Indicting Trump, At Long Last

THE FIRST INDICTMENT will not be the last. More will come. All criminals profess their innoncence profess their innnocence and admit guilt only when compelled by circumstances, such as overwhelming evidence or the opportunity to plea bargain to get a reduced sentence. Grand juries are nor seated for political purposes, but rather, because its slected members are deemed qualified by a judge, based upon their demonstrated ability to understand and weigh evidence on its merits. I know that Trump is a criminal because I saw him commit a crime in "real time", on national television. The crime was incitement to insurrection. Then too, I heard him commiting other crimes on audio, such as admmitting to being a sexual predator, blackmailing a foreign head of state, attempting to coerce a state attorney general to commit election fraud. Predictably, a huge majortiy of registered Republicans, most of whom self identify as Christian conservatives, are rallying behind their cult leader, their fellow reprobate in arms, laughably accusing the Manhattan grand jury and prosecutor of having political motives, as if its members were chosen based upon contempt for Trump. They were not. As in all other the investigations and legal actions surrounding Trump, due process and proper jurisprudence are being implemented. Characteristically, Trump is hiding once again, behind his followers, content to allow his criminal terrorist mob do his dirty work. Already his adult members are crying foul, falsely accusing anyone who tells the truth about Trump of political motives, accusing them of conducting a "witch hunt", overlooking the fact that witch hunts identify witches, just as indictments identify presecutable criminals. And of coruse, the Trump mob is threatening to again congregate and turn violent, necessitating police measures in New York to defend against them. They claim to be saving America when in fact they are doing damage to it, perhaps irreparable damage, being traitors, if unwitting traitors. And as has been the case from the beginning, Trump's supporters are every bit as reprehensible as he, every bit as traitorous, accessories to his crimes, and thus, criminals themselves.

I KNEW BY THE TIME I was eight years old that I was not religious, despite my Baptist grandmothers, who would've converted me, had my parents not had my back, and shielded me from them. Mom and dad wanted me to pursue my own religious path, make my own decisions without coercion or influence, and it paid off. I am an openminded pantheist, for whom Jesus is a hero, not a God or savior. Even as a child I wondered about the fantastical biblical version of reality, how it seemed to conflict with science and sense and observable reality. I still do. As Goethe said: "It is beyond me how anyone can believe that God speaks to us in books and stories. If the world does not directly reveal itself to us, if our hearts do not tell us what we owe ourselves and others, then we will most certainly not find it in books, which at best are designed only to give names to our mistakes." There are several hundred, at least, Christian denominations, and as a child I wondered: "which one does the Christian God prefer, of which Christian denominatin is God, if he exists?" I finally decided that he, the christian God, does not exist. Ghandi, who hated being called "Mahatma", which roughly means "reverend", and preferred being called by his given name, "Mohandas", said: "God has no religion". Richard Feynman said: "I would rather have questions that can't be answered than answers that can't be questioned". Science admits that it doesn't have all the answers, and only promises to try. Science never gives up trying to find truth, and humbly admits its limitations. We should honor those who seek truth, but beware of those who claim to have found it. Science constantly changes, improves itself, admits its own mistakes, and seeks to correct them. Religion, all religions, proclaims themselves perfect, possessed exclusively of absolute, inviolable truth. As Einstein said: "Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted." This statement is an admission of the limitations of science, and an acknowledgement of the spiritual nature of reality. Religion falsely claims to have all the answers, answers which cannot be questioned. To acknowledge that a religion cannot answer all questions is the death of the religion, renders it useless, impotent, and thus this acknowledgement cannot be allowed. Or, as Thomas Paine wrote: "All religions are human inventions, established to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit". And, again, Einstein: "My religiosity consists in humble admiration of the infinitely superior spirit which reveals itself in what little we, with our weak and transitory understanding, can comprehend of reality. I cannot conceive of a personal God who would sit in judgment over creatures of his own creation. Morality is of the highest importance, for mankind, but not for God". God has no religion. God is revealed to us through our study of nature, through science, not religion. We know very little about God, but we are learning.

Wanting To Use A Gun

MY GRANDFATHER was born in 1888, became a lawyer, and became the city attorney for a mid sized midwestern town, the town in which I was born and raised, In 1920. He then went on to found his own law firm, specializing in tort law, a firm in which was father was eventually accepted as a full partner. Dad & granddad knew where the money was. No, they didn't chase ambulances. Rather, they represented insurance companies which were being beseiged with litigation from the ambulance chasers and their injured clients. Dad told me that one time, as the injured plaintiff sat in the witness stand wearing a neck brace, he walked back and forth across the courtroom, and noticed that the witnesss turned his neck, back and forth, to follow my father visually. Neat trick, dad. Note: if an adversarial lawyer ever asks you if you have discussed the case with anyone outside the courtroom, fear not. Its not illegal to talk. That question is the oldest lawering trick in the book, an attempt to frighten and intimidate the witness, and entrap for possible perjury. Another note: my dad lost track of the number of times an insurance executive approached him after a verdict, beaming: "They wanted half a million. You got us off with fifty grand. Nice work." Grandfather had an enormous collection of law books, a real law library, and a not inconsiderable collection of firearms, mostly hunting rifles. I remember them hanging on a gun rack in my dad's man cave when I was knee high to a grasshopper, as we say. My immediate ancestors were not "anti-gun", nor flaming liberal activists. Far from it. They were both second amendment Republicans... But, one day, over a beer (I became my dad's favorite drinking buddy when I turned eighteen) father told me that he misssed his father, who died in 1956, dearly, and that I, born in 1955, was bad unlucky to have never met him. But I did meet him: when I was an infant, he held me in his loving arms, and well, that'll have to do. My older sister claims to have a picture of us snuggling thus, which I cannot remember ever having seen, but, well, sis is Abraham Lincoln honest, so, I'll have to ask. He also told me that his fatehr said: "Put a gun in a man's hand, and the first thing he wants to do is use it". I am reminded of that bromide every time we the American people treat ourselves to yet another of our patented, serial mass murders, AK 47 style, which is about, oh, what, every day or so? Quick fact: when guns were banned in England and Australia, gun violence declined precipitously, never to return. Turns out that when potential killers, (which we all are), lack access to a firearm, they indeed do not merely substiute another weapon, like a ball bat, a fork, an ink pen, or cat litter box. What do they do? They kill not. Astonishing and undigestable though this doubtless seems to our conservative Christian gun loving comrades in arms, statistics do not lie. As baseball great Casey Stengal used to say: "You could look it up". We have still not decided whether we the American people prefer guns or children. As of now, the trend seems to be favoring guns.

Worrying, About Me

I LIKE THE LADY, although she's rather standoffish towards me. I think I know why. She's worried about my eternal soul, and its ultimate destination. She plays piano as the senior center where I sing with the gospel group every Monday morning. We had our conversation several years ago, the one in which I told her that I am not religious, and she asked me if I was happy, as if somehow religion and happiness are intertwined, with a causal connection. The other day the lady who sits next to me in the gospel group, who is herself a Buddhist, told me that the piano lady is "worried about me". I knew instantly what the worry was all about. She is worried that since I am not a Christian, my eternal soul is in danger, and that I might spend eternity in hell. My Buddhist friend related that the piano lady noticed a pretty ring on her finger, and asked about it. "Oh, that's an image of the Buddha". She further related that the piano lady instantly recoiled in apparent horror at the blasphemous jewelry. My Buddhist friend does not attend church, nor do I. You can be a Christian and a Buddhist simultaneously, but not a pantheist and a Christian. We both sing gospel for several reasons. Its the only game in town; there's no secular singing at the senior center, although I am hatching a plan to install a karaoke machine. That might not fly, but what the heck, I can try. We both like to sing, although neither of us is especially fond of washing away our sins with somebody else's blood. Then too, we are open minded, a concept novel to the conservative evangelical Christians who populate the senior center. You worry that someone might not be on time to pick you up, and you might miss the start of the movie. But I stongly suspect that the pentecostal piano lady is being disenguous, and is deceiving herself about her true motives. You worry that someone might fall off the ladder and get injured. You worry that you might flunk a test. But under no circumstances do you "worry" that someone who does not accept the Lord Jesus Christ as Lord and savior might spend eternal torment in hell. If you truly believe that someone might not be saved and might not go to heaven and might spend an eternity in torment in hell, you don't worry, you panic. You feel a sense of horror and dread. That is, unless you are an uncaring emotional zombie utterly without compassion. You panic, you baptize the person by force if necessary, but you most assuredly do not worry, any more than you feel midly concerned and annoyed about the number of mass murders in America per day, week, or year. If you truly are sufficiently mentally ill to believe in hell, you don't worry, you freak out. No, she's not worried about me, she's worried about her seeming inability to live in a world in which everyone's religious beliefs duplicate her own. She's worried that she she hasn't the power to control everyone, to "save" the unsaved. She's worried that her own religiosity isn't being positiively reinforced by that of those around her. She is worried about her self esteem, not about me.

Attacking, Atheistically

THE SOUTHERN BAPTIST minister minced no words, and succinctly identified the enemy: atheism. Atheism and its godless brood is on the attack, attacking the Christian faith. Whereas until fairly recently belief in God, presumably the Christian, biblical God, was almost universal throughout western civilization. The community of beleivers has seriously dwindled in recent years, with the advent and coming of age of the millennial generation, half of which has no religious affiliation nor interest. Modern science has further accelerated the decline in traditional religious belief. The alleged assault by the rising atheist hordes is three pronged. The first is the argument that is expressed in the form of a question: if God created the universe, who or what created God? Although this seems like a perfectly reasonable question, (a question, and not an "attack"), the answer, in riposte, is simple: God was never created by anyone or anything, but has existed eternally. Touche, evidently. When something is presented as eternal a prioiri, avoiding the question of origins becomes easy. The second line of attack concerns evolutionary science, or "theory", as Christians would have it. (Christians often remind us, falsely, that not only evolution, but science itself depends of a sort of faith, even though its accepted precepts are never accepted until proven independently and empirically.) Atheists, it seems, consider Darwin's evolutionary biology, evolution by natural selection of mates, to be adequately explanatory for the existence of life, precluding any need for creation by a divine, heavenly, "higher power". The Christian response is that there are loopholes in evolutionary theory through which a church bus could be driven, and anyway, the spark of life which precipitated evolution must surely have been lit by divine inervenetion. For, example, if humans really evolved from monkeys, there would be no monkeys in today's world. What they fail to understand is that evolutionary science does not claim that humans evolved from monkeys, but rather, that humans and monkeys evolved simultaneously from a common ancestor, which is an entirely different matter. It is the common ancestor, another primate, which no longer exists. Thirdly, atheists such as Richard Dawkins, in his book "The God Delusion", and Christopher Hitchens in his book "God Is Not Great" offer the problem of human suffering, and of evil in the world, as proof that God, at least a loving, compassionate God, cannot and does not exist. As poet Archibald MacLeish put it: "If God is God he is not good, if God is good he is not God". Bart Ehrman, Dean of the school of religious studies at North Carolina University at Chapel Hill, once a born again Christian, became an agnostic, troubled over this exact question, of human suffering. Its a question he has never answered, nor has anyone else. The Christian solution is to invent another imaginary being, "the devil", and another dubious concept, that of free will. If free will exists, and most scientists think it does not, then it is an emergent quality, the result of a complex interaction of natural forces, within the laws of nature, laws which in and of themselves give no evidence that living creatures possess free will, but are confined to behave according to natural laws, laws which are absolute, and external to animal behavior. Free will must exist for the Christian God to exist in a world of human suffering, as must the devil itself. To embrace the Christian religion, or any religion, one must embrace arbitrary, dubious concepts.

Coming To Help

THE SHIP entered the galaxy undetected by sentient beings, because it was comprised entirely of light, highly organized, differentiated eletromagnetic radiation undetectable by any species which had not yet evolved the technology necessary to detect pure energy so highly constituted. Any such detection would have only aroused mild curiosity, and resulted in an assumption that the phenomenon was merely accidental, a random gathering of subatomic forces. The beings within it weres similarly constituted, having abandonded the cumbersome burden of matter eons ago. Their existence and presence would never be known, because they could not be seen without their deliberate decision to be made known, a decision which would not be made. In the ultraviolet end of the spectrum, no such detections were possible by any species on any planet in any known galaxy. The ship had visited millions of galaxies over millions of years, eons spent in observing solar systems and the primordial creatures which so often inhabited the soupy mixture of organic fluids which otetn adorned planetary surfaces. In every one abundant lifeforms had been found and doucmented. Most were primitive, seldom having evolved beyond the most basic combinations of organic compounds, most not even having migrated from their primordial soup of organic molecules to any semblance of self sustaining life on planetary surfaces. Those had been left alone; they would take their own course, and could be reevaluated later for possible inclusion in the project. Those which had begun the long ascent to evolutionary sentience were given closer attention, and many of them, seemingly destined to early extinction, had been given assistance. In time, they would become self aware beings, if the universe so decreed. But in a remote galaxy of unextraordinary characteristics, the overlords found an ordinary solar system in which there dwelled beings which had evolved the ability to not only move without the assistance of external fluids, but to selectively procreate, and, it seemed, to perceive their immediate environment. The ship, as usual, entered this stellar system, with its planets. The ship was so huge that it actually engulfed most of the planets; the beings below would never realize that they had inadvertantly spent time within the confines of a spaceship made of pure light. But thes beings had promise, the promise of eventual intelligence. They had evolved into beings capable of constructing habitats and cities, but the cities were awash in violence and death. The species was destined for self destruction, and would require help, help which would be easily rendered by merely rearranging the chemical structures with their nascent minds. The overlords would make the necessary changes, and return later to inspect their work.

Passing A Milestone In Infamy

A MAJOR, if sympbolic mileston was passed the other day in the ongoing pursuit of the criminals who participated in the infamous insurrection Capitol insurrection of january 6th, 2021. The one thousandth perpetrator was indicted. It is now estimated that approximately two thousand people participated in the violence, meaning that the process of apprehension and justice is about halfway home. The process has been greatly expedited by the fact that many if not most of the participants, apparently unaware that they were unintentionally providing all the evidence needed for their own prosecutaion, videotaped themselves on their own cell phones, including not only motion picutres useful in court, but also "selfies", many of which ended up on social media, most notably, Facebook. As the saying goes, paraphrased, nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of a violent mob of Donald Trump supporters. The outcomes vary widely. The most recent conviction resulted in a jail sentence of three years for a woman who, after breaking through a door in the Capitol building, photographed herself barging into the vacated office of then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and stealing her laptop computer. Vacated, that is, other than a fellow mobster who took the liberty of sitting in the Speaker's office chair, and propping his feet up on her desk. He too has been indicted, tried, and sentenced, and is now appealing the verdict. Defenders of Trump's speech in which he incited his assembled mob to violence have weakly, dubiously tried to point out that when Trump exhorted them to "go to the Capitol and fight like hell or you aren't going to have a country anymore", the word "fight" could be construed in a variety of ways, and was intended to mean "protest virorougsly, but peacefully". However, there is, as they say, a fly in the ointment. Every indicted mobster has provided a deposition, and in every deposition the indicted criminal plainly asserts that his or her actions were intended to follow orders given by Trump. Tbe usual statement is: "I thought that's what he wanted us to do". Clearly, when Trump gave his marching orders, they were interpreted to mean, literally, "fight". and fight they did. To this day a large majority of registered Republicans mainatin that their behavior was proper and justified. Amazingly, the formal position of the Republican National Committee is that the insurrection constituted nothing other than "legitimate political discourse". Behold the descent of a major American political party the Republican party, into a terrorist, criminal enterprise.

Impoverishing

THE POOR will always be among you, so said the savior, who evidently was well aware that a mere two thousand years hence a great and powerful nation, the most prosperous in human history, would arise almost as if to prove his point. He failed to ask "why", even though he himself doubtless knew why. He knew human nature. Finally, someone has asked the question and provided an intellectually defensible answer. Mathew Desmond, Princeton sociologist, begins his seminal monograph "Poverty, By America", with the obvious question often asked but seldom if ever answered by thoughtful citizens, including those well versed in economics: "Why, in the wealthiest nation in human history, does poverty persist among so great a percentage of the population"? That percentage is about eleven percent, or one in nine Americans, the definition of "poverty" having been determined by the Johnson administration in 1964 when LBJ's "War On Poverty" commenced. The definition is based on food insecurity, and has been amended over the years to include such things as income to rent ratio, among other factors. The upshot, the book's central theme, is that poverty in America is by design, not accident. Racism is a big factor. How can we afford a single payer national health care system with all these unworthy darkly pigmented people everywhere? Desmond echoes an oft mentioned fact: that in these United States we have socialism for the wealthy and corporate welfare, and free market capitalism for everyone else, including the very poor. For decades our corporate masters have prosecuted a war against the working class, spearheaded by the deliberate destruction of labor unions. A huge perrcent of newly created prosperity is siphoned off by the wealthy elite, in the form of tax breaks and write offs, rather than evenly distributed among those who actually produce it; the working class. Government subsidies for the upper twenty percent of income distribution amount to roughly thirty five thousand dollars a year, and for the poor, the lower twenty percent, the figure is twenty five thousand. Everyone, to some extent, lives off the government dole, the wealthiest most of all. The huge wealth and income gap between the wealthiest one percent, the wealthiest twenty percent, the everyone else is growing, and has been since the Reagan administration drastically cut the highest tax rate from about seventy percent to twenty eight percent. The author points out that by merely taxing the wealthiest one percent at a slightly higher rate, paying their fair share, as he puts it, nearly three hundred billion dollars in revenue could be raised, sufficient to virtually eliminate poverty. The government redistribution programs of Johnson's "Great Soceity" cut poverty in America in half, and during the recent pandemic the child tax credit cut poverty among children in half, but only temporarily, as the program expired. People who care about the sustainable economic health of America will continue to ask "why". Now, they have an answer, if they choose to accept it.

Trump, Still Being Trump

DONALD TRUMP thihks he will be arrested tomorrow, Tuesday, March 21, and, if there is justice in the universe, he will be, or, if not, soon thereafter. A brief recapitulation of his many crimes is thus in order. A prominent Russian oligarch, "oligarch" meaning one of the serveral fabulously wealthy Russians with whom Vlad the Mutilator Putin surrounds himself, enriching them on the backs and from the pockets of the Russian people, said it straight out: Yes I did meddle in the 2016 American presidential eelction in 2016, again in 2020, and I will do it again in twenty twenty four... We have been warned. Long ago both the FBI and the CIA confirmed the truth of this, that Donald J. Trump knowingly, willingly, happily welcomed and accepted this illegal foreign campaign assistance, which consisted mostly of made-in-Russia websites spreading disinformation about Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden. Supporters of Trump reacted to this by claiming that it was all a hatchet job by an FBI and CIA swarming with radical liberals who hate Trump. Go figure, as they say. Then too there was the Ukrainian-Zelensky thing, in which Trump, in a telephone call that was recorded and heard by milllions, tried to blackmail Zelensky into handing over dirt, fabricated or otherwise, about the Bidens, in exchange for a weapons package which had already been ahthourized by Congress but was being with held by Trump as blackmail bait.we now plainly see the impact of this. But the list, or Trump's crimes, gets even longer. It reaches its peak in twenty twenty, when Trump tried to steal the presidency from Biden, and sent a violent mob of conservative evangelical Christian supporters to the Capitol in a failed attempt to violently overthrow the American government. We know that on the day of the violent insurrection President Trump committed the crime of incitement to insurrection, because millions of us saw him commit the crime on national television, live. An investigation spanning more than ten minutes, let alone years, seems unnecessary, but one must abide by due process. So we arrive at the present, with the New York City PD putting up barricades to contril, or at to herd, the anticipated reassembly of Trump's violent mob. There was indeed a conspiracy to steal the election from Trump in twenty twenty, and it consisted of slightly more than eighty six million people. We, the co conspirators, got caught, at the ballot box. If nothing else, the violent mob of evangelical Christian Trump supprters who evidently still support him can savor their apprehension of the guilty parties who stole the election, and they will have ample time to celebrate, in heaven, or wherever.

Coming Out

WHEN I WAS A KID, eons ago, homosexuality was illegal, punishable by lengthy prison sentences. The worst insult a child could hurl at another kid was "queer", and it took me awhile to figure out what that meant. Once I did, I realized how lucky I was (am) not to be gay, and began to imagine how horrible it must be to be gay. Gay people absolutely had to remain "in the closet", for fear of being shunned, ridiculed, beaten up, arrested, indicted, tried, convicted, and incarcerated. Arguably, since then, society has made some progress. Since World War Two more than one hundred thousand people, American veterans have been less than honnorably discharged from the military for being gay. Because of the dishonorable discharges on their resumes, the careers of many gay veterans have languished. Now, there is an organized movement to address and redress this situation, to essentially make all these unfairly treated military heroes "whole", whatever precisely that might entail. For one thing, the military could easily upgrade their discharge status to "honorable". That's the very least they could do. Pressure to do this is being applied, but so far, no results. The process is going slowly, but is fraught, however, with constant bureaucratic detours and delays. Asked whether she thought the slowness was indicative merely of bureaucratic sluggishness or homophobia within the government, the leader of the restitution effort said that she really did not know. Maybe a bit of both. Discrimination against gay people in the military officially ended about twelve years gao, when "don't ask don't tell" was repealed. The struggle for gay and transgender equality, quite obviously, much like the struggles for gender and racial equality, is not yet complete, although great gains have been made. Conservative America is not quite read to "give it up", as witnessed by inane laws such as those prohibiting the mentioning of anything about gay people or racism in public school classrooms. I can remember when women were paid sixty two cents for every dollar paid to men. Now, its eighty two cents, so, whoopty doo, so to speak. Progress. Reparations for African-Americans may indeed be an impractical idea, since, after all, most of the damage had been done well before we moderns were even born. But gay people discharged dishonorably from the military decades ago suffered personally and directly, and still do. That they have still not been given justice and compensation for their suffering is yet another shameful part of Amerian history, culture, and contemporary society. Our good fortune is that we still have time to make amends.

Knowing Ourselves

RACISM is a core American value. Rant and resist this reailty however one might, it remains true, proven convincingly by history and by even the most cursory examination of our modern American society. the fact that a certain, limited segment of American society,and the historical profession have in recent decades begun to closely examine racism's real past and real present in America is problematic to conservatives, whose smug, self serving patriotism is offended by historical and contemporary realities, and prefer hagiography to history. So much so that laws are being proposed and pased in various united states prohibiting the teaching of actual history, and requiring the teaching og hagiographic history. This is an alarming trend, remindful of the suppression of education and knowledge common in authoritarian systems. Although Americans have always preferred to think of their country and history in positive terms, quite understandably, the outright banning of unpleasant factual history serves nobody's interests in a supposedly free society. The conservative push to indoctrinate America's children with a falsely positive view of American history and society is, ironically enough, justified by its proponents on the ridiculously false allegation that it is those who advocate teaching the truth are in fact guilty of indoctrinataion, as if they are deliberately training people to "hate America". The recent announcement by the U.S. Department of Justice that its two year investigation of the Louisvile, Kentucky Police Department reveals pervasive racism throughout has already faded from the news. It cannot, however, be denied or refuted, no matter how vigorously the right wing tries. How many other American cities have police departments and criminal justice systems in which racism runs rampant? Many more than merely one, doubtless.. Maybe, most. Maybe, all. The so called "Sixteen Nineteen Project" is controversial, and widely despised and censored simply becuaes it delineates the truth, rather than false history and analysis. It should be required teaching, not banned. Lord Acton's famous maxim that those who do not remember the lessons of history are condemned to repeat them is exemplified in today's American culture, a culture of denial in which we prefer to forget, and thus repeat, our past mistakes.

Divorcing

IN A HUSTLING BUSTLING university town in the United States of American south the Methodist church is splitting in two, divorcing. It must be a very serious matter, with both sides strong enough to carry on and claim the mantle of true Methodism, rather than a mere matter of a disgruntled group existing the church. The church building is big and beauritul, indicaitng a large, prosperous congregation. The half that is moving out already has made new arrangements, building, clergy, doctrine, and all. Presumably, the schism has to do with politics, within and without the actual church and religion. Perhaps one side wishes to open ordainment to women, and perhaps one side, presuablly the same side. wishes to be inclusive and welcoming towards gay and trnsgender people. Whatever the precise rift, you sense the presence of a liberal-conservative divided ideology, ideologies which extend to both religion and politics, and include both. Somehow, ya gotta believe that it is the conservatives who are mainting control of the original, big, beautiful building...The two billion member Christian faith, all around the world, is confronted with the liberal-conservative spilt, between LGBTQ lovers and haters, and between those who want equality for women, and those who do not. And so it has always been with the Christian religion, the first big permanent schism taking place in the year fifteen seventeen with the Lutherans, and the fragmentation continuing to this day. The local split in the Methodist church may as well include three factions, or maybe four, but ultimately, may as well include as many factions as there are Methodists, one person, per faction, one religion per believer. Let the Methodists, and all other denominations split and divide repeatedly, down to the individual congregate, that all human religions become individual! Even today new Christian denominations are springing into existence as the inevitable human atomization prceeds apace. New forms of Christianity have been springing up in the United States since the eigtheenth century, and the process is ongoing today. Long before the Protestant Reformation, Catholicism, the universal church, had schims, at one point there being three, count 'em three different popes reigning over fragmented Catholicism. Goethe said it best: "When I realized that everyone invents his own religion, I decided to invent mine." It seems unlikely that the human species will soon or even ever universally evolve to embrace this reality; that no two people can possiblly share exactly the same religious beliefs. but one can hope. One can hope that at some fine time in the future, humanity will evolve away from huge, organized religions, and simply accept the reality that eveyoe invents his own religion, resulting in a"universal piesthood of believers", as the early Prostestants put it, a universal priesthood of believers all of whom believe in their own beliefs, and noone else's.

Folly, Unending

CONSERVATISM'S FOLLY seems unending. Not content to merely supress knowledge, consor content, and ban books, America's right wing wants to make it illegal in conservative states and ultimately in all AMerica for transgender people to use any public restroom other than one which corresponds to the sex listed on their birth certificates. As if transgender people are faking being transgender for some horrible ulterior motive, like sexual misconduct. As if passing some idiotic law would prevent it, if it were even true, which, quite obviously, it is not. The behavioral pattern among conservatives emerges. Namely, a tendency to respond to any and all unpleasant or inonvenient facts by simply denying them, by pretending that what exists does not, and what does not, does. denial of climate change. Denial of election results. Denial of racism. Denial of alternativve sexual orientations, transgenderism and homosexuality. The pattern is clear, and obvious. And yet, all these things exist. Hint to conservatives: the people who are transgender are not faking it. And also, all transgender want is to be treated the way they want to be treated, with equality ad basic respect, and they the transgender peope are the best authorities on which public restroom they should use, male or female. All they want is to feel safe and confortable, like everybody else, in public restrooms. Straight people are far more likely to be rapists, pedaphiles, or criminals of any sort than transgender people, period. Rape, pedophelia, sex crimes in general, it almost seems, are far more common within the conservative, heterosexual wings of the Baptist and Catholic churches than the LGBTQ community. It is entirely unnecessary, and indeed entirely paranoid, twisted, and cruel, these "bathroom" bills being passed in conservative states. Stupid, needless, much like the "don't say 'gay'" laws springing up in conservative states, namely, Florida. Consider the conservative passion for "limited government", for keeping government out of people's lives, for the sake of personal freedom and liberty. And yet, conservatives want to legislate public restroom usage, they want to ban books from school libraries, they want to prohibit the teaching about gay people and racism in America. This epidemic of idiotic, legislative moralizing is the greatest example of government "over reach" in the U.S.., and it is a conservative movement, lock, stock, and barrel.

Proving A Bad Law Bad

THIS, AS THEY SAY, IS RICH. Or, as they say, you can't make this stuff up. On the very same day that the United States Department of Justice announced the results of its two year investigation into the Louisville, Kentucky Police Department, which is that the LPD has a serious problem with racism, next door, in the great state of Arkansas, the left handed governess signed into law making it a crime to teach "Critical Race Theory" in the state's public schools, punishable by incarceration, termination, or whatever dire fate the Rethuglicans have in mind. Over a long period of time, the LPD has systematically discriminated against black people in making arrests, making accusations, hurling insults, using violence....and so forth. White guy gets restrained, black guy gets beat up. White guy gets cuffed, black guy gets tazed. And so forth. Over, and over again..... The facts plainly indicate this, and the D.O.J. is happy to provide them to anyone interested. In fact, it already has. Now, with regard to "Critical Race Theory", CRT is nothing other than sustained, academic, scholarly research by people at places like Harvard and Princeton which clearly proves that not only does the United States have a racist history, but that racism is alive and well in today's U.S.A. But now, in conservative state after consrvative state, if a teacher dares to point this reality out to students, the poor slobs will end up in prison, or worse. It is now becoming illegal in the land of freedom to teach children the truth about history, and about their country. What is your average social science teacher in Arkansas supposed to do on "current events day", inform the students that what they heard on the news about the federal Department of Justice issuing a scathing report about the Louisville police department is nothing but a false rumor, a lie being told by the liberal media? Welcome to the USF of A., the United States of Fascist America! Many other police departments are currently under investigation by the D.O.J., most notably Memphis and Minneapolis. For the elucidtion of conservatives tempted to enter denial, the U.S. Dept. of Justice did not conduct a "witch hunt", as Trump would say, in Louisville, nor is it staffed by legions of liberal Democrats implementing some alleged Joe Biden aganda of destroying the police. For an excellent explnanation of racism in America today, "Democracy In Black: How Race Still Enslaves the American Soul", by Princetion scholar Eddie Gaude, Jr. is seminal. Five'll get you ten that the same pervasive racism is ultimately found in nearly all, if not all, American cities. The policing profession, like the military profession, quite simply, is very popular among people who are politically conservative. It therefore follows logically that big city police departments, as well as those in small towns, will have a disproportionate number of racists in the force. Amazingly, the more racism valid research reveals within American institutions and throughout American society, the more conservative America will deny its existence, and the more laws they will attempt to pass to make it illegal to acknpwledge the glaring reality of our racist America. Welcome to Hitler's Germany, or Stalin's Russia.

Deconstructing

I BECAME AWARE of the term "Christian Deconstructionism" just the other day, and my curiosity was immediately aroused. That is a very long word, faintly remindful of the infamous "antidisestablishmentarianism", of lengthy lexiconic lore. I am reasonbaly sure I had never heard it before; all my life I have heard about Christian this and Christian that, but never the fabricated word "deconstruction-ism". I was instantly suspicious, with a slightly negative attitude. Anytime the word "Christian" is used as an adjective, my suspicions and distrust are aroused. My most recent run in with Christian adjectivity is the horrifying concept "Christian nationalism", which, as the name strongly implies, is nothing other than advocacy for the most intimate marriage between the Christian faith and American patirotism, between, indeed, church and state in the United States. Whereas Christian nationalism is a sickness, a deranged disease fo the far right twisted mind, which totallly contradicts what the founding fathers believed in, Christian deconstruction, I am inclined to believe, is a very good and beneficial process. It seems to refer to the process of very closely, factually, objectively, critically, fairly reexaming one's religious belliefs. A Christian, questioning one's own Christianity. Somehow that seems strange, seems to contradict the essential nature of religion as a form of "faith", and raises it to the status of science. It almost seems that any intelligent Christian, upon closely rethinking the basic tenets of the Christian religion, would inevitably arrive at the conclusion that it is nothing but myth and superstition... As in, taking it apart, one piece at a time, looking it over, then, putting it back together in the way which seems best, most veracious, most honest. In my experience, the one thing Christians generally are reluctant, indeed unwilling to do is question their own faith. That intransigence, that lack of open mindedness, is among the biggest complaints scientific minded people usually have towards religion in general, the Christian freligion in particular. Results, evidently, vary greatly. Some people apparently lose their faith afer "deconstructing", while in other people their faith grows even stronger as they reaffirm and confirm their fundamental, cherished beliefs. It seems remmindful of the experience of devout Christians as they enter and complete doctoral programs in theology in places like Harvard and Princetion, where they approach Christianity from a scientific, critical, historical point of view, rather than a devotional viewpoint, as they do in local Bible colleges. A fairly high percentage of graduates from Harvard's and Princeton's divinity schools go in as devout, born again Christians, and graduate as agnostics or atheists, atheists very knowledgeable about the Christian religion, every aspect of it. Christianity, especially in Europe and North America, is declining in membership in our increasingly secular, scientific world. One might wonder whether this "deconstructionist" trend might hasten its ultimate demise.

Hitting the Nail

TWO RECENTLY PUBLISHED BOOKS are an indication of things to come in the world of academic scholarship, book writing, and publishing, if we are fortunate. they are: Community Empowerment in the Age of Corporate Greed" by Edward Lorenz, and "Its OK to be Angry at Capitalism", by Senator Bernie Sanders. Both books begin with the same premise; that the United States, politically culturally, economically, and just about every other way, is a country owned and controlled by teh wealthy corporate elite, a corporate elite which owns and controls the American political and economic system,and thus structures both politics and economics so as to best benefit the wealthy corporate elite one percent, and may the devil take everyone else, the ninety nine percent. Actually, arguably, the breakdown is twenty percent versus eighty percent, but either way, its extremely unequal. Corporations, if left unchecked, can do tremendoud damage to the environment, then leave the mess for local communities to clean up. Its happened often in the U.S.. In recent years, however, thers has been an increasing tendency for community organizers to lead efforts to hold the big, powerful corporations accountable, and those efforts have met with some success. The ultimate, inevitable question is, quite simply: do we wish to live in a country in which we the people govern ourselves through civic institutions and democratically elected governments, or to cede esssential control of American society to the Fortune Five Hundred? Its a very real choice, one which we the people face now and in the future. The American economy is what is called a "mixed economy", with strong elements of both capitalism and socialism. Senator Sanders is fond of pointing out that a teny percentaage of the American people possess a huge percentage of the wealth in the country, something like one percent owning forty percent. The three wealthiest multi-billlionaire Americans are together wealthier than the poorest one half of the American people, amazingly. The mere fact that the wealthise country in human history has a huge percentage of its own people living in poverty is the main justification for the title of the Senator's book. Sanders points out that the purpose of the medical insurance indistry in the United States is to make as much money as possible for the wealthiest few industry owners, investors, and managers, whereas in an ideal system, a good, efficient, and moral system, the purpose would be to proivde the best possible medical care for the greatest number of people at the lowest possible price, correct?

Fighting Internally

THE REPUBLICAN PARTY is split into two factions, the pro Trump and the anti Trump. The anti Trump segment consists of mainly traditional big business, small government Reagan Republicans. Both sides are deeply committed to capitalism, Christianity, traditional values, including patriarchy and social Darwinism. Polls indicate that as of right now, Trump has the support of about sixty two percent of Republicans, Governor DeSanctimonious stands at about twenty percent, and Nikki Haley and other prospective candidates share the remaining votes. At the moment, it looks good for Trump, assuming that if his lead endures over the next few months, undecided and independent voters might well put him over the top, and secure for him the Republican presidential eletion in twenty twenty four. However, the fact that he does not have the support of well over one third of Republicans, that in fact he is actively opposed by well over a third of the grand ole party, spells trouble for Trump: there is, within the party, a pwwerful faction, evidently tired of the drama, ready to move on into a post Trump political era. Since the emergence of Donald Trump as a presidential candidate in the summer of 2015, he and his followers have repeatedly amazed decent people with the apparent depths of their moral depravity and intellectual bankruptcy. But never in the wildest imaginings of sane, intelligent people would it have been even remotely conseivable that Trump could gain the Republican nomination and run again in twenty twenty four, and, parish the thought, win, and once again become president. And yet, at this moment, early March, 2023, that is exactly the possibility with which we are confronted. Unlikely though it still seems, with each passing day, it becomes more evident that Trump still has enough support to make another serious run at the Repbulican nomination, and a serious run at the American presidency. Noone should deny this. So far there is no Republican alternative to Trump, nobody has emerged within the Republican party as a powerful opponent for him, and President Biden, despite recent improvements in his approval ratings, remains largely unpopular with the electorate. Until now, the very notion that a sitting president could try to steal the presidency from its rightful occupant by orchestrating and initiating a violent atttempt at overthrowing the American government, then fours years later could again run for president with a reasonable chance to win, would have been unthinkable. But we are living in previously unthinkable times.

Dealing With God On God's Terms

MARK TWAIN SAID: "Strange, A God who mouths Golden Rules and forgiveness, then invented hell, who mouths morals to other people and has no morals himself, who frowns upon crime but commits them all, who created humans then places responsibility for their behavior upon them isntead accepting responsiblity himself like an honorable being, and who expects his slaves to worship him." What he was talking about, obviously, was the Biblical , Christian God. Famed American noverlist, journalist, humorist, and social critic Samual Clemens aka "Mark Twain" was, like many intellectuals, a flaming atheist, wodid not like organized religion, particularly the Christian religion, and who disparaged it incessantly, and arguably did so incisively, logically, effectively. Because of this many modern Christian conservatives would undoubtedly prefer that Mark Twain's book, including Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, be banned from public school libraries, and there may be a few progressives who feel the same way, because in both books Twain often used the word "nigger". Yet Twain remains, because he is simply too powerful and too great to ignore or to make vanish, even from our modern cultural stagnant morass known as "America". But stay tuned: in state after conservative state, Republicans are banning books, passing laws making the teaching of factual history, such as America's blatantly racist history, past and present, a crime, and purging all mention of gay people and racism in America from our children's education. According to conservative America, if you prefer that something doesn't exist, like, say.... homosexuality or racism, just pretend that it doesn't, hide it from children, and, Eureka! it won't! Conservative Christian America is, in short, on an insane, inane fascist rampage, culturally. Hitler would be proud of them, which, come to think of it, might be their intent. You might almost expect to start seeing gans of Bible toting CPAC types out in the streets, piling books into a pyre, and torching them, perhaps enjoying "smores" and speeches by people such as Marjorie Taylor Greene. What better way for her to share with the world her "national divorce" idea, acording to which, unless I'mmistaken, she thinks liberals and conservatives should divide the United States into two countries. Hell, maybe she has a point....Kurt Vonnegut Jr., a sort of twentieth century version of Mark Twain in terms of incisive social witticism and criticism, offered great praise for America's librarians, who generally do not have great power or wealth or political power, but who most generally defend their libraries against fascist style censorship by refusing to remove perfectly good literature from their libraries. According to Vonnegut, these are the true heroes, who protect true American values of freedom and intellectual diversity against the forces of darkness.

Learning From One's Mistakes

WHEN YOU CONSIDER THAT more than a million Americans have died so far from the Covid 19 pandemmic, and that hundreds every day are still dying, one cannot other than conclude that the response to the virus in these United States, both in the government and the private sector, in every conceivable sector and in every way imaginable, has been and remains, shall we say, "anemic"? That's putting it mildly. Even now, even after all this carnage, we the American people still, incrediblly, refuse to get ourselves vaccinated in sufficient numbers to produce an American "herd immunity", even thought effective, free harmless vaccines are available to all. So, we keep needlessly dying from a virus for which there is prevention, only now we seem to have come to accept the death, to have learned how to live with it, to ignore it. In a hard hitting, deeply analytical, irrrefutable new book, "Democracy In the Time of Covid" Harvard professor of sociology and ethnics Danielle Allen asks why, concludes that the disastrous failure of the U.S. to effectively fight Covid 19 was caused by and reveals severe weaknesses and a decline in the effectivesness of American democracy, of the American social, political, and economic insturutions and the willingness and ability of American government and the American people to use them effectively. Then, she proposes solutions, as she explains that the Covid pandemic can be used as a teaching tool, a learning mmoent to ensure a much better American response to the inevitable next pandemic. Americans trust in government is historically low, for several reasons, and must be restored. Education attempts concerning Covid failed to convince half the American people that vaccination is essential for everyone. In terms of specific solutions to restore American Democracy, the author sugests increasing the size of the U.S. House of Representatives from its current and long time four hundred and thirty five, to perhpas double that number in order to give all Americans a more direct voice in public affairs, as the founders intended that the House would periodically need to increase in size to accomodate the increasing American population. The current state of polarization, culturally, politically, economically in America, the "pulling apart" of American society, the collapse and infectiveness of Democratic institutions can be reversed and healed, but not without strong, definite action. This conversation badly needs to take place, and it is encouraging that the academic community is starting to offer study of it and solutions for it.

Freeing Us From the Myth of Economic Freedom

ANY CONVERSATION with a conservative, even a well educated one, having anything to do with economics, will almost inevitably lead to the conservative's exaltation of the "free market", as being not only the best but the only true way to allow society to operate. You've probably heard it youreslf, about how personal freedom must be defended and maintained at all costs, and the way to maintain it, politically and economically, is to keep the government out of the economy, and instead of trying to regulate or control the economy, government should simply stand aside, and allow market forces to control it. Freedom to that extent is anarchy. Freedom is often over rated, and must, by all means, be limited and well regulated. People can and do horrible things in the name of "freedom". This ideology of absolute economic freedom can be called, "Laissez faire", or "neo-liberalism", among other terms,and it came to dominate Ameridcan thought beginning with the American industrial revolution of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. As of toady, its basically a semi-religious gospel system of belief, especially among conservatives. It is, of course, utterly false. Exactly how is deteailed in a new book by Harvard scholar Naomi Oreskes and journalist Eric Conway, titled: "The Big myth: How American Buisness Taught Us To Loathe Government and Love the Free Market". This seminal monograph is a profoundly important explanation of intellectual history in economics, and, as it says in Buddhism "Mind foreruns all conditions". Intellectual history, the history of ideals, underpins all hisotorical activity, ultimately. during the Trump administration, Trump & the Republicans, bent on deregulating the corporate economy as always, eliminated regulations concerning transportation hazard materials by rail. Just this past week two disastrous train derailments caused tons of hazardous materials to pollute the environmnet, most notably in East Palestine, Ohio. Suddenlly, in congress, there is renewed bipartisan support for reinstating regulations and making new regulations concerning transporting hazardous waste materials by train. A completely unregulated free market economy is a horible idea, a disaaster either happening or waiting to happen, as experience and common sense have clearly shown. As Adam Smith repeated often: the banking business in particular must be regulated by government for the safety and security of society. The fact that we often fail to put necesary regulations in place until its too late, until after some economic disaster has already occurred, is evidence of our societal reluctance to abandon the cherished myth of the benefits of free markets, the myth that the unfettered free market is the best, most effieienct, and ultimately fairest way to allocate resources. Nothing could be further from the truth.