Too Little, Far Too Late

A post from a Biker group defended the Confederacy, claiming that revisionists were deceiving us all.  They declared that the Civil war had nothing to do with slavery.  I reposted and  commented:

This is a pack of bizarre lies.  Every leader of the confederacy declared, in writing, repeatedly, that the preservation of slavery to maintain white supremacy the one and only issue leading to their secession.  Google the documents they wrote and signed.  Either the glorious leaders of the South were filthy liars or slavery was the the only reason for secession.  Their plans to conquer neighboring nations to spread their slave empire are a matter of cold hard fact.

Revisionist history?  You mean accurate history.  You mean factual history.  Your "history" is delusional.

Later, a friend posted that " I am a firm believer that it is never to late to do the right thing" regarding the lowering of the Confederate flag. I added:  I understand the people who have emotional ties to the flag and want to cling to it.  I am half Texan and once I was as blind to the flag's historical evil as they still are.  I was bitterly resentful of the racists who, I felt, shamed the flag by using it it in their cause.  But facts are facts, and I realized that I was the one who was distorting the flag's meaning. It never stood for anything other than racism and slavery. 

1 Corinthians 13:11

When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.

The South may finally be giving up its childish ways...we can hope.

Soul Sisters

Soul Sisters

These two battle flags share the same meanings:

-  They stand for White supremacy.

-  They stand for a slave empire.

-  They affirm that the superior master race has the right to expand that empire through war and             conquest.

-  They represent the historical heritage of a people and of their ancestors.

-   They declare the right of the master race to rule the world.

-   They have been used as symbols of rebellion against authority by teenagers and others.

Do I really need to go on making comparisons or do you get the pont?  

The Albatross Around Our Neck

In resonse to a Facebook post questioning why we allow Southern states to hold back the rest of us, I replied:

I am not one of those who suggests the South be allowed to seceed.  I have long advocated expulsion.  They are ignorant, lazy, welfare states which consistently take more money from the federal government than they contribute in taxes.  They embarrass us on the international stage again and again. They rig elections, prevent effective government, hate science, confuse religion with magic and superstition, and whine about how they are abused by those of us who pay their states' bills for them.

Let them go? No way!  Kick.  Them.  Out.

http://www.forwardprogressives.com/can-please-stop-allowing-southern-states-ruin-country/

the Götterdämmerung Cometh

http://www.iflscience.com/editors-blog/welcome-bible-belt-mam-louisiana-teachers-are-using-book-genesis-science-classes

In response to this, I posted:

These are the same people who destroyed the power and grandeur of the medieval Islamic culture by turning it away from science and forcing it to submit to fundamentalist religion and its allies, superstition and delusion.  The current Islamic belief that the Crusades were the cause of the downfall is baseless.  The culture committed suicide by fundamentalism.

We may yet go down the same path, though I believe that the anti reality, anti science crowd has lost the culture wars and is now at the same stage as Fascist Japan was when a growing sense of inevitable defeat lead to the utter desperation of kamikaze attacks and training little children to blow themselves up to kill invading American soldiers in the blast.

To Americans, the Japanese fascists appeared so determined that some of us began despair.  But the victory was coming. The  kamikaze attacks were effective in spreading fear and a sense of hopelessness among Americans, yet the very same fanaticism contributed to the belief that the use of atomic bombs was not only justified, but necessary to save both American and Japanese lives.  I am convinced that while gerrymandering and voter suppression by Republicans may delay the downfall of their fanatic obsession, they will also make that Götterdämmerung more complete.

Books to read:  Downfall, Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan, What Went Wrong, and The Demon Haunted World

Homeward Bound?

Time for a summary/update.  Due to our loss of her husband, Ed, my middle girl, Racquell, left Kansas and came home to California to take care of me.  While I love the home I have been renting for 17 years, I have been fighting to have essential repairs done.  I have begun to refer to my landlord as a golf course slum lord. Note: the home is located on the golf course and is in an expensive area of fine homes.  The list of deteriorations and damages allowed to accumulate by neglect is large, suffice to mention the carpet and flooring are at least 20 years old!

By combining her down payment (legally a gift to me) with my credit, we began looking for a home.  Several offers have come and gone, no point in reporting them.  We are now in   escrow, so it is time to let everyone know. 

The home is nice, but less than I owned in the past. Still, it will be mine and will be not only maintained, but improved.  The family agrees that since Racquell has paid the down and has taken on the burden of caring for me, the home will be hers if something happens to me.

Sartor Resartus

In response to a Conservative Post on Facebook which asked readers to pray for our country to return to "her Biblical foundations", a friend asked where such  foundations could be found.  I replied:

Since the Founders of the United States were men of the Enlightenment (Jefferson denied the virgin birth, the divinity of Christ and every single Biblical miracle as nonscientific), you can find the Biblical foundations of the US only in the minds of deluded and gullible conservatives--they exist no where else. 

Sorry, conservatives, but reality is real and facts are facts. You may desire that  the US be turned into a Biblical nation, but it was never so in the past, in spite of venial politicians making false declarations to gain votes.  

I understand that you wish to make a third Covenant with God and become the new Chosen People.  That is between you and God.  As for our Biblical foundations, you have confused the 21st century United States of America with ancient Judea.  They are very different.

Notes on Sartor Resartus:  Archibald MacMechan surmised that the novel's invention had three literary sources. The first being The Tale of a Tub by Jonathan Swift... In that work, the three main traditions of Western Christianity are represented by a father bestowing his three children with clothes they may never alter, but proceed to do so according to fashion....

...Macmechan suggests that the novel provoked Carlyle's frustration and scorn due to his "zeal for truth and his hatred for fiction" spoken of in his letters of the time.

From Wikipedia.