One of the reasons for the stronger embrace of Christianity is its message of grace, forgiveness and equality before a holy God. In today’s cancel culture, there is no grace, no forgiveness and no recognition of true equality as humans. People will always gravitate towards the innate truth and goodness if forced to do otherwise.
Forgiveness is the greatest loss by the Woke; the hard-headed numbskull inability to tolerate different beliefs; the actual hatred for diversity of opinion.
I think Jordan Peterson described ideology -- which is what the nihilistic, atheistic leftists adhere to -- as religion without the forgiveness or redemption. I thought that rather apt.
Proud that Dr. Jordan Peterson is on of ours, a great mind, persecuted now because he has a different opinion and mindset than those that want us to follow their narrative. Shame on the College, the judges that are paid by castro jr. Huge respect and love Dr. Peterson, we the people stand with you.
Atheism has nothing to do with intolerance and inability to forgive -- please stop with this smear. Atheism is like any other characteristic (race, sex, etc.) that has nothing to do with person's character.
Anti-Hip: you are dead wrong; choosing to do right when one feels like it and/or without any moral & historical references to underpin it is a doomed existence. Our ethics; our laws; our sense of honor and fair play all derived from religious tenets established 2,000+ years ago. When one's very existence is under threat by ne'er-do-well bad actors, faith in a higher power other than a predatory and draconian government is all that's left to get one through it. Some losers without a faith back-up abandon their ethics quickly when pressured.
"choosing to do right when one feels like it and/or without any moral & historical references to underpin it is a doomed existence"
Just like everyone else, I don't *know* anything. Here, however, are my *beliefs*:
(1) What "is right" is a social construct, and that's why revealed religions and their do's and don'ts tend to cluster stubbornly in particular places/societies. (If a 2000-year old copy of the Old Testament was discovered independently in modern-day New Zealand, Norway, or Chile -- rather than handed to me by Jews ("Hey, trust us, it's from God, and it says we are to run everything someday!") -- now, *that* would impress me.) It's also entirely human, which is why it doesn't exist in any sense outside human creations (e.g. sacred texts of godmongers, which are curiously never found by, say, cracking a stone or tree trunk open).
(2) The only reason one will find oneself "doomed" is when *people* (not gods) get angry enough to doom him/her. Anything beyond that (i.e. afterlife) is pure, non-transferable speculation.
"When one's very existence is under threat by ne'er-do-well bad actors, faith in a higher power other than a predatory and draconian government is all that's left to get one through it."
"[N]e'er-do-well bad actors" are sociopaths. Pure and simple. Has nothing to do with a God, and everything to do with whether, at root, they care about people. As for "faith in a higher power ... is all that's left to get one through it" seems relevant to character, as you allude to next...
"Some losers without a faith back-up abandon their ethics quickly when pressured."
It certainly is the case that "losers" will "abandon their ethics" regarding other people, but it is completely irrelevant to whether or not they have "faith in a higher power". This may be an awfully hard thing for the "faithful" to learn, but you and they had better start if we are to defeat the only true evil, and by *by definition* -- that is, the sociopaths.
You know, interestedingly, the big distinction between Jesus Christ's arrival and how it was before that is the he advocated Forgiveness. The Jews were principled in An Eye For An Eye, A Tooth For a Tooth (revenge) and of course, those with no religious faith, didn't even believe in limiting one's revenge to an eye for the Eye that was taken. Jesus's teaching of Forgiveness was seen as almost blasphemous. It was seen as rejecting the idea that if someone knocked your Tooth out, you should not do anything worse, or more revengeful, than taking their Tooth. And, indeed, Jesus's teaching of Forgiveness caused much hate for him among the Jews of the time.
And in matters of pride or injuries more along the lines of slights, Jesus Christ said "give"....."A man takes your overcoat - give him your jacket too". That's the Apostle Paul's message too: "I'd rather be the one that's taken advantage of and not the one taking advantage of others". Why? As a child of God, with the Creator's love in his heart and His spirit in his soul, he already had everything....."freely you have received, now freely give".
Jews also have to forgive, if someone wrongs someone, he is obligated to ask for forgiveness 3 times, and then he is forgiven. This is called teshuvah. I'm not the right person to explain Jewish law, but even the superficial Jewish knowledge I have is enough to refute this Judaism vs. Christianity cant. Aside from Jesus being an observant Jew, there are plenty of similarities. One can also point out that Christianity isn't always pacifist. As it says in the Torah, to every thing there is a season...
He broke some laws, he was more of a reformer than an apostate. I'm not religious at all, but there's plenty of evidence that the Last Supper was a Passover seder. I don't know that much about my own heritage, but I do know that one doesn't have to obey all the laws perfectly in order to be a Jew. Otherwise there wouldn't be even one Jew. Ditto Christians and everyone else.
So true! The sermon last week at a group service for the three Protestant churches in our town was about CONTENTMENT and GRATITUDE. The service ended by singing 'America the Beautiful' and 'God Bless America'. This was in Connecticut too a deep blue state. I am still thinking about what the pastor said. It felt good.
My church is mostly lefties. Mainline Methodists who are in great turmoil. The next village over is a tiny conservative Methodist church. I may try that one. We get nothing at my current church to strengthen us to meet what is coming down the road. Nothing.
Agreed. My first foray back into Christianity after decades in the wilderness led me to a United Methodist Church. All was well until the minister started quoting Ta-Nehsisi Coates in the sermons with accolades to the new definition of "social justice". The church also sent members to the legislature to vigorously oppose a bill to prevent minor children (who by definition are incapable of informed consent) to transgender drugs and mutilation. So if evil exists in the churches, where does one turn?
There are a few folks in mine that would have no problem agitating for what your church has done. One friend speaks of transgender issues in a militant tone of we must comply to this horror. I have a transgendering grandchild. It’s a horror and surely a satanic operation. She will be hearing from me the truth of this the next time she breathes a word on this subject. I want to wipe that self righteous look off her face concerning this. Ti suppose that is not Christian but they need to know the truth.
Try "church hopping", as I call it. Go to a Sunday service of a different church each week, or better yet, go to their website to find the date and times of their Bible studies and go to one of them. Tell them you are trying out churches in your area. Find where they actually open up God's word and search. See where they actually bare their souls to God in prayer. Then stick with them for a while and see....
Well isn't that obnoxious - I wouldn't return in that case. I hear you. I raised my kids to be observant Jews (shabbat, etc) because it was the wish of my Jewish husband. I was okay with that as long as they were going to be brought up with some sort of moral grounding. But now that they have left the house, I had this tremendous desire to go back to the church, to Protestantism; I was raised in a Congregational Church, which is particular to New England. That said, it was tough to find a church that was not 'woke' and 'fashionable'...I wanted to sing the Doxology and say the 'Our Father'. I went with the Protestant church closest to my home as the service 'fit the bill'. That said, the female pastor has fashioned her hair like a Viking - shaved on one side, long on the other. But appearances don't matter to me and I do like her service, her voice, her sermons (a bit wonky but not inflammatory); She's a lovely person. However, at a recent 'coffee' after the service she casually offered that she was 'queer' - her husband was standing right there. You should have seen how stunned the elderly ladies looked. As I mentioned above, I went to the group service recently, another female pastor gave that lovely sermon on 'contentment'. But I have noticed a pattern in all sermons I am hearing lately and they are very 'self-referential' - me, my experience, etc, etc - so even the 'Age of Narcissism' has inadvertently creeped into the ministry albeit I am sure they feel that it makes them more relatable. In that respect, I don't think they are reading their audience very well.
I think you’re right for the most part. I know what people are and as I looked about the room they were Republicans. Our town used to be mostly Republican but many wealthy New Yorkers have country homes here as well and have moved here permanently. Sodom meets Gomorrah LOL.
After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands.
We must first, individually, recognize the desperate state each of us finds ourselves in…due to our own fallen nature. God created the 'bridge of reconciliation' back to Himself in the death, burial, resurrection and ascension of His Son, the 2nd Adam, the Word of God made flesh…Yeshua/Jesus. Our repentance from sin and true belief in the finished work of our Messiah is what is required, He’s done ALL the rest. Praise God in His mercy and grace. (Abram ‘believed' God and it was counted to him as righteousness… not that he was righteous in and of himself.) God calls us, He woos us… relationship with God, there is nothing so beautiful and fulfilling as being a beloved child of our Holy Father.
Neither have anything by necessity to do with an invisible powerful being. But both have everything to do with the nature of humans, whose ultimate cause remains unknown. It's very comforting to think nevertheless it's all been sorted out (and for several thousand years), so I can understand how powerful the pull is.
“Negative theology, also known as apophatic theology, is a theological approach that describes God by negation, speaking of God only in terms of what He is not (apophasis). It conceives of ultimate reality as so transcending human thought that it can be described only negatively . It is often allied with mysticism, which aims at the vision of God beyond the realm of ordinary perception.”
“Freedom and God are objects of faith, not of knowledge; in other words, freedom and God are infinite abysses whose bottoms cannot be sounded by knowledge.” Simone Weil. 1909-1943
Apophatic mysticism was a guiding force in my life for many years. I was specifically drawn to the "non dual" traditions in Buddhism, Hinduism and Roman Catholicism. After an extended immersion in non dual Buddhism and its derivatives, I began seeking the personal presence of God and was converted to a more traditional dual experience of divine relationship. Even so, I still deeply respond to the themes of the non dual mystics of all faiths.
I get it -- if there's evil there must be Good, I'm in the same place. If you want truly intellectual/scientific support, see "Quantum Questions: Mystical Writings of the World's Great Physicists," edited by Ken Wilber. Heisenberg, Schroedinger, Einstein, Broglie, Jeans, Planck, Pauli and Eddington -- the greatest minds of the last century -- delved so deeply into matter and energy and the universe that they all became mystics. See also the great neuroscientist Iaian McGilchrist's "The Matter with Things," or more particularly, his youtube conversations on matter and consciousness. Consciousness may be more fundamental than matter itself, and have preceded the appearance of matter.
There is something out there that is definitely NOT matter. Like you, I am still trying to figure this out.
Yes, but consciousness is the key. Are we all part of a larger, continuous consciousness that preceded the creation of matter and space? Or is there a divine consciousness of which we are a part? And what role does evil play in all of this? Just thinking about all of these things, and I am absorbing Bill Levin's comment...
Diane, I see no reason that a "continuous consciousness" and a "divine consciousness" are mutually exclusive. And how could we not be "a part" of that?
Re: Evil - consider who is doing the defining, and how wide/deep/inclusive is their perspective.
Saying something is beyond human comprehension is completely different than saying there is some *specific* entity out there with X characteristics, but yet cannot be sensed by any means by a large portion of the population. The former is undeniable, the latter is non-communicable and nearly useless or pro-actively divisive.
But saying that it's necessarily "divisive" is patently false. This country has hundreds of religions and thousands of churches. If you read, for instance, Benjamin Franklin's autobiography, or Charles Dickens' "Notes on America" you will find that Americans lived peaceably and interacted with multiple religions. Basically Europe does that as well. The European religious wars were based on a 1,500 year old institution defending its power (much as the Democrats will defend their power, no religion involved there.) The Israel/Palestine dispute is not about religion-- but about territory and sovereignty.
The word "divisive" was manufactured by the media propagandists who accused Donald Trump of being "divisive" when it was the media who fostered and inflamed divisions, much as Obama did.
I cannot see electricity or electromagnetism or radiation. Therefore, it does not exist. Correct?
"saying that it's necessarily 'divisive' is patently false."
Sure, but I think I fairly hedged by saying "or divisive". Yes, we can live in peace, but it can easily be whipped up by bad actors, in probably any setting, who, say, want to barge into some public or common setting, and scream "TRUTH!!"
"I cannot see electricity or electromagnetism or radiation."
Yes, but you can still sense it by various other means. Sometimes that simply relies on second-hand reports, but they still must be testable, interrogatable, repeatable, reliable, etc. -- to the senses (not just the five senses, but reasonably others, including demonstrably effective intuition) of any population or random subset of one -- to be safely taken as real. Speaking of second-hand, we are currently having crises in social sciences (such as psychology), as a result of a fairly new (5-15 years now?) proliferation of cases of non-repeating and unreliable theories/stats previously claimed as "true".
The various entity groups (divinities, angels, saints, etc.) of revealed religions (Abrahamic, Hindu, etc.) do not fit that kind of sensation across populations randomly picked. For people like me, I sense absolutely nothing at all of these entities. In other words, the "reality" claimed by a godmonger is clearly *non-transferable* to me. I have never seen sufficient reason to believe their senses of reality that conflict with mine are superior to mine. So I can say, fairly and sanely, these entities do not exist. Who's hallucinating? You or me? How does one tell which?
Most people are descent hard working people. They want their children to grow up and be good productive citizens They don’t want their children to see evil , sadistic, immoral movies. I hope Disney is finding this out. Disney was my go to movies because they were clean and sweet and told a touching story. When you try to push the LGBTQ agenda on our children , most parents will stay away from the propaganda. When you take God out of the picture things spiral downward. My husband remembers reading the Bible in school. Parents need to stay strong, protect your children, teach them to have good clean moral values.
I have raised 6 children . I tried to teach them to make good choices. Some listened and some had to learn the hard way.
The Shadow is literally the Great American Eclipse next April with the October 14 eclipse over North America as preliminary. There is no mass cultural change without eclipses and the extension of postmodernism well beyond its natural death by the leftist cultural engineers is finally having its comeuppance.
"I’ve seen the shadow of evil cross the face of the Earth. Still trying to figure this all out."
It's probably this simple: There are, and have always been, several percent of the population with sociopathy, who always scratch and claw their way to power. Totalitarianism has happened numerous times before, though probably never on this scale (essentially, the entire earth, unless BRICS etc. are actual opponents/enemies of the West). But there has never been this level of accumulated technology, from weaponry to computing to bio tools to mass media to psychological techniques and beyond. We're on a snowball run of concentration, of all of the above to ................................
Evil is not "Satan". It's the power of cooperating sociopaths. Let's keep our eyes on the ball.
Beautiful essay, thank you. And I so endorse that feeling, it's a bit undefinable, but it's showing up in so many ways. Deep changes are coming. Thank you.
If you are considering studying the Bible for the first time; begin with the Gospel of John - the 4th Book in the "Renewed Covenant", (aka New Testament).
If anyone would like to explore the Bible via short animated videos I highly recommend BibleProject. The narrative is matched to drawing/words that are illustrated as you watch. Especially interesting are the book by book explanations.
Jennifer Jones: Please allow me to suggest that you teach your Grandchildren to read every day for at least one year the "Proverb of the day". The Book of Proverbs has 31 chapters and is written by the second wisest man to have ever lived; Solomon, the son of David. Because there are 31 chapters in the Proverbs, on the first day of the month your Grandchildren would read Proverbs chapter one (1), on the second day of the month Proverbs chapter two (2), etc. If the month has only 30 days they would read both chapters 30 & 31 on the 30th of the month. Have them read the Proverb of the day for one whole year and they will "drink in the wisdom of King Solomon, the second wisest man to have ever lived. Of course the wisest Man to have ever lived in Jesus of Nazareth, the Word that became flesh and dwelt amongst us.
Besides the Gospels, this is my favorite Old Testament book, which draws from Egyptian Harper’s Songs, as well as the Gilgamesh Epic. It speaks across all faiths:
What I love most about Ecclesiastes is 1) it’s honesty (we all are mortal, and life is a wheel of chance that can give you lemons or lemonade) and 2) it’s encouragement to fully enjoy the present in those ‘non-Hevel moments’ … taking in a sunset, fishing w/ your son or daughter, enjoying a concert, time with family and friends, a good meal, a birthday party, singing you favorite song really loud in you car, etc. I find myself actively saying inside my brain ‘this moment is non-Hevel’ when it happens, and a smile comes to my face, and sometimes goose bumps. I feel close to my God. 3rd value of this book is to then accept/recognize that both good and bad events in one’s life are actually a blessing from God. That isn’t an easy thing to do. When my older brother died when I was 19 years old, it totally gutted me. I collapsed when my Dad told me the news. But over time, I’ve used that experience to love in on others later in life who also experienced this kind of jarring tragedy. I would not be generous in this way without my own loss, and I would not be as close to those I’ve comforted.
That’s the thing. Deep changes are not coming. The Democrats will win the election again in 24. Trump is going to prison and they will take him off the ballot in many states. And after all that nothing will change. Things will go on and the Republican Party will be rendered irrelevant which they seem to be. We have a perfect opportunity to nominate a solid conservative that’s running for president but we’re not doing that. We’re not a nation of kings were nation of laws. It sure doesn’t look that way. Trump is taking the country and the party into oblivion.
It IS hard not to feel panicked in these times, but do you honestly believe the left won't run roughshod over any top conservative candidate? That sounds naive in the extreme. For heavens' sake they are up in arms about parents not wanting to disfigure and ruin their own children or give them kill shots. Any clamoring on about how "nothing will change " is a cop out. If we all had that attitude, then yes, nothing would change for the better. Yes, there are worthless republicans within the party and they need to go. How about bottling up all that frustration with actions toward making that happen. Trump has a proven record and does not back down in the face of these lunatics. Even DeSantis could not stand the heat. Time to get off the pity pot. TRUMP 2024!!!
DeSantis has been taking LOTS of heat in FL and standing up to it!! HE fired DAs throughout the state that were George Soros's spawn. I think he'd do well in the WH.
I’ve seen yard signs pop up around my area lately saying “A Warhawk lives here”. What is that about? It isn’t local football teams because it’s been in widely separated small towns. Is there a professional sports team using that?
My guess is that it is a neocon warmongering person who talks tough but doesn’t actually join the military to go to the Ukraine for combat. In short, a coward.
Don’t we all! Forecasting doom and gloom is fatal. Let’s empower ourselves with hope—the motivating force behind Christianity and standing up against evil.
Jagis, we cannot give in to pessimism...there is much to be optimistic about, not the least of which is the absurdity of the people on the Left who presume to rule over us. Stay strong, stay positive.
The way I look at it is what they're doing is absurd. If we accept the absurdity, we deserve its consequences. Remember what our civil society was like before this. Carry that forward. Insist that it be our reality. The doubters surely say, "It clearly isn't our reality. You're setting yourself up for failure."
History tells us that this is a time of peril. If it is not resisted, we will regret not doing so.
I have long remembered this quote from Martin Niemöller, speaking regretfully about how he supported the Nazis' rise to power, finally realizing what they were about:
"First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me."
Yes, and don't use their language. It's gender dysphoria (and in some cases, which some people may not even be aware they are in this category, it's "intersex"/genetci where there's some DNA of the opposite sex)
You’re right. We cannot give in to pessimism. I’m guilty. I shall strengthen my resolve and stay strong. I pray daily that this almost soap opera like crazy political drama will turn and favor the truth. I’ll continue to that 👍.
I understand your cynicism but I think you are wrong. Even if the democrats manage to steal another presidential election through manipulation of media and big tech, lawfare, or new lockdowns, this movement is not going away. It’s bigger than Trump - he’s just the target. The establishment elites will go after the next emerging leader of the movement with the same kind of venom they use against Trump.
The movement is global and the elites are doing their best to shut it down through censorship, weaponization of government and propaganda.
That’s a very interesting take. From this vantage point it looks like the globalist have us right where they want us. But you may be right. One would think they have to cheat to win elections when the masses see the forest for the trees.
I agree, unfortunately. Maybe the only thing that is more difficult than accepting the ruling class coup is that there is no intact political alliance to oppose it. The resistance is a hodge podge of traditional conservatives, Trump followers, disoriented former Dems, boomer age leftists, feminists and gay people. It's not looking really promising right now for the establishment of a cohesive coalition. But it is possible! What Obama and his predecessors did to form a coalition out of black people, feminists and gay people was just as unlikely, but they are still marching on together well enough to hold onto power.
That's what I keep in mind. I've done some study of the history of socialism in America, and there was a time, in about the 1970s, when they felt powerless to change anything. They had made their first big attempt, and it failed. They felt really discouraged. They were fighting amongst themselves re. what to do about it. Now look at them. Interestingly, some of the things they were doing in really small scales back then, through small circulation newsletters, are things they're doing in whole communities now. I recognize it.
Stanley Kurtz talked about some of this history in his book "Radical in Chief." He said what failed was a top-down approach to changing our politics and social values. What the socialists realized was a bottom-up approach--community organizing--was much more effective.
The Tea Party movement, starting in 2010, was an attempt to do that on the Right. For a while, I thought it had failed, but I think now it was the predecessor to today's MAGA movement.
To me, it seems what's left, where the movement is really lacking, is in doing what the Left did, taking over the institutions, or at least replacing them.
The best of the shorter term solutions I have seen is the use of boycotts. Money always talks in America, and the success of the boycotts has been impressive. A second source of hope within the boycott context is that the huge, sustained response by consumers shows how much people are looking for specific opportunities to show their anger and opposition to the gender ideology and all the other woke insanity, as well as to fight back against the constant personal abuse directed against themselves.
Republicans aren't stupid. Some are just on the side of the left, some are too good so they won't stop to the level of the left, and the rest are vilified because ppl listen to the tv.
And "stooping to the level of the left" doesn't mean Republicans have to break the law or even the clear-as-day spirit of the law, it just means they would have to roll up their sleeves and get dirty; maybe "bare knuckle fight" for a while. But so many are lazy or timid or selfish. Some have too much on their plate - illness and other heavy burdens which I understand.
I just got an email from the county democrats—sign this petition to get trump off the ballot. I have tried to get the party crap off my email since I am no longer a democrat, but it never works. I read the tripe then mark it spam.
The chamge that is coming now cannot be stopped or even tamped down by so-called elections. It is beyond that. You know it; they know it; we all know it, deep down in our bones.
I wonder if younger voters will favor a younger candidate. I hope they do, actually. I think it's past the time that people my age and older should be hoarding all the political power. That's why we have politicians collapsing in place, yet still continuing to preside over a broad span of responsibilities. It reminds me of the ending of the "El Cid" movie with Charlton Heston and Sophia Loren.
Hey Sandra, I looked it up. “El Cid leads his men into battle but is mortally wounded. His dying wish is to be strapped onto his horse so that his men do not realize he has died. The ploy works, and the dead El Cid “leads” his army to overwhelming victory”. Only Trump could be cast in that scene. 😀.
You are right! LOL! It’s his actual role! Very sharp of you to see that!
Seriously, though, if you haven’t seen El Cid you must. Charlton Heston was The Man then! The remakes of his roles come no where near his epic mystique.
I've been wondering if he is listening too much to his advisors. So many (or all) of them like to tell politicians how they should act, what they should or should not say, how they should or should not say it. DeSantis has been doing a great job of managing his state and targeting destructive woke programs for elimination. Maybe he should have stuck with telling the whole country what he was doing and why. But I don't want to be another one of those highly paid advisors---I mostly would like to see him be himself and let people decide if they want to try out his programs where they live.
Yes I believe either Desantis or Ramiswany or Haley could win. Frankly I think any Republican other than Christie could win vs Biden if the election is run fairly IMO
In the last fair election, Trump won. The D’s at that time did not have their ‘just in case’ machinery in place. But in ‘24, Trump (or any other Republican) will not win the general without a major plot twist. This is because the entire electoral process is now diseased. And unless something is radically altered about the way conservatives start solely talking about the only issue that matters, ELECTION INTEGRITY, then there is no way that any conservative, is going to win the general. The cheating has been shown to work, and why change what is working. Perhaps the mugshot galvanizes sympathy vote (most likely blacks) to Trump, and the Left is caught flat footed in certain municipalities. This is possible, but likely a long shot. We can certainly resist. But would encourage you also to cry out to the Lord. The way out is repentance in the name of Christ, confess our unrighteousness and God will keep his promises. He always has
I encourage everyone to watch the videos on YouTube/Rumble of Black Americans reacting to “Rich Men”. Many are driven to tears. The elites will not allow working class Whites to unite with their Black brothers and sisters. I predict an uptick in fake hate crimes and false flags so that the elite maintains its carefully crafted wedge.
90%+ of blacks will vote Democrat because that is the party that provides most of them the money and services they depend on for their welfare (eg gov jobs, teachers union, EBT, SNAP, public schools, healthcare, etc). Like most, they won’t bite the hand that feeds them even though it makes them dependent.
You’ve simultaneously highlighted the reasons for many liberal whites who vote Democrat. $$$. Livelihoods have become dependent upon big taxes & big government.
They are already trying this but more people are waking up to the divide and conquer strategy. People are so fed up with this brainwashing of children behind parents backs in service of the transgender fad they will unite with each other regardless of race, culture, religion, orientation, generation, etc.
People are also appalled by the treatment of people in East Palestine, Ohio and Lahaina. We need to unite and look for the similarities instead of the differences. We have a lot on common and don't let the media convince you otherwise.
All of the really visible ones in the last 10 years have been shown to be fake, committed by some blacks, spreading hate about themselves, because they know it gains them sympathy from whites, who automatically think one of them did it. It's been bizarre to watch. I think it's dangerous, because it creates a "cry wolf" environment. How many times do we have to wonder, "Is it real or fake?", and keep finding out it's fake, before people just automatically ignore it? In my mind, for anyone who's truly racist, this is a dream come true, because they can see a day when they can do what they want, and no one will pay attention to it.
In an interview with Vivek on one of the corporate "news" programs over the weekend, the interviewer (a former Clinton administration apparatchik) inadvertently disclosed the Democrats' devious and pathetic plan for the 2024 campaign. Vivek was asked repeatedly "Would you vote for a convicted felon for president?" The cat was out of the bag: with nothing really for the Democrats to run on, the 4 "indictments" were simply a desperate ploy calculated to be their main campaign platform.
I think Trump's strategy is to win on appeal. The deck is stacked in most of the jurisdictions where he's been indicted. The exception seems to be FL, but we'll see. Very unlikely he'll get a fair trial in most of these cases. It'll be a kangaroo court for all to see.
Even famed lawyer Dershowitz has given the country '6 bananas' after these indictments saying we're on our way to a banana republic..and he's a Democrat
I've really come to like Dershowitz, because he is principled. That doesn't always mean he does things that make us feel warm and fuzzy inside. His loyalty is to the law, not necessarily justice (there's a difference). As I heard him talk about years ago, following the law has at times let guilty people go free. Sometimes he's been part of doing that, but that's far better than ignoring the law and meting out justice on our own terms. This is why he's able to support people he disagrees with politically, when he sees the legal system being abused.
Even though we disagree on policies, we agree on the importance of officeholders being bound by the law, even if it's people in our own parties. We also agree on the principle of innocent until proven guilty.
It's seemed to me our problem is pretty simple: We have public officials in both parties (both elected, and in the bureaucracy) who don't believe in America anymore. They're just into feeding on the carcass. What I see with RFK Jr. and Trump is we see a clear difference between politicians who believe in this country, and those who don't (RFK and Trump being the former, in my view). Both of them are on the "outs" trying to get in, to displace those who are just using us.
"Do they really believe on the Left that they can end the Trump movement by convicting him and throwing him in jail? Do they think that’s the best approach to deal with a populist revolution, culturally and politically? Do they think that censorship on sites like YouTube and GoFundMe is the way to quiet the rising discontent of the people they have abandoned? "
What they don't understand is its NOT 1993, its 2023, and its (for better of Worse) a Whole New World.
The time when people actually cared/watched The Oscars & Emmy's, when and editorial n the New York Times (a former newspaper) could bring down a Presidency, those days are gone/rapidly dying (for better or worse).
Remember when Meet The Press really mattered? Ah Memory's
They are so out of touch with normal people -- and the bizarre thing is, they don't even realize it.
Just like they don't realize how much their influence has dropped. Who among us really gives a hoot about the writers/actors strike in Hollywood? Who watches network TV anymore? I watch reaction videos on YouTube and a lot of the talking heads on MSM newsy shows are genuinely baffled at Trump's continued popularity. Fewer of us care what they have to say about much of anything anymore.
I wish they were as out of touch as you infer but they have 2 very powerful tools; they direct where the money goes (eg to welfare, neocon wars, academia, teachers union, gov employees), and MSM for narrating their message and censoring others.
All tyrants become prideful and drunk on their own power. This leads to their own demise (metaphorically of course). Lucifer was the most beautiful of all the angels, but wanted to take the place of God as seen in his "I will" statements found in Isaiah 14. His demise is still to be, but it is certain to come.
The times they have changed. I remember when even news anchors and commentators on the Left had standards. They didn't accept a presidential candidate who lied about plagiarizing someone else's material, or lied about their academic credentials, all of which Biden did. The current generation in those positions forgot all that.
I agree that the audience is changing. The media landscape is changing. The Left has been adjusting. They've been manipulating Google search results for years now, so their preferred characterization of events and political figures shows up at the top. They control the new big media platforms, social media, so that again, their preferred take tends to be more visible than the Right's.
You almost have to go back to the "old internet" to get away from this.
" The Left has been adjusting. They've been manipulating Google search results for years now, so their preferred characterization of events and political figures shows up at the top."
Yes they are doing this. The Question is will it be enough to control The Chaos? I'm thinking the Printing Press, and how The Powers that be tried to control it, and the chaos that came with it.
I agree with the historical analogy. One method of control being used is how the deep state puts on a magic show. You think one thing is happening, when it's really something else. The internet is a tool being used to create the "show," and not just in what we can see. It's also being used to "figure out" how to manipulate us in significant venues outside of what we think the internet touches. The analogy I've sometimes used is it's "the algorithms of social media brought out into the real world." It's been part of what's affecting the policies we've been experiencing. I'm not just talking about the hype around AI. That's a factor, but a significant part of it is just straight algorithms being used, that have nothing to do with AI.
It's not just in what they're doing, but what we're being told we're doing.
This is where the internet has also helped a lot, because it enables info. sources that wouldn't have had a chance otherwise. However, to get the most out of it, people still can't just be casual, passive observers (this has never worked out well). People still have to be curious, and demand reasonable answers.
The internet itself will not create the chaos you're talking about. Those who accept the controlling environments it offers will be bound by them, until they choose otherwise. The choice is now here, at least.
I'm Not one of those people who say It Was Stolen! I DO say I have questions. Questions I've never seen answered. What I have seen is being told to sit down and shut up (when I'm told that Alarm bells go off) I've been following Presidential Elections since Nixon v Kennedy. In that Forty Years I have not seen anything that comes within 200 miles of what I saw in the race and on November 3, 2020. And Have Questions! The guy what to look at is Dr. Robert Epstein
I had questions that weren't answered until I had spent many hours listening to a lot of evidence (it was put out at the time. Though, only in front of state assemblies. The FBI, state AGs (with one exception), and courts didn't want to hear it.) I didn't realize the full extent of the problem until I watched a couple presentations, one called "Scientific Proof," and then "Absolute Proof." (the latter came out first, but I find it useful to have people view them in reverse order, because the first was really background for the second, when it all washed out). The key is understanding math and statistics.
It's quite a rabbit hole, but once you see it, you can't unsee it, IMO.
Lindell commissioned a sort of "reverse-engineering" of the 2020 election, based on the p-cap data he talked about, and determined that the election was actually reversed. Basically, the result Biden got was supposed to be Trump's, and Trump's was supposed to be Biden's; a massive flip. It didn't come out as an exact swap, but pretty close. This isn't to suggest that votes were merely swapped (one candidate's votes given to the other). It's more complicated than that.
One of the links I gave here goes to a page with a link to Lindell's Cyber Symposium from 2021. Part of the hours of video for that explains a pretty good theory for how the fraud was done. The first couple links I gave you were a very encapsulated summary of it from David Clements, who's clearly done a lot of work on this. I could give you more on what he's said on it, if you're interested. Like I said, it's a rabbit hole...
Not to mention the historic data in existence about our founding nation, it’s beyond twisted. Ken Burns had a Sun. Night history segment on the Westerns of Hollywood were incorrect. The REAL cowboys were black. They moved the cattle and settled the west. Please, Google it, Wikipedia it. The young black teens cheered at such a revelation! It’s everywhere.
Well stated!! What they’ve actually created, by twisting the legal system to persecute DJT, is a martyr. In an odd way, there’s parallels to Mandela’s imprisonment and later becoming president.
They may be distinctly out of touch but their egotistical arrogance stands firm.
I’m watching our nation go to ALL cost to avoid a Trump win. Globally. The crime families in office get no press of their crime. Trump is fighting off post civil war rulings that if applied to the left… they would be gone. Yet WHO would dare be successful in calling any of them out?
What kind of an insurrection can occur without weapons? And what is the purpose of all the young male immigrants? Evil.. spiritual warfare.
A strange and spooky feeling to be living in a society that has collapsed into insanity but just compare the people we have on our side like Elon, Tucker, Tulsi, Vivek and his wife to any of the fanatics on the Woke side. Like the difference between day and night. Watch Vivek and his wife, Apoorva, talk about God and religion. Actually quite beautiful. The more I see of both of these people the more Impressed I am. He’d make a great president plus he and his wife would be fabulous role models not only for our deeply troubled society but also for our lost and confused world. These are people who really do seem to be divinely inspired.
“In its true essence, dharma means for a Hindu to "expand the mind". Furthermore, it represents the direct connection between the individual and the societal phenomena that bind the society together. In the way societal phenomena affect the conscience of the individual, similarly may the actions of an individual alter the course of the society, for better or for worse. This has been subtly echoed by the credo धर्मो धारयति प्रजा: meaning dharma is that which holds and provides support to the social construct.”
“Vivek Ramaswamy talks about his Dharma. He is running for US presidency.” (10 min)
RFK supports affirmative action though which Vivek is totally opposed to. I saw a Townhall meeting where Vivek was asked what he would do on his first day in office. He said he would issue an Executive Order banning race based affirmative action. That’s exactly the opposite of what Biden did on his first day in office which was to issue an Executive Order to replace meritocracy wherever it could be found with Equity aka Equal Outcomes. These are polar opposites and irreconcilable differences. I see no common ground here. This is already a major reason why Vivek is hated by the democrats who believe in race based socialism, a sure recipe for tribal warfare.
Race based affirmative action was already struck down by the supreme court. And RFK Jr's take on it is more nuanced than you present, though yes, he and Vivek, rereshingly, don't see eye to eye. I really don't think affirmative action is going to be in the top of the issues we talk about as the election looms - if "they" let anyone actually debate anything on the democrat side. The DNC is protecting the walking corpse from any challenge, and using the rest of their machine to try to criminalize Trump as though it will damage his popularity. Interesting Times - the Curse has come ;) I have this feeling that we're being watched, the aliens are in their cloaked ships making popcorn for the big show
It’s not an “attitude.” It’s the reality of our situation. If you haven’t noticed this by now you haven’t been paying attention. We lack a common reality, have become incomprehensible to each other and can no longer communicate. Where is the common ground in such an infinitely wide divide? There obviously is none. We always just talk past each other. This can only get worse and is getting worse by the day. The same people who insist Jan 6 was an “Insurrection!” have no problem with Joe’s open southern border or pornography for public school children. Hope springs eternal but then so does wishful thinking. You’ve apparently never tried to reason with a leftist over such things.
“Megyn Kelly and Chris Rufo Call Out Former President Obama Speaking About ‘Book Bans.’ (9 min)
I only see these combative posts on SSs like this one, with people from the Left that are supposedly rethinking their affiliations, like Sasha has. Change must come from within the individual. Be the change you want, the change you are looking for.
The movie you recommend, "The Holdovers" looks entertaining, however, I must say I am "Paul giamattie'd" out. He is ubiquitous, it seems you can't turn a dial without seeing him. As much as I'd like to see the film I don't know if I can watch two hours of him again.
Your essay is excellent, we are in need of an infusion of morality and perhaps more important of judgement. We've all been sold on the idea of "free love", but there is no such thing. You pay some emotional toll with each increase in body count. Male and female. A coarsening. You become insular.
We need a return to the pursuit of a moral existence. Which can lead to a more fulfilling life.
People living a full existence don't need Prozac, don't need Adderal, they cope better with life as it presents.
Happiness isn't down the rabbit hole of twitter. It's in a sense of accomplishment and self-worth.
More than Giamatti’s ubiquity, Hollywood is wholly incapable of writing a “White cisgender heteronormative male” role that isn’t in dire need of life lessons from a female (in this case, an obese black woman, so that’s extra intersectionality points!). This is right out of the woke playbook of trashing White maleness, non-LGBTQIA2S++, and it is NO ACCIDENT. It’s ubiquitous: superheros are beholden to superheroines; men are idiotic himbos, and women are the only ones who can save everything. (Not that there’s anything wrong with SOME films doing that, but it’s just an onslaught now.
How can we raise a healthy generation of young men when we portray them as a cog in a mean spirited racist “patriarchy”?
It is propaganda, all of it. The 1930s had May West saying ‘come on up and see me sometime’. The early 1960s a policeman falls in love with Irma La Duce, a prostitute. TV in the 50s was ‘be good’ propaganda with Donna Reed, Father Knows Best and My Three Sons. From the 60s on it was Love Boat and anything goes and it went downhill from there. Incremental creep into depravity.
This is how to appease the current generation while forming the next one in order to slowly remake a country that only thought it was pious.
I have lived through it all so the bookends of my life depict the sharpest contrast possible.
A lack of celebrities at Telluride would be a blessing. Those elite snobs can stay home. I’d rather catch a ride with an unknown person and find real conversations than some celebrity thinking they are gracing their presence by sitting by me. I truly pray many are returning to Christianity fait. We need to realize our existence needs salvation from the demonic forces being unleashed on our children and must stand strong against these movements.
Wow. How can a person who was of the left a majority of her years can relate so eloquently to MAGA beliefs and thinking. I applaud miss stone for her courage to speak out. Her voice about the MAGA movement is so inspiring and passionate that I believe very good things will happen for her in the future. An undeniable gem.
I don't think she has changed so much as the democratic party has radically changed. What probably has changed for her is her VIEW of the people who make up the MAGA movement. Her voice and her writing skills are deeply appreciative and admired for her defense of the movement.
Exactly right, Marty. The Dems used to be for the working class, for freedom, against needless wars; but now they are the Establishment and filled with FBI, DOJ, CIA and every warmongering neocon on earth.
I disagree MLB. The Dems used to be for the working class, for freedom, against needless wars; but now they are the Establishment and filled with FBI, DOJ, CIA and every warmongering neocon on earth. They have endorsed wars since the 90’s and lobbied hard for censorship of freedom of speech.
Teacher's unions have long held power in the Democratic party, both at national and local level. They practically dictated the school shutdowns, distance learning, mask policy. Teachers union members make up 10% of the delegates at the Democratic National Convention.
Your description of Telluride made me think of the stark, gray concrete world the Soviet Union built under their communist rule. It was a humorless, colorless existence of an enslaved people living under the oppression and ever-watchful eye of their overlords.
That’s what’s being built here, where conformity is the law of the land, and fear of stepping outside their electrified guardrails the ruling motivator.
True, people are slowly awakening to and becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the ruling elites dictats, but there’s no real opposition party, no consequences ever suffered by the wrong-doers for their blatant lawlessness, and irrationality.
Everyone seems to be waiting for “someone” to do “something”, but have no idea who that someone is or what that something will be.
Some put all their eggs in Trump’s basket, but, while he most assuredly is the poster boy for so much of the evil being perpetrated upon us all, the evil machinations and lust for power of these forces arrayed against us continues apace, knows no bounds, and they will go to any lengths imaginable (even unimaginable), to stop him.
I feel like we’re the ones in the “Burning Man” images, stuck in the muck and mire of the diabolical regime currently ruling over us. We gotta get outta here.
"there’s no real opposition party, no consequences ever suffered by the wrong-doers for their blatant lawlessness, and irrationality.
Everyone seems to be waiting for “someone” to do “something”, but have no idea who that someone is or what that something will be."
I strongly agree with your post! It is becoming easier by the day to feel the answer to the question, "Why didn't the German people do something?" The answer is what you said so well in the sentences I quoted.
We need to be the change we want to see. Trump has always said he was just the buffer between them and us. Lock Trump up and the deplorables and disaffected others are still here waiting for the last shoe to drop. I feel sorry for those in blue states. The citizens in red states can hound their legislatures to block the gene jabs on, race-baiting of, and the mutilations of children in school.
Next week I’m going down the road a couple of miles to watch an evening of team penning and barrel racing. Film festivals are not my cup of coffee.
Many of the Woke do believe in God but at the core of their being they are committed to Goodness which they interpret to mean a commitment to Equal Outcomes or Equity rather than to Truth which is a commitment to objective reality as it is rather than how we want it to be. The socialist delusion is a particularly powerful one probably because it’s so deeply embedded in human nature. Leftists see this as an epic battle of Good vs Evil which they simply must win. Once a society abandons Truth though it loses its connection to objective reality, becomes insane and enters the realm of 1984 which is not a good place to be.
The woke are similar to the Pharisees (at least as they are described in the Gospels). They are rigid, self-righteous, and they confuse obedience to rules with spiritual purity. Their concept of "goodness" is borrowed from old images of the Good Christian woman. Most remarkably, the woke cultists meticulously follow "the letter of the law" while forsaking the spirit of empathy, tolerance, compassion and connection.
It isn't totally original. I read an amazing book decades ago in which the author interpreted the Gospels in terms of symbols of spiritual transformations. I think he might have been a Jungian but I can no longer recall the name of the book or the author. I am hoping it will come back to me if I focus on it for a while.
Anyway, the author interpreted the recurring allusions to the "Pharisees" as references to a way of thinking and being that consisted of practicing strict observance of religious rules, focusing on concrete things and actions, and arguing legalistically and literally about scriptures. The author contrasted this approach with that of Jesus, whom he portrayed as teaching his disciples and anyone else "with ears to hear" about "gnosis," a more profound level of mystical knowledge.
I read in a separate piece written from the perspective of a Jewish author that the comments about "the Pharisees" found in the New Testament may not be fair portrayals of the actual people known as Pharisees. That may very well be true, but even so we do see the type of person described in the Gospels around us today.
Hey, I couldn’t find the El Cid thread and see your last comment; so am replying here. I loved El Cid and was really impressed with how epic and well acted it was. Amazing they were able to do that in 1961. Thanks again for the idea. :)
I’m reading a book “Woke Jesus” by Lucas Miles. What you’ve just said here is discussed this book. His book starts with the origins on how we got to this point. Highly recommend his book!
“This wouldn’t be the first time that religious zeal scoffed at sexual norms as obstacles to holiness – the history of free-love communes and orgiastic rites offers plenty of case studies. Early Christians believed that grace and faith freed believers from observing the strictures of Jewish law, an idea called “antinomianism.” This idea historically reappears in extreme forms to make the controversial claim that breaking the earthly bonds of sin and death requires obliterating sexual taboos.”
“Queering Jesus: How It’s Going Mainstream at Progressive Churches and Top Divinity Schools.”
That’s what is infuriating about these times, as a former Leftist I feel we’re in a battle of Good vs. Evil that we must win as well, only for me the evil is coming from the Left. So how do we overcome this discrepancy?
I think more in terms of "destructiveness" than of "evil." I have never been a part of a formal religious system, however, except for some years as a practitioner of Buddhist meditation. For me, the problems are about the "imperfections" in human evolution thus far. It appears that most of us still can under certain circumstances devolve into really ugly states of mind towards each other, and these states can sweep up vast numbers of people into inquisitions and persecutions.
One of the reasons for the stronger embrace of Christianity is its message of grace, forgiveness and equality before a holy God. In today’s cancel culture, there is no grace, no forgiveness and no recognition of true equality as humans. People will always gravitate towards the innate truth and goodness if forced to do otherwise.
Forgiveness is the greatest loss by the Woke; the hard-headed numbskull inability to tolerate different beliefs; the actual hatred for diversity of opinion.
I think Jordan Peterson described ideology -- which is what the nihilistic, atheistic leftists adhere to -- as religion without the forgiveness or redemption. I thought that rather apt.
Proud that Dr. Jordan Peterson is on of ours, a great mind, persecuted now because he has a different opinion and mindset than those that want us to follow their narrative. Shame on the College, the judges that are paid by castro jr. Huge respect and love Dr. Peterson, we the people stand with you.
Atheism has nothing to do with intolerance and inability to forgive -- please stop with this smear. Atheism is like any other characteristic (race, sex, etc.) that has nothing to do with person's character.
Anti-Hip: you are dead wrong; choosing to do right when one feels like it and/or without any moral & historical references to underpin it is a doomed existence. Our ethics; our laws; our sense of honor and fair play all derived from religious tenets established 2,000+ years ago. When one's very existence is under threat by ne'er-do-well bad actors, faith in a higher power other than a predatory and draconian government is all that's left to get one through it. Some losers without a faith back-up abandon their ethics quickly when pressured.
"you are dead wrong"
And you know this ... how?
"choosing to do right when one feels like it and/or without any moral & historical references to underpin it is a doomed existence"
Just like everyone else, I don't *know* anything. Here, however, are my *beliefs*:
(1) What "is right" is a social construct, and that's why revealed religions and their do's and don'ts tend to cluster stubbornly in particular places/societies. (If a 2000-year old copy of the Old Testament was discovered independently in modern-day New Zealand, Norway, or Chile -- rather than handed to me by Jews ("Hey, trust us, it's from God, and it says we are to run everything someday!") -- now, *that* would impress me.) It's also entirely human, which is why it doesn't exist in any sense outside human creations (e.g. sacred texts of godmongers, which are curiously never found by, say, cracking a stone or tree trunk open).
(2) The only reason one will find oneself "doomed" is when *people* (not gods) get angry enough to doom him/her. Anything beyond that (i.e. afterlife) is pure, non-transferable speculation.
"religious tenets established 2,000+ years ago"
More like tens or hundreds of thousands of years ago. Here's a tangentially relevant article I just ran across that I hope you'll enjoy: https://www.city-journal.org/article/the-age-of-outrage.
"When one's very existence is under threat by ne'er-do-well bad actors, faith in a higher power other than a predatory and draconian government is all that's left to get one through it."
"[N]e'er-do-well bad actors" are sociopaths. Pure and simple. Has nothing to do with a God, and everything to do with whether, at root, they care about people. As for "faith in a higher power ... is all that's left to get one through it" seems relevant to character, as you allude to next...
"Some losers without a faith back-up abandon their ethics quickly when pressured."
It certainly is the case that "losers" will "abandon their ethics" regarding other people, but it is completely irrelevant to whether or not they have "faith in a higher power". This may be an awfully hard thing for the "faithful" to learn, but you and they had better start if we are to defeat the only true evil, and by *by definition* -- that is, the sociopaths.
You know, interestedingly, the big distinction between Jesus Christ's arrival and how it was before that is the he advocated Forgiveness. The Jews were principled in An Eye For An Eye, A Tooth For a Tooth (revenge) and of course, those with no religious faith, didn't even believe in limiting one's revenge to an eye for the Eye that was taken. Jesus's teaching of Forgiveness was seen as almost blasphemous. It was seen as rejecting the idea that if someone knocked your Tooth out, you should not do anything worse, or more revengeful, than taking their Tooth. And, indeed, Jesus's teaching of Forgiveness caused much hate for him among the Jews of the time.
And in matters of pride or injuries more along the lines of slights, Jesus Christ said "give"....."A man takes your overcoat - give him your jacket too". That's the Apostle Paul's message too: "I'd rather be the one that's taken advantage of and not the one taking advantage of others". Why? As a child of God, with the Creator's love in his heart and His spirit in his soul, he already had everything....."freely you have received, now freely give".
Jews also have to forgive, if someone wrongs someone, he is obligated to ask for forgiveness 3 times, and then he is forgiven. This is called teshuvah. I'm not the right person to explain Jewish law, but even the superficial Jewish knowledge I have is enough to refute this Judaism vs. Christianity cant. Aside from Jesus being an observant Jew, there are plenty of similarities. One can also point out that Christianity isn't always pacifist. As it says in the Torah, to every thing there is a season...
I said that was the Jewish beliefs at Christ's time (versus now.) Jesús wasn't an observant Jew for long. He healed on the Sabbath.
He broke some laws, he was more of a reformer than an apostate. I'm not religious at all, but there's plenty of evidence that the Last Supper was a Passover seder. I don't know that much about my own heritage, but I do know that one doesn't have to obey all the laws perfectly in order to be a Jew. Otherwise there wouldn't be even one Jew. Ditto Christians and everyone else.
John 6:44
It's God who changes the hearts, draws to the Son.
The reason people change is because it's true.
Amen Amin!!
so true! and the culture of "my bad" for an apology is over. No one ever admits they are wrong, sincerely apologizes and tries to make amends.
So true! The sermon last week at a group service for the three Protestant churches in our town was about CONTENTMENT and GRATITUDE. The service ended by singing 'America the Beautiful' and 'God Bless America'. This was in Connecticut too a deep blue state. I am still thinking about what the pastor said. It felt good.
The Left in Conn. probably don't go to church.
My church is mostly lefties. Mainline Methodists who are in great turmoil. The next village over is a tiny conservative Methodist church. I may try that one. We get nothing at my current church to strengthen us to meet what is coming down the road. Nothing.
Agreed. My first foray back into Christianity after decades in the wilderness led me to a United Methodist Church. All was well until the minister started quoting Ta-Nehsisi Coates in the sermons with accolades to the new definition of "social justice". The church also sent members to the legislature to vigorously oppose a bill to prevent minor children (who by definition are incapable of informed consent) to transgender drugs and mutilation. So if evil exists in the churches, where does one turn?
There are a few folks in mine that would have no problem agitating for what your church has done. One friend speaks of transgender issues in a militant tone of we must comply to this horror. I have a transgendering grandchild. It’s a horror and surely a satanic operation. She will be hearing from me the truth of this the next time she breathes a word on this subject. I want to wipe that self righteous look off her face concerning this. Ti suppose that is not Christian but they need to know the truth.
Try "church hopping", as I call it. Go to a Sunday service of a different church each week, or better yet, go to their website to find the date and times of their Bible studies and go to one of them. Tell them you are trying out churches in your area. Find where they actually open up God's word and search. See where they actually bare their souls to God in prayer. Then stick with them for a while and see....
Well isn't that obnoxious - I wouldn't return in that case. I hear you. I raised my kids to be observant Jews (shabbat, etc) because it was the wish of my Jewish husband. I was okay with that as long as they were going to be brought up with some sort of moral grounding. But now that they have left the house, I had this tremendous desire to go back to the church, to Protestantism; I was raised in a Congregational Church, which is particular to New England. That said, it was tough to find a church that was not 'woke' and 'fashionable'...I wanted to sing the Doxology and say the 'Our Father'. I went with the Protestant church closest to my home as the service 'fit the bill'. That said, the female pastor has fashioned her hair like a Viking - shaved on one side, long on the other. But appearances don't matter to me and I do like her service, her voice, her sermons (a bit wonky but not inflammatory); She's a lovely person. However, at a recent 'coffee' after the service she casually offered that she was 'queer' - her husband was standing right there. You should have seen how stunned the elderly ladies looked. As I mentioned above, I went to the group service recently, another female pastor gave that lovely sermon on 'contentment'. But I have noticed a pattern in all sermons I am hearing lately and they are very 'self-referential' - me, my experience, etc, etc - so even the 'Age of Narcissism' has inadvertently creeped into the ministry albeit I am sure they feel that it makes them more relatable. In that respect, I don't think they are reading their audience very well.
I think you’re right for the most part. I know what people are and as I looked about the room they were Republicans. Our town used to be mostly Republican but many wealthy New Yorkers have country homes here as well and have moved here permanently. Sodom meets Gomorrah LOL.
More Americans having Gratitude for their lives here would be a big step in the right direction...
Revelation 7:9
After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands.
"How can love survive in such a graceless age?"
Love is as perennial as the grass
We must first, individually, recognize the desperate state each of us finds ourselves in…due to our own fallen nature. God created the 'bridge of reconciliation' back to Himself in the death, burial, resurrection and ascension of His Son, the 2nd Adam, the Word of God made flesh…Yeshua/Jesus. Our repentance from sin and true belief in the finished work of our Messiah is what is required, He’s done ALL the rest. Praise God in His mercy and grace. (Abram ‘believed' God and it was counted to him as righteousness… not that he was righteous in and of himself.) God calls us, He woos us… relationship with God, there is nothing so beautiful and fulfilling as being a beloved child of our Holy Father.
Yep. I’m not sure I believe in God, but now I’ve seen the shadow of evil cross the face of the Earth. Still trying to figure this all out.
Exactly, you may not believe in God, or electricity as you can see neither. But both have natural rules which we can live by and die by.
I wouldn't believe in radio waves if I didn't have a receiver....
Perfect example
WE are the (blessed) receivers!
Maybe so, but the messages from God are not transferable from a receiver to non-receiver.
The Ten Commandments actually make decisions pretty simple.
Yes, and 7 deadly sins as well
Neither have anything by necessity to do with an invisible powerful being. But both have everything to do with the nature of humans, whose ultimate cause remains unknown. It's very comforting to think nevertheless it's all been sorted out (and for several thousand years), so I can understand how powerful the pull is.
“Negative theology, also known as apophatic theology, is a theological approach that describes God by negation, speaking of God only in terms of what He is not (apophasis). It conceives of ultimate reality as so transcending human thought that it can be described only negatively . It is often allied with mysticism, which aims at the vision of God beyond the realm of ordinary perception.”
“Freedom and God are objects of faith, not of knowledge; in other words, freedom and God are infinite abysses whose bottoms cannot be sounded by knowledge.” Simone Weil. 1909-1943
Apophatic mysticism was a guiding force in my life for many years. I was specifically drawn to the "non dual" traditions in Buddhism, Hinduism and Roman Catholicism. After an extended immersion in non dual Buddhism and its derivatives, I began seeking the personal presence of God and was converted to a more traditional dual experience of divine relationship. Even so, I still deeply respond to the themes of the non dual mystics of all faiths.
I've seen the abyss of nothingness, and believe it, it is nothing. You stick your finger in their and it will disappear.
What is “Ought distinction”? It does point to God though.
I get it -- if there's evil there must be Good, I'm in the same place. If you want truly intellectual/scientific support, see "Quantum Questions: Mystical Writings of the World's Great Physicists," edited by Ken Wilber. Heisenberg, Schroedinger, Einstein, Broglie, Jeans, Planck, Pauli and Eddington -- the greatest minds of the last century -- delved so deeply into matter and energy and the universe that they all became mystics. See also the great neuroscientist Iaian McGilchrist's "The Matter with Things," or more particularly, his youtube conversations on matter and consciousness. Consciousness may be more fundamental than matter itself, and have preceded the appearance of matter.
There is something out there that is definitely NOT matter. Like you, I am still trying to figure this out.
Ask God to reveal Himself to you, Diane.
Thank you sir. I will do so as well. Your advice is wise and appreciated.
Watch the "Chosen" series on Amazon Prime, it's so wee done and inspiring.
"Ask God to reveal Himself to you"
Problem is, the results cannot be distinguished from inducing a hallucination.
Diane, apparently what is "out there" is by far not matter. According to the Webb telescope's findings, matter is a tiny percentage of the cosmos.
Yes, but consciousness is the key. Are we all part of a larger, continuous consciousness that preceded the creation of matter and space? Or is there a divine consciousness of which we are a part? And what role does evil play in all of this? Just thinking about all of these things, and I am absorbing Bill Levin's comment...
Diane, I see no reason that a "continuous consciousness" and a "divine consciousness" are mutually exclusive. And how could we not be "a part" of that?
Re: Evil - consider who is doing the defining, and how wide/deep/inclusive is their perspective.
Saying something is beyond human comprehension is completely different than saying there is some *specific* entity out there with X characteristics, but yet cannot be sensed by any means by a large portion of the population. The former is undeniable, the latter is non-communicable and nearly useless or pro-actively divisive.
I agree with you about the difference.
But saying that it's necessarily "divisive" is patently false. This country has hundreds of religions and thousands of churches. If you read, for instance, Benjamin Franklin's autobiography, or Charles Dickens' "Notes on America" you will find that Americans lived peaceably and interacted with multiple religions. Basically Europe does that as well. The European religious wars were based on a 1,500 year old institution defending its power (much as the Democrats will defend their power, no religion involved there.) The Israel/Palestine dispute is not about religion-- but about territory and sovereignty.
The word "divisive" was manufactured by the media propagandists who accused Donald Trump of being "divisive" when it was the media who fostered and inflamed divisions, much as Obama did.
I cannot see electricity or electromagnetism or radiation. Therefore, it does not exist. Correct?
"saying that it's necessarily 'divisive' is patently false."
Sure, but I think I fairly hedged by saying "or divisive". Yes, we can live in peace, but it can easily be whipped up by bad actors, in probably any setting, who, say, want to barge into some public or common setting, and scream "TRUTH!!"
"I cannot see electricity or electromagnetism or radiation."
Yes, but you can still sense it by various other means. Sometimes that simply relies on second-hand reports, but they still must be testable, interrogatable, repeatable, reliable, etc. -- to the senses (not just the five senses, but reasonably others, including demonstrably effective intuition) of any population or random subset of one -- to be safely taken as real. Speaking of second-hand, we are currently having crises in social sciences (such as psychology), as a result of a fairly new (5-15 years now?) proliferation of cases of non-repeating and unreliable theories/stats previously claimed as "true".
The various entity groups (divinities, angels, saints, etc.) of revealed religions (Abrahamic, Hindu, etc.) do not fit that kind of sensation across populations randomly picked. For people like me, I sense absolutely nothing at all of these entities. In other words, the "reality" claimed by a godmonger is clearly *non-transferable* to me. I have never seen sufficient reason to believe their senses of reality that conflict with mine are superior to mine. So I can say, fairly and sanely, these entities do not exist. Who's hallucinating? You or me? How does one tell which?
Mr. Raven, I just loved that! Thank you for that comment. I've copied it so that I can print it out. Really beautiful!
Most people are descent hard working people. They want their children to grow up and be good productive citizens They don’t want their children to see evil , sadistic, immoral movies. I hope Disney is finding this out. Disney was my go to movies because they were clean and sweet and told a touching story. When you try to push the LGBTQ agenda on our children , most parents will stay away from the propaganda. When you take God out of the picture things spiral downward. My husband remembers reading the Bible in school. Parents need to stay strong, protect your children, teach them to have good clean moral values.
I have raised 6 children . I tried to teach them to make good choices. Some listened and some had to learn the hard way.
Ask God to reveal Himself to you, Art.
Bill, thanks you sir.
The Shadow is literally the Great American Eclipse next April with the October 14 eclipse over North America as preliminary. There is no mass cultural change without eclipses and the extension of postmodernism well beyond its natural death by the leftist cultural engineers is finally having its comeuppance.
It's good that you're working through it.
Thanks Jennifer. It is a process. :-)
"I’ve seen the shadow of evil cross the face of the Earth. Still trying to figure this all out."
It's probably this simple: There are, and have always been, several percent of the population with sociopathy, who always scratch and claw their way to power. Totalitarianism has happened numerous times before, though probably never on this scale (essentially, the entire earth, unless BRICS etc. are actual opponents/enemies of the West). But there has never been this level of accumulated technology, from weaponry to computing to bio tools to mass media to psychological techniques and beyond. We're on a snowball run of concentration, of all of the above to ................................
Evil is not "Satan". It's the power of cooperating sociopaths. Let's keep our eyes on the ball.
Welcome
Beautiful essay, thank you. And I so endorse that feeling, it's a bit undefinable, but it's showing up in so many ways. Deep changes are coming. Thank you.
If you are considering studying the Bible for the first time; begin with the Gospel of John - the 4th Book in the "Renewed Covenant", (aka New Testament).
If anyone would like to explore the Bible via short animated videos I highly recommend BibleProject. The narrative is matched to drawing/words that are illustrated as you watch. Especially interesting are the book by book explanations.
https://bibleproject.com/
Thank you for that link. It sounds very interesting so I bookmarked it for later.
Matt
I watched the 1st video, "What is the Bible?" of the Bible Project videos https://bibleproject.com/
that you recommend. It was a very good video that I will probably used with my teenage grandchildren. Thank you!
Jennifer Jones: Please allow me to suggest that you teach your Grandchildren to read every day for at least one year the "Proverb of the day". The Book of Proverbs has 31 chapters and is written by the second wisest man to have ever lived; Solomon, the son of David. Because there are 31 chapters in the Proverbs, on the first day of the month your Grandchildren would read Proverbs chapter one (1), on the second day of the month Proverbs chapter two (2), etc. If the month has only 30 days they would read both chapters 30 & 31 on the 30th of the month. Have them read the Proverb of the day for one whole year and they will "drink in the wisdom of King Solomon, the second wisest man to have ever lived. Of course the wisest Man to have ever lived in Jesus of Nazareth, the Word that became flesh and dwelt amongst us.
Here also is Proverbs presented in 8min, but Carl, your way is the very best to drink in daily, this deep Wisdom
https://bibleproject.com/explore/video/proverbs/?utm_source=web_social_share&medium=shared_video
My fav = John 8:32 " Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
Mark 8:36 has been on my mind more and more lately …
“ For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?”
I'll take that too : )
Definitely start with the New Testament before reading the Old Testament.
Besides the Gospels, this is my favorite Old Testament book, which draws from Egyptian Harper’s Songs, as well as the Gilgamesh Epic. It speaks across all faiths:
https://bibleproject.com/explore/video/wisdom-ecclesiastes/?utm_source=web_social_share&medium=shared_video
Ecclesiastes?
Yes sir 👍🏽
But Ecclesiastes isn't very godly at times.... It's more "worldly wisdom" in some places.
What is your thinking on that?
What I love most about Ecclesiastes is 1) it’s honesty (we all are mortal, and life is a wheel of chance that can give you lemons or lemonade) and 2) it’s encouragement to fully enjoy the present in those ‘non-Hevel moments’ … taking in a sunset, fishing w/ your son or daughter, enjoying a concert, time with family and friends, a good meal, a birthday party, singing you favorite song really loud in you car, etc. I find myself actively saying inside my brain ‘this moment is non-Hevel’ when it happens, and a smile comes to my face, and sometimes goose bumps. I feel close to my God. 3rd value of this book is to then accept/recognize that both good and bad events in one’s life are actually a blessing from God. That isn’t an easy thing to do. When my older brother died when I was 19 years old, it totally gutted me. I collapsed when my Dad told me the news. But over time, I’ve used that experience to love in on others later in life who also experienced this kind of jarring tragedy. I would not be generous in this way without my own loss, and I would not be as close to those I’ve comforted.
Also watch the "Chosen" series on Amazon Prime. They are so inspirational.
That’s the thing. Deep changes are not coming. The Democrats will win the election again in 24. Trump is going to prison and they will take him off the ballot in many states. And after all that nothing will change. Things will go on and the Republican Party will be rendered irrelevant which they seem to be. We have a perfect opportunity to nominate a solid conservative that’s running for president but we’re not doing that. We’re not a nation of kings were nation of laws. It sure doesn’t look that way. Trump is taking the country and the party into oblivion.
It isn't Trump taking the country into oblivion.
It's the deep state, comprised of players from both parties.
Just like Galadriel says at the beginning of LOTR: ". . . above all else, they desire power."
What isn’t it the voters in sufficient number which enable this to go on and on and on?
This is blaming the victim; reminiscent of how an abused spouse behaves, "It's my fault. I shouldn't have complained. Look what it got me."
So voters are only victims?
For the most part, yes. There are voters voting for this, but I'm convinced most are not. We're being lied to in more and larger ways than you know.
Nicce!
It IS hard not to feel panicked in these times, but do you honestly believe the left won't run roughshod over any top conservative candidate? That sounds naive in the extreme. For heavens' sake they are up in arms about parents not wanting to disfigure and ruin their own children or give them kill shots. Any clamoring on about how "nothing will change " is a cop out. If we all had that attitude, then yes, nothing would change for the better. Yes, there are worthless republicans within the party and they need to go. How about bottling up all that frustration with actions toward making that happen. Trump has a proven record and does not back down in the face of these lunatics. Even DeSantis could not stand the heat. Time to get off the pity pot. TRUMP 2024!!!
DeSantis has been taking LOTS of heat in FL and standing up to it!! HE fired DAs throughout the state that were George Soros's spawn. I think he'd do well in the WH.
Nonsense. He has saved it. It is ppl holding onto the machine of neo-cons that is taking it into oblivion.
Good point and phrasing of the neo-con machine; they want endless war.
Exactly. Apparently a lot of citizens just can't seem to let go of war either.
I’ve seen yard signs pop up around my area lately saying “A Warhawk lives here”. What is that about? It isn’t local football teams because it’s been in widely separated small towns. Is there a professional sports team using that?
Wow. I don't know of any teams called that.
My guess is that it is a neocon warmongering person who talks tough but doesn’t actually join the military to go to the Ukraine for combat. In short, a coward.
Well, let's check in a year from now. Time, as they say, will tell.
In the meantime, resist
I’ve never wanted to more wrong and you be right than now. But I’m losing my optimism. I need yours 😍
Don’t we all! Forecasting doom and gloom is fatal. Let’s empower ourselves with hope—the motivating force behind Christianity and standing up against evil.
Jagis, we cannot give in to pessimism...there is much to be optimistic about, not the least of which is the absurdity of the people on the Left who presume to rule over us. Stay strong, stay positive.
The way I look at it is what they're doing is absurd. If we accept the absurdity, we deserve its consequences. Remember what our civil society was like before this. Carry that forward. Insist that it be our reality. The doubters surely say, "It clearly isn't our reality. You're setting yourself up for failure."
History tells us that this is a time of peril. If it is not resisted, we will regret not doing so.
I have long remembered this quote from Martin Niemöller, speaking regretfully about how he supported the Nazis' rise to power, finally realizing what they were about:
"First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me."
Yes, and don't use their language. It's gender dysphoria (and in some cases, which some people may not even be aware they are in this category, it's "intersex"/genetci where there's some DNA of the opposite sex)
You’re right. We cannot give in to pessimism. I’m guilty. I shall strengthen my resolve and stay strong. I pray daily that this almost soap opera like crazy political drama will turn and favor the truth. I’ll continue to that 👍.
If anyone can do it, Trump can. So, we're going for it, come what may.
I truly believe DeSantis can do it too. He's done it in FL. And he's younger and much less volatile personality-wise.
Hey! Where you at? It's almost Election Day 2024!
I understand your cynicism but I think you are wrong. Even if the democrats manage to steal another presidential election through manipulation of media and big tech, lawfare, or new lockdowns, this movement is not going away. It’s bigger than Trump - he’s just the target. The establishment elites will go after the next emerging leader of the movement with the same kind of venom they use against Trump.
The movement is global and the elites are doing their best to shut it down through censorship, weaponization of government and propaganda.
Exactly. They're already doing it to Desantis, Vivek, and RFK.
That’s a very interesting take. From this vantage point it looks like the globalist have us right where they want us. But you may be right. One would think they have to cheat to win elections when the masses see the forest for the trees.
I agree, unfortunately. Maybe the only thing that is more difficult than accepting the ruling class coup is that there is no intact political alliance to oppose it. The resistance is a hodge podge of traditional conservatives, Trump followers, disoriented former Dems, boomer age leftists, feminists and gay people. It's not looking really promising right now for the establishment of a cohesive coalition. But it is possible! What Obama and his predecessors did to form a coalition out of black people, feminists and gay people was just as unlikely, but they are still marching on together well enough to hold onto power.
That's what I keep in mind. I've done some study of the history of socialism in America, and there was a time, in about the 1970s, when they felt powerless to change anything. They had made their first big attempt, and it failed. They felt really discouraged. They were fighting amongst themselves re. what to do about it. Now look at them. Interestingly, some of the things they were doing in really small scales back then, through small circulation newsletters, are things they're doing in whole communities now. I recognize it.
Stanley Kurtz talked about some of this history in his book "Radical in Chief." He said what failed was a top-down approach to changing our politics and social values. What the socialists realized was a bottom-up approach--community organizing--was much more effective.
The Tea Party movement, starting in 2010, was an attempt to do that on the Right. For a while, I thought it had failed, but I think now it was the predecessor to today's MAGA movement.
To me, it seems what's left, where the movement is really lacking, is in doing what the Left did, taking over the institutions, or at least replacing them.
The best of the shorter term solutions I have seen is the use of boycotts. Money always talks in America, and the success of the boycotts has been impressive. A second source of hope within the boycott context is that the huge, sustained response by consumers shows how much people are looking for specific opportunities to show their anger and opposition to the gender ideology and all the other woke insanity, as well as to fight back against the constant personal abuse directed against themselves.
The Long March Through the Institutions.
The Democrats are taking the country into oblivion. As they say, the Republicans are the 'stupid party' but the Democrats are the 'evil' one.
Republicans aren't stupid. Some are just on the side of the left, some are too good so they won't stop to the level of the left, and the rest are vilified because ppl listen to the tv.
And "stooping to the level of the left" doesn't mean Republicans have to break the law or even the clear-as-day spirit of the law, it just means they would have to roll up their sleeves and get dirty; maybe "bare knuckle fight" for a while. But so many are lazy or timid or selfish. Some have too much on their plate - illness and other heavy burdens which I understand.
I just got an email from the county democrats—sign this petition to get trump off the ballot. I have tried to get the party crap off my email since I am no longer a democrat, but it never works. I read the tripe then mark it spam.
Have you tried blocking the emails?
I may. But then I kind of like to see what’s in their fevered brains. The temperature setting so to speak. 🤔🤪
The chamge that is coming now cannot be stopped or even tamped down by so-called elections. It is beyond that. You know it; they know it; we all know it, deep down in our bones.
I think you have it backwards, Trump is one of the few that can take the country and party OUT of oblivion...
Who do you think the GOP could run that would win?
I wonder if younger voters will favor a younger candidate. I hope they do, actually. I think it's past the time that people my age and older should be hoarding all the political power. That's why we have politicians collapsing in place, yet still continuing to preside over a broad span of responsibilities. It reminds me of the ending of the "El Cid" movie with Charlton Heston and Sophia Loren.
Hey Sandra, I looked it up. “El Cid leads his men into battle but is mortally wounded. His dying wish is to be strapped onto his horse so that his men do not realize he has died. The ploy works, and the dead El Cid “leads” his army to overwhelming victory”. Only Trump could be cast in that scene. 😀.
You are right! LOL! It’s his actual role! Very sharp of you to see that!
Seriously, though, if you haven’t seen El Cid you must. Charlton Heston was The Man then! The remakes of his roles come no where near his epic mystique.
Watching El Cid now. Epic! Heston and Loren - legend! Amazing movie. Thank-you for suggestion, as always.
Will watch this week. Your assignment is to watch Dr Strangelove. A 1964 classic that is still spot on today.
I still like DeSantis although he has seemed to have lost some of his fire lately. I wonder if his wife's breast cancer shook him up?
I've been wondering if he is listening too much to his advisors. So many (or all) of them like to tell politicians how they should act, what they should or should not say, how they should or should not say it. DeSantis has been doing a great job of managing his state and targeting destructive woke programs for elimination. Maybe he should have stuck with telling the whole country what he was doing and why. But I don't want to be another one of those highly paid advisors---I mostly would like to see him be himself and let people decide if they want to try out his programs where they live.
Yes I believe either Desantis or Ramiswany or Haley could win. Frankly I think any Republican other than Christie could win vs Biden if the election is run fairly IMO
Haley is another neo-con
She just regurgitates neocon talking points. She has nothing new to say. Like old about to retire pastors rummaging around in their past sermon files.
Exactly!
In the last fair election, Trump won. The D’s at that time did not have their ‘just in case’ machinery in place. But in ‘24, Trump (or any other Republican) will not win the general without a major plot twist. This is because the entire electoral process is now diseased. And unless something is radically altered about the way conservatives start solely talking about the only issue that matters, ELECTION INTEGRITY, then there is no way that any conservative, is going to win the general. The cheating has been shown to work, and why change what is working. Perhaps the mugshot galvanizes sympathy vote (most likely blacks) to Trump, and the Left is caught flat footed in certain municipalities. This is possible, but likely a long shot. We can certainly resist. But would encourage you also to cry out to the Lord. The way out is repentance in the name of Christ, confess our unrighteousness and God will keep his promises. He always has
Big IF
I think DeSantis could get the electoral vote
Trump is beating Biden in greater numbers than Desantis is in polls
For sure but I saw a comparison of the poll results against an electoral map and that’s the one that counts in the end
Let me guess. DeSantis?
Thank you, Sasha!
I’m choosing to be hopeful and I hope you’re correct about this revolution.
You’re writing is extraordinary.
Your courage is inspiring.
Showing up where people used to love you, knowing that they now hate you.
Sasha is great, isn't she? Adversity is going to allow her to ascend to new levels of insight. Can't wait to see where she goes.
Yes, she is. My favorite.
“...
Don't you know
Talking about a revolution?
It sounds like a whisper
Poor people gonna rise up
And get their share
Poor people gonna rise up
And take what's theirs
...”
Source: Musixmatch
Songwriters: Tracy L Chapman
Talkin’ Bout a Revolution lyrics © Purple Rabbit Music
You say you want a revolution...
Well you know we all want to change the world
Don't you know it's gonna be alright
Alright
Alright
John Lennon
One can hope.
Would be cool to mash up a couple of revolution themed songs.
I encourage everyone to watch the videos on YouTube/Rumble of Black Americans reacting to “Rich Men”. Many are driven to tears. The elites will not allow working class Whites to unite with their Black brothers and sisters. I predict an uptick in fake hate crimes and false flags so that the elite maintains its carefully crafted wedge.
I also enjoyed all the videos showing black people reacting to Trump's mug shot.
Brandon Straka's Walk Away videos prove that a lot of people on the left are waking up.
The Dems are losing their mojo -- but they are blissfully unaware.
90%+ of blacks will vote Democrat because that is the party that provides most of them the money and services they depend on for their welfare (eg gov jobs, teachers union, EBT, SNAP, public schools, healthcare, etc). Like most, they won’t bite the hand that feeds them even though it makes them dependent.
like being on a new 'plantation' of sorts.....
You’ve simultaneously highlighted the reasons for many liberal whites who vote Democrat. $$$. Livelihoods have become dependent upon big taxes & big government.
Well said, Jawa.
Many thanks.
/Users/jwalker/Library/Messages/Attachments/0c/12/B4B6C9DF-84D4-4128-9FEE-46F06E4F44EB/image000000.heic
They are already trying this but more people are waking up to the divide and conquer strategy. People are so fed up with this brainwashing of children behind parents backs in service of the transgender fad they will unite with each other regardless of race, culture, religion, orientation, generation, etc.
People are also appalled by the treatment of people in East Palestine, Ohio and Lahaina. We need to unite and look for the similarities instead of the differences. We have a lot on common and don't let the media convince you otherwise.
Good observation!
All of the really visible ones in the last 10 years have been shown to be fake, committed by some blacks, spreading hate about themselves, because they know it gains them sympathy from whites, who automatically think one of them did it. It's been bizarre to watch. I think it's dangerous, because it creates a "cry wolf" environment. How many times do we have to wonder, "Is it real or fake?", and keep finding out it's fake, before people just automatically ignore it? In my mind, for anyone who's truly racist, this is a dream come true, because they can see a day when they can do what they want, and no one will pay attention to it.
The Bud Light fiasco is when the Cultural Left jumped the shark. Its all downhill from here.
"The Bud Light fiasco"
Thing is those who pushed this STILL don't understand What They Did Wrong.
Very true. At least publicly.
In an interview with Vivek on one of the corporate "news" programs over the weekend, the interviewer (a former Clinton administration apparatchik) inadvertently disclosed the Democrats' devious and pathetic plan for the 2024 campaign. Vivek was asked repeatedly "Would you vote for a convicted felon for president?" The cat was out of the bag: with nothing really for the Democrats to run on, the 4 "indictments" were simply a desperate ploy calculated to be their main campaign platform.
What?
Ya mean they're not gonna run on Biden's brilliant Inflation Reduction Act?
They assure us on a weekly basis that it's doing wonders for everyone.
I think Trump's strategy is to win on appeal. The deck is stacked in most of the jurisdictions where he's been indicted. The exception seems to be FL, but we'll see. Very unlikely he'll get a fair trial in most of these cases. It'll be a kangaroo court for all to see.
Even famed lawyer Dershowitz has given the country '6 bananas' after these indictments saying we're on our way to a banana republic..and he's a Democrat
I've really come to like Dershowitz, because he is principled. That doesn't always mean he does things that make us feel warm and fuzzy inside. His loyalty is to the law, not necessarily justice (there's a difference). As I heard him talk about years ago, following the law has at times let guilty people go free. Sometimes he's been part of doing that, but that's far better than ignoring the law and meting out justice on our own terms. This is why he's able to support people he disagrees with politically, when he sees the legal system being abused.
Even though we disagree on policies, we agree on the importance of officeholders being bound by the law, even if it's people in our own parties. We also agree on the principle of innocent until proven guilty.
It's seemed to me our problem is pretty simple: We have public officials in both parties (both elected, and in the bureaucracy) who don't believe in America anymore. They're just into feeding on the carcass. What I see with RFK Jr. and Trump is we see a clear difference between politicians who believe in this country, and those who don't (RFK and Trump being the former, in my view). Both of them are on the "outs" trying to get in, to displace those who are just using us.
Dershowitz honors the Constitution and the law. He does a very good podcast on Apple- the Dersh Show.
"Do they really believe on the Left that they can end the Trump movement by convicting him and throwing him in jail? Do they think that’s the best approach to deal with a populist revolution, culturally and politically? Do they think that censorship on sites like YouTube and GoFundMe is the way to quiet the rising discontent of the people they have abandoned? "
What they don't understand is its NOT 1993, its 2023, and its (for better of Worse) a Whole New World.
The time when people actually cared/watched The Oscars & Emmy's, when and editorial n the New York Times (a former newspaper) could bring down a Presidency, those days are gone/rapidly dying (for better or worse).
Remember when Meet The Press really mattered? Ah Memory's
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90WD_ats6eE
They are so out of touch with normal people -- and the bizarre thing is, they don't even realize it.
Just like they don't realize how much their influence has dropped. Who among us really gives a hoot about the writers/actors strike in Hollywood? Who watches network TV anymore? I watch reaction videos on YouTube and a lot of the talking heads on MSM newsy shows are genuinely baffled at Trump's continued popularity. Fewer of us care what they have to say about much of anything anymore.
I wish they were as out of touch as you infer but they have 2 very powerful tools; they direct where the money goes (eg to welfare, neocon wars, academia, teachers union, gov employees), and MSM for narrating their message and censoring others.
💥
All tyrants become prideful and drunk on their own power. This leads to their own demise (metaphorically of course). Lucifer was the most beautiful of all the angels, but wanted to take the place of God as seen in his "I will" statements found in Isaiah 14. His demise is still to be, but it is certain to come.
Nefarious - Demon Explains Scene
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I82w7fHFcrc
https://youtu.be/ifpB22_Rk8I?t=58
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OV3wkmjnq0M
The times they have changed. I remember when even news anchors and commentators on the Left had standards. They didn't accept a presidential candidate who lied about plagiarizing someone else's material, or lied about their academic credentials, all of which Biden did. The current generation in those positions forgot all that.
https://youtu.be/mCJMF7mflGE?si=HJwA2ScIa-_Y0zVO
I agree that the audience is changing. The media landscape is changing. The Left has been adjusting. They've been manipulating Google search results for years now, so their preferred characterization of events and political figures shows up at the top. They control the new big media platforms, social media, so that again, their preferred take tends to be more visible than the Right's.
You almost have to go back to the "old internet" to get away from this.
" The Left has been adjusting. They've been manipulating Google search results for years now, so their preferred characterization of events and political figures shows up at the top."
Yes they are doing this. The Question is will it be enough to control The Chaos? I'm thinking the Printing Press, and how The Powers that be tried to control it, and the chaos that came with it.
I agree with the historical analogy. One method of control being used is how the deep state puts on a magic show. You think one thing is happening, when it's really something else. The internet is a tool being used to create the "show," and not just in what we can see. It's also being used to "figure out" how to manipulate us in significant venues outside of what we think the internet touches. The analogy I've sometimes used is it's "the algorithms of social media brought out into the real world." It's been part of what's affecting the policies we've been experiencing. I'm not just talking about the hype around AI. That's a factor, but a significant part of it is just straight algorithms being used, that have nothing to do with AI.
It's not just in what they're doing, but what we're being told we're doing.
Here's a sample:
https://frankspeech.com/Video/why-is-edison-deleting-votes
https://frankspeech.com/Video/late-night-ballot-injections
This is where the internet has also helped a lot, because it enables info. sources that wouldn't have had a chance otherwise. However, to get the most out of it, people still can't just be casual, passive observers (this has never worked out well). People still have to be curious, and demand reasonable answers.
The internet itself will not create the chaos you're talking about. Those who accept the controlling environments it offers will be bound by them, until they choose otherwise. The choice is now here, at least.
"It's not just in what they're doing, but what we're being told we're doing.
Here's a sample:
https://frankspeech.com/Video/why-is-edison-deleting-votes
https://frankspeech.com/Video/late-night-ballot-injections"
I'm Not one of those people who say It Was Stolen! I DO say I have questions. Questions I've never seen answered. What I have seen is being told to sit down and shut up (when I'm told that Alarm bells go off) I've been following Presidential Elections since Nixon v Kennedy. In that Forty Years I have not seen anything that comes within 200 miles of what I saw in the race and on November 3, 2020. And Have Questions! The guy what to look at is Dr. Robert Epstein
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5nhXrPVW4Q
Actually I think it is causing chaos. You cannot introduce technology that changes the way we interact with the world without it causing chaos.
I had questions that weren't answered until I had spent many hours listening to a lot of evidence (it was put out at the time. Though, only in front of state assemblies. The FBI, state AGs (with one exception), and courts didn't want to hear it.) I didn't realize the full extent of the problem until I watched a couple presentations, one called "Scientific Proof," and then "Absolute Proof." (the latter came out first, but I find it useful to have people view them in reverse order, because the first was really background for the second, when it all washed out). The key is understanding math and statistics.
If you want a look, here are the links:
https://frankspeech.com/Video/scientific-proof-internationally-renowned-physicist-absolutely-proves-2020-election-was
https://frankspeech.com/tv/video/absolute-proof-exposing-election-fraud-and-theft-america-enemies-foreign-and-domestic
Further background (since I had questions about where Mike Lindell got his data):
https://frankspeech.com/video/proof-32tb-pcaps-and-dennis-montgomery-are-real
It's quite a rabbit hole, but once you see it, you can't unsee it, IMO.
Lindell commissioned a sort of "reverse-engineering" of the 2020 election, based on the p-cap data he talked about, and determined that the election was actually reversed. Basically, the result Biden got was supposed to be Trump's, and Trump's was supposed to be Biden's; a massive flip. It didn't come out as an exact swap, but pretty close. This isn't to suggest that votes were merely swapped (one candidate's votes given to the other). It's more complicated than that.
One of the links I gave here goes to a page with a link to Lindell's Cyber Symposium from 2021. Part of the hours of video for that explains a pretty good theory for how the fraud was done. The first couple links I gave you were a very encapsulated summary of it from David Clements, who's clearly done a lot of work on this. I could give you more on what he's said on it, if you're interested. Like I said, it's a rabbit hole...
"The FBI, state AGs (with one exception), and courts didn't want to hear it.)"
EXACTLY!
The Internet was not a good thing to have.
The searches are worthless.
Says someone on Algores internet!
Not to mention the historic data in existence about our founding nation, it’s beyond twisted. Ken Burns had a Sun. Night history segment on the Westerns of Hollywood were incorrect. The REAL cowboys were black. They moved the cattle and settled the west. Please, Google it, Wikipedia it. The young black teens cheered at such a revelation! It’s everywhere.
Well stated!! What they’ve actually created, by twisting the legal system to persecute DJT, is a martyr. In an odd way, there’s parallels to Mandela’s imprisonment and later becoming president.
They may be distinctly out of touch but their egotistical arrogance stands firm.
I’m watching our nation go to ALL cost to avoid a Trump win. Globally. The crime families in office get no press of their crime. Trump is fighting off post civil war rulings that if applied to the left… they would be gone. Yet WHO would dare be successful in calling any of them out?
What kind of an insurrection can occur without weapons? And what is the purpose of all the young male immigrants? Evil.. spiritual warfare.
I pray his safety.
A strange and spooky feeling to be living in a society that has collapsed into insanity but just compare the people we have on our side like Elon, Tucker, Tulsi, Vivek and his wife to any of the fanatics on the Woke side. Like the difference between day and night. Watch Vivek and his wife, Apoorva, talk about God and religion. Actually quite beautiful. The more I see of both of these people the more Impressed I am. He’d make a great president plus he and his wife would be fabulous role models not only for our deeply troubled society but also for our lost and confused world. These are people who really do seem to be divinely inspired.
“In its true essence, dharma means for a Hindu to "expand the mind". Furthermore, it represents the direct connection between the individual and the societal phenomena that bind the society together. In the way societal phenomena affect the conscience of the individual, similarly may the actions of an individual alter the course of the society, for better or for worse. This has been subtly echoed by the credo धर्मो धारयति प्रजा: meaning dharma is that which holds and provides support to the social construct.”
“Vivek Ramaswamy talks about his Dharma. He is running for US presidency.” (10 min)
Every Devotee has a Story. Aug 31, 2023
https://youtu.be/jLkajwJGej4?si=yzuSidvyDJ6uHdO9
I love Vivek because he is so good at explaining common sense approaches to government, education, & the economy.
RFK supports affirmative action though which Vivek is totally opposed to. I saw a Townhall meeting where Vivek was asked what he would do on his first day in office. He said he would issue an Executive Order banning race based affirmative action. That’s exactly the opposite of what Biden did on his first day in office which was to issue an Executive Order to replace meritocracy wherever it could be found with Equity aka Equal Outcomes. These are polar opposites and irreconcilable differences. I see no common ground here. This is already a major reason why Vivek is hated by the democrats who believe in race based socialism, a sure recipe for tribal warfare.
Race based affirmative action was already struck down by the supreme court. And RFK Jr's take on it is more nuanced than you present, though yes, he and Vivek, rereshingly, don't see eye to eye. I really don't think affirmative action is going to be in the top of the issues we talk about as the election looms - if "they" let anyone actually debate anything on the democrat side. The DNC is protecting the walking corpse from any challenge, and using the rest of their machine to try to criminalize Trump as though it will damage his popularity. Interesting Times - the Curse has come ;) I have this feeling that we're being watched, the aliens are in their cloaked ships making popcorn for the big show
Are you saying it is naïve because he is not a neocon in favor of the Ukraine war?
He's young
It’s not an “attitude.” It’s the reality of our situation. If you haven’t noticed this by now you haven’t been paying attention. We lack a common reality, have become incomprehensible to each other and can no longer communicate. Where is the common ground in such an infinitely wide divide? There obviously is none. We always just talk past each other. This can only get worse and is getting worse by the day. The same people who insist Jan 6 was an “Insurrection!” have no problem with Joe’s open southern border or pornography for public school children. Hope springs eternal but then so does wishful thinking. You’ve apparently never tried to reason with a leftist over such things.
“Megyn Kelly and Chris Rufo Call Out Former President Obama Speaking About ‘Book Bans.’ (9 min)
Megyn Kelly. July 18, 2023
https://youtu.be/_2ETvv-d0yQ
You sound like a nutcase.
I only see these combative posts on SSs like this one, with people from the Left that are supposedly rethinking their affiliations, like Sasha has. Change must come from within the individual. Be the change you want, the change you are looking for.
I don't see that. . .
RFK is just as bad. He is a climate zealot, for one.
The movie you recommend, "The Holdovers" looks entertaining, however, I must say I am "Paul giamattie'd" out. He is ubiquitous, it seems you can't turn a dial without seeing him. As much as I'd like to see the film I don't know if I can watch two hours of him again.
Your essay is excellent, we are in need of an infusion of morality and perhaps more important of judgement. We've all been sold on the idea of "free love", but there is no such thing. You pay some emotional toll with each increase in body count. Male and female. A coarsening. You become insular.
We need a return to the pursuit of a moral existence. Which can lead to a more fulfilling life.
People living a full existence don't need Prozac, don't need Adderal, they cope better with life as it presents.
Happiness isn't down the rabbit hole of twitter. It's in a sense of accomplishment and self-worth.
More than Giamatti’s ubiquity, Hollywood is wholly incapable of writing a “White cisgender heteronormative male” role that isn’t in dire need of life lessons from a female (in this case, an obese black woman, so that’s extra intersectionality points!). This is right out of the woke playbook of trashing White maleness, non-LGBTQIA2S++, and it is NO ACCIDENT. It’s ubiquitous: superheros are beholden to superheroines; men are idiotic himbos, and women are the only ones who can save everything. (Not that there’s anything wrong with SOME films doing that, but it’s just an onslaught now.
How can we raise a healthy generation of young men when we portray them as a cog in a mean spirited racist “patriarchy”?
It is propaganda, all of it. The 1930s had May West saying ‘come on up and see me sometime’. The early 1960s a policeman falls in love with Irma La Duce, a prostitute. TV in the 50s was ‘be good’ propaganda with Donna Reed, Father Knows Best and My Three Sons. From the 60s on it was Love Boat and anything goes and it went downhill from there. Incremental creep into depravity.
This is how to appease the current generation while forming the next one in order to slowly remake a country that only thought it was pious.
I have lived through it all so the bookends of my life depict the sharpest contrast possible.
Well said!
Covid really isolated society.
A lack of celebrities at Telluride would be a blessing. Those elite snobs can stay home. I’d rather catch a ride with an unknown person and find real conversations than some celebrity thinking they are gracing their presence by sitting by me. I truly pray many are returning to Christianity fait. We need to realize our existence needs salvation from the demonic forces being unleashed on our children and must stand strong against these movements.
Me too. I love chatting with locals when traveling.
Wow. How can a person who was of the left a majority of her years can relate so eloquently to MAGA beliefs and thinking. I applaud miss stone for her courage to speak out. Her voice about the MAGA movement is so inspiring and passionate that I believe very good things will happen for her in the future. An undeniable gem.
I don't think she has changed so much as the democratic party has radically changed. What probably has changed for her is her VIEW of the people who make up the MAGA movement. Her voice and her writing skills are deeply appreciative and admired for her defense of the movement.
Exactly right, Marty. The Dems used to be for the working class, for freedom, against needless wars; but now they are the Establishment and filled with FBI, DOJ, CIA and every warmongering neocon on earth.
I disagree MLB. The Dems used to be for the working class, for freedom, against needless wars; but now they are the Establishment and filled with FBI, DOJ, CIA and every warmongering neocon on earth. They have endorsed wars since the 90’s and lobbied hard for censorship of freedom of speech.
Teacher's unions have long held power in the Democratic party, both at national and local level. They practically dictated the school shutdowns, distance learning, mask policy. Teachers union members make up 10% of the delegates at the Democratic National Convention.
Cross posted. One of the most optimistic and hopeful essays I have read in a very long time.
Thank you, Sasha Stone.
Your description of Telluride made me think of the stark, gray concrete world the Soviet Union built under their communist rule. It was a humorless, colorless existence of an enslaved people living under the oppression and ever-watchful eye of their overlords.
That’s what’s being built here, where conformity is the law of the land, and fear of stepping outside their electrified guardrails the ruling motivator.
True, people are slowly awakening to and becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the ruling elites dictats, but there’s no real opposition party, no consequences ever suffered by the wrong-doers for their blatant lawlessness, and irrationality.
Everyone seems to be waiting for “someone” to do “something”, but have no idea who that someone is or what that something will be.
Some put all their eggs in Trump’s basket, but, while he most assuredly is the poster boy for so much of the evil being perpetrated upon us all, the evil machinations and lust for power of these forces arrayed against us continues apace, knows no bounds, and they will go to any lengths imaginable (even unimaginable), to stop him.
I feel like we’re the ones in the “Burning Man” images, stuck in the muck and mire of the diabolical regime currently ruling over us. We gotta get outta here.
"there’s no real opposition party, no consequences ever suffered by the wrong-doers for their blatant lawlessness, and irrationality.
Everyone seems to be waiting for “someone” to do “something”, but have no idea who that someone is or what that something will be."
I strongly agree with your post! It is becoming easier by the day to feel the answer to the question, "Why didn't the German people do something?" The answer is what you said so well in the sentences I quoted.
We need to be the change we want to see. Trump has always said he was just the buffer between them and us. Lock Trump up and the deplorables and disaffected others are still here waiting for the last shoe to drop. I feel sorry for those in blue states. The citizens in red states can hound their legislatures to block the gene jabs on, race-baiting of, and the mutilations of children in school.
Next week I’m going down the road a couple of miles to watch an evening of team penning and barrel racing. Film festivals are not my cup of coffee.
Well said!!!
Wow. Just. Wow. God bless you, Sasha.
May you be as accurate as you are eloquent.
Bakatchya
Many of the Woke do believe in God but at the core of their being they are committed to Goodness which they interpret to mean a commitment to Equal Outcomes or Equity rather than to Truth which is a commitment to objective reality as it is rather than how we want it to be. The socialist delusion is a particularly powerful one probably because it’s so deeply embedded in human nature. Leftists see this as an epic battle of Good vs Evil which they simply must win. Once a society abandons Truth though it loses its connection to objective reality, becomes insane and enters the realm of 1984 which is not a good place to be.
The woke are similar to the Pharisees (at least as they are described in the Gospels). They are rigid, self-righteous, and they confuse obedience to rules with spiritual purity. Their concept of "goodness" is borrowed from old images of the Good Christian woman. Most remarkably, the woke cultists meticulously follow "the letter of the law" while forsaking the spirit of empathy, tolerance, compassion and connection.
That comparison with the Pharisees is so apt!
It isn't totally original. I read an amazing book decades ago in which the author interpreted the Gospels in terms of symbols of spiritual transformations. I think he might have been a Jungian but I can no longer recall the name of the book or the author. I am hoping it will come back to me if I focus on it for a while.
Anyway, the author interpreted the recurring allusions to the "Pharisees" as references to a way of thinking and being that consisted of practicing strict observance of religious rules, focusing on concrete things and actions, and arguing legalistically and literally about scriptures. The author contrasted this approach with that of Jesus, whom he portrayed as teaching his disciples and anyone else "with ears to hear" about "gnosis," a more profound level of mystical knowledge.
I read in a separate piece written from the perspective of a Jewish author that the comments about "the Pharisees" found in the New Testament may not be fair portrayals of the actual people known as Pharisees. That may very well be true, but even so we do see the type of person described in the Gospels around us today.
Hey, I couldn’t find the El Cid thread and see your last comment; so am replying here. I loved El Cid and was really impressed with how epic and well acted it was. Amazing they were able to do that in 1961. Thanks again for the idea. :)
Javert from Les Misérables comes to mind also.
I’m reading a book “Woke Jesus” by Lucas Miles. What you’ve just said here is discussed this book. His book starts with the origins on how we got to this point. Highly recommend his book!
“This wouldn’t be the first time that religious zeal scoffed at sexual norms as obstacles to holiness – the history of free-love communes and orgiastic rites offers plenty of case studies. Early Christians believed that grace and faith freed believers from observing the strictures of Jewish law, an idea called “antinomianism.” This idea historically reappears in extreme forms to make the controversial claim that breaking the earthly bonds of sin and death requires obliterating sexual taboos.”
“Queering Jesus: How It’s Going Mainstream at Progressive Churches and Top Divinity Schools.”
Real Clear Investigations. Jun 13, 2023
https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2023/06/13/queering_jesus_how_its_going_mainstream_at_progressive_churches_and_top_divinity_schools_903535.html
That’s what is infuriating about these times, as a former Leftist I feel we’re in a battle of Good vs. Evil that we must win as well, only for me the evil is coming from the Left. So how do we overcome this discrepancy?
I think more in terms of "destructiveness" than of "evil." I have never been a part of a formal religious system, however, except for some years as a practitioner of Buddhist meditation. For me, the problems are about the "imperfections" in human evolution thus far. It appears that most of us still can under certain circumstances devolve into really ugly states of mind towards each other, and these states can sweep up vast numbers of people into inquisitions and persecutions.
I think at their core is a significant dependence on government monies and services.