The Reframers

THE NOW WORD ON MASS READINGS
for Monday of the Fifth Week of Lent, March 23rd, 2015

Liturgical texts here

ONE of the key harbingers of The Growing Mob today is, rather than engage in a discussion of facts, ^[1]cf. The Death of Logic they often resort to simply labeling and stigmatizing those with whom they disagree. They call them “haters” or “deniers”, “homophobes” or “bigots”, etc. It is a smokescreen, a reframing of the dialogue so as to, in fact, shut down dialogue. It is an attack on freedom of speech, and more and more, freedom of religion. ^[2]cf. The Progression of Totalitarinism It is remarkable to see how Our Lady of Fatima’s words, spoken nearly a century ago, are unfolding precisely as she said they would: the “errors of Russia” are spreading throughout the world—and the spirit of control behind them. ^[3]cf. Control! Control! 

In today’s first reading, the story is told of Susanna who is condemned to death by two judges who twisted and distorted the truth. They re-framed her as an adulteress, putting words in her mouth she didn’t speak and thoughts in her heart she did not think, thereby engineering a mob to drag her to her execution. It was propaganda. 

They suppressed their consciences; they would not allow their eyes to look to heaven, and did not keep in mind just judgments. (First reading)

Based on his work in prisons, Dr. Theodore Dalrymple (aka. Anthony Daniels) concluded that “political correctness” is simply “communist propaganda writ small”:

In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, nor to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is to co-operate with evil, and in some small way to become evil oneself. One’s standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control. I think if you examine political correctness, it has the same effect and is intended to. —interview, August 31st, 2005; FrontPageMagazine.com

Take for instance those who challenge the science of man-made “global warming”, fraught with contradictions and often falsified data. ^[4]cf. telegraph.co.uk; Forbes.com; NaturalNews.com Still, those who question the climate change narrative are being called “deniers” who should even be criminally “punished.” ^[5]cf. “Al Gore Proposes To ‘Punish Climate Change Deniers'”; www.techtimes.com The following is perhaps one of the most incisive dissections of these particular reframers (and from an environmentalist at that) and worth quoting here, if not simply for admiring the sheer courage of saying it like it is:

Climate change has become a powerful political force for many reasons. First, it is universal; we are told everything on Earth is threatened. Second, it invokes the two most powerful human motivators: fear and guilt… Third, there is a powerful convergence of interests among key elites that support the climate “narrative.” Environmentalists spread fear and raise donations; politicians appear to be saving the Earth from doom; the media has a field day with sensation and conflict; science institutions raise billions in grants, create whole new departments, and stoke a feeding frenzy of scary scenarios; business wants to look green, and get huge public subsidies for projects that would otherwise be economic losers, such as wind farms and solar arrays. Fourth, the Left sees climate change as a perfect means to redistribute wealth from industrial countries to the developing world and the UN bureaucracy. —Dr. Peter Moore, P.h.d., co-founder of Greenpeace; “Why I am a Climate Change Skeptic”, March 20th, 2015; new.hearttland.org

(Note that last point: the “redistribution of wealth” was one of the “errors of Russia” embodied in Communism.)

But the most dangerous ideological reframing today is that which seeks to twist the Scriptures to a particular agenda. Today’s Gospel is often used almost as a poster-child to bully the Church into silence ^[6]“Catholic school, with priest’s backing, suspends theology teacher for defending marriage on Facebook”, cf. lifesitenews.com because of her moral voice opposing “alternative lifestyles.” To the adulteress, Jesus says,

Neither do I condemn you. Go, and from now on do not sin any more.

But the reframe by the mob today goes something like this:

Jesus said to the adulteress,  “I do not condemn you.” So your Church has no place in my bedroom. You Catholics are nothing more than bigots who judge and condemn and throw stones!

Like “missing” climate data, somehow the words “do not sin anymore” are frequently and mysteriously absent from this diatribe.

They suppressed their consciences; they would not allow their eyes to look to heaven, and did not keep in mind just judgments…

If you want to know where the spirit of the world is operating today, watch carefully where you see freedom being smothered. For…

…the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. (2 Cor 3:17)