Putting the Words of the "Christians" Into the Mouth of Christ

MeanMesa usually prefers to add a significant amount of commentary to things which get "re-posted" here at Short Current Essays.  

However, in this particular case, it is necessary to simply let the material being forwarded here to speak for itself.

We have all heard our share of racist, knuckle dragging drawlers invoke "the high and the holy" vindications for their respective, inspired, "throw-back" comments.  The insinuation is that these "men of god" enjoy a certain exceptional liberty to chastise the rest of us and our foibled attempts to follow "jest whut thu' guud book saez."

So, in order to place such comments in a more rational perspective, some ingenious fellow at Huff Post's ALERT COMEDY has carefully crafted a remarkably revealing little sketch.  It is a series of paintings artfully depicting Jesus Christ in a wide variety of Biblical settings.  The words of the modern Christians are added in each case -- offering an opportunity to consider just how true to the teachings of Christ each of this string of utterrances actually is.

The way to "operate" what you will find at the end of this link is to look at each painting then click on it.  The source of the comment will load, enabling you to see just who said such a thing.  You can then hit the "back" arrow to return to the paintings and scroll down to the next one.

Spotting the vomitous hypocrisy is left up to you!

Enjoy!

The link:

http://teapartyjesus.tumblr.com/

If, per chance, you believe that Jesus wants you to elect a Republican in your district or state, this may help you out.

A Visitor to MeanMesa! Enjoy!

A quick note of introduction from MeanMesa: The following is an absolutely delightful comment posted on Thom Hartmann's web by my respected friend "antifascist." That avatar is highly suitable once one gets to know him. He provides a link to the website of the material's initial origin and its author.

It is included here because it is simply too thought provoking to just abandon, leaving it where I encountered it.

“Facts Are Stupid Things” (http://badattitudes.com/MT/archives/2009/02/facts_are_stupi.html)
badattitudes.com
February 21, 2009

The title above is a quote from Ronald Reagan at the 1988 Republican National Convention. He was trying to access a John Adams quote, “Facts are stubborn things,” but something more appropriate to the man and the occasion popped out.

The essay below is from my neighbor Jim, more of whose stuff can be seen here (at the site in the link).

Compare and contrast:

1980 may seem kind of arbitrary as the jump off for the end of empire, but the economics bear it out. Under Reagan, government disbursements and revenues, as a share of GDP, jumped a full six percentage points. More, if you include his unfunded moral hygiene mandates.

All the Republicans talked Rand, Friedman, inter alia, but they acted like straightforward right wing military Keynesians. Military Keynesianism is of course nothing new in the US. But prior to 1980 there was a dominant Bismarckian consensus (have I dropped enough names yet?) that it had to be matched by social spending, otherwise the exercise of hard power would eventually become financially unsustainable.

You cannot extract surplus value — i.e. have capitalism — in great heaping bushel baskets unless you have a government willing to exercise single payer monopsony power over basic human needs, basic scientific research and renewable sources of the energy needed to drive all this. Lo and behold, the exercise of hard power is now done on credit, with only the threat of mutually assured destruction holding our creditors at bay.

I suppose one could point to a cultural shift in the eighties, as there certainly was one, but I prefer a bit more systemic determinism.

The political economy of capitalism is easiest to manage through psychological terrorism. It’s a cheap and effective way of outsourcing the quotidian enforcement of corporate feudalism to vigilante moral panic artists. There’s no shortage of people willing to enforce for free. Hell, they’ll even pay for the dubious privilege.

People become inured to this, querulous and rebellious, and the terrorism has to be stepped up. Red scares have to be coupled with ethnic scares, drug scares, satanic child care scares and so forth. Going against that, as Carter did in an achingly minuscule way, is a positive step for capitalism and a negative step for capitalists. Their enforcement costs look to climb. People who aren’t constantly depressed and frightened get a little feisty.

Under Reagan, the “clever” work-around was burgeoning unfunded mandates to make the states take on domestic psychological terrorism, and yanking the social safety net away, while the central government threw surplus value to the cretinous capitalists, hand over fist. It’s been down hill ever since.

I can’t see why anyone would want to be president after Bush. It’s not a sane thing to do. I thought, and still think, that the Democrats would have been better off throwing the election. McCain would probably not have lasted four years and right wing military Keynesianism would have been discredited for a good long time. Getting stuck with cradling the appalling, ghoulish offspring that are roving mindlessly over a dying empire would have ruined him, and the most cretinous of the cretinous capitalists.

The Democrats could have trotted out old social democratic wine in new bottles and enjoyed thirty or forty years of crowing from the top of the DC shit hill. So it goes, I guess. And my goodness, doesn’t Carter look like a saint in comparison to every asshole that’s come since.

The Presidential Pardon Party -- Happy Holidays!

The last act of the strange dark drama in the White House?

Don't count on it.

Think of it as a office gift exchange. 74

Two almost identical young men stood waiting outside the Oval Office in a line with several dozen more, every one an almost perfect copy. All aspiring young attorneys from K Street or elsewhere, they seemed to have arrived from a call to central casting. The hair cut of each one was conservative, identically short and stylish. The well scrubbed, boyish faces all emphasized the overpriced, tailored suits and the multi-hundred dollar silk ties. The practiced mood of subdued reverence was one obviously mastered for missions such as this one.

“Are they doing this in alphabetical order?” the younger of the two asked, turning to face the man next to his position in the line.

His slightly older friend whispered an answer. “Sort of alphabetical, I guess. They started at about 10 AM with Jeb, Harriet Meiers and a list of secret pardons from Cheney. A big bound book of Wall Street names took an hour after that -- we’ll never know who was in there. They did Jack Abramoff and Duke Cunningham early this morning, than a bunch of rapid fire ‘B’s’ -- you know, Bolton, Blackwater, Blackwell, and Brownie, et cetera. Giuliani and Rumsfeld came as twin drag queens.”

“Michael Scanlon and Tom DeLay’s attorney were here early yesterday. But, after those two, they did Bob Ney and Ralph Reed. An attorney even got the gay guy, Gannon, pardoned. His lawyer didn’t have much of a cash bundle, so I figure they must have had a little dirt of some kind. I guess the male prostitution business isn’t so lucrative anymore.” he continued.

The door opened momentarily to discharge a small group of the previous supplicants. The line inched forward as another small group of the young attorneys entered. The younger of the two quietly peeked through the crack for a glimpse at what was awaiting him when his turn arrived.

The scene was a surreal theater.

All the normal furniture of the Oval Office had been removed, replaced with garish things suggesting screen props from an 1950’s version of Alice in Wonderland. The place was filled with potted ferns and roses. Geese, goats and gerbils seemed to be rushing around in the open area, each contributing its voice to the clamor. Providing background music, a quartet costumed as Cheshire Cats with banjos and harps struggled along with a faint timbre of what might have been some cheerful Transylvanian folk dance had it been produced with more suitable instruments.

A single drummer, dressed as the traditional hooded figure of “Death,” beat out a melancholy, yet consolidating rhythm on a solitary snare held by a suspiciously decorated leather strap around his neck and shoulder. His drumming seemed to inspire the animals, at least the geese, to attempt to synchronize their squawking with the beat.

The President was seated at one end of the room on an elaborate sort of medieval chair. He was dressed in a theatrical lime green tuxedo with tails. Obviously inebriated, even though still early morning, he slumped with the detachment of a depressed imperial indifference to the events in the room. He wore a great, green top hat, probably made of foam rubber, adorned with rhinestones and peacock feathers in a long flowing plume.

A troop of immense, bare chested wrestlers had just completed their performance. Staffers were hurriedly ushering them out the far door. A dance team of young women dressed as Vestal Virgins waited impatiently for a signal to begin the next entertainment act. Some had already begun to throw rose petals onto floor at the center of the room.

Several young men from the same waiting line were in the Oval Office moving respectfully around what seemed to be a Bush administration version of the “stations of the cross.”

Wide eyed, the young lobbyist attorney again turned to his more experienced acquaintance, puzzled. “What in God’s name is going on in there?”

His friend answered calmly. “Relax. If you’d been here last time, you would understand everything. I spoke to a guy from the Chief of Staff’s office yesterday. It seems that the Bush wanted to avoid the Berlin Bunker atmosphere for the pardoning ceremony. The President choreographed this whole thing himself.”

Again, the first young lawyer stumbled. “But what does all this mean?”

His acquaintance answered. “In 2004 the motive was the Crusades. This year, it’s the Mad Hatter. Didn’t your boss tell you anything about this?”

The younger man responded, glancing down at the huge suitcase of 1,000 Euro notes handcuffed to his wrist, “All he told me was to make sure that the currency counting machine was stopped after the batch before me before I put all these Euros in it. He said it might not look like it, but that the exact amount of cash was important. He said it was something like a contribution to the Presidential Library Fund or something.”

His friend offered, “Well, it’s good that you’ve got that part straight. What happens in the room is simple enough. You go directly to the Attorney General -- he’s the one dressed in the Supreme Court robes. He will give you a parking ticket with your boss’s name on it.”

“After that, you take the ticket to the tall guy over by the windows. He’s playing the role of the Great Confessor. He’s the one dressed up as a medieval abbot. He’ll ask you if your client wants to voluntarily confess to the charges on the ticket. He means your boss, of course. You raise your hand and say ‘Yes, Great Confessor. My client confesses that he is truly guilty as charged.’ At that point, all the judicial stuff is done.”

“Then put all your Euro’s in the currency counter in front of Paulson.”

He could see Secretary of the Treasury sitting on a great wooden throne, elevated above the remainder of the room. Costumed as an extravagant courtier, he was heavily made up with bizarre cosmetics. Flamboyant lipstick had enlarged the outline of his mouth to reach from ear to ear suggesting a threatening psychopathy. Every detail of the man’s appearance was darkly grotesque.

“Let his little elf there in front of the throne run all the cash through the counting machine. When it’s done, he will whisper the amount in Paulson’s ear. Paulson is the one made up as the Exchequer for the Queen of Hearts. They’ll throw your boss’s, uh, donation in that big pot, and the ‘Exchequer’ will nod at the President.”

Astonished, the first young lawyer asked, “And then?”

His friend answered, “And then the Mad Hatter will wave his hand and the bunch from the Justice Department will issue your boss’s blanket pardon. You want to slowly and reverently back away -- withdraw ceremoniously toward this same door. Bowing subserviently wouldn’t hurt.”

The newer man asked, “What’s the parking ticket’s part in all of this?”

His more experienced associate responded, “That’s important. Blanket pardons can’t be issued without an admission of guilt. Now, we both know that the exact details of the, uh, ‘guilt’ involved here could hardly bear the light of day, so confessing to the parking ticket is a way to cover everything. Think of it as a symbolic act of contrition. Once you confess in your boss’s behalf, the pardon becomes legal. Of course, it centers on the confession to the parking violation, but, once that’s in the bag, the blanket pardon covers everything else. Slick, huh?”

The young man whispered back, “This is nuts. Does anyone on the, I mean, on the outside have any idea what’s going on here?”

His friend answered, also in a low voice, “No, of course not. You’d better believe it’s better that way. This has been going on a for a couple of days now, but the news black out is holding. Murdoch and the rest of the media CEO’s are scheduled for later today.”

He continued, “I plan to record as much as possible on this belt buckle I got through the security screen. I’ll blackmail my boss if his pardon goes through. I’m sure he’s already budgeted enough to pay me off. After all, he is a K Street lobbyist, right?”

“Wow. I work for an investment banker. They’re a little meaner than K Street guys. You know, a little more violent and pragmatic.” He paused for a moment, clearly deep in thought, then continued. “Gosh. All these people getting pardons. They’ve been running everything for eight years.” He mused pensively. “If they’re all gone, you know, pardoned and everything and gone on back to their regular lives, who’s going to run the government?”

This post proves that pardons can be fun! If you'd like to try it yourself -- with just a few actual facts -- link away!
http://news.muckety.com/2008/11/27/in-final-days-bush-likely-to-pardon-more-than-turkeys/7551

Hypocrisy Hunting in the New Obama Cabinet

Undercutting New Possibilities With Old Ideas? 68

The predictable complaints of hypocrisy, or at least, inconsistency, are now rolling in from any ambitious pundit with a microphone. How could such an idealist as Barrack Obama, that is, someone so highly dedicated to changing the government, announce that he intended to do business with Tom Daschle, Hillary Clinton or even John McCain?

By “do business” we mean “give authority and trust.”

The neo-con purists (yes, they still imagine themselves purists after all the soiled things their man committed in the last two terms...) claim that Clinton Cabinet politicos contaminate Obama’s claim to the “high road.” Other hungry commentators dredge relentlessly for contradictions in past positions to compare with what they present as present positions required to fill Obama’s government and support his political philosophy.

Let’s indulge in a fable at this point.

You are a remarkably progressive and idealistic King in a medieval country. You set out to rectify some grave injustices by a military campaign. When it’s time to select generals to conduct this thing you seem to have two choices.

On one side, there is the Abbot, your spiritual advisor, a man with unshakably good, decent ideas about how to improve matters. On the other side, there is General Smith, a ruthlessly successful medieval military strategist with a checkered history of brutality and effectiveness.

If you intend to prevail in this struggle, that is, if you intend to over power the rather impressive and well established enemy who has sponsored these atrocities you find so deplorable, you will select General Smith. Issues such as collateral damage and war crimes associated with the Abbot might be much more palatable than the likely results of General Smith’s campaign, but the results would probably be disappointing.

If you are determined to prevail and advance your cause of decency, General Smith will be your man. First, the war must be won, then your plans can become material. In the meantime, that is, during the conduct of the war, you can insist that General Smith be more decent than he would be normally or than he has been previously, but the necessity of results dictates that you employ his expertise to deliver the possibility of conditions for your own intention.

This progressive King is more armored by his Divine Right than the trust of those who might ultimately benefit from his ideals, but, unlike recent leaders, he will have to trust himself! We have no King. Obama is armored by the trust of those who sent him into this difficult place. His leadership is qualified by his spiritual solidity of trusting himself.

Obama needs a cabinet capable of surviving the inevitable, paralytic aggression of the Republicans. He needs a cabinet which can deliver in Washington politics. The work of these mindless reactionaries has left us a disaster so grave that excuses or near victories, especially when precipitated by the stupid, inexperienced or ineffective application of power, are not an option.

Yes, incorporating individuals with alternative political philosophies may help a little, but the reactionary forces, inflamed as usual by the low road sabotage of hate radio and anti-American Congressional throw backs, have no interest in any solution to our difficult problems. Their cynical interests have nothing to do with America’s future. The entire focus of their babble is directed at maximizing the number of voters in their districts that can they deceive, lie to or frighten into sustaining their offices, reinvigorating their opportunities for looting.

Obama’s ideals will, in fact, make the difference we need. Ideals belong at the top of the pyramid when the ground level is violently contested by well financed cynics and other criminals. Obama’s “ground war” will be conducted by the best he can find, some of the Clinton legacy and other new, competent faces, the 21st century equivalent of that old King’s General Smith.

We trust his idealism, his cabinet selections, his competence, his intellect and his spirit. These vociferous tantrums are to be expected. Neo-cons are allergic to leadership.

Hypocrisy Hunting in the Urban Wild Lands

Voting in An Imperfect World: "Oh, Daddy which one's the saint?"
How We Avoid All Possible Humiliation While Electing and Supporting Nobody 35


“Hey! Bill!” Johnnie called as he entered the neighborhood diner.

“Johnnie. Didn’t see you this weekend at the bowling alley.” his friend replied good naturedly.

“Yeah. Larry and I went into the city.” Johnnie answered, looking at the menu.

“What for? Did you have a good time?” Bill asked casually.

“Yeah. Yeah we did.” Johnnie answered, now concentrating on the menu.

“So, what d’ya do? Bar hopping? Girl hunting?” Bill asked, eager and curious.

“Well, we did go hunting, just not for girls.” Johnnie answered, pointing to his choice on the menu.

“You mean, uh, boys?” the younger man asked, puzzled.

“No. No. Nothing like that. We went to that hypocrisy hunting club that Larry belongs to. Spent the weekend going through old newspapers, reading speeches and stuff, then looking for hypocrisy in stories about what the politicians did instead of what they said they were gonna’ do.” Johnnie answered patiently.

“Hmm. What was that like? Did you ‘get’ any?” Bill responded, still unsure what he was talking about.

“Yeah. Yeah, we got some. Larry landed a big one from some Congressman in the fifth district. He won the floor prize. The guy had just lied his ass off around election time, then, once that was kinda’ over, it was just like he had a list of the exact opposite. Ole’ Larry got a real nice portable radio, brand new in a box and everything.” Johnnie’s account of the meeting rambled on.

“You mean, that Congressman was a crook?” Bill asked excitedly.

“No, that’s the whole deal, Bill. The hypocrites do stuff that isn’t exactly illegal, so they just go on, hoping that nobody notices. Actually, they usually score lots more money than the dead out crooks who take bribes and do crimes and stuff.”

“I caught a couple of little ones. Well, one of ‘em wasn’t bad. Some City Councilman who turned out to be a real estate shark and a racist. You know, the guy went exactly against what he was pretending to be to get elected.” Johnnie boasted nonchalantly.

“What about the other one?” asked Bill, now obviously interested.

“Oh, it was okay. I guess I got excited all right. That one was my first catch of the night. First catch ever, if you know what I mean. But everybody there said that I should just “throw him back in” and not say nothin’. They all thought that he’d just go on feeding until he was a lot better catch for someone else, you know, later.” Johnnie explained.

“So, if Larry got the second prize, who got the first?” Bill asked.

“These two old ladies shared first prize. They lived together, retired and all, and both of ‘em are absolute dead-eye on the internet. They trotted out their stuff for everyone at the club meeting, and you could have heard a pin drop. Holy cats!” Johnnie answered.

“Who’d they get?” Bill asked.

“Actually more than one guy, but one main catch. Some preacher in one of those mega-churches. The guy had a boy friend on the side besides being married, lots of drugs and stuff, but even more than that. The whole Spiritual Leadership Council for that church was screwin’ their dues payin’ members, investing the money in some company that made religious books, buyin’ the books for way too much, then billin’ the church. Let me tell ya’. This whole stinkin’ bunch wasn’t working for chick peas, either.” Johnnie explained.

“The old ladies, Irma and Beth, snagged this video of the most outrageous ‘Better than Thou’ crap that the whole bunch of ‘em were spewing out in their church. Those two old gals peddled their story to the tv station. The hypocrisy club gets 10% when that happens. It’s great.” he continued. "I guess they were the same ones who got the Senator with the hooker problem and the other guy from the air port bathroom, you know the one who "isn't gay," when the pair of 'em wrote the Defend Marriage Amendment."

"Wow, those guys were, like, Republicans or somethin', right?" Bill answered.

"See, you're gettin" it! You'd like the club meetings." Johnnie answered, encouragingly.

“I always feel, like, extra righteous. You know, 'clean,' after one of those meetings. Hey, we’re goin’ back next weekend. Why don’t you jump in?” Johnnie mentioned as the waitress delivered his lunch

Hypocrisy hunting cannot replace serious thought when considering which candidate to select in an election. It can be a factor, of course, but as a simple measure, it will do very little to express one’s ambitions for the future of the country. Yes, hypocrisy is a subtle form of outright lying. No, it does not mean that a candidate should be “thrown under the bus” based solely on whether or not he has ever been hypocritical.

Yes, it does mean that if that candidate is elected, he should know that we are watching. As far as “blow hard” conspiracy theories, maybe it is time to start having some thoughts of our own instead of simply relying on how much mud we can pitch. If you find yourself thinking that “detecting hypocrisy” is a responsible way to chose a candidate, you have been “hoodwinked.”

We will never have a perfect candidate. We should never elect someone who presents himself as a saint. He’s lying and we’re buying into it. We should probably never elect someone who is absolutely devoid of any hypocrisy. He is managing the media.

We will have to realistically consider what we want in our leadership. Unexamined and relentless fear and greed may be great fodder for a tantrum, but aimless paranoia is not a reasonable arena to decide who we will elect.

We will have to vote as adults.