Today's Religion Stuff

• Hindus have been waiting for Kalki for 3,700 years
• Buddhists have been waiting for Maitreya for 2,600 years
• The Jews have been waiting for the Messiah for 2,500 years
• Christians have been waiting for Jesus for 2,000 years
• Sunnah waits for Prophet Issa for 1,400 years
• Muslims have been waiting for a messiah from the line of Muhammad for 1,300 years
• Shiites have been waiting for Imam Mahdi for 1,080 years
• Druze have been waiting for Hamza ibn Ali for 1,000 years

Most religions adopt the idea of a “savior” and state that the world will remain filled with evil until this savior comes and fills it with goodness and righteousness.

Maybe our problem on this planet is that people expect someone else to come solve their problems instead of doing it themselves.

The first thing you do is get up off your fuckin' knees. And then, if you're paying attention, The Evil will show you what's next.

“Speak up, speak out,

get in the way.

Get in good trouble,

necessary trouble,

and help redeem the soul of America.”

--John Lewis

Today's Beau

My, how things do change. Main point: if this is the signal most everybody believes it too be, then Putin's illness (cancer?) is the least of his worries. He has his hands full of something autocrats always end up dying from.

And - about 50 miles WNW of Grozny, Chenya.

Reports: 2 senior Chechan cops killed, 5 wounded, and the rebels got away clean.

Armed clashes between russian forces and armed militants in zazikov-yurt 6-4-2023
by u/_TNT_- in CombatFootage

A Reminder

Zachary Taylor (November 24, 1784 – July 9, 1850) was an American military leader who served as the 12th president of the United States from 1849 until his death in 1850. Taylor previously was a career officer in the United States Army, rose to the rank of major general and became a national hero as a result of his victories in the Mexican–American War. As a result, he won election to the White House despite his vague political beliefs. His top priority as president was preserving the Union. He died sixteen months into his term, having made no progress on the most divisive issue in Congress, slavery.

As president, Taylor kept his distance from Congress and his cabinet, even though partisan tensions threatened to divide the Union. Debate over the status of slavery in the Mexican Cession dominated the political agenda and led to threats of secession from Southerners. Despite being a Southerner and a slaveholder himself, Taylor did not push for the expansion of slavery, and sought sectional harmony above all other concerns. To avoid the issue of slavery, he urged settlers in New Mexico and California to bypass the territorial stage and draft constitutions for statehood, setting the stage for the Compromise of 1850. Taylor died suddenly of a stomach disease on July 9, 1850, with his administration having accomplished little aside from the ratification of the Clayton–Bulwer Treaty. Fillmore served the remainder of his term. Historians and scholars have ranked Taylor in the bottom quartile of U.S. presidents, owing in part to his short term of office (16 months), though he has been described as "more a forgettable president than a failed one".

Flim Meets Flam

"Oath Keepers" is the perfect example of how the manipulators turn it all upside down and inside out.

WaPo: (pay wall)

Four more indicted in alleged Jan. 6 Oath Keepers conspiracy to obstruct election vote in Congress

Four more Oath Keepers associates have been indicted and three were arrested in Florida in recent days in the Jan. 6 breach of the U.S. Capitol, bringing the number of co-defendants charged in the largest conspiracy case from that day to 16, court records show.

Joseph Hackett, 51, of Sarasota, Fla., Jason Dolan, 44, of Wellington, Fla., and William Isaacs, 21, of Kissimmee, Fla., each face multiple counts in an indictment handed up Wednesday and unsealed Sunday in Washington. The three appeared Thursday before U.S. magistrates in Tampa, West Palm Beach and Orlando.

The name of a fourth defendant not known to be in custody was redacted.

Attorneys for Dolan and Isaacs did not respond Sunday to requests for comment. No attorney for Hackett was listed. Hackett, a chiropractor who attended previous Oath Keepers events and a Florida firearms training school, was in federal custody as of Friday evening, online records show. Isaacs was released. The detention status of Dolan, whose LinkedIn profile says he is a resort security officer and former Marine who served more than 17 years including as a platoon sergeant in Iraq and recruiter in Massachusetts, was unclear.

U.S. prosecutors have criminally charged at least 19 alleged Oath Keepers or associates in the Capitol riots, including Jon Ryan Schaffer, an Indiana rock musician who is the only defendant known to have pleaded guilty.

Prosecutors say the Oath Keepers, a loose network of groups founded in 2009 that includes some self-styled citizen militias, target law enforcement and military members for recruitment with an apocalyptic vision of the U.S. government careening toward totalitarianism. Its members have provided security to some conservative politicians and causes in recent years.

The four new defendants are charged with conspiring to obstruct Congress’s confirmation of the 2020 presidential election in joint session on Jan. 6. They are accused of forcing entry through the Capitol’s East Rotunda doors after marching single-file up the steps wearing camouflaged combat uniforms, tactical vests with plates, helmets, eye protection and Oath Keepers insignia.

Prosecutors alleged members of the group were in contact with Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes — usually identified as “Person One” by the government in court documents — and organized by charged co-defendants, including Ohio militia founder and bar owner Jessica Watkins, 38; former Navy intelligence officer Thomas E. Caldwell, 65, of Berryville, Va.; and Florida car dealer Kelly Meggs, 52.

Rhodes has not been charged and is not accused of wrongdoing. He has accused prosecutors of trying to manufacture a nonexistent conspiracy.

“I may go to jail soon, not for anything I actually did, but for made-up crimes,” Rhodes told Texas Republicans at a March rally in Laredo. He urged supporters of former president Donald Trump to “not cower in fear” and claimed the federal government “was trying to get rid of us so they can get to you.”

The other 12 co-defendants have pleaded not guilty.

In interviews with The Washington Post, Rhodes has disputed previous government allegations regarding his posts to an encrypted Signal group that included regional Oath Keepers leaders from several states at the scene, calling them an effort to call members together outside the Capitol to “keep them out of trouble.”

The latest indictment continues to add new details that reverse that chronology, alleging that Rhodes began discussing plans to keep Trump in the White House by force as early as last Nov. 9, and exchanging dozens of encrypted messages, phone calls and other communications with the Watkins-Caldwell-Meggs group before and during the riots.

On an online GoToMeeting conference that day — six days after the election — Rhodes allegedly told those in attendance, including Hackett, Meggs and Watkins, “We’re going to defend the president, the duly elected president, and we call on him to do what needs to be done to save our country. Because if you don’t, guys, you’re going to be in a bloody, bloody civil war and a bloody — you can call it an insurrection or you can call it a war or fight.”

So, what you're saying is, "We may have to start a civil war in order to prevent the start of a civil war."

Notice the subtlety of the recruitment pitch. They go after a bunch of guys who're perfectly comfortable with a top-down authoritarian organization, convincing them they need to fight in favor of installing an autocratic government in order to prevent an autocratic government from taking over.

"I'm gonna kick your ass to make sure you know that kickin' people's asses is the wrong thing to do."

It has a weird kind of internal logic that has always made some sense to most of us, but it makes sense only for as long as we can avoid looking too closely at it, and we're supposed to grow up learning that that's not how we do things now that we're adults - at least that's not how we're supposed to be thinking we do things as adults here in god's own America.

We've been in the process of losing something very important. Maybe we can start to reverse that trend by pointing out that the rule of law has to include everybody - that it doesn't mean you only have to follow the laws you and your gun-buddies think are OK - that even in a torn and tattered democracy, armed insurrection destroys everything you think you're fighting for - and that the people who have filled your heads with absurdities are now expecting you to commit atrocities.

Here's A Fun One

They're starting to sort through the detritus and the data, to get some kind of handle on things.

WaPo:

Several dozen people arrested in the violent chaos at the U.S. Capitol made their first appearances in court Thursday as authorities vowed to track down additional suspects and also determine why the mob that stormed and vandalized the building was able to easily overwhelm the police officers guarding it.

In D.C. Superior Court, 40 defendants were charged with unlawful entry of public property and were notified that prosecutors are reviewing evidence of an additional charge of curfew violation. Most of the defendants came from outside of the Washington region — including Oregon, Florida, Wyoming, Connecticut and Pennsylvania — though some were from the District, Maryland and Virginia.

One person arrested was charged with possessing a “military style automatic weapon” and 11 molotov cocktails, prosecutors said. Another defendant was charged with assaulting a police officer with a hockey stick. Yet another, who needed a Russian interpreter, told a judge, “I don’t know what unlawful entry you are referring to.”

They had been among thousands of demonstrators who marched on the Capitol in support of President Trump’s false claim that he lost the Nov. 3 election because of massive voter fraud. Although prosecutors in some cases sought to have them held in jail pending prosecution, most were released on their own recognizance.

The 40 defendants in Superior Court were accused of violating D.C. law, including being out after a 6 p.m. curfew imposed by the city.

As of early Thursday evening, four other people, charged with federal crimes, appeared in U.S. District Court, including a Maryland man accused of possessing a firearm after curfew on Capitol grounds just outside the Capitol Visitor Center — a 9mm handgun with a round in the firing chamber. Prosecutors said he also was carrying two fully loaded 12-round magazines, wearing a bulletproof vest, and carrying a gas mask and pocket knife in his backpack. Police said in an affidavit that the man told officers that the gun was for personal protection and that he did not intend to hurt anyone.

Meanwhile, D.C. Police Chief Robert J. Contee III vowed that his department would arrest “each and every one of the violent mob,” and said that investigators are circulating information publicly and to FBI offices nationwide, including photos of rioters destroying property inside the Capitol on Wednesday. He said the department is offering a $1,000 reward for any tip leading to the arrest of a rioter.

Contee’s remarks echoed a pledge by acting attorney general Jeffrey A. Rosen.

“The Department of Justice is committed to ensuring that those responsible for this attack on our Government and the rule of law face the full consequences of their actions under the law,” he said in a statement.

Rosen said his office has been working with numerous law enforcement agencies to identify and charge perpetrators.

“We will continue to methodically assess evidence, charge crimes and make arrests in the coming days and weeks,” Rosen said.

The FBI also said that it is asking people in areas where explosive devices were found whether they would share any video recordings of surroundings with investigators. D.C. police and the FBI also released several photos of rioters, hoping the public can help identify them to make arrests.

At a news conference, Michael R. Sherwin, the acting U.S. attorney for the District, voiced “concern” at the relatively small number of rioters who were detained by police in the Capitol. As a result, he said, federal authorities face the daunting task of identifying, locating and obtaining arrest warrants for a large number of suspects, which he said could occupy investigators for months.

“Hundreds of people flooded the Capitol and were not [handcuffed] by police,” Sherman said. “I don’t want to be Monday morning quarterbacking to say why they didn’t do it, but it made our job more difficult.” He said, “I can’t explain why they weren’t” detained.

“We have a lot of lessons to learn from this,” Sherwin said. “I think we are going to learn from this over the next several months, if not years.”

Sherwin said authorities “obviously” anticipate making more arrests as investigators develop information about additional suspects in coming days and months. He said a large amount of government paperwork along with electronic devices and other items were stolen from congressional offices during the disturbance, which “could have national security implications.”

Sherwin also responded to criticism of the perception of how the mob scene was handled at the Capitol versus arrests that were made over the summer during Black Lives Matter protests. Sherwin said that during the summer, federal prosecutors processed 174 criminal cases. He said in just one day, his office charged 55 cases and expect more in the coming weeks and months. “I just want to give you a comparison to show how seriously we are taking this,” Sherwin said. “I don’t want that to get lost.”

U.S. Capitol Police have been heavily criticized by law enforcement experts for the evident lack of preparedness by the 1,700-member department. On Thursday morning, in his first public statement about his department’s performance, Chief Steven Sund described his officers as “heroic” and praised their “professionalism and dedication.” Sund resigned later that evening.

Sund said the mob’s storming of the Capitol was unlike any incident he has experienced in three decades of law enforcement in the Washington area. More than 50 D.C. and Capitol Police officers were injured, with several hospitalized, police said.

Authorities said a Capitol Police officer shot and killed a pro-Trump demonstrator, Ashli Babbitt, 35, of San Diego, who was among a group of rioters trying to break through an interior Capitol door near the House Speaker’s Lobby. The shooting is being investigated by D.C. police, and the officer has been placed on administrative leave.

“The USCP had a robust plan established to address anticipated First Amendment activities,” Sund said. “But make no mistake — these mass riots were not First Amendment activities; they were criminal riotous behavior.”

He said “thousands of individuals involved in violent riotous actions” attacked officers with metal pipes, chemical irritants and other weapons. He said officers responded to reports of two pipe bombs, including one outside Republican National Committee headquarters, and a suspicious vehicle at the 300 block of First Street SE.

After determining that both devices were hazardous, a police bomb unit disabled them and turned them over to the FBI, Sund said.

The suspicious vehicle, reportedly a truck loaded with weapons, ammunition and bomb-making materials, was cleared of any hazards and its owner was arrested, police said.

“The USCP is conducting a thorough review of this incident, security planning and policies and procedure,” Sund said.

D.C. police said they arrested 69 people from at least 20 states and the District on Wednesday afternoon through early Thursday, most on curfew and unlawful entry charges. One is a juvenile.

That brings the number of people arrested by D.C. police since Tuesday afternoon to at least 79. The numbers do not include at least one arrest by the U.S. Park Police for a firearms violation at Freedom Plaza. Capitol Police also announced 14 arrests for charges including assaults on police officers, unlawful entry and firearms violations.

Since Tuesday, D.C. police have arrested at least six people on firearms charges, including several at Freedom Plaza and one aboard a multicolored school bus from North Carolina that police stopped after receiving a tip. Police said they found a rifle, a handgun and ammunition aboard.

Two of the more than 79 people arrested during unrest since Tuesday were accused of illegally processing weapons such as metal knuckles and blackjacks. Twenty-five people were charged with curfew violations and unlawful entry onto Capitol grounds. It is unclear if any of those people were inside the Capitol itself.

“The violence and destruction of property at the U.S. Capitol building yesterday showed a blatant and appalling disregard for our institutions of government and the orderly administration of the democratic process,” FBI Director Christopher A. Wray said, adding that “we will hold accountable those who participated” in the siege.

He said, “Our agents and analysts have been hard at work through the night gathering evidence, sharing intelligence and working with federal prosecutors to bring charges.”

One thing I think is worth pointing out: DC has a pretty restrictive set of gun laws. Most of the insurgents were unarmed, and the ones who were found to be armed were arrested (cuz carrying a gun during a "peaceful protest" makes it pretty easy to identify you as a potential bad guy).

We can continue to argue the philosophy, and the relative merits of possession, and what constitutes a threat etc etc, but in practice, we know that fewer guns means less potential for real harm. It's not quite as simple as that, of course, but some of it's pretty fuckin' simple.

Second - what the fuck is up with that one Russkie? Why does it always come back to having something to do with the Russians when we're talking about anything having to do with Trump?

Every.Fucking.Time!?!

Left Behind

What strikes me is that these people sound like children.  Whether they're 22 years old or 60 - when they speak, they sound like they think they know everything they need to know, and that there's just no way they could be trying to argue their point from a false premise.

The two Goober Squadlings in that report can't believe they won't get their way just because they think they're right and everybody else is wrong and, "Gee, Dad - it's just not fair - all the other kids did it".

And not to give ya too much of a whiplash, but we need to put some real schooling back into schools.  We need to teach kids about critical thinking, so they don't grow up to become easy marks for any random jagoff who can fool 'em into believing whatever he tells 'em in order to serve his own lust for power.

I'm not trying to set myself up as a paragon.  I've bought into all kinds of shit that ends up looking pretty stoopid in retrospect.  I owned a pair of Earth Shoes for fuck's sake - but c'mon, guys - at least I haven't let anybody convince me Article 1, Section 8, Clause 17 is the only thing in the US Constitution that matters.

Skepticism is our friend, kids.

Apply the same principles to everything anybody says about their "deeper understanding".

The arrogance that seems always to grow from deliberate ignorance can get your dumb ass killed.

VICE

Doing god's work, the folks at VICE are trying to show us all something that at least has some faint ring of truth to it.



Quick aside:
Isn't it interesting that so many of these Rebel Patriots crow about "both sides" being rotten, but their little militia-ness always seem to be in full flower only when the Dems hold power?

It's never about what they tell you it's about - "they" being Government or Business or Media or Political Activists.

The first corollary is that it's also never about what you think it's about.

All we can do is look at what information we can find - or whatever "they" allow us to see - and then gun it through our filters of experience and reason, trying to assess the probability that what we're observing is true or false or somewhere in between.

A couple of the smartest things I've heard anybody say in a while (Chris Hedges):

"Language is not benign - You have to get people to talk in the language of violence before they commit violence."

--and--

"Violence isn't gonna work.  Violence is a mistake.  The machine wants violence - it justifies further repression."

Also interesting is the view from inside this piece that there's a thread of truth that ties all of us together - the feeling of being alienated, used and abused, and disposable.  The trick now is to remember that most of us really do want the same things - in a broad and general sense - but we do; we want the same things.

Of course, we have to work out the details of how we go about getting what we want, and that's gonna take some serious attention to our absolute #1 Principle; the thing that lies at the very root of American Exceptionalism...compromise.

Figure it out, guys.  The only way you always get everything you want is to shoot everybody who disagrees with you, and that's not just rude, it's counterproductive, which makes it ineffective.  People have been trying to conquer the world in exactly that way for more than 500 centuries, and guess what - the world remains undefeated.

Ya sit down.  Ya have a drink.  Maybe a nosh.  And you work it the fuck out.

It's (Supposed To Be) About Balance

JFK speaking at a meeting of the American Newspaper Publishers Association in 1961:



(hat tip = Democratic Underground)

"Solon decreed it a crime for any man to shrink from controversy" - that bit's pretty good, but beyond that, it seems like this speech is one of those moments in history that lets us see at least the beginnings of a certain unravelling.

He says it straight out - we have to take the right of all citizens to know what their government is up to and weigh it against the need to keep "the enemy" from knowing things we really need them not to know (insert snarky crack about Don Rumsfeld here).

I guess I could spend the next few decades trying to trace thru all the flips and turns of journalism just in the last half of the 20th century, trying to figure out where "it all went wrong".  And while that may be a truly fun ride, I get the feeling it's not as useful right now as figuring out what's been driving the enormous changes we've been seeing.  I'm not just talking about the tech revolution or whatever - I think it has everything to do with the tensions that are always present between What's-Best-For-The-Most vs what's good for a fairly narrow power agenda on the part of almost literally a few very well placed individuals.

Capt Obvious says, "Robbing the house gets a lot easier once you've killed the watch dog.  And if you can get the homeowners to kill their dog for you, well then you're one clever mother fucker, and maybe you deserve all the booty you can carry, and whoa - can I give you a hand?  Some of those pillow cases look pretty heavy."

We've had to fight this fight on several occasions - kinda what got us going in the first place back in the 18th century.  So here we go again.

It's not about pointing and laughing at The Tea Party. Although it's great sport and somebody needs to do that, they're mostly people who're rightly upset, but who're being co-opted and misled.

And it's not about pissing and moaning about how the Dems have also been co-opted and now they're just as bad as the Repubs.

It's not about immigrants or brown people in general, or your upper middle class douche-y Libertarian neighbors or the jag-off at the 7-11 who doesn't seem to care about satisfying your every whim in a humble but joyous way while constantly expressing his gratitude for the opportunity to slowly starve to death on $8.50 an hour.  It's also not about the kid in the do-rag and the baggy pants, and it's not about a whole fuckload of distractions that're easy to say and easy to understand and just as easy to recognize as total crapola once ya spend half a micro-neuron thinking about it.

It's not even about being mad at the right people - or being mad for the right reasons.  It's about figuring out what to do about being mad at the right people for the right reasons.  If I ever figure that one out, I'll be sure to let ya know, but in the mean time, yeah - let's take our country back.  We can start by taking it back from Goldman-Sachs, and from Exxon-Mobil, and from Koch Industries, and from The Walton Gang, and from whoever else wants to rule over us instead of serving beside us.

Oops - Almost Forgot

In honor of Confederate History Month here's my tribute to The Lost Cause, and to the nobility of the great struggle to defend our proud traditions during The War Of Northern Aggression:

Offended?  Bite me.

Operation Fox Hunt - Anonymous

Not sure I like this, but it could be both fun to watch, and hard not to join in.