Donald Trump

Trump and his followers are so 2002

/ Christopher Cudworth / Leave a comment
911-terrorist-attack

2002 arrived on the heels of the 9/11 disaster.

Perhaps you can recall the atmosphere in the country in 2002. The tragedy of 9/11 had just happened, and people were scared that other terrorist attacks might be coming along. The people sworn to protect us had somehow forgotten to do that, and the consequences were about to be shifted back to the American people.

Along came the Patriot Act and a series of surveillance requests that granted the government almost unlimited powers to informationally monitor American citizens. This was ostensibly done in the name of protecting our rights to free speech, freedom and the American Way. And to further that philosophy, Bush told us all to go out and go shopping.

That was 2002, the year the Bush administration began ramping up excuses to go blast away in Iraq. It wasn’t really a plan, as we learned later, but an excuse to use America’s military might for imperialistic reasons in the Middle East. It went badly after the bombing ended. There was no management plan. There was looting in the streets, and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis lost their lives.

Then American soldiers began a campaign of torture and our military rounded people up and put them on a base in Cuba, of all places. We didn’t even have trade relations with Cuba, yet we owned a prison in Guantanamo. That kind of international management is the product of the fear and anger we were sold in 2002.

And let us not forget the lies used to sell that fear and anger. American and international arms inspectors found no real evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, yet people believed it when General Colin Powell pushed out curried “facts” that were all fictionalized. But the fearmongering that sold that lie was begun in 2002. Fox News trumpeted the lies for all it was worth. The divisive, angry voice of Rush Limbaugh ruled the airwaves, and even the likes of Howard Stern jumped on board the Bomb the Muslims campaign. And Donald Trump was interviewed by Howard Stern back in 2002, and these days denies that he supported the invasion of Iraq. But this is how the conversation actually went:

“For months, Donald Trump has claimed that he opposed the Iraq War before the invasion began — as an example of his great judgment on foreign policy issues. But in a 2002 interview with Howard Stern, Donald Trump said he supported an Iraq invasion. In the interview, which took place on Sept. 11, 2002, Stern asked Trump directly if he was for invading Iraq.

“Yeah, I guess so,” Trump responded. “I wish the first time it was done correctly.”

Because that’s how too many people thought in 2002. No one knew what to make of the people who were lying so boldly to our faces, and with such force. So Donald Trump has simply stolen that playback and brought the fearful attitudes of all those duped by Bush and his henchmen and updated it for the election.

But it’s 2016 now, people. We should know better. We’ve learned what Dick Cheney is really like. We’ve learned how his position on Iraq from 1991 to 2002 was a complete flip-flop. The money he stood to make from invasion of Iraq overwhelmed his principles. And his principles were already based on outrageous notions that America could rule the entire world with impunity. He insisted the entire action in Iraq would take weeks and that we’d be welcomed as heroes. The fact that he presided over torture in the very same prisons where Saddam Hussein tortured Iraqi citizens just might have had something to do with the fact that everyday Iraqis refused to trust American intentions.

But in 2002, when Cheney was working behind the scenes to map all this out, pushing Bush around like a schoolyard bully and his lackey. America could not imagine that our President and Vice President could be so shallow, vicious and naive. But they were.

And some of us knew and recognized this in 2002. But we were called Bush-haters for resisting the loss of freedoms and the wars of choice. We were told we were not “patriotic” in refusing to support the insane actions of an administration clearly bent on war. We were called even worse names as well. Because it was 2002. And a lot of people were afraid to fight back against our own government when we’d already seen an attack on our own soil. That had not really happened at that scale before. And the Bushies took advantage of that.

But that was 2002, and this is 2016. And the nation can’t possibly fall for the same bad instincts conservatives have been selling for so long. Or can they?

Because the people now following Donald Trump are spouting the same brand of fear that Bush and Cheney sold back in 2002. Perhaps we’d hear it better if we all picked up our Motorola Razr phones and listened through those devices? Because it’s the exact same load of fearful crap repackaged, and badly wrapped, in the golden fleece of Donald Trump.

When his campaign makes promises to Take Back America it is really more a threat to take us back to 2002. Because you may recall that the Bush administration also sold fear on domestic policies, blocking major medical advances in stem cell research, resisting critical science about global warming, and literally extracting language from research papers and scientific data that did not fit their political opinion. This brand of politics is called Mind Control, and the authoritarian followers who were drawn to Bush ate it up like candy.

That hardly explains why some independents are drawn to Donald Trump. But again, let’s go back to 2002 and examine how the country got to be such a mess in such a short time under Bush. Recall that the 2000 election between Al Gore and Bush came down to a decision from the Supreme Court, who essentially installed Bush as President. Justice was not served, yet Gore acted with class and elected to support the President.

So Democrats were somewhat reeling from the tidal shift of the Bill Clinton years, which were by many measures prosperous and well-managed, to the Bush years when even our military could not protect the Pentagon. Think about that for a moment. For all the claims that Republicans better understood the military and knew how to protect Americans, somehow our lead military base in Washington was struck by some sort of exploding object. No one seems to be able to produce a reasonable video of an actual plane hitting the building. The best we supposedly have is a cheesy surveillance video that does not show a plane at all.

In any case, how is it that the Pentagon is such a paragon of weakness even when it was already clear that something really bad was going on in New York City? The answer is simple: According to the doctrine of 2002, nothing could touch us with Republicans in power. America was ostensibly the most powerful, well-armed nation on earth, with a Commander in Chief who could read the soul of leaders such as Russia’s Putin, just by looking him in the eye. And the Bush family had close ties with the Saudis and especially the bin Laden family. How could something like 9/11 ever happen if we had things under control?

Well, we’re being asked to believe the same load of crap from Donald Trump in 2016. He claims to be able to negotiate “deals” better than anyone on earth. He wants Mexico to pay for a wall, and has basically told the Chinese to go fuck themselves. He considers his own council the best authority on a multitude of subjects. And he appeals to independent voters because he appears to answer to no one.

That is his appeal. That The Donald answers to no one. Well, we’ve already tried that formula back in 2002. And it led to military disaster, thousands of lives lost and American soldiers killed, and an economic crash that nearly ruined America forever.

It was all so 2002. Let us hope that people come to their senses in 2016.

 

Are we supposed to be impressed by Republican failures?

/ Christopher Cudworth / 2 Comments
911-terrorist-attack

An explosion rips through the South Tower of the World Trade Towers… “after the hijacked United Airlines Flight 175, which departed from Boston en route for Los Angeles, crashed into it Sept, 11, 2001. The North Tower is shown burning after American Airlines Flight 11 crashed into the tower at 8:45 a.m.” But of course, many people now question this narrative. and have come to recognize this event for what it was, a symbol of Republican failure to protect of govern the nation in any effective way. 

It has been difficult since the 9/11 tragedy to get the rational attention of any Republican in America. The narrative goes like this: Everything our nation did was necessary to protect our national security and sovereignty.

Of course, the source of that narrative fails to recall that 9/11 happened under Republican watch. A Republican administration failed us miserably in translating reasonable intelligence into actionable defense.

And to make matters worse, the Bush administration took their own failures and turned them into excuses to invade Iraq, a nation that had absolutely nothing to do with 9/11. Thousands of soldiers gave their lives and tens of thousands more were maimed for life for reasons that changed by the week during the Iraq War.

This was a massive failure of conscience by the Republican Party, which through fear and manipulation and falsified evidence convinced hawkish Democrats to go along with the plan for imperialistic attacks in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Collapse

Meanwhile, domestic issues such as financial regulation and infrastructure repairs were either pushed to the backburner or ignored completely as America poured trillions of unbudgeted cash into the “war” efforts. The result was nearly a complete collapse of the free-market system in America. The supposed defenders of capitalism and enterprise absolutely failed in their duty to monitor and foster a health economy.

And as if that were not enough, America failed by committing blatant abused of civil and personal rights at home and abroad. Our soldiers tortured and even killed prisoners in Iraq and in black sites around the world. All were done under the watch of the Bush administration. Meanwhile, Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans while our leaders callously refused to engage and assist those in dire emergency situations. This was a brand of torture on a grand domestic scale, like waterboarding an entire city and blaming the victims for their weakness.

Without conscience

Republicans failed to govern with a conscience in the majority when they held the presidency, all of Congress and Senate, and the Supreme Court as well. Instead, they passed self-serving legislation such as Citizens United, called corporations people and pretended the Patriot Act was not a major invasion of personal privacy.

Where did the principles of the Republican Party go? Why have conservatives failed so miserably when the opportunity to govern has been laid in their lap? The answers are painful and simple. The only thing Republicans know how to do well is breed the brand of fear that helps them get elected and hold power. Beyond that, the conservative movement in America is bankrupt in ideas on how to make the nation a better place to live.

Standard issue

Oh, we all know the standard claims that conservatives love to make. Cut taxes for the jobs creators. Well, they did that and the economy crashed anyway. Conservatives also want to privatize Social Security and kill Medicare. Yet those programs are the only source of income and healthcare for millions upon millions of Americans whose long investment in the American economy is merely being repaid by the collective power of money put in trust with the government. Is that such a bad thing, that people in old age should expect to live with some source of financial security and medical protection?

Republicans seem to think so. They brand Social Security and Medicare a “failure,” but on what basis? They claim Americans can “do better” using the free market to plan for retirement and pay for medical expenses in old age.

These are lies carefully couched in political jargon. The economic crash of 2008 proved beyond doubt that no form of investment vehicle, not even the family home, is immune from the devastating cut from market forces when speculation is allowed to run rampant in the market. Some people lost their homes and their entire investment portfolios, forcing millions of retirees back into the labor force where their age and their time away from work were instantly counted against them.

This is a failure of both reason and economic sense. Because on the other end of the market there were millions of young people seeking employment and finding the labor market jammed with aggressively defensive Baby Boomers trying like hell to keep their jobs knowing that their earnings and saving might not be protection for the future.

The 2016 Election

And that brings us to the election of 2016 and the candidate the Republican Party has advanced for consideration as President of the United States. For eight years Republicans have complained that Barack Obama has ruined the economy. Yet the facts tell a different story. Every month when the reports come out there are tens of thousands of new people hired back into the workforce. Every economic indicator under the sun points to recovery for the economy. Of course the national debt and deficits are still a problem. We spent our way into a hole trying to correct the devastating actions of Bush and Cheney and their ilk. But Republicans blame Obama for these imbalances.

This worldview is divorced from the reality of massive Republican failures to govern or legislate with any effect of conscience the last eight years. Congress is supposed to pass laws and the Senate is supposed to conceive and implement positive changes for the pursuit of health and happiness according to the Constitution. Instead, both branches of government whined and moaned about Obamacare and even shut down the government in a whining attempt to get their way, and a refusal to compromise in any way.

Trump is a boil on America’s ass

alg-donald-trump-jpgThis is not an American form of government. It is despotism. So it is no coincidence that a massive failure of good judgement and conscience such as Donald Trump has ascended to the throne of the Republican Party. Conservatives have failed us for more than 40 years now. The Party of Reagan was wrong when he was in office, and it has only gotten worse as the cognitive dissonance over religion, politics, economics and civics have been bundled into one massive, ugly boil on the ass end of history.

Donald Trump is that boil. And we can either pop his white head and be done with it or let him fester into a massive infection that threatens the health of the entire nation. That’s how ugly and dire this situation really is.

But Republicans and conservatives will refuse to admit it. Many are licking the boil that is Donald Trump as if it were a sex organ, not an infection. It’s a disgusting sight to see, and people of conscience are not impressed.

Yet that’s the Republican Party of today. More concerned with the salve of power than the pain of honesty about their own failures.

Junkyard dogs

/ Christopher Cudworth / Leave a comment

junkyard-dog-a19426112Look! It’s a Junkyard Dog!

Barking at the end of his chain tied to the tin doghouse of feckless conservative politics that have bankrupted the nation fiscally while driving people into rabid dissonance about their morality. He’s one of a million Junkyard Dogs that still believe that if you bark loud enough and show enough hate, someday someone will actually let you loose for revenge on all those that have taunted you.

But for good reason, the Junkyard Dogs in America still remain chained to their own misery in a Junkyard pile of denial, prejudice and selfish aims that make up the junkyard of neo-conservative and populist fascism ruling the Right Wing Junkyard of today. Woof woof.

But not for long if they have their way. In fact, there’s another Junkyard Dog barking loud as hell with all the other chainlink Junkyard dogs that have voted for Reagan, then Bush, then the other Bush, and now Trump. The Junkyard Owners whip them into a frenzy while they sit in their fancy tin huts counting money from the parts of America they’ve already sold off to the highest bidder. That’s how a Junkyard Owner operates, you see.

Of course, Junkyard Dogs actually care only about the red meat and power promised to them by their neocon owners. And for that reason, the Junkyard Dogs are still starved for real attention. The Junkyard Owners love their evil bark but don’t really like to feed them all that much.Junkyard dog

It’s a cruel philosophy, yet one that is easily exported to other countries. And whenever we’ve sent our feverish barking and junkyard politics to places like Iraq and Syria, we create entirely new junkyards run by secretive and mercenary members of the military-industrial complex. We’ve repeatedly funded Junkyard Dogs like Saddam Hussein, but when he barked too loud and got out of hand, we swept in like Junkyard Owners and got the poor dog hung by his neck in the public square. Then we took over the same doghouse used by Saddam to torture his own pack of hounds and took over that grisly duty with relish. Because that’s how Junkyard Owners roll.

Yet when the Junkyard Dogs we breed from those regions come roaring back, driven by zealously religious fanatics and fueled by equally conservative hatred toward us, American Junkyard Dogs whine and whimper out loud about why other Junkyard Dogs would want to pick on us.

The entire mentality is a sickness much like rabies, because the bite really is worse than the bark. For it spreads a disease we call American Exceptionalism, which is really nothing more than Wolfowitz-like arrogance in sheep’s clothing. And there we go. Foaming at the mouth. Biting anyone that comes near. Distrusting other dogs if they’re a different color. Woof woof.

dick-cheneyPerhaps the only real cure for a rabid junkyard dog is to put them down somehow. Vote them out of the Tin Huts they occupy. Take away their ability to sell off the land and property. Prevent them from turning America into a conservative junkyard where everything is for sale even while the entire infrastructure of the place is breaking down before our eyes.

So we have to ask ourselves: Do we really want America to be a Junkyard guarded by Junkyard Dogs or should we view the nation as something better?

The warning signs outside the gates have been there for years. The Junkyard Owners have been sending their rabid hounds after Obama for seven years. These are people who fondly recall using mad hounds to chase down the people they call niggers in the swamps of Mississippi. They view the man in office as their property, and the office he occupies as their property. And they’re angry because they think he stole it from them even though they were the ones that stole it by use of a Junkyard Supreme Court ruling back in 2000. The Junkyard is a cruel and vicious place you see. The Junkyard Owners already killed both the Kennedy boys for playing with their Junk Heap. They killed Martin Luther King, Jr. too. Don’t mess with the Junkyard Owners. They are a truly evil crew.

And they simply cannot fathom that anyone else sees the world any differently. They care not for the considerate behavior of breed of dog that actually has manners and a considerate temperament. That’s not how junkyard dogs act, and the Junkyard Owners consider it an insult to show respect to anyone other than a Junkyard Worker holding a gun. They consider anything else to be a sign of weakness and a lack of Junkyard character.

urlAnd that’s where the world of Junkyard Dogs is headed. If they have their way, they’ll be sending rabid hounds after women for the simple act of having sex without their permission, because Junkyard Owners view themselves as pimps in control of their bitches. That means women never get to choose what they do with their own bodies. And if someone gets raped or pregnant in the Junkyard, well you better expect to carry out that delivery in nine months or you’ll get banned from the Junkyard completely.

The Junkyard Owners surely would love the bloodsport of pinning gays and transgender and brown people and liberals against the chain link fence if they get out of line. Let the Junkyard Dogs gnaw on them a little. That will show them their place in the Junkyard.

The Junkyard Owners are also fixing to build a giant damn wall around this goddamned junkyard of a country. They’ll kill anyone that tries to come in without paying the Junkyard Owner. It will be a huge wall. Guarded by lots of Junkyard Dogs. Vigilantes and militias bearing glock fangs and military style collars.

So we have a choice. It’s either a future as a Junkyard or knocking down the fences and standing by our freedoms.

Woof woof.

 

 

 

The true connection between liberal anxiety and conservative fear

/ Christopher Cudworth / Leave a comment

It’s a constant debate: Liberals versus conservatives. And it all breaks down to simple beliefs.

This is how the sayings go when it comes to discussing politics in America.

Liberals are anxious about everything. They worry about global warming. Civil rights. And offending someone. God Forbid. 

Conservatives are fearful about everything. Terrorism striking close to home. Living without guns. Being politically correct. God Forbid. 

How fascinating it truly is that liberals worry about the world while conservatives fret that it is out to get them? How can two such similar traits drive people so far apart?

Worry warts

For starters, conservatives seem to believe that most liberal worries are made up. That’s the real nature of anxiety, right? It’s defined as imagining the worst when things are really not all that bad.

Fearmongers

Conservative policies are often not what they seem

In a similar way, liberals consider conservatives obsessive about their fears or prejudices. Conservatives are always bemoaning the decay of society or predicting the end of the world as we know it.

Thus, the two parties circle each other warily and angrily. Both claim they’re right about the other and seek to demean the corresponding anxieties and fears on the Left and the Right.

The End of the World

But there are connections. For example, liberals tend to think that if the world is coming to an end, it will be through environmental means. That’s why global warming is a concern, along with species extinction.

Meanwhile, religious conservatives (and by dint of Big Tent Politics, many other brands of Republican conservatives) tend to depict the end of the world through a theological lens. The coming Apocalypse. Armageddon. The End Times. Left Behind. The Rapture.

The Second Coming

That mindset colloquially embraces the idea of the Second Coming of Jesus and the idea that the Old World in which we now live will be replaced by an entirely better New World that will come about through some sort of heavenly means. Even Muslims believe that’s the fate of the world.

Armageddon

And of course, there is considerable speculation on where all that will start, and whether we should fear the day or bid it welcome news. The general thinking on the topic is that the Middle East will be the site of a great war between the forces of good and evil. For many years it was the Jews that were the potential focus of all this heavenly rage. Lately it appears to be the Muslims, whom many conservative religious thinkers blame for the woes of the world.

Muslim surprise

How ironic it is that the Muslim faith actually looks forward to the coming of Jesus Christ as well. They don’t buy the idea that Christ was ever crucified, but was instead zapped up to heaven by God outside the parameters of the Christian narrative. It’s a little vague of course, as most things in the Quran seem to be in terms of interpretive or predictive value, but this is what the Quran says:  “And there is none of the people of the Book but must believe in Him before his death, and on the Day of Judgment He will be a witness against them.”[Sûrah al-Nisâ’: 159] Allah also says about Jesus in the Qur’ân: “And he shall be a sign of the Hour. Therefore have no doubt about the Hour, but follow Me. That is the straight path.” [Sûrah al-Zukhruf: 61].

Judgement Day

If you stop and think about the fact that conservative Christians and conservative Muslims all look forward to the coming of Christ on the Judgement Day, it’s a pathetic fact that what people are fighting (or quibbling) about is what path this supposed course took in the path and how it will ostensibly transpire in the future.

Owning the narrative

All sides of this argument, including Sunni and Shi’a sects on the Muslim side, as well as Catholic, Protestant, Evangelical and all other forms of conservative Christian faith oas well seem willing to fight to the death over which narrative is chosen to decide how the world will end, and who might survive.  Then we throw in the Jews, who get it from both sides of this great battle, and that pretty much explains fears over the Middle East “situation” in a nutshell. And it’s a fearful, angry, vicious batch of insanity.

And conservatives on every side just love it. Because it allows them to grab hold of all sorts of other controls in life. That includes social and political laws, and fiscal regulations. Everyone is afraid some other sect or religious worldview will get the upper hand.

Political zygotes

ZygoteOf course not all those who abide by conservative philosophy or identify as fiscal or political conservatives share these religious worldviews. But they can no longer escape the association because the conservative alliance initiated in the Falwell/Reagan era. That’s when the religious and economic “revolution” originally fused the language of triumph into a giant political zygote of social, political, religious and fiscal conservatives. Now the product of this marriage has emerged like a freak of nature, and his name is Donald Trump.

Liberals get their freak on

Like the tale of Benjamin Button, in which a man is born old and grows young over time, the Democratic side of freak births produced Bernie Sanders. His ardent gesticulations and socialist contentions have been discomfiting to those who just want a normal, somewhat liberal candidate to run for President. His supporters freak out at the idea of supporting Hillary Clinton if and when the Bern fizzles out. It’s a bit like a backcountry family feud, both ugly and beautiful in its unsophisticated way.

Emotional defense

it is interesting to note that both conservatives and Christians lay claim to the authority of scripture. Conservatives side with the traditions and triumphs of the church while liberals share the heart of scripture and the ministry of tolerance advocated by Jesus. These simple differences may be responsible for the entire liberal versus conservative divide. We only wish these differences could be determined through dialectic, a term described as “a discourse between two or more people holding different points of view about a subject but wishing to establish the truth through reasoned arguments.” Instead all we seem to achieve is emotional arguments for one side or the other.

Back to the Future

Some of these debates over conservative versus liberal interpretations of scripture go back to the very formative years of what we now call Christianity. That’s when a Jew named Yeshua (better known as Jesus) debated vigorously with the Pharisees and others over their efforts to turn scripture into law. Jesus chastised the priests and tried to liberate the Jewish faith from its own strictures. But it didn’t really work. So the followers of Jesus started their own gig. And it’s been a Back to the Future movie ever since.

Some Christians never learned the lesson Jesus was trying to convey. They still behave like the priests Jesus tried to change. These are the conservatives of today. They side with political power because it feels like the best way to exact the philosophies of Christianity on the world. This is the Back to the Future plot we are now viewing.

The fortress of belief

Conservatism views the faith as a literal temple, a fortress of belief or a city to be defended or taken over by force if necessary. They Bible is one such fortress, and must be read as if it were a pile of stones placed one upon the other. Take out one stone and the entire structure may fall.

Portable faith

Liberalism takes a more modular view of what faith is about. Its interpretation of the bible is more about its transportable qualities. In that sense, liberalism is more like a nomadic tent community. It can wander the desert and be happy in the company of God. This is more like what Jesus professed. The structure of his ministry and how the disciples came to view the temple of God was centered on the idea that God is with you wherever you go.

Crusades

Now we can understand why conservatives consider the Crusades so important. Their objective to evict Muslims from Jerusalem was based on the belief that God needed (or deserved) a place to live. Tradition demanded that Jerusalem be under Christian guard. The Holy City and the Temple had been there. What more was there to understand?

In this day and age there are supporters of Israel who abide by these same standards. It’s still about the Holy City and the Holy State of Israel. This is called Zionism, “political support for the creation and development of a Jewish homeland in Israel.”

Mess of beliefs

Jerusalem_Dome_of_the_rock_BW_14.JPGIt’s a bit of an archaic notion, and a contradictory one at that, when Christians and Jews align to create and protect an Israeli homeland. The two faith traditions don’t even believe in the same thing. One accepts Jesus. The other does not. Meanwhile Muslims look forward to the return of Jesus while the Jews think the Messiah is yet to appear. It’s all a very confused mess if you really consider it. Yet the Crusades in the Middle East continue to this day and even the most informed people have lost track of what it is all about. The fighting now is about rallying the troops and never losing. Not at any cost.

Feeding worries and fears

The shared tactic of conservatism and liberalism is to consistently expound upon worries or fears about what is surely about to happen.

For conservatives, the list is long. The economy is about to collapse. Society is in moral decay. Terrorism is going to end our Way of Life. The Rapture is right around the corner. These are the go-to themes whenever conservatism fails on some, or many, fronts.

Meanwhile, liberals are busy wringing their hands in anxiety over environmental cataclysm and the collapse of civil rights due to prejudice and authoritarian rule by a select minority.

Beyond being afraid

The fact that both anxieties and fears align with the general belief that things could get far worse before they get better is telling. Isn’t there some way these two belief systems can come to a common ground?

The secret hides in how people on both sides of the philosophical debate define the idea of a “new world.”

For liberals or humanists, that would be world in which people actually collaborate to solve problems. This philosophy was effectively captured in the song Imagine by John Lennon:

Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people living life in peace, you

You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope some day you’ll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people sharing all the world

There’s a lot of Jesus philosophy in that very humanist set of lyrics. But the opening lyrics to the song would be of great offense to those who view the temple of God as real place.

Imagine there’s no heaven
It’s easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people living for today

But if we focus on the idea that Jesus wanted the Kingdom of God to be real here on earth, and that the Bible advocates the idea that a New World will someday be created on earth, there is a great source of convergence going on in those humanist lyrics by John Lennon and the soul of the ministry of Jesus.

That is, God wants us to create this New World for ourselves. In fact, the Second Coming of Christ may be our responsibility to initiate. Not through war and Armageddon, but through love and all the good works of respect and trust and ministry we extend to others.

That is the true convergence of conservative and liberal ideologies. It also assuages worries and removes fears. Because a world where people genuinely care about each other and dispel differences rather than turning them into definitions of “the other” truly is the Kingdom of God.

And that’s the point at which both conservatism and liberalism as social, political, fiscal and religious constructs will cease to be.

How biblical literalism affects politics, culture and the environment

Christopher Cudworth is author of The Genesis Fix: A Repair Manual for Faith in the Modern Age. It centers on how biblical literalism affects politics, culture and the environment. Originally published in 2007, it is being edited for re-release on Amazon.com. 

 

GOP presidential candidates are dropping like flies, not long after attracting them

/ Christopher Cudworth / Leave a comment

Flies on Shit.jpgWell, the shitfest that was the GOP presidential nomination contest is semi-officially over. It started with 16+ candidates who in various ways screwed the pooch, some perhaps literally. Metaphorically in others.

Gone are Scott Walker, Rick Santorum and Dr. Ben Carson, whose Oscar Meyer Wiener performance as a conservative hot dog was given an NR rating for Not Real from the beginning.

The fact that any of these out-of-touch-with-reality losers gained any followers at all is a bad sign for the place we call America. But it is proof that even the worst-smelling pile of shit can attract flies.

That’s right, I called these otherwise human beings running for President piles of shit. That’s no comment on the person behind their persona, because I don’t know any of them personally. But when you put forward a political personality that is so obviously cloying for the votes of various single-voter factions, you deserve to be called a pile of shit. Because metaphorically, it’s true. Shit starts out as single items that we consume. But it comes out stinky and mixed up.

Even the seemingly stinkless Jeb Bush came out smelling like a pile of dung on a hot Florida day. His feckless attempts at confrontational politics made him look like road kill, which is also know to stink. Like death. Which is the template for the entire history of the Bush regime, which began with Prescott supporting the Nazis and hopefully ended with George W. Bush selling his soul to the 9/11 “tragedy” that was more likely a deep inter-governmental conspiracy to set the nation and the world on fire as if it were a buffalo cake.

Bush and Cheney ruined the Republican Party during their eight years in office. But they also ruined a considerable chunk of American virtues. Whenever he was called into the public eye, Dick Cheney squatted and snarled that his brand of shit was nobody’s business but his own. He attempted to rule with impunity and tried to establish the Unitary Executive so that he could pull The Georgie’s puppet strings.

And because of all this shitty behavior, no one really trusts the Republican Party to do anything, anymore. The Republican-led Congress has done nothing to change that image in eight years of racist resistance to President Barack Obama. The “do-nothing” Congress could only vote to Repeal Obamacare. 50+ times they pulled that shit. And they offered no sound or reasonable alternatives. They’re only scheduled to work 129 days in 2016 as well. Perhaps we should thank God for that.

Why does Republican America put up with this shit? Well, that’s explained easily by the fact that when you’ve repeatedly failed in national and state governance, the one remaining option is to double-down. Maybe triple-down. Maybe Triple Dog Dare You Down.

And so we’re faced with the pending potential reign of the Lord of All Shitheads, Donald Trump. That’s who the Republican Party has forwarded as their candidate for the President of the United States. Countries around the world are holding their noses as this Shitpile Roadkill of a Candidate ascends to prominence. They know a stinkfest when they see it. They’ve all been through fascism and all its cousins. Donald Trump lines up with all of those. He is the American Nazi. He’s like an Uber-Fascist, so self- absorbed and self-worshipping that he thinks his own shit doesn’t stink.

urlAnd like the tale of the Emperor’s New Clothes, millions of Americans with shit on their breath are eating this stuff up. They view The Donald as the anti-candidate, the man that can rescue America from its troubles.

His supporters are comprised of out-of-work white blue collar workers. They are women who adore the Donald for his wealth and his panache. They are confused Catholics and angry Lutherans and disenfranchised Jesus People looking for the Second Coming and mistaking Donald’s Golden Glow Hair for a Halo. They are people claiming to be sick of all this political shit even as it threatens to swallow them whole. The shit will only get deeper once the formerly anal-retentive Republican Convention erupts like a blowhole from the ass of the Elephant Party.

But what do I really think? I think the Republicans have gotten exactly what they deserve. With the Shit For Brains actions of conservatives that have taken place, gutting the economy several times over since the Reagan era with its Trickle Down Shit (and isn’t that an image?), it has been impossible to separate Republican shit from reality. Dr. Ben Carson was a Grade A example of that clueless brand of shit.

But you got Donald Trump instead. You chose the Bombast rather than the Iconocolast.

Truth be told, the rest of us just Thank God it wasn’t Ted Cruz. His shit was only ankle deep with that guy, but let’s be honest about all something. He dove in head first.

 

 

 

 

 

America is indeed naked and afraid, of the truth

/ Christopher Cudworth / Leave a comment

Naked one.jpg

I’ve ignored most of the so-called reality shows for decades. Never watched a second of that obvious travesty Honey-Boo-Boo. Had no idea who the Duggars even were until the sex scandals broke and the family was exposed for its ugly secrets. Jinger Dugar recently admitted to People Magazine. “It was so unreal, I still have trouble comprehending it today. But just the reality of this, this person we thought we knew, the person that we loved greatly – we still love – just the hard pain that has caused.”

Really? What did you expect when you turned your real life over to the landscape of unreality? Some of us say that’s tough luck if you succumb to the unreal pain created by   profiting from America’s prurient instincts. You got what you deserved, Jinger Duggar.

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Yet speaking of prurient instincts: Is there any more conflicted show on television than the Discovery Channel feature titled Naked and Afraid? It features people who volunteer to be dumped in the wilderness with no clothes on. Only instead of honoring that nakedness with actual footage of their actual genitals, Discovery Channel blurs out the supposed naughty bits.

In Europe and other parts of the world where people are comfortable with nudity and act like grownups about it, there would be no need to blur anything out. But in America taboo subjects and titillating subject matter are exciting fodder for a guilt-ridden society where naked bodies are publicly frowned upon by good conservative households. Yet we know that the Bible Belt consumes more porn than any other part of the country. Thus we are forced to pretend that these mostly naked people are not really naked at all.

Naked Two

This cognitive dissonance is emblematic of the false brand of morality American conservatives love to profess. Yet the daily news seems full of uptight Republicans persecuting people for having the audacity to engage in sex. Yet these same people keep getting caught having affairs and engaging in sexual escapades that emerge as scandalous revelations about their repressive lifestyles.

So in keeping with the repressive culture in America, Naked and Afraid should be titled Afraid of Being Naked. Because why do America’s beaches play this pathetic game where people dress in thongs, yet can’t strip those stupid-looking garments off and actually be naked? It’s false morality writ large, that’s why.

The sin of nakedness is all in the minds of those who want to control the moral culture of America. These are the same people, we must recall, who tend to want “less government” in our lives. Yet neither can they resist using government to impose their prudish, anachronistic values on the populace every chance they get.

That’s why Naked and Afraid so fits the American television audience. It is a perfectly contrived flirtation with the taboo. It is so imperfectly ugly as an imitation of honesty that it defies even the title of the channel that airs it, turning the Discovery Channel into an oxymoron. There is no Discovery there at all. You can’t see the real sunburned breasts on those women, nor the dangling penises afflicted by flies and abrasion. One does get to see clearly a number of butt cheeks in various states of flabbiness or good form. And let’s be clear: butt cheeks are now the language of acceptable nudity. How ironic is that? These naked asses make an ass out of all of us.

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It’s thus no coincidence that the King of All Asses Donald Trump (tRump?) has risen to prominence on the American political scene. He’s grown popular by faking a powerful personality with codified statements such as “You’re fired.” And why would Americans embrace this reality show? The words “You’re fired” are the two words Americans most hate to hear.  Yet millions of Americans faced those very words during the last economic downturn.

It was all brought on by the gambling speculation of an investment and financial industry that claimed to be “too big to fail.”  In other words, they could not be fired despite the massive failures they had caused.  Then all those bad mortgages sold through predatory lending had to be socialized and paid off through governmental bailouts.

That was the ultimate reality show, wasn’t it?  It left us all left naked and afraid for our investment portfolios. How would we survive if we’re left alone in the jungle with nothing to wear but our Nike tee shirts? Those don’t really cover anything. The rest was all a blur for a few years.

This is the price we pay for a lack of honesty and the constant infatuation and flirtation with wealth that leads so many people to believe they’ll see “the goods” of security when in fact the entire investment industry is geared to profit the sellers and not those who hope to grow their nest eggs. These are the naked facts, people. And they’re after your Social Security money as well. If they can, they will indeed leave you Naked and Afraid. Because then they have you where they want you. Helpless and afraid.

You can believe what you want, but reality will ultimately prove you wrong about the belief that people like that have your best interests in mind. The whole reason reality shows exist is because they are cheap to produce and use participants as sucker actors to capitalize on their moment of fame. TV producers have been laughing all the way the bank for years at the expense of all those who believe and participate in reality TV. It’s a giant farce. Just like our investment industry. We’re fools for believing in it. For that matter, even the belief in the so-called free market and laissez-faire capitalism need a reality check as well. It might not hurt to take a naked look at the real effects of all these notions that we’re being honest with ourselves.

But you can go on watching the reality show we’re given, if you like. It’s not reality, but sometimes the best we can do is stare at the blurred screen and imagine we’re seeing something true and interesting. Or naked. Just so we feel real.

 

 

 

 

 

On Bernie Sanders and Ralph Nader

/ Christopher Cudworth / Leave a comment

150430-berniesanders-editorial.jpgListen, I was listening to Bernie Sanders long before he was Bernie Sanders, candidate for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States. He was a weekly guest on the Thom Hartmann show to which I regularly listened. I liked his ability to answer political and legislative questions in real time, right over the air.

The political stumper that Bernie has become is a somewhat different creature. He’s right argued that the political system is rigged against him. He’s correctly asserted that America’s economic system has giant flaws. He’s proposed massive public investment in America’s educational and health care systems. I even agree with him that America has all the money it needs to pay for these supposedly “socialistic” programs that are in fact simply the logical actions of a nation determined to improve the lives and minds of its citizens.

Because honestly, the Republican Party has done everything it can to divest Americans of the opportunity to make a fair living, get a good education and put it to work in an equitable economy. We’ve watched Republicans publicly flog the Unemployment Compensation system and accuse people thrown out of work by the economic crash of being “too old and lazy” to want to go back to work. We’ve heard Republicans use rampant racism to disenfranchise those they most fear. That would be anyone with brown skin or a different religion that outnumbers the dwindling numbers of angry, largely white so-called Christians who hardly lift a finger to reconcile their capitalistic dogma to their equally dogmatic fundamental brands of faith.

Republicans are a hot ideological mess compared to men like Bernie Sanders. Republicans are more like an ideo-illogical mess. They’re don’t even claim to be whores with hearts of gold, because their repressive tendencies always seem to hide some massive personal scam waiting for exposure. Just ask Dennis Hastert if you don’t believe it. Or Newt Gingrich. All those fundamentalist Republican preachers in sex scandals.

By comparison to those lying zealots, Bill Clinton is a saint. And his wife Hillary still has not been proven to have done one wrong thing. Sure, she exaggerates a twitch or two, but she’s a political realist in the end.

That’s far more than can be said for men like Ted Cruz with his goddamned God Complex. Or Donald Trump who seems to think he’s a Golden Idol worthy of worship. The rest of the ungodly mess that Republicans sent forth for inspection withered and sank like a troop of squalid mushrooms sprouting from a shit pile. Scott Walker? There’s a foul stench around him. Jeb Bush? He smelled a little too rich and ripe. Even that stinker Mitt Romney cropped back up for a few weeks. And what did it get him? A portabella goodbye, that’s what.

So I’m not dissing Bernie Sanders on that level at all. I like Bernie compared to all these fecal greaseballs. And Bernie is a genuine contender. I’ll definitely credit him with that.

But I don’t get the feeling he wants the Democrats to win. Bernie distrusts the entire system, and with good reason. There’s just one problem with that. A man like Bernie can deliver true evil into power.

03-ralph-nader.w529.h352.2x.jpgIt happened once before with Al Gore and Ralph Nader back in 2000. Gore would have made a wonderful, rational and considerate President of the United States. But Nader went after anti-establishment, populist voters from a greenish stripe and wicked off just enough votes to keep Gore out of the White House. And in so doing, he let George Fucking Bush get in.

That moment in history has cost America dearly. We got the lying-est White House ever. True evil came in the back door with that vicious bastard Dick Cheney. Add in a right-wing-nut-cabinet that took us to war on lies in Iraq, and that ignored the clear warnings of impending terrorist attacks…which ultimately delivered the excuse they were seeking for action in the Middle East…and Ralph Nader starts to look like a real selfish villain in all this.

And I’m equally concerned right now that if Sanders tells his supposedly smart voters not to support Hillary Clinton, we could get a President Trump in the White House. Or just as bad (maybe worse) a President Cruz.

That would be fucking stupid. There is no way either of those men deserves to use the White House restroom, much less sit in the Oval Office.

Bernie Sanders and Ralph Nader have way too much in common for my taste. I’m trying to figure out what it is about determined Jewish men that makes them such a danger to American interests. All I tell you is that King David did everything God told him to do. Yet when it came time to build a temple to God, David was told he had too much blood on his hands. There’s a lesson in that somehow. It is possible to care about your cause a little too  much.

I love a revolutionary as much as the next person. Because John Lennon knew the benefits and risks of revolution.

You say you want a revolution
Well, you know We all want to change the world
You tell me that it’s evolution
Well, you know We all want to change the world
But when you talk about destruction
Don’t you know that you can count me out

What we’re witnessing is the destruction of America. But it’s not the work of liberals destroying traditional values, because it took more than 100 years of liberal political revolution to give equal rights to women and blacks. It’s taken just as long to make progress for gays and other minorities. Those are Constitutional values that are actually fulfilling the vows of our Founding Fathers for equality. Conservatives have fought that revolution tooth and nail, and helped destroy American lives in the process.

And it’s not socialism compromising the benefits of capitalism, because without regulations, free markets clearly and frequently spin out of control. We have the Great Depression and the Recent Recession to illustrate that fact.

It’s not a black President that threatened to destroy America, but fear of that man that promulgated a fierce wellspring of ugly racist populism now being fed by men like Donald Trump. And it’s not a lack of religion that destroyed the influence of Christian values in America, but the prostitution of biblical knowledge to fit a highly opportunistic brand of religion that shed the teachings of Christ to don the trappings of power.

And to combat these horrific influences on our culture and the nation at large, it is important that we not allow the leaders of this brand of political furor and zealotry to take greater control. Already we’ve seen what the warmongers can do to the national treasury with the post 9/11 escapades and nation-building overseas. We’ve seen media like Fox News cheerlead these ventures and lead with euphemisms such as Fair and Balanced to confuse and propagandize political priorities as fact.

You’re all witness to these devastating games, and some refuse to question their own roles, clinging to single issue contentions over abortion, gay marriage or taxes as excuses for installing liars and zealots and religious nuts into positions of power. Those people have no concern for America as a principle. They only care about America as an instrument for their repressive desire for control, hatred and bully politics.

And that’s what scares me about men like Bernie Sanders and Ralph Nader. They don’t seem to see the forest for the trees.

How do you compare to Donald Trump?

/ Christopher Cudworth / Leave a comment

gettyimages-698334Millions of Donald Trump admirers are hoping the man can run all the way to the White House with an incomparable vision for America.

But that raises a question, doesn’t it?

If Donald Trump’s American Dream is incomparable, with his billions of dollars, reality show stardom and a personal brand slapped on everything from ties to skyscrapers, exactly what is his political brand?

 

If you plan to vote for the man, how do you personally compare to Donald Trump?

If you don’t have the courage to criticize and mock women for their looks, then you don’t compare to Donald Trump. Trump has publicly mocked Rosie O’Donnell, accosted Megyn Kelly, made fun of Carly Fiorina’s face and talked about women as sex objects in incomparably ugly fashion.

But The Donald doesn’t stop there. Because if you don’t propose bombing the families of your enemies in an act that constitutes a genuine war crime, then you don’t have the same values as Donald Trump.

Perhaps you’re like Donald Trump if you like to make fun of people with physical disabilities, or mock people who are overweight, or have people of color shoved out of your political rallies by your largely white supporters. These are all well-documented instances in which Donald Trump behaves like an ogre, and people cheer. So someone’s doing some comparison out there.

Hey, maybe you even compare to Donald Trump in having four business bankruptcies, carefully orchestrated in the public eye as “reorganizations.” And God Bless if you’re savvy enough to isolate your personal obligations from the companies you run, so that you don’t really have a stake in the game even when thousands of other people suffer the economic consequences of your actions.

That’s the mark of a real winner. Let the harm fall to others. It’s a trickle down world, you see, which is why Donald Trump is winning the Republican nomination. People seem to love to vote for candidates who guarantee that they’ll confer advantage to everyone who wants to kick the person below them on the social ladder. Donald Trump is truly incomparable at that, and his millions of angry minions want the chance to kick someone a notch down from their social status.

You’ve got to be tough to compare yourself to Donald Trump. He’s fired a couple wives, for example. Perhaps he’s just views them as property, because when you’ve traded in a few wives through divorce, they all start to look the same.

Creepy purity vow photos.jpgAnd make no mistake. Donald Trump is a real “family values” man. After all, he has publicly lusted after his own daughter. Nothing like a little incestual father-daughter thing going on to attract all those creepy faux-Christian dads posing with their daughters in purity vow photos. Trump’s a hard act to follow, you might say. But these guys look like they’re on their way.

Donald Trump wants to build a massively expensive wall along the border between Mexico and the United States. He wants to force our neighboring nation to build that wall, as if that were an option for an American dictator to demand. Trump clearly wants America to behave like Germany in the Cold War, or Hitler before that. Build those walls. Ban those Muslims from entering the country. Isolate the elements of society that you don’t like. Be isolationist. Forceful. Rally the storm troopers if you must, but get it done. Trump is a fascist, in other words. And in today’s supposedly wiser society, an incomparable one at that.

Yes, The Donald is truly incomparable in a number of ways. It’s quite clear that millions of people are rallying to his cause because they think they can’t compare themselves to his legacy. But perhaps they should.

 

 

The Titanic and Moby Dick of conservative politics

/ Christopher Cudworth / Leave a comment

I know this fellow who is a recovering alcoholic and seems like a nice guy generally, who assumes I have not listened to Rush Limbaugh, and therefore assumes that’s why I’m “still a liberal.” I’ve taken him down to the woodshed several times but he’s unrepentant. He thinks liberalism is a mistake of the mind. He’s been brainwashed completely. Like Captain Ahab pursuing Moby Dick, he’s got one thing on his mind. The White Whale of the Good Old Days must be pursued.

And the way I see it, but cannot say to him, is that his addictive and fearful personality is what drives his politics. He MUST believe completely in his ideology because that’s his salvation. To give up that quest is to give up his identity.
And besides, there’s too much thinking involved to be liberal. That’s the way back to alcohol. It was his “liberal” side that caused him to drink. And think. Questions: Bad. 12 Steps. Good. Contract For America. Good. Republican Platform. Good. Socialism. Bad. Capitalism. Good. Free Market Capitalism. Is God. Is God? Good.
And it seems to me that’s the way of the Right wing truth vacuum. Liberalism is their “bad” side. And what’s all this about hanging around with the poor and the sinners? That’s the way to destruction.
And Donald Trump is rich. So he must be good. And what he says must be good. Even when it’s bad. Because bad can’t be good! Makes perfect sense!
And that’s how the Donald has gotten so far. And why Cruz and his Blaze.com and Glenn Beck believers are marching forward. And why Rubio, pretty boy who looks a little too pretty for some, but says all those mean things, is the perfect symbol for the conflicted minds of all those hoping for a conservative messiah. He’s Jesus and Hay-Seuss all rolled into one. And that must be perfect timing. For the end of the world is coming, and it’s going to help to have a Latino to row the boat.
But there is no such thing as a conservative messiah, only a liberal Anti-Christ. Michelle Bachmann rose like Lazarus from her political grave to tell us all the end of the world is coming.
And speaking of predictions of a biblical order, we now have Jonah Goldberg (Jewish sounding conservative columnist) the ultimate conservative scion, pointed out the fact that, in his words, not mine, “Conservatism is ‘cracking up.’
Moby-Dick-2.jpgSo this is all playing out according to a strangely predictable plan. If I didn’t know better, I’d call it predestination, or pre-ordination. Take your pick.
 Nice people with all sorts of different conservative values are clinging to the flotsam of the Titanic legacy that was once the Conservative movement. The Republican Party. The GOP. The Tea Party. The Oregon Militia. The Racist South. The Religious Right. The Pro-Lifers. The Libertarian Party. The Koch Brothers. Fox News devotees. Dittoheads. All hanging from the rails and railing about the damage the iceberg of liberalism has inflicted on their once healthy boat.
It is cracking up. Broken in the middle. Taking on water. And the Captains of this disaster are all going down with the ship. There are certifiably mad, White Whale captains like Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, each of them throwing harpoons in different directions. Their obsessions with power have consumed their very minds, to the point where each of those harpoons is actually striking some of the people they hope to attract as voters! They’re busy killing their own sailors and blaming liberals for making waves.
It is Moby Dick combined with the sinking of the Titanic. And the deckhands and passengers voting in White Whalefests and waving God Loves Trump banners can’t see it. They can only feel the creaking bulwarks and hear the sound of tearing metal. But to them, it makes sounds like voter fraud and liberals scraping their nails on the sides of the ship. “Stoppp! Don’t listen to them! It’s the sirens!” the religious right screams from above deck. But they are lashed to the masts, crying out for Jesus to save them from the White Whale, who is both their target and their enemy. And yes, that’s an allusion to the persistent racism behind it all. The South is the racist Moby Dick of America. Guns are its Right Winged Titanic. The ocean is awash with the blood of it all. More Americans have died by gun violence on American soil than all the American soldiers in foreign wars, and whites blame black on black crime on the blacks, and proudly claim that responsible gun owners never commit such crimes. And it is all based on lies, and Moby Dick swims free.
And the ship creaks and groans. And conservatives hate their own for rocking the boat.
But look! The conservatives have actually made off with all the longboats! They’ll win Congress again through all the Red State gerrymandering, and we’ll all be cast adrift again because somehow this flotsam crew stays afloat no matter how bad the mother ship flounders because they really don’t know how to sail the thing.

Bad stuff running through the veins of the American Heartland

/ Christopher Cudworth / Leave a comment

 

ted-cruz

He claims to be talking about Washington, but in reality, he was talking about the political drug problem in Iowa.

Iowa has failed itself. It needs a 12-step program for its politics.

As the tracks on the arms of all those involved in the Republican Iowa Caucus reveal, there is some bad stuff running through the veins of the American Heartland. Conservatism is like emotional methamphetamines to these people. It charges them up and makes them do and believe crazy things. And Ted Cruz is the leading character in Iowa’s version of Breaking Bad.

Donald Trump tried slipping his rich brand of opiates into the mix. But in the end, even his “I’m Your Hero” brand of heroinism could not satisfy the desires of conservative dope fiends high on bongs of pig shit, religion and hashpipes stuffed with layers of Right Wing ideology. Those are the drugs of choice in some parts of the Midwest, and can make farmers vote Republican even when corporate farming comes back around to steal their tractors, seed, crops and land. But the flow of monetary drugs known as agricultural welfare cannot be denied. And the Democrats are druglords and pushers as well.

Like most drug cultures, one can seldom tell the users from the sellers. They all feed off each other’s habits while denying they have a problem in the first place.

The stench of denialism out in Iowa got so bad this time around, even that religious druglord Mike Huckabee had to pack up his political Airstream and pull out of the presidential race. He’s been holed up at the Jellystone Park of American politics for just over a year now, and the camp fees from Fox News and other Right Wing Rangers were coming due.

But that’s not the real problem for the Huckster. There have been persistent rumblings from his neighbors that the rumblings and shaking come from that trailer were far from Holy Fare.

Some suggested the Devil himself had, by invitation it seems, taken up residence with Huckabee, and it makes sense. It’s quite clear the Huckster has proven willing to sell his soul all along if it will aggrandize him with his perceived church of political believers. His babblings prove the point, for they became so confusing a league of Angels could not sort them out, leading even true believers to consider whether the smoke of the Devils hot language was having hallucinatory effects on the man who can’t seem to sort fact from fiction. “I think people forget that bipartisanship is really the burden of the victor, not the loser,” Huckabee drooled. And that point, his trailer park neighbors slammed his Airstream door shut and sealed it with duct tape. And that seems to be the end of the Hucksters dream of becoming President of the United States.

His last words seem to be both a defense and an indictment of the Winner Take All philosophy that has taken over the conservative movement these days like a man with a coke and a spoon at a Studio 54 party. It’s a bad scene all around, and no one knows if the high strung whine of people with white powder on their noses shrieking about “patriotism” and “liberty” is ever going to end. it is clearly the chorus of the insane, only crazier.

Some of that noise is shrieks of fear. Because like those acts of genocide or ethnic cleansing in the Bible, everyone knows on the Right knows you take no prisoners whether you win or lose. Which means no one can afford to have political witnesses around anymore.

That explains the entire political career of men like Newt Gingrich, who sealed one of his wives into a cancer casket using her own divorce papers. That’s hardball stuff, and not every brain can take that level of stimulation and survive. But Gingrich rose again like a specte the last election cycle, and Right Wingers recognized his special brand of crazy right off. But alas for comedians and Democrats, even Gingrich could not hide the bulging veins in his political forehead, and he was cast into the opium den of irrelevance. At last.

These are the ways of the Breaking Bad men that have been running the Republican Party. Even Ronald Reagan had to deal with his rank of Right Wing Addicts in the end. They obfuscated with a trunk full of his money to deal in the arms trade with Iran to shunt money off to the Contras down South. This business of war is always ugly, and drugs often fuel the fun stuff done by mercenaries in the name of God. The only reason Ronnie Reagan himself didn’t get thrown in jail is that he was already too senile or drug-addled to realize what he’d allowed to be done in his own name. No one could bring themselves to blame Grandfather Ron for all that. Well, perhaps his own son. But that’s a different story for another day.

dennis-hastertBut speaking of Father Figures. We should recall the recent revelations about the once honorable Dennis Hastert, former Speaker of the House. It turns out The Coach had a sordid history of fondling boys and paying them to keep quiet. But when that bit of conservatively concealed chicanery came to light, it ruined the man’s reputation and his net worth. Drugs of choice (be they of substance or appetite) from the wrong side of the tracks will do that to a person. At first, there’s a power rush. Then comes the crash.

Which also explains the firey hulks of Jeb Bush and Carly Fiorina, who by now are likely stuffed into smelly car trunks like burnt mummies by those political drug lords Reince Priebus and Karl “The Rover” Rove. It doesn’t pay to cross men with names like Reince or nicknames like Turdblossom. That’s always going to wind up in bad places.

Those petulant rubes Jeb and Carly have come off angry and joyous as Saturday night drunks stumbling out of the Happy Joes Pizza joint in Newton, Iowa. But then they kicked in the car door of the local sheriff, and spit on the Mayor’s wife while calling her a slut. Things got ugly fast, and muffled words were exchanged. Their campaigns are either over or owned entirely by the Syndicate as a result of their sputtering antics. Ever since Monday night they have been stuck in the back end of locked up sedans behind the Ace Hardware. They’ve both been trying to kick their way out of the trunk, whimpering for help from God, or at least some kid with a screwdriver. That’s the kind of thing that happens to traitorous mob flunkies and failed Republican candidates. The fact that they can hear each other screaming only makes it all worse. The first one out of the trunk will claim to be the victor. Because that’s what politicians do. Kick the person on the rung below you. And no excuses.

CQVsQ1bUEAAecjrThen there are those political personalities that just won’t go away, no matter what you do, or how high on their own expectations they get. Because who knows what Ben Carson’s been smoking out there in the Iowa cornfields. From Day One, the gentleman has contradicted himself like some drunken uncle at a Thanksgiving feast. “Even if you’re Bill Gates, you’ve got problems,” Carson blurted last year. “I’m sure he would probably easily give a few billion dollars to get rid of all the problems that he has.”

And then there’s this brain-addled Carson gem: “And I’ve always said, ‘If two people think the same thing about everything, one of them isn’t necessary.’ We need to be able to understand that if we’re going to make real progress.”

Which proves that listening to Ben Carson is really like listening to Adolf Hitler on crack. Carson even said this about the United States military, which is bigger by far than the next 7-8 countries of the world combined: “What we have to stop and think about is that we have weakened ourselves militarily to such an extent that it affects all of our military policies.” Ben, go back to whatever political substance you’ve been smoking and drinking and leave us alone. We don’t care. You don’t matter. And we don’t need your brand of narcotic falsehoods running through our veins.

Ben, go back to whatever political substance you’ve been smoking and drinking and leave us the hell alone. We don’t care about you. You don’t matter. You don’t even believe in science and you’re a brain surgeon! And we don’t need your brand of narcotic falsehoods and conservative banalities running through our veins. They are poison.

Paul-RanBut while we’re at it, let us consider (and then ignore) the barbituate level rantings of Rand Paul, a Libertarian candidate who claims to speak for the intellectual side of America, but keeps fumbling over his own thoughts. “I have a question, a question for the president: Do you hate all rich people, or just rich people who don’t contribute to your campaign? Do you hate poor people or do you just hate poor people with jobs?“

That is Rand Paul trying to sound cogent and sober. Instead his red tie looks like the thermometer for his overheated brain. Barbituates will do that, especially those of the contrarian type favored by Libertarians, where the best form of government is no government at all. Have some weed, Rand. You need it.

The rest of the Republican dope fiends are not worth mentioning, except their stories are so amusingly narcissistic they cannot help be told. They all follow in the footsteps of men such as Ulysses S. Grant, a man who drank himself to both military and political success.

Indeed, the Republican debates have been like listening to a pack of drunk farmers standing at a dive bar in some sad little town out past Ames, Iowa. They all drink and shout until they can actually stand the idea of going home to their equally angry wives. Each man claims he has the better tractor, and then they wind up making jokes about how Chris Christie’s farm implements all have flat tires because he’s so fat.

We can easily imagine the muttered joke about how Carly was rumored to be fornicating with a pig. That was a Trump special, grant you. He excels at his own brand of Down On the Farm humor. It absolutely frightens Republicans that Trump might be City Slicker dressed up in Salt of the Earth clothes, but if the Iowa Caucus process is any indication, Trump is the one who has apparently screwed the pooch one too many times. Even Republicans get angry when the family dog is butt hurt and whining.

The conservative belief system all comes down to singularity. We all know that even the worst drunks in the world can drive a car pretty well because when they get enough practice at it. If a few people die along the way, so be it. The ends justifies the means. Teddy Kennedy taught them that lesson, and the Right has learned it all too well.

But where Kennedy was selling the political drugs of family legacy and populism, the political drug of choice for Republicans is authoritarianism. And it works like a charm. Just like an overdose of Ritalin, an ADD drug designed to hype you up so bad it actually calms you down, mainlining authoritarian works by getting people to go along with whatever you tell them to think. One might argue the same thing for Oxycontin, Rush Limbaugh’s favorite chemical for many years. His drug abuse was easily forgiven and forgotten by his dittohead listeners because it was mainlined with an arrogance and authoritarianism that made it look like Rush had no drug problem at all. He was rich and had a big mouth. Thats was all that counted, or ever counts, and that’s why Limbaugh likely hates Trump. Who stole his act.

And then Ted Cruz stole Trump’s act as well. And Marco Rubio is next in line. Authoritarianism is the stuff Republicans have been selling on the street corners of Iowa towns and they are about to unleash it on the nation as a whole.

Politicals sites like The Blaze have been dealing the same thick substanc and its boutique drug is Glenn Beck, who was so high on himself even Fox News had to kick him out of the Conservative Drug Club. Now Cruz and The Blaze are hoping that this newest batch of authoritarian dopamines and the low information needles necessary to inject it will serve like crack cocaine in the veins of conservatives everywhere.

That’s what was running through the veins of conservatives in the American Heartland last night. It’s a sad sight, but like any relative given over to addiction, we can hope some country doctor kicks some sense into them. That’s how it’s always worked out in the Heartland, where drugs are often as common as Communion wafers, and just as deadly.