Light and Darkness, Part One.

I don't preach a social Gospel I preach the Gospel, period. The gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ is concerned for the whole person. When people were hungry, Jesus didn't say, "Now is that political or social?" He said, "I feed you." Because the good news to a hungry person is bread. ~Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

"Their foot shall slide in due time..." Thus began one of the most famous sermons in American Christian history.

You ever wonder why things are so fucked up right now? Start with that.

Calvinism. The idea that Man is either totally depraved, or totally virtuous, and that you don't get to choose which one you are. Meaning of course, that those who are able typically claim the mantle of "Salvation" for themselves and then say "Fuck you, I've got mine."

A lot of evils have risen from this idea, the Puritans, much of Europe's whole history of religious wars following the Reformation, Colonialism, Slavery, Segregation, Apartheid.

When the whole damn point of your religion is to be able to find a way to say to a person "I'm going to Heaven, and you're not." I'm not sure you can really call that Christianity anymore.

Dualism, certainly, On/Off, Dark/Light, Saved/Unsaved, Mine/Yours. It's a great, easy way for the simple-minded to look at life, sure. But it's not Christianity...the Great Commission of which is that the Gospel should be preached to all nations, so that everybody gets a chance to go to Heaven.

Dualism by itself tends to focus on the Yes/No, if/then aspect of that, rather than the fundamental inclusiveness that it implies. "Sign on the dotted line and you're in." is basically what Jesus said.

"You have to read this End User License Agreement first" says the Dualist.

"No! You have to read the EULA the exact right way and then be afraid you've accidentally violated it for the rest of your existence." says the Calvinist.

And that right there is exactly the root of the fear that consistently underlies much of American Evangelicalism...even though these days, I'd be willing to bet not one in five of those people could tell you what a Calvinist even is.

But conservatism sure has boiled down to the fear that somewhere, somebody these people don't like is being treated as their equal.

Fuck that. That shit is not what I was taught.

I saw the clearest example of Dualism From Stupidity that I've ever seen in my life, this morning. Right there, in the screen-cap above.  Oh no, don't get me wrong, I've been seeing idiots ask the question "Why do Atheists hate God" forever.

No, this fucking fool seems to think everybody is either a Christian or an Atheist. As if that's not the most insulting possible take to the vast majority of humans that have ever lived. Jews and Muslims believe in God, Sikhs are Monotheists, most forms of religion believe in or at least acknowledge some form or forms of divinity. That's the very opposite from what an Atheist is.

Non-belief isn't hate. Gamer that I am, I don't hate Dragons or Goblins or Orcs, I simply know that they are fictional/mythological creatures that don't really exist.

Atheists are pretty much the same way about gods.

"Why do you hate us?"

Asks the Lady On Twitter/ Ida being one of the people that I follow on Twitter. She's a lesbian, from Norway. So basically she starts off on the wrong foot with increasingly insular American Evangelicals...who view Europeans suspiciously and have done so since at least the late 1980's and any serious moves toward European unity...which they explicitly view through the lens of Daniel and Revelation and atavistic fears about ancient Rome that probably have been in the DNA of Christianity all along...and if you factor in Puritan anti-Catholicism and often anti-Semitism as well?

Yeah, that crap is as American as the Pilgrims, Plymouth Rock and Thanksgiving...the Romans and Jews being the swarthy people who persecuted and crucified the Puritans white Jesus and all.

Never mind that without Catholicism, Christianity as it is now would not exist. Who in the hell do they think determined what went in the Bible, or codified the beliefs of Christianity?

Never mind that there were plenty of white Romans, the modern concept of "Whiteness" didn't exist, but that's never stopped racist idiots from trying to impose it on history. Heaven isn't heaven if everybody gets to go. History isn't real to them if everybody gets to be included. Yes, these people really do think it's all about them.

And never mind that Jesus was a brown-skinned Middle Eastern Jew.

And it only gets worse when people aren't aware or conscious of this stuff. It's even worse when paranoia and exclusivism start to take hold. That's when the atavistic fears take over and the Christians and "Conservatives" and Republicans start sounding like they want to live in bunkers with their Bibles and their guns eating survivalist taco meat in the dark and shitting on their own shoes.

Throw in some racism, and that's when things start to get both really toxic and increasingly weird.

"Joe Biden is a socialist because he's a Democrat and he's not Black, so he's bringing down the white race."

You know, not to sound that way but these people are literally starting to sound like how they stereotype everybody else...especially people of Color and the young." It's not hard to imagine this idiot saying "The Man is just trying to bring us down, yo."

It's funny how these fucking people were perfectly fine with "The Man" when they felt that their power was not contested. It's funny how, now that they see on a daily basis how hoarding political power isn't the same thing as having leadership or setting the tone...now that their spell over the masses is broken and they can see that everybody else wants a share in America too...these fucking people have shifted from "Standing athwart history yelling stop" to "Stop America, I want to get off."

And that's absolutely going to end in blood and fire, because to them America isn't America if everybody gets to have some. This is explicit in these fucking people's responses to health care issues or student loan forgiveness. They'd rather burn it all down than see somebody get something better than what they had. Just goes to show you that Ayn Rand has more power over the Conservative mind than Jesus Christ could ever dream of having.

Joe Biden is hardly a socialist. He's about as conventional of a Democrat as you can find...and he's the guy even a lot of Never-Trump Republicans are hoping gets the nomination. But of course these fucking morons have bought into the idiotic Fox News-generated narrative that you're either a Trump-Republican or a Socialist. They're increasingly buying into the loony online-Right's narrative that it's either White Nationalism or Death.

Notice how they keep picking ever-more extreme dualistic positions?

Anybody want to ask the government of Rhodesia or the South African Apartheid regime exactly how that worked out?

Oh, wait, you'd have to rummage around in the dustbin of history for awhile first, wouldn't you? And with damned good reason, I might add.

That's where this kind of Dualist bullshit...and then using said bullshit to justify acting like an asshole...ends up every single time.

But of course, every idiot on the planet thinks "Oh come on...it'll work out differently when *I* try it."

Bullshit.

It works out the same way every single time with these goddamned bullshitters.

Pick a sacred cow, and I can tell you how they don't believe in it and why. They don't believe in the Constitution...because it doesn't give them power forever and then sanctify that power. They don't believe in the Bible for much the same reason. Deep down, they know it's not really all about them.

These people always believe that they have to perfect the world so that Jesus will come back. Or they have to perfect the nation because something something gazpacho.

Never mind that the Bible says things of this world are, by nature, not perfect...or that God works on His own timetable and Man has no influence. It's never about any of the things they say it's about. It's really all about them and that other American social neuroses of "Look at me! Look at me! Look at me and how great I am!"

Yeah, right. Fuck these people. Kris Kobach apparently wants to run for Senate and can't even spell his own name right. Hmm, that could be a sign that it's time to hang it up and go home, dude.

But he won't...just like Roy Moore...because whatever his own Party tells him, he's convinced himself that he's one of the Saved, Sacralized ones to whom the rules do not apply.

Never mind that he lost...in Kansas.

I saw this yesterday, the US women's soccer team won against the Netherlands and thus won another consecutive World Cup. Good for them, I rather like this team and their attitude, personally.

Fox News, for whatever reason, decided to make a real effort at filming the reactions of people in other countries to this...and ended up with a bunch of French people shouting "Fuck Trump" on camera.

I'm not gonna lie. I thought that was fucking great.

But seriously, what do you think these fucking people are going to do, as they are confronted with more and more evidence that the rest of the world does not accept their self-selected claim to power?

They're going to start lashing out, eventually, and the rest of us need to prepare accordingly.

Over the weekend, billionaire Jeffery Epstein got arrested for child sex trafficking, and this afternoon I've seen assorted posts about the kind of sick stuff that's been found in this guy's house. All because this motherfucker, like too many of these fucking people, saw women and girls as sexual objects rather than human beings, as things to be exploited rather than as people.

The fact that this guy, who has all these ties to all these other powerful, rich motherfuckers, is sitting in jail right now, probably has one hell of a lot of them sweating.

Because the very idea strikes at the heart of their power.

And that's just it, isn't it? The gospel to a powerful person is power.

Not the power to do this or that constructively or destructively. Not power for a purpose...just power, simply for the capability of having it. And often, the only things they want to use it for are pleasing their dicks or fattening their wallets.

But the gospel to a hungry person is bread, the gospel to an LGBT person is leave them alone and let them live their life without religious harassment. Etc. Etc. As far as I'm concerned, people should have the right to be able to live their lives free from these goddamned moneyed or power-hungry or religious predators, and it's as simple as that.

If that's some kind of revolutionary statement, too damned bad.

We, as a species, had best realize this and damned fast, for the sake of our own survival. If our country dies or our planet dies...the chances are very great that not only will the powerful and the wealthy die right along with the rest of us...but they have an excellent chance of being further ahead in line than most of us

I don't care about that. I'm not especially driven by spite. I'd just like to live in a world where I'm not held hostage to some powerful utter moron's Bronze-age philosophies or Dualistic thinking or mental issues or racial or social insecurities. One hell of a lot of these people need to get themselves a decent therapist and leave the rest of us the fuck alone.

Why is that so much to ask?

It's not always a question of light or darkness, on or off, or whatever. There's plenty of other choices, plenty of shades of gray. A lot of people know this, but it turns out that moronic, simplistic my-way-or-the-highway bullshit is often more profitable than the truth. So that's what those people do.

I'm a person, not a shadow dancing in the firelight. If people wonder why I left conservatism, it's because somewhere along the way ideas like capitalism or metrics like how many judges they had became more important than people.

And I'm not an idea in somebody else's head either. I'm me. If you don't like it, too bad.

Yeah, Drew, I'll bite. I'm not an Atheist...but I still don't care for your god.

Because your real god is you, asshole.

Part 2.

Part 3

Fiery The Angels Fell, Part Two.

Fiery the angels fell; deep thunder rolled around their shores; burning with the fires of Orc. ~Roy Batty, Blade Runner (A deliberate misquote of William Blake's "America: A Prophecy.)

So, Trump's dumb-ass military parade is today.

Happy Independence Day, ya'll. 

I'm just sayin' I think this bullshit is silly. But it's also dangerous.

Independence Day is the one time when all Americans, regardless of everything, should be able to come together. But instead, too many people have allowed Trump to make this day about himself, rather than just about America.

Of course, the asshole somehow thinks that he is America, which doesn't help matters.

And then there's the Q-Nuts. Apparently, they think JFK Jr. is still alive, is somehow going to make an appearance or some shit, and I don't know, something something gazpacho, because "It would be wonderful if he did..."

Yeah, and I suppose it would be wonderful if Elvis showed up too, and the two of them joined the President for a rousing sing-along of "Proud to be an American" but both of them are dead, Creationism isn't real, Vaccines still don't cause Autism, Lee Greenwood is still a shitty singer, and I still don't know where these fucking people even come up with this stupid bullshit!

Look, the whole thing would probably actually make more sense if it started out "Twas Brillig and the slithy toves, did gyre and gimbal in the Wabe..."

Because it's complete fucking nonsense. It's nonsense in the most literal of terms. None of this crap makes any sense. For fuck's sake, 

I remember watching it on CNN when Kennedy's plane crashed. His body and the bodies of his wife and sister-in-law that were aboard the Piper Saratoga with him were later recovered.

What is it with these people and their conspiracy theories, which always seem to require crazy shit like time-traveling dead people in order to work.

But then, I suppose it doesn't require any less suspension of human nature or reality than Republican economic theory does, so there's that.

Not to mention, the whole Kennedy family, rather explicitly including the late JFK Jr. are or were Democrats.

But something something gazpacho hand-waving they saw it on the internet.

Youtube is full of WWE clips and that doesn't make professional wrestling real. Why the fuck are conspiracy theories any different?

And ya know, Republicans supposed allies, the Russians...are laughing at them, at us, and even at Trump...and presumably the US military itself, for allowing itself to be subjected to this stupid bullshit, or whatever.

I'm just sayin' Republicans, with friends like that you don't need any enemies and you seem to be going out of your way to make enemies lately.

Do these people even notice that basically everybody with a brain in their head has left or is leaving? Most recently Congressman Justin Amash (R-MI) declared himself a political Independent just this morning. When you lose literally one of the founding members of the Freedom Caucus, it seems to me that alarm bells should be going off in Republican-land.

But of course they're not. Everything is fine, it's all fine. We're all fine here...how are you?

This would be that moment when the voice on the other end of the line tells Han Solo "We're sending a squad up."

The Russians are making fun of Trump because they know they can, because like that obnoxious whale that graces any given Poker table once in awhile, Trump thinks he knows everything and he's sure they're laughing with him and not at him.

Meanwhile the Russians place bets on how soon will be our downfall, over Vodka and Cucumbers while they watch their equivalents of Lou Dobbs and Fucker Carlson crack jokes about us and make up lies about our tanks being rusty and having peeling paint.

Go ahead and give it a shot, assholes. In Desert Storm we proved that compared to the M-1 Abrams anything that you had wasn't shit.

But I suppose it's real easy to talk crap when you can bamboozle a third of Americans into thinking you're their ally against the Hordes Of Brown People or whatever silly bullshit it is this week.

Oh, and speaking of Lou Dobbs, the fucking idiot referred to the chiefs of the various armed services as "Snowflake Generals" when they declined Trump's invitation to stand with him at this stupid rally.

If Lou Dobbs had served a day in his miserable pecker sucking life, or even asked an actual troop or veteran a few honest questions he would know that the military is supposed to be apolitical and the Joint Chiefs damned well know that military regulations prohibit them from attending a political event in uniform.

Listen, people, I don't know how to say this any better or any different than anybody else has, but I'm going to say it anyway: Freedom depends on truth. Freedom depends on rule of law, Freedom depends on the word of one's government and the people around you alike being good for something. 

Respect is earned, by every action every day. It cannot be bargained for, bought, or forced. It must be earned.

Many years ago these were values that conservatives and liberals alike championed.

Now, these scumbag Republicans...having been told "No" by their own packed Supreme Court that was skewed with two judges that the Federalist Society picked and Trump signed off on...are trying to find a way around their defeat regarding getting a citizenship question added to the Census.

If a Democrat had done that, there would be blood in the streets already.

I think today, and Trump's dumb-ass rally, are as good of a marker as any for the moment that conservatism officially fell to fascism.

And that only ends one way. The rest of us had best get on the ball with fighting against this crap in whatever ways we can, and more people than Justin Amash had best get on with firmly telling these people that this crap is wrong...or there is a non-negligible chance that by this time next year, Conservative America and Liberal America could damned well be two separate countries.

We can stop this shit. Why aren't we?

Part One.

When the fuck do we say "Enough?"

You can't separate peace from freedom because no one can be at peace unless he has his freedom. ~Malcolm X.

Well, now we know, don't we?

As of yesterday, thanks to the posts being leaked from a secret Facebook group composed of Customs and Border Protection officers, we KNOW that this agency has an abusive, racist culture, don't we?

Thanks to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Joaquin Castro, Rashida Tliab and several other Democratic lawmakers, we know the conditions inside the facilities this agency is running. People being abused, forced to drink out of toilets, officers blatantly disrespecting authority...whether civilian or within their own agency, apparently...and breaking the law.

We know that we have Abu Ghraib right here in America.

Now what in the fuck are we going to do about it?

Because we're going to have to do something.

Because the next time it could be any one of us.

Does anybody reading this really think that these officers, or that the Trump Supporters who seem to always support this kind of bullshit, wouldn't gladly do this kind of shit to other Americans if they thought they could get away with it?

Trust me, the time is going to come when these fucking people are not going to respect any authority that isn't pointing more guns than they have right at their heads.

And the situation will get away from Trump, if it hasn't already.
(I'm of the opinion that it has, I think even Trump has lost control of this mess, and it will get worse.)

If you have any doubts, allow me to show you...

"...They called her a foreigner."

Rashida Tliab was born in Detroit, about two and a half years after *I* was born there. It doesn't matter where her parents came from. She was born here. Per the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution that makes her an American. This was one of the things that was a direct result of the US Civil War. This was over 150 years ago and Texas was on the losing side.

By racist loser logic, if Rashida Tliab isn't an American, I'm not, and likely you're not either.

Rashida Tliab is an American citizen, born in Detroit, a Muslim woman whose right to believe in and practice her religion is specifically protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. She is a duly elected member of the U.S. House of Representatives sent to Congress by 84% of the people in her district.
And These Fucking People want to call her a foreigner? FUCK that shit.

If you can't take a hard stand against that...against people who'd deny literally any of us who isn't the right kind of white person our basic rights...then fuck you. It's as simple as that.

'Cause trust me, I'm the wrong kind of white person. Why? Because I see their piece of shit fake "god" for exactly what he is. I reject their god, and I name that bullshit as exactly that right here. These people apparently figured out that Jesus was born and lived not too far from where Rashida's parents came from, and that He died in that same city.

Jesus is a foreigner too, and that apparently was enough to send Him packing as well.

So, If they don't like Rashida...what do you think they're going to make of me, a former conservative who likely has better conservative credentials than anybody in that crowd who can tell them exactly why they're wrong from a legal, moral and, indeed, politically, religiously, and socially conservative perspective?

I did in fact leave both Christianity and eventually conservatism itself exactly because this kind of mob mentality was becoming too much of a thing, and eventually it got easier to fight against it from the outside than from within. When the harder you fight, the more bottomless the well of nuts becomes, sooner or later it just becomes more efficient to switch parties...or religions.

Because sometimes what you started out following morphs into something else and you just get left behind.

Remember what I said about Trump being these people's god? Let me tell you what that means...and to be honest we've been seeing this already, all along.

It means that people will project their desires onto him, and that he will cease to be a real person or an active force in their lives.

After awhile, just what Trump says won't be good enough. After awhile they'll need a different set of spiritual anal beads to bring about that endorphin rush climax that people used to get from "Speaking In Tongues" and rolling around on the floor.

I'm serious, check out this idiot, asking for God's blessing on Trump and Kim Jong Un.

Christian-persecuting Kim Jong Un.

Isn't a Christian saying "God Bless Kim Jong Un" about like a Jew saying "G-d Bless Adolf Hitler?"

I'm going to remind you yet again, that the North was once the part of Korea that was the most Christianized. Southern Korea was primarily Buddhist. That changed because of the Communists, that changed because of the Kim family. Christians fled to South Korea...or they got murdered.

And yet there are still Christians in North Korea, often in hiding from the government in a literal police state.

And they are still persecuted if they are caught, beaten and raped and shot, and their children cut apart and fed to dogs. One person in a family being caught in possession of a Bible will get the whole family thrown into prison.

But yeah "God bless Kim."

Let me tell you how this is going to end, because there are too many people out there like Matt Lewis here, who want to have their cake and eat it too, who want to in effect try to say that two things are true when only one of them objectively can be. If we're not damned careful, here, if we don't have a majority of people stand up and say that this shit is wrong...including the goddamned media talking heads and the politicians...then we're going to end up with two Americas, and one of them will be a right-wing Christianized version of North Korea....likely with somebody far worse than Trump at its head.

And trust me, they won't think any of us are Americans.

And as a compounded oxymoron that will stand for all time, at that point "Conservative Values" will be whatever the State says they are.

And at that point, be prepared for a long war that will technically never end.

We can stop this now.

But it's going to take at least most of us. Find a way, shut the country down, make such a racket about this bullshit that these fuckers don't get any rest until the last person has been removed from every one of these fucked up CBP facilities and until every agent who needs to has faced consequences. Keep the pressure on. Hard. Find a goddamned way.

And we can't keep playing this "Both Sides" game for money or votes or whatever.

It's time to take a stand. Not on election day, Now.

I don't even think this country is going to make it until election day. If we wait until election day we'll have our elections in the Blue and Purple and somewhere-in-between states...and they'll be having theirs in their right-wing version of North Korea.

And if that happens, I have no illusions about how this will turn out.

California and the rest of the West Coast and much of the East Coast and places like Colorado, Illinois, Michigan or Wisconsin will probably manage OK and be able to string something together. Things will be hard, but relatively livable. I'd expect Texas to make Bosnia look like a walk in the park by comparison, but demographic shifts will likely mean the assholes can't hold it. Florida will be a bloody firestorm until it floods or the fresh water runs out, then nothing. Georgia, some combination of the two, but then destabilized by hordes of Florida refugees.

In all these cases, deferred action or equivocation now might make you Both-siders, conflict-averse older Democrats, Never-Trump Republicans, rationalizing non-voters and Unicorn hunters feel good now but it'll be awfully damned hard on the locals later.

Places like Indiana, Iowa, and Kansas will mostly fall to depopulation because of economic devastation. You think they're having problems now? Try shipping crops to global markets through war zones.

And how do you think Americans will react to their own internal refugees, especially when there's a non-zero chance that a lot of them will be conservatives?

Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi, Tennessee, West Virginia, Wyoming? Those places will be the assholes' power base...likely a nuclear power. And what about the people who live there that aren't assholes?

What about the people who don't have the money to get out, or the car to do it in?

Safe bet Utah will go their own way, and likely take Arizona and maybe Idaho with them...all the states with the biggest populations of Mormons. And what's that gonna do for women's rights when the religion with the capability to buy the most power claims polygamy as a religious right?

The only thing holding this country together for as long as its been here has been our Constitutional system and rule of law, which one third of our population and basically half of our political system spit on daily now, even as Republicans and Trump seek to divide even more. I never thought I'd see the day when so many Americans wanted to destroy America.

It's not that the center cannot hold, it's that there is no center.

Guys like Matt Lewis ate it.

Don't be that guy.

We need to stop this mess, and we need to find a way, and fast.

Because this right here is where you have to choose between peace and freedom. We no longer get to have both.

And you can't have peace with people who don't think you have a right to even exist. If we don't do something, it'll be Americans in cages under abusive conditions next. Oh yes, it will.

That's what this goddamned mob has wanted all along. That's what the kids in the cages and the migrants being abused are for...to try to terrify others into compliance.

Don't be that guy, either.

Power in defense of freedom is greater than power in behalf of tyranny and oppression. ~Malcolm X.

Be this guy. Know what happened to him. If you're not prepared to die for your freedom, take that word right out of your vocabulary.

Because that's what this is coming to.

That is the future that Republicans wanted.

Invasion of the body snatchers (Lost Souls, Part Four)

I am the way into the city of woe.
I am the way to a forsaken people.
I am the way into eternal sorrow.
Sacred justice moved my architect.
I was raised here by divine omnipotence, primordial love and ultimate intellect
Only those elements time cannot wear are beyond me,
and beyond time I stand.
Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here.'
~Sign above the gates of hell (variant translation) Canto III, Dante's Inferno, the Divine Comedy.

Well, there it is.

The stupidest thing I've seen all day.

That was the first coherent thought I had when I got up last night and checked my Twitter.

"Demonic connection" "radical feminism" "Witchcraft" "Attack on Masculinity" (tm)

Throw in the Kennedy assassination, Hillary Clinton and the Loch Ness Monster and I think we might have ourselves a conspiracy theory.

So, basically, people practicing whatever beliefs they want, standing up for their own rights and having sovereignty over their own bodies is...demonic?

Funny, but I don't remember being taught any of that in the various Christian schools that I attended as a kid. Other beliefs were, well, other beliefs that didn't concern us. Otherwise what I was taught tended to err on the side of personal freedom, even if it might produce results we didn't necessarily agree with. The idea of course, was that we in turn were free to follow our own beliefs. My early education had steeped me in Christian doctrines and history, so I knew then, as I know now, why that's important. People died for the right to read the Word in their own languages, nations fought wars so that their people could be free to follow their own chosen doctrines and interpretations.

I mean, sure, I spent a good chunk of my life being personally against abortion, even as I conceded that under Man's law a woman had a right to one. As a younger man, I made fun of gay dudes on occasion. I don't do things like that anymore, but I'm no one's ideal in the liberal purity-arguments today...which is probably why I put no stock in such things and think they're stupid. The point is, we're all human, we should all be free to act as such without having any religious doctrines we don't want thrust upon us. Common decency on the other hand, yeah, we should have to observe that.

But that's not what this is.

The funny part here is, Mr. Masculine here appears to have a pretty feminine-sounding name. That's OK, even if it apparently turned him into an overcompensating dickbag. The point is, right out the gate he wouldn't make the cut for his own bullshit. That's par for the course with these fucking people.

And then of course there's this guy, some idiot claiming that Latino immigrants practice "Syncretism" and thus something something gazpacho "DEMONS!"

No. No. No. No. And No. None of this bullshit in the quote is true.

Do some people practice religions like Santeria or Voodoo that are fusions of African Traditional religions and Christianity? Yes. Are those things demonic? No. Also, those aren't, by and large, Latino faiths. Most Latinos are Catholics, and even the most liberal of them is pretty orthodox. Do some people still practice Native customs? Yes, but that's got nothing to do with "Demons" either. This is just fear-mongering woo woo bullshit dressed up in Pentecostal mumbo-jumbo and superstition. The truth is that an African traditional believer or a Voudounista or a Pentecostal share much the same definition of "Witchcraft." Oh, yes, Pentecostalism is absolutely a syncretic faith incorporating elements of the Calvinistic faith of White southerners and the half-remembered practices of Traditional faiths that existed among Southern Black people. The same goes for a Catholic, a believer in Native spirituality, or a Santero on the Latino side of this equation. Syncretism exists because colonized and enslaved peoples sought to maintain some elements of religious continuity with what they had before. This echoes down to today with the common call-and-response rituals and Spiritual songs of African American churches, and with the celebration of things like Carnival and Mardi Gras among Latino and yes, white people in both Latin American countries and the United States. Those customs are a celebration that traditionally marks the onset of Lent, the time of cleansing of 40 days before the celebration of Holy Week. There ain't no Catholic priest in the world that goes around repetitively "blessing" people's houses.

Performing an actual exorcism according to Catholic doctrine is an involved process, and these days typically also might involve secular medical and psychological advice beforehand. No, what this guy is doing is generalizing the Pentecostal tendency to go around "Anointing" things with Olive oil or Wesson oil and praying in an effort to "drive out evil spirits."

Do not be like the heathen who think that God will hear them for their much speaking, but I digress. I've seen what these people do, and the nearest equivalents are found in Traditional religions, not Catholicism.

This motherfucker is just literally trying to demonize immigrants, despite the fact that no less of a person than Jesus Christ told His followers to take care of the needy and visit the prisoners and welcome the stranger.

And for what?

Because their racism and belief in white supremacy trumps their belief in Christ, every fucking time.

Seriously, who the hell sits around watching what's going on at the neighbor's house and has so little else going on that they kick up a fuss about it...and then has a gun handy to go out and threaten somebody before they can even explain what they are doing?

Who the fuck has that little to do with themselves?

And all over a guy that, to be honest, does not look to me at all like he'd be out of place in the average "white" neighborhood. Not that it matters, but if I didn't know his name and met him on the street I'd probably be surprised that his name was Arash and not, say, Joe or something. I know a guy named Joe who's white and has darker skin than that dude. I have to wonder if these idiots that sit around waiting for chances to threaten random people passing through also harass and threaten to murder Italians?

Of course, I also know a white Mexican lady, and I have Muslim friends who are white. Are those people automatically assumed to be "Demonic" as well? Or would they have to say something first? Does a Mexican accent, or a greeting of "As-Salaam Alaykum" automatically disqualify one from Evangelical Racist Exorcist Heaven?

Not that I can imagine anybody wanting to go to such a place that I'd want to spend eternity with, but I digress.

Skin color is a dumb-ass way to try and sort people.

Religion, especially arrogant, entitled religion, is worse.

Pawning it off onto arbitrary made-up evil spirits is even dumber, and more dangerous, especially given the Invasion of the Body Snatchers level paranoia that these fucking people are getting themselves into.

And the Christians keep involving themselves in this shit, typically out of fear. Mix up fear and paranoia and give it a religious cast in a bunch of gun-happy idiots and the end result is always going to be a lot of dead people.

One hell of a lot of the world's Christians, almost certainly a majority at this point, are Black, Brown or otherwise People Of Color. For that matter, there's lots of Jews and Muslims and Traditional peoples whose beliefs are not that different from those of Christians.

Yes, there are things out there that cannot be explained, but Demons, Poltergeists, etc. etc. generally are not real. People, on the other hand, are.

I was taught that the Shining City on a hill was for everybody, and none less of a conservative icon than Ronald Reagan spoke of such a view. These fools on the other hand, see it the way the Puritans of the Massachusetts Bay Colony did...that their imagined utopia is only for them.

Heaven isn't heaven if everybody gets to go. America isn't America if everybody gets some.

That's what conservatism has come to, not much more than whored-up cover for white supremacy and every other form of bigotry...because every last one of these fools thinks they'll be the lord in the manor, and not the serf in the fields.

Every last one of these idiots thinks the bad stuff won't apply to them, because they're holy, they're righteous, oh yes, that's what they think.

And this bullshit mentality dragged a hell of a lot of American Christianity down  right along with it.

Fuck that shit.

And why is this a problem? Because today, in the same session in which Trump's citizenship question on the Census was struck down, the Supreme Court claimed that it had no authority over partisan Gerrymandering and punted the question back to state legislatures.
Which will, in effect, likely enable the sorting of the country into separate Blue and Red republics to continue.

In effect they're continuing, as damned near everybody in a position of authority or importance is, to try to have it both ways, to both profit from and resist (in half-ass fashion) the current political crisis.

When we as a society are literally dealing with people who practice all forms of bigotry, deciding that other people do not have a right to exist, neutrality equals collaboration and signals tacit acceptance of genocide and murder.

Somebody needed to take a stand here. No one did. The one time we needed these motherfuckers to stand athwart the flow of history while yelling "Stop!" they punted the decision back to somebody else, who likely won't want to make it, either.

Instead of leading the lost souls even more astray for financial and political gain, somebody should have given them something to hang onto. Maybe instead of ranting about "Attacks on Masculinity" and whining about demons, somebody in the Church should have looked to the spiritual welfare of their people...and when they noticed a problem, done what was right or needed rather than what was popular.

But nobody wants to do that, often for fear of offending somebody's "feelings" or because then they might not give you their money afterwards.

Trying to play both sides, to remain neutral, is a terrible idea.

Neutrality equals collaboration. Silence equals consent. Especially now, if you're not willing to stand up and vote to end this bullshit, you're making what comes after and the fact that America will likely violently sort itself out into Blue and Red republics instead of simple voting blocs more likely.

The Far-Right wants that because they think they'll win if we solve our conflicts with bullets instead of ballots.

They won't. No one will...except for the weapons manufacturers.

Think about that, until you understand it. If you can make yourself understand it, act.

Because sooner or later it's going to be too late. If our sense of community, of decency or at least of self-preservation doesn't override our fear of offense (or the glorying in imagined offense to others) or our worship of Capitalism soon...I do not think it's not that much of a stretch at the rate things are going to imagine that separate 2020 elections might be held in separate Blue and Red republics.

That only ends one way.

And War, my friends, is hell, and it only gets worse when religious fanaticism is involved.

I've been where you are now and I know just how you feel. It’s entirely natural that there should beat in the breast of every one of you a hope and desire that some day you can use the skill you have acquired here. 
Suppress it! You don’t know the horrible aspects of war. I’ve been through two wars and I know. I’ve seen cities and homes in ashes. I’ve seen thousands of men lying on the ground, their dead faces looking up at the skies. I tell you, war is Hell! ~William Tecumseh Sherman

Part 3.

Two Baptists and a neoCon walk into a bar (Lost Souls, Part Three.)

Through me the way is to the city Dolent; Through me the way is to eternal dole! Through me the way among the people lost.
Justice incited my sublime Creator;
⁠Created me divine Omnipotence, 
⁠The highest Wisdom and the primal Love. Before me there were no created things, Only eternal, and I eternal last. "⁠All hope abandon, ye who enter in!"
~English Translation, sign above the gates of Hell, Canto III, Dante's Inferno, the Divine Comedy.

I saw this earlier. I'm not surprised by it in the least. As much as I may disagree with him religiously, I think it can be said that Russell Moore is a good and decent man.

It's not just his criticism of Trump, or his criticism of the Evangelical church or the Republican party in these times that tells me this. I've actually read a couple of this guy's books. One, years ago, actually was about the fact that Christianity (specifically of the Evangelical and Fundamentalist sort) had taken root far more deeply in the developing world...what he called the "Global South" than in Europe or North America. I agreed with his conclusions at the time, and I can certainly see why he would be standing up for Christian migrants now.

(His other book that I read was a history of the Azusa Street Revival, co-authored with another Southern Baptist theologian, Albert Mohler, a former SBC President. For the record, it was also on point.)

But of course this isn't about that. Why would it be?

This fucking guy.

This fucking guy right the fuck here.

As if making a payroll, or building an organization (and what has he built? It's his Dad's organization) were somehow holy tasks? In that case, wouldn't (for example) the Associated Press, British Petroleum, the People's Liberation Army, the United States Government, or Wal-Mart be holier than any church?

I wasn't aware that in any sect of Christianity, secular power translated into spiritual authority. Maybe then, the Pope should be God? Or Donald Trump? (I suspect that last probably hits a little too close to home on Jerry Junior, though.)

This is the Prosperity Gospel. This is temples of glass and steel and rolodexes full of politicians presented as spirituality. Fuck that. The evil shitty behavior, the Concentration Camps, that Falwell is trying to defend? That just makes it worse.

Jesus was a poor, brown-skinned Middle-Eastern Jew who was against the religious authorities of His time, who offered Salvation to sinners and tax collectors and healed the servants of Roman Centurions and who didn't give a fuck about political agendas.

Jesus associated with the poor and the downtrodden, not with the rich and powerful. Jesus sowed His Word among the poor communities of Judea, not among the wealthy of Rome. The Church began with the oppressed, not the powerful. There was a reason for that.

The doctrines of Christianity began to be written down, and the tone set, by desert monks and holy hermits rather than rich men in priestly robes.

When He was asked, Jesus said "My Kingdom is not of this world."

Jerry Falwell's kingdom doesn't exist outside of this one. Jerry Falwell's idea of heaven is privilege in this life. Jerry doesn't get to take that with him when he dies.

And when he dies, according to Jerry's own beliefs, the Judge who judges him will be Jesus, not Donald Trump.

You'd think he'd take that into account before lecturing some other theologian and transparently revealing what his real priorities are.

See, Salvation according to Jerry Falwell, Jr. is that he gets to do whatever he wants, and you don't. If him and his wife want to bone the same pool boy...well, that's acceptable because he's the big important preacher dude...but God forbid you be gay or bisexual.

You want to be that, I guess you gotta go inherit your own empire of bullshit, first.

You notice how love never seems to enter into Jerry's theology, or my analysis of it? That's on purpose. Jerry thinks it's wrong for two dudes, or two ladies, who actually love each other to get together, have a home and family and pets and all the things that go with love and happy families.

Love of family, love of neighbor, or love of one's children doesn't really figure into it either. In Jerry-land, family is somebody you inherit the grift from, that's about it.

The Preacher, the Pool Boy, and his Wife? That's cool though, because in Jerry-Heaven, who you get to fuck and how you get to enjoy yourself is merely a by-blow of how much power you have. Things are not for the purpose God or nature or your own biological desires intended them for...it's all about power and male ego.

Does any of this sound Christian to you? Does any of this sound like it might lead to Salvation or Transcendence of any sort? No?

That's because it doesn't, except for Jerry. But he doesn't get to take it with him and neither do you.

It's no wonder so many people are so lost.

It gets better, and worse, though.

Jerry managed to get himself trash-talked by Bill Kristol, which I thought was pretty impressive. Bill's got game. Who knew? He slam-dunked Jerry Junior on Twitter, but with skills like that I wouldn't count him out on the street, either.

Whatever disagreements we might have in terms of beliefs, or whatever there's one thing I can confidently say about Bill, about Russ, and about me. None of us has met our God yet. The former two have made this evident by their conduct. I know my own struggles with belief. Whatever we may believe, none of us will meet Him until we die and cross over into the afterlife.

The difference between us and Jerry is that Jerry sees his true "god" every morning, in the bathroom mirror, while he's brushing his teeth.

And ya know what that is? According to every Christian interpretation of Salvation from American Baptist to Catholic to harsh and cruel Calvinist to Independent Fundamentalist Baptist to online images promoting some loose interpretation of the "Four Spiritual Laws?"

That, my friends, is exactly how you go to hell.

And when he was come into Jerusalem, all the city was moved, saying, Who is this?

And the multitude said, This is Jesus the prophet of Nazareth of Galilee.

And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves,

And said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves.

And the blind and the lame came to him in the temple; and he healed them.

And when the chief priests and scribes saw the wonderful things that he did, and the children crying in the temple, and saying, Hosanna to the son of David; they were sore displeased.

~Matthew 21:10-15

The more things change, the more they stay the same, I guess,

Part 4.

Part 2

Part 1

A line in the sand.

You can't ignore politics, no matter how much you'd like to.
~Molly Ivins

Yesterday, I saw this.

A fairly transparent attempt by a sitting U.S. Senator to fear-monger about the increasing number of Latino people in Texas.

Like, literally what the fuck?

Senator, it doesn't goddamned well matter what ethnicity your constituents are. It's your job to represent all of them.

But ya know, in the course of doing a bit of research over the past couple of days...it's absolutely mind-blowing to me how dismissive of other people...any other people...most "Conservatives" have become. I'll largely except #NeverTrump conservatives from that, because, to their credit, most of those people are just as appalled by all this racist shit as I am.

But John Cornyn can hardly be identified as a racist bomb-thrower like Steve King.

Or can he? Does it even matter anymore?

Somewhere, CNN managed to dig up this asshole.

"It's up to the parents to do things rightfully and legally."

I'm curious. Where does all that "Rightful" and "Legal" stuff go when Democrats are the ones in power?

No, I'm serious. Don't look away, don't move the goal-posts. Answer. The. Fucking. Question.

These fucking people only care about what's legal or right when they think they get to determine what that is.
And these people want to have a government that hurts people they don't like.

Hell, they think that's what government is for.

I live in Michigan. I'm specifically from Northern Michigan, and I've spent significant time in the Upper Peninsula of the state as well. I'm here to tell you that when Bill Clinton got elected in 1992...

If left to my own devices, I'd spend all my time pointing out that he's weaker than bus-station chili. But the man is so constantly subjected to such hideous and unfair abuse that I wind up standing up for him on the general principle that some fairness should be applied. Besides, no one but a fool or a Republican ever took him for a liberal. ~Molly Ivins, on Bill Clinton

Well...within a year or so, there were armed anti-government groups all over the place in my state. Multiple people that I knew were in them. A guy I know once told me, somehow forgetting who he was talking to, that "The Lord wanted him to join" the Michigan Militia. He seemed to forget that the Bible tells Christians in the book of Romans that they are to obey government authorities, that Christ said to render unto Caesar that which is his, and unto God that which is His also. He seemed to forget what I was doing, and what my plans were, at the time. If he ever got his whack-off fantasy shoot-out with the government there was an excellent chance that I'd be one of the people shooting back at him, and I was a conservative, a Republican...

As regards loyalty to my country and its ideals as defined in our founding documents, and as regards stuff like racism, sexism, and any other form of prejudice I drew a line in the sand right about that same time in my life.

A line that puts me firmly on the opposite side from these motherfuckers not only socially but politically as well...and my views have actually not changed that much except on a few social issues like health care and marriage equality. Just sayin.'

These days, that basically makes me a socialist, and I've moved from where I was in 1993 on only a few issues, gun control, health care and marriage equality.

I've always believed people should take care of each other and that the government should be responsible to all of its people.

I'd like to point out AGAIN, that when that line was drawn I was a REPUBLICAN. A lot of my heroes were Republicans. What we are seeing now is, at least, not what was in power at that time on my (then) side of the fence.

(I also would like to point out that a bit over a year after that conversation took place, Mid-term elections swept Republicans into Congress and Newt Gingrich into being the Speaker of the House and that began to change...)

Instead of fear-mongering about the number of Latino residents, or caging Latino kids at the border in horrific conditions, what Republicans SHOULD be doing is trying to help those people, reaching out to them and maybe try and give them a reason to vote Republican eventually.

Most Latino people are Catholics, and decent numbers of them are in fact conservative. But, they're generally smart enough not to support people that hate them. (Unlike poor white folks, but I digress.)

So, they've spent 50 years basically alienating everybody BUT racist white idiots and the rich fools that those racist white idiots will unfailingly vote for.

Now they're on to dehumanizing the rest of us, and actively tormenting those they think they can get away with doing it to, in every way possible whether it's abusing kids or getting in the way of a vote on a climate change bill.

If you cannot find it within yourself to vote against this crap, no matter who the other party puts up, you're setting yourself up to be the next one in the cage because trust me, these fucking people don't give a good goddamn if you're a Christian or a conservative or white or whatever the fuck.

Eventually it'll get down to you have to be the proper KIND of white far-rightist Christian...and THEN the line will become who is willing to abandon Christ and worship Trump as God and it'll be the Christians in the cages without soap or even decent food and water.

Oregon's climate-change bill is a Cap-and-Trade scheme, and Cap-and-Trade is, fundamentally, a very capitalistic and market-friendly effort to address global warming, that was originally formulated by George H.W. Bush administration lawyers, if I recall correctly.

But then, popular conspiracy theory target Agenda 21 was signed off on by the Bush administration as well.

See, It's never been about conservatism, Christianity, or any of the other things they've ever said it was about. All relatively decent people like George H.W. Bush or John McCain or Ronald Reagan...or James Comey or Robert Mueller for that matter...or even racist assholes like Jeff Sessions who STILL wouldn't go against the Constitution...ever were was a means to an end, Camouflage for murderous racists and sociopathic rich fucks It was always about power, and about making sure that they have it and you don't.

It's about hurting people as an expression of power.

It's about the fact that people like Laura Ingraham don't think the descendants of slaves should get reparations because she doesn't think slavery was wrong in the first place.

It's about turning every mechanic of life into nothing more than a self-reinforcing ego trip for the right kind of white, allegedly "Christian" politically/socially "Conservative" male scumbag.

Even sex is not for enjoyment or procreation, but who gets to have sex and what kind of sex becomes about power, not what God or nature or the universe intended it for.

This will trickle down to every single aspect of life.

I'll never forget finding out that in Saudi Arabia something as simple as drinking a Coke out of the can (and thus displaying that American brand) or smoking Marlboro cigarettes rather than the lesser quality Arab or Turkish brands could get you harassed by the police.

Who would then get back in their American or Canadian built GMC trucks with their American-made guns and answer the next call on their Motorola radio because it was their power to have "Western" stuff...but they'd harass you for doing it.

While I'm at it, over there the Muttawa don't particularly have to obey the laws, either. The situation is so bad that Saudis openly joke about it and the various clerical councils in the country have repeatedly issued Fatwas to try to get the fucking police to obey the fucking laws.

Allah Akbar, motherfucker.

This is the future that conservatives want, for America.

And even "Race" is nothing more than the sorting point that's popular RIGHT NOW.

When that goes out of style or we're down to just the right kind of white people they'll simply find something else in the service of their shitty agenda.

It's not about anything else but power, and who they can fool into giving it to them and how they can keep it.

If you cannot find it within yourself to vote against that shit, whether you "like" the other party's candidate or not, fuck you.

It's not about policy or party, it's about do you wanna live in a country that puts kids in cages or not? We are and always have been a diverse and multicultural society. Do you want that to stay the way it is, or do you want nuts like this Q-Troll to determine what our culture is?

Do you wanna live in a country where one political party thinks it has some kind of a divine right to hold up progress by any means necessary, or not?

It's a yes or no answer. There can be no other way.

We cannot live with people who simply don't think the rest of us have a right to exist.

The future is up to all of us, not just them.

But if you don't vote, you give them an advantage that they don't deserve.

And if you can't be bothered to get off your ass and vote to potentially save your own freedom, or your own skin, well...fuck you.