Tuesday, June 23, 2015

Pope Fight At The Church of Lyin'tology



"Schism" is an ugly word, but his Holiness Pope Bias the First, Bishop of the Acela Corridor, Vicar of Both Sides, Successor of the Prince of the Kristols, Supreme Pontiff of the Washington Beltway, Primate of Fake Centrism, Archbishop and Metropolitan of Humility, Sovereign of True Conservatism's City State, Servant of the servants of the Church of Lyin'tology has a bone to pick with that other Pope.

The one in Rome.

And so, being that he is the Bishop of the Acela Corridor, Pope Bias has issued his own goddamn encyclical.  

On the environment. 

And other stuff.

Because unlike the Romepope, this pontiff is not too stiff-necked and proud to leave his luxurious apartments at Castle Humblefino -- where the air is always fresh clean and the water runs clear and never catches fire -- and humbly wash the feet of any fracking industry executives who might happen to be on a pilgrimage to  "K" Street to visit their money.

Here, for example. is some his Holy Fracking Love from ExxonMobile Perspectives press-release in 2011:
Brooks is an independent thinker and keen observer of the American political landscape, so his words carry weight. His column makes a valuable contribution to the important debate on U.S. shale gas development.
Here is even more spontaneous and lucrative Holy Fracking Love from the Vicar of Both Sides on Meet the Press:



So while the Romepope might be a swinging guy who would be perfect if you, say, ever want to rap or just get weird with somebody, he clearly does not understand the intricacies of money and mining. Because according the missives Pope Bias receives from his dear friends in the bishoprics of Capitalism and Extractive Industries, everything on planet Earth is going great.

How great?

Extremely fucking great.
You would never know [from reading the Romepope's nutty Liberal claptrap] that in many parts of the world, like the United States, the rivers and skies are getting cleaner. The race for riches, ironically, produces the wealth that can be used to clean the environment.
So maybe the Romepope ought to shut his pope-hole on these matters and let someone more spiritually qualified and more dedicated to the best interests of the human race speak for God Almighty.

Someone like David Fucking Brooks:
Moral realists, including Catholic ones, should be able to worship and emulate a God of perfect love and still appreciate systems, like democracy and capitalism, that harness self-interest. But Francis doesn’t seem to have practical strategies for a fallen world. He neglects the obvious truth that the qualities that do harm can often, when carefully directed, do enormous good. Within marriage, lust can lead to childbearing. Within a regulated market, greed can lead to entrepreneurship and economic innovation. Within a constitution, the desire for fame can lead to political greatness.
As I have said before...
...[E]ventually even very high-powered, very highly-paid and very public political con men like Mr. David Brooks of the New York Times start to run out of road.  After enough years have passed, a career's worth of public bullshit and bad faith start to roll downhill faster than he can outrun them. And then, no matter how many of his cronies lock arms to protect him and the scam he's running, his past begins to nip at his heels.

Like the ghost of Jacob Marley, over the course of his professional life, Mr. Brooks has forged a vast and heavy chain of absurd claims, asinine pronouncements, outright lies and venomous slanders. He made it link by link and yard by yard. He gartered it on of his own free will and by his own free will he wore it!

And now Mr. Brooks would very much like for this ponderous and inconvenient chain which clanks along behind him to magically disappear (at no personal or professional cost to himself of course.)

Straight-up denial (I never said those things!) has worked for awhile, because there is not one living soul above Mr. Brooks who is interested in lowering the boom on him, and his aforementioned cronies have grown so dependent on the Both Siderist Big Lie he has pioneered that they dare not raise their voices even when the lies get embarrassingly ridiculous .

But flat denial is not a sustainable proposition over the long term, especially since that long and terrible chain is welded to together with names and dates and facts and figures and clearly enunciated positions and predictions.  It is not merely a boo-boo or two or a misstep or two from which Mr. Brooks is trying to separate himself: he is seeking to annul thirty years of well-documented facts.

He is filing for divorce from his own past, and factual reality does not grant such requests.

And so, like Henry VIII, Mr. Brooks has had to invent a brand new church which would grant his divorce.  A church from which history and causality have been excommunicated in favor of cheerful fairy tales...
I wasn't kidding.

6 comments:

Unknown said...

"...qualities that do harm can often, when carefully directed, do enormous good. Within marriage, lust can lead to childbearing."

Yes, David, and slavery can lead to spirituals.

toussaint said...

from a comment in Salon: Brooks is Jewish, although non-observant. However, he consistently displays what we Jews call a "goyische kopf" --- an ethnic slur meaning "Gentile's brain". I don't like to use that phrase, since it is not a little racist, but in Brooks' case, I am afraid it fits all too well. He invariably manages to find very clever ways to completely miss the point, all the while posing as a some sort of "philosopher" above it all.

Anonymous said...

Religion is what the religious do. And in the US all forms of Christianity are filled with capitalist values, just life theory, market as the enforcer of morality, free market ethos, and other such nonsense. Furthermore, there's a lot of people who see the old extraction industries as a moral imperative, because they employ god fearing old fashioned folk in red states. Sure, there is a religious left... but that's like saying there are liberal Republicans. To few to make a difference on any issue.

Brooks is just repeating boilerplate American Christianity since it merged with American economic conservatism over social issues. This goes back to Paul Ryan bitching that the pope sucks at capitalism because he only saw Argentinian capitalism and not glorious American free market capitalism! With a side dose of "our shit isn't the problem, it's those dirty river poisoning foreigners in their third world shit holes"

Which is all to say that in this case, I don't think Brooks is inventing shit or trying to write over history. I think he genuinely buys American Christianity, at least in the smug upper class secularist way (sans the fantastical bullshit, but as a solid set of values to keep the system going). Because if you never ever have to suffer or see the results of your ideas first hand, it's pretty damn easy not to realize you're full of shit.

Kevin Holsinger said...

Good morning, Mr. Glass.

"Within a regulated market, greed can lead to entrepreneurship and economic innovation."

---David Brooks

"The point is, ladies and gentleman, that greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right, greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms; greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge has marked the upward surge of mankind. And greed, you mark my words, will not only save Teldar Paper, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA. Thank you very much."

---Gordon Gecko

Enjoy your day.

---Kevin Holsinger

Kevin Holsinger said...

"Gekko," not "Gecko." Crap. And I was on a roll, too.

Ivory Bill Woodpecker said...

A question for those of my fellow Christians (granted, I'm rather heretical) who believe in the "just world" myth:

If this world is just, why did it crucify the Savior?