40 Days and Nights or Ham, Ham, Who’s the Ham?
We have a scant 40 plus days before the Midterm Elections, and the Christian Right via Billy Graham’s son Franklin Graham has “chimed in about the sexual assault allegation against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.” It is irrelevant.
Irrelevant?
Like Mitch McConnell, the lead proponent for plowing the nomination through, Graham dismisses the possible inclusion of added investigation by the FBI or other investigating bodies in this or any more allegations: “There’s a lot of things that I’ve done when I was a teenager that I certainly am ashamed of and not proud of,” he said. “People are up in arms over this like ‘oh, this is such a disaster.’ You’re talking about two teenagers 40 years ago. That has nothing to do with what we’re talking about today about this man being a judge on the Supreme court.”
“And they call it sexual assault?” he added. “No, I don’t believe it.”
Neither will the Republicans in the Senate ask for serious answers at the performance they will hold on Thursday.
Unlike his father, Franklin Graham has found his avenue in following what is expediently “now” in our tribal culture, and he has learned to identify with the far right’s call for patriotism, nationalism, sovereignty, aversion to political correctness. Unlike his father who embraced in the later part of his life the concept of Jesus’ sacrifice for all people and all races, Franklin has fallen into line with the current Trumpian trope that any faith in Islam is acceptance of “a religion of hatred…a religion of war.”
In the new populist view, “Make America Great Again” is simple code for make us all like the characters who populated the “Leave It to Beaver” programming of the 1950’s. No other ethnicities; therefore, no problems, no crime, no rapists, no people shouting in support of the Twin Towers falling. Pure escapism from truth with an alluring offer for scapegoating.
It’s as old as the Bible – and the many ambiguous interpretations the Bible offers. In Genesis, poor Noah drinks himself into a stupor and falls/blacks out into bed undressed and exposed.
Who hasn’t? Maybe even Brett Kavanaugh?
His sons Japheth and Shem try to cover this weakness as quickly as they can (like a dutiful Mitch McConnell for a favored Supreme Court nominee). His other son, Ham, laughs at his father’s naked inebriation. An intoxicated Noah awakes, and he curses Ham and all his children as the progeny of Canaan. And…for centuries the religious right has used this moment in the Bible to justify everything from the origin of people of color and their cursed position in history as well as a justification for their enslavement by a purer race of people.
With the Midterm elections just 40 -some days away, I like to recall God’s plan to wipe sin clean from the face of earth. And storms?
You can bet we will get them on the way to November 6th. Storm Rosenstein. Hurricane Iran. Tropical Depression Mueller. Storm North Korea. Mega Hurricane Distraction.
Behind all of that, however, lay the overriding fundamentalist belief that Billy Graham discarded so long before his death that we were all God’s children. In other words, Billy said NO to the use of this passage to justify racial, ethnic, or religious prejudice. Good for him.
Welcome to our tribal world of 2018. The new religious and biblical belief that there are those cursed: those who even as children must to be held in cages away from their parents (numbers untold), those who do not deserve assistance with pre-existing conditions, those who seek asylum but are from shit-hole countries, land and air that is available for unlimited exploitation and destruction, that our friends are now our enemies, that our real enemy is now our friend.
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