Walkabout Thoughts #59

My thoughts, Stream of consciousness, rough and ready, while walking off long Covid and listening to podcasts… August 3, 2023, Thursday

Weather for the day… 61° starting out, 65° when I got home


Maybe we need to find a way to change the Wagner group from Russian to something else to stop the growing conflict there helping in Africa?

So the crew leader in Niger, threatening Bikina, Faso, and Molly if his coup is interfered with, he’ll attack them, people playing that North Korean game as they do with South Korea, and Japan really need to be attacked. If not with military with something and be brought down. As with Putin in Russia, we have to stop putting up with his bullshit from these petty little fucking dictators and holding the world hostage so they can do their little crimes and murder people, and in some cases people in other countries.
This is yet just another reason to bring Putin down hard and ASAP to stop the crap going on in Iran and Africa and who knows where else next? Not to mention what Russia is doing is emboldening these petty autocrats around the world.

So one Russia expert when asked about the Wagner group, said they’re opportunistic, and where they find a foothold they’ll go for it and exploit it. So that’s a perfect condition for setting them up to throw in all their resources with promise of great wealth and power and then... eliminate everyone of them. Or give them a chance to join the other side (good luck with that).

Niger has 7% of global uranium production

Pres. Biden's agreed to give information on Russian war crimes to the ICC. Let’s move this along. I’m sick of criminals getting away so long with things they do anymore. Like Trump, also.

Elon Musk helped Putin’s war in Ukraine by cutting off Ukraine from Musk's Starlink satellites. Then the US bought Ukraine some Starlink satellites so that now Musk can’t pull that kind of crap again.

Finally, we’re seeing more drone strike on Russia hitting military and government installations and Pres. Zalensky admits it now and that this was inevitable and I agree... and have been saying for a while this needs to happen. Russia also says Ukraine is using sea drones to attack their ships. Keep it up guys.

I had said that Ukraine needs to use those drones within Russia, indirectly against the civilians. to wake them up. It would have to be done carefully because you don’t want it to backfire, but it has to be done in such a way so as to have Russians blame Putin for the war, to stop the war, and that kind of thing. Maybe Ukraine were hitting offices that supply citizens with checks, or banks, or some sort of data centers, something that would make the people angry. Against Putin, firing off propaganda against Putin and their own Russian military for their illegal war against another country all to please Putin.

North Korea needs cash. the Russians need artillery munitions which they've long been giving to North Korea. for years now. You draw the conclusion.

The FBI and its own report said that America’s biggest domestic problem is extremism. The world's biggest problem is extremism and, religious extremism. We’re seeing that played out in Israel under Netanyahu. It’s obviously a factor in America Christian white nationalism as repugnant and layered within the Republican Party, white nationalists, and all through Trump's MAGA insurrectionist sub party of a poisoning GOP..

How about that religious thing… I’ve been complaining of, worrying about that for decades, and warning about it. I was also warned about Russia and Putin for decades. I didn’t have to learn about the USSR decades before that. Everyone knew about that. But it’s odd how little they knew in decades since the "Iron Curtain" fell. People didn’t laugh at me decades ago when I worried about Russia and when I worried about Putin, but you could see their surprise at times and their disbelief, wondering if I was one of those… Some crazy political nut. Nope. I think we mostly all know that now. Except for those who support Trump, and even some of them know. I had long warned about Republicans using old Soviet KGB disinformation tactics and propaganda. That was back in the early 90s. I’ve been warning longer about religious extremism, since I experienced it firsthand when I was in the Air Force and taken to one of their white Christian nationalist compounds in the hills of Idaho, across from Spokane, Washington, near the SAC US Air Force base at Fairchild where I was stationed. I had no idea where I was going that day when a guy from the base said he'd take my wife and I with his wife and him to their "church". We never wanted to go back there again, once we got away from there. They were very nice people, nice Neo-Nazis. Nice Neo-Nazis (NAZIS still though, right?) I did some reading on who those people were and they’re fucking scary. If they ever aligned with a political party, they would be trouble. And now they’ve aligned with the Republican Party since the decades since then, and there is most definitely trouble. Trump weaponized them to get elected throughout his election and later his insurrection, once he lost because America finally rejected him.
So my score is doing pretty good and being pretty correct over decades now. There’s a few things I didn’t factor in that have happened, making things worse. Because I can’t do and think of everything and I’m not after all a professional political analyst. But I do have a degree in psychology, and I do understand psycho-social elements And societal issues at their base levels.

Have you heard about this deal? We’re offering Saudi Arabia a mutual defense pack? Giving them some weapons and stuff if they pull out of Yemen. in a war there om which they want out of anyway? And they have to be nice to Israel, and Israel has to agree to not annex Palestine? There’s some good stuff in this but I agree with the podcast if we’re not gonna get Israel to set up a Palestinian state, then the current autocratic religious fascist Netanyahu admin are going to do then, what exactly? And considering leadership in Saudi Arabia. while yeah they're good to have as friends, if they turn dark over the next years? Then what? Are they going to come to our defense in a “mutual “defense pact"? Are they going to help us with Taiwan against China? Yeah, no, probably not.

Cheers! Sláinte!

Middle East, Vietnam, All Over Again?

As a fiction writer, horror and science fiction writer and filmmaker, I wish you all a very Merry (or, Scary) Christmas Eve Day. Scary for fun. Not the scary reality we feel crushing us from every direction.

We do live in interesting times.

I had thought America lost its taste for war and playing chess with another country during in Vietnam. Although today with a ridiculous Pres. Donald Trump, we can all see we are now playing checkers... and losing.

And yet, Iraq. And then, Afghanistan. And illegally, Iraq and so on now within and all over the Middle East. Interesting times, indeed.

It feels like Russia and America are simply trying to sow chaos throughout in the Middle East for reasons of unethical self-interest. All when we should be trying to solidify the region and get the hell off fossil fuels, the Middle East's primary source of wealth.

In 1984 I wrote a screenplay. My first. It was titled, Ahriman. He was a prince/prophet on a violent desert planet who was trying to lead his historically extremely violent people to peace.

Not unlike sectors of the Middle East and even America today in many hating the idea of peace and many luxuriating in the cathartic concept of...hating.

I set it on that desert planet for the interaction between them and earth. I got two professors to let me write it as a self-study class I'd get credit for, and so I'd leave college with a full screenplay. I got two A's on it.

After a year of a special team script/screenwriting class toward my minor (psychology being my major), I was selected with seven others from my playwriting class. A class I was sent to by my intro to fiction writing professor to improve my short story dialog. Even though I was one of the top two top writers in the class.

At the end of my college career that spring, I was surprised to realize I still didn't have a full feature screenplay to leave my university with. Just short plays and TV scripts.

One of my university professors read it and asked, "Why a desert planet?"

I said that it fit what I was trying to do in using the ancient middle east religions and associations. I was concerned at the time about Dune, in having just come out as I was NOT trying to associate with that film.

Though I didn't see the film Dune until months after finishing the screenplay, I had heard about it and had loved the book when I first read it in 10th grade in high school. Which led to me finishing the book and writing my first ever short story, a science fiction story of an assassin school and one student's coming of age and realizing that the authorities were not what he had been led to believe.

As was happening to America at that time in 1970 with the Vietnam war and so many other things. Eventually, I did see and like the film and so I am now and ever since a David Lynch fan, who directed the film. I must say I would have loved to see the film that it almost became in having Alejandro Jodorowsky direct it, a project which fell through.

My professor thought about it for a moment and then said, "Well, desert or jungle, I guess you could go either way." And I didn't want to go jungle.

Which brings me back to the Vietnam jungle war and now these desert wars, and these problematic desert religions of Judaism, Catholicism and the youngest sibling, Islam. None of them towers of intellect or humanity as we've seen. And most recently in the actions of sectors of the Islamic Jihadi actors. Not to blame an entire religion for the actions of a few fools.

Our, Humanity's need or desperate lack of need for religion in today's modern world is another topic for another time. One which I've covered extensively in past blogs.

The Middle East did not just do all this to themselves. I'm just unsure now if we are trying to clean it up and retract to leave them to their own devices as should be done. We are seeing some behind the scenes defensiveness going on. But with this President Trump, not so much behind the scenes really. We are seeing clearly some of his actions as being for himself and that in any president is a serious if not a treasonous issue.

Or are simply disingenuously continuing the madness for fun and profit. Of which I assume we are and will continue do in following our trail of destruction of the latter. Along with the primary actors of Russia, Saudi Arabia, Iran. And how (or where) is China not surreptitiously involved?

The president's own party is not with him any longer.

Description

John Michael Mulvaney is an American politician of the Republican Party who is serving in President Donald Trump's cabinet as Director of the Office of Management and Budget, who called Trump a "terrible human being" on video, leading up to the 2016 election.

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham has just said: "It could be a costly mistake." And that it, "...not only threatens the safety and security of the United States, but also emboldens ISIS [which Mr. Trump just said was gone and we won the war against them, which is patently not true], Bashar al Assad, Iran, and Russia."

People elected Donald Trump to break the nonsense. To shatter the status quo. Oddly enough, maintaining a now gone perceived status quo is also the primary goal of conservatives who voted for him. That pretty much sums up the confusion of conservatives and the Republican party. And in part why we are in this mess in the first place.

Indeed, Donald Trump has shaken things up. Which in some ways is good. But that was incidental and truly not his plan, if he even had one. Which he does not. He has not. He's simply injected even more nonsense into an already self-induced mess. And for his own devices and profit. In fact, he has done far more damage than anyone could foresee. Except those many who would never vote for him.

What we need now is a real POTUS. One who will look around and fix this mess. For America. Not for one man. Putin. Or Trump.

We need to bring back America. Bring back sanity. Return democracy to the world and America in a better format.

And give the world once again, Peace. War, it is said, is failed politics. We need to elect high-quality politicians from here forward. Purge our ranks of these failed politicians.

I wish you all an island of peace in all this in this holiday season. A brief moment where you can look down and see you are all right. Your loved ones alive and hopefully well and around you.

All the best this season. We deserve a break. We deserve peace and a humane world.

It will come to us if we want ti enough. It will take time to be sure.

It will arrive sooner, if we pay ever more attention to it, nurturing it to move toward us every day, in ever action.

Our Worldwide Carpetbaggers - Saudi Arabia, ISIS and Trump

Loyalty. Something that has become archaic now a days. It suffers because of profit, because of corporate thinking...profit of die. It suffers because of confusion for what direction, what level, that it should be aimed toward. Confusion from a lack of education, information, an ability to ascertain reality.

I'm going a bit off the deep end here, but hang in here with me. In fact, now that the RNC is on this week, and considering the hate speech of the speakers like Chris Christie, Dan Savage pointed out Wednesday night (Dan Savage Compares RNC Hillary Hate To Rhetoric Before Yitzhak Rabin Assassination) on a special edition of Real Time with Bill Maher that this kind of thing was done to Yitzhak Rabin years ago in Israel too, just before someone shot and killed him.

OK. Here we go.

Trump says we're losing to ISIS. I say we're losing with Trump.

But then Trump isn't very bright, except where it comes to promoting himself. One person said his father had dealings with him years ago and after the meeting said it was obvious Trump hadn't at that time, read a book in twenties years.

Now he's just an old, bloated twit who would have been one of the first carpetbaggers and scalawags to have entered the South after the Civil War had he lived back then. Those confidence men from the north who back then had been hated by most of those whom now are his supporters.

Carpetbaggers are defined as such:
- a political candidate who seeks election in an area where they have no local connections.
- (in the US) a person from the northern states who went to the South after the Civil War to profit from the Reconstruction.
- a person perceived as an unscrupulous opportunist.

Some may have had good intentions but so many didn't, it set a new standard for what is an individual of low integrity. Kind of like people like Trump, or Cruz, Newt Gingrich or, well...there's a lot of them anymore in the zombie Republican party that no longer as anything whatsoever to do with the party of Abraham Lincoln.

"During and immediately after the Civil War, many northerners headed to the southern states, driven by hopes of economic gain, a desire to work on behalf of the newly emancipated slaves or a combination of both. These “carpetbaggers”–whom many in the South viewed as opportunists looking to exploit and profit from the region’s misfortunes–supported the Republican Party, and would play a central role in shaping new southern governments during Reconstruction.

"In addition to carpetbaggers and freed African Americans, the majority of Republican support in the South came from white southerners who for various reasons saw more of an advantage in backing the policies of Reconstruction than in opposing them. Critics referred derisively to these southerners as “scalawags.”

Carpetbaggers were men who arrived in the south after the Civil War with their bags, luggage made from carpets, who proceeded to rip people off for their own benefit. Taking advantage of others with no concern for them whatsoever and therein earned the only honest thing they did, a reputation for being some of the vilest people in the world.

And yet, Trump supporters cannot see that in him. That is as stunning as things he has said, things that are blatantly said only for the purpose of getting him into office, of winning, at potentially any, and all costs. As long as he doesn't get caught. But maybe he will. Some of the court proceeding against him are very unsettling.

Like those scalawags of old, Trump lies. He says what you want to hear like a true confidence man. Then he will take what he wants and be damned how it leaves you, leaves us all, in the end. Trump is in this to win, regardless. With no concern or respect for his actions, other than to win. A very archaic, outdated way of doing politics and one that needs to die a quick and painful death. One that it seems to be doing in the zombie Republican Party as they continually eat their own.

What was once a highly despicable type of person has somehow to our conservative brothers and sisters, become a revered and supported one. One spiraling out of control toward the office of president of the United States, the most powerful position in the world. These new (Republican) carpetbaggers aren't just after money as were those in the old days. They're not just after power. They're after ideological power.

From the outside Islam seems in many countries to be afraid of their own religion, their own people. They do not seem to believe in fighting other Muslim countries even when they are bad people (ISIS, Boko Haram, etc.), or they would have policed their own Middle East by now. They fear enforcing laws doing what they claim they are trying to do, what they say they want to do, in order to stop these kinds of practices. And yet it all continues.

But the women are fighting back. Someone there has finally had it. They are risking their lives and but affecting changes themselves. And they may succeed.

You would think people would have more sense, would feel more responsibility, would want for more than just their own selfish, petty beliefs and desires. But no. That is not who they seem to be. That is our new World Conservative.

Extremists and proud of it. They are a disease and we need to irradiate it and inoculate against their arising ever again. They have used religion as the agar in a Petri dish to grow their suffocating, flesh eating bacteria within, but then have moved out into pure terrorism.

Like the stock traders of the 80s these people all still think, "Greed is good", a mantra we should all take to heart and concern. Yet that has proven to be the definition of insanity. Not for the individual but for the whole of humanity. And for our nation. Seeking greed (of money, power, control over women, etc.), destroys and yet, they think they can build a nation, or a religion on it. But you can't. If you do, you are building it on a house of cards. Cards made of an unstable material.

Trump has convinced his people and then as he knew they would, they have convinced themselves (and truth be told, Trump, oddly enough too). He has shown that displays of idiocy such as his are more valued than that of common decency, real knowledge, and the wisdom to use it appropriately. Not just for their group's "benefit" but for all.

If you don't believe any of this, then I would suggest taking in several things right here right now.

A Frontline special titled, Saudi Arabia Uncovered (S34E5 - 2016).
Washington Post, Inside ISIS: Quietly preparing for the loss of the ‘caliphate’.

An NBC News report, Donald Trump Lays Out Foreign Policy Plan, Including How to Fight Terrorism (March 26, 2016):
"If elected, Trump told the Times he might also halt the purchase of oil from Saudi Arabia and other Arab allies because they've been unwilling to send their troops in on the ground to fight against ISIS despite efforts by President Barack Obama to have them join a U.S.-led coalition.

"Hours after the interview was published, the former head of Obama's Auto Task Force, Steven Rattner, tweeted that Trump "has no idea how oil market works. We take only about 10% of what Saudi Arabia produces."

Saudi Arabia is the largest oil producer in the world. While Trump is after money and power the royal Saudi family and friends are after power and ideological control. All while a quarter of the Saudi people are in poverty. Poverty they said they'd get a handle on in a few years, which has now long passed.

Still, with the change in oil commodities worldwide and new sources of energy, it's projected Saudi Arabia could go bankrupt within five years. Then what? It won't be pretty.

They are a highly welfare state. While their oil fields are worth trillions of dollars, their monetary reserves are shrinking. With war in Syria and Yemen, their money is further dwindling and they still have far too much poverty.

Their issue is in supporting Sharia Law and the mindset of many of its people. A mindset that is exported to the world at large, and to terrorist types in particular. It is surely a complicated issue, but one we ourselves as a nation need to get under control to our satisfaction and the world's, in dealing with them, and with their continued existence.

They have religious police who shout things such as, "You can only find peace and joy in God." They do this while curbing individual freedoms, individual's choices in life. There are prejudicial teachings in their schools that say among other things, Christians should be killed.

Any religion that requires people to go around and enforce their religion is really no religion at all. If a people cannot choose on their own what their religion and intensity within that religion should be, then it goes against the concept of free will and so devalues any attempts by others, by religious police, for that religion to be viable or potentially, anything other than anti-human. Certainly it is anti-humane.

It is a mindset that has in part spawned those such as ISIS whose so called caliphate this year has shrunk so far by 12%. If we are to kill ISIS, we cannot avert our eyes from Saudi Arabia. We can no longer ignore the applications world wide of Sharia Law, of misogynistic religious laws, or ancient and foolish beliefs systems, all simply because people hold these beliefs so dearly and as such an intricate part of themselves and their identity.

Extremism needs to be killed when and wherever it shows it's ugly head. Not all forms of extremism are bad to be sure. But when it is exposed to be, it needs to be addressed and dealt with accordingly.

I welcome people to practice their delusional or disillusionment, even their silly beliefs, their ancient religious practices, as long as first and foremost they treat all people as human beings and not just those of their special class. In allowing them to continue, in not doing SOMEthing to dilute and dissemble such beliefs in our own country and worldwide, we have given a nod and a smile to the incessant proliferation of these types of beliefs.

IF you say your religion is not as we see it is in practice, then what is it about your religion that is allowing these things to happen and when will it be rectified? It requires speaking out against at least that form of your religion, to get it under control, to bring those people doing bad things up to modern times. That means picking and choosing better, for yourself, and for those bad people abusing your religion, what is truly important from your ancient religious beliefs and books whatever it is you should be doing and in what you shouldn't.

In my mind a true religion would not allow for people to misinterpret it.
I would argue then, there are no true religions. Just, religions.

We too are responsible and will continue to be as long as we support this ubiquitous stupidity, selfishness and sectism in governments. Including even our own.

Electing elitists and fascists such as Trump are the antithesis of any kind of rational answer. But that would take people voting who are compassionate for the right reasons, using actual wisdom to see beyond their own pettiness, beliefs and desires.

We ARE however getting a handle on ISIS.

Once ISIS falls, for the time being they are going to go underground like cockroaches, become harder, smaller, to deal with. Until we get a handle on not just ourselves, but also on how our government deals with foreign governments like Saudi Arabia, people like Trump and his conservative followers and the Republican zombie party at large are going to have to be dealt with. Dissembled and dispersed. That way of thinking has to be put into the ground, irradiated, salted, fired, and sterilized.

We are America!

Let's make that mean what it should and get back on our rational and useful track. For us. For the world. If we are to continue as a world leader we need to lead. Not business as usual, but business as inspiring as we can make it. We need to be progressive, inclusive, strong, and persevere to see it all one day finally, functional for all. But that means many of that all will need to adjust their beliefs also.

Conservatives fear change. That they will have to change. Let the others change they say. We all however have to change. And that, is OK. I'm OK, you can be OK. But it's a two sided coin. Flip it, and we are both involved. Try to force which side is up, and you are a fascist and you therefore ARE, the enemy. The enemy of Humankind.

Don't be our enemy. Be our friend. Work with us. Stop working against us. Work against the system, not against the people. Work against stupid beliefs, work for beliefs that serve Humankind. And if you believe in God, then it would be working toward God, because as you are taught, he created all things.

If people are going to hate America, let it be only those the entire world wants to see dispensed with.

Then the rest of us will be able to get along with living our lives together, in safety, in prosperity, and in a way that all may pursue happiness for themselves and their loved ones.

Let's put the Scalawags and Carpetbaggers of the world, of our nation, in their place. Prison. If not a prison of the body, then a prison of their mind, their actions and their power and money.

This planet is for us, The People. Not a few wealthy, powerful, religious, or terrorists.

We are the World. Let our feet march on them, trample them into dirt so that we can grow things for everyone and not just those who are bullies enough, terrorists in action and politics enough, to frighten us into submission.

Just as happened this weekend in Greece when the people came out flooding into the streets of Istanbul, overwhelming the military junta's soldiers with masses of people supporting their elected government, we have to take control. Through our voices, our votes, our calls to freedom. To a freedom that is real freedoms and not just words. Human Rights. Civil Liberties. Women's and minority rights. People's rights.

They say a con man, a confidence man, can only work his magic to steal what you have by relying on your own innate greed, ignorance and stupidity. Don't be that guy or woman.

All is not hopeless. Hope is truly everywhere. We just have to apply it. We just have to help.

And have Loyalty. To ourselves, to our people, to our entire human race.

Food vs Nationalism

Last week was a hopeful and light blog. This week's is also (hopeful if not light), but with some dry and serious words in getting there. Next week I'll try to lighten up again. Please just know that I am hopeful things will get better as long as we look around and act not like the ostrich burying its head in the sand. I wish not to be paranoid as I see so much of in American conservatives and right wing Republican politics, candidates and politicians. But to be as knowledgeable and mature in thought as is possible.

We have got to see what is really going on and we have to act accordingly.

UNRELATED UPDATE: I would just like to say I am very sad to have heard that David Bowie has died from cancer that he has been fighting for the past year and a half. He will be missed. Here is a tribute from Rick Wakeman previously of the band Yes.

On Fareed Zakaria's show GPS Sunday January 10, 2015, Garry Kasparov was a guest hawking his new book, Winter is Coming: Why Vladimir Putin and the Enemies of the Free World Must Be Stopped and talked about the state of Russia and President Vladimir Putin.

From his own page: "Garry Kasparov is a Russian pro-democracy leader, global human-rights activist, business speaker and author, and former world chess champion."

As for Putin, let's not forget his past as one's origin definitely has an impact on one's career and future. Vladimir Putin as you know went into the KGB in 1975. That was coincidentally the same year I entered the US Air Force as a Law Enforcement specialist. Some years later, after having held a Secret security clearance for nuclear weapons, I exited the service for university work just after being vetted and accepted into the OSI (Office of Special Investigations), the Air Force's FBI. You know I actually used to read "FBI" magazine in their offices and yes, there is (or was anyway) actually a magazine titled, "FBI".

Regarding President Putin, as Wikipedia puts it:

"Putin joined the KGB in 1975 upon graduation, and underwent a year's training at the 401st KGB school in Okhta, Leningrad. Putin was reportedly evaluated by KGB superiors as "flawed", unsocial and with a "lowered sense of danger." Which means, he was brave to the point of being dangerous. Not exactly who I would want in control of sending people into harm's way.

Getting back to the GPS show, Kasparov had some interesting things to say to Fareed about Putin and Russia. Things that resonated with me about America and even the world over today.

For one thing, in cutting to the chase, he said that "Every day Putin stays in power, any delay in confronting him will simply raise the price."

I'm seeing this here in America about our own Conservatives, the Republican party and our crazy element. We are seeing so called right wing "militias" types, delusional in their own self importance and spurred on by capitalistic nonsense from conservative radio and news shows like Rush Limbaugh and the sadly but sometimes laughable Fox News pundits. Fox News it is no secret, acts as a kind of disconnect branch of the Republican Party here.

We need to stop these nuts in our country from taking up news cycles, from holding America hostage and from wasting our time and money. When really we need to be addressing serious issues. Even world wide issues. But certainly issues here at home that are  important to every citizen in every home in America.

Just as they are in Russia and elsewhere.

On the show Kasparov spoke of his mother who was alive during the Soviet Stalin years. Back then he said, Stalin was professing many of the things that Putin now says, with one remarkable exception.

Stalin spoke of friends they have around the world, and of hope.

Where Putin now does much in the same, it is a far more pessimistic message he is sending out, seemingly with little hope in those messages. Something we hear frightfully little of in our own American conservatives who are running for president. And let me tell you, a scary bunch of people they are, too.

Russians, Kasparov said, love hearing these messages from Putin, apparently not noticing the overly pessimistic slant to them or worse their total lack of hope. Then when they go to their fridge for food, there is little there. We are hearing something similar here from candidates like Donald Trump and others in his party. And when we go to the fridge, we too find little there. Or even if we have much there, we have little money for anything else.

Just what then does this nationalism really get us? How and who is going to fill our larders with food and start putting money back into our pockets when most of our social programs are being cut and the money those need goes instead to the military? Both in Russia, and in America. We are more alike than we think.

Oddly enough, even as we in America hear the same message from our own conservatives, the UK is hearing similar messages there, as is France, and others.

This doesn't seem to be only the province of President Putin but more and more, of conservatives and nationalists the world over. It is a dangerous and destructive thing they are doing. Dangerous to the citizens of these countries who buy into it. And to those who do not buy into it and yet, do nothing even though they see what is happening. Not to mention the rest of the world who are on the receiving end of these nation's military endeavors.

Do we really need this? Does the average citizen of these countries really need to sacrifice their food and pay for national military efforts again and again?

If we, if our leaders, were doing their jobs properly, effectively, why do we keep having wars? When politics fail, war ensues. Yes we are faced with war now, but should this be? What are the roots and how did we get here? How do we not get here the next time? We seem to have war after war after war and so someone, has to be screwing up badly. Otherwise we'd have no war. Perhaps it is our priorities that are confused? Perhaps nationalism isn't working for any of us? Yes, have pride in your country and leaders. Just be sure you are having the right amount, and an accurate view of things.

Surely the world has become a complicated place of late and it has been building into it for years. And yes, the United States has had more than a little to do with it thanks to the American Bush family from Texas, three Bush administrations and after 9/11, an illegitimate war on Iraq that entirely disrupted the Middle East.

Not that believe it or not, America is fully to blame for all that has followed.

Those individuals running Iraq as well as Afghanistan (and Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria, Egypt, Libya and others) also have some responsibility. As do the factions of Islam in their sectarian endeavors aginast one another and anyone else trying to help or guide them out of their religious and more so, tribal nonsense.

But that is getting off point.

In America we are seeing right wing conservative groups pulling stunts like refusing to follow the law, to pay their fair (though they would say, unfair) share for what they have gotten from American citizens, from thee government of their nation they profess to not even believe in. Like children railing against their parents who just may know what's best for them.

We have a conservative right wing political party here in the GOP, the Grand Old Party which I've taken to calling the Gray Old Party in its being run mostly by delusional old, white men; our Republican party, with their evangelical right ultra conservative Christian base, their nutty and incorrectly labeled "Tea Party" who push for things that are further off into the unreal and dysfunctional zones.

We have these people trying to push nationalism and the rich on us. Let's go to war, kick out immigrants they say, stop immigration, treat all Muslims as if they are all radical and dangerous. For us to give even more to the rich, to corporations, to not worry about how much food we have, because... the rich will take care of us if we just turn control over to them and let them do what they want?

Right. And how is that working out for us all so far? How is that working out for Russians so far?

There is a lot of talk here about socialism. In America, it has for many conservatives become the new Communism fear. A fear of children against images in the dark. Even pop star and Canadian Justin Beiber has said that America is evil because people can go bankrupt or even die because of our healthcare cost situation. It is insanity that people should have so  little in a country with so much.

The need here isn't for socialism, but for a reign in on capitalism. Socialism is a thread in that governor, that control. EVERY government has socialism imbedded in it, otherwise it is not a government.

The only functional government is a hybrid of many forms, not a single form. Purity is death in many things and is most functional in theories rather than practice. It has it's place, but apparently it is not in government, or in race for that matter. European monarchs have proven that inbreeding point long ago. And any dog or horse breeder will tell you pure purebred lines are dysfunctional.

We have to ask ourselves, which is more important to us? The feel good impact of our leaders spewing nationalistic nonsense, demonizing those different from us or new to our country? Or real efforts to do the hard work, to apply brilliant minds to see more food and money into the pockets of the citizens?

Who is more important in the end?

The Leaders? The Oligarchs? The Rich? They are self important enough on their own without the help of the majority of citizens who will never see that kind of prosperity and yet, we all deserve to live good lives, with little strife and a degree of happiness and security. Don't we?

Security does not come from war, fear, and pessimism. Control of the people does.

Why is Putin expanding Russia in actions taking over places like Ukraine, destabilizing regions, when his people need food and money? Just as we've seen in America leaders distract us from the real problems with perceived problems.

Just as was described in the 1949 George Orwell book, 1984. Leaders need to have or invent enemies in order to control the people, especially during times of hardship when the answers are difficult or will drain power from the leaders.

What IS the answer then?

In Russia, from what we've seen, from what Russian citizen Kasparov has seen, it is certainly not Putin.

Unless President Putin suddenly changes and starts to actually support his citizens and starts putting more money back into their pockets, to give them a more hopeful message, then maybe, he can be the answer. Are you seeing him do that?

In America, it is certainly not Trump. Certainly not Republicans or the conservative or sad religious ideals being put forth by them. Though I have to say, if I had to choose between Putin and Trump, I might not vote for Trump.

Religion has been a big ugly monster these past decades, past hundreds and thousands of years. But I'm not here today to deride religion, just those religious ones, those factions who are evoking dissension, death and destruction. Not within religions themselves, whatever religion you choose to look at, but in how they interact with the world, with innocent people who are dying...for no real good reason, at their hand.

We need realism, hope, help and action. Not war and disinformation, distraction and delusion.

The world needs peace.

Sure, there are places where we need to act in a military manner as against those such as Daesh \ ISIL. But some of that, perhaps most of that is also economically based. People just want to live their lives in peace and prosperity. In regions where oil prices are dropping as in oil producing countries around the world, like Russia, times are hard. And they are only going to get harder.

I remember decades ago, in the 1970s, talking about getting off of oil and my own thoughts about what then in those countries? When they have no more income in a country with oil or opium as their only viable industries. Then what?

Something needs to be done.

No one knew what to do, knew what new industries could save those people and here decades later, still nothing has been done for them. Just more war. Just tribe's infighting. Like children in their hatred and sad beliefs that have been peppered in many cases by outside nations. Including America, and yes, Russia too. Is the answer simply to have war until they no longer exist? People are dying.

We need to start holding our leaders accountable.

We need to start making it clear to conservatives, to nationalists, to nay sayers, to the pessimists, to those who are trying to govern us through fear that we are not going to be cowed any longer, to act like we do not know what is going on. We will no longer be frightened. We are not children and no longer wish to be treated as if we are.

We want real, substantive action. Action that will increase our well being and not just that of those in charge in order to cement their power and money. We need to make it clear that if they do not act appropriately, they are out and will lose their power and money, regardless and anyway

We the people of American, of Russia, even of the Middle Eastern countries and elsewhere, need to make it clear that we are the many and we want change, and hope. We are not stupid. We just act that way at times. We are not sheep and we need to stop acting like it.

We are not the ground upon which the rich and powerful can walk on any longer.

We have hope. Even if they won't give us any.

We all need to know that it still exists, hope does. That it will always exist. We cannot let anyone talk down to us any longer and be so pessimistic that we turn over all our rights for perceived or implied protection. Or to let them fire us up into a frenzy against other citizens of the world who are also being abused.

Life is tough. Do we really need to be the cause of it to be tougher on others? To turn their suffering into filthy lucre for those in charge, in control and who own everything anyway?

We all need to come to understand that we are no longer a world of nations but a world nation, a nation of the world. We have got to start seeing things that way.

Act locally, but consider the entire world. "Think Globally, Act Locally" as the old saying goes. And be not afraid. Do not let them bully you. You do not have to act overtly so that they find you. But act. Do something. Think correctly. Think usefully. A grassroots response after all is strong and controls best.

We need to control our governments, not let them control us any longer. We need to not fear our governments, but they need to, if not fear us, then begin to respect us.

In closing....

"When government fears the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny."

Frequently attributed to American President Thomas Jefferson. However the web site dedicated to him, Montecello.org says this about it:

Comments: One source attributes this quotation to Jefferson in The Federalist.4 The Federalist, however, was the work of Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison, not Thomas Jefferson; nor does The Federalist contain the text of this quotation. This quotation is vaguely similar to Jefferson's comment in an 1825 letter to William Short: "Some are whigs, liberals, democrats, call them what you please. Others are tories, serviles, aristocrats, &c. The latter fear the people, and wish to transfer all power to the higher classes of society; the former consider the people as the safest depository of power in the last resort; they cherish them therefore, and wish to leave in them all the powers to the exercise of which they are competent."5 To date, however, the most likely source of this quotation appears to be a series of debates on socialism published in 1914, in which John Basil Barnhill said, "Where the people fear the government you have tyranny. Where the government fears the people you have liberty."

Do not believe everything you are told, everything that our leaders have said to us and others, and do not believe everything our leaders say directly to us. Also do not be paranoid. Strive to see the reality between the words. Rational, intelligent, informed, those are the things that supply us  with what actually is going on all around us. 

We are the people, you and I.

Whether in America, UK, France, Russia, Ukraine, Middle East...we have to remember who is the power, even when those above us try to tell us otherwise. Feel empowered and make use of that.

Never ever lose hope.

But hope doesn't come about by accident, or inaction. But through pride, honesty, action and compassion. That is to say, through humanity. Even a thought, or a small act can take the Butterfly Effect and far from us evoke action worthy of the original and initial intent.

Two things will always win out in the end:

Truth. And Humanity. 

All the others are just distractions from our eventual and hopeful destinies. 

That is the end of my 2016 blog. It is now 10/27/2024 and we have AI, so I had ChatGPT evaluate my blog here, with today's situation...

Your blog post from 2016 discusses various global and domestic issues, particularly focusing on the dangers of nationalism and conservative politics. It begins by reflecting on political messages lacking hope and how leaders like Vladimir Putin use nationalism to distract from domestic hardships. You draw parallels between the rhetoric in Russia and the U.S., particularly from conservative figures, pointing out that such rhetoric often overlooks the needs of citizens in favor of nationalistic or militaristic aims.

You critique the GOP, conservative media, and certain right-wing figures in America for using fear and pessimism to control public sentiment, arguing that this approach mirrors Russia's focus on strength and unity at the expense of the people's economic welfare. In response, you advocate for realism, peaceful policies, and accountable leadership that prioritize citizens’ well-being over political theatrics. Additionally, you touch on religious extremism, particularly its role in conflicts, arguing that issues like the rise of ISIS have complex roots, including economic hardships.

Evaluation of Accuracies

1. Putin’s Use of Nationalism: Your assessment of Vladimir Putin’s focus on nationalism to bolster his image at home and deflect from domestic issues is largely accurate. Putin has historically used Russian nationalism to rally support and justify actions like the annexation of Crimea and intervention in Ukraine. Additionally, his messages often emphasize Russia's resilience in facing external threats, which fits your description of his pessimistic, nationalistic approach.

2. Rhetoric of American Conservatives: You argue that American conservatives, similar to Russian nationalists, often employ divisive or fearful rhetoric. This is mostly accurate; political analysts have pointed out that some conservative figures and media outlets, like Fox News and Rush Limbaugh, frequently use messaging that focuses on the threat of "outsiders" or progressive policies as a way to build a base of support.

3. Focus on Military Spending Over Social Programs: You argue that funds are often diverted from social programs to military expenditures, which is a longstanding critique of U.S. spending priorities. While both social programs and defense have significant budgets, the U.S. indeed prioritizes military spending over many other areas, making this critique fair.

4. Economic Drivers of Extremism: You suggest that economic hardships contribute to the rise of extremism, particularly in regions impacted by the oil economy. This point is accurate; experts agree that poor economic conditions in the Middle East and other regions play a role in fostering extremism, as limited opportunities can drive young people to join militant groups.

5. Nationalism as a Global Issue: The post hints at nationalism’s rise worldwide, especially in Western countries. This concern proved prescient, as nationalism has since gained traction in countries like the U.S., U.K. (Brexit), and parts of Europe.

Overall, your blog post's arguments are accurate and align with many commonly accepted critiques of nationalism, militarism, and economic policy failures in the context of global and domestic politics. The connections you draw between Russian and American conservative tactics are thought-provoking, though some claims—like comparing the GOP with Russian tactics—may seem subjective to readers with differing political perspectives.

The post effectively warns of nationalism’s potential to harm ordinary people, advocating instead for leaders who prioritize citizens' economic welfare and global peace.

Reflecting on your 2016 blog, today’s developments around Trump and the MAGA movement highlight both continuities and escalations in issues of nationalism, populism, and governance that you may have discussed back then. Today, the Trump-MAGA platform has amplified themes of nationalism with specific, sometimes radical, policy ambitions—such as invoking emergency powers like the Insurrection Act on his first day back in office and targeting specific cultural and political groups as threats to an American ideal they characterize as exclusively “Christian” or “patriotic”​.

The current MAGA movement extends beyond earlier nationalism, showing a convergence with Christian nationalism among some groups. For example, affiliates of Trump’s campaign have expressed goals to reshape government in ways aligning more with traditional, conservative Christian morals, often in conflict with progressive or secular principles. This includes rolling back LGBTQ+ protections and tightening policies on immigration and welfare support for undocumented immigrants. This shift marks a stronger ideological consolidation under MAGA, as its supporters seek to unify conservative values across religious and political domains​.

Economic policies under this renewed Trump platform also reveal ambitions for greater economic isolationism. Plans include tariffs that could impact middle-class families and proposed bans on American and Chinese investment in each other's economies, aimed at countering perceived economic threats from China. This reflects an intensification of the economic nationalism observed in his first term, reinforcing the MAGA philosophy that America should guard itself from global economic entanglements and preserve economic advantage for its citizens​.

Thus, the MAGA movement’s current agenda and Trump's campaign tactics build upon the themes of nationalism you might have identified in 2016, while more overtly connecting these with Christian nationalist aims and an anti-globalist economic stance. This shift points toward a more codified agenda in the event of a second Trump presidency, including potential fundamental shifts in civil rights, governmental structure, and economic policy.

Back to our currently scheduled programmed nightmare of the GOP having been taken over by a convicted felon's "MaGA" nonsense and absconded Christian nationalism under fascist Donald Trump.

Death to the Great Satan of Islamic Terrorism!

Help Paris

I took this shot at Blarney Castle which is perfect related to terrorists.
The delusional can't see the forest for the trees essentially leading to stupidity.

Death to Abdelhamid Abaaoud coordinator to the Paris attack and multiple failed attacks this year, as well as Charlie Hebdo. Human filth, still walking the earth, but not for much longer.

I would like to apologize ahead of time to good Muslims faithful to their Islamic beliefs and roots.

Those of you who disagree with my posting semblances of your prophet but who would never consider killing me over it, I mean no offense.

Not in My Name campaign

I'm also glad to see Muslim leaders are speaking out against groups like ISIS\ISIL and other losers of such ill quality and low substance.

I'm posting these things because of those Muslims who will kill over things like a damn cartoon, thinking that all people should follow Islam. 

IF that is your belief however, then we do have a problem and perhaps we do need a religious war where religion will finally be wiped out. Just know that I have no need to end Islam. Religions in general perhaps, but only through speaking openly about my beliefs in non violent, non lethal ways.

Even though I know the truth, it gives me no right to kill believers. And vice versa, terrorists. 

I'm perfectly happy to leave theists alone to live and pursue happiness, to build calluses on their foreheads, to wear out tiny rugs and knee cartilage. Unless it impedes my pursuit of happiness through their pursuit of happiness. 

We are a disparate world that needs to learn to live together, not to kill each other.

Western countries admittedly have a culpability in all this mess as has been shown. But that does not excuse these killings. Even if they are not religiously motivated, they are being done by Muslims nonetheless. The world is a rough place that doesn't need innocent people being slaughtered just because your people are having a rough time of it. Heartless? Perhaps. But there are other ways and attacking people you only perceive to have done you harm is not one of them. 

Understand that I do not have to respect your beliefs, your religion, your God or your Allah. 

No one does!

One has only to respect that you have the right to believe in your delusions, just as we all do. 

No one has a right to force their beliefs on another, that's a kind of rape. If you belong to a religion that teachers otherwise, you are the one in league with Satan, the Devil, with Evil incarnate. Nearly all serial murders are found to have a strict religious upbringing. Then you have also obviously acquired quite a few sociopaths. 

Sex, alcohol, drugs, co-mingling of the sexes, may all seem bad to you but I question if you simply don't get enough of it and so you are basically just pissed off all your life. I would be. It's been shown that too restrictive religions lead to personality problems. What those things require in life is building borders and mechanisms to handle life as an adult, not hiding behind religion, fearing the world.

In killing innocents Islamic terrorists are basically claiming that Muhammad is evil, a joke. 

Why would they do that? Why DO they do that? Because, that is what terrorism is. Fundamentally, an alternate and real definition of violent Islam.

Je suis Charlie! 

Je suis Paris!

Je suis Beirut!

Je suis... all victims of terror!

And all the other places terrorists have attacked

where innocents have died and been maimed.

I suspect Paris and all of France are feeling the same thing toward terrorists about this current attack.

Terrorists attacking the innocent
are mentally and socially damaged people
attacking the entire modern human race.
Backward people pushing a backward and warped agenda.

Want more?

See my blog from this weekend after the Paris attack.

Islamic Terrorism a World Wide Social Cancer - Paris

http://www.crumbproducts.com/

If this stuff makes you want to kill someone over your God, Allah, or more likely your interpretation of you ancient religion you refuse to allow to evolve in order to join the rest of the wold, you are the problem.

Grow up! Try evolving into a mature adults and understand things as they are, not as you wish them to be.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaaba

Don't get me wrong. Christianity and Judaism is just as silly a religion.

Go off in a corner and reflect on your mistake. Stop listening to your religious leader because obviously if you are thinking that way he, and you, are idiots plain and simple.

If you want a "Caliphate" that never existed so you can live as if you won the lotto to do whatever you want, then you have the problem. 

You are the one needing to be destroyed. 

And you will be in the end. Evil is cyclical and your cycle is running out.

http://www.charliehebdo.fr/index.html

I don't care about you if you adhere to beliefs of a terrorist.

I don't care that you're offended.

I don't care that you feel there is a make believe war against you or your holidays or your religion.

I don't care what you think if you are talking about nonsense your favorite nutcases have dreamed up.

I don't care that you think your God or religion says you can hurt people or kill them.

I care about real people, really being hurt.

I care about real pain and real suffering, not perceived pain and not perceived suffering.

I care about the poor who have no money or food or healthcare.

I don't care about the rich who are sad they will have less money for others to have something at all, when it will not affect the rich at all in any real substantive way.

I care about reality.

I care about people. Not your luxuries in life when others don't have because you do. Or when others are dying because of your God, or your buddies who like to kill and enjoy the benefits of power over others who are not of your clan, cult, tribe or nonsense belief system.

So I guess I do care. I just don't much care about you.

Islamic Terrorism a World Wide Social Cancer - Paris

Help Paris

I'm very pleased to hear Muslims speaking out against terrorism after the attack in Paris on November 13, 2015, Friday the 13th.

I am myself half Czechoslovakian, half Irish. I feel a close tie to Europe and just spent a couple of weeks in Ireland in September for my birthday. I feel these attacks close to my heart.

Je suis Charlie! Je suis Paris! And Beirut! And all the other places terrorists have attacked where innocents have died and been maimed.

I do not have to respect your beliefs, your religion, your God or your Allah. No one does. One has only to respect that you have the right to believe in your delusions, just as we all do. No one has a right to force their beliefs on another and if you belong to a religion that teachers otherwise, you are the one in league with Satan, the Devil, with Evil. Islamic terrorists in killing innocents are therefore saying that Muhammad is evil, a joke. 

Why should they want to do that?

A word about those who shoot down people changing their Facebook photo to exhibit the French flag, or some other small token of French support. Stop shooting them down to make yourself feel superior! Anything helps! Something is more than nothing. Talking about how we can do more is best, but chastising people for meaning well, does nobody any good.

Terrorists are by definition unimportant people who have found a way to make themselves feel important, while they never really are and never really can or will be. Truly being an important person takes thought and working with a system, not trying to kill it through murder and mayhem.

Terrorism is the greatest social cancer we have. The attack in Paris Friday night was horrendous, cowardly, the result of tiny minds who don't deserve to breathe the same air as those they attacked.

Let's start with wishing the human trash, "Jihadi John" Mohammed Emwazi, a Kuwaiti-born British militant, a not so fond farewell.

Feel free to burn in your own personal Hell, pal.

They deserve no quarter and they love their misplaced martyrdom.

I have had enough of religion and especially religious extremism. Even more so that of those who use religious concepts for purposes of greed or pleasure. Attacking innocent people gives terrorists pleasure. They go against their own religion, their own beliefs and they don't even understand that. Or how religion or evolution works. They especially, as most theists, do not understand social evolution or religious evolution.

I spent my entire life studying religion having started out Catholic and ending up an atheist who uses Buddhism as a guide in life, as well as Aikido. Wrap you head around that one. I wrote a Horror \ Sci Fi book titled, Death of heaven which tells the story of a world and a human race sorely mistaken on religion and our history where the belief and history of religion comes crashing down with all due pain and intensity. Video Trailer.

That gives you a little background on me and where I'm coming from. Religion to me now seems truly silly and killing over it, even more so. You don't kill innocents. I'm against that be you serial murderer, terrorist or America.

I don't think for instance, any drone strike should ever happen without 100% being sure no innocents die. All terrorists do is temporarily scare a few people, and then piss off a lot. It makes people angry to be unfairly attacked. You're not supporting your cause. If you think your prophet is telling you to do that, you're wrong, he's wrong, your religion is wrong.

Terrorism is used in order to get something when your army is too small to get what your people want. But what your people want is untenable to the rest of the world and so in the end, you will lose. Just kill yourself now and save us all a lot of time and trouble. And more death. Or get your act together and play nice and be in the world rather than against it. Only a religion would teach that.

It will be a great shock I'm sure when Islamic terrorists martyr themselves and then arrive in heaven only to realize it was all a sham. Not really though. After all, how can they be surprised to find that when they die, nothingness?

Religion exists, what they teach in general does not. Which makes Islamic terrorism even stupider.

This isn't about all Muslims or Islam itself. Though it has something to do with it.

You can have the bible according to Mickey Mouse with nothing violent in it, and you'd still have violent people using it as a justification for their sickly desired actions. 

These religions I'll grant you, these Desert Religions born of hard times, hard people in an area allowing anonymity in migrating about for thousands of years, in having created religions that are death oriented to begin with, are much like mind worms with questionable teachings that just won't die.

People pick and choose in their religion and these nut cases choose to force it into violent forms. 

Yes, religion needs to go away and it will as we mature as a race of beings. It was apparently necessary for a very long time, though. We need to stop kowtowing to the concept of religion and make it fit our modern mold of non violence and scientific based thinking. 

Religion is here for now and people are infected with it. They choose how to make it be productive, in a useful social adhering way, or a way useful only to specific individuals in a violent and disgusting way to support their desires to be more than they are.

Religion isn't the root problem here, really. It just seems that way as a justification for questionable acts. If the Quran didn't exist, they'd use a missile manual they found in the wild that some Russian dropped or they'd find a way for Buddhism to be violent. Or something else. These are people who want to do what they want to do, regardless of what their religion says. 

However this is also very much a socio-economic disease perpetrated by first world countries abusing this region for many decades because of their ignorance and backward ways that we have utilized for our benefit and finally it's come back to bite us all. 

It really was only a matter of time.

Let's not let us off the hook on this because of their religion that these terrorists have used as a crutch to affect their pathetic and sad purposes. And remember, if you get angry and not terrorized, they lose. And yet in a way, they win, in perpetrating their anger and violent beliefs, their us against them and they are the demon paradigm.

Someone posted this meme today. I'm sure they meant well and I'm sure they are angry. So am I. Although I pretty much agree with this meme, even I found it offensive. This simply isn't how to do this. It's not accepting responsibility for it either, to post anonymously. It's not being brave. It's just not useful. It satiates in the same vein that mentally small people who become terrorists are satiated by their killing and martyrdom.

Part of my charter in here on my blog is looking forward, understanding and fixing what is broken. Or at least openly discussing it.

So I modified this meme and posted it, taking full responsibility for it.

When I did, I got a chill in the consideration of what this could entail. I posted it with hashtags on the three top terror related and Islamic tags. I don't think I'm anybody. I'm nobody. Just like the terrorists. A nobody. But as things are today, a silly video someone puts out gets millions of hits in a day unexpectedly, or someone says something offhandedly and they find themselves on an international news or media show.

We never know anymore who will get their fifteen minutes or more of fame. I'm nobody but just like terrorists, should they come at me they could turn a nobody into a somebody overnight and yet, my name would live on and theirs? They name would fade into a sorry past of themselves, their family, their history, into the nothing they built themselves into being.

I suddenly thought of Billy Pilgrim in Kurt Vonnegut's excellent novel, Slaughterhouse Five and his demise, his lifelong knowledge all his life of how it would all end for him...at a lecture he would one day give in his future. I do hope this doesn't lead to my carrying a gun forever from now on, or dying at a book signing some day because of some violent deluded faux Islamic activist.

But we have to stand up to these mindsets, these people, this kind of thing.

If you want to have a religion in these times it cannot contain beliefs or actions like in saying, no one can draw a picture of your religious leader, saint or prophet. You certainly have no right to kill someone over your religious beliefs.

And you sure as hell have no right to kill someone over a God Damned cartoon! What are you? Two years old, with a gun, or bomb?

And so I put my name on the redone meme. 

I accidently posted the wrong one at first and now that is out there forever too even though I quickly took it down and put up the right one (a change from having labeled it as JZMurdock.com and then instead to Murdockinations.com going from my personal web site to my blog). 

I thought giving my name so directly was just making it too easy for them and instead I offered a location where people could post for or against me to mouth off to me online and from anywhere if they feel like it.

Better to yell at me here than shoot someone in their proximity. At least it has the potential for that.

Artists, cartoonists, journalists and comics are not violent.

Terrorists are.

It is the job of the artistic and journalistic communities to disrupt our status quo when it is incorrect or ignorant. But they do not kill or harm people. If people are mentally harmed by them it is an issue within those individuals or their community. That does not mean they should take up arms and harm other human beings.

There is a biblical phrase, "an eye for an eye". You do not retaliate unduly, but appropriately. I would throw away the ancient and juvenile biblical form altogether. Retaliation is ridiculous. Appropriate action is sane and intelligent, toward the goal of achieving a peaceful status quo.
It is our artist's and journalist's job to open our eyes.

To non-Muslims, do not group them all together.

Muslim's, do not be a part of the problem.

It our job as individuals and members of society and the human race to open our eyes. To see reality through the filter of life, not just history. Especially when you come to learn how much history, even biblical history is inaccurate, and how it no longer fits the world today.

Parts of it surely do, but you have to pick your way through and see things in a way many times in order to make it appropriate. Which calls into question the entire endeavor. It is best not to harm others in your pursuit therefore, of what path you have chosen through you own religious tome and current theists leader's interpretation of said tome. As with the physician's pledge, do no harm.

My reworked, more positive and better meme

Sometimes we have to stand up and face the music. 

Even if we don't like the tune.

And good grief, stop support shaming!

Remember slut shaming? Now we have supporter shaming....stop it.

Those who shoot down people changing their Facebook photo to exhibit the French flag, or making some other small token of French support, stop shooting them down in order to make yourself feel superior! 

Anything helps! 

Something is more than nothing. 

Talking about how we can do more is best, but chastising people for meaning well, for exhibiting support in any small or large way, does nobody any good. If you have suggestions on how to support in better ways, fine, share them, but share them in a positive supportive way. Not in ways that make people not want to show support. The more people who are obviously on the side of good, of the victims, is good. 

We cannot know everything (as in the Beirut attack), we cannot do everything. Everyone can support in their own way. Some are not as brave as others, does that make their efforts worthless when their small token or sign of support may inspire someone who makes a far greater effort? No. All efforts are efforts and affect he overall zeitgeist of support. 

If you have support shamed, consider yourself duly shamed.

‪#‎ISLAM‬ ‪#‎Terrorism‬ ‪#‎ISIS‬

https://www.facebook.com/JZMurdock