I haven't watched any of the "debate"-First Night yet so I don't have any opinion about what was said. I am reading that my favorite on the policies, Elizabeth Warren is considered to have done damage to her position as the first among that first ten because she stuck to substance and that Julian Castro and Cory Booker did themselves a lot of good through a mix of the media actually covering their substance, them being able to cut through the horse-race "first runner" crap that's so much easier than covering substance.
But, then I read in the Washington Post that Warren did herself good too. Which is one of the problems with these ersatz "debates" and TV as a substitute for substance, the biggest reason I don't watch them. The Post article says that Bill de Blasio did himself a lot of good by cutting in, I don't know if that's true or not but if it is true, it also points to one of the problems of politics as "good TV" which is about entertainment with the purpose of selling product, it is what gave us Donald Trump to start with. If better than that can come of it? I'm skeptical that it will.
What this kind of spectacle isn't is a debate, you really can't have a debate with ten participants and the form of a debate is about the worst venue for getting to substance which can't often fit into a set format with time limits and a formal pattern of timed speeches and responses.
One of the reasons I don't watch debates - other than that at my age getting as angry as I can while watching those is a threat to life - is that I know what actually happened at the debate will not matter nearly as much as what the media promotes as the results of the debate. And I don't trust the media, though that corporate gang of spinners and liars are what will craft the real results of any debate. It is clear that they don't like Elizabeth Warren whose policies endanger their wealth and, let's be honest, THEY WILL NOT COVER ANY WOMAN WHO IS A DEMOCRAT FAIRLY WHEN HER OPPONENT IS A MAN. They didn't with Hillary Clinton, one of the most qualified if not the most qualified candidate in our history who was running against the least qualified, and, considering that includes George W. Bush, that's saying a lot. I can't find out where I read it, but I believe it was Julian Castro's
response that his passion and substance were what the media had
not been covering over the past several months of his campaign but which was always there. Which should give the people in the media something to reflect on but they never have reformed and they never will until community and public service are serious requirements for the electronic media. The permission the courts and Republican administrations have given broadcast and cabloid media to serve their interests and not the public good is why they have delivered public bad in mountain chains of corruption and evil and treason. Trump after George W. Bush - two illegitimate losers of elections installed in the presidency.
I don't think egalitarian democracy can survive the kind of media we have. I don't think it can survive on the diet of entertainment and lies that the American media sells for the purposes of its owners and the oligarchic class they belong to. Just Wednesday, one of my oldest friends told me that he'd come to realize something I've said for a while now, he said he had a faith that education would solve all of our problems. I said that all an education did without an effective moral foundation of the right sort was to produce more efficient gangsters, crooks and liars. I've mentioned before that one of my first really serious problems with Bill Clinton was when he went to a Hollywood fundraiser - I think during his first run for the presidency- and he asked them to help him form the American culture. While, no doubt, effective for getting those so flattered to open their wallets, having Hollywood form the American culture is what got us Trump. My preferred candidate in that primary was Tom Harkin, the Senator from Iowa, who I think would have been a far better president than Clinton was but who was buried by the media. No doubt they figured Clinton was better TV.
Thursday, June 27, 2019
Wednesday, June 26, 2019
Catholic But Not Under The Hierarchy
In May I noted that Google was obviously being googlebombed by right wingers and fascists in politics and, after doing some research on the allegedly non-tracking Duck-Duckgo search engine into some issues surrounding the unholy alliance between Catholic fascists and Steve Bannon, I'm coming to see that, if anything the small faction of right-wing, fascist, neo-Nazis among Catholics have done even more in that direction. Outrageously, they are blaming the right-wing bishops and cardinals who have both covered up for sexual abusers and, in some cases, may have participated, themselves on liberals. That is especially hypocritical in that virtually all of those who have been well investigated and for whose crimes there is ample evidence, were appointed by John Paul II and his chief henchman, the right wing Bendict XVI - who is obviously a center of extremist reactionary liars and gangsters.
While I have been very much in favor of much of what Pope Francis has written and much of what he has done, it's clear in recent weeks that he is feeling the pressure from that well-financed group of thugs and fascists. The recent walk back from progress on once-again, after more than a millenium, ordaining of Women to the diaconate, the just issued atrocity on gender, various other issues shows Francis is feeling the force of these thugs.
The viperous Raymond Burke's obvious caving to the criticism of his joining forces with Steve Bannon and who knows what billionaire backers of his neo-fascist promotion in Europe and the world is, I think, also evidence of this extreme right-wing attempt to take over the Catholic establishment, one which a large number of JPII BXVI era bishops and Cardinals have either played footsie with or have been a part of. And that's not to mention many right wing Catholic organizations - who put out a lot of the lies and shit that the googlebombing on Catholicism brings up to the front page.
As it is, I'm seeing, with Francis' reluctance to a. open the priesthood and other venues of authority in the Church to married People, Women as well as Men, is rapidly leading to large segments of The Church, which, by official Catholic teaching is The People, leaving the official church behind and reestablishing the parishes closed down to pay off the cost of male celibate sexual scandal. Only they're doing it by unofficially having Roman Catholic Womenpriests, laicized priests - many having been laicized so they could marry - to conduct masses for eucharistic communities. And in many cases, where ordained clergy may or may not be available, foregoing a ordained celebrant and communally consecrating bread and wine in a way which very likely is more like the original Eucharistic celebration from the earliest days of Christianity.
That "A" is big enough that I don't think I need to give a "B". just now.
I think Catholics in large number were willing to give Pope Francis a time to make substantial changes and he has changed much, but it's clear he's either unwilling to go far enough or, if he's willing, he is being thwarted by the right-wingers in the hierarchy and in the billionaire funded Catholic network of fraternal organizations, their auxiliaries, the vile sort of fascist organization that are like Opus Dei, The Legionaires of Christ, started by one of JPII's favorites, the criminal Marcial Marciel, who was so bad that Benedict XVI couldn't stomach him. There are many, many other such gangs of right-wing thugs in Catholicism, obviously some of them backing Steve Bannon's neo-fascist putsch.
As I said, people were willing to give it one last chance with Pope Francis but I am hearing more and more people who are fed up waiting. A few years back I remember hearing Sr. Simone Campbell saying that people shouldn't be surprised that Pope Francis, for all of the great improvement over his past two predecessors would only go so far in making reforms, being unwilling to risk a split in the Church. I am coming to the conclusion that in trying to prevent a schism with the right-wing among the Cardinals and Bishops and clergy and the billionaire backed establishment, he's unwittingly leading to a far bigger split with a far larger number of Catholics who have waited for the changes promised by Vatican II for more than half a century. The Catholic Church, with its long history, is infamous for its glacial rate of change. But I think that artifact of the past is one of the things that is giving way in reality. I think the time is coming when a large number, perhaps most people who identify with the Catholic Church will not be identified with official parishes, official bishops or even the Pope.
While I have been very much in favor of much of what Pope Francis has written and much of what he has done, it's clear in recent weeks that he is feeling the pressure from that well-financed group of thugs and fascists. The recent walk back from progress on once-again, after more than a millenium, ordaining of Women to the diaconate, the just issued atrocity on gender, various other issues shows Francis is feeling the force of these thugs.
The viperous Raymond Burke's obvious caving to the criticism of his joining forces with Steve Bannon and who knows what billionaire backers of his neo-fascist promotion in Europe and the world is, I think, also evidence of this extreme right-wing attempt to take over the Catholic establishment, one which a large number of JPII BXVI era bishops and Cardinals have either played footsie with or have been a part of. And that's not to mention many right wing Catholic organizations - who put out a lot of the lies and shit that the googlebombing on Catholicism brings up to the front page.
As it is, I'm seeing, with Francis' reluctance to a. open the priesthood and other venues of authority in the Church to married People, Women as well as Men, is rapidly leading to large segments of The Church, which, by official Catholic teaching is The People, leaving the official church behind and reestablishing the parishes closed down to pay off the cost of male celibate sexual scandal. Only they're doing it by unofficially having Roman Catholic Womenpriests, laicized priests - many having been laicized so they could marry - to conduct masses for eucharistic communities. And in many cases, where ordained clergy may or may not be available, foregoing a ordained celebrant and communally consecrating bread and wine in a way which very likely is more like the original Eucharistic celebration from the earliest days of Christianity.
That "A" is big enough that I don't think I need to give a "B". just now.
I think Catholics in large number were willing to give Pope Francis a time to make substantial changes and he has changed much, but it's clear he's either unwilling to go far enough or, if he's willing, he is being thwarted by the right-wingers in the hierarchy and in the billionaire funded Catholic network of fraternal organizations, their auxiliaries, the vile sort of fascist organization that are like Opus Dei, The Legionaires of Christ, started by one of JPII's favorites, the criminal Marcial Marciel, who was so bad that Benedict XVI couldn't stomach him. There are many, many other such gangs of right-wing thugs in Catholicism, obviously some of them backing Steve Bannon's neo-fascist putsch.
As I said, people were willing to give it one last chance with Pope Francis but I am hearing more and more people who are fed up waiting. A few years back I remember hearing Sr. Simone Campbell saying that people shouldn't be surprised that Pope Francis, for all of the great improvement over his past two predecessors would only go so far in making reforms, being unwilling to risk a split in the Church. I am coming to the conclusion that in trying to prevent a schism with the right-wing among the Cardinals and Bishops and clergy and the billionaire backed establishment, he's unwittingly leading to a far bigger split with a far larger number of Catholics who have waited for the changes promised by Vatican II for more than half a century. The Catholic Church, with its long history, is infamous for its glacial rate of change. But I think that artifact of the past is one of the things that is giving way in reality. I think the time is coming when a large number, perhaps most people who identify with the Catholic Church will not be identified with official parishes, official bishops or even the Pope.
Tuesday, June 25, 2019
About Comments
I moderate all comments because I sometimes have been deluged with hate mail. I don't so much mind the ones that slam me but will not post those that libel or slander or possibly libel or slander third parties. And there are other reasons that I choose not to post many of the comments I get. Sometimes I'm busy and don't have time to review them. Sometimes, if the content confuses me I won't post it because I don't know what to make of it. Sometimes I just choose not to. I don't think I've ever edited a comment that gets through moderation, though I might be forgetting something. There is no automatic exclusion of comments.
The comments from Simps got old and I was feeling cheap when I answered them. I was brought up not to exploit the feeble minded.
The comments from Simps got old and I was feeling cheap when I answered them. I was brought up not to exploit the feeble minded.
True Confession - Perhaps My Most Perfect Moment - It Just Happened!
I had been in my garden all morning and was covered with sweat and garden dirt and, as I just got rained on, mud. I had just returned home and, as I do, I stripped off all my dirt encrusted clothes behind my house where no one can see unless they're spying on me. And, let me be totally honest, who would? As I went in the back door, who was looking in my front door window but the stinking awful Republican representative for my district (he's from the next town over and didn't know who I am).
Seeing the shocked look on his face at seeing me stark naked, I said, "Oh, I imagine you've seen worse, I know I am."
I imagine the story will be all over town by the weekend so I figure why not tell on myself. I never did find out what he wanted.
Seeing the shocked look on his face at seeing me stark naked, I said, "Oh, I imagine you've seen worse, I know I am."
I imagine the story will be all over town by the weekend so I figure why not tell on myself. I never did find out what he wanted.
Monday, June 24, 2019
Vintage Hate Mail - Turing's Idea Of A Test Was Too Easy - "AI" All The Way Down?
The infamously often cited "Turing Test" claims that when a computer can fool a person into thinking they are interacting with a person instead of a computer, then the materialist-sceinticistic ideologues can claim victory in having proved that human consciousness is a material artifact. I don't think that's really what Turing said - though his opacity in expression would be his fault - but it's what many a geek piously believes he said.
But that's not much of a test, reportedly one that Turing based on a game of gay male culture of his time in which, or so I read, you had to guess if someone was a woman or a particularly convincing female impersonator by getting them to answer questions.
Why wouldn't it make more sense to say that when a computer CAN FOOL ANOTHER COMPUTER, OR A PERSON CAN FOOL A COMPUTER then THAT "insight" would be more convincing proof of "artificial intelligence". Though, since they always follow whatever instructions People put into them, whether or not the results are what the human programmer anticipated, they might be considered to have failed that test. Even the testing program would be the result of that kind of human creation, ingenuity - only as good as the programmer who wrote the program, is a product of human minds which have to be able to transcend material causation to judge if the results were the right ones or the wrong ones.
Turing was very, very smart. But he could be victimized by his own ideological orientation just like every other person can, but which machines can't have unless people put them there.
But that's not much of a test, reportedly one that Turing based on a game of gay male culture of his time in which, or so I read, you had to guess if someone was a woman or a particularly convincing female impersonator by getting them to answer questions.
Why wouldn't it make more sense to say that when a computer CAN FOOL ANOTHER COMPUTER, OR A PERSON CAN FOOL A COMPUTER then THAT "insight" would be more convincing proof of "artificial intelligence". Though, since they always follow whatever instructions People put into them, whether or not the results are what the human programmer anticipated, they might be considered to have failed that test. Even the testing program would be the result of that kind of human creation, ingenuity - only as good as the programmer who wrote the program, is a product of human minds which have to be able to transcend material causation to judge if the results were the right ones or the wrong ones.
Turing was very, very smart. But he could be victimized by his own ideological orientation just like every other person can, but which machines can't have unless people put them there.
God Damn Republicans
Through my rage and furious sadness over the revelations of the continued Trump incarceration of babies, toddlers, young children, young adolescents, teenagers - not to mention adults - in early Andersonville like conditions that seem to be getting worse, as led to that Civil War era crime against humanity, I am finding it impossible to write about it.
Luckily, my friend RMJ is writing about it, as are the various others he references and quotes. This piece, one of many he has posted, is worth entirely more than anything I'm going to write today.
I am finding it impossible not to hate Republicans who sustain this crime against children and babies and humanity. They are all responsible for it. Including Robert Muller, the Sphinx of Republican establishment complicity.
Luckily, my friend RMJ is writing about it, as are the various others he references and quotes. This piece, one of many he has posted, is worth entirely more than anything I'm going to write today.
I am finding it impossible not to hate Republicans who sustain this crime against children and babies and humanity. They are all responsible for it. Including Robert Muller, the Sphinx of Republican establishment complicity.
Coming To You From A Minty Fresh 7 Year Old Computer
For anyone who might be interested - don't laugh, it is within the realm of possibility that someone might be - I have been using Linux Mint for the past few days and am coming to finding it as entirely satisfactory as I have any other operating system I've used. No, that's not true, I'm finding it more so than either the object of cult devotion that is the Mac OS or any of the various DOS (ugh!) or Windows versions I've used. It is entirely superior to either Windows 10 or the odious Windows 8, which might be the OS's I've hated the most of any I've used.
I got a clean and very inexpensive disc of it from OSDisc.com in the end, after finding the free download system with its incredibly frustrating regime of checking md5 checksums and the like more frustrating than helpful. With that clean disc, once I found out how to disable the "safe-boot" monstrosity of Windows 8 and deciding to just install it, wiping Windows off of my computer [AFTER COPYING ALL OF MY WANTED FILES TO FLASH DRIVES] it was easy as anything. Mint is designed to be an easy step from Windows to Linux and I found it to be that, though it has a few differences I'm still learning about.
I'm using the same Libreoffice word processor so that wasn't much of a change, the same for Audacity audio-editing (though I'm hoping to be able to use my dear old Audiolabs editor with it through the Wine application) and most of the other software is either exactly the same or identical.
I've also tried Puppy Linux and like it, having installed it on a flash drive so I can carry it around to other computers I might have to use. I also tried Tiny Core which is, indeed, fast due to its tiny size but which has a limited repertoire of applications. I'm still working on learning what uses it reportedly has in running old computers.
Mint got some bad raps from the geeks, I suspect because it was designed for non-geek comfort and peace of mind. I use my computer to do things in the real world, not as an exercise in geek vanity.
I got a clean and very inexpensive disc of it from OSDisc.com in the end, after finding the free download system with its incredibly frustrating regime of checking md5 checksums and the like more frustrating than helpful. With that clean disc, once I found out how to disable the "safe-boot" monstrosity of Windows 8 and deciding to just install it, wiping Windows off of my computer [AFTER COPYING ALL OF MY WANTED FILES TO FLASH DRIVES] it was easy as anything. Mint is designed to be an easy step from Windows to Linux and I found it to be that, though it has a few differences I'm still learning about.
I'm using the same Libreoffice word processor so that wasn't much of a change, the same for Audacity audio-editing (though I'm hoping to be able to use my dear old Audiolabs editor with it through the Wine application) and most of the other software is either exactly the same or identical.
I've also tried Puppy Linux and like it, having installed it on a flash drive so I can carry it around to other computers I might have to use. I also tried Tiny Core which is, indeed, fast due to its tiny size but which has a limited repertoire of applications. I'm still working on learning what uses it reportedly has in running old computers.
Mint got some bad raps from the geeks, I suspect because it was designed for non-geek comfort and peace of mind. I use my computer to do things in the real world, not as an exercise in geek vanity.
Sunday, June 23, 2019
Woodstock, bah!
As I'm typing this the radio is telling me that the Woodstock thing was something that changed the world. To which I answer, Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush I, Bush II, Trump, I'd go on to list the wars the United States started and waged, the U.S. supported coup in Chile, the dirty war in Argentina, the terrorist campaign in Central America, other support of some of the most vicious mass murderers in the post-war period in Latin America, Africa, Asia, Indonesia, etc., the invasion of Iraq, the resurgence of racism and hate speech as "free speech", the successful blocking of the Equal Rights Amendment, the weak Democratic presidencies, THE STEADILY WORSENING WAR ON THE BIOSPHERE, resurgent sexism . . . For crying out loud, if it had "changed things" we would never have had Reagan the Bushes or Trump.
Woodstock as it is presented in the imaginations of myriads of people born after the debacle in the mud, many geezers who never were there, the promoters of its myth, never did anything but produce Joni Mitchell's piece of crap anthem (she wasn't there and is pretty much a right-winger now) an album and movie and who knows how much other commercial crap.
I didn't go, I hated rock music for the most part and couldn't abide the pretensions of the baby-boomer generation which didn't change the world for the better except in so far as it had some effect on the lifestyle of the affluent, the white, the male (for the most part) and for affluent White Women, somewhat. That is if they're of a certain level of affluence. Not much has changed for the better for the lower income and destitute except that they were a lot better off, economically, in 1969 and there were fewer people on the edge and over the edge.
So, you see, I'm unenthusiastic for that bull shit.
Update: Did you think I made that up? It was this show this morning.
The Woodstock music festival was one of the most pivotal events of the last century — even though very little about it went according to plan.
I'm surprised such a man of the world in his own mind never heard anyone peddle that line of horseshit, or are you just getting forgetful in your dotage? I'm not.
Update 2: I've never been so hard up for "peer acceptance" that I was willing to look for it any old place, among drunken, violent high school jerks or those in jr. high, among the jocks or the kewel kids. Which is why I didn't care about hanging around Eschaton after I'd learned everything about play-lefty self-indulgence and progress hampering futility that you guys had to teach me. As as it was ran that experiment way longer than it needed. It's hilarious that a geezer in his 70s reduces everything to whether you're in wit the groovy in-crowd, the kewel kids who sit on the school steps.
Update 3: And now, now that I've said I had graduated from jr. high, the idiot is going for full 2nd grade "I know you are but what am I?"
Woodstock as it is presented in the imaginations of myriads of people born after the debacle in the mud, many geezers who never were there, the promoters of its myth, never did anything but produce Joni Mitchell's piece of crap anthem (she wasn't there and is pretty much a right-winger now) an album and movie and who knows how much other commercial crap.
I didn't go, I hated rock music for the most part and couldn't abide the pretensions of the baby-boomer generation which didn't change the world for the better except in so far as it had some effect on the lifestyle of the affluent, the white, the male (for the most part) and for affluent White Women, somewhat. That is if they're of a certain level of affluence. Not much has changed for the better for the lower income and destitute except that they were a lot better off, economically, in 1969 and there were fewer people on the edge and over the edge.
So, you see, I'm unenthusiastic for that bull shit.
Update: Did you think I made that up? It was this show this morning.
The Woodstock music festival was one of the most pivotal events of the last century — even though very little about it went according to plan.
I'm surprised such a man of the world in his own mind never heard anyone peddle that line of horseshit, or are you just getting forgetful in your dotage? I'm not.
Update 2: I've never been so hard up for "peer acceptance" that I was willing to look for it any old place, among drunken, violent high school jerks or those in jr. high, among the jocks or the kewel kids. Which is why I didn't care about hanging around Eschaton after I'd learned everything about play-lefty self-indulgence and progress hampering futility that you guys had to teach me. As as it was ran that experiment way longer than it needed. It's hilarious that a geezer in his 70s reduces everything to whether you're in wit the groovy in-crowd, the kewel kids who sit on the school steps.
Update 3: And now, now that I've said I had graduated from jr. high, the idiot is going for full 2nd grade "I know you are but what am I?"
Saturday, June 22, 2019
Saturday Night Radio Drama - Various Authors - Write Your Mind
Write Your Mind is a play about Youth Mental Health, weaving together monologues devised by writers with young people. The play was devised by the JIGSAW Offaly Service in partnership with Offaly Youth Theatre, with Eugene O’Brien as Writing Consultant and Angela Ryan Whyte as Director.
The result is a powerful collage of experience, from friendship to anxiety attacks, bereavement, relationships at home, wild parties, job interviews, pranks, and the never-ending struggle with social media.The monologues featured are:School Tour by Lorna Kelly Dalton, performed by Eimear Regan.Man Up, with concept by Andrew Joseph Brown and adapted for stage and radio by Ali Scanlon, performed by Adam Cooper.
The Help by Niall Cleary, performed by Helen Brady.Make Up Your Mind by Rory Duffy, performed by Jamie Nolan.
The Mystery of the Missing Mars Bar by Caroline Bracken, performed by Emma Cranston.
Director: Angela Ryan Whyte
Writing Consultant: Eugene O’BrienSound Supervision and Sound Design: Ciarán Dunne and Ruth KenningtonProducer for RTÉ: Kevin Brew
Series Producer: Kevin Reynolds.Note from Mike Mansfield, Head of Communications and Fundraising, JIGSAW.Jigsaw is a free mental health support service for young people aged 12-25 situated in the heart of 13 local communities across Ireland. We provide a range of supports to young people and the adults in their communities, including one-to-one therapy sessions with young people, and group work with, parents, school teachers, health professionals and more. In line with Jigsaw’s vision of an Ireland where every young person’s mental health is valued and supported, all Jigsaw services work to improve the mental health outcomes for young people and develop mentally healthy and supportive communities that can continue to thrive long after our work is done.
Not the usual type of play I post but one that is worth hearing. The RTÉ site says that if you are experiencing some of the problems described in the plays, you should contact Samaritans or other emergency help. Here is the site for Jigsaw in Ireland, this is the site for Samaritans in the United States. I know there are listeners here from other countries but I don't know which ones to post for those.
Hate Mail - More Of An Answer Than The Comment Deserves But I'm Feeling Generous Today
The God revealed in the Bible is filtered through human imagination.
Walter Brueggemann
That idea isn't at all rare among those who believe in God, though there are certainly people who never think about it hard enough to realize that's exactly what the Bible, in fact, all scripture is. It's my experience it's far more commonly realized among religious people than it is realized among atheists of the modern area that science, mathematics, etc. are physical phenomena and the abstraction of numbers and their properties are, to EXACTLY the same extent, filtered through human imagination. We couldn't possibly articulate the first idea about anything without imagining it first, words, themselves, are a human invention in order to act as that tertiary filter that can articulate what we imagine, what we think about what we perceive. perception being the first filter of the world external to our minds but secondary to our own perception of our minds.
It is one of the consequences of modernity, of scientism that people imagine science as a direct expression of the physical universe when such a direct access to external reality is not possible. Among those who work in science but who maintain that false conception of what science is, what it does, its most basic vicissitudes, exigencies and limits, show the shocking extent to which one is allowed to make a career in science, to gain what is mistaken as authority in science while not having grasped or taken seriously the most basic foundations of its theoretical construction. Descartes and Bacon, among those who invented modern science and scientific method, were explicitly trying to reproduce in natural philosophy the level of reliable certitude achievable in pure mathematics, mathematics being the rigorous logical analysis of numbers and their properties and operations on them - which are all knowable only as imaginary entities. The irony of modern scientism of the sort that regularly derides religion based on its imaginative practices is that its very language, mathematics, is the most obviously pure practice of imagination, through which all of scientific method is performed.
So, no, I'm not in the least bit troubled that some peoples' imaginations lead them to other conclusions about God. I have made the choice to recognize what I believe is the superior record of imagining God as found in the Jewish scriptures and its children, Christianity and Islam while respecting that God has not cut off other people whose imaginations have led to other articulations of God - a rather surprising number of those I'd been told and I believed were "polytheistic" turn out to be not that different from the Monotheism of Christianity that believes in saints and angels. A lot of that "polytheism" turns out to be an imaginative extension of what is, at its most central level, monotheism. The key difference between the gods of Greek mythology and the God which the Jewish scriptures articulate is that the gods of the Greeks were created creatures subject to physical or fatalistic forces whereas the Jewish imagination gets to a God who is not so subjugated, not created.
Another difference, one of the most crucial ones for me, is that the God of the Bible is the most potent origination point of egalitarian democracy. I see that and it is one of the most important reasons that I believe based on my experience and observation of life.
Walter Brueggemann
That idea isn't at all rare among those who believe in God, though there are certainly people who never think about it hard enough to realize that's exactly what the Bible, in fact, all scripture is. It's my experience it's far more commonly realized among religious people than it is realized among atheists of the modern area that science, mathematics, etc. are physical phenomena and the abstraction of numbers and their properties are, to EXACTLY the same extent, filtered through human imagination. We couldn't possibly articulate the first idea about anything without imagining it first, words, themselves, are a human invention in order to act as that tertiary filter that can articulate what we imagine, what we think about what we perceive. perception being the first filter of the world external to our minds but secondary to our own perception of our minds.
It is one of the consequences of modernity, of scientism that people imagine science as a direct expression of the physical universe when such a direct access to external reality is not possible. Among those who work in science but who maintain that false conception of what science is, what it does, its most basic vicissitudes, exigencies and limits, show the shocking extent to which one is allowed to make a career in science, to gain what is mistaken as authority in science while not having grasped or taken seriously the most basic foundations of its theoretical construction. Descartes and Bacon, among those who invented modern science and scientific method, were explicitly trying to reproduce in natural philosophy the level of reliable certitude achievable in pure mathematics, mathematics being the rigorous logical analysis of numbers and their properties and operations on them - which are all knowable only as imaginary entities. The irony of modern scientism of the sort that regularly derides religion based on its imaginative practices is that its very language, mathematics, is the most obviously pure practice of imagination, through which all of scientific method is performed.
So, no, I'm not in the least bit troubled that some peoples' imaginations lead them to other conclusions about God. I have made the choice to recognize what I believe is the superior record of imagining God as found in the Jewish scriptures and its children, Christianity and Islam while respecting that God has not cut off other people whose imaginations have led to other articulations of God - a rather surprising number of those I'd been told and I believed were "polytheistic" turn out to be not that different from the Monotheism of Christianity that believes in saints and angels. A lot of that "polytheism" turns out to be an imaginative extension of what is, at its most central level, monotheism. The key difference between the gods of Greek mythology and the God which the Jewish scriptures articulate is that the gods of the Greeks were created creatures subject to physical or fatalistic forces whereas the Jewish imagination gets to a God who is not so subjugated, not created.
Another difference, one of the most crucial ones for me, is that the God of the Bible is the most potent origination point of egalitarian democracy. I see that and it is one of the most important reasons that I believe based on my experience and observation of life.
The Comparison Of The Trump Sexual Assault And, Now Rape Scandals With The Naughtiness of Anthony Weiner Etc.
Since E. Jean Carroll's recent accusation that Donald Trump violently sexually assaulted her, Trump lying about ever having met her when there is at least one picture of them together, I believe the 24th Woman to have said Donald Trump did to them exactly what he bragged is his method of sexual assault in the tape of his conversation with Billy Bush which came out before the 2016 election, it's clear that there are probably more women who support the claims that he is a serial sexual assaulter, just as he bragged of being.
Compare the Republican media in the United States' handling of the accusation of violent sexual assault to, first, this incident of Boris Johnson's neighbors calling the police to a violent fight between him and his girlfriend he lives with as described by the erudite and reasonable Phil Moore, in which the neighbors who not only called the police to the incident, which was so loud and so angry that thy were able to record it at, apparently, clearly audible levels from their own apartment and, I would expect, the media that they leaked it to.
Now, also compare how the violent sexual assault that Trump is accused of by women willing to put themselves through the wringer through, to the infamous but far less serious CAREER ENDING scandal that the Democratic Congressman Anthony Weiner called down on himself by sending entirely non-violent, mutually consensual sexting pictures of himself which was treated as a far more serious scandal than Trump's sexual assaults and, if Ms. Carroll's description is accurate, rape, is handled. If the media had treated the original Trump scandals seriously, first the release of him bragging about being a sexual assaulter to Billy Bush, then multiple women confirming that he did exactly what he bragged about doing to them and, now, this latest one, Donald Trump would never have been in the presidency, wracking up the record as, demonstrably, the worst president in our history with the full support of Republicans in the Congress, outside of Congress, in the Republican oriented media that has not disowned and opposed him. Clearly, as can be seen in the case of the oafish Boris Johnson, right-wing politics and media are willing to have these men in the highest positions of power.
Thinking this week about Trump and how "originalists" who claim a devotion to the intentions of the "founders" that overrides any possible progress in learning and wisdom having been gained in the 232 years of testing the Constitution as it originally came out of them proves how, not only hypocritical but entirely stupid the ideology of American conservatism is. I mean, to formally adopt the position that you are to learn nothing from experience of the hardest sort which a bad administration, a bad Congress, a demonstrably corrupt and sleazy Supreme Court a misled or corrupted electorate has delivered, numerous times in our 232 year history of the Constitution is an obviously stupid and corrupt position that parades itself as a principle. It is based in the hagiographic lies that nationalistic civics and history is so often corrupted with, the kind of thing that a reverence for slave owners and self-interested merchants, the cheapest form of American "patriotism" is constructed of.
It is certainly a symptom of the corrupt motives of American conservatives that they, in their allegedly highest levels of pricipled adherence to the Constitution, the pretenses of "originalism" or "patriotism" are willing to impose and keep the stupidest, most corrupt, most blatantly self-indulgent AND CRIMINAL man in the office of the presidency, someone who was not even put there by the majority of Voters but by a combination of lies peddled through the media BY FOREIGN AS WELL AS DOMESTIC GANGSTERS and who is dangerously running the United States into the ground. And the whole thing is covered by the flimsiest of transparent rotted cheese cloth. The kind of stuff that Trump is hoping will come out of the Republican-fascist majority on the Supreme Court and lower courts, the kind of lofty lies that Republicans and conservatives in the legal profession specialize in peddling.
The slogans of conservatism, of Republican, Trumpian conservatism have to be turned into the disreputable jokes they are. Whenever someone says "originalism" "the founding fathers" etc. they should be laughed at in the mockery those terms deserve.
I hope later this week to attack such "originalism" in a longer piece.
----------------
Trump should always be considered to be a product of the corruption intentionally put into the Constitution in the form of the Electoral college which, in its history has produced four presidencies, those of John Quincy Adams, Rutherford Hayes, George W. Bush and Donald Trump. If you wanted to argue that John Quincy Adams was, in fact, superior to Andrew Jackson, I would grant you that. Jackson's viciousness and ruthlessness, what made him the favorite of the slave states, was something Adams noted as he offered him the Vice Presidency - on the basis that he would be powerless to kill anyone from that position. Is it any wonder that Trump and Mnuchin want to keep Jackson on the $20 instead of one of our greatest beacons of freedom, Harriet Tubman?
But the other three cases prove that in at least three out of four of those instances in which the loser of the election won the presidency, The People got it right whereas the "fonders" installed some really horrible losers into the presidency. That all three of them did things that promoted racists and their interests might prove the "wisdom" of the "founders" but only that their corruption of democratic process to prevent democracy prevailing works for that corrupt purpose. It putting Adams who, in his later Congressional career became the champion of abolition, into the presidency is an historic irony, though Adams was never that much of an abolitionist until he became a member of the House of Representatives.
We've got to get rid of the disastrous Electoral College and we really need to replace the unpleasant reality about the "founders" and the dangerous parts of the Constitution they wrote which have had such continuing and horrific consequences for us, today.
The Maine Legislature which was expected to vote to join the interstate compact to bypass the Electoral College failed to do that, narrowly in the House. the Maine Senate had earlier passed it. The argument made against it was that Maine gained something by having a measly four electoral votes, some imagined advantage in relation to other states, some of which, having only three, one would imagine have more of an advantage over larger states, including, marginally, Maine. Such stupidity and obvious anti-democratic corruption - what else does such an "advantage" consist of? - is a vice related to that mentioned above.
Compare the Republican media in the United States' handling of the accusation of violent sexual assault to, first, this incident of Boris Johnson's neighbors calling the police to a violent fight between him and his girlfriend he lives with as described by the erudite and reasonable Phil Moore, in which the neighbors who not only called the police to the incident, which was so loud and so angry that thy were able to record it at, apparently, clearly audible levels from their own apartment and, I would expect, the media that they leaked it to.
Now, also compare how the violent sexual assault that Trump is accused of by women willing to put themselves through the wringer through, to the infamous but far less serious CAREER ENDING scandal that the Democratic Congressman Anthony Weiner called down on himself by sending entirely non-violent, mutually consensual sexting pictures of himself which was treated as a far more serious scandal than Trump's sexual assaults and, if Ms. Carroll's description is accurate, rape, is handled. If the media had treated the original Trump scandals seriously, first the release of him bragging about being a sexual assaulter to Billy Bush, then multiple women confirming that he did exactly what he bragged about doing to them and, now, this latest one, Donald Trump would never have been in the presidency, wracking up the record as, demonstrably, the worst president in our history with the full support of Republicans in the Congress, outside of Congress, in the Republican oriented media that has not disowned and opposed him. Clearly, as can be seen in the case of the oafish Boris Johnson, right-wing politics and media are willing to have these men in the highest positions of power.
Thinking this week about Trump and how "originalists" who claim a devotion to the intentions of the "founders" that overrides any possible progress in learning and wisdom having been gained in the 232 years of testing the Constitution as it originally came out of them proves how, not only hypocritical but entirely stupid the ideology of American conservatism is. I mean, to formally adopt the position that you are to learn nothing from experience of the hardest sort which a bad administration, a bad Congress, a demonstrably corrupt and sleazy Supreme Court a misled or corrupted electorate has delivered, numerous times in our 232 year history of the Constitution is an obviously stupid and corrupt position that parades itself as a principle. It is based in the hagiographic lies that nationalistic civics and history is so often corrupted with, the kind of thing that a reverence for slave owners and self-interested merchants, the cheapest form of American "patriotism" is constructed of.
It is certainly a symptom of the corrupt motives of American conservatives that they, in their allegedly highest levels of pricipled adherence to the Constitution, the pretenses of "originalism" or "patriotism" are willing to impose and keep the stupidest, most corrupt, most blatantly self-indulgent AND CRIMINAL man in the office of the presidency, someone who was not even put there by the majority of Voters but by a combination of lies peddled through the media BY FOREIGN AS WELL AS DOMESTIC GANGSTERS and who is dangerously running the United States into the ground. And the whole thing is covered by the flimsiest of transparent rotted cheese cloth. The kind of stuff that Trump is hoping will come out of the Republican-fascist majority on the Supreme Court and lower courts, the kind of lofty lies that Republicans and conservatives in the legal profession specialize in peddling.
The slogans of conservatism, of Republican, Trumpian conservatism have to be turned into the disreputable jokes they are. Whenever someone says "originalism" "the founding fathers" etc. they should be laughed at in the mockery those terms deserve.
I hope later this week to attack such "originalism" in a longer piece.
----------------
Trump should always be considered to be a product of the corruption intentionally put into the Constitution in the form of the Electoral college which, in its history has produced four presidencies, those of John Quincy Adams, Rutherford Hayes, George W. Bush and Donald Trump. If you wanted to argue that John Quincy Adams was, in fact, superior to Andrew Jackson, I would grant you that. Jackson's viciousness and ruthlessness, what made him the favorite of the slave states, was something Adams noted as he offered him the Vice Presidency - on the basis that he would be powerless to kill anyone from that position. Is it any wonder that Trump and Mnuchin want to keep Jackson on the $20 instead of one of our greatest beacons of freedom, Harriet Tubman?
But the other three cases prove that in at least three out of four of those instances in which the loser of the election won the presidency, The People got it right whereas the "fonders" installed some really horrible losers into the presidency. That all three of them did things that promoted racists and their interests might prove the "wisdom" of the "founders" but only that their corruption of democratic process to prevent democracy prevailing works for that corrupt purpose. It putting Adams who, in his later Congressional career became the champion of abolition, into the presidency is an historic irony, though Adams was never that much of an abolitionist until he became a member of the House of Representatives.
We've got to get rid of the disastrous Electoral College and we really need to replace the unpleasant reality about the "founders" and the dangerous parts of the Constitution they wrote which have had such continuing and horrific consequences for us, today.
The Maine Legislature which was expected to vote to join the interstate compact to bypass the Electoral College failed to do that, narrowly in the House. the Maine Senate had earlier passed it. The argument made against it was that Maine gained something by having a measly four electoral votes, some imagined advantage in relation to other states, some of which, having only three, one would imagine have more of an advantage over larger states, including, marginally, Maine. Such stupidity and obvious anti-democratic corruption - what else does such an "advantage" consist of? - is a vice related to that mentioned above.
Friday, June 21, 2019
Don't Care
Don't care. Almost the last adults left Geritol Atol in about 2012, I know, I stayed too long, I should have left seven years earlier. Duncan Black isn't even pretending much anymore. They're as in the past as those events I wrote about not caring about earlier in the week.
So Many Crises So Many Other Things To Not Care About - Stupid Hate Mail
Trump and his crime gang are still holding babies in for-profit prison camps, children as young as three and younger left to be cared for by young teenage girls incarcerated with them, left in dirty clothes, without diapers, without adequate food and water, getting sick with influenza and God only knows what else. Given that, I couldn't give less of a fuck about a bunch of atheists stupid enough to bring that concrete cross case publicity stunt* in the 2019 Roberts Court - did the asses really believe they were going to win? - losing as anyone smarter than a "Humanist" (apparently) would have known would happen. Let me know when it kills someone like the Trump regime is and is apparently going to start doing in a war with Iran. I don't care much more about that ruling than I do The Passion of The Rosenbergs - version the infinity.
* You really know when a group is useless when it brings publicity lawsuits it is obviously going to lose so they can whine and complain about how put-upon they are, how their feelings are so hurted by an inanimate object that is no clear and present danger to anyone who doesn't go close enough to have pieces of it fall on them.
* You really know when a group is useless when it brings publicity lawsuits it is obviously going to lose so they can whine and complain about how put-upon they are, how their feelings are so hurted by an inanimate object that is no clear and present danger to anyone who doesn't go close enough to have pieces of it fall on them.
Thursday, June 20, 2019
Hate Mail - Meh!
The concrete cross case? I'd forgotten all about it. Things are going to hell, there are more important things to do than think about atheist groups' publicity lawsuits. I read the excerpts from RBG's dissent and can't disagree with anything she said in it but it's nothing I'm going to spend any time worrying about. Has it killed anyone in the 95 or so years the thing has been up?
Hate Mail
Atheism has been part of the process of people stuck in places like Madison, Wisconsin, Girad, Kansas, Orono-Bangor*, Maine and, especially among the pretentious kewlsters of New York City to pretend they were kewel radicals saying outrageously transgressive things that would make people think they were kewel. What it was was them saying stupid stuff that impressed mostly others of their kind and most other people ignored. It's also part of math deficient people in the humanities and other non-kewel science fields to pretend they're hep to science when they're not. As I've pointed out, the irony of that is that those guys turn science into a pious observance reliant, not on understanding, but appeal to authority, their faith making it next to impossible for them to understand what they're doing.
It's also been the resentment of creepy boys who figure that if only those girls who refuse them were atheists they'd have sex with them - I think that was a big part of it with many a college faculty heathen. See Also: "Elevatorgate".
What it isn't is a sign of intellectual power. As I've said, Hans Kung, Elizabeth A. Johnson, Walter Brueggemann, Marilynne Robinson, etc. are great intellectuals, especially as compared to the "Bright" lites of atheism. I mean, Dennett, one of their higher power intellectuals tried to popularlize atheists taking on that name, "Brights" which was one of the stupidest ideas of the last quarter century.
* When I was in college I wrote a word-jazz style piece about Bangor hipsters that I wish I still had. I'd like to know if it still worked. I wonder if there are still Bangor hipsters.
Update: Big deal. I played live on Radio Po-Go probably about the same time you recorded that crap. I got over it, you're still imagining it's your big chance. I imagine it was part of their oldies nostalgia, neuralgia show or something. Geezer rockers trying to remember where they left their little blue whoopie pills for 60 year old groupies. It's rock'nroll or rather hawk and drool.
I'd rather hear Down Memory Lane with Toby L. And I don't listen to that, anymore.
Update 2: "When you work for a low powered station that doesn't make money you have to fill lots of air time with free shit." A friend who has managed a low power radio station. I just ran this past him, he chuckled.
Update 3: I think you should get checked for presbycusis. I think when you think someone was saying you were a "cool cat" what they really said was that you're a "coot prat".
It's also been the resentment of creepy boys who figure that if only those girls who refuse them were atheists they'd have sex with them - I think that was a big part of it with many a college faculty heathen. See Also: "Elevatorgate".
What it isn't is a sign of intellectual power. As I've said, Hans Kung, Elizabeth A. Johnson, Walter Brueggemann, Marilynne Robinson, etc. are great intellectuals, especially as compared to the "Bright" lites of atheism. I mean, Dennett, one of their higher power intellectuals tried to popularlize atheists taking on that name, "Brights" which was one of the stupidest ideas of the last quarter century.
* When I was in college I wrote a word-jazz style piece about Bangor hipsters that I wish I still had. I'd like to know if it still worked. I wonder if there are still Bangor hipsters.
Update: Big deal. I played live on Radio Po-Go probably about the same time you recorded that crap. I got over it, you're still imagining it's your big chance. I imagine it was part of their oldies nostalgia, neuralgia show or something. Geezer rockers trying to remember where they left their little blue whoopie pills for 60 year old groupies. It's rock'nroll or rather hawk and drool.
I'd rather hear Down Memory Lane with Toby L. And I don't listen to that, anymore.
Update 2: "When you work for a low powered station that doesn't make money you have to fill lots of air time with free shit." A friend who has managed a low power radio station. I just ran this past him, he chuckled.
Update 3: I think you should get checked for presbycusis. I think when you think someone was saying you were a "cool cat" what they really said was that you're a "coot prat".
Issue Subpoenas For Public Testimony Enforce The Ones Flouted Jail Those Who Are In Contempt Of Congress
I have been totally supportive of the House leadership conduct of the investigation into the Trump regime crimes up till now, but with Hope Hicks' antics of yesterday, they are really risking blowing it.
Jerrold Nadler, who I have deep respect for is proving that he doesn't really get how this can be done effectively, perhaps that is the result of him running in one of the very safest of districts for him. His voters are already there, he seems to have little idea of how to get more voters in more Congressional districts to see through the Trumpian crimes that will lead to stopping them and holding the criminals accountable. He seems to have the idea that that will be accomplished by nice, neat orderly legal practices more appropriate to a court in which a judge will be making a decision, I don't think his process would work very effectively with a jury, it certainly won't work to do what needs to be done.
Perhaps that same phenomenon of a great person but who, being from an entirely safe seat, something that she, herself has noted, leads Nancy Pelosi to a reticence that leads her to not agree to opening this as an explicitly named impeachment inquiry. While I agree with her that the exercise of an impeachment is futile with the Republican-fascist control of the Senate, the use of an impeachment inquiry could be used to attack their part as accomplices and protectors of the Trump regime. Nancy Pelosi is concerned about losing members holding marginally held districts, at this point she's risking discouraging loyal Democrats who are already there.
At the very least it's time to compel people like McGahn, Hicks to testify,fully, in public, on TV, it's time haul their asses into court and ordered to testify, knocking down the obstruction of the Trump regime and its lawyer thugs. It's time to enforce contempt against Mnuchin, Barr and the rest of those who are already in contempt of Congress, it's time to arrest them. If anyone thinks Mnuchin will care about the highest fine that the Congress is going to press against him, they should think again.
The courtly timeline of the leadership in Congress is already risking backfiring against Democrats and democracy, the t's have been crossed, the i's have been dotted, the commas and apostrphes are all in the right places. The time of laying out a case that this is obstruction of a legal and Constitutionally mandated invesigation is passed, it's time to put the case in front of the third article branch and test them to see if Trump's bet that he and Senate Republicans have stuffed the courts with partisan fascists is true because it is almost a certainty if he has then all of the Constitutional framing has fallen in due to unchecked rot. It's time to find out if it still works, it is time to find out if it needs to be condemned as a hazard to pulbic safety.
Jerrold Nadler, who I have deep respect for is proving that he doesn't really get how this can be done effectively, perhaps that is the result of him running in one of the very safest of districts for him. His voters are already there, he seems to have little idea of how to get more voters in more Congressional districts to see through the Trumpian crimes that will lead to stopping them and holding the criminals accountable. He seems to have the idea that that will be accomplished by nice, neat orderly legal practices more appropriate to a court in which a judge will be making a decision, I don't think his process would work very effectively with a jury, it certainly won't work to do what needs to be done.
Perhaps that same phenomenon of a great person but who, being from an entirely safe seat, something that she, herself has noted, leads Nancy Pelosi to a reticence that leads her to not agree to opening this as an explicitly named impeachment inquiry. While I agree with her that the exercise of an impeachment is futile with the Republican-fascist control of the Senate, the use of an impeachment inquiry could be used to attack their part as accomplices and protectors of the Trump regime. Nancy Pelosi is concerned about losing members holding marginally held districts, at this point she's risking discouraging loyal Democrats who are already there.
At the very least it's time to compel people like McGahn, Hicks to testify,fully, in public, on TV, it's time haul their asses into court and ordered to testify, knocking down the obstruction of the Trump regime and its lawyer thugs. It's time to enforce contempt against Mnuchin, Barr and the rest of those who are already in contempt of Congress, it's time to arrest them. If anyone thinks Mnuchin will care about the highest fine that the Congress is going to press against him, they should think again.
The courtly timeline of the leadership in Congress is already risking backfiring against Democrats and democracy, the t's have been crossed, the i's have been dotted, the commas and apostrphes are all in the right places. The time of laying out a case that this is obstruction of a legal and Constitutionally mandated invesigation is passed, it's time to put the case in front of the third article branch and test them to see if Trump's bet that he and Senate Republicans have stuffed the courts with partisan fascists is true because it is almost a certainty if he has then all of the Constitutional framing has fallen in due to unchecked rot. It's time to find out if it still works, it is time to find out if it needs to be condemned as a hazard to pulbic safety.
Wednesday, June 19, 2019
Almost Summer Idyll - Hate Mail
I'm tired of the passion of the Rosenbergs. I don't want to write anymore about it.
Instead I'll remark how shockingly uniform the thinking of the self-declared "free-thinkers" is. I'm not the first to notice this. It's so uniform that any deviation in the program of scientistic materialism - in my experience of them, the uniform ideological holding of "free thought" - will lead to violent anger and banishment if not worse among them. That was one of the most interesting things about "elevatorgate" and the various "free thoughts" of "free thinkers" which still resonate in such anger and hatred in such circles. It wasn't that so many of the "free thinkers" turned out to be sexist a-holes, that's always been the case in such circles which are mostly males of a particularly old-fashioned type, it was that it was one of the few examples of difference among them. That it split largely along gender lines, with some outliers on both sides, wasn't that surprising in retrospect. Atheism, especially its false front of "Skepticism" has always been a boy's club.
What brings this to mind is a bit of snark about Sr. Simone Campbell referencing a Protestant biblical scholar, theologian and minister, as if that were not either to be expected or allowed. The lack of uniformity in religious thinking is used both ways by atheists. Freedom of thought about religion is held to a. be a vice when an atheist wants to point to it as a claim that all religion is false and b. something which is denied to exist when atheists want to claim that religion is opposed to free thought, a mental handcuff, an exercise in brainlessness.
It is a plain fact that such "free thinkers" feel no need to be consistent or even in their application of principles or to conform their own proclamations to their previously stated stands - so often those stands, themselves, are said out of both sides of their mouths. Even more remarkable is the percentage of those "free thinking" scientistic materialists who will, even from the platform of the "Free Thought" Blogs declare that free thought, free will, free choice doesn't exist, in my experience of them, generally through a purely and inaccurately ideological reading of this or that scientific experiment which doesn't demonstrate what they claim it does. That they will, then, go on to claim "free thought" for themselves and their fellow ideologues - who share the same ideology - while denying its possibility doesn't seem to ever seem odd to them. Which leads me to think that they don't think very deeply.
Instead I'll remark how shockingly uniform the thinking of the self-declared "free-thinkers" is. I'm not the first to notice this. It's so uniform that any deviation in the program of scientistic materialism - in my experience of them, the uniform ideological holding of "free thought" - will lead to violent anger and banishment if not worse among them. That was one of the most interesting things about "elevatorgate" and the various "free thoughts" of "free thinkers" which still resonate in such anger and hatred in such circles. It wasn't that so many of the "free thinkers" turned out to be sexist a-holes, that's always been the case in such circles which are mostly males of a particularly old-fashioned type, it was that it was one of the few examples of difference among them. That it split largely along gender lines, with some outliers on both sides, wasn't that surprising in retrospect. Atheism, especially its false front of "Skepticism" has always been a boy's club.
What brings this to mind is a bit of snark about Sr. Simone Campbell referencing a Protestant biblical scholar, theologian and minister, as if that were not either to be expected or allowed. The lack of uniformity in religious thinking is used both ways by atheists. Freedom of thought about religion is held to a. be a vice when an atheist wants to point to it as a claim that all religion is false and b. something which is denied to exist when atheists want to claim that religion is opposed to free thought, a mental handcuff, an exercise in brainlessness.
It is a plain fact that such "free thinkers" feel no need to be consistent or even in their application of principles or to conform their own proclamations to their previously stated stands - so often those stands, themselves, are said out of both sides of their mouths. Even more remarkable is the percentage of those "free thinking" scientistic materialists who will, even from the platform of the "Free Thought" Blogs declare that free thought, free will, free choice doesn't exist, in my experience of them, generally through a purely and inaccurately ideological reading of this or that scientific experiment which doesn't demonstrate what they claim it does. That they will, then, go on to claim "free thought" for themselves and their fellow ideologues - who share the same ideology - while denying its possibility doesn't seem to ever seem odd to them. Which leads me to think that they don't think very deeply.
Tuesday, June 18, 2019
"What do you propose instead [of Marxism]?"
Being way overdue to get on with weeding my neglected garden, I'll recommend what Sr. Simone Campbell had to say in the Global Sisters Report as a good thing to contemplate.
Campbell said politicians and voters — after informing their consciences — need to make "prudential judgments" about how to apply the church's teaching to politics. So do sisters.
For example, Network recently came out in support of the Equality Act, which would strengthen bans on discrimination against LGBT people by adding "sexual orientation" and "gender identity" to the definition of "sex" in federal civil rights laws. The bishops opposed the bill.
Network also disagreed with the U.S. bishops' conference on the Affordable Care Act, arguing that the bill adequately forbade federal funding of abortion, a position the bishops later adopted when they opposed repeal of the law.
"We've always been here," she said, adding that many progressives have "ceded ground" to the religious right by not publicly connecting their faith and politics. She said some Democrats are "nervous" about religion because they associate it with conservatism.
"Now, what we're having to do is claw back what was always there and claim it in the public space," she said, noting that 2020 presidential candidate and mayor of South Bend Pete Buttigieg, with whom she met while in town, does a good job of talking about religious values.
The biggest issue facing the country, she said, is economic justice.
"Income and wealth disparity is sucking the life out of our nation," she said. "And right now, the approach of the Republican Party is to shift as much money to the top as possible."
Still, Campbell said she believes many voters for President Donald Trump may feel their values are being "pushed out" of the cultural conversation, and she strives for "radical acceptance" of those with whom she disagrees politically.
"If I'm at odds with the God in them, I'm at odds with the God in me," she said.
Update:
And more practically, the article continues with this useful advice.
Contemplative lobbying
In two presentations during the three-day event, Campbell shared how her own contemplative practice of daily meditation helps her in the sometimes-discouraging work of advocating for social justice in U.S. policies. She suggested that contemplation is essential to build "prophetic communities" that can work for the common good.
For her, political lobbying is contemplative because it involves "listening deeply, being curious and asking questions" as well as "being willing to risk my preconceptions."
The contemplative life "opens me up to other people's suffering," Campbell said. "And the openness to suffering is where the heart springs into action."
"It is only in community that we can bear the pain of the world," Campbell added, noting that her religious community helps her to stay grounded and able to see how she is "only a piece of the whole."
Such communities that "nurture the prophetic imagination" allow people to "touch the pain of the world as real" and be with that pain without immediately trying to fix it, she said, drawing on work by Protestant theologian Walter Brueggemann.
The practical, what will sustain you and keep you going is of infinite value as the theoretical is almost always useless, except to get you esteem in the do-nothing world of academia and scribbleage.
Campbell said politicians and voters — after informing their consciences — need to make "prudential judgments" about how to apply the church's teaching to politics. So do sisters.
For example, Network recently came out in support of the Equality Act, which would strengthen bans on discrimination against LGBT people by adding "sexual orientation" and "gender identity" to the definition of "sex" in federal civil rights laws. The bishops opposed the bill.
Network also disagreed with the U.S. bishops' conference on the Affordable Care Act, arguing that the bill adequately forbade federal funding of abortion, a position the bishops later adopted when they opposed repeal of the law.
"We've always been here," she said, adding that many progressives have "ceded ground" to the religious right by not publicly connecting their faith and politics. She said some Democrats are "nervous" about religion because they associate it with conservatism.
"Now, what we're having to do is claw back what was always there and claim it in the public space," she said, noting that 2020 presidential candidate and mayor of South Bend Pete Buttigieg, with whom she met while in town, does a good job of talking about religious values.
The biggest issue facing the country, she said, is economic justice.
"Income and wealth disparity is sucking the life out of our nation," she said. "And right now, the approach of the Republican Party is to shift as much money to the top as possible."
Still, Campbell said she believes many voters for President Donald Trump may feel their values are being "pushed out" of the cultural conversation, and she strives for "radical acceptance" of those with whom she disagrees politically.
"If I'm at odds with the God in them, I'm at odds with the God in me," she said.
Update:
And more practically, the article continues with this useful advice.
Contemplative lobbying
In two presentations during the three-day event, Campbell shared how her own contemplative practice of daily meditation helps her in the sometimes-discouraging work of advocating for social justice in U.S. policies. She suggested that contemplation is essential to build "prophetic communities" that can work for the common good.
For her, political lobbying is contemplative because it involves "listening deeply, being curious and asking questions" as well as "being willing to risk my preconceptions."
The contemplative life "opens me up to other people's suffering," Campbell said. "And the openness to suffering is where the heart springs into action."
"It is only in community that we can bear the pain of the world," Campbell added, noting that her religious community helps her to stay grounded and able to see how she is "only a piece of the whole."
Such communities that "nurture the prophetic imagination" allow people to "touch the pain of the world as real" and be with that pain without immediately trying to fix it, she said, drawing on work by Protestant theologian Walter Brueggemann.
The practical, what will sustain you and keep you going is of infinite value as the theoretical is almost always useless, except to get you esteem in the do-nothing world of academia and scribbleage.
Hate Mail - You Know We're In Trouble When We Have To Make Reference To "History" As Learned From Show Biz So Often
These students known to history, insofar as they as they are known to history, as the Lane Rebels, stayed for a time in Cincinnati, teaching black people and helping fugitives, supported by the New York merchant brothers Arthur and Lewis Tappan, until the Tappans found and underwrote this college [Oberlin] for them. The Tappan brothers funded antislavery causes patiently for decades, though they were mobbed and their warehouses were burned to the ground. Lewis Tappan appears in the movie Amistad as the wan and tremulous fanatic who whispers that he wants the Africans who seized the ship to be killed, in order to advance the cause of abolition. The film is accurate only in one particular - Lewis Tappan did indeed organize the Africans' defense.
Marilynne Robinson: Who Was Oberlin?
The lore of the Rosenbergs, which turns out to have been, from the start, founded in blatant lies told by Communists and their dupes and their lawyers, held that both of them were totally innocent. Unable to sustain that lie for their dupes about Julius, they have transferred all of it to the unlikely claim that Ethel was entirely unaware and uninvolved in the espionage her husband, her brother, very possibly her sister-in-law were involved in as the fall-back position. That and the traditional, absurdly made claim that Judge Irving Kaufman, unlike the Commies at least a nominally observant Jew, was part of an antisemitic conspiracy to fry the Rosenbergs because they were Jewish is a pious myth of the play-left. Mostly believed by most of those who have ever even heard of any of this BS because they saw some mention of them in something such as a Woody Allen movie or Next Stop Greenwich Village or heard someone who had read an article in The Nation spouting what it said. The more intellectual of that clique are the ones who read the article in The Nation.
Why should I hold the slightest interest in believing that Ethel Rosenberg was innocent when I was a victim of that lie told by alleged journalists and scholars of the Marxist left for decades? They lied to me, I don't trust them.
I say that even as I admit I loved the fantasy deathbed scene of Roy Cohn and Ethel in Angels in America as done by Streep and Pacino. I can't claim along with Ethel's ghost that my anger at being lied to is like a star that "burns acid-green" but it's cooled my willingness to go along with maintaining that the people who make such use of the Rosenbergs are to be trusted.
It's the greatness of Tony Kushner that he presents the figures in more complexity than the myths of the commies and their fellow travelers on the one hand or the fans of Roy Cohn on the other but I'm not going to mistake that for history.
The greatness of Streep and Pacino in that scene is also useful to show how dangerous the presentation of real historical figures in drama can be. It took me a long time to learn to not trust my affections for actors as it colored my view of history and historical figures. Knowing how hard it was for me to overcome that manipulation, I understand why so many of what I mistook as my fellow lefties are unable to do that. And, as my list of the movie resources of neo-fascist reaction shows, silly play-lefties aren't the only ones dangerously falling for that show-biz BS. It's better for playwrights and novelists and movie script writers to stick to the strict facts or they should forego using real history and real people because if they exercise any "artistic license" in that they will turn themselves into liars of a provably dangerous type.
Update: I absolutely reject the Weavers, Pete Seeger "which side are you on" bullshit. I AM UNDER NO MORAL OR INTELLECTUAL OBLIGATION TO CHOOSE EITHER "THE ROSENBERGS" OR ROY COHN, which, by the way, in this context means sides, not people. I CAN REJECT BOTH SIDES, I CAN DISDAIN THEM BOTH OR DESPISE THEM BOTH. Acceptance may be a binary, yes or no, reject or accept proposition, non-acceptance is done under no such condition of absolute binary choice. Sometimes even the less objectionable side makes itself unacceptable, which frequently happens when the "left side" is involved with anti-democratic shit like Marxism.
Marilynne Robinson: Who Was Oberlin?
The lore of the Rosenbergs, which turns out to have been, from the start, founded in blatant lies told by Communists and their dupes and their lawyers, held that both of them were totally innocent. Unable to sustain that lie for their dupes about Julius, they have transferred all of it to the unlikely claim that Ethel was entirely unaware and uninvolved in the espionage her husband, her brother, very possibly her sister-in-law were involved in as the fall-back position. That and the traditional, absurdly made claim that Judge Irving Kaufman, unlike the Commies at least a nominally observant Jew, was part of an antisemitic conspiracy to fry the Rosenbergs because they were Jewish is a pious myth of the play-left. Mostly believed by most of those who have ever even heard of any of this BS because they saw some mention of them in something such as a Woody Allen movie or Next Stop Greenwich Village or heard someone who had read an article in The Nation spouting what it said. The more intellectual of that clique are the ones who read the article in The Nation.
Why should I hold the slightest interest in believing that Ethel Rosenberg was innocent when I was a victim of that lie told by alleged journalists and scholars of the Marxist left for decades? They lied to me, I don't trust them.
I say that even as I admit I loved the fantasy deathbed scene of Roy Cohn and Ethel in Angels in America as done by Streep and Pacino. I can't claim along with Ethel's ghost that my anger at being lied to is like a star that "burns acid-green" but it's cooled my willingness to go along with maintaining that the people who make such use of the Rosenbergs are to be trusted.
It's the greatness of Tony Kushner that he presents the figures in more complexity than the myths of the commies and their fellow travelers on the one hand or the fans of Roy Cohn on the other but I'm not going to mistake that for history.
The greatness of Streep and Pacino in that scene is also useful to show how dangerous the presentation of real historical figures in drama can be. It took me a long time to learn to not trust my affections for actors as it colored my view of history and historical figures. Knowing how hard it was for me to overcome that manipulation, I understand why so many of what I mistook as my fellow lefties are unable to do that. And, as my list of the movie resources of neo-fascist reaction shows, silly play-lefties aren't the only ones dangerously falling for that show-biz BS. It's better for playwrights and novelists and movie script writers to stick to the strict facts or they should forego using real history and real people because if they exercise any "artistic license" in that they will turn themselves into liars of a provably dangerous type.
Update: I absolutely reject the Weavers, Pete Seeger "which side are you on" bullshit. I AM UNDER NO MORAL OR INTELLECTUAL OBLIGATION TO CHOOSE EITHER "THE ROSENBERGS" OR ROY COHN, which, by the way, in this context means sides, not people. I CAN REJECT BOTH SIDES, I CAN DISDAIN THEM BOTH OR DESPISE THEM BOTH. Acceptance may be a binary, yes or no, reject or accept proposition, non-acceptance is done under no such condition of absolute binary choice. Sometimes even the less objectionable side makes itself unacceptable, which frequently happens when the "left side" is involved with anti-democratic shit like Marxism.
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