Beating the Bishop

Musk’s recent foray into naughty arm-angle territory is still making, erm, waves. In some respects it serves as a perfect example of everything that has been going wrong over the last decade or so.

You have the over-sensitivity, the histrionics, the offence dial set to max, the (faux) outrage, the catastrophizing, the moral scolding, the extreme good/bad binary, and the drive to interpret everything done by the ‘right wing’ Untermensch in the least charitable way possible.

It’s a pattern we’ve seen time and time again and not just applied to (allegedly) inappropriate angles of arms. You will doubtless recall an example from some years ago now where a non-Asian student chose a traditional Chinese dress for her Prom. Oh the ‘outrage’, how very dare she! Didn’t she know that only people who look Chinese are allowed to wear those things?

Meanwhile, people who actually lived in China (in other words, actual Chinese people) were thrilled to bits at having their culture represented in this way.

On one hand it’s very funny watching people having their asinine and childish meltdowns over such things, but the attitude it represents, the bullying, the hectoring, the moral ‘superiority’, and the othering, is not funny at all.

There’s some truth in it all, though. Only yesterday I took my granddaughter to one of Musk’s far-right soft-play centres in the UK where we tried to teach her how to give a Nazi salute. She’s getting there.

(Image blurred to avoid Infantifa identification)

In Europe our elected representatives are getting all a bit frightened of the MAGA goosestepping going on. Here’s one (no idea who she is - sorry) warning us of people who use the space between horizontal and vertical for their arms.

And we definitely don’t want any of that masculine energy stuff in Europe! She must like her men to be a bit more on the floppy side, I reckon.

It’s going to be hellish for Americans over the next few years with all that masculine energy concentrated in one country.

If the tissues and boxes of chocolates, the scatter cushions and the scent diffusers, aren’t providing enough feminine Feng Shui to dispel all of that masculine energy I suppose one could always go to an Episcopalian church.

Bishop Marian Edgar Budde seems to be attempting to do for the Episcopalian Church what Dylan Mulvaney did for Budweiser.

She officiated at some religious shindig to celebrate the inauguration of the Orange Triple Hitler Mega Satan Dormammu Cthulhu™ as the new President of the US.

Here’s what she said in her closing remarks (full version of closing remarks here)

“Let me make one final plea, Mr. President . . . In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now. There are gay, lesbian and transgender children in Democratic, Republican, and Independent families, some who fear for their lives. The people who pick our crops and clean our office buildings; who labor in poultry farms and meat packing plants; who wash the dishes after we eat in restaurants and work the night shifts in hospitals. They may not be citizens or have the proper documentation . . . I ask you to have mercy, Mr. President, on those in our communities whose children fear that their parents will be taken away. And that you help those who are fleeing war zones and persecution in their own lands to find compassion and welcome here . . . May God grant us the strength and courage to honor the dignity of every human being, to speak the truth to one another in love and walk humbly with each other and our God for the good of all people. Good of all people in this nation and the world. Amen”

Wouldn’t it be kind of nice to have some ‘safe space’ where everything isn’t politicized? Every action, every thought, every word, every arm angle, seems to have been meticulously analysed over the last decade in order to bully someone into a particular political view (or to issue some horrible cringeworthy and insincere public apology for their heresy). The BKK (the Be Kind Klan) have been somewhat ascendent.

Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to go to church (if that’s your thing) and not to have to sit through some pathetic patronizing sanctimonious bullshit devoid of any real content or meaning? Of course, one’s relationship with God is ultimately all about how we act in the world and how we treat others - for a religious person it’s that bedrock of faith that motivates and guides everything. But whatever wisdom we might wish to be instilled from the pulpit to guide us in that, Budde’s sermon wasn’t it.

What does any of it even mean? What does it mean, specifically, to “have mercy”?

Is it some kind of code for “if you don’t do what we tell you to, if you don’t believe in x, y and z, you’re not being merciful”?

Are we not, also, supposed to show ‘mercy’ to the women and girls who might feel scared, embarrassed and awkward at seeing this in their bathroom? Is their dignity not worth ‘honouring’ too?

Is their fear of lesser consideration than the (alleged) ‘fear’ of legions of (alleged) trans kids? And, apparently, gay and lesbian kids are in fear, too, although it wasn’t made particularly clear what it is, specifically, they are supposed to be afraid of.

Why are we to be ‘merciful’ to one group and not another? What happens when those ‘mercies’ conflict - as they do in the case of sex-segregated spaces?

I must also confess that I fail to see how making our youth thoroughly confused about their ‘gender’ (whatever that word means), pumping them full of chemicals, chopping their dicks and tits off, and constructing some Frankencock from their forearms or gouging out some Frankenslash is considered to be the path of ‘mercy’. But, I suppose, your mileage may vary.

Whilst the ‘Franken’ designation here might seem unduly harsh, even ‘hateful’, it’s meant to serve as a kind of shock. Young people need to be fully aware that neo-genitalia are nothing like the real thing. That they would be trading their health and natural beauty for an illusion. If they still want to go ahead with it (as an adult) then that’s up to them, I guess, but even there I am extremely uncomfortable with such procedures being performed on people who might have other mental health issues or ‘co-morbidities’. And, let’s face it, it’s not exactly a sign of perfect mental ‘health’ if one wants this kind of procedure in the first place, is it?

The closest we get to specifics in Budde’s closing remarks is that some “fear for their lives”. Really? How so? Why?

Perhaps they’d be better off fearing for their future lives if they go down the full medicalization route?

What on earth is it they think Trump is going to do in his crazed and unmerciful campaign of anti-LGBWTF hatred?

It beggars belief - or maybe it’s the church’s belief itself that has been beggared.

We have continually, and repeatedly, been told that ‘trans’ etc is a minor issue affecting tiny percentages and that we’re “obsessed” or “weird” for focusing on it. Erm OK. And yet when Budde talked about people in fear, what’s the very first thing she brings up? Yes, this so-called totally unimportant issue that we’re all weird for worrying about that affects such tiny percentages it’s not worth mentioning.

It’s apparently OK for one ‘side’ to give it their utmost focus, but the other ‘side’ needs to keep schtum about it because it’s weirdly obsessive of them to mention it.

I also love her unintentional denigration of immigrants. They are important, it seems, because they do all the shitty low-paid jobs! Where the hell would she get her soy milk frappucino from otherwise?

Whilst I genuinely believe that the majority of the Be Kind Klan are fundamentally motivated by goodness, that goodness and tolerance is only applied to the select few (The Oppressed™, primarily, and other members of BKK). It is not universal. It is a very far cry from the universality of loving one’s neighbour as oneself. They also tend to mistake a kind of sentimental simpering gawkishness for kindness or compassion. The result of this is anything but kind or compassionate, for anyone. It’s just making things worse. It’s making everyone that bit less kind, that bit less compassionate.

When I was more interested in religious stuff, back in the day, I was really very impressed with some aspects of Buddhism. I’m somewhat less impressed with Budde-ism.