Total Depravity Of Man (American Revelation, Explained, Eight.)

And after these things I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree.

And I saw another angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the living God: and he cried with a loud voice to the four angels, to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea,

Saying, Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads.

And I heard the number of them which were sealed: and there were sealed an hundred and forty and four thousand of all the tribes of the children of Israel.

Of the tribe of Juda were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Reuben were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Gad were sealed twelve thousand.

Of the tribe of Aser were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Nephthalim were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Manassas were sealed twelve thousand.

Of the tribe of Simeon were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Levi were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Issachar were sealed twelve thousand.

Of the tribe of Zebulon were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Joseph were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Benjamin were sealed twelve thousand.

After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands;

And cried with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to our God which sits upon the throne, and unto the Lamb.

And all the angels stood round about the throne, and about the elders and the four beasts, and fell before the throne on their faces, and worshipped God,

Saying, Amen: Blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honor, and power, and might, be unto our God for ever and ever. Amen.

And one of the elders answered, saying unto me, What are these which are arrayed in white robes? and whence came they?

And I said unto him, Sir, you know. And he said to me, These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. ~Revelation 7:1-14

...

[Shaw enters the quartermaster's office while some of his soldiers guard the door]

Quartermaster Kendrick: Good afternoon, Colonel. Change your mind about that bottle I was talking about?

Colonel Robert G. Shaw: I want 600 pairs of shoes and 1200 pairs of socks...and anything else you've been holding out on us, you piece of rat filth.

Quartermaster Kendrick: I'd love to help you, Colonel, but we just don't have any.

Colonel Robert G. Shaw: Not for n*ggers, you don't!

Quartermaster Kendrick: Not for anybody.

Colonel Robert G. Shaw: I see. Pity. I'll just look around to see if you haven't misplaced them, hmm? [starts smashing up the place, throwing items off shelves and onto the floor]

Quartermaster Kendrick: HEY!

Colonel Robert G. Shaw: [over the noise] Where are they, you son of a bitch?! [throws items off another shelf]

Quartermaster Kendrick: Damn it, you can't-!

Colonel Robert G. Shaw: Can't I?! I'm a colonel, you nasty little cuss! You really think you can keep 700 Union soldiers without proper shoes because you think it's funny?! Now, where would that power come from?! ~From the film Glory.

So, we've been down the list of the initial judgments of Revelation. The question remains, how the fuck did we get this way??

Well, a lot of it is outright bigotry and racism, stupidity, willful ignorance. But, the question is...how is any of this OK??

Well, as a former Christian myself, more than half of whose school-age education was in Christian schools that freaking loved to teach Colonial American history I think I can give you at least a short answer.

Calvinism is buried deep in America's DNA. You know, Reformed Theology, the same shit that powered and in the minds of the Afrikaner leadership, justified Apartheid South Africa. Well, America got a big damned dose of that shit thanks to the Pilgrims and their Puritan horseshit. There's a reason that Malcolm X specifically said of Black people "We didn't land on Plymouth Rock! Plymouth Rock landed on us!"

And by the way, these weren't brave explorers or some shit. They'd got ran out of the Netherlands because the famous tolerance of the Dutch didn't extend to letting these fucking people murder other people for rejecting their religion.

Calvinism was started by a French Protestant theologian, Jehan Cauvin, (name usually Anglicized to John Calvin in Switzerland in the mid-16th Century.

Calvinism is the idea that YOU were specially selected BY GOD, to the point where you can basically do whatever evils you want to do and still go to Heaven...and that somebody else WASN'T. In real life this shit has been an excuse for everything from slavery to colonialism to various wars, not to mention Apartheid in South Africa and Segregation in the United States.

It's a real short leap to say that the people you deem Unsaved or "Unregenerate" in Calvinistic parlance can be abused and exploited and subjected to Hell in this life. And GOD told you to persecute them.

(Bullshit.)

It's also the basic excuse for why Republicans glorify and valorize being mean, miserable and miserly.

It's why rural hick-ass white people everywhere from the Deep South to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan basically justify not doing much of anything with themselves and why so much of America's White "Culture" is basically alcohol, cow shit, and racism. It's why people from little towns like Skandia in Michigan's Upper Peninsula get mad when their kids move into Marquette to get a job or go to college, as if a career at the local Dollar General is somehow so much more rewarding?? And by the way, when I was there in the early-to-mid-1990's it wasn't "Cool" to be in the military either.

Like, these fucking people believe shit like that if God wanted them to be a lawyer, for example, they'd have been born rich.

It's basically why America has an unofficial, largely voluntary and self-enforced caste system.

And it's why when push comes to shove, the Democratic gerontocracy will work with Republicans, if they have to, to keep people like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez from ever getting the damned ball.

Fuck all that. 

And the worst part is, most Americans nowadays lack the religious education to even know what this bullshit is, although its bastard children, Pentecostalism and the Prosperity Gospel, loom far larger these days than actual Calvinism or Reformed Theology...but I suppose that's because those beliefs at least at one time required maintaining a certain conservative and religious aesthetic, at least publicly.

Now, you don't even have to be a Christian to buy whole-hog into the Prosperity Gospel, you just have to be a Trumper.

Theologically, the basic premise follows thusly:

Calvinism, in a nutshell, is "Fuck You, I've got mine" Christianized.

Total Depravity of Man: Humans are basically Evil, and can do nothing about it, because God, that's why. Unless...
Unconditional Election: ...You're actually Not Evil, again, because God. That's why. Technically, through...
Limited Atonement: ...Jesus dying a bloody and horrible death so your wretched, sinful ass could go to Heaven, because of His...
Irresistible Grace: Yep, and even if you're cursed to grow up among these people with enough empathy to worry about what might happen to all those inconvenient other people, there's not a damned thing you can do about it. This is also the basis for that uniquely American idea of "Once Saved, Always Saved." Which again, basically says you can do whatever you want, because Jesus and the..
Perseverance of the Saints: Because God is Sovereign and cannot be frustrated by Human actions and (according to this mentality anyway) only follows His own rules (as set forth in the Bible) or expects Humans to follow them when it's convenient.

Does any of this seem fucked up to you, yet??

Well, it should, and it's likely about to get worse.

When your mental starting point is that you are a Totally Depraved man somehow sealed and selected by God in the middle of a "Lost and Dying World" that right there is a recipe for Atrocity.

And it'll get worse yet.

Like I said, so much of Christianity is so badly dumbed-down in America nowadays that...years ago, not even recently but over a decade ago I would ask people if they knew what [Basic Thing from Christian history, for example "What was the 95 Theses" or "Who was Martin Luther?"] And the most Evangelical of the Evangelicals I knew would draw a complete damn blank. (And yes, it's a safe bet the same applies to John Calvin or even something more recent like the Azusa Street Revival.)

Think about that, for a second.

Then think about how Donald Trump, of all fucking people, has usurped all that shit and claimed it for himself and his cult's beliefs without even knowing the proper names of Books of the Bible.

And people don't know why and can't tell you why they believe this bullshit!

But they do believe it, more so than Red Letters in an edition of the King James Bible or anything Jesus or any of the ancient Prophets ever did or said.

And people wonder why I say it's literally going to come down to a fight if us regular secular Americans ever want to get our country back.

You either believe in freedom or you don't.

Слава Україна!

My black face fades,
hiding inside the black granite.
I said I wouldn't
dammit: No tears.
I'm stone. I'm flesh.
My clouded reflection eyes me
like a bird of prey, the profile of night slanted against morning.

I turn this way—the stone lets me go.
I turn that way—I'm inside
the Vietnam Veterans Memorial
again, depending on the light
to make a difference.
I go down the 58,022 names,
half-expecting to find
my own in letters like smoke.

I touch the name Andrew Johnson; I see the booby trap's white flash.
Names shimmer on a woman's blouse
but when she walks away
the names stay on the wall.

Brushstrokes flash, a red bird's
wings cutting across my stare.
The sky. A plane in the sky.
A white vet's image floats
closer to me, then his pale eyes
look through mine. I'm a window.
He's lost his right arm
inside the stone. In the black mirror
a woman’s trying to erase names:
No, she's brushing a boy's hair.
~Facing It, by Yusef Komunyakaa, US Army Veteran

Seven

If we lose freedom here, there is no place to escape to. This is the last stand on Earth. And this idea that government is beholden to the people, that it has no other source of power except to sovereign people, is still the newest and most unique idea in all the long history of man's relation to man. This is the issue of this election. Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves. ~Ronald Reagan