Oklahoma

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Growing up, there was a frequently enforced social rule that one didn’t discuss religion or politics in polite company. Religion was saved for church, that was where it was most appropriate. Politics was the domain of campaign speeches and everyone made up their mind as to whether anything said was believable. Local politicians were held to their promises. If they didn’t produce what they said they would, or at least make a respectable show of trying, they were replaced.

I’ll admit that during that Pollyannish time, there was a lot that went unnoticed. Marital infidelity was just as high in the 1950s as it is now. Sexual abuse by religious figures was even more rampant because no one was holding them accountable. What politicians did behind closed doors, deals made with devils no one knew about, were closely guarded secrets. Few people realized the depths of deprivation that were present within the country. The few who were in the know either had no sizeable platform for communication or were shouted down by the majority and labeled as kooks.

We now live in a vastly different world. We know more. We have access to more immediate and more detailed information than any society that existed before us. As this world continues to change and things happen that have never happened before, we have to adjust the rules. The rules our grandparents and great-grandparents lived by depended to a large degree on mass naivete. Now, the more we know, the greater is our responsibility to fill those holes, patch the places that are broken, and in some cases, throw the whole concept out and replace it with more appropriate ideals.

Change does not come without pain, however. There are those who have been exploiting the brokenness, slipping through the holes, and taking advantage of the general lack of knowledge and understanding. As society grows more aware, those who have been in power become more frightened of what they stand to lose and attempt to take more drastic and dramatic action as they yell, “We must fight to preserve our tradition!” What they really mean is, “We must fight to preserve our crime, our abuse, and our scandal.”

One of the most ear-catching opening songs to a musical comes from “Fiddler on the Roof.” As Tevye and the chorus sing “Tradition!” we are introduced to the town, the people in it, and the traditional roles that they play. But then, as the musical develops, we witness how every last one of those traditions is turned on their ears, even to the point that they are forced to pack everything and leave their homes.

We are facing a moment not unlike the 1905 destruction of the Pale of Settlement (Cherta Osedlost) in Imperialist Russia. Many of these uniquely Jewish villages had existed since 1772 and had formed deep roots and a strong culture even as they were surrounded by all the political upheavals of Russia. By 1897, somewhere in the neighborhood of five million Jews lived in the Pale. Less than 200,000 could be found outside it in European Russia. By 1905, though, riots and open aggression against Jews were increasingly common as part of the “revolution” against Tsar Nicholas II. Many of these “pogroms” were organized by the League of the Russian People, or “Black Hundreds.” The Black Hundreds were right-wing extremists who were passionately anti-Semitic. By November 1905, they were actively involved in the removal of millions of Jews from the Pales, many of whom ended up relocating to Poland.

Fundamental to the rise of the Black Hundreds was who was involved. Merchants, Christian clergy, and ultra-conservative local politicians trying to hold onto their power were the primary force behind the xenophobia that not only was responsible for destroying the Pales but also pushing Ukrainians further North, away from traditional Russian lands. “Orthodoxy, Autocracy, and Nationalism” was their cry. Their propaganda incited pogroms and terrorist acts generally committed by para-military groups known as Yellow Shirts. It would take the actions of Lenin and his Bolsheviks to finally put down the Yellow Shirts. Not that his movement turned out much better.

Can you see the similarities? Once again, we are faced with a groundswell of right-wing extremists who favor Christian orthodoxy, the absolute power of a President with immunity for “official acts,” and an extremely dangerous level of Nationalism that carries with it such anti-immigrant rhetoric as to advocate for the relocation of many Latino groups. That they also are now showing themselves to be anti-Ukranian is an absolutely frightening comparison. The Black Hundreds were so incredibly vicious that they even made it into popular literature. In Roots: The Next Generations, a Jewish friend of the series’ black protagonists jokes that the Ku Klux Klansmen who burn down his shop are mere pikers next to the “Czar’s Black One Hundred,” among numerous other references. As I consider the similarities, there is an inclination to wonder if those who are behind this contemporary Republican party are following the playbook for the Czar’s cronies.

Of course, we know how that movement turned out for the Czar and his entire family. We also know that in its place came an equally ruthless leader in Josef Stalin. As we look for ways to put down this current right-wing frenzy, we must be careful to avoid giving rise to one who is just as evil in a different direction. Contrary to the popular idiom, the enemy of my enemy is not always my friend; sometimes it’s just another enemy.

We are, today, faced with a growing threat of Yellow Shirts right here in a country we once thought was immune from such activities. Those who fought in one or both World Wars would have laughed had anyone suggested that such thugs as Stephen Miller, James M. Buchanan, Jim DeMint, and Kevin Roberts would ever dominate news headlines or shape the political future of the country. Just like the residents of the fictional Anatevka, they assumed that the balance between political left and right ideals was in a good place, safely away from radicals.

Even with the wake-up call of January 6, 2021, the majority of the people in the United States were willing to essentially hit the snooze button and assume that the country would once again achieve a sort of even keel under the Democratic leadership of Joe Biden. No one wants to believe that their country is in serious danger until the bombs start dropping, the riots start happening, or political enemies start being thrown in jail.

The rhetoric of a former president with multiple indictments and convictions should be disturbing. As of June 2023, here are some of the people the Orange Felon would put in jail [courtesy ABC News]:

• Former First Lady and Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton
• Former President Barak Obama
• President Joe Biden
• Senator Tim Kaine
• Senator Marco Rubio
• Former National Security Adviser John Bolton
• Clinton aide Huma Abedin
• Rep. Adam Schiff
• Former New York Democratic governor Andrew Cuomo
• Former Special Counsel Robert Mueller
• Former FBI Director James Comey
• Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper
• Former CIA Director John Brennan
• Former FBI Deputy Director Andy McCabe
• Former FBI attorneys Lisa Page and James Baker
• Mueller team prosecutor Andrew Weissman
• Former Justice Department official Bruce Ohr and his wife
• FBI source Christopher Steele
• Former President Bill Clinton
• Former Attorneys General Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch
• Former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein
• Hillary Clinton aide John Podesta

In the year since that list was developed, several other names have been added to the list as judges, attorneys general, and even jury members have drawn the ire of the man who holds the Republican party by the throat in the same way a mafia don controls his family. Is it unreasonable that the people on this list might have cause to fear for their safety in the coming months? Unless met with a level of defiance I’ve not yet seen, there certainly seems to be a justifiable concern that returning a felon to the White House could endanger those who have made him angry.

If the problem were limited to one person, the solution would be simple: don’t re-elect him. Unfortunately for the US, the problem is much more widespread. In fact, one could even make the argument that the Orange Felon is the product of a right-wing movement that was already spreading well before he was elected in 2016.

I distinctly remember my late father, a Southern Baptist minister, talking about how Judge Paul Pressler of Houston was actively recruiting preachers, city council members, and mayors to adopt a hard-right theocentric platform for “bringing America back to God.” Interestingly enough, in 2017, eight men sued Judge Pressler accusing him of multiple years of rape and sexual abuse, bringing his foreground activities to a close. Unfortunately, he did not die until this past June and did so without admitting any wrongdoing. He was proud to have done his part to guide the nation in the horrid direction it is now going.

Over fifty years of effort have gone into this nightmare in which we now exist. Along the way, there were plenty of opportunities to stop it in its tracks. Pastors could have realized what was happening and said, “No, not from my pulpit.” Bribes could have been refused. Legislation might have been passed. There is no feigning ignorance on the part of anyone in a position of leadership from at least 1972 forward. But instead of doing anything demonstrative, they fell back on the worn premise that “everyone’s entitled to their opinion.”

We see what happens when opinions are allowed to grow into reality. Had we snuffed all this out when they were merely opinions, we would not be having this conversation today.

Many of the actors on the right-wing stage grew up with this extreme indoctrination, being taught that such strict adherence to a bastardized view of religious ideals is the only way the United States should be governed. They have, since childhood, believed the lie that the United States was formed as a Christian nation and that the Constitution was, somehow, blessed by God and pretty much the same as Holy Scripture. Armed with this misinformation, they now march forward convinced that everyone throughout time believed the same nonsense that they do, therefore justifying the call to “Make America Great Again.”

A perfect example of someone who grew up imbued with this God-first concept is Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry. The Governor’s official biography says that he grew up in St. Martinville, LA, where “his mother was a schoolteacher and his parents took him to church every day.” St. Martinville is the very heart of Cajun country. The Acadians, whose plight is recorded in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s 1847 epic poem Evangeline, settled here after removal from Nova Scotia in 1755, creating the French-influenced Cajun we know today, and helping imbed a strict, heavy-handed Catholicism that wasn’t tolerated in most other towns. For Governor Landry, the daily religious teaching most likely seemed like a normal thing until he got to the National Guard. He took in an education based more on tradition than fact and has spent the past 53 years assuming that it was all correct.

So, given the circumstances, perhaps we shouldn’t be too terribly surprised that this first-term Governor, desperate to turn around an education system that ranks 47th in the country and a state that comes in dead last overall, would turn to his religious upbringing when he signed a bill requiring that the Ten Commandments be posted in every classroom. The Governor has to be grasping at any straw he can reach and this law is an example of extreme desperation. There is little chance that it will survive the legal challenges already filed to stop it. However, the fact that the law even exists shows how little the Governor and the state’s Legislature actually know about the Mosaic law.

Remember the story of Moses in Exodus chapters19-32? The people of Israel, still in flight mode after escaping Egypt, arrive at the foot of Mt. Sinai and Yahweh decides, “We need to set down some ground rules before we go any further.” So, Moses scrambles up the side of the mountain and he and Yahweh have a little chat during which the deity inscribed the commandments on pieces of stone (resulting in one of the funniest scenes in Mel Brook’s History of the World, Part II). Moses starts down the mountain and discovers that, in his absence, the people have formed a golden calf and are having one hell of a party worshipping that calf. The leader became so angry that he smashed the tablets and had to go back and ask Yahweh for another copy.

Why? The second commandment, which is usually shortened to “Thou shall have no other Gods before me,” reads a little differently in its entirety.

³ “You must not have any other gods except me.

⁴ “You must not make for yourselves an idol that looks like anything in the sky above or on the earth below or in the water below the land. ⁵ You must not worship or serve any idol, because I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God. If you hate me, I will punish your children, and even your grandchildren and great-grandchildren. ⁶ But I show kindness to thousands who love me and obey my commands.

The instructions are pretty clear and abundantly strict. NO idols.

Growing up in a minister’s home, my parents were quite careful in this regard. We didn’t have a lot of crosses on our walls. In fact, the only one I can ever remember being there for a short time was a craft project involving matches whose heads were burned and then glued to cardboard (rather creepy if you think about it). Poppa didn’t want one hanging on the wall behind his pulpit at church. Neither did we have any copies of the Ten Commandments posted anywhere, nor The Beatitudes (Matthew 5), nor any other symbology. Mother didn’t even wear the cross necklace that is so popular among Christian women.

Their reasoning was simple: Crosses, commandments, and any other symbol become a “graven image,” or idol. People too easily start worshipping the cross itself and not the one who died on it. People too quickly worship the Ten Commandments and not the one who gave them.

The example handed down through Judaism is that the words of God are not meant to be written on a wall but on one’s heart. In such a way, they are to instruct and guide our actions when we’re away from the synagogue or the church building.

Many Jews will also remind you that the Ten Commandments are just the first of the 613 laws God gave to them. Many Jews are less than thrilled by Louisiana’s new law. There are, in fact, multiple versions of the Ten Commandments. The Catholic version is different from the Protestant version (which is likely the version to be posted in Louisiana schools), and our Jewish friends will remind us that scripture itself contains three different versions (Exodus, Deuteronomy, and Leviticus). To say that posting the Ten Commandments anywhere is problematic for anyone who actually understands them. In fact, I’ll just go ahead and say it:

Posting the Ten Commandments is the height of religious ignorance, an insult to both Jews and Christians.

If the Ten Commandments are problematic, then what are we to think of Ryan Walters, Oklahoma’s State Superintendent of Public Instruction, and his edict that all Oklahoma schools must teach the Bible and have a copy in every classroom? Is this even remotely legal? Nope. In fact, just two days before handing down this order, the Oklahoma State Supreme Court had said that the concept of a religious, state-funded school is unconstitutional. Lawsuits will be filed and the order will likely be blocked by the courts, but the act itself raises some interesting questions. Such as: Are we sure we want teachers, who have no training in teaching the Bible, to handle that task on their own? Especially considering that Oklahoma schools are ranked as the worst in the nation!

True to form, it didn’t take the Internet long to come up with some passages of scripture that I don’t think I’ve ever heard from a pulpit, let alone in a classroom. For example, Ezekiel 5:10: Therefore the fathers shall eat the sons in the midst of thee, and the sons shall eat their fathers, and I will execute judgments in thee, and the whole remnant of thee will I scatter into all the winds.

Then, there’s that whole mess with Lot’s daughters and the people of Sodom wanting to gang-rape angels in Genesis 19. I do recall a Sunday School lesson on the passage, but it was dramatically watered down.

And we can’t forget everyone’s favorite Ezekiel 23. Here we find the never-preached-on story of Oholah and her sister, Oholibah. Verse 4 explains that they are metaphors for Samaria and Jerusalem, but that doesn’t make what comes next any easier to read. The entire chapter outlines in terrifying detail the promiscuity of the two “sisters,” and when we get to verse 19, we get this:

 Yet she multiplied her promiscuity, remembering the days of her youth, when she had prostituted herself in the land of Egypt and lusted after their lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of stallions.

Those two verses have been all over the Internet since the edict was handed down. What are the chances some smart-mouthed kid is going to ask about that passage on the first day of class this fall? I’d say they’re pretty good.

What is more disturbing for some is the idea that some teachers may tell their students about the Woke Jesus. You know, the guy who went around offering free healthcare, and free food, and said things like “Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth.” That certainly isn’t the vengence-based deity that far-right preachers like. They are systematically rejecting the teachings of Jesus because it disagrees with their plan for religious dominance. This raises a serious question: Are you still a Christian if you reject the Christ?

Walters’ obvious lack of thought and consideration as to the consequences of his actions is par for the course of how right-wing extremists are disrupting both society and the educational system. In fact, this new brand of Yellow Shirts seems as if they are bound and determined to sink education in the United States. Insisting on religious education is a distraction. What they want is to destroy American education altogether. In doing so, they hope to make the less-educated citizens easier to fool and more pliable to control.

This all dovetails nicely into the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025. The “transition plan” makes the assumption that the Orange Felon is going to be re-elected this fall and that when that happens, right-wing conservatives will move into critical government positions and begin executing the plan. While there are multiple reports that the Felon is attempting to distance himself from the plan, the real danger lies in the fact that he’s really not needed for the plan to work. As long as there is a Republican in the White House with sufficient GOP backing in at least one house of Congress, they can control the inner workings of government to affect the outcomes they desire.

While objection to Project 2025 has grown over the past week, we have to understand that this is not something copied and pasted together at the last minute. Conservatives have been working toward this for over fifty years! The foundations have been laid while we were looking in the other direction. Even back during the two Bush administrations, the plans were underway and changes made to laws that bring us to the point where now, upsetting the whole US government is comparatively easy.

The entire manifesto is too large for me to go through line-by-line, which may be what it deserves. The whole thing reeks of authoritarian domination. Seriously. Tsar Nicholas II would have loved it. Instead, though, let me focus on some specific areas that should be of the highest concern.

Abolishing Diversity and Inclusion Programs

Already, several states including Texas, Florida, Utah, Tennessee, and North Dakota are either limiting or completely abolishing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs. These efforts target women, people of color, Indigenous tribes, and anyone on the LGBTQIA+ spectrum. The intention is to create a government not only dominated by white cis males but also a society that is designed to serve them as masters of the human race. The thought is that by attacking at the state level, opposition is spread out and weakened, making it easier to implement change at the federal level without any overwhelming response.

Limiting the activities of the FBI

Watch the language carefully. The script being used claims that the FBI is limiting free speech. What they’re actually opposing are the programs by which the agency combats the spread of misinformation. Yellow Shirts need these disinformation tools such as biased AI to spread their lies and hate so that undereducated people, those without access to a full range of information and ideas, are more likely to go along with the conservative con game. As it stands now, the FBI is especially watching for misinformation that might affect the outcome of the November election. The right-wing faction is fearful that their activities could be caught and shut down.

Invoking the Insurrection Act

In the days following the unrest around the murder of George Floyd, the Orange Felon mused publicly that he wished he’d called in the military. Project 2025 would permanently invoke the Insurrection Act, allowing the President to send military troops anywhere at any time to be used against the American people. The law itself stems from Article 1, Section 8, clause 15, of the U.S. Constitution, but is vague and open-ended so that, in reality, there’s not much anyone outside of Congress can do to prevent a President from using it for retribution or political gain. For that reason, previous presidents have been hesitant to invoke the act outside of extreme emergencies. The proposal moves to make the law status quo.

Abolishing the Department of Education

The Department of Education was created by President Carter in 1979 and has been under fire from Conservatives ever since. With its demise would go funding for things such as Title I, the $18 billion federal fund that supports low-income students, Title IX funding preventing sexual discrimination, including LGBTQIA+ students, and Title VI, which states that “No person in the United States shall, on the ground of race, color, or national origin, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.” Project 2025 calls for all these programs to be gutted and unfunded, putting everyone who’s not rich and white and male at risk.

Destruction of LGBTQIA+ Protections

Project 2025 really does not like anything that is not white, straight, and male. It would remove protections from every form of law and federal programs, reinstate the ban on trans people in the military, and remove workplace protections. Every effort would be made to completely and totally erase LGBTQIA+ people from the visible portion of American society. This could easily lead to people being sent to indoctrination camps, the removal of children from gay couples, and even a ban on LGBTQIA+ people running for office. It is difficult to adequately describe just how dangerous Project 2025 is for this group.

Dismantling Homeland Security

While much of the text of Project 2025 focuses on the relationship between Homeland Security and Immigration law, the fact is that the plan wants the entire agency gone. That would mean the destruction of:

• CISA.
• FEMA.
• Federal Law Enforcement Training Center.
• Transportation Security Administration.
• U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
• U.S. Coast Guard.
• U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
• U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
• U.S. Secret Service.

Do I really need to explain how incredibly vulnerable this would leave the country? Presumably, some agencies such as the Secret Service and the Coast Guard would continue in some other form, but their powers would most likely be limited and their focus narrowed considerably from their current responsibilities. This portion alone is treasonous for the danger it creates for all Americans.

I could go on at great length, but by now your eyes are likely starting to droop. Know that Project 2025 also attacks family planning, including access to various methods of birth control, environmental protections, climate change, social security and retirement programs, and funding for veterans programs. The only group in the US not adversely affected by this plan are rich, straight, white men. That’s it. Everyone else is a target.

As frightening as Project 2025 is, what may be more scary is the lengths to which they are willing to go in carrying out this disastrous plan. Earlier this week, the president of the Heritage Foundation said, “In spite of all this nonsense from the left, we are going to win. We’re in the process of taking this country back. We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.”

Notice the deflection thereof “if the left allows it to be.” He’s already planning on blaming “the left” if things should turn violent. In fact, there’s every reason to believe that the right is planning on their being violent protests so that they can justify the use of the Insurrection Act. They are fully expecting riots and marches and are already working to undermine those legitimate efforts to maintain our democracy.

Should we be alarmed? Absolutely! Should we start taking action? Without question!

What can we do beyond voting? Make noise. The right-wing Yellow Shirted devils think their winning. Just as they never saw Lenin coming in Russia, they don’t expect anyone to rise up and destroy their plans. We need to do just that. We need to demand action from our Congressional leaders and remove anyone who aligns themselves with Project 2025 and/or the Heritage Foundation. We need to be in the streets in numbers that Washington politicians have never seen. In fact, politicians need to be afraid of what the US population is capable of doing at the ballot box. We have been needing to flex that power for a long time.

There are also some things that we can’t do. We can’t let ourselves be distracted by anything. Joe Biden is the presumptive Democratic nominee and while he’s old and reminds me in too many ways of Ronald Reagan going into his second term, he’s closer to being honest than the Orange Felon and his cohorts will ever be. We have to focus on electing the Biden/Harris team and trust that the Vice President is more than capable of standing up and taking charge should the need ever arise.

This is not a moment in history where we can let everyone have their opinion. Learn from the lesson of Fiddler on the Roof and the destruction of Jewish homesteads in Tzarist Russia. Don’t focus on WWII. Hitler learned about the power of forced relocation from Russia. We are much closer to repeating those horrible incidents than the atrocities of Germany.

We can stop all of this. We can stop Project 2025. We can stop jack-booted right-wing Yellow Shirts from taking over. We just have to get up off our complacent asses and do so.