Behind the Iron Curtains Part 1 – Growing Up

These are my recollections of a life behind the iron curtains. I do not aim to give perfect and objective evaluation of anything, but to share my personal experiences and memories. It will explain why I just cannot get misty eyed over some ideas on the political left and why I loathe many ideas on the right.

Kids are kids everywhere, at least when they are not dying from malnutrition. In at least somewhat functioning society they like to play, run around and nag their parents with incessant questions about the mundane as well as the profound. “Mom, why is the grass green? Mom, why does rain fall down? Mom, what is a whore?”

Children in eastern bloc behind the iron curtains were not different. We liked to play and chat, and we did so whenever possible. But one thing that many children from that time shared, some more, some less was fear.

Fear of nuclear annihilation.

Later in life I learned that people in the West were afraid of those evil aggressive USSR commies who wanted to wipe them out and were held in check only by superior military power of magnificent NATO. Well, on our side of the border it was those trigger happy evil capitalists led by evil imperialist USA who were held in check by superior military power of magnificent Warsaw Pact. And in reality both sides committed war crimes and atrocities, there were no angels in the hot spots of the cold war.

Adults might have had their doubts and objections regarding the veracity of all this fear mongering, but for kids it was definitively all real. The regular “fallout drills” at school, regular alarm drills, signs how to react in case of nuclear attack hanging in every office. Once we were playing with my cousins in the garden and we heard a noise from the sky we did not know. What instantly gripped us was the fear that these are the nuclear missiles heading for Prague. Where I live this feeling was exacerbated by the very real presence of the iron curtains.

From every window of my house I see across the border to Germany. If I were to walk in a straight line in any direction from my property, I will end up in Germany within a day’s walk. Going mushroom hunting was allowed only in certain directions and certain areas of the forest were taboo. Big signs “Caution, State Border Ahead” everywhere. I still remember that one of the signs was riddled with bullet holes. The only time in my life I have seen a real thing riddled with bullets

And the curtains themselves…

Due to the signs and restrictions on movement, they were not usually seen in person and I never touched them. Mostly I knew they are there, somewhere in the forests. But the train track was driving very close o them, so whenever we were riding train to visit the inland, I could see them from the window.

Three meters high, double fence of razor wire. Roundup sprayed shooting corridors. And a macadam road for easy military access.

To a child, that was a terrifying sight. I loathe to see such structures being build again.

“You left us to die on battlefield like William Dafoe in Platoon.”

Oh my, the devoted, never say die Trumpholes are ever so upset, they have been betrayed! Even worse, they’ve been cucked by the Tiny Tyrant! Their tiny sky is falling.

Trump signed a $1.3 trillion omnibus spending bill at the White House this afternoon, which sent right-wing media figures who have established themselves as unabashed Trump defenders into a fit.

Earlier this morning, Trump had tweeted that he was considering vetoing the bipartisan omnibus spending bill because it did not address DACA recipients and lacked full funding for his promised southern border wall. Hours later, however, Trump signed the spending bill into law in what he said was a “ridiculous situation” and claimed he would “never sign another bill like this again.”

Naturally, pro-Trump pundits were furious that Trump had compromised with establishment Republicans and Democrats on a spending bill that appeared to contradict his campaign promises.

Just a few choice responses here, RWW has a full page of the wailing disappointment…

“I will never sign another bill like this again” Yeah, because you’ll be impeached. – Ann Coulter.

Disastrous decision @realDonaldTrump. The people advising u are idiots. Tough guy? Art of Deal? Worst negotiation EVER. U rolled over like a puppy to Marxists, frauds, traitors & corrupt greedy swamp. When I leave, u can turn out lights. #TRAGICMISTAKE – Wayne Allyn Root.

The title of this post was from yet another frothy tweet from Mr. Root, who couldn’t bother to get poor Willem Dafoe’s name right.

Well — @realDonaldTrump just signed his impeachment papers. The GOP will be slaughtered in the mid-terms. – Todd Starnes.

I have to say, I’m more than a bit amused. You can see all the other responses to this horrible betrayal at RWW.

Fiends of Darkness With Dastardly Phrases!

Stanislas de Guaita. Le Serpent de la Genèse: Le Temple de Satan. Paris : Librairie du Merveilleux, 1891.

Stanislas de Guaita. Le Serpent de la Genèse: Le Temple de Satan. Paris : Librairie du Merveilleux, 1891.

C-Fam is all busy “fighting the fiends of darkness with their dastardly phrases”, at the UN Commission on the Status of Women, of course, because where else?

Last year, the Trump administrated invited a representative from Austin Ruse’s C-Fam—which works with some of the world’s most repressive regimes to resist reproductive rights and LGBTQ equality at the UN—to join the official U.S. delegation to the UN Commission on the Status of Women. This year, C-Fam isn’t in the official delegation, but Ruse is fundraising off his group’s advocacy against the inclusion of “dastardly phrases” such as “sexual orientation” and “reproductive health” in commission documents.

Ruse wrote in a fundraising email yesterday (emphases his):

The bad news is that “sexual orientation”, “gender identity”, “reproductive health”, and “comprehensive sexuality education” are all in the CSW documents we have been negotiating at the UN since last Monday.

The good news is that each of these dastardly phrases have been bracketed and are on the verge of being deleted altogether.

We have been working on this literally for months and we are on the verge of a great victory against the fiends of darkness.

As you know,

Sexual orientation and gender identity is code for odious sexual behavior and gender lunacy,

Reproductive health is code for abortion,

Comprehensive sexuality education is a blue-print for kids to lose their lives and their souls.

These wicked ideas are being pushed by hard-leftists at the UN and by diplomats from Europe.

But, they did not count on the pro-life and pro-family coalition!

We have five more days of negotiations before we know whether we have routed the enemy. …

Odious sexual behaviour? Okay, how about we talk about the massive cheating and porn addiction problem in conservative christians? Gender lunacy? Okay, how about we have a little chat about the damaging, rigid stereotypes imposed on children of conservative christians?

Reproductive health is code for reproductive health, you mouth-breathing, knuckle-dragging doucheweasel. The ability to terminate a pregnancy successfully is a part of that, whether or not birth is the termination point. Let’s not forget about something else you absolutely loathe: contraception. Contraception goes a long way to keeping a whole lot of people safe and sane, and yes, that includes men. It’s worth mentioning a fact you do your best to ignore: certain contraceptives are often prescribed for specific reproductive health problems, and that is very important indeed to those who suffer such health problems. Pain is not fun.

A blue-print for kids to lose their lives? No, that’s not what comprehensive sex ed does at all. Comprehensive sex ed saves lives by making sure kids engage in sexual activity when they are ready, not before, and that they do it safely. Sex ed also teaches consent, which is vital for all kids to know and understand, which can and does prevent rape, something you asshole christians don’t have much of a problem with. Sex ed also provides answers and security to those kids who are thinking they are all alone in their orientation, and sex ed teaches kids to be accepting to others, yet another thing you asshole christians don’t like, you’re much more at home with intolerance and hate.

Unfortunately, there’s more of this hateful fucking garbage, and you can read it all at RWW.

A Wee Bit Late.

In his latest video, Lance Wallnau has a prayer:

“The left needs to shut up and Father, we just pray in Jesus’ name that your hand will be on this president and on his marriage and on his wife, that their ears will be deaf to the salacious, cruel accusations and toxic utterances that are coming at them from all directions. And I pray for a swift and speedy blocking of this subject from entering into the middle of the national narrative.”

You need to keep up, Lance. Rather late in the day to ask Jehovah to stomp all over Ms. Daniels. As for being salacious, cruel, and toxic, it seems the Tiny Tyrant has all those covered, with more to spare. It really takes a special kind of man to go out and cheat on his wife while pregnant, and after giving birth to yet another heir. That’s a particular cruelty, one which will reside in Ms. Tiny Tyrant’s head forever.

As for the national narrative, when has the Tiny Tyrant’s salacious, cruel, and toxic behaviour not been a part of it? Donny is guilty of sexual assault, sexual harassment, and cheating all over the damn place. That’s all on him. The man is a walking scandal of criminal activity. I can’t speak for all The Left™, but this little part of it is not going to shut up, so I’m afraid yet another prayer has fallen on deaf ears. The only reason the lunatic fringe wants this all hushed up is that you can’t stand people looking at your hypocrisy, supporting an adulterer in spite of your so-called morals and family values. Oh, that spotlight is hot, isn’t it? Unfortunately for you, right wing asshole christians are more likely to be lapping up every bit of, um, exposure given to Ms. Daniels, more than the average person. Fundamentalist christians have a fatal attraction to porn, and the more they yell about it, the more they are watching and listening. Repression never works the way it’s supposed to, and you’d think you idiots would figure that one out, but no. Even remonstrations use clickbait titles: Don’t watch super-whore Stormy’s interview!, knowing that ‘super-whore’ is a magnet to christians. So, it would be you fucking idiots feeding the frenzy you’re upset about.  If I were a god, I wouldn’t pay attention to you either.

That’s not all that Lance has been praying about:

Wallnau warned that if “the midterm elections prove that the fury and froth and madness stirred up by propaganda by the left” is effective enough to shift control of Congress, then this nation will never have peace or unity because “there is a corrupt root so strongly embedded” in the Democrats.

“I’m telling you now,” Wallnau declared, “the spirit of darkness wants to neutralize this presidency in September [sic] of 2018, but we decree and declare that there is a turning over of the tables for the sake of Jacob my servant, Israel my chosen, for that reason this man was given a title a honor as president. Though he did not know God fully when he started, he knows that there is a God of Israel right now. Father, we pray, though you have been a God who hides himself, that you will now reveal your arm and foil even the false signs of false prognosticators, counselors, coordinators and schemers working within the political apparatus, the media apparatus, the television, the entertainment, the grassroots organizing, even to dry up the resources of those who are using their wealth as a mechanism to choke the future of the United States.”

Y’know, it wasn’t that long ago we had democracy. Eight years of it. And while it wasn’t as good as it could have been (as with all things), it was pretty good. Made a lot of progress, and there wasn’t so much as a whiff of scandal of any kind. No porn stars, no hush money, no cheating, no sexual assault, no harassment, no mass amounts of criminal activity.  I’d be absolutely thrilled to have that again, and I’m hardly alone in that one.

“Though you have been a God who hides himself“, oh yes, for thousands of years! Actually, since this god was dreamed up and cobbled together. Nice of you to sort of admit it, Lance.

The full thing is at RWW.

Sunday Facepalm.

Students protest for tighter gun laws in Washington, DC, on March 14, 2018. (Photo: Bradley Williams for People For the American Way).

Students protest for tighter gun laws in Washington, DC, on March 14, 2018. (Photo: Bradley Williams for People For the American Way).

Master of rabid frothery Kevin Swanson is upset about guns, sort of. He can’t seem to figure out why those meddling kids are upset, but da youth is going to destroy Amerikka, yessir, just like every generation gone before them.

Radical right-wing pastor Kevin Swanson was not impressed with yesterday’s nationwide walkout in which thousands of students left school to protest gun violence in the wake of the mass shooting last month at a Florida high school, saying that the fact that the movement is being led by young people is a sign that America is under the judgment of God.

[Snips irrelevant passage from Isaiah]

“In other words, the young folks have all this revolutionary zeal but no real wisdom to govern what they are doing,” he said. “This is the result of the breaking of the commandment of God. Things are not going well with us in the land, we are not seeing things going well for tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions of people across the country largely because the massive violation of the Fifth Commandment: Honor your father and your mother.”

Oh, the same old shite argument: you don’t have experience! Taking action is one way to gain experience, Mr. Swanson, and all kids need to start somewhere. Also, I am sick to death of these self-righteous assholes acting as though all the high school students are toddlers. A good many of these young people are mere months away from legal adulthood and voting. Others are quite a few years away from that, but you don’t get to act as though they have no right to think about issues and come to a conclusion about them. As issues go, guns are an easy one. We don’t need the fucking things, they should be under strict control, if for no other reason, to prevent more young people from needlessly dying. Most of these kids are in favour of gun reform, so they don’t even want to completely take your lethal toys away. The kids are alright, they are doing the right thing. As for your commandment, did it not occur, Mr. Swanson, that the majority of these kids have parents who stand behind them one hundred percent? Parents who are proud of their children for taking action and refusing to back down?

I’ve always hated that idiotic commandment. A lot of people end up with shit parents, you know, and no, they aren’t deserving of honour, or obedience, or any other thing. When it comes to parents and children, that whole ‘honour’ business needs to work both ways. Parenting is a difficult business much of the time, but you are supposed to be raising up individuals who can think for themselves. Well, at least if you’re not an asshole christian, who is more into brainwashing and numb obedience.

“Young people need to come to grips with the fact that they have not honored their parents’ wisdom,” Swanson said. “For this, God is bringing his judgment upon these individuals and upon this nation.”

Uh huh. Perhaps you’d like to say that to the parents who have lost a child to gun violence. Seems to me that a lot of parents are embracing their children’s wisdom, and they are acting together for the greater good. They don’t want more dead children and parents lost in a lifetime of grief, which is more than I can say for you asshole christians, who think some dead kids here and there are an acceptable price to pay in order to keep your lethal toys.

The whole thing is at RWW.

Trophy Hunting: an enhancement to foreign wildlife conservation and survival.

Cecil the lion gained fame after he was killed by Safari Club International member Walter Palmer during an illegal hunt in Zimbabwe. Paula French/ZUMA.

Cecil the lion gained fame after he was killed by Safari Club International member Walter Palmer during an illegal hunt in Zimbabwe. Paula French/ZUMA.

Just the other day, I posted about Amerikka doing its best to reach shithole country status. Naturally, no matter how great a country truly is, there’s always the fucking idiot contingent who moans that they have higher taxes, so bad. I would be more than happy to pay taxes which went to the common good, that’s the point of taxes. Here in Ustates, taxes rarely go to the common good. They certainly don’t under the current regime. Taxes end up in the pockets of the obscenely wealthy and corrupt. Today brings you a fine example of where tax dollars in this shithole go.

The Trump administration has launched a commission at the Interior Department to promote big-game trophy hunting and the “economic benefits that result from US citizens traveling to foreign nations to engage in hunting.” The council, which will cost taxpayers $250,000 a year, is charged with making recommendations to Secretary Ryan Zinke about removing barriers to importing trophy hunting animals—such as the recently overturned ban on elephant and lion trophies from some countries—and relaxing legal restrictions on hunting and importing endangered species.

Anyone impressed by this? Anyone happy about having their pocket picked for this utterly immoral, corrupt bullshit? Wait, it gets worse.

The members of the International Wildlife Conservation Council, which is holding its first meeting Friday, include a reality-TV safari hunting guide, a former beauty queen, gun industry representatives, members and affiliates of a controversial trophy hunting group, and a veterinarian associated with an exotic animal breeding facility in Florida that sells endangered animals to roadside zoos.

“It’s really embarrassing,” says Masha Kalinina, the international trade policy specialist for the wildlife department at the Humane Society International. “I just question the qualifications of each and every one of these people. Notably missing from this trophy hunting council are legitimate representatives of the conservation community with proper scientific credentials and a record of successful conservation programs, along with wildlife law enforcement experts and biologists who have no financial stake in promoting trophy hunting.”

The council’s charter calls hunting “an enhancement to foreign wildlife conservation and survival.” Along with pushing to relax imports of trophy animals, it will also review the way the US complies with an international treaty designed to protect endangered plants and animals that guides regulation of the exotic animal trade. But the membership of the council seems heavily weighted toward people who think the best way to conserve wildlife is to kill it.

Indeed, the country’s largest trophy-hunting lobby seems to have an outsized role on the council. Of the 16 IWCC members, at least 10 have an affiliation with Safari Club International, which represents wealthy big-game hunters who often tangle with the Fish and Wildlife Service over permits to import of game trophies from overseas, particularly for endangered species. The advocacy group, with 50,000 members, frequently lobbies Congress and federal agencies to fight environmental regulations. It sued to overturn the Obama-era ban on importing elephant and lion trophies from Zimbabwe and Zambia. The Trump administration ended the ban earlier this month, despite the president’s earlier objections and comments that elephant hunting is a “horror show.”

Those members include Walter Palmer, the Minnesota dentist and asshole extraordinaire who killed Cecil the Lion.

The principal deputy director of the US Fish and Wildlife Service, Greg Sheehan, who is effectively running the agency in the absence of a congressionally confirmed director, oversees the IWCC. He is an SCI member and attended the group’s convention in Las Vegas last month when it awarded its “professional hunter of the year” honors to a South African man who has been fined for leading hunts of endangered black rhinos.

It gets much worse from there. It’s a sickening read, and its symptomatic of the rot spreading out like gangrene from the current regime to poison everything. Those people who want to point to higher taxes in other countries, countries which provide healthcare, free education, and many other benefits to their citizens, you need to shut the fuck up when tax dollars here go to such evil, corrupt enterprise.

Mother Jones has the full story, with all the relevant links, and you can read about all the members of this “council”.

Does 18 Make For A Shithole?

Esplanade Park in Helsinki. Finland, is the happiest country in the world, according to the newest World Happiness Report. Credit Martti Kainulainen/Lehtikuva, via Associated Press

Esplanade Park in Helsinki. Finland, is the happiest country in the world, according to the newest World Happiness Report. Credit Martti Kainulainen/Lehtikuva, via Associated Press.

According to The World Happiness Report, Ustates has plummeted to 18th on the list. If you really want to be happy and feel secure, you need to go Nordic. Finland made the top of the list.

Finland was ranked number one on the World Happiness Report, compiled by the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network. The country was joined by other Scandinavian nations—Norway, Denmark, and Iceland—in the top four, followed by Switzerland, the Netherlands, Canada, New Zealand, Sweden, and Australia.

All these nations are based on strong social welfare structures, and look, people are happy! Looks like that evil socialism has a lot going for it. Turns out that when people feel secure, they tend to be happier and much more laidback.

“I think there really is a deep and very unsettling signal coming through that U.S. society is in many ways under profound stress, even though the economy by traditional measures is doing fine,” Jeffrey D. Sachs, an editor of the report, told the New York Times. “The trends are not good, and the comparative position of the U.S. relative to other high-income countries is nothing short of alarming.”

The drop followed President Donald Trump’s first year in office, during which the majority of Americans reported disapproval of the country’s top elected official, and hundreds of thousands protested his regressive policies on immigration, women’s reproductive rights, and gun control—as well as widespread concerns that the president is blatantly profiting off his position in public office.

The past year also saw reports of America’s widening wealth gap, with the average upper middle-class household holding 75 times more wealth than low-income families.

While other countries have focused on social welfare of all their citizens, Ustates has been in the process of removing rights and the very last shreds of social programs. We’re in the middle of dismantling education, nazis are running rampant all over the place, and you never know when you might be walking into a nightmare massacre. Sounds like a shithole to me.

The World Happiness Report ranks countries according to per capita GDP, social support, life expectancy, freedom to make life choices, generosity, and corruption levels.

Going by that alone, seems Ustates should be at the bottom of the list.

Life expectancy in the U.S. dropped for the second year in a row in 2017, with researchers suggesting that the opioid addiction epidemic and inequality are related to the decline.

I expect no health care has a lot to do with that one, along with a hefty percentage of the population living in food deserts and being unable to eat well.

Reigning political ideologies in the highest-ranking nations contrast sharply with that of the U.S., noted the researchers.

The countries in the top 10 tend to “believe that what makes people happy is solid social support systems, good public services, and even paying a significant amount in taxes for that,” said Sachs.

Yep. I’m more than happy to pay taxes, when they are used for the common good. That’s supposed to be the bloody point of taxes.

Every top-ranking country also ensures that every citizen has access to free or affordable healthcare, while millions of Americans remain uninsured despite the implementation of the Affordable Care Act.

Oh, there it is. Yep, other countries seem to have all figured out that having healthy citizens is to their benefit. That strikes me as simple common sense, but not here in Amerikka, no. I’m quite surprised we ended up as high as 18. Now I can’t get this song outta my head:

Via RawStory.

Space Force!!1!

Spaceballs.

The fucking moron has decided the military is not bloated enough, no. We need…SPACE FORCE!

Donald Trump addressed Marines at Miramar Air Station in San Diego on Tuesday.

In addition to touting record-breaking military spending and promising a raise to the military he also laid out plans for a space army.

“We should have a new force called the Space Force. It’s like the Army and the Navy, but for space, because we’re spending a lot of money on space,” he said. “I said maybe we need a new force, I was not really serious, then I said ‘what a great idea.’ Maybe we’ll have to do that.”

“My new national strategy for space recognizes that space is a war-fighting domain, just like the land, air, and sea,” he said.

Right. As if funneling yet more money into the military machine that is Amerikka isn’t bad enough, the Tiny Tyrant has come up with Spaceballs, because that’s what it would be, if we’re going to pretend this would actually go anywhere. Thankfully, it won’t, but fuck knows just how much money will be blown on such idiocy. I’ll bet NASA just can’t wait for a phone call from the Tiny Tyrant and his genius ideas for Space Force. Ah well, let the mockery begin! You can see some select responses at Raw Story.

Oh, The Morality!

A member of President Trump’s evangelical advisory board defended Trump over the controversy surrounding his alleged relationship with adult-film actress Stormy Daniels, saying the allegations were “totally irrelevant” to evangelicals who support Trump.

“Evangelicals know they’re not compromising their beliefs in order to support this great president,” Pastor Robert Jeffress said on Fox News Thursday. “And let’s be clear, evangelicals still believe in the commandment ‘thou shalt not have sex with a porn star.’”

“However, whether this president violated that commandment or not is totally irrelevant to our support of him,” he continued.

None of this bullshit is surprising, Jeffress slithers about like a snake in an oil slick when it comes to the Tiny Tyrant. What is amusing is a look back to 2008, when Jeffress had some very definite views about how christians should vote:

This argument struck us as rather remarkable and reminded us of a debate the Jeffress had with Jay Sekulow back in 2008 over the propriety of evangelical Christians voting for a Mormon like Mitt Romney, during which he insisted that it was unacceptable for Christians to overlook questions about a candidate’s faith, worldview and behavior simply for the sake of “some temporary change in the law.”

Back then, Jeffress blasted “the hypocrisy of some evangelical leaders … who, for the last eight years of the Bush administration, have been telling us how important it is to have an evangelical Christian in office who reads his Bible every day. And now, suddenly, the same leaders are telling us that a candidate’s faith really isn’t that important. In fact, one of those leaders—a good friend of mine—said on national television, when it came to supporting Mitt Romney, he said, ‘Well, after all, we are not electing a theologian in chief, we are electing a commander in chief.’ My fear is such a sudden U-turn is going to give people a case of voter whiplash. I think people have to decide, and Christian leaders have to decide once and for all, whether a candidate’s faith is really important.”

Evangelical christians certainly put the squirm in how the worm turns. There is not one thing they can honestly say they stay staunchly “moral” on – no matter what happens, no matter what someone does, if that person has the power to give them what they want, oh, everything is just dandy! Sexual assault? Eh, no biggie. Compulsive liar? Who cares?! Adulterer? Oh, everyone needs forgiveness. And on and on the list goes. Mormon? Oh, hell no!

“Christians need to remember that the kingdom of God is not going to come riding in on Air Force One,” Jeffress said. “The danger in all of this discussion is that Christians sometimes are willing to sacrifice the temporal for the eternal, that in order to get their candidate elected, to enact those laws that they feel are crucial, somehow we fool ourselves into thinking we are going to bring about the kingdom of God here on earth. We are not going to do that. I’m not willing to trade people’s eternal destiny for some temporary change in the law.”

My, my, look at that, stated a mere 10 years ago. It would seem that Jeffress now believes that Jehovah got himself a first class seat on Air Force One. Oh the corruption a small taste of power brings. Tsk.

Via RWW.

U.S. Government Abuse: Manzanar to Guantánamo.

Clem Albers, “San Pedro, California, April 5, 1942” (courtesy National Archives and Records Administration).

Clem Albers, “San Pedro, California, April 5, 1942” (courtesy National Archives and Records Administration).

Edmund Clark, “Camp 1, isolation unit” from the series Guantanamo: If the Light Goes Out (2009) (© Edmund Clark).

Edmund Clark, “Camp 1, isolation unit” from the series Guantanamo: If the Light Goes Out (2009) (© Edmund Clark).

Edmund Clark, “Camp 6, Immediate Response Force equipment,” from the series Guantanamo: If the Light Goes Out (2009) (© Edmund Clark).

Edmund Clark, “Camp 6, Immediate Response Force equipment,” from the series Guantanamo: If the Light Goes Out (2009) (© Edmund Clark).

The exhibition Then They Came for Me: Incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II is what brought me to the International Center of Photography. After all, the wartime photos of Dorothea Lange, Ansel Adams, and Toyo Miyatake are much celebrated today, historical artifacts in themselves. But I felt compelled to stay for The Day the Music Died, British photographer Edmund Clark’s eight video, music, and photography installations on the post-9/11“War on Terror” around the globe.

The pairing of the two exhibitions invites viewers to search for parallels between US national security efforts more than 70 years ago and today: How does the forced relocation of virtually all ethnic Japanese people residing in the US during World War II resemble the dragnet of the current anti-terrorism apparatus around the globe? Both shows shed light on people, more that half a century apart, swept into detention by the US government without due process, in the name of national security. And the juxtaposition has become all the more timely since President Trump’s late January signing of an executive order to keep Guantánamo Bay’s prison open.

[…]

The exhibitions Then They Came for Me: Incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II and Edmund Clark: The Day the Music Died continue at the International Center of Photography (250 Bowery, Lower East Side, Manhattan) through May 6.

You can read and see much more about these terribly poignant photographs and their history at Hyperallergic.

Angel Armies vs Deep State. Or Something.

Dutch Sheets speaks at his Turnaround: Appeal to Heaven event at the Trump International Hotel in February 2018. (Screenshot via livestream).

Dutch Sheets speaks at his Turnaround: Appeal to Heaven event at the Trump International Hotel in February 2018. (Screenshot via livestream).

Oh, all the self-styled prophets are “prophesying” and praying. RWW has the full coverage, which is quite lengthy, here are some highlights:

A new era in American and human history began at the end of last week, according to self-described apostles and prophets who gathered on Thursday, Friday and Saturday at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C. … Sheets said he had never seen such intense spiritual warfare over the nation, saying the battle was not about Trump but about “whether the devastation caused by 50 years of anti-Christian activity will be reversed or, God forbid, continue.” He said then, “The antichrist forces are almost rabid in their anger over the potential loss of progress.”

[…]

Now, according to conference leaders, it’s time for the church to move from pleading with God to ruling with him—and with Trump, who one speaker described as “the father of this nation.” A speaker from Northern Ireland, Rose Sambrook of Rhema Restoration Ministries, proudly claimed Trump as one of her own. “Your president is a Celt,” she said. “That’s why he’s wild!”  She said Trump has the “seeds of revival” in his DNA because his great aunts prayed for five months for revival to come to the island of Lewis decades ago.

[…]

Jacobs told attendees God had spoken to her at a Miami gathering of thousands of pastors from 60 nations, giving her the word “basta!”—Spanish for “enough!” “We’re here to say ‘basta’” she shouted at the Trump hotel, adding, “Enough of God’s people being attacked! Enough of the photographers and the bakers having to close their shops! Enough of our loss of our religious freedoms! Basta!”

Ummm, I thought everyone was supposed to hate immigrants and speak nothin’ but Amerikkan.

Tim Sheets, Dutch’s brother and apparently an expert on angels, led a prayer on Friday night that God would break “the collusion of hell in our government”:

And Lord, I hear you say tonight, ‘Disregard the fake collusion, and come against the real collusion, and the real colluder.’ We bind the kingdom of darkness and we ask that the strategy of our king and his angel princes that assist us now, would come against the collusion of darkness into our government, that would come against the collusion of darkness into our media, and in the name of Jesus we declare, this Ekklesia declares tonight, that the collusion of hell in its diabolical schemes, to those that are bent in iniquity, will be bound in Jesus name.

[…]

Dutch Sheets also prayed that Trump “would accomplish everything Almighty God sent you into that house to do, regardless of who likes it or who doesn’t.” He also predicted that Trump will have “a visitation from heaven” that gives him “an intimate knowledge of Jesus Christ.” Sheets had a warning for those who resist Trump or who want to turn the nation away from its Judeo-Christian roots:

You will fail! … The Ekklesia will take you out. The outpouring of Holy Spirit will take you out. Angels will take you out. You are no match for any of the above. You are no match for father, son, Holy Ghost, or his family or his angel armies. You are no match for his word. You are no match for his prophetic decrees …. So we push you back. And we say your finest hour has come and gone, and the church now rises to the place that he has called us to walk in …. We now rise up and I call that new order into the earth.

Gad, I’m queasy all over. I really have no problem with people who want to roll the clock back a couple of eras, but you can’t be doing it in the middle of an established society. Please, do some real estate shopping and go set up your little kingdom, far from the rest of us. It’s what Jehovah wants. Really.

RWW has the full story and video, all of which require a rather strong stomach.

Trump’s CPAC…

Activists watch President Donald Trump address CPAC 2018. (Jared Holt for Right Wing Watch).

Activists watch President Donald Trump address CPAC 2018. (Jared Holt for Right Wing Watch).

If you’re curious about the latest happenings in the Lunatic Fringe, Right Wing Watch has all the details, and they aren’t pretty.

This year’s Conservative Political Action Conference was—to borrow a phrase—“low-energy.” Except, that is, when it came to praising President Trump. CPAC has historically been a measure of what people and ideas are allowed into the conservative movement’s big tent. This year, the ideology that seemed to matter most was love of Trump.

Trump’s influence on the larger conservative movement was apparent on stage at CPAC, but it played out also in the surrounding circus at the Gaylord convention center in National Harbor, Maryland, where white nationalists rubbed elbows with “New Right” internet celebrities and far-right European politicians, many of them echoing Trump’s talking points.

On the conference’s schedule, more traditional conservative fare about the joys of capitalism and national security threats was mixed in with sessions dedicated to aggrandizing Trump.

There’s a long article about all the comings and goings, who’s there and what they’re up to, along with all the nonsense being spewed at RWW.

Electromagnetic Witchcraft & Techno Demons, Oh My!

Full Court Batshit.

Today, we have full on bugfuck for you, courtesy of one Pat Holliday, of the Miracle Internet Church, chatting with conspiracy fantasist Sheila Zilinsky.

“The government had a plan called Blue Beam back in the ’80s where they were going to fake a rapture of the church through blue beams and being able to shoot holographs up into the sky,” Holliday said, insisting that this was evidence of the “electronic magnetic witchcraft” that controls the world through everything from satanism and astrology to holistic medicine and sports.

Sigh. Y’know, it’s quite easy to spot a hologram and expose it, so just what would the fucking point be? I’m sure you’d be surprised just how much a whole lot of people wish you would get whisked off somewhere. Anywhere but here. Best be careful about including sports in all that nonsense, that’s damn near a religion in itself here in Amerikka.

“Did you know that the witchcraft powers in America had total control under the NFL over Obama?” Holliday asserted. “What Trump is doing and has done is he has disconnected the NFL from the powers of the former government.”

Oh, that’s why you included sports. Just had to get a snipe in at people of colour being damn tired and deciding to not fucking take it anymore. Sweet of you. Unfortunately for you, the NFL is not disconnected from great swathes of the population, including most in government. Amerikkans love their sportsball.

“Trump is doing a lot of things,” she said, including saving the world from certain calamity. Claiming that there is an “educated and refined witch or a wizard that is pulling the strings” over America, Holliday asserted that a Hillary Clinton presidency would have resulted in a world war that would have killed nearly the entire human population.

Oh FFS, now we’re living in a simplistic Harry Potter plot? Can’t you come up with something better than that? Think. Try to be original, and that’s a tough call, given all the speculative fiction floating about. Ever so nice that educated and refined are now code words for evil. You obscurantist idiots might love your lack of education, but I embrace mine and keep on learning every day. That you fear learning so much is all the more reason to love it.

“If Hillary Clinton had won the presidency of the United States of America, we may not even be here talking to you,” Holliday said, “because they did have a World War III planned where they were going to destroy 90 percent of the people. What they wanted to do was take control over the world by going down into their underground cities, we would all be dead and then, when it was time, they could come out of their underground cities and rule the world with Satan. That was their plan and they were almost there, but God has intervened.”

Pardon me asking, but where’s the thrill in dominating a decimated population? Sounds like a bad plan to me, more like the idiotic plan you would come up with, Ms. Holliday. You all really need to shut up, you’re doing a great deal of damage by breathing such profound stupidity into the air. We have enough climate problems.

The whole thing is at RWW, with a Soundcloud.