The jawing of an ass

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck as the inheritors of Martin Luther King's legacy?

Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck as the catalysts for the moment America "begins to turn back to God”?

Something smells. And I "refudiate" it.

Because the gospel according to Palin and Beck is what "refudiate" is to "repudiate," and it comes off just as ridiculously.

Leave it to Glenn Beck to trumpet how his gigantic publicity stunt -- and profit generator for Beck, Inc. -- is the beginning of a grand American revival, all the while publicly "refudiating" large parts of the gospel of Jesus Christ as "socialism" or "Nazism" -- or both, as he seems to view social-justice doctrine.

For example, this was Beck in March:

"I'm begging you, your right to religion and freedom to exercise religion and read all of the passages of the Bible as you want to read them and as your church wants to preach them . . . are going to come under the ropes in the next year. If it lasts that long it will be the next year. I beg you, look for the words 'social justice' or 'economic justice' on your church Web site. If you find it, run as fast as you can. Social justice and economic justice, they are code words. Now, am I advising people to leave their church? Yes!"

AND THIS is the Catechism of the Catholic Church (and has been for a long, long time):

ARTICLE 3

SOCIAL JUSTICE

1928 Society ensures social justice when it provides the conditions that allow associations or individuals to obtain what is their due, according to their nature and their vocation. Social justice is linked to the common good and the exercise of authority.

I. RESPECT FOR THE HUMAN PERSON

1929 Social justice can be obtained only in respecting the transcendent dignity of man. The person represents the ultimate end of society, which is ordered to him:

What is at stake is the dignity of the human person, whose defense and promotion have been entrusted to us by the Creator, and to whom the men and women at every moment of history are strictly and responsibly in debt.35

1930 Respect for the human person entails respect for the rights that flow from his dignity as a creature. These rights are prior to society and must be recognized by it. They are the basis of the moral legitimacy of every authority: by flouting them, or refusing to recognize them in its positive legislation, a society undermines its own moral legitimacy.36 If it does not respect them, authority can rely only on force or violence to obtain obedience from its subjects. It is the Church's role to remind men of good will of these rights and to distinguish them from unwarranted or false claims.

1931 Respect for the human person proceeds by way of respect for the principle that "everyone should look upon his neighbor (without any exception) as 'another self,' above all bearing in mind his life and the means necessary for living it with dignity."37 No legislation could by itself do away with the fears, prejudices, and attitudes of pride and selfishness which obstruct the establishment of truly fraternal societies. Such behavior will cease only through the charity that finds in every man a "neighbor," a brother.

1932 The duty of making oneself a neighbor to others and actively serving them becomes even more urgent when it involves the disadvantaged, in whatever area this may be. "As you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me."38

1933 This same duty extends to those who think or act differently from us. The teaching of Christ goes so far as to require the forgiveness of offenses. He extends the commandment of love, which is that of the New Law, to all enemies.39 Liberation in the spirit of the Gospel is incompatible with hatred of one's enemy as a person, but not with hatred of the evil that he does as an enemy.

IT GOES ON like this for some number of pages. Including this:

1939 The principle of solidarity, also articulated in terms of "friendship" or "social charity," is a direct demand of human and Christian brotherhood.45

An error, "today abundantly widespread, is disregard for the law of human solidarity and charity, dictated and imposed both by our common origin and by the equality in rational nature of all men, whatever nation they belong to. This law is sealed by the sacrifice of redemption offered by Jesus Christ on the altar of the Cross to his heavenly Father, on behalf of sinful humanity."46

1940 Solidarity is manifested in the first place by the distribution of goods and remuneration for work. It also presupposes the effort for a more just social order where tensions are better able to be reduced and conflicts more readily settled by negotiation.

BUT NO, this imminent -- but not eminent -- Christian revival is going to be sparked by a screwball demagogue who denies whole parts of the Christian gospel that answer the question "How shall we live, then?" Him and the tea-party darling, a gun-totin', babealicious Alaskan dingbat whose mind freezes up every time she's called upon to use it, and whose mangling of the king's English makes Yogi Berra sound like Sir Lawrence Olivier.

Don't believe me, however. Believe what's in your morning newspaper, in this case The New York Times:

An enormous and impassioned crowd rallied at the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on Saturday, summoned by Glenn Beck, a conservative broadcaster who called for a religious rebirth in America at the site where the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech 47 years ago to the day.

“Something that is beyond man is happening,” Mr. Beck said in opening the event as the crowd thronged near the memorial grounds. “America today begins to turn back to God.”

It was part religious revival, part history lecture, as Mr. Beck invoked the founding fathers and the “black-robed regiment” of pastors of the Revolutionary War and spoke of American exceptionalism.

The crowd was a mix of groups that have come together under the Tea Party umbrella. Some wore T-shirts from the Campaign for Liberty, the libertarian group that came out of the presidential campaign of Representative Ron Paul, while others wore the gear of their local Tea Party group, or of 9/12 groups, which were founded after a special broadcast Mr. Beck did in March 2009.

But the program was distinctly different from most Tea Party rallies. While Tea Party groups have said they want to focus on fiscal conservatism and not risk alienating people by talking about religion or social issues, the rally on Saturday was overtly religious, filled with gospel music and speeches that were more like sermons.

Mr. Beck imbued his remarks on Saturday and at events the night before with references to God and a need for a religious revival. “For too long, this country has wandered in darkness,” Mr. Beck said Saturday. “This country has spent far too long worrying about scars and thinking about scars and concentrating on scars. Today, we are going to concentrate on the good things in America, the things that we have accomplished, and the things that we can do tomorrow.”

Mr. Beck was followed on stage by Sarah Palin, the 2008 Republican vice-presidential candidate and former Alaska governor, who said she was asked, in keeping with the theme of the day, not to focus on politics but to speak as the mother of a soldier.

“Say what you want to say about me, but I raised a combat vet, and you can’t take that away from me,” said Ms. Palin, whose son Track served in Iraq.

But Ms. Palin did not steer entirely clear of politics. In a veiled reference to President Obama and his pledges to fundamentally transform America, she said, “We must not fundamentally transform America as some would want; we must restore America and restore her honor.”

Many in the crowd said they had never been to a Tea Party rally, but they described themselves as avid Glenn Beck fans, and many said they had been motivated to come by faith.

RESTORE AMERICA? Restore her honor?

Just what the Holy Ghost does that have to do with "turning back to God"? The gospel of Jesus Christ is not a utilitarian scheme -- and it just may be that the divine purposes of the Almighty involve humbling America and destroying her "honor."

And obviously, the honor-obsessed Mr. Weepy is unfamiliar with the term "the scandal of the gospel." Or, as Paul wrote to the church in Corinth long, long ago:

18

The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

19

For it is written: "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the learning of the learned I will set aside."

20

Where is the wise one? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made the wisdom of the world foolish?

21

For since in the wisdom of God the world did not come to know God through wisdom, it was the will of God through the foolishness of the proclamation to save those who have faith.

22

For Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom,

23

but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles,

24

but to those who are called, Jews and Greeks alike, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.

25

For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.

26

Consider your own calling, brothers. Not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth.

27

Rather, God chose the foolish of the world to shame the wise, and God chose the weak of the world to shame the strong,

28

and God chose the lowly and despised of the world, those who count for nothing, to reduce to nothing those who are something,

29

so that no human being might boast before God.

THOUGH ONE certainly can argue that Beck and Palin -- and any number of tea-party types-- be pluperfect fools, when we go to the videotape, the record hardly shows Caribou Barbie and this cable-TV equivalent of a carnival geek to be "fools for Christ."

Actually, Jesus Himself warned us about what we witnessed in Washington on Saturday. Look in Matthew -- or, as I learned through hard experience to tell Catholics teens in youth group, the first part of the last third of the Bible:

Jesus said to his disciples:
“Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing,
but underneath are ravenous wolves.
By their fruits you will know them.
Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?
Just so, every good tree bears good fruit,
and a rotten tree bears bad fruit.
A good tree cannot bear bad fruit,
nor can a rotten tree bear good fruit.
Every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down
and thrown into the fire.
So by their fruits you will know them.”

OR by their fruitcakes, as the case may be.

Somehow, the following seems like it wasn't just 47 years ago, but also a billion miles away:

Pssssst . . . Eve! Take this smart phone

If you want to learn about modern life -- especially postmodern life -- look at your smart phone.

Because if your life . . . er, your smart phone, is anything like the deal one Omaha man got, congratulations! You're a officially a member of a club born when Eve bought the serpent's line about that apple.

If not that Apple.

IT'S ALL in the book of Sprint, Chapter 4G (as told to the World-Herald):

For two days in late July, Monty Poland searched Omaha for something that didn't exist.

Poland, 39, had just purchased a new smart phone from Sprint, the HTC Evo. The handset, purchased at a discount with a new contract, cost Poland $275, excluding a $100 mail-in rebate.

It was loaded with features, including bundles of applications, the latest version of Google's Android operating system, a touch screen, dual cameras and wireless Internet that could be channeled to make the phone a wireless hot-spot.

Poland discovered those just fine. What he couldn't find was a place to use a feature Evo has that few other smart phones possess: the ability to connect to Sprint's 4G wireless network.

He tried to access the network from many places. At his home near 72nd and Giles Streets? Nope. In downtown Omaha? No way. At the La Vista Sprint store where he purchased the device? Not even there.

That's because even though Sprint proclaims Evo's 4G capabilities on in-store signage, the company's website and in commercials, 4G service isn't available anywhere in Nebraska or Iowa.

The term 4G stands for “fourth generation,” meaning the latest and fastest version of digital mobile functionality. It is superior to 2G, which was introduced in the early 1990s, and to 3G, which dates to around 2002.

Having the latest and most reliable technology is key to companies' profitability, because smart phone customers are hungry for faster mobile Internet connections to stream video, download applications, or “apps,” and browse the web. Mobile phone companies engage in heated battles to reach pacts with network providers while investing billions in the updated networks.

But in the end, all the whiz-bang features need to work.

“It's like buying a laptop computer with supersonic speed, but the local Internet provider doesn't offer supersonic Internet connections,” Poland said. “Why spend the extra dough to buy something you can't use?”

After two frustrating days, Poland revisited the Sprint store and asked a manager why the 4G connection wasn't working.

Poland learned that 4G wasn't available in the Midlands. In fact, it is available in only 48 U.S. markets, of which the closest is Kansas City, near Sprint's national headquarters in Overland Park, Kan.

OVERPROMISING -- and, alternatively, getting suckered -- is what we do as children of the first consumers, who believed Satan when he advertised that "your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods who know what is good and what is bad."

I'll bet the scaly SOB stiffed 'em on the 4G service, too.

The thing is, we never learn.

Never.

Ever.

In fact, our entire Western economy is built upon the fact of our permanent placement in planetary special ed. Let's just say it's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Men World.

AND THE hell of it -- literally -- is illustrated by what Monty Poland did when Sprint offered him a full refund: He turned it down.

Which explains why America's churches are so empty come Sunday.

'Social justice' rears its ugly head

I guess if you're Glenn Beck or one of his disciples, you'll look at this dispatch from India and wonder why these commie-pinko protesters weren't just shot in the street.

That's right, according to the Zenit news agency, the dreaded social-justice conspiracy has set its sights on subverting The Way Things Work in the world's second-largest country:

Numerous religious, including three bishops, were arrested for taking part in a demonstration near Chennai in defense of the rights of Christian and Muslim "untouchables."

The police detained hundreds of people on Friday including priests, nuns, Archbishop Malayappan Chinnappa of Madras and Mylapore, Archbishop Peter Fernando of Madurai, and bishop Anthonisamy Neethinathan of Chinglepet, UCANews reported.

Friday's manifestation was the culmination of a month-long demonstration in favor of the lowest social caste, known as the dalits or untouchables.

The objective was to make the population and the state authorities more aware of the marginalization suffered by members of this class of society.

Thousands of people participated in a march that spanned some 310 miles, beginning a month earlier in the southern city of Kanyakumari.

HELL, IF YOU'RE the crew-cutted one, you're probably wondering -- in between crying jags -- not only why the noble Indian authorities didn't shoot the Catholic bishops, but why they didn't drive a stake through their hearts as well.

It's tough being Glenn Beck. If only enough people could see . . . it's all so clear once you're actually inside the funhouse mirror.

The devil has a crew cut

It's no secret that Glenn Beck is a cynical buffoon whose stock-in-trade is scaring the crap out of people even more ignorant and crazy than himself.

It also is no secret that Beck's boss at the Fox News Channel, Roger Ailes -- as well as his bosses at Premiere Radio Networks -- just might be the most cynical people in America. That's saying something.

But cynically ginning up outrage and paranoia among ignorant (and perhaps unstable) people is nothing new in American politics and public discourse. Dangerous, yes. Destructive of the commonweal, yes.

But, alas, nothing new. This is the tired and hoary work of minor demons inhabiting middling rings of the inferno.

CONVINCING GULLIBLE and paranoid Yankee Doodle whack jobs that "Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the land" is pure, uncut communism -- evil incarnate under the guise of "social justice" . . . collectivist subversion of freedom and democracy -- that, on the other hand, is the work of Lucifer himself.

The devil is on Fox News weekday afternoons at 5 -- 4 Central. His stage name is Glenn Beck.

And the devil -- er, "Beck" -- is a master at getting mere mortals to mistake good for evil and evil for a public-policy prescription.

"Blessed are you who are now hungry, for you will be satisfied"? Socialist redistribution of wealth!

"Blessed are you who are now hungry, for you will be satisfied"? Commie-libs are out to destroy individual initiative . . . by confiscating your income!

"Woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation"? Implicit threat of violence against hard-working American achievers from totalitarian agitators in the highest ranks!

Woe to you who are filled now, for you will be hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you will grieve and weep? If you remember your history, this sounds awfully like what Stalin did when he collectivized agriculture in the Ukraine! Communists want you to starve while they redistribute your food!

CALL IT biblical exegesis, as seen on Glenn Beck's TV. And heard on his radio.

Glenn Beck thinks that if you go to a church that believes that Jesus Christ meant what he said in the Beatitudes, you are in deep borscht, Comrade.

And Glenn Beck says red-blooded, market-oriented American lovers of freedom had better get out of any church that believes in that "social justice" crapola. No, really:

I recently received word through a new friend that The New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good captured audio of Fox News’ Glenn Beck encouraging listeners to leave their church if it proclaims a concern for social justice on his March 2nd radio broadcast. Here’s the quote from Beck:

"I'm begging you, your right to religion and freedom to exercise religion and read all of the passages of the Bible as you want to read them and as your church wants to preach them . . . are going to come under the ropes in the next year. If it lasts that long it will be the next year. I beg you, look for the words 'social justice' or 'economic justice' on your church Web site. If you find it, run as fast as you can. Social justice and economic justice, they are code words. Now, am I advising people to leave their church? Yes!"

NO, PEOPLE, this is no everyday, happens-every-couple-or-three-decades, run of the mill American political and cultural crackpottery.

What we have here is a crew-cut, whackadoodle Mormon-convert antichrist who has been given free reign by his radio and cable-TV masters to preach apostasy to millions of lost sheep. This isn't Christopher Hitchens going on TV to tell a bemused reporter that there is no God, and believers are full of beans.

Instead, this is one of the most popular hosts on the most popular cable-"news" channel, telling his viewers that Jesus preached evil, historical Christianity is a bunch of socialist agitprop and they should flee any church that believes in such things, because that church is a clear and present danger to the republic.

It's kind of like Lenin through the looking glass, actually.

A pretty neat trick, if you can pull it off. And we know just the malevolent entity for the job, don't we?

Father Cutié and the downsized deity

You have your dissent, and then you have your dissent. In the Episcopal Church, one of these things is not like the other.

If you're a Catholic priest who can't stick to his vows and gets him a woman -- c'mon in, the water's fine! And if you're an Episcopal priest who ditches his wife to get him a boyfriend, you just may be bishop material.

But if you're an Episcopal priest or bishop who decides the demands of a jealous God and the truth claims of historical Christianity supercede the popular notion of one's genitalia as a free-fire zone . . . you're just s*** out of luck, Bunky!

THAT'S AS GOOD an explanation as any for why a publicity-whoring Catholic scandalmonger gets everything but a 21-Trojan salute from the local Episcopal diocese when he switches teams. After all, in the Catholic Church, "Father Oprah" couldn't keep his girlfriend and his priesthood, too.

Or his TV show . . . or a platform to continue as a bestselling author . . . or, basically, any reason for the rest of us to pay attention when he yells, "Hey! Look at me!" From The Associated Press:

A popular Miami priest and media personality known as "Father Oprah" has left the Catholic Church to become an Anglican after he was photographed cavorting on the beach with his girlfriend.

The Rev. Alberto Cutié was removed from his Miami Beach church after photos of him kissing and embracing a woman appeared in the pages of a Spanish-language magazine earlier this month.

He was received into the Episcopal Church, the U.S. branch of the Anglican Communion, in a ceremony Thursday at Trinity Cathedral and may later announce he will marry his girlfriend, which is allowed in that denomination. He must complete other requirements before serving as an Episcopal priest.

(snip)

The Cuban-American priest was born in Puerto Rico and previously hosted shows on the Spanish-language channel Telemundo. He is also a syndicated Spanish-language columnist and author of the book "Real Life, Real Love: 7 Paths to a Strong, Lasting Relationship."

He headed the archdiocese's Radio Paz and Radio Peace broadcasts, heard throughout the Americas and in Spain, and earned the nickname "Father Oprah" — as in talk show host Oprah Winfrey — for his relationship advice.

Earlier this month, Cutié told CBS he has been romantically involved with the woman in the photos for about two years after being friends for much longer.

BUT OBJECT TO THE Episcopal Church's Cult of the Eternal Orgasm, and that just makes you a heretic -- like the clergy who fled to some awful Anglican archdiocese somewhere over the rainbow, where some horrid little archbishop lacks the tolerance of your average Seattle priest . . . who also happens to be a Muslim.

Again, from the AP, whose reporters must be amused, if not confused, by now:

National leaders of the Episcopal Church have ousted 61 clergy who aligned with a former bishop in California when he broke with the national church in a dispute over the Bible and homosexuality.

Former Bishop John-David Schofield led his congregation in San Joaquin to become the first full diocese to secede from the U.S. denomination in 2007. Four years earlier, Episcopalians consecrated their first openly gay bishop, setting off a wide-ranging debate within the church and upsetting conservative congregations.

Schofield ultimately was removed as head of the diocese and barred from performing any religious rites. He maintains he is an Anglican bishop under the worldwide church.

Episcopal leaders said Wednesday they were deposing all clergy who severed their ties and joined Schofield in affiliating with an Anglican archdiocese in Argentina.

Jerry Lamb, the new Episcopal Bishop of San Joaquin, called the decision to oust the clergy "heartbreaking."

"But, the fact is, they chose to abandon their relationship with the Episcopal Church," he said.

ALLAH KNOWS why they'd want to abandon the Episcopal Church. It's not just anywhere they could -- to recall the words of Flannery O'Connor -- serve a God less than themselves.

Burn, baby, burn! Hard times inferno!

The prophet of Times Square certainly has been an interesting sideshow.

SURELY YOU'VE HEARD, somewhere on the Internets, the dire prophetic warning from the Holy Spirit -- via the blog of the Rev. David Wilkerson, pastor of New York's Times Square Church:

AN EARTH-SHATTERING CALAMITY IS ABOUT TO HAPPEN. IT IS GOING TO BE SO FRIGHTENING, WE ARE ALL GOING TO TREMBLE - EVEN THE GODLIEST AMONG US.

For ten years I have been warning about a thousand fires coming to New York City. It will engulf the whole megaplex, including areas of New Jersey and Connecticut. Major cities all across America will experience riots and blazing fires—such as we saw in Watts, Los Angeles, years ago.

There will be riots and fires in cities worldwide. There will be looting—including Times Square, New York City. What we are experiencing now is not a recession, not even a depression. We are under God’s wrath. In Psalm 11 it is written,

“If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?” (v. 3).

God is judging the raging sins of America and the nations. He is destroying the secular foundations.

The prophet Jeremiah pleaded with wicked Israel, “God is fashioning a calamity against you and devising a plan against you. Oh, turn back each of you from your evil way, and reform your ways and deeds. But they will say, It’s hopeless! For we are going to follow our own plans, and each of us will act according to the stubbornness of his evil heart” (Jeremiah 18:11-12).

MAYBE the good pastor is right. Then again, maybe it wasn't the Holy Spirit whispering in his ear.

In any event, I don't know whether you can call it prophecy if one's reaction to it -- well, at least my reaction to it -- is "Well, DUH!" I think what Pastor Wilkerson really is prophesying would be a triggering event that will cause postmodern Westerners -- raised, by and large, with an entitlement mentality and without God -- to act in an entirely predictable manner when faced with dire circumstances rendering their worldview null and void.

In other words, go apes***.

Look at it this way: For at least a couple of generations, what used to be Christendom has elevated worship of mammon to historically unprecedented heights. And like all belief systems built upon philosophical sand dunes, the foundation was bound to crack.

Crack!

Now the walls are bowing out and the roof ain't looking too good. One good shock -- The Israelis attacking Iran, perhaps, and oil prices again shooting into the stratosphere as a result? -- could cause the whole thing to come down.

Think of it this way: In the absence of the hope derived from the prospect of greater earthly prosperity (an insufficient and fleeting hope, obviously, but you take what's available to you) what real hope does mankind have apart from that won at a terrible price on Calvary, with Jesus Christ hanging dead on a cross for our sins?

What victory can we claim over the natural state of mankind, save that same Jesus' triumph over death and despair on that first Easter morn? Of late, we have put abiding faith in a modern materialistic aberration . . . but what if that all goes away?

And it might, you know.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

HOW DOES a people without hope behave?

David Wilkerson had a vision:

There will be riots and fires in cities worldwide. There will be looting—including Times Square, New York City.

All you need is angry people. Check.

Hopeless people. Getting there.

A match thrown in a puddle of sociological gasoline. ?????

Someone, anyone, tell me: What hope will the people have when the "bubble America" they've so carefully constructed proves to the cruelest of false hopes? In what do people hope when their collective god dies, the house has gone back to the bank, the SUV has been repossessed, they can't put food on the table and the iPod won't answer urgent prayers?

What's left but the abyss when the trend line looks like this, as reported by The Associated Press:

Fifteen percent of respondents said they had no religion, an increase from 14.2 percent in 2001 and 8.2 percent in 1990, according to the American Religious Identification Survey.

Northern New England surpassed the Pacific Northwest as the least religious region, with Vermont reporting the highest share of those claiming no religion, at 34 percent. Still, the study found that the numbers of Americans with no religion rose in every state.

"No other religious bloc has kept such a pace in every state," the study's authors said.

(snip)

The current survey, being released Monday, found traditional organized religion playing less of a role in many lives. Thirty percent of married couples did not have a religious wedding ceremony and 27 percent of respondents said they did not want a religious funeral.

About 12 percent of Americans believe in a higher power but not the personal God at the core of monotheistic faiths. And, since 1990, a slightly greater share of respondents — 1.2 percent — said they were part of new religious movements, including Scientology, Wicca and Santeria.

The study also found signs of a growing influence of churches that either don't belong to a denomination or play down their membership in a religious group.

ANYONE? ANYONE?

It's fitting, actually, that President Obama announced today that it's now full speed ahead for embryonic stem-cell research, otherwise known as cannibalizing the tiniest human beings in hopes of fixing what ails us giant economy-sized human beings.

This triumph of scientific "progress" is an eminently logical progression for the "developed" world, where we've cannibalized the environment to build a planetary Temple of Stuff. And where workers continually are cannibalized (figuratively . . . thus far) by corporate titans in the name of "shareholder value" and "globalism."

Creating embryos just to consume them makes perfect sense to an America where we've cannibalized our surviving progeny's future for the holy cause of tax cuts, elective wars, McMansions and an automobile in every pot.

WHETHER OR NOT it really was the third person of the Holy Trinity -- terminology wholly unfamiliar to a burgeoning demographic -- it seems to me it was perfectly appropriate for Rev. Wilkerson to issue his warning and invoke the prophet Jeremiah.

After all, one of the founding fathers has his back:

"For in a warm climate, no man will labour for himself who can make another labour for him. This is so true, that of the proprietors of slaves a very small proportion indeed are ever seen to labor. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep for ever. . . ."

Thomas Jefferson wrote that. You can find parts of it on the Jefferson Memorial . . . in Washington, D.C. That's where President Obama -- supremely ironically -- has devoted much of his energy to enshrining a new form of slavery, one where humans not even worth three-fifths of a white man satisfy our needs with their lives.

Washington is also where politicians look out for the interests of corporate masters at the expense of a new kind of serf. "Wage slaves," if you happen to be of a Marxist bent.

And Washington is where the government enabled, then bailed out, the Wall Street profiteers who blew up the economy. And, maybe, your job along with it.

Worse, they blew up the gods in which lay our hope. O mighty iPod, o sacred text message, come to our assistance in this our time of travail! Hummer hear our prayer!

Hello? Hello?

No one's there. Burn that mama down.

Breaking news: The death of God

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

God had died in that season; the spirit no longer flowed through the people's bank statements and 401(k) accounts and, lo, the desolation of abomination was upon them, and they were mightily afraid. Confusion gripped the faithful, and consolation they could not find.

Woe enveloped them, and verily they awaited the solace of death.

Oh my word, they killed God! Bastards.

Is God dead? Yes, it is.

We killed our god. Our $avior is no more.

LO, it is written by The Associated Press:

A relentless sell-off in the stock market Monday blew through barriers that would have been unthinkable just weeks ago, and investors warned there was no reason to believe buyers will return anytime soon.

The Dow Jones industrial average plummeted below 7,000 at the opening bell and kept driving lower all day, finishing at 6,763 — a loss of nearly 300 points. Each of the 30 stocks in the index lost value for the day.

And the Standard & Poor’s 500 stock index, a much broader measure of the market’s health, dipped below the psychologically important 700 level before closing just above it. It hadn’t traded below 700 since October 1996.

Investors were worried anew about the stability of the financial system after insurer American International Group posted a staggering $62 billion loss for the fourth quarter, the biggest in U.S. corporate history — and accepted an expanded bailout from the government.

But beyond daily headlines, Wall Street seems to have given up the search for a reason to believe that the worst is over and the time is ripe to buy again.

“As bad as things are, they can still get worse, and get a lot worse,” said Bill Strazzullo, chief market strategist for Bell Curve Trading, who said he believes the Dow might fall to 5,000 and the S&P to 500.

The Dow’s descent has been breathtaking. It took only 14 trading sessions for the average to fall from above 8,000 to below 7,000. For the year, the Dow has lost 23 percent of its value.

I WOULD SAY "Have mercy on us," but who would be there to hear?

Oh, Baal, what have we done to you?

The naked truth about Michelle

Here's the naked truth. And, no, I'm not talking about the new Starbucks cups.

The naked truth is that it's often useful to change the subject when, like right-wing columnist Michelle Malkin, you're backing an administration guilty of war crimes -- both in pursuit of its "War on Terror" and in its prosecution of an illegal war in Iraq.

LIKE WHEN you start bleating about Rachael Ray's allegedly Jew-hating scarf in a now-canceled Dunkin' Donuts commercial.

But wait. Didn't Malkin appear in a web ad promoting a conservative T-shirt company selling stuff like this?
And this?
Not to mention this?


NOW WHO'S supporting terrorism? Rachael Ray and her Ay-rab lookin' scarf or Michelle Malkin, endorser of unambiguously fascist T-shirts?

All I know is that given a choice between Starbucks and Dunkin' Donuts, those craven appeasers of the waterboard right, I'll get my java jive on with the nekkid mermaid.

Ye shall know them by their T-shirts

con·ser·va·tism \kən-ˈsər-və-ˌti-zəm\ n (1832) 1 capitalized a: the principles and policies of a Conservative party b: the Conservative party

2a: disposition in politics to preserve what is established b: a political philosophy based on tradition and social stability, stressing established institutions, and preferring gradual development to abrupt change; specifically : such a philosophy calling for lower taxes, limited government regulation of business and investing, a strong national defense, and individual financial responsibility for personal needs (as retirement income or health-care coverage)

3: the tendency to prefer an existing or traditional situation to change

SUPPOSE A SPACE ALIEN landed somewhere in these United States tomorrow and began studying our culture, our media and our politics.

Considering what passes for "conservative thought" at the beginning of these new Dark Ages -- and assuming the existence of an English-to-Zorkonian version of the Merriam-Webster dictionary -- our visitor might end up making some very wrong assumptions about what America has been all about these past 232 years.

And he'd probably report back to the home planet that there's this embattled fellow in Chicago, name of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who is a prophet sent from God and suffering much the same fate as his Old Testament namesake from this earthling spiritual guidebook -- "The Bible," it is called.

He would relay that "conservatives" are a fierce and violent lot who apparently hate everyone and everything, seek to kill as many real or imagined "enemies" as possible and are prone to being tendentious braggarts. Also, the Zorkonians would learn -- to their utter horror -- that conservatives' artistic and cultural output resembles Klingon opera as much as anything

And these "conservatives" even may harbor a taste for gagh, not to mention bloodwine.

Likewise, the scout from Zorkon would report that the United States' "conservative" goverment apparently is dedicated to ceaseless war and employs torture against enemy prisoners, a practice widely celebrated by American conservatives.

Great. These earthling ideologues seem to harbor all the worst traits of the Klingons and the Cardassians.

Preliminary recommendation: A mandatory quarantine of Earth, with no outside contact permitted. Also, continue close observation; reserve the right to launch tactical photon-torpedo strikes against the "United States" region if the Americans develop warp-propulsion technology.

IF A SPACE ALIEN came down from the heavens tomorrow, could we -- would we -- blame him for thinking such about our country seven years into the Shameful Administration? Could the last two or three thoughtful conservatives blame a total outsider for equating their political philosophy with intellectual softness, rhetorical inconsistency and rank barbarism?

Can a movement whose proud members are apt to decry legal abortion while defending waterboarding while wearing a "Rope. Tree. Journalist" T-shirt be taken seriously . . . even a little bit?

I don't think so. Not unless one is a political and cultural anthropologist conducting a study on how modern conservatism got from William F. Buckley to Benito Mussolini (with a dash of Mao Zedong-style cultism thrown in) in 50 short years.

I SUPPOSE, at this point, I could launch into multiple pull quotes from multiple outrageous columns by Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin, Jonah Goldberg or any number of lesser lights from the farm teams of "conservative" punditry.

Oh, what the hell. How about just a couple from WorldNetDaily's Joseph Farah, who doesn't just tolerate waterboarding -- he hearts it:

It was used successfully to learn about terrorist operations planned by two of al-Qaida's top operatives – Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, involved in the planning of the 9/11 attack, and Abu Zubaida, another leader of the terrorist organization.

Apparently both of these mass killers endured many hours of coercive interrogations without talking. But they sung like canaries after a few seconds of waterboarding.

In both cases, there is reason to believe planned terrorist attacks were foiled as a result of this technique.

Nevertheless, there is a growing chorus of opposition against any further use of waterboarding in similar or even more dire scenarios.

Let's use our heads for a minute.

Imagine American law enforcement or military authorities have captured a terrorist mastermind who has knowledge about an imminent nuclear detonation in an unknown American city. He knows the time, the location and the details about the warhead.

The bomb could be going off at any minute. It could kill hundreds of thousands of innocent people.

Would you really want waterboarding to be banned under all circumstances? What alternatives would you suggest for quick results? Should we call in top negotiators from the State Department? Should we play loud rap music? Should we force the prisoner to listen to Hillary Rodham Clinton speeches?

While I also find those experiences unpleasant, I don't think they would produce the needed results in time to defuse the bomb.

Let's not tie the hands of future Jack Bauers who will need to do what they have to do to save lives.

I personally think Mohammed and Zubaida got off way too easy with waterboarding.

I would personally have performed far more unpleasant procedures on them without a twinge of guilt in my conscience. Real torture techniques would have been appropriate in both cases.

BUT ABORTION, on the other hand, is icky and an abrogation of God-given rights:

Tell me, where is due process for those unborn children sentenced to death while still in the womb?

Some abortion advocates have tried to suggest that Roe v. Wade – an arbitrary and capricious attempt by the Supreme Court to exceed its constitutional limitations and legislate – is itself the due process for unborn babies.

Once again, however, the Constitution trumps that poor excuse for an argument.

"Amendment VI: In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed; which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense."

Roe v. Wade is, thus, a sham – a house of cards. It was an artificial attempt to make abortion a right by citing a "right of privacy" that is itself nowhere to be found in the Constitution. Roe v. Wade created rights where none existed and abrogated those that were enshrined as unalienable.

I rest my case.

But I will not rest entirely until this nation is awakened to abortion as both a national tragedy as well as a constitutional threat to all of our God-given rights – as well as an endangerment to the lives and liberties of our posterity.

OBVIOUSLY, Joseph Farah is just making this s*** up as he goes.

By what stretch of what dictionary-conservative (as opposed to "Do what thou wilt" fascistic "conservatism") definition does someone reason that God-given rights apply more to cute little fetuses than scum-sucking Islamic terrorists?

If the rights asserted in the Declaration of Independence and codified in the U.S. Constitution emanated from a Creator -- as went the Founders' contention -- by what authority do today's addle-minded right-wingers proclaim that God-given rights and God-bestowed dignity is the birthright of unborn baby and me, but maybe not thee?

They proclaim it by their own authority, that's how. Run like hell when you see folks with hate in their eyes and blood on their hands trying to wrap the Almighty in an American flag.

Run, because there's no unbridgable difference between them and European fascists of old. Run, for while they love to decry hip-hop culture and ghetto thuggery, they emblazon a Caucasian version of "tha gangsta life" on their "conservative" apparel and try to rebrand a Mad Dog philosophy as Chardonnay and canapés.

Mordor and mammon: They go together like fire and brimstone. What a conservative concept.


HAT TIP: Catholic and Enjoying It

Are you not the Fed? Save yourself and us.

Our nation's financial system is teetering on the edge of something. Something most assuredly not good.

Many think the stock market is about to respond accordingly. Try to avoid walking on Wall Street sidewalks today, but if that isn't an option, wear a hard hat and keep an eye on upper-floor windows.

From Bloomberg this early a.m.:

U.S. stocks are on the brink of the broadest bear market in four decades as investors ignore the strongest buy signals in almost 20 years.

The retreat by all 10 industries in the Standard & Poor's 500 Index pushed the measure down 18 percent since its Oct. 9 record and 12 percent since the start of the decade. The plunge resembles declines in the 1970s and 1930s, the two worst periods for U.S. equities in the past 80 years. The last six times the index has fallen by 20 percent, only once -- on Black Monday in 1987 -- has the sell-off been so encompassing.

``I tend to agree with the fellow who says, `Hey, this is the greatest financial crisis since World War II,''' said Jean- Marie Eveillard, 68, who runs the $21.3 billion First Eagle Global Fund in New York. The fund, which has returned an average 15.2 percent each year this decade compared with a less than 0.1 percent annualized gain for the S&P 500, has about 25 percent in cash and gold, more than its holdings in U.S. stocks. ``Investors who take the attitude that the economy will be slow in the first half and then it will turn around, they're probably dreaming.''

The declines have left companies in the S&P 500 trading at the cheapest levels in more than 18 years to forecast profits, while valuations versus 10-year Treasuries are the lowest in at least two decades. Investors aren't acting on the traditional buy signals in the midst of the worst housing slump since the Great Depression, $200 billion in bank losses tied to mortgages and the bailout of Bear Stearns Cos. last week by the Federal Reserve and JPMorgan Chase & Co.

JPMorgan Chase agreed today to buy Bear Stearns for about $240 million, less than a 10th of its value last week.

WHAT DOES it all mean? I don't know (apart from Probably Nothing Good), being that I am not an economist, and I don't play one on TV.

But I do have a question for you.

If it all falls apart -- the American economy and America's weatlth as a nation, that is -- who are we? Who are you?

Why are we?

And if any of the answers differ from what they were when we were all tap dancing atop our economic "bubbles," what does that say about us? Or, more specifically, about what we value?

Just asking some hard questions for hard times. That all this is coming to a head during Holy Week may not be an accident, because it's just too damned appropriate.

As we begin yet another commemoration of Christ's Passion, death and resurrection this week, we were reminding members our Catholic church's youth group Sunday night of one important thing: If you don't know suffering, you don't know Jesus.

Not really, you don't.

Such an alien concept in our spoiled, crass, vapid and gilded age. Could be our operating conceptualization is in for a big recontextualization, and we're going to have a big "come to Jesus" moment.

If we're lucky.