City on a hill.

So, last night while I was on break at work, I saw this. It's funny, that the first thing that popped into my head was some Bible verses, being that I'm not exactly religious, but that's what happened. I can't say with any certainty what Tucker Carlson believes about anything except that he seems to think being smarmy and obnoxious is generally a good thing. But in any case, I (being a former Christian, former conservative and fairly well-versed in how Republicans being those things for a lot of years related to U.S. foreign policy...it's an understatement to say I was shocked.

This is what I was taught, this right here:

 Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy.

But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which spitefully use you, and persecute you;

That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.

For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same?

And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so?

Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.

~Matthew 5:43-48

You got that?

As a former conservative Christian, I'm beginning to wonder what happened to basic familiarity with the Word (not to mention a baseline sense of morality) that people would even say shit like "It's not our job to stand up for other people." Oh hell yes, it is.

My second response was to post "Tell that to all the American soldiers who died liberating Europe from the Nazis, or who died in the jungles of Vietnam standing up for those who could not or would not stand up for themselves, you son of a bitch" directly as a reply to the post on Tucker Carlson's Twitter feed.

I grew up hearing the stories of my grandfathers and other veterans of World War II, Korea and Vietnam. I grew up not only aware of and attentive to (because it was on the news every day) the reality of the Cold War and all the international engagements of the postwar liberal democratic order of things that we ourselves had set up...but I had come of age, was politically active and aware and paid attention (because I had to, as they directly affected my job and life at the time) and was there for all the bumps and bruises of the 1990's and particularly the Clinton years when all the dust settled from all the stuff I grew up watching on TV as a kid. 

In other words, you're damned right that America exists to protect the citizens of other nations. Why else did we found, lead, and in the long-term remain a member of NATO or the United Nations? No, we haven't always done a good job, but in general, we step up more often than we don't. We don't always do things the right way, and we are often too quick to use force...but you can't even do that effectively anymore without international engagement.

More to the point, international engagement generally depends on the principle that everybody at least thinks that that Man Behind the Curtain knows what in the hell he's doing.

Trump blows the cover off of that idea on a daily basis. Take for example his reference to countries populated primarily by Black and Brown people as "Shithole" countries. Now, that there's some level of racism at work here ought to be obvious, and the various Republican denials of this are ridiculous, and the fact that the Senate is apparently holding hearings about this (while necessary) is equally ridiculous because it never should have been said in the first place. Needless to say, this is not going over well in Africa, or in Haiti, or in Latin America...but it went over big with Trump's base of ignorant, racist imbeciles...which is presumably why he said it. 

Let us not forget that current Republican policies are absolutely aimed at turning the United States of America into a Third World shit hole, because theoretically that will reduce the tax burden on the rich...though I'd argue that it'd also greatly reduce their power, their personal safety, and very much also the amount of protection they have. It's hard for a third world nation to maintain even a tiny percentage of the advanced military capabilities that the United States Armed Forces has...let alone the education and social support needed to produce people who can become the soldiers that use those capabilities properly, much less effectively.

Leaving aside the fact that the President seems to be openly striving to only be popular with idiots and racists, where the rubber meets the road is that I've personally gotten an earful about this from people that I know who live in other countries.

Not exactly how I want to spend my day, but I'm not going to ignore people or their entirely legitimate feelings and opinions about an issue just because it's inconvenient. Reality by its very nature is inconvenient and if that wasn't the case, then alcohol and drugs wouldn't be so popular, would they?

We all live in a global society, whether we want to or not. The world does not ask if you like it before you are born into it and no amount of ignoring that, or pretending it doesn't exist or small-pondism will ever make that fact go away. You can resent the hell out of all the "Made in China" crap that Wal-Mart sells, but the reason they can sell it and you can afford it is because it's cheaper due to lower labor costs over there. 

The thing is, there will come a day when those Chinese workers stand up and demand better working conditions, higher wages, and that their government live up to the philosophy it claims to follow.

At that point, it'll be better for everybody if we've kept the ball rolling on progress and worked to remedy the inequality and other social problems that plague our own society...because the Chinese, or the Russians or any other actors on the international stage can point to our behavior either to condemn us or to justify their own actions, right or wrong. America electing a boorish, lying, tacky rich racist pig of a President probably is not going to help with that.

We don't stand up for others, or treat other nations or people with respect because it's convenient or popular or profitable at the time. We do it because it's the right thing to do and because (for most of my life anyway) we've followed a policy of enlightened self-interest.

The rest of the world is never going to let us live this crap down, and well they should not.

What happened to us, and to American conservatives in particular, that we have forgotten who we were, in favor of such insular and bitter visions? 

Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid.

Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house.

Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven. 

~Matthew 5:14-16

Do you know who else used Matthew chapter five and the vision of America as a "City on a hill" as a guiding light? Ronald Wilson Reagan, that's who.

Tucker Carlson ain't fit to hold Reagan's hat while he takes a leak.

The hell with these fucking people, and the hell with their small-minded selfishness.

The Bottomless Pit

Then the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star from heaven which had fallen to the earth and the key of the bottomless pit was given to him. He opened the bottomless pit, and smoke went up out of the pit, like the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by the smoke of the pit. ~Revelation 9:1-2

It's Martin Luther King day, and this was the first thing I saw when I got up this morning and logged into my social media accounts. Before we go any further, I want anybody and everybody who reads this to let that sink in. Think about it long and hard. I'm not asking you, I'm telling you. Think about how fucked up that is, do it now, take as long as you need.

Here we have a productive member of society, a man with a family, a home and a job, who has probably paid his fair share in US taxes being deported for reasons that, fundamentally, are not his fault.

Then there's this fucking guy, right here. "LA Werewolf" who I guess is some kind of internet Nazi or Youtube something-or-other who has to quit the far-right internet sausage fest because his parents are forcing him to get a job. I think it's kind of hilarious that he refers to this as "resigning" to "civilian life." As if the closest this guy ever got to either the military or a professional job wasn't renting "American Sniper" from a shady video store late at night one time when he got bored with beating off while watching Anime and they were out of pornos.

I suspect working at the local Jack-In-The-Box is probably going to be an educational experience for this dude, especially when he realizes that both the staff and the customer bases of such places are largely people of color, and an awful lot of the asshole managers are the white ones.

I would, in fact, like to point out yet again that in my own life experience as a former conservative, having a job, paying your bills and being a productive member of society (regardless of color, creed or station in life) was fundamentally what the entire damned deal was based upon. Living in your parents basement, not paying your bills, and spending your time surfing the internet instead of being productive? That doesn't qualify, and if I'd have told any of the older people who educated me on this stuff that one could get paid for such a thing, the very least I could or would expect is to get laughed at.

I can imagine my Grandma pointing out "Well if he can get paid for it he can have his own place, can't he?" You know, logic.

But then, it occurs to me that the absolute last thing modern conservatism is about is being a productive citizen. The rich assholes at the top basically want to colonize the rest of us and sit back and collect the checks, and this has spread downward to the masses of idiots that follow the political party they control. There's another word for that: Parasite.

Then of course, there's this ridiculous shit. You remember what I wrote about Steve King last year, right? The notoriously racist Iowa Republican Tweeted this earlier today, and has put up several similar posts since: 

Don't ask what I think about that. You don't want to know and I'd rather that this essay didn't devolve into an unending stream of profanity. This son of a bitch, who has openly said that more Americans should read the racist French novel "Camp of the Saints" is posting MLK pictures and civil-rights quotes? What's next? Pol Pot and Josef Stalin take turns reading from the Bible? I mean, come on, fucking seriously? You know what? I'm actually not sure what this does more, generally offend me or simply insult my intelligence. I know these people like their whitewashed, inoffensive mythology about the Civil Rights movement, but damn. The simple fact is that 50 years ago, Steve King would have sided with the Southern racists and there's no doubt in my mind about that subject. Why? Because that's how the motherfucker acts today, in this day and age, publicly. After all, this is the guy who publicly said that Mexican immigrants had "Calves the size of Cantaloupes" from smuggling drugs across the deserts of the US Southwest.

Yeah, fuck that guy, I don't give a damn what he has to say about anything.

If I said something like that, I would expect nothing more and nothing less than an ass whuppin.' 

Go ahead and try to tell me that not only all this Trump bullshit, but most of the current Republican party and the far-right more generally isn't all about the damned racism. Go ahead, I'll wait.

There's only one way to fix this, and that is that white America needs to get its head out of its ass. This racist, path-of-least-resistance, no-one-takes-responsibility bullshit is going to do nothing more than enable the worst elements of our society...and yes I'm talking to you, Republicans who are choosing to retire rather than stand up. We have a real problem, and that is that a small, but still statistically significant portion of American idiots get their dicks hard at the thought of ranks of goose-stepping soldiers...and if you think those people won't eventually come for the other conservative white folks, you have another thing coming.

It's like, the only future some people can imagine is destruction.

Funny, but it's often people of color who are the first to articulate a different vision of the future that works better for everybody.

Old pirates, yes, they rob I
Sold I to the merchant ships
Minutes after they took I
From the bottomless pit
But my hand was made strong
By the hand of the Almighty
We forward in this generation
Triumphantly
Won't you help to sing
These songs of freedom?
'Cause all I ever have
Redemption songs
Redemption songs

Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery
None but ourselves can free our minds
Have no fear for atomic energy
'Cause none of them can stop the time
How long shall they kill our prophets
While we stand aside and look? Ooh
Some say it's just a part of it
We've got to fulfill the Book.

~Bob Marley, Redemption Song.

Witch Doctor.

I sometimes imagine, in the not-too-distant future, a landscape of bombed-out cities, flooded coasts where the tops of skyscrapers have been turned into vast bird-shit covered concrete island chains and logged as dangerous obstructions by whatever boat people, merchant traffic, maritime forces or pirate fleets as exist in this time. Further inland, vast stretches of abandoned rural farmhouses, gas stations, highways and strip malls, looted Wal-Marts and other crumbling detritus of a generation or two past. Oh, certainly, there's a pocket of civilization here or there...an educational institution (itself likely shrouded in some degree of mysticism) a military outpost, a religious community built around a Church, Mosque, Synagogue or some sort of temple, or a perhaps a small town, or any combination of the above...likely powered by solar panels and such, linked to the rest of the world by satellite communications, and certainly in any case protected by armed men and women, likely both educating and trading with some local farmers or nomads. Likewise, here and there, there are gangs of bandits and other malcontents, riding around on horseback or in swarms of Toyota "Technical" trucks (and in the latter case, constantly as hungry for ammunition and fuel as other material needs) armed with AK-47's or whatever that era's cheap, durable and widely available rifle is, as they attempt to pillage and plunder everybody else.

In that world, somewhere, probably more common than most...there would still be those who failed one way or another to make the leap from poverty to adequacy, or (maybe more appropriately for such a time) from depravity to civilization, who don't meet the Darwinian requirements of banditry. It is not hard for me to imagine in the deepening darkness and overwhelming silence that would likely characterize night in this world, under vast oceans of bright stars and the soft glow of the Milky Way, their cries might be heard for miles as ragged figures danced around a fire, waiting for the local holy man to come out of his cave.

I imagine such a figure as an old man, wearing a ragged, stained suit and a "Make America Great Again" hat, emerging from the shadows, to the sudden, awed silence of the tribes-people, raising a worn Bible that he cannot read, and speaking words that sound important...purely for no other reason than that they sound that way. I imagine this old fool going on and on, until some offering of a captive or scrounged supplies is brought forward...then mumbling some kind of half ass blessing before scooping up the "offering" and retreating back into his cave.

Why do I think this?

People like this guy, right here. James Dobson, who once preached about beating a stubborn wiener dog in order to prove his spiritual "Authority" (and who I'm honestly surprised is still alive, truth be told) are out there telling "Conservative Christians" to organize a "Day of Prayer and Fasting" in order to prevent Trump from being impeached.

As if God gives that much of a shit about American politics? We as a nation can't seem to go more than 24 hours without insulting the Almighty's intelligence. I can't imagine He has any more of an interest in putting up with these people's shit than the rest of us do.

Here's a pro tip from somebody who was taught this stuff a long time ago: When imagining God doing anything, or asking or begging or imploring any aid from Him, it's probably helpful to assume that the Almighty Creator of the Universe is smarter than you are.

Then of course there's Paula White, who bills herself as Trump's "Spiritual Advisor" as if somebody who publicly stated that he didn't need God's forgiveness could plausibly have a need for such a thing.

But of course, she wants you to send her money, up to a month's wages in fact. Or [she gravely intones] "There will be consequences."

Here's the kicker: She's trying to say you'll somehow get rich by giving her all your money.

...Or there will be "consequences?"

Are you fucking kidding me? Show up at somebody's house with a baseball bat and speak the same words...and depending on the homeowner's inclination you're either being shot in self-defense or you're going to jail for extortion.

So why is it Okay for some bleached-blonde dumb ass to wave a Bible at people and demand the same?

Listen here, the Bible speaks directly against this kind of crap and those who practice it.

John 2:13-16New International Version (NIV)

Jesus Clears the Temple Courts

13 When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14 In the temple courts he found people selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. 15 So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. 16 To those who sold doves he said, “Get these out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a market!”

Got that?

Listen here, the Truth is free, it is fairly Bipartisan in political terms (if such terms can be said to apply at all) and it doesn't go around asking for money. The only nation it favors is Israel, and there's some debate as to whether that applies exclusively to the ancient nation or includes the modern one as well...and all the political leaders it endorses are either mythical or dead. We do not in any way, shape or form live in "Biblical" times nor are the End Times any closer to getting here than they were yesterday, a week ago, or a thousand years ago. The Bible also says that it is not Man's business to worry about that, either. God is a force of nature and He's not on any one "Side" nor beholden to anyone nor willing to be used as a stick by members of one party to beat those of the other.

It's just that damned simple.

It's also not hard for me to imagine that God is getting sick of our bullshit, and very likely to start punching back before long.

This politicized and Prosperity Gospel mumbo-jumbo is getting to be about as believable as that scene in Police Academy Four where Hightower scares the new recruits by dressing up as a Voodoo witch doctor and Tackleberry chainsaws his way out of a body bag.

Come on, people, this is the 21st century, If I...who was a kid attending Christian schools in the 1980's when that movie was new in theaters...can successfully be taught to have enough critical thinking not to believe in superstition and witch doctors, what the hell is your problem?

I believe in knowledge and science and theology, not witch doctors with gold-plated churches.

We can reach for the stars, or we as a nation can continue to hand real money to idiots in return for some imaginary pot of gold.

The very fact that I can type this post and you can read it is all the evidence we need about whether or not reaching for the stars produces results. Come on, people, it's time we start doing better than this.

“I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness...

The dumbing down of American is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance” 
~Carl Sagan

So this is Christmas...

So this is Christmas
And what have you done
Another year over
And a new one just begun
And so this is Christmas
I hope you have fun
The near and the dear one
The old and the young

A very Merry Christmas
And a happy new year
Let's hope it's a good one
Without any fear

And so this is Christmas
For weak and for strong
For rich and the poor ones
The world is so wrong
And so happy Christmas
For black and for white
For yellow and red one
Let's stop all the fight

A very Merry Christmas
And a happy new year
Let's hope it's a good one
Without any fear

And so this is Christmas
And what have we done
Another year over
A new one just begun
And so happy Christmas
~John Lennon

Today, when I got up and first logged into Facebook there was this stupid little "Happy Holidays" video that played at the top of my queue and I'm fine with that. It's Christmas, and I suppose Facebook has to do something to mark the occasion...and that's fine. I've already done all my Christmas stuff for the year, and I'm just enjoying a nice quiet day and giving the ferrets some extra playtime. I "liked" it and I would have moved on immediately except that I noticed something, one of the top three emoji symbols that show was the "Angry" one. I looked at the numbers, as of that time (about six this morning) there were over 36,000+ "Likes" 4,000+ "Love" hearts and 979 "Angry" emoji symbols.

Interesting, there were 979 people out there who thought Christmas was something to get angry about.

(For the record, I went and checked, the numbers currently stand at almost 154,000 "Likes" almost 15,500 "Loves" and almost 3,800 "Angry" responses.)

I guess for some people a holiday just isn't a holiday if everybody gets to be included, but then a friend of mine who is Native American (and doesn't celebrate Christmas) posted twice yesterday about going to Wal-Mart and seeing people literally fighting and screaming at each other over toys in the back of the store.

Not to mention, Trump keeps posting various messages with "MERRY CHRISTMAS" in all caps as if it must be shouted to make some kind of a point...

...And Friday morning at work, while I was pushing a couple of hundred pounds worth of dirty kitchen rags and mops over to the hotel laundry, I paused in my exertions to wish an old man that I know who works as a kitchen custodian over there a merry Christmas. I rarely ever see him, and I usually try to wish him a merry Christmas every year because he's kind of a miserable old man and I guess it just seems like the right thing to try and do...

Now this dude, known at work as "Hawk-eye" (who is naturally, 72 years old and blind as a bat, he's always been nearsighted, hence the nickname) is one of our few Trump Supporters (as opposed to generic Republicans, of which there are more) comes mooching over to me and, with an air about him as if he is going to impart great wisdom, says "Just between you and me, let's keep America great." To which my response is, naturally, "No, I don't think so, you know I don't like that guy." So then he tries to start an argument and I'm like "No, man, I got laundry to sort. These republicans have passed one law all year, and it don't benefit either of us. Ya'll have a good one."

I'm not gonna tell this old dude what he wants to hear, nor am I gonna have an argument when I've got half an hour and only one guy to help me sort a gigantic cart full of laundry. So I just kept going.

I've gotten Christmas greetings from Muslim friends of mine, I see Facebook and all other sorts of groups or various other things making some effort to be inclusive, and I myself sit here typing this essay, surrounded by ferrets either still playing, sleeping in the dog bed under my desk, or enjoying their own Christmas dinner of treats mixed in with their food. Even the usual social media mess on Facebook and Twitter seems muted, and it's nice and quiet outside. I'm not kidding...I sneezed while taking the dog out this morning...and it was so quiet that it echoed.

Literally everybody but a certain percentage of conservative white Christians (and Trump) seems to get the point. Christmas is not about YOU, it's not about your politics and it's not even about your religion. A LOT of religions have various celebrations this time of the year, and they always have. If the recognition of that offends you, then I don't know what else to tell you except that you're a terrible person. Like I've said before, some people have just had it too good, for too long, and can't appreciate anything. A lot of these fools seem to think that life is a zero-sum game. Christmas isn't Christmas unless somebody doesn't get to enjoy it. Heaven isn't heaven unless they're the only ones who get to go...

No. That's not how any of this works.

I have a proposal for the Trump administration, supposedly "Trump digs coal" right? I say we as a nation pay some of these miners (many of whom are sitting on their butts waiting for Trump to give them their coal jobs back anyway) at fair market rates...hell, I'll do ya one better and say we'll pay the best market rates from the last 20 years for the coal...to go out and mine up as much coal (while enjoying full Union-level benefits and as much overtime as they can work) as they can until Black Friday of next year. Then, you know how all these Trump Supporters seem to think Trump is going to be some kind of a right-wing Santa Claus, giving them everything they want while giving all the people they've been conditioned to hate nothing but a boot in the face? Okay, I'll bite. After Black Friday next year, then the government should take all this coal, and fill Christmas stockings with it and give one to  every last one of these angry, ignorant people that spends so much of their time dreaming of some kind of social revenge on the rest of the world or who fights over toys at the store or turns Christmas into some kind of a political thing, so that they can have exactly the kind of Christmas gift they deserve.

Maybe then, they'd stop and think about their behavior, and how it reflects poorly on both Christ and Christmas and the holiday season in general.

Look here, I quite often speak via Facebook to a guy named Joseph from Uganda. His United Methodist church runs a center for orphans, many of whom have lost their parents to HIV/AIDS. We talked at length about the impacts of HIV/AIDS on Africa and on how the impact on the United States has been forgotten with time by most outside of the gay community, where in Africa AIDS is primarily transmitted through heterosexual sex (and both sex education and simple measures of protection like condoms are often lacking.) I mentioned that I had read that there are many towns and villages where there is no one left at all except for children and the elderly. He told me that he lives in such a place (he works as a teacher) and about the Christmas program they're running this year, in which there will be prayers, a poem reading, speeches by community leaders, games including Football (soccer) and Netball for the kids, and each child will get a pair of shoes for Christmas.

Shoes, and I'm quite sure Joseph wasn't talking about no $200 Air Jordans neither.

I'd bet you money that if those kids had the kind of stuff that those people were fighting over at Wal-Mart there wouldn't be any fights, but then I see stuff on sale in the toy aisle at Wal-Mart that costs more than a lot of people in Uganda make in a month.

I think if a Ugandan person, whether an adult or a child, had access to 10% of what the average angry American Christmas shopper this year has...they would at least appreciate it.

The poem to be read, is not about Christmas, it's not about Jesus, it's not about any of the things Americans wax poetic about at this time of year. It's about AIDS, and it was written by a Ugandan seventh-grader named Jane:

HIV/AIDS Poem 2017

AIDS, AIDS, AIDS!

You are hurting me

You are hurting my family

You are hurting my school

You are hurting my community

You are hurting my country

You are hurting the world

AIDS, AIDS, AIDS!

We have lost parents

We have no food, no books and no money

Families are looked after by children and elderly

Schools are struggling with orphans

Health centres are full of patients

AIDS, AIDS, AIDS!

Communities are busy with burials

Crying over the loss of their beloved ones

The community is losing youth and useful people

The world is losing the old, the young, wealth, time and happiness

But there is hope;

Lasting hope

That hope is:

“Positive living”

~Written by Jane Auma (Primary Seven)

Ya'll go ahead and let that sink in. A lot of the rest of the world simply doesn't have the option to get all worked up about the made-up things that we Americans put so much energy into fighting about.

We can, and we should, do better than this. For the sake of the world, ourselves, and future generations we're going to have to.

Just give this some thought, no, really. Stop, read, breathe in and out, and actually reflect on the words and their meaning.

(...And if you think this message of peace and goodwill applies only to Christians, or to your specific kind of people, you're part of the problem...)

Luke 2 King James Version (KJV)

2 And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed.

2 (And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.)

3 And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city.

4 And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; (because he was of the house and lineage of David:)

5 To be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child.

6 And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered.

7 And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.

8 And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.

9 And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid.

10 And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.

11 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.

12 And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.

13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying,

14 Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.

If we want a better nation, we have to be better citizens. If we want to live in a better world, we have to be better people.

Merry Christmas, everybody. Let's try and remember what it's really about next year.

Ghosts and Goblins...

Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things.Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonor their own bodies  between themselves: Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshiped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.~Romans 1:22-25

So, I saw this earlier this afternoon (the pictured Tweet, not the Bible verse) and I felt the need to write something about it, though first I had to clean the ferret cages and put the weasels up for the day. That being, let's get one thing straight, people. GOD is not stupid. You cannot bullshit God, God cannot be manipulated or coerced in any way whatsoever. God does not care about earthly politics, and God is not, ever, going to act according to Man's timeline...let alone time-frame...because God is eternal, omnipotent, knows all, sees all, and you'd do yourself a favor if you at least assume for the sake of argument that God is smarter than you are. I mean, come on, we're only talking about the Creator of the Universe here, He who created all those physical laws (up to and including evolution, I'd assume) and who, until Man screwed it up a couple thousand years ago...was content to let things be once He sent His Son to set them right...and so far as I know, God has left things pretty much alone since then as well... 

Granted, while there are multiple potential Apocalyptic scenarios staring us right in the face, they're all Man-made. God created the laws of Physics, and all the things that led to the ideas and technology that drive our modern world...what we've done with all that, that's on us.

Yes, that's hard, that's supposed to be the point. People are supposed to take responsibility.

That said, God is not going to use Trump to bring about the End of Days. Let's get that out of the way right now. God is not going to use an Unbeliever for His purposes, at least not that way. This is especially considering (and I say this as a former member of the End Times Prophecy movement) that the "popular" End Times narrative is popular because it's bullshit. The Anti-Christ is not a Biblical personage. The Rapture is not a Biblical concept or event. Instead. these ideas came from two different guys, each from different eras, early 19th Century English preacher John Nelson Darby and a bit later, preacher (and former Confederate Soldier) Cyrus Ingersoll Schofield in the later half of that century. Their various theologies were knitted together by others in the first couple of decades of the 20th Century to form the basis of modern End Times dogma...also around this same time the basis of modern Fundamentalism and Pentecostalism were both started. This hot mess got a big assist later from Hal Lindsey in 1973 with his book "The Late, Great Planet Earth" which became popular because it got picked up by a bunch of drugged out ex-hippies *Cough* a good-sized chunk of the Baby Boom generation *Cough* who all made the switch from getting high on drugs to getting high on Jesus in the early 1970's.

None of this is true, or based on the Bible, and according to what I learned later on, from debating this stuff with a pastor (and custodian at my work) the popular idea of a seven-year Apocalypse narrative is basically deception, intended to lull people into thinking they'll have that long to get it right.

No, really, it'll be like this:

For as the lightning comes out of the east, and shines even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.~Matthew 24:27

And there will be no warning. That's what all that "Thief in the night" stuff back in the day was about. Also, That's the point. Do you really think the Omnipotent Creator of the Universe is going to catch you at your best, by design? Oh HELL NO. He's gonna show up at some random time and what you're doing in that moment is what you're doing, whether you're praying the Rosary or smoking a blunt. Think of God as that supervisor at the job that likes to show up at inconvenient times, just as a start. If you think famous, infamous bullshitter, preacher grifting sack of shit Jim Bakker's Prosperity Gospel woo woo, secret gay hookups, Tammy Faye, tubs of survivalist taco meat are gonna save you, ya'll might as well ask for your money back, I'm just sayin.' Also, If it happens tomorrow and you think Trump (or for that matter Putin) is gonna be all like "Praise Jesus" you have another thing coming. Either one of those guys is (at best) going to try to cut a deal like the one smarmy salesman in Die Hard did with Hans Gruber...probably with similar results, except literally "You go to hell" instead of bullets. At worst? The armies of the world will try to stop what is defined to them as a threat...you know...exactly like Revelation says will happen and exactly like the End Times Prophecy movement interprets such things.

But, it's also important to remember that a majority of people in the world, hell, even a majority of Christians don't believe in all that or have differing interpretations. Revelation and the rest of the Bible describe plenty of events (in a Prophetic sense) that have already happened. One could make the argument that Revelation has been ongoing since the First Century, I think, and in looking at the Bible and history as much as I have, I'd have a hard time disagreeing.

In any case, the point of the Apocalypse as an idea was to give hope to an oppressed people, not to serve as revenge-porn for a privileged one...and don't you dare forget that.

It's not only that, though; Right above it in my Twitter feed there was also this:

"Feminist witches are placing hexes on Trump?"

(Sounds like a Monty Python skit if you ask me. Maybe somebody will turn Trump into an orange Newt?)

Hold on. Let me freshen my drink, this one is gonna take a minute.
Now, according to what I was taught (based on Scripture, not superstition) such things as magic, witches, wizards etc. may exist but are unproven at best, fanciful ideas at worst...and such are perfectly alright on an entertainment level, so long as you understand that this stuff is fantasy and myth and leave it at that. I personally think there had to be some basis to all these legends...but clearly in our own world that time has passed...if it ever was real. However, even if there's ghosts, goblins, monsters under the bed, warlocks, witches, wizards...what have you...the whole damned point is that the name of Jesus is supposed to be more powerful than all that, and if a person truly has faith in Christ then they would be protected from such things in the unlikely event that it ever came up.

I have in fact, as I've detailed elsewhere, used this superstitious tendency of some religious nuts to believe in magical woo woo to my advantage. There's nothing magical about it. Not only that, but I'm a gamer, I do varying degrees of unreality for fun, which makes it not so appealing in real life. Murlocs are enough of a pain in the ass to deal with in World of Warcraft, I don't want to live in a world where monsters like that are real and neither do you. Our own real world has enough problems and enough monsters who are just as human as the rest of us...and that, in any case, should be more scary than dragons or giant robots or zombies.

The real world is hard enough, and an often-harsh test of the faith of the Believer or the logic of the Atheist all by itself. I do not understand or care for the clamor on the part of some to end it, nor the desire to dream up ghosts and goblins or witches and werewolves where none exist...and to attempt to do so to cover the real-world faults of shitty leaders strikes me as both dangerous and irresponsible.

And then of course, there's a lot of gullible fools and out and out liars out there.

I've been paying attention for a long time, and so far as I know, Barack Obama and his family participated in plenty of religious observances including Christian ones, Christmas was never "banned" at the white house, and the Obamas apparently celebrate it themselves and are from what they've said and by their actions I would accept at face value the statement that they are Christians. Now, granted, conduct-wise...like many mainstream Christians of every tribe and nation...they conduct themselves as normal, regular, secular people...and I was always perfectly damned well fine with that. So far as I know, every President we've ever had in my lifetime has been the same way.

Try telling that to the FOX News comment sections, though...

Seriously, where do these people come up with this crap?

One doesn't have to be a fire-breathing Fundamentalist...or a white person...to be a Christian.

I started out as a non-Fundamentalist Baptist, I was taught to check what people said against what the Bible said, and to check what they said against basic facts as well.

Knowledge is power, why else do you think all these fools are trying to make knowledge so hard to get? Truth is important, too. Without a baseline of Truth (both literal and spiritual) he who has the brightest lights and the biggest wallet gets his way, and what can anyone say about it? That's exactly why all these liars don't like the truth.

If you want a better country, you have to be a better citizen, if you want a better world then you have to be a better person. If you want to get people to do things your way...then you have to go out there and be a leader and show them that you're right...if you are.

Yes, that's hard, none of this was supposed to be easy and people stewing in hate and resentment and superstition and being told what they want to hear won't make it any easier.

...And that, gentle readers, is the truth.

The Rime of the Ancient Republican.

The ship was cheered, the harbour cleared
Merrily did we drop.
Below the Kirk, below the hill
Below the lighthouse top.

So, on Tuesday, Doug Jones was elected in Alabama. Roy Moore got his ass handed to him on a plate, not least because Black turnout was absolutely sky high...as one might expect considering that Jones prosecuted the perpetrators of the 1960s 16th Street Baptist church bombing in 2000.

Despite having had my laptop stolen just over a week ago  followed along and I posted as much as I was able to on Facebook and Twitter using my phone. I have a replacement on the way but with some Christmas money I got a tablet to serve as a backup.

Then yesterday while I was getting ready to go to bed I caught part of Trump's speech on this tax cut they want to pass, also known as adding a trillion and a half dollars to the national debt in order to give corporations and the wealthy a tax cut, claiming that the middle class will get some too. OK, say you pay a couple thousand less in taxes but they gut the individual mandate in the Affordable Care Act? You're going to lose much more than you're saving as soon as somebody gets sick...and your grandkids will get to pay it all off IF they have jobs.

Not to mention Republicans have already said they want to cut Medicare and Social Security next, not to mention gutting the Internet, National Parks, people's rights, various environmental protections and Veterans benefits next. Now, I used to be a Conservative but such an agenda is offensive to me now and would have been so 20 years ago as well.

If you don't think they'll eventually come for your guns and the vote you're wrong. People like Trump are never satisfied, they want total surrender.

...But it is a human tendency to resist, and Americans expect a certain standard of living, which is above the Third World designs these Republicans have for us...

Not to mention, Trump giving a speech when he's not screaming at a rally-crowd of cousin fuckers sounds like Chloroform, enunciated, but I digress.

I can't imagine how anybody finds that fool inspiring.

At length did cross an Albatross,
And through the fog it came.
As if it had been a Christian soul
We hailed it in God's name.
It ate the food it never had eat
And round and round it flew
The ice did split with a thunder fit
The helmsman steered us through!

So, Now that Doug Jones won the Republicans are hurriedly trying to pass this tax shit before he's seated...in addition to gutting Net Neutrality today, all to try and get their rich backers a tax cut for a while and steal more money before they get booted out of office by an angry public... And they know it's coming.

Chances are they're going to trip over their own dicks and screw up.

Understand one thing. Taxes are how the government makes its money, that it uses to do things like enforce laws, fuel Navy ships, provide health care for the aged and disabled and regulate markets to keep the rich from robbing us blind more than they already do.

In case there was any doubt, it's that last one that's the real problem. Never mind that government protects rich people too. They don't care, and if this has sparked any thought you've already thought about it more than they have... As my friend Aaron is always pointing out to me...

You know, I don't really have a lot but when I figured out some years ago that people who have more money than I could ever spend wanted my stuff too? It pissed me off.

I'm not rich but I'm not poor either, as I'll get into later in subsequent posts it's actually pretty damned expensive to be poor. Thus, people like me are a problem...

God save thee ancient mariner
From the fiends that plague thee thus
Why looks thou so? With my crossbow
I shot the albatross.

Now look here, these Republicans and rich people and these idiots who support them are basically cooking the golden goose that made them what they are in the first place because somehow to their minds it didn't shit out enough money, or they're worried that somebody they don't like might get some. If that sounds shitty to you...good.

It is shitty, there is no other way to describe it.

Americans, mostly white Americans, have a history of enabling absolutely reprehensible sociopathic behavior... And now that some of us are waking up and seeing what nonwhite Americans and the rest of the world have been telling us for years, things, they are starting to change.

The Democrats, basically, are like the Monty Python "Argument clinic" sketch right now... And the Republicans are more or less the Smokers from Waterworld, and reality just dropped a flare into the fuel tanks.

Ah well a day what evil looks
I had from old and young.
Instead of the cross the albatross
Around my neck was hung.

If we don't hold the Republicans and the wealthy to account, which means turning out to vote like they did in Alabama every single time for as long as it takes, we cannot expect to remain a free people. We need to hang all this crazy, wrong shit around their necks like the fucking albatross...

...And vote the bastards out, like our life depends on it,

Because it does.

Pride.

Pride goes before destruction,
And a haughty spirit before a fall.
~Proverbs 16:18

"Make America Great Again" the Trump Supporters say.

What does this mean, exactly?

Well, I guess a while back somebody finally got a straight answer!

Yep, somebody (Specifically, an African American person) asked Roy Moore when America was great. Roy then proceeded to tell him that America was last "great" back when we still had slavery because "Families were united."

The obvious add-on here is "...Unless you were Black" because families got split up as their members were sold to new owners all the time. Not to mention "...Unless you were Chinese" and working in America in the hope of being able to send money back home to your family. Unless you were Irish, or Italian, and therefore considered expendable by other white people. Not to mention "...Unless you were poor" and working far away from your family members on some dangerous job...or after the end of the Fabled Antebellum Era of Greatness, Drafted into the Union Army and sent out into the field with a .57 Caliber Enfield rifled musket to help tear that corrupt, evil system down.

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord...Oh, sorry, I digress.

This child-molesting, fake-Christian son of a bitch actually said what he said to a Black dude. I'm just sayin' in another context it's not hard to imagine these remarks resulting in an ass whuppin.' If you ask me, that would be a perfectly valid outcome here.

Now, let's look at this a little further: Supposedly, America was "Great" when rich people could buy and sell other human beings in order to profit from their free labor.

Certainly, this is of a piece with sentiments expressed by others. The kind of bald-faced, soul-sucking contempt expressed by Senator Grassley for example. Rich people are rich because they're righteous. Poor people are poor because they're immoral. That's basically Calvinism (or the Prosperity Gospel) in a nutshell. I've got mine, fuck you, because Jesus. No, Calvinism is not Biblical, it's a false doctrine, and it's wrong. This is something debased rich people came up with so they could fool the masses into thinking they were Christians and yet, still go on being debased, debauched rich people.

Listen here, Trump Supporters. If you think the Republicans give a wet, limp-dicked crushed-Viagra snorting FUCK about you, you have another thing coming. In terms of government policy and legislation, Congressional Republicans are the ones setting the "Populist" agenda while Trump golfs and Tweets and screws up the Middle East peace process. (This will get both Israeli soldiers and various Palestinians killed needlessly, by the way.) They don't care about your guns, but they're sure as hell coming for your health insurance, you Medicare, your Social Security, your Veteran's Benefits, your younger son's Pell Grant, your older son's benefits, pay, LGBT Battle Buddy and working equipment in the Army, and your older, more liberal daughter's post-graduate degree. Not to mention a free Press (This will negatively effect much more than what you think it will) immigration both legal and otherwise (So there likely goes both your Doctor, at least one of the Republican pundits you like, two troops from your son's squad and the guy who mows your lawn) National Parks and other Federal lands (This will greatly limit options for affordable family vacations) and basically anything else that benefits you and doesn't dump money directly into rich people's pockets. They're also coming for Climate Change research (Sixty degrees the other night, and it's December in Michigan, just sayin') NASA (So, there goes a lot of technological advancement right there) and science in general. None of this is going to do you one damned bit of good.

What are they offering you in return? Rabid Creationism, Racism and shitty pipe dreams, most of which have no basis in reality and almost all of which they have NO intentions of even trying to deliver on. Let me give you an example: There's Coal Miners who are turning down free retraining in literally almost any field that they want. Guess what? The Republican tax plan effectively would put the coal companies out of business, according to the CEO of Murray Energy. Why? Because it (accidentally) kills all Corporate tax deductions including the Alternative Minimum Tax, which is designed to help companies that run on thin margins...like coal companies and gas stations...stay solvent. Let me put it another way: Grown-ass men who are supposedly conservatives are sitting around waiting for the government Trump to "save" them. Sorry, but that's not what I was taught. If the market killed coal, it's dead. If something like that happens and you're given the opportunity to retrain, you take it. You have agency over yourself and responsibility for yourself and those people who depend on you, You're supposed to practice it. It's not the government's or the President's responsibility to give you a job nor to prop up a dying industry for the benefit of its core supporters. That's been done before, it's called Communism.

Then of course, there's the Child Labor caucus. AKA Orrin Hatch. FUCK that guy. He basically said "Why should we spend money on health insurance for kids if they're not working?" Um, Dumb ass, BECAUSE THEY'RE KIDS?!?! Imagine how much less a lot of parents...most especially poor white folks...would have to worry about if they had educational support, food and half-decent health care because they were kids? My (poor white) ex-wife had Borderline Personality Disorder mostly due to a chaotic and miserable childhood thanks to her family's relative poverty at the time. Call me a bleeding heart whatever if you want, but I think people growing up to not have personality disorders is a pretty decently valid societal aim. People with personality disorders let a lot of bills go unpaid, I'm just sayin.' A healthy and well-educated populace also generates more money for everybody, including higher profits for corporations and stuff.

But that's not what these people want, is it?

If everybody's working to make things better...it gets better for them too, right?

Here's the thing. These people...from Republican Congresspersons on down to Wingnut voters, view life as a zero-sum game. Equality makes them miserable, they resent any advances that anybody else makes because these idiots think that anybody else's gains are somehow at the expense of white men. This is why conservatives, Evangelicals, etc. have such a persecution complex. They interpret equality and social change as somehow being an attack against them. This is also why so many of these people have such an obsession with guns. They're trying to protect themselves from cultural and social change.

Of course, none of that is even remotely accurate. That doesn't stop them from wanting somebody, somewhere, to be miserable. In fact...the more visible the miserable people are, the better. When shitty people base their entire existence on spite...that's what we get.

Here's the thing; More freedom and more opportunity creates more of the same. More people having more money makes the economy better for everyone. Social change is usually a good thing in and of itself, provided there's some degree of direction and leadership from intelligent people. Uncontrolled social change...which is what we have now, created by too many right-wing attempts to "Stand athwart the flow of history shouting 'Stop"' isn't always such a good idea.

But that's what we have, and enough people are acting intelligently and so far enough of the safeguards are holding that the damage, while serious, can probably be repaired.

In other words, typical Republican M.O. of "Crap all over everything and leave the mess for the next black guy to clean up."

Then there was this bit, Roy Moore said that "Maybe Putin is right and America is the hub of modern evil in the world."

As far as I'm concerned, if that's how Roy feels, then he should move to Russia. Steven Seagal can help him fill out his citizenship application. If you think your own country is "Evil" because of increasing LGBT rights, racial equality and social change...then as far as I'm concerned, if you think those things are "evil" then you have a very deviant definition of evil. The American tradition is one of increasing liberty. If you don't like it you can leave. A majority of people decided this was the way we as Americans wanted to be, and we decided it a long time ago. I'll say it again: Americans do not have a shared culture or religion or a thousand years of history. All we have, is what we want to be.

We as a nation and as a people can be great without abusing our own citizens or other peoples. We can be great and still be good people...and I mean goodness in terms of conduct. We can be good without following some fanatic's idea of culture or religion, A Hijabi Muslimah or a bearded and turbaned Sikh or an irreligious Transwoman can be...and is...as much an American as a cowboy-hat wearing, gun-toting conservative Fundamentalist Christian. There will come a day, and I am certain of it, when conservatives will want to get African people from places like Nigeria to come here in order to boost their numbers...and I for one will welcome that day. Those people work HARD, and would be a powerful addition to the strength of this nation. We are ALL better off as a part of diversity, instead of trying to exalt ourselves at the expense of others.

We are stronger together.

• I don’t usually deal with those big words because I don’t usually deal with big people. I deal with small people. I find you can get a whole lot of small people and whip hell out of a whole lot of big people. They haven’t got anything to lose, and they’ve got every thing to gain. And they’ll let you know in a minute: “It takes two to tango; when I go, you go.” ~Malcolm X.