Refashion Jesus from his role as a humble teacher into a vicious fanatic

I didn’t watch an online movie last Sunday because I wanted to see one in a real movie theater on a big screen with a great sound system. What drew me wasn’t the new Spider Man flick, rather the new version of West Side Story the one directed by Stephen Spielberg. It has all the wonderful Bernstein / Sondheim songs, with expanded dialogue with more backstory for some characters by Tony Kushner. I’ve long been a fan of this musical and have seen it several times both on stage and on screen. The fondness is even with that ending. I think the first time I saw it was when a cousin was in her high school production – she played one of the Jet girls. The most interesting performance was when I was living in Germany and took a work colleague to see an English language production. But I haven’t seen this movie yet. In this past week it was showing in only one theater in the area and only one time each day. So I would check in the morning to find it was already sold out. I checked a couple days ahead and found the theater had only 35 seats. And no spacing between patrons. And soon sold out. Chances look better next week when this theater will show WSS three times a day. Or I may decide, because of the virus, to stay home. See ... I downloaded Michigan’s COVID data updated yesterday. I normally do this on Saturday but Friday is a holiday. Since this is the week between two holidays I’m sure the numbers will be adjusted and redistributed (which is why Michigan Radio has been reporting seven day averages, rather than peaks). Even so, that peak is huge! The state reported that on Monday there were 13,099 new cases that day. That’s 41% higher than the peak at the end of November and 56% higher than the peak last April. A pretty good clue the numbers will be revised is two days before the number new cases was only 2170. The deaths per day for the first three weeks of December have been in the range of 100-140. The numbers after that haven’t been fully posted yet. Rebekah Sager of Daily Kos reported that Sen. Rob Standridge of the Oklahoma Legislature is pushing two bills that would...

give parents the power to remove any book in a public school library they find objectionable. Meaning any book mentioning sex or the “study of sex, sexual preferences, sexual activity, sexual perversion, sex-based classifications, sexual identity, or gender identity,” or books “that are of a sexual nature.” ... Parents can also receive “monetary damages including a minimum of $10,000 per day” from school districts refusing to remove the book as demanded.

Though the article doesn’t say so, this sounds to me like the Texas abortion ban in which the state doesn’t enforce the ban, but the citizens do. Standridge says that parents should have a say in what books their kids are exposed to. However, his method (or any method of removing books) makes the decision for all parents. And some parents do want their kids exposed to such books. The comment section included this thread: cmax: “Almost any book could be found objectionable to someone.” drshatterhand: “If this crap went through and I lived in Okie, my first request for removal would be the bible. There’s some perverted s--- in there.” Youffraita: “Was just thinking that very thing. I would also object that it’s far too violent for children to read.” That book does talk about the creation of male and female. And multiple wives and concubines. And eunuchs. That fits somewhere in the list of things Standridge wants banned. Doesn’t it? The commenter certainot proposed a theory not appropriate for tender ears (besides it is quite a stretch), though there are a couple bits that make sense.

authoritarianism is one of the strategies used by humans to avoid/reduce/control uncertainty — and create certainty. ... denying global warming is much easier than contemplating the complexities. they can reject vaccines outright because, as uncertainty-fearing trumper sen ron johnson of wisconsin points out, they don’t work 100%!

libera nos added: “Those mathematics books make my child’s head hurt—and mine, too!” Dartagnan of the Kos community discussed a speech by junior nasty guy at the Turning Point USA conference on December 19. He ranted about the other side playing dirty while they played nice (which is a great deal of projecting) which has gotten them nothing (the presidency for four years is nothing?). They are an enemy who must be crushed. Dartagnan then turned to Peter Wehner, an evangelical Christian (hold on, he’s on our side) writing for The Atlantic:

This in turn justifies any necessary means to win. And the former president’s son has a message for the tens of millions of evangelicals who form the energized base of the GOP: the scriptures are essentially a manual for suckers. The teachings of Jesus have “gotten us nothing.” It’s worse than that, really; the ethic of Jesus has gotten in the way of successfully prosecuting the culture wars against the left. If the ethic of Jesus encourages sensibilities that might cause people in politics to act a little less brutally, a bit more civilly, with a touch more grace? Then it needs to go.

Contrast that with what Tyler Huckabee, writing for Relevant has to say about what Jesus taught:

Nearly every page of the Gospels has stories of Jesus refusing earthly power and exhorting his followers to do the same. In fact, there are few things Jesus talked as much about as the upside down Kingdom of God where “the last shall be first” and “blessed are the meek.” Moreover, he cautioned against seeking earthly influence, going so far as to proclaim “woe to you who are rich.” The most cursory reading of Scripture would leave anyone with the sense that this is not a manual for getting stuff.

Dartagnan wrote:

As The Washington Post’s conservative columnist Jennifer Rubin writes, the embrace of intolerance and exclusion by many of these purported “Christians”—as part and parcel of their political identity—is now a necessary and integral requirement to joining their ranks.

Rubin discussed the recent cruelty towards immigrants and the selfish refusal to vaccinate, then added:

If you wonder how so many “people of faith” can behave in such ways, understand that their “faith” has become hostile to traditional religious values such as kindness, empathy, self-restraint, grace, honesty and humility.

Dartagnan added:

In order for this “faith” to endure, however, it’s become necessary to refashion Jesus Christ from his previously understood role as a humble teacher into a vicious fanatic exhorting his followers to hatred, revenge for imagined slights, and even murder of others as exemplifying the “essence” of Christianity. Racism, bigotry, and intolerance have to become “Christian” virtues in order for this warped version of “faith” to sustain itself. ... Yet before Trump Jr.’s speech, no single voice—not even that of the elder Trump—dared to so boldly and directly repudiate the teachings of Christ himself. None but Don Jr. has so directly dared to rend the tattered fabric of morality that white evangelicals long wore, however much it annoyed or inconvenienced them. Never before had anyone so directly crumpled up the pages of the New Testament, wadded them into a ball, and proudly wiped his ass with it.

Thanks to junior for revealing the ugly core of fundamentalist belief. Aldous Pennyfarthing of the Kos community reported that an anti-vaxx crowd stormed a Burger King. I’m not sure all that went on and I certainly didn’t watch the videos Pennyfarthing posted. Eventually the police showed up. Pennyfarthing did get to the core idea:

But what really motivated this war on Whoppers? As the folks behind Patriot Takes note, they’re doing it for attention, and for street cred among Team Antivaxx.

In the case of both junior nasty and this war on Whoppers what they’re doing is a battle over their place in the social hierarchy, either fighting to keep their high position or trying to signal to those above them that they are worthy of inclusion in a higher status. While on the subject of the virus ... Hunter of Kos discussed the home test kits. He reminds is that if we get a positive test we should report it to the local health department. It is important even if one does not have symptoms.

You may be feeling fine, you may not have any symptoms at all, but if you've been exposed to COVID that means, by definition, that somebody spread it to you. And that “somebody” likely spread it to several other people as well; your own positive test means that in your county, in your city, there are new active cases. This is vital information for local health officials. If they know that local cases are rising, and know the rate at which they are rising, emergency plans can be put in place to free up hospital beds for the new cases that will become severe. Hospitals can cancel nonemergency procedures, freeing up staff. The now-familiar parking lot tents can be set up in preparation for a surge of patients. Hospitals can scrounge for additional staff, if possible, and make sure medical equipment is available.

The Capital and Main team of Kos posted a four part series on how corporations bust unions. The series looks at:

“The 50-100 Pay Gap” examines the crisis of income inequality in the U. S. A recent RAND study found that a full-time worker earning the median national wage of $50,000 would be making close to $100,000 if pay had kept up with worker productivity and economic growth.

The first post, by Jo Constantz, looks at the various ways employers use technology to spy on and intimidate their workers. This includes such commonplace things as ID badges that can be used to monitor movements and track who someone meets with and when. Technology hasn’t kept up with law. And even with existing law employees tend to not report (for a variety of reasons) and even when reported cases tend to not move forward. It is also difficult to prove the employer was spying. Management can claim they only check the data in an emergency. In the meantime employees endure the harassment and unsafe conditions while they wonder who is safe to talk to. The second post, by Marcus Baram, is about Martin Jay Levitt. He was a consultant that companies hired to show them how to intimidate their workers into not joining a union. Then in the late 1980s Levitt had a change of heart. He wrote a book, Confessions of a Union Buster. Part of it is an autobiography, part of it is to reveal tactics. Baram wrote:

“Union-busting is a field populated by bullies and built on deceit,” he wrote. “The only way to bust a union is to lie, distort, manipulate, threaten, and always, always attack.” He described how his former firm, Modern Management Methods, had developed a methodology for breaking down employee support for unions by using psychological tactics and turning managers into anti-union spokespersons.

This book has been a guide to union organizers and allies. Corporations are using the same tactics they’ve used for decades, though now with high tech help. The third post, by Baram again, documents how much corporations are willing to pay consultants to avoid paying more to their employees. One would think it would be cheaper to just pay employees more. These consultants earn an estimated $340 million a year. Baram included a list of what some corporations spend on consultants each year. I read through that and thought part of what the corporations are doing is protecting the social hierarchy – keeping poor people poor, making sure the rich stay rich, and the gulf between them stays wide. The fourth post, by Jo Constantz again, is about the shrinking field of labor studies in universities:

Researchers in the field have been the target of legal threats and lawsuits; onerous public records requests; and misinformation campaigns from union avoidance consultants, business executives, corporate lawyers, and conservative think tanks. It’s one aspect of the business lobby’s relentless war against unions in recent decades ...

Constantz worked through that list. An example is Kate Brofenbrenner of Cornell University. In 1992 she was on her way to a labor studies conference. When she opened the door of the car sent to pick her up she saw the CEO of a management consulting firm in the back seat. He demanded to know what she was going to talk about and demanded to see her data. She refused. He was furious. Later she was sued for libel, so a company could get her raw data through the discovery process. The lawsuit failed, but served to intimidate others who might consider entering the field.

The field of labor studies has often been lambasted by conservative lawmakers who consider it union advocacy education that indoctrinates students. ... Labor studies academics contend that the field can inform how we view everything from law, economics and history to music and literature by focusing on the perspective of the working class, which is often neglected in other disciplines.

The view from the management class and the view from the labor class are going to look quite different. Patricia Morgan, the first female Minority Leader in the Rhode Island House of Representatives, tweeted:

I had a black friend. I liked her and I think she liked me, too. But now she is hostile and unpleasant. I am sure I didn't do anything to her, except be white. Is that what teachers and our political leaders really want for our society? Divide us because of our skin color? #CRT

Lots of people tweeted their outrage at her racism – in Rhode Island!. I’ll stick to the rebuttal by George Takei:

I had a white friend. I liked him and I think he liked me, too. But then Pearl Harbor happened and whites became hostile and unpleasant. I am sure we didn’t do anything but they sent us to camps anyway. And now they don’t want to teach about this because it make kids feel bad.

Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column forKos started today’s post with a minute long demonstration of how a little action can have a big effect. The unnamed man in the video has a row of slabs standing on end like dominoes, each one 1.5 times larger than the previous one. The smallest is 5 millimeters high, 1 mm thick and placed in position with tweezers. The largest, the 13th, is 100 pounds and more than a meter tall. He knocked over the little one and soon the big one is knocked over. Bill got the video through the Twitter feed of Pascal Bornet. So I scanned it a bit. Here is a diagram of a measure of success I agree with: success = happiness. And another with a half minute video showing the difference between a boss and a leader. The boss wants to maintain his place high in the hierarchy. The leader cares for those under him. Harry Reid was Democratic Senate Majority Leader towards the end of the Bush II years and into the Obama years. He died this week at age 82. Joan McCarter of Kos wrote a remembrance of him.