Monsters because they worship a monster
Greetings, fellow Dot Calm Readers, Truth Crusaders, and Freedom Fighters!
I hope you had a safe, restful weekend. Me...I finally got a good night's sleep, for the first time in weeks, and woke up finally feeling somewhat human on Saturday morning. One nice cuppa coffee later, and I was ready to start the weekend.
I still seem to be wrapped around the axle about the Republican Christo-fascists and their skrooed-up way of thinking, so here goze with todaze rant...
First of all, how dare these assholes call themselves "pro-life"?
They're unabashedly pro-war, pro-death penalty, pro-guns everywhere, pro-cutting taxes on the rich, anti-social programs for the disadvantaged, anti-health care, anti-vaccine, anti-science.... News flash: these positions kill. These are NOT the policies of people who are in any sense pro-life.
The best they can call themselves realistically is pro-forced-birth-of-young-and-poor-women's-fetuses. Why? Because women who are old enough and who have the financial means will travel wherever they need to to get the safe abortions our Constitution guarantees them but the Christo-fascists deny them. Unless or until the Christo-fascists start jailing all pregnant women to force all women to birth their fetuses, too, they can't even call themselves pro-fetus. Of course, these Christo-fascist authoritarians would just love a government small enough to monitor every single American
We all know from what the Christo-fascists' say that they pretty much hate you after you've been born. Just listen to all the Republican campaign rhetoric if you need confirmation of that fact. Unless you are a straight, white, male, rich Christian, the Christo-fascists haven't a bit of use for you and would rather you left the country (when they're feeling...merciful). Isn't it ironic that Republicans hate most Americans...which, to me, means that they hate America...while accusing liberals--who want everyone to be treated humanely and have equal opportunities--of hating America? It wobbles the mind.
The sad reality is that Republican campaign speech isn't just rhetoric. It's policy. Governors like Scott Walker, Sam Brownback, and Piyush Jindal worked long and hard to impoverish their poorer populations as much as inhumanly possible. Poverty kills, friends. But, hey...it doesn't affect us rich white Christian male folks...those are only poor people, and they're poor because they're evil--let them die, preferably quickly. We won't say that last part out loud, oh no. We'll just say, "Bless their hearts--we'll pray for them." As if prayer could fix anything except a guilty conscience. And--worse--they drink the prosperity gospel Kool-Aid that teaches them that being disgustingly rich because you stepped on and skrooed everyone in your path makes you godly and blessed by Jee-zus compared to those evil poor people.
One important root of Christo-fascism is the astounding lack of empathy that allows these otherwise (I like to think) decent, intelligent people to act like monsters when the less fortunate are concerned...when anyone who fits their not-me category is concerned.
Did you realize that their religion foments and endorses all the inhumanity?
Don't take my word for it...
Let's open our Bibles, now, children--Sunday school's happening on Monday today.
Let's look at one of Jesus' teachings that everyone loves: do unto others as you would have them do unto you. By the way, He didn't make up the part about loving one's neighbor as oneself, which the so-called "golden rule" is based on--He was simply quoting the Old Testament, Leviticus 19:18. But look at the command itself: it's not about empathy at all. It's still authoritarian in nature. It's about treating others the way YOU want to be treated. If it were a command for empathy, it would exhort the listener to treat others the way THEY want to be treated--which is what I call the "platinum rule." So, even in the nicest, most lovey-dovey of Jesus' commands, there is zero empathy. I nonetheless find it mystifying that so many (most?) Christians who claim to venerate the golden rule commit such egregious offenses against others...are they saying that they would enjoy being verbally abused, sexually molested, gaslighted, and so on? Strange, strange people...but I digress.
Now let's look at the character of God in the Bible.
The minimum tally of people God personally kills and has His followers kill, not including the slaughters for which no death counts are provided, is between 2 and 3 million. Including estimates for the other slaughters, God kills approximately 25 million people--the link even includes some of the crazy, nonsensical reasons God has for blotting people out of existence. The Christians praise a "loving" God, but all that capricious killing doesn't sound very loving to me. "But that's the OLD Testament," Christians whine, conveniently forgetting for the moment their insistence that we believe the whole Bible literally--well, then, what about hell, which Jesus invented for us? Would a loving God deliberately create the vast majority of humanity just to throw them into hell to be tortured for all eternity for the finite "crimes" of being born in the wrong place (non-Christian nations), for disbelieving the obviously nonsensical, for being gay, for not worshiping Him exactly the way He demands, or for just plain being the humans He created them to be? A hateful, malevolent, sadistic God would do all that, but not a loving God. Nor a just God.
As Richard Dawkins so eloquently and concisely puts it in "The God Delusion," “The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”
For whatever might be nicey-nicey and lovey-dovey about God in the Bible...for whatever might merit praise and worship...there is all this malevolence and capriciously destructive behavior that you can't just deny or sweep under the rug if you're intellectually honest. Christians aren't. You must square "God is good" with "God is evil." If you are to believe the Bible as literal truth, you must acknowledge and accept that God is all that. Christians don't.
Personally, I can't tell the difference between God and some petty warlord like Saddam Hussein. Can you?
No wonder Christians are so schizophrenic. Their Bible demands that they believe it literally as the one and only Truth of history, science, and morality. But the history is disconfirmed by archeology, the science is clearly inaccurate, and God's actions are so clearly immoral.
Christians believe in and worship a deity that isn't so much a god as it is a demon. Whether they admit it or not, they worship something that loves to hate anything weaker than itself...a being that has no qualms about obliterating anyone or anything less powerful than itself simply because it can.
Don't you think that affects the believers? Don't you think that some of God's malevolence and bullying...some of His Supreme Lack of Empathy...have to rub off on them as they seek to become like Him in every way?
My Tea Party Christian friend is more godlike than he realizes (or would admit if he did realize).
And these people and their followers--like my Tea Party Christian friend who eats up all the Cruz family hatred and poison as if it were candy--VOTE. Yup, these hateful, malevolent people, who believe they're righteous little gods here on earth, who feel entitled to malign and starve those less fortunate or powerful than themselves VOTE. It's enough to keep me awake at night...or at least drive me to drink.
And that is why you should all buy stock in Fireball whiskey (you're welcome!).
Don't forget to read Dot Calm's shadow's favorite independent sources of news and information:
Daily Kos
AlterNet
Democracy Now!
Conservatives are Destroying our Future
Conservative Clown Car
Americans Against the Republican Party
Americans Against the Tea Party
...And, whatever you do,
VOTE BERNIE!!!!!
Please send him a buck o' five. This country needs to swing back to the center, which is where Bernie is...just like Eisenhower was. I have a movie posted below in which Dot Calm's and my favorite, Noam Chomsky, discusses Bernie...did you realize that, in some areas, Bernie is farther to the right than Ike was? It sucks bawls that so many Americans would rather believe the lunacy spewed by the Cruz family than the actual truths that would help all of us live better lives.
...*sigh*
- Dot Calm's shadow
Blogger disclaimer: please ignore all weird, wonky, and stoopit Blogger formatting, random font colors, random numbers of line spaces, etc. Sometimes, the idiots who program Blogger give it a mindless of its own, and it resists all attempts at sensible formatting. Grrr!
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Not responsible for keys getting in the
way when headed to the right ones.
Not responsible for misspellings. Too lazy
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where they belong...put them in.
Not responsible for punctuation or grammar;
consider poetic license being in effect.
Drive a HYBRID.
Leave a lighter footprint on the planet.
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ATTENTION, REPUBLICANS!
The Kenyan Muslim
liberal fascist
weak dictator
Obama is coming
for your guns 'n' Bibles
November 8, 2016.
DO NOT
LEAVE YOUR HOUSE
THAT DAY
FOR ANY REASON!
The rights you save
may be your own!
for your guns 'n' Bibles
November 8, 2016.
DO NOT
LEAVE YOUR HOUSE
THAT DAY
FOR ANY REASON!
The rights you save
may be your own!
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Courtesy of Daily Kos, it's
Avenging Uterus vs Donald Trump!
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A massive haul of 475 pledged delegates will be up for grabs in California's June 7th election. We hope to win a big majority of those.
Since this is a people-powered campaign, we're asking for your help – in any of the following four ways – to do that!
1. Call some California voters now. We're working to get as many Californians as possible registered to vote for Bernie before the voter registration deadline this Monday. Lots of voters – even those in other parties – are looking for the strongest candidate to beat Trump, and polls consistently show that that's Bernie.
2. Sign up to call California voters later. Since California offers online voter registration, we'll be making calls right up through the deadline Monday
evening. And every voter we can register, or re-register as a Democrat
(or "no party preference"), is another potential vote for Bernie.
3. Share our California voter registration page on Facebook.
If you have friends in California, tag them and ask them to spread the
word too. Voter registration numbers are already trending up this year
in the Golden State, so let's keep that momentum going!
4. Contribute to support our campaign.
We don't take money from super PACs, and have shocked the political
establishment by showing that Americans just like you are eager and
ready to fund a grassroots campaign that's not beholden
to wealthy donors. Your donation will help keep our political
revolution rolling all the way into the Democratic convention in July.
We're staying in this fight all the way to the convention,
because we know that Bernie is the strongest candidate to beat Trump in
the fall. Every state we win and every vote we earn strengthens
our hand in delivering that message at the convention in Philadelphia,
and signals to the political establishment that we will not accept the
status quo of a corrupt political system that holds in place a rigged
economy.
In solidarity,
Team Bernie
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still fighting to change Wal-Mart
Help get our message to the Walton heirs: join our Thunderclap
Dear Friend,
In the past few weeks, over 52,000 CREDO supporters have signed my petition calling on Walmart to make meaningful changes to our workplace. I’m speaking out with OUR Walmart because I want to change this company for the better. And having the support of our larger community is one crucial step towards that goal.
If Walmart paid family-sustaining wages and provided full-time hours, it could really be a force for good in our communities. Walmart is the largest retailer in the world and the Walton heirs, who own half the company, are the richest family in America. Paying poverty wages is a choice. Keeping hours and staffing levels low is a choice. I think if enough people speak out about these things, the Waltons might make a different choice.
On June 3, the morning of Walmart’s annual shareholder meeting, we’re organizing a Thunderclap. For the uninitiated, a Thunderclap is a social media tool that blasts a wave of posts from Twitter, Facebook, and/or Tumblr from supporters at a particular time—provided enough people sign up.
Help get our message to the Walton heirs. Sign up to join our Thunderclap.
If enough supporters join our Thunderclap, we’ll blast a wave of posts from hundreds of Walmart workers like me and supporters at 9:00 on the morning of Walmart’s shareholder meeting. Meanwhile, a group of OUR Walmart members will be arriving in Bentonville to deliver the petition for $15, full-time hours, and respect directly to the CEO and the Waltons.
Join us. Call on the Waltons to pay a living wage and provide full-time hours to all associates.
If you don't have a Facebook or Twitter account, you can still stand with us and spread the call for change at Walmart by forwarding this e-mail to a friend.
I believe we can change Walmart for the better. That’s why I’m still fighting. I hope you’ll join me.
Jaffet Alamilla
OUR Walmart
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| Tell President Obama: Close the hedge fund tax loophole | |
| Petition to President Obama:
"Direct the Treasury Department to use its existing authority to close the carried interest loophole that allows hedge fund managers to dodge billions in taxes."
Add your name:
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From ATTN: McDonald's confesses that minimum wage HELPS business!Hi there,
This week, ATTN: shared rather surprising news from McDonald's CEO, Steve Easterbrook, who admitted that his company's decision to improve worker wages and benefits has actually resulted in improved sales, contrary to what many skeptics predicted would hurt the business. "The improvements we made to our compensation and benefits package to employees in U.S.-company operated restaurants, along with expanding [the tuition assistance program] Archways to Opportunity ... have resulted in lower crew turnover and higher customer satisfaction scores," he told Wall Street analysts.
This statement reflects what ATTN: has been reporting for months: raising the minimum wage is good for business. Better wages increase employee morale, retention, and improve service quality, all the while giving workers more resources to feed their families and afford basic necessities. While McDonald's and many big fast food chains still have a long way to go to better improve worker salaries and conditions, Easterbrook's statement is definitely a step in the right direction.
To learn more about why raising the minimum wage is good for business, watch our recent interview with U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown here:
Other stories worth your attention this week:
+ The Ban on Medical Marijuana Research Is Totally Reckless
+ We Need to Stop Judging Men for Non-Masculine Clothing Choices
+ It's Time to Stop Prosecuting Kids as Adults
+ Boys Shouldn't Be Taught That Affection Is a Sign of Weakness
+ This Viral Post Reveals the Hidden Way Women Keep Each Other Safe in Public
Talk to you soon,
Matthew
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Fifty-eight percent.
That’s how many Americans — according to a just-released Gallup poll — would prefer to replace our current health insurance system “with a federally funded healthcare program providing insurance for all Americans.”
Including four out of ten Republicans!
For comparison, if a president gets more than 58% of the vote — which only Warren Harding (1920), Franklin Roosevelt (1936), Lyndon Johnson (1964), Richard Nixon (1972) and Ronald Reagan (1984) have managed — it is considered a landslide.
In other words, Americans agree that our country must — like every other wealthy nation on Earth — guarantee health care to ALL of its citizens.
Sign the petition: We the People demand and deserve single-payer, Medicare for All, universal health coverage.
Perhaps even more telling, the Gallup poll revealed that only 22% of Americans would want to repeal Affordable Care Act and NOT replace it with single-payer, Medicare for All, universal coverage.
This is a moral imperative.
And the time is NOW.
– The Entire Team at Public Citizen
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| Tell Democratic leaders: Don’t let Republicans block a raise for America | |
| Petition to Democratic leaders:
"Don’t let Republicans block a raise for millions of Americans by impeding overtime reforms."
Add your name:
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From Sean Patrick Maloney for Congress
In a few minutes, I’ll stand up to speak on the floor of the
House against an appalling anti-LGBTQ provision Republicans snuck into
the National Defense Authorization Act. The measure, called the Russell
Amendment, would take away basic protections from people just because of
who they are or who they love.
I was raised in a patriotic house by a Navy veteran. I’m outraged
to see our national security used to further bigotry and
discrimination. I’m taking a stand because I can’t look my children in
the eye and tell them I cast a vote for discrimination.I’m asking you to stand with me: Add your name now to tell the House to stop the Russell Amendment.
Thank you,
Sean-----------------------------------------------------------------
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| The military’s sexual assault epidemic | |
| Tell the Senate:
"Stand up for victims of sexual assault in the military and pass the Military Justice Improvement Act as an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act."
Add your name:
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Remember when Donald Trump's lead in the Iowa caucus was shrinking by the day and he backed out of the final debate to hold a fundraiser for veterans?
It's pretty bad that he would lie about what he raised for veterans charities, and apologies aren't enough. Trump is a billionaire. Or at least a millionaire ... probably (we'd only know if he'd released his taxes). It's time for him to personally fork over the millions of dollars he said he raised, but didn't. Add your name if you agree:
Tell Donald Trump, contribute the millions of dollars you claimed to have raised to some of the great charitable organizations out there working hard for our veterans.
The truth is, Donald Trump is a massive fraud -- a "carnival barker" as one-time presidential candidate Martin O'Malley put it. And if he keeps putting veterans in the middle of his three ring circus just to elevate himself, he's going to eventually pay a price. We're happy to help make sure that day comes.
All my best,
Jon Soltz
Iraq War Veteran & Chairman
VoteVets
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Sign if you agree: workers shouldn't have to wear diapers instead of taking breaks!
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| Tell the Department of Labor: Stand up for poultry workers | |
| Tell the Department of Labor:
“Investigate the inhumane treatment and horrible working conditions at poultry and egg processing factories, and step in to enforce fair labor standards.”
Add your name:
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Supreme Court Justice Rafael "Ted" Cruz
...if Trump gets into the White House,
this nightmare could become our reality
Supreme Court Justice Rafael "Ted" Cruz
...if Trump gets into the White House,
this nightmare could become our reality
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Today's Headlines
DKos "Classics"
Cartoons
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AlterNet
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Movies--I gotcher movies here!Secular Talk on Noam Chomsky on Bernie Sanders
Noam talks about Herr Drumpf, too
Noam on a Trump presidency. It's beyond shameful what this country has done to Central America to drive their people to flee here, not for an idyllic privileged life but just to survive--read Howard Zinn's history, just as far back as the 1970s--and Trump lumps them all together as "Mexicans" and wants Mexico to build a wall to keep them out. I'll bet Mexico would gladly build that wall to keep US out if Trump gets into the White House. What's even more scary is the lock-step Republican policy on denying global warming. In "Silenced Majority," Amy Goodman writes of the 2009 climate summit in which Republicans fought against change. She spoke with a 15-year-old boy from the Maldives--an archipelago nation, no part of which is much more than three feet above seal level. Republicans don't give a shit that the entire nation could go underwater in our lifetimes. So what? Doesn't affect them. But we here in the good ol' U. S. of A., as Noam points out, are effectively moving a few feet south every day because of global warming and Republican stonewalling. This DOES affect us--it affects us all, just as more mosquitos carrying more deadly diseases, like Zika, affect us all, and just like more--and more severe--floods, tornados, hurricanes, and droughts affect us all. No one on the planet is isolated, protected, or safe from global warming--not even all that money money money can protect the Republican rich. But, hey, Trump is cool with all that...just like he's cool with demanding more and worse torture and deliberately going after non-combatants. Now do you understand why I say that I'm scared of a Trump presidency and you should be, too?
Noam on who rules the world
Darkmatter2525 on disgruntled royalty. We could see this in our lifetime if Trump got into the White House. Unbridled global warming, anyone?
Rafael Cruz, Sr. explains "the average Black"...! I am sooo biting my tongue not to call Cruz, Sr, RETARDad...!!! (Hum, that actually has a nice ring to it...the batshit crazy narcissist father and son Christian Dominionist duo: RETARDad and DEFEATed.) Luckily, the Majority Report team's commentary adds enough comedy value to keep me from shooting my computer in anger at this willfully ignorant, deliberately deluded bozo. If that video still doesn't convince you that they're both demon spawn, I dunno what will. Ugh--click away...click away now, I tells ya...or those gawd-awful faces will get between you and your sleep!
My Tea Party Christian friend spouted some bullshit about Dilma Roussef, the impeached president of Brazil, being a socialist--as if being left of center is enough reason for her to have been impeached. What would you expect from someone who guzzles FUX Noise and DEFEATed Cruz's kool-aid that Democrats voted to "repeal the first amendment" when the reality is that they're trying to stanch the rampant money-in-politics corruption that is Citizens United? My poor friend is good hearted but gullible...especially if he really believes "money = speech" and "corporations = people." Like I said last time, it's still one person, one vote--not one dollar one vote, as FUX Noise and all their corporate cronies want--and corporations ain't people until one gets its period, gets preggers out of wedlock, loses a limb or three in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, or gets executed in Texas. But I digress. "Democracy Now!" called Roussef's ouster a corporate coup; apparently, Cenk Uygur of The Young Turks agrees. He points out some disturbing anomalies in the Reuters report regarding the incident. I think what sticks out most to me is that the captains and the kings (as Dot Calm would call them), who claim they impeached the unpopular Roussef for corruption, are replacing her with someone even more unpopular and who is known for--and was convicted for--corruption....
OK, I'm thoroughly depressed now! Here's something fun. Hope it puts a smile back on all of our faces: an installment, if you will, of Handyman Corner from my favorite duct tape devotee, Red Green!
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RETARDad and DEFEATed Cruz...
The batshit doesn't fall far from the sphincter!
-- Dot Calm's shadow
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posted by Dot Calm @ 5:21 PM
