Immediately after the 2016 U.S. presidential election, I wrote that the election of America’s sociopathic Caligula was a revelation—several of them, actually. These revelations have guided much of what I have said publicly and written on this site over the course of the past three and a half years.
 
One of the revelations I mentioned then, and have repeated many times since, is that the days of the “still small voice” are past. Gone. Over. Kaput. We have entered a new era: an era of thunder and lightning.
 
Whatever they may be in their individual and private lives, in their public lives a disturbing number of Americans have become, as Mormon lamented of his people, depraved, without order, perverted, unprincipled, and an offense in the sight of God. They have shown themselves to be “past feeling.” They are no longer capable of hearing any “still small voice.” If they are to hear, they must be spoken to with “thunder.” The day of parables, carefully measured responses, subtlety, even temperance is over.
 
If Americans now begin to show early signs of turning on the American Caligula, it is only because they have heard the clap of lightning and the roar of thunder in an unmanaged Coronavirus pandemic. If they finish their turn and reject him, I will have been proved correct. If even the lightning and thunder doesn’t do the trick, we are lost.
 
Too many still do not seem to understand the new day we are in. Too many religious leaders, too many politicians, too many media personalities continue to hold to their old, measured, “objective,” and temperate ways. As a preacher, I once lived there too. Hell, I lived there for 40 years. Now, I am ashamed of my cowardly ways. Priestcraft, scripture calls it. It is safe. But it does not save. Not in this environment. But I have repented. So must all if they wish to be heard, and save a nation in the throes of early collapse.
 
Still, some remain perplexed when I level such complaints against “opinion makers.” “But,” they complain, “people are speaking out against tRUMP, his corruption, his lying, his abuse of power, his dismantling of America Democracy, his undermining of social norms.”
 
Yes, some are. But, let’s have a look at one example. I apologize ahead of time to this particular reporter. I don’t mean to pick on her. I could have chosen any one of thousands of pieces.
 
“The Trump administration is rebuffing House Democrats' effort to hear testimony from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Robert Redfield on safely reopening schools during the coronavirus pandemic.
 
“House Education and Labor Committee Chairman Bobby Scott (D-Va.) sent Redfield a letter last week asking him or a CDC designee to testify at a hearing on how K-12 public schools can reopen for in-person classroom instruction this fall. But on Friday, Scott said his panel had been informed that the Trump administration would not allow CDC testimony at the hearing planned for next week.
 
“‘It is alarming that the Trump administration is preventing the CDC from appearing before the committee at a time when its expertise and guidance is so critical to the health and safety of students, parents, and educators. This lack of transparency does a great disservice to the many communities across the country facing difficult decisions about reopening schools this fall," Scott said in a statement.
 
This reportage is wholly inadequate to the challenge Caligula represents. It is old-style reporting. It attempts “objectivity.” Strives to be “temperate” and “measured.” In so doing, it treats the times we are now in as normal.
 
They are not. There is nothing “normal” about what is happening in America today.
 
First, she writes, Caligula “rebuff[s] House Democrats' effort to hear testimony from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Robert Redfield on safely reopening schools during the coronavirus pandemic.”
 
“Rebuff”? Really? That’s all you got? “Rebuff”? What Caligula is doing is denying congress information necessary to its governance, and, more importantly, necessary to keeping innocent children and dedicated public servants safe. It is criminal. And all our report has by way of description is that the crime represents a wimpy little “rebuff”?
 
Criminals do not “rebuff.” What the criminal in the White Outhouse is doing here ought to make every head spin; make everyone sit up on the edge of their chair. “What? He will not permit someone with information that can save innocent children’s lives to share that information? What the hell is going on here? He is going to get people killed!”
 
O.K. Fine. She doesn’t get it. She has lots of company. But it gets worse. This next bit of “worse;” this next bit of wimpyness is not on the reporter. It is on another official—one who ought to know better. What is his response to Caligula’s crime? Yip, you guessed it, treats it like a “rebuff.” Writes he,
 
“It is alarming that the Trump administration is preventing the CDC from appearing before the committee at a time when its expertise and guidance is so critical to the health and safety of students, parents, and educators. This lack of transparency does a great disservice to the many communities across the country facing difficult decisions about reopening schools this fall.”
 
“It is alarming.” 
 
“Now there’s some intensity adequate to the danger.”
 
Hardly.
 
Not even close.
 
Not unless he follows it up with about fifteen other negatively descriptive nouns.
 
It is “alarming,” to be sure. But it is so much more than this. For God’s sake, the “rebuff” is going to get people killed! It is positively murderous. Let’s call it what it is: “Premeditated Murder.” It is a crime against other human beings: a “Crime Against Humanity.”
 
But in the mouth of an old-fashioned prophet, useless in our new age, “Premeditated Murder” and a “Crime Against Humanity” becomes a “lack of transparency.” In the official’s desire to “rebuff,” Caligula, we are informed, “does a great disservice.”
 
I guess if allowing someone to needlessly die is a “great disservice” this useless prophet is a genius. But, what I hear is someone who doesn’t understand the evil that he is facing. Either that, or he is a coward.
 
“Communities, across the country,” this measured prophet states, are “facing difficult decisions about reopening schools this fall.”
 
Oh, really. You think? “Difficult decisions”? Yes, I guess “life and death decisions” are “difficult.” But come on, Bobby. Say it like it is:
 
“Communities, across the country, are facing life and death decisions about reopening schools this fall. The tyrant sitting in the White Outhouse is blatantly and criminally denying us the information we need to save innocent children. When children and teachers die of the plague, as they certainly will; when children and teachers take the virus back home to their family members who then die of the plague, as they certainly will; the blood of innocents will be on Caligula’s hands, and the hands of all those who support his despotic ways.”
 
Then, let us pray to God that we are not too hardened, too unprincipled, too perverted, or too depraved to round him and his fellow henchmen up, strap them to uncomfortable chairs, and shoot them full of the most deadly and slow-acting chemical concoction we can conceive.”
 
The people are hardened. They are past feeling. Their ears are stopped—stuffed with the materialistic stuff that they love above all else. Preachers, apostles, prophets, politicians, journalist—watchmen and shepherds all—need to step up our game if we are to be heard by our depraved sheep. If we are to be instrumental in saving a corrupted flock from the ravenous wolf and the destruction that he is so wantonly bringing down upon them, we must learn to speak with thunder and lightning. If not, it is we who will hear thunder and lightning, and then find blood dripping from our fingers.
  
“My sheep wandered through all the mountains,
   and upon every high hill:
yea, my flock was scattered upon all the face of the earth,
   and none did search or seek after them.
Therefore, ye shepherds,
   hear the word of the LORD;
As I live, saith the Lord GOD,
   surely because my flock became a prey,
      and my flock became meat to every beast of the field,
because there was no shepherd,
   neither did my shepherds search for my flock,
but the shepherds fed themselves,
   and fed not my flock;
Therefore, O ye shepherds,
   hear the word of the LORD;
Thus saith the Lord GOD;
 Behold, I am against the shepherds;
   and I will require my flock at their hand,
and cause them to cease from feeding the flock;
   neither shall the shepherds feed themselves any more;
for I will deliver my flock from their mouth,
   that they may not be meat for them” (Ezekiel 34.6-10).

When pressed on why he had not issued a mask order, Mississippi’s clownish governor, Tate Reeves, responded, “If I believed that was the best way to save lives in my state I would’ve done it a long time ago.” 
 
We learn much from this nonsensical response. Here are a few truths we can extrapolate.
 
1.    Mississippi’s governor has beliefs
2.   Mississippi’s governor believes mask orders are not “the best
     way to save lives.”
3.   Mississippi’s governor believes mask orders are an inferior
     “way to save lives.”
4.  Mississippi’s governor believes that he has some sense concerning “the best way to save lives.”
5.   Mississippi’s governor believes that masks get in the way of
​      saving lives.
 
This leads us to the logical question, “What, dear, stupid governor, is this mysterious “best way to save lives?” How, exactly, is NOT wearing a mask a “better way to save lives”?
 
We can extrapolate another truth. Mississippi’s governor, like his idol in the White Outhouse, is an idiot. 
 
The idiocy of the two morons (and all their like-minded Republican governors/ lawmakers) should be called out and highlighted.  These two men, and all others of their ilk, should be subject to ridicule, censorship, and impeachment. They should be made laughingstocks, a hiss and a byword. They should become the very definition of base ignorance and corruption. They should never again be trusted with any position in either the public or private sector. But this is not enough. They should be tried, convicted, imprisoned, and left to rot for crimes, i.e., stupidity and corruption, against humanity. 
 
And that, ladies and gents, is “the best way to save lives” in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic.
 
Oh, and wear a damned mask…
 
Unless, of course, you are a tRUMP supporter, in which case, since you are suicidal, please go maskless, drive without a seatbelt, pay no attention to any traffic lights, and if, by chance, you arrive safely home, drench yourself in gasoline before you strike a match to light up your cigarette—oh, and don’t forget to remove the batteries from your smoke detectors and be sure all fire suppression systems are securely locked in the off position.

The evidence is overwhelming & irrefutable. There are two Americas. One America, comprising some 80-90% of the population—serfs, peasants, indentured slaves, all—are OWNED by the other 10-20%, comprising a population of the wealthiest, dominantly white Americans—an uncaring, unscrupulous, immoral & homicidal class of Homosapien if ever there was one. Proofs of two Americas? They are everywhere. Here are but a few.

 
- Proof -
This week, the Democratic-controlled House Armed Services Committee shamelessly and quietly passed, without rancor or vigorous debate, a $750 billion military spending bill that included amendments of the most grotesque kind. The bill will without doubt pass the full house and senate, then be signed by the White Outhouse in the same harmonious manner. This without even a hint of military threat upon America’s sovereign borders, and while most of the world’s nations increase spending to secure the health of their citizens in the face of the very real threat COVID-19 represents.
 
So, who are the beneficiaries of this bipartisan largesse? Some of the wealthiest companies in America--the Satanic inspired military industrial complex--with their overpaid CEOs, who, themselves, rake in their 10s of millions of unearned benefits. Large sums of this military spending and CEO bounties will come right back into the pockets of these congressional bi-partisans in the form of campaign contributions and cushy after-office positions on boards of directors—that’s after all the insider trading tips they get while in office. Talk about money laundering! Congress is little more than a legalized money laundering corruption racket.
 
Don’t talk to me about job creation. This is no way to earn a living: creating weapons of mass destruction meant to main and kill, as often as not innocent people. America’s rich ruling elite is a class determined to reign with blood and horror over every corner of the earth. A job market built on blood and horror only succeeds in corrupting the morals of the peasantry slaving away for the plantation owners. Proof of this, too, is everywhere.
 
Meanwhile, congress remains too mean to provide renters and homeowners with rent and mortgage relief. Talk about twisted priorities. But, then again, renters and homeowners don’t line lawmakers’ pockets with money. They only vote, stupidly, if they are lucky enough to escape the GOP voter suppression conspiracy, i.e., if they are white wealthy suburbanites.
 
This is but one example of the two Americas. One for the rich power brokers, and one for the masses.

 
- Proof -
Then there is the stock market—little more than a casino in which America’s rich vultures play roulette—a market that, notwithstanding its recent ups and down, is nearly completely recovered since the early days of the COVID epidemic. Talk about black magic. Any stock market that can go up by hundreds of points a day at the same time that millions of working Americans are jobless and states are shutting down once more, producing yet millions more unemployed, is utterly divorced from the real life of all but the tiniest sliver of America’s citizens.
 
Here, as everywhere else, there are two Americas… two economies. In one America, working people lose jobs and health care. Renters are forcibly evicted from their rentals with the assistance of ‘law enforcement.” Homeowners are dispossessed of their homes, while all the money they have paid into their mortgage goes to wealthy banks and, of course, their immoral CEOs. In the other America, the rich play roulette in their Wall Street casinos while they covet and complain about the stale cake crumbs given to their toiling serfs. These crocodile tears, lawmakers hear, rewarding the insatiable yapping of the rich with tax breaks, while these same leaders, feigning “work ethic” moralizing, turn a deaf ear to the very real insecurity and pain of average Americans.
 
- Proof -
Many of the right’s unmasked death-cult vampires demand that innocent children go back to a traditional school day. Great. Or it would be if the sociopathic deviant, tRUMP, and his corrupt and inept administration had not lied about and ignored the pandemic from the get-go while, at the same time, refusing to provide local and state governments with accurate information and the financial resources necessary for testing and tracing their infected citizens. tRUMP and his mobocracy have done nothing to lessen the pandemic’s impact—unless, of course, one counts irrational and delusional magical wishing. Now, the ever-wrong right, having adopted tRUMP’s asinine magical world view that the virus will simply disappear and, short of that, it’s a hoax anyway, is prepared to sacrifice innocent children to its rapacious and blood-thirsty capitalistic god.
 
But not all children will be tested in the burning furnace. Only the 80-90% of children that come from the homes of American serfs with be subject to the flames and the unknown future consequences of COVID infection on children. Children of the wealthy, power elite will safely learn at home under the indulgent supervision of expensive private tutors.
 
Additionally, when the question of funding American schools to make them safe for our children in the face of COVID-19—the most dangerous threat America has faced since WWII—comes up in the unhallowed halls of congress, there is and will continue to be no end to the hand wringing rancor and debate. “The cost is too high.” “The deficit!” Save the CEO’s pay, but let the peasant teachers suck air from intubation tubes. Let the children die of multiple organ failure. It’s the price we pay for capitalism’s gods.

 
- Proof -
Oh, and while we are on the subject of COVID-19, America, like some two-bit, second-rate, half-baked, “shit-hole” country, to use the stable genius’ language, leads—soon to double the #2 nation—the world in infections (over 3 million) and deaths (approaching 150 thousand). Republicans, especially those of the non-mask-wearing intellectual types, are now killing America citizens at just under a 911 pace every day, day after day. The vast majority of the dead come from the 80-90% serf population—a population that does the real work of America. Meanwhile, the privileged rich, who haven’t earned an honest dollar in their life, “work” safely from their comfy, theft-filled palaces on the speediest of computers with their highest speed internet.
 
- Proof -
Roger Stone         verses           George Floyd
                                                 Atatianna Jefferson
                                                 Bothan Jean
                                                 Alton Sterling
                                                 Eric Garner
                                                 Etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc.,
                                                 etc., etc., etc……..
 
Michael Flynn       verses           Breonna Taylor
                                                 Stephon Clark
                                                 Philando Castille
                                                 Freddie Gray
                                                 Akie Gurley
                                                 Etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc.,
                                                 etc., etc., etc…….
 
In one America—that of the 10-20% privileged, wealthy, nearly-always-white America—a criminal commits blatant crimes, often impacting the lives of millions of the world’s population, and pays no price, suffers no consequence, but is found innocent or has his or her sentence commuted in besmirched court rooms bought by and sold to the highest bidders. In the other America—that of the 80-90% serf population—a innocent victim commits no crime other than not being white and yet dies at the hands of and under the knee of a racist “law enforcement” system that has not advanced beyond its origin charter as slave catchers.
 
Welcome to the two Americas. Unequal in every way imaginable. One class possessing. The other possessed.
 
Now, to be fair, America did not invent inequality. One 19th century leader of the LDS Church, George Q. Cannon, made these astute observations.

 
“… I saw the rich reveling in luxury, crowding upon the poor, crushing out their lives; the poor living in squalor and misery, their lives a burden to them, not having, in many instances, enough food to eat, or raiment to wear, or a shelter, and when winter approached dreading it with feelings indescribable. In society in the world there is a large class of people having more means than they can spend for their comfort and convenience. They have the finest houses, abundance of food, every convenience, troops of servants to wait upon them to do their bidding, and have all the wealth they desire, every luxury they can conceive of. At the same time there are living in the same community thousands of poor creatures destitute of the necessaries of life. My heart has been pained within me in visiting the large cities of Europe, at seeing women degraded like beasts of the field, and their lives continual burdens to them, their existence almost joyless. It has been a wonder to me how people could keep from committing suicide in the midst of the want that was everywhere apparent. I have thought, how can God bear with this people, and the cries of the poor ascending to him continually…
 
“There is an expression used in the prophets, which I have often thought of, about the rich grinding the faces of the poor. It is a most forcible and significant metaphor. The tyranny and oppression that are practiced upon the poor are terrible….
 
“Men who have reflected, who have read and made themselves acquainted with the histories of other people, know full well that when once wealth increases in the midst of a people, when class distinctions make their appearance, when education is promoted and aspired after by certain classes which other classes cannot reach; when refinement, the refinement of education and culture, has its effects, creating distinctions among a people… and luxurious habits come in to foster these differences, then the strength of former communities has disappeared, and nations which have been noted as possessing the strength and the union of iron, have fallen into decay and have lost their power and have been broken into fragments and have eventually disappeared” (Journal of Discourses, Vol. 17, pp. 232-234).
 

Too bad modern ”Christian” leaders, allowing themselves to be scandalized by the new-fangled “sexual revolution” of the sixties, became obsessed with all things sexual, and have ever since ignored the far more deadly and millennia-long scandal (one instituted by Cain and reveled in by such deviants as tRUMP) : societal inequality in all its varieties.
 
Nope, America only dressed the old whore up in new fashions, utilizing new justifications. It only perfected this art of whoredom. “Capitalism,” she’s called today. Of course, prostitution requires “Johns.” Sadly, America’s aroused John’s were encouraged and empowered by those who claimed the name of Jesus. These sat silent, offering no objection to the whoredom. Actually, come to think of it, like cats in heat, they were too busy humping the whore to offer any critique.