McCamy Taylor
McCamy Taylor's JournalFool's Calvinism Comes Home to Roost
First, a disclaimer----John Calvin would have condemned Trump, the leader of the White House Crime Family. However, the roots of the flaw in United States culture that makes Trump's criminal enterprise possible can be found in a particular brand of Calvinism that goes something like "We are born either damned or blessed, and we can know which we are by weighing God's favor shown upon us in this life." Or, more simply "The rich are better than the rest of us."
What does Trump do every time he is caught lying, criming, conspiring? He boasts "Of course! I did it to make money!" And that makes it alright----if you subscribe to the Christian Coalition's notion that all profitable endeavors are blessed by God, otherwise they would not turn a profit. Call it Fool's Calvinism (for Fool's Gold).
Jarred, the Mob Don's favorite son-in-law did not conspire to commit treason with a foreign power. No, he set up a back channel communication line with Russia to make money.
Trump did not prey upon home owners who lost their life's savings in the mortgage meltdown because he is a "bad dude." He did it because there was profit to be made and only an ungodly man turns away from an opportunity to make money.
Trump accepts bribes for everything from cabinet picks to border wall construction contracts to U.S. foreign policy , because it is a really easy way for a President to make money. And he has placed members of his family in key administration positions, because it is an easy way to make sure that all the bribe money he is making goes into the Trump Crime Family coffers. Because under Fool's Calvinism, money becomes more valuable if it is sitting on top of more money---making it closer to God in Heaven.
Both Citizens United and Bush v. Gore are results of Fool's Calvinism. In Bush v. Gore the court ruled based upon the identity of the parties in the case, because the Bush Family and their Rich (Oil, Energy and Saudi) Backers were obviously right---if not, God would not have made them so damned rich. In Citizens United, the court said that the richest corporations in the world have a god given right to determine the outcome of U.S. elections, because they are rich and the rich have been commanded by their Fool's Calvinist God to make more money.
Fool's Calvinism is the dogma of colonialists. When King Leopold's traders chopped off the hands of Africans in the Belgian Congo so that they could account for every bullet used, when New World settlers gave the natives small pox infected blankets----these atrocities were acts of worship for the devout Fool's Calvinist.
Fool's Calvinism is the dogma of environmental terrorists. The man who dares strip mine a mountain for the riches it contains, the company that dares destroy our world's climate in order to increase its quarterly returns---these are the faithful, the chosen. The earth is transient, but (to the Fool's Calvinist) money is forever. On the great cosmic ledger that God keeps at His side, the more zeros that follow the number beside your name, the closer you will be to the front row of the heavenly choir. And, as the Spanish Inquisition and Crusades taught us, All's Fair in War and Religion.
Under Fool's Calvinism, God will not be satisfied until all the world's wealth is piled up in two or three giant stacks of gold that reach all the way to the moon--and the rest of use bow down in awe and supplication to the beauty and majesty of God's creation. Because humanity, according to the Fool's Calvinist, is a pyramid scheme, and the guy at the top is at the top because God's wants it that way.
Praise God and pass the collection plate.
Statement from Al Gore
There is no earthly reason for Trump to join Syria (too close to violent death to care about global warming) and Nicaragua (thinks the Paris Accord is too weak) in dumping the Paris Accord----
Unless he is hoping to get Al Gore so angry that he decides to run for re-election.
https://www.algore.com/news/statement-by-former-vice-president-al-gore-on-today-s-decision-by-the-trump-administration-to-withdraw-from-the-paris-agreement
Civic leaders, mayors, governors, CEOs, investors and the majority of the business community will take up this challenge. We are in the middle of a clean energy revolution that no single person or group can stop. President Trump’s decision is profoundly in conflict with what the majority of Americans want from our president; but no matter what he does, we will ensure that our inevitable transition to a clean energy economy continues.”
Run, Al. Run. Re-elect Gore in 2020
Trump Supporters: How to Tell the Haters from the Hopeless
There are two kinds of Trump supporters and in the weeks to come, it will become increasingly easy to tell them apart.
The Hopeless are folks in places like West Virginia with no jobs, no health insurance, no hope for the future. Trump promised them everything they needed, and so they took a leap of faith. Now, as his promise to provide free insurance to all Americans turns into stripping 23 million Americans of their existing coverage, and his pledge to make coal great again turns into "coal is dead", the Hopeless will lose hope once again--and they will turn on Trump. They are already turning on Trump. Their great enthusiasm is turning into watchful waiting. And soon, it will be outright disgust.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/donald-trumps-base-is-shrinking/
Unfortunately, the Haters are going to love Trump even more. By Haters, I mean those who hated Obama for having a father from Kenyan. When they hear about 23 million Americans losing their health insurance, they will picture Black people losing their health insurance and they will rejoice. They will also cheer to see legislation passed during Obama's tenure overturned. The Haters will be too busy enjoying their hatred to care that some of them will lose their own insurance. Haters are like the scorpion that stings the fox as it is ferrying it across the water. "Why did you sting me?" the fox asks as he slips under the water, taking the scorpion with him. "Because I am a Hater," says the scorpion. "It's what I do."
Embrace the Hopeless. It is not their fault they could not imagine that someone running for president would lie the way that Trump lied. And steer clear of the Haters. You can't help them. You can only hope that one day they realize that there is something better than the Hate to which they cling.
Trump deliberately targets successful immigrants for deportation
Because his base can not stand the fact that "dam' furriners" have more than they do. Never mind that the immigrants worked hard for what they have. Never mind that they have spouses and children who are U.S. citizens. Never mind that they were brought to the country as children. Never mind that they are veterans. Trumps lazy, undereducated, methe addicted base hates the fact that someone whom they consider "inferior" is doing so well, when their own lives are such a mess. This is the real reason that Trump's immigration department targets hard working immigrants. Trump will never deliver on his promises of jobs and healthcare, but he can carry out an ethnic purging that will make the base forget that they are still under employed and under insured.
The fact the immigrants have stable, happy non methe addicted families, the fact that they served their country and started businesses--- to Trump' s base this is just salt in the wound of their self hatred.
Anyone out there cheering as hard working immigrants are deported--- you are a loser and you will always be a loser. Your ancestors probably had their photographs taken during lynchings and mailed them as postcards for all to see. To you, what Trump is doing to immigrants is the next best thing to a good old fashioned lynching, and you and your kind make true Americans sick.
No, Trump Fans, Putin Is NOT Your Friend
Memorial Day, when we remember those who gave their lives to defend our country and our Constitution. On a day like today, the truth of how Trump got where he is---by accepting the aid and money and espionage of a foreign power, Russia--is enough to make a true American sick.
A lot of people will tell you that Putin is more like them than---say--Obama ever was. That's because they look at Putin and see white and male and Christian. But I have news for anyone who thinks that Putin or his puppet Trump is going to restore their white, male, Christian privilege---you have been conned. Out of your vote. Out of your health insurance. Out of your Social Security.
Putin does not look at you and see a fellow white,male, Christian suffering under the tyranny of Welfare Queens. He sees a Christian heretic---unless you are Russian or Greek Orthodox, you are not free to practice your religion in his country. He does not look at you and see a fellow white. "White" has no meaning in Russia. "White" can be French, British, Irish, Norwegian. Putin looks at you and sees a non-Russian---and therefore a lesser human being in his world view. And---this is what ought to really make you shiver--- he sees a traitor, someone who--if Russian-- would be arrested, tried and thrown into a prison for a long, long time if he did what Trump did. Putin does not have your back. Putin has you by the balls. And when he is done with you, he will leave you even worse off than before.
Putin/Trump came to power in this country thanks to a massive mistake made by the Supreme Court. In Citizens United they ruled that any corporation--even a foreign corporation had free speech rights and that foreigners could exercise their free speech in this country by throwing massive amounts of money into U.S. elections. And now that Citizens United has exploited the Free Speech Amendment in ways that the Founders never imaged, Putin's puppet Trump wants to restrict your Free Speech. Angry that Trump and his party are about to take away your health insurance when Trump promised that all (white) Americans would get free health care? Keep it to yourself. They are trying very, very hard to make criticism of the government---of the Russian government of the United States--illegal.
Putin/Trump came to power by promising to send the immigrants "home", so there would be lots of great jobs for Real Americans. But Putin's Russia is actively recruiting immigrants to fill out its work force. That's right. While we are told that we must be willing to leave fruit rotting on the vine and roads unpaved and houses without roofs for the sake of "racial purity", Putin's Russia is welcoming workers from former Soviet territories--some of them Muslim, some of them non-white, many of them non Russian speakers. Putin knows that a country can not grow without immigrant workers who are willing to do more for less in the hopes that someday they too will be citizens. When Putin tells us that we must send home hard working immigrants---some of them business owners, some of them mothers, some of them veterans---he is eliminating the competition. He is making it easier for Russia to say to third world workers "Hey, the United States does not want you. But Russia does."
Putin has a few other plans--and none of them will increase the health and well being of the U.S. working class. He wants oil prices to rise again. Russia's economy is still based on oil, and until they can steal our immigrant labor and take over our role as a manufacturing powerhouse, Russia needs gasoline prices high, high, high. Meaning all of you who moved into the suburbs so that your kids could attend "better" schools, you are screwed. You will eat up a big chunk of your salary commuting to and from work each day, just like you did under Bush/Cheney. And this time there will be no "trickle down" prosperity, because the profit will all be going to Russia. And Saudi Arabia and Iran. With a little bit left over for Texas.
Putin also wants to see heroin prices rise. What? You did not know that the Russian Mob that backs Putin is a huge player in the world heroin industry? The Russian mob could sell a lot more heroin in this country at a lot higher price if fewer Americans had insurance that allowed them to see a doctor for legal opiate prescription and (especially) if fewer of them had health insurance that paid for addiction treatment. Trump and the GOP are working on that. Trump and the GOP have been working for Putin for quite a while--since 2016 at the very least, when Republican Congressmen including Paul Ryan laughed among themselves that Russia owned Trump---and then swore each other to secrecy. When prominent Republicans started taking lots of money from Russia. When they started valuing Russian "intelligence" over that of their own CIA, NSA,military. When they decided that opening secret channels of communication between Moscow and the Trump transition team was somehow a good thing. In what universe is it ever "good" for the president to have secret dialogues with a foreign power that the military and intelligence agencies are not allowed to hear? We have a military and we have intelligence agencies in order to keep our country safe and strong. Meaning that anything you do not want them to hear is likely to make our country weak and vulnerable.
Trump is a traitor. Putin is his foreign master. If Trump and his cronies go to jail, Putin will laugh himself silly. Even if he does not get higher oil and heroin prices, even if he does not get more immigrant labor for Russia, he will have set back our country a decade. And as the dictator for life of another nuclear armed country specializing in oil, fuel, weapons and technology, he is not our friend. He is our rival.
Trump: Making America (as) Great (as West Virginia)
Trump loves West Virginia. And by that, I do not mean that he loves West Virginia for its coal. When he said he planned to “get those miners back to work” he was not talking about getting them back to work as coal miners. Coal is dead. Trump’s economic adviser just said so.
Trump has big plans for his supporters, but those plans do not involve a decent job for a decent wage with decent benefits. After Trump deports all the immigrants who pick the crops and clean the toilets and build roads, someone will have to do the backbreaking, minimum wage, no benefits work—and that someone will be a born in the USA proud Trump supporter. And if none of them want to do the work voluntarily, Attorney General Sessions will prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law for smoking weed or using meth. They will be sent to federal (for profit) prison where they can do the work formerly done by immigrants for less than the immigrants were paid. Or Congress will make those who are on Social Security Disability--you know, people who are too sick to work---take over the back breaking jobs. Because being in a wheelchair does not mean you can not pick crops. It just means you have to work longer hours to make up for your poor productivity.
Is this a great country or what? And Trump is about to make it even greater---by making it more like West Virginia, the state with the highest rate of working age adults on disability, the state with the worst rates of diabetes, cancer and obesity, the state drowning in drug abuse, the state that gave Trump 68.7% of its vote in last fall’s election.
Trump does not want the American electorate to be educated, healthy, happy, prosperous. Trump wants us frightened. Desperate. Drug addicted. Undereducated and underemployed and angry about it. Trump planned all along to take away the insurance of twenty plus million Americans. Sick people are desperate people. They go into debt. They lose their homes. They lose their jobs. They have to take minimum wage jobs flipping burgers—and in Trump’s America, 99% of us are supposed to be flipping burgers, cleaning toilets and polishing shoes for the 1%.
W. got the ball rolling with the mortgage crisis and the recession of 2008. But that was small beans compared to what Trump has in store for us. Trump plans to bring us an actual honest to god Great Depression---because Depressions are a great opportunity for real estate moguls like him to snatch up real estate for a song. He admitted it during the debates.
In Trump’s perfect world, every state will become as “great” as West Virginia. Because fascism does not do well when the people are educated, healthy, well fed. Fascism takes root when people are desperate. And right now, no state is as desperate as West Virginia, which threw its support behind Trump, because he promised to bring back coal jobs....
Listen to the words of this West Virginia coal miner as he predicts that Trump will keep promises to bring back coal jobs and deliver free health care. Listen and weep for West Virginia.
http://www.msnbc.com/all-in/watch/wv-coal-miner-on-why-he-voted-for-trump-896833603809
Is Anyone Keeping a Running Total of the Substantiated Charges and Jail Time for Trump Ass.?
There must a site. Can anyone direct me to it? All I need are a list of names that will grow as new people come under scrutiny. For instance the as yet unnamed but likely to be soon outed Republican "operative" guilty of receiving and distributing stolen Democratic files. Then a listing of the crimes they have likely committed--or at least the crimes they would be charged with if they were Democrats. Plus the mandatory minimum through maximum federal sentences for each crime.
For example:
Jeff Sessions, former Senator and current Attorney General. Almost certainly guilty of lying to Congress and on a federal employment form--unless he plans to lead senility which makes him unfit for his present job. Each charge carries a federal sentence of up to five years. That means he would be looking at up to ten years in federal pen if he were a Democrat.
Bonus points for including some type of graphic so we can tell at a glance which players will be old and gray when they get out---if they were Democrats. Since the GOP will stonewall any investigation, it will also serve to demonstrate the magnitude of their cover up and abuse of power in advance of the 2018 midterms. As in "If they were Democrats they would be facing a total of X years in jail."
Hell Hath no Fury Like a (Former) FBI Director Duped by Putin/Trump
Now we know. Comey did what he did last fall, because Trump/Putin created a phony bit of intelligence. And then, as the election neared, Someone whispered in Comey's ear "If Clinton wins, Trump will release this memo to Fox and tell them that you personally ignored this evidence under orders from Obama. And then Congress will be all over you like 1) a hobo on a ham sandwich 2) flies on shit 3) Trump on some other man's wife's vagina. It won't matter to the GOP base that the document is as fake as a three dollar bill. They'll still accuse you of playing partisan. They'll call it a "cover up." A new Watergate. But all you have to do to keep Congress off your back is show that you were more than willing to re-open the email investigation of Clinton a week before the elections. That will prove that you are not playing ball for the Dems. And we all know that Clinton is gonna win, so what difference will it make?"
If Comey is reading this, I hope he looks back to the days before the election. Someone almost certainly approached him with this message. And that person, while pretending to be concerned about Comey, was almost certainly working for Trump and Putin.
Comey has agreed to testify again. In public. Before Congress. He was (supposedly) fired by Trump for his handling of the Clinton e-mail scandal. Meaning that he was (supposedly) fired for falling for Trump/Putin's political dirty trick--the bogus Russian "intelligence" that the Washington Post writes about today.
If I were Comey, I would be mad. Raging mad. I would be gathering my notes, considering how I got into this mess and who put me there and how to even the score.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/how-a-dubious-russian-document-influenced-the-fbis-handling-of-the-clinton-probe/2017/05/24/f375c07c-3a95-11e7-9e48-c4f199710b69_story.html?utm_term=.8f4e5201fb73
Pathetic Excuse for a Ruling Tea Party
I sat down with a cup of coffee this morning and opened the local paper. There, in the editorial section, I found another Republican blaming Hillary Clinton for Donald Trump's Russian Treason. The argument went something like this---Republicans were so focused on conducting a witch hunt against--excuse me, an investigation of---Clinton that they did not have time to vet their own candidate. Plus, they were all convinced that the Great Witch Hillary would steal the election, so they did not take their own party's primary seriously. The result was a nominee who would never have slipped through had Hillary not blinded GOP leaders with her Patented Laser Beam Eyes and deafened them with Her Legendary Cackle and seduced them with her Awesome Cleavage.
Now, men claiming "She had it coming!" and "She made me do it!" is nothing new. Rapists through the centuries have insisted that they would have kept it in their pants, if only her skirt was not so short.
But this goes a step beyond the usual Blame the Victim. The Republican Party is now claiming that Hillary's skirt was so short and her neckline so plunging that they could not help but aid and abet Donald Trump as he committed treason with Russia. All the blood rushed from their brains to their groins, and the result was we now have a Special Prosecutor and an administration in shambles and a party that has to dodge its own constituents when its members go home.
The GOP is the Ruling Party--so why are its members acting like a bunch of whiny babies? Could it be that when a political party selects its candidates based upon who takes the most Citizens United approved bribe money, they end up with a bunch of self-absorbed lazy grifter cry-babies for political leaders?
Don’t blame Clinton. Blame Scalia. He is the one who sold the Republican Party to the highest bidder and left a loophole that allowed that bidder to be a foreign country.
New Netflix anime "Blame!" Contains Anti-Trump/Anti-Fascist Message Everyone Should Hear
Don't get me wrong. "Blame!" the classic, cult manga by Tsutomu Nihei is much more than a political treatise. It is the best dystopian science fiction manga ever and possibly the best manga ever.
The premise is simple--though it takes a bit to get the whole story if you plunge head first into the manga. Tens of thousands of years in the future, the Builders--machines programmed by humans to add to the City----have gone rogue, creating a nightmare world in which the architecture is absolutely bat-shit crazy. These machines that were supposed to create a human paradise are out of control. Seems that some type of plague--or maybe just random mutation--altered the human genome and now no one has the "Net Terminal gene" needed to access the computer system that controls the Builders.
And it gets worse. The original humans, obviously as frightened of immigrants as Trump and his Fascist Base are frightened of immigrants, created the Protectors, cyborgs programed to rid the city of anyone who did not have the "right" DNA, i.e. "aliens."
Meaning that the world of "Blame!"'s future is a massive City that has engulfed the world--and the world has no place for the descendants of the original human, all of whom register as "aliens."
While the manga is huge and sprawling (like the City), the two hour anime movie is a short story with the basic plot of "Shane." I won't give away any more than that.
When we target "immigrants" i.e "the other" for exile and death, we kill ourselves. Literally, in "Blame!" and just as literally (though not in quite as dramatic a fashion) in the real world. Every mother who is "sent back" for the crime of having a Hispanic surname and no Visa, every Indian who is shot after being mistaken for Muslim, every Muslim who is hauled off a plane for being correctly identified as a Muslim--every act of violence against those who have come to this country for the same reason our ancestors came to this country---to succeed, to create a better life for their children, to practice their religion as they choose, to speak as they choose---is another coffin nail in the death of our country.
Trump is not making America "great" again. Trump has lead our country to a cliff edge and is demanding that we commit mass suicide. Each wave of immigrant has brought new strengths, new ideas, new vigor to this country. But, in the Fascist world view, anything "new" is dangerous. It threatens the status quo. It must be stopped. It must be excised. It must be killed--even if that violence kills us along with it--
Of course, to Trump's Russian handlers, the death of the American Dream probably seems like a good idea. Because, if there is no world model for what open borders, cultural diversity and tolerance can achieve economically, Fascists like Putin will have a much easier time convincing their own huddle, frightened masses that they had better not rock the boat. And the 1% will not have to look over their shoulders wondering when the next French Revolution will come their way.
Keep in mind that no one accumulates vast wealth for the fun of it. The people who desperately try to steal and then protect more gold than they can ever spend in a lifetime do it because they are afraid. Afraid of Daddy who did not love them enough. Afraid that they never measured up the the ridiculous standards of what they were taught a man (or a woman) should be. Afraid of being alone and convinced that only money can buy them companionship. The Hollow Men attempt to fill their inner void with wealth--and when the money does not ease the pain, they tell themselves "I must be unhappy because someone is trying to steal my wealth. I must protect my wealth at all costs." And what a cost! When they kill another person for being a threat or "other" they kill a part of themselves, because it is human nature to see ourselves in the faces of others and the only way we can kill is by telling ourselves "That is not me. That is a threat to me." Meaning that being ourselves is suddenly a threat to our own identity. And if someone of the wrong color or religion or surname happens to achieve a little economic success, watch out! When we who define ourselves by our "privilege" realize that our color, our religion, our surnames mean nothing, we feel our own sense of self crumbling--and that is when we turn into a lynch mob. Or program a bunch of cyborgs to eliminate everything that frightens us.
Who's to blame for Trump? We are. Who can undo the harm that Trump has done? We can. We will do it by recognizing the part of Trump's twisted message that appealed to too many Americans (not a majority but still too many)---"I am frightened. That must mean that someone is threatening me. That must mean that I must kill"---that fear is a basic part of the human psyche which can and must be controlled if we are ever to have a snowball's chance in Hell of getting along in an increasingly crowded world.
Namaste. Now go watch "Blame!" It's lots of fun and not nearly as didactic as I am making it our to be.
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