Motor Oil and Credit Cards and Christianity

Corporate greed finds a soul mate in the Christian appetite for power.

Penske and MasterCard are paying for a federal government religious ceremony to replace American democracy with Christian theocracy.

Full transcript

The theme of this episode is the combination of things that just don't seem to fit together, like national parks and Christian prayer rallies. Those are two things, but we don't think of them as coming together.

Oh, here's another one: Credit cards, motor oil, and the Christian Bible. They don't come together.

There's nowhere in the Bible where they mention motor oil or credit cards, right? It's kind of odd because a lot of Christians, not all Christians, but a lot of Christian theology supposes that the Bible was predicting the future, that there's prophecy. So why is it that the Bible couldn't predict motor oil or credit cards?

Motor oil, and credit cards, and Christianity, and national parks are all coming together in 12 days, because 12 days from now is May 17th, and May 17th is the day when Donald Trump and his Christian nationalist government is going to have a Christian prayer rally.

At this Christian prayer rally, Donald Trump says that the United States of America is no longer going to be a democracy, it's going to become a Christian theocracy, one nation under God, with Pete Hegseth, the guy who is in the Department of War, who says that we're at war with Iran, throwing away millions upon millions of dollars, and killing, who knows how many people, throwing the world economy into complete chaos in the name of Jesus.

Yeah, this is a whole bunch of stuff that doesn't seem to come together, but stay with me for a minute, because it does.

They're going to have a federal government prayer rally.

That used to be the kind of thing you would never do because it was understood that there is a separation of church and state. If you want to have a church and do your church things, that's fine, but don't expect the government to come in and prop you up. You’ve got to do your stuff on your own. And in exchange, hey, you don't have to pay taxes.

See, there's a separation there.

But now, in the United States of America, under Christian nationalist fascism, thanks to Donald Trump, we're having federal government nationwide prayer rallies to establish one nation under God, which has become the sort of thing that no self respecting American should pledge allegiance to, because one nation under God means bribery and corruption.

That's how we get to motor oil and credit cards.

You see, there is almost no expense in setting up a national prayer rally. All you have to do is send some emails and organize people to get together and pray at different places. It's very, very low cost.

And yet, Donald Trump and his Christian nationalist government have been taking huge payments from corporations. I've mentioned some of these already. It's a strange collection of corporations like John Deere, for example, is one of these corporations that has donated over a million dollars to this federal government prayer rally.

Two other companies I'll mention today are MasterCard - they do credit cards, and Penske - and they do motor oil - motor oil of the kind that would go into John Deere.

Motor oil would, of course, help fossil fuels, internal combustion engines to run using gasoline from companies like Exxon. Exxon is another one of these corporations that has sent money to help pay for this federal government Christian prayer rally.

None of these companies, MasterCard, Penske, Exxon, John Deere, none of these companies have any real business with preaching, churches, with prayers, with speaking in tongues or any of those other things that are associated with Christian religion. They don't sell incense to burn on the altar. They don't sell candlesticks for the altar either or funny pointy hats or anything.

So why are these companies sending so much money to create this national federal government prayer rally or to fund it?

This federal government prayer rally is, of course, a special project of Donald Trump. Donald Trump has had many of these special projects, like his birthday military parade last year, like his inauguration. These are opportunities for corporations to send money to him, in the name of the national park service, in this case, because The central location of this national federal government prayer rally is the national mall, which is under the federal parks.

This is established under Congress, and the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America clearly states that Congress shall establish no law, shall create no law, establishing any kind of religion.

Oh, but what the heck. We don't follow laws. We don't follow the Constitution in the United States of America anymore. We follow the will of one person: Donald Trump.

It's kind of like monotheism, only there is, instead of at the head of it one god, there's a kind of guy who acts like a king.

So Penske and MasterCard are paying millions of dollars to Donald Trumpet through one of his pet projects in order to curry favor with him, so that then they can get the special favors, the special dispensations from the law or evasion of regulations that they want so that they can increase their profits.

It's bribery. As the United States of America is becoming one nation under God, what that means is bribery and corruption. What that means is a government that is not accountable to the people. It's accountable to powerful people in corporations, and that's what the Christian religion in the United States of America has become. It’s a cult of power.

If you are a Christian, you gotta ask yourself, is that really what you want your religion to stand for?

Well, if it isn't, what are you doing about it? What are you doing about it? What are the Christians in America doing about this May 17th prayer rally?

I saw a lot of Christians doing a lot of things expressing how upset they were when Donald Trump posted a social media image, a meme in which he appeared to present himself as wearing clothes like Jesus did. Boy, there was outrage with that, but now that you see Christianity partnering with corporations to create a system that perverts the rule of law that ends democracy, where are the Christians?

I don't see any Christian organization protesting against May 17th. That tells us a lot about the priorities of American Christians in politics today.

They don't want any blasphemy. They don't want anything that would show any kind of disrespect or even eccentricity around their religion, but when it comes to the Constitution of the United States of America when it comes to the rule of law, when it comes to access of ordinary people, to government services.

They just don't seem to give a damn.

We see that the economy is falling apart. We see that trust in the United States of America is lower than it ever has been. Society is fraying, and that's what you get when you mix religion. And government.

What we need in the United States of America is separation of church and state.

What we're getting is Christian, nationalist fascism. e see that the economy is falling apart. We see that trust in the United States of America is lower than it ever has been. Society is fraying, and that's what you get when you mix religion and government.

What we need in the United States of America is separation of church and state.

What we're getting is Christian Nationalist fascism.