Doing The Alt-Right Thing - Mithraism - 4

Black Beard Alt-Right does Washington, D.C.

Due to a slight change in the name of the right, a change from "right" to "alt-right," I changed the name of this series.

It is a timely change based on an untimely change based on the new-old religion of Washington, D.C. religionists celebrating for the rapture of November the Eighth.

As you have most likely heard by now, the all-powerful GOP got caught doing what the media now thinks was a boo boo:

Majorities in Congress often overreach, but usually not on the very first day.

House Republicans, on the verge of a Washington takeover as the new Congress convened Tuesday, couldn’t stop themselves from trying to dilute the power of a despised ethics watchdog as their first order of business. In the process, they created an unsightly spectacle that pretty much ruined an opening-day celebration of unified Republican government, undermined their own leadership and perhaps foretold the shape of things to come.
...
“Mr. Trump campaigned that he was going to drain the swamp, and here we are on Day 1 trying to fill the swamp,” Representative Walter B. Jones, Republican of North Carolina, said after he and his colleagues hurriedly jettisoned a plan seen as a brazen attempt to weaken an independent ethics office that some felt had been unfair to lawmakers. “That is not a good way to start.”

(NY Times, emphasis added). Actually, they were simply practicing their alt-right religion (Doing The Right Thing - Mithraism, 2, 3).

Yep, "pass the lard and praise the ammunition" (Hypothesis: The Cultural Amygdala - 4).

The part of their religion which they were seized of was the same as what Karl Rove and Bush II fixed upon:

How did the bushies remove the boogie man from under your bed, since that description sounds strangely like the banksters of recent "bailout" infamy?

How did they do that you may be asking? The answer is that they did it using what they think is the "Christian way".

The very Bible they profess to follow says: "... because law brings wrath. Where there is no law, there is no transgression of the law" (Romans 4:15). Now ask yourself, "what good robber baron wants 'wrath' for doing what comes naturally"?

So, when the bushies heard the preacher in church quoting Romans 4:15 their eyes twinkled so brightly folks in the pews around them thought that a meteorite was passing overhead.

It was like the conversion of the Apostle Paul, only in reverse. It was an epiphany of the sort that changes a nation from one age into another age.

They removed the law, which made taking money from the public trough in certain ways, robbery. Thus, no robbery law, no transgression of the law bringing wrath, and thus no more robber barons.

The U.S. then entered the age of the Plunder Barons, who after gorging themselves under Bush II and the republican controlled congress, are seeing if they can corrupt the new blood recently elected.

(Bush II Eradicated The Robber Barons - 4, emphasis added). No ethics law means no ethics violations in the U.S.eh?

Yep, business as usual (a.k.a. same ole same ole) in the swamp out on Highway 61.

The next post in this series is here, the previous post in this series is here.

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Free, "Baby It's Alt-Right Now"

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Global Warming / Climate Change Will Generate Dangerous Religion - 2

The main stream media's ISIS loves oil as much as the main stream media's Oil-Qaeda does.

Now, Pope Francis is on a crusade to counter that flirtation with the middle east oil and its control (A History of Oil Addiction - 4, 3, 2, 1).

A cultural  trance addiction started by the religious belief of a high-powered military figure in the British Empire (The Universal Smedley - 2, Viva Egypt - 2).

Which has now come down to a suicide watch over the Petroleum Civilization created in the wake of that religious belief (Civilization Is Now On Suicide Watch, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8).

Thus, we have a religious struggle of ideas about the nature of the Earth (in the context of a global civilization) concerning being addicted to the burning of fossil fuels.

In the U.S.eh? the dynamic of Exceptional American Denial has taken on an evangelical air in the three ring circus of right-wing politics.

In that arena both the High Priest of Denial and Bishop X want the Pope to stifle it.

So, basically this religious element, of the phenomenon of ideological conflict concerning global warming induced climate change, boils down to "Is God causing it or is human civilization causing it?"

In the realm of scientists, there is a massively one-sided consensus that God is not causing it, humans are.

I would expect Pope Francis to be more persuasive than his theocratic opponents in the U.S. government, and more persuasive than the wannabe theocrats hoping to be elected into U.S. government office.

The official document is slated to be released Thursday, but a draft of the encyclical was leaked.

It purportedly says:

"Humanity is called to take note of the need for changes in lifestyle and changes in methods of production and consumption to combat this warming, or at least the human causes that produce and accentuate it," he wrote in the draft. "Numerous scientific studies indicate that the greater part of the global warming in recent decades is due to the great concentration of greenhouse gases…given off above all because of human activity."

The pope will also single out those obstructing solutions. In an apparent reference to climate-change deniers, the draft states: "The attitudes that stand in the way of a solution, even among believers, range from negation of the problem, to indifference, to convenient resignation or blind faith in technical solutions."

(Mother Jones). Pope Francis goes on the offensive against deniers in his church and those not in his church.

The Pope is not a feudal vassal like the European Church was during feudal times there, but the American Catholics who are opposing him seem to be vassals or serfs:

The Church, too, had her place in the feudal system. She too was granted territorial fiefs, became a vassal, possessed immunities. It was the result of her calm, wide sympathy, turning to the new nations, away from the Roman Empire, to which many Christians thought she was irrevocably bound. By the baptism of Clovis she showed the baptism of Constantine had not tied her to the political system. So she created a new world out of chaos, created the paradox of barbarian civilization. In gratitude kings and emperors endowed her with property; and ecclesiastical property has not infrequently brought evils in its train. The result was disputed elections; younger sons of nobles were intruded into bishoprics, at times even into the papacy. Secular princes claimed lay investiture of spiritual offices. The cause of this was feudalism, for a system that had its basis on land tenure was bound at last to enslave a Church that possessed great landed possessions.

(American Feudalism - 2). Next comes the decision phase of individuals faced with choosing between the American Oil Religion of Oil-Qaeda (Oilah Akbar! Oilah Akbar!) and the Pope's version (Catholicism).

That decision making will probably follow the way such things are traditionally decided (The Pillars of Knowledge: Faith and Trust?).

The previous post in this series is here.

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The heaven matrix is confusing ...

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The Paradox of Barbarian Civilization: Dangerous Religion

Barbarian is as Barbarian does

I did not coin the phrase "Barbarian Civilization", no, I got it from the very competent Catholic Encyclopedia, as will be shown with a quote later in this post.

"Barbarian Civilization" seems like a contradiction of terms, so that encyclopedia probably used it intentionally to describe the western division of themselves during the feudal ages.

The graphic to the left comes from a Wikipedia page "Barbarian", depicting The Huns at the Battle of Chalon.

I modified the middle section, so as to show what the religious barbarians then thought of themselves: holy lily white Crusaders (see this & this).

I modified the top and bottom so as to show the women and children being slaughtered (bottom), and the flocks of vultures and eagles (top) following the "civilized barbarians" to feast on "the carrion of the wicked."

Recently, I did the post Global Warming / Climate Change Will Generate Dangerous Religion.

The underlying premise, in that post, was based upon how the individual amygdala as well as the cultural amygdala react to stress.

Today, let's look at an historical example of how the individual amygdala and the cultural amygdala reacted to stress, in terms of generating a dangerous religion:

Religious service even became part of feudalism:

The Church, too, had her place in the feudal system. She too was granted territorial fiefs, became a vassal, possessed immunities. It was the result of her calm, wide sympathy, turning to the new nations, away from the Roman Empire, to which many Christians thought she was irrevocably bound. By the baptism of Clovis she showed the baptism of Constantine had not tied her to the political system. So she created a new world out of chaos, created the paradox of barbarian civilization. In gratitude kings and emperors endowed her with property; and ecclesiastical property has not infrequently brought evils in its train. The result was disputed elections; younger sons of nobles were intruded into bishoprics, at times even into the papacy. Secular princes claimed lay investiture of spiritual offices. The cause of this was feudalism, for a system that had its basis on land tenure was bound at last to enslave a Church that possessed great landed possessions.

(Catholic Encyclopedia, emphasis added). In that sense war and military service today, in some ways, are as they were in both Holy Roman Empire feudalism and earlier European feudalism (The Virgin MOMCOM - 6, Doing The Right Thing - Mithraism - 2).

(American Feudalism - 2). For the record, note that dangerous religions can change and sometimes do get back to sanity.

Our current dangerous religion is Deigenic Climate Change, which is firmly embedded in the Congress of the United States.

The high priest of that dangerous religion, now, is Senator Inhofe (Inhofe, Beavis, & Butthead Need Waders).

About 100 or so of the current congress members have the religious faith that God is causing weather catastrophe upon the Earth.

God the Chef, ostensibly does this to generate "the carrion of the wicked" for the flocks of vultures and eagles to feast upon.

Meanwhile, their God (Oil-Qaeda) has sold enough holy "Oilah Akbar" oil to destroy another critical cycle in the Earth's ecosystem:

At the rate things are going, the Earth in the coming decades could cease to be a “safe operating space” for human beings. That is the conclusion of a new paper published Thursday in the journal Science by 18 researchers trying to gauge the breaking points in the natural world.

The paper contends that we have already crossed four “planetary boundaries.” They are the extinction rate; deforestation; the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere; and the flow of nitrogen and phosphorous (used on land as fertilizer) into the ocean.

“What the science has shown is that human activities — economic growth, technology, consumption — are destabilizing the global environment,” said Will Steffen, who holds appointments at the Australian National University and the Stockholm Resilience Center and is the lead author of the paper.

(Beyond the Boundaries, cf. The Damage Cannot Be Undone?, Shadow of Time Governs The Earth - 2 ). The scientists say clearly that our days are numbered.

The high priests of Oil-Qaeda say it is because we are wicked and God is on their side.

Their dogma is that we climate change believers are going to be destroyed by catastrophe, because we are not worthy.

But they get raptured.

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With the lord Oil-Qaeda on our side ...

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Global Warming / Climate Change Will Generate Dangerous Religion

Code Red: Weird Religion Approaches

Most or all of our human religions are engendered when people realize that nothing humans can make or do will cause a difference in a given situation.

Thus, in good times religion is composed of various instances of the more benign word generators and practices.

However, when human endeavors and/or religions cause unintended or unforeseen consequences, "regular crazy" can morph into "crazy on steroids."

In yesterday's post I provided some examples.

Such as Senator Inhofe's statement that "God's still up there", the "arrogance of people to think that we, human beings, would be able to change what He is doing in the climate is to me outrageous."

Let's describe it as the cultural amygdala doing what our individual amygdala does under an overdose of stress:

Chronic stress also does bad things to the nervous system. Stress kills neurons in the part of the brain called the hippocampus and weakens the cables between neurons, so they can’t talk to each other. This impairs the formation and retrieval of long-term memory. The opposite thing happens in the amygdala, which is where we see fear in a brain scanner. In the hippocampus, stress causes stuff to shrivel up. But stress feeds the amygdala. It actually gets bigger. Chronic stress creates a hyper-reactive, hysterical amygdala, and this tells us tons about what stress has to do with anxiety disorders.

(Abiotic Evolution: Can It Explain An Origin For The Toxins of Power? - 3). When a doctor tells a patient that there is nothing more modern medicine can do, and that the patient is going to die, generally an overdose of stress happens.

That individual's normal amygdala becomes a "hysterical amygdala", which can also happen in many strong stressful circumstances way short of impending death.

Those who understand what the amygdala is will understand that code red is the only way to describe the situation of religion based on, or improperly reacting to, a hysterical cultural amygdala.

For example, this is what happened when an individual amygdala got a bit crowded by a tumor:

... [Whitman] killed a receptionist with the butt of his rifle. Two families of tourists came up the stairwell; he shot at them at point-blank range. Then he began to fire indiscriminately from the deck at people below. The first woman he shot was pregnant. As her boyfriend knelt to help her, Whitman shot him as well. He shot pedestrians in the street and an ambulance driver who came to rescue them.

The evening before, Whitman had sat at his typewriter and composed a suicide note:

I don’t really understand myself these days. I am supposed to be an average reasonable and intelligent young man. However, lately (I can’t recall when it started) I have been a victim of many unusual and irrational thoughts.

By the time the police shot him dead, Whitman had killed 13 people and wounded 32 more. The story of his rampage dominated national headlines the next day. And when police went to investigate his home for clues, the story became even stranger: in the early hours of the morning on the day of the shooting, he had murdered his mother and stabbed his wife to death in her sleep.

It was after much thought that I decided to kill my wife, Kathy, tonight … I love her dearly, and she has been as fine a wife to me as any man could ever hope to have. I cannot rationa[l]ly pinpoint any specific reason for doing this …

Along with the shock of the murders lay another, more hidden, surprise: the juxtaposition of his aberrant actions with his unremarkable personal life. Whitman was an Eagle Scout and a former marine, studied architectural engineering at the University of Texas, and briefly worked as a bank teller and volunteered as a scoutmaster for Austin’s Boy Scout Troop 5. As a child, he’d scored 138 on the Stanford-Binet IQ test, placing in the 99th percentile. So after his shooting spree from the University of Texas Tower, everyone wanted answers.

For that matter, so did Whitman. He requested in his suicide note that an autopsy be performed to determine if something had changed in his brain — because he suspected it had.

I talked with a Doctor once for about two hours and tried to convey to him my fears that I felt [overcome by] overwhelming violent impulses. After one session I never saw the Doctor again, and since then I have been fighting my mental turmoil alone, and seemingly to no avail.

Whitman’s body was taken to the morgue, his skull was put under the bone saw, and the medical examiner lifted the brain from its vault. He discovered that Whitman’s brain harbored a tumor the diameter of a nickel. This tumor, called a glioblastoma, had blossomed from beneath a structure called the thalamus, impinged on the hypothalamus, and compressed a third region called the amygdala.

(Hypothesis: The Cultural Amygdala). The delusions, illusions, fears, and psychotic behaviors that can ensue will inevitably lead to strange places.

And during such times, economic strategy, military strategy, social strategy, and even religious strategy is subject to the ensuing madness:

The Church, too, had her place in the feudal system. She too was granted territorial fiefs, became a vassal, possessed immunities. It was the result of her calm, wide sympathy, turning to the new nations, away from the Roman Empire, to which many Christians thought she was irrevocably bound. By the baptism of Clovis she showed the baptism of Constantine had not tied her to the political system. So she created a new world out of chaos, created the paradox of barbarian civilization. In gratitude kings and emperors endowed her with property; and ecclesiastical property has not infrequently brought evils in its train. The result was disputed elections; younger sons of nobles were intruded into bishoprics, at times even into the papacy. Secular princes claimed lay investiture of spiritual offices. The cause of this was feudalism, for a system that had its basis on land tenure was bound at last to enslave a Church that possessed great landed possessions.

(American Feudalism - 2, cf. Mass Suicide & Murder Pact). If the governments continue with their current madness (increasing nuclear weaponry & pollution of air, water, land), it is likely to become a form of unstoppable authoritarianism:

Authoritarianism is something authoritarian followers and authoritarian leaders cook up between themselves. It happens when the followers submit too much to the leaders, trust them too much, and give them too much leeway to do whatever they want -- which often is something undemocratic, tyrannical and brutal. In my day, authoritarian fascist and authoritarian communist dictatorships posed the biggest threats to democracies, and eventually lost to them in wars both hot and cold. But authoritarianism itself has not disappeared, and I'm going to present the case in this book that the greatest threat to American democracy today arises from a militant authoritarianism that has become a cancer upon the nation.

(Authoritarianism: Past And Future Is Now). Authoritarianism can go nowhere if the masses of the citizenry maintain their cool and reject despots.

Keep an eye out, over the next decade, for religious madness of a sort never seen before.

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This is the religious sentiment required of hopium based serfdom (a.k.a. "authoritarian followers"):

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Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah (Binary Blues)

Father Death
by Allen Ginsberg

Hey Father Death, I'm flying home
Hey poor man, you're all alone
Hey old daddy, I know where I'm going

Father Death, Don't cry any more
Mama's there, underneath the floor
Brother Death, please mind the store

Old Aunty Death Don't hide your bones
Old Uncle Death I hear your groans
O Sister Death how sweet your moans

O Children Deaths go breathe your breaths
Sobbing breasts'll ease your Deaths
Pain is gone, tears take the rest

Genius Death your art is done
Lover Death your body's gone
Father Death I'm coming home

Guru Death your words are true
Teacher Death I do thank you
For inspiring me to sing this Blues

Buddha Death, I wake with you
Dharma Death, your mind is new
Sangha Death, we'll work it through

Suffering is what was born
Ignorance made me forlorn
Tearful truths I cannot scorn

Father Breath once more farewell
Birth you gave was no thing ill
My heart is still, as time will tell.

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"Zeros & Ones", by Baby Seal Club (lyrics)

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On The Origin of the Crusader Pathogen - 2

In the first post of this series we took a look at the concept of war as a germ, as envisioned and expressed by President James Madison long ago.

He saw war as a germ in the sense of it being a source of many undesirable symptoms and additional "germs" that would destroy any free nation.

We read how Madison used language as if to say that war itself is a "germ" (which we also call a pathogen), but The Toxins of Power Blog considers war to be a product of something called "toxins of power", that is, toxins somehow tend to manifest within officials who inhabit seats of power.

The theme of that blog is that those germ toxins tend somehow to infect and corrupt the powerful (About Toxins Of Power).

How does that happen?

Recent scientific discoveries in the field of microbiology have indicated that pathogenic microbial organisms and viruses can rewire or otherwise change the mammalian brain, including the human brain (see e.g. The Human Microbiome Congress).

Other scientists have pointed out that our brains even change as we think different thoughts:

Thought is physical. Learning requires a physical brain change: Receptors for neurotransmitters change at the synapses, which changes neural circuitry. Since thinking is the activation of such circuitry, somewhat different thinking re­quires a somewhat different brain. Brains change as you use them-even unconsciously. It's as if your car changed as you drove it, say from a stick shift gradually to an automatic.

(The Toxic Bridge To Everywhere, cf. The Skulls They Are A Changin'). We know that the tiny unseen world of pathogenic microbes can rewire distinct brain circuits to bring about specific, bizarre results:

Some extremely nice work has been done by a group at Leeds in the UK, who are looking at the Toxo genome, and we're picking up on this collaboratively. Okay, Toxo, it's a protozoan parasite. Toxo and mammals had a common ancestor, and the last they did was God knows, billions of years ago. And you look in the Toxo genome, and it's got two versions of the gene called tyrosine hydroxylase. And if you were a neuro-chemistry type, you would be leaping up in shock and excitement at this point.

Tyrosine hydroxylase is the critical enzyme for making dopamine: the neurotransmitter in the brain that's all about reward and anticipation of reward. Cocaine works on the dopamine system, all sorts of other euphoriants do. Dopamine is about pleasure, attraction and anticipation. And the Toxo genome has the mammalian gene for making the stuff. It's got a little tail on the gene that targets, specifies, that when this is turned into the actual enzyme, it gets secreted out of the Toxo and into neurons. This parasite doesn't need to learn how to make neurons act as if they are pleasurably anticipatory; it takes over the brain chemistry of it all on its own.

Again that issue of specificity comes up. Look at closely related parasites to Toxo: do they have this gene? Absolutely not. Now look at the Toxo genome and look at genes related to other brain messengers. Serotonin, acetylcholine, norepinephrine, and so on, and you go through every single gene you can think of. Zero. Toxo doesn't have them, Toxo's got this one gene which allows it to just plug into the whole world of mammalian reward systems. And at this point, that's what we know. It is utterly cool.

Of course, at this point, you say well, what about other species? What does Toxo do to humans? And there's some interesting stuff there that's reminiscent of what's going on in rodents. Clinical dogma is you first get a Toxo infection. If you're pregnant, it gets into the fetal nervous system, a huge disaster. Otherwise, if you get a Toxo infection, it has phases of inflammation, but eventually it goes into this latent asymptomatic stage, which is when these cysts form in the brain. Which is, in a rat, when it stops being anything boring like asymptomatic, and when the behavior starts occurring. Interestingly, that's when the parasite starts making this tyrosine hydroxylase.

So what about humans? A small literature is coming out now reporting neuropsychological testing on men who are Toxo-infected, showing that they get a little bit impulsive. Women less so, and this may have some parallels perhaps with this whole testosterone aspect of the story that we're seeing. And then the truly astonishing thing: two different groups independently have reported that people who are Toxo-infected have three to four times the likelihood of being killed in car accidents involving reckless speeding.

In other words, you take a Toxo-infected rat and it does some dumb-ass thing that it should be innately skittish about, like going right up to cat smells. Maybe you take a Toxo-infected human and they start having a proclivity towards doing dumb-ass things that we should be innately averse to, like having your body hurdle through space at high G-forces. Maybe this is the same neurobiology. This is not to say that Toxo has evolved the need to get humans into cat stomachs. It's just sheer convergence. It's the same nuts and bolts neurobiology in us and in a rodent, and does the same thing.

On a certain level, this is a protozoan parasite that knows more about the neurobiology of anxiety and fear than 25,000 neuroscientists standing on each other's shoulders, and this is not a rare pattern.

(The Germ Theory - of Government - 9). That toxoplasma gondii generated toxin is actually the operation of a genetic apparatus which has ancient linkage to a common ancestor of mammals and "toxo" types of pathogens (and who knows what else earlier in time).

We have contemplated the possibility that such pathogens originated during one or more of the five mass extinction events that have taken place over hundreds of millions and billions of years here on Earth (Are Microbes The Origin of PTSD? , Weekend Rebel Science Excursion - 16, Microbial Languages: Rehabilitation of the Unseen -- 2).

We have also contemplated that such pathogens evolved during catastrophes that possibly took place elsewhere in the solar system (Exploded Planet Hypothesis, Weekend Rebel Science Excursion - 7); perhaps in an earlier civilization (Saturn - Home of the Hexagon Mystery); or somewhere else that was struggling as we are with the proper management of sources of energy --such as during a Dyson Grid / Sphere project (Mystery Bubble - Signal, Grid, or What?).

At any rate, the operation of these toxins, these tools of pathogens, came from cognitively aberrant zones, and could very well be the cause of the mysterious corruption of power that is detrimental, in the long run and in the big picture, to both the pathogen itself as well as its host.

It is obvious that for organisms to destroy their environmental home, their source of sustenance, and all they depend on for their existence (whether they are tiny microbes or globe travelling humans) is not the behavior of level headed or wise life forms.

To the contrary, it is insane.

Thus, the morph from being peaceful, helpful, and a caretaker of worlds into a warmongering, hateful, and destructive species is quite mysterious.

So, how do we study this pathogenic, suicidal behavior taking place in a group or in an individual which becomes at odds with the interests of itself and of other life forms?

A group infected by the toxins of power, such as the crusader pathogen, can be modelled and contemplated by the notion of a "meme complex" or by the notion of a "cultural amygdala" (Comparing a Meme Complex to a Cultural Amygdala).

Evidently that technique or tool of analysis has been used for a long time by philosophers and thinkers, because, they wrote down their observations and expectations long ago, many of which are quite shocking and/or prescient:

“One would say that [man] is destined to exterminate himself after having rendered the globe uninhabitable.” - Lamarck (1817)

“The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of civilization.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

"For then there will be great distress, unequaled from the beginning of the world until now — and never to be equaled again. If those days had not been cut short, no one would survive ..." - Jesus Christ (Matt. 24)

"Mayr, from the point of view of a biologist, argued that it's very unlikely that we'll find any [extraterrestrial intelligence]. And his reason was, he said, we have exactly one example: Earth. So let's take a look at Earth. And what he basically argued is that intelligence is a kind of lethal mutation ... you're just not going to find intelligent life elsewhere, and you probably won't find it here for very long either because it's just a lethal mutation" - Dr. Noam Chomsky paraphrasing Dr. Ernst Mayr

“Experience has shown that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.” – Thomas Jefferson

(Dredd Blog Quotes Page, bible quote added, links removed). These quotes illustrate and focus on something going wrong "down under the hood" of human civilization, down where "the thinking" is done.

The history of the crusader pathogen is just one of many pieces of evidence which those seemingly pessimistic thinkers may have been aware of:

At one point during this long siege, the crusaders came to realize there were several spies amongst them. To deal with this problem they set an example that would result in all other spies fleeing the crusader’s camps. This example consisted of killing one such spy, roasting him on a spit, eating his flesh, and then threatening a similar fate would befall all those who were discovered to be spies. (Maalouf 29) “These acts may appear to be utterly barbaric by modern standards, but they were a staple feature of medieval warfare and become a consistent theme of the siege of Antioch. Within the context of a holy war, in which the Franks (crusaders) were conditioned to see their enemy as sub-human, Christian piety prompted not clemency but, rather, an atmosphere of extreme brutality and heightened savagery.” (Asbridge 168)

(First Crusade). Even when they were not hungry for food, they seemed to have a toxic blood lust that was consuming their humanity as it morphed into religious hatred:

After spending three years marching from Europe to the Holy City, the crusaders had finally reached their intended destination in the summer of 1099. It took forty days to conquer the city. “After a very great and cruel slaughter of Saracens, of whom 10,000 fell in that same place, they put to the sword great numbers of gentiles who were running about the quarters of the city, fleeing in all direction on account of their fear of death; they were stabbing women who had fled into palaces and dwellings; seizing infants by the soles of their feet from their mothers’ laps or their cradles and dashing them against the walls and breaking their necks; they were slaughtering some with weapons, or striking them down with stones; they were sparing absolutely no gentile of any place or kind.” (Asbridge 317) Those Muslims who sought shelter on the roof of the al-Aqsa mosque were decapitated if they had not flung themselves to the ground first. (Moynahan 239) By July 17th, not a single Muslim was left alive within the city walls. Even the Jews who had gathered in their synagogue had been burned alive inside. “The last survivors were forced to perform the worst tasks: to heave the bodies of their own relatives, to dump them in vacant, unmarked lots, and then to set them alight, before being themselves massacred or sold into slavery.” (Maalouf xiv)

(First Crusade). These things have even been done by those suffering from the crusader pathogen during the lifetimes of some of you who are reading this post:

Americans have long been taught that events such as the notorious My Lai massacre were isolated incidents in the Vietnam War, carried out by "a few bad apples." But as award‑winning journalist and historian Nick Turse demonstrates in this groundbreaking investigation, violence against Vietnamese noncombatants was not at all exceptional during the conflict. Rather, it was pervasive and systematic, the predictable consequence of orders to "kill anything that moves."

Drawing on more than a decade of research in secret Pentagon files and extensive interviews with American veterans and Vietnamese survivors, Turse reveals for the first time how official policies resulted in millions of innocent civilians killed and wounded. In shocking detail, he lays out the workings of a military machine that made crimes in almost every major American combat unit all but inevitable.

(The Virgin MOMCOM - 6). As we can see now, the crusader pathogen is a persistent, ancient bug.

It is one of several mystery subjects that need some ongoing serious study and attention, not a continuation of the war on microbes (Microbial Languages: Rehabilitation of the Unseen, Microbial Languages: Rehabilitation of the Unseen--2).

The previous post in this series is here.

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SOURCES

Asbridge, Thomas.
The First Crusade: A New History.
Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2004.

Maalouf, Amin.  The Crusades Through Arab Eyes.  New York: Schocken Books,  1985.

Moynahan, Brian.
The Faith: A History of Christianity.
New York: Doubleday,
2002.

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On The Origin of the Crusader Pathogen

Carefully Watching TV

I. Introduction

A pathogen is "any agent that can cause disease."

A disease is "a disordered or incorrectly functioning organ, part, structure, or system of the body resulting from the effect of genetic or developmental errors, infection, poisons, nutritional deficiency or imbalance, toxicity, or unfavorable environmental factors; illness; sickness; ailment."

A crusader is a participant in "any of the military expeditions undertaken by the Christians of Europe in the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries for the recovery of the Holy Land from the Muslims" and "(formerly) any holy war undertaken on behalf of a religious cause [BTW 'any' includes 'jihad']."

So, the crusader pathogen and the disease it causes are the subjects of today's post and of this series.

The books used as sources for quotes are listed at the bottom of today's post.

Links to blog quotes have been placed into the text where helpful or useful for readers to research the sources of those quotes.

II. Crusaders & Wars: The Core Consideration

The core context for this post comes from a surprising source, an American Statesman who penned the Bill of Rights in our Constitution:

Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied: and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, of the people. The same malignant aspect in republicanism may be traced in the inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war, and in the degeneracy of manners and of morals, engendered by both. No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare. Those truths are well established.

(Madison, 491-492, Toxins of Power Blog). President Madison used the word "germ" which is synonymous with the word "pathogen" (defined above) for the purposes of today's post and for this series.

As President (& congressman & cabinet member & author & statesman) Madison described it, war is the mother germ which "comprises and develops the germ of every other" enemy of public liberty.

III. Where Did Madison Learn About Germs?

We probably don't sufficiently consider some of the dynamics that were ongoing in the days of yore when Madison (& the other framers, forefathers, & foremothers) struggled to get us off to a good start as a nation by designing a good constitution that would resist cultural germs/pathogens (The Constitution Is Quite A Medicine).

In terms of strictly biological matters, the "germ theory" was talked about in our culture back then (What Is Pseudo Science?).

But, it was not implemented into the practice of medicine until a long time after the constitution was written (see e.g. The Germ Theory - of Government).

The history of culture in Europe also informed Madison about the dynamics of war, as well as the cultural diseases which war causes (Hypothesis: The Cultural Amygdala).

For example, feudalism was one epidemic that sprung up in Europe directly from the machinations of the germ of war:

"Warfare was endemic in the feudal period, but feudalism did not cause warfare; warfare caused feudalism." - American Feudalism

"And as war begat the King and the military noble, so it also begat the slave. There had always been a slave class, a class of the unfree, among the English as among all German peoples; but the numbers of this class, if unaffected by the conquest of Britain, were swelled by the wars which soon sprang up among the English conquerors." -American Feudalism - 2

The Dredd Blog series "American Feudalism" addresses, among other things, the question about where neoFeudalism in America today came from.

You may be wondering "what does that have to do with crusaders and the crusades Dredd?"

Fair enough, let's get into that now.

III. The Crusader Epidemic

The power of the war pathogen can be envisioned by noting the history of how the Christian Church was infected beyond recognition:

The Church, too, had her place in the feudal system. She too was granted territorial fiefs, became a vassal, possessed immunities. It was the result of her calm, wide sympathy, turning to the new nations, away from the Roman Empire, to which many Christians thought she was irrevocably bound. By the baptism of Clovis she showed the baptism of Constantine had not tied her to the political system. So she created a new world out of chaos, created the paradox of barbarian civilization. In gratitude kings and emperors endowed her with property; and ecclesiastical property has not infrequently brought evils in its train. The result was disputed elections; younger sons of nobles were intruded into bishoprics, at times even into the papacy. Secular princes claimed lay investiture of spiritual offices. The cause of this was feudalism, for a system that had its basis on land tenure was bound at last to enslave a Church that possessed great landed possessions.

(American Feudalism - 2, quoting The Catholic Encyclopedia). The war infection caused a radical morph within that institution, even before the Western Roman Empire fell:

Pope Urban’s call to crusade was made possible by the earlier work of St. Augustine on Christian violence.   After all, on the surface Christianity appears as a faith of pacifism, demonstrated by Jesus, whose life reflected the rejection of all violence, as well as the Hebrew Bible in which the commandment “Thou Shall Not Kill” is revealed. How is it that St. Augustine and then Pope Urban II enabled violence to be an option for Christians? “From the fourth century onwards, Christianity underwent a gradual but deep‐seated transformation as it fused with a Roman ‘state’ for which warfare was an essential feature of existence.” (Asbridge 13‐24)  Urban secured thousands of participants for his cause when he promised rewards in the afterlife, including a guarantee of eternal salvation to those who died in the struggle. “For the first time in Christian history, violence was defined as a religious act, a source of grace.” (Carroll 239‐340)
...
Although Urban freely spoke of the wrongs done to Christians by Muslims in the Holy Land, other sources suggest Christians in fact enjoyed a relatively peaceful existence in these Muslim communities. Christians indigenous to the region were treated with “remarkable clemency. The Muslim faith acknowledged and respected Judaism and Christianity, creeds with which it enjoyed a common devotional tradition and a mutual reliance upon authoritative scripture. Christian subjects may not have been able to share power with their Muslim masters, but they were given freedom to worship. All around the Mediterranean basin Christian faith and society survived and even thrived under the watchful but tolerant eye of Islam.” (Asbridge 18)
...
Less than a year after Pope Urban II called Christians to arms, the First Crusade got its start in northwestern Europe in the spring of 1096. The first acts of hostility took place not against the Muslim enemy, but were targeted at the Jews close to home in the Rhineland. (Carroll 237) While anti‐Semitism had existed in Europe for centuries, the First Crusade marked the first mass organized violence against Jewish communities. As early as the 9th century, Jews of Europe had faced discrimination as “laws were passed to make sure that Jews did not exercise authority over Christians, and restrictions of numerous other aspects of Jewish life were enacted.” (243) But now, this discrimination took the form of violence as Jews instantly joined, or even replaced Muslims as the defiling enemy in the crusader’s mind.(253) ... These crusader attacks on Jews amounted to Europe’s first large scale pogroms, and the hostilities spread east through Germany in the cities of Speyer, Trier, Metz, Regensburg, Cologne, Worms, Mainz and seven other locations. (248) Followers of Judaism were subjected to a ruthless program of violence, extortion and forced conversion. (Asbridge 86) The number of Jews murdered or forced to suicide in those weeks is estimated by scholars to have been as low as 5,000 or as high as 10,000, perhaps a full third of the Jews living in northern Europe.” (Carroll 257)

(First Crusade). The outbreaks of violence were events evolving from blind hatred seething within the religious culture of that time.

The war pathogen fuelled by old religious propaganda is still alive (but still not well) in today's crusader pathogen infected culture:

The Lord is a warrior and in Revelation 19 it says when he comes back, he's coming back as what? A warrior. A mighty warrior leading a mighty army, riding a white horse with a blood-stained white robe ... I believe that blood on that robe is the blood of his enemies 'cause he's coming back as a warrior carrying a sword.

And I believe now - I've checked this out - I believe that sword he'll be

"Jesus is coming with an AR-15" - U.S. General

carrying when he comes back is an AR-15.

Now I want you to think about this: where did the Second Amendment come from? ... From the Founding Fathers, it's in the Constitution. Well, yeah, I know that. But where did the whole concept come from? It came from Jesus when he said to his disciples 'now, if you don't have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one.'

I know, everybody says that was a metaphor. IT WAS NOT A METAPHOR! He was saying in building my kingdom, you're going to have to fight at times. You won't build my kingdom with a sword, but you're going to have to defend yourself. And that was the beginning of the Second Amendment, that's where the whole thing came from. I can't prove that historically and David [Barton] will counsel me when this is over, but I know that's where it came from.

And the sword today is an AR-15, so if you don't have one, go get one. You're supposed to have one. It's biblical.

(Hypothesis: The Cultural Amygdala - 4). Obviously that general in the U.S. military shares his crusader viewpoint with his faithful troops, with the public, and with some Christians today.

IV. A Closer Look At The Crusader Pathogen

It is understandable that some people will be aghast at the notion of "Christian warrior atrocities," which the historians who have been quoted in this post have laid out, and will also be aghast at the notion of "Military Christian Generals" of the type quoted above.

It is less mysterious if you consider the fusion of the Roman church with the Roman state in the last days of the Western Roman Empire.

Then, consider the subsequent domination of that feudal church by the kingdom of states that made up The Holy Roman Empire.

Regular readers know that Dredd Blog has isolated the crusader pathogen to an ancient dynamic at work then, and still at work now:

Mithraism ... was a mystery religion centered on the god Mithras, [which] became popular among the military in the Roman Empire, from the 1st to 4th centuries AD.
...
There is lots of debate on the origins of Mithraism, but as far as it went in the Roman Empire, where some scholars believe it originated (others do not) it clearly is a militaristic religion:

"Upon enlistment, the first act of a Roman soldier was to pledge obedience and devotion to the emperor. Absolute loyalty to authority and to fellow soldiers was the cardinal virtue, and the Mithraic religion became the ultimate vehicle for this fraternal obedience. The Mithras worshippers compared the practice of their religion to their military service."

(Doing the Right Thing - Mithraism). The import of this discovery becomes clear when the behavior conducted by the worshippers of Mithra is considered:

“Polybius claimed that the [Roman army] deliberately caused as much destruction as possible, slaughtering and dismembering animals as well as people, to deter other communities from resisting Roman demands to surrender; mercy. Male inhabitants were usually slaughtered, women raped, though only in exceptional circumstances killed in the initial orgy of destruction. After that, as tempers cooled and the desire for profit took over, prisoners would be taken for sale as slaves, though at times any considered to have a low market value, such as the very old, were still massacred.”

(Doing The Right Thing - Mithraism - 2). Our modern conditioning by propaganda may make it difficult for us to comprehend all of this, at least at first blush.

The morph that took place and which eventually led to the Crusades may not reach out and grab our comprehension immediately.

But perhaps it will be easier to see that some ancient cultural dynamic of mimicry was and still is at work.

Especially, if you take note of the similarities between Mithraism and Christianity:

1) Mithras was “the Light of the World“ (Jesus said “I am the light of the world.” John 8:12).

2) Mithras was a member of a Holy Trinity (“Christians are baptized ‘in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit’ … ‘The faith of all Christians rests on the Trinity.’ St. Caesarius of Arles, Sermo 9, Exp. symb.: CCL 103, 47″; see also Mt 28:19).

3) Mithras was born of a virgin (Jesus was born of a virgin. see Matthew 1:18-25).

4) Worshippers of Mithras held strong beliefs in a celestial heaven and an infernal hell (“The Bible speaks clearly of the existence of Heaven … Hell is also spoken of in the Bible, but its nature is even more sketchy. When Jesus described the destiny of sinners who refused to change their ways, he compared it to Gehenna, which was a rubbish dump outside Jerusalem. People in wretched poverty picked their way through it to find scraps, and fires burned”).

5) Worshippers of Mithras believed they would be given endless life (“For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality” I Cor 15:53).

6) Worshippers of Mithras believed in a final day of judgement in which the dead would resurrect (“But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?” I Cor 15:12).

Live by the sword=die by the sword

7) Worshippers of Mithras believed in a final conflict that would destroy the existing order of all things (“Then I saw the beast and the kings of the earth and their armies gathered together to make war against the rider on the horse and his army” Rev 19:19; “Then they gathered the kings together to the place that in Hebrew is called Armageddon” Rev 16:16).

8) Mithras worshippers believed that a ritualistic baptism was required of the faithful (“Then Jesus came to them and said, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit …’” Matthew 28:18-20).

9) Mithras worshippers took part in a ceremony in which they drank wine and ate bread to symbolize the body and blood of Mithras (“While they were eating, Jesus took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, ‘Take and eat; this is my body’” Matthew 26:26; “And he took a cup of wine and gave thanks to God for it. He gave it to them and said, “Each of you drink from it, for this is my blood, which confirms the covenant between God and his people. It is poured out as a sacrifice to forgive the sins of many” Matthew 26:26-28).

10) Mithras worshippers believed that Sundays were held sacred (“the majority observance of Christian Sabbath is as Sunday rest” - Wikipedia).

11) The birth of Mithras was celebrated annually on December the 25th (“Christmas … is an annual commemoration of the birth of Jesus Christ and a widely observed holiday, celebrated generally on December 25 by billions of people around the world” - Wikipedia).

12) Mithras took part in a Last Supper with his companions before ascending to heaven (“The Last Supper is the final meal that, according to Christian belief, Jesus shared with his Apostles in Jerusalem before his crucifixion.” Wikipedia; “Men of Galilee,” they said, “why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.” Acts 1:11).

(On The Origin of The Bully Religion). Then take note of the fundamental difference in the midst of all that likeness (that difference is familiarity with peace).

During the feudal times in the centuries following Constantine's decree that Christianity was to be an official Roman Empire religion, the morph, i.e. the change from peaceful to warmonger continued until it reached epidemic proportions.

If you care to look at a theory of toxins of power (one toxin being the crusader pathogen) check out: "About Toxins of Power".

The next post in this series is here.

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SOURCES

Asbridge, Thomas.
The First Crusade: A New History.
Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2004.

Carroll, James.
Constantine's Sword: The Church and the Jews: A History.
Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company,
2001.

Madison, James.
Letters and other writings of James Madison
Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott & Co.
1865.

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"But that was when I ruled the world"  ("Viva La Vida", by Cold Play)

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Dylan's New Style?

Things have "changed" = Sellout to jingoism?

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Why bother?

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Why Not! 

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Hey Dylan, time to dig Sylvio baby!

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The Evolution of Song Truth - 3

Why can't we live as one?

In this series we have been noticing "song truth", whether it is found directly within the lyrics of songs, or whether it is found in a song's implications.

In today's post let's consider the scientific truth (it's Friday after all) that we have found, and let's consider it along with some song truth.

Gilda Radner once said that "comedy is truth, only faster", so why not "song truth is truth, only more melodious" as an adjunct to that?

The Ecocosmology Blog deals with the subject of the Sun we all live under, as well as some of the almost timeless import of that reality, so, for today's Dredd Blog post the song truth we will consider (so as to compare it with some almost timeless cosmic scientific truth) has these almost timeless lyrics in it:

'cause we all live under the same sun
We all walk under the same moon
Then why, why can't we live as one
'cause we all live under the same sky
We all look up at the same stars
Then why, tell me why can't we live as one

(Under The Same Sun, by The Scorpions, see video below). It is obvious that we live under the same Sun, Moon, and Stars, so the lyrics in that song are true.

The impetus in the song is that we should live as one, which brings up some scientific truth and extrapolations from it:

1) The stars like our Sun, at the center of all solar systems, will support life forms for an amount of time, but will then destroy life on the planets near them at an unknown time during each solar system's developmental life cycle.

a) For stars that are late K thru M, such as red dwarfs, this applies to the deadly outbursts, that come short of physical destruction, of the planets orbiting close to that type star.

2) That final catastrophic event (destruction of life on inner planets), and all events leading up to it, comprise "The Test" (This test is composed of all the preliminary and final evolutionary requirements for the life forms on all planets near central stars. The Test works as a wall, moat, or barrier, to divide those species who may continue to live in the physical universe from those who may not).

3) To pass The Test, intelligent life forms inhabiting any planet will be required to:

a) first learn to live and work together within, and in accord with, their planet's ecosystem, and to substantially coexist with all the other species on that planet, while overcoming any toxins of power that are contrary to social harmony;

b) develop technology that produces space vehicles able to substantially meet or exceed the speed of light;

c) find another solar system with a habitable planet which contains a central star still having enough time left in its stellar life cycle for them to colonize a habitable planet in that solar system (since it is unknown whether the toxins of power are to be found on all planets, as they are found on Earth, that possibility should be taken into consideration when selecting any new planet or moon as a home world); Note: since red dwarfs are the most stable and most abundant stars, they should be favored over Sun-like stars;

d) colonize that habitable planet, and then improve ecocosmological skills as needed;

e) then repeat the entire process ad infinitum;

f) or, experience a morph into another "species" free from that type of solar/planetary cosmic dependence.

4) The seeds of intelligence (genetic and memetic clues) required to successfully perform The Test are distributed into all species, races, religions, sciences, creeds, and genders. Thus, all individuals should be respected as carriers of some quanta of the seed of intelligence required to pass The Test, lest a fundamental quantum of necessary intelligence be lost.

(Tenets of Ecocosmology). That vibrant Sun which we are currently under, which supports life now, at some time in the future (when it begins to die out), will take all life on Earth with it.

There are several Dredd Blog series that deal with how we are dependent on Earth life, even down to the too-small-to-see-with-eyes-only microbes and viruses (see e.g. The Human Microbiome Congress, Ecosystems & Microbes, and On The New Meaning of "Human" - 2).

Scientists tell us that microbes from our pets can help us with some of our allergies (Dog. microbes, allergies), that we descend from some ancient species (Basal Animal Ancestor - another reason to buy stock in Textbook Publishing Companies LOL), and that we are recent in that scheme of the things of time (Oldest Hominin DNA).

So, why can't we live as one as we reach for the stars (A Lovely Planet In The Neighborhood? - 3)?

The previous post in this series is here.

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"Under The Same Sun", by The Scorpions:

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Ayn Rand: Patron Saint of The Plutocracy

Shruggie Poot

It is no longer a secret or hidden in plain sight that the U.S.eh? is a Plutocracy running a Plutonomy.

Thus, the 1% were the targets of nationwide demonstrations by The Occupy Movement, who represented the sentiments of the 99%, and still do.

How conditions got to be this way is a question many must ponder, so today we will take a look at the ideology that fuels the politics of the Plutocracy.

In yesterday's post we looked at the high number of psychopaths on Wall Street, and elsewhere, so today we will refine the data down to show more of that psychopathology, which is now embedded within the ideals that converted the constitutional republic with a middle-class oriented economy, into a Plutocracy running a Plutonomy.

One source we will use to help identify the ideology of the plutocrats is Ayn Rand, whose ideas are aptly described by a fellow across the pond, one George Monbiot.

Mr. George Monbiot had some succinct observations recently, which I will pass along in today's post:

Her psychopathic ideas made billionaires feel like victims and turned millions of followers into their doormats ...

It has a fair claim to be the ugliest philosophy the postwar world has produced. Selfishness, it contends, is good, altruism evil, empathy and compassion are irrational and destructive. The poor deserve to die; the rich deserve unmediated power. It has already been tested, and has failed spectacularly and catastrophically. Yet the belief system constructed by Ayn Rand, who died 30 years ago today, has never been more popular or influential.

Rand was a Russian from a prosperous family who emigrated to the United States. Through her novels (such as Atlas Shrugged) and her nonfiction (such as The Virtue of Selfishness) she explained a philosophy she called Objectivism. This holds that the only moral course is pure self-interest. We owe nothing, she insists, to anyone, even to members of our own families. She described the poor and weak as "refuse" and "parasites", and excoriated anyone seeking to assist them. Apart from the police, the courts and the armed forces, there should be no role for government: no social security, no public health or education, no public infrastructure or transport, no fire service, no regulations, no income tax.

Atlas Shrugged, published in 1957, depicts a United States crippled by government intervention in which heroic millionaires struggle against a nation of spongers. The millionaires, whom she portrays as Atlas holding the world aloft, withdraw their labour, with the result that the nation collapses. It is rescued, through unregulated greed and selfishness, by one of the heroic plutocrats, John Galt.

(Ayn Rand ... new right's ... Marx, emphasis added). Her book Atlas Shrugged was fiction in every relevant sense of the word, as well as being distinctly contrary to traditional American values.

Nevertheless, the GOP presidential candidates constantly express a modified version of her ideas, fused together with a religious version of her ideology, which in large part recently gave birth to The GOP Tea Party.

That religiosity portion of this neoCon stew, stems from two chapters in the Old Testament books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy, known as "the blessing and cursing" chapters (see Leviticus 26:3-13; Deuteronomy 28:1-14).

The sentiments of wealth and health vs. poverty and disease, based upon the degree of a believer's good behavior, have been lifted from those Old Testament chapters, then morphed, then finally grafted into a modern movement whose leaders have medieval comprehension.

That ongoing movement, populated with zealots, is not generally well known, but once recognized is described by various labels:

Prosperity theology (sometimes referred to as the prosperity gospel or the health and wealth gospel) is a Christian religious doctrine which claims the Bible teaches that financial blessing is the will of God for Christians.

The doctrine teaches that faith, positive speech, and donations to Christian ministries will always increase one's material wealth.

Its proponents teach that the doctrine is an aspect of the path to Christian dominion over society, arguing that God's promise of dominion to Israel applies to Christians today.

The doctrine emphasizes the importance of personal empowerment, proposing that it is God's will for his people to be happy. The atonement (reconciliation with God) is interpreted to include the alleviation of sickness and poverty, which are viewed as curses to be broken by faith.

(Prosperity Theology, emphasis added). This is why billionaires of the 1% fund these types of movements, which are composed of religious zealots who have mystical beliefs about "economy", therefore are not able to recognize the difference between plutonomy and economy.

That unholy matrimony also fits into the 1%'s warmongering ideology, thus we hear of Christian v Muslim, a rebirth of another abysmal pursuit made infamous during The Crusades.

The purpose for the use of religion by the plutocrats, beyond using it as an opiate for many people, is to psychologically put those ruling 1% plutocrats in a good light, and to make Ayn Rand's secular ideology a religious dogma:

"God has ordained the wealth of the 1%, because they are good, and God has cursed their enemies, the poor and disadvantaged, because they are evil."

Add Social Darwinism and Exceptionalism into this poisonous brew, and you have the right wing foreign policy of nuke first, ask questions later (or as the left-right wing says, later we will kill you if you ask "questions").

The next post in this series is here.

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The lyrics to this song are here.

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