4 X 2020: Patriotism vs. Boosterism

As the election approaches we see more and more of red, white, and blue, hear more and more talk about loving (or not loving) the United States of America, and we are supposed to be impressed by flag-waving righteous indignation. And yet, now especially, but also at any time, abuse of our flag is routine. No, I don’t mean the silly flag-burners, but the citizens (and Chinese manufacturers) who seem to put the red, white, and blue on everything except toilet paper. 

Are folks exhibiting their patriotism in this way? They are not. They are claiming membership in a fan base. This is a phenomenon not of patriotism, but of boosterism or a kind of team spirit, e.g., like showing and wearing the University Notre Dame’s colors and logo. (These, by the by, are closely guarded by copyright so that the myriad tchotchkes and garments sold to fans will swell the University’s revenue.) On football weekends N.D. fans mob the University Store and carry out large shopping bags filled with Notre Dame stuff for themselves and the folks at home.

I do not know of any occasion or place from which people stream out carrying bagfulls of American flags, tchotchkes adorned with the flag, and clothing of red/white/blue plus stars for every part of the body. But just search online under red, white, blue caps, T-shirts, sweatshirts, shorts, pants, swim trunks, swimsuits, and red, white and blue bikinis, snowsuits for babies, and red, white, and blue shoes. And, of course, American flags of every size, shape, and material are available in quantity from numerous vendors online or at home. 

Then have a look at the respect and care with which real patriots are expected to regard and handle the flag as described in U.S. Code, Title Four, § 8.Respect for flag (online at www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/4/8). Real patriotism, love of country, requires observance of these regulation and rejects the exploitation and vulgarization of our national emblem.

The words patriot, patriotic, patriotism are misused in the United States to camouflage nationalism, jingoism, male chauvinism, white supremacy, xenophobia, self-justification. Our ad-man President routinely abuses these terms, as do most right-wing parties and organizations. It is time to take the flag back from the hucksters and to take patriotism back from the anti-social and the reactionaries. 

29 IX 2020: Who will control Amy Coney Barrett’s vote

Assuming the confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett, I’ve been thinking about who will control her vote. She’s been an extra good and smart little Catholic girl, and her career shows that she much prefers submission to opposition. 

First: Amy better be prepared to do what her husband, Jesse, tells her. The sect to which she belongs that is called People of Praise declared: “We follow the New Testament teaching that the husband is the head of the family, and we have patterned our community on this New Testament approach to family life.” 

Here are some of the New Testament teachings on which the People of Praise claim to base its patriarchal ethos and organization.

1 Cor 14:34:  

Women should keep silent in the churches, for they are not allowed to speak, but should be subordinate, as even the law says.

Eph 5:22-24:  

Wives should be subordinate to their husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is head of his wife just as Christ is head of the church, he himself the savior of the body. As the church is subordinate to Christ, so wives should be subordinate to their husbands in everything.

Col 3:18:  

Wives, be subordinate to your husbands, as is proper in the Lord.

Second: It goes without saying that Amy better be ready to do what the People of Praise tell her. The People of Praise is a sect, and forms of coercion, including theats of exclusion, that sects employ to keep members in line might be assumed to be operative in this group. What if Amy’s legal opinions conflict with the People’s patriarchal hard line. Will they expel her from the society?

Third: Though a member of P. of P., Amy is a very public and obedient Roman-Catholic. Now the Catholic Church has rather unbending principles about distribution of wealth, about militarism, about the death penalty, about racial equality, about the family, about sexuality, about the right to life “from conception to natural death.” It hardly needs to be said that American popular and political morality are quite opposed in many respects to Catholic social teaching. What will Amy do when a conflict between the two moralities arises? Will she overlay the teachngs of the Church on the country’s laws, i.e., will she find this or that illegal or unconstitutional if it runs contrary to a Catholic point of view? The Church too can be quite coercive. Reactionary and Republican Catholics routinely howl for the excommunication of those in public life who are Catholics, but depart from the patriarchism that is the religion of the Catholic Right. Is Amy Coney Barrett ready to stand up to the Catholic establishment that has cossetted and celebrated her over the years? I guess we are going to find out.

26 IX 2020: Jim Jones and Donald Trump

Back in 1978, the Rev. Jim Jones ordered his cultists in Jonestown to commit “revolutionary suicide” by drinking Flavor Aid laced with cyanide. Mass suicide or mass murder, this brought about the deaths of some 900+ men, women, and children, 70% of them black.

In 2020, another cult leader, Donald Trump, refused to warn his country about COVID19 and lied to his country for months about the gravity of the threat it posed. Instead of setting an example of responsible cooperation with the public health authorities, he refuses to wear a mask and ridicules those who do. 

Trump’s lies about COVID19 were, of course, believed, are still believed by the members of his MAGA cult. Trump’s contempt for masks encouraged the self-destructive “anti-masker” movement that is undermining efforts to bring the virus under control. Whether you call it nonfeasance or criminal negligence, his self-serving behaviors have contributed to the deaths of 200,000+, a disproportionate number of them black.

26 IX 2020: Trump, new head of oathbreakers

Trump has announced that he will decide who has won the election. He has declared that he will not accept the results of the election. He swore to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution, but he’s making every effort to destroy it.  Trump has made clear by his refusal to obey the law his inability to take the oath of office.

25 IX 2020: Were they lying four years ago or are they lying now?

Four years ago the Republicans in Congress attested with one accord that there was altogether wrong to select a new Supreme Court justice with an election only six months away. They felt this so strongly that their swineherd, Mr. McConnell would allow Obama’s nominee no hearing at all. [Mitch is an oath-keeper, at least of the oath sworn by Republicans seven years earlier never to cooperate with Pres. Obama.]

But what a difference four years make. Now the national interest, state security, the economy, and all else that is sacred require immediate replacement of Justice Ginsberg. Hence my question: Were the Republicans lying four years in their principled opposition to selection of a Supreme Court justice so close to a coming election? Or are they lying now when they demand nomination and confirmation of a new justice with the election 1.5 months away.

This question really does not require an answer because they lie all the time. They nominated and have blindly supported a compulsive liar because like seeks like. 

21 IX 2020: Mask murderers?

I find it amazing that the anti-masker movement is not waning, but seems to be gathering strength. I’m sure it has a lot to do with the coming election. For some, not wearing a mask is like he being marked with the sign of the Beast. Apart from this political advocacy, the only message from the anti-maskers is one of ignorance and apathy, sc., “I’m too stubborn in my invincible ignorance, that nothing anyone can say will convince me that COVID19 is really dangerous. Nor do I really care if it is. Everybody is on his own in America and people cannot expect me to look out for them if I infect others with the virus, that’s their lookout, not mine.”

19 IX 2020: The search for a replacement

Justice Ginsberg’s body was not yet cold before McConnell and Trump began moving to replace her. They know they have to move fast, to get some retrograde jurist, any retrograde jurist, appointed and confirmed before the election, or at least before King Trump leaves office. Of course, they will have to pretend that this situation is wholly, altogether, and completely different from that which followed Justice Scalia’s death. We may have to wait and see if all the Republican senators as ethically challenged as McConnell and willing to support a rightist takeover of the Supreme Court. Trump, of course, is totus corruptus, the complete crook, and would appoint a horse to the Court if he thought it would get him votes. If a McConnell-Trump coup should succeed in placing another reactionary in the Supreme Court, that could be the final nail in the coffin of the United States. If the Court becomes an unembarrassed tool of the right wing, red states will become redder still and blue states will take on a deeper blue, because a Supreme Court gone bad would set in motion a migration from red states to that would eventually lead to the breakup of the United States.

18 IX 2020: Trump and the Triumph of the Will

Trump has overruled the testimony given at a congressional hearing by Robert Redfield, M.D., the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Dr. Redfield stated that, given the wait for a tested vaccine and sufficient supply of vaccine, it would take until Fall 2021 for the country to get back to normal. Trump hastened to condemn Dr. Redfield, declaring that the poor old Doc “got the message confused … didn’t understand the question.” What he means is “Dr. Redfield did not give the right answer.” In Trump’s view, a vaccine against COVID19 widely distributed is the elixir that’s going to win the election for him, and Trump’s gut tells him that distribution of the vaccine will begin in October, i.e., before the election. And when Trump’s oracular bowels, or, rather, Trump’s desperate needs have spoken, reason, science, and truth are forbidden. Trump has constantly found that his uninformed surmises and self-centered wishes have nothing to do with reality, and his way of getting around this is to get rid of reality. In his Sixth Satire, the Roman poet Juvenal presents a scene in which a woman of the Roman aristocracy on a whim orders the crucifixion. She sweeps her husband’s reasonable and humane objections aside, and proclaims: “Hoc volo, sic iubeo; sit pro ratione voluntas.” = “This is what I want, this my command; let will take the place of reason.”

17 IX 2020: Barr continues attempted destruction of law

Attorney General William Barr has decided, it seems, to let more than his belly hang out. He’s urging prosecution of the Mayor of Seattle. A report of his speech at Hillsdale College where he was speaking on “the constitutional hurdles for forbidding a church from meeting during Covid-19” reports: “‘You know, putting a national lockdown, stay at home orders, is like house arrest. Other than slavery, which was a different kind of restraint, this is the greatest intrusion on civil liberties in American history,’ Barr said as a round of applause came from the crowd.”

That he would be applauded for such pandering at Hillsdale College, a hive of religious and political reactionaries, is not remarkable. But his silliness drew a very different response from Rep. James Clyburn: “You know, I think that that statement by Mr. Barr was the most ridiculous, tone-deaf, God-awful thing I’ve ever heard … It is incredible that (the) chief law enforcement officer in this country would equate human bondage to expert advice to save lives.” It once would have been incredible that the Attorney General would say anything so stupid, but this is William Barr, Trump’s attorney, on a retainer paid by the U.S. Government. 

Barr rivals Trump and his minions in the spread of misinformation, always with a sanctimonious tone that makes him the darling of the religious right. Indeed, on Sept. 23 Barr is to receive an award at the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast for “Exemplary, Selfless and Steadfast Service in the Lord’s Vineyard.” Really? I thought Bill the Hangman had been smashing the grapes. The National Catholic Prayer Breakfast is an annual reactionary binge where people who are more authoritarian than Catholic gather to celebrate their loyalty to the extreme right-wing. Barr’s receiving an award at the Breakfast is as unsurprising and as disgusting as his receiving a big round of applause at Hillsdale.