DEMOCRACY UNDER ATTACK: DEFEND AND EXTEND

 Democracy is now under attack around the globe.
It is being attacked both from without and within free, or partially free, societies.
The attack from without is centered in Russia, which is currently not a free country. It can be argued that Russia has been the locus for reaction and autocracy since just after Waterloo. Anyone remember Alexander I's idea of a Holy Alliance against liberalism and democracy?
But wait: don't the Bolsheviks and the USSR make an exception to that? I'm still pondering that, because I'm not sure the answer is yes. Bolshevism's original stated intent was a 'dictatorship of the proletariat' but whatever there was of democracy in that was very autocratically stifled by Stalin, if not earlier by Lenin. Both men had highly autocratic ways of governing.
Before I go any further, let me be clear. Real democracy proceeds from the bottom up, autocracy from the top down. Keep this in mind as we proceed.
The Russian Revolution may have started with a democratic impulse, but was imposed in the same old autocratic way that has characterized Russia ever since the Mongols conquered it and held it (except for what's now Belarus and most of the Ukraine, which became part of a Polish-Lithuanian kingdom) for two centuries. So right now, the Revolution doesn't look like too much of an exception.
And other autocracies, most notably China, are watching democracies to see how we react to this revival of autocracy and all its ways of increasing misery among most humans for the sake of elevating a handful of mostly exceptionally vicious bipeds.
An earlier post of mine recalls Lord Acton's phrase: "Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely." Rarely have humans said or written anything as true. This being the case, autocracy in all its degrees from familial to imperial is at least partially based on a lie: that humans who have had much power ought to keep holding it because they know how to use it. Much depends on what 'knowing how to use it' means. Other than that, autocracy is no more than the embodiment of Thucydides's dismal observation: "The strong do what they can; the weak suffer what they must."
That's all autocracy is.
Democracy is based in the truth that we are all equally corruptible by power, be that power political or economic. Cultural power is somewhat different as its power to coerce is much more elusive and limited than is the case for political and/or economic power. Cultural power depends at least partially on how desperate one is to be considered one of the 'cool kids' and/or one of the Good People. I frankly don't give a defecation about that, so, at least for me, cultural power is more like smoke and mirrors. And here's a poke for those anxious to think of themselves as Good People: don't most of you also call yourselves Christians of one kind or another? And doesn't our common faith tell us that we are all SINNERS?! At least that's how I understand it and I am a Christian. And I tell you as Christians we are called on to do right, love mercy, etc. and concern ourselves with how we can help other humans and other creatures to live and flourish alongside us--NOT to concern ourselves with Looking Good. Unless, of course, y'all are among the hypocrites of whom Our Lord spoke disparagingly!
Democracy is NOT based on any airy-fairy notion of how 'naturally good' we all are. To use Rachel's word, that's bullpuckey! Democracy seeks to arrange power so that we all have at least a little power but no one has too much. No one person or small group should have enough power to, essentially, privatize the public realm for themselves.
Democracy is also under assault from within, from those politicians bought by billionaires who love to think of themselves as Nietzchean supermen (Like the Nazis loved to.) and by their shills at businesses such as Faux News. The whole staff, with Tuckums and Vanity Hannity in the lead, like to think of themselves in the same way when all they really are is bullies' toadies. What they live on is the same type of patronage that kings and nobles used to give to those who flattered them enough.
Democracy is also now threatened by a slower sort of rot from within. It begins with taking democracy and its forms for granted. This is aggravated dangerously when too many of an ostensible democracy's citizens have to spend most of their waking hours just keeping roofs over their heads and food on their tables. That is now the case here in the US of A and it looks like the same thing is happening back across the Pond in the Mother Island. I hope it's not also happening in Israel.
In fairness, it must be said that democracy also demands more of us. We need to beware of those who would divide us by flattering some and pointing at others as the source of all or most of our problems. We need to check sources when we hear or read things that sound preposterous and figure out how 'interested' those sources are in persuading us of this or that. Democracy needs a large number of citizens engaged with its processes at each point. It also needs an understanding that rights, of both citizens (humans) and of other creatures and life-forms is NOT a finite pie to be divided.
We are now at a point where, to preserve ourselves and civilization, we need to establish Nature as having certain rights as well as ourselves and our pets. Autocracy allows, yea demands, we all not grow but remain overaged children looking to our daddies for our wants and needs. Democracy is the opposite: it needs us to continue to grow as human beings. Under a democracy, when we provide nourishment and services for each other via government, we need to remember that the government is NOT a Big Daddy but OUR government. Government is how we join together to give one another what we all need to live decent lives and which we cannot give each other any other way.
Democracy also needs respect. Respect for its forms, respect for one another as human beings, respect for nature. And also respect for expertise legitimately gained. But we also need the experts to be able to put their expertise in language all or at least most of us can understand. We are right to be suspicious of anyone who claims to be an expert at something but only comes out with a lot of ten-dollar words which s/he probably doesn't know what they mean either. (I'm looking at YOU, Newtie!)
Also, democracy requires that we insist on real answers from our representatives. Anyone going around a question ought to be voted OUT at the next election! Let our questions be answered, but if that representative can tell us WHY s/he answers the way they do, that too deserves respect even if we don't agree with that person's conclusions. And we need to be alert for clues that 'special interests' might have their claws in our representatives too.
Some will claim that they have the right to espouse ideas which give more rights to some than to others. I say, if anyone is whining about their rights not being respected while they seek to abrogate the rights of others ought to be shut down there and then for the lying hypocrites they are. My personal belief is that no one who attacks equal rights or the rule of equal justice under law OR the very rule of law itself ought to be allowed to hide behind those rules when they're cornered. Let anyone who so chooses make a counter-argument to what I write here!
Anne Appelbaum is right: we need to fight for democracy, liberal and social. We need to enforce democratic ways and means domestically and, at least at times, globally as well. There may be a tightrope between the capability of doing that and having an oversized and too-powerful military-industrial-security complex, but we need to walk that walk if democracy is to be defended and extended. In hope, let me remind my readers that real democracies do not go to war with each other.
This is one of my longest posts, but it seems to me to require that this much be written. Read, digest and share. Let's all do what we can to defend and extend democracy so more voices can be heard.

HONEST RELIGION NEEDS A SECULAR SOCIETY

 I read something today which first alarmed me and then had me thinking: the suggestion that Putin dreams of leading, along with the racist, fascist Bannon and his minions, a Great Revival of white 'Christendom'. He wants to revive the ancient error of the 'Cross-and-crown' framework of society using a coalition of counterfeit 'Christian' nationalists here, reactionary Romans (I question just how 'catholic' these people might be) and the Orthodox churches which have always been organized on an ethno-national basis. This 'coalition' would have three enemies: Islam, China (which has always feared Islam; why do you think they're persecuting the Uighurs so cruelly?) and....modern secularism.
That last gets me really thinking. I grew up in a 'sekler-HEWM'niss' family. I started to become a Christian when I was in college and am still becoming one; I am and have been an in-process Christian just about all my adult life. Neither my church nor any Rationalist body called on me to cut off ties from the first part of my life, by the way.
To me, 'secular humanism' is a few things: first, I'd say it belongs to spiritual adolescents at that stage of development where they see their parents as Utterly Hopeless Creatures, which we know to belong basically to high schoolers, college students (and maybe other young people of corresponding ages) and tends to begin to change in one's early twenties. Perhaps starting regular jobs has something to do with that.
Second, I see it as a way-station between moving beyond the god many of us know from childhood and our parents. We move through the valley of unbelief and in the hills on the other side, we find a God of Whom we know far less than we're used to believing. Paul Tillich said it well: "The post-skeptic God often bears little resemblance to the pre-skeptic God." How right he was!
Third, I see a secular society as actually quite necessary for the nurturing and growth of what I understand to be true religion and true spirituality. A society which is resolutely secular--that is, one where the government concerns itself only with earthly good for its members, including ecosystems--is probably necessary for religion to remain relatively uncorrupted. A society where one faith or another is supported by government opens the door all too wide to corruptions. Not to mention that such a society can play an important role in keeping religion intellectually sharp and honest. The Gallican Church (that is, the Catholic Church in France) offers some proof of that, I'd say.
When we try to use shiny objects to bring people to, or back to, 'old-time religion' it works for a while, but only for a while. Soon enough the objects lose their shine and the whole thing as shown up as yet another snake-oil medicine show. And that's where, in the dark past, religious coercion usually kicked in.
Modern secular society asks only that no religion make a public nuisance nor a public danger of itself; its only compulsion upon religion is more honesty, both intellectual and emotional, than any established religion would require of itself. Such societies have tended to leave such honesty to its religious dissenters.
Modern secular society might also require religion to dig deeper into its scriptures for more meaning--such understandings as can incorporate scientific facts with religious truths. Here, as elsewhere, the letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life!
I should also mention here that, to the everlasting shame of religions, secular societies seem to treat their members with considerably more 'humaneness' than do societies which place high importance on outwardly religious displays. See Matthew 7:21 for what Jesus had to say. And, at least as importantly, note this passage:
Jesus, knowing that they [the crowd which he had fed] intended to come and make him king by force, withdrew again to a mountain by himself. John 6:15 (NIV)
He fled from those who would have made him an earthly sovereign. How then can he approve of a renewal of the 'Cross and crown' governmental framework? And read these lines written by a man who was himself a friar more than four centuries before our Bill of Rights was crafted, in a time when any other governmental pattern could hardly be imagined:
When the kindness of Constantine gave Holy Church endowments
In lands and leases, lordships and servants,
An angel cried on high above the Romans,
saying, 'This day has the church drunk venom,
And all who have Peter's power are poisoned forever'.
If Will Langland could see the evil results of 'Cross and crown' government in a time when hardly anyone could imagine anything else, there can be no excuse for us if we permit a renewal of such a flawed model of governance. Repeat. NO. EXCUSE!
Honest religion and secular society need one another! And something it seems I can't say often enough: A robust, living faith welcomes questions, can answer criticisms cogently, gives mockery a pitying smile and asks the state only for impartiality. It is a brittle and moribund 'faith' that begs the state for help to squelch questions, criticisms and justly deserved mockery in order to shore up its outward shell, as its insides are already usually empty as it is.

ENLARGE THE EQUATIONS

 Enlarge the equation.
Could this be the slogan which we on the political/economic left--Democrats, democrats, liberals, progressives, racial justice-seekers and Greens--need pretty badly? Something that says what needs to be said in a brief, understandable and memorable way?
I thought of it today in what might be considered and interesting context: the cost of keeping a henhouse, including the raising up of altered male chicks to be capons instead of having them horribly ground up the way the great poultry houses do, versus the cost of just buying eggs and poultry at the markets. Obviously, it will cost more money to build and maintain poultry. But on the other hand, I might contribute something to local food sufficiency and I'd be giving at least some life to the male chicks who would otherwise be destined for a quick and horrible end.
And then it occurred to me that enlarging the equation was what I was doing in my head. And then my mind took another jump as I asked myself, isn't this what we need to do across the board? Enlarge the equations of profit and loss? Include as many others, human, animal and even plants, in the gain/loss equation? Isn't that why, at least until 1980, we didn't grind the seed-grains?
Don't we need to enlarge the equation so that we act to make sure every child is cared for and has at least an education which will enable them to keep on learning through their lives, and more, wanting to keep on learning thus? Sarah Palin is the personification of those who don't want to learn further; need I say more?
Don't we need to enlarge the equation so that we can see what a monetary rathole the military-industrial-security complex is for the most part? And, above all, don't we need to enlarge the equation so that we start putting 'capital' back into the ecosystems from which nourish us all? What good will even gold and silver, never mind fiat paper cash, do us when there's nothing left to make, sell or buy?!
Finally, don't we need to enlarge the equation to enable us to see, with perhaps a hint or two of how God sees all His Creation, much more of the ways not only all humans, but all life on this blue-green planet, are connected with each other and treat those connections with understanding and respect?!
Overgrown palefaced frat-boys who have never had to worry about putting anything by for any reason have ruled the roost for far too long! It is past time to knock them off that roost and compel them to get honest jobs! If all they can do is fast becoming antiquated, especially thanks to these new car-buying services which avoid going to a dealership, well, too bad. I can hardly wait to see Alex Jones, Tuckums and everyone who is part of the fascist noise machine trying to sell pencils and wrapping paper on the street corner!
My profound apologies to Xers, Millennials, and Zoomers for the ways in which my Boomer generation (ESPECIALLY my 'fellow' pale males) has proven such a dismal, dismal failure! Back when we were young and getting some inklings of what hard work this all might prove to be, what did we do? Did we roll up our sleeves like sturdy men and women and get to the work before us?
We all know the answer is a big fat NO. Most of us shirked in favor of jamming our own pockets and purses with mostly ill-gotten cash 'made' by selling off still-vital parts of our economy and losing millions of honest people's jobs and pension funds. And now those problems are bigger and mostly up to y'all to solve, although Bill McKibben is giving us another chance with his Act III organization.
Think about that phrase, though: Enlarge the Equations. Might that not just be a winning slogan?

LORD ACTON REDUX

 "Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely."--Lord Acton

Can we be said to all agree on this? And further agree that none of us bipeds are born more or less so corruptible than our fellows? Well, whether you agree with this or not, I will proceed under just that assumption. If you think you can make a case otherwise, you're more than welcome to try. Good luck with that, though.
So. Power tends to corrupt, absolute power corrupts absolutely. This is a large reason to protect and extend democracy. Ideally, under a democracy, all living things have some power but none have too much. Yes, there is and will continue to be a certain amount of inequality of power; that's a condition of life. But democracy is intended to make it so there is no one as abject to have no power at all nor anyone who is dangerously powerful enough to 'bid defiance to our laws and people', as Mr. Jefferson said of our moneyed corporations in the year of Grace 1814!
So this is one point of political democracy. But political democracy can be made into a hypocritical laughingstock when economic power is skewed toward the rich and already powerful. Inequality is already so great that our economy may not even be capitalist anymore: we may have crossed the line into a neo-feudal economy.
Those who have either never, or barely, had to work for their wealth think they do the poor and working people a favor by making their lives as miserably hard as possible for as little money as possible. A favor, so please you! 'Builds character', according to those who knew they were never going to miss a meal and who always had Daddy or Mumsy to pull them out of any trouble!
Well, I for one am for returning that 'favor'! How exactly am I so? Read the maxim with which I begin this post. Then reflect on what kind of power billions of privately-held dollars or other currency gives one individual or one family. Isn't that pretty dam' close to absolute?
Not to mention, aren't a lot of rich people rather anxious to save the souls of we who have much less than they by making us work so very hard for so very little? Well, that's where I want to return the favor: if absolute power corrupts absolutely, consider the state of the souls of these rich folks! How can they be other than hanging by threads above the very mouth of hell? Shouldn't we pull them back from the edge of the flaming abyss over which they hang?
Make no mistake about it: even after such 'heavy' taxation of the rich as I propose, they'll still be richer than you and me, and to such riches as that, big whoop, sez I. They'll still have vacation homes, country clubs, yachts and other toys of the rich--not so many private aircraft, though, I imagine! Shocking privation, isn't it?
But now they'll only be ten to twenty times as rich as you and I rather than 350 times as wealthy. And, with their wealth scaled down, they won't have such dangerously corrupting power as would turn feudal barons and kings into solid emeralds with envy! And, best of all, we pull their precious immortal souls well back from the edge of the flaming abyss!
And surely none of us should aspire to such wealth as to give us such all-encompassing and, thus, completely corrupting, power, now should we? So let's dispense with wanting to aspire to such a truly dangerous state; let us rather endeavor to do our own personal best at whatever we can do and at least like doing in building up each other and our ecological reserves. No one is wrong to ask for at least a modestly comfortable living by doing so; am I not correct in this? Seriously.
Finally, there is really no such thing as a monopoly on cultural power. We have media moguls, and one in particular, along with some of his spawn, has done the world horrific harm and should be prevented from doing more. But apart from that, cultural power is far more diffuse than political or economic power. Indeed, economic power affects cultural power. Culture follows money, so 'tis said, and it's true to a fair extent. I only mention 'cultural power' because I know that's where the 'What about...' is coming from today's fascists.
Anyhow, let's save the souls of our far-too-wealthy brothers and sisters by allowing no individual or family fortunes larger than $1 billion max, although my preference would be for making $500 million the maximum. And for keeping the top tax rate where it was in Ike's day back when I was born! And most of you who read my posts know what that means! As I said, the rich will still be rich but will be well back from the flames to which neo-feudal power brings us too dam' close!

WE, NOT THEY, ARE THE 'REAL AMERICANS'

 In my last post, I wrote that we liberals and progressives, so far from being un-American, are in fact the very soul (no pun meant) of America. We are the pioneers trying to build something that, so far as is knows, has not yet existed in human history: a multiracial, multi-ethnic, multi-faith (including none) democratic republic. We also stand on the verge of a further extension of democracy; the giving of a voice to Creation itself.
We always should beware of saying our enemies are also God's enemies, but if God is urging us towards His holy realm as Isaiah describes it, can it be otherwise? They want all--repeat, all--the economic and political power in their hands alone and wish to stifle, or at least neutralize in Viktor Orban's soft-fascist style, any and all differing voices. Which feels more like God's Will to you: all of Creation having many various yet harmonious voices or the only voice that of the most ruthless and heartless among us? Which is more Christ-like? If we're not sure of the answer, I'd say some serious prayer and study (hermeneutics mandatory here!) is seriously required!
I think a word is in order about Orban's style, and what its possible transplanting here will likely require of us. 'Soft-fascist' means that our side is, through co-opting of the media, the judiciary and the counting (and, more often, the discounting) of certain votes means that we are put in a permanent 'loser' position. The whites, most Asians and palefaced Hispanics among us will be largely left in physical peace. The fascists will say, 'Nyah! Nyah!' which is what those wicked fools live for anyway! 'Enjoy your families and private lives; we don't need to bother you anyway! NYAAAAH! NYAAAAH!'
This is where we may have to make bothers of ourselves. When 'racial purification' begins, we dare not hide in our homes. We will have to put our bodies between the fascists and their intended victims and say, "No, you'll have to knock us down to get at our friends and our equally American brethren here." And to keep on doing this as long as we can. Are we ready for this? Some of us are but most of us need to learn the whens and hows at least.
I can't blame anyone who wants to leave this country and move somewhere else where people and other living creatures are treated more humanely and not so much like hostile alien things. But the war will be fought mostly here and it must be won here. The choice is between us who represent the truest and best spirit of this country and the Western world at large and those who would make a bitter, obscene and tribally inbred parody of both.
We, and the West at large, are what we are in large part because of our openness to new ideas, new technologies and new people as well. It is much more of a strength than a weakness. We close the doors and we start to decompose from within. Such inbreeding might be a large part of how the Arab/Muslim world, which led the world in learning and technology a thousand years ago while we were still running round bare-assed under our chain mail, lost its primacy and is today at the back of the line intellectually. I personally feel that's worth a lot of thought. What about you?

DO WE FULLY UNDERSTAND WHAT WE FIGHT FOR AND AGAINST?

        I've seen a figure that cheers me. 76% of us want to defend democracy.
Well and good, sez I. But then a question follows hard on the heels: how many of us realize the scope of what we fight for and fight against? Absolutely, we need to act locally. We need to run for our local school boards and, once there, stand stalwartly for the teaching of truth. Historical truth and scientific truth. Both change from time to time as new discoveries are made and new perspectives take shape.
We need to have our young people go with the ascertainable facts and question everything else. We need to ground them in a history that is productive (as are nearly all histories) of both pride and shame. We need to give our young people the tools to make sure the shameful parts of our history are not repeated and are redeemed by giving the history of which we deserve to be proud new life.
But we also need to grasp the urgency of this moment and the planetary scope of this war--yes, war--in which we are currently engaged. We need to do all we can to ensure this November sees a Democratic tsunami on all--yes, all--electoral levels! If anything else happens, democracy's future in our country becomes questionable at best and at worst it'll be dead, maybe for the rest of the lives of many of us.
We fight for the emergence of something very new in human history: a multiracial, multiethnic, multi-faith democratic republic! This is something new in human history, folks!! But then, this is the U.S.A.! Haven't we always thought of ourselves as pioneers? Well, fellow-pioneers, here's a new frontier for us to cross! How about it?
There have been multiracial, etc., political units before. Mostly designated as empires, with either one absolute despot at the top or an oligarchy on whatever basis. The most recent examples were the empires of the European Great Powers ruled by European peoples. Racism was at least sort-of built into their working mechanisms as it was built into our own. We have made efforts to dismantle the racism since the 1950s. Our degree of success in this worthy endeavor is debatable, to say the least.
But no such political entity has ever been a democracy even to the extent we still are. We fight for democracy's further expansion; our enemies--yes, I wrote and I mean our enemies--are for scrapping democracy and returning to despotism. I personally believe many of them would like to crown and anoint Orange Julius Caesar (thank you, Joy my dear liege-lady!) as King-Emperor!
Our enemies are hateful people who want all the wealth and power available for themselves and fearful little dinky-johnnied ammosexuals who want themselves to be the only ones with any such power at all!
Need I also mention that the people they want holding all the power are white and male and only white and male?
Finally, while we fight this war locally, the scope of it is global. Many of us already know the extent to which India, Poland, Hungary and the Philippines have been de-democratized. What is less clear to us here is the extent to which even Mother England (and I mean only England, not Scotland) has turned traitor to our heritage of human rights and human dignity! This is something that makes me want to weep and rage as much as when I hear about open racism in Israel and how un-equitable by race our 'justice' system is here in the States!
Eight years ago, when Scotland last voted on whether to break up the UK, I was glad they voted no. As of now, when it comes up again, I will support a breakaway from England and a rejoining of Europe by Scotland. That's how bad it's gotten. O Mother England, can we hear some sane voices from you? Is anyone there seeking to rejuvenate our legacy of freedom and human dignity?
To expand that legacy means that we determine anew that no child shall go to bed hungry, no ill person will be faced with death or bankruptcy and that we will restore our 'banks of nature' so that our children, grandchildren and so forth will have living ecosystems which can support them and their descendants without undue stress. It means real equity in our justice systems and both pride in parts of our histories and a determination to redeem our shameful episodes!
We may have to put our bodies on the line, either with or without arms to fire back at our enemies. One way or another, let us prepare ourselves. Sooner of later, they may start shooting. Let's be ready to win!

THE CAINS ARE STILL POWERFUL, BUT WE MUST WIN

 A notion stays with me about the story of Cain and Abel.
I've mentioned before that Cain tilled the ground, like his father, but Abel was a herdsman. If you've had the good luck to see quotations from any medieval chronicle comparing tillers with pastoral people, you will know that tillers tend to look down on herders as 'lazy' and 'idle' compared with their hardworking, virtuous selves.
And from that I ask a question: was Cain's motivation always to show himself as somehow 'better' than his brother? Is that why he tilled the ground? Actually, Cain probably learned that from his father--and did he pick up what might have been the same attitude toward Abel? I wonder because, more and more, I feel that the desire to show oneself somehow 'better' than (fill in the blank) seems to be at the root of most of the troubles we bipeds make for ourselves and other creatures besides.
Don't mistake me here and, more importantly, don't confuse the desire just described with a passion for any particular discipline and a concomitant desire to do one's personal best in that particular occupation, job and/or field of study. The two are very different. And herding can be hard work too; it's a different kind of work which seems to require more attention to smaller details than does plowing and planting. It too can take hard labor, especially when helping a ewe, cow or goat deliver a newborn.
James Herriot has written that two things are foundational in shepherding: cleanliness and gentleness. Would this point to Abel being a gentler character than his brother? Maybe. Certainly he had to be more attentive to more mobile creatures. Anyone know how much mental activity herding requires as opposed to plowing and planting? My all-too-urbanized guess is, quite a bit more.
When we learn new things, when learning is still a joy and has not yet been entirely reduced to drudgery work to make others richer than oneself, we often want to share it with others close to us. However, those others very often take our desire to share as an attempt to set ourselves above them and, thus, results in our being slapped down: "Who CARES?!" "No one wants to hear all that useless nonsense!" "THAT doesn't put any money in the bank!" And so on, very literally, ad nauseam.
But with such an attitude as that toward knowledge which is at least new to somebody close to us, why are we surprised when we have cause to worry that so many of our fellow citizens don't really want to learn anything new? We want--indeed, we need to if we are to stay a democracy--educate our fellow citizens in such a way that learning is a lifelong joy to them and to us as well!
Does anyone reading these words know of anything that can kill, or at least stymie, that desire like 1) the impression that the learner is just trying to show what a know-all s/he is and 2) the impression that new learning is worthless unless it can bring in cash right now?
Anyhow, Cain probably made his offerings to God with more than a little of that 'superior' attitude while Abel made his sacrifice with some real joy and gratitude. And of course Cain didn't listen to God when God told him he needed to look within and try again with a better spirit but blamed his brother and murdered him. Rather like those today who feel more 'virtuous' and are angry that the larger society doesn't defer to them and who want to kill everyone who isn't a carbon copy of themselves!
However, today's Cains are also the ones with the most firepower and (mostly, but not exclusively) the most wealth. They don't enrich others from this, but only themselves. In much the same way that they weep only for themselves when they are deservedly caught in evil. And all of this stems from their desire to show themselves as 'better', 'more virtuous', than the rest of us. And as they don't comprehend tears for anyone but themselves, they don't comprehend and/or recognize innocent delight in learning and differences but only see in others what they know to be true (and will never acknowledge) about themselves. They are the Cains of our time. And the rest of us had better be ready for some seriously bloody angry reaction from these evilly envious bipeds.