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There is only one choice in this election. The consolidation of oligarchic power under Donald Trump or the consolidation of oligarchic power under Joe Biden. The oligarchs, with Trump or Biden, will win again. We will lose. The oligarchs made it abundantly clear, should Bernie Sanders miraculously become the Democratic Party nominee, they would join forces with the Republicans to crush him. Trump would, if Sanders was the nominee, instantly be shorn by the Democratic Party elites of his demons and his propensity for tyranny. Sanders would be red-baited as he was viciously Friday in The New York Times As Bernie Sanders Pushed for Closer Ties, Soviet Union Spotted Opportunity and turned into a figure of derision and ridicule. The oligarchs preach the sermon of the least-worst to us when they attempt to ram a Hillary Clinton or a Biden down our throats but ignore it for themselves. They prefer Biden over Trump, but they can live with either.

Only one thing matters to the oligarchs. It is not democracy. It is not truth. It is not the consent of the governed. It is not income inequality. It is not the surveillance state. It is not endless war. It is not jobs. It is not the climate. It is the primacy of corporate powerwhich has extinguished our democracy and left most of the working class in miseryand the continued increase and consolidation of their wealth. It is impossible working within the system to shatter the hegemony of oligarchic power or institute meaningful reform. Change, real change, will only come by sustained acts of civil disobedience and mass mobilization, as with the yellow vests movement in France and the British-based Extinction Rebellion. The longer we are fooled by the electoral burlesque, the more disempowered we will become.

I was on the streets with protesters in Philadelphia outside the appropriately named Wells Fargo Center during the 2016 Democratic Convention when hundreds of Sanders delegates walked out of the hall. Show me what democracy looks like! they chanted, holding Bernie signs above their heads as they poured out of the exits. This is what democracy looks like!

Sanders greatest tactical mistake was not joining them. He bowed before the mighty altar of the corporate state. He had desperately tried to stave off a revolt by his supporters and delegates on the eve of the convention by sending out repeated messages in his name most of them authored by members of the Clinton campaign to be respectful, not disrupt the nominating process and support Clinton. Sanders was a dutiful sheepdog, attempting to herd his disgruntled supporters into the embrace of the Clinton campaign. At his moment of apostasy, when he introduced a motion to nominate Clinton, his delegates had left hundreds of convention seats empty.

Biden represents the old neoliberal order.

After the 2016 convention, Sanders held rallies the crowds pitifully small compared to what he had drawn when he ran as an insurgent on Clintons behalf. He returned to the Senate to loyally line up behind Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, whose power comes from his ability to funnel tens of millions of dollars in corporate and Wall Street money to anointed Democratic candidates. Sanders refused to support the lawsuit brought against the Democratic National Committee for rigging the primaries against him. He endorsed Democratic candidates who espoused the neoliberal economic and political positions he claims to oppose. Sanders, who calls himself an independent, caucused as a Democrat. The Democratic Party determined his assignments in the Senate. Schumer offered to make Sanders the head of the Senate Budget Committee if the Democrats won control of the Senate. Sanders became a party apparatchik.

Sanders apparently believed that if he was obsequious enough to the Democratic Party elite, they would give him a chance in 2020, a chance they denied him in 2016. Politics, I suspect he would argue, is about compromise and the practical. This is true. But playing politics in a system that is not democratic is about being complicit in the charade. Sanders misread the Democratic Party leadership, swamp creatures of the corporate state. He misread the Democratic Party, which is a corporate mirage. Its base can, at best, select preapproved candidates and act as props at rallies and in choreographed party conventions. The Democratic Party voters have zero influence on party politics or party policies. Sanders naivete, and perhaps his lack of political courage, drove away his most committed young supporters. These followers have not forgiven him for his betrayal. They chose not to turn out to vote in the numbers he needs in the primaries. They are right. He is wrong. We need to overthrow the system, not placate it.

Sanders is wounded. The oligarchs will go in for the kill. They will subject him to the same character assassination, aided by the courtiers in the corporate press, that was directed at Henry Wallace in 1948 and George McGovern in 1972, the only two progressive presidential candidates who managed to seriously threaten the ruling elites since Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The feckless liberal class, easily frightened, is already abandoning Sanders, castigating his supporters with their nauseating self-righteousness and championing Biden as a political savior.

Trump and Biden are repugnant figures, doddering into old age with cognitive lapses and no moral cores. Is Trump more dangerous than Biden? Yes. Is Trump more inept and more dishonest? Yes. Is Trump more of a threat to the open society? Yes. Is Biden the solution? No.

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Biden represents the old neoliberal order. He personifies the betrayal by the Democratic Party of working men and women that sparked the deep hatred of the ruling elites across the political spectrum. He is a gift to a demagogue and con artist like Trump, who at least understands that these elites are detested. Biden cannot plausibly offer change. He can only offer more of the same. And most Americans do not want more of the same. The countrys largest voting-age bloc, the 100 million-plus citizens who out of apathy or disgust do not vote, will once again stay home. This demoralization of the electorate is by design. It will, I expect, give Trump another term in office.

By voting for Biden, you endorse the humiliation of courageous women such as Anita Hill who confronted their abusers. You vote for the architects of the endless wars in the Middle East. You vote for the apartheid state in Israel. You vote for wholesale surveillance of the public by government intelligence agencies and the abolition of due process and habeas corpus. You vote for austerity programs, including the destruction of welfare and cuts to Social Security. You vote for NAFTA, free trade deals, de-industrialization, a decline in wages, the loss of hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs and the offshoring of jobs to underpaid workers who toil in sweatshops in China or Vietnam. You vote for the assault on public education and the transfer of federal funds to for-profit and Christian charter schools. You vote for the doubling of our prison population, the tripling and quadrupling of sentences and huge expansion of crimes meriting the death penalty. You vote for militarized police who gun down poor people of color with impunity. You vote against the Green New Deal and immigration reform. You vote for limiting a womans right to abortion and reproductive rights. You vote for a segregated public-school system in which the wealthy receive educational opportunities and poor people of color are denied a chance. You vote for punitive levels of student debt and the inability to free yourself of debt obligations through bankruptcy. You vote for deregulating the banking industry and the abolition of Glass-Steagall. You vote for the for-profit insurance and pharmaceutical corporations and against universal health care. You vote for bloated defense budgets. You vote for the use of unlimited oligarchic and corporate money to buy our elections. You vote for a politician who during his time in the Senate abjectly served the interests of MBNA, the largest independent credit card company headquartered in Delaware, which also employed Bidens son Hunter.

There are no substantial political differences between the Democrats and Republicans. We have only the illusion of participatory democracy. The Democrats and their liberal apologists adopt tolerant positions on issues regarding race, religion, immigration, womens rights and sexual identity and pretend this is politics. The right wing uses those on the margins of society as scapegoats. The culture wars mask the reality. Both parties are full partners in the reconfiguration of American society into a form of neofeudalism. It only depends on how you want it dressed up.

By fostering an illusion among the powerless classes that it can make their interests a priority, the Democratic Party pacifies and thereby defines the style of an opposition party in an inverted totalitarian system, political philosopher Sheldon Wolin writes.

The Democrats will once again offer up a least-worst alternative while, in fact, doing little or nothing to thwart the march toward corporate totalitarianism. What the public wants and deserves will again be ignored for what the corporate lobbyists demand. If we do not respond soon to the social and economic catastrophe that has been visited on most of the population, we will be unable to thwart the rise of corporate tyranny and a Christian fascism.

We need to reintegrate those who have been pushed aside back into the society, to heal the ruptured social bonds, to give workers dignity, empowerment and protection. We need a universal health care system, especially as we barrel toward a global pandemic. We need programs that provide employment with sustainable wages, job protection and pensions. We need quality public education for all Americans. We need to rebuild our infrastructure and end the squandering of our resources on war. We need to halt corporate pillage and regulate Wall Street and corporations. We need to respond with radical and immediate measures to curb carbon emissions and save ourselves from ecocide and extinction. We dont need a Punch and Judy show between Trump and Biden. But that, along with corporate tyranny, is what we seem fated to get, unless we take to the streets and tear the house down.

Originally posted here:
If It's Biden vs. Trump, This Year's One-Choice Election Will Be for Oligarchy - Common Dreams

A new Pew Research survey reveals that Christians, particularly white evangelicals, view the Supreme Court more favorably than any other demographic. This isnt exactly surprising, given that the high court now boasts five conservative, originalist judges and that 6 in 10 white evangelicals want to overturn Roe v. Wade. Yet it does raise interesting questions about the role of religion in our government and what expectations religious people should have of the judiciary.

First, the survey is clear to point out that evangelicals views on the judiciary have shifted since President Barack Obama was in office. Pew reports:

In 2015, just after the court legalized same-sex marriage nationally and upheld a key element of the Affordable Care Act, just a third of Republicans and three-in-ten white evangelicals had favorable views of the Supreme Court. But since then, President Donald Trump has appointed two new justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh and the court has issued a few religion-friendly rulings.

Unsurprisingly, favorable or unfavorable views of the court "also diverge along party lines."

The Pew survey highlights a decades-old problem plaguing Christians and their politics: Are they relying on the government to win the culture wars, or, at least, to upend what they believe to be immoral laws? Based on this survey, it appears that may be the case. Is there anything wrong with that?

This was the thesis of former RedState writer Ben Howes book, The Immoral Majority: Why Evangelicals Chose Political Power over Christian Values, released fall 2019. (I reviewed it for the Washington Examiner magazine here.)

Despite being an evangelical myself, I dont fully agree with Howes thesis. He argues that evangelical Christians have sold their souls for a Trump presidency, something he deems far less valuable than I, but Howe's observations about how Christians view the culture wars and how they want to win them remain persuasive, especially in light of this new Pew survey.

In his conclusion, Howe says Christians often twist Romans 8:31, If God is for us, who can be against us? which is often a battle cry for evangelicals who are steeped in the culture wars, as undoubtedly, he and I both have chosen to be.

He writes: But this has shifted into something else. Something more like, If Im doing something to gain Gods favor, how could He be against me? ... Christians, in an attempt to 'assist' god in achieving His ends, will work feverishly toward a goal, ignoring how often they separate themselves from God while in pursuit.

Later, Howe concludes, The important choice was never between God, Donald Trump, and Hillary Clinton the important choice was between self-interest and the idolization of winning versus loving God and one another.

As an ardent supporter of both the pro-life cause and religious liberty, I can certainly understand the temptation Christians have to view the Supreme Court favorably when there are religious liberty cases on their docket and it looks as if a majority of justices interpret the Constitution in an originalist way. But God has not called Christians to love the Constitution above others and himself. Act justly, love mercy, walk humbly with God, is what he says he requires.

I fear evangelicals misunderstand the Supreme Courts role and the role of faith in the public square at times, conflating their desire to be a bastion for truth, faith, and liberty, with love of God and people. Engaging in the culture wars with the double-edged sword of Christianity and government not only can sometimes misuse a branch of government at will but perhaps also conflicts with Gods ultimate directive for Christians.

The Supreme Court is not there to legislate what Christians, or anyone else, have failed to work through the proper channels. The Supreme Court does not exist to make anyone, either evangelicals or atheists, happy with political outcomes. The judicial branch exists to ensure the laws Congress makes are in alignment with the Constitution and nothing more.

It is one thing to hope the Supreme Court will make a ruling to preserve religious liberty or to protect the unborn. It is another, a dangerous, slippery slope, in fact, to depend earnestly on the Supreme Court to rule in a way that coincides with evangelical Christians beliefs and only support them if they do.

Nicole Russell (@russell_nm) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner's Beltway Confidential blog. She is a journalist who previously worked in Republican politics in Minnesota.

Here is the original post:
Christians shouldn't rely on the Supreme Court to fix what they can't - Washington Examiner

My grandfather seemed to understand the world and his place in it just fine.

Days of sweat and work. Sunsets with iced tea on the back porch. Occasional mornings spent fishing. Church on Sunday mornings, and family dinners on Sunday afternoons.

He didnt insist that people live his way, and he didnt spend much energy trying to understand why people would want to live differently. He just demanded that people not interfere with his life.

As I grew older and ventured further into the world than his farm, I learned the world was a whole lot bigger and more complex than I had thought. I encountered people who were living quite different lives from those in my little rural community, and they seemed pretty happy with those lives.

Now, I will never understand why people would want to spend their lives in a large metropolis with millions of others all around them, but city dwellers do not require my blessing upon their lives. My grandfather did not need their permission to live his way, and they did not need his.

So much of the division in our country right now seems to arise from the differences between urban and rural life.

I know were not just talking about the differences between people who like to plant crops and people who enjoy climbing the corporate ladder. There are serious issues about which we disagree.

But I sincerely think that isnt our biggest problem. People in this country have disagreed about great big things since its beginning. If we seem more divided now, our conflict has less to do with the issues and more to do with the culture war.

The country mice and the city mice arent getting along these days, and so many people doing the speaking for us on TV, on the radio and online are playing on our fears of one another for attention.

And I get it. We sell ads in the Farm Forum, too. Everyone in the media is fighting for a little bit of your attention, and nothing grabs peoples attention like fear.

But Id like us to be less afraid of each other. Most people are just living their lives and not harming anyone, whether they are coastal liberal elites or gun totin rural conservatives. If we try, we really can get along.

How do I know? Because Im a poor, rural farm boy married to a woman raised in the suburbs of New York City, and our home is a pretty happy one. Yes, the culture wars are alive and well in our house, but do you want to know the secret ingredient that makes it all work?

Its super simple. We love each other.

What if that could work for everyone? What if stick with me on this crazy idea love was a choice rather than just something that happens between people?

The Bible seems to suggest just that. In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus says, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. He even calls it a commandment.

That means you either obey that commandment or disobey it. Thats a choice. And what if we truly choose to love our neighbors even the ones who want to live completely different lives from us? Would we get to call them names and make fun of them online if we truly loved them?

Or would we be forced to respect their decisions, accept their life choices, and find some way to live with them?

If the choice is between that and fearing them, then, reader, I choose love.

Stan Wise is the editor of the Farm Forum. He grew up on a farm in Mississippi.

See original here:
The Planted Row: There's a secret ingredient | News - AberdeenNews.com

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Culture wars over anti-fascist organisations are nothing new theyre a major feature of Trumps America and, fanned by anonymous Twitter trolls, theyve brought into sharp relief the polarised state of much of society.

What they hadnt done until now was permeate Irish society to any great degree.

This week, that might have started to change. The Burkean, a conservative publication condemned last year for an article promoting eugenics, fired the starting gun on a long term investigative project executed by impersonating an anti-fascist group that claims to expose a left-wing conspiracy at the heart of Irish society.

To most people, being anti-fascist is a straightforward and benign position. But in some cases, fuelled by parts of the media, its taken on another significance as a campaign that some argue seeks to shut down conservative ideas. Its a definitional disparity with the potential to become toxic and it underpins the Burkeans reporting.

Michelle Byrne, the deputy president of the Union of Students in Ireland (USI), was caught in the sting.

Byrne comes out of the affair with her reputation severely damaged. Spurred on by leading questions, she appeared to endorse actions like doxxing and public shaming against students identified as holding right-wing beliefs.

She also agreed to secretly provide the group with details of students who might oppose them seemingly with little proof of the students fascist tendencies, and without even asking her camouflaged caller their full name.

Its hard to believe that Byrne the second-most senior official in a body representing 374,000 students was so willing to give up student names so easily to a faceless organisation that said it wanted to slap them around.

Her words also severely undermine USI, a body that for all its faults has often been on the right side of history supporting marriage equality and repeal long before the ideas entered mainstream politics.

Ultimately, Byrnes actions give the Burkean a publication manned by anonymous activists, with little credibility in the eyes of most the publicity it needs to sow the politics of division among students.

Here is the original post:
The Burkean's Cultural Warfare is Toxic But USI's Deputy Fanned the Flames - The University Times

By Michael Brown, CP Op-Ed Contributor | Monday, March 02, 2020

Its the question Ive heard now for many years, specifically from evangelical Christians. Since the world is only getting worse, why bother fighting the culture wars? Whats the use? Whats the point? Isnt it better for us simply to share our faith and prepare for the return of Jesus?

To be sure, if I knew for a fact that Jesus was coming back in a week, I would not spend that week writing articles about transgender activism. Or trying to change hearts about abortion.

In fact, I would not spend that week teaching a class in our ministry school. Or sharpening my Arabic or Babylonian reading skills. Or even hanging out with other believers.

Instead, I would spend every last moment reaching out to friends and relatives who were not in right relationship with God, urging them to repent and believe. And I would prepare my own heart to meet the King.

The fact is, though, that we dont know if Jesus is coming back in a week. Or a year. Or a decade. Or a century.

What we do know is that we have one life to live. One life to serve. One life to make an impact. And then we die, and the baton is handed over to the next generation. And then the next.

That has been the cycle of life for millennia, and it will continue until the end of this age.

Unfortunately, many Christians are so focused on the world to come that they lose sight of the importance of living fruitful lives in the here and now. And many others are so focused on the return of Jesus that they fail to live with long-term vision. They fail to ask what kind of world they are leaving to their children and grandchildren.

Theres an interesting quote attributed to Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai (c. 30-90 AD): If you have a sapling in your hand, and someone says to you that the Messiah has come, stay and finish the planting, and then go to greet the Messiah (Avot dRabbi Natan 31b).

In other words, continue to live your life in a normal, productive way. Be faithful to your current responsibilities. Dont get caught up with end-time speculation. Planting a tree means youre thinking of tomorrow.

Similarly, it is recorded that evangelist D. L. Moody (1837-1899) was asked, What would you do today if you knew Jesus Christ was coming tomorrow?

He answered, I would plant a tree.

Knowing that Moody was a great soulwinner, its hard to imagine that, if he really knew Jesus was coming tomorrow, he would plant that tree.

But again, thats the point. We dont know. And so we plant the tree today, knowing it will grow tomorrow, even after we are long gone. Thats the cycle of life.

To bring this back to the culture wars, its crucial that we think in multigenerational terms, especially in light of end-time pessimism. In other words, since many Christians believe that were in the final generation and things will only get worse, they expect cultural defeat.

Its like a person with terminal cancer in hospice care. Hope for recovery is gone. Just make them comfortable until they pass away.

In the case of the culture wars, many feel that the return of Jesus is imminent and therefore the complete collapse of culture is also imminent. The dam is ready to burst. Why waste our time plugging the holes?

But this misses the whole point.

First, to repeat, none of us know for sure when Jesus is coming back. Thats a simple fact.

When I came to faith in late-1971 we were told that all the prophecies were in place and the Second Coming was at the door. That was almost 50 years ago. I was 16 at the time. Today, our oldest granddaughter is 19 and a student at Liberty University.

Who can guarantee, based on Scripture, that Jesus will come within the next 10 or 50 or 100 years?

Second, an excellent biblical case can be made for the end of the age being marked by great light and great darkness. Great spiritual harvest and great apostasy. Great revival and great falling away.

Whos to say we cant be part of a great revival?

Third, what we do know is that, like every generation before us, if the Lord doesnt return in our lifetimes, we will be handing the baton to the next generation.

How did we live our lives? Did we make things better or worse? Were we good stewards over our freedoms or did we become enslaved?

Forget about winning or losing the culture wars, since there is hardly ever a total victory or defeat.

Instead, ask yourself about direction. Which direction is the society going?

Have we, through preaching the Gospel and winning the lost and making the disciples and being salt and light, helped our nation go in a positive direction? Have we helped raise moral standards? Are people more conscious of God? More compassionate?

Are families stronger? Are we leaving a godly legacy to our children? Have we raised up schools or ministries or businesses or organizations or churches that are making a lasting difference?

And so we stand up and fight for what is right. It is who we are. It is what we do.

Yes we, Gods people, are the moral conscience of the society and the light of the world. But if we fail to shine the light, there will be cultural deterioration. And then, eventually, cultural collapse.

That would mean great suffering and hardship for our kids and their kids and then their kids. That would mean moral confusion and spiritual bankruptcy and social anarchy. That would be real tragedy.

Put another way, if we fail to plant our saplings today, there will be no trees tomorrow. And without trees, the world cannot exist.

So go ahead and plant those saplings. And make that investment in the next generation.

We can reach the lost with an eternal message while also doing good in the here and now. We live today in the light of eternity. If we do, our children will bless us and thank us.

See the article here:
Putting the culture wars in perspective - Christian Post