The Corrupted Tree, Part Two.

Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.

A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.

Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.

Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them. ~Matthew 7:17-20

Ya know, since Roger Stone got arrested early last Friday morning, there's something been bothering me.

How in the hell did Roger, here pictured with washed-up porn-star Nina Hartley, ever convince anybody that he was a conservative?

Republican, maybe. Cosplaying Nixon-wannabe, certainly...but, maybe it's just me and maybe I'm old but I'm not inclined to think that anybody who'd dress like that in public or drink such shitty beer (that's a Bud Light can) can consider themselves a respectable conservative.

Note the small "c." I think Movement Conservatives, of which Roger tangentially is one, if only by his claimed association with Nixon (even though Nixon probably wouldn't be considered much of a conservative today) seem to have given up any claim to self-respect or the respect of others by following after Trump.

Now of course Roger Stone has been busy as fuck making the rounds on all the Fox News shows and this and that and the other thing even as Roger-Gate looks to be working out far worse for him than Watergate ever did for Nixon.

For all intents and purposes, he appears to be having the time of his life, basically LARP'ing as his hero. Of course, you could argue that Tricky Dick had better lawyers (or at least lawyers who had been admitted to the District of Columbia bar, but I digress.)

I guess I get it, I really do. I mean, Roger doesn't have that much lead left in his pencil, he's probably not going to be vertical that much longer. I suppose it's better to go out with a bang than it is to expire sitting on the couch, mad, and watching Fox News.

I guess I sorta get Roger. I don't like him, I think he's a scumbag. I've always thought he was a scumbag and his mentor (Roy Cohn) was a scumbag and he surrounds himself with scumbags (i.e. people like Trump) and he always has. I've never been impressed by his claims of having helped elect Nixon or his attempt to act like he's been some sort of a big deal in every Republican presidential campaign since. Roger Stone is nothing but a shitty, opportunistic grifter, I don't like that, but I find it understandable.

You know who I don't get?

These fucking people, that's who I don't get.

Note the one sign "Christians support Roger."

So, Christians support a longtime political bullshitter, a Swinger (that means somebody who's into group sex, partner-swapping, etc.) and all around dude who's basically the opposite of everything that Jesus Christ ever stood for, a guy who, if asked to truthfully name his God, would probably, without missing a beat, say "Richard Milhous Nixon."

Duly noted.

Also, who has the sort of time needed to go and protest a hearing for Roger Fucking Stone?

I guess in a way, Roger actually has outdone his mentor, because I sure as hell don't recall Nixon ever getting this kind of rock-star treatment.

The tree is rotten, conservatives. Ya'll need to do better than this.

Part One.

The Corrupted Tree, Part One.

Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them. ~Matthew 7:20

Hey, everybody, I'd like to introduce Blizzard the Ferret.

Blizzard was left in a diaper box marked "Free Ferret" in the entry way at the local pet store last Tuesday night when it was -14 degrees (F) outside. I guess, among people that I know and work with, this created a bit of a stir on local social media because a girl I used to work with found him, and he was soon warm and relatively safe and fed and housed in the back of the store. Of course, the pet store workers messaged me on Facebook almost immediately. I was sleeping, but as soon as I got up I responded and by the time I'd got to work we'd worked out that I was going to come and get him in the morning. As soon as I got in the door at least a couple people seemed to know more about what was going on with the little guy than I did.

I just laughed and told them we had it worked out ten minutes before that, and yes, I was taking him.

I named him Blizzard because I had to drive out in the nasty howling cold snowstorm to get the little dude the next morning.

When I got to the pet store, and retrieved him from the cage they had set up, I noticed immediately that his fur did not feel like a ferret's fur (it felt more like my dog's fur when my dog needs a bath) his tail was ratty, with only a thin coat of undercoat-hair left on it, he was obviously malnourished and he had poop stuck to his butt and his back legs.

The nasty Marshall ferret food, which I've described previously, was too rich for his little belly.

He was probably fed cheap cat food, or table scraps, given how much interest he had in my popcorn chicken yesterday.

I took him home, gave him a bath, held him wrapped in a towel for a while to dry him off and he was pretty soon at least looking and feeling like a different ferret. He's since adjusted to a much better food. He still sleeps a lot. In fact he's sleeping in my lap as I type this. He's a rapidly fattening up little ball of fur prone to melodramatic ferret-stretches and looks of annoyance anytime I have to move in order to deal with the shenanigans of the other weasels.

Except for his ratty tail, he's the picture of Mustelid contentment and relative good health.

What does this have to do with anything?

Not much, really.

Except...

When I see stuff like this, that perfectly-capable grown-ass adults who live in a wealthy First World nation...and who if I had to guess are affluent white folks who have health insurance and access to medical care...aren't taking care of their kids...

It kind of amazes me that more ferrets (and other critters) don't get abandoned in boxes outside of pet stores, ya know?

It makes me angry when people care more about whatever dumb-shit personal issues they have or their own well-being than the health of their kids, or their country, or the civilization that sustains them.

I'm tired of it. I'm tired of having to be angry at this crap. But I can't help but be angry because I was taught better than this.

I'm tired of living in a country where people reject science and would rather believe in dumb shit than accept often-simple basic truths like "Vaccinate your kids." I'm damned tired of this even being a subject of debate. I'm damned tired of the fact that childhood diseases and stuff that I'm immune to because I suffered through having them as a kid are making a resurgence because people would rather believe in woo woo bullshit that they found on the internet than accept downright basic obvious facts that [when five-year-old me was getting ready to start school] were presented as obvious fact and neither socially nor otherwise allowed to be argued with and you couldn't get out of doing it unless you had a provable medical issue or belonged to a specific religious sect...in which case there was a quantifiable 'herd immunity' that could still be counted on to protect you.

I've gotten multiple vaccinations in the course of this life, and while I'm not fond of needles or flu shots, there's some times when you just gotta do what you gotta do as any military veteran or person who's traveled overseas or dealt with certain other situations or worked in the medical field or even something as simple as food service can tell you.

Meanwhile, there are people in Afghanistan and Pakistan who vaccinate their kids despite the non-negligible risk of being shot by the Taliban for doing so. There's people, many of them women (who are also accepting the risks associated with working a professional job in areas where Fundamentalist dumbfuckery is backed by insurgent military force) who risk getting shot by the Taliban, day in and day out, in order to vaccinate those kids in the fucking first place.

I've had my Facebook and Twitter feeds bombarded with misinformation-driven anti-abortion dipshittery as well, with at least one of the repeat offenders being (so far as I know) at least nominally liberal, thanks to the passage of new abortion laws in New York (and the likely-pending passage of the same in Virginia.) Not because anybody has an actual factual or recognizable theological gripe with Abortion at this point, but because "Conservative" anti-abortion nuts have cranked out so much misinformation on the subject, particularly of late-term abortions and why they happen. All too many of the posts I've seen are also full of blatant enough emotional manipulation that people shouldn't fall for it.

Now, I'm not terribly comfortable with the idea myself, but I'm a guy and it will never be my problem. I know that people...decent, sane people at least...don't generally decide at the last minute that they don't want to have the kid. I'm damned well aware that sometimes fetal deformities, death in utero, or medical problems on the part of the mother might necessitate a late-term abortion, though.

But there's a lot of people out there who seriously would rather believe the bullshit than listen when somebody says anything different. In the case of the one repeat-poster on the subject, there were several people who were also jumping in to explain basic facts.

And I guess that's what wears on me the most about this stuff, is that these days you have to repeatedly, patiently, calmly explain basic rational shit to people who are in many cases dead set on holding onto their emotionally-driven fear or outrage as long as they can, simply for the sake of having it.

And you can end up doing that about any number of subjects, from Abortion to LGBT rights to the priorities of younger folks who...due to fiscal and governmental mismanagement by previous generations...may not even have the options that their parents had as regards how to live a life.

And in many cases, those people aren't conscious bad actors or the kinds of people who leave ferrets in boxes in the cold. There's a difference between simple ignorance and deliberate, willful ignorance.

In fact, my next-most-recent rescue ferret...a fat, healthy, happy guy...came from one of those people I had to explain stuff to recently. He came with food, a cage, and all the stuff he might need. I don't mind having to set people like that straight now and again, it happens. Anybody can be wrong.

I'm OK with that, just so people will listen when they are told the truth.

And then there's These Fucking People.

Apparently some idiot thinks it's gay for men to like women's butts.

I think Sir-Mix-A-Lot probably disagrees, but I digress.

I'm sorry but as One Of Those Rap Guys from back in the day, and as a lover of big butts myself I'm also going to have to disagree, and if I ever meet Roosh V. I'm going to laugh at him, and if he makes an issue of that he's going to wish he hadn't.

The whole idea of even "What it is to be a man" is a huge generator of silly woo woo bullshit these days. Somehow, being a decent person, being mentally and/or physically strong, doing your work, having some degree of leadership, paying your bills and taking care of those who are your responsibility rarely if ever enters into these discussions, let alone actually being able to show why you should be in charge.

Roosh can't even seem to figure out how to get a job and move out of his Mom's basement (and this boy-man who lives at home is supposed to be an authority on manhood?) but I digress.

Hell, for that matter, as I've heard before...there are some people who think wiping your own ass properly makes you gay. I'm fucking sorry but if you can't think of a better way to demonstrate your claimed masculinity that smelling like a pig farm and turning into a walking E. Coli outbreak, ya'll need to stay the fuck home.

You know what I'm tired of? I'm tired of privileged shit-headed willful ignorance, most of it on the part of people who will never have to risk a damn thing in their lives.

We live in a world where every person who is capable of paying a relatively small amount of money for a cheap smart phone, using a public library or visiting an Internet cafe has all the information of the world and the accumulated knowledge of centuries at their fingertips, we, each and every last person now living, have experienced wonders undreamed of by the Creators of Star Wars, or of even the science fiction or actual scientists of a generation ago.

And we have people who can't be bothered to understand basic shit like that you should mind your own business, take care of your pets, vaccinate your kids, wipe your own ass or leave women's health decisions to...women?

We've got a problem, America, and it wasn't caused by abortion providers or gay people or liberals or any of the other people that Fox News likes to blame.

It's being cased by the kind of shit-headed ignorance that thinks we should have the right to bomb a country that the person thinking about it can't find on a fucking map.

We'd do damned well, at this point, to consider the kind of 'fruits' we're showing the rest of the world, when we attempt to answer the question "What are we?"

So, what are we?

If you don't like the answer, it's on you...it's on each and every one of us...to change it.

Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.

A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.

Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.

Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them. ~Matthew 7:17-20

Part Two

"Pro-Life?" Whose life?

Everything the Power of the World does is done in a circle. The sky is round, and I have heard that the earth is round like a ball, and so are all the stars. The wind, in its greatest power whirls. Birds make their nest in circles, for theirs is the same religion as ours. The sun comes forth and goes down again in a circle. The moon does the same and both are round. Even the seasons form a great circle in their changing, and always come back again to where they were. The life of a man is a circle from childhood to childhood, and so it is in everything where power moves. Our tepees were round like the nests of birds, and these were always set in a circle, the nation's hoop. ~Black Elk, Lakota Holy Man.

Listen up, yo.

I'm just sayin' if I ever catch some punk-ass kid of a Trump Supporter menacing an elder like this, I'm a probably lose it, beat them up and go to jail. More to the point I'll be glad to do it too, and glad to explain to all and sundry exactly why.

What part of "Some things are just not done" don't these fucking people understand?

I guess a bunch of punk-ass kids from northern Kentucky, students at an all-boys school called Covington Catholic High School, who were there for the "March for Life" decided to menace the remaining people at the Indigenous People's March yesterday after most of the Native folks had left. This apparently included Elder and Vietnam Veteran Nathan Phillips. They surrounded the Native folks and started chanting "Build the wall."

Native Americans are, by definition, from here. They were born here, they have been accorded full citizenship for going on 100 years and if I have to tell you how they got it you ain't been paying attention.

So yeah, that's your "border security" and "pro-life" folks, right there. This has not one goddamned thing to do with respect for life, or security (on the border or otherwise) or weed legalization or any other political or social issues these motherfuckers try to dress it up as. It's about the racism, stupid.

It's about the homophobia and the misogyny too, but mostly the racism.

For his part, Mr. Phillips kept doing his thing, singing his song...and in such situations there is powerful Medicine, or spiritual energy. I'm here to tell you...you don't want to mess with that stuff. I have watched Native folks do their spiritual things. I have been in churches of any conceivable kind many times, from Black churches to Catholic cathedrals to a fire-and-brimstone Baptist church in a half-abandoned strip mall. I have beat the drum while Muslim friends of mine, Sufis (members of a mystic sect within Islam) did their whirling Dervish dance. I've debated spiritual matters with Jamaican Rastas. I'm a give you a word of advice: It doesn't matter what it is, it doesn't matter if it's not yours, you treat spirituality with respect. You sure as a mother fucker do not get in the face of a person genuinely practicing it and menace them.

Especially if they don't back down.

Trust me, God, the gods, the Universe...whatever you wanna call it...it knows and sees what you do.

My social media was on fire earlier with people demanding that those kids be punished, and likewise with pretty damned bipartisan offers of support for Mr. Phillips. The only "people" supporting those kids appear to be Russian bots. I'm not sure that would have shook out that way if they'd hassled somebody for eating a plate of tacos or some other activity.

Have fun with fame, boys. It won't be like you thought it was gonna be.

Oh, and while we're at it, speaking of the "March for Life" Ben Shapiro made a point of saying that "No pro-life person would kill Baby Hitler." You know what? On top of the fact that that's about the third-dumbest thing I've heard all day after Trump's speech and the ridiculous mess outlined above....fuck no I wouldn't spare no baby Hitler. My PTSD might get worse and I might blow my own brains out but I'd do it knowing I'd changed history and maybe even saved millions of people. Of course, until somebody actually invents time travel, the entire argument is itself ridiculous.

Of course, pro-life apparently isn't what it used to be, if it ever actually was about life.

You know what I don't see in this picture?

I don't see any women.

I don't see any People of Color.

I just see a lot of punk-ass white kids.

Is this the result of conservative youth engagement? If so, ya'll need to try again because you're clearly only appealing to one demographic.

Also, Planned Parenthood is a private organization funded by private donations. The main reason that they get any Federal funding at all is...effectively...outsourcing to make caring for women's health issues cheaper. Planned Parenthood doesn't get any Federal money for abortions.

But none of this is really about Planned Parenthood, is it?

It's about control, and power, and the desire of right-wing white men to be accorded the privilege to try to control everybody else.

Granted, Jesse Lee Peterson is Black, but I'm not sure how much that counts for when the idiot has defended slavery.

It's about the fact that most people, even many conservatives, don't see anything wrong with lesbians or Muslims or women who live with their partners or are on their second marriages. For fuck's sake on that last two that's most people, whatever their politics or anything else. It's about the fact that the Unfuckable Dork Brigade lost control of the narrative sometime back, but that instead of just telling them to go fuck themselves society humored these assholes and nuts or strung them along because it was easier.

The problem isn't Trump. The problem is that given the option between being honest, having leadership and trying to show that their way was better...or lying about it...in all too many cases conservatives lied about it. Now, they've got a liar President and they're starting to reap the consequences and the rest of the world is visibly suffering the consequences of their shitty ideology, which basically boils down to some combination of "Fuck You, I've Got Mine" greed, misogyny, racism and selfishness.

What's not to like, right? No wonder they couldn't be honest.

The circle of America is broken. Conservatives and yes, rich people were woven into that fabric and it was a requirement for them that they behave themselves, well, now they aren't. More to the point they aren't even interested in doing what's right for anybody, even themselves in many cases...they only want to wield power for power's sake.

That's a recipe for disaster. If you want an American Pol Pot, if you want this entire nation to crumble and a nuclear civil war and United Nations troops and relief agencies within our borders and people bathing and shitting in the same flooded bomb craters, you keep that shit up.

It isn't going to work. It's human nature to resist...just like how that old Native man did not back down.

It's up to the rest of us to kick these people to the curb and knit things back together because otherwise they've decided that they're the only ones who should get anything, ever. They've made cult-like devotion to their Fake Orange God the litmus test...and somehow that seems like a terrible idea...and the worse it works out for them the more they double down.

These people say they're "pro-life?" I'm not sure I'd consider what they want to be living.

The center cannot hold, so we need to find a new one.

In the meantime, don't be that guy.

If we want a better nation we have to be better citizens, and yes, better people.

They sure won't.

Addendum: I guess now we know why those kids felt free to menace that old Native man:

Divide and Hamberder

Why boastest thou thyself in mischief, O mighty man? the goodness of God endureth continually.

The tongue devises mischief; like a sharp razor, working deceitfully.

Thou lovest evil more than good; and lying rather than to speak righteousness. ~Psalm 52:1-3

Fuckin' seriously?

I'm only gonna say this one time but I'm a say it loud for the slow people and those in the back. What the FUCK kind of supposed-billionaire even eats Burger King and McDonald's and Wendy's food? What the FUCK kind of President would serve that kind of shit at the White House, and what the FUCK kind of classless moron would serve that shit to a national championship college football team, and seem proud of doing so?

To his everlasting credit, one of the players responded to this outrage by saying "Our nutritionist is gonna be mad." You bet your ass they are. Hell I wasn't even there or even close to being there and I find this bullshit humiliating and rage-inducing.

You see, I used to be a conservative, a Republican. Like it or not, for better and worse I was more strongly influenced by the Greatest Generation than by my Mom's generation, i.e. the Baby Boomers. AKA The People Who Got Us Into This Mess.

My Grandfather, a conservative Union Democrat, Navy veteran, retired firefighter and city worker and all-around old guy, a doer of odd jobs and tough jobs and stuff that needed to be done because it was the right thing to do, who worked hard most of his life and taught me things like respect for authority, knowledge and nature, process and progress and science, but also tradition and work ethic and occasional but well-used profanity, drilled into me the words "Some things are not done in the better places."

The White House, by definition, should be one of said better places.

Likewise, I can say with a reasonable amount of certainty that not paying Coast Guardsmen would be one of those things that's just not done. My Grandfather, a Sailor and later Naval Officer via the Navy's V-12 program would have probably gone off on the person who said Coast Guard families should "have a garage sale" rather than, ya know, be paid like they're supposed to, by a functional government.

And I can tell you for damned sure that he'd have had a lot to say about the conditions described in the report about the USS Fitzgerald container-ship collision, and the trash and bottles of piss on the ship's Bridge described therein. I blew up about it myself yesterday. Stupid, lazy people doing a half-ass job has in my view been a national security issue ever since a lazy worker started a fire (in an attempt to get out of work early) that gutted the Los Angeles-Class Submarine USS Miami in a Maine shipyard. Oh well, the asshole is only going to owe the government $400 MILLION in fines and restitution when he gets out of Federal prison. No Sub of that class was ever lost to enemy action, but one was lost to a lazy American worker. Think about it. Think about that kind of shitty mentality infecting the military now. That puts us on par with the type of stuff the Russians are known for...but the Chinese and a lot of these other people Trump is trying to incite conflicts with? They'll kick our ass up one side and down the other. You'd probably get executed for urinating on the Bridge of a Chinese warship.

Because some things are not done in the better places.

I'm honestly kind of glad that my Grandpa is not around to see that our country has finally, at long last, come to this level of silly bullshit and Republican-authored broken government and dysfunctional agencies.

Endless small wars, endless deployments, cutting of corners and watering-down of training, and for what? To put half-trained Sailors in harm's way under dishonest, disinterested, dysfunctional and incompetent officers?

And for what? You ever notice it's almost always brown people, Muslims, and/or people in poor countries that our super-expensive weapons of war and expensively-half-trained military personnel are being deployed to fight against, while our current Republican administration claims it's tough on real threats like Russia because they drag their feet on even the slightest efforts to inconvenience the damned Commies? And yes, that's what Putin is and don't let anybody tell you otherwise. Else he would not be engaging in efforts to rehabilitate the image of Josef Stalin.

And do you know why these motherfuckers...from Putin to Trump to your asshole Republican State Representative keep getting away with this shit?

Racism. That's one of the big reasons right there. Keep people fighting over petty beefs and worthless bullshit and different rules for different people, and this one being better than that one, so they are too distracted to realize that their futures and lives are being stolen, and unite against you and boot your ass out of power.

Of course, there are small rays of hope even on the conservative side. When Tea Party Joe Walsh of all fucking people, no friend of minorities he, is calling out Donald Trump Jr. for saying stupid racist shit...well when you've lost that fucking guy...

It's basically all over but the shouting. I have a feeling there's going to be a lot of shouting, though.

A lot. The only thing they hate more than the rest of us...is each other.

And then of course there's this motherfucker, who I've also written about previously. Steve King, also known as the Last Republican Representative Standing in Iowa, and a white nationalist dick-bag, was stripped of all of his committee assignments yesterday by House Republicans. I understand that Nancy Pelosi is also considering action against him. As far as I'm concerned if there's any justice in the world Steve King should get booted from Congress and his next job damn well should involve being forced to shovel cow shit at some experimental power plant like the asshole Republican staffer in World War Z.

The thing is, Steve King has been at this forever, and Republicans only acted against him when the political costs of not acting got too high. All these Republicans tripping all over themselves to rake him over the coals today? Where were they in 2012, or 2014? I'm glad they're doing something about King now...but this entire mess, like everything else about these fucking people, is fundamentally dishonest.

But why the racism, and the shutdown (And NOW? When Republicans previously had full control of all branches of government for two years?) and all this stupid shit up to and including the shitty fast food? Why the broken ships and dysfunctional crews and chains of command? It's a distraction.

Republicans are losing their grip on the People, and have lost both control over and even the slightest interest in our democracy. In that context, do you really think they're going to trust the Military? Trump has low approval ratings among the fucking troops (44%) same as with everybody else. The troops, reflection of our wider society as they are, are trending Democrat. But then it's either that or accept a worldwide Russian Mafia putsch and I don't see them standing for that, either. A lot of them might not like Democrats much, but I'm pretty sure they like Russian criminals less, and you can't separate the Mafia from the government or the intelligence agencies or the oligarchs over there.

There's a reason for all the "Support the Police" and "Thin Blue Line" crap, and it ain't because they actually care about or support Law Enforcement, it's just another vector for racist crap, and hopefully (in their minds) co-opting more users of force to replace the ones they've been losing their grip on for a decade, or to cover their ass while they steal more money and shit on the way out the door. Divide and conquer, it's a game as old as the rise and fall of civilization itself.

What scares me is who are Republicans going to "Support" next? Anti-government insurgents? And how is that going to affect our civilization?

Civilization, the entire damn point of what my Grandpa said when he said "Some things are not done in the better places." Whether we necessarily like or agree with each other all the time or not, we should act as civilized men and women and resolve our differences accordingly.

How is any of this mess even considered conservative? These people don't care about conservatism. That stopped being an effective Republican meal ticket the first year I voted, Bill Clinton had a lot of conservative ideas...his going after Bush on taxes, aggressive foreign policy, welfare reform, among others.

Conservatism isn't what Republicans want, it's just a bullshit opportunistic label. Republicans want to sound all pious about the sanctity of (heterosexual) marriage while getting their dicks sucked by their mistresses in the car on the way home from the fundraiser, and that's all it is. Trump is just a symptom of 25 years of Republicans being the Party of Newt.

Hell, Rashida here reads more like a conservative according to what I was taught that meant than those who are against her do. That's basically the same thing I said about Hillary Clinton in 2016.

It should be noted, while I'm at it, that my Grandpa spent part of his time in the Detroit fire department assigned to an Engine House that I'm pretty sure today would be within the boundaries of Rashida's district.

I like this lady. I like her attitude and ferocity but most of all the humanity she demonstrates. To her, this stuff isn't a game and it sure as hell isn't an ideology.

You want to know the way forward? The way to preserve civilization? This is it right here. This is how you have the rise of something better out of this mess. This is how you avoid that Fall that so many in the Republican apocalyptic cult seem to be craving even as they exhibit their own gibbering fear of death...and all the dividing and conquering in the universe won't keep that clock from running out.

You have to care about people, or none of whatever else it is that you do even matters.

Together we rise, or none of us do. That's not socialism, it's common sense.

Straining at gnats, swallowing camels.

Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cumin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.

Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel.

Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess. ~Matthew 23:23-25

So, apparently, the obsession with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on the part of certain Republicans continues. I'm not quite sure where this comes from, but I think it's getting creepy. I mean, for fuck's sake, who cares what her nickname was in high school and college? She's a grown ass adult now, and it seems to me that, aside from people who've known her that long, nobody should really care.

Did I mention this crap is getting creepy? First these motherfuckers try to make it sound like AOC dancing is some kind of big bad thing, then they drum up some fake nude photo or some shit. As if anybody would really care if she had a real one? I mean, I wouldn't mind if she did, and you can read as much dirty-mindedness into that as you want, but she doesn't seem to. That's OK too.

So why make one up? I mean, if you have to lie about it, is your cause really so righteous, Republicans?

AOC seems to be picking up what's left of all the Hillary- and Obama-hate. She's the entire Democratic Party's tan suit at this point, and somehow just like before the only people bothered by this are Republicans.

But you know, this isn't really about Alexandria Ocasio Cortez. What they're trying to pull on her with all these low-rent slime attacks...which they seem to be pretty bad at...is more about them. Like I said before, we're dealing with silly, self-absorbed old ninnies who are afraid of change, and death, and who would rather drive their country and their party both to ruin than accept that both change and death are inevitable...that's why you're supposed to adapt, plan for the future and roll with the punches. Instead, we've got conservatives doubling and tripling down on every stupid idea they ever had and holding up the entire country for no good reason while the rest of the world and its various and assorted problems and looming threats of possible wars, both religious and secular, race ahead of us, and for what? Some dumb ass wall that most people don't want.

Like I said (House Majority Ferrets is my Twitter handle) whoever and whatever the person that Joe is quoting is, they're not a conservative. "I don't care if Trump acts like a king?" Bitch, this whole damn country was founded on the principle of opposition to kings. Conservatism used to be based on the principle of "Things as they are" with slow change, to try to prevent unintended consequences. Now it's "Things as we would wish them to be" with no care as to who or what gets hurt or damaged by the Right's tendency toward blind ideological warriorism.

No. That's not how this works.

Speaking of unintended consequences...

I just love how the person quoted just blithely says "I thought he was going to do good things, He's not hurting the people he needs to be hurting."

As if it's perfectly fine for the government to be in the business of hurting people, of destroying people's towns and livelihoods, just so it's not you.

And that right there is all of Conservative America in one quote. Fuck you, I've got mine. Yeah, until you don't, and then who's going to help you? Once you've demonstrated that you have that sort of mentality, I think it should be on you to show why the rest of us should give a damn that you're hurting. I mean, after all, you didn't give a fuck about us.

See how that works?

Of course, they never like or want "An eye for an eye" when it's their eye that could be at risk.

Ya know, I'm just sayin' but it's funny just who it is that's shown they have a better vision of the future than that...

Note that she said she wants to create positive change for all people. Republicans, that means you too.

Why it never occurs to you fucking people to not be dicks to everybody else, I'll never understand, but this bullshit is getting old.

Be glad it's people like her that got elected, and not people like me, because this former Republican firmly believes that the whole damn conservative movement could use an ass whuppin' and being sent to its collective room. People want to act like shitty kids, they should get treated like shitty kids.

Every last one of these Republicans is a grown ass adult, and a whole hell of a lot of them know better.

Keep the pressure on, and next year, vote the bastards out, All of them.

Republican Sign: No Impromptu Dance-Offs.

Freedom is the right to question and change the established way of doing things. It is the continuous revolution of the marketplace. It is the understanding that allows to recognize shortcomings and seek solutions.~Ronald Reagan

Okay. I've had just about enough of this fucking foolishness.

Last week, some dumb ass Q-Anon nut dug up a video of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez being silly and doing the dance from "The Breakfast Club" at some point in college.

Cue several days of conservative pearl-clutching that's just been working on my last nerve since. Apparently, there are still idiots in the world who think it's somehow offensive or unseemly for women to dance. I mean, these fucking people are acting like this should have been Ocasio's Watergate, or something, as if she'd resign in disgrace because she got caught...dancing? 

This is American in 2018, not Afghanistan in 1998, come on, people. I'm honestly quite surprised that some of these stuffy old Republican Senators haven't gone the route of one Taliban official and issued rules forbidding women to laugh outside their offices because they find the sound "distracting" or something something Gazpacho.

These fucking people are basically the shitty villains that found their way into half the movies in the 1980's that could be defeated by the power of break-dancing. These people are Biff Tannen, but without the book of sports scores and the capability to bullshit that got him somewhere in the second Back to the Future movie.

But it's not just that, Then the dour "There is no dance, there is only work" people showed up. One post about the subject was "What was this kid doing dancing on a roof in the middle of the day? I can guarantee right now my daughter is working!" Yeah, as if people don't have varying work schedules and I can't personally attest to doing lots of stuff in the middle of the day when I should be sleeping because I work third shift. I mean, it's not like my schedule isn't partly dictated by the cleaning, feeding and recreational needs of a large number of Mustelids or anything. I mean, come on you dour old dingbat, not everybody in the world leads the same kind of nine-to-five with weekends off kind of life that you do 

Oh hey, speaking of 1980's movie villains here we have the Preacher from Footloose Harris and Proctor of this administration being performatively and visibly uncomfortable about having to swear in Arizona Senator Krysten Sinema using a law book. Look, Mike, I don't know what to tell you except that don't worry, bro. You're not going to catch her bisexuality, it's not contagious. I'm just sayin' man, it's the 21st century and speaking as a former conservative Christian myself I am...hell, would've been then...more comfortable with the idea of being represented by a bisexual person of either sex (or even a trans person) than I would be with being represented by a grown-ass adult man who refers to his wife as "Mother."

Because, ya know, that's creepy as fuck and it ain't the 1920's (or whenever people did that shit) anymore.

Speaking of creepy, then I saw this earlier today, I guess Kaya Jones found herself a gender-neutral public bathroom and decided to film the door, because something something ooga booga trans people, or something. Look, I don't have any kids, but I'M not comfortable going in the bathroom if there's some creepy conservative fake second string pop singer outside the door filming it. I see that shit I'm either gonna call the police or security and have you removed or I'm a take it upon myself to give you the old heave-ho so I can go take a shit in peace without having to worry about creepy stalker bullshit while I'm doing it. I mean, come on, lady. We ALL use gender-neutral bathrooms every damn day in our own houses, or in half the gas stations that are out there, and no one cares.

And then of course, at some point last week FOX News was going on and on about how we as a nation don't shame poor people enough, and how some of them might watch porn, or have sex, or in general have some small things that are enjoyable in life instead of being shamed for being alive and not rich or otherwise having needs (even if they might be, ya know, working two jobs and supporting a family or something already) instead of simply trudging off to be worked to death in sweat shops for a dollar a day like FOX News commentators appear to think they should. I mean, for fuck's sake, where exactly is there any kind of life worth living in any of these conservative ideals unless you're rich or some sort of "professional conservative" whose job it is to sit around and talk about how cool it would be if we all just worked ourselves to death for your benefit and how only rich people should have anything.

Also, just curious, but how do these fucking people think they know so much about what poor people do?

And then, of course, now the NRA is back on wanting to arm teachers and turn every school into basically a maximum-security prison. I'm sorry, but I've had it with how these conservatives and gun nuts seem to want to have schools be everything but a place where kids go to learn something and work out the parameters of normal social interaction and ya know, as shitty as all that can sometimes be, something tells me at its worst now it's still better than it would be if the NRA got a hold of our educational system. I mean, fuck, it's not even about the guns anymore, except insofar as the guns themselves might be a vehicle for hard-right politics. Of course I'm the guy who left the NRA in 2000 because I thought they were getting too political then. 

At this point I'd pay real money to have Charlton Heston back and get rid of the likes of Dana Loesch, Oliver North and Wayne LaPierre. Fuck this shit, it's ridiculous. Again, there is literally no room for people to be human in what conservatism is turning into. I mean, fuck, I used to be a Republican and I don't remember them being like this. I just don't see any up-side to any of this crap for me, as I've said before.

Meanwhile, while conservatives are publicly wanking off to thoughts of controlling who can pee where, telling poor people what they can eat and turning schools into dungeons, the government remains shut down and the trash piles up next to the Washinton Monument and in our national parks, government workers go unpaid, or without work, except in critical specialties where they have to keep working without pay. And by the way, the Democrats are the ones busy trying to remedy this situation, having to my knowledge passed several bills to reopen the government, which Mitch McConnell refuses to bring to a vote in the Senate. Yeah, fuck him.

That right there shows you how much Republicans really love America, doesn't it? Let the trash pile up, we're making money! Imagine an America where the trash doesn't get picked up, and poor people can't eat! That right there...that is the future that conservatives want.

But it's worse than that, isn't it?

Of course, with this crowd it would have to be. On the day before he was sworn in, Mitt Romney wrote an article mildly criticizing Trump in that Furrowed-Brow, Very-Concerned, Serious-Guy style that's fairly typical of impotent old Republicans who for whatever reason can't go full Trumpist. I read the article, it wasn't a bad article, once you understand the conventions of the genre, but it sure did piss off the Trump Supporters, not least of all Mitt's own niece, Ronna Romney McDaniel, but I guess when you're such a cowardly shithead that you change your own name because somebody doesn't like your uncle, I can't really expect anything better than that. Party of family values my ass. Well, maybe if they could sell their own family members...

That seems to be the only value they care for: Money. Imagine an America where Party is more important even than family, or friends. Ya know, now that you mention it, that sounds an awful lot like the old Soviet Union.

And Ocasio is the "Commie" but these people are "Conservatives?"

Sorry, I call bullshit, one of these things is not like the other one.

Just sayin' though, if I made a point of Otherizing a family member in such a way...not least of all for Donald Fucking Trump, I'd probably be having to answer to my entire family at some point to the tune of "Did somebody order a knuckle sandwich?" and we're not that close of a bunch. This is just wrong. It's that simple. If you would choose a backstabbing snake like Trump over your own family you need to rethink ya life, it's just that simple.

It's not just that, though, these fools are choosing the Party over everything.

You can read the article here. Like I said, furrowed-brow, very concerned. It's a masterpiece of talking because one has the capability to talk, I think. Certainly, it's not enough to make holidays awkward for the rest of your life over...but this crap has some RNC staffers proposing that Republicans scrap a 2020 primary in order to protect Trump.

And here they talk about Mr. Big-talker Orange Tough Guy like he's some kind of a thing...but now they want to scrap their own rules to "protect" him?

It's like they all know it's a lie, and they just don't want the rest of us to find out.

It's almost like current Republicans are nothing but a bunch of self-serving,  silly old ninnies who don't know or care how the world works for anyone under 50, or who isn't old, rich and white, or who doesn't live in the magical city or who has to work for a living but still wants to live a life.

I don't recognize these people, or their priorities, and I was a conservative. Hell, my George H.W. Bush-era conservatism doesn't just mean I'm a Democrat now, it damned near makes me a socialist in the minds of Trump Supporters. 

That's Okay. I find Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez a lot more interesting than her critics. I mean, I've only ever seen The Breakfast Club because my late best friend sat me down and made me watch it, but still...

I'll take the America of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tliab over this silly bullshit that passes for modern Republicanism any day, and you can tell the motherfuckers that I said that.
For how far they have fallen...well I hope it's right off the electoral map.

Blood that has soaked into the sands of a beach is all of one color. America stands unique in the world: the only country not founded on race but on a way, an ideal. Not in spite of but because of our polyglot background, we have had all the strength in the world. That is the American way. ~Ronald Reagan.

Jesus gave you a job, didn't he, Jerry?

Then Pilate entered into the judgment hall again, and called Jesus, and said unto him, Art thou the King of the Jews? Jesus answered him, Sayest thou this thing of thyself, or did others tell it thee of me?

Pilate answered, Am I a Jew? Thine own nation and the chief priests have delivered thee unto me: what hast thou done?

Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence.

Pilate therefore said unto him, Art thou a king then? Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice.

Pilate saith unto him, What is truth? And when he had said this, he went out again unto the Jews, and saith unto them, I find in him no fault at all.

But ye have a custom, that I should release unto you one at the passover: will ye therefore that I release unto you the King of the Jews? Then cried they all again, saying, Not this man, but Barabbas. Now Barabbas was a robber. ~John 18:33-40

Just sayin' if I was Jesus I'd be seriously considering revamping the hiring process right about now.

Look here, I had no damned intentions of writing anything today. I had to work last night, it's New Years, I was sick all weekend. I wanted to do nothing more than come home, play with ferrets for awhile and go to bed.

Then I see this garbage? I haven't been a Christian in over a decade and I can't not say something about it.

"A poor person never gave anyone a job."

Well unless I somehow have been reading my Bible wrong all these years, a poor person gave you a job, Jerry.

Whether Jesus actually had any say in the hiring process or not, he hired your dumb ass, didn't he, Jerry?

And Jesus was poor. Carpentry was not a well-off profession back in the day, not in Galilee or Judea.

That's right, and Jesus Christ was not born in a palace, he was born in a stable.

He was not born surrounded by expensive doctors, medical equipment, nurses, no.

He was born surrounded by Oxen and Sheep and according to the story some wise men following a vision quest showed up and gave Him and His family gifts because the family had no money, and some shepherds and (according to all the songs and stories and legends) possible various others may have shown up.

You know what they were seeking, those Shepherds and wise men and legendary assorted others?

Spiritual truth.

Not money, not power, not their favored judges on the courts, not audiences with national leaders (at least not in this life or this world) or anything like that.

In fact, the Wise Men dealt with the national leader, according to the story.

And that got Jesus hunted and the Wise Men having to take a different way home.

At the end of His life, when the crowd was given a choice between the King of Kings and a robber, they chose the robber, and King Herod was a murderer.

And that's what Man's approval gets you every single time, robbers and murderers.

But that's what Jesus was there for in the first place, wasn't it?

For good or ill, right or wrong, no matter how much of His story was mythology or how much of it wasn't there have been very few...all of them semi-mythological figures besides, Buddha, Moses, Muhammad..that could claim the level of influence...or even close to it...of that one solitary life, that poor carpenter turned itinerant Rabbi from Judea who the scriptures say had no place to lay His head.

And along the way, Jesus...or powers and principalities and courts and kings and various and assorted social systems from the tail end of ancient Rome on down to our modern day that claim to act on His behalf...gave one hell of a lot of people jobs.

From Roman Emperors like Constantine the Great on down through various Popes on down to the pastors, priests and various preachers in your local churches all the way down to that poor African American kid who just got his first job as a Dishwasher and walked out of the job interview saying "Thank you Jesus!"

Yes, Jesus could probably claim to have been the most successful employment agent ever in the Universe if He wanted to...along with many other professions, probably.

And Jesus was, per your own holy book, a poor person.

If I was you, I'd be looking to go and sell shoes right about now, Jerry.

Ya'll in the wrong damn business.

I'm here to tell you, Jerry, you and all those like you, if you think all the courts and money and Republican politicians and mush-brained cult followers and all the bullshit and Man's approval and politics in the world are gonna sway even one thought of that final Judge for even one instant when you die and go into the Afterlife and end up where your beliefs proclaim you will go so that you will stand before Him, you're wrong.

And it's your view of the poor that tells me that.

Knoweth no man

But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only. ~Matthew 24:36

I know I've said this a lot lately, but, Seriously?

Apparently, and I've seen stuff like this before, there are Evangelical and Fundamentalist nuts who hope that Trump somehow causes the Biblical End Times.

I'm just sayin' I don't think all that will work out the way they think it will.

I mean, given the current behavior of many Evangelicals, now might not be the opportune time for them to be hoping that Jesus comes back. I mean, that's like the big time Evangelical Pastor saying he hopes Jesus comes back and catches him diddling the pool boy, but I digress.

We've got the religious right stuck in financial scandals, political scandals, a sex scandal or three, there's the whole Trump thing, they're also supporting murderous Fundamentalist Muslim leaders in Saudi Arabia. I mean, come on, if you could work in dime-a-dozen Televangelists with bad make-up and hair, a Right-wing Central American dictator, and Sun Myung Moon I think you'd have a full 1980's bingo.

Funny thing, as somebody who actually WAS a religious kid in the 1980's, I honestly don't recall that the time period was all that religious. In fact, aside from the whole Iran thing (and the Iranians were also Soviet allies) even most of our adversaries in the Middle East were more the secular Communist type. I mean you could always point to Afghanistan (Surprise, Surprise, I know) but at that time, even the Islamist religious nuts were on our side.

You know what really wasn't a thing, back then, though? End Times Prophecy Nuts.

Granted, I was a mainstream Christian, if also a budding political and theological conservative. Granted a lot of the books this stuff is based on were written in the 1970's, but it would take the environmental worries of the late 1980's and early 1990's, the fall of the Iron Curtain, (yes) an increase in liberal attitudes more globally and the creeping approach of the 21st Century (and yeah, that really was the big one, there) to actually popularize the End Times prophecy movement. I had lapsed religiously from the early to mid-1990's but, following some severe problems in my life, I went back to Church later on.

American Christianity, like much of the rest of the country, was convinced that the turn of the Millennium was some major turning point and that it would herald the Second Coming of Christ and this and that and the other thing. The secular world was of course, worried about global warming (El Nino, at that time) the "Y2K virus" (fixed simply by changing the date-format on one's computer, but a lot of little $5 fix-it disks got sold to the technologically ignorant) and basically on all fronts the beginning of the same national midlife crisis that's led us to our current political mess.

I worked my night shift as a line cook at the Canada Creek Ranch club house on New Years Eve of 1999, made it through my shift without the world ending, and got home at around two in the morning on January 1st of 2000. As I recall, Rose (my girlfriend at the time) was still up waiting for me. We smoked a blunt, made love, and went to bed. When I woke up a few hours later...awakened by the mad barking of my Schnauzers and her Yellow Lab at something or other outside, the world as we knew it was still the same as it had been the day before as history slid by, effortlessly making itself.

There was little more that came of the "Y2K Virus" or the end of the world than a few humorous stories in the local newspapers. The casting about in the world of End Times Prophecy nuts and the online message boards thereof for the next year-and-three-quarters was subtle at first, but silently frantic. I basically exited the movement within a few days. Me and the girlfriend broke up in the Spring, I very quickly ended up with another girlfriend, we got married and then that fell apart and turned into the start of a long, acrimonious divorce process  Then 9/11 happened and despite a brief outbreak of religiosity...which my increasingly loony ex-wife provided me a window into...there was no comparable outbreak of End Times fever.

Of course, that might have to do with the Bush administration's steady insistence that the resulting war was against terrorists, and not Islam, against criminals who profaned their own faith, not the nations they hailed from, and from the fact that...flawed as their convictions may have been, American conservatives still had the courage of their convictions

Since then, the only End Times whatever that's even made a dent were Harold Camping's failed predictions in 2011, the whole 2012 Mayan Calendar thing, and this odd "Trump is going to cause the End Times" bullshit that's popped up sporadically since 2016. Meanwhile, Climate change is obvious, and cultural, demographic and social change is both causing the Conservatives and the right-wing Christians to lose their mind and combining with age, bad health choices, politics that's gotten nutty enough to cause even many of those people to vote for the other party and the aging process, the human-generated Apocalypse of the Opioid crisis, their own monstrous behavior and an utterly mule-headed refusal to adapt to ensure that by the next time we have a presidential election there's probably not going to be enough angry old scared white people to carry conservatism forward without significant change or at least a lessening of racism.

Speaking of, it needs to be pointed out that Cyrus I. Scofield, the author of the "Scofield Reference Bible" and the extensive margin-notes on which much of this modern End Times claptrap is based was a former Confederate soldier.

If that doesn't help you see how deeply racism and Fundamentalism and the modern beliefs of large chunks of American Christianity are entwined, I can't help you.

But the key is that more people are starting to realize this kind of stuff.

In short, they're probably going to get their apocalypse, but no Jesus, and for once their bullshit will mostly affect them.

Now let me teach you, as I was taught.

If you actually read the whole Bible, including Matthew 24, and not just the disjointed passages that make up the "End Times Prophecy" narrative you could make the argument that we've always been living in the End Times. Many of the events about which Jesus prophesied have already happened. There are always false Christs and False Prophets and disasters in various places and wars and rumors of wars. Sin is a part of the human condition! Revelation was written by John of Patmos to be a message of hope to oppressed people living under Roman brutality, not to be some kind of war-porn for the perpetually-aggrieved, the religiously fanatical or the sexually repressed.

Trust me, the same people who think America isn't America if Brown People can get in also think that Heaven isn't Heaven if you and I get to go, too.

In fact, the only things their heaven really consists of are gloating about themselves being the only ones there and telling their small angry god how great he is.

Sorry, but I just wasn't taught that way.

I've written most of this article with ferrets attacking my socks. If they don't get to go into the afterlife...just do us all a favor and send me where they do get to go.

I'm not interested in being an ego-boost for an egomaniac wannabe of a god.

So really, if you think about it, I guess I was wrong. These people don't have to declare Trump their God. They were just waiting for somebody with those qualities to arise for them to worship all along. All he does is fit the bill.

Matthew 24:27 King James Version (KJV)

27 For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.

And no, that verse is not speaking about Donald Trump. I did a study of the Bible years ago, for my Baptist church men's group about whether or not America or any of its leaders played an important role in the events of the End Times.

You know what I came up with?

Nope. We don't. Of course that might just be because the Americas were unknown to the actual writers of the Books that became the Bible.

Personally, I've reached the conclusion that American politics and American religion alike will probably be a lot more functional if we can just get over ourselves (and particularly in the case of men in general and religious people in particular, that unending need to be told how great we are.) Bonus points if we can get over our various political, sexual and social hang-ups and try to resist the lure of confirmation bias.

We'd best get at it and stop contradicting ourselves.

It is late, choose now. The world is ever-ending.

But at the same time, the world is ever making itself anew and the End is not yet.

The message of Revelation...indeed of any true religious or spiritual tradition...is one of hope and the future, not of an end to the future. Yes, the world may end. No, we're not going to see it coming, nor will most of us live to see it, but when it happens everybody will know. So live life and stop waiting for the world to end.

Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter.

We'd best act like it.