28 IIII 2022: Pray to whom? for what? and why?

I see that Thursday, May 5, is supposed to be the  2022 National Day of Prayer. This Day of Prayer may be announced in a Presidential Proclamation, but it is being run https://www.nationaldayofprayer.org. At their website you can visit their store where you will find for sale a variety of tee shirts, polo shirts. mugs, totes, and caps, all the Armor of God of mega-church religion.

The theme of this year’s Day of Prayer is “exalt the lord, who has established us based on Colossians 2:6-7 NASB.” I was puzzled when I looked up Col 2:6-7 in the NASB, for it reads: “Therefore as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, having been firmly rooted and now being built up in Him and established, just as you were instructed, and overflowing with gratitude.” I suppose this year’s theme is derived from “established” (bebaioumevnoi). Of course, “Established,” taken out of context, can have a variety of meanings. So I want to know: “Established” in or upon whom or what? I’m guessing that, as used here, in connection with the American National Day of Prayer, who has established us is intended to mean “who has made us the Establishment.”

There is another, considerable ambiguity in the theme. Who, exactly, is “the Lord”? Oh, well, everyone knows that. The God of Christians is the same as the God of feminists is the same as the God of Muslims is the same as the Gods of the Hopi is the same as the Gods of Hindus is the same as the God of the Rastafarians is the same as the God of the Sikhs is the same as the God of Jews, etc., etc. Oh well, this is just good old-fashioned American syncretism at work. But are all these gods actually the same? I think that if you question these religious groups closely you will find that their gods are not all the same. But on the National Day of Prayer we are to treat “God” as an elastic term that good will can stretch to cover all the various notions of god, so that for this day they are all honorary “God.”

Why am I being so snarky about this? After all, no one is forcing me to participate in the National Day of Prayer. No, but by promoting a single “Lord/God” with decidedly Christian tinges they are trying to force me and everyone else to accept the implicit idea that “America Is A Christian Country,” for Christian hegemony in the United States is the principle underlying this “National Day of Prayer.”

27 IIII 2022: Mad dog or brazen hustler?

John Bennett, the Chair of the Trumpublican Party in the hyper-regressive state of Oklahoma, called for the trial and execution of Dr. Anthony Fauci, and received applause from his bonehead Trumpublican audience. Bennett had called in 2016 for the execution of Hilary Clinton for the crime of treason, but he did not say what the charge might be against Fauci. But as Dr. Fauci himself says, an attack on him is an attack on science.

Is this Bennett just another fundamentalist mad dog. We might infer from his attacks on Muslims what his attitude must be towards Catholics, Jews, non-whites, and non-males. Or is he just the latest brazen hustler to take his place alongside Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, Madison Cawthorn, and other pistol packin’ mommas that are competing with one another for publicity and making ever more offensive statements. I don’t know how far they will go in their contest. It’s plain that they have no idea when to stop.

For my part, I don’t maintain that criminal coup-plotters, traitors, liars, and demagogues should be shot. However, I do believe a little time in the clink for inciting to violence might do them and our Country a lot of good.

27 IIII 2022: Empathy for Putin

So Rand Paul seems to think that because Georgia and Ukraine were once republics in the Soviet Union, the USSR’s successor state, the Russian Federation is, if not to be forgiven for its invasions of these two sovereign states, at least deserving of everyone’s empathy. Of course, any number of contemporary sovereign states were once part of somebody’s empire: so we’re bound to view with some sympathy the UK’s invasion of Ireland, the US’s invasion of the Philippines, the French invasion of Algeria, the Italian invasion of Ethiopia, the Japanese invasion of Manchuria. 

Paul’s line of questioning to the Secretary of State at the recent hearing was a desperate attempt to make up something, anything that could present the Biden administration’s handling of Ukraine in a negative light. Paul has not gone so far as some of his fellow Trumpublicans and voiced a deep admiration for Putin & Co. and denounced the US’s unfair treatment of Putin, a political ally and friend of our former president.

Trumpublican behavior flows from their conviction that:

1) There is only one game worth playing, and that is the to-the-death fight with the Democrats.

2) Republicans are the ones who make the rules for that game.

3) The game must continue without interruption, regardless of any other crises and events.

4) In that game, there is no playing field too small.

26 IIII 2022: A prayer for Ukrainian libraries

From the Philobiblon of Richard de Bury (d1345):

Almighty Author and Lover of peace, 

scatter the savages who crave wars 

that are above all plagues damaging to books. 

For wars, wanting the direction of reason,

make frantic assaults on everything in their way, 

and, without the use of reason’s restrain, 

advance with no discernment at all

and destroy the very vessels of reason.

21 IIII 2022: PARC: Politicially Activated Right-wing Courts.

The PARC division of the Trumpublican Party is in the news. The Supreme Court has kept faith with imperialism and colonialism. Justice Kavnaugh tells us, and seven other justices agree, that Puerto Ricans and residents of other U.S. territories need not be extended the same federal benefits as other citizens of the United States. This should come as no surprise if one realizes that the current legal and moral ethos of the Supreme Court is stuck in 1900 or 1857 or 1776 or 1526.

In a lower court that is also a Trumpublican creation, the recently appointed (2020) federal District Judge Kathryn Kimbell Mizelle has struck a blow for absurdity in her ruling against the mask mandate for interstate passengers. Judge Mizelle’s background in jurisprudence is so slight that the American Bar Association rated her as “Not Qualified” to serve as a federal trial court judge. But that did not matter at all to the Trumpublicans who forced her confirmation through the Senate. Why? Whatever the Trumpublicans actually believe (if believe they do), their image is fiercely anti-intellectual and reactionary, and so they maintain their appeal to the ignorant, reactionary, and resentful voters of their base.

So, you see, Judge Mizelle, like Justice Amy Coney Barrett, is their kind of gal. Judge Mizelle does not come from a reactionary Catholic background, like Justice Barrett, but from an Evangelical background. She is a graduate of Covenant College in Lookout Mountain GA whose website proudly declares: “Our motto, ‘In all things, Christ preeminent,’ says it all: We exist to glorify and make known the name of Jesus Christ.” Covenant College asserts its devotion to what they call “Reformed Theology,” stating: “Reformed Theology: We are committed to the Bible as the inerrant Word of God, and everything we do is grounded in our Reformed theology.” Covenant’s motto should be inoffensive to the sympathetically minded. However, while a belief system that is founded on biblical inerrancy may be a fine guide to life, it must not guide the rulings of federal judges. 

The American polity is in part based on the delusion that one’s religion can be a wholly personal matter, separated as if by a firewall from political life. This is a big topic, and all I will say about it now is this: How much of a stretch is it to go from a shared belief in the doctrine that God created the universe in six days to a shared belief in the doctrine that Donald Trump actually won the 2020 election?

13 IIII 2022: Who are the crazies in the American gun scene?

From the report on CNN about Frank James, the ‘alleged’ N.Y. subway shooter:“James is suspected of setting off smoke grenades and firing a handgun 33 times on a crowded N train … The motive of the shooting is not yet known.”This man, I think, is an obvious nutcase, and should not be allowed to have a firearm under any circumstances.

From a CNN article by Paul Leblank: 

“Many Americans hold their right to bear arms, enshrined in the US Constitution, as sacrosanct.” 

It can’t be “sacrosanct” because it is a man-given right, and so can be taken away.

But some really do regard gun rights as sacrosanct. 

These people are nutcases.

From the same article by Paul Leblank:

“Underscoring this trend on Tuesday was Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, who signed a new lawthat allows eligible residents to carry concealed guns in public without licenses.

I do not know whether Gov. Kemp is a nutcase or simply cunning … probably the latter.

Right-wing politicians enable the firearms industry, at home and abroad, and pander to gun-crazed voters by stretching the so-called “right to bear arms” in ever more novel and absurd ways. We allow these people to remain in office. Are we too nutcases?

12 IIII 2022: Not fake, but mostly not news

Here are some headers from today’s CNN that are true, but can hardly be considered to tell of something new. All are familiar, all quite predictable. Do these mean “the end is near”?  I think I hope so.

“UN warns of rape and sexual violence against women and children in Ukraine” 

 “Eight people were shot and eight others were injured at a Brooklyn subway station this morning”

“Buffalo Police officers who pushed 75-year-old during Black Lives Matter protest cleared of wrongdoing”

“Trump-style populism rises in US and Europe as Putin assaults world order”

“Attacks on voting rights aren’t slowing down and Black Americans are in the cross hairs, new report finds.”

“Adolescent overdose deaths in the United States more than doubled from 2010 to 2021, jumping from 518 to 1,146 deaths annually, according to the study  published in JAMA.”

 “Blizzard conditions with 1 to 3 feet of snow and volatile severe storms, including tornadoes, are on tap today”

“Kim Kardashian ‘wasn’t planning on’ a relationship with Pete Davidson”

“I’ve got to be the cleanest, I think I’m the most honest human being, perhaps, that God has ever created,” Trump said.