Happy Turkey Day, if you ain’t a Turkey, Native American, or live in Gaza or Alice’s wonderland
Yesterday. the day before Thanksgiving, this below showed up in my email account, and having nothing else going on, I dove in.
Caitlin’s Newsletter Never Stop Being Shocked. by the Depravity of the Empire
A friend of mine shared my article about how the Biden administration is worried the pause in fighting will allow journalists into Gaza to show Israel’s crimes to the world, saying he knows he shouldn’t be surprised by how evil these freaks are but somehow he still is. I told him I actually consciously cultivate the ability to stay surprised by such things. If you stop being surprised when you see the world’s most powerful people always finding new and innovative ways to make the world a worse place for ordinary human beings, it means it’s become normalized in your system in some way. It means that on top of all the other horrible evils they’ve inflicted upon our world, they’ve also managed to steal an important part of your humanity. No longer being shocked by the murderousness of the empire is a counterintuitive sign that something unhealthy is happening to you, like when the body stops shivering as it sinks into the later stages of hypothermia, or when the hunger pangs go away in the later stages of starvation. It’s a sign that your system is no longer forcefully rejecting conditions it ought to reject, and has instead shifted into giving up and trying to conserve energy. I spend all day every day staring into the ugliest parts of the imperial machine, but I refuse to let it desensitize me. These monsters have taken so very, very much from the world, and I refuse to let them take that too. I refuse to let them rob me of my humanity like that. I see it as a sacred duty to keep a flame lit in myself which knows what a healthy world looks like, which knows what sanity looks like, which knows how things ought to be, and which naturally finds it jarring when the sickness of this civilization reveals itself. I refuse to accept this as normal. I refuse to let the abuses of the empire turn me into a callused, jaded husk of a human who can only respond to each new monstrosity with a deep world-weary sigh. I make sure it still brings up a white hot rage in me. I make sure it still brings white hot tears to my eyes. You can’t let them take that from you. You can’t let them harden your heart and darken your eyes. We’ve got to keep the flame burning for a sane and healthy world, if not for ourselves then for our children, and for future generations who we will never meet. If you’re still finding yourself shocked and shaken by the actions of our rulers, that’s a very healthy sign. It means they haven’t got you yet. It means they haven’t succeeded in snuffing out your flame. We’ve got to protect our sensitivity at all costs. We’ve got to maintain that visceral rejection of madness, because that’s what’s calling us home. That’s what’s calling us home to a healthy world. That’s what will guide our way as we fight our way there, one small, almost-insignificant victory at a time. If they haven’t yet snuffed out your flame today, that’s one more small win for humanity. That’s one more tiny step toward health.
Sloan Bashinsky I’ve been challenging the establishment, status quo, big brother, illuminati, dark side of the force, etc. for a long time, at my blogs, in online forums, during citizen comments in local government meetings, during conversations with people I’m with, in books I write now free reads at archive.org, in a podcast, and, in more olden times, in letters to the editor. Because I’m a mystic, which ain’t particularly glamorous, because it means I get dragged through all sorts sewers inside of me and outside of me, on this world and in nearby dimensions affecting this world, but not seen by the masses, I am not hopeful humanity has any chance of rising up out of the muck it seems to love wallow in. I’m convinced the people in power, control, who can be seen and who work behind the scenes, cannot be persuaded to change, nor can the people who worship or depend on them. Yet, like you seem to do, Caitlin, I get up each morning and deal with what the day brings to me as best and truly as I can. I paint lots of bullseyes on my front and back sides. I do it, because it is in my genes, or in my soul. Yet, I have to be ever careful, because I deal with the Dark Side of the Force ongoing, and I know the Devil is very real and very tricky and sneaky, and is more interested in people who challenge the hardened steel-reinforced concrete, than those who do not. Every person has a demonic aspect, and it is very easy to be tricked into thinking and doing the very opposite of what we should be thinking and doing. I keep hoping God, Jesus, extraterrestrials, the Jedi, or something will step in and shake things up so much, that the hardened steel-reinforced concrete cracks and light shines in, thank you Leonard Cohen, and even the people in power, who have zero interest in change, are shaken to their core and start wishing God will save them, or wishing there was no God, because they don’t like how God is going about things. I’m not hung up on the word, God. I use it, because I was raised in Christendom, which I eventually left, and then something came along and grabbed ahold of me and turned me every which a way but loose and upside down and inside out, and stood me before many mirrors, looking at me, and there were many refresher courses, and it was really awful a lot of the time, and often I wanted it all to be over, but here I am, 81 years old, looking at America, and over at what blew up in Israel on my birthday, October 7, and, I swan, I think maybe humanity simply needs to be fumigated and any people who survive get to try again. That ain’t exactly Thanksgiving cheer, but it’s how I feel.
Ernesto "I keep hoping God, Jesus, extraterrestrials, the Jedi, or something will step in" You can forget about the 1st 2 because they have never ever done anything for humanity, which is understandable since they don't exist.
Sloan Bashinsky I don’t think the Jedi ever existed, but I know for a fact the first three do, and I know for a fact I’d be crazy if I thought I could convince you, or anyone, of it, so I leave for you to learn it for yourself, when its time for you to learn it.
Ernesto when its time for you to learn it I already did, a long time ago and it showed me the 1st 3 don't exist. I don't need a crutch to face reality 😉
Sloan Bashinsky I dunno, based on your comments since Caitlin subscribed to my newsletter and invited me to subscribe to hers, I think you might need some help seeing reality in the human arena. As for the supernatural arena, in the afterlife, if not sooner, you will see differently. Wonder how you would have dealt with being with me and my 3rd wife and her son and a adult friend of ours when we were sitting outside on the patio of our home and I looked up and saw a oval-shaped space ship parked beside a cloud and I told them to look up and see it and they would not, and then it darted behind the cloud, and then the cloud started being stretched across the sky like a huge vapor trail, and I told them and still they did not look up. I mean, they were using a lot of energy to look down, because they didn’t want to see it. They knew I was having direct experiences ongoing with angels, and they had never questioned that, and my wife and our adult friend were licensed clinical social workers. But an alien spaceship, that they could not deal with. :-) The boy told me later that he did not look up, because he didn’t want to upset them. I told him it had happened for him, because I already knew ETs exist, and I bet thee next time I tell him to look up at a space ship, he would look up. He said he would. But there was no next time when I was with them. About a year ago, it dawned on me that how they dealt with it that day was a signal it was my time to move out and live somewhere else. Had I done that, it would have saved me a lot of grief that later happened. russian_bot From your past few comments, Sloan, I'd add Trump to the list of those you've challenged, as it seems he's gotten to you big time. As to the final sentiment - yes, since people are not bonobos (which is the forum-famous Jeano's reincarnation dream) they're bound to compete, eventually leading to fighting at various scales. Then the cycle repeats. Only it looks a spiral in terms of the severity of each climax. This time it will be nuclear and so the "recovery" may take a bit longer, resulting in another full blown conflict. As a larger context picture, given the human nature, it seems to just make sense.
Sloan Bashinsky
Never heard of bonobos or Jeano. I’d love to chat with Trump face to face. We both were spoiled brat rich kids, and ,as such, I have a head start on sizing him up :-) I do wonder why there seems to be so little concern about him in this forum, and so much concern about Joe Biden and the Democrats, and Israel. That does confuse me. Or, perhaps it is a screaming dog that doesn’t bark, given Trump claims to be Israel’s best friend, and that’s a reason he should be in the White House. Sadly, humanity keeps recycling biting itself in the ass, and I hope what’s going on over in Palestine doesn’t bring Dr. Strangelove out of fiction into fact.
russian_bot "Never heard of bonobos or Jeano" - she showed up for this post so hopefully will fill you in - entertainment guaranteed. As to ignoring Trump - I'd venture nobody cares about him in this forum. More attention to Biden - peculiar question, made me double check, and yes - he's the President of the USA and most if not all current crap in the world is of his doing. Seems logical to me.
Sloan Bashinsky Well, if nobody here cares about Trump, but Biden all are concerned about, can I take it that, if Trump gets elected in 2024, this forum will be after him like it now is after Biden? Should I hold my breath, or not? :-)
ernesto Che
Dear Sloan, I could not care less about your interactions with Caitlin, it is none of my business.
As for the rest of your drivel, you are merely confirming you have been smoking that stuff again. Time to go to a kick-off center?
In any case, as far as I am concerned, this is the end of this nonsensical thread.
Sloan Bashinsky
Actually, it may only just be the beginning of something you as of yet cannot possibly imagine. Hate to disappoint, but I never used psychedelic plants or lab made stuff. Hope you have a good Thanksgiving, although I can’t imagine any Turkey or Native American thinking it’s good.
As for turkeys, a neighbor friend sent me this yesterday, and I simply could not resist:
So I loaded up the family for a Fourth of July vacation and left our little liberal bubble of the Bay Area
We’re visiting family up in Idaho and Montana and, as you can probably guess, you see things here you don’t see in the San Francisco area. (Although you could probably drive about an hour and see some of the same sentiment.)
I’m fascinated with political signs like these, mainly because I use them so much in my cartoons — it’s good to remember that signs like these, and people who post these signs in their yards, really exist.
Based on my highly unscientific polling, there seem to be fewer Trump signs and flags compared to last year.
Guess we’ll have to wait for the election to really get rolling to see more Trump sloganeering around the country.
Unfortunately, signs aren’t just about the Defendant-in-Chief anymore. “Woke” ideology and book banning seems to be gaining a foothold.
These are just a few of the political signs I saw while driving and, for safety’s sake, I didn’t draw while at the wheel. (Which is why the “keep woke out” sign doesn’t have all the exact text, I only remembered the overall anti-woke sentiment.)
It’s important for me (and all of us!) to escape the angry political world once in a while.
Which is why I'm planning on doing more drawings like these over the next several days to give my brain and stress levels a break.
There was an incredible (and hopefully non-wildfire-producing) thunderstorm this morning, so for the first time in a looooong time, I did some nature drawing.
From thunderheads clearing and fog forming . . .
. . . to a cloud study.
I could draw these clouds all day.
After seeing those angry signs, clouds like these help put things in perspective.
I hope you have a great Fourth of July weekend!
Thank you SO much for following my cartooning and for supporting my work.
-Mark
Sloan Bashinsky A friend forwarded this to me, and I wondered why you left out all the turkeys Trump pardoned, after they were convicted for helping him try to overthrow the government? Diid you know Benjamin Franklin wanted to make the wild turkey America’s national bird, but he got overruled in favor of the bald eagle, which competes with buzzards for road kill, as well as killing to eat? Did you ever hear the joke about the fellow who went off to his state ag school, and when he came home for Thanksgiving and took his childhood sweetheart out, who was a year behind him and still in high school? After dinner at a local drive in, he drove them to a wooded area where they had done plenty of hanky panky, but she would not comply this time around, and he kept trying, and she kept resisting, and finally he asked what was going on?, and she said, he knew what was going on, and he said he had no clue what was going on, and she said yes he did, because he went off to the ag school, and he said what’s that go tot do with anything", and she said, you know, and he said he didn’t know, and if she didn’t tell him, he was going to leave her out there in the woods and she could walk home, and she said, “Boys that go to that school screw goats, cows, horses, sheep, pigs and turkeys," and he said, “Turkeys?"
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