*A Modern American Tea Party

John McCain called me last night.  “There’s gonna be a Tea Party tomorrow.  Six O’Clock.” he said.  “And by the way, I don’t know how everyone got the idea, but I AM NOT ANY DAMNED MAVERICK!  Just because I wrote that damned book with the sub-title, The Education of an American Maverick doesn’t mean I am one!  Who’d a ever thunk?”.

“But never mind all that.  The party is at Newt Gingrich’s place over on Denial Road.  Newt is going as March Hare, bless his old, retrograde soul. I need to warn you too, Glenn Beck will be there, and he’s mad as a hatter.  He even calls himself ‘the Hatter’ like he’s proud of it, and goes around bragging about his ‘tea partying’.   When he’s not crying that is. On the other hand the White Queen Sarah Palin will be there too, which should make up for the Hatter, even it gets pretty tiring hearing all her bragging about how she really IS a maverick.  God, what an impossible woman!”

But hard as I tried, I still got to the party two hours late.

“Oh, no matter,” said the Hatter at the door.  “It’s six o’clock here on Denial Road.”

I looked at the clock over the mantel and sure enough it read six o’clock.  “How ever can that be?” I wondered out loud. 

“Oh, me’n old Newt, and Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter and Pat Robertson and a whole bunch of other red necks keep trying to turn the clock back.” said Hatter. “Turns out that’s really hard and unconstitutional and all, but we have managed to stop the damned thing.  Would you like some tea?”

He held out a cup, but the moment I reached for it he threw it over his left shoulder and laughed like a banshee.

“You can’t sit there!” he screamed as I nervously moved towards a chair. “That’s a true patriot’s chair!  And you’re not a true patriot even if you did serve our country and I never did. I had good, compelling, patriotic reasons and decided to serve in other ways.  Besides, it paid one helluva lots better.  But, not to change the subject, answer me this. “Why is a raven like a writing desk?"

Bewildered, and beginning to feel a bit uneasy, I said, “Well, I’m sure I don’t know. . . . because Poe wrote on both?”

“I didn’t think you’d know!” he cried as he broke into large, wet tears and slobber ran freely down his chin.  “Please God! Anybody got any Oxycotin?  Hard liquor? Oh, God,  I didn’t think so!  That socialist Obama is going to have a death panel decapitate me!  I have it on indisputable authority! And his health care plan is going to save so much money it will wreck the economy!  Look how many insurance company CEO’s it will put on the street.  Oh woe is us, oh woe is us!”

“But, you’re not in the insurance business.” I felt I should point out.

“Not so!  Not so!” he screamed.  “I’m on the payroll of over 27 insurance companies.  Not officially of course, but like they take really good care of real and true patriots like me.”

I started to ease towards the door, but the White Queen appeared on the scene before I could get through.  Hatter screamed in ecstasy.  “Sarah!  Sarah!  Thank God you’re here to stand up for patriotic Americans! You’re the only thing standing between us and the Russians!”

“Praise the Lord,  and lock and load, you betcha!” smiled Sarah.  “Anybody seen my lipstick?  Gotta reload you know.”

I noticed the Queen’s crown was a little crooked and gently mentioned it to her.

“Not a problem.  When you’ve got the Lord on your side, nothing is ever really out of kilter.’ she said.  “But, even if it is you can pray it away.  You can pretty much do as you like.  Rational doesn’t matter.  In fact, reality doesn’t even need to compute for a true Christian like me, praise the Lord!”

I heard a loud ‘amen’ from Pat Robertson across the room.  But the White Queen whispered, “Pay him no mind.  No matter what he claims, I know he hasn’t been perfected yet.  I’ve had the demons cast out of me, and he never has.”

“But, aren’t you two on the same page?” I asked.

“Oh yes, we both do the Lord’s work.” she replied. “And so far it’s been paying pretty well for both of us.  But, Pat’s in the actual God business, and I only get him to help me out when I need him.  The Lord’s mighty helpful in politics these days you know.  Anyway, Pat is a has been.  I’m the here and now.  In fact, I’m the future! But, enough about me.  Who are you anyway?”

I looked at the floor for a moment and said,  “I'm just your average, normal everyday American.”

“Oh, you mean like Joe Six-Pack and Joe the Plumber?” she smiled.

“Not exactly.” I said. “Actually, I read and pay attention to things around me.  Also, I speak pretty good English and and can spell actual words and really respect education, sobriety, calmness, deliberation, thoughtfulness and common sense.”

The Queen sniffed.  “Oh, those things!  Not that important.  Just look at me!  Guys like Joe Six-pack are just the salt of the earth, or at least the salt of the good old US of A.  Those guys are the ‘real America’.  And, they’re so, so easy to control.  They’re the heart of the Tea Party movement you know.  They believe absolutely everything we feed them - especially if I wiggle my ass a little and give ‘em a cutesy smile, silly putzes!  You can’t go wrong with a gun either.  They eat that crap up.  That’s why I love those words like ‘reload’ and ‘don’t tread on me’.  Keeps me in the public eye you know, and that’s the main thing.”

The party didn’t last long and there weren’t that many there altogether.  I said my good byes as politely as I could and eased away.  I don’t think I will go to another one.

*This is an imaginary, spoof story, with all kinds of intended resemblance to the real thing.

Conservative Christians and the Absolute Word of God

“We’ve got serious problems.” said the *Very Reverend Pat Robertson at a staff meeting for the Christian Coalition of America back in 2006. “Those damned liberals keep using Bible verses against Christians and conservatives. They keep coming up with stuff in the Bible to confound us and make us conservative Christians look ridiculous and stupid.”

“How do you mean, Pat?”  asked Roberta Combs, CCA’s president who chaired the meeting. “How can we possibly look ridiculous and stupid? I mean there was that time you got your picture taken with Rudy Giuliani in his beautiful dress . . . ”

Angrily Robertson responded: “Dammit Roberta!  I told you not to bring that up again!  Oh but to answer your question, they are coming up with all kinds of things based on our own verses in our holy scripture. For example, they always throw out that bit about to be perfect, Christians must sell everything they have and give it all to the poor - every last bit - that’s in Matthew 19, verses 16 to 21. Now you and I all know that’s not gonna fly with conservative Christians today. In fact, we much prefer it the opposite. But there are dozens of other verses which they throw at us and we don’t have good answers for, since we claim every last word in the Bible is the literal truth.”

“Yeah, I’ve run into that myself many times.” said Combs. “But, what can we do?  The Bible is what it is, isn’t it?”

“Well I’ll quote a former colleague of mine, old Harry Emerson Fosdick.” replied Robertson. “Fosdick always said, ‘Christians are supposed not merely to endure change, nor even to profit by it, but to cause it’. So, that’s what we’ll do. We’re gonna change the Bible.

“Change the Bible?” Sputtered Combs. “That’s heresy!  We’ll be accused of heresy!”

“Not at all,” responded Robertson. “Our conservative Christians are just as uncomfortable with the Bible as I am. Besides, the Bible’s been changed  thousands of times, ever since day one. Christians have always had to make changes in the Good Book. Times change, and sometimes the Bible must change too, or otherwise it’ll become just another book of ancient myths and fairy tales written by bored sheepherders.”

“But, isn’t the Bible the absolute word of God, and every last word is the literal truth?” Combs asked.

Robertson smiled.  “Oh Roberta. You’ve still got a lot to learn. Of course it is. But we, as good Christians get to decide how to interpret it and to use it!”

“We do?” asked a puzzled Combs.

“Of course.” said Robertson. “I do. And, I don’t need to remind you who I am. I speak for God. Directly. And, you work for me. Don’t ever forget that.”

“No, Sir.” said a chastened Combs.

“Anyway,” Robertson went on. “I’ve worked out a way. A good way, and a way which will easily fly within our Christian brotherhood - and sisterhood too, of course.  We’re gonna go back and reinterpret the Bible. And, we’re gonna call it the ‘Conservative Bible’. Hell, we’ll make millions on it, just by selling our new version, which will be a must have for all good Christians. We’ll tell them they have to have it and they’ll go out and get it. Works every time.”

“But, how will we do that?” asked another staffer. “Who’s going to do the actual work - and it sounds like an awful lot of work. Who’s qualified to reinterpret the Bible - and make it conform with conservative Christian ideas?”

“Well, actually that part is pretty easy.” said Robertson. “I’ve got a guy, Andrew Schlafly, a lawyer and a good Christian and a conservative with the best of credentials. He’s the son of Phyllis Schafly, the anti-feminist you know, who’s a particular heroine of mine. Andrew is setting up a ‘Conservative Encyclopedia’ to publish true facts to make sure they conform with conservative principles - which also makes them conform with evangelical Christianity, I shouldn’t have to tell you.  It’s a web site modeled on a popular informational web site called ‘Wikipedia’.  Only this one will be called the ‘Conservapedia’. Andrew is going to go through the Bible verse by verse to either get rid of all those pesky problem verses the liberals keep finding, or make sure they conform to conservative ideas.”

A murmur of amazement and incredulity ran through the staff at the meeting.  “Wow!” said one.

“Yeah! Robertson agreed. “Andrew will say a new translation is needed since the current Bible is full of errors and we must use conservative principles to reduce and eliminate them. Our new conservative Bible will illuminate the intellectual force and wonderful logic of Christianity. Our conservative Bible will explain the economic parables in the Bible within the context of their full free-market meaning. We hope it can even become a text for public schools.”

“And, it goes without saying most liberals will criticize our new Bible.” Robertson continued. “But, they’ll have to read it to criticize it, and that will open their minds. I am convinced we can win many converts from the liberal world. Conservative principles are the truth and they can not fail to see that when they read our Bible.”

“Wow, Pat!” gushed Roberta Combs. “The ideas you come up with never cease to amaze me. They’re absolutely unbelievable!”


* This is a playful spoof of an imagined staff meeting at Pat Robertson’s Christian Coalition of America.  However, the new ‘Conservative Bible’ is all too real and most definitely not imagined. This spoof is about a real and serious effort by Andrew Schlafly and Conservapedia to do just that: To reinterpret the Bible to conform with conservative principles!


The Conservapedia web site is now a fact and the reinterpretation project is well underway.  Conservapedia has three books of the Bible’s Old Testament, and eight books of the New Testament reinterpreted to conform with conservative Christian ideology. Work has begun on many of the remaining books. INCREDIBLE!

THE WINGNUT OLYMPICS

The Wingnut Olympics were held Bayou la Batre, Alabama last week.

The 'Birthers' came out of the gate strongly with strident claims that Barrack Obama was not born in the US of A. They trotted out all sorts of manufactured 'evidence' and theories to 'prove' their case. But, they were ruled out on a 'lunacy' technicality when a Birther fringe element laid out a case that, in fact, not only was Obama not even born in the country, but not on the planet Earth. Their contention was that Obama was a 'droid' manufactured on the as yet undiscovered planet "Sublime" by a socialist race with communistic tendencies.

Supposedly, and according to the Birthers, the obama droid was 'inserted' into the mainstream 'milieu' and programmed to gain traction in Chicago, Illinois. Why Chicago should be chosen was beyond anyone's comprehension - hence the lunacy disqualification.

The fundamentalist Christian faction, always strong contenders, went out to an early lead which they stubbornly, if absurdly, defended throughout most of the entire event. Led by Sarah Palin in partnership with James Dobson, they attempted to perform 'de facto exorcisms' via telekinesis of Obama, Sonia Sotomayor and Tinky Winky of Teletubbie fame.


When this failed, Palin volunteered herself as a subject in a desperate attempt to hold onto the lead. And, in fact, several demons WERE successfully exorcised from Palin, but several even more heinous ones were not. The voo-doo priest who performed the exorcism then took his own life by 'self-will' on the stage in front of thousands of excited fans, some of whom were actually splattered by chicken blood. As a result of that, the entire attempt was deemed a fraud and a failure by the judges.

But, no matter. The judges were immediately overruled by the very Reverend Pat Robertson who opined, "Hey, if I can make God steer hurricanes, why can't I overrule a few corporeal judges? But Robertson himself was then distracted by some peculiarly nasty controversies concerning the abysmal treatment of workers at one of his diamond mines in Africa, and lost control of the situation. The judges ultimately prevailed and ruled the fundamentalists out. The fundamentalists stomped out of the event, but not before angrily dynamiting the administration building and torching a number of the judges.

"Peace on Earth and good will to men.' n'est pas?

But the real heroes of the event were the Flat Earthers and the Global Warming Deniers, who although small in number, displayed a strength far beyond their apparent capacity. Buoyed by massive infusions of cash from their multi-national oil company sponsors, they were a force to contend with throughout.

The FE's and the GWD's were themselves strongly aided by the anti-abortion crowd, who threw a wild care in the event with their claims that human life begins at very first thought of any sexual thought by the male of the species. Although wags like to call this the 'Horny Toad Conundrum', the judges seemed to give the idea a lot of credence.

It was only when the Pentecostal Snake Handlers crowd began wholesale lobbying for the 'Right to Life' for unborn snakes 'even before the egg' that the judges realized their error and reversed themselves.

The gold medal winners turned out to be 'Cynical Corporate Masters', as if there ever were really any doubt. These cynical, behind-the-scenes manipulators of the intellectually challenged, controlled everyone else through the medium of Fox news and corporate shills such as Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly. Most of the above contenders coincidentally, already qualify on the intellectually challenged account. As a result the CCM's ruled the event, and laughed hilariously all the way to the bank afterwards.

The American Media and the US Crusade Against Gog and Magog

Did you know that US president George W. Bush viewed the war in Iraq as a mission from God to combat Gog and Magog? Well, neither did I, but apparently that is true, according to an article by editor James A. Haught of the Charleston, WVA Gazette.

Bush actually called French premier Jacques Chirac by telephone in early 2003 and told him: "Gog and Magog are at work in the Middle East. ... The biblical prophecies are being fulfilled. ... This confrontation is willed by God, who wants to use this conflict to erase his people's enemies before a New Age begins."

Sounds a lot like Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson, doesn't it? And, Bush must have had a direct link with the God of Christianity to be able to tell Chirac what God wanted . . .

Haught's newspaper is the only US paper to publish this astounding bit of news - until the Juneau Empire in Alaska republished it today. The Toronto Star in Canada is the only other paper in the western hemisphere to report it. Why? Apparently other media, if they even knew about it, found the story to be too incredible to believe.

I am coming to believe that the American media today is too fearful to seriously challenge the bizarros from the right. I can't explain it any other way. True, you do have a few like Jon Stewart who try to throw a spotlight on the incredible dementia which seems to be proliferating. But his brand of journalism is commonly viewed as 'comedy' - albeit closer to the truth than almost anything else out there.

Gene Lyons of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette columnist writes about Ann Coulter's book: ""Slander," I once noted that "the 'liberal' sins (she) caricatures -- atheism, cosmopolitanism, sexual license, moral relativism, communism, disloyalty and treason -- are basically identical to the crimes of the Jews as Hitler saw them.""

The real tragicomedy is the craziness emanating from those who otherwise might seem to be fairly normal people - until they open their mouths to spew their brand of political invective, hate, hyperbole and falsehoods. With no apologies mind you. You see Sarah Palin declaiming about 'Death Panels', and the incessant nonsense Fox News puts out under their brand of 'journalism'. Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity are nothing but shills for right wing extremism and corportocracy. One has to wonder what the powers that be behind all this hope to gain in the end. A 'New Republic"? A "Fifth Reich"?

The danger to all of us is the constant stream of deceitful propaganda directed at the 'already convinced' which motivates some of the more extreme elements to violence and ever more craziness. Some of their comments in the blogosphere border on insanity. They seem to prefer to believe the shrill, self-serving doctrinal lies over bothering to actually check facts for themselves.

Our situation today is eerily similar to Germany's just prior to the Nazi takeover in the early 'thirties.

Christianity - The Biggest Scam and Ponzi Scheme of All Time

So you think Bernard Madoff's 60 Billion Dollar scam was an all-time record? Think again. The biggest scam in history is Christianity, which has been going on now for over 2000 years and shows no sign of faltering. The amounts of money, treasure, lives and destruction involved are staggeringly uncountable.

Christians are commanded to believe in their God, and Jesus Christ, the 'Son of God', from whom the name 'Christian' is coined. They are told in the Bible to believe by faith alone since, "Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." (Hebrews 11:1)

In other words, it doesn't matter there's no proof, 'just believe because we say it is so'.

They are told that the all the proof needed is in the Christian Bible, which is composed of two parts - the 'Old' and the 'New' Testaments - as interpreted by their all-too-human Christian leaders:

Jesus, the 'Son of God' referred to the Old Testament as the "Word of God" which "cannot be broken" (John 10:35).

He said, "until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished" (Matt. 5:18).

Paul added, "All Scripture is God-breathed" (2 Tim. 3:16).

It came "out of the mouth of God" (Matt. 4:4).

Although human authors recorded the messages, "prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit" (2 Peter 1:20-21).

Christians are commanded to believe in the Bible without question, because everything contained therein is the 'True Word of God' under this so-called logic:

God cannot err.
The Bible is the Word of God.
Therefore, the Bible cannot err.
God Cannot Err!

And, when questioned about possible inconsistencies or errors in the Bible - no matter how many or how ridiculous - Christians invariably reply the Burden of Proof (of the error) is on the critic - not the Bible! It's sort of the 'Mother of all Catch-22's'!

This is mirrored in a Christian (I suppose) bumper sticker I once saw:

God Said It; I Believe It; That Settles It!

Is there any wonder the current Christian leader of our country George W. Bush appreciates and uses this approach?

Evangelical Christians - and ALL Christians are commanded by Jesus in the Bible to be evangelical, though not all are in fact - relentlessly seek to * export their 'faith' to others around the world. They spend billions of dollars to 'convert the wicked and Godless', with their de facto definition of 'Godless' being 'non-Christian'. They piously claim to be fulfilling the 'Spiritual Needs of native peoples' by bringing them the 'Word of God' and 'salvation'. In the process they destroyed the lives and cultures of millions of people around the world over the centuries, while robbing them of treasure and sustenance. They have have been responsible for millions of deaths through their forcible 'conversion' and 'perfection' of non-Christians. Like some Islamics, they seem none too concerned if millions of innocent 'heretics' and non-believers must die in the process.

Over a period of about 300 years from 1484 to 1782, Christian churches put to death over 300,000 women accused of witchcraft in Europe and America. Incredibly, Christians later insisted with straight faces, the witch hunts were a 'result of theological misapplication and the people involved were penitent'.

You see, if you are a Christian, you can be forgiven for anything - except disbelief!

We have all heard of the 'Inquisitions' (of which there are four recognized), where heretics and apostates were punished and put to death - often by burning at the stake - for 'heresy' and 'apostasy' , which were defined as questioning, or opposition to the doctrine of the Roman Catholic or Orthodox Christian Churches. Many non-Catholic Christians ('protestants') were victims. Any protestant falling into the hands of authorities in Catholic countries - through shipwreck or otherwise for example, was subject to be tried and punished for heresy or apostasy.

Galileo Galilei - the great astronomer, mathematician and philosopher of the 16th and 17th centuries was tried and convicted of heresy by the Roman Catholic church. His sin was proving the Earth orbited the sun. This ran contrary to church doctrine, which placed Earth at the center of the universe. Galileo's inconvenient fact is also inconsistent with the literal meaning of scripture - and incidentally unreconciled even today, with the excuse that it's all in how scripture is interpreted! Galileo was forced to 'recant' and spent the last years of his life under house arrest.

Incredibly, there are still some Catholics today who muleheadedly insist the church was right and Galileo was wrong, even though they admit the heliocentric ('Copernician Theory') was correct as far as it went. They maintain Galilieo brought all his troubles on himself by being so public with his opinions and proof. In other words they want things both ways in the Christian tradition of never admitting error in the smallest degree. Ever. I assume that must be what a 'perfected' Christian is all about, a la Ann Coulter.

And then there were 'The Crusades' - seven in all, which took hundreds of thousands if not millions of lives. Pope 'Innocent III' (what an ironic name!) avowed salvation could be bought simply by going on a Crusade - to 'convert' apostates at the point of a sword! There was even a (disputed) 'Children's Crusade' of up to 30,000 children and/or poor people who marched towards Jerusalem to 'peaceably convert' the Muslims there. When the Mediterranean Sea did not part as planned, many were sold into slavery or otherwise died. According to contemporary accounts, none returned home.

One overriding theme is evident throughout 'Christianity' to this day, and that is the wealth of the church and its leaders, at the expense of their followers. This is the biggest scam of all time, and still in full flower, with millions of 'victims' willing and eager to contribute, up to everything they own.

Take Pat Robertson for one well-known example. There are thousands of others, with perhaps the greatest offender of all being the Holy Roman Catholic Church.


* "(19) Go to the people of all nations and make them my disciples. Baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, (20) and teach them to do everything I have told you. I will be with you always, even until the end of the world." Matthew 28:19-20