Standing up to the Bullies in Ottawa
Can there be any doubt that we are at a critical tipping point?
Divide and Rule strategies work really well. Canadians have been split along so many different axes that we’ve become not just polarized, but atomized. The obvious purpose of increasing polarization is to ensure people are divided so deeply over issues like abortion or vaccine mandates we can’t join forces to reclaim political power that was stolen from us by corporations decades ago. No matter what the most crucial issue is for you – climate change, abortion rights, workers’ rights – it cannot be solved by voting unless and until voters regain some of the democratic power they have lost, and that will require solidarity on the single issue we have to solve first: representation.
There was a brief, shining moment in the late 60’s when voters, workers and consumers were making progress and the average North American enjoyed the best standard of living in the world, but when restrictions like environmental protections ate into profits the corporations were just not having it. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce developed a very successful plan to take power away from voters, which was described in the infamous Powell memo. This led to the rise of neoliberalism in the U.S., Canada and beyond, accompanied by a massive, ongoing transfer of wealth from the working class to the obscenely rich.
Today’s greedy billionaires meet at Davos and speak quite openly about their global plans for The Great Reset, digital currencies and control of the narrative, because they know there is currently nothing we can do to stop them. We cannot hope to solve this with incremental improvements. If we delay much longer it will be too late to prevent the catastrophic erosion of what rights we have left.
If Canadians want real representation, instead of just the illusion of choice, we need to demand more than just resignations of the worst politicians or we’ll just be playing Whack-a-Mole forever. We need an independent Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform that cannot be manipulated or derailed by any political party. After we finally get rid of first-past-the-post elections, we’ll be able to end other corrupt practices like the “party discipline” that keeps the donor class in control of the agenda.
No peaceful revolution has ever failed if 3.5% of the population participated. The simple math of a few million people standing up for their rights across the nation defeats the state monopoly on violence because there is a limit to how many peaceful protesters Trudeau can unjustly jail. If we want our children and their children to experience real democracy we will have to stand up to the bullies in Ottawa now and demand more than just an end to unethical vaccine mandates.
Happy Canada Day.
No Vote for You!
I’ve been indoctrinated since birth to believe I live in a democracy but I no longer believe this big lie. Rich people believe in democracy and this is rational because they generally get what they vote for. For the rest of us, the process of electoral politics looks something like this:
- Vote for a candidate who makes promises to rich and poor voters.
- Candidate keeps promises made to the rich and breaks promises to the poor.
- When the poor are fed up, they kick said politician to the curb in an election, which may be years down the road, and vote for a different candidate who makes promises to rich and poor voters.
- Lather, rinse, repeat.
Of course I am generalizing and exaggerating. Sometimes policies are implemented that help the poor, but these can be rolled back too, which means progress is slow and incremental, while corruption gallops merrily along. Not all politicians are corrupt, but those who are do a lot of damage.
When rich people are the only voters who influence public policy the form of government is called plutocracy, not democracy. The ruling class loves high voter turnout because it lends legitimacy to leaders who really only have the illusion of the consent of the governed. It is very important for them to maintain the illusion for two reasons.
- Voters won’t demand that democracy be restored or rebuilt if they don’t realize it effectively ended decades ago.
- As long as the illusion of democracy is maintained, the ruling class can insist “voters” are responsible for policies that destroy lives and livelihoods. The illusion of “democracy” allows plutocrats to blame their victims.
Every vote cast helps maintain the illusion of democracy. This is why I will not vote for any candidate until we make democracy real again. I’m not suggesting that others should follow my lead if they live in a swing riding and feel they must vote strategically, which should not need to be a thing, but those of us who live in ridings where the outcome is a foregone conclusion should feel confident in declining their ballot if they so choose.
A large number of declined ballots is a signal that the government lacks legitimacy. I don’t recommend just staying home and refusing to participate, however, because silence is consent.
How to decline your ballot according to Elections Ontario:
“Tell the election official that you are declining your right to vote when they hand you a ballot. This is a public process done out loud.
“The election official will mark “declined” on the back of the ballot. Your ballot will not be placed in the ballot box but in an envelope for declined ballots.”
I received these additional instructions from Elections Ontario via email: “To decline your vote by mail ballot with candidate names, write decline on the back of the ballot. Then follow the instructions provided in the voting kit to return the ballot.”
Philosophy Tube’s Worst Video Ever
I admit I haven’t seen every video they’ve produced, but I nominate the recent Vaccines and Freedom take as the worst video Philosophy Tube has ever produced. Despite listening carefully to what Abigail said, I will remain the in the control group of the massive experiment that is covid vaccine research.
The video is based on “research” conducted by the Royal Institution which gives the game away in this section addressing reasons people don’t get vaccinated.
The researchers go out of their way to focus attention on unknown long term side effects while completely ignoring the well-known adverse events that have been maiming and killing people since the vaccine rollout began.
You cannot claim to be addressing the philosophy around vaccines vs freedom without even mentioning the Trolley Problem, or its variant, the Fat Man pushed off a bridge. We are being encouraged to push healthy children onto the tracks, allegedly to “save granny,” without regard for the huge variation in risk/benefit ratios for the young vs the old.
We can play thought experiments on the issue of forced or coerced vaccination all the day long, but where the rubber meets the road is in the courtroom. A judge in Ontario recently delivered a very thoughtful decision in which he stopped a father from vaccinating his children against their will. The documents which approved the vaccine for the 5-11 cohort in Canada stopped short of recommending the vaccine for healthy children. They have since modified that, but at least one vaccine death of a minor was covered up in a clear attempt to avoid contributing to vaccine “hesitancy.”
Another failure in this video was the failure to discuss the issue of informed consent for medical procedures. The right to bodily integrity is absolute. Nobody should be allowed to inject anything into your body without your permission. The thing about informed consent that the mainstream propagandists don’t want us to talk about is that it MUST be voluntary. If any form of coercion is used, including any threat of harm like job loss, informed consent has not been obtained, and this renders any medical procedure thus performed to be highly unethical.
Some of the people who were forced to get the vaccine to keep their jobs suffered serious harm as a result of that vaccine. Who should be held liable for that harm? Many of these workers cannot afford to sue employers or medical practitioners for the damage done. They have been pushed under the trolley and will never be made whole again. Mandates for covid vaccines in particular are highly unethical because these vaccines can kill.
The very real, if minuscule, risk of death by vaccine cannot be ignored. Is it “safe” to play Russian Roulette? No, it is not, and it does not matter on a philosophical level whether the magazine holds six rounds or six million. You can choose to gamble with your own life, but NOBODY can force you to play that game without your voluntary informed consent. Let’s not even get into whether those who have already been vaccinated were properly informed of the potential risks.
For many people the risk of serious harm or death from Covid justifies the decision to be vaccinated, but the risk/benefit ratio for each individual depends on multiple intersecting factors including age, co-morbidities and level of exposure to the virus. Apart from the balancing of individual freedom with “the greater good” (which is always a huge red flag covering all manner of evils) a blanket policy to vaccinate everyone will not provide the benefits claimed. Whether a particular unvaccinated person can articulate a “good” reason to decline the vaccine is irrelevant because very good reasons do exist, even though the media refuses to discuss them. It was no accident that the most compelling reasons for vaccine hesitancy were ignored by Philosophy Tube in their ridiculous video & the “research” commissioned by the Royal Institution was nothing but a blatant straw-man logical fallacy.
An open letter to my elected representatives
Canadian truckers are right. It is long past time to end vaccine mandates because they violate the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, specifically section seven which guarantees “security of the person.” Using the threat of job loss to coerce a person to get a medical procedure they do not want is illegal and deeply unethical. This is why vaccine mandates must be abandoned immediately as a public health strategy. If you are unwilling to recognize and support the Charter rights of Canadians, you should resign immediately.
https://justice.gc.ca/eng/csj-sjc/rfc-dlc/ccrf-ccdl/check/art7.html
Understanding The Matrix
What I find most compelling in the Matrix films is the deep connection between the fiction and the world we inhabit. Filmmaker Lana Wachowski has indicated the red pill represented the medication used in the process of gender transition, which is one possible interpretation. Great art often contains several layers of meaning, but alternative perspectives are not all created equal. Trying to hijack these films to use as right-wing propaganda is abhorrent, but let’s not feed oxygen to that dumpster fire. The Matrix could also be identified with the forces of capitalism but people are oppressed in other economic systems too.
When I began, many years ago, to try to dig to the foundations of what is wrong with the world, I learned about things like corruption, regulatory capture and Manufacturing Consent. Then I read a mind-blowing 2014 study by Gilens & Page which demonstrated that the only demographic group in the U.S. who get the policies they vote for are the wealthy. The U.S. is not a republic – not a “representative democracy” – in anything but name. The U.S. is an oligarchy. The few who rule are very rich, but if a majority of rich people tried to steer the country to the left to avoid impending pitchforks, they would likely fail.
The Matrix is real and it is constructed of lies.
The lies begin in early childhood. The tooth fairy myth conditions children to go along with a false narrative, if they know what’s good for them, or the money won’t appear under the pillow. Many adult Christians still pray to God like he’s Santa Claus on steroids.
The really Big Lie foundational to so many others is that average people have the collective power to change the world by voting. There was a brief shining moment between the Summer of Love and the infamous Powell Memo when it seemed possible, and millions clung to that shimmering narrative because it felt good, but it was just a mirage in the desert, an illusion forever beyond our reach. Those who are well off find it easy to believe that “representative democracy” is real because they generally get what they vote for, but they are blind to the hard fact that 90% of us do not.
There are many binary categories used to divide and rule us. Increasing polarization only serves the machines and should be guarded against. There are many Big Lies that need to be recognized as such and transformed into new truths:
“Freedom”
“Democracy”
“The American Dream”
“Work hard and you’ll get ahead”
“If you don’t vote, you can’t complain”
In our world, every vote you cast supports the illusion. Every vote supports The Matrix of Lies. Every vote represents more power and wealth extracted by a handful of greedy multi-billionaires to be used against everyone outside their circle. If you find this statement very uncomfortable, you know what cognitive dissonance feels like. We desperately want this to not be true. I now recognize this discomfort as a weapon wielded against us. Our cognitive dissonance keeps us stuck in The Matrix. Fear of pain keeps us stuck; and fear of the chaos we’ve been told will certainly emerge if we fail to comply.
Many of us would like to nuke the entire political & socioeconomic system and some even think it necessary, but we could rise above The Matrix instead. If you wait until the corporate media gives you permission to do so, you will be forever at the mercy of sentient beings who really don’t care if their insatiable greed and lust for power hurts or kills you and the people you love. Many of us, faced with the dawning of this painful truth, just take the blue pill and I cannot fault them for it. None of us want to acknowledge that we are all unwitting agents of The Matrix or that our compliance supports it and empowers it.
I don’t know how all this will end. I’m not going to fly off and save the world, but I can take one step at a time and try to move in the direction of truth. I like to think this is what happens after the movie ends.
Edit: I wrote this before I learned about #MassFormation, which is perhaps a more accurate description for what is happening than #CognitiveDissonance.
The Big Lie Part 4: Cancel Plutocracy
One of the malevolent subsidiaries of the Big Lie is that “there’s nothing we can do about it anyway.” It is true that you can’t just ‘vote’ your way out of an oligarchy, but a variety of alternative tactics will be required to rebuild democracy. Some may march in the street with symbolic pitchforks and be mauled by militarized police, but that spectacle may not be necessary just yet. There are still ways to get the job done without risking tear gas & rubber bullets. Hope is not dead, but this window of opportunity is shrinking fast.
There are several grassroots initiatives undermining the oligarchy/plutocracy and the smartest ones frame our common enemy as “corruption” instead of “capitalism” or “billionaires” because neither the liberals nor conservatives can win this battle without help and trying to restore democratic power only for “my side” is obviously a non-starter. The only way to restore power to all the people from whom it was stolen is to strive for unity in a non-partisan anti-corruption movement.
Expect the plutocrats to fight this every step of the way. Edward Snowden and the subsequent Cambridge Analytica scandal revealed the underhanded information warfare tactics already used successfully to divide & rule us. The billionaires’ lackeys will drive wedges into any anti-corruption movement along as many fault lines as possible. Divide & rule has always been the plutocracy’s strongest defence and it is clear how they have weaponized identity politics to this end.
Those of us who have the patience and tact to use “mental ju-jitsu” skills to de-escalate polarized conversations might train others how to do it. We need to get in touch with the fundamental humanity of people who are literally being framed as our enemies. Setting up our fellow citizens to be attacked by others is criminal and the deep state and/or private contractors engaged in psychological and information warfare ought to be held accountable.
Although corruption is often framed as a monster, huge beyond our reach, there are many ways to hack tentacles off this beast. Some suggest overturning Citizens United would require a constitutional convention, but the Koch network have clear intentions to hijack such an event for their own benefit. Grassroots groups all over the country have already used initiatives in state & local races to enact anti-corruption laws. When enough states clean up their own backyards, we’ll hit a tipping point and the American Anti-Corruption Act can be implemented at the federal level.
Once that happens, parties and candidates not beholden to the wealthy will be easier to elect and it when they reach a critical mass in both houses, it will be possible to mend shredded infrastructure and the social safety net. Eventually, deeper forms of corruption can be addressed, like regulatory capture. It’s time for the trust-busting that finally cut the robber barons down to size to make a comeback. Perhaps one day robust independent oversight of the alphabet agencies can be developed to protect civil and privacy rights and bring the military-industrial-complex to heel.
Opinions differ on which of the many crises we face is the worst one but logic keeps leading back to a singular, fundamental truth. Undermining the plutocracy must come first – chronologically – because voters can’t solve any other problems until they have the power to do so. The Big Lie of “democracy” deliberately blinds voters to the fundamental problem that needs to be solved before all others, so let’s hold the corporate media accountable for malpractice and get to work on solving the core problem.
This post is part of a 4-part series.
The Big Lie Part 1: “Democracy” (The U.S. is not a republic)
Part 2: Duopoly = Oligarchy = Plutocracy (How they get away with it)
Part 3: Plutocrats = Looters (Why we need to fix this)
Part 4: Cancel Plutocracy (How to solve the problem)
The Big Lie Part 3: Plutocrats = Looters
The first two essays in this series laid out the Big Lie of “U.S. democracy” and why it is so hard for the truth about oligarchy/plutocracy to get any traction in the media.
Corporate plutocracy in the U.S.. deprives people of their democratic power, but it does not exist to seek power alone. Incomprehensible volumes of wealth and income have been sucked from the pockets of the poor and working class by the ultra-rich, and this cash vacuum has been turbocharged by the pandemic response.
About a month before the Gilens & Page study was published, billionaire venture capitalist Nick Hanauer gave a TEDtalk in which he warned his peers:
“I have a message for my fellow plutocrats and zillionaires and for anyone who lives in a gated bubble world: Wake up. Wake up. It cannot last. Because if we do not do something to fix the glaring economic inequities in our society, the pitchforks will come for us, for no free and open society can long sustain this kind of rising economic inequality. It has never happened. There are no examples. You show me a highly unequal society, and I will show you a police state or an uprising. The pitchforks will come for us if we do not address this. It’s not a matter of if, it’s when.”
The apparent response of the ruling class has been something akin to “Alrighty then, a police state it is!” Whether the uprising Hanauer warned of can be avoided or merely delayed remains to be seen. Anyone who has read history ought to know it’s a bad idea to create a massive demographic of angry people who have literally nothing to lose. The corporate Democrats seem as oblivious as the French aristocracy before their heads began to roll.
One might expect the plutocrats to throw us a bone like Medicare for all out of consideration for their own self interest, if not the suffering poor, but despite the massive financial hardship caused by the pandemic, very little is being done to alleviate the acute suffering of tens of millions of people. With massive ongoing protests in many cities and calls for a General Strike, this callous disregard for human suffering may seem remarkably shortsighted, but the oligarchs see things from a higher perch than the rest of us.
The plutocracy stays on top by the effective use of Divide & Rule tactics. They hide in the shadows while encouraging voters on the left and right to see one another as enemies. They play a Polarization Game of their own design in which they are the only possible victors. None of us can “win” such a game by taking sides. On the contrary the only way the rest of us can beat the plutocrats at their own game is to refuse to be played. We win when we recognize those who vote differently as people and acknowledge our shared humanity.
Instead of getting stoked against the enemies we’re told it’s OK to hate, we all need to burst our Orwellian filter bubbles and develop our awareness of the way propaganda is being used to dehumanize us all. We need to recognize that the horrors we’ve been told will be visited upon us if ‘the other side’ wins are falsehoods that pale in comparison to what dystopian nightmares our lives may become if the current corporate technocracy is not brought under human and humane, democratic control, and soon.
Continued in Part 4
This post is part of a 4-part series.
The Big Lie Part 1: “Democracy” (The U.S. is not a republic)
Part 2: Duopoly = Oligarchy = Plutocracy (How they get away with it)
Part 3: Plutocrats = Looters (Why we need to fix this)
Part 4: Cancel Plutocracy (How to solve the problem)
The Big Lie Part 2: Duopoly = Oligarchy = Plutocracy
Oligarchy means rule by the few, but Plutocracy, which means rule by the wealthy, may be a more accurate term to describe U.S. governance. However, plutocracy and oligarchy can be used interchangeably not just because the few who rule also happen to be rich, but because of the other feature both systems have in common: the average citizen has no say in public policy, so the ruling class does not have the consent of the governed.
The Big Lie that the U.S. is a “democracy” has been stubbornly persistent for a number of reasons, including cultural saturation and cognitive dissonance, but there’s another factor that may contribute to maintaining the illusion of choice. The Gilens & Page study (2014) that exposed the U.S. Oligarchy notes that the probability of a law passing is about 30% no matter what percentage of average voters approve of it. This figure may have a unique significance with respect the way our brains are wired. Adolescent rats love to wrestle, and Panksepp discovered that if one rat is at least 10% bigger than another, it will trounce the smaller rat every time. However, if the big rat doesn’t let the little rat win 30% of the time, the little rat won’t play. If the little rat doesn’t play, the big rat can’t have fun.
Of course, correlation is not causation, but perhaps this is the reason the average voter’s influence on public policy flatlines at 30% rather than 25%, or ten. Perhaps the big rats – the oligarchs – let voters win 30% of the time so we’ll continue to cling to the illusion of democracy, even though the little rats only ever win when the big rats let them. Perhaps the only reason voters get even 30% of what they want is to prevent them from building guillotines.
It is also instructive to consider the specific policies which have caused the most severe economic harm to the poor and working class, like NAFTA. In Canada, another pseudo-democracy, nobody has replicated Gilens & Page yet and I don’t think any political science student who wants to do so should expect encouragement from the academic establishment because I am certain the same results would emerge.
A typical Canadian election involves turfing out a party who failed to deliver on their promises. In Canada’s 1988 single-issue federal election, a majority of the electorate voted for parties that promised to reject the North American Free Trade Agreement, but their jobs were sent to Mexico anyway and did not return even after the “false majority” government responsible was kicked to the curb in the next election. Canada’s new Finance Minister, Chrystia Freeland called out the Plutocrats in 2013, and was offered a seat at their table for her trouble, so now she’s too busy to say anything more on the topic.
Although the victory of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez could be trotted out as rare example of the people actually getting who, if not what, they voted for, there is no certainty voters will ever see her platform come to fruition because the vast majority of both houses is beholden to the oligarchy. AOC was never expected to win her primary against an establishment incumbent, and may not have succeeded if the Democratic Party had recognized the threat she posed to their power before it was too late.
In Democratic primaries, candidates can legally be selected in ‘smoke-filled rooms‘ rather than elected. The judge who dismissed the DNC cheating lawsuit in 2017 said that while it was clear the DNC rigged the primary to deprive Bernie Sanders of the nomination, cheating his supporters out of the millions of dollars they had donated wasn’t illegal. Many of the same signs of cheating discovered in the 2016 Democratic primaries have been repeated in the current race, not that Republicans are above similar shady tactics.
There is abundant evidence, for those who trouble themselves to seek it out, that Noam Chomsky’s assessment of the duopoly was correct:
“In the US, there is basically one party – the Business Party. It has two factions, called Democrats and Republicans, which are somewhat different but carry out variations on the same policies. By and large, I am opposed to those policies, as is most of the population.”
George Carlin illuminated this as well, and we laughed, but now when we read his rants it’s clear he was more than just a comedian and his brilliant work pointed to a hard truth. Instead of trotting out a Carlin quote here, I’ll give the last word to the late Bill Hicks:
I’ll show you politics in America, here it is:
“I think the puppet on the right shares my beliefs”
“I think the puppet on the left is more to my liking”
“Hey, wait a minute, there’s one guy holding both puppets.”
Continued in Part 3
This post is part of a 4-part series.
The Big Lie Part 1: “Democracy” (The U.S. is not a republic)
Part 2: Duopoly = Oligarchy = Plutocracy (How they get away with it)
Part 3: Plutocrats = Looters (Why we need to fix this)
Part 4: Cancel Plutocracy (How to solve the problem)
The Big Lie Part 1: “Democracy”
It’s time to stop calling the U.S. a democracy not only because there is insufficient evidence for it but also because failure to challenge the Big Lie perpetuates the core problem it seeks to obscure. There is abundant evidence the U.S. is an oligarchy or, perhaps more accurately, a plutocracy.
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.” — Joseph Goebbels
School teachers who told us about Hitler also taught us that the U.S.A. was a “democracy” and perhaps in 1975 it was still true, but any reporter who continues to refer to the U.S. as a democracy today, without qualifying the term, is committing journalistic malpractice. Sadly, the Big Lie is buried among so many others it tends to go unnoticed.
According to the Economist Intelligence Unit democracy index 2020, the U.S. is a “flawed democracy” but it would be more accurate to call it a “pseudo-democracy” or a “former democracy” particularly at the federal level, because there are serious weaknesses in the way this index is measured. The methodology is not transparent, relies largely on “experts’ assessments” and the survey used ignores the crucial question of whether the average voters’ preferences are actually reflected in public policy.
Our own experience tells us that no matter what the majority of us vote for, what we invariably get is what the economic elite want or are willing to allow. In 2014 an academic paper by Gilens & Page confirmed what the average voter already suspected, based on data from 1981 to 2002. In a nutshell:
“When the preferences of economic elites and the stands of organized interest groups are controlled for, the preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy.”
I don’t have concrete evidence upon which to draw conclusions about the health of democracy prior to 1981, but we do know Reagan’s election marked neoliberalism’s shift into high gear. The efforts of the Chamber of Commerce, outlined in the infamous Powell Memo, culminated in what Chris Hedges called a corporate coup d’état turning a once-proud Republic into a covert plutocracy.
Naturally, the corporate media propagates the Big Lie that the U.S. is a democracy or constitutional republic for self-serving reasons. Those who do speak the truth have gone unheeded, although this now appears to be shifting as the consequences of plutocracy become harder to hide. The process of Manufacturing Consent is breaking down because the mainstream media is losing it’s grip on the public mind and social media censorship hasn’t replaced it… yet.
Most mainstream media outlets ignored ‘the Princeton study‘ and its disturbing conclusions. MSNBC did a segment on the findings, and another outlet attacked it, but few even mentioned it before the story disappeared from public view. Critics of Gilens & Page argued over the extent to which the wishes of voters aligned with those of the economic elite without taking into account the extent to which public opinion is shaped by the media. One criticism of the study – I kid you not – is that governance is so darned complicated that we’re better off leaving it to the “experts.” Events since 1980 make it clear we are not ruled by benign philosopher kings, but looters making off with everything that isn’t nailed down.
Setting the truth before the public, though, is not sufficient for them to accept it. Because we took in the Big Lie at an early age, it is harder to dislodge than more recently acquired knowledge. The psychological phenomenon of “cognitive dissonance” makes it very difficult to convince people that U.S. Democracy is, in fact, a lie. Like a red pill covered in barbed spikes, it does not go down easily, not even for me.
The widely held misconception that we can make the world a better place by “voting” blinds voters to the reality that other methods will be needed to overturn oligarchy. If we hope to rebuild representative democracy we must first admit that we’ve lost it. We all need to open our eyes now, even if it hurts, and insist on honesty about oligarchy/plutocracy while there is still hope to overturn it.
Note: Prior to 2020/08/21, this piece was much longer, but it has now been split it into a 4-part series.
The Big Lie Part 1: “Democracy” (The U.S. is not a republic)
Part 2: Duopoly = Oligarchy = Plutocracy (How they get away with it)
Part 3: Plutocrats = Looters (Why we need to fix this)
Part 4: Cancel Plutocracy (How to solve the problem)
An Open Letter to Bishop Charles “HELLIS THAT HE’S TOUCHING?!”
Dear Bishop Ellis,
I was both angered and disgusted by your reprehensible behavior towards Ariana Grande at Aretha Franklin’s funeral. You grabbed her – clearly against her will – and held her closer when she tried to withdraw from your grip. You verbally humiliated her not only by telling a joke that was both racist and sexist, but also by deliberately fondling her breast in full view of millions of people.
Comparing a woman to a menu item at Taco Bell is insulting on multiple levels.
- It implies you assumed she was Mexican. She isn’t – not that there is anything wrong with that, but you should know during the current administration it isn’t a good time to be a Mexican American.
- Taco bell is “cheap” food, which implies a lack of dignity.
- “Fast” is another way of saying a woman is promiscuous.
- “Food” is a commodity that men consume, which effectively treats her like an object, and also has disturbing sexual connotations
- by saying you didn’t recognize her name, you indicate that she has no professional reputation that you are aware of, implying that she’s essentially a nobody.
Your words were insulting and you physically restrained her while you delivered them. You then added to her humiliation; putting her on the spot by calling her an ‘icon’ at an event meant to honor the iconic Aretha Franklin, thus you also managed to insult the deceased. You claimed to give her “respect” while mauling her and digging your fingers so deep into her breast she may have bruises. The irony is absolutely appalling.
Your actions were extremely disrespectful and harmful not just to Ms. Grande, but also to:
- The late Aretha Franklin, the icon from whom you should have learned (and to whom you should have shown) RESPECT.
- Aretha Franklin’s family and other mourners, by acting inappropriately at a funeral in a way that will tarnish memories of the day.
- The congregation of your church, upon whom you have brought dishonor, scandal and conflict. Imagine feeling stunned and embarrassed by what happened yet thinking loyalty is required despite this abominable behavior.
- Your community, for failing to be a decent role model and for making them wonder how many other women have suffered the same kind of treatment from you, and how you behave when nobody is watching.
- Your wife, for your straying eyes and wandering hands.
- Every misguided man who tries to pull the same stunt on an unsuspecting woman because he saw how easily you got away with it.
- Every woman who was reminded of the painful shame and humiliation she endured when subjected to the exact same kind of abuse, which is to say almost every one of the millions of women who watch that video.
- Every good man who has grown weary of being treated as a potential threat by many of the women who have been victimized by sexual predators.
Your physical and sexual aggression was totally inappropriate in any context and was not just immoral, but also illegal. In the state of Michigan, “criminal sexual conduct in the 4th degree” is punishable by imprisonment for not more than 2 years or a fine of not more than $500.00, or both. You can and perhaps should be arrested and charged by the Detroit Police. You claim that what you did was unintentional, but men all over the world know what it means to “cop a feel” and every adult woman knows how it feels to be touched inappropriately by someone who, if confronted, pretends it was an ‘accident.’
When you were confronted about your behavior, this is what you said:
‘It would never be my intention to touch any woman’s breast. I was, I don’t know I guess I put my arm around her. Maybe I crossed the border, maybe I was too friendly or familiar but again, I apologize.’
No, you did not apologize. You tried to make excuses for inexcusable behavior. “I don’t know,” “I guess,” and “Maybe” are weasel words that try to deflect blame. It does not matter whether you were fully cognizant of the harm you were inflicting in the moment. It does not matter if your apparent lust was subconscious or not. Yours were not actions that any true servant of the Lord would inflict on a woman. A sincere apology would have admitted that you touched her breast and that it caused harm and humiliation.
‘If somebody took it the wrong way, or if they were offended by it, the easiest thing and the right thing for me to do, as a Christian, as a man of God is to apologize, and I sincerely apologize to Ariana again if I offended her in any kind of way.’
When you qualify your remarks with “IF” you are denying the offense instead of taking responsibility for your actions. You used that qualifying “IF” three times in one sentence. That is not an apology.
‘I certainly want to apologize to Ariana and to her fans and to her family and to her entire community if what I said was taken the wrong way. Listen, maybe it’s just a joke that went bad…Listen, it’s not about whether I meant it or didn’t mean it, or whether somebody took it the wrong way, I’m the one that said it and if it was taken to be an offensive statement, I apologize. That’s the easiest thing for me to do, the right thing for me to do and I certainly hope that she will forgive me.’
There’s that “IF” again, with a “MAYBE” thrown in for good measure. Deflecting blame away from yourself by qualifying your words in this way is certainly the easiest thing to do, but it is clearly not the right thing to do. In the Catholic sacrament of reconciliation, absolution doesn’t happen until after confession. If you hope to be forgiven, you must first offer genuine contrition. An honest apology would acknowledge all the harms you caused and take full responsibility for them instead of trying to preserve your own reputation by minimizing your transgression. Your reputation has now been stained by your own words and actions. You cannot atone for this kind of sin without taking up the cross you constructed and bearing it.
I want to be very clear about why I don’t think your congregation should allow you to brush this incident under the rug. Your apology to Ariana Grande was unacceptable because:
- It failed to acknowledge the harms caused: specifically the verbal humiliation, physical aggression and sexual violation you subjected Ms. Grande to, but instead tried to minimize and excuse your behavior.
- It failed to acknowledge the true nature of your transgression which was both immoral and illegal and failed to take full responsibility for your actions.
- It failed to reassure anyone that you would refrain from engaging in such reprehensible behavior in the future.
I will go further to add that if you are in agreement with the sanctimonious folks who judged Ms. Grande’s costume to be inappropriate for a funeral, and tried to make the story about her attire instead of your actions, here are some thoughts to consider:
- Decisions about what performers wear are often made in conjunction with professional stylists and we don’t know who made the decision about what Ms. Grande wore.
- The service was not just for your own congregation, as people of all faiths were invited. Not all churches have the same dress code. That dress would be a non-issue in my church.
- If the church has a specific dress code they should have informed Ms. Grande and/or her manager before she came to perform. If they failed to do so, they have no business complaining after the fact.
I encourage you to do the right thing by making a proper apology, even though it will be difficult and painful for you. I encourage you to accept any legal consequences that arise from your actions. You may need to consider resigning your position as Bishop, whether your congregation demands it or not. I’m sure you find the prospect of public humiliation daunting, but as we sow, so must we reap. I pray that the Lord grants you the strength, courage, humility and wisdom to create something good out of this crisis.
Sincerely,
Just another of the millions of women who have walked a mile in Ariana Grande’s shoes. #MeToo
PS: In closing, here is a selection of wise words from the good book that you may contemplate at your leisure.
“For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God; that no one transgress and wrong his brother in this matter, because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as we told you beforehand and solemnly warned you.” 1 Thessalonians 4:3-6
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” Matthew 5:27-28
“And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’” Matthew 25:40
“Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy.” Proverbs 28:13
“Woe to those who scheme iniquity, Who work out evil on their beds! When morning comes, they do it, For it is in the power of their hands. They covet fields and then seize them, And houses, and take them away They rob a man and his house, A man and his inheritance. Therefore thus says the LORD, “Behold, I am planning against this family a calamity From which you cannot remove your necks; And you will not walk haughtily, For it will be an evil time.” Michah 2:1-3
Connect ALL the Dots 