gives them a sense of control in otherwise chaotic circumstances. Of course it is all a ruse, but that does not matter.

FlagWaiver Indeed, Conservatives with a capital “C” want Americans to behave like Pavlov’s dogs in response to the call for war and acceptance of violence as status quo. They wave flags as patriots in fear until the very meaning of the flag is all worn out. Our flag has come to represent a national attitude of fear and a worn out ideology as a result.

Witness the marketing methods of the NRA, which flouts fear about race and crime as reasons to arm American on claims that more guns will “keep us safe.” Again, these are lies of massive proportions. More Americans have died from gun violence on American soil that all the soldiers ever killed in foreign wars. This is not “keeping us safe.”

Money kills

In the end, the sad thing about all this fear and terror and power is that it is all about money. Conservatives simply love money and all that it gives them. That’s why so many conservative whine about high tax rates and complain about giving their dollars through any social programs that might help the poor or elderly. This is the brand of conservatism that has evolved in America; selfishness as a life philosophy. It stands in direct opposition to the Christian call for charity and even giving away all you have to serve God and Christ. But modern conservatives (oxymoron intended) ignore all that real Christian stuff. That part is old-fashioned to them.

And we must return to the fact that top level Conservatives have always liked war because it enriches them. Former Vice President Dick Cheney used the Iraq War to increase the value of companies like Halliburton in which he has long held financial interests. The snarling visage of the man who almost singlehandedly leveraged America’s fortunes into his own while ruining our reputation overseas is like the Ghost of Ebenezer Scrooge, who without ever having gone through the happy change that made him into an advocate for the Christmas Spirit acts instead like the Grinch Who Stole America.

No Churchill

dick-cheney Cheney was no Churchill, let’s all agree on that. He seems to have envisioned himself that way, but where he falls short is in the ability to recognize the advantage of being a smart conservative with a small “c.” That is one who knows that conservatism actually involves consideration. Cheney appears to have none of that capacity, and as a result his version of “keeping us safe” turned the Middle East into a morass of angry terrorist hornets hoping to break free and sting the invader of their nest.

So let’s stop pretending that stirring up the hornet’s nest in the Middle East with bombings, torture and boots on the ground is a conservative strategy at all. It is not a conservative strategy, and it does not keep us safe.

And as for hornet’s back home, we’ve already got a system in place to detect their angry buzz. Typically they can’t keep quiet. Not if we open our eyes and ears and pay attention. And let’s not ignore those clear warnings this time, as Bush did back when he and Cheney were plotting to take over the entire Middle East to steal the oil and get some archly conservative kicks. That was stupid. And we’re getting stung as a result.

All kinds of shit going on in Iowa right now

November 3, 2015 / Christopher Cudworth / Leave a comment

I went to college in Iowa and lived in Iowa after graduating. I’ve paid taxes in Iowa, imbibed Iowa beer and gnawed Iowa corn straight off the cob on hot August afternoons. In winter, I’ve waded through deep snows and in spring watched riptide floods haul detritus off the landscape toward the great Mississippi River that forms the entire eastern border of the state of Iowa.

Iowa is also a surprisingly beautiful state if you know where to look. But admittedly, Iowa is primarily known as an agricultural state. Thus some people think it boring. From border to border there are farmers who raise corn and hogs, create dairy products and soybeans. Each plays a big part in feeding the world.

That role is one shared by stalwart farmers across the Midwest and Central plains of North America. The nation invests in that commitment with huge monetary support in a form of corporate welfare for agribusiness. Yet real farmers, the guys and gals with equipment and land on the line, have quite often been hung out to dry when markets go south on commodity products. One can’t help feel for those people, and crop insurance and other federal programs do provide a form of security for America’s agricultural sector. If I were a politician, I would likely vote for a farm bill too. Many Democrats do.

Falling in it

So it is with some reticence that I’m willing to criticize Iowa and their apparent choices in politicians. Every four years when the Presidential election settles into Iowa it astounds me that generally sensible Iowans seem to be prone to the confused lies of city-slicker politicians who descend on the state in hopes of earning support for the nomination.

The most recent politician to sway Iowa voters is none other than Ben Carson, the former surgeon now leading the Iowa polls. His public statements thus far in the political campaign have been assessed by sources such as Politifact and found severely wanting in terms of baseline truth. In sum, Ben Carson is a practiced and habitual liar at least half the way, but all the time.

Even when his clearly advertised connections to a scurrilous nutritional supplement company were exposed, he flatly denied ever having done any business for the company. It was not hard for journalists to find the commercials he’d actually done on behalf of the company. Carson is heard liberally endorsing the products. Yet Carson denies this is any sort of connection. As reported on CNN: “The WSJ reports Carson has appeared in videos that were on Mannatech’s website until earlier this month. The videos were removed soon after the Journal’s reporting. The paper also reported that Carson gave four paid speeches at company events; the most recent was in 2013 for which Carson was paid $42,000.”

But it’s not just Ben Carson who has problems with the truth. Carly Fiorina keeps getting caught in lies and exaggerations that fit her ideology, but lack verity.

Pretty much all the candidates running for the Republican nomination in Iowa have trouble not just with truth, but merely being asked what is true about their beliefs and policies, and what is not. Whenever pressed about any subject, these candidates claim it is a “gotcha” question to be held accountable for the truth in their statements.

Full of it

It reminds me of a road trip long ago through some Iowa backroads. We were driving along happily when we turned a corner and drove right into a long, deep river of hog slop washing across the road. The hog shit coated the underside of our car as we rode through 50 yards of slippery shit the color of clay and the stinkiest odor of all time.

That afternoon, when we parked our car at our campsite, every fly in the county descended on our vehicle to hang around the musky undercarriage. The flies were so thick and bothersome we had to move the vehicle far away from our campsite. It stunk like hell and the flies kept buzzing and buzzing in the heat, driving us mad.

That hog slop is symbolic of what’s going on in Iowa right now. Politicians line up to spew shit they know makes no sense, and they don’t care. They hope the next day’s media rain will wash the previous day of hog slop off the road. Yet people enamored of the idea that these political attention hogs (look at Trump demanding his own rules for debates…) have something to say. Iowans seem too willing to wade through this kind of shit without question. All to gain approval and promise of political favors if their chosen candidates are elected? Is that it? Or is there some kind of shit we don’t know about going on behind the scenes?

Of course, the media flies have long since descended on this political slop being thrown around Iowa. It’s a gadfly’s job to hang around listening to this shit and yes, even ask questions so the hog sloppers can spew out even more. The whole affair stinks to high heaven, and everyone knows it. As far as anyone can tell at this point, the whole state of Iowa is full of shit.

County Fair Carnies

Meanwhile the angry, crazy types like Marco Rubio march around this County Fair of a state like carnival barkers convinced their game is the best in the world. “You should sign up and give my game a try!” Ted Cruz snarls at the people passing by on the Iowa Midway. “It’s called Eliminate the Waste, because we all know government is the biggest waste on earth!”

Who are these guys telling us the government is full of crap when they are all desperately running for the office of President? Doesn’t anyone see the least bit of irony in any of this?

It truly makes you wonder why Iowa farmers would ever want to vote Republican. I know so many smart people in Iowa, with good common sense and a down to earth worldview. Where do all these seemingly radical conservatives get off telling Iowans what they need to think about our national affairs.

It turns out there’s something of an explanation. An article from a couple years back in TheWEEK by Keith Wagstaff addresses the reasons why so many farmers vote Republican.

“As the number of people on food stamps jumped to around 47 million after the Great Recession hit, the program’s funding also leaped, increasing to $83 billion this year, from $35 billion in 2007.

Yet the agriculture bill — which will provide $195 billion in crop insurance and commodity support to farmers over the next 10 years — was passed easily by House Republicans, even though some conservative groups, like the Heritage Foundation, have criticized it for giving “perverse subsidies to profitable agricultural enterprises.”

Shit conservatives say

There’s some sort of cognitive gap going on there, as even the Heritage Foundation admits. But at the most basic level, it is apparent that farmers across the country feel like they have to vote Republican because the corporate welfare doled out to farmers is some sort of guarantee that farmers will never be the ones to go hungry, or lose the farm.

But we all know that’s a river of shit too. Because when the shit hits the fan during a tough economy, nobody seems to give a shit if small farmers get sold down the river. It’s the same pattern with the middle class in America. Just like the money flows upriver to Wall Street bankers and the 1%, agribusiness keeps coming out on top while your everyday farmers sell their equipment at auction and take a job as an accountant or real estate salesman in town.

Yes, the river of shit flowing from top to bottom in Iowa turns out to be big money for Big Ag. It’s a great big bribe if you look closely enough at the issue.

Streams of money

So it doesn’t really matter what Republicans say when they’re in Iowa. In the end, conservative Iowans apparently believe that kind of shit doesn’t stink. Well, here’s a bit of news. Democrats traditionally support farm bill funding too. That stream of money going to agribusiness has been consistent through both Republican and Democratic-controlled Congress and Senates. So who’s shitting who here?

It’s just that those darned Democrats want to give money to feed the hungry too. And that seems like an awful waste to supposedly independent people out on the plains. All those poor people in the cities want is handouts, anyway. Ain’t that true? The facts point out a little different dynamic than some might expect.

Yes, there’s all kind of shit going on in Iowa right now, most of it coming out of the mouths of politicians who really don’t give a damn about the state except for the fact that people used to the smell of hogs aren’t really that choosy about their Presidential candidates either.

Because nothing else can explain the likes of Ben Carson, Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Carly Fiorina, Jeb Bush and all those others wallowing around in shitty debates and complaining that the media is the one thing that stinks in this world.

There’s an old country saying, folks. He who smelt it, dealt it.

Now deal with it.

The only thing that isn’t fake

October 21, 2015October 21, 2015 / Christopher Cudworth / Leave a comment

Somehow I stumbled on this propagandistic video about Dr. Ben Carson, a Republican candidate for President of the United States. I found the video stunningly obvious in its structure and production values. Then when I looked at the comments, they all seemed manufactured. And as you’ll see if you visit the comments section, I asked the people who commented if they were fake.

Turns out they’re real people. Sort of. Which surprised me a little. But the nature of their comments and the banal, surface level responses to the video still strike me as very fake. In other words, I have my suspicions whether these particular self-described “millennials” are “real” in the sense that they are not paid for their comments on the video.

Listen, public relations in the video age is a highly crafted art designed to sway public opinion. But the one thing that isn’t fake in this video is how patently disconnected from reality Dr. Ben Carson truly seems. Now understand, I voted for Barack Obama twice, and I am proud of both of those votes. So this is not some hidden racial meme or dog whistle call to sink the lone black candidate on the Republican side.

Personally I’d love to see a conservative black candidate succeed. If someone in America can proceed with an agenda that delivers on ways to acknowledge and value the contributions of black Americans to society, I’m all for it.

Basic coherence

But Ben Carson is not the guy I’d like to see running our country. That’s a disturbing thought. His inability to proceed on any subject with consistency or even basic coherence is a problem. His mental health has even been raised as an issue.

Right away, Internet resistance was raised against the idea of calling Dr. Ben Carson mentally ill. This was one of the points of contention: “There is nothing, I repeat nothing, that rises to the level of evidence of a diagnosable behavioral pathology cited by Palmer. And yet, the piece plays into the all too readily accepted narrative that any person with whom we disagree on a vitally important issue must be a flawed, damaged, and ethically compromised human being.”

Get help

Here’s the difficult part in all this. For people experiencing the effects of mental illness, the most important thing anyone can do is to help them get help.

Many years ago a friend and runner from another community near my hometown was experiencing the first stages of a mental illness that would come to dominate his life. He showed up at our school with a bag of bread and tracked me down in the hallway. “I’m feeding the foxes on the bridge,” he told me. The foxes on the bridge were made of bronze.

Later this fellow went on to become an individual All-American runner. But he did so by engaging in some extreme behavior, training up to 250 miles per week as preparation for racing just 5 miles in cross country competitions. One could make a compelling observation that to this young man, the only thing that didn’t seem fake in his world was his running. Because after college his mental illness took on a different form, making it difficult for him to function in work and other activities. He did get help but as his mental illness progressed, even medications could not harness some of the delusional qualities manufactured by his brain. But the fact that he got help was the most important aspect of his particular journey. Without that, he likely could have harmed himself or others.

Because I had another running friend that tried to take his own life. And we all know that with accessibility to guns, people in that mental condition can certainly harm others.

And so can politicians whose mental state gravitates to extremes.

Loving the extremes

I think there’s a compelling case to make that for some people, politics is both their sport and their passion. And just like my friend with mental illness who ran 250 miles a week just to compete in a five-mile race, there are people with a propensity to go to extremes in an effort to make their point, and create a reality in which they feel more alive.

In fact I’ll argue there are many people in politics who think their extreme views are the only thing that feels real in this world. That’s how we’ve gotten the long list of extremists running for the Republican nomination. And there’s little doubt that on some days, men like Donald Trump talk and act a little insane.

We also know there have been plenty of zealous religious believers whose obsession with the end of the world has led to manic predictions and even death rituals. Entire cultures get caught up in these visions, as much of the world did with the y2K obsession.

Making it real

There are high-level officials here in America whose obsession with a Zionist vision of Israel have made them hunger for war in the Middle East, and Armageddon, which might bring on the apocalypse. So there is both inherent and operative insanity at work in this world.

Sometimes, and to some people, the only thing that isn’t fake is either that reality is out to get them or there is an opportunity through politics to create a reality that suits their particular brand of economic or cultural prejudice. That explains the KKK, the Third Reich and the threat we call ISIS in a nutshell. These are people pissed off to the point of world domination. And they’re everywhere.

Haters and baiters

We see people who hate the rich and we find people who despise the poor. We see people who fear for the climate because of human activity and we see people who think that no one but God can alter a single thing about the world.

It’s the longtime struggle between the willingness to change and the fear that change will ruin everything. The very state of the human condition is one of madness in dealing with his dichotomy. When people say things like, “The world has gotten crazy,” this is what they’re talking about.

And when we selectively view politicians such as Dr. Ben Carson or Bernie Sanders, we see them through very different eyes as a result. Both are obviously passionate people. Both are struggling to change the status quo. There are people who call both of them crazy. And there are people who take the bait.

Hard-liners

Extremism is a byproduct of trying to make sense of this dichotomy. People simply choose sides and gravitate to the far ends of the spectrum. Standing somewhere between the will to change and fear of change is known as being a moderate. But those voices can barely be heard over the screams of the extremes.

Perhaps more commonly, people choose candidates who represent their views or fears, and somehow Dr. Ben Carson has attracted a fair number of followers. But what creeps me out about the guy is not his potential mental illness. It is crazy ideological statements such as this: “No body with bullet holes is more devastating than taking the right to arm ourselves away.” And granted, that might be some form of hyperbole. Even Jesus Christ was known to exaggerate to make a point. But there’s no way Jesus Christ would equate the right to bear arms as more important than human life. So I think Ben Carson is the one that’s talking crazy talk.

And statements like those are why Ben Carson deserves to be scrutinized from every perspective possible. Because they evidence that fact that when it comes to issues of moral gravity, Ben Carson is either a fake, or he’s purposely faking it. Which is even more disturbing. Because what is his true agenda? No one can really know for sure when the “real” statements he makes cannot be separated from the supposedly playful manner in which Carson takes issue with serious social issues.

Fox News “reality” show

Consider that even in the cloistered environment of Fox News, where conservative viewpoints like Carson’s are cherished and promoted, things get strange when talking about standing your ground during a mass shooting or running away.

As reported on Salon.com: “On “Fox & Friends” Tuesday morning, he (Carson) said that “I would not just stand there and let him shoot me. I would say, ‘Hey guys, everybody attack him. He may shoot me, but he can’t get us all.’” When asked about the remarks by ABC News later that day, he repeated his assertion with a smile, which Kelly said many people would take as an evidence of callousness. (italics by the author)

Carson disagreed, saying that “I was laughing at them, at their silliness. Of course if everybody attacks that gunman, he’s not going to be able to kill everybody.”

Actual military veterans who were armed and on the campus while the shooting occurred didn’t abide by the dictates of Carson’s assured tactical acumen, but that’s beside his point. “If you sit there and let him shoot you one-by-one,” Carson said, “you’re all going to be dead.”

This is a man operating in an imaginary world, where his ideology rules the day, and reality be damned. That’s why people are questioning his mental fitness. It’s not because he’s a conservative. Or he’s black. Or any other reason. He simply refuses to make sense.

“Getting” Carson and Cain

Some claim that he’s so smart the rest of the world doesn’t “get” Ben Carson..because he’s a brain surgeon, you know. And a Christian, apparently. And who knows what else?

Well, the Republican Party keeps trotting out ostensibly conservative black guys as evidence they “get” the needs of so-called minorities.

Herman Cain was the last iteration of this brand of conservative, running on grounds that people did not “get” his message. But he had other axes to grind as well. “I honestly believe that there’s an element in this country, in our politics, that does not want to see a businessman succeed at getting the nomination for the Republican party, and does not want me to succeed at becoming President of the United States of America.”

Well, now that’s a bit of news isn’t it? How many millionaires do we now have in Congress? And why does Wall Street throw millions of dollars behind candidates like Mitt Romney, the businessman and massively callous job-killer whose main professional accomplishments were delivering profits to shareholders? Or Donald Trump, an erstwhile businessman who now leads Republican polling?

But Cain was delusionally obsessed with his inability to convince people he was right. So he blamed others.

Blame and shame

Again, the methods of extremists are always to blame others for their failure to get elected, or to govern. Right now the brother of the former President of the United States of America, candidate Jeb Bush, is busy denying that his brother GWB bore any responsibility for preventing the attacks.

This is mental illness as a political ideology. This is imagined reality superimposed on reality. This is why extremists and political ideologues such as Dick Cheney and perhaps Dr. Ben Carson cannot be trusted. They made not be mentally ill, but they certainly act like it. And that’s the only thing about them that isn’t fake.

If Ben Carson were President

October 14, 2015 / Christopher Cudworth / 2 Comments

We can only speculate at this point what it would be like if Dr. Ben Carson were to become President of the United States. But we can surmise that his seemingly disconnected approach to reality would continue on its strange course. So here’s a little primer on how Ben Carson might respond to situations of real consequence, tragedy and progress. All of the following remarks are drawn straight from the mouth of Dr. Ben Carson.

Imagine Ben Carson responding to the 9/11 tragedy. With a massive terrorist attack staring him right in the face, Dr. Carson would more likely wax poetic on how people perceive the thing. This is one of his actual quotes: “Quite frankly, having an uninformed populace works extremely well, particularly when you have a media that doesn’t understand its responsibility and feels more like it’s an arm of a political party. They can really take advantage of an uninformed populace.”

And how right Dr. Carson would be. Because following the 9/11 tragedy, the media followed the lead of the George W. Bush administration by cheerleading for war. The public largely went along with the idea that attacking Iraq after bombing Afghanistan was the right thing to do despite the fact that there was no connection between Saddam Hussein and the terrorists who committed the crime? So in his daft way, Dr. Carson accurately predicted how stupid much of the American public can be.

Of course, Dr. Ben Carson would never actually call people stupid. That is, unless he disagrees with them somehow. This is what the erstwhile President might have to say about that. “I just happen to believe that people are not stupid. And the way I will come at it is to educate people, help people to actually understand that it is that progressive movement that is causing them the problems.”

Well, isn’t that a dandy little contradiction in terminology? It’s only progressive people that are stupid. So would Dr. Ben Carson be a President for all the people, or just the people with whom he agrees?

“Here’s a nation, one of the founding pillars was freedom of speech and freedom of expression. And yet, we have imposed upon people restrictions on what they can say, on what they can think. And the media is the largest proponent of this, crucifying people who say things really quite innocently.”

Yes, Dr. Carson. It’s really quite innocent to suggest that the progressive movement is the cause of the problems in America despite its innocent motivations of social justice, economic fairness and racial equality. And then turn around and claim that it’s the media that is burying fairness and that progressives are the cause of social ills when you’ve already admitted that having an uninformed populace is rather handy when it comes to propagandizing certain messages that go unexamined by people who listen to news media that bark their so-called “fair and balanced” beliefs 24 hours a day?

That’s not selfish thinking at all, now is it, Dr. President? But Ben Carson thinks he’s got it all figured out. Despite representing a party whose entire priorities seem to be satisfying the richest and most famous (Donald Trump, for example) of all Americans, Dr. Carson thinks that the “rich and famous” are depressed because they don’t “have a cause.” He’s what he has to say about that.

“There is no fulfillment in things whatsoever. And I think one of the reasons that depression reigns supreme amongst the rich and famous is some of them thought that maybe those things would bring them happiness. But what, in fact, does is having a cause, having a passion. And that’s really what gives life’s true meaning.“

So perhaps Dr. Ben Carson is on to something. Maybe the reason Republicans such as he…are so dissatisfied and depressed about America is that the cause they are representing, making the rich even richer while dumping social woes and costs on the middle class and poor, is really not all that satisfying?

We can only imagine what it would be like to have Dr. Ben Carson as President. But frankly, we’ve already imagined that, and America is suffering for it.

So let’s skip the whole Ben Carson thing altogether, can we? He’s obviously a parrot for the pathetically vacuous virtues of an ideology that has long gone bankrupt.

The time may be right for the porn industry to Trump politics

August 20, 2015August 20, 2015 / Christopher Cudworth / Leave a comment

With the unrepentant whore of capitalism Donald Trump (several bankruptcies, and “You’re fired mentality) leading the Republican polls, it’s time to seriously consider if the modern version of Babylon has fully arrived.

We are either at the cusp of a real financial Armageddon or else Trump really is the Second Coming of a financial savior. That is indeed what the investment angels of Wall Street have been seeking for years, because it’s honestly going to take a miracle or the end of the world as we know it to put America back at the top of its world economic game.

But if The Donald really is a Messiah of some sort, he’s certainly not hewing anywhere close to the model of Jesus Christ. He came out swinging with that slam on Mexicans, which set quite well with the wealthy oligarchs and the bigoted Tea Party henchman that guard the gates of Free Market Heaven. You can almost hear the cries of ecstasy from the radical right. “Jesus Christ!” they exclaim. “This guy’s the real deal!”

But when Trump went ahead and made the claim that the American economy actually does better under Democrats than Republicans, all hell broke loose in the minds of true Republican believers.

Whip it good

Trump simply does not act like the original conservative Messiah. That would be The Ronald, otherwise known as Ronald Reagan. He was the supposed Great Communicator that strolled onto the American scene like a trustworthy uncle seeking to save the family fortune.

Then it turned out that The Ronald mortgaged his soul by selling arms to Iran in exchange for money to execute a government overthrow in Central America. Reagan was forced to use his finest acting skills trying to sell that bit of illegal farce to the American People. Then he turned around and admitted that he’d been fibbing all along. As a result, his minions fell on their swords so that the legend of Ronald Reagan with its armored chest and feet of clay could remain standing tall.

America should have learned its lesson from that stinking cesspool of deception. Instead Reagan has remained perched on his conservative pedestal as if he never did anything wrong in his life. That sets the stage for the likes of Donald Trump.

A modern King Herod

The Reagan legacy makes it all the easier for a man like Donald Trump to waltz onto the scene as if he has never done anything wrong either. Never mind that Trump has spent his entire public career acting like King Herod, fawning and preening over himself while taunting men like Barack Obama over their birthrights and intellect.

But a certain brand of stupid Americans buy his schtick. “He speaks his mind,” say his political defenders…as if that were enough moxie to justify a loyal following. If that were the case, John the Baptist would never have lost his head. Let’s also not forget that it was the vengeful demand of a dancing girl that put poor John to waste.

But we’re not hollering about the arrival Messiah over the River Jordan in this day and age. The stakes have gotten higher. Much higher, according to some, with America playing a lead role in a Revelatory play about Babylon thanks to abortion and gay marriage. America as a Republic is on the verge of a holy Armageddon according to religious prognosticators such as Pat Buchanan and Pat Robertson.

Right behind

There are some, especially those who read the contents of outrageously non-biblical books in the Left Behind series, who believe that the Book of Revelation can be trusted and read as a playbook for the End Times. It is their contention that there are signs of the End Times all around us.

If so, how can the legitimately ignore the visage of one Donald Trump? This guy represents the anti-Christ if there ever was one!

But wait. Trump claims to be a Republican, so he’s relatively safe among conservative believers, who are taught to believe that the anti-Christ could never come from the ranks of the GOP.

What a Great Deceiver the anti-Christ turns out to be. And it’s all so predictable. The bible makes clear that the men in direct conflict with Jesus were the Republicans of his day, the Pharisees, whom Jesus called “hypocrites” and a “brood of vipers.”

What would Jesus do?

Perhaps today’s Republicans are just not picking up on the message that Jesus did not like religious and political conservatives as a rule.

In fact Jesus was more likely to hang out with whores and hated tax collectors in the interest of enlightening the populace about the real nature of saving souls. So perhaps it is time to rally a populist movement based on the example of Jesus?

What if a political party of real and open sinners were to take center stage rather than rely on the hypocritical brand of closeted sinners currently running the GOP––and some other parties. What populist electorate has the financial punch and popularity to send a shock wave through modern politics. That’s right: the time is right for the emergence of the Porn Party.

Internet sensation

Pornography is one of the most popular forms of entertainment in the world. It’s a form of entertainment that literally drove the Internet to its current level of popularity and sophistication.

It shouldn’t be hard to find a Porn Party candidate people can get behind and truly embrace. Porn is, after all, a far more popular form of entertainment than boring old actor hacks like Ronald Reagan, whose best role involved messing around with a chimpanzee in a movie titled Bedtime for Bonzo.

Actually, from the sound of that movie title, we were pretty close to electing the leader of the Porn Party in the 1980s. Nothing like a little chimpanzee bestiality to get the political blood flowing, we always say.

Raking it in

With the porn industry raking in between $4B (according to Forbes.com) and $14B a year, mostly through the Internet, all it would take to form a political action committee is a few of those ads featuring throbbing breasts and an invitation to contribute $1.69 to elect a President to guarantee the continued flow of free porn to all.

Then there needs to be an icon that can run for President. If it’s all about looking Presidential that honor could go to the likes of Peter North, a handsome porn actor known for his prodigiously sized unit and a knack for pleasing the ladies. He should appeal to the Republican base as well, because he looks like a cross between a young Mitt Romney and a very happy Rick Santorum. Who, it turns out, has some quite interesting links to the gay porn industry.

With his boy-next-door looks and a naughty guy reputation, Peter North (Go North for President!) could also score big with women voters who can’t resist a bad boy when they see one. His running mate could be the comely Jenna Jameson, who would deliver key name recognition right out of the gate. She apparently already has a following on Fox News. This is all coming together so sweetly!

Best of all, there’s really nothing hiding in either of their closets. For the first time in America’s history, the candidates for President and Vice President could run around naked in the White House and no one would be shocked. It turns out Bill Clinton was simply ahead of his time.

The Donald comes clean

If you think Donald Trump is much different from Bill Clinton when it comes to his attitudes toward women and sex, consider the following statements he’s made in public:

”All of the women on ‘The Apprentice’ flirted with me — consciously or unconsciously. That’s to be expected,” Trump once said.

“I think the only difference between me and the other candidates is that I’m more honest and my women are more beautiful,” he insists.

“You know, it really doesn’t matter what [the media] write as long as you’ve got a young and beautiful piece of ass,” is another of his statements.

A political pornographer

In other words, Donald Trump is already a political pornographer. So why should the pornography industry stand back and let a man with such vanity and bad hair hog all the limelight? All he needs is a pair of black socks and a POV iPhone video and the campaign will really be off and running.

So hey, shouldn’t Donald Trump be running under the Porn ticket?

The voting bloc is out there. Millions of Americans look at pornography every day. If the Political Action Committee for the Porn Party were to collect just one dollar from every click on a paid porn site there would be billions in the bank overnight. The Donald would certainly love the sound of that.

And with that kind of money back the movement, there could be Porn Party candidates running for political office all over the United States. Think of the interesting effect on local school boards! Kids would soon be reading erotic material in the classroom. Now there’s a way to incentivize kids to read!

The Porn Lobby

Ultimately we’d have lobbyists for the Porn Party in Washington itself! Well, considering the number of sex scandals we hear about in that city, the lobby for the Porn Party might actually be business as usual.

If Donald Trump really does win the Republican nomination, it appears the Porn Party will already be on its way to gaining its first political foothold in America. Stranger things have happened. Just ask Reagan what Bedtime for Bonzo was really like. It retrospect it really does sound a little kinky, don’t you think?

What is your version of Jesus doing today?

May 11, 2015May 11, 2015 / Christopher Cudworth / Leave a comment

Back in the 1980s that famous phrase “What Would Jesus Do?” seemed to hold potential to revive a certain sort of mainstream Christian hope that youth would embrace the man we call the Son of God. Yet it too died of overexposure.

Which means we’re left with a Post-Modern sort of Jesus to leverage into cultural memes. That has produced a wide range of beliefs about Jesus and versions of his ministry and message to consider.

Here are a few versions alive and kicking today:

The Evangelical Jesus

The word “evangelical” means to share the word. So evangelicals in the Post Modern world have spread themselves thin trying to promote their version of Jesus to the world. The Evangelical Jesus is now part Economist through evangelical promotion of the Prosperity Gospel. He is also part Politician through alliances with conservatives during election cycles. Finally, the Evangelical Jesus also functions as the Great Decider in situations where Evangelicals determine who should and should not be included in the Kingdom of God. That means the Evangelical Jesus can be used as a tool for discrimination. So if you happen to be black, or gay, or female, or poor, depending on the whim of Evangelical Jesus, you might not get to come to the party. All this is justified under the umbrella of sharing the Word as evangelicals see it.

The Evangelical Version of Jesus keeps quite busy these days trying to separate the wheat from the chaff of society.

The Fundamentalist Jesus

It’s a little hard to separate the Fundamentalist Jesus from the Evangelical Jesus at times. The watershed between the two can typically be found in the confessional language of fundamentalism. This is sort of a code language formed around key Bible passages, but it all has a shortcut that usually starts with the phrase, “Are you a believer?” From that point a stream of confessional words should tumble out of your mouth in cornucopia fashion. “He is my personal savior. I believe Jesus is the Son of God, who died on the cross and was raised from the dead after three days. He ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of God and will come to judge the evil and the dead.” Of course there are subtle variations of The Fundamentalist Jesus at work in the world these days, but the principle priority is to teach and require this confessional language and use it like a Morse Code to recognize all those who want to be embraced by the Fundamentalist Jesus.

The Fundamentalist Version of Jesus spends most of his days listening to Moody Bible Institute broadcasts where silky-voiced radio hosts spew confessional language into microphones.

The Creationist Jesus

Way back when the Bible was written and Jesus was just a twinkle in the Holy Spirit’s eye, God somehow decided that things in the world should never change except by cataclysmic events such as floods, plagues and genocidal Kings who followed the Will of God to the letter by savaging entire populations of people who worshipped false idols. This rather fixed version of history in which nothing happens by chance is how Creationist Jesus prefers to conduct business. That means he was actually there in some form when God commanded Adam to name all the animals, plants, insects and other living things on the earth, which all apparently grew and lived in the Middle East so that Adam could name them properly. Then they all reconvened for a reunion with Noah so that he could rescue sample DNA from around the world while the flood deposited millions of fossils of deceased creatures in neatly organized layers so that humans could discover them a mere 10,000 years later. The Creationist Jesus also apparently hung out with dinosaurs.

The Creationist Version of Jesus has been busy raising money for a temple to creationism built in Kentucky.

The Conservative Jesus

There are some who believe that one cannot be anything but a conservative and a Christian. That would be a really great thing if only Jesus himself believed it. Because Jesus spent the latter part of his earthly ministry castigating the conservatives of his day for their rigid, legalistic belief systems that turned scripture into law and caused people all kinds of suffering. That leaves us with a really interesting figure to worship these days, and the Conservative Jesus as a result is little more than a figurehead for a doctrine that claims supply-side economics, sexual abstinence, distrust of science and a brand of fascist newscasting are indicators of a true belief in Christ. Conservative Jesus would not recognize the acts of the Good Samaritan because one never knows who is really disguised as a Muslim. Conservative Jesus might have a few black friends, but most of them would sit silent in social situations like Clarence Thomas or else crow about the liberation of a few wealthy blacks as indicators that there is no such thing as racial oppression. Conservative Jesus might even secretly wear a Confederate tattoo on his right buttock and engage in Concealed Carry in case those Democrat Pharisees show up to take away the guns of him and his disciples.

Conservative Jesus is a badass with ripped abs and a glock to boot. Don’t cross him.

The Republican Jesus

Every two to four years, the Republican Jesus is trotted out like a Cigar Store Indian to raise money for anti-abortion candidates and people who like to de-fund science and programs that benefit the poor. Republican Jesus waves the flag a lot and tends to like wars because they benefit the economy and a few very well situated white men that have ties to companies with catering services for the military. In some case these companies actually become the military, in which case the Republican Jesus leads rallies to convince both the real military and the mercenary military they are fighting for the honor of Republican Jesus, who really likes a Good War and knows a Bad War when he sees one. Which isn’t very often, because all wars started by America are necessarily Good Wars. Republican Jesus also tends to ignore the cries of the poor because the Bible clearly states that one shall not spoil the child by denying them the opportunity to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. And if that doesn’t work, Republican Jesus uses those bootstraps to whip the poor into shape.

Republican Jesus really can’t be bothered to see you right now. There’s an election in 2016 you know.

The Democrat Jesus

On the surface, Democrat Jesus seems to side with many of the principles held dear by liberals who read the Bible. Social programs that help the poor and elderly are often supported by Democrats. So Democrat Jesus looks much like the real thing. Yet in many cases Democrat Jesus is a bit more like the confused disciple Judas, who was a traitor to Jesus by turning him in for a bag of coins. This confuses people about Democrat Jesus, and makes them question the faith of men like Barack Obama, who speaks pretty clearly about helping the poor and the disadvantages, but then spends time at the country club or patting the heads of Wall Street bankers who want to turn government into a collection station for annuities. Instead of flipping the tables of the tax collectors in the temple like Jesus did, Democrat Jesus shakes hands and asks if the temple is too big to fail. If the answer is yes, Democrat Jesus turns to his followers and says, “Let’s move on! Nothing to see here!”

Democrat Jesus is occupying Wall Street, but only for lunch with a few Jewish bankers and the opportunity to stay in a house out on the Hamptons for the weekend.

The Liberal Jesus

Well, we always seem to be getting somewhere when Liberal Jesus rides into the town on the back of a donkey. Liberal Jesus wants to genuinely help the poor. Even to the point of re-distribution of wealth, Liberal Jesus calls cultures to account for their sins of ignoring the neediest. Yet even Liberal Jesus gets a little distracted sometimes. It’s really confusing for Liberal Jesus to figure out the abortion issue, for example. No one likes killing babies of course. So Liberal Jesus suggests using birth control, but the Bible has plenty of warnings about the dangers of casual sex. So Liberal Jesus has to do all kinds of verbal gymnastics about that, and about gays as well because the Bible has traditionally been interpreted to ban adultery and teens feeling each other up (and more) in the back seats of cars. So Liberal Jesus is constantly busy trying to convince the world that he actually stands for something other than doing any bloody thing you want to do.

Liberal Jesus is alternately cringing and praising the books of Bishop John Shelby Spong.

The Genesis Fix: A Repair Manual for Faith in the Modern Age

We’ve reached the point where some people are too Christian to function

May 1, 2015May 1, 2015 / Christopher Cudworth / Leave a comment

In that cinematic pillar of conscience titled “Mean Girls” starring a still-functional Lindsay Lohan, there is a marvelous scene in which the male homosexual character (Damian) in the movie is the subject of commentary by some of his close friends. “He’s almost too gay to function,” someone says.

What that means is that his gayness places so much emphasis on consideration of fashion, behavior and grooming it is almost impossible to move around in the world for fear of breaching some gay standard.

Yes, gays have standards. Plenty of them in fact. If you ever stumbled on the show Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, you might have witnessed the transformation for formerly slobbly, careless men into creatures that actually knew how to dress and groom themselves so that women (not men) would be attracted to them.

Yet there are no cliches that apply to all gay men or women. The large population of gay and transgender people is this world is too large and diverse to make generalities about.

We can be thankful that society is beginning to appreciate the contributions of gay people to professions and industries of all types. That’s because the last 20 years have produced an increasing openness about homosexuality.

Of course this trend has been resisted by those who still view homosexuality as a lifestyle or a choice rather than what it is: a manifestation of the biological, emotional and psychological diversity found in the human species.

But because there are scriptures that single out homosexuality as a sin, some people take those words verbatim and claim that there is no way society can tolerate or accept homosexuality in any way, shape or form. Some scholars such as Bishop John Shelby Spong have made the case that the Apostle Paul was actually a repressed homosexual. Repression never seems to come out well. It’s a highly dysfunctional aspect of social behavior. Often it turns out those most opposed to a social issue are those who struggle with some other form of repression in themselves.

They are too repressed to function.

Now that brand of confrontation is coming to a head. The Supreme Court of the United States is considering cases pertaining to gay marriage. Never mind that the Constitution already states that religion has no say in the matter. The guarantee in the Establishment Clause says it clearly: the nation shall make no law establishing religion as the law of the land, nor preventing its free exercise.

Some people insist that second section of the clause proves the right to oppose and repress the right to gay marriage. They claim it imposes restriction on their beliefs.

It so happens that conservative Christians also claim that teaching evolution in public schools is also a breach of their beliefs.

Yet how convenient it is that there are Christians out there preaching a prosperity Gospel on claims that God wants us all to be rich! Well, the Bible is full of indictments on the worship of money. So which is the truth?

Meanwhile the Catholic Church has for decades banned use of birth control among its members. Yet some 90% or more of its members ignore this dictum.

See, there’s this problem with Christianity and the functionality of society. Since there is no single interpretation of the Bible accepted by all Christians, it is impossible to make exceptions for all variations in interpretation of the Bible. Otherwise we would not have national holidays or even celebrate Christmas according to some branches of Christianity. We would all be forced to consider the strictures laid out in a set of golden plates if the Church of Latter Day Saints were to have its way as well.

That is why the Founding Fathers made plain that no religion can define the activities of the nation or state. They knew that people become too Christian to function at some point. Unable to distinguish between their personal beliefs and the law of the nation, they too often choose to impose their personal beliefs and concepts of God on others, sometimes forcefully.

Christianity really is too Christian to function as the law of the land.

Government isn’t the problem. It’s people who see government as the problem that are the problem.

April 15, 2015 / Christopher Cudworth / Leave a comment

Let’s talk about the nature of predictive behavior and self-fulfilling prophecies for a moment. We can start with the famous quote by Ronald Reagan as evidence that self-predictive statements result in self-fulfilling prophecies. Reagan once said, “In the present crisis, government is not the solution to the problem, government is the problem.”

You can define a crisis any way you like. That’s the real problem. And when you go around manufacturing crises for the sake of getting your way on this issue or that, then government can be used to aid and abet the wishes of those who have not the best interests of the people in mind. They have their own issues in mind.

Often those issues have deeply conflicting roots. That’s why it feels like a crisis is at hand. When people see a situation that feels like it is outside their control, especially their political or ideological control, they easily call it a crisis.

Around such false premises are most crises formed. Yet what one political party calls a crisis, the other political party calls an investment in progress, or prevention of demise.

So the argument goes round and round. Meanwhile the claim that government itself is the problem gathers powerful meaning. That’s because politicians and religious leaders excel at leveraging that argument to their own benefit. How is it that someone in a government position can dare make the claim that, as Reagan once stated, “government is the problem.” If government is the greatest problem of the nation, what is the nation at all?

That’s like saying religion is the problem with Christianity, or that Christianity is the problem with religion. It doesn’t matter which way you say it. It’s using the existence of one thing to absolve the responsibility of the other.

You may recall for example that Jesus was not a Christian. He could not be, because as he lived there was not yet a symbolic act that created the faith upon which absolution of sins was based. He was both the egg and the chicken. So that argument is settled once and for all.

If we don’t accept that government is also both the egg and the chicken, then we can’t believe in its power to conduct the business of the people. Sure, one can argue about the so-called “size” of government and its supposed taxing powers. You can argue about its impacts on the lives of ordinary citizens. You can argue about the corruption that goes on within so many governments included and especially the United States of America, which despite its claims of exceptionalism is one of the biggest terrorist states ever known to humankind.

Without the deep confession that it’s the people who see government as the problem that are the problem, they are free to conduct themselves any way they like because it is a self-fulfilling prophecy. That’s how we get the Oliver Norths and G. Gordon Liddy’s of this world doing what they like because they see themselves above and outside the constrictions of government. They are held to no accounting because their view of government is unaccountable. Same goes for corrupt governors like Illinois ‘Rod Blagojevich, who saw government positions as a commodity to be traded and sold. Or President George W. Bush, who won a second term by a small margin and claimed that he earned political capital that he could spend at will.

All such people are the vexing scourge of good government. Yet they seem to be the same people who somewhere along the line came to view government as a limiting factor on their ego and their will.

It all stems from worldviews founded on less than moral principles and understanding of the Bible and the Constitution. When we supplant personhood with notions that corporations have the same voice as individual citizens, we compromise the real meaning of government. That is how it becomes the problem.

By contrast using government to promote equal rights, fair commerce and healthy (but not exploitative) trade are signs that government is the solution to human need.

Even Jesus said “Give unto Caesar what it Caesars.” He understood that some form of government was necessary for human enterprise. But he did not necessarily approve of Roman rule and the type of authority expressed by the Romans, which disrespected all those who were not already Roman citizens by birth or adoption.

And that’s the difference. Government isn’t the problem. It is the brutal, manipulative character of the people running governments that is always the problem.

Who’s your Daddy? Tough love news on the economy, investments and who is really profiting

March 19, 2015March 19, 2015 / Christopher Cudworth / Leave a comment

Recent films like The Kingsman clearly illustrate the “Who’s Your Daddy” principle in force. It’s always some secret force that supposedly knows more than you do. Or it’s what they’d like you to believe.

Recently I completed a writing assignment on marketing material for a former Wall Street buy-side investment banker that now runs his own firm. It took many turns sitting with him in his office to get his message across, which was this: Americans are getting screwed by the investment products they buy.

You can imagine that a copywriter would have some trouble with that messaging. It goes against the grain of everything we’re told to believe. That investing our money is good for our future and good for the economy. But what if all that were false.

My client pushed me to put his frustration and anger into plain words. He worked 20+ years buying and managing investment portfolios for companies whose names you would surely recognize even if you do not follow Wall Street news or economics.

Harsh claims

It was tough for me to conceive how far he wanted to go in indicting the very industry that he served all those years. But his take on Main Street investment advisors is that they are all basically hucksters moving money around to make commissions. The typical investor, he claims, is behind by 3-5% before their money even lands in a mutual fund or other investment vehicle.

This is not some liberal guy like me talking about the investment world. This is a guy who worked for topline, tough Jewish bankers in an investment world where frills were not the object. The main goal was to make money, and that was that.

The difference between that world and what everyday investors see is night and day, he contends. “Buy-side” investment is all due diligence, trends and purchasing the best investments in stocks and other products money can buy.

Consumer side investment by contrast is mashing together a bunch of shit with the good stuff and convincing people to buy it.

Mish mash investments

Because by contrast, consumer side investment is a mish-mash of good and bad investments lumped together. In order to get to the good stuff, in other words, your money has to support a lot of bad deals. You wind up with a massive averaging effect that looks good on paper at times, but most often is not.

Meanwhile a big chunk of the money gravitates to the companies putting these averaged investments together. Perhaps it’s all a buddy system of sorts, or a quid-pro-quo system based on hedging bets. But you must understand that the best money players also know how to play both sides of any deal. They make money when you lose money because they’ve also got bucks playing on the counteractive market forces. Sometimes they even force the deal when an opportunity presents itself.

Giving birth to money

Early in my career, I was a direct witness to the birth of a major investment firm that essentially helped invent investment trusts and mutual funds. I saw how basic and earthy the process of creating and selling investments really was. It was like a midwife managing a woman with labor pains… with people running around trying to figure out the best way to bring something to life. Then they’d jump on the phones and push, push, push. Then the product flomped on the market and people would rave that it generates interest. Then they’d get busy fucking with another set of financial products to make a baby with even more investment promise. That’s how the investment industry works.

Giving birth to nations

It happens even at the world political level where investing in wars reaps giant profits for companies willing to sell to anyone willing to buy. The process even gives birth to new nations (whose resources are then plundered) while bankers and globalized companies act as parents in the process.

There are other family alliances as well. Some of those rest with dealmakers and stockholders who also have skin in the game. Call them the Bad Uncles, if you like. Sometimes they call in their favors, essentially claiming the first-born for their own.

Don’t pretend it doesn’t happen. Look at Putin’s actions in the Ukraine. That’s a patriarchal approach to world power, and a tradition that has not vanished over the millennia. So much of our economic and political system worldwide is based on an elaborate game of “Who’s your daddy?” We all want to believe that our “parents” have our best interests in mind. But there are a lot of really bad parents in this world. So who are we trying to fool? Ourselves, mostly, into thinking all will be well without questioning why daddy seems to sneak around so much.

Paternal instincts

Recently I’ve had conversations with friends that work in the investment industry. They’re nervous and angry that the federal government is determined to place a new regulatory layer over the investment game. It would monitor transactions and ostensibly try to make investment a more level playing field.

But if my conservative friend who emigrated from Wall Street to run his own small firm to try to benefit his stable of investors is correct, the real reason investment industry “insiders” at brokerage firms and other financial outlets is nervous is because they are afraid to be exposed for what they really are. Pawnbrokers for a crooked dynamic. And they don’t want some new brand of daddy watching what they’re doing.

None of my associates are crooked by nature. They’re not by nature “bad kids.” They run their local service organizations and serve on their church boards. So it’s not that they are intentionally scheming their customers. But they may well be unintentionally scheming their customers, and in some ways that’s even worse.

Skewed systems

We’re talking about a skewed system here that serves as the foundation for all of American business and the economy. We keep hearing warnings that another recession will occur someday soon. There are apparently more props than real foundations in place when it comes to investments, interest rates and borrowing. When the economy last crashed did you notice what happened? Banks clamped shut on loans. Small businesses struggled for cash flow. Even devout conservatives wondered what the hell was up when the shit last hit the fan. It all happened under Republican watch. That’s not supposed to happen.

Yet when Democrat spending attempted to turn the economy around, and the auto industry and Wall Street banking got lifted back on their feet, there was low grumbling about how messing with the economy and “printing money” were never good things.

Going for the gold

Every week on both conservative and liberal talk radio you can hear ads for companies selling gold. They claim that the economy is indeed headed for serious trouble in the near future, and that owning gold is the only sure bet against economic collapse.

Those ads may have a point. It’s pretty frustrating for small investors to watch 50% of their entire holdings disappear overnight. Yet we must also consider that the last recession, while gutting the middle class work force and small investors, did not seem to greatly effect the top 10% of the American economy. A few traded in their SUVs for vehicles with better gas mileage when the price of gas reached $4.00, but that’s because the truly wealthy are also often truly cheap when it comes to spending. Hence the doomed philosophy that the so-called “job creators” prized and touted by Republican interests so often fail to deliver on that promise. Most kids grow up living on their father’s pocket change as allowance. That’s about the same dynamic that went on with the American economy when things got tight due to the recession. The only hope for recovery and change was shaking loose the pockets of the government (whom conservatives hate to call daddy) because the rest of society had a firm grip on every dime they had.

Losing house and home

Meanwhile foreclosures mounted and the real estate industry crumbled for a time. One must suspect that the same internal-trading dynamic that runs the investment world also governs the real estate game.

Indeed, I also recently met a man whose formula for Sold-to-Price or Sold-To-Value home performance delivers a 99% success rate. You’d think the realty business would love that kind of value delivery. Yet realtors hate the guy. And he hates realtors just like my buy-side investment friend hates commercial mutual fund salesman. My real estate friend’s contention is simple: Realtors deliver very little value for the work they do. Earning 5% commission for selling a home is thievery, he maintains. So you can see why realtors hate him. Like my hard-ass investment friend, he’s too damned honest.

He’s also tried to undercut the game much like the For Sale By Owner industry did thirty years ago. But the dynamics of real estate are so strong no one can really cut through the bullshit to convince people to try it any other way. There’s a big margin built into the system and no one is really willing or capable of shifting that dynamic in any substantial way.

Presumptions

So we have an economy based on naive presumptions. It’s not truly a free market in the sense that the dynamics are free and available to all who participate, and we all are forced to do so. Most of the money sucked out of the system goes to the providers and commission-makers while those who caught in the daily/yearly backwash wind up with $400,000 houses and investment portfolios that have not really increased in value for the last 10 years. In fact most have declined. The appearances that investment portfolios have “rebounded” are, in a sick sense, a desperate illusion compared to the amount of wealth that has migrated to the richest segments of society. Again, we’re talking pocket change compared to daddy’s monthly income.

The daddy business

I manage my father’s money. He and my mother wisely saved like beavers for 10 years, then purchased long term care insurance policies for their old age and watched as my father had a stroke and my mother died of cancer. It’s been my job to protect his principle while paying his bills and keeping him in his own home in the 10 years since my mother died. At one point when the long term care insurance was going to run out (my father outlived both their policies) it occurred to me that I had better create a secondary source of income to replace that money. So I pushed my investment guy to figure out a way to do a dividend distribution plan and it took two years to build the necessary equity by putting money into a fund that now generates a 7% return. That’s $2000 a month that would not be there had I not thought up the idea to make that happen.

In the end, of course, we’re all responsible for our own investment strategies. No investment advisor can make those decisions for you. Or can they? The real dynamic is that mutual fund managers push investments and combine products in ways that investors seldom understand. Then those who sell those investments make recommendations to buy or sell. It’s a massive veil of interests, commissions and returns.

Protecting your interests?

What I’m saying is that the government is probably attempting to act out of conscience when it comes to what’s happening out there in the economy, and investments, and who is really profiting from it all. Conservatives absolutely hate when the government gets involved. Yet real conservatives like my Wall Street client also know that the game is totally rigged against everyday investors. But people who are doing fairly well despite how the game is rigged tend to keep their mouths shut and are happy to take what they can get. But a few, like my client, are sick and tired of watching people get screwed time and time again. It’s like the Catholic Church finally having to admit there is a tradition of child abuse going on within its priestly ranks. No secrets last forever.

Market Corrections

In the long run, doing the right thing is neither a liberal or a conservative motive, you see. That’s plain good conscience. Which proves that in the end, the most arch conservatives and devoted liberals are not so far apart in philosophy. I think that for better or worse, President Obama has tried to strike an uneasy balance in the conduct of his Presidency. As it has turned out, he appears on some fronts to be someone everyone loves to hate.

He knows the Wall Street crowd and has had to play their game along with them. He actually knows how to play the game better than some of the conservatives, and that pisses them off.

Yet he also never over-delivers on his liberal instincts. Even Obamacare, his pet project, gave more to the conservative side of the equation than it took from the insurance companies. He gave up the idea of Public Option on hopes that the few liberal tenets of the plan such as eliminating pre-existing condition clauses could be implemented. They were, and the Republicans got their way in protecting insurance companies by allowing them to implement super-high deductibles on top of the premiums they collect. Obama’s answer was government subsidies. What an ugly game of Father Knows Best.

It’s all the same game

What Obama did recognize is that the health care game is rigged just like the investment world, the real estate racket and every other piece of economic infrastructure. He tried to change the rules and people don’t like it when you mess with the system. Just ask the mafia and the CIA and all those zealots behind the scenes who actually run our foreign affairs and by proxy, our economy. They killed the Kennedys and Martin Luther King, Jr. over matters of conscience and probably even whacked their recent hero Chris Kyle for going “off script” in some way unbeknownst to the rest of us. Messing with your daddy is always a high stakes game.

That’s the really tough news on the economy, investments and who is really profiting. It’s certainly not you and me. But try telling that to your pappy. You’ll likely get the back of the hand, or worse for speaking up.

The tortured euphemism of enhanced interrogation

December 11, 2014December 11, 2014 / Christopher Cudworth / Leave a comment

Having now read the cold, harsh details of the CIA torture report issued by the United States Senate, we can all agree that the tactics used by our government in an effort to extract information out of terror suspects was not our best moment as a nation. At worst, it was outright inhumane and possibly criminal.

Yes, the administration in charge checked to make sure their tactics were “legal” according to international law. But then there appears to have been little supervision of prisoner treatment across a number of fronts. So-called “black sites” were literally that: dark, dungeonlike facilities where prisoners shivered naked and were strung up like live meat or beaten, dragged and doused with cold water. Many more were waterboarded. Conservative commentators almost strung themselves up trying to contend that these practices were not torture. But the evidence always pointed otherwise.

Not torture?

It all started with the Iraq facility in Abu Ghraib and got worse from there. America became an indiscriminate abuser. We even took pictures to celebrate our cruelty. When they were released our government officials complained that they would endanger the personnel in our armed forces.

Never mind

Never mind the idea that our invasion of Iraq was an unnecessary and ill-conceived response to the attacks on 9/11. Never mind that rational citizens of the United States knew this all along, and were willing to trust the word of international inspectors who told us there were no weapons of mass destruction.

Instead the many millions of people living in fear of another terrorist attack were manipulated into believing the threat was imminent and coming out of Iraq. We quickly became a nation dependent on false information to justify our actions.

Inventions and justifications

And then we began inventing terms to make our military actions and clandestine operations seem justifiable. We became a nation of euphemisms.

Consider the term “enhanced interrogation.” It almost sounds like something you might order at a spa, does it not? The term “enhanced” is generally used to indicate something positive. Here’s the definition:

tr.v. en·hanced, en·hanc·ing, en·hanc·es

1. To make greater, as in value, beauty, or effectiveness; augment.

2. To provide with improved, advanced, or sophisticated features

To speak of the type of interrogation we used in Iraq and other sites quite an “enhancement” is clearly a calculated euphemism designed to avoid the truth of the brutality it represents. Here’s a definition of the word euphemism for clarity:

euphemism

1. the substitution of a mild, indirect, or vague expression for one thought to be offensive, harsh, or blunt.

2. the expression so substituted: “To pass away” is a euphemism for “to die.”.

Lying to us

There’s nothing that smacks of honesty in all of this. The very idea that we must concoct a term to hide the fact that are torturing people is a massively conceived deceit. The entire approach we took even leading up to the 9/11 attacks, in which the administration in charge ignored clear warnings about the intentions of Osama bin Laden to focus on plans to lay waste to Iraq, was deceitful. Then the fact that 9/11 was so clearly used as an excuse to justify our war against that country was also a deception.

Liars and more lies

So when men like Dick Cheney step back in the limelight to call the recently issued CIA torture report “a load of crap,” there is no small irony in that statement. Based on documented information about the practices of the Bush administration and the euphemism used to justify rampant use of torture against often-innocent detainees, we are talking about one of the aggressively deceitful men ever to hold office in America. It all happened under his watch. He claims they knew everything that was going on. That means he approved it. Case closed.

Except for the fact that his supporters and admirers consider him some sort of hero, and that America as a whole has apparently elected to avoid investigation and prosecution of his very visible lies, Cheney would be facing a criminal tribunal, not talking to a Fox News camera like he was the Second Coming of Jesus.

Not lying down

The euphemisms we use to lie to ourselves about issues like torture are not political semantics. They are evidence in the case against allowing ourselves to become inhumane. A nation like America with a supposedly moral foundation should not engage in such euphemisms or allow them to become standards of consideration when talking about freezing another human being to death or making them helpless and broken through forceful abuse.

Lying to ourselves?

Or perhaps we really are no better than that. Perhaps all those claims by conservative Christians that we are a “Christian Nation” are the real load of crap going on here. But consider this: the very people who seem to lack the cognitive ability to connect the dots between our words and our actions and who outright accept the euphemisms we use to justify hateful practices are really not good representatives of a faith that claims to understand the suffering of a man once tortured, beaten and hung on a cross by an angry, fearful nation that once considered all who stood in its way either zealots or terrorists.

That was Rome. And look what it got them. It remains to be seen whether America can turn out any better. Or are we just a euphemism for freedom, morals and democracy?

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