In November 2018, I posted an entry titled, “The Gospel According to Aesop.” The point being that storytelling is a powerful means of presenting a message. And the moral of a story did not matter whether the vehicle was a New Testament parable or a fable about animals. Today’s post is a political parable for our times.

In the year 2019, although the field was already overcrowded, a stranger announced he too chose to run for the Democratic nomination for president of the United States. There was something mysterious and unnatural about him. Some people thought he was Caucasian. Others swore he was dark-skinned. Some marveled at his flowing blonde hair. Others saw kinky, black locks. Many questioned the stranger’s gender.

On one thing, all could agree. He dressed like a hippie, straight out of the 1960s. When he announced his candidacy at a community center in the Anacostia neighborhood in Washington, D.C. , he was dressed in a hand-woven robe and sandals.

When asked why he was running for president, the stranger replied:

There are too many among us who have lost their spirit and need to be reminded there is hope. I want to give them that hope.
There are too many who have faced tragedy and need to be comforted. I want to assure them we do care.
There are too many who cannot speak for themselves yet have much to offer. I want to give them a voice.
There are too many who want to do the right thing but are not sure what that means. I want to help them find the answer.
There is too much war and violence and those who seek a different path do not believe they are empowered to do anything about it. I want them to know they have an ally.
There is too much injustice, social and economic, perpetrated in the name of false righteousness and ideologies. It is time we are all subject to the same rights and privileges regardless of origin, faith or class.*

If you join me in this crusade, do not be surprised when some insult you, call you names and question your patriotism. And many of these detractors will claim they are doing it in name of their faiths.

Within days, the stranger’s prophecy rang true. The president of one of the largest Baptist universities in America urged his followers to ignore the stranger and support the incumbent. In an interview with the Washington Post, he said, “I can’t imagine him doing anything that’s not good for the country.” (January 1, 2018)

Likewise, the heir to a prominent Baptist minister who drew thousands at his rallies and was hailed as the most influential Christian leader of the 20th century used his inherited platform to suggest the stranger was antithetical to God’s will. “Never in my lifetime have we had a @POTUS willing to take such a strong outspoken stand for the Christian faith. We need to get behind him with out prayers.” (Twitter, December 1, 2017)

The stranger’s message was drowned out. It was replaced by chants of “Lock Him Up” and “Fear the Stranger.” Eventually he dropped out of the race and disappeared from the political scene. And somewhere in America, a pastor at a small rural church quoted Judge Amy Berman Jackson suggesting she might have channeled a divine warning when she said, “I’m not giving you another chance. I have serious doubts about whether you learned any lesson at all.”

As a devout agnostic of Jewish background, I have little or no faith in the concept of a “second coming.” However, I have no doubt should such an event come to pass, there will be a “second crucifixion.” How do I know that? Because so-called modern day disciples of Jesus’ teaching, such as Jerry Fallwell, Jr. and Franklin Graham have already betrayed him.

For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP

*The stranger’s platform is a variation of the Beatitudes from the sermon on the mount as they appear in Matthew 5:3-11.

In his closing remarks at this week’s Vatican “summit to protect children,” Pope Francis referred to members of the Catholic clergy who abused vulnerable boys and girls as “tools of Satan.”  In the penitential liturgy at the end of the conclave, he  added, “We must say, like the prodigal son: ‘Father, I have sinned'”.

Excuse me, Your Holiness, that may have worked for Flip Wilson’s alter ego Geraldine Jones, who passed off her less than lady-like behavior by telling us, “The Devil made me do it!”  It does not apply here.  In fact, it is an affront to scapegoating, a term which first appears in 1530 A.D. bible involving the sacrifice of a ruminant beast on Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement, to purge congregants of their sins.

The art of scapegoating precedes its name.  Among the earliest marks for the world’s ills were women: Eve for having tempted Adam to eat the forbidden fruit and Pandora for having released all the evils on earth by opening a box.   History is littered with scapegoats.  Some as seemingly insignificant as  blaming Steve Bartman’s interference of a foul ball at Wrigley Field which possibly kept the Chicago Cubs from advancing to the World Series.  Others, of historic proportions, such as Hitler’s  attacking Jews and a global Zionist conspiracy for conditions in Germany after their defeat in World War I.

At least in the latter two cases, the scapegoats were real people.  It’s hard to blame outside forces when you live in a closed society.  There is no Harold Hill-like travelling con-man to proclaim, “There’s trouble in Vatican City.”  Desperate to point a finger at anyone but themselves, the Church created an imaginary bogeyman.  The Devil!  Beelzebub! The Prince of Darkness!  If he did not already exist, would the villain have been Pennywise the Clown?  “IT made me do it!”

Much is being made these days about using RICO–The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act–to prosecute Donald Trump’s role in the decades of potentially illegal activity conducted under the auspices of the Trump Organization, Foundation, Campaign, Inauguration Committee and White House.  The case against Trump University (Art Cohen v. Donald J. Trump), filed in 2013 and settled out of court in 2016, was a RICO class action suit.

The law has two features which make this possible.

• It provides for extended criminal penalties and a civil cause of action for acts performed as part of an ongoing criminal organization.
• It allows the leaders of a syndicate to be tried for the crimes they ordered others to do or assisted them in doing.

Perhaps it is time for a second round of RICO legislation or what I would call the Religion Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.  The Catholic Church is a corrupt organization under the RICO definition and deserves investigation, and if appropriate prosecution, by external entities, not its own hierarchy.  Consider the following.

• Confession is a system of self-imposed justice and punishment.  A few Hail Marys can be exchanged for a hail storm of sexual abuse.
• It does not hold itself to societal standards.  According to the Pope, priests sin.  Society calls their actions crimes.
• They determine punishment.  Cardinal McCarrick was defrocked, “dismissed from the clerical state.”  He is currently living in a friary in western Kansas, which is located (drum roll) one block from the Victoria Elementary School.  I wonder if the only difference between the Church and a crime syndicate is the latter would have suggested McCarrick go on a fishing trip to Lake Tahoe?
• Do not tell me the leadership of the Catholic Church has not “assisted” in these crimes.  Destroying records of misconduct and moving predators from one diocese to another, putting other children in danger, is the definition of aiding and abetting criminal activity.
• And finally, Pope Francis promised the Church would clean up its act, “We want all possible measures to be taken so that similar crimes aren’t repeated.”  I’m sorry, but you had 2,000 years to do just that.

Maybe this is the reason the fastest growing religious denomination in America is former Catholics.

For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP

I believe that there is a very strong chance that we will see that young people will be put into mandatory service. And the real concerns is that there are provisions for what I would call re-education camps for young people, where young people have to go and get trained in a philosophy that the government puts forward and then they have to go to work in some of these politically correct forums.

Representative Michele Bachmann (R-MN)
April 6, 2009

Just when you think Michele Bachmann, who upon retiring from Congress in 2014 said she was not going away, had not been seen or heard of since, an incident which has been in the news recently reminds us her spirit still lives.  The above quote was in response to a Senate bill introduced by Ted Kennedy called the National Service Act, an expansion of the AmeriCorps volunteer program.  Although the occasion was wrong, this weekend I began to think her warning contained more than a kernel of truth.

The occasion?  The video of an incident involving Black Hebrew Israelites, a Native American elder and students from a Catholic High School in Covington, Kentucky.  Before getting to the main point of this post, let me first say the incident itself is irrelevant and did not deserve the attention it received from the media which then botched the narrative from every perspective.

Anyone who has spent time in a major U.S. city understands Black Israelites, who believe they are decendants of the ancient Israelites and seem to have one purpose in life. They are “sidewalk ministers” who stand on street corners and yell at people of all races, nationalities and religions.  The are equal opportunity high-decibel evangelists.  And when you encounter them, you have a choice.  You stop and take in this unique tribute to the First Amendment of the Constitution or you ignore them and go on your way.

A delegation of 231 students from Covington Catholic High School likely had not been prepared for their introduction to this religious sect.  And they took the preaching far too seriously.  (I’ll get to the question “Where were the adult chaperones?” later.)  They stupidly chose to confront the Black Israelites.

Which brings us to the Native American elder Nathan Phillips.  He could have been an innocent bystander, but believed he could diffuse the tension.  I do not know if the students’ response to Mr Phillips was based on his heritage or their surprise he seemed to be sticking up for the Black Israelites.

Shit happens.  And in my humble opinion that is exactly what this was.  Shit happening.  But when you make so much of shit happening, you miss the big picture and more importantly, the big questions.  Which brings me back to Ms. Bachmann and the opening quote.

The big question?  “What were 231 students and their chaperones from Covington Catholic High School doing in Washington, D.C. at the March for Life?”  This is where Michele Bachmann, unwittingly, reminds us that there are re-education camps in America.  Were the Covington students not put in mandatory service to attend a political rally?  They were not required to attend, but it was a trip sponsored and organized by the high school.

And Covington students, when they say the pledge of allegiance each morning, add the words “born and unborn” at the end.  Is this not training young people in a philosophy the current government puts forward?   And finally, was not the March for Life “a politically correct forum” from the school’s perspective?

There even seemed to be a dress code, a “Make America Great Again” cap, which raises a whole other set of questions.  No doubt Covington Catholic operates as a 501(c)(3) educational non-profit.  If so, they would be prohibited from endorsing any political candidate.  Where did all those caps come from?  And is it just a coincidence Donald Trump’s current White House legal counsel Pat Cipollone is a graduate of (drum roll) Covington Catholic High School?

Doing the research for this post, I tried to find out more about the school itself.  Among the more interesting facts is the school has approximately 550 students and 42 teachers, a student/faculty ratio any public school would die for.  But as SiriusXM Insight talk show host John Fugelsang noted on Tuesday’s episode, the entire faculty is white. (For the record, when I went to verify this, the faculty section of the website had been removed.) Hence, the title of today’s post.  I doubt there are many Catholic or Jewish faculty on staff at a Saudi Arabian madrasa. You don’t want to muck up your message by bringing in teachers who may have a different life experience.

This evening I went back to the school’s website to verify other secondary information on Wikipedia and local newspaper articles about the school’s history, curriculum and mission statement.  The entire website had been deleted so I will not share other sources’ reports about questionable teaching practices.

So, with only what we do know, what are the takeaways?

1. This is America and the Constitution still guarantees freedom of speech and religious expression regardless of how sane or insane the message is perceived to be.  For all I care, as long as they are modifying the pledge of allegiance, Covington Catholic could change the opening line of “My Country Tis’ of Thee” to “My Country’s Not for Thee.”  It is their constitutional prerogative.
2. Covington Catholic should not have had to close for two days this week due to threats to the students and their families.  The perpetrators of those threats deserve the consequences of their actions.
3. And perhaps most important, we should not focus our attention or anger at the students.  How could the administration think using their students as props to inflate the crowd at the March for Life was a good idea?  Or that a horde of young white males brought up in a culture where a teacher in an official 2014 promotional video tells future students a Covington Catholic education prepares them to be president of their college fraternities are the best advocates to challenge a woman’s right to control her own body.  (Source: “Examining a Covington Catholic Promotional Video,” Rolling Stone, January 23, 2019)  Where were the adults and what did they instruct the students to do in case of a confrontation?   Hopefully, the students could have figured this out on there own.  Unfortunately they did not. After all, they were only doing what they have been socialized to do at their re-education camp.

Thank you Michele Bachmann, for reminding us of how truly reckless that is.

For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP

If you have never heard of John Fugelsang or listened to his daily Sirius XM  program “Tell Me Everything,” you should check him out (Insight Channel 121/noon-2:00 pm).  He is to modern culture what Leonardo di Vinci was to the Renaissance.  He is a walking Google search engine.  He converses with guests about current events such as health care and immigration one minute and then shifts to the societal value of fart jokes the next.  Parade Magazine labeled his broadcasts, “NPR with a demented sense of humor.”

My personal attraction comes not from Fugelsang’s knowledge, but from his curiosity about what he does not yet know.  It is reflected in the show’s title, “Tell Me Everything.”  It comes from a Bob Dylan interview John read in his youth.

Someone asked Bob Dylan, ‘What’s your advice to a woman on a date with you?’ and Dylan said, ‘Tell me everything.’  As a young man, that was the sexiest, most romantic thing I’d ever heard—that curiosity and that desire to hear. I wanted to create an atmosphere where my listeners who call in and my guests would feel free to over-share.

Yesterday was no exception.  The last segment of each episode is often a roundtable discussion with all the day’s guests.  He calls it, “The ADHD Hour.”  Friday was the final broadcast before a two-week holiday break, and as one would expect, Fugelsang asked his guests about their holiday traditions including Latina comedian Jenny Saldaña who shared the fact she and her family first arrived in the U.S. from Guatemala on Christmas eve.  Thus, the holidays have an even more special meaning.  So much for holiday traditions.  Fugelsang reacted as though he had been struck by a bolt of lightning and immediately pivoted to the morning news about the seven-year-old Guatemalan girl who had died while in the custody of the U.S. Border Patrol.

His rant is too long to share in full, but here is the gist.  Sitting in church on Christmas eve does not make you a Christian.  Do not tell me you are celebrating the birth of the “baby Jesus” (his words) if you support a man who takes children away from their mothers, is doing everything he can to deprive 20 million Americans of their health insurance, pays hush money to porn stars and playmates, calls Nazis and white supremacists “good people” and gives cover to a dictator who tortures and dismembers a journalist.

On more than one occasion, I have shared my discomfort being constantly exposed to the now two-month celebration of Christmas.  But Fugelsang’s tirade made me think twice about an experience I had two days earlier.  I was in line to check out at the local Harris-Teeter with a full cart of groceries.  A women behind me had a basket with what appeared to be three items.  For some reason, our Harris-Teeter does not have an express lane; so I offered to let the woman go first.  After checking out, she turned to me and said, “Thank you and Merry Christmas.”  My first reaction, which my wife has rightfully reminded to keep to myself, was, “Damn it, it’s only December 12.  And Christmas has nothing to do with my actions.  Doesn’t she realize agnostics can be kind also?”

When I started to check out, the cashier said, “That was very nice of you.”  My reply.  “I only did what I hoped someone would do for me.”  Wait a minute.  Wasn’t that the “golden rule,” do unto others as you would have them do unto you?  Had I not done the Christian thing even though my exposure  to the golden rule comes from the story of Rabbi Akiba ben Yosef who was challenged to explain the Torah while standing on one foot?  [Historical Footnote: Like Jesus, Rabbi Akiba was executed by the Romans following the Bar Kokhba revolt in 136 A.D.  At least the Romans were equal opportunity executioners.]

Which brings me back to John Fugelsang.  In the age of Trump, perhaps the saddest commentary is the fact America is populated with a surprisingly large percentage of people who claim to be Christians but whose value system is contrary to the teachings of the man they consider to be their savior.  Now, I don’t know for sure the woman in line at Harris-Teeter voted for and still supports Trump.  But if she does, would not the appropriate response to her offer of season’s greetings be, “How dare you?”  But I would still have kept it myself.  Because Jesus reminded us all, even agnostics, “to turn the other cheek.”

For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP