“You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit.” Matthew 7:16-17
Going through the latest news, I got to thinking about the above line from the prayer (see previous post) and how, since no names were called out, the prayer is ambiguous enough to leave room to suppose Zelenskiy and the Ukrainians to be the primary evil actors who warrant such a violent response. I think this for two basic reasons: (1) The Q world supposes this action may be justified so that Russia may secure U.S. bio-weapons labs located there before we have another epidemic. (2) A Representative out of Trump world, Madison Cawthorn, called Zelenskiy a ‘thug,’ and that the Ukrainian government is incredibly corrupt, evil, and is pushing ‘woke ideologies.’
My first question is this now an acceptable tactic in the Christian Right to use one thug to tackle another? If Putin isn’t obviously a thug, I don’t who would be. I went back and reviewed the tape where Zelenskiy was humiliated by Trump. During the ‘meeting,’ Trump was being hounded by the Media over the ‘perfect phone call,’ of which Zelenskiy, the underdog being squeezed here, was doing his best to stay out of the middle. Amid this embarrassment, Trump scolded Zelenskiy like a child basically stating, in a less-than-direct way, that he favors Putin. Period. It’s in the body language, the tone of speech, the facial expressions, and the words… Trump was a bully towards a foreign leader who was elected in a landslide on an idea expressed in Zelenskiy’s TV show, ‘Servant of the People.’
Cawthorn’s idiocy stems from a common myth perpetuated by our various ideological state apparatuses which supposes the State is not only the answer to everything, but also it is literally the center of everything. In this mode of thinking, if one supposes the government to be corrupt then the people must also be corrupt and thus must be subject to whatever approved, and ‘corralled’ governments must do to reform and cleanse the people from their deep corruption. The Christian Right supposes this to be the role of government, as the will of God, to control the evil found in common folk. This forms the ideological base of Trumpism, which will survive regardless of whatever happens to the asshats who gave the movement (pardon the pun) its name. This gives Cawthorn the moral confidence to suppose that since there is corruption in the Ukrainian government, I’m sure there is, the people must also be corrupt as well (regardless of their landslide support of an idea which stood against corruption and oligarchy.)
This too, ought to be chilling to homegrown folks in the U.S. of A. This is what the righteous folk think of you ‘woke’ types. In the Right’s line of logic, since our government, at least the democrats, is deeply corrupt, child-raping vampires harvesting adrenochrome and what not, the people who elected these evil beings need to be punished for supporting such evil.
Hmm… Let’s examine this.
Firstly, it seems the job of ‘reporting’ various outrages has gone to amateurs, conspiratorial-types, who are very shoddy at collecting actual evidence; there is no governing process of professional peer-review, it’s a free for all. I make no claim to be a reporter, I’m a polemicist who relies upon the traditional, peer-policed, professional and integrity-based avenues which bring me the news—and I pay them for it. (Fox News is a totally shameless shill chasing a buck.) A better conspiracy in my mind involves a more obvious program of undermining confidence in the peer-reviewed news, to replace them with those who report the ‘news’ from a more ideologically ‘correct’ position. Trust is built upon factors relating more towards charisma than peer-enforced standards of integrity. I cite as one piece of evidence Tucker Carlson’s repeated barfing out of obvious bullshit with no fear of professional consequences whatsoever. Why? Because he brings in the money. Honor is dead.
What are the ‘right’ things? The intensity of hatred towards the evil of ‘woke ideologies’ puzzles me. It’s obviously both a coded and trigger phrase since the politicians, and ‘journalists’ use it to great fundraising effect. What are ‘woke ideologies’ anyway?
In the link above, our rational explainer of the ‘woke’ destroyer of the people (please read the article so you’ll know what I’m talking about for the next bunch of paragraphs) accuses the ‘social justice warrior’ of many of the same things the Christian Right says and does while clearly planting the flag of ‘truth’ in his own territory. ‘Truth’ really is at the center of things, isn’t it? Christianity is a collection of various ideologies which seek to teach us a better system of belief which leads us to a better way of life. A common thread in Christian thought is that proselytizing is good thing—we all need Jesus—but when a ‘social justice warrior’ does it, it’s bad. But we’re back to ‘truth’ aren’t we? Ralston’s list of spotting the ’Woke Ideologue’ falls on its own sword.
Point 1 involves spotting loaded phrases like ‘implicit bias’ or ‘white privilege’ as a red flag to guard yourself against potential conversion. Never mind that those above phrases have a far narrower (and academic) definitions than the catch phrases of the ‘Make America Great Again’ or ‘Woke Ideologies’ battle cries which could mean just about anything.
Point 2 is, in principle, agreeable of course, although it seems Ralston is employing ad hominem when he says things like, ‘She’s insufferable.’ It is also hard to accept the general assumption of adherence to the scientific facts when the Right, as a posture, tends to reject evidence which does not fit into its ideology. Anything from climate change to the simple statistical fact that a black man is two and a half times more like to be killed in a hostile encounter with police than a white man is rejected as obviously not true for ideological reasons. Ya’ll seem to be very fond of straw men as the ‘debate’ on ‘Critical Race Theory’ rages on—but let’s not get lost in the weeds, shall we?
Point 3. Speaking of assumption and ad hominem! Whiskey Tango Foxtrot—that is an utterly stupid assertion to make. You claim to be a professor? Your students are getting ripped off. ‘Irrational exuberance’ belongs only to the Social Justice Warriors? Oh yeah, this relates to the ‘truth’ thing, right? If you have the ‘truth’ then you’ve moved beyond ideology; I get it Obi-Wan… You so smart.
Point 4: ‘Just when I though you couldn’t get any dumber…’ (Ah, dammit now I’m guilty of ad hominem; needing to ‘totally redeem’ myself now.) This point 4 implicitly says, ‘You don’t care, I do.’ Really? Because they generally have no real concern for the truth? Who does? You? The Right? The journalists? The politicians? The rabble?
Allow me to introduce an alternative idea by asking a question: Do we, to any significant degree, concern ourselves with things we need but perceive to already have? When one already has a perceived, comfortable portion of ‘truth,’ then to what degree are you concerned with, let’s say, confirmation bias? Better be careful, poking around there could rock your world. The trap lies within our perceived investment in something, an ideology, a relationship, a physical thing of some sort, so that we see ourselves as too invested in that thing to walk away from it. The possession of the ‘truth’ is a valuable thing; indeed, it’s a hard thing from which to walk away.
The truth is something we all desperately need but it is a very hard thing to hold onto. Our adversary is called the ‘Father of Lies’ for a reason. Lies keep us from the truth which could set us free. Part of the struggle involve recognizing our own limitations. There are books out there, like ‘Being Wrong’ and ‘The Invisible Gorilla’ which can help with the sorting process and, with me, are therapeutic. Speaking of scientific reasoning and evidence, did you know that it is a statistically established fact that people who blather on confidently about how they know this or that are far less likely to give a truthful, knowledgeable answer to a specific question than someone who is not afraid to say, ‘I’m not sure, I’ll have to look into that’ when they don’t really know? (Look it up.) In other words, the confident fellow is much more likely to make something up when he doesn’t really know, so you won’t lose faith in him—loss of power is the issue. Dealing with uncertainty, however, not only takes a lot of work but also undermines confidence (in either yourself and/or your champion) which can really rip into the happiness portion of a person. It’s far easier to just have faith. (Sartre would agree in that in his mind the only truth to be had is found in human choice itself.)
This is where I’d think God would derive most of His laughs, our surety. Vast Christian teaching empires have arisen to show us the way to the right kind of faith; as faith barged its way into politics, Romans 13 and all that, do you not think that the arduous work involved in pursuit of evidence under constant threat of challenge and criticism would eventually fall to the comfort of a confident ideology? And that comfortable ideology would not fall to charisma and ambition as fact-checkers are pushed into irrelevance? I don’t understand charisma but have observed that it pays very well to have it. These teachers, blessed with the enigmatic gift, suck up our money to teach us how to be like them; we learn the greed part all right, but the charisma part not so much. It all sells because we want the comfort of surety. It frees our minds from doubt and contains within the great benefit of allowing us to be righteous.
Pulling this together, the surety of Cawthorn’s accusation, although he is (at least out loud) in the minority currently, provides comfort in our investment. Our investment, er, the Christian Right’s investment, if I may remind you, is that man who humiliated Zelenskiy in front of the whole world by bullying him and by openly airing a whole host of conspiracy theories, related and unrelated, about how corrupt the Ukrainians are, undermining and weakening (dare I say intentionally because Trump may not be smart enough to be so calculating because he is just plain wired to be an asshole—though he is smart enough to keep the bully in the box when there is a bigger, smarter dog in the room—i.e. Putin) the very idea the Ukrainians said they wanted in a landslide vote. That is a clear abuse of power, but who am I to question the prophets and the ‘wisdom beyond human wisdom’? Yeah, the Russians are intentionally killing civilians to terrorize them into submission. But the Ukrainians deserve it because our dear leader, our cause, our surety, will not back off an investment. That’s the trick we must play on our minds to not fall victim to the utter horror of it all. Lip service is paid to the horror of the war, but we will not back off that in which we’ve placed our faith.
‘…that you would thwart the dark plans and desires of evil men… bring a peace that is strong and not weak… deescalate this crisis today…’ It’s all there in the language of faith and hope which defies any ‘human’ analysis and/or wisdom. Thugs are not good men. Observing the Ukrainian response to murder of their families and leveling of their cities, their resolve is only to be hardened. Our analysts, experts in the field, say there is no ‘end-game’ for Putin; he has doubled-down and is all in—it’s about pride. Tactically, Putin has been defeated on the ground—all he has is the terror of massive firepower used against civilians. De-escalation is a fantasy. I’m forced to consider that Cawthorn is only expressing a deeply held belief in authoritarian rule which Christians have been trained to believe deep down that this is the way God wants things to be—God wants us to understand that some people are more equal than others. No amount of brutality can change that because we understand that Ukraine, all of it, is evil; and as God used pagan nations to punish His people for their sin, so too we must embrace the necessary evil of wanton carpet bombing to restore the proper order. Christians want the Ukrainians to throw up the white flag, so we do not have to witness the ongoing carnage; they care little for the murder, crimes, betrayal, lies, oppression, or for the will of a people to live in freedom and dignity—even though they talk a mean game about having this for themselves. Submit to the brutal autocrat, change your evil ways—that will make us feel better. Putin is our guy’s guy.
Is there hope in negotiating with the surety of righteous? Does the Master’s teaching on good and bad trees producing good and bad fruit, respectively, have any weight?
My prayer…
Father,
May the Russian army experience total defeat; may the Ukrainian weapon’s aim be sure and true. May the people of Russia rise against Putin and tear down his rule. May Putin stand trial before the ICC. May Zelenskiy live a full life and be rewarded for his leadership and bravery in the face of death and the very possible murder of his family. May an equal voice, respect, and dignity come to all people. May people love justice, cherish mercy, and humbly seek the truth no matter what it costs—even though that may mean admitting that we are wrong.
Amen