​Is this the way our democracy ends?

By Ed Raymond

fargogadfly@gmail.com

Will we be banging or whimpering at the end of the American empire?

T.S. Eliot’s poem “The Hollow Men” accurately portrays the end of most empires in his first lines:

“We are the hollow men/ We are the stuffed men/ Leaning together/ Headpiece filled with straw/ Alas! Our dried voices, when we whisper together/ Are quiet and meaningless/ As wind in dry grass or rat’s feet over broken glass in our dry cellar/ Shape without form, shade without cover/ Paralyzed force, gesture without motion;/ Those who have crossed with direct eyes, to death’s other kingdom/ Remember us — if at all — not as lost violent souls, but only as the hollow men, the stuffed men.”

The United States of America became the Divided States of America about a half century ago when tax cuts, public debt, national debt and loss of unions created economic inequalities that continue to grow millionaires and billionaires who never know what is enough, so they buy gross politicians by the gross and create propaganda organizations like the Federalist Society and the Heritage Foundation to create “never-enough” attitudes. The battles of the biggest yachts and the number of mansions bought around the world began early and is becoming another contest of bank accounts. Consequently, they created thousands of young political entrepreneurs who are making millions peddling dreams and bullshit to the masses on the maelstrom of the Internet, TV and radio who cannot afford to educate themselves. That’s when free speech became frightfully expensive. The internet and social media have turned “news” into lies to make millions for hollow people with stuffed heads.

Greedy grifters and fraudsters from outhouses and penthouses turn the Internet and corporate broadcast leviathans such as Fox and Sinclair into rat-infested cesspools of hate, disinformation and outright lying factories. Fox News, MSNB, and CNN are just three of the thousands of liars and truth-seekers trying to dominate the news cycle.

But the money asteroid hit and completely changed the economic and political climate in the U.S. When the hollow men on the Republican Supreme Court approved the earthquake and tsunami of political cash when it approved Citizens United, and when it morphed corporations to humans and eliminated all guard rails in campaign contributions, it turned PACs into midnight dark money raiders and bribing machines. The Supreme Court also passed out hunting licenses to the superrich so they could prey upon tiny islands, Panama, and states like South Dakota and Delaware with large post offices serving as tax havens for a price.

Who are the dried voices whispering dried meaningless words?

I was shocked when politicians at every level said they were shocked by the killing of Charlie Kirk. What peaceful planet have they been on? Since 1991, When Wayne Lapierre in his five thousand dollar suits was selected as executive officer and CEO of the National Rifle Association, the gun lobby — including all manufacturers — have killed more than 1.1 million Americans. Complete figures for 2024 are not available yet. Many of the victims were local, county, state and federal politicians and media personnel during those three decades.

Firearms are the leading cause of death of children ages 1-17! In 2023, when we had a complete count of 46,728 deaths, an average of 138 people were killed and 270 were wounded per day. The gun lobby has loaded the pockets and arms of children and adults of every description with 435 million firearms that can fire one shot — or 700 rounds a minute out of an assault rifle. Ammunition purchases are not approved or recorded. At the last count available, the gun lobby has sold more than 20 million AR-15 military style assault rifles to millions of civilians who should not possess a firearm that has a clip or magazine that holds more than six rounds. Currently, we have magazines and drums that can contain 100 rounds. We will not have a sane firearms policy until America’s “exceptional” gun controls match what other countries have legislated to protect their people from gun lobbies. By the way: Minneapolis, one of the safest cities in the country, had 12 people shot in four mass shootings within 12 hours in one week.

Breaking News! Several sources have just revealed that the Trump Justice Department — which has no idea what justice is — has removed a study from its website which reveals far-right extremists commit much more firearm violence than far-left extremists. The study by the National Institute of Justice research titled “What Tells Us About Domestic Terrorism” was “disappeared” by the Bondi Justice Department on 13 September. Here are the numbers: 227 far-right violence events killed 520 people since 1990, while lefties had only 42 violent events that killed 78. More later.

Will someone please define what makes a Jesus-loving Christian?

Remember that famous question, “What would Jesus do?” Haven’t heard it much lately. Is it because we know Jesus wouldn’t do it? Or is it because very few, including many pastors and millions of their constituents, don’t have a clue about what is morally right anymore? Or is it because they are so “tight” with the billionaires running the Divided States of America they can’t break economic bonds?

My favorite pastor is the Reverend William Barber, who leads the “Moral Monday” events established by a pro-social justice group called Repairing the Breach, which frightens many on the right because it follows the teachings of Jesus Christ. Barber is against white Christian nationalism and any forms of religious nationalism as proposed by many evangelical and fundamentalist “Christian” churches that have worshipped prosperity gospels instead of gospels concentrating on the poor.

Barber said this about the killing of Charlie Kirk: “This past week there was a brutal, ugly, on-camera assassination of brother Charlie Kirk, and we must all despise it. But religion or morality that claims love for God, or love for justice but says nothing about injustice, a kind of national religion that asks God to bless the nation without the nation facing her sins and her violent public policy — this is religious nationalism, and it’s not true faith, according to the scriptures.”

Charlie Kirk of Turning Point USA followed the talking points of many far-right pastors and politicians of Trumpistan instead of following the teachings of the founder of Christianity. Charlie was a tall, handsome, charismatic high school graduate, who, in his programs, supported the same ugly racial and political policies of the Christian Identity Church that Timothy McVeigh belonged to when he blew up the federal building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 men and women workers, visitors and many children in a daycare center. People who believe in what Turning Point USA teaches and preaches have two responsibilities: study history and the “commandments” of the Christian Identity Church.

The central point and belief of the CI church? God created Blacks for only one purpose: to service whites. Google it.

The following list is a very short one of direct quotes by Charlie Kirk

As you read Kirk’s proclamations, beliefs, lies, and debate quotes, determine whether he was citing a belief of Jesus Christ or a commandment of his CI church.

“The great replacement strategy, which is well under way every single day in our southern border, is a strategy to replace white rural America with something different.”

“You believe in God, country, family, faith, and freedom and they won’t stop until you and your children and your children’s children are eliminated.”

“MLK was awful. He's not a good person. He said one good thing he actually didn't believe.”

“We made a huge mistake when we passed the Civil Rights Act in the 1960s.”

“The Civil Rights Act, yeah, let’s be clear, created a beast and that beast has now turned into an anti-white weapon… If you have unapologetic veracious anti-white racism, then young whites are going to find some very radical positions and I don’t want that actually.”

"I am also going to offer some context and some nuance about the death of George Floyd that no one dares to say out loud. Which is that this guy was a scumbag.”

“If we would have said three weeks ago [...] that Joy Reid and Michelle Obama and Sheila Jackson Lee and Ketanji Brown Jackson were affirmative-action picks, we would have been called racist. But now they're comin' out and they're saying it for us! They're comin' out and they're saying, ‘I'm only here because of affirmative action.’ Yeah, we know. You do not have the brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously. You had to go steal a white person's slot to go be taken somewhat seriously.”

“There is no separation of church and state. It is a fabrication, it’s a fiction. It’s not in the Constitution.”

“Submit to your husband, Taylor (Swift). You're not in charge.”

“I think it’s worth it to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights. That is a prudent deal. It is rational.”

“These doctors need to be put in prison quickly. We need to have a Nuremberg-style trial for every gender-affirming clinic doctor. We need it immediately.”

“If I see a Black pilot, I’m going to be like, boy, I hope he’s qualified.”

“If you’re a WNBA pot smoking, Black lesbian, do you get treated better than a United States Marine?”

“Happening all the time in urban America, prowling Blacks go around for fun to go target white people, that’s a fact. It’s happening more and more.”

“If I’m dealing with somebody in customer service who’s a moronic Black woman, I wonder is she there because of her excellence, or is she there because of affirmative action?”

“DEI (Diversion, Equity, Inclusive) invites unwholesome thinking.”

“Before January 6, 2021, Kirk spoke of sending “buses of patriots to D.C. to fight for this president.”

"We record all of it so that we put [it] on the internet so people can see these ideas collide. When people stop talking, that’s when you get violence. That’s when civil war happens, because you start to think the other side is so evil, and they lose their humanity."

How many of these policy positions meet the approval of Jesus Christ?