...Into a far country.

As I've said before, my basic theory about the whole Trump thing is that it stems from three things, belief in life as a zero-sum game, fear of death and fear of the Other, which manifests most often as Anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and racism more generally.

Increasingly, though, I see another variable at work here which feeds into, but is also fed by those three variables...

Matthew 25King James Version (KJV)

25 Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins, which took their lamps, and went forth to meet the bridegroom.

2 And five of them were wise, and five were foolish.

3 They that were foolish took their lamps, and took no oil with them:

4 But the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps.

5 While the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept.

6 And at midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him.

7 Then all those virgins arose, and trimmed their lamps.

8 And the foolish said unto the wise, Give us of your oil; for our lamps are gone out.

9 But the wise answered, saying, Not so; lest there be not enough for us and you: but go ye rather to them that sell, and buy for yourselves.

10 And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came; and they that were ready went in with him to the marriage: and the door was shut.

11 Afterward came also the other virgins, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us.

12 But he answered and said, Verily I say unto you, I know you not.

13 Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh.

"Watch ye therefore, for ye know not when the master of the house cometh." to quote Andy Dufresne in the Shawshank Redemption, is my favorite short version of this. While the guards are conducting a shakedown of the cell block he lives in, the Warden asks Andy what his favorite Bible verse is. Of course as Red, narrating, goes on to explain; the Warden simply wanted to take the measure of Andy and see what he was made of, how he held up under pressure.

This parable is relevant to me in other ways, though. See, I spent the majority of the latter half of the 1990's as a member of the End Times Prophecy Movement. If there even IS a source that could be pinpointed as to why American Christianity has a lot of the problems that it currently does, I'd start there and for that matter, I'd start then, also. See, just to take one modern issue (which is particularly on my mind on this 60F February day) Climate Change; For a large percentage of the time I was in that movement the El Nino climate phenomenon in the Pacific and its potential effects were on everyone's mind. It bears the name that it does because it was so named by mostly-Catholic Peruvian fishermen, and it usually reaches its peak around Christmas. So, at that time with anxiety about the turn of the Millennium also being a thing...Climate Change was viewed as a sign of the End Times.

But, now that Climate Change is more coming into effect, and regulations to combat it threaten to put a small dent in the short-term profits of Oil companies...well let's just say if you weren't a member of the End Times movement at the same time that I was...you'd never know Climate Change was once seen as both a fact and a *Good* if only because climate changes form an integral part of the later Judgments of Revelation and those things starting to happen in the real world could point in that direction. But, a lot of right-wing Texas oil billionaires have extensive ties to Christian Fundamentalism and they give preachers money, You can do the math on how that one turned out. I have faith in you, the reader.

Nowadays, not only with Climate Change, but with damned near every other Environmental issue (Unless it happens to affect them directly) most conservative Christians of most stripes will say "But God promised He would not destroy the world." That's bullshit for quite a few reasons but it starts and ends with the fact that God never said that Man could not turn around and destroy it on his own, so I'm just going to leave it at that.

Like I've said for several years now, I really feel like if he were to arise tomorrow, all the AntiChrist of Revelations would have to do is go on FOX News and say a few vaguely Conservative and religious-sounding words and promise to "Get" Obama in some undefined way, and all too many American "Conservatives" would be ready, willing and able to listen to what he had to say. Throw in a little racism, maybe a cameo appearance in Donald Trump's carnival show with a golf outing at the "Winter White House" selfies with the rich and some vague talk about a war in the Middle East and these people would be lining up 'round the block to take the Mark of The Beast. No. Questions. Asked.

Not one single one. I'd literally bet my life on it.

The right-wing side of American Christianity has been so gas-lit by its Politicians and Professional Christians and its religion has become so intertwined with its politics and divorced from the actual teachings contained in the Bible that these people simply do not care. The End justifies the Means. Jesus could show up to do it all over again, and preach verbatim out of the King James Version and do exactly the same things the Bible says He did back in the day, and the result would be the exact same. If He hung out with the gays and immigrants and the liberals and the sinners, maybe helped some homeless people or used His skills in the building trades to install some solar panels on an old lady's roof, not to mention called them on their bullshit? These fucking people would not only make a hashtag of #CrucifyHim, they'd shout it in the streets and blow up the E-mail and voice-mail inboxes of their state governments and federal representatives and Senators and they'd call Jesus a terrorist and seek to have Crucifixion no longer considered cruel and unusual punishment in cases of Theological Terrorism. If you can't, for example, see John Roberts, Mitch McConnell or Paul Ryan asking Jesus "What is Truth?" at His trial, then you haven't been paying attention.

I say this with absolute certainty. If Jesus Himself asked these fucking people to go home and rethink their lives? They'd happily throw Him under the bus and make a new religion of Trumpism, Bigly.

Everybody wants change, seems like a lot of people don't want to change. But, that is what God asks of us. Every day we are supposed to die to Self, pick up our Cross and follow Jesus. That's what I was taught, anyway. Preach that straight up these days, and somebody will likely call you a Communist. Yes, We're talking about a threat that hasn't even existed for almost 28 years now. (Come on, even the Chinese and the Cubans and the Vietnamese aren't really Communists anymore.) That's how unwilling we as a nation are to give up a little, maybe evaluate some new information, think of others, and just maybe follow or be a part of something greater than ourselves. We'll hang on to something that's been dead longer than Ronald Reagan, just to justify our bullshit.

We're not watching to see if the Son of Man is coming, hell, we lost the plot on that when the whole Y2K thing fizzled out.

14 For the kingdom of heaven is as a man travelling into a far country, who called his own servants, and delivered unto them his goods.

15 And unto one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one; to every man according to his several ability; and straightway took his journey.

16 Then he that had received the five talents went and traded with the same, and made them other five talents.

17 And likewise he that had received two, he also gained other two.

18 But he that had received one went and digged in the earth, and hid his lord's money.

19 After a long time the lord of those servants cometh, and reckoneth with them.

20 And so he that had received five talents came and brought other five talents, saying, Lord, thou deliveredst unto me five talents: behold, I have gained beside them five talents more.

21 His lord said unto him, Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord.

22 He also that had received two talents came and said, Lord, thou deliveredst unto me two talents: behold, I have gained two other talents beside them.

23 His lord said unto him, Well done, good and faithful servant; thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord.

24 Then he which had received the one talent came and said, Lord, I knew thee that thou art an hard man, reaping where thou hast not sown, and gathering where thou hast not strawed:

25 And I was afraid, and went and hid thy talent in the earth: lo, there thou hast that is thine.

26 His lord answered and said unto him, Thou wicked and slothful servant, thou knewest that I reap where I sowed not, and gather where I have not strawed:

27 Thou oughtest therefore to have put my money to the exchangers, and then at my coming I should have received mine own with usury.

28 Take therefore the talent from him, and give it unto him which hath ten talents.

29 For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath.

30 And cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

This. If the guy with one Talent isn't Conservative America right now, I don't know how the hell to describe it.

If you really look at it, a hell of a lot of the things these people are against actually contribute more to our system than they take out, whether it be the Affordable Care Act, Food Stamps, Gay people (I mean, come on, what does someone loving who they want to really cost anybody else at all?)Immigrants (both legal and illegal, and if you don't believe me on that score read this) Medicare, Minorities, Muslims, National Parks, Refugees in general (and often, refugees from places like Iraq and Syria in particular, I know of a number of cases of Iraqi refugees joining the Army or the Marine Corps, for example. Syrian refugees have already had a small but notable positive effect in Canada) Social Security and all sorts of various other things Actually put one HELL of a lot more to the US economy than they take out. This isn't my opinion talking, SNAP, the Federal program that governs food stamps, generates $2 in the US economy for every $1 that is put into it. Medicare and Social Security don't just support old people, they put a hell of a lot of that money right back into Florida real estate, FOX News and the health care industry along with all sorts of other things that old people need or want to have.

But no, it costs each person a few dollars in tax money or exposes them to something new or forces them to deal with people they don't like or has some degree of inconvenience or threatens their personal "bubble" or somebody they don't like is responsible for it...so it can't be good and it has to go, right? RIGHT?!?! If we don't like it, it has to be banned! If somebody else gets more freedom, I have less, right? RIGHT!?!?!?!?!

32 And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats:

33 And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.

34 Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:

35 For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:

36 Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.

37 Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink?

38 When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee?

39 Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?

40 And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.

41 Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:

42 For I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink:

43 I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not.

44 Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee?

45 Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me.

46 And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.

Wrong. Either you believe in an All-powerful, eternal, infinite God who created an infinite Universe that even now stretches out into eternity, or you don't.

That is demonstrated in how we see the world, and right now to paraphrase Margaret Weis in the notes from the margins of the condensed volume of the first three Dragonlance books, the average American Conservative thinks that God is a blind man at the bottom of a very deep well who thinks the Universe is six feet wide.

...And, having Created god in Their own image, these people feel the same way.

Reality is a thing, people. Truth is a thing. We each will be judged someday, and the color of your skin or your politics or religion or social status won't have one damn thing to do with the results.

How you handle Truth, will.

Whether you act out of love or out of hate, will.

Whether you believed the Apocalypse was your Tribal revenge fantasy, or a great outpouring of justice where Judgment ran down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream, will.

Life is not a zero-sum game, death *Is* a part of life and so are other people.

After all, we wouldn't have all these diverse people with their many and varied beliefs and all this stuff that we have if God had not created it or given Man the scientific knowledge and the tools and somehow or other authored the physical laws that make them work, now would we? This stuff doesn't work by magic. God gave us the Sun, and gave Man the capability to make solar panels that turn sunlight into electricity, now why the hell aren't we taking full advantage of something that God gave us?

Well, you can't make as much money if you go by the Truth, now can you?

God had quite a few things to say about that very issue, and that is who these people are really afraid of. That is exactly why they believe life is a zero-sum game and fear death and fear having their beliefs challenged and fear other people.

That is exactly why these people act as if the Universe is six feet wide. They can't face the concept of Eternity, because their own mentality makes them small. It's drilled into everyone in Western Civilization, everyone who is influenced by the Abrahamic religions, that each of us will be given our eternal place in the afterlife based on how we have conducted ourselves in this one, and for most of us this starts before we are old enough to process it so it gets hard-wired in. All the evasions and technicalities don't get taught until later. They value this life, because they fear eternity.

They don't want to use their talents because the Master is a hard man. That's what Man will always come back to, fear.

But we're supposed to use the things we have been given, and when we can, use them to help other people. If everybody did that, all the time, then the government wouldn't have to step in and do it for us so that some could resent having to pay for it. That comes down to the fear that somebody else is getting something, and you're not.

We are supposed to be better than that. No one said it was easy, fuck easy.

How we treat other people, is how Christ will judge us.

...And at the end of the day, that is exactly what they are afraid of.

Luke 6:31King James Version (KJV)

31 And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise.

Pale Blue Dot.

27 years ago, on February 14th, 1990, a remarkable photograph was taken. It was the culmination of a decade worth of effort by astronomer and author Carl Sagan with the support of many NASA personnel including the agency director, Richard Truly. The photograph was simply an image of Earth, as taken from the Voyager 1 Space Probe, then beginning the process of exiting the Solar System. The photograph was taken from over 40 Astronomical Units (an Astronomical Unit/AU is the distance between the Earth and the Sun) away. The Earth appears as a small blue dot in the middle of the closest band of light (itself the result of scattering of light off the camera's sun-shade) and takes up less than a pixel of the image. That's us, just a small dot of blue against the dark vastness of space.

Think about it, human beings...Americans...launched the Voyager 1 space probe 40 years ago (in 1977) and sent it to explore Jupiter (1979) and Saturn (1980) and their moons before taking this picture in 1990, and the Probe would go on to support observations of the Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 impacts on Jupiter in 1994.

NASA Scientists designed the command sequences and and did the calculations and coding, sent it to the spacecraft over the course of several hours, panned the cameras to compensate for the probe's speed (over 40,000 miles per hour) took the photo and then waited several hours as bit by bit, pixel by pixel, the image was relayed to Earth via the Deep Space Network.

This photograph was not intended to have scientific merit, but simply to show our place in the Universe.

As Carl Sagan himself described it:

We succeeded in taking that picture, and, if you look at it, you see a dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever lived, lived out their lives. The aggregate of all our joys and sufferings, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilizations, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every hopeful child, every mother and father, every inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our species, lived there – on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and in triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of the dot on scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner of the dot. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light.

[...] To my mind, there is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly and compassionately with one another and to preserve and cherish that pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.

— Carl Sagan, speech at Cornell University, October 13, 1994

Why is this important? It's very simple, really. This was a great accomplishment.

This operation was done with a Republican president in the White House, there was conflict in the world, hell the Cold War was still winding down. We still found the time to take on a challenge for no better reason than because we could do it, to demonstrate nothing so much as our own human frailty and smallness against the vastness of the Universe.

It takes a strong and confident nation to do that.

When this was done, America absolutely was great.

What changed?

Fundamentally, One of my biggest problems with our society right now is a whole we're not doing much more than going to work and getting paid. We're not even thinking ahead, as a whole. We think in terms of the next Quarter, the next quantifiable period with numbers attached, etc. We need to think bigger. Seriously, Think about the amounts of money that could be made, new fields of technology opened up, etc. if we as a nation much less humanity as a species set our sights on going to Mars...never mind well and truly reaching for the stars. 

There's literally resources we can't even imagine out there, adventure and wealth enough to be had to fill the dreams of the most amoral pirate capitalist to overflowing, if only we made up our mind to go out there. That's what gets me is just how *Small* these people think, as personified by Donald Trump and his cabinet of Billionaires. If we'd apply ourselves the stars could be within our reach in a generation or two...we could rise to the literal heavens. We could, to paraphrase Melville, seat ourselves Sultanically among the moons of Saturn, and that would be just a start. But, some people at and near the top of this train-wreck we currently call a society would rather that we stay here and kill each other while we run out of stuff. 

We have people who would rather sell out our country to the Russians, or rather see it burned to the ground, than see gays or liberals or minorities or non-Christians or women or whoever else disagrees with them get an equal share of this one decent-sized patch of that little blue dot in the vast blackness of space.

Look at that, look at it really, go ahead and explain to me how ANY of that makes any damned sense, and why you think we should throw away all that we have, on the altar of one man's bottomless ego. Oh yes, that is what will happen. There is no greatness in someone so self-absorbed. But I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. Go ahead, Take your time, show your work, I'll wait.

Republicans...The picture that is the entire basis for this post happened on YOUR watch...and now various coders, hackers and other volunteers are having to back up Climate Change and Earth Science data (and are beginning to do the same with biological, cultural and other scientific information already) because of the current right-wing aversion to facts, reality and science. Ya'll can do better than that and you Damned well know it.

Facts, reality, science and truth do not go away simply because we refuse to save the data or because we refuse to talk about them.

Look at that picture, and go right on ahead and tell me how corporate profits or pissant human ideology or religion matter worth a shit in the grand scheme of things.

No matter how much money this or that rich person makes, you'll never be able to see it from 40 AU away.

The vast blackness of space that takes up all but 0.12 pixels of that photograph, on the other hand? That's a literal, scientifically-testable concept of Eternity right there.

Whether God exists, I cannot say with certainty. I *Believe* that He does, but my Belief does not equal Fact.

But Eternity, facts, reality and truth are testable things. I choose, based on my Christian upbringing and Church background, to believe that God exists. Therefore, I have faith.

I have enough faith in God to understand that my faith in Him need not be threatened by other views. I have enough respect for facts, reality and truth, hell,,,for myself...not to believe in conspiracy theories and silly bullshit.

Seat thyself Sultanically among the moons of Saturn, and take high abstracted man alone; and he seems a wonder, a grandeur, and a woe. But from the same point, take mankind in mass, and for the most part, they seem a mob of unnecessary duplicates, both contemporary and hereditary. But most humble though he was, and far from furnishing an example of the high, humane abstraction; the Pequod's carpenter was no duplicate;

~Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chapter CVII, the Carpenter.

We all inhabit a pale blue dot in the vast blackness of space, sharing our immediate solar system with eight other planets, but surrounded by uncounted and uncountable stars. All of us, whatever our color or creed or race or religion or station in life are much alike, because we are all human beings. But we are each one unique, each one having felt the touch of the Creator whether He is known or knowable or unknown or even whether or not we accept His existence. We are endowed with a mind, and a soul, and can be each one made new if we so desire to be. We each have charge over our own souls. We all have some control over our circumstances. Only we, at the end of the day, can define ourselves.

Take a look up at the night sky, lose yourself in the wonder of it, and come the light of dawn, choose to start again, with courage and with hope.

The future, and whether or not we will ever rise to touch that Eternity that hangs over our heads every night, depends on it.

Together we rise, or none of us do.

Through A Glass Darkly...

1 Corinthians 13:12King James Version (KJV)

12 For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.

 My friend Aaron as a theory "This wasn't an election, it was a 'Going out of business' sale for the Baby Boomers." So, basically, fear of death is what's driving this whole Trump thing. 

I've been considering this since he said it last week.

An awful lot of the human drive regarding religion is the struggle with death, acceptance (Buddhism and Hinduism, along with many other Eastern traditions) avoidance (Rapture-believing Christians) control/martyrdom (Early Christians and today's Fundamentalist Muslims) and transcendence (Christianity, Judaism, most Muslims) being the most common responses. There are other answers to this dilemma, but that's what came to mind right now.

Much has been said about conservative and Evangelical Christian support for Trump, but the simple fact is that most of the people I know who fall into those demographics is that they might claim the label, but they fall short of fulfilling the meanings of those words. Most of the Christians I know who support Trump seem to be the kind who regard Christianity as little more than their tribal identity, or worse as a framework on which to hang all the stuff they want to do anyway. Add to that, that modern American Evangelical/Fundamentalist Christianity is basically the gospel of "Fuck you, I've got mine" and there you go.

Not all people who follow those forms of Christianity are that way, but a lot of the ones I've met are, and that's the truth.

For seven years, I was a staff member on a forum for ex-Pentecostals and ex-Fundamentalists, and an awful lot of people at one time or another spoke of fear of death, or of a dying relative's fear of death. Well, my answer to that is, if you think God is some kind of cosmic bully who's just waiting for a chance to send people to hell...and so, you fear death...then that's YOUR problem.

I was not taught that way.

Of course, an awful lot of the same people will tell you in the next breath that they think we're living in/near the End Times and Jesus is going to come back and the Rapture will occur and they'll all get teleported up to Heaven (without the inconvenience of, ya know, death) and get to watch the rest of us suffer for the next seven years.

Does any of this sound fucked up to you yet? 'Cause it sure did to me the first time I heard it. 

The doctrine of the Rapture was invented by a British nut job theologian named John Nelson Darby, and popularized in the United States by an Alcoholic former Confederate soldier (and, for the record, deserter) named Cyrus Ingersoll Schofield. If this sounds like some kind of 19th Century equivalent to Duck Dynasty, well it pretty much is, just without the ducks, and with some financial and political scandals and crazy religious bullshit thrown in.

America has always had a thing for cranks, and that fucking guy was no exception.

In any case, in the latter half of the 20th Century his doctrine of the Rapture became the great hope of those who were seeking to avoid death. In 1996, after some bad things happened in my life, I became a member of the End Times Prophecy movement. I have to say though, that I never really bought into all the Rapture stuff. Probably, this is because I was raised as a mainstream Christian and that doctrine is not a part of mainstream Christianity. In any case, my affiliation with that movement died off in early 2000 when the Apocalypse failed to materialize. I wasn't going to move the goalposts or look for the next big thing, I was just done with it all.

But, a lot of people weren't. Interest did more or less die off for a while, but then 9/11 happened and inflamed these people's imaginations again and they've not looked back since. I remember all sorts of religious craziness in the days immediately following the attacks. Oh yeah, and I heard ALL about it from my ex-wife, who was convinced that this was some kind of major event on the prophetic timeline.

Funny thing, but now I hear the Daesh are saying the same thing about Donald Trump's attempted Muslim ban...which they think of as a blessed event. While the rest of the world reacts with anger and confusion and rage and legal wranglings and court orders, they sit back and chuckle at the human suffering because it'll prove their "point" and net them a few more recruits for their imagined holy war against the West. (How they view it that way when they are mostly killing other Muslims, I'm not sure I understand. But, like with the Trump Supporters...I cannot fit my head far enough up my own ass to see their point of view.)

If we don't get a handle on it, if we don't overcome our fears, they will kill us.

Fear of the other, fear of Black people, of Brown people, of gay people, people of other religions, you name it. People say all type of dumb shit about the people they're afraid of...and of course very little of it is true. But then, if somebody has never been further than a hundred miles from home and watches FOX News all the time, how would they know? right?

We as a nation used to have an antidote for that kind of backwardness and a cure for that kind of fear, a guy would get drafted and probably sent to some other part of the world for a couple of years. Hell, long after THAT went away, when I was growing up in my small Northern Michigan hometown, most people my age couldn't wait to leave there and go out into the world and DO something.

I'm not sure what the hell changed, except that fear became more socially acceptable and 24-hour news cycles had to talk about something, so they went with shitty negative stuff. Fuck, I can remember when PBS and a couple of other local channels went off the air at Midnight and when the only thing on after Johnny Carson and David Letterman was bad reruns on the regular TV channels.

Truth be told, I kind of miss those days, I work third shift and I get really tired of some of the shit we get treated to on the break room TV's by CNN, FOX News and the damned infomercials, but hey, that's just me, and I can't hear Tucker Carlson speak without wanting to punch him right in the mouth so he's got something other than that smug sneer on his face for a while. I get a bad vibe from that guy...even Bill O'Reilly or Glenn Beck did not set me off like he does.

Get the fear merchants and the haters off the air, and I bet a lot of this shit calms down...

But even if they never do, let me explain what the real problem here is.

It's not Black Lives Matter or the Liberals or the Mexicans or the Muslims or Obama or whatever the Bogeyman of the week is, if you're a conservative.

Hell, for ya'll liberals the problem really isn't Trump, or the Republicans, or Hillary or Both Parties Are The Same, Man. 

It all comes down to fear, ultimately, fear of change, and fear of death.

Well, the idea of gradual change got rejected by a well-placed minority of those who bothered to vote, so now we're in for massive, uncontrolled change and whether we will even survive it as a whole country, none can say.

That said, overcome your fear. There's a reason I chose the verse that I did as a header.

Look, people, we're all going to die. Whether death comes by economic chaos, social collapse and war or simply by old age after a nice long, comfortable life, we're all going to die.

Death is the great equalizer.

You could, theoretically, destroy every threat or thing you see as a threat...

But when you are alone, and there's nobody else around, and it's just you and that bathroom mirror...

For most of us, at least people my age, that's when a little honest self-reflection is usually a requirement. When nobody else is around is when shit gets to you.

The simple fact is, eliminate all outside threats, and then you'll fear the mirror.

I don't see a lot of things around myself as threats, but then I wasn't taught to be afraid of everything either.

I still gotta look at my aging face and whitening beard every damned night before I go to work.

I'm going to die, eventually, and I'm just fine with that. No outside force, no God, no medical procedure, and no politician, will ever be able to prevent it. Nor would I want them to.

Death is that door we all have to walk through in order to reach Eternity, and we're all just travelers here.  To love this life too much is to risk spiritual death. When you're dead, nobody in the afterlife is going to care how much money you have. What determines where you go after you're dead is what you DO in this life.

I want to see how it ends, and if I have to die to reach that point so be it, when that time comes we're supposed to be ready, that's all.

What we do in life, echoes in eternity. ~Maximus Decimus Meridius, Gladiator.

Inglorious Basterd.

So, on Friday, during the protests of the Trump inauguration, this happened:

Whoever you are, as the grandson of World War II Veterans, I'd like to say thank you, from the bottom of my heart. Nazi punching damned well ought to be our new national sport.

Yours is a damned masterpiece, you Inglorious Basterd, (And damn it, people, if any of you haven't seen that movie you need to. That's your homework for the week.)

Below is my article about Richard Spencer from last November. The original was viewed over two thousand times. Please, Know that I would not change a single word:
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And the Lord saith unto Richard; "The fuck is even wrong with you, man?"

I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou were cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of my mouth. Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked: ~Revelation 3:15-17

So this afternoon (Yesterday now, as this was written on breaks at work and edited when I got home) Mo, my roommate, was watching News One Now on TV One as he often does. The host of the show,..which is a news show geared toward the Black community...Rowland Martin, had Alt-Right Nazi Richard Spencer on the show to interview him. For the record, Richard Spencer looks like the mutant love-child of Trey Gowdy and Clark Griswold (Chevy Chase's character from the Vacation movies) with a shitty Civvie high-and-tight haircut.

Also, he looks like a dude I wouldn't buy a used car from, but I digress.

I have to admit this was the first time I'd ever actually heard the man speak aside from the speeches he gave in Washington D.C. last weekend. I have to confess I was pretty shocked that anybody ever thought this nebbish of a man, who seemed to stumble through answering any questions regarding his beliefs when put on the spot, man-to-man, actually amounted to anything.

After a few minutes of watching this dude stumble through trying to deny that he was a White Supremacist and shit, and repeatedly claiming that Slavery was a "Disaster," (If so, then what exactly was all this racist shit ever about?) I was ready to walk away, me and Mo were laughing at this asshole.

Then Rowland Martin asked him a question, straight up "Are you a Christian?"

I stopped like I'd hit an invisible wall, hard. Rowland Martin is a Christian and vocally so, I've been watching his show since I've lived here, and I moved here in May of 2015.

Spencer's answer? "I'm a cultural Christian." (?!?!?!?!?!)

My thought process: Fucking SERIOUSLY? (!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

See, here's the thing: I was raised in the Church. To call someone a cultural Christian is basically to say that they are a person who goes to church because it's what people in their culture do, and they don't REALLY believe in Jesus.

This is, all too often, a way of de-legitimizing the Christianity of others (particularly when said of Catholics by Protestants.) In other words, it's NOT a label anybody who knows what they're talking about or who knows church culture or knows anything about American Christianity would actually claim. It's basically a very backbiting, backhanded insult to call somebody a "Cultural Christian."

I repeat: No one who knows what that label means will claim it.

Rowland's next question was even more direct: "Are you Saved?"

Spencer's answer? "I have been." (????)

I imagine Jesus, the Jewish carpenter and itinerant Rabbi from Galilee, somewhere on the Other Side watching this like: "What the FUCK is even WRONG with this guy?"

According to what I was taught, you're either saved or you're not. No middle of the road, no half-measures, you either accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior who died for your sins or you don't. Thus, you're either cold or you're hot...because if you're Lukewarm, He is going to spit you out. Yet, automatically, Spencer equivocates.

...And that makes him weak.

All this followed by more mumbling, stumbling, and various excuses. This guy literally sounds like he's making excuses for his bullshit beliefs. Hey, we're the polite Nazis...at least to your face.

Lifelong student of WWII history that I am, I can't imagine members of the Waffen-SS, captured by the Soviets and put on some radio program by the party to be interviewed and confess their sins against the State at gunpoint, sitting there making excuses.

If you're going to be a flaming ridiculous shithead, at least have the guts to fucking own it.

But he can't, can he, because then he's just another Nazi and most of us know what the proper thing to do with Nazis is, don't we? For pretty much all of my life until this last week or so, the only good Nazis were dead ones.

But, here you have this dissembling coward, this Fascistic Mr, Rogers, dancing around any direct question of what he is...because he is afraid, because he is a Deceiver, because he is a manipulator. That's all he's got...manipulation.

Damned few people, especially anybody with any decency or intelligence, want to be a fucking Nazi.

But that's what he is...and he's afraid to own it or say so to your face. Oh sure, he'll pose doing the Sig Heil two-step, drink in hand, with his buddies (who seem to include bisexual Asian porn star Tila Tequila, apparently) and he'll shout "Heil the people, Heil Victory!" in front of a crowd of like-minded young punk-ass motherfuckers, most of whom are a felony conviction or two away from providing non-consensual sexual services to actual Aryan Brotherhood gang members in Federal prisons, by the look of them.

Richard Spencer is afraid to own what he is, in front of people like you and me, and he has to pretend there is such a thing as a reasonable Nazi, because on some level he knows he's morally wrong, unsaved, and afraid to die. He knows that death or reform of one's nature is the only acceptable end for Nazis. He's afraid of death because like anybody else in Western Civilization...he knows at least the basics of what the Holy Books say:

This is what the Word says on these matters:

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. ~Galatians 3:28

The teachings of our Muslim brothers and sisters say thus...

O people, We have created you male and female and made you nations and tribes that you may know one another. Verily, the most noble of you to Allah is the most righteous of you. Verily, Allah is knowing and aware.

Surat Al-Hujurat 49:13

We have certainly honored the children of Adam and carried them on the land and sea and provided for them of the good things and preferred them over much of what We have created, with definite preference.

Surat Al-Isra 17:70

...And on some level this dude knows God is watching. See, Richard Spencer thinks he's right and God...or at least his version of it...is with him. Why else would he try to call white people the "Children of the Sun" and say we are a race of conquerors? It's not just you and me he's trying to fool...this motherfucker is trying to lie to God.

That's some balls, there, I'll give him that much. Motherfucker.

But strong delusions do that to people. I was taught we were children of the Son...of God, that is. And of the Father, and of the Holy Spirit.

Not that flaming ball of plasma in the center of our Solar System...but the Creator. Not the Created.

Now, here's the thing: For those who believe in and practice Righteousness and truth...whether they be Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim, Pagan, Sikh or whatever...there's your opening. There's your shot at dealing with this thing. The Truth of the divine conversation, as you understand it, is the weapon your hands and your heart may wield most effectively...and if used properly it can destroy any delusion or illusion. People like Mohandas K. Ghandi, Martin Luther King Jr. and Nelson Mandela knew this...and used it well. 

Now pick it up and fight. Wield the light of Truth, and the sword of the spirit, to paraphrase what the Bible says, put on whatever armor your God gives you...or none at all but your own resolute conviction...and stop putting up with this bullshit.

You might not get anywhere with these Nazi assholes, but you can help prevent them from spreading their bullshit beliefs. YOU can show that you...we...humanity in general is better than that...and this guy's beliefs are nothing but a hologram of his own creation.

People like Richard Spencer thrive in the darkness, like cockroaches. Always remember, darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Let your light shine, be active, blog, get involved, protest, volunteer...and when...not if but when...the time comes...FIGHT! Do it, and do it until you die. We have to keep at it and we have to keep at it until justice rains down like water, and righteousness like a mighty stream!

Amos 5:24(King James Version)

But let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream.

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I'm pretty sure even Jesus would bitch slap this motherfucker.

Addendum: I just saw this:

“I’m afraid this is going to become the meme to end all memes,” he said. “That I’m going to hate watching this.” ~Richard Spencer

Glad to be of service, sir, and I'll cheerfully wish you many more ass whuppins in the future. Maybe if you'd gotten a few ass whuppins as a kid you wouldn't be a goddamned Nazi.

If we ever meet, expect you'll get another one. I've been saying "Bring back the ass whuppin' for a decade now; And people like you are why.

Fuck you,
Signed, the Mustelid Liberation Front, Commanding Officer.

America: Nation of the Self.

As I begin to write this, the final minutes of Barack Obama's presidency are ticking away. By the time I'm done we'll be looking at a new era, for what it's worth.

As I sit here, surrounded by prancing and wrestling ferrets, I find myself worried about our future. There have already been a few violent incidents according to what I've seen on my Facebook and Twitter feeds. As I have said, been saying since before the election had even been decided...and for more than a decade, I worry that the partisan divide in this country has become too deep and this whole mess might just come flying apart like one of Wile E. Coyote's Rube Goldberg inventions when he fails to catch the Road Runner. 

Perhaps more to the point, idiot Republicans won't care as long as they end up in control of a good-sized chunk of land, with enough weapons to protect themselves.

Last night I bitched out one of my co-workers and gave him a profanity-laced quick lesson in basic economics and morality when he (who has been anti-Trump until, evidently, yesterday) was all the sudden like "Come on, give Trump a chance!" 

Evidently he got his 401 (K) statement in the mail and his stocks are up. I had to explain to him that the stock market hasn't been a real indicator of economic...well, anything...since the 1980's when all the deregulation started. I had to explain to him that my dislike of Trump has been a thing since 1989 and  has one hell of a lot more to do with adultery, bankruptcy, divorce and racism than it does today's politics. In terms of politics it's not even Trump, it's the Republican Party's stated desire to get rid of the Affordable Care Act, gut Social Security and privatize Medicare, and with issues of LGBT rights, preservation of our National Parks, and racism. They are wrong, morally wrong, and they know it or they wouldn't be running away from their constituents. I explained to him that my Mom, who is retiring in April...needs all of that stuff. I also had to point out to him that he's a grown ass man in his late 50's and if I have to explain to him why he should care about other people, this conversation is probably going to end the same way it did when my Mom taught me that...when I was about one-tenth of his age. (Hint: The end of that conversation involved a Yard Stick.) Worse, supposedly this guy is a Navy veteran, and he doesn't seem to understand the concept that respect is earned and one's Word has to be good? Some corporation waves a little money under his nose, and suddenly, no principles? There's some words for people like that...

Selfishness, pure and simple, as another co-worker pointed out after the first one scuttled away.

How did we get here?

Well, it goes all the way back to the beginning of this country. 

Now, most apolitical, liberal, and indeed many conservative Americans think of the beginnings of the United States of America as the Boston Massacre, Lexington and Concord, the Declaration of Independence and the Revolutionary War.

That's the De Jure beginning of us, yes. For a lot of us, often the best of us, that's our starting point.

However, for a large subset of American conservatives and apolitical types, and a much smaller slice of the liberal population (usually the part that's more Utopian in thinking) that's not the case. We have a different De Facto beginning:

The real story of us, for those people, for greedy bastards, religious nuts, and Utopian social reformers alike...begins with the Pilgrims, and is remembered yearly in the holiday of Thanksgiving.

(On the liberal...for the time, anyway...end of it, these are also the wonderful people that brought us Prohibition. You do the math.)

To make a long story short, Puritan Calvinists from England came over here and established a colony at Plymouth, and then proceeded to nearly be wiped out by disease and a hard winter. So, in March of 1622 the colonists signed a peace treaty with Massassoit, principal chief of the Wampanoag people. This is the exact event we celebrate in November. The Pilgrims are presented as being models of Calvinistic Christian piety, hard work, perseverance and thrift. They leave the bloody bits out when you're a kid. Most of the time they don't teach about diseases, people freezing to death, rumors of cannibalism and the fact that the only thing that prevented a war at that time was that *Both* Native and Pilgrim societies had been devastated by disease (mostly transmitted via travelers from what is now Nova Scotia thanks to contact with the French) and hard conditions (with the added pressures of recent wars and Mik'Maq raiders from what is today the Canadian maritime provinces on the Wampanoag side before Europeans arrived in the area.) What they don't tell you is that almost 40 years later, shortly after Massassoit died (of old age) relations between the two peoples got really bad, really fast until under Metacomet (King Philip) the Wampanoag rose up against the colonists and fought a bloody war, in which they were defeated having suffered about twice the losses that the colonists did. (Be aware that by this time there were many more Europeans than Native folks) and in the aftermath, by means of cultural assimilation, enslavement, and more war, the Natives were almost exterminated.

Today, about 2,000 Wampanoag people are enrolled as members of two Federally-recognized bands or tribes. Not much left of what, to hear the average Elementary school teacher tell it, was a noble and proud traditional culture, eh?

How is this Okay?

One word: Calvinism.

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

The basic theology of Calvinism follows:

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.

Gee, when I put it like that...well, it certainly explains modern American Christianity and who the Evangelicals voted for, doesn't it? Calvinism (now mostly known today as Reformed Theology here in the United States) often brings with it a veneration of Capitalism and the Wealthy, because money and secular power are an easy metric to measure people by (and in these days, these fucking people often don't read their own Bibles.)

Now, I've known a few decent and logical Calvinists, but most of the ones I've met have been religious nuts and/or single issue fanatics, infamously, in South Africa the racist philosophy of Apartheid was inspired by Calvinism. It was in fact originally implemented by Daniel Francois Malan, who before becoming Prime Minister of South Africa, had been a Calvinist (Dutch Reformed) Minister. In my own life, I still remember a guy who posted several long rants on ChristianBBS back in 2003 fervidly advocating the burning of homosexuals over the course of several days and becoming the only Fundamentalist Christian I ever heard of being banned from that place. The bar on that forum was set so famously low (and the Admins could be counted on to be in the tank for the promotion of things like homophobia) that he was basically banned only because hundreds of people including long-time members and site contributors complained.

The worst part is, my bastardized, from-memory synopsis probably required more thought than the average Disco Ball Megachurch Evangelical ever puts into their religion. (That said, before the infamous incident previously mentioned I'd had some fierce debates over theology with the Burn the Gays dude, and we about broke even according to opinion on the forum. It's often the theological ones that are the craziest. For fun some time look up a guy named Rousas John Rushdoony.) No, seriously, you can ask these people and half of them can't even tell you who John Calvin was, what he did, or what Calvinist theology is all about. But, these ideas have been baked into the American psyche and anymore you don't even have to be a Christian to follow them. You just have to be greedy or have money. No, seriously, why the hell do you think Ayn Rand is so popular?

She advocated for the destruction of Christianity and replacing it with Greed-driven Atheistic Objectivism in the 1950's on National TV in an interview with Mike Wallace on 60 Minutes and was not run out of the country on a rail. Why? Because she told Right-Wing Nuts what they wanted to hear, that's why.

I see the same shit with a lot of these alt-right Nazis today, most of whom also appear to be irreligious.

As Chuck Colson put it, Rand envisioned Man at the center of a godless world, with self-satisfaction as the sole moral purpose of his life.

Sounds an awful lot like Trump, doesn't it? That said I'd be surprised if Trump or very many of his Supporters know who Ayn Rand was. But that's OK, they've got theirs, and Ayn Rand can go wander lost in the Underworld for all they care because just like she replaced the Pilgrim Fathers, well we're sorry Ayn but there's a new Right Wing Jesus in town...

So here we are.

Amos 5King James Version (KJV)

5 Hear ye this word which I take up against you, even a lamentation, O house of Israel.

2 The virgin of Israel is fallen; she shall no more rise: she is forsaken upon her land; there is none to raise her up.

3 For thus saith the Lord God; The city that went out by a thousand shall leave an hundred, and that which went forth by an hundred shall leave ten, to the house of Israel.

4 For thus saith the Lord unto the house of Israel, Seek ye me, and ye shall live:

5 But seek not Bethel, nor enter into Gilgal, and pass not to Beersheba: for Gilgal shall surely go into captivity, and Bethel shall come to nought.

6 Seek the Lord, and ye shall live; lest he break out like fire in the house of Joseph, and devour it, and there be none to quench it in Bethel.

7 Ye who turn judgment to wormwood, and leave off righteousness in the earth,

8 Seek him that maketh the seven stars and Orion, and turneth the shadow of death into the morning, and maketh the day dark with night: that calleth for the waters of the sea, and poureth them out upon the face of the earth: The Lord is his name:

9 That strengtheneth the spoiled against the strong, so that the spoiled shall come against the fortress.

10 They hate him that rebuketh in the gate, and they abhor him that speaketh uprightly.

11 Forasmuch therefore as your treading is upon the poor, and ye take from him burdens of wheat: ye have built houses of hewn stone, but ye shall not dwell in them; ye have planted pleasant vineyards, but ye shall not drink wine of them.

12 For I know your manifold transgressions and your mighty sins: they afflict the just, they take a bribe, and they turn aside the poor in the gate from their right.

13 Therefore the prudent shall keep silence in that time; for it is an evil time.

14 Seek good, and not evil, that ye may live: and so the Lord, the God of hosts, shall be with you, as ye have spoken.

15 Hate the evil, and love the good, and establish judgment in the gate: it may be that the Lord God of hosts will be gracious unto the remnant of Joseph.

16 Therefore the Lord, the God of hosts, the Lord, saith thus; Wailing shall be in all streets; and they shall say in all the highways, Alas! alas! and they shall call the husbandman to mourning, and such as are skilful of lamentation to wailing.

17 And in all vineyards shall be wailing: for I will pass through thee, saith the Lord.

18 Woe unto you that desire the day of the Lord! to what end is it for you? the day of the Lord is darkness, and not light.

19 As if a man did flee from a lion, and a bear met him; or went into the house, and leaned his hand on the wall, and a serpent bit him.

20 Shall not the day of the Lord be darkness, and not light? even very dark, and no brightness in it?

21 I hate, I despise your feast days, and I will not smell in your solemn assemblies.

22 Though ye offer me burnt offerings and your meat offerings, I will not accept them: neither will I regard the peace offerings of your fat beasts.

23 Take thou away from me the noise of thy songs; for I will not hear the melody of thy viols.

24 But let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream.

25 Have ye offered unto me sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness forty years, O house of Israel?

26 But ye have borne the tabernacle of your Moloch and Chiun your images, the star of your god, which ye made to yourselves.

27 Therefore will I cause you to go into captivity beyond Damascus, saith the Lord, whose name is The God of hosts.

Replace "Israel" with "America" and there you have it. Ronald Reagan's shining city on a hill is no more. It's been razed to make room for a giant gold statue of Trump.

(The picture above is of a golden statue of Saparmurat Niyazov in Turkmenistan.)

As goes the least of us, so too will go the rest of us. Remember that, when you get that 401(K) statement in the mail. Without health coverage and Social Security that money isn't going to get you very far when you're old. We can't...and we won't...all be rich, no matter what they tell you.

Resist.