Quick Take On An Article By Thomas Frank

I got a lot more out of this article than I expected to, Thomas Frank is seldom superficial, except when the topic is actual, instead of metaphorical, religion, something he shares in common with most contemporary writers.   I can agree with about 7/8ths of it though I think what he rather snarkily equates to religion is more realistically attributable to the Ivy League universities* where most of the people he targets came through, or its equivalent.  And, quite to the contrary of his metaphor, those are decidedly Mammonist and hostile to the economic justice that is inseparable from the very Jesus who became a graven image and a vainly named slogan for the Mammonists who comprised even the allegedly religious wing of wingnuttery.

If there were to be an effective counter to the Mammonism that is the target of Frank's article, history indicates it is likely to be religious, real supernatural religion capable of instilling a real and effective and durable belief in the moral obligations to do justice, to respect rights on an equal basis because, no matter what genes you're born with or what random chance has dealt you, you have both the inherent right to those and an obligation to respect those rights.  It is the kind of religion that holds that you have a moral obligation to do that, even when you don't like the person or people whose rights you have to respect, even when it is economically disadvantageous to you to respect those rights.

We kind of agree on the goals but I've become convinced that goal can't be achieved without the durable obligation that can only be found in an effective form in religion, specifically, in the United States, the very "Abrahamic" religions that, in the form that takes those rights and obligations seriously, has never been fashionable but which is responsible for the power behind every successful attempt to change things for the better.  That hasn't changed and the attempt to do that without God is what has failed.  I don't think we have a choice except to fight it as genuine religion as opposed to a Mammonism that is a cheap and sleazy and false imitation of it.  No matter how uncomfortable that makes today's scribbling class worried about being ostracized if they say it.

* The article has three pictures as illustration:

Jim Cramer:  Education: Harvard University (1984), Harvard Law School (1977), Springfield Township High School, Harvard College

Dinesh D'Sousa: Education: Dartmouth College

Thomas Friedman: Education: St Antony's College, Oxford (1979), Brandeis University (1973–1975), Saint Louis Park High School (1971), American University in Cairo, University of Minnesota.

These people are not the product of religion, they are the product of universities that are more corporate brothels than religious.  They've taken up careers as panderers after having been intellectual rent boys.

Update at lunchbreak:  Another Salon triptych as evidence of my point.

William Kristol Education: Harvard University, Harvard College, Collegiate School
Paul Wolfowitz Education: University of Chicago, Cornell University
Richard Cheney Education: Natrona  Casper College, University of Wyoming, Yale University, University of Wisconsin-Madison,

I don't think I'm bringing my laptop to work again.  It's too distracting and I have work to do.

Update 3:  Another blasted trinity
Robert Rubin Education: Yale Law School (1964), Harvard College
Lawrence Summers Education: Harvard University (1982), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1975)
Timothy GeithnerEducation: Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (1985), Dartmouth College (1983), Peking University, International School Bangkok, Beijing Normal University