Cult of Ignorance...

 

Asimov’s original essay, Cult of Ignorance (PDF)

© September 9, 2023, the Griot Poet

 

“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding [its way] through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”

 

Isaac Asimov, 1980

 

I often hesitate to answer questions,

In casual conversations or on the Internet,

Posed by those who at first seem to be seeking knowledge,

Only to be barraged with epithets:

 

Grammar Nazi,

Smart ass,

“Uppity,”

“Woke.”

 

Because they weren’t seeking knowledge, but they were seeking an audience,

They weren’t looking for peer review but seeking validation.

They didn’t want information; they wanted confirmation bias!

When I would give my advice from experience,

That deflated what was already the fragile ego of a narcissist.

 

An analog from personal experience:

Major “Tommy” Tompkins and I were both stationed at Bergstrom Air Force Base in Austin, Texas,

There wasn’t a day that went by that he would ask me:

 

“Well, Lieutenant Goodwin, what’s going on in Physics?”

I had a subscription to Physics Today magazine back then (I access it now on the Internet).

As he knew my background and major, Engineering Physics, I would gladly tell him,

Having conversations over coffee in a SCIF - a Special Compartmentalized Information Facility,

I was recently granted my Top-Secret clearance,

Entrusted with the nation’s secrets,

Attached to the 12th Tactical Intelligence Squadron as their Communications-Computer Systems Officer,

At Bergstrom Air Force Base in Austin, Texas.

I saw the Internet in its infancy,

DARPA-NET sent the equivalent of text messages over Zenith computers with mainframes as big as small garages,

The IMP - interphase messaging processor - that we lugged around - 500 pounds, and as big as a gym locker: was the precursor to your 10-inch tall home router.

I made it my business to study all aspects of transmission: radio, microwave, and line of sight. troposphere scatter, and satellite,

I wrote communication plans for exercises and contingencies,

I took coursework on cryptography,

 

So, when I saw that Major Tompkins was about to call for frequencies outside our equipment’s bandwidth, I advised him against it.

 

“I don’t give a good goddamn about your ‘expertise’ lieutenant! I’m the major, and YOU’RE the ‘butter bar’: got it?”

 

Shocked at his Jekyll and Hyde personality switch, I said, “Yes, sir!”

 

Meanwhile, “back at the ranch”:

The exercise was a flop!

 

Neither our pilots nor Bergstrom flight control tower could talk to each other.

It’s a miracle that they didn’t crash into each other or commercial flights from Mueller!

 

Colonel Eugene Habba,

In charge of Command, Control, Communications, and Countermeasures,

 

Stormed into our tactical headquarters, bellowing:

 

“Who is responsible for this clusterfuck?”

 

To which, after saluting, I said:

“Colonel Habba, Major Tompkins!”

I got my hat and left!

 

I caught up with some pilot friends at the O Club,

They said, “Good, ‘WTFO,’” Air Force call sign for “what the fuck, over?”

I spilled the tea; their eyes rolled.

Major “Tommy” Tompkins was a boot licker, a ladder climber,

He was trying to take all the credit for the exercise,

Well, he got it!

Tommy, despite his narcissism, looked like a pear, especially from the snickering rear view of his butt,

They explained that their nickname for Tompkins because of his protruding stomach was “Jabba the Gut!”

For all of you “Star Wars” aficionados!

 

I laughed out loud - literally!

I needed that levity.

After Habba chewed what was left of his ass,

Major "Jabba" Tompkins put in for his retirement!

 

*****

 

It is a cult of ignorance when expertise is assailed as bullying.

 

It is a cult of ignorance when your side can’t admit to losing the Civil War or a presidential election.

 

It is a cult of ignorance when Dr. Fauci, Senator Romney, the FBI, the CDC Director, elected officials, and VOLUNTEER election workers must shell out dollars to protect their families from raving lunatics who believe every conspiracy theory Orwellian “truth-ed” at them!

 

It is a cult of ignorance when you print t-shirts that say, “fuck your feelings,” when put under the stress of information, YOU’RE the biggest snowflakes!

 

It is a cult of ignorance when climate scientists sounding the alarm to protect their families and the planet are supposedly lying to you, but fossil fuel companies are the “arbiters of truth.”

 

It is a cult of ignorance when everything about modernity you don’t like is “woke,” and you refuse to crack a book open out of sheer arrogance.

 

Banning books is a cult of ignorance. Yet, the number one way for the early deaths of children 0 - 17 is semiautomatic weapons - NOT libraries or drag queen shows - yet you refuse to do anything beyond vapid “thoughts and prayers” that you neither think nor utter.

 

Like Major Tompkins,

Your “Colonel Habba” moment is coming,

When the facts gob-smack you and bite you in the ass,

Ecclesiastes said, “There is no new thing under the sun,”

The Bard said, “What’s past is prologue.”

I await your retirement from public life,

As your stubborn stances have caused much strife,

Eventually, the true “children of light” will triumph,

As you fade away from existence,

And your destructive career in the cult of ignorance.

Evilgelicals: an Update

Image Source: Amazon.com

 © August 10, 2023, the Griot Poet 

 

See my piece “Evilgelicals,” I wrote on January 25, 2021

 

“Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it.”

 

Matthew 7:13 fulfilled.

 

After preaching a sermon on the words of Jesus,

Telling everyone to “turn the other cheek,”

You know,

The nonviolence on which Dr. Martin Luther King based his movement and philosophy,

Along with a sprinkle of Mahatma Gandhi,

The Sermon on the Mount that we all THOUGHT they believed,

A congregant asked the theologian:

“Where did you get those LIBERAL talking points?”

 

To which he replied:

“I’m [literally] quoting the words of Jesus.”

 

The reply from the congregant:

“Yes, but that doesn’t work anymore. That’s weak!”

 

Dumbfounded, the theologian didn’t know how to reply or speak.

 

Source: https://www.newsweek.com/evangelicals-rejecting-jesus-teachings-liberal-talking-points-pastor-1818706

 

At one point, they considered swapping Jehovah for Odin,

 

Since the motivation is raw power, why not a barbaric deity to support it?

(But Jehovah, in all honesty, has had his moments.)

 

Source: https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/1998/new-brand-racist-odinist-religion-march

 

To quote Russell Moore: “When we get to the point where the teachings of Jesus himself are seen as subversive to us, then we’re in a crisis.”

 

Preacher, check this:

One out of six congregants have PAID for an abortion!

Let’s put some math to it:

The Southern Baptist Convention has 47,198 churches and 13.2 million members.

One divided by six is 16.7%,

This math means 2.2 million members have either had or encouraged an abortion.

 

Source: https://www.christianpost.com/news/1-in-6-churchgoers-have-had-or-encouraged-an-abortion-poll.html

 

“Scribes and Pharisees: Ye HYPOCRITES!”

 

Source: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%2023&version=ESV

 

We are beyond a crisis.

We have an influential religious sect that spouts conspiracy theories and intellectual pablum bullshit!

 

We are beyond belief that a religious sect,

That once claimed to be following brown-skinned Palestinian Prophets,

That once claimed to be about religious piety, “family values,” and “personal responsibility,”

Can with a straight face call themselves his sheep,

Sheep follow their shepherd,

Not go off half-cocked, QAnon crazy into the bizarro deep!

 

The “meek shall inherit the Earth,”

Not sociopaths strapped for combat,

Walking into Panera Bread and Starbucks,

With AR15s and grenade launchers slung over their backs!

 

Any movement, so armed to slay dragons,

When none, except Kimono, actually exists,

They are poised for violence,

They are poised for a tumultuous crash,

A crisis from which they will not recover [and] will likely no longer exist.

 

What they feared was enough for them to sell what was left of their souls to an orange devil,

 

Quoting myself:

“They should stop perpetuating the biggest lie,

They’re not following brown-skinned Palestinian prophets,

Who’s neck they’d stretch or likely stomp on,

They wanted to throw out the votes of the “least of these,”

The actual “meek of the Earth” that looks like him,

[And elevate the “thieves in the temple,”]

They’re worshiping their [own] lack of Melanin,

[They’re worshiping their [own] reflection,]

The “Golden Calf” in their Sinai Desert,

The altar of white supremacy,

Cremation altars of “I [really] don’t care” (do you?)

Separating brown-skinned youth from their parents,

Pitching children and the future through the flaming altar of Moloch,

Or, Rio Grande barbed wire death traps!

 

They are:

Anti-Arts,

Anti-Education,

Anti-History,

Anti-Immigrants,

Anti-Science,

Anti-BIPOC,

Anti-Love,

Anti-LGBT,

Anti-Muslim,

Anti-Semitic,

Anti-Woke,

Anti-Women,

Anti-HUMAN!

Following their cult leader over the abyss into oblivion,

 

Evangelicals: (n) “of, relating to, or agreeing with the Christian gospel especially as it is in the four Gospels.” Merriam-Webster

 

These apostates are EXACTLY the opposite!

 

Of the Roman Emperor Domitian,

The self-proclaimed “Lord and God” and ruthless dictator reigned from CE 81 to 96,

John on the Island of Patmos coded his critique,

By numbering his name as “Six-hundred, threescore, and Six,”

I don’t know if John was speaking about future events,

But it is [quite] obvious,

For there to be an Antichrist,

He must first have anti-Christians!

Collective Psychosis...

 

© August 20, 2023, the Griot Poet

Inmate number: P01135809, Fulton County, Atlanta, Georgia, or,

If “fucked around and found out” got a mugshot!

 

“4 indictments, 91 felony charges, 2 impeachments, 1 act of sedition, and threatening civil war, 26 women alleging sexual assault. 1.13 million Americans dead from COVID. And he IS the frontrunner of the Republican Party. This is why I call it a collective psychosis.”

 

Quoting Forensic Psychiatrist Dr. Bandy Lee,

Formerly of Yale University, warned us.

She gave her expertise in what used to be a tweet,

She, and 26 other psychological professionals broke the “Goldwater Rule” and published “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump.”

 

The cost was her tenured position, that’s supposed to be beyond reproach.

 

Collective, or shared psychosis “can also happen in groups of people who are closely involved with a person who has a psychotic disorder (called folie à plusiers, or "the madness of many"). For instance, this could happen in a cult if the leader is psychotic and their followers take on their delusions.”

 

Source: https://www.webmd.com/schizophrenia/shared-psychotic-disorder

 

Source: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-shared-psychosis-of-donald-trump-and-his-loyalists/

 

What does tenure mean?

It used to mean that academics were free to speak “truth to power” without fear of retribution.

I guess in Dr. Lee’s case, being Asian and female, there was an exception made, but not for her 26 other coauthors and colleagues.

 

What is the “rule of law,” if a scion who lucked out in the “Sperm Lotto” can wriggle out of felony charges that would put any ONE of us under [the] jail?

 

Justice HAS to prevail!

 

“But: He didn’t participate in the insurrection,” you say?

Well, Bin Laden didn’t fly any planes!

Charles Manson didn’t murder anyone!

Your point?

 

Stochastic terrorists don’t “do the deed.”

They just plant the seeds so that some numbskulls carry out their bidding.

 

For Osama, it was 19 hijackers, 15 from Saudi Arabia.

Charles Manson had his twisted “family” do it.

“Hold my beer” said he “loves the poorly educated.”

(Because they can be easily manipulated.)

 

This is not a cartoon on Saturday mornings,

Where the tension is scripted,

Where Wile E. Coyote falls off a cliff with an anvil from Acme, Inc. into a ditch,

Crumbled in the denouement of the scene,

And reconstituted without a scratch in the next.

 

Real life has consequences!

Real life has monumental decisions that will result in whether our planet is hospitable to human existence,

Or having thousand-year mega-storms every week.

Try maintaining a high Dow Jones Industrial Average on THAT recipe!

 

By the way:

The Dow isn’t a measure of the economy.

It’s an indicator of stock trades on Wall Street,

89% of which is owned by the 1%.

So, the Dow is more accurately, a mood ring for rich people, or an oligarch Rorschach test!

 

They’re not banning books to spare white kids’ feelings:

They’re banning books so they won’t learn empathy!

Because “walking in someone else’s shoes” means learning what you didn’t know about them.

Knowledge breeds empathy; ignorance breeds violence.

 

George Santayana said that “those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it.”

The book banners want us to be ignorant so they can easily repeat it!

 

71% believe that what “Big Lier” says is true.

63% believes their family and friends.

56% believe conservative media.

42% believe religious leaders.

 

Source: https://www.axios.com/2023/08/21/trump-republican-2024-voters-poll

 

Now, out of 46 presidents, he’s the ONLY one who has a mugshot!

 

It’s. A. Cult!

Conservative Judge J. Michael Luddig said “there IS no Republican Party” as he previously understood it.

He, and liberal Harvard emeritus professor, Lawrence Tribe, Grok to it.

This is what a constitutional crisis looks like!

When one major party is marginally democratic,

And the other major political party exists in Zones beyond Twilight.

Both are shouting as loud as they can:

This “man of sin,” this “son of perdition” is a “clear and present danger to American democracy.”

 

A cult leader has risen to godlike status.

A warning:

All cults, from,

Jim Jones in Guyana, South America,

David Koresh Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas,

Marshall Applewhite of Heaven’s Gate Cult in San Diego, California,

 

All dead.

Poisoned Flavor-Aid. Fire and shootouts. Cyanide to “beam up to the mothership.”

All because they gave godlike status to a FLAWED human.

 

And eventually, it all comes to an end.

The survivors will comprise three camps:

The sane among us, like Dr. Lee, who tried to warn us,

The same people who will be responsible for repairing what’s left,

The embarrassed, waking up that they were duped by a conman,

Pretending that they were never on “team crazy,”

And the “true believers” who will deify his remains on Mount Olympus.

(They’ve already constructed a graven image in Florida, not a desert)

 

Hopefully, they will be in small enough numbers, and self-identify so that we can ignore them!

 

My hope is this: history illustrates that after every dark age, there is a renaissance.

 

Let’s vote for our future and get to it!

Spitballing...

© January 22, 2022, the Griot Poet

Also, the related blog post, also titled “Spitballing.”

 

This piece,

[Was] inspired by a comment from Congressman Adam Schiff,

That, maybe,

Jeff Bezos’s wealth can be better spent,

Lifting young people out of poverty,

[Than], on vanity-joyride penis starships,

 

Just spitballing:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all [rich, cisgender, propertied white] men are created equal,”

“Is probably how the ‘founding fathers’ understood, wrote, and read the text,”

As do their so-called libertarian descendants,

 

It clears the “scales from the eyes,”

On what conservatives meant by “original intent.”

 

Russell Kirk wrote a book in 1951 called “The Conservative Mind,”

Their political Bible in perspective,

That is consistent seven decades since,

 

His premise:

Without clearly-defined classes,

And a social hierarchy to manage the masses,

If college students,

Women,

People of color,

Ever got close to political power and wealth,

Of rich, cisgender, propertied white men,

Sodom and Gomorrah,

Ragnarok,

And Armageddon would commence!

Ignorance must be designed into the curriculum:

Civics morphed to “Social Studies,”

Evolutionary Biology to “Creation Pseudoscience,”

Teach “American exceptionalism” and “Manifest Destiny,” not our country’s actual history,

Geez! Are you crazy?

 

Russell Kirk’s direct students were,

William F. Buckley,

Who debated, and lost to James Baldwin,

At the University of Cambridge,

And Barry Goldwater,

Who was thought too crazy to have the nuclear codes,

The 2016 election said:

“Never fear!”

“Hold my beer!”

In 140 misspelled characters, or less,

 

Just spitballing:

Safety is the foundation,

Of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs,

Forty years ago,

Reagan began the task

Of shipping middle-class jobs overseas,

Destroying employee unions,

Giving tax cuts with stolen money from Social Security,

NAFTA was started by his Vice,

Then-president George Herbert Walker Bush,

Continued after the 94 midterms by Bill Clinton,

The Dems lost the House and got shook,

To show Democrats were as fiscally conservative as any Republican,

The aftermath was the safety net

Was ripped from beneath the feet of the middle class,

That covers all cultures and so-called colors,

 

When you’re fearful,

You’re open to manipulation,

By malevolent machinations,

A new and shocking feeling,

After 400 years of guarantees,

Your group will always have:

The front of the church pew, or the bus,

Good neighborhoods,

White picket fences,

White unions,

Restrictive covenants,

GI Bills that gave home loans and paid college bills for WWII white soldiers and sailors,

But not my dad, and his fellow veterans of color,

Coming “out of the closet” was a death warrant,

Every society,

With such a hierarchy,

Needs a pariah:

Blacks, Latinos, Gypsies, and Jews,

Immigrants,

LGBT,

Women,

To justify why things are

“So bad, compared to the way they used to be,”

In pie-in-the-sky fascist fantasies,

And “I alone can fix it!” Mentalities.

 

Just spitballing:

African Americans, women, LGBT, Hispanic/Latino, Millenials, Gen-Z, represents the “hell breaking loose,”

 

American oligarchs have been trying to “fix” since Russell Kirk,

 

Joe Manchin just lied about changing the filibuster to a talking filibuster,

 

“In total, 161 exceptions to the filibuster’s supermajority requirement have been created between 1969 and 2014, according to an analysis by the Brookings Institution’s Molly Reynolds.” The Filibuster, Explained, Tim Lau, The Brennan Center for Justice

 

Just spitballing:

But if I, a non-lawyer, can find this info,

What contempt do Manchin, Sinema,

And every Republican senator has for American citizens?

They frankly think the electorate is dumber than a box of rocks, and their actual constituents are their donors?

 

Just spitballing:

Maybe ignorance and fascism

Was always the “break glass” scheme in case of expanded democracy overwhelmingly demanded by marginalized groups?

 

Perspective:

Am I the only one who feels our historical poetry of this nation’s origins amounts to four centuries of self-gaslighting that we call “American exceptionalism?”

 

Did climate change,

Income inequality pointed out since Occupy Wall Street,

Science denialism,

Anti vaxxing,

Tribalism,

The pandemic,

And January 6, 2021, rip the scales off our eyes and REVEAL we’re NOT

E Pluribus Unum?

 

A suggestion:

After 400 years of bullshitting,

The myriad threats to the human species’ existence,

If you want E Pluribus Unum,

TRY teaching Civics instead of Social Studies,

If you want rational citizens,

TRY teaching Science instead of fantasies,

Give the tools of the citizenry to the citizens,

Maybe START trying democracy - rule of the people - for ONCE

Isn’t that better than waiting for Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson, and Elon Musk to save us?

 

I’m just spitballing!

Reality TV, Infotainment, and Apocalypse...

Infotainment Systems Can Turn Some Car Owners Off, Wards Auto

 © August 26, 2021, the Griot Poet

 

We are living in a “Twilight Zone” episode,

Rod Serling never wrote,

You went from hydroxychloroquine,

To drinking bleach,

Shining flashlights up your ass,

To “Billy Bob, Cooter, and Skeeter’s” medical advice,

In your “dimensions of sight, sound, and mind” Facebook groups,

On the horse dewormer, ivermectin,

Instead of wearing a mask or taking a FREE vaccine,

Are you all insane?

 

Facebook meme: “insisting on your rights without acknowledging your responsibility isn’t freedom; it’s adolescence.”

 

Laura Ingrate, Sean Insanity,

And The Three Stooges Curly Howard’s distant cousin, Tucker Carlson,

Have all been vaccinated,

As well as their oligarch boss, Rupert Murdoch,

Yet, they’re encouraging you not to.

 

That is the textbook definition,

Of sadism: “the tendency to derive pleasure, especially sexual gratification, from inflicting pain, suffering, or humiliation on others,”

Laughing at you in the coffee room,

After passing company-mandated COVID protocols,

Fully-vaccinated,

On the Avenue of the Americas,

They are fascists,

Like Ingrate’s father, Nazi sympathizers,

Mike Lofgren and George Will were the first to leave this circus,

None of Fox Propaganda’s anchors are conservatives,

They aim to overthrow our democratic republic,

 

Penguin Random House book description lead:

“What happens when media and politics become forms of entertainment?”

 

Neil Postman’s central research question in his polemic,

“Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business,”

 

Ted Turner’s “great idea” of 24-hour “infotainment.”

Attractive, model-like female news anchors like Robin Meade,

Misogyny well before Roger Ailes,

Ted tried to get the same cinematic effects,

Like“HBO,” “Star Wars,” and the “Rocky Horror Picture Show,”

CNN’s “Crossfire,” the prototype of orchestrated conflict,

He largely succeeded,

The infotainment echo chambers followed as clones of him,

 

It’s easy to blame everything on social media,

It’s just a digitized version of Postman’s warning screed,

Richard Nixon,

Won re-election,

On his “law and order” mandate,

Instituted the racist “war on drugs,”

Sweeping 49 out of 50 states,

Watergate felled him,

Due to Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward’s,

Investigative journalism,

With the help of

Three television stations,

Radio and print media,

The corporatists had to control the flow of information,

Were the same fascists who substituted,

Civics with what Frank Zappa pointed out as “social studies,”

Began a decades-long campaign,

To shape the opinions of citizens,

Consolidating ownership,

From 150 independent media outlets

 

To six, controlled by:

AT&T (who bought Time Warner), CBS (Big Bang, and Star Trek), Comcast (think MSNBC), Disney (owns ABC), News Corp (Fox Propaganda), and Viacom (BET, MTV, VH1, all of who no longer plays videos),

 

But cheered on our failed deployments,

In Iraq and Afghanistan,

As it lined war profiteers pockets,

 

Apocalypse: It’s a great title to a movie, story, supervillain, or blog post.

It means “to uncover” or “to reveal.”

 

Here’s your revelation:

This nation has profited from war and carnage since its inception.

Looking forward to a rapture,

Encourages laziness,

No need to solve climate change by applying science,

“Mutually Assured Destruction” in this warped Cartesian thinking isn’t madness,

 

All Americans, Native Americans, African Americans, Asian Americans, Hispanic Americans, LGBTQ Americans, Women, immigrants

 

Are all being affected by the anti-democratic efforts of Republican legislatures to either pick the voters they want to be counted or if elections don’t quite go their way, THROW out the results!

 

Dr. King referred to that as “interposition, and nullification.”

 

The filibuster has been adjusted, carved out, flipped, manipulated for less than our ability to call ourselves a federal republic than for billionaire Oligarchs’ tax cuts.

 

Both parties are invested in the “status quo.” It is ghoulish.

 

Continuing it would be self-extinction and foolish,

 

The whole intent of Dr. Neil Postman’s warnings of simply 24-hour “infotainment” cable news;

Before social media proliferated;

Before phone apps were invented,

Before our news outlets consolidated,

And morphed into self-deluding echo chambers kowtowing to Nielsen ratings,

Before politicians became craven liars in stark evidence of insurrection,

And would instead rule over a smoldering ruin of feces than serve in an actual democracy.

 

Democracy (noun): a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives: rule BY the people,

 

Our nation and the world deserve better.

Our nation and the world get better when “we the people” demand better.

 

 

Nolite te bastardes carborundorum, Margaret Atwood, “The Handmaid’s Tale,” translation: Don’t let the bastards grind you down.

 

Demonstrate,

Protest,

Do comedy,

Sing songs,

Write poetry,

Perform skits,

Speak the truth about reality, politics, and science,

Come to venues like “Spoken and Heard” to fight for democracy, and above all:

Vote!

Put the bastards to flight,

Representative government is fascism’s kryptonite.