Thomas Frank

If they could just go to church and keep their superstitions to themselves, no one would give a second thought to what Catholics did behind closed doors (or, as the Pope says, what happens to altar boys in the rectory stays in the rectory).

It’s only when they whip themselves into a self-righteous lather and begin pontificating about the moral decline of their fellow sinners that they become insufferable. They are, for the most part, unbearable anyway, but as long as they are quiet, they can be ignored.

The latest manufactured outrage du jour involves the (apparently) polarizing decision of Notre Dame to have Obama deliver a commencement address. Oh the humanity! Who has ever heard of a head of state speaking to graduates? Especially a very popular, newly elected head of state? Naturally, the parochial bluebirds have their feathers in a fury over this crass development. Predictably, we are obliged to listen to them frantically whistle their righteous indignation. Michael Gerson, the former Bush speechwriter (he also worked with the rehabilitated Charles Colson, easily one of the ten biggest douche bags on the planet during the ’70s) who gave us such gems as “Axis of Evil” for his boss, and “mushroom cloud” for Condi Rice and who remains on record as endorsing virtually everything the worst president of all time managed to fuck up during his tenure, now seems to fancy himself as national scold, a job the “liberal” Washington Post inexplicably pays him to perform. It didn’t take him too long to weigh in on the ways in which it is inconsistent with the Catholic church’s teachings to have Obama soil the sacred grounds that gave us Touchdown Jesus (check it out, here). Gerson, more than any other current hypocrite, exemplifies the (literal) weekend warrior mentality of so many religious bullies: get thee to church, speak loudly and often about your own spirituality, and ceaselessly bemoan the lack of same in our slack and unenlightened society.

But today, Kathleen Parker (one of the many conservative voices the Washington Post feels obliged to promote, along with the aforementioned Gerson, and including–but not limited to–Charles Krauthammer, George Will and William Kristol), serves up a false equivalent with the obtusity with which only religious right wingers can consistently produce. Her (obviously intended to be provocatively titled) piece today “The Principle at Stake at Notre Dame” gets quickly to the illogical and intelligence-insulting talking points: It has always seemed to me (she sniffs) that the truest form of feminism, as in the earliest days of suffrage, would be to hold abhorrent the state-sanctioned destruction of women’s unique life-bearing gifts.

Wow. You have to giver Parker credit here. This is a statement of such intellectual dishonesty and hysterically over-the-top demagoguery even George Will might hesitate before typing it. So let’s see: the overarching goal of feminism, which is to ensure that women have equal rights in a democracy, is somehow inconsistent with the notion that a woman should be free to do whatever she wishes with her own body? That is old, hackneyed boilerplate and has been roundly denounced (in social circles as well as with womens’ votes). But Parker attempts to turn the tables and assert that if you are not pro-life, you are therefore advocating state-sanctioned destruction of women’s unique life bearing gifts. Really? So, it is not a matter of personal choice (the kind of issue libertarians love and most Republicans consider their bread and butter, at least while campaigning and whenever Religion does not interfere), but in fact a decision that is anti-feminist? How does one grapple with logic this stridently sophomoric? By advocating the right of a woman to do what is in her own personal best interest, that woman is implicitly endorsing the destruction of women’s unique life bearing gifts? So no woman who has had an abortion has ever had a child? No woman who has ever had a child got an abortion? A woman who supports the right of another woman to have an abortion is not content with that silent affirmation but is in actuality intolerant of the other woman’s right to give birth?

Of course not. To understand this type of sophistry, one has only to consider the repugant (yet hilarious) position religious folks take in denouncing gay marriage. They are not against the gays, per se, they are for heterosexual marriage. And by abiding legal unions for homosexuals, the institution of marriage is being weakened, and perverted! See how this works? (And, ironically, notice the typically Republican victim formulation in both scenarios: recognizing a woman’s right to choose is not simply a personal decision the pro-lifers disagree with, despite their disagreement being distinctly un-American, it is a threat to women who cherish all unborn babies and an outrage to the sanctity of women’s unique life bearing gifts. By supporting the (very American) right of gay couples to wed, this is not merely a forward-looking and controversial idea that only repressed and fearful religious types can’t comprehend, it’s an act of hostility toward the sacred and holy institution of marriage which, of course, was created and championed when God himself, feminist that he was, created a woman for Adam’s pleasure, before this same woman ate the apple and fucked everything up for humanity for eternity.)

Isn’t it curious how these deeply devout Catholics find it within themselves to protest, on principle, owing to Obama’s “stance” on abortion? Leave aside the fact that he does not personally seem to be especially in “favor” of it; he has said a great deal more, publically, about wanting to reduce abortions than anything approximating an official encouragement of the practice. Certainly, his standing as a happily married husband and father should be a model for the finger-pointing faithful, and the institution they endorse, as window dressing, which is currently in such shambles (and not because of the recent advent of gay couples legally wedding). Cliche alert! How often are the most obstreperous politicians clamoring about marriage (specifically) and our degenerated national values (generally) the ones who are working on their second or third marriages? (Hint number one: Quite often. Hint number two: Newt Gingrich.)

Naturally, it would give these squeaky wheels’ stances a modicum of credibility if they also protested, say, torture. Or the tax cuts from the last eight years that made the wealthiest percentile sickeningly more wealthy, in direct proportion to the middle-class (not to mention the working poor and impoverished), whose pieces of the pie dissipated under Bush’s watch. Nope, when it comes to taking stands on principle, the hairshirt only comes out of the ecclesiastical closet when the issue is conveniently the most politicized and easy-to-grandstand. Only then do Catholics (in particular) and “Christians” (in general) boldly stand up to be counted. Abortion, gay marriage and stem cell research (the latter being arguably the most recklessly ignorant and arrogant stance) are the holy-roller trinity that functions as the foundation upon which these dimwitted disciples stake their claim. These, naturally, are the same imbeciles who vocally endorse the death penalty, gun “rights” (including assault weapons, the NRA being the second only to God as a voice of authority, which makes it delightfully appropriate that the actor noted for playing Moses was the spokesperson of that pitiful organization), and have said little or anything about Iraq, Guantanamo, Katrina or any of the other outrages that any so-called “Christian” should instinctively become apoplectic over.

Why not throw a pig roast in Mecca? Parker asks, upping the ante and comparing the concept of a sitting president giving a commencement address at a Catholic university (that invited him in the first place) with an intentionally demeaning and hostile religious provocation. Because, you see, these poor “Christians” are really the persecuted ones in our politically correct, Socialist state. For all the innocent students know, their souls will be damned to eternal hellfire just for hearing Obama speak; and after all, they only want to graduate! This is truly the level of discourse the defenders of the faith are attaining, which, now that I think of it, suddenly makes me understand the popularity of Joel Osteen and Rick Warren.

This has been well articulated by better writers than me ranging from Christopher Hitchens to Thomas Frank to Matt Taibbi, but it is always worth reiterating: the sheep who bray the loudest also live and vote, by their words and deeds, with a political party that is not only inconsistent, but antithetical, to the very words Jesus Christ allegedly uttered. And even if He didn’t utter them, they are attributed to him in the book they read and revere as The Word Of God. Simply put, His life is the basis on which these people view the moral impetus that gives their earthly lives ultimate meaning, therefore in even the most cursory analysis, these followers of Christ are willfully (if ignorantly) shirking the very teachings of their Holy Father. Fortunately, the illimitable hypocrisy of the contemporary “Christian” has never been an undue cause for instrospection, or concern.

At least if these folks had taken to the streets and protested the Iraq War, or the unforgivable incompetence that compounded the folks suffering after Katrina, or if they were online right now forming “bible study groups” to discuss the ongoing revelations about the institutional torture their earthly savior (Bush) sanctioned, maybe there would be some sane ground for them to stand upon. At least then it would be possible to declare their reactionary, blinkered positions as consistent (morally, spiritually). As it stands they see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil, unless it is what they are told to do by the very human servants who have their own best interests in mind as they beat their blackened, hate-mongering hearts.

Millard Fuller, the founder of Habitat for Humanity, has passed away. Obit from Washington Post here.

His story, self-made millionaire who gives away his money to the needy and actually dedicates his days to helping those who need the most help, is atypical in the best of times; during our ongoing economic clusterfuck, it seems almost quaint. Unfashionable, old-fashioned beneficence, an actual Good Samaritan. More on that in a moment. It speaks volumes, and captures his import in an impressively succinct manner, that no less a man than Jimmy Carter was galvanized by Fuller’s call to arms.

“(He was) one of the most extraordinary people I have ever known. He used his remarkable gifts as an entrepreneur for the benefit of millions of needy people around the world by providing them with decent housing,” Carter said. “As the founder of Habitat for Humanity and later the Fuller Center, he was an inspiration to me, other members of our family and an untold number of volunteers who worked side-by-side under his leadership.”

How unbelievably redemptory, and refreshing, to see a person who put his money (and his time) where his faith was. In our lamentably soporific times, both intellectually and spiritually, where actual debates among so called Christians rage about putting the “Christ” back in “Christmas”, it’s unique to see a man of action (and means) more concerned with putting the “Christ” back in “Christian”.

Needless to say, all that golden-rule claptrap is antithetical to a more muscular version of the American dream. In this testosterone-laden mythology, Christ is a Capitalist (of course), and He wants us to be wealthy and strong. You know, just like he described it in the New Testament. This incarnation of Christ has a new generation of apostles (mostly born again and Fundy types, no longer a minority of the lunatic fringe) bristling against the ways in which nerdy do-gooders have turned their Savior into a sissy, a bleeding-heart liberal. Heck, you might even say Christ was a Socialist. If it wasn’t for all that inconvenient evidence to the contrary (again, that annoying New Testament), it might be easier to make a case for Christ as a Conservative (along with Holy Ghost Ronald Reagan seated, to the right, by his side). These are the patriarchal patriots who helped nudge Bush over the top in ’04, on a buffalo wing and a prayer. It did seem like the world had turned upside down to see these people who gained the least from small tent Republican politics clamoring the loudest to sustain the status quo.

Of course, the tide has turned. Obama’s election is actually, if possible, less a paradigm shift than the collective noise that millions of Americans are making as the scales fall from their eyes. It’s not a joyful noise, either, as they finally confront the inescapable fact that the most powerful and wealthy polo players of the apocalypse have been sticking it to them hard and fast, for a very long time. Same as it ever was, of course, and that is old news; that is why we have super heroes and Democrats to occasionally stem the tide of immoral sewage. But the Bush administration, as we are seeing all too clearly now (a tad too late, as always), dusted off the Reagan Revolution’s depraved tri-fecta (that government is the root of evil, that the free market is an immaculate arbiter of fortune, literally and figuratively, and that regulation is antithetical to a thriving infrastructure) and took off the training wheels. Funny how a formula combining incompetence, cronyism and unadulterated cupidity can devastate a nation’s surplus, safety and goodwill so quickly. And completely.

Incredibly, we saw some of the seeds of this sordid ideology bearing rotten fruit during the last eight years, but only now are we really getting a taste of the shit sandwich. It would be amusing if it were not so all-encompassing; it would be wonderful if it merely served as the overdue epitaph for avaricious gremlins like Grover Norquist and his gluttonous cadre. The no-taxation swine-mongers had their time at the teat, and they sucked on it without shame or a second thought. Now, the entire facade has collapsed, which is unfortunate for them, but it’s taking good people down with it. Tons and tons of them. The joke is on us, apparently. Which is what makes the notion of these bank bail-outs so discomfiting, especially as we know that (as usual) the richest of the rich saw this coming and made certain those golden parachutes were appropriately packed. It’s also what makes the spectacle of these CEOs whining about their divine right to ten million dollar bonuses so infuriating. It would almost be enjoyable to see people reaching for their pitchforks.

Thomas Frank targets the obscene Wall Street bonuses that are currently the tipping point of (egregiously overdue) public populist outrage. He also brilliantly encapsulates the outmoded and always unsustainable faith in the forces of the market to regulate itself and create jobs, spread wealth, and keep America strong, forever and ever Amen. His piece in today’s WSJ is here.

The god that failed is the god that never lived in the first place: the god of greed. Actually, that is not accurate: the god did not fail, its unholy spirit succeeded most spectacularly. Make no mistake, the rich did get richer. A lot richer. The CEOs may not actually be able to wipe their asses with hundred dollar bills anymore, but they aren’t going to be missing any meals. Props to them for pulling off a perverse Ponzi scheme where its transparently predictable default ends up indebting the populace who never profited from it. Surprise! The only people really losing everything are the folks who had too little to lose in the first place.

For this reason alone, it’s a minor miracle that a Democrat is in charge right now. But real progressives should brace themselves and be prepared for some disillusionment: this election was not a coronation, it was a correction. To be certain, it’s infinitely better than the alternative, but change (even a great deal of it) isn’t going to magically create lost jobs or replenish peoples’ 401k accounts. Obama might not be able to put enough fingers in the dyke, but at least his presence is preventing a full-on, Armageddon style meltdown. That was only the first step, but it is the most important one. And if you don’t think McCain, who had Phil “America is a nation of whiners” Gramm as his senior adviser, would at this very moment be driving us deeper into the ditch, I have some Lehman Bros stock I’d like to sell you.

What Would Touchdown Jesus Do?

Beyond Good and Evil or, The God that Failed