Donald Trump

What rock’n’roll and the Bible have to say about conservatism

/ Christopher Cudworth / Leave a comment

John-Lennon-john-lennon-34078983-1024-768There was a time when devout fundamentalist Christians went on the attack against rock’n’roll. In the early 1960s, stacks of records by The Beatles were raised high and burned in public places. The Boys were disclaimed by Christians because John Lennon said, and we quote: “Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn’t argue about that. I’m right and I’ll be proved right. We’re more popular than Jesus now. I don’t know which will go first, rock ‘n’ roll or Christianity. Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It’s them twisting it that ruins it for me.”

What Lennon was saying about those “thick disciples” missing and twisting the message of Jesus was true. That has all come true. Christianity as a religion has vanished on many fronts, and shrunken as well. It has not disappeared altogether in large part because it has divided into two lopsided groups. On the Right are massive numbers of thick disciples still clinging to the twisted version of theology that dumps the Christ who resisted the authorities of his day to make the point that scriptural literalism should not be turned into law. On the Left are people trying to convey the moral truth of the Bible in rational terms. But that takes work, and as a result, attracts less of an audience as a rule. People simply don’t like to be asked (much less forced) to think. It’s the conservative approach to life: “Don’t sweat the small stuff,” they say. “It’ll all work out in the end. God is in control.”

But what if he’s not? What if we’re supposed to play a major role in all this. What if we’re supposed to do what the Bible actually says, and bring the Kingdom of God to life in principles, morals and actions that put that plan into effect?

People try, but too often they mistake rules and regulations for the principles, morals and actions God might want from us. That was the problem Jesus saw at work among the chief priests of his day. He called them to account for their methods, and it pissed them off as badly as a high school principal whose authority in the lunch room was called into question.

Genuine call to faith

The genuine call to faith as expressed by Jesus in the Bible was revolutionary stuff. But on the surface, it did not seem to work out so well for Jesus. The man that served as the symbol for a radicalized Jewish faith was crucified for claiming a father-son relationship with God. He was hunted by the priests who considered statements like that to be the ultimate blasphemy. And yet today, many people proudly proclaim themselves Children of God. How is that different than when Jesus claimed to be the Son of God?

Well, it is those types of semantics that have turned Christianity into both an expansive religion and a withering source of pain for the human spirit. In alternating patterns, the Christian narrative has been controlled by the same brand of authoritarianism to which Christ most objected. It just keeps coming back, and has only been liberated through time by the brave grace of men such as Martin Luther. It may be time in this day and age for a new Reformation, to take back the liberal origins of its mission.

Rock’n’rollers

Christ and Luther were the rock’n’rollers of their day and age. They busted down walls of conservative thought by introducing liberal new ways of conceiving the world. But in every case, and with so many martyrs, it is conservative authoritarians who fight their cause and do them in.

Liberal thinking is simply not welcome among those that see themselves as protectors of a “higher order.” What they are actually protecting, in most cases, proves to be their own personal power and authority. And when questioned, they grow mighty threatened when the truth of their manufactured circumstances is revealed or brought to their attention.

Martin-Luther-King-Jr-1280x800-3When Martin Luther King, Jr. arrived on the scene to question of both religious and secular authorities about the nature of civil rights, social justice and America’s military adventures, he was vilified by conservatives of his time. The ignoble J. Edgar Hoover tracked his every move. Hooever also tracked other civil rights activists including President John F. Kennedy and his brother Bobby. It’s no coincidence that all three were eventually murdered inside the decade of the 1960s. That’s how murderous authoritarianism works. These are the same forces that killed Jesus. If authoritarianism cannot dominate the conversation, it gets its way through brute force and murder.

CQVsQ1bUEAAecjrWorse than that, conservatism sometimes travels in banal fashion, such as the likes of Dr. Ben Carson, the black candidate for the Republican nomination whose theology and logic was so confused he was not fit to tie the shoes of the late Martin Luther King, Jr. Yet today’s conservatives could not tell the difference, and some flocked to that vacuous man just because he held up signs that said, “I’m a Christian.” The shallowness is breathtaking. But not unexpected by any means. Conservatism loves short answers and shallow thoughts that seem to hold the truth in a nutshell.

Social rebellion and how it actually works

During the 1960s, the music known as rock’n’roll began taking on political subjects. The music was rebellious because the 1960s were rebellious times. One can more readily imagine Jesus Christ walking into Woodstock to address the crowd of 100,000 people than one can imagine him entertaining invited guests at some crystal church playing supposedly holy music in the hills of California.

Yes, Jesus went out to people in the country, where the message was closely connected to the earth and communicated through organic parables that talked of trees and grass and mustard seeds. He preached about being baptized in the water of life, and of being the light of the world. None of these things is found inside a crystal palace.

Lennon and Jesus

John Lennon recognized all this in advance. He knew people were hungry for unmitigated messages about their soul and their lives. He was concerned that the dull disciples of the world would be left to rule the place if authoritarian thinkers were allowed to dominate the discussion. And so, much like Jesus, he boldly challenged the conservatism ruling the social culture of his day. John Lennon was also later shot, as we should recall, by a fan jealous of the fame and magnitude of the man. Crucifixions happen in many ways. We’re only a few decades removed from Lennon’s death. And while he was no Christ figure, that’s too soon to tell how much significance his words might hold in the future.

What Lennon did was challenge perceptions, just like Jesus. .And yet, the Beatles Revolution song did not propose complete chaos to replace the existing social order. Instead, Lennon wrote that he was out to change the way people thought about the world, but not throw away social institutions altogether. This was the same methodology of Jesus Christ, who insisted that Judaism should not change one whit of scripture, but that it depended on how you THINK ABOUT IT THAT COUNTS.

Both wanted a revolution of consciousness. And here are the lyrics.

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…

You say you got a real solution
Well, you know
We’d all love to see the plan
You ask me for a contribution
Well, you know
We’re doing what we can
But when you want money
For people with minds that hate
All I can tell is brother you have to wait

Give unto Caesar

Jesus accepted that money due to Caesar was a necessary aspect of citizenship in Ancient Rome and beyond. But he suggested that coveting the rest, or using it for selfish reasons, was the root of all evil. Money, in that case, would come to possess one’s heart. He advised wealthy people who really wanted to seek the Kingdom of God to give away their money and truly seek their purpose in the world. But many could not. Or would not.

gettyimages-461656522-e1436299461791And so the dichotomy exists over the worship of money to this day. And America has a presidential candidate who weakly claims to be Christian, yet who clearly worships money, and himself.

And to illustrate his covetousness, The Donald’s campaign illegally co-opted the Queen song “We Are the Champions” to use as a motivational tool in his campaign. The band quickly told him to cease and desist. Many rock’n’rollers have done the same thing with politicians over the years. There is even a full floor dedicated to the use of rock music in politics at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland. One of the display’s videos clearly illustrates the illegal mis-use of rock music by politicians, most of them conservative.

Born again where? 

Who can forget the tone-deaf idiocy of Ronald Reagan’s campaign illegally using the Bruce Springsteen song “Born In the USA?” The lyrics clearly indict the burgeoning yet blindsiding neoconservative ideology so boldly flaunted by Reagan. Here are some of the words:

Born down in a dead man’s town
The first kick I took was when I hit the ground
End up like a dog that’s been beat too much
Till you spend half your life just covering up

Born in the U.S.A., I was born in the U.S.A.
I was born in the U.S.A., born in the U.S.A.

Got in a little hometown jam
So they put a rifle in my hand
Sent me off to a foreign land
To go and kill the yellow man

Born in the U.S.A., I was born in the U.S.A.
Born in the U.S.A., born in the U.S.A.

Come back home to the refinery
Hiring man said “son if it was up to me”
Went down to see my V.A. man
He said “son, don’t you understand”

It was a song written about the disenfranchisement of the middle class by the entire military-industrial complex and the wars it fought to enrich those able to leverage that dynamic to their own means. Forget that Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower, a general in World War II, warned against the dangers of the military-industrial complex. Republicans in the early 80s were all for go-go growth whatever that meant. The Gulf War in the early 1990s and the Bush II Gulf War in the early 2000s were simply executions in the collective denial of good sense by neoconservatives.

They never understood that “Born In the USA” as an anthem was meant in ironic fashion. It was not a celebration of all things that make America great, as the Reagan campaign numbly intended to use it. And sure enough, Reagan went on to fulfill every aspect of the darkly predictive lyrics of Springsteen’s song by busting labor unions, foisting the ugly cynicism of “trickle-down” economics on the nation, gutting environmental laws and conducting illegal military-industrial activity in the scandalous Iran-Contra affair.Those were evils all Born In the USA. They’ve gone on to poison the rest of the world as well.

Reaganomics was the same thing as pissing on the backs of blue collar workers and telling them it was raining. Reagan also branded ketchup a vegetable even while his wife introduced an inanely simplistic anti-drug campaign called Just Say No.

How ironic that a few years later, the highly capitalistic operation known as Nike, Inc. would introduce a marketing campaign that said “Just Do It.”

Southern Man

The other notable clash between rock’n’roll and conservatism that deserves examination is the lyrical battle between longtime rock’n’roller Neil Young and the Southern man band known as Lynyrd Skynrd, who seemed to have no budget for additional vowels.

Young’s song Southern Man lyrics contained lyrics recalling slavery and the rampant racism that continued across America’s southland:

Southern man, better keep your head
Don’t forget what your good book said
Southern change’s gonna come at last
Now your crosses are burning fast

Southern man

I saw cotton and I saw black
Tall white mansions and little shacks
Southern man, when will you pay them back?
I heard screamin’ and bullwhips crackin’
How long? How long?

Stung by the truth of these lyrics, the Skynryd band shot back with an apologist set of lyrics that were meant to be defiant.  Yet they still confessed and affirmed the very qualities of stubborn reticence about which Young accused the South in his original song. In other words, the conservative position of the Skynyrd lyrics typically missed the real point, which was “Can you change?”

Sweet Home Alabama

Big wheels keep on turning

Carry me home to see my kin
Singing songs about the south-land
I miss ‘ole’ ‘bamy once again
And I think it’s a sin

Well I heard Mister Young sing about her
Well I heard ole Neil put her down
Well, I hope Neil Young will remember
A southern man don’t need him around any how

Sweet home Alabama
Where the skies are so blue
Sweet home Alabama
Lord, I’m coming home to you

In Birmingham they love the Gov’nor
Now we all did what we could do
Now Watergate does not bother me
Does your conscience bother you?
Tell the truth

Now a certain man named George Wallace served as Governor in the 1980s, and his position on race relations was never really clear. This is what the blogger Charles H. Dean wrote about the time period following the murder of four black girls in an Alabama church bombing during Wallace’s reign:

George Wallace“From that point on I think he manipulated the white middle class on race,” said Lewis. “But was he a racist? Was he a segregationist or was he just using race to win elections? I don’t think we will ever know because we don’t know his heart.”

Now it is worth noting that Wallace was a declared Democrat for his political aspirations. Yet the Republican Party so grew to admire his success in winning votes in his Southern State by plying racism, they copied his methods. And so, Ronald Reagan and his crew leveraged dog-whistle racism into a political strategy, and over the next decade, turned most of the South into Republican country by courting racist voters. It was the work of the Devil, but it worked.

Meet Donald Trump

That methodology closely resembles the candidacy of a certain controversial candidate now running for President of the United States. That would be Donald Trump, who has refused on multiple occasions to refute the claims of racists or deny their support when clearly racist support groups and individuals come out in his favor. This complicity may, in fact, be a contributing factor to getting the man elected.

And just like the weak-ass excuse given by the supposedly stalwart band Lynyrd Skynyrd, Trump chooses to shrug his shoulders and deflect criticism and blame about these matters by claiming it is his right to free speech, even if that speech is hateful in nature.  This is all done in order to avoid the hard questions about his actual views.

Country music and Bible beaters

This is the history of so much country music as well, which for so many years leveraged the sad, sick pattern of broken marriages, faithlessness, drunkenness and hard life on the road as American values. And to put it in rock’n’roll terms, that is really fucked up thinking. Country music traditionally sides with conservatism in America, which likewise is the progenitor of some really confused, backwards, anachronistic and equally fucked up thinking.

And just as conservatives seem incapable of reading or understanding the basic meaning of words in rock songs, or the defeatism in old style country music, they likewise can’t seem to get their heads around the fact that Jesus castigated his own disciples for their failure to grasp the meaning and purpose of his parables. Matthew 15:16 “Are you still so dull?” Jesus asked them.

Bible beaters seem to miss these indictments of literalistic thinking and shortsighted interpretations as if they don’t even exist. But they do. And it’s time they be held accountable for the true and earnest damnation of their dull ways.

Get the hook

One of the basic methods of creating great rock music is to establish a “hook” or a central theme around which a song is built. The hook is often repeated, thereby delivering a catchy or memorable lick or lyric that catches attention and brings people to the song.

But even Jesus’ disciples did not “get the hook” of his parables at times. The dullard brains of his supposed avid supporters demanded constant repetition and lessons so that they would be prepared in some fashion to carry the message of Christ to the world.
A kick upside the head

Even more striking, it took a blinding lightning flash to the head of the Apostle Paul to convert him from an ardent persecutor of Christians into an elegant communicator of timeless principles.

And let us not forget that many of God’s most faithful servants were avid murderers and genocidal heroes, zealots of the foremost kind even while in service to the Lord. But even God had limits, and told King David at the end of his life, when David was asking the Lord if he could build a temple in his honor, God said, “No, you have too much blood on your hands.”

In this respect conservatives also miss the fact that perhaps times have changed. That specific moment in biblical history may have been meant to serve as a turning point from which we are meant to learn that you do not always have to wipe out a nation in order to do God’s work. By contrast, Jesus professed interest in making believers out of “all nations.” He does not say, “Go threaten or kill them to make them follow me.”

Double down

But that lesson seems lost on today’s dullheaded conservatives who not only fail to see the light, but double down whenever challenged about their militaristic ways and how it seems to conflict with their supposed Christian faith. Instantly they being waving the so-called Sword of Faith and singing Onward Christian Soldiers. That didn’t work in the Crusades and it’s still not going to work in the Middle East to this day. But that’s never going to stop the addle-headed zealots from trying. George W. Bush and his devil-may-care henchmen Dick Cheney proved that. So let’s not hold out hope or even take the chance that God is that interested in our best interests. We have to fight back when these dull yet angry disciples get try to get hold of the reigns of destiny.

Satan and his real ways

It might indeed have more impact on the zealously devout if they were confronted by Satan himself, who might get to get them to understand their direct role in corrupting the world, and by proxy, God’s Kingdom. Let’s not forget that it was the symbolic Serpent as Satan that taught Adam and Eve those prescient lessons about Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden. But note the methods used by Satan to trick the two into questioning God.

From the Book of Genesis:

1Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘you must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”

2The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”

4“You will not surely die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

What you need to understand about this passage is that it predicts the very nature of the evils Christ would later confront in his life in those legalistic priests whose constant word games about the intentions and laws of God were always on the tip of their forked tongues.

Brood of Vipers

 Jesus branded the religious authorities of his day a “brood of vipers,” and that is no coincidence. In branding the priests of his day as “vipers,” he is communicating the frightening fact that the single Serpent of Satan multiplied into the many priests who were constantly getting people to doubt their own relationship with God by installing all sorts of rules about how to earn favor with God. See, the conservatives of Jesus’ day knew that letting people be free and liberal about their faith would result in them losing power over them. That’s the same fear that was expressed by the Catholic Church when Martin Luther questioned all those requirements to pay yourself into the favor of God. The pattern happens over and over again in history.

Yet the people doing the deeds of Satan, as it were, never recognize themselves in these characters. They unwittingly confess, as the Southern band Lynyrd Skynrd once did, that their ways are wrong. Yet they profess pride in them. “It’s our way,” they stubbornly say. “And you can’t make us change.”

Pent up racism

And so the pushback of the Donald Trump candidacy is releasing all the pent up racism and people sick and tired of being told not to call black people “niggers” and gay people “fags.” Likewise the black community needs to address its own issues with rappers branding women “bitches” and “hoes” and celebrating its own internal conflicts, reactionary gangsta life and social problems as signs of liberation. In fact, these represent reactions represent an isolationist brand of conservatism all of its own making. The rap and hip-hop community. It somewhat owns black-on-black crime, for example, and while genius on conception and execution, there is far too much emphasis on real executions to be taken as a truly serious social revolution.

That’s what John Lennon was trying to tell us all. And he was one fucked up motherfucker at times, but he was at least willing to admit his problems. Most of the world stands in denial of their complicity in this big process of dancing with the one we call Satan. And so we’ll leave you with this inspiring, enlightening set of song lyrics from Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones. Read the lyrics carefully, for the song Sympathy For the Devil is not meant to convey literal storytelling, but to address by inference all the things the world has done to undermine things that are good and true and worthwhile.

But rest assured, the conservatives probably still won’t get that. It’s one of the most brilliant rock’n’roll songs every written, almost in code to communicate with people of enlightened minds and actual spiritual depth. It’s both a rock’n’roll song and an anthem to how faith gets turned inside out by the powerful and the mighty.

Sympathy for the Devil

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

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

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

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

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

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

I watched with glee
While your kings and queens
Fought for ten decades
For the gods they made
(Woo woo, woo woo)

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

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
(Woo woo, who who)

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

Pleased to meet you
Hope you guessed my name, oh yeah
But what’s confusing you
Is just the nature of my game
(Woo woo, who who)

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
(Who who, who who)

So if you meet me
Have some courtesy
Have some sympathy, and some taste
(Woo woo)
Use all your well-learned politesse
Or I’ll lay your soul to waste, mm yeah

 

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.

Naked Three.jpg

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.

Naked Four.jpg

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.