In which the pond takes a little break ...

 

It was on Sunday, July 20, 2008 that the pond, deep in winter cold - well, as cold as Sydney could muster, with the data suggesting the day peaked at 64 degrees Farenheit and at its lowest it was a mere 48 degrees Farenheit at Sydney airport weather station …

Hang on, hang on, was it so long ago that temperatures were in Farenheit? 

Must be some silly US site …

Never mind, where was the pond? 

That's right, at precisely 10.11 am on the 20th July 2008, the pond broke a lifetime habit of silence, and took up blogging with a post titled Duffy and the Evangelicals.

Since then much has changed. Blogging was once a thing - even the Murdochians had them, and gave them away for free. Everybody had a blog, and everybody wasn't afraid to use it.

Long gone of course, swallowed up by Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Rupert Murdoch's MySpace, Truth Social. 

Sorry, just kidding.

The Duffster has also done a MySpace, but no doubt has gone on to lead a useful life.

Anyway, once having swallowed the gnat known as Michael Duffy, the pond moved on to the Murdochian tabloids, before finally retreating to the lizard Oz, and a deep compulsive interest in herpetology and the reptiles gathered in the 'leet inner city suburb of Surry Hills, with the best baristas in the world just across the road to slake the thirst of 'leet reptiles … and give them a kind of Jonestown boost so that the words would start pumping (except for nattering "Ned", with Valerian root his preferred energy pump).

Give or take breaks, sickness of body, sickness of mind, the pond has been at it ever since, and has decided to take a little mid-winter long service leave.

The pond thought of charging the reptiles a day off for every long year served, but instead has settled on the notion that today will be the pond's last post before returning the weekend after next. 

That's letting the reptiles off lightly … the pond really should suggesting a class action for fucking the pond's mind, ruining the mental health of others, not to mention the fucking the planet … 

The pond will keep a close eye on the reptiles - wouldn't want them breaking loose and doing a gigantic Godzilla or even a Gamera routine - and might even keep up to date with a few cartoons, or the odd post.

Frankly, the thought of leaving Polonius alone to prattle on about the ABC, or to miss the dog botherer amassing an unprecedented amount of precedents terrifies the pond ...

But if the immortal Rowe can take time off, and the infallible Pope likewise, then dammit, the pond must have its rest.

In honour of the occasion - if the pond's math is correct, from today it will be in its fifteenth year - the pond has decided to reprint its very first post.

In those days, the pond didn't do its cut and paste routine, and it actually attempted to argue with the reptiles, when you might just as well attempt to herd cats. 

The pond had to change, if only for the pleasure of the company of cartoonists, the only healthy corrective to the reptile stew that was available, and to acknowledge the existence of tweets, and to serve the reptiles whole, undiluted, in their full digital regalia ...

Back in the old days, which were never golden, the reptiles weren't the only ducks that attracted the attention of the pond.

You might find prattling Polonius alongside Paul "the magic water man" Sheehan, and the Duffster, filling up space in the Eastern Suburbs Herald.

So long ago, so many things have changed, and yet the full to overflowing intertubes tells the pond that in 1849 Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr wrote "plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose"…

And to prove the point, here's the pond's very first post in its entirety … and if you click on the link below, you will see through the magic of science that it still works ...

And so, at 10 am on the 19th July 2008, the Duffster led the pond off the beaten track and into a thicket of briars and thorns from which it has never escaped ….

Michael Duffy is a columnist for The Sydney Morning Herald, and is also offered up on a regular basis as a token alternative to the perceived 'left wing bias' of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

His column on US evangelicals, published in the Herald in the Weekend Edition July 19-20, 2008 is typical of a desire to provide 'counter-clockwise' spin, though for what purpose and ultimate sense of the way the world works frequently remains a mystery.

The heading says it all - 'Strength of US evangelicals is one of the big myths of our time'. To arrive at this position, Duffy recycles the work of Christine Wicker, a Christian, former evangelical, and some time religious reporter for the Dallas Morning News. There seems to be two major payoffs for Duffy in Wicker's work - "The myth of a resurgent and incredibly influential evangelical movement allowed opponents to portray these presidents (Reagan and Bush) as nothing more than the glove puppets of superstition'. This is of course the political left's doing, embracing 'the exaggerated picture fervently' because it fitted their sense that Reagan and Bush had been 'irrational and anti-modern'.

Instead the truth - according to Duffy and Wicker - is that the fastest growing belief category is non-believers 'to which so many on the left belong'. (But why, if you follow Duffy's logic about evangelicals - to which, he claims, social progressives like Jimmy Carter and others belong - to prove that evangelicals are not what they seem, or what the left might conjure up. You might just as well say, if you were in a light hearted, Duffyish mood, that this group of non-believers - 'to which so many on the right belong' with Machiavellian relish, and perhaps throw in a few non believing right wing names to make it sound so much more meaningful and relevant).

Here then is the counter-spin. If you read Duffy right, the converse must be true - Bush and Reagan are not the glove puppets of superstition. Typically Duffy conflates Bush - who is a well known born again - with Reagan, who paid lip service to religion, but left it at that (and left Nancy to believe in all kinds of wild superstitions). But Reagan doesn't save Bush, who has given every sign during his presidency of being a glove puppet, not just to superstition, but to fundamentalists and evangelicals.

Of course it's wildly fashionable to discount evangelicals, now that the Rovian dream of a thousand year empire based on their uneasy support, has begun to fall apart, and we are in the last days of a discredited President's evangelical ministry to the world.

But why go the whole hog and start to revise history to discount evangelicals and their role in the United States? It's not that evangelicals don't have an ongoing capacity to organise and influence. Put it this way - Duffy (and Wicker's) reference to the growing category of non-believers is a blind. The day a publicly out non-believer becomes President of the United States is likely to be the same day an Islamic warrior is sworn in on a cold winter's day in Washington.

Evangelicals - and Christians in general - are an organised and potent force in the United States, whereas it's fair to suggest that non-believers couldn't organise a chook raffle in a speakeasy. The likes of Hitchens and Dawkins are simply too eccentric to constitute a movement, and non believers have nothing like a museum showing humans and dinosaurs roaming the earth together - we simply take it on faith that Raquel Welch wore no clothes when it happened.

When you get down into the depths of Duffy's article - and Wicker's methodology - it gets even more suspect. Wicker gets down to there being only 7 per cent of the American population being evangelicals by conveniently using an exclusionist definition - 'attendance at some sort of prayer group is necessary before a person can be categorised as a fervent conservative of the sort conjured up in the lurid stories of the evangelical dominance of politics'. Well that's handy. By our own hastily conjured up definition, you can't really be a fervent non-believer, of the sort conjured up in the lurid stories by evangelicals of atheists bringing Satan to the fore in politics, unless you happen to be a card carrying member of the Christopher Hitchens drinking support club (membership now open) or perhaps more marginally a geek with a computer who regularly attends Dawkins online.

So where does Duffy get with all this, potentially one of the 'big myths of our time'. Well as usual with Duffy, he doesn't get anywhere near the truth, or interesting ambiguities. But he does manage to generate a touch of fear (can non believers really be growing so fast in such a wonderful week in Sydney when the Papists frolic and dance at the race course instead of the horses and the gamblers) and he does manage to exonerate Bush as a glove puppet and he does make all that Rovian delusion about evangelicals tipping the balance in the last two election campaigns seem like a left wing conspiracy. As a bonus, I guess the tilt of the US Supreme Court to the right under Bush is no more than the kind of tilt you'd apply to a pin ball machine to make the game come out right.

Nowhere does Duffy mention the most obvious point - counting numbers is no sensible indicator of influence. Even seven per cent well organised, especially in an election where voting is optional and the margin might be a few hundred thousand, can be a devastating play. Rove was right to get on side with the evangelicals, and he and his cohorts won two elections pursuing this and like strategies. It makes no sense simply to argue that the evangelicals exaggerated their own importance, and got a lot of publicity and behaved in an entrepreneurial way beyond their real size. Rove certainly thought they were important, but I guess now he's a loser, his views don't count (perhaps one of the biggest myths of our time was that Rove's views had popular support whereas now statistical studies suggest he makes a club with one member).

If this is the best Australia can do - a columnist recycling without insight or understanding - one commentator's work on US religion - then there's little hope for intellectual life in the country. Duffy does counter-spin as a matter of habit, but as usual, his insights are driven by his bete noirs (the hysterical left as opposed to the rational libertarian). It's neurosis as commentary, and slowly we can begin to form a deeper understanding of the Duffy angst. In the meantime, perhaps it's better to read David Brooks in the NY Times and be done with it.

Our rating for Duffy and the evangelicals:

Amount of recycled thoughts: 10

Capacity for spin: 10

Insights into the world, and specifically US politics and the role of religion within it: 2

Insights into Duffy: 7

That was then, and this is now.

Does the pond have the remotest excuse for this exercise in self-referential navel gazing?

Well "plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose"

Right now, when even Catholic Ireland has regained some sanity in the matter of abortion, Xian fundamentalists run rampant in the United States, such that even a ten year old victim of incest or rape might be instructed to carry a pregnancy to term.

First they came for the right of women to control their bodies, and put a Gilead in place. Next they're coming for the gays and gay marriage. Senator Ted is already cruising to the case. 

And these fundies are heavily armed, and crazy to boot, and keen to kill all the atheists, or at least organise a coup, because the natural tendency is to get behind an authoritarian fascist of the mango Mussolini kind. That's what your Franco-lovers do ...

We even had one here who famously said this in a church run by notorious fundamentalist crazy Margaret Court … so funny it was immediately archived to the WM here.

Please allow the pond to complete a virtuous circle and to indulge in a retort to that ancient Duffster piece ... by resorting to Costello's rag and its story of a loon preaching in the bigot's bigot church, and yes, even Satan gets a guernsey, along with much blather about that imaginary friend:

Former prime minister Scott Morrison has urged churchgoers not to trust in governments, warning it would be a mistake to do so based on his experience in the upper echelons of power.

In a sermon to Perth’s Victory Life Centre, the Pentecostal church run by controversial former tennis champion Margaret Court, Morrison encouraged the congregation to put their faith in God rather than the government.

“We trust in Him. We don’t trust in governments. We don’t trust in United Nations, thank goodness,” Morrison said in the Sunday sermon.

“We don’t trust in all of these things, fine as they might be and as important as the role that they play. Believe me, I’ve worked in it, and they are important.

“But as someone who’s been in it, if you are putting your faith in those things, like I put my faith in the Lord, you are making a mistake. Firstly, they are fallible. I’m so glad we have a bigger hope.”

Morrison attended the service at the invitation of Court to mark the church’s 27th birthday. Also in attendance were former federal Liberal MP Vincent Connelly and former WA premier Richard Court, whose older brother is married to Margaret Court.

In the 50-minute address to the congregation, the member for Cook touched on the Coalition’s election defeat, telling the crowd he believed God had a plan for him.

“Do you believe that if you lose an election that God still loves you and has a plan for you?” I do. Because I still believe in miracles,” he said to applause from churchgoers.

For the majority of the sermon, he talked about anxiety, which he defined as everyday worries that the “oil of God” could assuage.

“All of this anxiousness, all of this anxiety ... all of this feeling about the bills that are pouring in, all of this feeling about the anxiety, and then the oil of God, the ointment of God, comes on this situation and releases you, if you will have it, and receive His gift,” he said.

Succumbing to anxiety was “Satan’s plan”, he said.

“We cannot allow these anxieties to deny us that. That’s not His plan. That’s Satan’s plan.”

He drew a distinction between anxiety and mental illness, saying the latter had “very real causal factors”, such as biological issues, which required professional clinical treatment.

In a joking reference to the 10 Plagues of Egypt in the Old Testament, Morrison told an anecdote about attending a meeting with former treasurer Josh Frydenberg, who is Jewish, after the nation had grappled with fires, floods, a mice plague and the ongoing pandemic.

“One day, it was the National Security Committee meeting of cabinet [with] Josh Frydenberg, [my] great friend. I turned to him, and I said: ‘Josh, I think it’s time we let your people go’,” Morrison said.

In the book of Exodus, the God of Israel inflicts plagues on Egypt to convince the pharaoh to set the Hebrews free from slavery.

At the end of Morrison’s address, Court took to the stage, telling the congregation: “The Lord certainly has a life for you after politics.”

Half a dozen Liberal MPs, including acting Opposition Leader Sussan Ley, declined to comment.

Of course they declined to comment. 

What can you say when the true extent of the madness is out there in the public domain, as the rough beast slouches off to wait for the rapture, no doubt coming by this Xmas?

Here's a prize loon, holding forth in the church of the bigot's bigot, blathering on about Satan, and yet only a few months out of power ...

What would the Duffster say now, with all that has happened in recent years? 

Could he still scribble with a straight face these remarkably silly words? Could he look at the current US Catholic Supreme Court and scribble ...

The other side of the coin is that the political left, influential in the media, embraced the exaggerated picture fervently because it seemed to fit in with their sense that presidents such as Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush have been irrational and anti-modern. The myth of a resurgent and incredibly influential evangelical movement allowed opponents to portray these presidents as nothing more than the glove puppets of superstition.

Well, speaking of the glove puppets of reptile stupidity, the pond has had a change of heart, and would like to vary a couple of its original ratings for the Duffster, a routine the pond quickly dropped, but which comes in handy right now, in these troubled, fucked up fundamentalist times …

Insights into the world, and specifically US politics and the role of religion within it: 0

Insights into Australian fundamentalism: 0

Insights into minds of lazy reptiles: 10.  No, wait, crank that up to 11 ...

So it goes. The pond will return Saturday week, or whenever bored and in need of a reptile fix, and in the meantime, here's a cartoon or two to keep you company …

Yes, the pond might miss out on a few unprecedented precedents ...

Yes, the pond might miss out on the latest hearing, but the reptiles usually ignore them, so what's the diff?...

And yes there will be some incidental comedy that the pond will miss ...

But dammit,  "plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose", and there will always be fresh reptile comedies when the pond returns ...