Weekly Roundup: All Aboard the Sexual Anarchy Freedom Convoy
Brad and Dan begin by discussing the Jericho Marches connected to the "Freedom Convoy" protests in Ottawa. Drawing on work by the writer Chrissy Stroop and scholar Thomas Lecaque, they discuss how the Jericho story provides a narrative in which both American J6 and Canadian convoy protesters/rioters are able to use as a way to build group cohesion and justify their actions.
Chrissy Stroop on Christian nationalism and the Canada convoy: https://conversationalist.org/2022/02/17/freedom-convoys-extremism-poses-long-term-damage-to-canadian-civil-society/
Thomas Lecaque on the Jericho Marches: https://www.editorialboard.com/that-freedom-convoy-in-ottawa-its-partly-inspired-by-a-biblical-account-of-divine-massacre/
In the next segment Dan walks us through the new John Durham/Hillary Clinton/Spygate distraction making the rounds in the MAGA Universe.
In the final segment, Brad links Charlie Kirk's freakout about the Super Bowl halftime show to the long entanglement among Muscular Christianity, American imperialism, and toxic masculinity.
Jack Moore on the connections among all three: https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2015/may/08/muscular-christianity-and-american-sports-undying-love-of-violence
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Welcome to Straight White American Jesus.
My name is Brad Onishi, faculty at the University of San Francisco.
Our show is hosted in partnership with the Kapp Center, UCSB, and I'm here today with my co-host.
I'm Dan Miller, Associate Professor of Religion and Social Thought at Landmark College.
Always nice to see you, Brad.
Even if it's early on the West Coast, but you have an infant, so you've probably haven't slept in three weeks.
Yeah, time is a flat circle.
Like if you thought time was a flat circle because of a pandemic and everything else we've been through, then having the baby in there is like, Who knew?
Yeah, Dan, I was thinking this week that we often, you know, I think we're often considered the like very straight laced, buttoned up, serious podcast of like a certain genre, you know, like we're always talking about heavy things.
And other podcasts do such a good job of letting people into the lives of their hosts.
And like, you know, they share these things about themselves.
So I just thought I should probably do some of that today just to like, You know, I'm sure people, when they listen to this, it's hard not to think that we have glamorous lives, Dan.
You know, like when you and I are just living our normal day-to-day, it's just not like other people, right?
I mean, we're celebrities.
You know, we have a niche podcast.
We work at niche universities.
If you can't hear the sarcasm in my voice, friends, please, neither Dan nor I are celebrities, nor are we important.
But I just want to give people a window into like the very sexy, intrepid, Indiana Jones sort of nature of my life as a professor, as a writer, you know what I mean?
It's just, it's very, it's very alluring.
So I have a newborn who's four, well actually just five months now.
And so she goes to bed about eight o'clock every night.
And when that happens, I'm usually like, you know, I'm going to stay up for a while and get a little crazy.
Maybe 830.
I may stay up till 830, maybe 845.
45. And, uh, you know, recently my obsession has been reading the Commissaire Mcgray novels by the Belgian author, George Simignon.
And so I've been reading all these French, uh, detective novels in French.
And, uh, that's what I do for about half an hour before bed.
And what is great, Dan, about reading, uh, French so often is you get to notice all of these linguistic things you never noticed before.
So let me just give you a couple, right?
Uh, Simeon, in these detective novels, uses the reflexive verb quite often, se taire, right?
And it means to, like, shut up and just look.
And it occurs to me, Dan, that this is where we get the English word stare, right?
Se taire.
Stare.
I haven't looked that up, but it has to be true.
Another example, Simignon uses the reflexive verb quite often, se ponger, right?
And that means to wipe your brow, right?
To basically mop up sweat from your brow or your lips or your face, whatever.
Se ponger, sponge, Dan, sponge, right?
Are you with me?
There's a French verb that means to move, bouger, right?
And it occurs to me as I'm reading, this is where we get boogie.
Why would you say, hey, do you want to go boogie?
Like, do you want to dance?
You know, there's a French word, brisee, which means to break.
And it occurs to me that this is where we get the word breeze.
Anyway, I don't know if any of this is true, but when I'm living my very sexy, intrepid life at 8.38 PM before I go to bed, These are the things I think about.
So you're welcome, everyone.
You've now got a window into my life.
I feel like a YouTuber.
I feel like an Instagram influencer now.
Anyway, Dan, I just I hope that you feel like you have a little bit more of a an illumination of Just the kind of very glamour that saturates my being.
Does that?
Yeah, nothing says living on the edge like reading French language novels.
So yeah, we are all sort of envious of that now.
Yeah, no, detective novels nonetheless.
I just want to know if you still actively refer to boogieing, like if you're edgy enough that that is still a word that you use in English.
I think that's the real question that is concerning everybody at this point.
No comment.
Okay, no comment.
And if you ask that again, I'm going to turn this podcast off.
All right.
Another thing I want to talk about way more serious is this weekend marks the 80th anniversary of Executive Order 9066, which for Japanese Americans is infamous.
It is the executive order 80 years ago that FDR put into place to put Japanese and Japanese Americans into camp.
120,000 folks overall, a number of my relatives, And, uh, it, I was about eight or nine the first time we visited camp, uh, like, uh, in, in Japanese American circles.
And when you refer to camp, that's, that's what that means.
So remember we were driving home from a fishing trip and dad took us to, uh, Manzanar for the first time.
And anyway, it feels like it's a long time ago, but there are still people who, uh, and my family who went to camp who are alive and, uh, who remember that and, uh, the, the specter of it hangs over us.
So needed to mention that as well.
All right.
Today, Dan, we're going to talk what's going on in Ottawa and Christian nationalism.
The Christian nationalist tropes are loud and clear.
We're going to talk about a disinfo campaign on the right related to, surprise, surprise, Hillary Clinton.
And then we'll talk about Charlie Kirk and the Super Bowl and the poor, poor guy, Charlie Kirk, who witnessed what he called sexual anarchy at the Super Bowl.
And so we'll get into some of that in a minute.
All right.
Let's talk Freedom Convoy, quote unquote.
By now, I think all of you are aware of the story.
Some of our Canadian friends, if you're listening, you've reached out this week.
I appreciate your emails and your comments and your help there.
Lots going on here, but one of the things I wanted to just make sure we cover today, Dan, is we hinted at this last week, but it's really become clear through some great work by a couple of scholars that the Christian Nationalist tropes and the Christian Nationalist themes are really kind of the integrating force of what's happening up in Canada, at least in terms of linking them to an international network and providing financial support.
So I say this because over the last week, there have been Jericho marches every day by folks in this Freedom Convoy up in Ottawa.
They walk around, sometimes they walk around government buildings, they bear Canadian flags, they sing hymns, they recite the Lord's Prayer, they blow shofars.
This should sound familiar, Dan.
This is what happened the night before January 6th.
It happened back in December 2020, or 2021, excuse me.
No, December 2020.
Good lord, time is a flat circle.
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