Shit Just Got Real!

Bad boys, bad boys.
Watcha gonna do, watcha gonna do?
Watcha gonna do when they come for you?

In the sparkly afterglow of a sermon I heard this weekend on the intersection of politics and powerlessness based on this passage from the book of Acts --

The priests and the captain of the temple guard and the Sadducees came up to Peter and John while they were speaking to the people. They were greatly disturbed because the apostles were teaching the people, proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection of the dead. They seized Peter and John and, because it was evening, they put them in jail until the next day. But many who heard the message believed; so the number of men who believed grew to about five thousand.

The next day the rulers, the elders and the teachers of the law met in Jerusalem. Annas the high priest was there, and so were Caiaphas, John, Alexander and others of the high priest’s family. They had Peter and John brought before them and began to question them: “By what power or what name did you do this?”

Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them: “Rulers and elders of the people! If we are being called to account today for an act of kindness shown to a man who was lame and are being asked how he was healed, then know this, you and all the people of Israel: It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed. Jesus is

“‘the stone you builders rejected, which has become the cornerstone.’

Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.”

When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus. But since they could see the man who had been healed standing there with them, there was nothing they could say. So they ordered them to withdraw from the Sanhedrin and then conferred together. “What are we going to do with these men?” they asked. “Everyone living in Jerusalem knows they have performed a notable sign, and we cannot deny it. But to stop this thing from spreading any further among the people, we must warn them to speak no longer to anyone in this name.”

-- I thought about the article by Messer's Mann and Ornstein ("Let’s just say it: The Republicans are the problem.") that has been setting the digital woods on fire.

I thought about the importance of medium and venue.

Whatever you think of the theological basis for this scene from Acts, the sheer drama of two unschooled and powerless people standing up to the full might of the political and religious machineries which controlled their lives -- telling truth to power in the most perilous of circumstances -- is pretty compelling.

The problem is, it only works if you can actually command the attention of those in power, and that is a lesson which our own secular, high priests have learned very well.

Just imagine what turns history would have taken if the high priests had been savvy enough to simply ignore Peter and John. To deny them access to the public square. To make sure every time they spoke, everything they said was drowned out in a roar of money and pro-Roman noise, or buried under a mountain of "Both sides do it"/some-people-say drivel.

Suppose that every time Peter and John opened their mouths, surrogates of the temple were right there to scream about the latest Quinnipiac poll numbers or ask loudly why these two rude, vituperative and unnserious men were siding with Jerusalem's enemies?

What becomes of Peter and John if the high priests use their power to simply refuse to acknowledge they exist at all?

What if the high priests had also refused to acknowledge the existence of the man they had healed at all?

Supposed instead of worrying about the inconvenient facts literally staring them in the face they had simply bypassed the issue of right and wrong and observable reality altogether?

Supposed they had just dispatched their myrmidons to go on every Sabbath Morning gasbag show in the Roman Empire to insist that the healed man had not only been healthy all along...but was actually just a dirty lying hippie co-conspirator of Peter and John.

Who are themselves two of the 78 and 81 Known!Communists! among the followers of Christ!

What if the only thing history ever knew about Peter and John was that they had glitter-bombed Caiaphas' book signing ("The 10 Habits of Highly Effective Pharasees", Regnery Press) or shouted some garbled words from the audience at a Temple press conference before they were hustled away by guards.

In our modern Temple, the high priests of Centrism stand shoulder to shoulder with the goon squad of Conservatism, acting as their ever-eager enablers (Don't believe me? Go now and confront 10 random Conservatives with overwhelming proof of their bigotries, hypocrisies and lies on the issue of your choosing. 10 times out of 10 the first thing you will hear out of their pie-holes is the Centrist mating call of "But the Dimocraaaaaps!  But the Liiiiibruls!")  Centrism is the spider hole where Conservatives hide out from the brutal judgement of history and they are willing to pay top-dollar to keep their douchebunker well appointed, which leaves Liberals to stand alone as the only direct threat to the authority of the high priests of Centrism.

This is the answer to the ancient and vexing question: "Why is our political media mostly a wasteland of paid Conservative hucksters and Centrist hacks?   Why are Liberals almost never called before the high priests at the Sunday Morning Gasbag Temple of Centrism?"  It is because the high priests of Centrism know better than to do something that risky and foolish.  Because once inside the temple walls there is a really good chance that a Liberal might shove irrefutable proof of the cowardice and complicity of the high priests of Centrism, pointy-end-first, up their collective asses in front of 20 million people.

And that would never do.

This is why Centrism has been a featured subject of mine since long before I started writing this blog.

Because I figured out a long time ago that it does not matter how many miracles and wonders and charts and facts Liberals bring to bear on the public conversation. It does not matter that we have for decades been saying exactly and explicitly what Messer's Mann and Ornstein's are saying now.

As long as the high priests of Centrism control access to our media, Liberals and their rude ideas will not be permitted to exist except as figments of David Brooks' imagination.

Which is why I am as pleased that Messer's Mann and Ornstein have taken the trouble to write an article in a prominent American newspaper that (as one wag put it) repeats as epiphany stuff thoughtful liberals have been saying for the last 30 years....

...as I am unsurprised that the word "Liberal" appears nowhere in it.