And the Beat Down Goes On

May 4, 2026 Leave a comment

“. . . the terror of the night
    or the arrow that flies by day
or the pestilence that stalks in darkness
    or the destruction that wastes at noonday.” Psalm 91

Fires, floods and extreme weather will imperil a third of all life on land in the next 60 years.

Nobel Physicist Predicts END DATE For Modern Civilization: And it’s quite soon…

The New York Times’s Resident Catastrophist Delivers Another Subscription to the End of the World

You wake up in a news cycle that never sleeps. With a cup of coffee, you read what ‘doomcasters’ are saying about end-of-life scenarios appearing on the horizon. Now you are fully awake and wondering what to do with these high alert headlines? Do you let existential crisis into your life?

You sip your coffee and remember that not long ago the world was subjected to pandemic hysteria. Coronavirus, the “global crisis of unprecedented reach and proportion,” started making headlines at the beginning of 2020.

You recall the WHO declaring the coronavirus a “public health emergency of international concern.” And the headlines declaring surges in COVID-19 cases attributed to the Omicron variant, a “tripledemic” – COVID combined with flu and RSV, and of overwhelmed hospitals and healthcare systems and dancing nurses.

How could you forget that Biden imposed OSHA vaccination and testing emergency standards on your business or the reality-warping restrictive policies involving mandated lockdowns, masking, social distancing, fines, and vaccines, or the CDC predicting people will die?

You pour yourself another cup of coffee and look out the kitchen window. You see the couple next store – Vivian and Zoe – walking their dog Baxter. The other day, when you took the garbage can to the curb, the apoplectic twosome accosted you with “Democracy is threatened by the likes of you extremists, fascists, racists, homophobe Christian nationalists!” and “Trump is Hitler!” They saw you going to church last Sunday.

You drink your coffee troubled that Viv and Zoe had been beaten down by another media existential crisis campaign, akin to the rollout of the COVID-19 marketing campaign that told us to worry about it, and how to worry about it.

Under the spell of the “Democracy is threatened” campaign, Viv and Zoe were in a state of emotional panic. And that had them beat down on the closest person who didn’t share their views or the views of the commercial-sponsored media. The media’s inordinate influence has you very concerned about the collective fear and confusion its campaigns were causing to psyches.

The beat down goes on . . . in our heads.

~~~

How shall we then live in the context of existential dread?

Day after day imagination is battered with dire predictions– the end of this and that unless we do this and that. The steady beat of amplified headlines overwhelms one’s patience, strength, and soul.

Climate change, pandemics, wars, “Democracy!” AI Could Make Humans Irrelevant!

How do we respond to headlines telling us that we are done for? Should we let fear and helplessness dominate our lives? Can we live in terms of “accepting disharmony from the outset and defying it”? This last way of going forward is the directive C.S. Lewis prescribes in his essay “On Living in an Atomic Age.”

Published in post-war 1948 and at the beginning of the atomic age, the essay provides a reality-check perspective and presents a scenario of how to live in life-ending times.

The following is an excerpt from the opening of Lewis’ short essay. During COVID the excerpt was passed around on the internet, with “atomic” replaced with “coronavirus.” Certainly, the essay can be applied to any dire life-threatening circumstances.

In one way we think a great deal too much of the atomic bomb. “How are we to live in an atomic age?” I am tempted to reply: “Why, as you would have lived in the sixteenth century when the plague visited London almost every year, or as you would have lived in a Viking age when raiders from Scandinavia might land and cut your throat any night; or indeed, as you are already living in an age of cancer, an age of syphilis, an age of paralysis, an age of air raids, an age of railway accidents, an age of motor accidents.”

 In other words, do not let us begin by exaggerating the novelty of our situation. Believe me, dear sir or madam, you and all whom you love were already sentenced to death before the atomic bomb was invented: and quite a high percentage of us were going to die in unpleasant ways. We had, indeed, one very great advantage over our ancestors — anesthetics; but we have that still. It is perfectly ridiculous to go about whimpering and drawing long faces because the scientists have added one more chance of painful and premature death to a world which already bristled with such chances and in which death itself was not a chance at all, but a certainty.

This is the first point to be made: and the first action to be taken is to pull ourselves together. If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts—not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs. They may break our bodies (a microbe can do that) but they need not dominate our minds.

The full essay, in the document below, contains questions and positions Lewis maintains, such as

Are we “accepting disharmony from the outset and defying it?”

Do we “hold up our own human standards against the idiocy of the universe?”

Are we the product of blind physical forces and therefore unable to provide answers to questions of a fatalist existence?

“But suppose we really are spirits? Suppose we are not the offspring of Nature…?”

“We must go back to a much earlier view.”

“We must simply accept it that we are spirits, free and rational beings, at present inhabiting an irrational universe, and must draw the conclusion that we are not derived from it.”

“If there is no straight line elsewhere, how did we discover that Nature’s line is crooked?”

“Nothing is more likely to destroy a species or a nation than a determination to survive at all costs.”

cslewis-living-in-an-atomic-ageDownload

https://www.matthewaglaser.com/living-in-an-atomic-age

“On Living in an Atomic Age” (first published 1948) by C. S. Lewis (1898–1963) From: Present Concerns: Essays by C.S. Lewis (edited by Walter Hooper; New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1986), pages 73–80

Born a few years after the above essay was published, I became well aware of ‘doomcasting’ headlines. I recalled some of the headlines in my January 2025 post Surface Readings.

The post began with the words of poet W H Auden – “Now is the age of anxiety” and my own take on things: “Impending doom has been in the news during my entire lifetime.” I wrote about the headlines and pronouncements of those anxious times which included the book The Late great Planet Earth based on the modern and heretical notion of dispensationalism.

~~~

Imagination Reset

Taking in the spirit of the times, imaginations are exposed to the negation of life and dire predictions often made for political ends that use fear to move power into the hands of the few.

Taking in the digital tabloid times is the “WHAAM!” of a Roy Lichtenstein Ben-Day dots painting. Imagination is amped up and ready to pop with a Pow!

What happens to our imaginations when we are constantly confronted with crisis? And, how do we live with dire predictions?

With the 24/7/365 news cycle, it’s little wonder that “News Avoidance” is becoming a common way to deal with the constant specter of troubling things, as Thaddeus G. McCotter writes in I Didn’t Read the News Today, Oh Boy: Embracing the ‘News Avoidance’ Pandemic

“If you live today, you breath in nihilism … it’s the gas you breathe. If I hadn’t had the Church to fight it with or to tell me the necessity of fighting it, I would be the stinkingest logical positivist you ever saw right now.” ― Flannery O’Connor

What we shouldn’t avoid are resources such as poetry, art, classical literature and music to help us cope with and see beyond the terrors of the modern age. We need the signal of those who came before and dealt with all kinds of things and not the clamoring noise of influencers.

Poet Wallace Stevens, in “The Noble Rider and the Sound of Words” writes that poetry, as it interacts with reality and the imagination, can shape our perspective and provide meaning and comfort in a world that often feels overwhelming and harsh.

Wallace emphasizes the role of imagination in countering the beat down of life. If you are a Christian, you already know that the poetry of the Psalms does just that, e.g., Psalm 91.

In the video below, Dr. Jason Baxter, author of The Medieval Mind of C.S. Lewis discusses his book, Why Literature Still Matters.

Why Literature Still Matters: An Interview with Dr. Jason Baxter | Classical Home Education

~~~

If you need a quick antidote to climate hysteria, Itxu Díaz provides his take on the news of impending doom: Climate Change Scientists Set a Date for the Arrival of Hell on Earth: the Year 2085.

~~~

Naomi Wolf with Outspoke: “I’m here tonight to talk about a huge news story that broke in the last couple of days. It could be thread that unravels the whole COVID virus/vaccine perpetrator issue.

“A criminal syndicate, essentially.

“Even just this initial gesture is so transformational. It breaks the spell of, “No one can be held accountable, no one can be investigated from the untouchable third rail COVID vaccine rollout, COVID virus rollout.””

“The Shocking Story of NIH Secretly Funding COVID”

Filed under 2026 Current Events, Climate change, COVID-19, Death, Depression, journalism, media, nihilism, pandemic, Political Commentary, social engineering, war Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Inside Out Story

January 26, 2026 Leave a comment

“Evil intentions come from inside, out of people’s hearts.”-Jesus

In the world you will have . . . the content of their character, coming out as . . .

Cruel, intolerant, intimidating, subversive, disruptive, antagonistic, rude, lazy, overindulged, abusive, deceitful, corrupt, amoral, unlawful, power hungry, confederate, self-deceiving, addled, mentally and emotionally stunted, neurotic, narcissistic, manipulative, antisocial, psychotic, borderline psychotic, unruly,  destructive, evasive, duplicitous . . . as persecution.

These traits aptly describe what comes out of the Lord-of-the-Flies Left in all of its manifestations – Democrats, Progressives, Democratic Socialists of America, ANTIF, BLM, NGOs, NGO paid protestors, MSM, and Globalists. These characteristics also describe a good many Islamists. The most recent examples of what comes out of the Left has been exhibited by Democratic governance in Minnesota, by ICE protestors, and by Somalis.

What Comes Out of Them is Deliberate Deception:

Don’t buy what comes out of the MSM (CNN, MSNOW, NYT, WaPo, ABC, CBS, NBC, etc.) about the ICE protestors and the Somali fraudsters. The so-called journalists on these ‘news’ sites are wanna-be script writers who push the content of their character onto everyone with their narrative. And like street gang members, they have a no-snitch code for their comrades in arms who go about breaking the law at every turn. It seems that the MSM’s purpose these days is to make the world bleed so it can lead with the story.

The media will deceive by framing both the law and the good guys as bad. Instead of taking in what comes out of MSM, see what you see.

And, don’t go by what comes out of the mouth of Democratic pols (Waltz, Frey, Ellison). With the aid of mother media, they cover their asses just like anyone under investigation on the real-life crime shows.

To wit: Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, on ABC’s “This Week” characterized the violent confrontations – the riots, assaults, and lawlessness – targeting federal immigration agents in his city as an expression of “love.”

Minneapolis. January 7. Renee Nicole Good, as an expression of “love” and encouraged by what came out of the mouth of her lesbian lover, directed her vehicle into an ICE agent. She was shot as the agent defended himself against being crushed. (MADD would certainly agree that a vehicle is a deadly weapon.) Sponsored activist mob mayhem followed as an expression of “love.”

Minneapolis. Sunday, January 18th. More organized mayhem. A mob, led by Black Lives Matter organizers and encouraged by a video posted on social media, stormed into an area church during a service. Inside the sanctuary of Cities Church, agitators loudly chanted “Justice for Renee Good.”

See what you see when Don Lemon and ‘Sanctuary City’ Radicals Invade Minneapolis Church.

On Sunday, Don Lemon and a group of radical, anti-ICE left-wing extremists stormed a Minneapolis church. They barreled into a house of worship while families with young children were praying and proceeded to harass and intimidate congregants based on supposed “intel” that someone connected to the church had ties to ICE.

WHOOPS: Don Lemon’s live stream is a goldmine of evidence against him… – Revolver News

With displays of ersatz moral sanctimony, the Machine politics of Left destroys people and their place in the world and their past and their sacred space, their house of prayer. What comes out of the Left is not “love”. What comes out of the wild boar Left is grunting, posturing, and bristling followed by picking fights to see who is the stronger.

What Comes Out of Them is Stupid

When the Pharisees confronted Jesus about his disciples eating with unwashed hands, he responded to their desire to harass him and his disciples about the performative ritual purity they were so concerned with. He got under their skin when he said . . .

“What makes someone unclean,” Jesus went on, “is what comes out. Evil intentions come from inside, out of people’s hearts – sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, wickedness, treachery, debauchery, envy, slander, pride, stupidity. These evil things all come from inside. They are what make someone unclean.”  Mark 7:20-23

Note that stupidity is on the list of evil intentions. The stupid act without sense. In the matter at hand, the stupid ramp up their violence-instigating rhetoric because they simply are not able to discuss or persuade – they lack sense. Force is all they have left, and they will use it. And so it is that the NGO paid army of activists, agitators and provocateurs – useful idiots all – descend into savagery that a mayor describes as acts of brotherly “love.”

Rory Miller, “a corrections officer and sergeant working booking, maximum security, and mental health units” and “trained corrections and enforcement officers, primarily in force-related skills… and force policy” wrote in his book Force Decisions: A Citizen’s Guide that . . .

“If you have to be defiant, don’t be stupid about it. Argue, if you absolutely have to, but show the officer your hands. If the officer says, “Show me your hands!” and you say, “No,” you have given the officer no choice but to assume that you have a weapon ready to deploy. This is so stupid—right up there with checking for gas leaks with matches—it shouldn’t even need to be said, but it happens. Being defiant about something stupid can escalate a verbal situation to deadly force for childish, immature ego.”

“If the officer ever uses the magic phrase, ‘For your safety and mine, I need you to…’ do it. That is a solid signal that the officer perceives this as an issue of safety, and the officer will absolutely use force if you do not comply.” (Emphasis mine.)

A Citizen’s Guide to Violence in Minneapolis › American Greatness

What Comes Out of Them is Lawlessness

Richard Lawson at The Free Press writes Sanctuary Cities are Built on Shaky Law:

Federal law makes it a crime to “encourage” illegal immigration, which is exactly what Tim Walz and Jacob Frey are doing.

The Supreme Court recently clarified that federal law is violated when a person provides “assistance to a wrongdoer with the intent to further an offense’s commission.” It is also unlawful to knowingly act in support of illegal aliens residing in the U.S., or even to conspire to help them remain here.

(Emphasis mine.)

Democratic governors and mayors in Minnesota, Oregon and Illinois have gone so far as to actively enable the chaos by withdrawing police protection.  And, Dem Leaders Move to Block Funding for ICE, DHS.

Fools escalate violent rhetoric:

Dem AG Suggests People Can Shoot Masked ICE Agents Under Stand-Your-Ground Laws.

April 17, 2025, Columnist David Brooks of the NYT wrote an opinion column openly and explicitly called for a mass uprising alluding to a Communist revolution.

Headline USA writes:

“Agitators aren’t just targeting our officers. Now they’re targeting churches, too,” the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency stated. “They’re going from hotel to hotel, church to church, hunting for federal law enforcement who are risking their lives to protect Americans. (Emphasis mine.)

The ordained reverend “Nekima Levy Armstrong, who participated in the protest and leads the local grassroots civil rights organization Racial Justice Network, dismissed the potential DOJ investigation as a sham.

“When you think about the federal government unleashing barbaric ICE agents upon our community and all the harm that they have caused, to have someone serving as a pastor who oversees these ICE agents, is almost unfathomable to me,” said Armstrong.

ICE should not back down one iota no matter the threats or moral posturing against them. All illegal invaders must go home. President Trump will be justified to invoke the Insurrection Act.

The Trump administration is working to clean up the horrible mess the four years of the illegitimate Biden regime created. That mess includes the 20-30 million illegal invaders that are taking jobs and taxpayer money and bringing in the content of their character.

Understand, the invasion was done on purpose to destroy the U.S. There is much more going on here than meets the fixated eye. You won’t get this understanding from the talking heads of MSM. They are in on it. The immigrants were sent here to destroy the U.S.

Read the newly published The Invisible Coup: How American Elites and Foreign Powers Use Immigration as a Weapon by  Peter Schweizer.

No Christian should be swayed by MSM or by Progressive Christianity’s “Welcome the stranger” social justice tactics. No Christian should be muddled in their thinking about legal mass deportations.

~~~

In the world you will have . . . the content of their character – fraudulent Islamists enabled by Democrats.

The amount of fraudulent billing in Minnesota’s Medicaid programs could be as high as $9 billion, Assistant United States Attorney Joe Thompson said Dec. 18.

The ADL’d – the Machine combine of America and Democracy Last – don’t seem to care that the Minnesota Somali fraudsters stole billions of taxpayer dollars to spend on themselves and to send to Somalia. The Somalis were enabled by Democratic governance with its (purposeful?) lack of oversight in Minnesota and other Blues states.

What struck me most about the Minnesota case was not only the scale of the theft but the silence surrounding it. The fraud appears to have operated in plain sight within tightly knit circles, yet few people spoke out. . .

According to federal indictments, the stolen money flowed through networks bound by kinship and loyalty. The theft was large, coordinated, and sustained. What stood out was not only who took the money, but who stayed silent. In societies with strong civic norms, whistleblowing is often praised, or at least protected. In tightly bound clan systems, speaking out can mean punishment.

High-trust societies solve this dilemma by extending cooperation beyond family and tribe. Laws, institutions, and norms reinforce the idea that cheating ultimately harms everyone, including oneself. Low-trust societies work differently. Trust is reserved for kin. Outsiders are assumed to cheat. In that environment, cheating is not necessarily immoral. It is often rational, expected, and even applauded.

Somalia And The High Cost Of Low Trust | ZeroHedge

Senseless people vote for senseless people. That’s how Minnesota has tanked under Waltz, Frey, and Ellison.

Senseless people voted in NYC for a Democratic Socialist Jihadi Shia Muslim deeply critical of Israel who wants to “globalize the intifada.”

And citizens of Virgina will now suffer because the senseless elected Abigail Spanberger as its governor and reps who encourage lawlessness and impose tyranny. This New Virginia Law Helps Illegals Vote for Democrats

Out of them comes taxes, more taxes and more oppression:

~~~~~

Concerned about the content of his older brother’s character, Russian playwright, short-story writer, and doctor Anton Chekhov (26), wrote a letter of advice to Nikolai (28), a talented painter, writer, and alcoholic. In 1886, Chekhov writes:

“To my mind, civilized people ought to satisfy the following conditions:

1. They respect the individual and are therefore always indulgent, gentle, polite and compliant. They do not throw a tantrum over a hammer or a lost eraser. When they move in with somebody, they do not act as if they were doing him a favor, and when they move out, they do not say, “How can anyone live with you!” …

2. Their compassion extends beyond beggars and cats. They are hurt even by things the naked eye can’t see. If for instance, Pyotr knows that his father and mother are turning gray and losing sleep over seeing their Pyotr so rarely (and seeing him drunk when he does turn up), then he rushes home to them and sends his vodka to the devil….

3. They respect the property of others and therefore pay their debts.

4. They are candid and fear lies like the plague. They do not lie even about the most trivial matters. A lie insults the listener and debases him in the liar’s eyes. They don’t put on airs, they behave in the street as they do at home, and they do not try to dazzle their inferiors. They know how to keep their mouths shut and they do not force uninvited confidences on people. Out of respect for the ears of others they are more often silent than not.

5. They do not belittle themselves merely to arouse sympathy. They do not play on people’s heartstrings to get them to sigh and fuss over them. They do not say, “No one understands me!” or “I’ve squandered my talent on trifles!” because this smacks of a cheap effect and is vulgar, false and out-of-date.

6. They are not preoccupied with vain things. They are not taken in by such false jewels as friendships with celebrities, handshakes with drunken Plevako, ecstasy over the first person they happen to meet at the Salon de Varietes, popularity among the tavern crowd….

7. If they have talent, they respect it. They sacrifice comfort, women, wine and vanity to it….

8. They cultivate their aesthetic sensibilities. They cannot stand to fall asleep fully dressed, see a slit in the wall teeming with bedbugs, breathe rotten air, walk on a spittle-laden floor or eat off a kerosene stove. They try their best to tame and ennoble their sexual instinct…

And so on. That’s how civilized people act. If you want to be civilized and not fall below the level of the milieu you belong to, it is not enough to read The Pickwick Papers and memorize a soliloquy from Faust. It is not enough to hail a cab and drive off to Yakimanka Street if all you’re going to do is bolt out again a week later.

You must work at it constantly, day and night. You must never stop reading, studying in depth, exercising your will. Every hour is precious.”

Letters of Anton Chekhov to His Family and Friends (public domain | public library)

~~~~~

Why are poets and storytellers being drawn towards Christ? In this bonus episode Justin Brierley speaks to two adult converts to Christianity whose stories overlap in remarkable ways. 

Celebrated poet and author Paul Kingsnorth, and mythologist and storyteller Martin Shaw, both had unexpected conversions that have led them into the Orthodox church.

Paul Kingsnorth & Martin Shaw: A poet and mythologist convert

Episode 9 – Paul Kingsnorth & Martin Shaw: A poet and mythologist convert – Justin Brierley ⬩ Think Faith

Royce White, a Voice from the Belly of the Beast Minnesota:

https://americasvoice.news/video/1L3WPrlAlN0ouni/

https://americasvoice.news/playlists/show/the-royce-white-show/

https://www.youtube.com/@pleasecallmecrazypodcast

~~~~~

Marginalia:

See what you see here: Arrested: Worst of the Worst | Homeland Security

In past articles I have tried to plead with conservatives to recognize that these activists are NOT sincere fellow citizens engaging in legitimate protest. They are a mercenary army paid to go to war. I’ll say it once again: WE ARE AT WAR. We need to start acting like it.

When there are no consequences for bad behavior, bad behavior will escalate into violence and chaos. It’s important to understand that the political left is made up largely of people who are emotionally stunted. They are toddlers trapped in adult bodies. And, like spoiled children, they act the way they do because they have never been spanked.

Maybe It’s Time For Conservative Patriots To Rally In Minneapolis | ZeroHedge

Approximately 3,000 federal agents are currently deployed in Minnesota, as part of an immigration operation dubbed “Operation Metro Surge.” The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced on Monday that the operation has resulted in the arrests of 3,000 criminal illegal aliens, “including vicious murderers, rapists, child pedophiles, and incredibly dangerous individuals.” (Emphasis mine.)

Walz, Ellison, Frey’s Offices Served Grand Jury Subpoenas › American Greatness

~~~~~

Amelia:

So, what was already disturbing now looks downright corrupt. It turns out that one of the men caught on video inside the church, pumping his fist while terrified children cried, isn’t some random left-wing extremist. He actually works for the local (Soros-backed) prosecutor’s office.

Shocking new evidence shows just how deep and dark the MN church Ambush goes… – Revolver News

The insurrection, the color revolution is upon us

Filed under 2026 Current Events, Culture, Immigration, Insurrection, media, Political Commentary, Politics, Progressivism Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

By Any “Rival Power” Means Necessary?

September 22, 2025 Leave a comment

The supercharged words “by any means necessary” entered popular culture during the civil rights movement with a 1964 Malcolm X speech.

“We declare our right on this earth to be a man, to be a human being, to be respected as a human being, to be given the rights of a human being in this society, on this earth, in this day, which we intend to bring into existence by any means necessary.”

What does the phrase infer? Per Wikipedia:

The phrase is generally considered to mean to leave open the option of all available tactics, strategies or methods for attaining or achieving desired ends, including any form or degree of violence as well as other methods typically considered unethical or immoral. It is part of a broader political idea that radical social change or liberation cannot be obtained by limiting one’s means to that which are considered “acceptable . . . “                   

Fast forward to an April 17, 2025 opinion column openly and explicitly calling for a mass uprising that appeared to call for a “by any means necessary” Communist revolution. Self-described Christian and NYT’s columnist David Brooks wrote

It’s time for a comprehensive national civic uprising. It’s time for Americans in universities, law, business, nonprofits and the scientific community, and civil servants and beyond to form one coordinated mass movement. Trump is about power. The only way he’s going to be stopped is if he’s confronted by some movement that possess rival power.

The title of Brooks’ reckless manifesto: What’s Happening Is Not Normal. America Needs an Uprising That Is Not Normal.

The title should have been My Ends Justify the Means, as “rival power” could be interpreted by readers in our activist culture as all methods or actions, no matter how extreme or unconventional, should be considered acceptable in order to achieve the goal or objective of stopping Trump.

Should “civil servants”, i.e., the administrative state, overthrow democracy to “save democracy”?

Should radical revolutionary sentiments drive conniving Bolsheviks to overthrow our democratic republic for their definition of normal?

Brooks’ call for revolution ends with a phrase originating from The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels: “We have nothing to lose but our chains.” How puerile.

See What You See:

Our democracy, our republic and our freedoms were being put in chains during the Obama and Biden regimes. Obama weaponized the government against its citizens. Did Never Trumper David Brooks vote for more of the same with the Harris/Waltz ticket? Does he along with the repugnant Bill Kristol prefer the deep state over Trump? Yes.

Bill Kristol Admits The Quiet Part Out Loud: “The Deep State Is Far Preferable To The Trump State” | ZeroHedge

The insurrectionist revolution Brooks’ manifesto called for is for a return to deep state “normal” where elites via the administrative state, not we the people, control every aspect of our lives – money, health, associations, thought. One of the reasons I read Russian literature is to understand tyranny. I read Brooks as advocating the use of subversive forces to bring about a return of deep state tyranny – his “normal.”

Intimidation was a key tactic Lenin used during the Red Terror, a campaign aimed at consolidating Bolshevik power through extreme violence against perceived enemies of the state. Intimidation was also used to enforce acceptance of lies.

Remember the lies and enforcement – the intimidation – surrounding COVID? Tyranny was exposed for all who have eyes to see.

We have been told to believe the lies about a “secure” 2020 election, Hunter’s laptop, and Russia Collusion, the latter meant to stop Trump by any lie necessary. Read Mollie Hemingway’s article:

The Significance of the Recently Released Russia Hoax Documents

Read my July 26, 2025 post: The Treachery Comes Out | Kingdom Venturers

Weaponized Scoops: New Russiagate Documents Expose Media/Government Collusion | RealClearInvestigations

The left has monopolized righteous superiority by painting their opposition as extreme, morally reprehensible, and narrow-minded. Among the most effective tactics of their movement has been storytelling. By controlling the framing of narratives, the left guaranteed that people and groups they scorned were appropriately reviled. – Leslie Corbly, America’s Turning Point

Remember this nightly news misdirection psyop from “on high” meant to distract the public from the lies used to subvert democracy, lies such as the Russia Collusion Hoax?

It should not be lost on anyone that the media, professors, and bi-coastal elites such as Brooks dispense discord and division from ‘on high’ to achieve political goals, radical social change, and power “by any means necessary.” Their framing of narratives is replicated in social media and further replicated into violence.

It should not be lost on anyone that the above never suffer the consequences of what they espouse.

Looking back at the days before the 2024 election, there was a group of Never Trumper Christians who worried out loud through various platforms that Trump, MAGA, and Christian nationalism would destroy democracy. This group included the effete NYT’s columnists David Brooks and David French, the editor-in chief of Christianity Today Russel Moore, and others of their ilk.

Each of them accepted and propagated the lie about democracy being threatened. They went out of their way to scare voters, intimidating them with propaganda posing as superior Christian insight and morality.

Condemning Context:

Consider that Brooks’ April 17th, 2025 column was written a few months after two attempts on Trump’s life during his 2024 presidential campaign (July 13, and September 15, 2024) and three months after Trump’s inauguration (Jan. 20th, 2025). Brooks seems desperate to do away with Trump and the democracy that put him in the White House.

Should his words be considered the words of an insurrectionist as they are an appeal for a group of people to take action against a sitting president and are certainly more provocative than any claim against a J6 defendant?

“by any means necessary” Manifested Motives:

The demonic chain of custody that maintains “by any means necessary” violence goes back to the day when Cain killed his brother Abel.Cain must have thought that’s the only way Abel is going to be stopped from being a living reminder of not getting the approval he thought he should have. Cain would later go off and start his own city outside the garden of Eden to live as he pleased.

Continuing the demonic chain of custody, Luigi Mangione is accused of assassinating Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, on December 4, 2024, in New York City. Mangione was furious at the health care industry so he continued the demonic chain of custody of another before him.

Mangione had an apparent fixation with the “Unabomber,” Ted Kaczynski. Investigators found an online review of his book by Mangione that they say sets out “in his view, violence can be justified to right social wrongs. Kaczynski wrote an anti-technology manifesto titled “Industrial Society and Its Future,” arguing that his violent actions (a bombing campaign) were necessary to draw attention to these issues.

David Brooks also wrote a manifesto, his encouraging an uprising to stop Trump.

Continuing the demonic chain of custody, Tyler Robinson, a 22-year-old man, has been charged with the murder/assassination of Charlie Kirk. Charlie was shot while speaking at Utah Valley University on September 10, 2025

Among the details in a 10-page criminal charging document released by Utah County Attorney Jeff Gray, the charges include the allegation that Robinson targeted Kirk because of “Robinson’s belief or perception regarding Charlie Kirk’s political expression.” (His motivation sounds like Brooks’ “The only way he’s going to be stopped.”)

According to the documents Robinson’s mother stated that her son had become more political and had “started to lean more to the left – becoming more pro-gay and trans-rights oriented.” About Charlie the man and the message, Tyler Robinson thought that The only way he’s going to be stopped is if he’s confronted by some movement that possesses rival power.

Was Kirk ‘Divisive’—or Did He Simply Say What Millions Believe? › American Greatness

“Rival power” Mercenaries?

“Rival power,” David? Do you mean an army of administrative deep state insurrectionaries who will fight against and undermine the administration of the democratically elected president? You mean a legion of federal district court judges that hinder and obstruct the EOs of an elected president? You mean the growing Marxist terrorist network in America who want to carry out a Marxist revolution on American soil?

David, do you mean Armed Queers of Salt Lake City run by Ermiya Fanaeian, the child of Iranian immigrants, whose Instagram account calls for “Revolution + Trans liberation in our lifetime!”? Ermiya openly supports the use of violence to achieve the aims of LGBTQ groups.

Per retired CIA Operations Officer Sam Faddis

Fanaeian also helped launch a student study group for the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL), with a curriculum that includes names like Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin. That study group also introduced students to Marxist revolutionaries like Fidel Castro, Angela Davis, and the Black Panthers.

Did you know that

Before the political assassination of Charlie Kirk, Marxist-aligned groups operating across America to subvert the nation and collapse capitalism were already on our radar. 

Honestly, for anyone paying attention, the writing was very much on the wall as the Democratic Party normalized assassination culture within part of its unhinged base by labeling political opponents “Fascists” and “Nazis” for a decade. And it wasn’t just leftist politicians; leftist corporate media outlets amplified the dangerous rhetoric, while dark-money billionaire-funded NGOs operated misinformation and disinformation propaganda campaigns in an all-out informational war to label MAGA supporters (more than half the country) as “literal Nazis.”

“Planning War Against Fascists” – Socialist Rifle Association Boasts 10,000 Members | ZeroHedge :

Apparently, using the “by any means necessary” thinking of David Brooks and Luigi Mangione and Ermiya Fanaeian and Ted Kaczynski and Malcolm X and Black Panthers and Thomas Matthew Crooks and Ryan Wesley Routh, the Socialist Rifle Association, Cain, and a host of others, we can justify anything as long as it serves our ends.

Here’s what I wrote in my April 21, 2025 post We See You David:

“Like a petulant willful child who didn’t get his way, there is nothing of Christ in the words of David Brooks.”

~~~~~

“Evil appears as good in the minds of those whom god leads to destruction.”

-appears in verses 620–623 of Sophocles‘ play Antigone:

Isaiah 5:20

 Woe to those who call evil good
    and good evil,
who put darkness for light
    and light for darkness,
who put bitter for sweet
    and sweet for bitter!

~~~~~

July 10, 2025 

It’s Time To End The ‘Deep State’ Fed | ZeroHedge

 July 18, 2025 

The Protest-Industrial-Complex Isn’t Peaceful, It’s “Civil Terrorism” … | ZeroHedge

September 19, 2025

Watch: Democratic Party’s Revolutionary Arm Creates Chaos Outside Chicago ICE Facility | ZeroHedge

September 19, 2025

BREAKING: Nearly 100 House Dems Refuse to Support Resolution Condemning Political Violence – PJ Media

~~~~~

A very sad day. My sole companion for the last seventeen years died.

Last Saturday, Sept. 20th, 2025, my parrotlet Henry passed.

I brough Henry home on Oct. 11th, 2008, seven weeks after he was hatched.

He was with me for 16 years 11 months and 9 days – a normal span of life.

We had many interesting “conversations.” I mourn the loss of my little friend. God rest his soul.

~~~~~

Live Not by Lies – Alexander SolzhenitsynDownload

Filed under 2025 Current Events, media, Political Commentary, Politics Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

A Bugger’s Life

June 22, 2025 Leave a comment

What’s bugging Harry Caul?

Harry, a professional eavesdropper, is being paid to spy on a woman having an affair. But something he overheard makes him question whether he can remain a detached listener.

Harry and his crew use powerful microphones to record a conversation between the woman and her lover as they walk around a crowded San Francisco square. Later, after filtering out background noise on the tape, Harry replays a cryptic phrase in the recording. He imagines it to mean that the woman is being targeted to be murdered by his client.

Listening to his conscience, already replaying guilt and shame from a previous snooping assignment, Harry looks for a way out, for a way to not have blood on his hands. To offload his responsibility, he confides to a priest in a confessional, the oldest form of eavesdropping:

I’ve been involved in a job that may bring misfortune to two young people. It’s happened before. What I do has caused harm to someone. I’m afraid it will happen this time too. I’m not responsible for it. I can’t be responsible for it. 

The conversation in the park and in Harry’s soul takes place in the 1974 film by Francis Ford Coppola – a tense thriller and character study titled The Conversation.

Gene Hackman (God rest his soul) plays Harry Caul, ‘the best bugger on the West Coast.’ Harry is obsessed with technology and works in a world where privacy can be bought and sold using it.

On-the-job Harry, a surveillance expert, is an invader of privacy. He gets paid to move in close, take pictures, and record private conversations with electronic devices. But Harry has a paranoid fear of anyone being up close and personal with him.

Harry guards his privacy. He lives in a sparsely furnished apartment that is secured by three locks and an alarm system. It’s his fortress. He uses a payphone to make personal calls and lies about having a home telephone. Alone, Harry spends time playing his saxophone along with jazz records. Jazz is the music of individualists and loners.

Harry looks like a regular Joe. He easily fits into crowds and isn’t noticed while snooping. But Harry isn’t public. The enigmatic Harry stays emotionally detached from others, cut him off from the rest of the world as though he’s not really a part of it yet. This suggested in his last name “Caul,” the thin membrane that surrounds a fetus until it is born. His translucent raincoat suggests the caul.

Harry’s work is intrusive, but he wants protection from the same. He avoids below-the-surface relationships with people in his industry, his coworker Stan (John Cazale), and Amy, the mistress he supports and visits at random times.

Harry records private moments between humans. But the guarded Harry can’t or won’t expose himself to another human. His involvement with Amy (Teri Garr) is not a relationship nor intimacy. Harry shows up on his birthday and Amy thinks it is a good time to get to know Harry, to know his secrets. But Harry says he has no secrets to his secret lover. Harry is distant even from the person he is physically closest to.

As with the priest, Harry off loads his conscience and distances himself from the detrimental effects of his work. When Stan wants to speculate about the meaning of the conversation between Ann and Mark on the tapes, Harry insists that it is just a job and that it is unprofessional to get too curious or assume anything. How ironic for the intensely curious Caul!

Stan: It wouldn’t hurt if you filled me in a little bit every once in awhile. Did you ever think of that?
Harry Caul: It has nothing to do with me! And even less to do with you!
Stan: It’s curiosity! Did you ever hear of that? It’s just g*ddamn human nature!
Harry Caul: Listen, if there’s one sure fire rule that I have learned in this business is I don’t know anything about human nature. I don’t know anything about curiosity. That’s not part of what I do.

The man who hires Harry is Martin Stett (Harrison Ford). Stett is the assistant to Harry’s client, the director (Robert Duvall). Initially, Stett is friendly. But when Harry refuses to hand over the tapes, he becomes intimidating and warns Harry to “be careful.” He surveils Harry at the surveillance tech convention.

After a party at his workshop, Harry spends the night with Meredith (Elizabeth MacRae), a woman he has just met. He finds out the next morning that the tapes have been stolen. Stett had Meredith steal the tapes.

Stett tells Harry that they couldn’t wait for the tapes. He then tells Harry to come to the director’s office to hand over the photographs and collect his money. There, Harry meets the director and realizes that the woman he has been spying on is the director’s wife. The taped conversation now seems to signal the worst for the woman.

After leaving the office, Harry decides to get involved. His Catholic conscience kicks in and so does his covert curiosity. He surveils the lovers in a hotel room and . . .

I’ll stop there, with the basic elements of the film. You can watch the movie, experience the intrigue, check out the enigmatic Harry Caul character, and find out what’s bugging Harry Caul.

~~~

Some questions and thoughts:

Does Harry’s method of recording reality, a cryptic conversation here, turn out to be flawed?

Does anyone who views or hears another from a distance – do they know that person? Or, do they only hear and see what they want to.

Do devices divine truth?

Does Harry compartmentalize his work-self from his conscience so as to maintain his addiction to snooping?

Does Harry become a pawn in another scheme?

Does Harry become a “partner in crime” that he so wanted to avoid?

Does the overflowing toilet scene signify the ugly truth coming to the surface?

How does super snoop Harry end up at the end of the movie? What’s his psychological state? What does his utter helplessness represent?

In the end, with what’s left intact, does Harry Caul find what is ‘bugging’ him? Does Harry come up empty?

Why would a Christian and book reader like me watch this movie? Well, for one reason, it is a great movie.

The Conversation, written, produced, and directed by Francis Ford Coppola between the Godfather movies, is a tense thriller and character study. The 1974 film is not like most of the pathetic and mindless flicks of today. There are no superheroes, no CGI, no WOKE agenda, no gratuitous sex, nudity, and violence. The violence that does occur is presented as an off-stage event like in Greek tragedies.

See the called-out elements of its PG rating here: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071360/parentalguide/?ref_=tt_ov_pg#certificates

The movie was shot using long lenses and camera positions on rooftops. You get the idea of watching at a distance and of surveillance cameras panning scenes.

Another reason to watch is that Gene Hackman was a great actor. The character study involving a Catholic man who is self-isolating and who hears and views others from a distance – Hackman’s Harry Caul makes the movie.

Another is to consider the consequences of hearsay or of unfounded information, of surveillance versus participation, and of perception versus reality. Can we really know someone, their thinking, and their situation from a distance, from what others would have us believe?

And, there is the matter of someone listening without our knowledge. Though made in 1974, the issues of privacy the movie presents are relevant regarding you and I being surveilled today. The analog technology shown in the film has been replaced with digital technology that gains access to our private electronic communications, as through wiretapping or the interception of e-mail or cell phone calls.

We live in the age of digital technology that includes emails, texts, smart phones, and social media. How does Harry’s addiction to technology that supports his habit of seeing and hearing others at distance and his voyeuristic predilections affect him?

~~~~~~

~~~~~

Finding God in Stories | Office Hours, Ep. 15

~~~~~

Scot Bertram talks with Clare Morell, fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and director of EPPC’s Technology and Human Flourishing Project, about the long-term effects of smartphone use on children and her new book The Tech Exit: A Practical Guide to Freeing Kids and Teens from Smartphones. And Benedict Whalen, associate professor of English at Hillsdale College, continues a series on the life and work of American writer Mark Twain. This week, he discusses The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.

Clare Morell Helps to Keep Kids Free from Screens

Clare Morell Helps to Keep Kids Free from Screens – The Radio Free Hillsdale Hour – Omny.fm

~~~~~~

Filed under 2025 Current Events, movie, privacy, technology Tagged with , , , , , , , , ,

They Hate You

April 7, 2024 Leave a comment

I’ve been reading a lot of realist fiction lately but I can’t ignore the grim reality of the hatred directed at Americans by the Left. This hatred is manifested with tactics no different than the “irregular warfare” used by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to impose its will:

“The three warfares are the coordinated use of public opinion, psychological, and legal warfare methods to “stifle criticism of the Chinese Communist Party, spread positive views of China,””

Elsa Kania, an adjunct fellow with the Technology and National Security Program at the Center for a New American Security writes in a 2016 China Brief article about The PLA’s Latest Strategic Thinking on the Three Warfares. She says that “the application of the three warfares is intended to control the prevailing discourse and influence perceptions in a way that advances China’s interests, while compromising the capability of opponents to respond.”

She goes on to describe the three non-kinetic warfares and their functions:

2015 Science of Military Strategy:

The [2015 National Defense University (NDU) SMS] provides an overview of public opinion warfare, psychological warfare, and legal warfare and guidance regarding their implementation. According to the text, public opinion warfare involves using public opinion as a weapon by propagandizing through various forms of media in order to weaken the adversary’s “will to fight” (战斗意志), while ensuring strength of will and unity among civilian and military views on one’s own side. Psychological warfare seeks to undermine an adversary’s combat power, resolve, and decision-making, while exacerbating internal disputes to cause the enemy to divide into factions (阵营). Legal warfare envisions use of all aspects of the law, including national law, international law, and the laws of war, in order to secure seizing “legal principle superiority” (法理优势) and delegitimize an adversary. Each of the three warfares operates in the perceptual domain (认知领域) and relies upon information for its efficacy. (Emphasis mine.)

These tactics look very familiar. “Irregular warfare”, employed with aggression and deceit (“Force and fraud are the cardinal virtues of war.” –Hobbes), are at work in the Left’s attack on Americans. We are all well aware of one assault close to home.

During COVID (the spread of the China virus) we were subjected to the coordinated force of propaganda to influence and control public opinion. There was propagandizing through various forms of media in order to weaken the adversary’s “will to fight” against what we were told to believe.

There was also the psychological balkanizing that divided the nation into those who “follow the science” and “science deniers” and the “vaxxed” and “anti-vax”.

And there was the legal warfare of COVID mandates that put people in jail or quarantines and closed churches and businesses and put people out of work if not vaxxed. All done to delegitimize an adversary to what we were told to obey.

We were subjected to coordinated fraud in the messaging about the (flu-like) virus’ transmission and effects and the effectiveness of the COVID vaccine and the efficacy of Hydroxychloroquine and Ivermectin. Multiple doctors and epidemiologists who spoke out against the narrative were silenced in the media and elsewhere. Force was used to stifle criticism and to co-opt and neutralize sources of potential opposition to “the science” and the purveyors of “the science”, the Left’s medical-pharmaceutical industrial complex (Anthony Fauci, Francis Collins, CDC, NIH, big pharma et al.).

Each of the Left’s three warfares employed during COVID operated in the “perceptual domain and relied upon [the control of] information for its effectiveness.”

We continue to be subjected to the Left’s three-fold attack with the “force and fraud” climate crisis narrative. Public opinion is being swayed by climate crisis propaganda: “We need to act now to avoid catastrophe.” “Irregular warfare” is being used against fossil fuels, LNG, agriculture, and anyone who opposes the Left’s narrative.

The fact that nuclear power, a carbon-free and a safe energy source that can produce huge amounts of reliable electricity, is not mentioned by the Left should be an indicator that climate is not an issue – controlling you is. (There is no climate crisis. See video below.)

We continue to be subjected to the Left’s “irregular warfare” with its fraudulent narrative of Trump as a threat to “Democracy”. The apoplectic Left, desiring to influence and control public opinion, wants to put the fear of Trump into their viewers and readers. The want viewers and readers to hate Trump.

The psychological warfare element of this attack includes exacerbating internal disputes to cause the enemy – the Right – to divide into factions. Hence, the Left will showcase never -Trumpers like David French to speak against Trump.

The third element of the Left’s threefold “irregular warfare” is used to “delegitimize an adversary.” This is the reason for the lawfare being waged against Donald Trump. The Left is desperate. They have tried unsuccessfully to keep him off the ballot. They have sought to disqualify him. They are seeking to bankrupt him. The Left will use any means necessary to take down Trump through “legal warfare.”

About this, George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley notes:

“It’s becoming increasingly difficult to deny that we have a legal system now that is being heavily distorted by politics and you cannot look at all of these cases and see blind justice, you see the opposite,” Turley told Fox Business host Larry Kudlow, a former Trump administration official. “You see a justice that is being weaponized, and in many ways the Democrats fulfill the narrative of President Trump. He is now right. No matter what they thought about it at the beginning, they proved him to be right with this pile-on from Florida to Georgia, to Washington, D.C., to New York and most of the public gets it.”

The Left’s MSNBC and CNN and the NYT and WaPo and other media outlets of their ilk are so afraid that Trump will win in November that they are pulling out all the stops. They accuse Trump of promoting a lie (the stolen 2020 election) and calling illegals “animals” (Trump was talking about the murderer of Laken Riley). They will 24/7 you with “Trump is a threat to Democracy and our way of life. We will all become victims if Trump is elected (and blah blah blah).”

We continue to be subjected to the Left’s public opinion influence and psychological warfare via its constant fear-mongering. The Left conjures up end-of-the-world narratives, whether of COVID, climate, Trump or of people who don’t buy what they are selling.

Those who are taken in by Left don’t understand that they are targets of two elements of “irregular warfare”: influence of public opinion and psychological warfare. One reason they buy in is that the legal warfare component is directed at Trump and anyone connected with him. Another reason may be how they feel about the Left’s talking points: “I love the way you lie.”

A key component of the Left’s warfare against Americans is balkanization. The Left seeks to divide us into warring factions. There are those in the media who delight in dividing us rather than uniting us. They live for this. It is how they gain their power, their influence and their money. It is how they destroy America. As Jesus knew to be true, “if a kingdom is divided in two it can’t last.”

And so it is that the above media outlets present authors who foster division by writing that white Americans and Christian Nationalists (whatever they are) are a dangerous threat to “Democracy!”

The Left, to “delegitimize an adversary”, wants to put the fear of whites and of Christians who love their country into their viewers and readers – as if hating them along with Trump was a necessary condition for protecting “Democracy!”

Following the MSNBC promotion of the hectoring book White Rural Rage: The Threat to American Democracy published on February 27, 2024, came another screed published April 2, 2024 supposedly from a Christian, Sojourner’s Jim Wallis: The False White Gospel: Rejecting Christian Nationalism, Reclaiming True Faith, and Refounding Democracy.

Progressive Wallis was on MSNBC promoting his platitudes and inviting all who can be persuaded to reject and help dismantle a false gospel that propagates white supremacy and autocracy . . . and Christian Nationalism (whatever that is)

One Amazon commenter on White Rural Rage wrote something that applies to both books: “This book helps to explain the startling divide in America by showing just how profoundly uninterested such people are in understanding or accepting the views of anyone who does not accord with their own orthodoxy and must therefore be dismissed as anti-democratic.”

And from a review of White Rural Rage by Maria-Katrina Cortez:

Waldman and Schaller portray rural people as passive, unthinking agents in the democratic process. Though “rage” features prominently in their title, they use the word fewer than ten times in the text, and only to belabor their claim that Republican leaders intentionally manufactured rural voters’ anger, as though these Americans would not be concerned about their situations without external manipulation.

And here’s Nicholas F. Jacobs writing in What Liberals Get Wrong About ‘White Rural Rage’ — Almost Everything – POLITICO

“In an interview on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, [author Tom] Schaller gave this unvarnished assessment of the rage he sees overflowing in the heartland. Rural whites, he said, are “the most racist, xenophobic, anti-immigrant, anti-gay geo-demographic group in the country.” He called them, “the most conspiracist group,” “anti-democratic,” “white nationalist and white Christian nationalists.” On top of that, rural whites are also “most likely to excuse or justify violence as an acceptable alternative to peaceful public discourse . . .

“But the thing about rage — I’ve never found it.

“The problem with this “rage” thesis is much larger than the fact that my research, and that of others, is being misinterpreted and misunderstood. What the authors are getting wrong about rural America is exactly what many Democrats have been getting wrong for decades — and appear to be doing so again in this critical presidential election year.”

The following is my response to the red meat those authors threw to the ravenous Left:

“What is inadmissible, both morally and scientifically, is the hubris that pretends to understand the behavior of human agents without for a moment listening systematically to how they understand what they are doing and how they explain themselves.”
― James C. Scott, Two Cheers for Anarchism: Six Easy Pieces on Autonomy, Dignity, and Meaningful Work and Play

They hate us. They hate God.

When spoken of from the High Chairs of Hubris and Condescension, those of us who love God and our family and our country and not what proceeds from the mouths of the elites are not just called “bitter clingers” and “deplorable”. We are called “extremists.” We are called every name in the Left’s style book. And therefore, more force and fraud are needed to be applied. Hence the shaming books of the fellow traveler intelligentsia.

One would think that loving God, loving your family and loving your country would be all good. But the Left hates all that. Leftist elites love themselves and the sound of their condescension.

How far will the Left go? Students of history know. History tells us that the Left will use any means necessary, including injustice, famine, show trials, gulags, and murder to get their way. How far did the Left go this week?

The Biden regime just convicted a 71-year-old great-grandmother on federal misdemeanor charges for entering the Capitol more than three years ago for ten minutes.

Biden regime just proved once and for all that the US government is the most corrupt organization in the world, and it’s not even close… – Revolver News

“Without God, there’s no justice.” -71-year-old great-grandmother Rebecca Lavrenz who faces four federal misdemeanor charges for entering the Capitol more than three years ago during the Fedsurrection. She spent about 10 minutes inside.

Wearing a red scarf and a white hat to the rally, which she said she attended by herself, Lavrenz encountered a group of people praying outside the Capitol, and she joined them for about an hour and a half.

“It was a patriotic, joyful time to be around so many people who love their country,” she said. “I felt a strong presence of the spirt of God fall over me, and I started crying.”

At one point, she took the microphone to speak about a document that became known as the 1620 Mayflower Compact. Included in the agreement that pilgrims had signed before they set foot on American soil was that the country would be dedicated to the glory of God and advancement of the Christian faith.

“My mission in life is to know God and make his ways known and restore the country back to its godly foundation,” Lavrenz said. “Without God, there’s no justice.”

71-Year-Old Grandma Convicted on All Charges by DC Jury After Praying in Capitol on Jan. 6 | The Gateway Pundit | by Randy DeSoto, The Western Journal

This post is meant to alert you to the Left’s three-pronged warfare directed at Americans. There is more that could be said, but there is enough here, I believe, for the reader to understand the hatred directed at us.

I haven’t even mentioned the Biden inflation and the cost of living or how hard it will be for our children to buy a house and property because of the human-hating financial policies of the Left.

I haven’t even mentioned that the Biden regime’s human-hating open border policy will drive wages down for minorities and put Americans out of work. It is a policy that allows in deadly fentanyl and deadly gangs and deadly terrorists and deadly diseases to kill people. You won’t hear or see any of this from Rachel Maddow. All you’ll hear from her is “orange man bad.”

The Left hates us. And so does the Satan.

~~~~~

I see the Left – its hatred and evil schemes – depicted in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo trilogy. Having control and imposing its will are essential to the Left, as in the story. Violence, mental and physical, are their means.

In the novels Dr. Peter Teleborian is the psychiatrist at St. Stefan’s Psychiatric Clinic for Children. Teleborian is a sadist who abuses his patients.

The child Lisbeth Salander was committed to St. Stefan’s after she tried to kill her evil father for beating and raping her mother. While in the clinic Teleborian kept Lisbeth strapped down each night for over a year and tried to force feed her psychiatric drugs. Salander later described him as the most evil man she ever met.

Lisbeth is later released from the clinic and put under guardianship. Her guardian suffers a heart attack and she is given another legal guardian – Nils Bjurman.

At their second meeting Bjurman informs Salander that she has to give over access to all of her bank accounts. Her first guardian Palmgren allowed her to control her own finances but Bjurman wants to control every aspect of her life.

Bjurman, to prove who’s in charge, molests her and forces her to pleasure him sexually. Because of her previous problems with the police, Lisbeth decides to take matters into her own hands. At their next meeting, she comes prepared with a hidden video camera. But, to her horror and dismay, she realizes she has misjudged Bjurman; he attacks and brutally rapes her.

Then The Section, an ultra-secret division of the government that reports to no one, tries to have Lisbeth recommitted to Dr. Teleborian’s clinic. This was to be done to protect the members of The Section. Dr. Teleborian is assigned by The Section to write a false report about Lisbeth Salander.

The Section harbored and protected the evil Zalachenko, ex-Russian spy who defected to Sweden. Alexander Zalachenko is Lisbeth’s abusive father.

We later learn that Dr. Teleborian kept thousands of child porn photos on his laptop. He is arrested during Lisbeth’s trial.

Looking at the nature of the people on the Left and their way of doing things with the caveat “for your own good”, it is easy for me to see similarities to the evil characters above.

~~~~~

They hate you. They hate your children. “Irregular warfare” is being waged in our public schools:

Public school “experts” are trashing traditional education in virtue and citizenship in favor of victimhood and dependency. The inheritance of Western Civilization has been officially discarded by irresponsible intellectuals, determined to advance their “progressive” ideologies. These ideologies, pushing kids to discover “their own truths,” are generally varieties of “subjectivism” or “relativism.” Critical theory deliberately undercuts our natural commonsense, the shared foundation of a free society, by teaching children that their homes, communities, and even their own physiology are their worst enemies, the foes of their real identities. Ideologues do this by “reducing” our natural experience of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty to “no more than” materialistic “animal instincts” (Modernism), that then give rise to oppressive “social constructs” (Postmodernism), and, presto, an epidemic of anxiety.

 Joseph Woodard, Rediscovering the True, Good, & Beautiful ~ The Imaginative Conservative

~~~~~

They hate you. The Open Border Means Open Season on You – thanks to gov’t paid NGOs like Catholic Charities and others; thanks to Mayorkas and Democrats in need of votes who ignore what is happening.

Illegals are coming, not to assimilate but to plunder.

Another gang threat is unfolding thanks to Biden’s open border, but this time they’re going after American elites… – Revolver News

Violent, heavily armed Venezuelan illegals found squatting in the basement of a US home… – Revolver News

Nearly 1,000 ‘Gotaway’ Illegals Crossed Southern Border on Easter Sunday. (thenationalpulse.com)

Illegal immigrant charged in ‘horrific’ child sex crime arrested by ICE after police let him go (yahoo.com)

If you allow people from all over the world to come here by the millions in violation of our laws, you make no effort to screen them for infectious diseases and you push them into our largest population centers, you are going to see outbreaks of disease. People are going to die. The health of all Americans is going to be negatively impacted.

That’s exactly what is happening now. U.S. cases of tuberculosis, a deadly infectious disease have soared to their highest level in a decade, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). After 27 years of declining tuberculosis rates in the United States, cases of the disease started to climb again in 2020. They have continued to rise every year since.

TB Is Back – Thank Joe – by Sam Faddis – AND Magazine (substack.com)

Chicago Woman Demolished Migrant City Committee With Powerful Speech (youtube.com)

~~~~~

They hate you by ignoring you.

Ben Berquam Interviews Devon Jones And Mark Carter Live From The Migrant Crisis In Chicago (rumble.com)

~~~~~

How far will the Left go to dismantle the USA?

Under OBiden’s reign of terror – No Coincidence Infrastructure destruction:

Train derailments

Supply chain crisis

Food processing plants mysteriously exploding & catching on fire

Planes falling apart in the sky

Ships crashing into bridges

Watch: Something very strange is happening to bridges in the US—the third incident in 7 days… – Revolver News

~~~~~

2024. What does it mean when Americans vote for the destruction of their country? For the destruction of their own children through abortion?

If you consume what is fed from the above media outlets you may be living in a bubble the Left has created for you. You won’t see the destruction of civil society and justice within our land. You will learn, instead, to blame Trump and those on the right for problems.

The following is from a statement from Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, former Apostolic Nuncio to the United States, “on the scandalous proclamation of March 31 as ‘Transgender visibility day’ by ‘president’ Joe Biden.”

All humanity is awakening from a slumber that has lasted far too long:

-the lives of the innocent are threatened by abortion, euthanasia, manipulation, and abuse;

-the health of citizens is deliberately compromised by experimental serums revealed to be a biological weapon of population decimation;

-the total moral corruption of the top echelons of civil authority, enslaved to criminal lobbies in a global coup, is now evident;

-the increasingly arrogant display of Satan worship by the media and the world of culture and entertainment show us a world awash in execrable perversions that cry out to Heaven for vengeance;

-the mad provocation of a world conflict claims lives in order to bury the horrendous sexual and financial scandals of a power that is now the enemy of its citizens.

Archbishop Viganò: Biden must be recognized as excommunicated after ‘Trans Day of Visibility’ declaration – LifeSite (lifesitenews.com)

~~~~~

They hate you. The Left’s medical-pharmaceutical industry’s reign of terror:

Multiple laboratory studies now confirm that Pfizer’s COVID-19 mRNA vaccine is heavily contaminated with plasmid DNA. The latest analysis finds that one dose of the Pfizer vaccine typically contains over 200 billion DNA fragments. These DNA fragments can incorporate into the DNA of the vaccinated individual and interfere with the expression of oncogenes and tumor suppression genes. This DNA contamination has cancer implications for millions of people who were manipulated to take part in this biowarfare experiment. (Emphasis mine.)

One Dose of Pfizer’s Covid “Vaccine” Contains Over 200 Billion DNA Fragments That Can Incorporate Into Human DNA, Causing Cancer – Discern Report

New American Daily | Vaccine-laced Food Is Here (rumble.com)

~~~~~

The Left’s Central Planning’s reign of terror:

Small chains and mom-and-pop businesses simply can’t compete.  Larger chains raised prices but have also been forced to reduce employees and labor costs through automation, but the layoffs are just getting started. 

Mass Layoffs Begin At California Fast Food Chains As $20 Minimum Wage Law Takes Effect | ZeroHedge

~~~~~

The Biden regime’s geopolitical reign of terror:

Mr. Blinken just announced World War Three

 If your situational awareness is well-tuned, you can put together a political weather report from the swirl of events that otherwise seem to confound the degenerate simps who pretend to report the news. Events are tending in the direction of self-reinforcing, ramifying chaos, and the people running the show are obviously insane as they do everything possible to hurry chaos along.

Vectoring Dangerously – Kunstler

~~~~~

The Left hates you:

Batya Ungar-Sargon, author of Second Class

Batya Ungar-Sargon Explains The MAGA Philosophy That The Left Can’t Understand (rumble.com)

~~~~~

The 2024 election comes down to a choice: for those who love you and what you love or for those who love power and control.

Must watch: The description of how Officer Diller’s family welcomed and embraced President Trump is incredible…. – Revolver News

~~~~~

The Josh Hammer Show

The Democratic Party Hates Democracy

Politics, law, and culture collide as Newsweek Senior Editor-at-Large Josh Hammer charts a path forward for American conservatism and exposes the woke Left. A voice for the New Right, Hammer delivers blistering commentary and weekly interviews with today’s top conservative thinkers.

The Democratic Party Hates Democracy

Series – The Josh Hammer Show (newsweek.com)

~~~~~

Presentation starts at 7:35.

Onstage at the Reagan Library with David Mamet (youtube.com)

Podcast here:

David Mamet | The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation & Institute (reaganfoundation.org)

The arc of political change: David Mamet, Whittaker Chambers, Ronald Reagan – The New Neo

~~~~~

Don’t accept the Left’s propaganda regarding climate:

Climate: The Movie (The Cold Truth) English (youtube.com)

~~~~~

Filed under 2024 Current Events, 2024 Election, media, Political Commentary, Politics, Progressivism Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , ,

You and Euaggélion

November 26, 2023 Leave a comment

We are entering a season of celebrating Good News. But hold on. There are some, the same some since before 2016, who are now heralding a disastrous 2024.

Today, at the top of media’s Richter scale of catastrophic “Oh Nos!” and bumping “climate crisis” to number TWO is word of a disastrous new year as speculated in The Economist magazine article Donald Trump poses the biggest danger to the world in 2024  !!!!

To add to the hysteria known as Trump Derangement Syndrome, unhinged Joe Scarborough of MSNBC’s Morning Joe said that Trump “will end democracy as we know it.” Wow!!! What a power calculus!!

Joe, hyperbolizing on a New York Times Op-Ed [“Trump’s Dire Words Raise New Fears About His Authoritarian Bent”] went beyond calling Trump an authoritarian. He implied that Trump’s a murderous fascist: “he will imprison” “he will execute” enemies if reelected. Scarborough knows this because of “his past”. (I’d like to see those press clippings. Anyone?)

N.B.: MSNBC is where people go to completely lose all touch with reality because Orange Man Bad.

Here’s Mika man:

Trump Acquitted of Inciting Insurrection, Even as Bipartisan Majority Votes ‘Guilty’ – The New York Times (nytimes.com)

And there’s more from the ‘sound and fury, signifying nothing’ MSNBC:

“Former Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson said Tuesday on MSNBC’s “Inside” that “everybody should vote for” President Joe Biden if they wanted democracy to survive.” Wow!!! Again!!!

Before we exit the land of the unhinged, there’s another unbalanced MSNBC political contributor who weighs in on Trump: former Democrat U.S. Senator of Missouri, the very rich Claire McCaskill.

McCaskill claims that Donald Trump is “even more dangerous” than dictators Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler!!! In the process of loathing Trump, McCaskill also has to mock MAGA supporters. You should know that the schtick of MSNBC contributors – our hoity-toity betters – is making their viewers feel superior to the deplorable hoi polloi.

The above insanity should tell you that the Left – Wokes, LGBTQ+ mafia, Antifa, the climate overwrought, BLM, race hustlers and all – are terrified of Trump. And they want you to be terrified of him, too. They see their world, supported by the vast administrative State that sustains their power and control over America, as threatened by Trump. For, in Trump’s next term, he will begin to pull apart the leviathan deep state apparatus that destroys Democracy and America itself.

That and the Left’s constant lawfare against Trump is an indicator to me that Trump is the right man for the job. He’s about saving what’s left of our Republic – namely, the Constitution, free speech, the right to bear arms, religious freedom, and due process which prohibits the states from depriving “any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” (14th Amendment).

The Left, on the other hand, want to abandon all that. The Left wants to seize life, liberty, and property and create a system of producing and distributing collectively owned goods via a centralized government that plans and controls the economy. The left’s economic reforms increase centralized state control to the extent that private ownership becomes virtually impossible.

See Mao’s Great Leap Forward for one example of the effects of collectivization. A Progressive’s collective communist State means that all labor, money, and production go to the State and the State determines who benefits and who must go without based on political loyalty.

And see North Korea for the Left’s brand of “Democracy!” which the braying MSNBC crew says is under threat and not because of their dictatorial ways but because of the guy who wants to keep them from their dictatorial ways.

Trump has also shown that he wants to ensure our country’s sovereignty. And that means a closed border with legal immigration. He also wants to safeguard America from another war. The Left, under the Biden regime, has shown us that open borders with constant war and anarchy are its will.

Another indicator that Trump is right for the WH job is that there are those, not just domestically but internationally, who want Trump and those around them out of the picture, e.g., Iran-linked hitmen. Trump is bothering all the right (evil) people.

Going forward, I sure don’t want someone representing me in the WH who folds or capitulates under pressure. I sure don’t want appeasers and accommodationists like members of Congress. I sure don’t want someone who, at one time in Indiana, looked the part of a respectable Christian leader but turned out to be a squish: Don’t Ever Forget That Mike Pence Threw Religious Liberty Under the Bus | National Review

Results, not presentation, earn my respect.

And though New Yorker Trump could always pick out better words and phrasing to explain his thoughts and his frustrations with the stolen 2020 election, he wasn’t chosen to be president in 2016 and 2020 and once again in 2024 because he’s a poet laureate or a pastor or a prefab politician. Trump’s a producer for the American people.

The firing-on-all cylinders low-inflation economy (before the subterfuge of COVID) and the strong dollar Trump delivered – both are being destroyed by the Biden administration’s willful neglect of the American people as are the times of peace Trump fostered.

But MSNBC stands by their man Biden . . .

Since President Biden took office in January 2021, Americans have faced increasingly higher prices for food, gasoline, and other common household items. And while prices have been going up, wages have been going down, placing additional stress on family finances. This, per The Biden Inflation Tracker. This per Full-Time Nurse and Mother Breaks Down as She Discusses Tough Financial Struggles Under Bidenomics — Family Living ‘Paycheck-to-Paycheck’ Despite Decent Income (VIDEO) | The Gateway Pundit | by Jim Hᴏft

Since Biden took office Home sales fell to a 13-year low in October as prices rose (cnbc.com),

Since the illegitimate President took office in January 2021, our southern border has been invaded. Biden-Mayorkas have allowed in (6 million +) all kinds of illegal immigrants including narco-terrorists, gangs, CCP migrants, Hamas terrorists, and more unsavory types along with fentanyl and disease. 2024 will be disastrous as the effects of the open border hit home.

Under the corrupt, compromised, incompetent, and incorrigible Joe Biden, Americans now risk getting pulled into wars on three major fronts: Europe, the Asia Pacific and the Middle East. That didn’t happen under Trump.

But MSNBC stands by their man Biden . . .

Unlike those who are “ashamed” or “embarrassed” by Trump and want to condemn his unrefined ways as being beneath them, my working life was spent in the real world outside the cloisters of academia, religious organizations, and armchair punditry. I learned which people get things done and what needs to get done.

As a business partner in a multi-million-dollar manufacturing enterprise for many years, I found out who was needed and what was needed to bring success to both employees and the bottom line. The things that Trump got done during his first term allowed me to get things done in the Kingdom of God.

N.B.: There are imperfect people like Trump and tax-collector Matthew in the kingdom of heaven. (Mk. 2:15-17). So, it is best for the offended and the ‘high-minded’ to stick with the gospels and to stay away from tea leaves.

Consider a Trump economy. With a thriving economy, I am able to support myself and give to help others in need in a closely tied relationship. But under a Leftist Joe Biden economy, disposable personal income shrinks. Financial survival kicks in. And worse.

You should be aware that Leftists are intent on neutralizing Christianity and its charity. As mentioned above, the Left wants everything to be funneled through the State and the State to be the only effect on society. This is what Progressives do. They make everyone and everything dependent on ruling class ‘good will’. And that is the substance of State media’s MSNBC and their ilk.

So, while the prophets of Baal, enflamed with Trump Derangement Syndrome, shout louder and slash themselves with swords and spears in the hope that viewers will pay attention to their frantic prophesying and let their fire rain down on Trump, let’s turn to the Good News that has already come down from the heavens with its fire poured out through the Holy Spirit.

The beginning of Mark’s Gospel (εὐαγγέλιον or euaggélion – literally, “God’s good news.”):

This is where the good news starts – the good news of Jesus the Anointed King, God’s son.

Everything in Scripture (and specifically Isaiah 40-55) up to this time pointed to the Kingdom of God on earth. Mark writes (vs.14-15):

After John’s arrest, Jesus came into Galilee, announcing God’s good news.

“The time is fulfilled!”  he said; “God Kingdom is arriving! Turn back and believe the good news!”

“Turn back”? When Jesus launched the long-promised kingdom of God on earth, allegiances and lifestyles began to change direction, as he began to talk about and show what that meant.

Jesus spoke of kingdom of God in parables and directly, as in Matthew 5-7. He showed what the kingdom of God meant – unclean spirits are cast out (Mk. 1:39), people are healed (Mt. 4:23), there is restoration (Lk. 15) and resurrection (Jn. 11:38-44). And, that the kingdom of God on earth was a fulfillment of the Law and Prophets (Mt. 5:17-18).

When he taught his disciples how to pray, he prayed

May your kingdom come,

May your will be done

As in heaven, so on earth

I wonder. Is that prayer being realized? Instead of allegiance to King Jesus the ultimate restorer and to the kingdom of God on earth, have the followers of Jesus become accommodationists of the world to fit in and find ease?

Have the followers of Jesus understood what the good news is? Have they reduced the gospel (euaggélion) to the formulaic four spiritual laws and an escape from the world into heaven?

Below are two podcasts that offer an understanding of the Good News and the kingdom of God on earth. Download and listen as you enter the season of celebrating the birth of a King who brought us good news and a kingdom.

But the holy ones of the Most High shall receive the kingdom and possess the kingdom forever—forever and ever. Daniel 7:18

We, the King’s holy ones, are to herald the good news of God’s Kingdom with a new way of life to a world that sees answers in profoundly short-sighted ways rather than in the Way of King Jesus. And then . . .

Then the seventh angel blew his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, saying,

“The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord
    and of his Messiah,
and he will reign forever and ever.” Rev 11:15

~~~~~

On Earth as it is in Heaven

Anglican Bishop, and New Testament scholar, N.T. Wright makes clear, Jesus’ good news wasn’t about giving advice, or founding a new religion, or even where a soul goes when the body dies. Jesus was inviting his hearers into a new way of understanding Israel’s ancient story and the cosmic significance of its sudden fulfillment.

Reading Scripture with N.T. Wright

Reading Scripture with N.T. Wright

Trinity Forum Conversations | Reading Scripture with N.T. Wright (transistor.fm)

~~~~~

Jesus and the Kingdom of God

Jesus bringing the Kingdom of God to the world looks much different than what his friends, family members, and Jewish community thought.

Jesus and the Kingdom of God

Jesus & the Kingdom of God (bibleproject.com)

~~~~~

Informed Dissent:

A year of determination, the help of world-renowned doctors, and this mother’s research exposed the world to the known toxins in the Covid-19 vaccines that nearly killed her son.

“In 2021, after my then 21-year-old son went from running miles a day to walking with a cane, diagnosed with a rare, catastrophic blood disorder, this mom knows it is time for vaccine injury victims & families to ignite an intelligent, rational conversation about what the mRNA vaccines put into our bodies. We don’t buy food or health products without reading the labels and knowing the ingredients, and it’s time we do the same with the vaccines for our children.”

The Shot Heard Around The World – A Mother’s Anthem (substack.com)

Livestock raised in confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs) are routinely given a range of veterinary drugs to prevent disease, and some of those drugs could potentially impact the health of those who eat their meat.

Common Drug Used by Pork Industry Has Human Cancer Risk (mercola.com)

Thousands of vials of biological substances — including some labeled “HIV” — and a freezer marked “Ebola” were found inside a secret Chinese-owned biolab in California which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and FBI initially refused to investigate, according to a House committee report released Wednesday. 

Pathogens labeled ‘HIV’ and ‘Ebola’ found inside illegal Chinese-owned biolab in California (nypost.com)

“This is really a massive cover-up. And I suspect it’s because there’s many more links to the funding, and there was probably discussion of the funding,” says Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky).

HHS and NIH More Secretive Than CIA on COVID Origin Documents: Sen. Rand Paul | EpochTV (theepochtimes.com)

~~~~~

Brace Yourself For What’s Coming in 2024 – Victor Davis Hanson – YouTube

Victor Davis Hanson Warns America: ‘Brace Yourself for What’s Coming in 2024’ (VIDEO) | The Gateway Pundit | by Mike LaChance

Filed under 2023 current events, 2024 Election, Christianity, cultural Marxism, Gospel of Mark, Gospels, Kingdom of God, media, Political Commentary, Politics, Progressivism, social commentary Tagged with , , , , , , , , ,

Copy-cat Revenge

June 3, 2018 Leave a comment

 

“How many children around the globe, we continue to ask, are growing up with “jihad,” “war,” “crusade,” “revenge,” “hatred” not only inscribed in their names but woven into the very fabric of their lives! For reconciliation to take place, the inscriptions of hatred must be carefully erased and the threads of violence gently removed. This, I think, is one important lesson of Jesus’ proclamation of the reign of God”.  – from Miroslav Volf’s book Exclusion and Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation

~~~

“Here Comes Revenge”

Little grave I’m grieving, I will mend you
Sweet revenge I’m dreaming, I will end you

I’ve been here since dawn of time
Countless hatreds built my shrine
I was born in anger’s flame
He was Abel, I was Cain
I am here
I’m hell unbound
Burn your kingdom to the ground
To the ground

Here comes revenge, just for you
Revenge, you can’t undo
Revenge, is killing me
Revenge, set me free
Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth
A life for a life, it’s my burden of proof
Revenge, just for you
Revenge
You ask forgiveness, I give you sweet revenge

I return this nightmare, I will find you
Sleepless, cloaked in despair, I’m behind you

Man has made me oh so strong
Blurring lines of right and wrong
Far too late for frail amends
Now it’s come to sweet revenge
Desperate hands
That lose control
Have no mercy on your soul
On your soul

Here comes revenge, just for you
Revenge, you can’t undo
Revenge, is killing me
Revenge, just set me free
Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth
A life for a life, it’s my burden of proof
Revenge, just for you
Revenge
You ask forgiveness, I give you sweet revenge

Here comes revenge, just for you
Revenge, you can’t undo
Revenge, is killing me
Revenge, set me free
Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth
A life for a life, it’s my burden of proof
Revenge, just for you
Revenge
You ask forgiveness, I give you sweet revenge

Sweet revenge

 -Metallica, Here Comes Revenge

 

Revenge has media backing. Entertainment media is suffused with violent images of revenge. Is not most of what is called action and drama cable programing and movies about taking revenge? Gladiator and Kill Bill come to mind but there are hundreds of revenge programs and movies. Tough guys and gals go settle scores via jihads, wars, crusades, etc., and pander to the basest of emotions for entertainment dollars. Revenge is valorized. 

Revenge is shown as what the character (and the viewer vicariously) must do to obtain closure. So, the ‘victim’ becomes the avenger. After killing the perpetrator, the avenger walks off mollified that he or she has justifiably killed another. Yet, in reality, taking revenge is never the end of the story. Revenge never brings the curtain down. How is this impulse for revenge, as depicted so often on the screen of black box, inscribed into our lives?

On Twitter a while back I engaged a woman in a conversation. As the thread became about control gun around a school shooting, I jumped in with a reply and stated that the media and those who consume those things are also blameworthy. I said that what is shown on TV and in movies and video games reinforces the idea that violent revenge is the answer to injustice.

In her replies to me, the woman was adamant that the media was benign. She replied with several of her Google search findings which she felt supported her position. I could tell from her responses that she also had a vested interest in saying the media was harmless. I learned that the kids she was caring for played video games. I ended the conversation with her mentioning that the sheer volume of programing that depicts violent revenge as the answer to a wrong must influence a person’s behavior subconsciously. She was resistant to the notion.

What I wanted to add: commercials are made to influence consumer behavior. The hourly and daily repetition of the same commercial will soon have a person, in Pavlovian response, finishing its jingle or its phone number or reciting the words of its comical product sketch at the office. Clearly, those who want to influence behavior use the media. The nightly newscasts that talk about “gun violence” are meant to stir up emotions against guns and their owners. Consider what the volumes of violent revenge images in the media do to the viewer, especially to the lone viewer and to the viewer with unresolved anger at some perceived offense? The scenarios do not depict reconciliation. The scenarios depict anger and rage fulfilled.

Consider also the effects of the news media’s attention to mass killers.

Most copycats have their private agenda in a rampage killing but seek to tie it in to other events that received a lot of publicity. In this way, they bask in the reflected publicity, so to speak. In many cases, the rampage killer wants to commit suicide but opts to take others with him…it is difficult to escape the conclusion that copycat killings are partly inspired by the publicity surrounding the original. Quote from Copycat Killings: Making sense of the senseless

 

As I thought about revenge and the incessant revenge depictions, the image that came to my mind was the one invoked by Jesus:

You heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you: don’t use violence to resist evil! Instead, when someone hits you on the right cheek, turn the other one toward him.  Matthew 5: 8-39

As I try to wrap my mind around those words, I come to some conclusions:

A slap of my face would be a stinging rebuke. A slap of my face means someone is in my face about some matter and it is personal.  A slap of my face is a challenge prodding me to answer back with equal force or to walk away in shame. A slap in my face is a show of power.

A person acting out ‘An eye for an eye’ revenge says to himself, “There is no God who will hold the other accountable and therefore I must avenge myself.” Or, “There is a God but he is off somewhere. I will have my vengeance.” A person acting out revenge says to himself, “I am not responsible for what happens next.”  A person acting out revenge says to himself, “I will not stop the cycle of violence until I have conquered the other and have brought them to their knees.”

A person acting out revenge rejects the words of Scripture…

Don’t take revenge, my dear people, but allow God’s anger room to work. The Bible says, after all, ‘Vengeance is mine; I will replay, say the Lord.” Romans 12: 19

 

I am told by Jesus to turn my other cheek into the line of fire. Doing so is the real show of power – restraint with the knowledge that God sees the offense. My Father in heaven, who also sees me when I pray in secret, will make things right. How can I be sure? Jesus, with servant-restraint, made it clear as he stood before Pilate that there is a Kingdom not of this world where he reigns as king. Jesus let Pilate know that there was a new power in town and with it comes a new justice system based in truth.

How can I be sure? Jesus endured whipping and slapping and mocking – evil’s stinging rebukes – and yet Jesus did not retaliate. Jesus did not call down angels to annihilate his accusers and torturers. Revenge would not reconcile the world to himself.

This is how it came about: God was reconciling the world to himself in the Messiah, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting us with the message of reconciliation. 2 Corinthians 5:19

 

Turning the other cheek is about the ministry of reconciliation. To take revenge is to reject reconciliation. To not forgive as a means of revenge is to reject reconciliation. To copy-cat violence back onto another is to reject reconciliation. To take revenge with words is to reject reconciliation.

The message of reconciliation will be offered out of red swollen cheeks. Keep that image in mind and reject the images of revenge. The inscriptions of hatred must be fully erased and the threads of violence yanked from the media. End “sweet revenge”.

 

Interactive media has influence over you if you let it. Added 6/19/2018:

What is gaming disorder?

Gaming disorder is defined in the draft 11th Revision of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11) as a pattern of gaming behavior (“digital-gaming” or “video-gaming”) characterized by impaired control over gaming, increasing priority given to gaming over other activities to the extent that gaming takes precedence over other interests and daily activities, and continuation or escalation of gaming despite the occurrence of negative consequences.

For gaming disorder to be diagnosed, the behaviour pattern must be of sufficient severity to result in significant impairment in personal, family, social, educational, occupational or other important areas of functioning and would normally have been evident for at least 12 months.

 

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Looking at Life in All the Wrong Ways

December 31, 2016 Leave a comment

 

“It is funny how mortals always picture us as putting things into their minds: in reality our best work is done by keeping things out.”

-Screwtape, a senior demon, writing to his nephew Wormwood, also his apprentice. From C.S. Lewis’ “The Screwtape Letters”

 

~~~

Foods for thought?

The package of corn chips found in the health foods aisle noted how not un-good the contents were to eat: “No Artificial Ingredients” “No Artificial Flavors” “No Preservatives” “Certified Gluten Free” “NON GMO Verified”.

The package of drama found on the cable channel noted how not inhuman the program was: “For Mature Audience” “Adult themes” “Adult Language” ….

~~~

“Fantasy covets the gross, the explicit, the no-holds barred display of the unobtainable; and in crisis of the display the unobtainable is vicariously obtained.

Hard-core pornography provides another instance. Indeed, modern society abounds in fantasy objects, since the realistic image, in photograph, cinema and the TV screen, offers surrogate fulfillment to all our forbidden desires, thereby permitting them…The ideal fantasy is perfectly realized, and perfectly unreal – an imaginary object which leaves nothing to the imagination.” – from Fantasy, Imagination and the Salesman, Roger Scruton’s “Intelligent Person’s Guide to Modern Culture”

~~~

The fantasy objects removing the sacred from our view? A short list:

Movies and cable TV programs showing ‘snuff films’, violence, mutilation, slaughter, wanton sex, promiscuous sex, misogyny, the profane.

Video games engaging you in violence, mutilation, slaughter, wanton sex, promiscuous sex, misogyny, the profane.

Movies which employ special effects to convey a larger than life experience titillation while offering nothing of value for real life.

Social media – each media element readily offered and responded to, and obtained remotely, removing one from true community towards self-isolation

Animation – the shadowland of phantom cels

Marriage as a secular convention to secure benefit from another up to and including the commodification of the partner’s wealth, insurance, emotional dependency and sexual organs.

Socialism as Utopia

The Social Justice Narrative of “Diversity” and it cognates, wrought by the iron fist of “equality”

Homosexuality, the phallic and misogynistic, and its associated bacchanalia (e.g., Gay pride parades)

~~~

Imagination gathers up the hard-won gold of reality, submits it to the refiner’s fire, allows it to be molded and then offers the higher karatage gold as sincere praise to God.

Fantasy gathers up the hard-won gold of reality for smelting and casting into the golden calf of ephemerality, of likeness, of certainty…

~~~

“The contrast here is between the active work of the imagination, which points to a God beyond the sensory world, and the passive force of fantasy, which creates its own god out of sensory desires…”

– from Fantasy, Imagination and the Salesman, Roger Scruton’s “Intelligent Person’s Guide to Modern Culture”

~~~

nicolas-poussin-the-adoration-of-the-golden-calf

The Adoration of the Golden Calf 1633-4, Nicolas Poussin

~~~

One wonders:   does the left brain seek certainty and see fantasy as that certainty while the right brain is dismissed as flaccid and unreliable?

 

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We Thirst …For God’s Love

November 24, 2013 4 Comments

St. Patrick’s Prayer within Henryk Górecki’s Symphony No.3 “Symphony of Sorrowful Songs,” within Terrence Malick’s “to The Wonder.”

We are mortal. God’s Love is inexhaustible, eternal.

****

“You can recognize truth by its beauty and simplicity.”  – Richard Feynman Nobel laureate in physics from Part One of ‘Tthe Evidential Power of Beauty: Science and Theology Meet by Thomas Dubay, S. M.

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Reckless Cartoon by Rick Mckee

August 1, 2011 Leave a comment

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