Tribal Pyre

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Pro-plague.

Candace Owens, April 2020

“Two weeks ago I told you all that India was the country to watch as millions of their workers were stranded along the railroad — no means of social distancing,” Owens said. “India has just 169 deaths. Reported its first case in January. BUT IT’S 10 TIMES MORE DEADLY THAN THE FLU, BRO!”

            Owens was mocking the virus as being oversold and comparing Covid 19 to the flu was popular amongst conservatives.

            Have you seen the drone footage from India showing the mass open air cremation of bodies because too many died too quickly? It’s incredible and overwhelming. Their hospitals ran out of oxygen. Their health care system collapsed.

             In Bolivia the nation’s hospital and health care system also has collapsed.

            Venezuela’s is in the process of crashing if it hasn’t already.

            Mass burials are taking place in other countries as well. Mortuaries and crematoriums are overwhelmed.

Reaping

            This is what the pro-plague Republicans and Evangelicals sought for this nation.

            From the very beginning of the pandemic the Republican policy of denial has thwarted efforts to lessen the damage caused by the plague. The plagues success in killing hundreds of thousands of people needlessly in this country is their victory.

Never forget.

            America should never forget the hundreds of thousands of needless pandemic deaths caused by Ex-President Trump, the Republican Party, Republicans, Evangelicals, anti-vaxers, Proud Boys, White Nationalists, Alt-Right, Confederates, the KKK, Nazis, Q-anon and MAGAT Heads. Never. The list isn’t complete. There are simply too many hate groups that supported Trump’s Administration of traitors to cover them all. With this many names the individual groups get lost in the swill. This is Trump’s hardcore base. The voice of normal Republicans has been lost in the storm along with their party.

            We should never forget all the super spreading events that they hosted and supported.

            We should also never forget that in the midst of this pandemic that Republicans attempted to overthrow our government and way of life. We should never forget that they are the ones that ended a 220 year history of having a peaceful transition of power by attacking our Capitol like animals.

            And now their “Chosen One” with 600,000 dead Americans lost to the plague was in Mar a Lago drinking Diet Coke, golfing with his rich friends and doing what he does best—complaining about how he was treated. Then he moved to New Jersey where he can drink Diet Coke, watch TV and complain about how he was treated.

He dines. He whines.

Their agenda continues.

            Now they oppose vaccines; the very vaccines that would bring about the herd immunity that they claimed in the beginning as being what they wanted. Yet they want their tribal Chief credited with the vaccine that they refuse to take.

            Their excuses for not taking the vaccine are as plentiful as all the fanciful conspiracies that they spread. Their right wing news sources support their unshakable beliefs of false information.

Tribal

            Their resistance to vaccinating is tribal. No science. No concern for others. They just act on the primitive urges that they ascribe to people of color living in, as described by their tribe’s leader, “shit hole” countries. Witch doctors are their advisors. Their conspiracy theories are fueled by their voodoo priests of disinformation. They are willing to believe any witches brew concoction of lies. Gullibility is their shield of deniability and taking any responsibility.

            Even when their fellow tribe members die from Covid 19 they claim that something else killed them. Primitive beliefs define their knowledge and understanding as they profess fealty to their Tribal Leader.

TLM

            They still want more dead people or they would be encouraging people to vaccinate. Chief Trump got the vaccine for himself and his family just like he got state of the art medical treatment when he caught Covid 19.

            Trump hasn’t shown leadership for the greater good in defeat either. He is still consumed with acting on his grudges and being the first dictator of the United States. He isn’t going to bother with telling his tribal followers to vaccinate. He needs their ignorance, sacrifice and money to fund his next coup attempt. The pauper billionaire.

            600,000 dead and counting.

Trump’s truest legacy.

Pandering to the crowd

 

First off

            Jesus was a bleeding heart liberal socialist before the concepts were even invented. Black Lives Matter crowd? Jesus is in the crowd. Queers? Jesus is lovin’ up on all of them. Cakes? Jesus would have baked 5,000. Women terminating their pregnancy? Jesus is holding their hand. Immigrants? Jesus was one. Brown people? Jesus was one. (I lost some racists right there.) Brown children? Jesus would have left them in their parents’ arms.

            Jesus didn’t say I will make you fishers of Constitutional Conservatives.

            If you are Pastor of a church and call yourself a Conservative, Constitutional Conservative, Moderate Conservative, Compassionate Conservative or any other kind Conservative you might consider that you’re preaching the wrong Jesus and you should also consider getting into another line of work. If you’re encouraging unsafe medical practices like NOT wearing masks then you really really should quit and avoid any line of work where you have dominion over other humans.

Preach the teachings of Jesus

            If you’re going to preach Jesus then preach Jesus: the real teachings of Jesus, the liberal teachings of Jesus. The Jesus that cares. The Jesus that didn’t back Caesar to gain political power. The socialist Jesus that told the rich guy to get rid of all of his possessions. The non-racist Jesus. The Jesus that said bring the little children to me.

That Jesus!

 Johnny Cash

            Conservative Pastors, like Republicans in office, believe that they have to pander to their Conservative constituents.

            Conservative Pastors only face that if their congregation is a mixture of liberals and conservatives with undecideds mixed liberally or conservatively throughout. If they take too strong a position either way people leave the church so they just Johnny Cash it.

The state of affairs

            On the one hand, we have Republican leaders afraid to speak their true feeling in public (though they will share them in private) because they are fearful of losing the support of Trump’s cult in their next election bid. On the other hand, we have Pastors fearful of losing their congregations if they don’t support Trump. They are putting fear of Trump before fear of the lord.

            And on the other other hand we have the Evangelical Party that embraces the evil that is Trump in order to gain power by association.

Wait just a darn minute!

            Okay I realize that we got to three hands here but I was on a roll with the ‘other hand’ imagery. I was trying to work in a little yin and yang to show some balance in the universe but I realize now that there really is no balance. I briefly considered using that little bird-in-the-hand-is-it-live-or-is-it-Memorex story but I think that people have just had enough of that story. So forging onward I will present the Evangelical Party and their support of President Donald Trump.

Now, about those Evangelicals.

            They are taking it kind of hard. God let them down. That’s never easy. They bought into Trump completely. They lined up the troops and marched them in. They never dreamed that their “Chosen One” would lose. They didn’t believe it before the vote. They didn’t believe it after the vote. Ain’t no sunshine when he’s gone.

            They may have to have their Republican allies in the Senate form a committee and start investigating why God let them down.

            We aren’t privy to all those conversations that go on behind closed doors between Evangelicals, and Republicans. Being men and women of honor I feel quite certain that they would lie their asses off if asked about their true feelings in public. (There’s something not quite right with the previous sentence.) I say that because they’ve already done it. (Bob Woodward recorded his conversations with Republicans that he wrote about in his book and they still denied things.)

           Evangelicals do the same thing. They just take a slightly different approach. They use Jesus in their denials of the obvious—that they supported an evil regime. They lied and continue to lie about Jesus.

They Lenny Bruced it. (1.31)

Baby steps

            Some in the Evangelical Party are slowly coming to grips with the fact that Biden won. Ken Copeland is not one of them. I haven’t heard what Paula White is doing. Robert Jeffress takes a step forward and then backslides a little. We haven’t heard from Evangelical Pool Boy Falwell Jr. for awhile. And quite frankly I don’t want to know what….

….goes on behind his closed door.

            They’ll have to admit that they elevated and worshiped a false idol—Trump. Some will just never do that. They’ll lick the wounds of the beast and go right back at their next targets. They are hot to make a few million women murderers. They’ll be looking for another “savior” another “Chosen One” in the political arena that they can give a thumbs up or down and then line up the cult behind them. They could try something novel.

Get with the real Jesus.

Before Square One. [Pandemic]

How is it going?
        When you’ve had 142,000 people die, threw away the plan for handling a pandemic, shut down the country, crashed the economy, recommended treatments that killed people, spend hours a day watching TV, played golf, tweeting constantly, gave a couple of trillion dollars to the rich, shoved millions to your political supporters, lied to people about testing, lied about available equipment, lied about PPE, claimed it wasn’t your responsibility, lied about saving lives, taken credit for doing such a good job and then reopened the country without a plan you might want to think twice about bringing up the previous administration.

Favs.
        The above is just a partial list. I do have a couple of favorites though. It’s priceless that he complains about Obama not leaving him tests for a virus that didn’t exist yet. Then we have his complaints about the shelves being bare because Obama didn’t leave him anything 31/2 years into his Presidency. On top of that the Republicans turned down Obama’s request for funding supplies. Honestly, a classic Republican move. Then we have his son-in-law taking time off from bringing peace to the Middle East to add to the chaos going on in this country. Didn’t you just love it when he claimed ownership of the supplies? I’m sure others have their own favs.

Thanks Obama.
        President Trump’s comments about then Vice President Biden and President Obama and their handling of the Swine Flu pandemic reminded me of a post I saw on someone else’s timeline supposedly from Rush Limbaugh. He may or may not have said it. I hardly ever trace down something attributed to him. It’s pointless. He’s a bought and paid for stooge who has made himself filthy rich off of the rubes that listen to him. The guy is worth like four hundred million dollars or something like that.
        What got me about this meme is that for the most part it was accurate. It was about President Obama’s handling of the Swine Flu pandemic. President Trump keeps bringing it up as well. Cray!
        The estimate provided in the meme was that 60 million people had it, around a quarter of a million were hospitalized and we did lose 12,500 people in the United States. It’s also correct that the country wasn’t shut down as indicated in the meme. I also remember that most of the press, excluding those like Limbaugh and Trump, did not adversely go after President Obama. In addition it should be noted that the Swine Flu pandemic was smaller. It never got a foothold and established as bad as the current pandemic thanks to President Obama.

Looking good!
        So even though it wasn’t intended the meme actually makes President Obama look good if people are paying attention. They aren’t.
        Why? He handled it. The briefings were honest. Medical professionals handled the response and built an action plan to handle the next one. So, no people didn’t have to stay home and President Obama didn’t crash the economy. He built one. He also handled the Ebola crisis. I think that he handled 3 in all.
        Then citizen Trump complained, as in tweeted, over a hundred times about how he thought the crisis should have been handled and how bad a job President Obama did. It’s ludicrous to compare the two. I’m not sure how effective it is to bring up a success story about the black President in comparison to oneself.

Before square one.
         Where do we go from here?
        There never was a national plan used to deal with the virus though one was desperately needed and is still needed. There were 50 different plans. It was and remains chaos.
        The Administration and Republicans in congress need to put working people first and they have proved beyond any shadow of a doubt that they are simply NOT capable of doing that. They have proved that with the Stimulus Bills that they used to shove millions make that tens of millions to the rich including rich Trump supporters. They are still shoving money to Trump cronies (and most likely to Trump and his family as well).
        Thanks to their ineptitude we aren’t back to square one. The conditions of the pandemic are worse than where we started. So all of the closings were for naught because too many people refused to do something as simple as wear a damn mask. Now we’re even worse off and tens of thousands more people will die that didn’t have to.

Everybody can’t get a test.
        Unlike President Trump’s early promise everybody still can’t get a test. Testing is still inadequate. The virus hasn’t gone away. Practically every metric is worse.
        Shelley and I got COVID-19 tested. It took days to get our results. She got hers 2 days before I got mine. They were negative. Nursing home conditions haven’t changed much. Seniors still comprise 40% of the fatalities but that’s changing to a younger demographic now.
        The only good news is that hospitals are getting better at saving people’s lives as they learn what treatments are working. And giving people Hydroxychloroquine isn’t one that worked.

Send in the children!
        And now the President along with his Evangelical Party supporters and the Republican Party are advocating sending the kids to the front lines with the teachers. It’s what they do. They could have spent all this time developing plans but instead spent the time lying and trying to cover up the effects of the pandemic. They have succeeded in making it even worse. There is still NO national plan.
        As a nation we are now not only worse off than when we started and we’re going downhill. Yet we have a President claiming that he’s saving lives while in the process of seeing to it that the virus claims even more lives.
        Premeditated murder on a national scale backed by conservatives every step of the way. Time for them to start killing kids.

Pounding Earworms, Part 2 [FASCISM]

        As a society we’ve been conditioned for quick gratification and sound bites. Digging deeper requires effort. Reading requires effort. At approximately 100 words I will have lost 50 % of the average American that voluntarily decided to read this. By 600 words 75% will have thrown in the towel. Back in the day when I campaigned for office with words written on paper, a.k.a. pamphlets, door knockers, cards, etc. the statistic was that the handout would last long enough to make it to the first trash the person passed unless the person that had it in their hand was a litterer. (I just made up that part about littering.)

        So here we go. (113 words.) If you want to know what’s going on and do something about it you’re going to have to start reading more than a 100 words or watch something for more than 5 minutes. Getting involved is going to involve a lot more paying attention.

        When I was stationed in Germany back in 1970 there was a pirate radio station playing in another guy’s area. Over and over again some guy was saying “Kill the white man! Kill the white man! We must rise up and kill the white man! Kill the white man!” I was writing letters home at the time and no one else was in the room for me to holler at “Turn that crap off!” So I just kept writing. After a while I found myself thinking that, “yes we must kill the white man.” That’s when I decided enough of that, got up off my butt and went and turned the radio down. Not being mentally disturbed, I never acted on killing the white man.

        I probably didn’t listen to that for more than an hour and it was just background noise to what I was doing and then that earworm crept into my thoughts. The Leader pounds out his message every day. Usually I try and avoid saying “every” or “all” this or that but he manages to do it every day. He’s been at the helm of the hate message for three years now and people are starting to act on it.

        Hate the immigrants! Shoot the immigrants! The press is the enemy of the people, rich Jews are behind it, etc. Every chance he gets. Pounding the message. Pounding the message.

When everything old is new again

        Fascism is on the rise. And it isn’t on the rise just here in the United States. It’s on the rise in Europe. It’s on the rise in South America. In Italy they’re giving stiff armed salutes again. Well…Italy. Home to Benito Mussolini, a.k.a. Il Duce (the leader). The pictures are on the internet if you want to see them. Crap, stiff armed salutes are being given in this country. Some of the same people that are involved with the White Nationalist agenda here, like Bannon, are also involved abroad and vice versa. The internet takes Fascists worldwide.

        The last time that Fascists had to be dealt with on a World Wide scale millions of lives were lost. We’re heading there again.

        American lives were lost for those that have a narrow view of ‘what lives’ matter. My dad was a part of the 6^th Armored Antifa Division. He was in the Battle of the Bulge and received a bronze star. Some of us feel a little stronger about Fascists, Nazis and White Nationalists, et al than others. This war was already fought once. Now they’re back claiming their rights.

        This time around they believe that President Trump and the leadership of the Republican Party have signed onto their agenda. They have good reason to believe that, given The Leader’s rhetoric and actions. So it’s as much a case of whether you believe that we’re headed as a nation towards fascism or are we headed in a good direction if White Nationalists, et al like where we’re headed. (657)

        Seriously, an actual Nazi won a Republican primary in Illinois and is on the ballot. The Republican leadership there opined that it was the media’s fault. Ah yes, the enemy-of-the-people-media made it happen. Cray.

        A free press stands in their way along with anti-fascists and others. If you oppose the White Nationalists, et al agenda then you oppose them. Ultimately even the people that want to just be left alone get involved whether it’s voluntary or as victims.

        Their Leader is still at it. President Trump tweeted a very nice statement about visiting the Tree of Life synagogue right up until the point where President Trump does what he does.

“Melania and I were treated very nicely yesterday in Pittsburg. The Office of the President was shown great respect on a very sad & solemn day. We were treated so warmly. Small protest was not seen by us, staged far away. The Fake News stories were just the opposite-Disgraceful!”

        For all intents and purposes President Trump was interrupting a funeral service (Shiva) when he went to The Tree of Life synagogue. The Secret Service locked down the neighborhood as best they could for security concerns. The Leader just can’t help himself. He’s the man with the bully platform. He was going to show up and nobody was going to stop him.

        The protestors were right outside. He was being shouted at by neighbors to the Tree of Life synagogue. There were signs across the street and media was there as well. They showed video of the solemn event. They also showed the protestors. That’s what media does. It’s what they’ve always done. They report what’s going on. That’s unacceptable to The Leader and his True Believers. He could have stopped with “We were treated so warmly.” He didn’t. (706 words.)

Where we’re at.

        President Trump is not just the President of the United States. He is also the head of the Republican Party. He is also The Leader of the Evangelical Party.

        Now, I’m not really going to try and make the case for why we’re headed towards fascism. You can look up fascism and reach your own conclusions. Trump supporters will see us going to a happy place. Others will reach different conclusions. You decide if we’re headed for a better place. Here’s where we’re at.  

        The Leader says that citizens should not be critical of the state. Only positive comments should be allowed.

        President Trump is going to continue going to hold rallies to spread his message! The Leader is running for President. His True Believers love him. He basks in their adoration. He needs their adoration. He needs supplicants. When I watch one of his rallies I watch the whole thing. If you’ve seen one you’ve pretty much seen them all. He pounds the same message over and over. The names of the supplicants change depending upon the venue. They come for the blessing of The Leader.

        The Leader says that he’s the best that has ever been as well as his administration in the history of our nation. Everything that has been done is the best that has ever been done. He should have the Nobel Prize for what he hasn’t accomplished. Yet somehow as good as things are we are on the brink of disaster that only he can save us from! Mind you for 2 years Republicans have been in complete control of our government. But, in spite of everything we are still on the brink of disaster, of chaos. While some would call this campaign hyperbole his True Believers believe this. COMPLETELY. This isn’t just politics as usual. True Believers take his dark words to heart.

        The Army called out for civilian enforcement. We are being invaded by 6,000 brown people walking to our southern border with Mexico and he is sending in the Army. If they throw rocks he wants soldiers to return fire. That’s right. The Commander in Chief is ordering soldiers to fire on unarmed civilians. (Meanwhile 300,000 people a day are crossing at our border with Canada.)

        The country and police forces are being militarized. (1344)

        Under the direction of The Leader, families are being separated and incarcerated. Children are being separated from their parents. They are brown.

        Muslims are banned. (At least from ones that The Leader doesn’t have business interests in.)

        Jews are being targeted again. (It’s a White Nationalist, et al kind of thing.)

        LGBTQ citizens are being attacked. (BTW the love the sinner hate the sin isn’t flying. Its bullshit and people know it.)

        At the direction of the leader, brown people that have already been naturalized will be having their citizenship revoked if possible.

        The President is talking about invalidating the 14^th Amendment that provides for citizenship for babies born here. He says that he has the authority to do so regardless of the Constitution. The Constitution is what he says it is.

        The Leader continually says that news uncomplimentary to him is fake. If he can undermine the 14^th Amendment with the stroke of a pen what will he do with the 1^st Amendment protection of the free press? He should get that pen out again and order than no one can say anything bad about him.

        Defend The Leader. The Leader now calls himself a Nationalist as he lays the groundwork for civil war.

        Surveillance of everything we say and do was already in place along with secret courts for enemies of the state. How long before journalists start disappearing.

        The religious right is supporting the leader.

        The Leader is also calling opposition to Republicans in other states criminals.

        Constitutional checks and balances are not working.   

It’s going to get worse before it gets better.

        In regards to the “blue wave” every vote does matter.

        It’s just that in the polls the races are tight often with the Democrat closing the gap from BEHIND and still behind though within the margin of error. At least the Electoral College isn’t involved. The Senate likely will remain in control of the Party of The Leader. The Supreme Court is also beholden to The Leader just like the courts of the Middle East.

        Say everything in the election goes perfectly and everything falls into place and the Democrats gain both houses. Things still aren’t going to change overnight. There’s still The President and veto power.

        The damage done on the world stage is not going to be quickly undone. World leaders have now observed firsthand how quickly treaties can be undone and that the Republican Party with The Leader at the head prefers Russians and the North Koreans. The President admires their leaders along with those of the Chinese government. They have the model of government that he likes where The Leader has the absolute power, where dissent is crushed and opposition is not allowed.

        The trillion dollar plus that The Leader gave to rich people is NOT coming back. That’s unfunded deficit.

        The trade war that The Leader started will have impacts that will last years past its resolution. (Seriously, He inherited a good economy. All he had to do was leave it alone. Instead he started a trade war!) Small farms will go under during this trade war. Corporate or large farming enterprises will gain their land since their deeper pockets will better allow them to whether the storm.

        If the Democratic Party wins they will probably screw it up. (It’s hard to believe that Nancy Pelosi is still in charge of the House.) The Democratic Party needs to be completely restructured and if they undertake that it will take years.

What to do? What to do?

        Vote by all means! Just don’t harbor unrealistic expectations. We have to get over the idea of waiting for an election cycle to do something.

        Doing something in the physical world, like voting, also requires effort. Show up in person to talk with an elected official. Make them see you.

        Do not enable violence.

        At some point churches will have to get involved. They waited until it was too late in axis countries during WW2 and some ended up losing their lives over it.

        Call racists out! Call liars out. Call misogyny out. Call bigotry out! Call discrimination out! Shine the light on injustice! Stand up for your fellow human beings.

        Be more aware in social media. Stop passing around stupid memes without checking them out simply because you like the message. We need the truth. Truth is power.

        Support a free press. The real press. Press that has workers and newsrooms. Press that is more than an instrument of the state. The First Amendment is as important as the Second Amendment.

        It’s easier to stop a despot in the beginning than at the end AND their reign always ends. History measures the damage and suffering caused.

        Meet with people and decide how you can make a difference; where you can make a difference.

        There isn’t any one answer. There aren’t any easy answers. There are a thousand answers. There are ten thousand answers. Be one of them.

        But most of all…

        Be heard.