Looks Like a Weekend of College Basketball and Good Movies for Me

The few news programs I watch, usually pretty good on the weekend, are all focused on CPAC and the question, "Will he get the nomination or won't he?" as if he's not a corrupt criminal who will never get back to the White House, but who deserves to go to the Big House.  Why cover any aspect of the Trump candidacy, knowing that if he's indicted, it's over?  

Lots of people are avoiding CPAC this time around, so it has become a gathering of crazies, conspiracy theorists and paranoid psychotics.  Why cover that mess?  It's laughable how seriously these people take themselves, and even more so that anyone who isn't one of them can even stand to look at the mess.

So it looks like I will be spending some time catching up on college basketball, and finding some good movies to watch.  I just got some old television series uploads of some favorites I haven't seen in a long time, so I guess that's what I'll do this weekend.  

And I'll keep waiting for the failed, former President 45 to be indicted.  

The Theology That Drives White Christian Nationalism

 Why Aren't We Talking About the Theology That Drives White Christian Nationalism

The link will take you to an excellent article by Rick Pidcock, in Baptist News Global.  My own view is that white, Christian Nationalism, along with other forms of Christian nationalism, and other expressions of white supremacy, all have their roots in the same culture that allowed the church to be co-opted and controlled by the state, going back to at least the time of Constantine, and the various interpretations of Christianity that developed and pushed the church away from the gospel that Jesus preached and taught.  

The statement that caught my eye in the article was this one, by Diane Butler Bass, an American historian of Christianity and author, who said, 

"I'm in near despair that the critical narratives of white, Christian nationalism (which is primarily a problem of white evangelicalism) are largely being controlled by the writers and scholars who are themselves evangelicals." she tweeted. 

She is specifically referencing a February 8 webinar held by the Brookings Institution about how white, Christian nationalism is threatening American democracy.  

"No Jews on this panel talking about white, Christian nationalism?  No liberal Protestants without the conservative presuppositions of evangelicalism?  Someone who is actually NOT religious? "  

To be honest, I never really gave that much thought.  I'm not a Christian nationalist, and not sympathetic to it, though I have an evangelical theological background, I can see exactly how white, Christian nationalism is an aberrant theology, even with a conservative interpretation of the Christian gospel.  Or, perhaps, I am not as evangelical as I thought, since I also see that this is something which is as much a danger to the Christian church as it is to American democracy.  

"These alternative narratives (liberal Protestants, Jews, those who are not religious) have intellectual tools to speak to analysis of white, Christian nationalism.  I realize that part of the problem is that Anthea Butler isn't there today.  But honestly, white Evangelicals are mostly controlling the critique of the problem that that their own theology has largely created.  And so many of these 'analyses' wind up sounding like evangelism to the right form of Christianity or apologetics," said Bass.  

A Defining Statement

Chrissy Stroop, self-defined as an ex-evangelical and co-author of the book Empty the Pews: Stories of Leaving the Church, helps me put some definition to white, Christian nationalism by claiming that a core principle is the implementation of a theocratic political agenda, because evangelical Christians apply the Bible and their interpretation of Christian faith to every aspect of their lives, so they must apply it to their politics as well because they believe that this is the way for our nation to be "blessed" because of its obedience to God's authority.  Those who stand in the way, because they hold different beliefs and don't connect politics to their belief in God, then become obstacles or enemies to the nation, in their view.  

This is why Christian nationalism, and the racism that goes with it, is so dangerous to democracy.  Democracy allows divergent views, different religious perspectives and non-religious practice, which, in the minds of those who believe the nation can only be blessed by adherence to Christian practice, prevents it from receiving the blessing.  

There is absolutely no evidence, either in the Bible, in Christian history and tradition or in world history in general, to support this belief.  It is not Biblical theology, it is a theology that has been influenced and developed by a Christian faith and practice that is part of an internally structured culture.  That more or less nullifies the "no true Scotsman" argument that some critics of Christianity itself make when confronted with what is a real difference in Christian practice.  

A Matter of Identity

I stopped calling myself, or considering myself an evangelical a couple of decades ago.  Through the evangelical educational institutions where I received my higher education, amazingly, professors did not go this direction, though many of those individuals would very likely not be allowed to teach in those schools now.  Christianity loses its essence and identity when its values and moral principles are enforced as the law of the land.  In my opinion, that subrogates conversion as an intellectual and spiritual transformation and abandons spiritual conviction.  The definition of "blessing" in this context is always, always material prosperity for the nation, or military and political dominance of the world, something that the Bible itself never says.  

If you look closely at the American politicians who push this perspective, it appears that they are simply using the Christian name, there's no real conviction, no evidence that their Christian experience is anything more for them than a means to identify with a segment of the population that can produce enough votes to keep them in office.  It's hard to advocate for national obedience to Christian principles when the one doing the advocacy is divorced, or has cheated in business or on their taxes, or supports rebellion and insurrection against the "God established" government.  

Peter Wehner, a former Presidential speech writer, a contributing writer for the New York Times and vice-president at the Ethics and Public Policy Center says ,"It would be hard to find a figure in human history less likely to be a Christian nationalist than Jesus.  I just think the cognitive dissonance of that is extremely powerful."  

I think Jesus would be horrified to see what has happened to Christian churches through the centuries that became nothing more than political tools of the state, institutions rather than the "ecclesia" kinds of fellowships that those who believed in him formed in the first and second centuries of church history.  With his words in response to a question intended to trap him, when Jesus said, "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's and unto God the things that are God's," he became the originator of the principle of separation of church and state.  When he refused to give in to the temptation to allow Satan to give him rule of the earth in exchange for bowing down and worshipping him, he rejected the idea that Christian faith had a political identity but that the church would function as a "body of Christ," or a group of his followers doing something to help others in his name, which is the essence of Christianity, not white supremacy or nationalism.  

Top Recommended Reading 

I highly recommend reading through Pidcock's piece.  It is informative of a subject with which people need to be familiar in order to be able to cast ballots for politicians who see that white Christian nationalism is part of a bad past, not the near future.

The Attacks on Education by Desantis and Right Wing Extremists are Aimed at Intentional Destruction of Public Education

We learned a lot of lessons, as Americans, from the disastrous political mistakes we made that led to the Civil War.  One of those was that a democracy needs an educated electorate to survive.  The idea that education is a privilege for the elite finally gave way to a fully funded public education system and laws requiring children to attend up to a certain age and grade level in the years after the war, beginning somewhere in the early 1870's.  It took a while, but like most things that develop in this country, some visionary leadership articulated the rationale and got the support they needed to make it happen.  

Even with the educational foundation provided by public education, politics, because it controls the public funding that pays the bills for the schools, interferes with the curriculum and content.  It'a  great idea that some Americans, like Horace Mann and John Dewey came up with, to have a system of compulsory public education in order to have an educated electorate that will preserve the democracy.  But with individual states and smaller school districts having all kinds of operational and curriculum control, it has never achieved its ideological goal.  

The public school system, its curriculum and its approach to education has always been under attack because it is so influential and because it does provide a foundational education that informs the electorate in our representative democracy.  And it has always been subject to sabotage of the curriculum by anti-education conservatives.  Conservatives blame public education for what they call the "liberal drift" of this country, claiming that the ideology of the political left is exclusively promoted in public schools, "forced" on a captive audience.  That ideology is exactly what is behind Desantis and his attacks on education in Florida now.  He claims that younger voters are unfairly pushed to the left by tax supported schools, so he is setting out to change that in his state by using the power and influence of his elected office.  Fortunately, it looks like he's going to be exposed to a lot of kick back as a result.  

Elections do have consequences.  Democrats need to keep that thought at the very front and center of their party's campaign efforts.  

Private Education is an Escape from Politically-Dominated Public Schools 

In this, the most prosperous, and most powerful country in the world, we have a public education system that is moderately successful in its goal of providing for an informed and educated electorate, and we also have one that is a miserable failure and an embarrassment when compared to schools in the rest of the industrial world and the far east.  Some states do a great job making sure the curriculum is centered in academic achievement and that students are exposed to all of the facts and information and are trained to be critical thinkers.  I'd have no problem enrolling my child in the public schools of Massachusetts, for example, or New Hampshire or Vermont, or even Wisconsin or California.  

But there are other places where the curriculum is tampered with, altered, adjusted and so buried in a culture war social agenda that the students don't have a chance to achieve.  I wouldn't enroll my child in a public school in Texas, or Mississippi, or Arkansas, or Louisiana, and I wouldn't touch schools in Florida, Arizona or Oklahoma.  Texas, which keeps sliding toward the bottom of the pile, and where the motto of public education is "thank God for Mississippi," has so crowded out math and language arts skills in favor of kooky political garbage, that it has the highest percentage of private and charter school enrolled students in the country.  

And not all private schools are segregationist academies or religious indoctrination centers.  Some of those early pioneers in American education established schools, like John Dewey's University of Chicago Lab School, founded on progressive principles and with a curriculum that not only achieves academic excellence, but also shows students how to think for themselves, draw conclusions and make life choices based on real, live, down to earth facts.  They don't waste time on social agendas or culture war talking points.  And when their students graduate, they're prepared for the real world as it is. 

It takes money to run those schools, so while that may not be the most practical solution to prevent Florida from becoming just another banana republic, it is a way to get around the restrictions.  So is the ballot box.  

Federal Funding is the Key 

Public education probably wastes more taxpayer dollars than the military industrial complex does.  It's ridiculous, what school districts come up with to spend money.  It is likely an impossibility to ever get control of the school curriculums out of state legislature hands, with fingers gripped tightly around their throats.  As I said before, elections have consequences.  Should the Democrats get enough control of congress to have majorities in both houses, and get rid of the blockade against the senate filibuster, control of public education falls into their hands with federal support for education.  

Maybe I'm dreaming, but the first thing I would do in that case is stop sending federal dollars to Florida for their public schools and cut off all of the scholarships and grants going to Florida colleges.  Every penny of it.  Just stop payment on the check.  When they scream, tell them here's a list of things that must be taught in your schools before you get back a single cent.  If that doesn't happen, so be it.  Divide up their share with the other states that follow the drill. 

It took several generations for the compulsory public education system to get to the point where the majority of the electorate were educated enough to understand what they were doing every time they went to the ballot box.  The lack of real progress in American public education, state by state, is a sign that it would not take very long before the current crazy ignorance and fear would be able to invade and conquer.  That's exactly what Desantis is after.  That's why he's doing what he's doing.  And that has to stop.  

Elections have consequences, as Florida Democrats well know, and so do the rest of us.

Using the Bible to Bash the President is Anti-Christian

Several years ago, I picked up a business card at the cash register of a Christian bookstore in Gallatin, Tennessee that said "Pray for Clinton, Psalms 108:8-10".  My first thought was that this was an encouragement and a reminder to Christians to keep the President, regardless of who he was or what party with which he was affiliated, in our prayers.  So as I was shopping, I picked up one of the Bibles off the shelf and looked up the reference.  

May his days be few; may another take his office. May his children be fatherless and his wife a widow. May his children wander about and beg, seeking food from the ruins they inhabit.  Psalm 108:8-10, ESV 

Wordlessly, I put the basket of items I had planned to purchase on the counter, laid the card down so the clerk could see, pointed to it, and walked out of the store.  First of all, whether that was some kind of inside joke or an intentional slam, for Christians who believe the Bible is a sacred text to take it completely out of its context and use it that way is sinful behavior.  There's also implied disobedience because Christians are called to pray for their leaders, regardless of their spiritual condition or their political affiliation.  Paul and Peter asked those to whom they wrote letters to pray for the Roman leadership.  It was inexcusable for a Christian book store to put something like that in front of their customers.  

These verses are not a model prayer to pray about anyone.  To do so would be to take this passage completely out of its context.  Psalm 108 is a psalm of David and it is a lament and a cry for God's help.  In these specific verses, David is articulating the thoughts of his enemies and their accusations against him.  He imagines them, in their criticism of his leadership, uttering these words about himself, and he includes them in this psalm as a cry for help from God to protect him from them.  

Taking it out of its context to apply it for use as a prayer against the sitting President of the United States is the kind of misuse of scripture that most Evangelicals consider to be blasphemy of the inerrant, infallible written word of God. So for a sitting  Republican member of Congress (whom I will not promote by mentioning her name as a representative from Colorado) to suggest its use it as a prayer against President Biden is blasphemy.  And the lack of respect it shows toward the elected President of the United States, regardless of political differences, is an indication of this representative's lack of fitness to serve.  That is misuse of scripture, and shame on the Evangelical Christians who have enjoyed it as some kind of joke, or took it seriously. It's characteristically and categorically anti-Christian.

But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your father who is in heaven.  Jesus, the Christ, Matthew 5:44 ESV

President Biden would never say something like that about even his worst enemy in the Republican party.  And in that regard, his integrity and character stand out in sharp contrast to his shrill critics on the far right who don't know the difference between political debate and calculated insults.  

This misuse of the Bible occurred as the Representative was making a campaign speech in a church auditorium, which makes it even more of an affront to true Christian faith.  It characterizes the speaker's ideology as being something other than Christian.  Aside from all of that, churches are not political theaters or political action committees and if that's how they behave, then they're not churches.  

It would be just as wrong to insert a Republican politician's name in the blank, and call these same verses a prayer for them.  During the four years of the Trump administration, I frequently prayed that God would change his mind, protect us from his incompetence and ineptness, keep the country safe, give wisdom to those around him so that they would have the courage to keep him from ruining the country, minimize his extremism and prevent him from being elected again.  There were a lot of prayers being said during the insurrection, and I continue to pray for justice to be done.  But I would never pray that harm would come to anyone because I disagree with their politics.  

The public promotion of this use of Psalm 108, and the manner in which it was used against the President stands in contrast to his integrity and character, and demonstrates her clear lack of both.  It is, along with a whole resume of similar words and deeds, clear evidence that she is neither a spokesperson for Christian faith, nor qualified to serve in the Congress of the United States.  

Published previously by Signal Press on February 6, 2023

The Great Southern Baptist Foot-Shooting Contest

 Southern Baptists Kick Out Their Largest Church Because it has a Woman in a Pastor's Role

The largest church in the Southern Baptist Convention, Saddleback Valley Community Church, a sprawling, multi-campus congregation in Orange County, California where the founding pastor, Rick Warren, author of The Purpose Driven Life, recently retired.  There are actually three women on the pastoral ministry staff of Saddleback Valley church, the one generating the controversy among Southern Baptists is Stacey Wood, wife of senior pastor Andy Wood, who was just recently installed in that role. 

Some Southern Baptists will argue into the ground that women cannot serve in leadership roles in the church and claim a few passages of scripture as authoritative on the subject.  Frankly, it is only a literal interpretation of the Bible that leads to this conclusion.  Even then, there is no actual "commandment" or statement that forbids or restricts women from church leadership, including serving as a pastor, or "episkopos," or bishop as the term is translated.  It takes applying ancient culture, and what was believed about the role of women in society in the first century to come up with a restriction against women serving as pastors in Christian churches.  

Of course, many Southern Baptists take a "we're right and everyone else is wrong" approach on what they consider to be their doctrinal distinctives, cleverly inventing what they refer to as a biblical "hermeneutic" which supports their interpretation.  Of the two passages they point to, one is not very conclusive on the matter.  The other is debatable regarding the scope of its meaning, and is not interpreted or applied literally in any Southern Baptist church, except when they want to restrict women from the office of pastor.  That, frankly, is just hypocrisy.  

I Timothy 3:1-11 is a list of requirements for bishops/overseers, which is equated with "pastor" in church jargon, and deacons.  The single statement that Southern Baptists fall on as proof of the legitimacy of their doctrine that women can't be pastors is in verse 2, where, among other things, a bishop, or pastor, must be above reproach, the husband of only one wife, along with a list of other virtues and qualities expected for a church leader.  Southern Baptists insist that "husband of one wife" can't be a woman, since she can't be a husband.  

The most likely meaning behind that phrase is either "married only once," given Jesus' views on divorce, or in a culture where plural marriages were still relatively common, an exclusion of polygamists from the leadership of a church.  It is not accompanied anywhere by a statement that suggests women are forever disqualified because they are women, something that Southern Baptist theologians universally require as a standard corroboration for any other doctrine they believe.  

Just prior to this passage, I Timothy 2:12 says, "Let a woman learn in silence with full submission.  I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she is to keep silent."  This is followed by a rationale referring to the Genesis account of Adam and Eve, though in that account, Adam is ultimately the one God holds accountable for their actions in the Garden of Eden, not Eve.  In the other restrictive passage about women keeping silence in the church, found in I Corinthians 14:34-35, most Bible scholars believe that the context of women keeping silent in the church and learning in full submission must be somewhat unique to the church in Corinth.  There is, again, no language indicating this is forever and all time and though he uses the phrase "As in all the churches of the saints," he does not point out in writing, to any other church, that this is the way things ought to be.  

In reality, if there is a Southern Baptist church that literally follows these verses in every aspect of their language, doesn't have women serving in its ministry in multiple capacities, and which requires that they sit in submission, not ask questions and not participate in discussions, but save all that for their husband, I'd like to see where it is and how well that works.  That would be consistent practice of a literal interpretation of theses verses.  And if churches aren't going to apply the literal interpretation exactly as it is written, then it is unreasonable and inconsistent to apply it only to women who serve in a role identified by a church as a pastor.  Baptists also loudly proclaim that the pastor role in a church is a model of servant-leadership, not authoritarian, rejecting the idea that a pastor is a "priest" with spiritual authority.  So if that's the case, then a woman serving as a pastor would neither be "usurping" the role of a male in the church, nor exercising authority over one.

The bottom line on interpreting this is that by the rules put forth in any Southern Baptist seminary class in biblical interpretation, three scattered references, all from the same author, do not a doctrine make.  Except in this case, and any other doctrine they conclude supports their social agenda.  Or I could just say that they're hypocritical and leave it at that. 

The Implications of Saddleback Valley's Exit from the SBC

In the Southern Baptist Convention, which lays claim to being the nation's largest Protestant denomination, there is no central hierarchy.  Churches affiliate voluntarily and keep their independence and autonomy, which includes the ability to interpret the Bible as they see fit.  There are some specific doctrinal requirements by which the denomination's credentials committee can exclude churches from participation, which amounts to nothing more than refusing to seat their messengers at the annual convention meeting.  

It is somewhat ironic that the denomination's largest church is in Southern California, and not somewhere in Dixieland.  Resulting from a couple of decades of church planting efforts outside the deep South in the 80's Saddleback Valley started as a small group in the home of its founding pastor, Rick Warren, who is now one of the most revered and visible figures in American Evangelicalism, author of one of the best selling books ever.  It has grown into the largest single church in the denomination, considerably larger than any two or three megachurches combined in any southern state. Unlike most SBC churches, it doesn't track church membership, but reports a weekly attendance average of almost 24,000, four times greater than the average attendance of the next largest Southern Baptist church.   

While the SBC has been leaking members like a sieve, including from most of its well-known megachurches, and in every state convention across the south and southwest, Saddleback Valley, in one of the most secular counties and states in the country, is expanding, has multiple campuses, and continues to look for space into which it can expand.  As the number of baptisms, representing new converts to Christianity, has reached its lowest level in five decades among the churches of the convention, Saddleback Valley baptizes more adults in a year than some entire state conventions of churches do.  

By contrast, with a membership that peaked at 16 million in 2005, but with an average attendance of right at 5 million, the SBC as a denomination has lost 3 million members in a decade and a half, and is approaching the 2 million mark in decline of attendance since then.  So tossing a church that bucks those trends surely makes a lot of sense, especially over a secondary doctrinal issue like having a woman serve, under male authority, in the role of a teaching pastor, which is why Saddleback Valley was booted.   

It's not like there will be a lot of weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth--a biblical expression--among Saddleback Valley's congregation over this news.  I doubt that one in ten people who attend the church are even vaguely aware that the church belongs to the SBC, and I'd bet there's not one in a thousand who cares.  Southern Baptists have, for decades, proclaimed that the numerical and financial growth of their denomination, which lasted all the way up to 2005, though it began slowing in the 80's, was a sign of God's blessings on them, as opposed to the "liberal, leftist, mainline" denominations which started seeing declining membership in the 70's.  

In an online discussion board when the recommendation was first brought to the convention that Saddleback Valley be "disfellowshipped" for this move, it was noted that Saddleback Valley shows signs of being blessed by God with numerical growth and the expansion of their ministry, while the SBC is staring at a massive decline that includes major budget cuts and slashes in its ministry support.  

A defender of the SBC said, flatly, "Growth isn't always a sign of God's blessing."  Except, of course, if it is happening to the SBC.  Then it is.  And that's the reasoning we're up against here.  

I won't comment on that bit of hypocrisy.  But I will note the realistic implications of the convention's executive board taking this action.  The convention itself, meeting in Anaheim last June, inside a circle of Saddleback Valley congregation sites, wouldn't do it.  So this backhanded, good-old-boy, action by an executive committee still stacked with fundamentalists, went around the credentials committee and took action on their own.  And that is very typical of the backward, provincial way the Southern Baptist Convention does business.  

This will most likely hasten the exit of many churches which have been riding the fence between remaining affiliated or severing ties with what they see as an increasingly irrelevant, cumbersome, bureaucratic religious organization.  Saddleback Valley Church and its leadership is far more familar to a large group of churches, including many Southern Baptist churches in the west, than anyone who is in leadership in the SBC.  With the drought in winning new converts deepening among Southern Baptists, many churches turn to Saddleback Valley for leadership in what really matters in a church, rather than to some entrenched bureaucrats from a failing bureaucracy.  

This move has the potential for generating a long-predicted denominational split. About a third of the churches in the SBC have women on staff with the title "pastor".  Most work with pre-schoolers, children, teenagers or family ministry, but this is one of those dividing lines between the autonomy of a local church and denominational enforcement of control.  In a denomination where the loss of an entire generation, and almost half of another, is catastrophic, I can see this setting the stage for a contentious convention in New Orleans this June, and messengers forcing yet another floor vote to overturn this executive committee ruling.  

There are already doctrinal and denominational political issues simmering in what has been a very hostile convention environment for a while now, as the old "conservative resurgence" leadership ages.  This was heated up by the abrupt dismissal of one of its "architects," Paige Patterson, as President of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, for failures in handling sexual abuse reports at both of the seminaries where he served as president.  Patterson's allies have formed a group called the Conservative Baptist Network and are campaigning, political style, to get the appointive power of the SBC presidency back and to legislate their brand of conservative fundamentalism over the convention's institutions.  They've been spectacularly voted down by messengers in the convention meetings.  

If they don't get their way in New Orleans this June, many of them have threatened an exit or a cutback in financial support, though few of them are major financial givers at this point anyway.  I can see a floor vote overturning the executive committee ruling about Saddleback Valley as a line in the sand for both sides.  If churches see that their affiliation is threatened because they call the staff leader of their pre-school and children's ministries "pastor," or because there is a female church administrator who has that title, they'll just leave rather than put up with edicts coming from a denominational bureaucracy whose authority to do so is questionable at best.  

They Just Can't Resist the Temptation to Control Other People

Whether it's advancing white Christian nationalism or enforcing doctrinal parameters on independent, autonomous churches, there are some Southern Baptists who just can't get past their control issues.  They are compelled to make everyone line up behind them, no matter how erroneous their idea or how much it makes them look like hypocrites.  

When Thomas Jefferson and James Madison set the churches of America free from state interference, building a wall of separation with the constitution and guaranteeing religious freedom, they opened the door to the biggest opportunity for ministry and evangelism that the Christian church had ever seen since the first century.  But the prejudices, bigotry and corruption built in to institutional religion soon set up a severely divided church, behind denominational walls held in place by obscure, off-beat, out of context interpretations of the Bible.  As the denominational walls went up between Christians and churches the opportunity slipped away.  

The increasing secularization of America in this age is the direct result of the failure of Christian churches to get out of their institutional prison and become the real church.  They have only themselves to blame for their decline and fall, and this is an egregious example of exactly that.  As a denomination, Southern Baptists have seen their best days.   This is another shot to the foot.  

 

 

On the Record, This Should be Enough to Remove MTG from Congress

 Two Words that Prove Marjorie Taylor Greene is Crazy

How is it possible for a member of Congress to advocate the dissolution of the American Republic, make a public statement that will inflame and incide nut jobs, misfits and insurrectionists, and keep her seat in Congress in defiance of the 14th amendment.  

She just sold out our patriotism, idealism and our national security.  

She should be removed from office.

History Supports Ukrainian Sovereignty; So Should Patriotic Americans

It is inconceivable that American politicians would put themselves in a position to support the autocratic, totalitarian dictatorship of Vladimir Putin in Russia, especially over a smaller nation that has a distinct cultural identity and history separate from Russia.  Ukraine has a long history tied to the whole system of autocratic monarchies who traded countries like baseball cards, emerging with somewhat of a national identity just prior to being over-run by Catherine the Great, incorporated into the Czar's domains and then, under communism, into the Soviet Union as one of the "socialist republics."  

How much it has in common with Russia is a question for a Ukrainian to answer.  Those who are my neighbors in the high rise where I live in Chicago will tell you, unanimously, that they are most certainly NOT Russians, and will distinguish for you in detail exactly what the differences are between the two countries.  I got the impression, from them, that there is quite a contrast in the cleanliness and appearance of the two countries and that this is visible when crossing the border into Russia, where buildings are run down and unkempt, streets are pitted and rough, weeds grow in vacant lots, paint is peeling and people have a similar, shabby appearance and attitude.  

But what generates the biggest expressions of pride is the freedom and democracy that Ukrainians now enjoy since becoming separate from the Soviet Union at its demise, and deliberately pushing for a democratic government, looking to the United States as a model and example.  And like most of the rest of Eastern Europe, after a struggle and learning from their own mistakes, they emerged as a sovereign, democratic republic, the largest country in Europe outside of Russia itself and with a strong, growing economy.  

Nothing provides more evidence of Ukraine's sovereignty and independence, and their will to remain free, than their fight against the Russian regime of Vladimir Putin to protect the territorial integrity of their country.  Of course, hundreds of years of living under the same political rule created a situation in which Russians, Ukrainians, Belarussians, Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians, Moldovans and Georgians migrated into cities and territories where the majority of the population made them an ethnic and language minority, and Russians, in large numbers, moved into the Donbas region of Ukraine, because they were attracted there by jobs and opportunity.  

It's doubtful that very many of the Russian-speaking minority in the Donbas wants to live under Russian rule rather than under the freedom of Ukrainian democracy.  They're being used as an excuse and those who are in a position to say so will tell you that, as one of my neighbors, who is a Russian who lived in Donetsk for two decades, on purpose, before the Russian invasion, and left after they occupied the area, to get away from them, again.  He says he didn't want to live under Putin, and not very many of his neighbors in Donetsk want to, either.  

The Inexcusable Behavior of American Politicians

I hate to give any publicity to American politicians, extremist Republican Trumpies, who are using the U.S. aid to Ukraine as a political talking point to be against the President.  That behavior, for an American, is inexcusable ignorance and pathetic stupidity.  It is taking a stand against every ideal that identifies the United States of America as a sovereign nation, the leader of the free world, and our national identity.  I always knew the day would come when money interests would become so large, they would be able to pay for anything they wanted, including to buy the votes of politicians in order to get favorable legislation to expand their wealth.  It appears that this is now a common practice in this country, with greed and selfishness trumping priceless values. 

American foreign policy has never been perfect.  In seeking our own self-interest, especially when pushed by big money, we have taken sides with dictators and bullies, promoted poverty and corruption, and incited revolutions and wars.  There are countries on our own continent that have had to endure diplomatic disasters because of American interference in their politics for our own interests or in the name of "national security."  

We did the same thing to Ukraine, under the previous failed President 45.  The corrupt dealings with Ukraine during the Trump administration smelled an awful lot like the way the United States dealt with Nicaragua and Cuba.  That was incredible inept bungling and inexcusable behavior worthy of the impeachment it brought down on the ex-President.  If congressional Republicans had any integrity, in spite of the late hour, they'd have voted him out of office and made a statement about American patriotism and idealism instead of playing politics and refusing to help a nation preserve its freedom.  

Those Republicans who refused to vote for removal, and who have continued to turn their backs on Ukraine, muttering about American financial and equipment support are, frankly, traitors to America, too.  They are sending a very clear message that they are not interested in, and do not care about American idealism.  They need to be called out for their lack of patriotism and support for the values on which this country was built, and the seditious ideology that they support should be grounds for their removal from office, according to the 14th Amendment of the Constitution that they are trashing. 

The Biden Administration Will Go Down in History for its Courage of Conviction

Who else, among American politicians, had the standing, the experience, the relationships and the confidence of the democratic world to revitalize the NATO alliance and effectively stop what was considered the rapid, inevitable conquest of Ukraine by Russia?  Democrats have some rock stars, as far as I am concerned, and at some point, I'm going to write about those great women and men who are the foundation of a political party that is the hope of the future for American idealism.  But at this time, we needed a JFK or an FDR, or along the lines of a Madison or Monroe.  

And we have someone exactly like that.  I haven't heard anyone use a three-letter moniker, JRB, for President Biden, more familar as Joe Biden, but thankfully, he was in the White House when the Russians invaded Ukraine, he knew exactly what to do, he had already put together the staff and cabinet who could get it done and he was able to walk the streets of Kyiv with President Zelenskyy this past week, in part because of the work he had done to gather support for Ukraine. And for those who haven't noticed, or who are too caught up in their own self to notice, he has the upper hand over Vladimir Putin.  

The caterwauling and howling of certain extremist elements in the Republican party, the paper tigers, the conspiracy theorists and the bigots caught up in Christian nationalism, is perfect confirmation of the fact that President Biden is on the right track, leading America to do exactly as it should, leading NATO to bold resolve, and most importantly, preserving American idealism rooted in representative democracy and government of, by and for the people.  The Republican shriekers and whiners are selfish in their ambition, willing to sell all of us out so they can be in power and line their pockets.  

Personally, the goal here is to preserve Ukrainian sovereignty and democracy, which will only strengthen our own.  But if there are political consequences for the unpatriotic, anti-American seditionists, and some of them get booted out of Congress by the voters in their districts and states who see just how bad, and how un-American they are, then that's also a benefit.  Get ready for that, because I think the voters are going to send some of the extremists packing in the next round.  

From all of the noise and criticism coming out of the GOP following President Biden's historic and courageous trip to Kyiv, the impact of that act, and what it did for Ukrainian and NATO morale, as well as world support for Ukraine, was exactly the right thing to do at exactly the right time.