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?"
A few days ago, someone subscribed to my Substack Newsletter and invited me to subscribe to her Substack Newsletter, which I did and found I had leaped into in yet another anti-Israel hornet nest.
This Is The Real Face Of The US Empire CAITLIN JOHNSTONE
Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley): Someone uploaded one of those viral “help identify this racist jerk” clips featuring a man accosting a street vendor with awful Islamophobic vitriol, and it turned out he was the former US State Department Deputy Director in the Office of Israel and Palestinian Affairs. This Is The Real Face Of The US Empire
Bill One of the few good things to come out of this war is the gradual exposure of the truth as more expose their true colors.
Sloan Bashinsky I’m from Alabama and have lived in America for 81 years, and have had plenty of dealings with white supremacists and Christian and right wing extremists, but I have had no dealings, of which I am aware, with Jewish or Muslim extremists. I think creating the state of Israel was a terrible mistake, and I think the religious history of that region should have caused anyone even half awake to see it would be a terrible mistake. It looks to me that the American Christians, especially the more conservative American Christians, are why America has given money and weapons to Israel, because Palestine is Christendom’s Holy Land, and those American Christians want their Holy Land defended against Islam, and Israel does that for them. Those American Christains don’t say it, but they think Israel should defend their Holy Land because in the New Testament Jewish leaders persuaded Pontius Pilate to have Jesus Crucified. Also, in places in the Old Testament part of their Bible, God promised that land in that region to Israel. But what they don’t say is, the Israellites kept pulling away from and displeasing God, and they breached the covenant God had made with them in their Scriptures. The American right is using the help Israel trump card to help Donald Trump get elected president again. Trump only cares about himself and his family and money and power, and he knows how to pull the American religious right’s strings to get them to dance for him. That all said, after Caitlin subscribed to my newsletter and invited me to subscribe to her newsletter, it has seemed to me that what she writes about what’s going on in Gaza today is 100 percent on Israel and its backers in America, and has nothing to do with HAMAS, who attracked and massacred a whole lot of people in Israel, and took a lot of hostages back to Gaza, and boasted and celebrated it, like they had done something wonderful. HAMAS did it to provoke Israel to do what it is now doing in Gaza, to turn world opinion against Israel. HAMAS didn’t care for the Gaza people, who would be massacred by Israel. HAMAS would have been really disappointed if Israel had not invaded Gaza.
russian_bot "Trump only cares about himself and his family and money and power..." - good thing Biden doesn't.
Sloan Bashinsky I am all for Hunter Biden and his father being fully investigated regarding Hunter’s Ukraine affairs. There is no way Hunter could have gotten so rich off Ukraine, but for his father being Obama’s vice-president. Biden should have told Israel not to invade Gaza and to let the UN deal with it. That said, how to you think it would be going if Donald Trump was president, and his right wing hordes were shrieking for him to send American troops to join IDF in Gaza to rid it of HAMAS and protect their so-called HOLY LAND? Israel has nuclear weapons. If it feels sufficiently threatened, Israel will unleash those weapons where it thinks best for Israel, and there is nothing America, the UN, HAMAS, Iran or Islam can do to stop that. I can see Trump saying, if he was president, none of this would be happening, because HAMAS would not have dared to do what it did on October 7, which was my 81st birthday.
russian_bot How curious it is that it's been so difficult to get to Biden family and we don't really know if anyone ever will. Or if they're not going to get pardoned when their buddies get to steer the wheel. As to your speculating what would happen if Trump won second term, it's just that - speculation. The facts for now are that bookend presidencies - both Democratic - created wars and havoc of the scale Trump didn't come close to. Those are facts. And I'm not for any scumbag politician no matter where they come from so no need wasting any space here trying to turn me into some kind of a trumper. Though, as my name and profile says: "I'm a bot, Russian bot. I elect Trumps." Meaning any one of them, anywhere, clones and all. Call me at 1-800-I-elect-trumps. But that's just business, nothing personal.
Sloan Bashinsky You at least have a sense of humor. I think Hunter and Trump, and Hillary, should be locked up in adjoining cells. And Hunter’s daddy, too, if he had a hand getting Hunter so rich off Ukraine.
Kudjoe Both are oligarchs. Many confuse battles among the oligarchs for democratic politics, and they take sides in what is actually not their fight at all. Trump is a major figure in one wing of the oligarchy. Biden is another and is backed by the deep state, after their favourite horse mrs Clinton, who they also backed, lost the race. What you see is a battle among these camps. But all of them are rotten, corrupt and deeply misogynstic - they hate the common man on the street.
Sloan Bashinsky I view both sides a cults, but the left side does not remind me of Nazi Germany leading up to the Holocaust, and the right side does remind me of that, and I fret for my children and their children having to suffer that. I don’t want anyone to suffer that. But I don’t get to decide how that goes.
Kudjoe “Both sides” ? There is no both sides in oligarchy, and certainly no “left”. You have a ruling class that battles among itself to lord over the other 99% of the people. There is nothing “left” about it. And yes what you think is the left is just as murderous as nazi germany - in fact more murderous globally: https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/papers/summary And they oversee a police state and police brutality and mass incarceration domestically. Under Joe Biden this is reaching all time high levels of murderousness: 2023: https://mappingpoliceviolence.org/ 2022: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jan/06/us-police-killings-record-number-2022
Sloan Bashinsky Well, I live in America, and I deal with both sides daily, and they detest each other. I view both sides are religious cults, incapable to crawling out of their own tiny kingdoms. To fix that requires fumigating America :-)
Kudjoe They are not “both sides” as in any kind of “right” or “left”. They are an oligarchy. A mob of gangsters. They change alliances as the wind blows. Hillary Clinton attended the wedding of Trump’s daughter and Trump used to donate money to Hillary when she was running for Senate in New York. Bush pals around with Obama. ALL of them are funded by AIPAC and the various PACs flooded with money by various camps of the superrich, which keep betting on various “horses” in the scramble for power. if you think they actually “hate” each other, as opposed to operating in a constant scramble for power, then you must really believe “professional wrestling” when you see it on TV.
Sloan Bashinsky I agree, globally, America has done awful harm, regardless of who controlled the national government. I’m speaking of inside America, because that’s where I live.
Another WorldView Is Possible Hamas served the Zionist-Apartheid Entity just a SMALL TASTE, of its own medicine - exactly what the Zionists have doing to them, for more than 100 years of Terrorism, Genocide, Ethnic Cleansing and Occupation. It's tragic and awful, but amounts to only a small fraction of what was done to them, before and after. And let us not forget that Hamas is only one tendency within the Palestinian Resistance. A third of Palestinians are/were Christians (at least at one point). Hamas is the same brand of Takfiri Wahabi Jihadist Islam, that is promoted by Saudi Arabia, and several other Gulf Monarchies, with the full blessing of the UK and US (MI-6 and CIA). Netanyahu is quoted in Haaretz as saying that Hamas must be supported - to prevent a 2-State solution. And this strategy goes back to the late 1980's - when the same kind of militants were fighting on the side of the NATO Empire in Afghanistan, as the Mujahedin. https://www.thehandstand.org/archive/jan2002/EdcellJan2002/rezeq/ Hamas took ~ 220 hostages - because they wanted to get 6000 Palestinians (including women and children, too) being held in "Israeli" Administrative Detention (without trial or charges), released. They were for bargaining power. And from what's been told by the few to be released - they were being treated and living better, than the civilian population in Gaza, and no doubt better than those in Zionist custody. Of the ~1200 killed on October 7th - it appears roughly half were killed by the Zionist Military, exercising what they call "the Hannibal directive" (kill your own people or soldiers - so you don't have to bargain with Palestinians). It sounds like you know the difference between Judaism and Zionism already... But here's this, too. https://youtu.be/JGEuI8072NY
Sloan Bashinsky I understand HAMAS taking prisoners to swap back for Palestinians in Israeli jails. But was killing 1,200 people during the hostage raid worth IDF killing several times more Gazans than Israel had in its jails? Where did HAMAS learn arithmetic? The plain obvious is, HAMAS wanted Israel to do what it did in GAZA, to cause the world to view Israel like it views Nazi Germany. Imagine how the world will view Israel, if it gets to the point that it feels sufficiently threatened to unleash its nuclear weapons on its enemies. If you think Israel is not capable of that, then you do not understand religious fanaticism, of which there is plenty on both sides.
Another World View is Possible If you've been reading Caitlin's newsletter for more than a few days, then you should not be amplifying the 1,200 killing meme. Current evidence support finding that IDF killed most of the civilians. Israel intentionally lied to obscure that Hamas executed a military action on October 7 against military targets. It was IDF who killed military and civilians under an extreme application of the Samson Option and in order to be able to lie outrageously to support their Gaza genocide.
Sloan Bashinsky Caitlin invited me a few days ago, after she subscribed to my newsletter. I also read Chris Hedges’ newsletter, and other stuff. In none of the Israel bashing, which is justified, do I see any criticism of HAMAS or Islam. It’s all Israel’s fault. If that’s your view, then so be it. It’s not reality, however.
Another WorldView Is Possible If the Zionist State "goes nuclear" it will be the end for them, as well. Pakistan has the bomb, too. And it will be impossible under US Law for them to get another penny, at that point.
Sloan Bashinsky If Israel goes nuclear, it might be the end of the entire Middle East, and maybe the end of a great deal more than that. Does HAMAS not know that? Does Islam not know that? Apparently the American pro-Israel cabal doesn’t seem to know.
gypsy
It IS Israhell’s fault.
If you keep a tiger in a tiny cage, deprive it of sufficient food and water, and constantly poke it with a sharp stick, what the hell do expect when the tiger finally escapes?
Sloan Bashinsky
I’m no fan of Israel, as my comments here certainly prove. If I were the U.S. President, I would have told Israel to lay low and let others deal with the October 7 attack, and if Israel didn't lay low, then no more help from America, which I have the power to stop. I would not have sent my warships there. I would have pulled them back to safety. I would have left Israel alone. And, I probably would have been assassinated by Americans. It seems in this forum, that most, but not all the commenters, were thrilled with the October 7 attack. They feel it was okay, totally justified. They do not seem to understand that it was a clever bait laid by HAMA, your tiger. HAMAS could have cared less for the Gazans it put at risk to the IDF. So, keep cheering your tiger. Maybe it, or its Islamic relatives, will provoke Israel to use its nuclear weapons, and then they and you and many others will have a great deal more to blame Israel for.
pretzelattack the US could walk away right now, we don't need any more fascists in the US, we have a surfeit already.
Sloan Bashinsky If President Biden walked away and pulled back his warships to safety and stopped all aid to Israel over which he had control, he would be assassinated by Americans, and whomever the Democrats used to run for president would be defeated in 2024, regardless of whom the Republicans ran for president :)
Another WorldView Is Possible 'The Samson Option' is another name for suicide, albeit one that takes out your enemies with you. Frankly, as apocalyptic and crazy as some of the Zionists are, both Christian and 'Jewish' - it's not unthinkable that they'd press that button. But I imagine that Hamas doesn't believe that they'll do it. And if they do - oh well, they get to go to heaven as martyrs - and the Zionists burn for eternity. That some small consolation, at least. At some point they probably feel that it's better to die fighting, standing up, with their boots on, than on their knees the way the PA let's those in the West Bank be killed.
Sloan Bashinsky Hmmm. Radical Islam thinks it's godly to be a suicide bomber and go straight to Allah, but that same element of Islam can’t imagine Israel using its nukes to defend itself? Israel wouldn't nuke itself, Gaza or the West Bank. It would nuke Tehran, parts of Lebanon and Syria, when the winds are favorable. You think Pakistan then would nuke Israel, and risk getting nuked while its nukes arre on the way to Israel, which had not attacked Pakistan? I think Vladimir Putin knows very well what Israel is capable of, and it scares the shit out of him.
Feral Finster I detest Trump, but it's the Biden Administration that is calling for increased censorship, and the Great And Good among us are all aboard.
Sloan Bashinsky I’m not aboard, and Trump slams anyone who disagrees with him.
Feral Finster So? Slamming critics is hardly unique to Trump and his followers.
Sloan Bashinsky No, but they appear a bit more eager to back up their distemper with physical violence. In fact, they remind me of both HAMAS and Israel.
Feral Finster Helps when you have the state apparatus to do it for you.
Sloan Bashinsky
Without any help from the state apparatus, Trump nearly overthrew the American government on Jan 6, 2020, and since then he and his legions have threatened, frightened and terrified judges and their staff, prosecutors and their staff and witnesses, and their families, without any help from the state apparatus. Trump has threatened to use the state apparatus to get even with the people who have bothered him, if he gets elected again, and to pardon himself and anyone who was prosecuted for Jan 6. He and his legions remind me a great deal of Adolph Hitler and his legions. Trump told the lady leader of Germany that only one person drew greater crowds than he drew - Hitler. Ivana Trump told Vanity Fair, when she and Donald were married, he kept a book of Hitler’s speeches in a cabinet on his side of their bed, and sometimes she read it at night. Trump studied how Hitler wound up the German masses, and he modified it to wind up similar people in America. All the people in America freaking out about about Israel’s response to October 7 should be freaking out about Trump running for president again.
Pretzel Attack
who do you think helped LBJ pass the Civil Rights Act of 1965. The Dixiecrats were an integral part of the FDR coalition that ran the country from the New Deal to Ike, and they were vehemently opposed to Civil Rights. You are evidently unaware of the actual history of how that legislation got passed. The northern republicans were crucial in helping LBJ overcome the Dixiecrats. Subsequently, the solid democratic south gradually turned solid Republican. Biden and the neoliberals are awful for everybody in the middle class and on down, no matter what color. Read the Black Agenda Report if you don't believe me, and acquaint yourself with the so called black misleadership class. Have you forgotten who screwed Sanders in South Carolina? black support for Trump is growing for economic reasons, and also because Biden is right wing fascist, even more than Trump.
Sloan Bashinsky
I’ve been pondering your last comment. I’m a white man, who cannot fathom any person of color voting for a white supremasist, Trump. His MAGA rallies and the Jan 6 insurrection are oceans of white people. A picture is worth a thousand words. When Trump says the 2020 election was stolen, his MAGAS understand he means, stolen by people of color. That you say Biden is more right wing than Trump causes me to wonder if you are yanking my chain, or simply are nuts.
I’m an Alabama native, and I am acutely aware that back in time the Southern Democrats fought desegregation, and civil rights blossomed under two Democrat presidents. I’m also well aware of who those Southern Democrats''kin are now in Alabama, the Republicans and the MAGAs. I suggest you try to get as many votes for Trump as you can.
Patris What a dance here tonight. Sloan you have a great capacity for tolerating the ignorant.
Sloan Bashinsky It’s been years since I danced to music with a woman. I suppose I dance in other ways online. Don’t know if ignorant, or brainwashed, applies- perhaps its one sometimes, the other sometimes, and both sometimes :-)
Patris In any case your patience is remarkable. Respect.
Sloan Bashinsky Perhaps it’s easier to be patient online, than face to face? Also in play, I was trained the old-fashioned way by angels to speak to/about stuff in ways not comfy for the status quo, while trying my best to stay level and detached.
Mr. Raven Not comfy for the stautus quo? Give me a fucking break, you are just another Zionist piece of shit making excuses for genocide and mass murder of trapped children, and circling the wagons around your tribe like everyone in the media and the politicians are owned by your tribe. Enough!
Mr. Raven Yes you "chosen people" sure are patient with us untermensch. applause!
Sloan Bashinsky In olden times, the raven was viewed as a messenger from the spirit world, and I totally agree with you that the creation of the state of Israel was a terrible mistake, and that Israel then did plenty to create more resentment, even hatred, of itself in that region. Alas, HAMAS carried out the October genocide to provoke Israel to do what it now is doing in Gaza, and in that way, Israel proves it is like Nazi Germany. Hamas cares not one iota about the Gazan civilians killed by the IDF. HAMAS thinks it did something wonderful for Allah on October 7. In fact, Allah had nothing to do with it. The Zionists, and the American Christian right, are convinced God is on Israel’s side, in its invasion of Gaza. God has nothing to do with it. The Devil is running both sides, and if you join and support either side, you join and support the Devil.
What you, myself, and everyone should hope, and pray, is a cease fire happens, and out of it Gaza becomes a nation, which is recognized by Israel and every other nation, and Islam leaves both Gaza and Israel alone. Given the historical religious emnity between Islam and Christendom/Israel, I doubt such a peace can even begin, but if it does begin, it won’t last. The worst scenario is there is no cease fire, the war in Gaza keeps escalating, Israel feels backed into a corner and desperate, and it unleashes its nuclear weapons, and HAMAS pretends it is Snow White and had nothing to do with it.
As for me, my Polish Jew great grandfather immigrant married a Southern Baptist woman, and they raised their children in a Baptist church, and their grandchildren and great grandchildren, including me, were raised in that church. My mother left that church for the Episcopal variation, and took me and my younger brother and sister with her. I eventually left that church and Christendom, and went searching for something that worked for me, and then I was met by angels known in the Bible, who stood me before endless mirrors, and turned me upside down and inside out and every which a way but loose, and they changed my thinking on just about everything.
Along the way, I met a Jewish man, who had left Judaism and was deep into the New Age and Yoga and Tao spiritual practices. R was very reactive to anything he viewed as anti-semitic, and I had to be very careful when I discussed Judaism and Israel with him. By and by, I was captured by the aforesaid angels, and much later, R was captured by them, and they started doing to him what they were doing to me, and his views about everything were being challenged.
We lived in different areas of the country, and we talked a lot on the telephone. While we were talking one day, he said he was hearing that the cause of the Jewish diaspora was the Jews had rejected the Christ. R was disheveled. We knew what Christendom, in the main, viewed as the Christ was very different from the actual Christ. We were not Christians. We belonged to no religion. We were being pushed to our limits by angels, to be something entirely different from what we were raised to be and grew up hoping to be.
Eventually, R was put with a woman, and while there was a great attraction between them, there was something in her that caused her to want to bolt and run, which distressed him greatly. So, one day, I asked him if he wanted me to try to see if I could learn what was going on with her? He said, yes. All of that was on the telephone. As soon as I got off the phone with him, I was stunned to hear that his lady had been Adolph Hitler in a prior life. I emailed him what I had heard, and he emailed back what a horrible person I was and then he tore into me. That was the end of our relationship on this world.
That was in early 2001. Three nights before 9/11, Archangel Michael asked me in my sleep, “Will you make a prayer for a Divine Intervention for all of humanity?” I woke up, wondering what that was about, and made the prayer and went back to sleep. On 9/11, my concern was America would get into a foreign war, like Vietnam, which it could not win. .A few days later, as I walked out of a US Post Office, Michael told me that America needed to get out of the Middle East altogether, and let Israel and Islam work it out, or fight it out, and in that way learn which, if either, were God’s chosen people. I published all of that about 9/11 many times online, and with the exception of a handful of people, it was a waste of breath.
So, when you call me a Zionist, Mr. Raven, you prove in spades that you do not know me. And, when you lay all the blame for what is going on today in Gaza on Israel, you prove you are about as tunnel-visioned as my old Jewish friend R. The fact is, Hamas went into Israel and carried out what, in America, would be called a massive school or nightclub shooting, and HAMAS took a lot of civilian hostages back into Gaza, and boasted about it, as if HAMAS had done something wonderful, which they will learn in the afterlife, if not before, was an atrocity, and their karma for it not to their liking, The Zionists in Israel and America, and the American right and left, who support Israel, will have similar rude awakenings when they reach the afterlife.
Patris
You are wrong, Mr. Raven.
Sloan, Every one of us will have a rude awakening - or perhaps oblivion and assumption into a state of nonbeing that would be a gift.
Sloan Bashinsky
Eek!
Patris Just who do you suspect I am?
Sloan Bashinsky No clue, but am curious. Your output at your Substack newsletter ain’t no friend of conventional thinking, often thought to be wisdom.
Patris
Just a human being.
Sloan Bashinsky
Indeed, and then some
Along somewhat similar lines raised by Patris, two days ago, this was posted into the Reddit r/spirituality group, which I joined during the Covid shutdown. I was the first person to respond, and there were a couple of hundred other comments, and no response to my comment. Imagine what this world might be like if national leaders were steered and corrected by angels known in the Bible.
Yust_State_1639
What is a job you have as a spiritual person and enjoy?
Share below:)
Puzzleheaded_Drop_81
In early 1987, my 45th year, I made a desperate prayer, "Dear God, please help me, I do not wish to die like this, failed." Pause. "I offer my life to human service." About ten days passed. I woke out of my sleep in the wee hours, maybe 2 am, and saw two beings hovering above me in the darkness, shaped like shifts, white with tint of blue, which I thought were angels. I heard, "This will push you to your limits, but you asked for it and we are going to give it to you." I remember the prayer I had made, and saw a white flash and was physically jolted by something electrical, which happened two more times very quickly. The beings dissolved. I lay shaking and sweating, and awed, and feeling a bit more important about myself than was smart. The changes began slowly, and picked up pace. I was stood before many mirrors and turned every which a way but loose and upside down and inside out. There were long stretches when I wanted to kill myself. I came to understand that I was shanghaied, by God. If that word bothers you, substitute your word for God. That was my job, trying to keep up, stay in sync with my training and guidance, which came in my dreams, in visions, in poetry that leaped out of me, in body sensations, in dreams other people had about me. That's still my job. It's like being from another planet, waiting and hoping for the mother shin to return, as I get up each day and deal with what is in front of me, as best as I can. That's the entire program. Sometimes it is fun. Most of the time is is taxing. I worry ongoing about getting out of sync with God, and am reminded when I am out of sync. Some reminders are rough. Some reminders are terrifying.
It looks to me that humanity, in the main, is still in diapers, clueless.
