Why so many Americans have literal sympathy for the devil

June 1, 2020June 1, 2020 / Christopher Cudworth / 1 Comment

With police playing both ends of the game as protests and demonstrations broke out across the nation after the choking death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, a section of lyrics from the Rolling Stones song Sympathy for the Devil came to mind.

Just as every cop is a criminal
And all the sinners saints
As heads is tails
Just call me Lucifer
‘Cause I’m in need of some restraint

Here’s both the beauty and the problem with a song such as Sympathy for the Devil. It is a masterpiece of rock satire, rich with insight into the motivations and corruptions of the human race. The Devil is both the cause and the foil of all these historic activities from the death of Jesus Christ to the murder of the Kennedys.

Yet given that the song has a title, “Sympathy for the Devil,” that can be literally construed as an apologetic for Satan, there are factions of people in this world that never comprehend the true meaning of the lyrics. They begin like this:

Please allow me to introduce myself
I’m a man of wealth and taste
I’ve been around for a long, long year
Stole many a man’s soul to waste

It is critical to understand from the outset that the Satan character in question is an inherent part of human nature. Not a separate entity. Not an outside influence. Satan lives within us when we allow the “world” to take over our souls. That’s why they are “stolen” and laid to waste.

The song goes on to warn that the actions of the human race are complex, and that one individual can symbolize the plot, and the plight, of many who fall into the trap of worshipping power.

And I was ’round when Jesus Christ
Had his moment of doubt and pain
Made damn sure that Pilate
Washed his hands and sealed his fate

Thus we find the refrain, brilliant composed to repeat itself throughout the song, in which the Devil reintroduces himself while tossing a cryptic statement out for our consideration:

Pleased to meet you
Hope you guess my name
But what’s puzzling you
Is the nature of my gameI

Both Mick Jagger and Keith Richards had already seen much of how the world works by the time they composed Sympathy for the Devil. Rock stars gain a unique insight into the nature of idol worship in general. Combined with the worlds of unlimited drugs, sex and world travel, those two plucked symbols from history to illustrate how and why the world goes sour, and what the consequences are. It only takes a few cogent lines to encapsulate what happens when political upheaval tears into the fabric of society, and fascism runs over justice:

Stuck around St. Petersburg
When I saw it was a time for a change
Killed the czar and his ministers
Anastasia screamed in vainI

Rode a tank
Held a general’s rank
When the blitzkrieg raged
And the bodies stank

Ah yes, the devil gets around alright. And he/she is always glad to meet someone willing to play the dangerous game of choosing sides with authoritarians and despots promising heaven while they create hell all around them.

Pleased to meet you
Hope you guess my name, oh yeah
Ah, what’s puzzling you
Is the nature of my game, oh yeahI

The sad, sick part in all this is religion’s role in making it all worse. Mick and Keith dared to suggest that many gods were manufactured in the name of God. That’s where the worship of money and indulgences, the power of tradition, and the nasty habits of oppression and repression come together. We’ve seen it here in America in the last three years, and for the previous sixty years before that. Right now the penchant of authoritarian worship is blowing up in our faces. Donald Trump is responsible for it all, right down to the cop kneeling on the neck of a black man on the streets of Minneapolis. Trump is an expression of all the works of the devil. The Seven Deadly Sins: pride, envy, gluttony, greed, lust, sloth, and wrath.

Watched with glee
While your kings and queens
Fought for ten decades
For the gods they made

I shouted out
Who killed the Kennedys?
When after all
It was you and me

At this point in the song, the Devil comes around to the original nature of his supposed virtues. The lyrics show that no innocent will escape his attention.

Let me please introduce myself
I’m a man of wealth and taste
And I laid traps for troubadours
Who get killed before they reached Bombay

If you’re familiar with the song Sympathy for the Devil, you know how the searing guitars and Mick Jagger’s twisting voice turn the melody into a mocking tribute to the kind of all Con Men. He taunts and repeats the refrain, each time making it more obvious that the target of the song is often the perpetrator and a partner with the devil in committing evil deeds.

Pleased to meet you
Hope you guessed my name, oh yeah
But what’s puzzling you
Is the nature of my game, oh yeah, get down, baby

Pleased to meet you
Hope you guessed my name, oh yeah
But what’s confusing you
Is just the nature of my game, mm yeah

Then the song takes a wicked turn to illustrate the threat of what’s really going on when the devil inside people takes control. Let’s recall that the murder of George Floyd took place right after the news cycle chewed on the death of a black jogger, Ahmaud Arbery, who was murdered by shotgun in Georgia earlier this year. The United States has embraced a brand of vigilante justice infecting both the public and the law enforcement world. This has turned the notion of law inside out and upside down. And we should not forget the long line of mass shootings during all this racist brutality as well.

Just as every cop is a criminal
And all the sinners saints
As heads is tails
Just call me Lucifer
‘Cause I’m in need of some restraint

And then comes the bitter end, when Sympathy for the Devil wraps its arms around the issue of complicity and favoring those who claim righteousness while doing heinous work. One can almost imagine Donald Trump Tweeting these first few words…

So if you meet me
Have some courtesy
Have some sympathy, and some taste…

But the devil finally gives us a warning. Better wise up, people, or you’ll be sucked in.

Use all your well-learned politesse
Or I’ll lay your soul to waste, mm yeah

Pleased to meet you
Hope you guessed my name, mm yeah

From there, the song falls onto a steaming river of lament and teasing when the devil taunts the innocents and calls them honey and sweetie. One can almost imagine the honeys and sweeties at one of Donald Trump’s rallies; those big-haired, blue-eyed blondes in MAGA tee shirts and oversized breasts fawning over the Cheater In Chief. He meets the combined fantasies and treasured taboos of sexual provocateur possessed of great wealth and supposed moral virtue. Yet he also appeals to the Boys Club of politically cuckolded husbands and dispossessed gun-toters hoping for a target to assuage their pent-up rage. But most of all, Trump appeals to the the Victimhood Mentality of rabid apologists who hand on his every sympathetic word. That’s why evangelical Christians seeking a hero flocked to Trump as a communicator of their claims to persecution despite the fact that Christianity is the most privileged of religions in all of American history. It is a perversion of truth for Christians to claim that their liberties are being threatened by granting equal and civil rights to other members of society. And let’s recall that a literal and legalistic brand of Christianity was a principle player in the institution of slavery in the United States.

Do you get it now? Or shall we explain it again?

But what’s puzzling you
Is the nature of my game, mm mean it, get down Oh yeah, get on down
Oh yeah Oh yeah

One can imagine Trump standing over one of his fired cabinet members, Apprentice proteges or abused political appointments demanding them to repeat his name.

Tell me baby, what’s my name
Tell me honey, can ya guess my name
Tell me baby, what’s my name
I tell you one time, you’re to blame

Did you catch that last line? That’s the gaslighting part of all this Trumpism. No matter what evil he does, or how many lies and excuses he uses to justify his own incompetency, Trump always tells the world someone else is to blame. Often it is those closest to him that suffer the most. And once he casts them aside, he taunts them publicly.

Oh, right What’s my name
Tell me, baby, what’s my name
Tell me, sweetie, what’s my name

But here’s the sad, sick truth in all this literal sympathy for the devil. Conservatives have long misunderstood and missed the messaging in social protest songs such as this. When Ronald Reagan played Born In the USA at his political rallies, he had no idea that the lyrics indicted all the things he stood for. And that’s what’s going on in America right now. The devil has all the literalists and slogan suckers in his grip, and all they choose to do is blame everyone else for their problems while spewing hate, gaslighting those who question them and filling the Internet with the repeated lies of the devil himself.

So perhaps it’s time to stop showing patience to the deplorable and depraved in this country, these people whose racist instincts and selfish lust for power have supported a man whose delay and denial of the pandemic have cost millions of people their jobs. If this were a different period in history, there would be a rush on the Capitol and Trump would be dragged to the guillotine and his head placed on a spike. Politically at least, that’s what should happen. But we’ll be lucky if we can even conduct a safe and legal election to remove him from office and begin to confront the sympathy for the devil that Trump supporters call Make America Great Again.

Can you guess my name?

Source: LyricFind Songwriters: Keith Richards / Mick JaggerSympathy For The Devil lyrics © Abkco Music, Inc. This blog originally published on GenesisFix.Wordpress.com by Christopher Cudworth.

Even Trump can’t bend the laws of nature to his will

May 11, 2020May 11, 2020 / Christopher Cudworth / Leave a comment

Cicada killer

As a child deeply interested in nature, I studied butterflies and learned dozens of species, taking up birding thanks to the gift of a Peterson Field Guide from a knowing aunt, and spent all the time I could outdoors where the world seemed to offer limitless opportunity to find something new every day.

Yet one warm afternoon I got a bit more nature than I expected. While popping tar bubbles and collecting “Fool’s Gold” bits of pyrite from the gravel on a neighborhood street, I heard a loud buzzing noise over my shoulder and turned to find the biggest wasp I had ever seen descending over my head. It was a cicada killer carrying prey back to its underground nest.

At first, horrified by the size, then fascinated by this massive insect, I watched it land and drag a cicada carcass into a hole in the Pennsylvania clay.

Although I well knew that aspects of nature could be vicious––our own feral cat had proved that to me by dispatching birds and chipmunks multiple times––that encounter with the cicada killer shattered my expectations of how forceful our world could be.

Force of nature

But it didn’t end there. Later in life, I learned that certain kinds of wasps will lay eggs in the bodies of larger caterpillars, whose innards become food for the young of the wasp once they emerge. Parasitoid wasps actually prey on all sorts of other living creatures, with some focusing on aphids, which is why some gardeners welcome the sneaky beasts into their world.

The world is full of predator-prey relationships, many with brutal consequences. Nature usually finds a balance if evolution is left to work its magic. But the human race is known to mess up this equilibrium by introducing entirely new or “invasive” species into an ecosystem. Without any natural predators or systems to keep them in check, these species can run amok, overtaking the natural environment with often devastating force.

We see invasive plant species such as garlic mustard covering woodland floors, shutting out light vital to native wildflowers. Out in the marshes, it is purple loosestrife that propagates like mad. There are also bird species such as European starlings and House sparrows that upon release into North America flourished and flooded the countryside with their aggressive ways.

Murder hornets

The latest predatory and somewhat parasitic species to invade the United States is a species of wasp called the Japanese Murder hornet. Specimens of this robust and vicious wasp have been found in the Pacific Northwest, leading some to worry that they might expand across the country and decimate honeybee populations. That problem would only worsen the challenges faced by beekeepers during a period when massive hive die-offs are common, and whose cause is not entirely known.

Screen Shot 2020-05-09 at 4.20.22 PM

Whether Murder hornets will make way across the fifty states remains to be seen. One expert quoted in a Business Insider article played down the threat: “It’s not an existential threat to mankind or to the US or to our honeybee industry to have,” Doug Yanega told Business Insider. “Even if they do get established and build a foothold here, the scale of the threat is greatly overblown.”

Another entomologist quoted in the Post-Crescent, a Wisconsin newspaper, noted: “This whole ‘murder hornet’ thing is annoying to entomologists, I think,” Draney said. “It just freaks people out and sort of unnecessarily makes people nervous.”

Coronavirus

outbreak-coronavirus-world-1024x506px

People are nervous about quite a few threats these days. The invasion of the Coronavirus in America has shut down the economy and cost 30 million people their jobs. The virus is an evolutionary wonder of its own, a “novel” bug that has no predecessor among human beings. That makes it more dangerous to contain because there are no antidotes or antibodies developed to combat the tiny beast. Thus it presents an existential threat to millions of people around the world.

Here in the United States, response to the Coronavirus bug was slow and ponderous. That’s because the main person in charge of pondering the issue is himself a bit of an apex predator and by some reckonings, a parasite of the first and final order.

Orange Donald too

A real (estate) parasite

Back in the days when Trump was making his way in the New York Real Estate market, he refined his predatory tactics through manipulation of rent controls and valuations, playing up the worth of his properties when it suited his ego and playing them down when it benefited his tax needs.

But his parasitic instincts flared into action when the Real Estate market crash threatened the nation in 2007. As NBC News reported, “Donald Trump counseled Trump University students to take advantage of the housing bubble as an investment opportunity and said, just a year before it burst, that he was “excited” for it to end because of the money he’d make.

“People have been talking about the end of the cycle for 12 years, and I’m excited if it is,’ he told the Globe and Mail in March of 2007. “I’ve always made more money in bad markets than in good markets.”

At that time, the housing market was already beginning to decline, and just over a year later the subprime mortgage crisis hit, part of a chain reaction of events that led to the stock market crash of 2008 and cemented the Great Recession.”

Predator and parasite combined

Orange Donald

That is Trump the predator and parasite coming together in one devilish creature. The NBC News story originally published in 2016 is all the more revealing now that Trump University was punished for defrauding the students it claimed to educate. Not only was Trump eager to parasitize the economy on which his supposed wealth depends, but he was also sucking money out of people for fake wisdom.

But we’ve long known that Trump knows how to leverage his vicious nature better than most. His television show The Apprentice celebrated his love of dispatching those he considered inferior with the famous phrase, “You’re fired!”

There’s an interesting parallel between the behavior of Donald Trump and the Murder Hornets whose habits include honeybee hive genocide and then carting off the carcasses of its victims to feed to its children. He claims to love chaos and seems happiest when tearing his victims apart. Perhaps the sociopathy of nature really does trickle up the food chain to gain expression in the human race. Supposedly our species is capable of transcending survival of the fittest and its “red in tooth and claw” dynamics. Yet the wars and political battles common to our kind do not suggest we’re all that better than the creatures over whom we claim dominion. That is why so many sociopaths seem to succeed. They appeal to a certain base instinct to dispatch the opposition at any cost. Trump is their Murder Hornet King, the face of domination and revenge.

Murder Hornet Trump

Political murder hornet

After years of eviscerating victims on The Apprentice, Trump was elected President of the United States and kept playing the same role, only this time the reality show was not semi-scripted. It was live and in-person. So whether the contestant was Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who branded Trump a “moron,” or former FBI director James Comey, who did Trump a symbiotic electoral favor by glorifying the trumped-up case against Hillary Clinton and her dreaded emails, Trump went at his mission indiscriminately. Any buzz of disloyalty was sufficient to make Trump go full-on murder hornet.

And when anyone threatens to hold him accountable for his lack of accountability or Tweets designed to sting his perceived opponents to death, Trump claims that it is his natural right to do such things, and nothing anyone says or does can stop him.

The taste of prey

Even after the Mueller team uncovered Russian interference in the 2016 election and turned in multiple indictments people in the President’s close circle, Trump claimed innocence and embarked on a new and horrifically bald-faced attempt to bring foreign influence to bear on American elections. He targeted Joe Biden by coercing the President of Ukraine to conduct an investigation into Hunter Biden. That political murder plot exposed by a whistleblower. There are always guardian bees or ants in nature that are willing to sacrifice themselves to defend the colony.

But Trump loves invasive species, you see. He embraced Wikileaks because it helped him break down the value of laws in the United States, freeing him to flaunt our Constitution and the natural limits of the Executive Office itself.

The invasive coronavirus

Trump shrug

This brings us to Trump’s non-response to the invasion of the Coronavirus in America. At some level, Trump likely admired the cunning tactics of the Chinese government that kept the virus secret until it knew what it wanted to do about it. Who knew that a virus living in bats could make the leap over to human beings? Actually, people like Dr. Anthony Fauci and the entire Pandemic Response Team that was told by Trump “You’re fired!” knew quite a bit about the potential problems caused by viruses of that type. Researchers had spent years studying Coronaviruses of many types. Predictions were made that it wasn’t a matter of “if” such a virus would threaten the human population, but “when.”

The fact of the matter is that Trump refused to believe yet desperately feared that his perfect economy could be affected by news of a potential pandemic. The fat caterpillar on which his eyes were trained was getting re-elected in November of 2020. Trump’s goal is to lay his eggs in the American government to the benefit of his progeny; Ivanka, Jared, the Trump boys, and ultimately his nearly invisible son Barron.

Parasite in Chief

lamphrey-getty-01

Trump is indeed the Parasite In Chief, a predator so cunning and absorbed in his mission that he failed to see that a much smaller parasite was coming up from behind. It laid its eggs as he sat dormant in his brooding complex surrounded by the buzzing sycophants who guard the dark lair from journalists and other such pests. If Trump had his way, he’d fly out and bite off the heads of every reporter he could find.

His popularity with his base is built on such instincts. They view Washington as a brood of termites gnawing away at the foundations of the American household. Trump was elected to be their can of Raid. The more poison he spewed, the more favor he won among those who favor a scorched earth result. Those instincts were verified when Trump claimed at a campaign rally that he could shoot someone and he would still be on top. “I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters,” Trump said.

That’s a murder hornet philosophy if there ever was one. Trump is indeed a unique and invasive species in American politics. His symbiotic relationship with Russia includes the parasitic ploy of trusting Russian social media trolls to inject seeds of discontent among the aphids he calls his base. Meanwhile, Trump occupies himself by buzzing around with other murder hornets such as Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong Un and Turkish kingpin Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, whose political career Trump would dearly love to emulate. As described on Wikipedia: “As a long-standing proponent of changing Turkey’s parliamentary system of government into an executive presidency, Erdoğan formed an alliance with the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) to establish an executive presidency in 2017, where the changes were accepted in a constitutional referendum.”

King of the Hoppers

That’s the type of power and authority Donald Trump truly craves. Yet his predatory brand of narcissism caused him to focus on his own ego during the one moment when that brand of authority could truly have been his to wield. Trump preeningly tried to brush away the threat of a pandemic, insisting it would disappear “like magic” simply because he willed it to be so.

“It’s going to disappear. One day, it’s like a miracle, it will disappear.

His power was so great, he repeatedly Tweeted, that nothing bad could happen to the economy.

The Grand Parasite

Trump-golf-seated

On that topic, Trump is also a grand parasite. He did nothing to build to the economy that he inherited from eight years of hard work by President Obama, whose leadership helped the country recover from the Bush-led Great Recession.

Even in the midst of that effort, Obama got blowback from his political opponents when he had the nerve to inform business interests that the government was critical in providing the infrastructure needed for their success.

He stated, “You did not build that” in talking about the nation’s investment in that infrastructure. But conservatives took that to literally mean they had not built their businesses. That’s how selfish people can be when they don’t want to owe anything to anyone.

And that’s the reason Trump got elected. The selfish horde of Americans whose spit and prejudicial spit rained down upon Obama could not stand the idea that a Democrat had saved their asses.

Wasting away

Now Trump has quickly squandered everything that Obama did create. The tariffs imposed by Trump gutted agricultural markets. The tax cuts he favored sent the national deficit soaring. Now his feckless and lazy response to the pandemic has cost millions of American jobs and the nation is headed toward yet another Republican-led recession.

It should be noted that every Republican President from Eisenhower to Trump has trashed the economy enough to cause a recession. That’s the real pandemic in America: Republican economic policy. It sickens the nation every time by infecting the country with the attitude that it is the job of United States citizens to feed and support the rich so that jobs and money can trickle down to the everyday worker.

Hopper king ants

In that respect, we should consider the plot of the movie A Bug’s Life, in which a nasty King Hopper brings his horde to bear on the ant colony. Their goal is to mercilessly clean out the stores of the ants for their own purposes. Yet the ant colony musters enough courage to resist King Hopper thanks to an oddly liberal batch of circus performers whose act serves as both a distraction and an act of resistance. Their colorful display distracts the grasshopper mob long enough for a band of ants to fly a fake bird down from a tree to scare the daylights out of King Hopper and his deplorable clan.

Thumper

Yet that’s not the end of the story. When King Hopper sees through the ruse and labels it Fake News, he goes off in mad pursuit to kill the Whistleblower ant that led the charge in standing up to the bullying ways of Hopper and his base. But the ant flees until it arrives at the lair of a hungry bird, who grabs Hopper in its bill and feeds the hapless insect to its beckoning young. What a fitting end that would be for the likes of Donald Trump, the President determined to terrorize a nation into doing his bidding.

There’s a moral to every tale in nature. No one is immune to the forces of natural justice in this universe. Not even those who try so desperately to break its laws and bend the truth to serve selfish objectives.

Coronavirus is proof that creationism is a deadly worldview

April 7, 2020April 7, 2020 / Christopher Cudworth / 1 Comment

Balls

The Coronavirus pandemic is not just a medical and cultural threat. It is also a lesson in theology. The idea that human beings are “specially created” beings that stand apart from the rest of nature has been blown asunder, and forever, by the fact that this virus and many thousands of others are threats to human existence and known to jump from the rest of the animal world to infect us.

So much for the creationist contention that God spares human beings from such humble roots. Our gut bacteria was already proof that we’re biologically dependent and derived from the raw stuff of creation. But this novel disease has put an all-new face on the fact that human beings share our guts and DNA with every other living thing on earth.

Denial still rules

Yet despite this biological threat to human health, there are Christians in strong denial of the dangers posed by Covid-19, the deadly disease caused by the novel Coronavirus. Some pastors have openly defied governmental orders not to assemble due to the risk of spreading the disease. Others claim that their religious freedom is being restricted by orders not to hold public gatherings. Perhaps the belief is that people sitting together in prayer are immune to the disease? But given clear evidence that church is no protection from the disease, it is legitimate to ask if pastors and other religious leaders really care if their congregations live or die? Cynics have questioned whether some of these pastors care more about the contents of the collection plate than the lives of the people in their pews.

Misguided beliefs

It is far more likely that it is the idea of giving up some aspect of religious authority that makes pastors so defiant toward the public safety recommendations issued by government, medical or scientific sources. Among all the perceived threats to orthodoxy, it is religious authority itself to which its advocates so ardently cling and become anxious, angry and resentful when challenged.

John the Baptist and Jesus both dealt with that problem in the religious authorities of their day. Martin Luther later challenged the Catholic Church over its imposition of indulgences and today’s selfish televangelists rake in millions of dollars in tithes and offerings but when a public crisis hits, their voices suddenly go silent, their church doors close, and they look for ways to blame those they hate for the crisis.

But most just hide behind the protection of their personal mansions until it is safe to come out again. In other words, they are theological hypocrites who couldn’t give a rat’s ass or a bat’s wing about the lives of people on whom they depend for their wealth.

Special creation indeed

Perhaps these religious leaders really are encouraged to flaunt scientific and medical advice based on the biblically literal notion that human beings are “specially created” and somehow immune to a deadly disease that reputedly sprung from the flesh of bat. Instead, creationists console themselves with the biblically literal notion that God molded human flesh out of dust from the earth, and that we have nothing much to do with all that DNA and genetics stuff that connects us to the rest of the world. That’s the worldview of theological hacks like Ken Ham, progenitor of the Answers In Genesiswebsite and its expensive temples constructed to cater to his ego, the Creation Museumand The Ark Encounter.

Supposedly these websites and facilities provide answers to all of life’s pressing questions about the origins of life, including ‘science’ in the name of God. Yet during this Coronavirus pandemic not a word of insight, advice or practical solutions emanate from the likes of Ken Ham and his ham-handed assemblage of quitter scientists. They are all theological and scientific frauds hiding behind a grand excuse to make money on the creationist schtick.

Anachronism and crisis

And people die because anachronistic beliefs have nothing to offer us in the face of a medical crisis. Thoughts and prayers do nothing, or else people would be indeed huddled in churches rather than dying in overcrowded hospitals. Medicine and science works because it depends on knowledge from the theory of evolution to determine how viruses mutate, replicate and transmit from one living thing to another. It takes an idiot to choose wishful thinking over medical cures for disease. Creationism is a deadly worldview.

It is only an egotistically naive desire to feel better than the rest of nature that drives creationists to such selfish extremes. But the Coronavirus isn’t choosy about who it infects or how well they survive. It only does what it was designed to do, mutate and move on. In that respect, it seems like a heartless invention of God to create such killers. If that’s how it works, it is the religiously literal that have the most to answer for, not those who understand that the human condition is an evolutionary function just like everything else in the universe.

Trump’s dishonesty just as dangerous as the Coronavirus

March 11, 2020 / Christopher Cudworth / Leave a comment

url

The chief problem America faces right now is a potential pandemic with Coronavirus spreading rapidly. A disease specialist named Michael Osterholm that was interviewed on the Joe Rogan show predicts the virus is just beginning to show its impact. Interestingly, he notes that children are some of the people least likely to be infected while adults in their forties and beyond are most susceptible. He also says that the disease spreads both by physical contact and through the air. This is new information to many of us.

Newspapers such as the Chicago Tribune have begun to release information from disease specialists as well. That is the function of a free press, to educate people without the barrier of censorship or control by factions that might benefit from controlling or influencing public opinion. In this case, good information can mean the difference between life and death.

That is where the Coronavirus pandemic intersects with the dishonesty of the Trump administration, whose immediate goal in addressing the disease was first trying to ignore the threat, then moving to control the flow of information distributed to the public. This included blocking experts on disease control from informing the public. Instead, the Trump administration and especially its specious leader, Donald J. Trump, sought to play down the risks and pump up the volume on how, according to Mr. Trump, the disease would “go away.”

Trump even compared this approach to the “perfect” phone call he made to the President of Ukraine. That call led to Trump’s impeachment after multiple officials associated with or managed by the Trump administration testified their concerns about the manifest corruption at work in the President’s efforts to bribe, coerce or manipulate Ukraine into announcing an investigation of Hunter Biden, the son of Vice President Joe Biden, who just now swept a sea of delegates into his corner after a Tuesday election.

That dishonest action was deserving of impeachment along with the obstruction of justice that followed. Along the way, Trump blocked or attempted to block testimony that might compromise his own versions (and they were multiple) of what he calls “truth.”

Meanwhile, Trump maligns the press as “fake news” because it refuses to comply with that approach to information dispensation, otherwise known as propaganda.

It all led to a Constitutional crisis in which the House delivered articles of impeachment to the Senate, a body that first took an oath to conduct a full and honest trial and then refused to allow additional testimony even while confessions trickled out that Republican Senators knew that Trump had abused his power. But they were too afraid to vote using whatever shriveled notion of conscience they had left, and Trump was ostensibly exonerated.

gettyimages-461656522-e1436299461791

This rewarded Trump’s dishonesty, and he loves it when that happens. His entire career is a testament to “winning” but he seems to love it best when it hurts others. That’s why he ran a show called The Apprentice in which he got to bully contestants by telling them, “You’re fired.”

In an article produced by a professor named Prof. David Honig of Indiana University, who teaches negotiation to college students, he examines Trump’s preferred method of achieving success. It is always the all-or-nothing approach in which he benefits. Honig notes that rather than approach negotiations through integrative bargaining, where both sides collaborate for mutual benefit, Trump prefers ‘distributive bargaining,’ in which he sees success as him winning when the other guy loses.

Honig writes: “Distributive bargaining always has a winner and a loser. It happens when there is a fixed quantity of something and two sides are fighting over how it gets distributed. Think of it as a pie and you’re fighting over who gets how many pieces. In Trump’s world, the bargaining was for a building, or for construction work, or subcontractors. He perceives a successful bargain as one in which there is a winner and a loser, so if he pays less than the seller wants, he wins. The more he saves the more he wins.”

Distributive bargaining has another facet that is not mentioned in Honig’s article, likely because he maintains the perspective of a teacher. But distributive bargaining has an even darker side than the tactics he mentions. Among its keen practitioners, distributive bargaining embraces the harsh philosophy that the ends justifies the means. In other words, even dishonest dealings are allowable if it means winning the day.

That’s why Trump’s dishonesty is now more dangerous than the Coronavirus itself. His emphatic claims that the disease poses no threat to the American way of life are just another case of distributive bargaining. But this time, he’s trying to bilk the American people into embracing a worldview that will literally kill people, possibly hundreds of thousands of people. Don’t get me wrong: Trump is not responsible for the Coronavirus or its spread in this country. But his selfish desire to have it just “go away” in an election year when he feels his power being threatened by forces outside of his control are an offense to his notion of distributive bargaining.

Hannity

And if Trump feels there is no way he can win, he resorts to his most effective tactic of all. He lies, and then repeats the lies. Then he hire or forces other people to repeat the lies. His lawyers. His media buddies. Then he accuses those of questioning his lies of promoting “fake news.” This is Donald Trump’s entire way of life. It is how he has gotten him everything he wanted except one thing: actual respect.

But we don’t owe Donald Trump any respect when he lies to us. This is not about “respecting the presidency” anymore. Trump has blown through that protection ten times over. His properties and his children are stealing taxpayer money and enriching themselves through forced purchases and international contacts that funnel money back to the Trump family. Trump’s own University was convicted of fraud and fined $25M. His foundation was proven to be corrupt. There is nothing honest going on with Donald J. Trump at all. His thousands of lies to the American people on every subject he addresses are well-documented.

And how he’s lying to protect his precious economy, a benefit that he dishonestly claims as a product of his own policies. And even that is a lie, as President Obama’s economic performance the last three years of his two terms in office beat Trump’s any way you slice it. That means Trump got to sail along for three years, all while doling out tax cuts to the rich and lying to the middle class that they would be permanently “better off” once growth rates of 6% took over.

Donald Trump's proposed golf course

That was a lie too. He will lie until his hair stands on end if he thinks it will help him “win” somehow.

But the Big Lie that Coronavirus is harmless is one of the most dangerous of its kind. Experts such as Michael Osterholm project that 48M people could be infected before this is through. That does not mean they’ll all die. And it doesn’t mean we have to panic.

But being smart is critical in times like these. That’s not what Trump has been doing so far. He’s telling us all to choose to be willingly ignorant and believe that he’s got this thing under control through his “natural ability” to divine the seriousness of any matter under the sun. But most of all, he fears that the one illusion holding him afloat, economic prosperity, is now being yanked like that combover on his head in a high wind.

But Trump clings to the virus of dishonesty because it sickens his detractors and gives his supporters a supposed immunity to the truth. That describes the entire legacy of the Trump presidency and the sickening support his faithful lend to his credulity.

That is the real sickness in America.

It isn’t Capitalism or Socialism that is the problem, it is Selfishism

March 5, 2020 / Christopher Cudworth / Leave a comment

“How is your 401K doing?”

That five-word challenge has been the battle cry of Trump supporters for the last three years. It is the ultimate “ends justifies the means” statement on what being a citizen of the United States is supposedly about.

It is also selfish and shallow as hell to think that the only pertinent thing about life is the near-term state of the economy. We all know how economics works. The markets go up and stay up for a while, then they go down again. These trends occur in cycles and none of the ups and downs have ever proven to be permanent.

bush911

The last time the economic markets experienced a “correction” was in the 2007-2009 period as President George W. Bush left office and President Barack H. Obama became President of the United States. The economy recovered slowly and modestly at first under Obama’s watch. Then it solidified and set a course on which the economy has sailed during three years under President Donald J. Trump.

The last three years of Obama’s term actually showed stronger job increases and economic growth rates than the Trump era. Yet somehow people who support Trump love to claim that their guy is the one who made America great again.

The sad fact is that Trump and the GOP aggressively hinted that economic growth in the wake of broad-based tax cuts might reach the 6% range. That brand of white-hot growth never materialized. The result has been a projected increase in the national deficit of $8.3 trillion, ironic considering that Trump also promised to eliminate the national debt in eight years.

melania-trump-donald-trump-020380f2-6db7-4202-b16c-b737c623c9e2

That hasn’t stopped Trump supporters from trumpeting the supposedly superior state of the Trump economy. But fractures in the market-based belief quickly appeared when global supply chains ground to a standstill as the Coronavirus epidemic started killing people.

Trump is clearly panicked about his economic perch.

In response, his administration moved to censor press conferences and control messaging by funneling all Coronavirus news through Vice President Mike Pence. That act alone is evidence of the selfish style of management for which the Trump presidency has become known.

It also showed up in his impeachable actions in trying to coerce the nation of Ukraine to conduct an investigation of his perceived political rival Joe Biden. Trump used governmental resources to pursue the selfish ambitions of his re-election. One of the President’s lawyers even had the gall to claim that such selfish actions were in the nation’s best interests because anything the President does automatically qualifies in that category.

Those selfish instincts seem to be greatly admired by Trump supporters whose cheering attendance at his rallies borders on cult worship. And speaking of worship, even Christian evangelicals have chosen to excuse Trump’s inherently selfish nature with the self-serving claim that “God works with flawed people.”

It’s all part of the same Selfishism that insists on dismissing facts in favor of self-serving ideology. On the religious front, that practice has a long tradition as a faith once built on disciples going two-by-two into the world to spread the Good News consolidated under Roman power. In turn, it became a force of persecution, legalism, support of slavery and even genocide. All these were done in the name of tradition and for selfish reasons.

That’s how we got where we are today. The market system known as Capitalism rewards the selfish behavior of the powerful when left unchecked by any sort of social contract. That’s why the United States of America implemented the New Deal in the wake of the Great Depression. It was a recognition that Selfishism is the most destructive force of all in this world.

So claims that America is a “Christian Nation” in law or spirit have proven wrong time and again by those claiming to be Christian. Nothing in the ideology of Donald Trump is remotely Christian in the earnest sense of the word. Yet many Christians have the gall to claim that Trump was literally installed by God to carry out his selfish whims, and that is precisely what they are. Trump is an opportunist and a demonstrated fraud when it comes to his business dealings. Even his own University was proven to be fraudulent, and so was his own foundation. Both were corrupted by his selfish desire to leverage his name without giving value back and to siphon money given for charitable purposes into his own coffers.

Trump and G

Selfishism is what Trumpism is all about.

The United States of America will collapse as a democracy and a republic if the selfish instincts of people claiming to be dispossessed while embracing and preaching the doctrine of prejudice, bigotry and getting rich at all costs that Donald Trump espouses in more than dog-whistle fashion. He selfishly flaunts those values while mocking the free press for pointing out his lies and ridiculing responsible politicians for trying to hold him accountable.

He was impeached, but he is not contrite. It is telling that the faction of religious believers who love to blame America’s ills on gays or abortion or science are silent on the fact that the Coronavirus has emerged from the ether to threaten the autocratic stability of a President so concerned about himself that he can’t even admit that people are dying under his watch. Selfishism is the ultimate killer in this world, and it deserves its own political moniker. Sooner, rather than later.

The irony of lung cancer and Rush Limbaugh

February 4, 2020February 4, 2020 / Christopher Cudworth / Leave a comment

I’ve been a Rush Limbaugh “listener” for several decades now. I’ve heard him proclaim that there’s no such thing as hunger in America. I also heard him purposely conflate the term “personal autonomy” with “personal anarchy” while discussing how Dr. Jack Kervorkian described people making choices related to end-of-life decisions.

Today’s story in the Chicago Tribune quotes Limbaugh saying that he’s engaging a much more personal relationship with God now that he’s diagnosed with advanced-stage lung cancer. I recently had a friend and former coach die of that disease. He was a lifetime smoker and it finally caught up with him.

On that subject Limbaugh once prevaricated that we should all be thanking smokers for their contribution to the world. As recorded in a direct transcript from his live radio show, he conducted this conversation with a caller about the subject of smoking.

ThankYouSmokingOLF

CALLER: Earlier you were saying about smoking, that people ought to be thankful that there are smokers, because the money gotten from smoking helps to fund all these child programs and everything? But that’s like saying I’m glad that there’s bumper accidents because then auto mechanics would still have jobs and it improves the economy. Or knives. It’s a good thing that people cut themselves because that’s good for the bandage industry. That’s just my opinion.

RUSH: Well, now, wait. Hold it, hold it just a second. I’m sure the hospital industry would agree with you that they support knives, there wouldn’t be scalpels without knives.

CALLER: No. They’re not doing it on purpose, now. Wait a minute. People in hospitals that are —

RUSH: Hey, you need bandages.

CALLER: You’re doing that to cure somebody. They’re not doing that to hurt anybody.

The Caller hit a sore point with Limbaugh in that last statement. Rush has always claimed he’s trying to help America with his cut-and-dried brand of ideological advocacy. He once raved out loud that it was tough luck if some people couldn’t see well at night when vehicles equipped with high-intensity headlights blinded them. In other words, it’s never been caring about others than Limbaugh has advocated. He has been the King of Selfish Motivations for many decades, and now it’s come back to haunt him. Immediately after the initial exchange with his concerned caller, Limbaugh conducted a harsh yet brief tirade in defense of smokers.

RUSH: Well, smokers aren’t killing anybody.

CALLER: Except themselves.

RUSH: Yeah, but how long does it take?

That question is about to be answered for Limbaugh. It may indeed take a while for him to die, or it may snatch him overnight. He’s never appeared to be the picture of health, given his heavy lean toward obesity and an addiction to pain pills that turned him into a criminal of sorts to get his fix.

But he’s never been much for serious contrition about a single thing in his life. He instead claims to not suffer fools gladly, and that includes denying any form of science that contradicts his closely held beliefs in his own brand of “personal autonomy.”

The day that Rush stood on his soapbox bragging about the benefits of smoking, the Caller went on to bring up another topic

CALLER: — secondhand smoke.

RUSH: No. You can’t. That is a myth. That has been disproven at the World Health Organization and the report was suppressed. There is no fatality whatsoever. There’s no even major sickness component associated with secondhand smoke. It may irritate you, and you may not like it, but it will not make you sick, and it will not kill you.

CALLER: Okay.

RUSH: Firsthand smoke takes 50 years to kill people, if it does. Not everybody that smokes gets cancer. Now, it’s true that everybody who smokes dies, but so does everyone who eats carrots.

Right there we have the horrific template for dismissing serious issues using simplistic examples. The same held true when Senator Jim Inhofe held aloft a snowball as evidence that climate change is a hoax.

Limbaugh is a fool about the subject of smoking, and many others. The real costs of smoking are documented in a Reuters story published in December, 2014:

APP-080819-Climate-Change-GLobal-Warming-HOAX

“Hoax” is a favorite word of ideological propagandists.

(Reuters) – Of every $10 spent on healthcare in the U.S., almost 90 cents is due to smoking, a new analysis says.

Using recent health and medical spending surveys, researchers calculated that 8.7 percent of all healthcare spending, or $170 billion a year, is for illness caused by tobacco smoke, and public programs like Medicare and Medicaid paid for most of these costs.

“Fifty years after the first Surgeon General’s report, tobacco use remains the nation’s leading preventable cause of death and disease, despite declines in adult cigarette smoking prevalence,” said Xin Xu from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), who led the study.”

The examples we could list here of subjects in which Limbaugh purposely obscured the real costs of willful disregard for personal and public health are legendary and manifold. Here’s what the stubbornly ignorant Limbaugh said on his radio show about the subject of climate change:

RUSH: By the way, have you seen the latest lame attempt on this? You know what now, folks? Food crops are getting much harder to grow. Oh, yes! Climate change. Climate change has affected the pH of the soil. Climate change is causing soil to become more arid. Climate change is making it really, really, really tough on farmers to grow more food. We are on the verge of predictable starvation! They know no limits.

The dirty little secret about climate change, whether it’s man-made or not, is when it does happen, there’s gonna be a whole lot of the world that’s gonna be capable of growing food that now can’t, if they’re right. There’s no argument from here that the climate is not changing. Only a fool would say that is because the climate is constantly changing. We go ice age, we go dark age, we go sun age, we go oppressively hot; nobody can survive this. Earth has been around a long time.”

Gaslighting America

This is Rush Limbaugh seeking to dismiss human influence on climate change. In other words, it is a direct attempt to avoid personal responsibility for a problem that people can fix if they put their mind to it. But Rush Limbaugh and his listeners don’t like to admit the need to change, and that’s deplorable. They don’t like to confront challenges ranging from racist outlooks to religious fears of science. They prefer instead to ignore the fact there is a problem while claiming that smoking or toxic greenhouse gasses provide a benefit to the world. That’s called gaslighting. It’s an attempt to abuse truth in favor of selfish, controlling behavior. And it’s rampant in America right now. Rush Limbaugh is a big reason for these attitudes.

Fixing problems

Now the whole world is having trouble breathing, and the cancer that is causing it is human activity. We are responsible for the fix we’re in.

And like Limbaugh, some turn quickly to God looking for a fix and a cure. Some even deign to claim that the destruction of the earth is itself God’s Will, and that we are only helping to bring that about.

That’s a killer philosophy, a pathology of the spirit aptly expressed by the likes of Donald Trump in his cloying attempts to recruit evangelicals to his side in a relentless pursuit of power. Trump preaches the depressingly nihilistic religion of the selfish, ignorant and fearful who love to claim absolute authority even as their worldview proves to be a cancer on everything it touches. It is willful naivete disguised as wisdom.

Proponents of willful naivete place their hopes in the near-term glory of a healthy economy, yet economic markets shudder at the merest hint of the newest flu virus whether it emerges from a snake, a monkey, a pig or a bird.

They claim Christian virtues by insisting that the nation can never come to true harm under the providence of God. Yet scripture documents the many ways people ignored the prophets in favor of selfish desires and aims. Nature and God combined to crush those cultures and empires for their hubris. A selective reading of scripture can produce whatever justification one desires, and the Christian religion has done that for nearly two millennia, killing Jews for the literal death of Jesus, a battle cry adopted by Adolf Hitler who justified the Holocaust by saying, and we paraphrase, “We are only doing what the Christian religion has been doing for 1500 years.”

Prejudice as principle

That brand of prejudicial hubris is precisely what Rush Limbaugh has preached and propagandized in America for three decades. His targeting of “liberals” has turned the ire of authoritarian believers into a murderous cabal craving absolute control over the American populace. His strain of political cancer now attacks the core of constitutional law in a Senate that refuses to hold a corrupt President accountable because it is too inconvenient to treat that cancer with the chemotherapy of impeachment. “It would be too rough on the country,” some Senators insist. This is what happens when prejudice is substituted for principle.

The realities of cancer

I’ve had friends die of cancer. I’ve had a wife die of cancer after eight years of survivorship. My mother died of cancer, but she passed much more quickly. In her case it was a mercy. In my wife’s case it was a journey. So I know what it means to confront cancer and to trust in God and friends to help deal with its concussive effects, whatever they may be.

I don’t wish those difficulties on anyone. But one cannot help recognize the irony of the unique brand of cancer now scourging Rush Limbaugh’s body. He’s already experiencing shortness of breath. Perhaps the doctors can save his life. Yet one wonders whether anyone is capable of saving his clearly vindictive soul. That is the challenge Rush Limbaugh truly needs to face, because he’s spent thirty years wishing evil upon those he abhors and hates. So we’ll see. Sometimes cancer changes people. And wouldn’t that be a remarkable outcome for one of the most cancerous personalities in American history?

Mixing God, religion and business

December 9, 2019 / Christopher Cudworth / Leave a comment

How biblical literalism affects politics, culture and the environment My 2007 book The Genesis Fix examined how religion affects politics, culture and the environment. This excerpt describes how some people like to fuse the three into one.

“Part of the reason doctrinal politics, economic aggression, and triumphal religious language make such a potent combination is that all three appeal to a sense of personal pride. Some people refuse to distinguish between the three. For a potent illustration of faith at play in the real world of business, we quote the May 5, 2001 obituary of one Carl Bagge, a successful businessman, former leader of the National Mining Association and former National Coal Chief. Mr. Bagge’s obituary outlined the passionate manner with which he did business as a strong proponent on behalf of the coal industry and coal-burning electrical plants. Mr. Bagge called clean-air groups “environmental elitists,” declaring evidence that acid rain came from the pollution generated by coal plants “inconclusive.” He also apparently saw his work on behalf of the coal industry as a religious mission. In reference to his occupation, he was quoted as saying; “We’re doing the Lord’s work here, people. Anybody who doesn’t believe that may as well leave, go and work for the other side.” When Mr. Bagge became president of the National Coal Association, he changed the group’s number to 202-GOD-COAL to reaffirm for its members that was the only force that could keep them from their aims. The number is still in use.

Mr. Bagge exemplifies the manner in which some people freely mix religion and corporate aims. People who have pride in their religion and their work often find it hard to keep the two separate. The only problem with a close relationship between faith and business is that close an association has been known to corrupt both.”

The truth about Christianity and gun laws

August 7, 2019August 7, 2019 / Christopher Cudworth / Leave a comment

FlagWaiver

One of the most vexing aspects of America’s gun laws is the apparent belief by many Christians that guns are compatible with their religion. That’s an interesting contention because guns were originally invented for one purpose: that is killing. Yet one of the most famous of the 10 Commandments is “Thou shalt not kill.”

Jesus was keen on the idea that our thoughts and even casual intentions can lead to evil actions. In Matthew 5: 27-29 Jesus addresses these issues:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Do not commit adultery.’ 28 But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman to lust after her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. 29 If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.”

So Christians face a real dilemma when it comes to owning or carrying a gun. Even the “self-defense” argument often made on behalf of gun ownership denies the principle of placing one’s trust in God for protection. Either you trust God to protect you, or you don’t. God only knows your true heart.

Who lays claim to the flag in America?

Given the difficulty of parsing out the religious conundrums wrought by owning guns, a great many Americans take refuge behind laws supporting gun ownership. The claim to be a “law-abiding gun owner” appears rock solid when defending the right to own and bear arms. Yet even laws are no guarantee of a reasonable conscience.

The example of Jesus

We should recall that when Jesus embarked on his ministry by preaching in the country on the heels of John the Baptist, a real revolutionary by nature, the goal was to bring the grace of God to all. Yet Jesus and his disciples soon made a practice of breaking the laws set out by religious authorities bent on imposing tradition on the populace. Jesus spoke out against this brand of authority and the hypocrisy it inevitably produced. He even called the lawmakers defending their tradition a “brood of vipers” for their habit of lashing out at anyone who opposed their version of authority.

Jesus challenged even the nature of the laws laid out by religious authority. When a band of accusers threatened to stone a woman to death in the streets for the crime of adultery, Jesus turned to them and said, “Let he that is without sin cast the first stone.”

Questions of judgment

That was an indictment of those issuing personal judgment of others. But it also resonated all the way up the legalistic food chain to the religious authorities who implemented those laws in the first place. Jesus was challenging a system that had been corrupted by selfish aims and misguidedly self-righteous intentions. It was the literal and legalistic interpretation of scripture that had led to traditions concerned more with obeying the laws of religion than keeping with the true heart of God. Jesus considered this an abomination, especially as it led to the commodification of the temple itself, which had become a hall of commerce, not a house of prayer.

So Jesus fought the religious authorities and turned over the tables of commerce at the temple. Yet we all know how the story turned out. Rather than consider what Jesus had to say about the corrupt nature of tradition, the religious authorities reacted with anger toward him for questioning their practices. Ultimately they conspired to have him killed and even got someone else to do the dirty work of crucifixion. Thus they protected their reputation as the “good guys” who were defending the wholesome halls and hallmarks of tradition.

Christianity today

This is much the same position in which legalistic Christians find themselves today. They have sided with the gun lobby and conservative politicians who calculatedly ignore the first part of the Second Amendment, “A well-regulated militia, being necessary for the protection of a free state…” while emphasizing the more selfish part of the law in the “right to bear arms.”

This is better known as “cherry-picking,” the practice of taking the parts of scripture or the Constitution that support your personal aims while discarding or ignoring those that do not apply or actually contradict your selfish aims. This is the grand habit of legalistic Christians who conveniently ignore anachronistic laws in the Bible even while claiming its inerrancy and infallibility. This is the principle lie of Christian apologetics in this day and age. It also happens to be the principle lie of constitutional originalists as well. Thus it is no coincidence that we often find political and religious conservatives in allegiance to their parallel beliefs even to the point of claiming these worldviews trump all other forms of truth.

The gun lobby

FIREARM

The gun lobby in America certainly welcomes Christian support of its commercial and political aims. So does the NRA, which frequently presents itself as the chief authority on gun laws and rights in America.

But that leaves the rest of us to wonder about people who deny the truth of both their religion and the United States Constitution that clearly states guns must be well-regulated as part of a well-regulated militia.

The purposeful denial of this patently important introduction is executed in order to make the selfish claim that gun rights are by nature sacrosanct to American tradition and protect the very freedoms upon which America depends as a republic.

Yet how do we tell that to thousands of people that are mowed down by guns every year? Many of the guns used to conduct shootings are designed not just for killing, but for mass killing, sometimes taking multiple lives within 30 seconds of opening fire. And how do we tell that to the families to whom “thoughts and prayers” are so frequently directed…yet never really console them because their loved ones are the bloodied and dead victims of an extremely selfish interpretation of the Second Amendment that allows such events to happen.

Christians of conscience who actually know and understand the history of their religion should know better. But as we learned from the religious authorities who conspired against Jesus because he broke their laws and resisted their traditions, those in charge may claim to be on the right side of the law, but they are also frequently on the wrong side of history, and of God.

Finding our way back to truth in a religiously blinded America

April 22, 2019April 22, 2019 / Christopher Cudworth / Leave a comment

Recently I engaged in a pair of online discussions that illuminated the differences in how people respond to information that contradicts their beliefs.

The first was an exchange on a Facebook group called Suburban Wildlife. A wide variety of users, both expert and novice, shares images of wildlife with an online community hosted by the Daily Herald media company. I post several images a week and noticed that a user named Dennis Houghton had found and photographed an eagle. His initial ID of the bird was Golden Eagle, but I noticed that the bird was actually a second or third-year bald eagle. They can be difficult to identify during stages of transition from juvenile to adult. There aren’t always clear passages between plumage phase. The giveaway in this case was the clearly emerging pattern of white feathers covering the head.

Christopher Cudworth Actually I think that is a third to fourth-year bald eagle

Dennis Houghton Christopher, I’m no expert by any means, but the beak and tail looks like a Golden Eagle to me. BTW 4th grade was my senior year. ✌️ (he posted a link to golden eagle images here)

Christopher Cudworth I’m not a contentious birder…so please note that I could be wrong. It just has the structure and look of a Bald Eagle versus a Golden. The Sibley’s Guide shows some rather structures “years” but not all moults are complete or clean. Just trying to be helpful here. (I posted screen caps of young bald eagles)

Christopher Cudworth The emerging white on the head of the bird you’ve shown is unique to Bald Eagles.

Dennis Houghton I appreciate your knowledge and love learning more about nature. Mother nature likes messing with me sometimes. Thank you Christopher.

Christopher Cudworth Dennis Houghton These are wonderful photographs and honestly I’ve been birding forty years and learn something every day by watching them in each new circumstance. I’m not a great photographer but it’s fascinating when you see new things about birds by doing this.

That was all civil and instructional. I’ve been birding for forty years and have seen both bald and golden eagles in the wild. Bald eagles have become common in our area, and there are young birds up everywhere. Golden eagles are far more rare in our region. Not impossible to find, especially in fall migration.

But we solved that issue fairly easily. I’ve since complimented Dennis on a number of other images he’s posted, all properly identified.

A day after that exchange, a person I did not know made a Friend request on Facebook. We shared 28 Friends, many whom I knew quite well, so I accepted her request. Then I went to her page. The first four images were Pro-Trump pictures with MAGA hats prominently featured. There were also hints of religious triumphalism lurking in the wings.

That told me there might be trouble ahead from this “Friend.” On several occasions, I’ve had people that I either know through associates or other groups that Friend me and then start posting typically ignorant Pro-Trump memes to my wall. It started before the 2016 election with a psychologist associate from a local business networking group who went on the attack through my Facebook Wall and even took it offline to Messenger as a means to spit insults and taunts at me along with the inevitable Go Trump! jargon.

Opening questions

So rather than let the process start all over again, I posted an inquiry why this particular Trump fan wanted to be friends with me. An hour later, one of her friends or followers posted something on the order of, “This is so sad, why can’t we all be friends and just get along.”

Rather than engage in that type of discussion in full view of the world, I chose to respond personally to the person in question.

“In response to your comment on Allison’s page. I have been verbally accosted on repeated occasions by Trump followers. Some have chased me onto Messenger and harassed at length. Others post salacious and false memes on my Wall, then criticize and attack me for questioning their decision. And you ask…”Why can’t we all just get along?” That’s why I questioned her choice to Friend me. I’ll not abide the consistent hypocrisy and angry taunts any longer. If you want to have a real conversation about this to understand the full context, I’ll be glad to provide it. But I’ve written on religion and politics for more than 40 years, and know the measure of moral equivalency. I do not buy straw man arguments that “one side’s as bad as the other” when the direct evidence I’ve encountered proves otherwise.

Opening round

Yes, that was rather assertive toward the end. I’ll admit that. But I’ve also learned that if you don’t state your case clearly, the folks who follow Trump view it as an opportunity to exploit apparent weakness and take that as an opportunity to preach the brand. And sure enough…this is what she wrote back…

“It just makes me sad when I hear people say we can’t be friends because of xxx beliefs and stuff. But I also understand and have suffered my self as you have, only from the other side as I am a Trump supporter. I was not trying to say anything bad about you personally, it’s just how social media is. The way people attack each other, as a Christian woman, just breaks my heart. I have been chewed up and spit out enough times that I usually don’t even comment. And is also the reason I don’t post anything political on my personal page. Anyway, I apologize if I offended, it was not my intent. I hope you have a very blessed day.”

That was nice enough, I’ll agree. But I’m also concerned about the hypocrisy exhibited by those who claim to be Christian and yet ardently support Trump when there is no apparent signs that Donald Trump is Christian in any form of belief, action or character. So I wrote back:

“I simply don’t know how any serious Christian can support the profane and corrupt man now in office. You may have your reasons, but I have yet to hear one person legitimately provide a single reason why Jesus Christ would abide a man who worships wealth, lusts after women including his own daughter, verbally abuses women and men and the disabled alike and lies so often he cannot even recall his previous lies. To dismiss all that is raw hypocrisy and that is why, as a lifelong Christian committed to social justice, I find friending a supposed Trump supporter to be a compromise in honesty and integrity. If that offends you then you should really search your own heart.”

She was miffed of course.

“My heart is just fine thank you. Its comments like that that are offensive. I did not bash you for your beliefs, and I don’t appreciate you bashing me. This is exactly why I do not discuss politics via social media. Have a blessed life. Good bye.”

First off, I clearly stated that she must have her own reasons for supporting Trump. I also spoke objectively. She plainly refused to make any attempt at answering any of the questions raised in the statements made about what constitutes serious Christian faith.

And by ‘serious,’ I meant honest. Which is what really set her off. She says her “heart” is just fine, and I granted her that in saying “You must have your reasons…”

Instead, she chose to play the role of the persecuted while blaming me for “bashing her beliefs.” She was clearly making the argument that Trump deserves the support of so many religious people. So I elected (pun intended) to call her bluff.

“So-called Christians supporting Trump all behave this way. No accountability or will to account for the hypocrisy…and then you cry persecution. It’s a tragedy of faith not to call yourself to account in Jesus’ name. Don’t you know he fought the Trumps of his day in Herod and the religious authorities who ran the temple like a business? Read the Bible for God’s sake. And repent as John the Baptist told us to. And stop with the “Woe is my poor Christian heart” thing… and tell your friends lending their support to that godless madman to stop. God speaks to you through people like me who care enough to engage in the truth of repentance.

I feel so bad for you going around bashing good Christian people because they don’t agree with YOU. See you are exactly the kind of person I was talking about. You don’t know me, you know nothing about me except that I was trying to respond respectfully, unlike you. Yes, you good Christian man you. Judging me without even knowing me. I think you need to get on your knees and ask God to forgive you for your judgment and condemnation of people. You are not my God, and I do not answer to you. And the fact that you dare to question my love for God because I refuse to bend to your will, please. Take your blinders off hun, you are a hypocritic (sic) And I will pray for you.

Oh and BTW, I will continue to Thank God every day that Hillary Clinton is NOT our president!! Go Trump!! MAGA 2020!!!

So the argument from this Trump supporter seems to be that no one is allowed to question the beliefs of those who choose to abide in a known adulterer, a proven liar, a repeated committer of financial fraud and a sexual abuser––because they only answer to God.

Or is it instead Trump to whom they ultimately answer? That certainly seems to be her closing argument. Go Trump!! MAGA 2020!!!

In the end this Christian evangelical fealty to Trump does not seem to be about the tenets of real faith at all. Instead, it’s about siding with the powerful and lending the credence of religious authority as an unbending juggernaut to a political cause. That pattern of trading on the authority of God to gain status and power directly aligns with the zealous hypocrites whom Jesus challenged for turning the temple into a place of commerce and the Jewish faith into a legalistic, heartless religion.

Obvious parallels

The parallels with today’s legalistic and politically-motivated Christians are so obvious. Yet the folks whose religion openly persecutes those it judges to be sinners loves to pre-emptively claim persecution for themselves. That is clearly what’s wrong with America.

Do I feel badly for disrupting that woman’s day by challenging her to a discussion about religious honesty? Part of me does feel guilty for that. Yet the call to social justice in the name of Jesus Christ truly does demand that we step outside our comfort zones and be willing to challenge the corruption of religion for political and economic purposes. We see the same pattern of using God’s authority to justify war. At what point do we actually stand up and say “Stop! Enough! This is not God’s way.”

I say it starts with every opportunity we can find. It’s not judging others to challenge them to justify their beliefs when they clearly stand in league with corruption. It is caring enough to be Christian in the most difficult sense. That is following the true example of Jesus as he confronted the false religious authorities of His day.

And when it comes to people weaseling out of defending their beliefs by claiming the need to do so is a form of “persecution,” I call bullshit.

Comparison

The two exchanges shared in this post were interesting because the photographer and birder “friend” on Facebook welcomed the opportunity to gain perspective and insight that resulted in truth.

It is always the job of Christians to fight the untruths created by the combination of religion and politics for four decades now. There are always people who will lie and claim God is on their side without batting an eye. I say we should resist them.

Meanwhile, the other “friend” took immediate offense and condescendingly lamented why I should be concerned why a Trump supporter wanted to be friends with me in the first place.

That’s actually an incredibly naive and arrogant question to ask, for it literally assumes that no harm has been done or is being done to our country by those who support Trump under a Christian banner. The man in question exhibits passionately aggressive instincts and attacks everyone he can find with insults and vengeance. That is not the true definition of a “friend,” much less a Christian.

So many Christians seem confused and unable to discern where the truth really lies:

“For there will be a period of time when they will not put up with the wholesome teaching, but according to their own desires, they will surround themselves with teachers to have their ears tickled. They will turn away from listening to the truth and give attention to false stories.” 2 Timothy 4:3

Compare the trust people seem to place in Trump with the traditional claim that “we have a friend in Jesus.” There is no just parallel. The two beliefs are so contradictory they deserve to be challenged whenever and wherever you find them. That’s the least that any Christian should do.

It’s going to be a tough road finding our way back to truth. Clearly, some people still embrace an opportunity to learn our change while others use any excuse they can to run and hide from truth even when it smacks them in the face.

The real Sean Hannity question

April 17, 2018April 17, 2018 / Christopher Cudworth / Leave a comment

Michael Cohen has served as attorney for Donald Trump and his organization for many years. He’s covered up affairs for Trump, even paying off a porn star to keep silent two weeks before the 2016 presidential election.

There are problems with that behavior as it relates to federal election laws. But it also evidences fraudulent behavior in execution and protection of a non-disclosure agreement that was never signed by Trump yet has been used to publicly threaten and silence Stormy Daniels from sharing information about the nature of their illicit affair.

The Hannity Question: Round 1

Lurking behind all this sordid secrecy is the fact that a big Trump supporter with a national TV audience that numbers in the millions is also a client of Michael Cohen. That is Sean Hannity. And of course, Hannity denies that he was ever a client of Cohen. Yet Cohen’s attorneys insisted that the name of a mystery “client” be kept secret to protect their identity as the details of Cohen’s fraudulent activities are examined after a raid by the FBI that was approved by a judge who saw ample reason to suspect Cohen of considerable wrongdoing on a number of fronts.

The Hannity Question #2

So let’s pause there a moment and consider something. Sean Hannity claims that he’s never “paid” for any legal work done by Cohen. He admits to having several “brief conversations” with the attorney over matters that are not specific. Such as these, perhaps?

alg-donald-trump-jpg Yet the 1:1:1 relationship between Donald Trump, Michael Cohen and Sean Hannity must be considered a legitimate political concern. We’re talking about a lawyer in Cohen who directly represents the President of the United States. He is the subject of suspicion in conducting dishonest or outright illegal activity on behalf of the current United States President during a highly contentious political campaign whose outcomes were driven by large-scale media exposure.

We should note that there were also proven efforts documented by Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller indicating that Russian operatives used social media to adversely sway voter opinions toward Hillary Clinton while promoting positive impressions of Donald Trump. Could Cohen possibly have been involved in contact or negotiations with any such operators? It does not seem out of the parameters of Trump’s methods to have Cohen take care of such communications, even if just to get the direct on anyone who might open a can of Trump worms.

Media advocate(s)

Throughout all this, Sean Hannity has been a demonstrated advocate of the person and policies of Donald Trump. And we’re supposed to believe that his association with Trump’s personal attorney is just a coincidence.

Imagine if it had been revealed that President Barack Obama had shared a personal attorney with a broadcaster on CNN, MSNBC or any of the larger entity media companies in America? What if Obama had shared an attorney with Mark Zuckerberg, or Tim Cook of Apple. Jeff Bezos of Amazon?

The Right would have blown a gasket. Yet here is Sean Hannity, essentially in the same legal bed with Donald Trump, and claiming that he’s had no influence on the man, nor gained any favor, special treatment or information from the relationship.

Client-attorney privilege

15-cohen.w710.h473 They’re all screaming about the supposed protections of the client-attorney relationship. But this is America we’re talking about, and rule of law says that when criminal activities are afoot, and they clearly are with Cohen, the law takes precedence. And when national security is at risk, as Trump has evidenced on a number of occasions by revealing classified information or issuing nuclear threats or making war without approval of Congress, then America deserves the right to know the real motivations behind all the cloaks of immature judgement that constitute the blanket fort of Donald Trump.

Lock Them Up

Trump screamed “Lock her up” toward Hillary Clinton for her use of a private email server. Well, she made mistakes. But none of them was deemed by multiple investigations to be criminal in any way.

And during all that scrutiny, she did not share with a major media personality the services of a crooked lawyer with a reputation as a mob-like fixer. That would have made heads explode on the Alt-Right. Frankly, I don’t even think the Right could make up things that sound so absurd.

Yet here we are. Stuck in a surreal world where lies and legends converge in a maelstrom of political subterfuge.

It’s time for all this to come to light. Here’s hoping the Special Masters soon to be hired to vet information secured during the raid on Cohen’s joint will find reason to force Trump and Hannity and all the rest of the scoundrels hiding behind “legal means” to tell the truth. That’s the answer to the Hannity Question we all want to know. What’s really going behind the scenes in the Right Wing world, and how is it about to make America a far worse place than it once was?

Genesisfix's Blog

On religion and politics

Uncategorized