Praise Jesus and Marx, Glory Be

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Praise Jesus and Marx, Glory Be

I think yesterday's show by Beck was one of his best in terms of fundamentals. It might turn off some Objectivists and libertarians because of its focus on God, but the really important messages are between the lines--and in the outline of infiltration by power-mongers that Beck presented.

I have a few things to say about this, but first, here are the videos.

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It is very important to pay attention to the concept of individual salvation versus collective salvation. To the atheists and agnostics that inhabit our subcommunity, this sounds solely like the business of Christianity. So who cares about divisions within Christianity? Just dismiss the whole thing as totally flawed, thus not worthy of further thought (except maybe to combat it in the name of reason). Let them fight out the different forms of what they mean by salvation. We have other concerns.

But look at the common principles in Beck's presentation: The collective versus the individual. Volition. If those don't ring a bell, they should.

So let's look into the mind of a Christian as Beck presents it and see if there is anything we should notice. After all, the vast majority of people here in the USA are Christian--and they vote. So it would bode us well to understand their values and reasoning.

The first issue is the idea of salvation itself. I believe that people like Beck use salvation as a way of fitting themselves into the bigger picture of reality and accepting their own nature as humans. At least, that's what I think happens psychologically.

Here is a nutshell explanation of what I mean. By our very nature, we have to choose some of our critical values and actions and we cannot perceive everything from every angle all the time. So it's easy to make mistakes. Added to that, we have a biochemistry that gives us all kinds of mood swings and differing levels of awareness in our brains, and these can lead us to do very stupid things when choosing or deciding not to choose. We are prewired to feel a mental sting when we are wrong, so we can easily fall into the trap of rationalizing bad choices and bad behavior. And we all feel the need to control ourselves.

So we do wrong. And we make lame-brained excuses. There are simply too many elements for any one mind to control to be able do right all the time or even own up all the time. We can make rules for ourselves that will keep us on track for our future, but even with the most careful moral conscientiousness, the best we can do in some cases is to look back at the mess we did and decide not to ever do that again. (btw - This is not original sin. It is the operating condition of our brain within the context of reality.)

Now, I don't care who you are or what your rationalization is, when you have done something wrong, you know it somewhere inside. And when you do something else wrong, you know that, too. This accumulates and accumulates and accumulates until you are wound so tight you lose your inner compass and go in all kinds of directions that, on reflection, don't make any sense to you. You start feeling like there is something fundamentally wrong with you. Something weak and inherently wrong. That maybe you are not as good as you thought you were.

It's at this point that you are ready for "salvation."

You go to a church where you hear the message that if you accept Christ (or God or Allah or whatever), you can give all your trouble to Him, that He is eager to take it, and you can start over with a clean slate and it will all be OK. You can go back to thinking you are good. You can become human again.

What has happened from a reason viewpoint--other than the faith part--is that you have accepted your limitations and redefined yourself to yourself more in line with reality. You stop projecting a false image and stop covering up your shortcomings to yourself. You let go of guilt and allowed your volition to mature.

This is powerful stuff and the fact that there are so many churches attests to this power.

Anyway, that is what Beck means by "salvation" (in practical terms, not religious terms) and he was very articulate in the show about being saved by giving his problems and control to God.

Now, liberation theology sees salvation as "liberation" within a social context--liberation from being a victim. That is why the term "collective salvation" is fundamentally different. Normal salvation is psychological and spiritual on the individual level. Collective salvation is social and political. One of its tenets is that you cannot be saved unless the collective is saved (and most especially, saved from the bad guys). Beck was brilliant in making this point by using Obama's own words.

He also mentioned Latin America where this view has had wide acceptance. I know of this because I witnessed it up close, like with the Dominican friars in São Paulo, some of whom went to impoverished areas in Brazil's Northeast to preach outright undiluted Marxism.

One of the points that Beck was making in focusing on all this was an attempt to answer the question as to why it is acceptable (or at least not news) nowadays for a Black Panther to preach killing "cracker babies." Why isn't that shunned big time? Why was the guy who said these things let off by the DOJ on the voter intimidation charge with a slap on the wrist? So what if he can't he can't go near a polling place locally until 2012? All that means is that he can be there when Obama runs for reelection. Where did that tolerance and blindness by Obama and his people come from?

Beck thinks it is from the doctrine of collective salvation adopted and preached by black liberation theology. In the black liberation theology world, how does a white person get saved? He has to give up all his power and "give back what he has taken" (from the black man).

And what about those who do not want to do that because, for example, they say they didn't take anything? Well, the doctrine is that you cannot be saved unless the collective is saved. And since the collective is threatened by your refusal to be saved that way, you have to go. Simple. The earth must be rid of you. This is the way some of the more emotional crackpots think. And that leads them to the easy solution of killing off those who do not want to obey--including killing off the women and children so that no more threats to the collective salvation are bred.

(Notice that this worked in just the same manner in Nazi Germany and Communist Russia, except the scapegoats were others. And the fundamental emotional-spiritual experience was not the salvation of mainstream Christians, but instead the thrill of righting an injustice--or so people initially thought. In liberation theology, this thrill is mixed with normal salvation.)

As Beck pointed out, the crackpots by themselves are not dangerous. The problem is when the structure that allows them to exist gets into power. Then these folks get power, too. And they end up doing what they said they were going to do. They kill massive amounts of people. And women and babies. Once the group gets power, the less violent people in their structure literally lose control over them.

Beck's analysis of how they get power reminded me very much of Rand's analysis--especially her description of Toohey's activities in The Fountainhead. I think Beck synthesized it really well in this video.

1. Identify something you want to control, say the USA.

2. Look to Marx (or collectivism) for some ideological ideas and strategy.

3. Look for a group of victims big enough that they can gain power over what you want to control (or cobble together several victim groups), and make sure you are the leader of the movement to right the wrongs, whatever they may be.

4. Use, infiltrate or corrupt the most powerful institutions at your disposal.

After a while, this grows and one day you are in control.

One of Beck's main points in this show is to indicate how and where the power-mongers are now infiltrating and corrupting the Christian church as one of the target institutions.

From this perspective, I believe it is a mistake for Objectivists or libertarians to dismiss this by saying that the church is already corrupt. The part that is not corrupt--individual choice--is getting corrupted by classic collectivist thinking. And they are doing this in the salvation doctrine, which is one of the pillars of religion.

Why?

Precisely because individual choice is a fundamental universal issue and salvation is a fundamental religious issue. It is the Achilles heel of religion.

Rand mentioned altruism as one such weak point, but salvation is another.

Now here's a sneaky part by Beck. He strongly insinuates that collective salvation is the work of Satan. He called it evil and a "perversion" more times than I could count. He just didn't connect the obvious dots (according to his narrative). He simply laid them out and let the viewer connect them. But here are the dots connected in a syllogism:

Premise: Collective salvation, a perversion of God's message, is the work of Satan.

Premise: President Obama, according to his own words, believes in collective salvation.

Conclusion: Therefore, we have a representative of Satan as President.

How's them apples?

But even here in O-Land and L-Land, we certainly believe we have a representative of raw collectivist evil in the White House right now. So how far off the mark is that? I mean when you look at the underlying principles?

Another very clever part of Beck's analysis is to beat Obama at his own game and use his own trump card: racism.

Obama and his people know that if things get rough, they can always start smearing folks with the charge of racism and start playing a victimhood game.

So I don't think Obama expected what Beck is doing. Look at how Obama is trying to spin racism right now in order to get the high ground back from the recent Black Panther and border debacles (and, of course, Beck's onslaught, which is growing like leaps and bounds):

President Obama, White House: Al Qaeda Is Racist

by Jake Tapper

July 13, 2010

ABC News

From the article:

In an interview earlier today with the South African Broadcasting Corporation to air in a few hours, President Obama disparaged al Qaeda and affiliated groups' willingness to kill Africans in a manner that White House aides say was an argument that the terrorist groups are racist.

. . .

Earlier today a senior administration official said...

. . .

... U.S. intelligence has indicated that al Qaeda leadership specifically targets and recruits black Africans to become suicide bombers because they believe that poor economic and social conditions make them more susceptible to recruitment than Arabs," the official said. "Al Qaeda recruits have said that al Qaeda is racist against black members from West Africa because they are only used in lower level operations."

"In short," the official said, "al Qaeda is a racist organization that treats black Africans like cannon fodder and does not value human life."

The problem with al Qaeda is that it is a racist organization?

Gimme a break!

Does it not occur to this White House administration that al Qaeda kills everybody, not just blacks? That the members are driven by hatred based on a fanatical interpretation of Islam, not on racism against black people?

Obama is becoming discombobulated.

So there we are: collective salvation versus individual salvation, what salvation means to many Christians, liberation theology, power-mongering and infiltration in order to corrupt institutions, Obama on racism in al Qaeda, and so on.

I know this seems like a lot of disparate things to connect in this post, but I encourage those who are interested to watch the videos. And hold on to your distaste of Christianity and God talk long enough to see the underlying principles Beck is addressing.

This one is important and I am glad it is now mainstream. I predict Beck is going to stay on this track and that others will be picking it up.

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

It came like I said, but I did not expect it to be so soon. Beck presented the following two things on his show today. I don't have time to look them up in his videos, so I found copies on the Internet.

After saying the Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals was the bible of the people surrounding Obama and saying that the USA has a choice between that and the vision of the Founding Fathers, he presented a video of Chris Mathews calling Alinsky a hero (in December 2009).

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Beck said that the Founding Fathers based their work on God. After this build-up, he presented the following quote from the opening of Rules for Radicals. I am including a screenshot from the book on Amazon, but also a quote for the search engines.

Lest we forget at least an over-the-shoulder acknowledgment to the very first radical: from all our legends, mythology, and history (and who is to know where mythology leaves off and history begins — or which is which), the first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom — Lucifer.

— SAUL ALINSKY

This is going mobilize the Christian community more than just about anything else if Beck keeps at this approach. And I believe he will. He also followed with a black preacher on who called Obama's claims of collective salvation "Godless."

My fear is that this approach in the mainstream has the potential to work so well, we are going to get a conservative administration that is going to make George Bush look like Patrick Henry. And that's scary.

I will have more to say later.

Michael

[anthony]

My fear is that this approach in the mainstream has the potential to work so well, we are going to get a conservative administration that is going to make George Bush look like Patrick Henry. And that's scary.

I will have more to say later.

Michael

Michael,

That has to be a serious concern.

Reminds me of the old Trade Unionist song:

"...one fist of iron,

and the other of steel,

If the right one don't get you,

Then the left one will."

B)

[Rich Engle]

Excellent post, MSK.

[Xray]

Anyway, that is what Beck means by "salvation" (in practical terms, not religious terms) and he was very articulate in the show about being saved by giving his problems and control to God.

In short, handing over the control over one's life to a being thought to be protective and powerful.

And hold on to your distaste of Christianity and God talk long enough to see the underlying principles Beck is addressing.

My distaste goes to presenting unsubstantiated premises as fact (Becks root premise is that a God and a Satan exist).

Reasoning based on premises claimed to be fact (with the claimer being unable to provide a morsel of evidence to meet the onus probandi) indicates epistemological 'unawareness' (to put it mildly).

Now here's a sneaky part by Beck. He strongly insinuates that collective salvation is the work of Satan.

Imo it's not sneaky, since the ideological message of this politico-religious TV evangelist is quite clear.

Edited July 15, 2010 by Xray

[DavidMcK]

I agree Michael, and as bad as this current (Obama) administration is I'm actually nearly terrified of the conservative Christian right. The teachings of Christ never seemed to stop the Inquisitors or the Crusaders from boiling people in oil or burning them alive.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

David,

I don't think this is the problem of modern Christianity. The irrationality is not even my main concern, since Beck's brand of Christianity stresses individual choice.

My problem comes with the fact that Christianity is not logically credible, so it is an easy intellectual target. Thus, any good done by someone like Beck can easily be dismissed later by people who reject the irrational and over-simplistic parts of the religion. As they hammer that part, they also shove aside the good and people start going along with it.

This happened with Joseph McCarthy. There is a book called Blacklisted by history: the untold story of Senator Joe McCarthy and his fight against America's enemies by M. Stanton Evans that goes into this. I have not read this book. I have only seen Evans interviewed (on Beck) and I read up on him on the normal places on the Internet (Wikipedia, Amazon, etc.). So I don't know what fundamental reasons Evans gives for how the smearing by the left managed to convince even government departments to "disappear" with documents proving many of McCarthy's claims. Certainly the public forgot about them as they started to sympathize with "victims of the witch hunt." (Thank goodness Evans was able to discover archives in places like the University of Virginia.)

But I have my own theory. I believe the reason they got away with it is that McCarthy was an old-fashioned kind of Christian. That made him a very easy intellectual target to discredit.

As to any power-mongering conservative that might be able to fool people and gain power while riding on Beck's Christian vote, I don't think his/her policies will have much to do with Christianity per se, but instead with the crony capitalism model of always, including "preemptive" wars, nation-building, being in bed with foreign dictators through front companies and organizations, and all the rest. Big business plus big government plus expansive wars and corruption in foreign countries galore. That's what scares me, especially seeing how modern weaponry is getting really sophisticated.

I want checks and balances--always. I don't ever want another Congress aligned with the Executive the way it was with Bush for 6 years and the way it has been with Obama.

Under the Christian approach of literally demonizing Obama that Beck is now doing, we run a serious risk of have a totally Republican government for a while. I hope--and intend to promote this--that his popularization on the Founding Fathers, emphasis on original sources, focus on collectivism versus individual rights, etc., will wake up enough people that when the smearing starts taking hold, and the government turns conservative, people will manage to hold politicians to the small government model.

Incidentally, Beck is opening up a HUGE opportunity for Objectivists and libertarians. We need to step up and fill out public intellectual space before the setbacks start. It's certainly more doable now than when Ayn Rand was writing.

But Christianity-wise, if we get a totally Republican government as I fear, I believe the moment the President is elected, Christianity will not have any campaign-promised influence in terms of meaningful policy and only become cosmetic. Then history will be made by how much the new President likes power. If he or she is a good guy, then some good might happen, but I still believe there will be big business plus big government plus expansive wars plus foreign corruption. If the person is a real ham-handed power monger (who shows his/her true colors once in office, of course, not before), then God help us all...

Michael

[dan2100]

I agree Michael, and as bad as this current (Obama) administration is I'm actually nearly terrified of the conservative Christian right. The teachings of Christ never seemed to stop the Inquisitors or the Crusaders from boiling people in oil or burning them alive.

Which teachings of Jesus? Reading the Gospels alone, there is some textual support in there for coercing people. Think of Luke 14:23, for example -- and there are others. And this is just focusing on the Gospels -- not the rest of the New Testament, not the Old Testament, and leaving aside whether the Gospels are the actual teachings of Jesus and whether there was such a person in the first place.

And regardless of what Jesus might have taught, most conservative Christians appear to have little or no problem with coercion. Yes, they might talk about personal salvation and individual responsibility, but, in terms of coercion, most of the ones I've talked to or read are not libertarians.

[DavidMcK]

I agree that Christians are blithely unconcerned about using power and coercion. I don't have an actual quote from the Bible that says not to put someone on a rack and pull their limbs apart; I was just relying on my image of Christ as someone who was empathetic and concerned about suffering and comparing it to the actions of many Christians in history. There is a saying that Marx wasn't a Marxist; Jesus Christ wasn't a Christian either.