Osama lives

By Capt. Fogg

I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night,
alive as you and me.
Says I "But Joe, you're ten years dead"
"I never died" said he,
"I never died" said he.

I've read that Mormonism is the fastest growing religion, but I doubt it. I think it's Denialism, at least in the USA; and yes, it's a religion. Like other religions, it offers peace and a feeling of importance, enlightenment, inclusion and a chance to be part of something bigger than oneself. You don't need to read any long and boring scriptures either and for ADD America, that's a major selling point. There aren't even a lot of commandments. "Whatever they say is a lie" covers most of it and almost anything can be denied: that the Apollo program ever landed anyone on the moon, that high bracket tax cuts boost the economy in a healthy way (or at all,) whether smallpox and Polio went away because of vaccines, and that oil reserves are finite -- and a long list of things.

It only takes a rare overthrow of scientific opinion or historical interpretation or the discovery of any actual conspiracy to cast a warm blanket of approval over all the tenets of Denialism. 30% of Republicans still believe the president, like John McCain, was born abroad. That's not going to change and any release of DNA tests or gory photos of bin Laden with the top left quadrant of his skull blown off and his homogenized brain oozing out isn't going to do more than put a bigger sneer on the face of Denialism.

Now I don't mean to say that all Republicans are Denialists or that all Denialists are Republicans by any means, but the biggest clamor for releasing the gruesome pictures and videos is from the right side of the aisle and from thence comes the argument that there's a huge worldwide "debate" about whether the bogey man is dead. Claiming that there is a "debate" that involves any participants outside the faith is, by its own right, is an act -- a typical act -- of Denialism. I'd be amazed to see evidence that any large part of humanity questions the demise of Osama as a fact but I'd be more amazed if the media doesn't continue to milk the manufactured controversy and politicians don't attempt to cash in on it.

To be sure, there were debates about whether Hitler was dead for many decades; whether Josef Mengele was dead or Martin Bormann. We had no pictures, no tissue samples and no credible witnesses, but although one of those men did indeed survive the war, the belief never really was about the evidence, but about sustaining the holy state of denial and the profitable state of fear. After all we still have substantial belief that Jesus didn't really die or the Hidden Imam or Elvis. The Princess Anastasia cult may still have some hangers on. Denial after all, is faith and to be human is to have faith and the maintenance of faith often forces a choice between pain and denial; forces us to create other forms of reality where our heroes and loved ones live -- and sometimes our bogeymen. The loss of bin Laden is, like the loss of the Soviet Union, a setback for fearmongers, after all. Profiteers who even now are assuring us that revenge will be swift.

But Osama bin Laden is dead and time will only confirm that Osama bin Laden is dead and, as the president said, he's not coming back, ever. Which is another way of saying that like Elvis, Jesus, Satan, and the Buddha, he's always going to be with us.

(Cross-posted from Human Voices.)

Just say no

By Capt. Fogg

No, no, no - we just can't believe scientists when they tell us about the dangers of radiation any more than you can trust them about climate change. The only way to evaluate data is through the kind of transubstantiation wherein facts turn to Fox feces and vice versa.

Take people like Lyin' Bill O'Reilly. You can have all the data and expertise of a hundred lifetimes studying nuclear engineering, the effects of low-dose radiation on humans and global wind patterns, but you can't be sure which way the wind blows unless you ask Bill and Bill, the Holy Father of Denialism likes to say no. It's so much easier than being informed and of course Fox Folk can feel superior by just saying no to things they're too dumb or lazy or ignorant to understand - things that might cost them something or change their convenient opinions or save their country.

Tsunami, Earthquake -- what's the connection? None at all, it was God, the same guy who makes the tides go up and down. What did you think it was, the moon? Who put the moon there anyway, and gravity? That liberal hoax?

But of course Denialism, you know that cheap, imitation conservative intellect thing; Bill is hardly the only prophet. Take Beck who got his knowledge of plate tectonics from sleeping in a cheap motel and has the nerve to speak for God to John McCain who laughed out loud at the very concept of nuclear safety when his opponent stressed the need to put away the gasoline before playing with matches. "Blah, blah, blah;" perhaps the most intelligent thing he said in that whole campaign.

Just say no and let's repeal "Obamacare" says Mike Huckabee who's been clogging the arteries of my flatscreen for the last few days. "It will do irreparable damage to our country" and never mind that Massachusetts and Hawaii are still with us while countless Americans have to resort to buying their medications from Canada and Mexico while Republicans in the private health care business ship their profits to the Caymans to avoid exposing them to taxes and communism. It's "against the will of the people" and never mind that they not only supported it but wanted more of it than they got.

Just say no - it's just not a laughably stupid approach to drug use, it's an epitaph.

(Cross posted from Human Voices)