Post Apocalyptic Musings

[thelongstroll]

Frustration Fatigue

When I watch what is going on in our government, when I see people ignoring truth because they would rather believe the lie that they were given, many times to save face.  Worse yet is when I see people that can’t afford it, literally and figuratively spouting MAGA hate speech.  

I get frustrated, and in that frustration I’m motivated to write here, to attempt to get some sort of video or audio presence going.  I’m motivated to call the legislative branch to voice not just my frustration but my anger and lack of confidence in anything happening in the legislature these days.  My frustration motivates to action. 

It’s usually that way for a lot of people.  We see something that bothers us, that sits in our conscious, you know the thing that gets poked at when we see something wrong happening to others and we begin to act.  

There are many things for us to act on these days, and by we I mean anyone but MAGA and their republican enablers.  I held out hope that people would begin to see things for what they were, that when things began to happen or not happen that there would be this slight shift, that the government would begin working the way it’s supposed to, that checks and balances would slip into place and while I didn’t think there would be anything close to an agenda that I could support with any real excitement, there would at least be some voice of reason that would attempt to support the constitution that MAGA always claims to support.  It’s become apparent that they don’t care about the constitution.   It’s been made clear that they don’t care about facts. What they all, and yes I now say all, want is the systematic retcon of all that has happened in the last 80 or so years in the way of making our country into one that actually embraces and attempts to live out the preamble and what follows.  

“We the people, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility.  

Notice those first three words, we the people establish justice, we the people ensure domestic tranquility.  MAGA has decided that the people don’t matter unless it’s the people that look like them, that believe like them, that are angry at the world like them.  They have decided that the people are for the most part white middle aged men, most of whom have an axe to grind because their opinions, their prejudices, their misogynistic fears are all that matters.  In Trump they have found someone who embodies their hatred, fear, and just plain childish reactionary responses.  They like the idea of getting even, of punishing people who don’t fit in their box of what’s comfortable.  

MAGA and by extension their republican party enablers are not after the whitewashing of the country, they want to bleach everyone in it, to do away with anyone that is not just like them, from skin color, to religion, identity, and morality.  

When they read “We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, and endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”  They read it differently.  They read all white men.  They qualify what life liberty and the pursuit of happiness means.  It’s all about them, and what they want.  Life for them is one absent of diversity, liberty is freedom from equity, and the pursuit of happiness means they don’t have to include anyone that doesn’t fit into their mold of normal. 

All of this and more, causes the rest of us to be frustrated, it causes us to chafe at the neanderthal like behavior of MAGA and it’s leaders.  It causes us to be frustrated at the females in the movement, who have abdicated the freedom of other women for the power of falling in line with their keepers, and yes I said keepers.  If any of them think they are anything but a show piece they are sadly mistaken.  They black and brown people involved in MAGA seem to be okay with being the token, for some reason they have been able to ignore what is happening to the vast majority of people of color in favor for a seat at the big boy table.  Again they will be there until they have outlived their usefulness.  No where is this more evident than the latino community in South Florida that rallied for Trump, that came out en mass to vote for him only to find themselves targeted as soon as the ink was dry on any number of executive orders.  

And so we the “woke” liberal’s are frustrated and we feel compelled to action, and then another executive order happens, another round of retribution firings take place, the knife of pettiness slices of another portion of freedoms and rights afforded by the constitution, and we begin to be tired of being frustrated.  We may even be tempted to put our heads in our hands and lose hope, lose the compulsion to stand for what is right, for what has been fought for over the last 80 plus years.  

That is what WE THE  REST OF THE PEOPLE, must fight against.  We can’t let fatigue keep us from hammering away at the dismantling of the constitution, of the separation of powers, at the  fast march to the Fascist States of America.  

By all means take a day away.  Shut off the feed for 24 hours, have a day of quiet reflection,  grab a cup of coffee or tea or whatever it is that calms you and center yourself through prayer or meditation, or creativity.  Take that time to revel in all that makes you not only feel like yourself but makes you know who you are and what you are worth.  And then pick up the tools of sedition and rebellion and get back on the barricade, ready to do battle in the revolution that is fast approaching, and for many has always been here.  It’s time for the rest of us to do battle for what is right, for the soul of a country that has been 250 plus years in the making and now hangs in the balance.  

Next Up….a deep dive into the bill of rights and what it means today.

[thelongstroll]

The OZ Effect

Back in the day, and I mean BAAACCCCKKK in the day, there was a thing called appointment TV.  I know I’m aging myself with this but whatever.  There were a couple of tools needed for appointment TV.  You needed, well a television, and then either a TV guide or Local Listings, and a pen or one of those old felt tip markers.  Then came the work part of it all. Looking at the listings or guide and then drawing up a personalized schedule, as opposed to the confusion of having to look at all the Chanels,  (three to five sometimes up to seven if the antenna was dialed in correctly and if the weather was just right ,not too sunny but not too cloudy,  not to clear but not a deluge, you get the idea.  If you had cable there were of course more channels and with that a larger personal schedule but not everyone had that type of access.  

What made appointment TV possible was habit.  People had their shows.  With the advent of the VCR appointment TV was even more important.  You could program the VCR to record programs you wanted to watch but for whatever reason couldn’t, and even more important, you could watch your favorite show in real time, and record one that you wanted to watch for whatever reason but that didn’t rise to the level of Must Watch Now.

Every year in January or February depending on the network the Wizard of Oz was appointment TV.  The annual showing made bed time obsolete for one night.  Popcorn was made, and usually around 8 PM, if I remember correctly, the Kansas prairie would spring to life on the big 17 inch Television screen and the night was begun.  There were even times when they showed the movie commercial free.  

For a movie called the Wizard of Oz it always struck me that the wizard really only made his appearance twice.  The green smoke, the floating head, the deep booming voice, and even the pyrotechnics were really cool for a kid of seven and eight.  That first glimpse was one of awe the first time you are watching, and when Dorothy and the gang come into the wizards presence the second time, well it’s still one of the coolest things in the world.  The spectacle that distracts, and disarms and sows fear and self doubt and not a little bit of a subservient attitude.   

Is it any wonder that Dorothy and the crew are so eager to do what the Wizard wants.  They take on their quest believing that the Wizard can make all their dreams come true, but also out of fear of what will happen to them if they don’t do what he says.  

And then Toto.  The smartest of the group, sorry scarecrow.  Toto’s perspective is different than that of the rest of the group; small, unassuming, spending most of his time being carried around by Dorothy.  Toto can see what the others can’t because they are so distracted by the show that is the Wizard.  Toto can see underneath the curtain, he can smell the lie that is the Wizard, and when finally given the chance he pulls back the curtain to reveal an old man, and not just any old man but a charlatan.  The Wizard was a con-man.  He became the wizard when he was blown into OZ in his hot air balloon.  The people of OZ thought this was a sign.  They believed he was a sorcerer and had great power, and so, being the conman that he was, he perpetuated the myth, and ruled from a huge castle hidden away behind a curtain of lies and half truths. 

We are currently living in what I call the OZ effect.  There are Toto’s all around, have been really for months and years,  They have been trying to pull the curtain back, to show the Charlatan and his minions for what they are, and yet, there are people who can’t see the “man behind the curtain.”  They can’t see him because they don’t want to.  They like the image that they have built up.  They aren’t looking for a brain, or a heart, or courage, or even a way home.  They want to live in Emerald City.  Green tinted glasses firmly in place to hide the ugly parts.  The movie leaves leaves that part out,  In the original the Emerald City isn’t really Emerald at all, before anyone can enter the city they are forced to put on green tinted glasses.  This makes everything look better.  And this is what is happening to so many in the MAGA movement.  This is what is trying to be forced on our country by the president, and his cronies.  I refuse to call them advisors or cabinet or anything of the sort.  They are instead people who have decided that power and money are more important than being a decent human being.  They are people that could care less about people that think a great night out is a trip to Fridays, and a movie or bowling as opposed to jetting off to that destination for a meal that costs more than most make in a month.  People that could buy and sell all of us, and, let’s be clear, that’s what they are doing and what they want to do.  

They are the ones that strap those green tinted glasses on the masses…(see how I did that?) and tell them that they know whats best.  That not everyone agrees with them, that not everyone thinks that they know best, that there are vast swaths of the electorate that want nothing more than for all of them to rot is unthinkable to them, I mean after all they have all this money and we don’t so we must be less than. 

That MAGA cult members can’t or won’t see this is the height of idiocy to me.  There are seemingly intelligent people that swear by all that is, that all of this is good, that ignoring the constitution isn ’t really a bad thing as long as it makes America first…again or makes America great again.  I wish that many of them would say what they mean.  Say the quiet part out loud.  That America first and America great, really means.  America white.  It really means America led by angry white men who know best what everyone should do. It really means that the constitution only apples to the people that have money, and power.  It means people of color, and people that are not “whole” in the sense of what angry frightened white men thing of as whole need to just disappear, go back to the way it was, don’t make them uncomfortable, don’t make them confront the hard stuff.  Just get back where you belong.  

Fascism is all around us now, it’s becoming the norm in Washington, it’s becoming the norm in our daily lives.  It’s becoming acceptable to so many people simply because they don’t like not being the only voice in the room.  

We all need to understand and grasp the importance of what is coming.  What we are seeing right now is what happens when people would rather give away their freedom, as long as it means that “those people”. Don’t have a chance to advance, don’t have a chance to become what they are designed to be.  They want OZ the great and Powerful, even though all they are getting is a conman and his cronies that hope to take as much as they can before they burn the rest to the ground, and sail away to their own private island where everyone looks like, sounds like and acts like they do.

[thelongstroll]

Uneducated elitism…or how MAGA birthed the Fascist States of The Americas.

Remember the day you stopped believing in Santa Clause? Go with me for a moment dear reader. There comes a time in the American Childs life and in many other children as well but anyway, that they are faced with a choice. That choice is often put off till the last possible minute for many. Sometimes the choice is made but it’s not really public knowledge.

Here’s what I mean. When you’re a kid up till seven or eight, for me it was seven I believe, could have been eight , Santa Clause was REAL. The fact that a fat man in a red suit could come down the chimney of a house that had the fireplace walled in and somehow fill a stocking and put presents under the tree was the stuff of magic and lies, or is it lies and magic? These lies were perpetuated by my folks for as long as possible, even after learning the truth from friends in school there was a part of me that, at home, continued to believe the lie and think to myself that my friends were obviously wrong, that they were missing out, that they didn’t have the real scoop, and that my parents would never lie to me, after all they were good church going folks, right, and so I would for one more year at least maybe even two harbor that secret truth that so many of my friends refused to believe…the fat man in the red suit was real…That I looked down my eight and nine year old nose at them seemed only fitting and fair. I had the truth that came from my folks, grandparents, aunts, and Coca Cola every Christmas. This, to me, is an easy to understand example of uneducated elitism.

For the bulk of 2024 we were inundated with information from both parties and all three candidates for the highest office in the land. On one hand there was an octogenarian incumbent who, after his first debate performance was advised to bow out, I maintain that was still the right choice. I voted for Biden first go around, and would have done again in the hopes that when he died in office Harris would step in as the vice president to finish his term as did LBJ. When Harris took the reins of the party I was cautiously optimistic. First let me say, I do realize that there were problems, that she had some issues but, lets be clear they all do, we all have things in our life and in our opinion that differs. There is a difference though. Harris offered thought out solutions, her first and only debate with Trump showed her willingness to talk facts against his willingness to spin peoples fears and prejudices into a sick smoothie of hate, misogyny, bigotry, and Fear…Above all Fear. That the numbers did not bear his ideals and conclusions meant nothing to the MAGA faithful. Trump was saying it and no matter what the truth is, they will believe what comes out of his mouth. They will close their eyes and look down their noses at people with hard and fast numbers, with facts instead of, at best theories, and they will do so because Trump makes them feel superior. He makes them seem like a master race. The rest of us “liberal snowflakes”. Are to at best be pitted and at worst be demonized into an enemy that does’t deserve a seat at the table.

Armed with a sack full of lies MAGA turned out. They Voted, they voted their fears and their prejudices and yes their ignorance (uneducated elitism.) They believed that Trump cared about them in spite of proof after proof that he didn’t. They cheered his willingness to weaponize parts of the government to get back at his opponents. They cast him as their David and the Liberal’s as Goliath, completely forgetting that Trump has much more in common with Saul than with David. And they did it all in spite of proof after proof that his policies were going to be bad for the country and for themselves.

The sad thing, and to be honest the maddening thing is that many are still leaning into what Trump is saying as if it’s gospel. In August of 2024 Trump made the claim that he would bring down prices on groceries on Day one. Just recently he has said that prices are going to have to go up, that things are going to be hard for awhile. Trump insisted that tariffs would fix things, and his faithful followers all agreed, even when bipartisan economic organizations explained that those tariffs would be passed onto the consumer. Meaning groceries will be more expensive instead of less as promised, and somehow his own followers don’t seem to want to hold him accountable for it, in fact their rhetoric now is “well of course it’s going to be hard for a while.”

The carnage continues. A desire to systematically re-write history, to whitewash the past, stamping out the uncomfortable and inconvenient truths that come in the form of the earliest days of our republic and it’s whole sale embrace of slavery, the stealing of lands from the indigenous people of this country, our problematic relationships not just to civil rights but also to women’s rights. Lets get back to a “simpler” time, a golden age as it were, these are the things that are promised, but the question must be asked, when we are going back to a golden age are we doing so for all Americans? Or are we doing so for the right Americans? Trump and his oligarchs give prove that it’s no longer we the people, It’s us and them, and there is an entire group of people, the uneducated elite that remain uneducated because they want too.

No kid want’s to give up believing in Santa Claus, this can be evidenced every holiday when the movies about Santa start dropping, and somehow they are able to make different and new ones year after year, because there is a part of everyone that wants the whole lie to be true. The thing is instead of throwing out the facts, and embracing the lie people have chosen to enjoy the story of Santa without having to buy in whole heartedly.


So how can MAGA do the same thing. By understanding that there were things back in the 50’s and 60’s that were great, shoot even before that. There were simple things that people look back on and enjoy. They remember, and they smile that warm feeling type of smile that is full of only the good but somehow forgets all that hard bad parts.

They can remember the good feelings and even the good things, while understanding and remembering that things were not good for everyone, but as we move further and further into the life of being a country that has a bill of right and a constitution it’s important for us to understand that things like “all men are created equal, that life liberty and the pursuit of happiness is part of the first threads of our country and as the quilt of government has been made it’s become a truth that embraces more than just the select few from before to truly being a concept for all citizens. They can remember what is written on the statue of Liberty and they can remember that they too were once immigrants to this land, not all that many generations ago. And when they finally are no longer. Uneducated elite but have become educated citizens they can and will be able to hold their leaders accountable.

At least they could, but the thing that is terrifying for myself and other liberals is the fact that there is no desire to hold their leader’s accountable, only the desire to own the woke left and all it stands for.

The reason that MAGA is allowing our country to careen down the highway of fascism and oligarchy is because they want too. They liked being told that they may never have to vote again if they elected Trump. They like the idea of a homogeneous country that caters to their own vices because their chosen leader is a man of vices, nothing more.

[thelongstroll]

The Evangelical Commodity Problem.

I’ve not written for a while, not because I don’t like writing, not because I don’t have ideas, or even thoughts about what to write.  I haven’t written because, while the desire is there, and at times the compulsion there is also the realization that so much has already been said.  

The events of the past couple of months, starting in November and leading up to this last week have prompted me to re-evaluate that silence. 

I’m switching to Tumblr from now on.  Starting fresh as it were.  I’m not deleting al the other writings.  On the contrary they are going to remain where they are, but anything new will be posted here.  I may do a couple of cross posts, just so people who follow the old blog can find this one.  I’m not really sure, but enough of that.  Time to get on with it. 

It’s no secret who I voted for.  If you still don’t know it was not our current president.  The man terrifies me, he should terrify most people.  He is systematically dismantling our country and attempting to re-imagine it into and Angry White Man Utopia, where being white is no longer looked down on, where white men the country over can finally get a fair shake.  Where Cis White men can live their dream of misogyny, bigotry, and no accountability for their actions towards women, children, and anyone that has done them wrong.   He has not just taken control of the Republican Party, he has shaped it into his own image, or the image of Project 2025 that he disavowed just months before the election, but has somehow made it’s way into a large chunk of his executive actions, this fact just promises that more of that document is going to be implemented.  

I initially struggled to understand how an entire sect of christianity, a sect that I used to be a part of, just fell into lock step with a man who has shown more than an inkling of Fascist behavior.  I could’t believe that this entire movement would vote for a person that said the right buzz words when it came to abortion, prayer in schools (with of course a big BUT) and the appointment of conservative judges.  I couldn’t see how those three things were the end all be all of voting.  Until I realized that the standard bearers of the Evangelical movement are less concerned about those few issues and more concerned about power.  Power to make the government into what they want it to be.  Power to tug the strings of whomever is in office and have them jump.  These Evangelical leaders have for years seen the rank and file members of their sect as a commodity.  One that drives their own power, avarice, greed, and desire.

As I began thinking of that side of it, I realized something.  The evangelical church today has very little to do with what Evangelicalism used to be.  There was a time when the evangelical church would do more than hold crusades.  When people looked at the things that Jesus said to do and, well, did them.  A time when they filled the societal gap for the marginalized, the hungry, the sick and downtrodden.  There was a time when the church as a whole was part of the fabric of daily life simply because it was a place that was known to meet needs, listen, show empathy, understand or strive to understand, and even offer hard truths.  

All of that has shifted.  For me one of the more telling reminders of this is in the realm of Christian Fiction.  People in the church have always looked for people to support their particular idea of what it means to follow christ.  They want to be affirmed instead of challenged.  The problem is that in that affirmation they then tend to look at anyone that does not fit their mold of christianity as someone that should not be affirmed, on the contrary they should be re-programmed if possible, or shunned.  Where am I going with this?  Trust me I’ll get there.  198 years ago a man named John Nelson Darby building on the works of two other guys A baptist from Philadelphia named Morgan Edwards who talked about a pre-tribulation rapture in 1788, a Catholic Priest named Manuel Lacunza in 1812.  Took Dispensationalism and ran with it.  His particular brand of evangelism was more about scaring the hell out of people than the bulk of what Scripture tells us about how to live a life of faith that works itself out in our activities of daily living.   I’m not going to go down the rabbit hole of eschatology.  I am going to point out that Christian Fiction capitalized on this particular interpretation of scripture and almost 200 years later these three men’s interpretation of scripture have become gospel.  The Left Behind Series of Books has as of 2022 pulled in just over 4 million dollars.  The exact number given happens to be  $4,221,341.00.  Thats just book sales there are also movies, audio books and spin off series.  And here is where the Evangelical Commodity comes into play.  The vast number of these books were purchased by evangelicals to read, to give as gifts and to turn into a form of gospel.  Almost an addendum to scripture.   The Christian Fiction market learned that they could make money off of evangelicals, it viewed them as a commodity to be tapped into and some would say exploited.  

Now fast forward to 2016 and then 2024.  There are a group of leaders in the evangelical church world that have decided that their job is less about reaching people with the gospel and more about shaping the united states into a Theocratic State of their own design.  Project 2025 is launched and it ticks all the extreme right ideals that many in that world hold so tightly too.  The power grab is obvious, and in Donald Trump they found a companion that knew how to tap into anger and resentment and use it for political gain.  It feeds that evangelical persecution complex.   The one that constantly feels like they are being attacked, or persecuted, that their faith is somehow violated if people refuse to call the united states a christian nation.  

The problem that they are going to have is, the man they have chosen is the complete antithesis of the man that they claim to follow.  In place of loving enemies he despises them, when given the opportunity to turn the other cheek, he balls up a fist and starts punching,  when faced with a Christ follower asking him to have mercy he gets angry and pulls congress along with him to demand an apology because it hurt his feelings and likely shone a light on what so many of these leaders are trying to ignore or forget.  

I had an interaction the other day on Facebook.  A family member said that Trump had “produced good fruit for the church, you don’t have to see it but it’s there.  This very statement flies in the face of what the New Testament says about people bearing fruit in the first place.  

Matthew 17:20 says “By their fruits you will know them.”  Now just to be clear this 7 word sentence comes at the end of an entire illustration about fruit trees and what comes from them and what happens to good fruit trees and what happens to bad fruit trees.  It talks about good trees produce good fruit and bad trees produce bad fruit.  It’s that last seven words that were ignored.  

Trump has made three statements that I want to bring up before I close out this first of many blogs.  

At one of his “huge” rallies he asked where are my Christians At?  That should have caused every “Christian” in attendance to shudder.  

In a discussion at the Family Leadership Summit in 2015 Trump said 

"I'm not sure I have ever asked God's forgiveness. I don't bring God into that picture.  

He later clarified those comments to Anderson Cooper.  Seeking to downplay what he said only to explain that when he took communion that was a form of forgiveness. (according to everything I was taught both in the evangelical church I grew up in and the Christian university I graduated from communion is a way to remember what Jesus did for us, it’s not a magic sin eraser.  

When pressed Trump said.

"I try not make mistakes where I have to ask forgiveness," 

He went on to say that while he thinks repentance is “terrific” 

"Why do I have to repent or ask for forgiveness, if I am not making mistakes? I work hard, I'm an honorable person.”

All of this flies in the face of what evangelicals claim to be truth and yet, acting like the commodity that they are jumped at the chance for power.  

One of the most terrifying and telling things that our current president said to this particular group of christians came at a campaign rally recently.  Standing in front of his adoring fans he told this group that has hitched their wagon to MAGA that if they voted for him they wouldn’t ever have to vote again.  Just a few days ago a Republican senator introduced a bill to allow Trump to run for a third term.  

As we watch this man go on a spree of vengeance, as we watch him systematically dismantle rights, and advocate for zero regulation, lower taxes for people making over $333,000 a year, leading our country from a Constitutional Republic to an Oligarchy.  I wonder what the evangelical commodity will do when he has wrung everything he can get from them.  Because it’s just a matter of time before the rights that MAGA Christians are celebrating being stripped from others, will be then stripped from them.

[thelongstroll]

Evangelical Excommunication: When you're not important enough to restore.