The Pervasiveness of the Neo-Nutocracy
American Science, Business, Religion, and Government used to be the guardrails of our society, but the last two fronts are weakening and threatening to unleash the nuts
The Neo-Nutocracy is here. It is a reforming and variation of past Nutocracies, like the ubiquitous end of days theories, evil race and other-worldly conspiracy theories. Sadly, this seeming conspiracy of conspiracy theories is led by Christian evangelical groups, who should really know better, and Blue State New-Agers who perhaps flunked out of science while their peers were busy forming the STEM network upon which our modern society is based. Add some undereducated, unbridled white supremacist gun fanatics and goons, and you have the makings of Pizzagate, QAnon, Alien abduction, Jewish-bankers, End-of-Days, and Donald Trump mess of which apparently about 40% of our society at least partially subscribes.
Ordinarily, we look for rational Christianity and Science to lead in our proud nation. In the 1600s, Christian minister Roger Williams (and other theologians) fought for religious tolerance, separation of church and state, and what later became the first amendment. The 1700s brought scientific developments such as the Royal Society (which established science peer review), and the furtherance of democratic ideals, all espoused and nurtured by science and God-loving statesmen such as Franklin, Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln (all not coincidentally Freemasons, who were dedicated to the furtherance of such ideals. Substitute another Freemason, Teddy Roosevelt, for Franklin and you have Mount Rushmore). In the 1800s, many American churches had clear and noble objectives, as they were at the forefront of the “Christian work-ethic”, anti-slavery, sobriety, inclusion of non-whites, and the broadening of democracy through advocacies of voting for all. As science famously took off after the Industrial Revolution, becoming a firm matrix of progress for our Nation into the 1900s, Christianity seemingly lost its way.
Before I’m tempted to say “Jesus became a Democrat, God a Republican”, let me explain. Christianity’s descent into the weird perhaps began with the Scopes Monkey Trial (if you conveniently forget about the Salem witch burnings), when Christianity decided on the not-exactly-Biblical idea that the Universe was 10,000 years old, giving rise to “Young Earth Creationism” and the “creation science” of freelancers like Henry Morris. Never mind the fact that “creation science” is not particularly germane to the Bible, and that we humans are not supposed to make those determinations (the Bible could easily be interpreted to have longer timelines without taking away from the general message of creation). Next Southern evangelicalism, which was one step removed from Southern Christian beliefs justifying slavery, became the dominant “brand” of U.S. Christianity, bringing with it the sort of “medicine show” rural beliefs of snake oil potions and miracle healing, also biblically the domain of the sainted and perhaps not intended to be the business of southern hucksters. Enter the traditionally rural fear of the educated and the perceived Hollywood Babylon (the engine of many a popular movie) and we start to see the beginnings of the Neo-Nutocracy.
Another rather simple foible of Christianity might be its failure to solidify the better foundations of its history (ie the Ten Commandments and the classic values of Jesus, including faith, humility, forgiveness, redemption, and restraint from judgement) while maintaining some of its stranger archaic paradoxes (ie “Thou shalt not kill” vs “There is a time for everything, a time to kill”) and perhaps the entire book of Leviticus (do you really want to stone disobedient children or homosexuals to death? How many turtle-doves do you need to keep on hand for the rabbi if you’re a woman having a period? Do we need to be told to not eat ocelot or albatross?) I mean, what is it, kill or not kill? Why is Leviticus even in there? If you believe Leviticus, I’m thinking all bets are off…could you think of a better advertisement for how weird you are? Before going off on ISIS/911 Bombers and their “100 Virgins”, maybe start thinking about some of your own baggage (honestly the Old Testament is shared by Islam and Judaism, so if they’re weird, we’re weird too). An ad executive hypothetically hired to market Christianity might say “hey! You’ve got a great thing here, just accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative” or somesuch, but since these warped or fabricated orthodoxies are considered “the word” and are used effectively by power abusers to warp weak people’s minds, that is a no go.
What is particularly concerning about this movement is that it is being joined by traditional racists and gun loving fascists. Organized Christianity was supposed to be a hedge against this sort of fear-mongering, and one could credibly ask “would Jesus hate on non-whites or beat up gays?”, or “If Jesus forgives and redeems, does that mean he also needs to pack heat?” Once again, one wonders why Christianity is not defending some of its core tenets. One might think that the Bible heavily implies the protection of God’s green earth and its sacred creatures, but hold on there, modern Christians essentially believe in the exploitation of the Earth for human gain. The one area where Christians may be on point is regarding abortion, as it might be generally agreed that to protect the lives of the unborn is inherently Biblical, except they even screw that up, sometimes opposing contraception (a logical alternative) and sometimes opposing abortion even when the mother’s life is at stake or killing abortion doctors (unclear on the life-saving hypocritical motives here) and not pushing for a logical church-state compromise (like a 2 month limit except in cases of rape/incest/medical reasons) which would essentially preserve our County’s notions of freedom (important when churches are often threatening freedom).
Meanwhile, left wing New Agers are not fairing much better. Having apparently missed the educational boat in Blue States, they have settled upon a kind of parallel Evangelical movement, complete with anti-vaxing, questionably applied home schooling, their own Howard Ickes reptilian conspiracy theories, and weird end of days mysticism (just insert “aliens” for “angels” and you even have the 10,000 year+- timeline of humanity with similar doomsday prophesies around the corner). Blue State New Agers flock around people like Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who preach radical, draconian solutions to things like global warming, race and gender issues, while treating taxpayer money like water (even more so than Trump). They hide their hatreds well, except when Antifa goes at it with Neo Nazis and it seems like the same people with different uniforms.
Surely there are enough sensible, science and business based minds to counter this trend of idiocy by the masses, but then judging from recent events, maybe not. Clear-thinking authors like Ayn Rand, Milton Friedman, Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, and Tom Wolfe are conveniently dead now, so that the Nutocracy is immune to their sensible criticisms, and able to take their messages out of context and into the weird. The Ayn Rand heroes should be Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, and honestly Donald Trump is the lying usurper that she explicitly warned us about. Funny that Andrew Yang’s “freedom dividend” is similar to what Milton Friedman suggested many years ago, and I don’t suppose that Friedman would recognize the freedom of everything, run amok, that has become our economic controls as of late. Too bad Dickens isn’t around to point out the usury and exploitation so rampant in our society, or Twain isn’t here to call out the lying, grifting, and shear idiocy. Wolfe can no longer explain how heroes quietly rise above the nonsense.
Note also how old people seem especially prone to the Neo-Nutocracy. Is there something that snatches your brain when you retire? This is perhaps telling, as when your kids grow up and you don’t have to work anymore, your thinking gets lazy, you become more fearful, and you start lashing out at the things you don’t understand. But shouldn’t you travel, take up something like golf or bocce-ball instead? Why not relinquish control of the world to those that will inherit it (ie your former coworkers or the kids you raised), that will also inherit the huge national debt and grimy earth that you created, without complaint? Are you defensive? Do you feel guilty? I mean, I’m old and I think Marianne Williamson is a weirdo too, but do you have to pick on poor Greta Thunburg? Why can’t we give up neo-nuttery and start following the advice of sensible people like Gates, Buffet, Michelle Obama, Tom Hanks, Bill Maher, and Alice Waters? Why am I putting so few on this list? Does this mean that all of us are slowly turning into nuts? (let me get back to you on that)
Science and Religious faiths are supposed to be our society’s first lines of defense. Now that religions are failing us, we increasingly look to government to be our guardrail, except they too are weakening along the same lines as religion. The Third Reich persecuted Freemasons along with Jews, as if they knew that rational science and business minds were a threat (the Turks tried to eliminate the industrious Armenians along the same lines in WW I). Of course Hitler had essentially made Nazism into the State religion, and conscripted the Scientists who didn’t flee to the Allies. You’d think religions would create consensus, beginning with the Freemason concept that we all worship the same God, thereby opening the door for universal truths that protect basic rights and provide a kind of international protection, thereby transcending evil government, but no-oooooo!
I guess we’re headed for the day when Trump/QAnon creates the goon squads that keep the rest of us “smarty pants” people in line with guns and gulags, in the tradition of Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, etc. What else would be the end game? Similarly, there will be war waged upon Jews, Freemasons, women, homosexuals, Mexicans, East Indians and Chinese (basically the people that do much of the thinking, uphold the arts, or do a great deal of the work) and it will succeed until the wheels of progress come to a halt, the end of days doesn’t happen, and folks realize that although aliens and angels may hover over our world, it seems to also run pretty well when smart people are free to do their jobs and the nutty people go underground.
