Christmas Lite [RELIGION]

        Merry Jesusmas!  I thought that I had better get that out of the way first just to get started on the right foot since there’s a war on.

        I recently saw a post on social media from Heather Land, talking about seeing a Christmas display with Santa and the baby Jesus. Heather went ever so slightly off the rails describing what sounded like an incredible display of Christmas lights including one of those blow up Santas looking benevolently down on the baby Jesus. Her mind snapped a little trying to imagine what a conversation between the two might have sounded like. (Heather does the hilarious “I Ain’t Doin’ It” videos.)

        Now, just Google images of ‘Santa and baby Jesus’. (I’ll wait.) I had no idea. They’ve been around awhile.  This isn’t actually anything new. It just never occurred to me how truly mind boggling a concept that really is.

        There is some serious cultural appropriation going on here. It’s either that or there’s one strange Christian sect celebration going on here that I haven’t heard about. Which is entirely possible since we aren’t in the loop and this isn’t California although it does bear mentioning that some of the east coast is starting to drift.

        I do have to play a little fast and loose by making the determination that the majority of people that celebrate the economy-sustaining, interior/exterior decorating, gift-giving-bacchanal that has become Christmas are not actually practicing Christian believers if they are believers at all. In other words non-believers are committing cultural appropriation by seizing on a Christian holiday in order to get presents and carbo load. Secular Christmas.

        What we have going is two distinctly different Christmases. There’s the Jesus Christmas and the non-Jesus Christmas. The non-Jesus Christmas is a season where people enjoy the pretty lights, eating, decorating, eating, buying presents, going to Cancun, making the electric meter spin and engaging in deep philosophical discussions about the duality of man.

        Even those of us who celebrate the birth of Jesus are experiencing Christmas mission creep. It starts off small. Christmas decorations start showing up beyond the traditional tree. A wreath on the door. A red bow here and there. Then the next thing you know there’s a Santa diorama of a Christmas workshop with whacked out elves on a shelf staring at you.

         What will Christmas be like in 15 or 20 years? It’ll likely be a lot more secular and there will be an entire generation that has no concept of the supposedly Christian story behind the holiday. At the rate churches are being closed and people are leaving the faith there will be a lot fewer Christians. Like some Christians of today claim that the holiday is pagan people in the future will talk about the myth of the holiday having quasi-religious origins.

        The commercial Christmas could certainly have some interesting aspects though. The three wise CEOs brought the baby Santa in the storage unit gifts: , a Kenny Loggins CD, a Dewalt power tool, an Android phone, a credit card and opened 2 or 3 Wells Fargo accounts in his name.

        On serious note though. If you do happen to see a baby Santa in a crib you’ll know that the 7^th seal has been broken. Hope you have a ticket for the show.

In denial [Politics/Democracy]

TRIGGER WARNING!  I’m going to be using the word President in combination with Donald Trump and Obama. I will also be using the words Republican, Democrats, Hillary, Clinton, immigrants, Gypsies, liberal, sexual predator, conservative and variations of all these words. If your mind is made up either way about the current and ongoing crisis with our government please avoid reading this.

        We approach the world from our own history and perspectives. They are unique to us. I certainly have mine. Sometimes through personal enlightenment, experience or education we change our approach or ideas. Screwing up, and I mean seriously screwing up, is also a great teacher.

        And sometimes we have to rise above our personal beliefs and/or experiences.

 

        Now obviously I am going to be talking about President Trump because he is the current leader, and I use that term loosely, of our nation. (This sentence is one reason I provided a trigger warning at the very beginning.) I will only mention Hillary Clinton in passing. (Again remember the trigger warning and go to your safe place.) She’s gone. She’s outta’ here. Not going to be President. Not happening. That’s the way it is. Okay? Bernie neither.

        Watching the current train wreck of government would be easier if it was some other country and if it weren’t for the fact that we’re on the train. We have witnessed what is currently taking place in the United States in other countries. I am old enough to remember the Soviet Union coming apart practically overnight. I would not have said that was possible then but it happened.

        In the latest credible poll I read that 85% of Republicans still support President Trump. Eighty. Five. Percent. I thought to myself how in the world is this still possible after nine months of failure, corruption, chaos, pettiness and failed leadership on multiple levels. He’s a President that has both completely reversed himself on campaign promises and been incapable of delivering on his promises. At least this same 85% would have called for the impeachment of President Obama for even the smallest fraction of misdeeds that Trump has committed.

        How is this possible?

“I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn't lose voters.” –Donald Trump

        That’s the answer. Trump provided it during the campaign. It’s as true today as it was when he said it then. From then on he never meant any of it and meant all of it. It was an easy con.

        He’s their man in the White House. Period. He’s white. He doesn’t like Mexicans, Muslims, black people, gays, immigrants, the disabled, Puerto Ricans, poor people, Democrats, Republicans, our court system, public education, the environment, etc. unless they’re working as servants at one of his resorts or hotels. He also has a good-looking white wife. (You can see naked pictures of her if you want. He helped with the photo shoot. BTW How many male world leaders have looked at those?) He likes insulting and making fun of people. He’s vulgar. Lying is as easy as breathing for him. Not only is he ignorant about world affairs he couldn’t care less, and they like that because they would just as soon stay away from the rest of the world anyway. He finds fault but doesn’t accept blame. He’s a white nationalist. He isn’t a President that is interested in the truth. Neither are his supporters. Simply put: they don’t care if the President lies.

        Now I don’t base these statements on the news. They’re based on watching actual videos of him and listening to actual audio files of him speaking. The internet is full of videos of him lying. In one of the earliest videos of his campaign he said without equivocation that he would release his tax returns. No excuses. No ifs, ands or buts. Just straight-forward look a person in the eye statement. Obviously that was a lie.

        Is Hillary Clinton in jail? Nope. But that doesn’t matter. He said that he wanted her in jail. They didn’t believe he would put her in jail anyway, just as they didn’t believe all the things that he said that he would do on the first day. It turns out he has plenty of time to golf. Plenty of time to tweet. Plenty of time to blame others. No time to govern.

        It has taken me awhile to understand that it is absolutely immaterial to the majority of his white supporters what kind of man and President he is, what he has or hasn’t accomplished. They aren’t in denial. They admire what he is. They aspire to be like him.

He is them.     

       

    

Social media weaponized [SOCIAL MEDIA/POLITICS]

        It turns out that Mark Zuckerberg isn’t any different than any other money-grubbing CEO. (Seriously, why did I think otherwise?) He took money from the Russians to run fake election ads in support of President Trump along with fake Black Lives Matter ads to increase racial division which also benefits President Trump and white supremacists.

        Russians understand our gullibility and racism better than we do. They have played us like a fiddle. They were able to do it with the help of CEOs like Zuckerberg. Their troll farms worked facebook diligently. They weaponized facebook and Zuckerberg profited from it. They were able to figure out that using social media is the most cost effective way to influence our elections and that it is a force multiplier. Not only were they able to reach people who weren’t normally targeted with ads, they were able to design, rework and rearrange ads for very specific groups, like those sympathetic to white supremacists views though they may not self-identify as such.

        Facebook, Google and Twitter had employees assigned to specifically to help the Trump campaign. Obviously they did a magnificent job.  They had inside information as to how to best manipulate users.

        Zuckerberg gives mea culpas after the fact. The election is over. He already made his money. As it turns out facebook the corporation is good at polarizing and dividing the country; that and making Zuckerberg filthy rich. Facebook gives lip service to doing the right thing but so far what they do best is protecting trolls, disseminating fake news pages, enabling those with evil intent like the Alt Right/Nazis et al and herding users into more easily marketable niches.

        Social media, along with the Russians and President Trump, will continue pushing fake news because it best suits their agenda of undermining a free press. A free press is their competition. But they don’t have to have the expense of all those people that it takes to support a free press. They just need laptops to make stuff up and upload it to a waiting public willing to believe any garbage they produce and ask for more. They understand the National Enquirer mentality and that there are a lot of people who want to believe the worst about our country. The leadership of the Republican Party has spent years helping make this possible.

        Think about that. Thousands upon thousands of sites pumping out disinformation 24/7. We are drowning in it. The reality of what is actually taking place gets lost in all the noise. Social media does it for money. The Russians did it to help elect a President and destabilize our country.

        Now we’re faced with having a seriously flawed and challenged President undermining the country with a fascist agenda and a Vice President pushing a theocratic agenda. In the meantime government is crashing. Now this may be something that President Trump supporters celebrate but be careful what you wish for. When governments crash civilization usually unravels in the chaos that follows. There are way more have nots than haves.