DEFEAT FASCISM: READ REBUKE RESIST

 I'm not the best or most decent person, so don't take this as so-called "virtue signaling." Back during the Covid 19 crisis, though, when they sent us all money, I was afraid to go out and spend mine. Instead, I sent it to a nonprofit here that I know serves "the least of those among us."

I did profit though. I sat down and got to thinking. I decided there were a lot of people who were, in fact, gonna go out and spend theirs. I started researching retail outlets and made a list of those who were solid but whose stock was temporarily undervalued. I concluded that a little bump in America's spending habits had the potential for making money.

In short, I did some day trading. Made nearly $30,000 ere things started cooling off. We're living comfortably now, partly assisted by that windfall. Periodically I send part of it to that same nonprofit.

How come I trust it? I first saw the man who created it years ago at a festival walking around with a basket attached with a sign asking for money for the poor. Later, I decided that an organization founded by such a man could be trusted.

Now a majority of Americans place that kind of trust in people who inherited their money, not the ones who walked the streets like the Galilean asking us to remember the needy. It has brought America to an ugly place.

DEFEAT FASCISM: READ REBUKE RESIST

 There comes a time when being nice won’t overcome evil. That time has come. I may become physically ill if I hear another person advise me to respect the opinions of others.

-          Should I respect the opinions of members of a cult that denigrates the heroism of John McCain?

-          Should I respect the opinions of members of a cult that mocks a disabled person on national TV?

-          Should I respect the opinions of members of a cult that calls my brother and sister veterans who died for this country “suckers and losers?”

-          Should I respect the opinions of members of a cult that attacked the United States Capitol, maimed police officers, and defecated on the floors of that national symbol of America?

-          Should I respect the opinions of members of a cult that is now destroying so many aspects of what made America great with a promise, to the deluded, that it will make America great?

No, there is a tipping point at which decent America must say:

-          Please, have you no sense of decency?

-          We will move toward the enemy until all are free.

-          Those children will go to decent schools.

-          A woman will have the same freedom with her body as a man.

-          Nice won’t get it. Nazi Germany fell not from having people be nice to it but by brave men assaulting the beaches with armaments made by their brave wives, sisters, and daughters.

-          The last vestiges of slavery ended not from respect for opinions but from the bravery of young children who marched into schools amidst curses and jeers.

One of the most popular books published in America on changing opinions was How To Win Friends and Influence People written by former salesman Dale Carnegie. In it he listed some 21 ideas to avoid conflict, from “Don’t criticize condemn or complain” to “Try honestly to see things from the other person’s point of view.” His readers have a attested to their efficacy for nearly 100 years.

It was long whispered, however, among the campfires of the faithful, that even Dale Carnegie sometimes joked that he might have included a final chapter that read: “When all else fails.”

The time has come to rebuke the acts of the unrighteous. To hell with being nice.

DEFEAT FASCISM: READ REBUKE RESIST

 Hope evades us in these times. Where do we find inspiration when the forces of darkness rule every turret?

Perhaps from sources near us.

How about our brothers and sisters of color? They have survived over 400 years of persecution. On that path, they excelled in every field in which they were allowed to participate. Take sports, for example. Their excellence now forces us to place an asterisk beside the name of any white star who didn’t face athletes of color.

Their music formed the basis of many of our prevalent styles of popular entertainment.

The literature they managed to leave floats like sparkles of gems on a sea of mediocrity.

They flew, sailed, and fought heroically for a nation that despised and abused them.

After the trench warfare of WWI, the invasion at Normandy, the Chosin Reservoir, and the Ia Drang valley, they weren't allowed to vote when they came home.

They excelled in countless important achievements in America history for which they received no credit.

To teach youth about the acknowledgement of their many contributions is against the law in my state and forbidden in more and more instances at the federal level.

Their descendants today have grandparents who weren’t allowed to sit in the ground floor of a movie theater or enter the front door of a restaurant.

Ad nauseum.

Yet they have survived. As the darkness descends upon us, let us ask them how.

DEFEAT FASCISM: READ REBUKE RESIST

 America needs some heroes. These days remind one of an old western movie. You know, the one where the bad guy has no moral restraint and holds his pistol to the heroine’s head. Despite the potential consequences, the hero drops his gun and yields. Righteous heroes, the ones bound by morality, do that.

Justice comes nonetheless. Sometimes through what the ancients called a “deus ex machina,”  literally “a god from a machine,” or an unexpected solution to a problem or a contrived ending to a story.

-          The hero’s Quaker wife, who has lived a live free of violence and has never held a gun, shoots one of the bastards from afar.

-          The gun misfires.

-          A distant sidekick solves the dilemma.

-          The townsfolk converge to convince the terrorist of his doubtful future.

America stands on threshold of disaster now. The fascists who have pushed her to the edge have no moral compunction whatsoever against pushing her into oblivion. Their long-range plans lie far beyond the borders of a single country.

Those who would defend Democracy, only slightly less in number, stand paralyzed by their opponents’ lack of morality-based restraint.

There will not be a deus ex machina described in the history of our nation.

We need some good guys.

DEFEAT FASCISM: READ REBUKE RESIST

 It seems unlikely that we’ll have elections anymore, not like we used to. Events point that way, at least to me. Why? It’s something that a columnist said once. I think it was George Will and it occurred at the height of Newt Gingrich’s power. He was altering forever, and for the worse, the stature of political discourse in America. He was drunk on success as was the political party he managed. Known as part of a group of sycophants known as “Reagan’s Robots” he saw a country not governed by thought and compromise but by one-party rule with his party ruling forever.

Then the columnist said something prescient. He said a ruling party should always temper its actions based on the understanding that the opposition party might be in charge someday and use the same power and tactics.

In other words, what happens when your enemies enter your castle and seize your weapons?

I think this current bunch, at least some within it, is smart enough to know that. With that knowledge and the power they have built with help from controllers of information outlets posing as news sources, there is little indication that they will countenance competition. Why should they?

They have the police.

They are assuming control of the military.

They have both houses of Congress.

They have the United States Supreme Court.

They have the money.

They have a large base that has eliminated morality and ethics from its religious beliefs.

They have control over the flow of what is called information in this age.

They have blame-victims aplenty to instigate fear among the populace.

They have an embedded belief that there is never enough wealth or power.

Conclusion? Anything resembling a popular election must go. It should be easy in the great scheme of things.

Hitler proved that.

DEFEAT FASCISM: READ REBUKE RESIST

 Andrew Jackson, the presidential model of the Musk/Trump regime, defied the Supreme Court by refusing to enforce its decision in the case of "Worcester v. Georgia." This bit of history includes the famous statement by Jackson regarding the Supreme Court Chief Justice: "John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it."

Similarly, Joseph Stalin dismissed the power of religion when he asked, “How many divisions does the Pope have?”

We have assumed that an heroic stand by a few brave attorneys, and the adherence to the Rule of Law by the lower courts, may be the only effective protection has against the onslaught being waged against America.

It is a vaguely comforting thought.

Until …

Until we consider that we may be erroneously assuming that Elon Musk and Donald Trump have any intention of abiding by any set of laws.

To wit:

The police lobby has registered its support of the regime.

The former TV pundit running the Defense Department has demonstrated the future of an officer who doesn’t subscribe to the party’s dictates.

A snap of the finger will produce from the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate a slate of supporting litigation mimicking the Nuremburg Laws.

Any case that should reach the United States Supreme Court is pre-adjudicated to support the current administration.

There may, in fact, be enough power over enough states to dismantle the United States Constitution.

A slight majority of American voters support this.

A slight minority of American voters don’t, but face the obstacle outline above.

A significant segment of American voters don’t care one way or another.

A deplorable segment of American youth will believe whatever their cell phones tell them in lieu of braving the elements and the forces of darkness to protest.

Is political overreach the only possible salvation for our country?

DEFEAT FASCISM

 Read Rebuke Resist

Ronald Reagan once, in a foggy attempt to quote John Adams, proclaimed, with his best actor’s voice, that “Facts are stupid things.” Perhaps some collection of brain cells thought so. Who knows?

Perhaps they are not stupid things, but facts are strange things. Wherein they, in their best use, lead us to the truth, in their worst use they can lead us into a quagmire of bewilderment.

How?

Anyone completing graduate school in America learned that consumption of ice cream and the murder rate are correlated, i.e. they occur at the same time of year.

In the MAGA world, this correlation could easily be used, with undoubted success, to convince the base that eliminating the production of ice cream would lower the incidences of murder in America.

A main difference between thinking folks and cult members is the knowledge that correlation does not equal causation.

In a more provocative case, a group of high-ranking government officials once determined that Americans who owned their own home were less likely to fall victim to many socioeconomic ills such as crime, poverty, lack of education, and reliance on welfare. This was a distinct and documented correlation.

Aha. Moving more folks from renter-status to home ownership would immediately help solve those problems.

As we know, the American economy almost collapsed when home ownership was broadened to include many who couldn’t afford the cost.

Was there a causal relationship between the facts?

Who knows? Let’s just say that public administration is a more complicated process than many Americans believe, infinitely more complicated than Donald Trump can imagine. After all, he is a descendant and proponent of the “Facts are stupid things” method of governance.

EPIPHANY OF THE DAY

CHILDLESSNESS

Evidently one political party endorses the view that a childless woman, expanded to a childless couple, doesn’t deserve a role in determining the fate of America.

Having a history involving this concept, I can offer a personal opinion.

This is a political stand of almost unbelievable cruelty.

We, my life’s partner and I, produced no children in our marriage. Once, we were on the path, but a miscarriage ended the process and no further attempts proved successful.

If Cult members could see the look on the face of a woman who has just seen the process of motherhood fail, would it change their minds?

I doubt it. Cults demand the repudiation of empathy as much as they do reason.

There is a larger picture here, though. A couple having suffered through a miscarriage or a failure to procreate doesn’t represent the only childless Americans.

Men have had the opportunity to avoid the responsibility of parenthood for years. Women haven’t. Now they face opprobrium by their personal decision. That should lose the cult half the vote in an election.

It won’t. Cults demand obedience to doctrine over any sense of personhood.

Finaly, the Cult accepts, by non-refutation, the concept that those who have no children don’t deserve the honor of having a stake in the future of America.

Really?

EPIPHANY OF THE DAY

 ELECTIONS

Our next election won’t rely on facts. Both extremes of the political factions denounce any facts that don’t resonate with embedded emotions and this phenomenon is spreading laterally.

It won’t rely on the Rule of Law. We are abandoning that.

It won’t rely on majority rule. The electoral college obliterates that.

It won’t rely on history. We distrust the telling of history, sometimes for good reason. (See: The Lost Cause Myth.)

It won’t rely on information. Too few control the dissemination, quality and content.

It won't rely on calm reflection. Our cell phones demand too much of our time for that.

It won’t rely on a concept of morality. The most commonly accepted source of morality in America is a book that lauds mass extermination, the murder of innocents, slavery, and harems, among its other tenets.

It won’t rely on sacrifice for the common good. That goes without saying.

Whom to follow?

 I’ve quit trying to change anyone’s stance on how our country should meet the future. I’m too busy understanding mine. It isn’t that hard to understand. It’s just a bit incongruous. See, I firmly believe in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution when it separates religion from government, further bolstered by Article VI when it states that, “…no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.”

 Ah yes. While I believe the wall between our government and any religion should be absolute, I don’t mind if an individual uses—along with wisdom, education, and critical thinking—passages of their (or someone else’s) religious diatribes to form their individual political inclinations. I do.

 Notice, please, that I said, “Individual political inclinations,” and not “governmental administration.” There’s no problem if religious beliefs help a person form political beliefs. The problem I see with so many so-called “Christians” in today’s American society is that they tend to choose, for their political fervor, those passages from the Bible that seem to grant a person of their faith the right to judge and then condemn others, mostly others who aren't like them.

 The Galilean warns against this in one of the religious writings that that help form my politics, The Sermon on the Mount. We’re not going to find more wonderful prose than this. That is why it is so odd to me that none of the self-proclaimed icons of modern American religion ever use it to justify their politics.

 Oh well. I do anyway. I combine it with another passage from the same book of the New Testament, the verses in Chapter 25, (NIV) to wit:

 34 “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

 37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

 40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

 41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’

 44 “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’

 45 “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’ "

I’ve never heard one of the zealots whose politics are opposite mine use this as a foundation for their beliefs. In fact, I suspect that a person could carry a tablet with the words inscribed on it and use it to chase the likes of Franklin Graham and Kenneth Copeland away, much like using a crucifix on a vampire.

 That is why it saddens me so when I see old friends, some of whom even serve as ministers to the Christian faith, and whom I knew once to be kind and generous people, post stringent beliefs in the politics of a man who, knowingly or unknowingly, is the living embodiment of  one who lives a life in direct competition to both passages I have mentioned.

 It saddens me. But life goes on. As the Galilean said, “Let your light shine before others.” That's really all we can do, isn't it?