Monthly Archives: October 2016

Trump’s Appeal is Psychological, Not Ideological

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I grew up in Oak Park which borders Chicago on the west… except for a stint in the military… I’ve lived my whole life in and around Chicago until just a few years ago. There are ~13 million in the state of Illinois, ~10 of which live in metro-Chicagoland. I now live in central Illinois.

I went into the Farm and Fleet the other day wearing my Hillary pin and the kid behind me in line was openly glaring at me and muttering under his breath angrily. I said something about how I suspected the trend in micro-homes and RV’s seemed somehow to coincide with the rise of the Billionaires and the woman at the register chuckled a bit and vowed never to go back to a double-wide.

Though she was polite, I am sure she was a Trump supporter. I stopped a moment to chat with an older woman waiting for her husband and picked up the thread of conversation we had been having about Billionaires in politics, our Governer Rauner has held up a state budget for over a year now demanding cuts which would put pensions, funding for services such as psychiatric outreach, not to mention schools and educational programs, at risk. Companies have gone under waiting for checks from the state. Educators and other state workers live in a limbo of insecurity. state colleges and universities are drastically cutting curricula. And people like this woman I stopped to talk too say they are voting for Trump because they don’t trust Hillary.

Not wanting to cause any unpleasantness with this, otherwise, nice woman, I steered the conversation to an unacknowledged crisis we are having here in Bloomington. In the first 5 months of 2016, in a town of 79,000, $8.6 was spent in video gambling machines. I spoke about how one third of that money goes to the video gaming vending co. and how there are no jobs of any substance created by this business even while so much money is being siphoned out of our local economy. I was speaking to this woman but facing and projecting my speech to the lines of people checking out. I saw only one potentially attentive and sympathetic smirk at my point.

I ended with, [these business people are running a business which takes advantage of people’s hopelessness to the detriment of the entire community.] She excused herself as her husband had showed up with the truck and I said good day to her… leaving the dangling conclusion that Trump was just this sort of person. These are scary times, there is no convincing people. Trump’s appeal is psychological, not ideological.

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Russian Propaganda on the Syrian Crisis

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Youtube video titled… “EXCLUSIVE: Who are actually “Assad mercenaries” killing “innocent Saudi tourists” in Aleppo, Syria?” (posted by Russia Insider)

Propaganda from, surprise, Russia. And in support of whom? That’s right, a foreign strong man.

Russia is playing games with other peoples lives merely to extend their own influence and agenda. They operate, state and industry, like a criminal enterprise. You might say the same of the US, except there is a difference. Our industrial power-capabilities DO manage to subvert the agenda of our government at certain critical turns in the road, but this is because our electorate has not gained the cultural awareness to contend with a tragic power vacuum at the lowest levels of the society. Because of the size and extent of our influence, our citizenry has a disproportionate effect or consequence when it is misinformed.

This is the price of democracy… it is something many of us are aware of and we are finding ways to change this situation. The only alternative is governance by a strongman. Such not only stifles human development at all levels of human endeavor… technology, social harmony, industry, culturally, in the arts, in the recording of history, in the teaching of our youth, but politically. One of the toughest things to get right in a society is the handing over of power from one leader to another. This is why Syria has so much devastation right now. There are no mechanisms for differing groups of people to be heard and represented in government.

This is also why Putin needs war, at home and amongst his neighbors. For him, the more strife the better. If there were peace among his neighbors, the UN and EU would focus their attention on Russian gangsterism, subverting of foreign governmental processes and outright war-making. And Putin can’t afford to lose power because of the way in which Putin handles governance. If Putin loses power, he will either end up in prison or dead.

Meanwhile, in the US, we are in the midst of an election campaign which will see a legacy of over two centuries of nearly violence free transition of power from one leader to another. However, as long as one nation is enslaved, no nations are free or safe. And we here in the US with some sense of historical context can see that we are not untouched by this maxim.

CFJurgus

Standin’ for Nothing / Flatfoot 56

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Flatfoot 56 / Standing for Nothing

He stood right strong in the face of danger
He stood right strong in the face of pain
He stood right strong in the face of danger
He stood right strong in the face of pain

Deep inside was the will of the father
As this saint was bruised and slain
Deep inside was the will of the father
As this saint was bruised and slain

Standing for nothing you’ll fall for anything
Standing for nothing you’ll fall for anything
Standing for nothing you’ll fall for anything
Standing for nothing you’ll fall for anything

Standing for nothing you’ll fall for anything
Standing for nothing you’ll fall for anything

Response to ‘Penny Dreadful’ Finale

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A Response to the Response…

Ok, didn’t even touch on the supposed return to God through a murder and all but technical suicide! This story’s end exemplifies just the sort of spineless capitulation to “evil” that embodies paganism, not Christianity. Christianity may have it’s share of martyrs, but these were not vainful or cowardly deaths… they weren’t fleeing from the fight through suicide!

Look at the Rus under the [Yellow] Horde… for two hundred years the king of Moscow owed his crown to the sanction of the Khan. When the Khan beckoned, the King of the Rus rode hundreds even thousands of miles to wait around amidst his warriors and tents for the Khan to deign to see him. And at the merest sign of slight, the Khan might ride with his horde of warriors hundreds, even thousands of miles to raze the kings keep and every settlement along his route. But the Rus King humbled himself to save his people and the Rus held to their church and culture. Evicted from their homes into the winter’s cold they would cut bricks of peat as they dug holes within which to shelter themselves, warming themselves with those smoldering bricks until the Horde finished their murderous sport and returned home. The Christian Rus stood their ground against impossible odds until the short equation of the Mongol life reached its logical and self-destructive end. When such Rus, as there must have been, gave into hopelessness and killed their loved ones and themselves–we do not lionize them for these acts!

This story line was a Pagan’s shallow interpretation of sacrifice plastered over the supposed adoration of the Christian Lord. It is a disgusting slur upon the true values professed through the Christian faith. Meanwhile, shows like Futurama get cancelled as weak-willed executives bend to the shallow impulses of Christ waving camera muggers when reference is made to a “Zombie Jesus.” These are slights of deliberate misinterpretation by granting gravity to the flotsam and jetsam of charlatans rather than honoring what is true and central to Christianity.

-CFJurgus

A Song For Putin

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http://finance.yahoo.com/news/russia-us-want-confrontation-youll-162932320.html?.tsrc=daily_mail

Russia to the US: If you want a confrontation, ‘you’ll get one everywhere’

Alex Lockie
October 11, 2016

A full year after Russia stepped into the Syrian quagmire on behalf of Syrian President Bashar Assad, Moscow has come to rival and challenge the US and NATO in virtually every arena possible.

Here’s a quick glance at what Russia has accomplished just in the last month or so:

putin
putin
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Without a doubt, relations between Russia and the West have reached their lowest point since the height of the Cold War.

Retired Russian Lt. Gen. Evgeny Buzhinsky told the BBC that for its part, Russia sees the West as the belligerent party, citing sanctions against Russia as well as barring the Russian Paralympic team from the Rio Olympics for well-documented and state-sponsored doping as Western aggression against Russia.

“Of course there is a reaction. As far as Russia sees it, as Putin sees it, it is full-scale confrontation on all fronts. If you want a confrontation, you’ll get one,” Buzhinsky told the BBC. “But it won’t be a confrontation that doesn’t harm the interests of the United States. You want a confrontation, you’ll get one everywhere.”

15 Steps / Radiohead

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15 Step / Radiohead (video by Kota and Totori)

How come I end up where I started?
How come I end up where I went wrong?
Won’t take my eyes off the ball again
You reel me out then you cut the string

How come I end up where I started?
How come I end up where I went wrong?
I won’t take my eyes off the ball again
First you reel me out and then you cut the string

You used to be alright
What happened?
Did the cat get your tongue?
Did your string come undone?

One by one
One by one
It comes to us all
It’s as soft as your pillow

You used to be alright
What happened
Et cetera, et cetera
Fads for whatever
Fifteen steps
Then a sheer drop

How come I end up where I started?
How can I end up where I went wrong?
Won’t take my eyes off the ball again
You reel me out and you cut the string