Soviet Jesus (Be Brave, Three.)

Reach out, touch faith

Your own personal Jesus
Someone to hear your prayers
Someone who cares
Your own personal Jesus
Someone to hear your prayers
Someone who's there

Feeling unknown
And you're all alone
Flesh and bone
By the telephone
Lift up the receiver
I'll make you a believer

Take second best
Put me to the test
Things on your chest
You need to confess
I will deliver
You know I'm a forgiver. 

~Depeche Mode, Personal Jesus.

I saw earlier today that the Russians are moving combat support, logistics and medical units up to the Ukrainian border.

Trust me, that is not a good sign.

Because it's usually the last move before the start of offensive military operations. 

Yes, that seems like a bad idea. But as Tom Nichols points out, it's very likely that Vladimir Putin is losing his marbles and/or surrounded by boot-lickers and sycophants who are basically telling him he's Jesus.

 Certainly, Tucker Carlson seems to think that Vlad is his Own Soviet Jesus. And you can tell him I said that.

But, If such is the case, we're in for a bloody, nasty mess that there's no way we, or the rest of NATO, will be able to avoid getting sucked into it.

But there's a thing we need to face here, separate from, but linked to the possibility that Vlad might be losing his mind and thinking he's Jesus. We could be looking at the possibility of a religious war, here.

In December of 2018 various Orthodox groups in Ukraine started planning to form their own denomination and effectively secede from the Russian Orthodox Church, which they felt was too closely aligned with the Kremlin. In January of 2019 the Ukrainian Orthodox Church became its own thing, with the backing of the rest of the Orthodox world. Putin was enraged by this and predictably, the Russian Orthodox Church told the Ecumenical Patriarch Of Constantinople (The nominal Orthodox equivalent to the Pope) to go fuck himself and has effectively created a schism within wider Orthodoxy because these people are unreasonable fucking bastards. 

Kinda like Republicans.

Do I really need to explain how fucking nasty wars of religion can get?

And I think we need to be prepared for that.

But more to the point, we need to face the fact that we're also dealing with a trans-national clique of authoritarian rulers (and former rulers) and various ideologies that inspires every bit the same kind of fanaticism that religion does because it gives some kind of "meaning" to the lives of people who like the taste of boot-leather.

And there's a lot of those kind of people around, apparently. I'd say probably about a quarter of the US population. You know, the last people who supported George W. Bush when his poll numbers started to get down to around 20% approval ratings.

Trumpism is about the same way, as the number of people who support this bullshit drops, as other people move on, and the country and the story change, and most especially as the history of the Trump years begins to be written down, there's some of us just can't move on, and who dig in and become more radical as the world changes and moves on and they feel like they didn't get whatever they thought they would.

And if we end up in some kind of a conflict with Russia, I think at least some of these people will become violent. For some of them, it will be because they support Russia. For others, it's because people like Putin and Trump are the Asshole Lifestyle Brand that gives their life meaning...I mean, like it was with the NRA 20 years ago, or like it's the same way now with the Cryptocurrency and NFT mess.

Like the sign in Idiocracy said "If you don't smoke Tarryton's, fuck you."

Vast majorities of these people will suck at it, or just get themselves killed, but right-wing insurgency and terrorism WILL become the new "Own The Libs" brand.

And that's where we're at right now, humanity is dividing itself not so much between conservative and liberal, but between those who want to be the slaves of some self-styled God-King and those who don't."

Also, as I've said before these fools are already on the hunt to find somebody worse than Trump. I'm here to tell you, there's nothing like a war for bringing somebody up from the ranks that you've never heard of, giving them the confidence to lead a movement, and then using it to start shit.

Either you believe in freedom or you don't.

It's really that simple.

Reject the Soviet Jesus, especially if you claim you believe in the real one. These people are not your friends.

Be Brave.

Part II