Saturday, June 6, 2020

The Strong Weapons Come Out

A makeshift poster I made for a rally out of a white board and markers
I've been to two rallies against racism this week.  The first was held downtown yesterday evening and the second was held downtown this afternoon.  I wanted to attend yesterday's rally so that I could provide some guidance in a limited way to the protestors who have been demonstrating against the continued racism directed against Black Americans, so I used a large dry-erase white board and some erasable markers to make the "poster" which you see in the picture above.  I asked a number of people to take a picture of it and post it on social media.  The poster asks people to do some homework, namely to read books like Why Civil Resistance Works, How Nonviolent Struggle Works, and the CANVAS Core Curriculum.  The poster also asks people to watch community organizing videos from Marshall Ganz.

Yesterday afternoon I also received an invitation from a friend of mine to the rally that took place today under a mix of sunshine and rain.  I was given a blessed opportunity to stand at the mic for a few minutes, and here is what I told the people present.

First I gave then my name and I told them my profession.  (For the purposes of this blog I am a "degreed technical professional" although I used a much shorter title in front of the crowd).  Then I said the following:

I am an African-American!  I am also a Christian!  And the Bible says that every human being on earth has the right to the things they need so that they can fulfill their purpose in life!
But there are some people who don't agree with this - they want to take all the good things on earth and keep them for themselves while they deprive the rest of us of everything we need to live a decent life.  How can we overcome them?  How can we liberate ourselves?
It is through nonviolent resistance that we liberate ourselves!  Nonviolent resistance is a way of shifting the power balance between the powerful and the powerless, between the oppressor and the oppressed.  Nonviolent resistance is not just turning the other cheek and turning the other cheek and turning the other cheek until you have no cheeks left!  It is about shifting the power balance between the oppressor and the oppressed!
So I'm going to give you all some homework!  I want you to read: Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict.  You all want me to repeat that?! (The crowd answered, Yes! So I did.)  And I want you all to read How Nonviolent Struggle Works! (I repeated this title too.)  You all can download it for free from the Internet.  And I want you to watch some videos by a community organizer named Marshall Ganz. 
Who's going to do their homework?! (A bunch of hands went up.)  If we're gonna liberate ourselves, we've got to learn how!  Do your homework!

A number of cameras were recording me while I was talking.  While I normally don't like that sort of thing, today it was fun.  In fact, I had a lot of fun this weekend!

P.S. Trump's pillars of support keep crumbling.  Over 55 retired military leaders have denounced him, and many of them have endorsed Joe Biden for the Presidency.  Let me just say one thing about Biden.  A trick used by Russian trolls and Russia-influenced media outlets during the 2016 election was to try to paint Hillary Clinton as being just as evil as Donald Trump.  The conclusion these mouthpieces wanted us to make was that "hey, since there's no difference, why vote, it will do no good, blah, blah, blah..."  But to me, there is a clear difference between Trump and Biden.  So I'm going to vote.  (How that must kill you, Vladimir!)  And I'm going to vote for Biden!  (Volodya, that must kill you even more!)  If progress is almost always incremental, we start with what we have instead of refusing to start the journey of progress because it doesn't instantly lead to paradise.  The journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step.  To refuse to vote or to vote for Trump is a step in the wrong direction.

Wednesday, June 3, 2020

The Defeat of the Violent Flanks

In two of my most recent posts I wrote that protest is not a good method of nonviolent resistance in the age of Trump, because oppressors know how to inject violence into nonviolent protests in order to discredit the protests and legitimize violent crackdowns on protest. But it looks like I’m going to have to eat my words based on the reports I’ve been reading over the last 24 hours concerning the protests over the police murder of George Floyd.

Believe me, I’m quite happy to eat my words just now. Some of the things that are now being reported are wonderful. It now appears that the leaders of the protests have figured out how to separate their protests as far as possible from the violent infiltrators who are coming from the Antifa, the Boogaloo Boys, and other violent white extremist groups. Because the protest leaders and the relatives of those African-Americans recently killed by police violence are insisting that the protests remain peaceful, the protests have gained increased legitimacy among the general public. Because the protest leaders have sought to promote strict nonviolent discipline among the protesters, the protest leaders have been able to get police and National Guard personnel to join with the protesters in showing solidarity with the victims of racist violence, as seen in the many recent media pictures of National Guard troops laying down their shields in support of the protests and police kneeling with the protesters to show their solidarity with the cause of the protests. (See this, this, and this.)  In some cases, police can be seen not only kneeling with the protesters, but holding hands with them and marching with them in solidarity. (See this also.)  And in one case, police who knelt with protesters joined with them in reciting the Lord’s Prayer.

This has made it much harder for Donald Trump to justify sending the U.S. military in to stop the protests. In fact, former President George W. Bush released a statement affirming the right of Americans to protest injustice and calling on Americans to build a society which is just and fair for all. Even televangelist Pat Robertson has spoken against Trump’s call to send in U.S. troops against U.S. citizens. And the U.S. defense secretary has stated that he will refuse any orders by Trump to attack American citizens.  It appears that Trump’s pillars of support are dissolving!

Lastly, it appears that the protest leaders have discovered some of the literature on strategic nonviolent resistance. One of the protest leaders spoke of the triumph of “people power.” The phrase “people power” was used by Filipinos to describe their nonviolent overthrow of Ferdinand Marcos back in the 1980’s. Trump is now starting to look like Marcos, or like Slobodan Milosevic just before OTPOR overthrew him in Serbia's own nonviolent revolution.  The protesters against racism in America have powerfully succeeded in making oppression backfire on the oppressor.

I wonder what Putin’s Russia thinks of all of this, since it is clear that the Russian government has been behind the rise of many far-Right national leaders (including Trump) over the last several years.  It must be hard for him to see that all the work he did to mess up the United States seems now to be going up in smoke. Maybe a people power revolution will come soon to a town near him!

One warning: though there is much good news coming out of the re-emerging movement for racial justice, we can't yet claim victory.  Trump is still President.  Therefore, we must remain vigilant, stay on the offensive, and make ourselves as smart and resourceful as possible.

Tuesday, June 2, 2020

Decency and Gratitude

I am an American citizen.  I am also African-American.  My patriotism is at a very low point today, and has been for the last several years.  Patriotism to me has come to mean worshiping a narcissistic country that has made itself great by trashing everyone else on earth.  Therefore I was quite willing to write this country off.

However, over the last several hours, I am finding signs of decency even among the members of the dominant culture in this country.  Here are a few:

I could go on, but I'll stop here.  I can only say, Thank you!

Monday, June 1, 2020

Matthew Lee Rupert

As I mentioned in my last two posts, for communities of the oppressed in the United States, protest is not a good method of nonviolent resistance at this time.  The reason is that members of the dominant culture (as in, violent radical white supremacist and anarchist groups) are infiltrating protests by dark-skinned communities of the oppressed in order to incite violence.  Lest anyone think that this is a baseless accusation, here's proof:


Image retrieved from WCBU on 1 June 2020.

See this also.  These people have nothing in common with the communities they are infiltrating - neither goals, nor values, nor morals.  Yet another example of nihilism...

Sunday, May 31, 2020

Alternative Resistance Tool: The Boycott

As I said in my last post, the methods of protest and persuasion are actually the weakest methods of nonviolent resistance against oppression.  There are much stronger methods, which are effective because they withhold from the oppressor the benefits he reaps from the compliance of the oppressed.

Let me introduce a concept that comes from the world of union and community organizing.  The first is the concept of power analysis - a means by which organizers of the oppressed map out the power relations among themselves, among their opponents, and between the oppressed and the oppressors.  From that power analysis you can then build a strategy for disrupting the power relations of the oppressor.  One excellent means of disruption is the boycott.

Boycotts are useful for the following reasons:

  1. They are low-risk actions.  Riot police find it much harder to go after you simply because you refuse to support a business.  No one I know has ever been arrested for refusing to shop.
  2. They are extremely hard to infiltrate.  Right now, I am hearing reports of violent white right-wing groups infiltrating many of the George Floyd protests.  They can't infiltrate a boycott.
  3. They hit the oppressor where it really hurts.  Boycotters can do the financial equivalent of choking their oppressor to death.
But boycotts must be strategically planned in order to be successful.  A boycott without strategic planning is likely to fail.  The boycott should have a clear, quantifiable, verifiable goal, such as forcing the city of Minneapolis to reduce police funding by a certan percent and to lay off a certain percent of its police force.  On the other hand, if boycotters simply say, "We are boycotting everyone and everything until police brutality is ended!", that is not a clear, quantifiable goal.  The demand of protestors that all four of the officers who arrested George Floyd be arrested and brought to trial is a good start.  

Secondly, a boycott should focus on a specific target, namely a specific business whose compliance with the boycotters' demands would have a measurable strategic benefit, and whose downfall would send a clear message to the other businesses in its particular geographic location and market sector.  The Montgomery Bus Boycott is a good example of this.  Read also Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals.  (But take Alinsky with a grain of salt.)  Or study the highly effective strategy used by the United Farm Workers in the boycotts of grape growers in the 1960's.  You can also read Why David Sometimes Wins by Marshall Ganz.

Lastly, here is a partial list of Fortune 500 companies based in Minnesota.  Whether any of them is a good boycott target will depend on the power analysis performed by the oppressed.  Whether a boycott succeeds in forcing your demands will depend on your strategy.  The list:
  • Polaris Industries
  • Thrivent Financial for Lutherans (Why am I not surprised that a Lutheran financial institution is in a racist state?)
  • Hormel Foods
  • Ecolab
  • Land O'Lakes (a food company that makes cheese and other products)
  • General Mills
These entries are taken from this source.  In your analysis, ask which of these firms are pro-police.

One other note: I believe that the violence perpetrated by infiltrators at the George Floyd protests were meant to give Donald Trump a strategic opportunity to boost his popularity by demonizing nonwhite people.  Now that it is being revealed that these infiltrators are mainly white, Mr. Trump seems to have lost his strategic advantage.

Saturday, May 30, 2020

Effective Resistance is NOT Protest

In response to the police murder of George Floyd, protests have erupted across the United States.  I agree with the anger of the African-Americans who have chosen to express their anger through protest.  I too am an African-American.  However, I do not think that protest is a wise means of expressing that anger at present.  Protest has not been a wise means of resistance ever since Donald Trump seized the presidency.  Therefore, to rely on protest as a means of tactical and strategic change is a tactical and strategic mistake.

As I have written in previous posts, protest is actually the weakest of the methods of nonviolent resistance, because it by itself does not apply effective pressure to an oppressor.  It is also a dangerous method to use when the oppressor has an understanding of how nonviolent struggle works, because the oppressor can then inject violence into what started as an act of nonviolent resistance.  Once the oppressor is able to inject violence into a nonviolent movement, it becomes much easier for the oppressor to justify the use of violent state repression against the nonviolent movement.  For more on this, please read the excellent Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict, by Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan.  Or just watch some of the YouTube videos of Erica Chenoweth.

This is why I am highly suspicious of the violent actors (mostly white; see this also) who have invaded the nonviolent protests by African-Americans against police brutality.  (Note that the second source I just cited has reported that many of the looters and rioters who have attacked businesses in St. Paul owned by people of color and immigrants over the last two days have been white people from out of town.)  Over the last three or so years, we have witnessed time and time again the provocative actions of the Antifa who show up uninvited to protests by people with legitimate grievances in order to turn those protests violent.  Thus the Antifa turns the protest away from a voicing of legitimate grievances by an oppressed group in order to focus attention solely on the Antifa (and to provoke outrageous reactions in their opponents by means of the outrageous actions of the Antifa).  Therefore, the destruction which is now happening in many parts of the country is not about police brutality against African-Americans, or about the brutality of ICE against Latinos, or about any actual grievance of any oppressed dark-skinned minority groups in the United States.

Based on what I have read and heard about strategic nonviolent resistance, I would like to offer a hypothesis.  First, I believe that the Antifa is funded by the same people who put Donald Trump into power.  Second, I believe that the real purpose of the Antifa is to provide a pretext for Donald Trump to impose martial law on the United States (or at least to boost his chances for re-election).  Third, I believe the Antifa has managed to infiltrate even some organizations whose ostensible mission is to teach strategic nonviolent resistance.  (See this, for instance.  By the way, the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict needs to take out some trash.  Seriously.)  By engaging in violence, the Antifa is actually strengthening the pillars of support of Donald Trump in a day in which those pillars of support should be weakening due to his incompetence and malignancy.  And I think (because it has been explained to them time and time again) that the leaders of the Antifa know all these things.  This is yet further evidence that the Antifa is not really about opposing fascism.

So for those who want to support communities of color in these times, please listen to the voices of some of the most prominent members of those communities of color (here, here, and here, for instance).  Do not engage in mass protest.  Let it be seen clearly who the agents of violence actually are.  Instead of protest, study how to build effective organizing skills in order to liberate yourselves from oppression without the use of violence.

One thing just occurred to me - maybe I'll make up some bumper stickers and hand them out to friends.  The stickers could say something like

THE ANTIFA IS PAID FOR BY TRUMP

or,

ANTIFA: PAID FOR BY TRUMP

Hmm...

Sunday, May 24, 2020

Nihil Nixed

I must admit that many of my most recent blog posts have had a strong spiritual tone.  This may have been a bit of a turn-off to those who are uncomfortable with the spiritual as I define it, or to those who want me to write essays that are focused solely on the observable, quantifiable physical and economic processes of the ongoing decline of the Global North.  While I don't apologize at all for the spiritual element, I promise that today's post will not be just another sermon.  I also promise that in addition to the spiritual, today's post will contain the empirical.  But before you can have your dessert, you must first eat your dinner!

*   *   *

Let's begin by studying a word: nihilism. The first page of a Google search of this word reveals the following definition at the top of the page: "the rejection of all religious and moral principles, in the belief that life is meaningless." According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, nihilism is "originally a philosophy of moral and epistemological skepticism that arose in 19th-century Russia during the early years of the reign of Tsar Alexander II," although the Encyclopedia acknowledges that the concept pre-dates 19th-century Russia. The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (woo-hoo!), a product of the University of Tennessee, Martin, states that nihilism is "...the belief that all values are baseless and that nothing can be known or communicated." The IEP also states correctly that nihilism as a cultural phenomenon was examined by Friedrich Nietzsche, who concluded correctly that nihilism is the inevitable product of the rejection of the belief in a personal God who gives meaning to the universe, as corroborated by another Internet powerhouse created by a high-powered university, namely Stanford. Nietzsche foresaw the destructive effects which nihilism would have on European and Euro-centric societies which had hitherto relied on Christian ethics and morals as a guide to right action and a restraint against wrong action. His solution therefore was to propose the emergence of an Übermensch (or perhaps a collection of them) who would form a new aristocracy imposing its will on the rest of humanity, thus becoming the creators of the system of values by which the rest of humanity would be obliged to live - often without realizing this obligation. In other words, in the place of God - the Übermensch! These individuals would be able to thus reign over the rest of us by virtue of their more finely developed "will to power", and by means of the power thus conferred by that more developed will.

Now, time for full disclosure: the above paragraph is the result on my part of a rather brief study of nihilism and Nietzsche.  A full study would require weeks, months, or even years of time and the possession of a brain possessed with enough reserves of working memory to untangle really long and knotty philosophical arguments.  I know I don't have the time (mowed the lawn yesterday, need to plant more soybeans in my backyard and finish cleaning the house), and I'm not sure I have even a tenth of the mental firepower needed for such an effort.  But let me break down the above paragraph into a set of propositions.  Nihilism (and Nietzsche) involves the following:
  1. The belief that there is no intrinsic master of the universe who imposes meaning and values on the universe;
  2. The need to save human society from the anomie that results from Statement 1 above by the emergence of an Übermensch or aristocracy of such individuals who by their own finely developed will to power gain the power to impose that will on the rest of us.
  3. The rejection of the notion of impartial treatment of all men (and hence of the equality of all men).  Note that this equality is specifically taught by the New Testament - a source which is rejected by both nihilism and Nietzsche.
The implications of these three attitudes are that if you happen to be one of the fortunate few who can act as an Übermensch,  you can set the rules of whatever part of human society you control according to your own tastes.  And more than likely, the chief goal of your tastes will be to maximize your power as much as possible, even if it means a diminishing of the power of others.  ("Let's divide up the world fairly between us.  One for me, and one for me.  Two for me, and two for me...Heads I win, tails I win...")  You can get away with it, because there is no intrinsic master of the universe who can impose his standards on you - standards which may well contradict yours.

*   *   *

At first blush, the tradition of thinking embodied in traditional American religious fundamentalism and white American evangelicalism would seem to be the farthest thing from nihilism and from the concept of the Übermensch posited by Nietzsche as the antidote to that nihilism. After all, the rallying cry of American Protestants has historically been Sola Scriptura. And if you're going to cry, "Sola Scriptura!" ("By Scripture alone!") you have to accept Bible passages such as the Book of Ezekiel, which I am currently reading. Ezekiel's prophecy is the polar opposite of nihilism, as seen in quotes like this:
Then He said to me, "The iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah is very, very great, and the land is filled with blood, and the city is full of perversion, for they say, 'the LORD has forsaken the land, and the LORD does not see!' But as for me, My eye will have no pity nor shall I spare, but I shall bring their conduct upon their heads." - Ezekiel 9:9-10
In other words, by crying "Sola Scriptura!" white American evangelicals have stated their belief in a moral universe, a universe ruled by an impartial moral standard imposed externally on it by a Creator who Himself rules over the universe He has created, and who is angered by and ready to punish the violation of His moral standard.  Therefore, this moral standard is not the creation of any mortal man, but rather of the God who created the universe.  Indeed, according to C.S. Lewis, the mere fact that humans appeal to a moral standard at all - even when the standard to which they appeal is of their own making - shows that humans acknowledge the existence of independent moral standards.  This argument is beautifully set forth in Mere Christianity.   (By the way, white American evangelicalism seems to love C.S. Lewis - at least from what they say about him.)

Armed with this recognition of a moral standard that is independent of man and which originated outside of man, white American evangelicalism has branded itself a warrior in behalf of this moral standard to impose this standard on everyone, whether they want it or not.  Thus from the late 1960's until 2016, prominent American evangelical voices such as Charles Colson, Franklin Graham, Francis Schaeffer, James Dobson, Tony Perkins, et al, have spoken tirelessly against the disappearance of Christian ethics and culture from the broader American culture, as well as warning against the rise of popularity of other religions and the loosening of American sexual mores.  I must say that I think they have been partly right to speak out against things which the Bible speaks against.  But when it comes to the fulcrum - the center of gravity - of the New Testament, they have been unaccountably silent.  For Christ Himself (whom they claim to believe and follow) said, "Therefore, however you want people to treat you, you too, do so for them, for this is the Law and the Prophets."  He also said that next to the greatest commandment, namely to love the Lord with all one's being, the second greatest commandment was to love one's neighbor as oneself.

Plenty of other people have explained quite well how it suited American Protestant and evangelical churches to ignore the Scriptural duty each human being has toward his or her fellow human beings, since after all, white America made itself great by trashing, robbing, enslaving and oppressing everyone else on earth.  Under such an arrangement, it would have been highly politically inconvenient for the mass of evangelicals to condemn what Ezekiel would call the gaining of material wealth by violence.  (See Ezekiel 22.)  Indeed, if I might editorialize for just a bit, the Scripture frequently uses sexual imagery to describe the relationship between the God of the Bible and those who call themselves His people.  The true Church is therefore called the Bride of Christ, while those who call themselves God's people and yet are unfaithful to Him are frequently called harlots or unfaithful wives.  In this context, the white American evangelical church has for a long time made itself the spread-legged harlot - the serving wench - of secular, earthly economic and political power, and not the Bride of Christ.

They did so first by teaching that a Christian man's duty to love his fellow man applied only when the two men who needed to love each other were white.  Then they taught that since the rest of us were defective, they could exterminate or enslave us at will, as if to re-enact Israel's conquest of the land of Canaan.  The only problem with this is that they posited that we their intended targets deserved our mistreatment because we were more wicked than they.  (That accusation has since been abundantly proven false!)  And lastly, they redefined evil as being confined simply to certain sexual sins and piety as being confined merely to private observance of religious devotion - thus giving them license to systematically break almost every commandment of God that addresses how people are supposed to treat each other.

I know what effect such teaching (and the treatment I received from white churches who taught it) had on me at first - there was the self-doubt, the questioning, the wondering whether it was actually true that God had created me to be the trash can, the vomit bucket, the toilet bowl, the punching bag of a select subset of humanity, and whether there really was nothing I could (or should) do about it.  One of the things that saved me from that self-doubt and questioning has been that over the years, I have watched the ways in which the leading voices of white American evangelicalism have failed to uphold their own standard.  For they can't even keep their own rules; therefore, they have lost all rights to claim that they are better than me in any way.  So they say that sexual morality is the only kind of morality that matters?  Maybe - but what about the many flag-waving Republicans who voted for Bush, who lost all their retirement savings in the 2008 financial meltdown?  What about the patriotic American soldiers who were killed in the 2003 Iraq invasion which the United States performed to remove weapons of mass destruction that never existed?  These are by no means the only true believers who have suffered from the failure of man to do right by man.  And regarding sexual morality - why is it that the Republicans and evangelicals who were so strident in impeaching Bill Clinton have rallied around Donald Trump?  You who are ready to punish my imperfection, you who accuse me of being a violent thug ready to rape women because I am an African-American male, why have you not stoned Dennis Hastert to death for his sin?  Or Mark Sanford?  Or Josh Duggar?

But I am not here today to editorialize.  I have a larger point to make - first, that the white American evangelical church (and by extension, the entire Republican party) have come to me to be the perfect embodiment of nihilism.  Nihilism in the sense that while they say they believe in an impartial moral standard that originated outside of themselves, they act as if there is no such standard and that the only standard to which they need to submit is the standard which they themselves create and have the power to enforce.  They are the Übermensch aristocracy, whose philosophy is captured in this quote attributed to an aide of former President George W. Bush:
The aide said that guys like me were 'in what we call the reality-based community,' which he defined as people who 'believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.' [...] 'That's not the way the world really works anymore,' he continued. 'We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors...and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.
So,... what's the point of all that I have written so far?  As I said a few sentences ago, I am not here to editorialize.  Nor am I here to try to appeal to the better angels of the people now in power in this country.  Frankly, I am tired of that kind of editorializing (although today I found a particularly fine example of it here).  To me it's a waste of time to tell people who do very bad things that they are in danger of thus making themselves very bad people once you see that they want to be bad because they find badness to be ego-syntonic.  My question is much cruder.  Namely, it is this: how long can a society get away with murder before there are consequences?  For the universe is not nihilist!  After all, the Bible does not just appeal to our better angels; it also promises consequences to those people who do not have better angels.  And the consequences are not just that such people will become icky.  The Bible promises that God will break things in the lives of those who continue in evil.  "The soul that sins shall die." - Ezekiel 18:4.  "The wages of sin is death..." - Romans 6: 23.  "Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap." - Galatians 6:7.  In other words, I am looking for the propagation of the outworkings of damnation in a society that ought to be damned.  Moreover, I am looking not only as a Christian, but as an empiricist, a person who has received a technical professional education and earned a technical professional degree and who is familiar with the scientific method.  And this weekend, I think I've found some evidences for the propagation I've been looking for.

*   *   *

Consider again the white American evangelical and Protestant establishment as the spread-legged harlot - the serving wench - of secular, earthly economic and political power, and not the Bride of Christ.  Consider that church as a key pillar of the power base of Donald J. Trump, and consider that this is so because of the leaders who have risen to prominence in the evangelical ecosphere.  Now consider what is happening to that church in the age of COVID-19.  I leave you with the following citations:
I therefore hypothesize the emergence of a much smaller evangelical presence in America over the next several months, and the diminishment of American evangelicalism as a potent and controllable force in American politics.  (Disclaimer: I am not a prophet, and have not been officially certified by any state or government board as having any sort of gift of prophecy.  Take what I say with a grain of empiricism - YMMV.)  I also hypothesize the emergence of a cohort of jobless pastors!  This decline of evangelical power is, I think, one of the biggest reasons why Trump is so hot to remove social distancing restrictions on large indoor gatherings.  It is also why the Trump administration has extended COVID-19 financial aid to evangelical churches (in violation, some would say, of the Constitutional separation of church and state).  

Trump's use of government resources to prop up cronies leads me to the consideration of other propagations of the outworkings of damnation.  These considerations overwhelmingly involve the effect on American secular power.  But you'll have to wait until my next post to read them.  It's way past time for me to do other stuff...