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The U.S. Election Debacle Is the Result of Democrat Disaster Porn

November 7, 2020 — Leave a comment

The COVID Reflex & the Mechanization of the Masses

Under the shadow of Democrat encouraged civil unrest, and Covid-19, the 2020 election was always going to be a close call.

Temporarily set aside valid concerns about voter fraud. Then consider the climate of fear that has been battering voters non-stop since January.

Leftist politicians and activists went from attacking pro-active, anti-COVID conservative governments with “that’s racist”, to “they knew and didn’t do anything to save lives.”

Go back to the debates. The Biden/Harris campaign maximized COVID-19 for political gain. Biden was propped up as the adult, taking Covid-19 seriously, while Trump was portrayed by the feckless legacy media as irresponsible, and reckless.

Aided by Big Tech, Doctors were silenced, while keyboard warriors asserted themselves as life-saving experts.

Anyone who presented a well-reasoned argument that countered the approved narrative, was censored.

When this was questioned, with the help of leftist funded “fact-checkers” hiding behind the word “Independent” (not to be confused with impartial), Big Tech told us that this censorship was “for the greater good” because it was about “saving lives.”

As has been suggested by others on various platforms, the consequence of this is that people have voted against Trump as though he was a) responsible for COVID-19 and b) was the virus itself.

Since 2016 the Democrats have been playing a zero-sum game. (Found in the murderous ambition of Antifa and BLM.) It wasn’t beyond them to pave Biden’s road to the White House with fear and the bodies of COVID victims.

Covid-19 may not have been designed to remove Donald Trump from the White House, but the Left was quick to weaponize COVID-19 as a means to do so.

As Amanda Prestigiacomo put it,

‘This election is not like anything we’ve seen before, with well over 65 million mail-in ballots cast, relaxed rules. (COVID panic porn vital here.) The chaos is a feature, not a bug. Trump needs to challenge everything. I think he will. His supporters can’t be disenfranchised.’

COVID-19 propaganda porn created a COVID reflex. Disaster porn has been the bedrock of the Democrat platform since Hillary Clinton failed to move into the White House after Barrack Obama, the leftist lord-of-lords and king-of-kings, ended his tenure.

The “vote for us, or face certain death at the hands of COVID and racists” equation appears to have been a winning formula.

This says nothing positive about American voters who appear to have voted in fear, because of falsehoods and fake news, over against facts, faith, and freedom. Victims of a successful, corrupt Democrat scare campaign.

The COVID reflex is the result of propaganda; vicious political maneuvering. It’s what Jacques Ellul called psychological warfare.

To illustrate this, Ellul pointed to the different levels of aid provided by the United States, and the Soviet Union to under-developed countries in the 1960s.

 ‘The United States gave three times as much assistance as did the Soviet Union; but thanks to propaganda, it is the Soviet Union who is regarded as the great helper and benefactor in whom one can put one’s trust.’ (Propaganda, 1965:134)

Ellul warned that the dangers in doubting the power of propaganda led to propagandists manipulating and implanting within the public a conditioned reflex. 

He deduced that ‘the propagandist seeks automatic responses; to induce action without consideration; mass movement without thought.’ (ibid, 300 & 302)

Enemies of this mechanization of the masses were ‘organic groups.’

This is why genuine dictatorships, and totalitarians undermine families, authentic churches, and traditional community assemblies.

The only way for the masses to be manipulated is to replace these groups with ‘new primary groups’; political action groups, parties, unions, where ‘the individual can be trapped and made ready for propaganda.’

This meant automated mechanization (ibid, p. 98). Examples include the Nazis’ strategy in banning Homeschooling, and undermining Sunday School with laws instructing parents to enlist their children in the Hitler Youth. Moa and Lenin’s political re-education mantra ‘each must be a propagandist for all.’ (ibid, p.82)

The point of this, Ellul states, is ‘to make the masses demand of the government what the government has already decided to do.’ (ibid, p.132)

Come back to the U.S. election, and four years of Democrat scare campaigning. The climate of fear successfully established conditions and controls. Covid-19 just gave the political establishment the impetus it needed to deploy hysteria and its subsequent, “vote for us, or face certain death” brain washing, to move the people against its political enemies.

As economics Professor Gary Galles concluded in his article for the Mises Institute,

‘The 2020 election results will be a test of earlier liberal/progressive “investments” in modifying how Americans think about things. But at this point, perhaps more important will be whether, after the fact, people recognize how much they have been manipulated, which is the first step to thinking more accurately, which must precede learning to effectively resist that manipulation.’

This COVID reflex may have given Joe Biden and the Democrats the edge over Trump. Fear is a powerful motivator. Much more so than freedom.

The globalist elite, and their bureaucratic caste friends in Washington D.C know this, and they strip-mined it for every ounce of political gain they could squeeze out of it.

The COVID reflex is a direct product of Leftist propaganda. More concerning than a Biden/Harris Presidency is this mechanization of the masses, and I’m almost convinced that the U.S. election results are proof of it.

First published on Caldron Pool, 7th November, 2020.

©Rod Lampard, 2020.

In Jacques Ellul, Political Theology, Politics , , , , , , ,
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Trump vs. Biden: The Citizen President Vs. The Career Politician

October 28, 2020 — Leave a comment

Ronald Reagan had a unique distaste for career politicians sucking wealth out of D.C.’s tax-payer funded tenure. Most too often more in tune with self-service, than public service. He also had a keen dislike for the faulty, seized-up mechanical inner-workings of Washington.

Reagan was a citizen president. He poked fun at the self-importance of the political class, and wasn’t afraid to include himself in it.

Talking to a gathering of Independent television stations two years after being elected to office, Reagan quipped,

‘”I sometimes think that government is like that definition – that old definition of a baby. It’s an alimentary canal with an appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.”

Reagan came to office at the end of a dismal decade. In large part because Reagan was, as John O’Sullivan also wrote of Thatcher and Pope John Paul II, ‘one of the apostles of hope’, when despair, fear, and doom, was the order of the day.

The 70s were turbulent. Global instability was everywhere.

The mid to late 60s were an open wound. Peace in Vietnam War was won, and then lost by diplomatic fumbling. Americans were confronted with deep state political corruption, and suffered through a series of fearmongering, joyless Presidential leaders from Republicans to Democrats.

The biggest issue of them all was the “Energy Crisis.”

Concerns over the “Energy Crisis” – a decline in domestic energy production, coupled with Lyndon Johnson’s environmental restrictions, and an OPEC embargo (a consequence of America’s support for Israel during the Yom Kippur War), resulting in high oil prices – was echoed by both sides of the political aisle, coupled with apocalyptic projections, and big government solutions to them.

Republican, President Richard Nixon’s proposed energy rationing, was later extended by Democrat, President Jimmy Carter, who, in 1979, told Americans that the “energy crisis” was here to stay. Then tabled a policy around big government control, such as mandatory rationing. (The 1970s version of “the new normal.”)

Carter’s panic rode on the back of urgency, caused by a drop in global oil supply, a consequence of the 1979 Islamist, Iranian revolution.

His six-point plan delivered the same year, included an increase in taxes, ‘mandatory conservation, gasoline rationing’, ‘expanding public transportation’, and creating a new government department to oversee energy rationing, and conservation.

Carter’s speech wove the “energy crisis” into a “crisis of confidence,” telling Americans that they were losing their sense of purpose, and needed to act:

“I’m asking you for your good and for your nation’s security, to take no unnecessary trips, to use carpools or public transportation whenever you can, to park your car one extra day per week, to obey the speed limit, and to set your thermostats to save fuel. Every act of energy conservation like this is more than just common sense, I tell you it is an act of patriotism.”

Carter’s blame shifting by way of his infamous “crisis of confidence” gave Reagan an edge.

Who said in return that,

 “it’s true there’s a lack of confidence, an unease with things the way they are, but the confidence we’ve lost is confidence in our Government’s policies…there remains the greatness of our people, our capacity for dreaming up fantastic deeds and bringing them off to the surprise of an unbelieving world.” (NYT, 14th November, 1979)

Six years after the success of Reagan’s ‘supply-side mix’ policies, which reduced ‘intrusive and overburdening taxation, regulatory, and currency policies’, delivering an effective resolution to the ‘Energy Crisis’, Reagan told administration supporters,

“I’ve always thought that the common sense and the wisdom of the Government were summed up in a sign they used to have hanging on that gigantic Hoover Dam. It said: “Government Property. Do Not Remove.” (29th June, 1987)

It’s often said that we don’t vote for individuals, we vote for political parties, their politicians, and their current policy platform.

The 2020 choice for Americans gives this axiom resonance. 

The Trump/Pence vs. Biden/Harris ballot is a ballot between a citizen President, and career politicians.

Similar in many ways to the context of Reagan vs. Carter in ’79.

One side speaks of hope, freedom, individual responsibility, perseverance, ingenuity, and protections for civil liberties.

The other speaks of crisis upon crisis; of doom, and destruction. From which they preach that only the political class, correct alignment with Leftism, and big government can save us.

Such as, Joe Biden’s “dark winter”, the alleged crises of “institutional racism”, “an unbeatable, Covid-19,” “the new normal of wearing masks, enduring lockdowns, and losing livelihoods in economic shutdowns”; unhealthy fear of conservatives in the supreme court, and apocalyptic “climate change.”

Joe Biden is too entrenched in the game to see that he is the D.C. “swamp”, that leftist activists, are part of the establishment, dancing Carter’s “crisis of confidence”, bureaucratic two-step: the art of blaming others, and looking busy while achieving nothing at all.

On this basis, a vote for Biden is a retreat into darkness. It’s a vote for a “crisis of confidence”; a vote for career politicians who are guarded by leftist activists, and guided by the idolatry inherent within their ideological nonsense.

As Ronald Reagan said in 1964,

“You and I have a rendezvous with destiny.”

“We’ll preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we’ll sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness.” (A Time For Choosing)

References:

[i] Cited by Karl Menninger, 1976. Whatever became of Sin? p.142

[ii] O’Sullivan, J. 2006. The President, The Pope & The Prime Minister, Regnery Publishing

First published on Caldron Pool, 28th October, 2020.

©Rod Lampard, 2020.

In Political Theology, Politics , , , , ,
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Hillsong Staffer’s Trump Hating Twitter “Gaffe”: “Mute the Bully!”

October 16, 2020 — Leave a comment

Hillsong Church has been hit with a barrage of criticism after an employee “accidently” used the official Hillsong Twitter account to ridicule Donald Trump’s performance in the first Presidential debate of the 2020 US election.

According to the Herald Sun an ‘unnamed staffer allegedly logged into the official Hillsong Twitter account, rather than their own personal one.’ The Tweet read: ‘Can’t someone just mute Trump’s microphone!! He is coming across as such a bully. No respect for him sorry.’

The “gaffe” was quickly deleted, with Hillsong posting an apology soon after, saying, “Earlier today a staff member accidentally posted on this account personal comments about the US presidential debate, that were meant for a personal account. Hillsong does not comment on partisan politics & apologizes. These comments do not represent the views of Hillsong Church.”

ChristianPost listed a series of criticisms for the original post, starting with Greg Locke, Pastor at Global Vision Bible Church in Tennessee. Who said, ‘Dear @Hillsong, that was deleted very quickly. Careful. I sat beside @brianhoustontv at the RNC acceptance speech at the White House. Your boss secretly likes Trump.’

The Post also highlighted how problematic the “gaffe” could be for Hillsong. Brian Houston has visited the White House, applauded Trump’s initiatives regarding the preservation of religious freedom, and is part of a group of Christian leaders active in lending Donald Trump prayer support.

Criticisms of the “gaffe” was met with a similar amount of fiery criticism for the apology. Candace Cameron Bure (Hallmark/Full House/Fuller House) simply remarked, “Oooof”.  While a list of other Twitter users took the apology as an opportunity to throw more anti-Christian abuse Hillsong’s way.

The loudest condemnation came from those attempting to conflate Houston with Hillsong. They labelled the apology hypocritical. Pointing out that Houston’s support for Scott Morrison, and Donald Trump negated the Churches’ claim to distance itself from political dichotomies by “not commenting on partisan politics.”

This is despite the “gaffe, mistake, accident” – whatever – suggesting that Houston’s personal views don’t necessarily represent the views of Hillsong as a whole. The false equivalence seems to have blocked the obvious irony.

It shouldn’t be forgotten that the high visibility of the Church, sins of some of its leaders, and the massive success of its music arm in recent years has brought Hillsong under a microscope.

The consequence of such close quarters’ scrutiny is that any unintentional faux pas by, or connected to the “mega-Church”, are rapidly churned out for maximum attention in order to either undermine, discredit or cancel them. And not just Hillsong, but Christianity in general.

It’s Hillsong. Just like Trump. They’re influential, but not exactly THE authority when it comes to Christian theological truths, or the conduit by which all Christians make their decisions.

It’s also almost guaranteed that most of the people acting all dismayed at the recent US election Presidential debate were just as equally entertained by it. Such is our spectator culture.

Perhaps the problem with leaders is a problem closer to home?


In this sense the debate and reactions to it are a mirror. What we condemn in others, we must first address within ourselves. For instance, eye-to-eye respect will always trump plankeye, and eye-for-an-eye relationships.

As atheist, author and ex-Muslim, Ayaan Hirsi Ali quipped: “Everyone is talking about and asking about last night’s debate. I don’t want to make light of this because it is not funny. But where in the world do people in their seventies behave like stick-your-tongue-out preschoolers on national TV while vying for the highest office?”

The election debate highlighted the fact that the future of America, and by default her allies, will be decided by the choice between a career politician and a citizen President.

Trump doesn’t need the Presidency, Biden does. Trump’s income doesn’t ride on him being President, Biden’s does. Which of these is more likely to be the public servant Americans need? All the evidence shows that it isn’t Joe Biden.

If anything positive can be drawn from the debate moderator’s obvious favoritism, it’s that Trump was inadvertently painted as the underdog.

If the plan was to save Biden midway through, or gang up on Trump, and bait him for soundbites, it’s backfired spectacularly.

First published on Caldron Pool, 1st October 2020 

©Rod Lampard, 2020

In Church, Church history, Political Theology, Politics , , ,
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The Morbid Quest to Turn Trump into Scrooge

October 13, 2020 — Leave a comment

One of the first rules about giving is not parading it for all the world to see.

There’s a difference between me sharing with someone that my family and I have financially supported Compassion Australia for nearly two decades, and me boasting about how much money we’ve given to them.

Unless those asking are the tax office, it should be enough to simply state the fact about our giving, without having to prove it with subtotal, decimal, and dollar sign.

For the sake acknowledging it. The exceptions here are small businesses and corporations. Transparency exists for tax purposes. Accountability on giving to charity from a corporate income is as much for shareholders as it is for tax payers, re: the appropriate governing bodies.

Giving from personal income operates by a similar accountability structure, but has a different set of rules when it comes to freedom of information. Anonymity is to be applauded and protected. It’s none of anyone else’s business how much an individual gives from their own personal income.

There’s also a difference between a foundation, set up in a person’s name, giving to charities, and donating money to charities from that person’s own finances.

Businesses never refer to a product, or cash given out to meet a charitable need, as having been given out by the CEO, or his family. They correctly state that the business donated them.

The foundation has to be transparent; the individual doesn’t. He, or she, can remain anonymous.

As Jesus emphasized twice in His criticism of hypocrites posturing righteousness in public for all to see: ‘when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others…when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.’ (Matthew 6:3-4, ESV)

This criterion makes the morbid quest to squeeze Trump’s wallet for information that could discredit his presidency, all the more lopsided and vindictive.

As The New Yorker’s, John Cassidy made more than clear in his 2016 piece on ‘Trump & the Truth: His Charitable Giving.’ Cassidy’s piece reached hard for the fraud card, up to criticizing Trump for where, when, and how much, Trump was donating of his own money to charity.

Forbes, in a convoluted attempt at the same game, insinuated that then Presidential candidate – whom they estimated to be worth ‘$3.5 billion’ – put revenue before helping ‘kids with cancer.’

Forbes accused Trump of having ‘paid their businesses with charity money.’ Speculating that money changing hands, ‘had more in common with a drug cartel’s money-laundering operation than a charity’s best-practices textbook.’

In short, Forbes acknowledges that the Trump family gives to charity, but isn’t happy about the amount they give, where, or how they do it.

Outlining how Trump’s charities allegedly paid Trump organizations for services rendered. Forbes questions the legal and ethical aspects of Trump Charity organizations, but ultimately feeds into the now far too common dissonance of “hate Trump, because love trumps hate”.

Worth noting. Forbes lists this article as one of their “best pieces of the decade.”

Most recently, Phillip Hackeney penned a piece published by NBCNEWS, responding to news about a Nov. 2019 court ruling by Justice Saliann Scarpulla of the N.Y. Supreme Court, ordering that Trump to pay $2 million in restitution for alleged misuse of Trump foundation funds.

The ruling was based on arguments presented by N.Y. Attorney General Barbara Underwood (who’d boasted about the ruling on Twitter), alleging that the Trump family ‘”illegally” used Trump foundation to further Trump’s political interests.’

The Trump’s responded by noting that all the funds collected were eventually donated to the designated charities – something Judge Scarpulla acknowledged (NBC).

Nevertheless, the Trump family were ordered to pay the $2 million to three charities, presumably pre-chosen by the prosecuting Attorney General.

It was a political win against the President, not an ethical one.

Facebook’s “independent” fact-checkers are doing the same. Flagging posts about Trump’s giving as “missing context” isn’t out of a concern for ethics, or even charities, it’s about partisan political gain.

Snopes rated the above facts as “unproven”, even though they have video of Trump stating: “well, I have a lot of men down here, right now. We have over 100 and we have about 125 coming. So we’ll have a couple of hundred people down here. And they are very brave and what they’re doing is amazing. And we’ll be involved in some form in helping to reconstruct.”

USA Today claims they’re false, and the NY Times (predictably) doubts it.

My criticism isn’t about the attempt to keep Trump accountable for claims he makes about charitable giving. It’s the motive behind the “fact checking”.

By tone, it’s easy enough to discern how the real motivation isn’t to help charitable organizations. The motivation is to sink Trump.

Should said “fact checking” take down someone they don’t like, and win them a Pulitzer in the process? Well, hey, “it’s a dirty job, but somebody’s got to do it.”

It’s rich for any journalist to accuse a family of being ‘vainglorious’. Only to then go looking for glory in a financial shake down of the Trump family’s charitable works.

Had Trump not been running for President, and had there been no potential personal benefit involved, it’s unlikely many in the Leftist dominated mainstream media would even care.

Have the New York Attorney General and others, chased how the $2 million ripped from the Trumps was spent by court designated charities, with the same vigor? 

Have they looked into George Soros’ or the Clinton Foundation’s financial reach in the world of politics with the same scrutiny?

If I were in a diplomatic mood, I’d roll out the uber-understanding-wagon, layer on some sugar-coating, then dismiss the morbid quest to turn Trump into Scrooge, as a true-hearted selfless act of benevolence.

The truth is it isn’t. 2016 was an election year. As is 2020.

These are never-Trump self-serving gestures. Fueled by self-aggrandizement, and tinged with the flare of agitation propaganda, written for a rabid, radicalized mob who’s view of the Trump presidency only comes from the lens that’s been prescribed for them.

I doubt that even if Trump were to give away his entire fortune, those dragging him down, in order to raise themselves up, would find any benevolence in it.

Outbidding wars have their place in charitable auctions.

Outbidding wars over who is the greatest of givers has no place in politics.

For ‘each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. (2 Cor.9:6-7, ESV).

First published on Caldron Pool, 22nd September 2020.

Photo by Photoholgic on Unsplash

©Rod Lampard, 2020

In Political Theology, Politics , , , , , ,
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Twitter brands the Star of David “Hate Imagery”, then Backtracks.

July 25, 2020 — Leave a comment

Left-leaning, Jewish online news organization, Jerusalem Post reports that Twitter have blocked accounts which feature the Star of David, branding the symbol “hateful imagery.”

The J.P stated that ‘the images in question ranged from a white Star of David in a graffiti style, to a superimposition of the modern blue star on the flag of Israel spliced with the yellow star Jews were forced to wear by the Nazis, to a montage of yellow stars.’

After being bombarded with concerns, Twitter’s Public Policy page went into damage control, back peddling on the branding by stating that they ‘don’t consider the Star of David as a hateful symbol or hateful image.’

The blocking of accounts was a blitz on the ‘Yellow Star or Yellow badge’ associated with the Jewish Holocaust, allegedly being used by hate groups to target Jewish people. Twitter thanked people for bringing the issue to their attention, and restored accounts wrongly targeted.

While Twitter back-tracked on its suppressing of the Star of David, the U.K based CAA (Campaign Against Antisemitism) reported that Twitter refused to ‘act against abusive tweets’ linked to the anti-Jewish hashtag trend #Jewishprivilege.

An article on the CAA website cited examples which show extremists (what the CAA called ‘radical left-wing anti-Semitism and white supremacist anti-Semites’) joining forces. (For CAA the former ‘blames the Jews for being white’, the latter, ‘for not being white enough.’)

CAA noted that Jews and allies ‘co-opted the trend by attacking it’, but when ‘challenged to take action, Twitter refused’ to do so, claiming that the #jewishprivilige trend did not breach their community standards. In response, CAA has accused Twitter’s terms of service as ‘permitting the platform to be used for the dissemination of racist material.’

This led Stephen Silverman, a director with CAA to call for regulation of social media platforms in line with regulation applied to ‘all other mass media.’

He shot back stating,

‘the idea that Jews are a ‘privileged’ group is a slur designed to deny that antisemitism exists and to imply that Jews are a cause of racism towards other minorities… It is horrifying to see that #JewishPrivilege has been one of Twitter’s most popular hashtags of the past 24 hours. Twitter’s refusal to act is not just tone-deaf but brazen.’

CAA and Silverman’s concerns don’t come out of thin air. The problem is that they only mention antisemitism. Silverman’s point certainly carries weight when brought to bear against Twitter’s allowance of anti-white hate, misandry, Antifa, anti-Israel terror group Hamas, pro-LGBTQAII+ bigotry, and Twitter’s almost non-existent policy against pedophilia.

On more than one occasion Twitter has seen trends that mock, smear and demonize Christians, not just Jews. The most prominent was #christianprivilege.

Twitter also allows vile anti-conservative, anti-white organized myths, such as “Trump is Hitler”, “all white people are racist” and “white privilege.”

Twitter does so while its content filters are blocking content and accounts of conservatives. Seemingly based entirely on the yardstick of ideological differences (protecting some, harming others; perhaps even on the basis of melanin).

Such as the increasing censoring of President Donald Trump, the banning of Stefan Molyneux, and Katie Holmes (whose ban came after a “final straw” criticism of Black Lives Matter).

Add to this the social media block ban on Jewish conservative Laura Loomer, and Twitter’s recent block on all QAnon content.

These are stand out examples of Twitter approving some content, while suppressing others, through a selective interpretation of its terms and conditions.

The CAA and Stephen Silverman’s criticisms of Twitter share Donald Trump’s own concerns about the social media platform. In May Trump responded to selective censoring saying, “Twitter has now shown that everything we have been saying about them (and their other compatriots) is correct…”

By omitting these examples, the CAA and the Jerusalem Post are exhibiting a self-defeating short-sightedness. They see enemies, where they have allies, and allies where they should be seeing enemies.

The real perpetrators, and the root cause of the rise in antisemitism are either ignored or hidden from view.

Fiercely, anti-Trump contributor to the Jerusalem Post, Douglas Bloomfield is representative of this tragic myopia.

In an article from May, he defended George Soros, setting the blame for the rise in antisemitism squarely on the Presidency of Donald Trump. (Bloomfield might have momentarily forgotten that Trump’s son-in-law and close advisor, Jared Kushner is Jewish.)

Bloomfield mentions Trump’s Twitter account, yet provides zero evidence to back up his “Trump is Hitler” insinuation, while completely overlooking the connection between the radical left, leftists in Mainstream Media, and the rise of antisemitism.

Bari Weiss, Ben Shapiro, Avi Yemini, and Melanie Phillips are all Jews. All have been labelled “Nazis and racists.” Look even closer at how the Leftist media, including Leftist Churches (who’ve long abandoned Christ for Karl Marx), demonize Israel, simply for existing.

Antisemitism gets a free pass while the real cause is ignored.

This myopic vision occurs because people are trained to only see white people as racists, and conservatives as Nazis.

It’s this kind of manipulative stigmatizing; this kind of organized myth, straw man mechanism that forms a lot of antisemitic rhetoric. The same stigmatizing is applied to Biblical Christians, and today’s conservatives. It places a lot of them in a position of genuine solidarity with Israel, and the Jewish community.

There is common ground. All it takes is someone willing to acknowledge that it exists. This common ground, despite differences, ignites unity, and it’s this unity that will help pull back the veil. Not just to address the real perpetrators of antisemitism, but to identify its roots, and stop it from doing significant harm.

For ‘man has both potentialities within himself; which one is actualised depends on decisions, not on conditions. Our generation is realistic, for we have come to know man as he really is. For after all, man is that being who invented the gas chambers of Auschwitz; however, he is also that being who entered those gas chambers upright, with the Lord’s Prayer or the Shima Yisrael on his lips.’[i]

References:

[i] Victor Frankl, 1959. Man’s Search for Meaning, Beacon Press. (p.133)

First published on Caldron Pool, 23rd July 2020.

Photo by Kon Karampelas on Unsplash

© Rod Lampard, 2020.

 

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Trump’s Pro-Working Class Keystone Speech, was a Revolt Against the Lethality of Leftism

July 16, 2020 — Leave a comment

Whether you love him, loathe him, or are indifferent towards him, it was hard to ignore the applause for Trump’s Keystone speech, in South Dakota.

It’s not hard to see why Keystone was so popular either.

Although I had more of an issue with what the leftist Episcopalian denomination does with the Bible, Keystone was a big bounce back from Trump’s admittedly cheesy (if understandably necessary, given the context) photo in front of the damaged-by-“peaceful protesters”, historic St.John’s Church.

Not a highlight of the Trump presidency, but with his hands tied behind his back, who can really blame him? Better to have the Leftist dominated mainstream media wail and gripe about a photo of him holding a Bible, in a visible revolt against chaos and disorder, than have the MSM dominant the political narrative with manufactured stories about the President not leading the country, because he’s “hiding away in a bunker from (so-called) “peaceful protesters.”

Democrats have been absent without leave since the height of the Wuhan COVID-19 crisis, few seemed all too concerned about their lack of leadership, or the equally cringe worthy photo-op where key Democrats, draped in a traditional African kente cloth knelt down in solidarity with the Marxist LGBTQAAI+, Black Lives Matter political party.

The contrast between Trump at Church, and the Democrats on their knees, is that the former refused to surrender and genuflect, whereas the Democrats, seeing some political gain in selling the appearance of virtue, sold themselves into the hands of the Marxist mob. Some may argue that the Dems defused the tension and upheaval, and I’d be willing to give that some credence, if it weren’t for the fact that leaders of the freest nation earth bowing before Marx, gave a green light to cancel culture enthusiasts, and by doing so added fuel to the Leftist mob’s history raping, irrational iconoclasm.

Keystone was no St.John’s. His reference to  ‘Manifest Destiny’ aside, this speech was Trump at his best. He wasn’t on the defensive. He was no longer playing political catch up in the same way he was when the Wuhan COVID-19 crisis was overrun with rioters triggered by the entirely avoidable death of George Floyd, and egged on by Washington’s anti-Trump cabal.

Keystone was Trump standing up to the bureaucratic caste, who have been relentless in their campaign of hate. Career politicians and tenured academics tethered to the teat of neo-pagan secular humanism, seeking to undermine the America people, and Trump’s presidency, in order to maintain the hegemonic power handed to them without question since the late 1960s.

For some politicians, that amounts to decades of cosy deals, cushy offices, and cheesy photo-ops of their own that has done nothing for their constituents, but has done plenty for themselves and their own careers.

Keystone was a speech that spoke for the working class against the contempt of the political class who use them.

Evident in these words:

“Our nation is witnessing a merciless campaign to wipe out our history, defame our heroes, erase our values, and indoctrinate our children. Angry mobs are trying to tear down statues of our Founders, deface our most sacred memorials, and unleash a wave of violent crime in our cities…
One of their political weapons is “Cancel Culture” — driving people from their jobs, shaming dissenters, and demanding total submission from anyone who disagrees.  This is the very definition of totalitarianism, and it is completely alien to our culture and our values, and it has absolutely no place in the United States of America.
In our schools, our newsrooms, even our corporate boardrooms, there is a new far-left fascism that demands absolute allegiance.  If you do not speak its language, perform its rituals, recite its mantras, and follow its commandments, then you will be censored, banished, blacklisted, persecuted, and punished.  It’s not going to happen to us.
Make no mistake: this left-wing cultural revolution is designed to overthrow the American Revolution.  In so doing, they would destroy the very civilization that rescued billions from poverty, disease, violence, and hunger, and that lifted humanity to new heights of achievement, discovery, and progress…
The radical ideology attacking our country advances under the banner of social justice.  But in truth, it would demolish both justice and society.  It would transform justice into an instrument of division and vengeance, and it would turn our free and inclusive society into a place of repression, domination, and exclusion.”
FULL transcript.

© Rod Lampard, 2020

In Political Theology, Politics , , , , , ,
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Trump 2020 & Why the World Needs Another MAGA Win

October 9, 2019 — Leave a comment

In the book which effectively severed his connection from the French Communists, agnostic French existentialist philosopher, Albert Camus wrote,

‘If everyone believes in nothing, if nothing makes sense, if we can assert no value whatsoever, everything is permissible and nothing is important.’ (The Rebel, 1951)

Camus, a golden-child of the French Communists, famously ‘went against the grain among members of the French left-wing intelligentsia.’ [i] As result ‘Camus was virtually excommunicated from the French intellectual life by Jean Sartre and his comrades’ [ii]

Camus fired a flare out from within the inner sanctum of Leftist elitism. He had fought against fascism in WW2, and saw the terror unleashed in the name of anti-fascism. In this he witnessed an equally oppressive movement, which road on the coattails of false promises, and carefully targeted outrage. His decision to break free exposed the false promises of a utopia built on totalitarianism, and the unquestionable ‘epistemological privilege of the oppressed’ [iii], all enforced by appeasement, and maintained by the buzzwords emancipation and justice.

In the light of Camus’ experience and wisdom, and the past three years, it is no exaggeration to say that the upcoming 2020 election in the United States will be even more important than 2016.

The re-election of the Trump administration will be a decisive and final cut, one that separates a free people from the burdensome shackles of globalism, the smiles, lies and hi-fives of its career politicians, and its bureaucratic caste.

This is why they are in a tail spin, they know that a Trump 2020 win, will be a rebuke of their decades long hold on power. They know that such a win, will give power back to the masses who inherited the responsibility of nurturing the hard-won freedoms handed down them.

They know that a Trump 2020 win will be a loud, unified “no” to fear, manipulation, false promises and the dysfunctional fabric of socialism; a revolt against the burgeoning bureaucratic aristocracy, and it’s globalist imperial feudalism.

They know such a win will be a “yes” to freedom, not a denial of it.

The caveat to this of course is that Trump is no different to any of us when it comes to sin and the need for salvation. Donald Trump is not Jesus Christ or the herald of a golden age. He is the bulwark and resounding “no” of a people who want a return to a government for the people, of the people, by the people. In this Trump at least acknowledges the importance of his office and its role as a servant leader of one nation, under God.

As with the rest of us, Trump still has potential. He is still very much a diamond in the rough. For sure, he has irritating idiosyncrasies. We all do. He may talk about himself far too much, but he at least has the balls to boldly act against the madness of political correctness, the Leftist equivalent of shari’a law; showing that his administration uniquely understands the danger of the political quagmire, the crushing weight of bloated bureaucracy through its forced speech, imprisonment for non-compliance to its irrational ideological standard, and its contempt for Biblical Christianity.

The fact that Trump hasn’t quit under the normal pressure of leadership, or abandoned his post, at every crack of the whip sent his way, by his political enemies, shows character. By not giving up, or irresponsibly giving in, he has expressed value and appreciation for the office he holds and the free, discerning citizens he represents.

Think what you will. Disagree if you must. Trump has proven that he has the chops to fight an unwanted “culture war” thrust upon the West. Nothing changes this fact. He and his team have stood firm, in the face of a contempt and hatred that can only be described as demonic. This is manifest in the manufactured lies, and the hate-Trump-love-trumps-hate dissonance and fear, imposed on the world since 2016.

Our would-be Leftist overlords in the West know that a Trump 2020 win, will be a vote for the restoration of ideas that his office, and his nation were founded upon. In this vote for the restoration of freedom, and the rights and responsibilities attached to it, such a win is not only a win for those in the United States, it’s a win for every man and woman, who cherishes the very concept of liberty, under God, and who, with grateful solemnity, remembers the ultimate price many have paid for it.

Like Camus, Trump was once a darling of the Left. Like Camus, Trump has been rejected by it under the charge of treason against the long ruling Leftist ideological paradigm.

Like Camus’ publication of The Rebel, the 2016 election was an historic time of choosing.

The 2020 election in the United States will be no different.

Ronald Reagan’s words in 1964 hold true:

 “The martyrs of history were not fools, and our honoured dead who gave their lives to stop the advance of the Nazis didn’t die in vain… The greater risk lies in appeasement; surrender. We’ll [either] preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we’ll sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness.’ [iv]

A Trump 2020 victory will be a resounding “yes” to freedom from those dragged into fighting the unwanted “culture war” thrust upon the West.

References:

[i] Todd, O. 2013, Afterward in Camus, A. The Rebel (Penguin Modern Classics) Penguin Books Ltd. Kindle Ed

[ii] Elshtain, J.B. 1995 Democracy On Trial Basic Books

[iii] Newbigin, L. 1989. The Gospel in a Pluralist Society, SPCK Classics (p.150)

[iv] Reagan, R. 1964 ‘A time for Choosing’, PDF transcript

First published on Caldron Pool, 8th October 2019.

©Rod Lampard, 2019

In Albert Camus, Political Theology, Politics , , , , ,
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