Borderline.

If this world is wearing thin 

And you're thinking of escape
I'll go anywhere with you
Just wrap me up in chains
But if you try to go alone
Don't think I'll understand

Stay with me, stay with me

In the silence of your room
In the darkness of your dreams
You must only think of me
There can be no in between
When your pride is on the floor
I'll make you beg for more

Stay with me, stay with me

You'd better hope and pray
That you make it safe
Back to your own world
You'd better hope and pray
That you'll wake one day in your own world
'Cause when you sleep at night
They don't hear your cries in your own world
Only time will tell if you can break the spell
Back in your own world...

~Shakespeare's Sister, Stay

As I have mentioned a few times, I'm divorced. My ex-wife had borderline personality disorder. Now, nothing against her, this was a medical diagnosis and there are reasons why she was that way. I don't have anything against her. I'm just stating a fact. But, long story short, I was probably the only one who didn't know this relationship wasn't going to work out well.

Here's the thing, in certain ways, crazy people make good partners, Not to put too fine of a point on it, but the sex can be incredible. They bond quickly and love very deeply and intensely, so if an instant relationship is what you're looking for...as I was at the time...all this works out great. It just takes a lot out of you in the end.

When I first got with my ex, I was coming off of an almost 3-year relationship with a really awesome girlfriend named Rose, who just didn't seem to like sex very much...but we clicked very intensely in a lot of ways and had a lot of mutual interests and a warm bond of shared Christian faith and for a long time that was enough. Of course, it eventually flamed out mostly thanks to a couple of epic fights (mostly because I was young, stupid and sexually frustrated) and we eventually agreed to be friends (and she ended up with one of my dogs who'd bonded with her, but that was alright, too, and a story for another time.) There's a reason this happened, which I didn't find out for about a year. But let's just say by chance recently I found out Rose and her wife are happily married, and her and I would not have worked out in any case, for that very reason.

We met online, my ex lived in Traverse City at the time (a few hours away for me) and one day I drove over there and we hung out, and hooked up on the first date. Of course, on the second I found out that she was Pentecostal and her church was, shall we say, nuts. But hey, I was getting booty so we agreed to disagree on that. My ex's life status (as described by Yahoo Personals) was perpetually "In transition" and in the couple of weeks between the first date and the second, she moved a lot closer to where I lived. Her family lived not too far from me, so naturally, that made getting together easier. Things escalated fairly quickly and within a couple months we were engaged, within a couple more we'd moved in together...and a month or so later, we got married.

Pretty much everybody didn't like my ex. My Mom didn't like her, my ex-girlfriend (who along with Ron, my best friend for a number of years, drove up from Battle Creek to be in the wedding) instantly and apparently instinctively hated my ex and loudly and very publicly told her off and threw a drink in her face at the wedding reception. It came within inches of being a fight before me and some of my old Air Force buddies broke it up. Needless to say, Rose and I didn't talk much for awhile...and that's where it started...the weirdness. People with personality disorders often end up trying to isolate their partners from family and friends and they'll start betraying and screwing over and trying to get whatever they can out of everybody and line their pockets as soon as they can get away with it.

Of course, my ex didn't like to work, she liked to spend money and she never quite managed to pull her own weight in terms of the household stuff and whatnot. She burned through a lot of jobs, and nothing much ever seemed to get done. After awhile, I was just plain exhausted and our relationship fell apart. From getting together to splitting up we made it about eight months, actually getting divorced would take another year. There were some interesting flare-ups along the way, and a lot of weird religious fuckery, and it took my ex and I several more years to break the habit of fucking each other. I was forced to allow Rose her "I told you so" gloating, and for another year or so before she moved down south for a job, we'd hang out occasionally, and she became sort of a relationship adviser.

...And I've since figured out that I attract crazy bitches somehow. Like, every woman that approaches me turns out to be a nut. So, because I have a steady job an pets that need to be taken care of, and I'm officially old enough that such things don't matter that much to me I've pretty much given up on dating.

What does any of this have to do with anything?

Not much, really, but I can't help but feel at times like our national political situation is uncomfortably too much like my marriage and divorce. Donald Trump, like my ex-wife, has a personality disorder and his conduct and apparent Narcissistic Personality Disorder often remind me of her Borderline personality disorder.

Trump just last weekend threw the NFL under the bus, for ratings if his own comments at some Washington D.C. dinner are to be believed. He seems to think it's some kind of pro-wrestling or reality show feud...though one with potentially very real consequences if some of the stuff cluttering up my Facebook feed is to be taken at face value. See, that's the thing...the President is supposed to deal with real life and his every action and reaction is likely going to affect things in very real ways as this situation demonstrates.

As a Facebook acquaintance of mine, Jim Wright of Stonekettle Station, put it: Trump wants to throw in with the Billionaires but in the end his ego needs the cheers of the people with the Make America Great Again hats and the shacks more than his wallet needs the billionaires money. So, in the end he will side with his mob. I see recent events as evidence of that.

The Trump Supporters think he cares about them, and think that he'll give them what they want...which I'm not really sure what that is, an easy life, ethnic cleansing, a giant wall in the middle of the desert, it varies from person to person and who knows anyway? I'm not going to waste my time trying to figure out the motivations of illogical and unreasonable people.

But everything Trump touches dies, he betrays and lies to everybody, and this has effected the Republican party in some pretty pathological ways as all these failed health care repeal bills demonstrate. The Republican Party has become a cult...the cult of a man who could damned well already be suffering from dementia. Go ahead, think about that for a second, I'll wait.

The difference between the two parties and their most recent leadership is that someday, 30 or 40 years from now, Barack Obama will die, and people will be sad and there will probably be a lot said about it on the news but the Democratic Party will go on after all the memorials and such are concluded...

There will still be a Democratic Party, though who can say what its exact shape will be then?

...And someday, possibly soon, Donald Trump will be swept from power in a blizzard of votes and legal motions and charges and hearings that'll be as final as any Third World dictator's death in a hail of bullets, or bad health and dementia will claim him and he'll die or (best case) his term will expire amid ignominy and scandal and all the legal stuff may continue but will gradually fade from public spectacle...

And the Cult of Trump will take the Republican Party down with it, either by dong something stupid or attempting to start some sort of a civil war or (far more likely) it'll all go up in an explosion of recriminations and scandal as the whole house of cards finally collapses.

What will replace it, I have no idea. I only know that something will. I quite suspect that in the end, we'll end up with a socialist party that's somehow against identity politics and something something Bernie Sanders hand-waving excuses a lot of former Republicans will have suddenly stopped having a problem with socialism because that's where their "lack of identity politics" AKA the new racial dog-whistle is tolerated. I read a detailed article last night about how a lot of these Alternative For Deutschland far-right people in Germany used to be East German Communists or West German Far-leftists who were loyal to Moscow...and since Moscow is far-right and Nationalist, so are they now.
The racists will go where they're tolerated because it's not the political party they believe in, it's the racism.

I know a surprisingly large number of Republicans who at least considered voting for Bernie as an option. I know several conservatives (one, to her credit, who is very against racism) who wrote in Bernie anyway. So yes, I see it as a possibility that the opposite of what's going on in Germany could happen here.

One thing I can tell you for sure, is that the betrayal and divorce (and the lining of pockets at their expense) will be an ugly one. Hell, there are already people who've burned their #MAGA hats.

It would not be surprise me, just like my ex screaming at me on the sidewalk out in front of the court house, if before this is over Trump stands there on stage and curses out his own supporters and rhetorically casts them into the Outer Darkness like a cult leader denying his fake "Salvation" to his own faithful over some imagined slight.

But when people inspire either intense love or intense hate, and there are suggestions of dementia, mental illness and/or drug addiction? Well, it's probably just going to be a big damned mess anyway.

Because that's how these things work, and the Trump Supporters are about the only ones who don't see that this isn't going to work out well in the end.

I wish them better luck than I had. Nobody deserves that shit, not even my ex-wife. Having your entire world-view ripped to shreds by the circumstances and betrayal and cheating is hell for the most well-grounded of people, and a lot of Trump Supporters ain't that.

I don't wish what they're going to go through on anybody, because I've been there.

But I won't have any sympathy either, they chose to inflict this craziness on all of us.

Let them suffer the consequences, although certainly, in the end we all will.

America, W.T.F.

For the fool speaks folly, and his heart is busy with iniquity, to practice ungodliness, to utter error concerning the LORD, to leave the craving of the hungry unsatisfied, and to deprive the thirsty of drink.~Isaiah 32:6

So, last week I was working in the break room one night at work, and my friend Aaron showed me this Twitter post, presumably written by some Nazi dumb ass. My mouth literally hung open in shock. I'm not kidding, I was going to write about this, but any time I sat down to do so, nothing worth posting came to mind.

A thought that I had: It's funny how almost everybody in the world will agree that genocide and mass murder are wrong, but then demographics and their environment or whatever changes and all the sudden at least some of those people are like "Boy howdy, where do I sign up?" when some fool starts advocating for ethic cleansing, genocide, and mass murder.

But, it's hard to get a complete post out of that.

Then, came the Trump rally in Huntsville, Alabama, on Friday night. I read Shaun King's transcript of Trump's comments, calling NFL players "Sons of bitches" and saying they should be fired for protesting (and also that they should hit harder) and I posted about it on Facebook.

"Let's get a few things straight. #1 Trump has just escalated something that didn't need to be escalated. He's effectively thrown the NFL (the owners in particular) under the bus. They are going to have to start backing their players or quite likely face public backlash.

#2 What is this "Our flag" bullshit, while talking to a crowd of his dedicated supporters? That flag represents all Americans and don't you forget it. You want a flag that represents just white people? Go buy yourself a confederate flag.

People of every race and most religions have bled and fought and died for this country, and many of them were immigrants, and don't you forget that, either.

#3 This entire bit is some seriously Third World horse shit, period. If you support this crap, you don't really want to live in America...or at least not any America that this middle-aged former conservative would recognize as such.

#4 For the record, I hate Roy Moore's fucking guts with the fury of one thousand splendid suns, and I hope that motherfucker wins the primary. Yes, Trump has put me in the position of hoping that goddamned son of a bitch wins, JUST because of the hypocrisy of the whole goddamned deal.

That's right, you know Trump is down there on behalf of Mitch McConnell and all those "establishment" Republicans that he and his supporters say they hate so fucking much.

As for the subject matter of Trump's comments. Fuck that guy. Anthony and I spoke about this directly. If he as a football coach, or either one of us publicly or at work said anything of this sort we'd get FIRED.

Another thing, Everybody in this country has freedom of speech and if you don't like that, fuck you. If an employer fires somebody for speaking publicly about this issue or that one or the other one then in many cases, there is legal recourse unless their comments fall foul of their employment contract under certain circumstances that MUST be legally enumerated. Does anybody think the NFL, if it attempted to make good on Trump's threats, would not get sued for it, and most likely lose?

First Amendment cases literally are an industry all their own in the legal community, and from any political or social angle you can think of, too.

Then of course there's the comment about the hits? Really, dude? Workplace safety has been a thing on increasing levels since the New Deal and as knowledge and medical science increases we're going to probably continue to err on the side of safety.

Why? Legal issues, again, entire massive subdivision of the legal community dedicated to dealing with this issue...the term Ambulance Chaser is a thing for a reason.

Ideally, the reasons people would have for supporting the First Amendment or safety regulations would be because it's the right thing to do, but no. This is America, damn it. We have to monetize absolutely everything to the point of ridiculous.

It's the politicization of the game that's costing Football it's fan base, that and teams moving and owners catering to rich people instead of regular fans.

One last thing...trying to force people to be patriotic will absolutely have the opposite effect.

Respect is earned, every action, every day, all the time. Yes, that's hard...and that is exactly the point.

America is hard, you try to cut corners and you get people like Trump an the current Republican party. If you want a better nation you HAVE to be better citizens."

There were a couple of things that I didn't add, because I was tired when I wrote the post and I didn't really want to deal with the possibility of going to bed and then waking up to some kind of a flame war in the comments.

It's not just that rich assholes like Trump don't think African Americans and other people of color should have a right to protest. it's that the sons of bitches don't just want these players to beat the fuck out of each other and hurt or kill themselves and each other...they think that the US flag represents them and they want to be ritualistically thanked by the players for the privilege of entertaining them. For fuck's sake, why not just bring back gladiators if that's what they think? It's not like their howling, bloody-minded mob wouldn't gleefully fall in behind that, too.

In fact, in a gaming context I've written about just that kind of thing happening in a Christian Fundamentalist theocracy that managed to seize parts of the southern US and I made it a part of the setting, and a thing that perpetuated a vast, illegal trade in fight videos which was large enough to help support an attempted reboot of the Confederacy, in a war that they eventually lost as much due to their own corruption as anything else.

When you literally, from a theological standpoint, do not believe that life on this Earth has any meaning, or in any human rights or human dignity except your own, something like that is a possibility. When you make a religion of "Fuck you, I've got mine" and "You deserve what you get" abuse and debasement and treating other people as entertainment rather than human beings is eventually going to come up. When you follow false gospels like Calvinism or the Prosperity Gospel...when money and power become your God...you get stuff like this. You get people who think that their privilege (white or otherwise) is more important than other people's lives. While hurricanes wreck whole regions, seas rise and wars slaughter tens of thousands in places like Burma and Syria...it's funny how the rest of the world seems to have literally become absent from so many American news feeds. I'm not joking, I've yet to find an article about the ethnic cleansing in Burma or aid to Rohingya refugees that originated from an American news agency.

In point of fact, I can think of maybe half a dozen people I know who would know or have bothered to learn about that situation. Fuck, half of Americans don't even seem to be aware that Puerto Rico got wrecked by a hurricane and is in some pretty rough shape at the moment. I've seen literal reminders on social media that Puerto Rico is a part of the United States and we should be doing something about this.

And there are a couple of Puerto Rican ladies on my Facebook feed, who I know from the ferret groups that are, in real time, showing what it's like to be part of the forgotten peoples of the United States of America and yet somehow, they're managing to get information and videos from back home that show the people there are doing the best they can to overcome adversity...

And maybe half of White Americans are losing their shit over Football players taking a knee for the National Anthem?

This is literally, a national case of "First World Problems" as an attempt to distract from the upcoming (and likely doomed) health care repeal vote, from the President's Russian machinations problem, and from any number of fuck ups we don't even know about yet, or possibly even a blatantly transparent power grab against our Constitutional rights.

As of this last nine months or so, about a quarter of the United States of America has basically fallen off the map in a frenzy of celebration of the Self, outright foolishness and theological navel-gazing, while basically half of the population literally argues and fights with that group over whether or not it has a right to exist, and then there's another quarter of the population that seems to make a point of either apathetically sharing pictures of their cats and hiding from reality or looking at either of the preceding groups like "Okay, which one of you is going to make me the best offer?" depending on the day.

Donald Trump isn't so much the problem as he's the ultimate symptom of various sicknesses that have been with this country from the beginning, mostly racism, religious fanaticism and a vacuous sense of isolationism and self-importance...combined with more than a little apocalyptic fantasy and a perverse desire to go out in a blaze of glory that doesn't realize that when civilization crumbles, the pain medication stops coming, and there's no flush toilets or internet connection and no, you don't just automatically know how to live off the land...

...Nor that the land we live on has mostly been ravaged down to the point where, absent civilization to maintain it, it's not enough to support all the people who live on it.

And of course, then you have the attitude of certain far-right Science Fiction authors, which is basically that we could easily solve world hunger...if people would just learn to eat each other.

Or, as I've put it for many years, people think that the "real" world ends at the county line, but somehow at the same time they think everybody outside of that wants whatever they have.

Does that spell it out for you about how bad this situation could get? I'm not joking when I say we have people here who likely make 1930's Germans look like saints by comparison. Hell, the Nazis took notes from American behavior during the Indian Wars and the post-Reconstruction Jim Crow era.

These are the fruits of inbreeding, creationism and white privilege. This is the result of self-esteem being preached instead of self-respect, and the preaching of that which tickles the fancies and scratches the ears instead of that which renews the soul or stimulates the mind. This is what happens when snotty kids don't get an ass whuppin' and don't learn that actions have consequences. They grow up to be shitty adults.

So, as a result, we're down the rabbit hole of madness...thankfully, over half of our population realizes that it is madness and is trying to do something to fix it. These are the people who are taking a stand against the fall of night and trying to preserve our civilization.

That gets difficult when a third or so of our population (including the President) can't or won't even understand the basics of our Constitution and laws...and then there are yet more people who don't seem to want to participate at all.

In the face of the fall of night, apathy isn't an option, you're either lighting a candle to hold back the darkness, or you're not. Freedom isn't free, and guns are far from the only or most productive way to defend it. If you want a better civilization, you have to be a better citizen...and that means not outsourcing dealing with your problems to some con artist who comes along and says "I alone can fix it."

He can't, he won't, he'll just do the best he can to make it worse and see if he can profit from the worsening of it.

Facing, and fixing all these problems? That's our job.

If we can't, or won't do it, then I wonder. If the United States of America destroys itself, will the rest of the world even notice?

After the last few days I feel compelled to ask myself and others "What the fuck are we even doing here?"

Think about that, take all the time you need.

Inferno

Simon Adebesi: I have created a paradise.

Kareem Said: This isn't paradise, it's an inferno.

~From the HBO Series "Oz" Season 4, Episode "A word to the wise.".

I work third shift, as such I generally get up about the time most people go to bed. So last night, I got up and I took a shower and took the dog out. I decided for the hell of it to check Facebook and Twitter because I had a few extra minutes. On John Pavlovitz's Twitter feed, I saw a comment "Somebody told me we're supposed to 'Love the sinner, hate the sin' regarding Donald Trump." Due to slow bandwidth and having to go to work, I didn't have time to respond effectively. So I got to think about it all night.

Love the Sinner, Hate the Sin.

Right... [...Trying to sound like Bill Cosby in the "Complete Noah Act" sketch...]

Now 20 years ago, as I've mentioned before, I was a conservative Baptist. I was as much of a follower of current events, politics and religious matters, and active in my church and within the End Times Prophecy movement (as a member of it) up to and including posting on various "Christian" message boards...the social media of the day...regarding these subjects. It's safe to say I was around when the phrase "Love the Sinner, Hate the Sin" came into common usage. Hell, I remember the first time I heard it...specifically regarding a member of my Baptist church who had come out as gay. And trust me...you never heard this as anything but a thinly veiled slam against gay people.

I was also an avid follower of a number of TV shows that were on in the 1990's, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Voyager, Seinfeld, and on the rougher side of things the HBO TV series "Oz." I found myself drawn to the show as much by the interplay of politics and religion, conservatism and liberalism, as anything else. Despite...or perhaps even because of...my own (fairly moderate) conservative views at the time, I could understand the generally liberal viewpoint of the show's writers and of the characters they created, and that the show had some valid points regarding social justice and other such issues. In Season 4, Adebesi, one of the inmates, manages to manipulate the cell block supervisors into disgracing themselves and they're replaced by somebody considerably more shady...who in return for an end to the violence, allows Adebesi and his gang to turn the cell block into a drug-infested hellhole. That's where the quote at the beginning comes from, as of course, the principal resistance to this (as well as the eventual end of the arrangement, leading to the firing of the corrupt supervisor and reinstatement of the old one) comes by way of the Muslims, led by Kareem Said...who eventually kills Adebesi in self-defense.

I can't help but think of that in the context of how this whole Trump thing is turning out. Climate Change is kicking in hard core, corruption and espionage investigations, deregulation that makes literally no sense, floods, two recent hurricanes, with a third coming our way, massive wildfires, Nazis, racists running amok, and now another effort underway to repeal the Affordable Care Act and strip up to 32 MILLION Americans of their health insurance. We can't seem to go one single damned day without some ridiculous, stupid scandal...

Fuck, you'd think God was pissed off at us or something...

Love the sinner, hate the sin?

Yeah, I don't think so.

First of all, that's not...ever...a very nice thing to say about somebody. That's basically Evangelical-Speak for "I hate you but I'm a try and sound all righteous while I do it." So, somebody actually said this in defense of Trump?

My guess is, they don't like him either, whether they'll admit that or not.

These people, these Republicans? They don't believe in anything...not really. Well, hate and nihilism, maybe. Money, power, and tax cuts? Perhaps some overwhelming desire to try to "punish" the majority of the country for not toeing their line and for basically...even in the face of their political control...rejecting their viewpoint and their nominal leader.

Yes, you heard me.

Love the sinner, hate the sin.

Their nominal leader...and they hate him, but they'll try and use him for as much as they can...and they don't care that he's a piece of shit. Why? Because that's what they are, too. The problem with a con-man like Trump is that he's going to try and use them for as much as he can, and I suspect he's better at it then they are. After all, the motherfucker got elected.

Trump isn't a conservative, he isn't a Christian, he doesn't believe in the things that they believe in and he doesn't give a flying fuck about most of the stuff that they do. Well, except maybe tax cuts. He's out for glory and money and power for himself and he's already made it evident that he's going to betray the Republicans repeatedly and that he will lie and cheat and steal as much as we all let him get away with and betray anybody he feels like or has to in order to do it. Oh, he might say some conservative-sounding things now and again, or echo the "Popular wisdom" right-wing sentiments...because that's always worked before...not because he actually believes any of that crap. (Part of the trouble with "popular" wisdom is that it's popular because it's complete bullshit.) Well, maybe he believes in the racism...maybe it's just a "bit" to attract followers. I don't know and I'm not going to speculate or try to sound authoritative here. 

I will say that I think Donald Trump is a white supremacist, and I think he's quite probably a Russian Intelligence asset...because that's his track record and the racists and the Russians are two groups he refuses to criticize and against whom any actions taken are obviously half-hearted and only done in response to massive bipartisan public pressure.

He's also very crappy at providing actual leadership and he appears to seriously suck at politics.

For all of their power, the Republicans are proving to be about as confused and as literally impotent as an old rich guy that takes Propecia. These people have absolutely no idea what they're doing...and Trump is even beginning to alienate the hard-core racists who make up the most driven part of his base...because after the recent DACA deal with Pelosi and Schumer, they can see that Trump is obviously not racist enough.

...I love the smell of burning MAGA hats in the morning by the way.

Love the sinner, hate the sin.

You know, if that works out for these yahoos as well as it did for the anti-gay movement, the betrayal, the break-up, and the resulting political reckoning are going to be fucking epic. 

Speaking from experience, these Church people are great at destroying people's faith. If you're not careful, if you don't have a good grounding in morality and scripture and some experience of the world or some element of a spiritual nature....chances are good they'll make an Atheist out of you. It almost happened to me. I suspect in a few months, maybe a year or two at most, there's going to be a lot of that going around.

Always remember that Man cannot save Man, only God can do that. These people put their trust in Trump for their Salvation. I've more than a passing familiarity with what the Bible says about that kind of thing and I fully expect these people will reap every bit of the consequences in this life or the next.

Meanwhile, Mr. Mueller just keeps plugging away, I hear Paul Manafort is probably going to get indicted. Flynn has seven lawyers. They'll fall like dominoes and sing like Frank Sinatra from there on. There's no mafia law of "Omerta" when it comes to terrorism or treason and most of these plots, historically, are not executed by terribly competent people.

Work, for the night is coming.

Just so ya know, my personal feelings regarding "Love the sinner, hate the sin?"

The Muslims taught me better than that: 

Hadith 34: Whoever Sees An Evil

On the authority of Abu Saeed al-Khudri (may Allah be pleased with him) who said: I heard the Messenger of Allah say, “Whoever of you sees an evil must then change it with his hand. If he is not able to do so, then [he must change it ] with his tongue. And if he is not able to do so, then [he must change it] with his heart. And that is the slightest [effort of] faith.” 

Think about that for a second. If you want a better nation you have to be better citizens. If you want a better world you have to be better people.

Nobody else can fix it for you.