The Buffoon from Banana Land, Strikes Again

This is my attempt to curtail the misinformation, spewed forth by the purveyors of minimalist thinking and stupefying superstition, masquerading as something resembling coherent discourse.


From Amazon.com
I left the following comment in an attempt of my own;

As a literary connoisseur of sorts, I am thoroughly nauseated by the way in which this contrivance has been regurgitated upon the reading public. I am likewise disgusted with any unabashed parasite, and company, that would sully such a beautiful work as the "Origin of Species" with what can only be described as an atrocious attempt, resulting in an indigestible goulash of ill-conceived thoughts. Only, for the likes of Ray Comfort, this is by no means the worst. For, not only does this poster child for inanity attach a fifty page diatribe of the typical creationist misconceptions, delusions, and outright lies masquerading as a foreword to Charles Darwin's unassailable work, these repugnant cretins (Ray Comfort, Kirk Cameron, and their publishers) also removed many important sections from the original work in an attempt to hide the very evidence contradicting their claims.

Ray Comfort attempts, in his typical egregious fashion, to disparage Darwin by portraying him and his theory as racist in nature. When in fact, any light perusal of any of Darwin's letters, his, "Voyage of the Beagle" or even an unbiased reading of 'Origins' would give ample evidence of the opposite, he was in fact an overly kind and unassuming "Victorian Gentleman" and loving father. Please, Google Darwin's interaction with the natives of Tierra Del Fuego for an example of his humanitarian character.

It would seem to me that if you want to read "The Origin of Species" search for ISBN-10: 0451529065 with an Introduction by Julian Huxley. If you are a creationist, why would reading interest you? All you need to do is ask a man that believes in talking snakes about science.

I do not see this as anything other than the "Dumbing Down" of America. An actual premeditated crime against the very foundation of this country and her Founding Fathers, Fascism in the making. For a more thorough understanding of where I think this may be going, please read "Kingdom Coming" - The Rise of Christian Nationalism, by Michelle Goldberg.
This country was founded on the very principles of the Enlightenment by men who where known in their time as Giants of those very principles. That means, in my opinion, that like Capitalism, religion is a caveat to our Democracy. That is, we are a Democracy that has a capitalistic economic support structure, not a Capitalist country. Concurrently, we are a Democracy that allows people to believe what they wish, but not to inflict others with this or that flavor of superstition, not to proselytize others into the same or to dominate public policy with the mythologies of bronze age desert goat herders.

But, this is about science; and the teaching of the principles of honest, logical inquiry, the value of evidence based conclusions, and why an unsubstantiated assertion has absolutely no value in intelligent discourse. Intelligent Design is Creationist crap in a different diaper! Creationism, and its public relations misnomer IntelligentDesign, are the deranged delusion of illiterate, uneducated, fearfully superstitious fan boys of bronze age desert goat herders that had no idea where lightening came from or that the inner workings of the human body was identical to that of most mammals. Another point about the book of Genesis that most people seem to forget, and I pledge to never drop, is that literally millions of people have died horrible, public (slow, in front of their own families) torture and death for disavowing that specifically Genesis and generally the Bible was the literal word of god, and as such, should have been deftly accurate about our true genesis. Unfortunately, like the very myths that god(s) generally, Genesis specifically and superstition regularly are created from, its only value is in the telling of the true mental state of our ancestors until the time of Darwin's beautiful thesis was revealed to the Royal Society.

The Letters of Charles Darwin or if you would consider yourself a friend of Charles'. Here is a comment I wrote in February to an online paper in Jacksonville, Florida about one Senator Wise (man! if there were ever a more egregious misnomer!?) who introduced legislation supporting the teaching of Creationist drivel in science classes, because "If you're going to teach evolution, then you have to teach the other side so you can have critical thinking." at: Jacksonville News
In this comment; I am replying to the article in general, but the previous comments as well, so this covers my view of everything from the Wedge Document to "It's just a theory", exclaimed by the ill-informed:
To which I replied;

Please, evolution is a fact. Creationism is nothing more than a scam brought to us by the same people that came up with the "trinity", virgin birth, talking snakes, and a many millennia old myth from a surviving tribe of bronze age desert goat herders.

By the scientific method, the fact that I am a male reaches its highest acclaim at the point of accepted theory. This, of course, needs to be supported by the facts found in a study of my mammalian anatomy, but must be left open to falsification because of the principles of the scientific process, and the rejection of binary thinking. Anyone can take up the study of my anatomy and test the theory that I am a male, and (let me make a quick check) yep! the theory still stands - but the point is - it will always remain a theory supported by facts and testable by any... by my Fianceé. Trust me, you don't want to cross that line.

I would like to add that every bible thumping theologian, self proclaimmed zoological expert, and anatomically ill-informed Sunday school teacher has taken a crack at evolutionary concepts since well before Charles Darwin was even born. Remember, the breeding of wolves into domestic dog breeds has been going on for many, many millennia (some findings suggest ten thousand years). The theory has stood the test. The theory of evolution by natural selection has taken a hammering from every theologically bent psuedo-scientist for 150 years, yet Sen. Wise(? whatever) wants to teach it along side a marketing concept that cannot make it through a serious debate without great embarrassment, again please!

Oh! And don't get me started on Liberty University... it's a joke! Falwell and their pool boy, just wait. If the Taliban were a christian sect, madrassa ... barf; anyway it is easy to see where I am going. Charles Darwin discovered the "by natural selection" thereby showing that evolution was actually taking place in the wild. Also, that creationist canard of "evolution equals chance", ah! Bull! Better Theo-bull!!! But they know better than anybody that they are full of it. Ask any Catholic choir boy.

Think gradual steps, evolution by natural selection is a gradual build up of tested genetic information which makes EVERY living thing a transitional form. You are a transitional form, your father is a transitional form between you and your grandfather, it's that simple. Darwin can be forgiven for not seeing the forest for the trees. He was a very humble man with a Victorian mindset, which is why it took him 20 years to submit his findings.

Some of you need to consider from where you get your information, I would no more ask a preacher about science or knowledge, than Donald Trump about business acumen, or a car salesman, or preacher, about honesty in the work place. Creationism cannot stand up to scientific rigor, so they inflame public ignorance to push book sales and seek inclusion in school curriculum to garner the respectability of an educational institution. These people are con-men and frauds. This can be compared to some guy using make believe on his neighbors children, to get said children to take drugs, or join a cult, or a Nazi youth camp. Or, if this was a familiar TV plot, try our guy taking the kids because he doesn't have the backbone to take on dad, so he uses kidnapping to coerce dad. It was Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuits, who admitted that control of a child's thinking until he was seven made the child his forever. This is kidnapping by indoctrination. If creationist have a problem with science education, let them have a debate with science educators, Bill Nye would eat Ken Ham's lunch. Should Creationism or ID be taught in schools? No! It should not even be mentioned aloud in polite conversation, or in mixed company. It is an insult to education, intelligence, and critical thinking -- period.

Senator Wise should be ousted, impeached, or at least handed his hat. Besides, education is about the kids and their future. Without a decent education, especially in science, the future of our youth will short, miserable, and forgotten.

Our forefathers, Thomas Jefferson in particular, installed the Wall of Separation -- the First Amendment -- because he knew what religion could do to democratic institutions and great empires. If one has any doubt, read the letters from Thomas Jefferson to John Adams. The Puritans of Mayflower fame did not found this country, they had neither the backbone nor the brains -- but they could burn innocent women for being witches. They, in fact, came here to sustain their religious intolerance because England wouldn't put up with them and Holland enlightened too many of their congregation. The Cavinist, the Baptists and the rest have a similar story. The dumbing down of America via intervention from the religiose in education can only do to the US what the religious right did to the Republican party. Turn them into Nazis.

With this, I will in summary state that Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron otherwise known as the Banana Bunch are a small peace of a bigger picture that has been around since the first "medicine man" and they know what they are and so did our Founding Fathers.

A Historical Similarity

I have picked up on similarities between the Republican mentality with regard to this political environment and religion in the darkest of ages: pre-Renaissance. I think the similarity is striking and disturbing, in that the motivation, perpetrators, and victims are very similar. The least educated among us are being used to further the agendas of their exploiters, the plutocrats. Like John Stuart Mill said, "Religion is Politics"-- more to the point, each one's ideology ensures the survival of the other's agenda. The lies, absurdities, and appeals to the emotions of people who already feel desperate, powerless, and alienated are how both religion and politics use emotional abuse to manipulate their constituents. The sophistic casuistry of the rhetoric coming from personalities these constituencies wish to trust, want to trust -- actually need to trust to protect their prejudiced worldviews is a form of weaponized cultural conservatism and hate-mongering. But the Republicans of Rome, who prioritized the rule of the republic, as apposed to Greek Democrats who prioritized the will of the people, met their demise through the deluded devotion of Christians, which the Roman Fascists deserved. So, where is the alchemy?

Two human atrocities spanned the last half of the eighteenth and first two thirds of the nineteenth century. The first and worst was capitalism, mischaracterized as an industrial revolution to divert attention away from the horrendous conditions and exploitation of the labor force. This diversion also limited conversations exposing the complicity of plutocrats in government, manufacturing, mercantilism, colonialism, imperialism, and their military's exuberance in ensuring this exploitation and devastation. From this plutocratic profiteering oozed corporatism and criminal construct known as limited liability, so we now have the unbridled exploitation from laissez-faire capitalism and the government sanctioned, militarily enforced indemnity of the exploiters. We can't even fight back without going through the cops and the military. This is why we call it wage-slavery. The second atrocity (yeah, I'm not done yet), was born of the fear of democracy and its expansion into Europe. Conservatives, today, claim that conservatism was a reaction to the French Revolution, or the rise of Napoleon Bonaparte, but the evidence,  both then and in retrospect, renders these claims absurd. Conservatism is the ideological maintenance of authoritarian power structures, the status quo of the plutocracy, and the retrogressively manipulative institutions that empower these authoritarian structures through hierarchies. Conservatism conserves the wealth and status of plutocrats.

The oldest of these institutions is religion, particularly monotheistic religions that were and are very useful in instilling loyalty, segregating ideologies, and harnessing the herd mentality into a political power source. Judean hillbillies used the "Moses" contrivances for militarized imperialistic ambitions through the hyperbole of an absolute authority sanctioning their nationalistic agenda. Christianity flipped the script so that nationalistic Judean rebels would surrender like the failed messiah concocted by Roman plutocrats in the New Testament and self-subjugate before an occupying imperialist force, and Islam flipped the script back so as to assert itself against imperialist ambitions from both the East and West.

Capitalism and extreme (extreme in the sense of retrogressive ambition, how primitive their authoritarianism is, and how militantly their propaganda, populism, and brown shirt activism pursues their agenda) conservatism have diverted republicanism from pure nationalism, which is problematic in any context, and redirected their ideological interests to corporatist capitalism and the conservation of extreme biases like racism and its associated xenophobia. Add to this their religio-political socioeconomic chauvinisms--in all its jingoistic, nationalistic, misogynistic, and toxically masculine forms. In short, its called fascism; yeah, fascism to motivate the masses to maximize the profit of their financiers. 

In the current political arena, the total lack of "common sense" (if I may assume we can all agree upon that to which I am referring, though it's not that common), cannot be so dissimilar from the conversations of Constantine's plutocrats, when he was attempting to sell the conversion myth, assuming there's any truth to it at all, or, as is more likely, when Eusebius of Caesarea realized the political advantage of rebuilding Roman unity with the myths of the occupied territories. Isn't the bread of the conspiracy theorist, conformation bias, and a total disregard for the obvious? The infinite ignorance of the racist asshats in this country will spill into the streets with hate, torches, and semi-automatic weapons in reaction to Barack Obama. Haters are going to hate, and the morons in this country are far too stupid to elect someone as excellent as Bernie Sanders.  

There are some who would argue,

"The lies, absurdities, appeals to the emotions of people who already feel alienated ..." Well, I'm sure as hell glad the Democrats would NEVER resort to such things!!

To which I will reply, I agree. Today's Democratic party has been pulled so far to the right by money in politics that the capitalists usually get their way, but the Democrats still try to pull back to the left, or merely act like it. The difference is one party's lies are so blatant that Republicans are known as the Confederate liars party. Racists, try to be cognizant of how many priests have gone to jail for child molestation.  

My aim was not to disparage one party over another, but to highlight the common DNA shared by religious and political motivations. The difference in the parties, in this case, is that Republicans with their Southern Strategy and their racist rightwing misogynistic religionists are connected at the hip and most religious groups are anti-democratic authoritarians as well as anti social justice, anti-choice, and anti-labor, etc. This is not to say Democrats do not try to pull the religious right more to the left, they do, of course. But there will always be fundamentalists authoritarian sheep and wolves using the ideologies for their agendas. Like MLK said, moderates are the worst. The historical evidence is overwhelming. The words right and left, and Republican and Democrat should be changed to conservative and progressive, respectively. All else is a heat shield, a distinction without a difference. The Republicans have become Christian nationalist fascists and should be ostracized as such.

An extreme example is the Nazi party of early 20th century Germany, as well as evidence of the current political misdirection fostered by the tea baggers, their financiers, and supported by repugnant, Republican rhetoric. The main reason, in this country, to hide Hitler's connection with Christians like the Catholic Church, Nazism as a rightwing political system, and Fascism as a rightwing social system lies in its similarity to the current Republican party with its ties to Confederate ideology, the religious right, and corporatism. A pseudo-theocracy with capitalists instead of masturbaters in funny hats. The Nazi party got its start by appealing to the emotional disparity of the poor, uneducated, illiterate, extremely religious German-born labor class by first singling out gays, then illegal immigrants (gypsies), and those all too conspicuous others. Sound familiar? In fact, many Republican Dynasties, most notably the Bushs, supported the Third Reich economically -- the actual meaning of "Daddy War Bucks" lest we forget.

Don't let anyone fool you, the symbiotic relationship between Conservatism and religion is more reciprocal than cooperative. Most people should ask themselves, "What is it, that Conservatives are trying to conserve?" The guesses are very enlightening: a tradition of family values that support patriarchal hierarchy, i.e., white male privilege and capitalism? Yes! The status quo, their power and its source, of course. 

Of course, tradition sounds good until one realizes it will be at the expense of progressive ideas such as civil, human, and equal rights for all beings. Again, who could possibly be against 'family values' -- but who gets to determine those values, or what constitutes a family? Think dog whistle that only a rat would respond to. Allow me to jump to the idea that Republicans are concerned with the economy, bullshit, they only about  the market and capitalism, because the contra position to patriarchy and race are much to obvious - but the person who feels that the Republican talking points about taxes have any validity at all, has no knowledge of US economic history at all. When the stock brokers smile the wage-slaves suffer. What's good for the top 1% is bad for everyone else. Capitalism is exploitation. 

National Debt by President is a graph that clearly shows Republican disregard for the working class by their own arguments. 

All of this is a rebuttal to what I see as the Republican Party's pandering to a religious cult that suppresses the populace with immoral, antiquated superstitions, racism, manipulated emotions, values, and prejudices into wage-slavery and self-subjugation, with the Democrats attempting to pull the moderate just a little more left.

But as far as the lies go, I will refer anyone to a reputable fact checker for the score card on that game. And, to my knowledge, there lies a grand gulf between statistical favoritism and "Death Panels" if that is the gist of your disagreement.

More on these similarities later.  Thanks.

McCarthy-ism: Is it back?

I wrote a comment in response to another commentor's misunderstanding of our system of government. That misunderstanding inspired this entry to my blog. This entry also works for the likes of the Beck, Limbaugh, Savage, Keyes, Agar and Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R) MN. This is the time for a few Edward R. Murrows, I hope to one day see news networks re-attain that level of excellence by kicking the corporatists to the curb.

It has been my experience that far too few have any understanding of the political spectrum, of the concepts that differentiate democracy and autocracy, that differentiate authoritarianism from libertarianism, traditionalism from liberalism, conservatism from progressivism, understanding of the primitive psychologies that energize fascism and nationalism, racism and chauvinism, paternalism, patriarchy, and misogyny and they have no idea that we are developing naturally, morally, and intellectually toward the mutual beneficence through our natural progression to socialism and anarchism. They have no clue what these words mean, or that we would be progressing much faster toward a much better world if they were not ideologically deranged to be intellectually regressive. The vast majority of people comprehend very little of the economic apologetics used to obfuscate the fallacies of state and private capitalism, the authoritarian characteristics of Bolshevism, communism, and capitalism. These same people feel or believe they have a good grasp of political and social sciences, when nothing could be further from the truth. These people should do the rest of us a favor and sit quietly long enough to learn, but they are the most belligerent and vociferous of agitators.

The Republicans devolved into a party of fascists (a rightwing chauvinistic nationalist movement) when corporatists and laissez-faire capitalists teamed up with Christian nationalists using fictive narratives about Bolshevism and Russia's state capitalism to push McCarthyism, an anti-freethought, anti-labor, anti-liberal bigotry. They evolved into full Nazis with the attraction of racist Dixiecrats and rightwing religionists of the Southern Baptist Convention through the Southern Strategy. This country has endured a population of Nazis since its founding. But the unification labor and a ever empowered middle class frightened a plutocracy who were losing the ability to control the middle class by instigating fights between white and black peons, which meant the plutocracy was overpowered politically.

As a side note, the NSDAP (Nazism) was: a) Nationalistic, which is antithetical to Socialism, and b) born of a Fox News style fear mongering, extremely retrogressive conservatism, which leads to scapegoating diverse social groups, through the bigotry of exclusionary organizations (i.e. religious, cultural, or national). This is, in fact, the actual danger in the U.S. at present. And, as it usually does, coming from the back side of a charlatan's hand, will turn this country into an Orwellian reality show with Nazi parades before the plebes recognize the expression of their bigotries. Ask any German if they seen it coming or recognized Nazism when they experienced it.

As for Socialism, systems like education, highways, Medicaid and Medicare are perfectly in line with a Democratic Republic; remember, even the first fascists, the Romans from whom our system is modeled, built roads. It is what a community does, the very reason for any social contract is to pool our resources for the greater good. Consequently, the greedy among us have, and always will, complain at the top of their lungs, even though, they reap the greatest benefit. They are greed driven and want everything for nothing. Where would our business and industry be without the educational or highway systems of this country? Our social systems are what make this country as good as it is. Anarchism and socialism or libertarian socialism as contrasted with statism or state or private capitalism as best as it can be explained are polar opposites socially, politically, and in their ideological reverence for propertarianism, private property ownership. So it is obvious that it would take sizable upheaval, through a grassroots popular movement, of our political and economic system to bring that much change, no one man or party could impose such a structure. Not only that, but the rich and powerful plutocrats would be the last to want that type of system. Socialism will come from a workers rebellion for economic equality, the last thing the current power mongers would want.

As for the Czar scare the Beckerheads are pushing at present, Czars come from an Imperial Russia, not a Communist Russia, and Russia was never Socialist. Greedy men who are used to making millions, even billions, of dollars are adept at getting their way by paying professionals to stir the emotions of people that already feel left out. Don't let them use your emotions against you; think for yourself. If you don't use your brain, someone will use it against you. To "get our country back," this was originally a xenophobic trope by racist nationalists fearing every immigrant to make the journey, would actually be to take it back from big financial institutions, and global conglomerates, not some individual who constitutes only one estate of three that make up this country's government. And, to weaken those global institutions we need to stop empowering them, which is what the public option will do. This is, in no uncertain terms, why the insurance industry is pushing so hard for President Obama's "Waterloo". And why Beck, Rush, Savage, et al., are being fed the scripts to parrot by the Kochs and the Don't Think Tanks, which they are, in turn, spewing across the air waves at us. Money! One more point I would like to make. If a societal cataclysm is to overcome this country in the form of an ideological overthrow or political coup, it will come wrapped in our flag and carrying the Bible. It will come from a conservative, right-winger, or narcissist preferring photo-ops to substance, and spouting patriotic slogans and xenophobic sound bites or racial slurs over social media.