Including one about the Tao of Dystopia and a post entitled “Scrod Muffins and the Sanctimonious Failure of the Civil Rights Movement”…

Alas, minds, like air filters, need to be changed… preferably often. I am undergoing an calculating change of expression, one which will manifest itself into a new site design.

But I will spare you the “under construction”.

I suppose I could choose the easy way out and quote passages from select poems and essays I admire…

Some time, it will be found that people can be changed only by changing their surroundings. It is alleged that, at least ninety- five per cent. of the criminals transported from England to Australia and other penal colonies, became good and useful citizens in a new world. Free from former associates and associations, from the necessities of a hard, cruel, and competitive civilization, they became, for the most part, honest people. This immense fact throws more light upon social questions than all the theories of the world. All people are not able to support themselves. They lack intelligence, industry, cunning — in short, capacity. They are continually falling by the way. In the midst of plenty, they are hungry. Larceny is born of want and opportunity. In passion’s storm, the will is wrecked upon the reefs and rocks of crime.

The complex, tangled web of thought and dream, of perception and memory, of imagination and judgment, of wish and will and want — the woven wonder of a life — has never yet been raveled back to simple threads.

Shall we not become charitable and just, when we know that every act is but condition’s fruit; that Nature, with her countless hands, scatters the seeds of tears and crimes — of every virtue and of every joy; that all the base and vile are victims of the Blind, and that the good and great have, in the lottery of life, by chance or fate, drawn heart and brain?

-Robert Ingersoll  “The Brain and The Bible”

I’ve been outraged over inane comments, and I’ve been generally perturbed by speeches and policies of politicians before…

I have never gotten over Hillary Clinton’s speech to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in May of 2006, in which she speaks about young people and college, and the sense of entitlement we feel, saying that we think “work is a four-letter word”. It was not a slip, and it was personally offensive. Clinton apologized after her daughter made light of the remark, but only to her daughter. This comment remains, out in the void, as a definitive position of Hillary towards young college educated people today. I was personally offended, and thinking about it still makes me bitter, in a much more profound way than any half-hearted religious spewing I occasionally hear. That she would then only appologize to her daughter and her friends was a coup de grâce. Her entitled daughter, no doubt intelligent, was placed high in the business world upon her own graduation from a school that few would argue against that being the President’s daughter didn’t hurt her admission chances… while many of us work hard to find and keep these elusive “50K jobs” we never feel entitled to them… I personally know many of my friends are very hard up, unable to find jobs after completing their degrees, and work in retail, trying to secure their own slice of the American Dream, without the added bonus of being the “First Daughter”.

I don’t think Obama would say something like this, because Obama thinks differently. His slips don’t represent what he feels, and when they do, like the recent “bittergate” I generally agree with him.

I think Clinton owes American’s youth an apology, not her wealthy and secretive and spoiled sock-puppet of a daughter who treats the press like her own personal secretary, choosing what and when she will chime in…

I had nothing against Chelsea or Hillary, but this was a mockery that has gone uncriticized to the degree it deserves, probably because, although we may not be lazy, my generation does appear rather apathetic. For that, I don’t apologize.

I emerge from another self-imposed public exile with a mind overburdened with the daily privation of intellectual discourse. Every day I read another piece of excrescence from Dinesh D’Souza, or a local opinion column about the collectivism, communism, or statism of non-belief, about how atheism is teaming up with Islam, threatening our kids, or destroying society; everyday I force myself, for some unknown mental sadistic reason, to scroll through another contentious and jejune dictum on the greatness of superstition and mental obedience. I came home last night to another piece of D’Souza’s agitprop, and that shit-eating grin of his, and I lost it emotionally. The unending stream of garbage spouting the same refuted points is exhausting. I don’t have the time or the energy to single handily combat all of it. Most of the time I pass the articles over to AANR, sometimes I feel better commenting myself, but of late it just seems to be gaining momentum. One-liner punditry, worthless, and devoid of any real substance, spewed over and over; I marvel at my passionate contemporaries’ ability to brush off most of it as merely the death throes of a wasting and dying religion.

Let them have their precious beliefs one might say; and I hear you. My issue is not the lay-believer, the weekly participant, or even the piously devout who twist their own revelations towards reason to fit into society. On the contrary, my problem lies with the twisting of reality to fit into the revelations! The revision of history, the systematic theology of apologetics and Christian defense of Theonomy, and the current political Theocratic Dominionism prevailing through our culture and politics.

The abuses of the clergy and their megalithic churches is undeniable. It is a matter of principle and reason, and chiefly a matter of philosophical understanding.

The modern day atheist is the intellectual descendant of Enlightenment monism. This is not a theory, this is fact. It was with even greater courage and greatness that any true non-believers existed prior to 1859, to mollify the mental disposition towards authoritative natural conscience would have required profound intelligence, prevalent in men like Spinoza and Hume.

Today it is easier to obtain the truth, requiring nothing more than selective readings of great minds. I always ask that in the spirit of discourse one reads and understands the best the opposition has to offer, as to realize that their best is wholly insufficient. Scientists do balk at the “atheism” of evolutionary science, but evolution is the final brick in the philosophical destruction of revealed religions. Today it appears as if every major politician and leader must pander to the believers in our time in a way that is more barbaric than the early founding of our country. The deism of Jefferson, Paine, Franklin, Allen, Washington, Madison, and Adams was contrary to every utterance of the modern churches. Rights are endowed by the Creator, or Nature’s God, but the the rule of the people is by the people, not a god, and certainly not the god of the revealed religions! A single quote, completely in context, can sum the entire disdain for some of the most important Founding Fathers, if there still remains any uncertainty about the subject. In context, imagine Hillary Clinton, John McCain, or Barack Obama saying any of the phrases, and having a chance to remain in Presidential contention. Christianity has changed little since this time period, but it has gained tremendous power, against all expressive attempts to prevent a Theocracy. Imagine, as I have, the response Washington gave to Hancock about chaplains being assigned to the military; “Among many other weighty objections to the Measure, it has been suggested, that it has a tendency to introduce religious disputes into the Army, which above all things should be avoided, and in many instances would compel men to a mode of Worship which they do not profess.” He would not get away this today!

John Adams:
“Where do we find a precept in the Bible for Creeds, Confessions, Doctrines and Oaths, and whole carloads of trumpery that we find religion encumbered with in these days?”

Thomas Jefferson:
“The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as his father, in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter.”

James Madison:
“The difficulty of reconciling the Xn [Christian] mind to the absence of a religious tuition from a University established by law and at the common expense, is probably less with us than with you. The settled opinion here is that religion is essentially distinct from Civil Govt. and exempt from its cognizance; that a connection between them is injurous to both; that there are causes in the human breast, which insure the perpetuity of religion without the aid of law; that rival sects, with equal rights, exercise mutual censorships in favor of good morals; that if new sects arise with absurd opinions or overheated imaginations, the proper remedies lie in time, forbearance and example; that a legal establishment of religion without a toleration could not be thought of, and without a toleration, is no security for public quiet & harmony, but rather a source itself of discord & animosity; and finally that these opinions are support by experience, which has shewn that every relaxation of the alliance between Law & religion, from the partial example of Holland, to its consummation in Pennsylvania Delaware NJ, &c, has been found as safe in practice as it is sound in theory. Prior to the Revolution, the Episcopal Church was established by law in this State. On the Declaration of independence it was left with all other sects, to a self-support. And no doubt exists that there is much more of religion among us now than there ever was before the change; and particularly in the Sect which enjoyed the legal patronage. This proves rather more than, that the law is not necessary to the support of religion.”

Benjamin Franklin:
“…Some books against Deism fell into my hands….It happened that they wrought an effect on me quite contrary to what was intended by them; for the arguments of the Deists, which were quote to be refuted, appeared to me much stronger than the refutations, in short, I soon became a thorough Deist.”

Thomas Paine:
“The most detestable wickedness, the most horrid cruelties, and the greatest miseries that have afflicted the human race have had their origin in this thing called revelation, or revealed religion.”

Ethan Allen:
“Denominated a Deist, the reality of which I have never disputed, being conscious that I am no Christian.”

—In this, I share only the philosophical belief that the enemy is not the religious, and that other atheists and agnostics ought to take the word Freethinker instead. “Revealed” religion is the enemy of reason, that which accepts revelation as in any way a reliable source of knowledge and information about the world. All religions that profess revelation as this source, are the enemies of reason, and contrary to the Freethinker, contrary to the Founders of this country.

Another organization posing as a legitimate “watchdog” group has emerged and defecated an interesting new study (By study, I mean in the theistic sense, where one has a revelation of a hypothesis and fills in the answer themselves). The organization is called the Culture and Media Institute, and it’s the child of the infamous Media Research Center whose fair and unbiased headline reads “Documenting, Exposing, and Neutralizing Liberal Media Bias”. I don’t exactly know what neutralize means in this context, but all joking aside, that is rather alarming. So this is how it works. The organization says something, for instance in this case, that atheism is given favorable coverage in the press, and instantly, several major batshit news organizations write Non-Op pieces about the “study” that has effectively exposed an evil atheist conspiracy in the news media. You can find examples of this phenomena here and here.

What is particularly disturbing about this tactic is how these collective bodies of news organizations are attempting to flood the media with certain memes. One parent organization creates a “research” group that then funds a “study” which is then given to the collective news organizations to spread around… Before long the image that the “liberal” media somehow protects atheism (something we personally know is absurdly false, thanks Paula Zahn) is tossed around the in people’s heads as if it were a legitimate or valid claim. The meme flooding is not entirely unique, it exists in less fashionable form by organizations like the Heritage Foundation and the Discovery Institute, both of which are infamous for trumping “talking points” that have no basis in reality.

The head of these organizations is a man named Brent Bozell, who looks eerily like a block of stomach cheese and a viking.

I feel like we shouldn’t be condoning vikings to run media research groups. They may try to keep the fact that they raped and pillaged as a bloodsport out of the news.

Associated Press - March 11, 2008 12:54 PM ET

CHICAGO (AP) - Atheist activist Rob Sherman says it’s unconstitutional for Governor Rod Blagojevich to give $1 million to a burned-out church.

Blagojevich has said Pilgrim Baptist Church would use the money for administrative offices and educational purposes so not to violate the separation of church and state.

But Sherman says it would. He appeared at a morning meeting of the Illinois Capital Development Board even though the governor’s proposal wasn’t on the agenda.

Sherman says the governor can give away money but only for secular services.

Blagojevich pledged the money because the initial $1 million he promised after a 2006 fire at the church mistakenly went to an unaffiliated school.
****************************************

Okay, what the fuck. Strip this man of his office and his ability to put this kind of money anywhere. Churches should not be asking for government money, period. This kind of insanity needs to stop, and good for Sherman and his family for what they are doing over there in Illinois. 

Let me make the superstitions of a nation
and I care not who makes its laws or its songs either.
– Mark Twain

From a padded leather chair encrusted with diamonds, a fat ass with a golden microphone weighs in on the rising costs of fuel:

“Make more money.”

The absurdity of this demand, as if it were so easy, that we as a people simply chose to ignore, on a desire to sit at home and eat from handouts and charity, the potential for easy money. That people working 60 hour work weeks, a higher average than any other country, to try and make ends meet, are somehow too stupid or unable to simple make more money to pay for gas.
This man is evil. As is the entire corruptive forces of Conservatism. Supported by your tax money, massive corporate welfare is a behemoth of a machine. Only in a fiat of total control, can disparity of wealth be so offensive, so utterly against the principles of humanity. This is not class warfare, this is not distribution of wealth. This is the allowance of the Divine Right of Kings. The mixing of the religious right with corporatism has created a modern version of the Tudors.
We are returning to the God Instituted Monarchy. In the 20th century we called this Fascism. This is absolutum dominium.

Welcome to the 21st century, the beginning of true Authoritative Dominionism.

In the current mire of the political process every piece and scrap of the ineffectual concept of “what matters” is tossed into the media mediums like a metaphysical Safari Supper, latching on to the already American Idol and Reality TV burdened minds of the superficial proletariat; the dying essence of our country hanging on the whim of the rusting metal hinges formally known as bipartisanship. The average citizen is devoid the requisite “informed citizenry” clause of the defining document of our Republic, and as an inevitable response we are left with conflicting and opposing ideologies vying for the scraps of a large ignorant horde of people whose collective power is the abiding spirit of mob rule. To this, there is no answer. So much complexity on something that should exist in harmony. A revisionist history of this country is nearly complete, and the corruption of the concept of Natural Rights is quickly becoming the final fiat that will sink the ship, and anchor her to a stifling regression from which she may never return. A rotting hegemony, wrung dry of any reason, fast centrifuging towards the extremes, the country’s blood is being separated and we are but a few elections from thralldom.

I am a man lacking in tempered responses to dire situations. I also lack knowledge of how to weave a basket underwater. Very few things come to the point of mortification than that of the destruction of higher education. The place most responsible for protecting this country from radical extremism is first to fall victim to it. I ask this, if a degree in Coaching is a Mickey Mouse degree, what do we have left to call a degree from Liberty University?

There needs to be a new term. There are hundreds of unrecognized accreditation mills in this country, and they are in return giving “accreditation” to joke schools with the approbation of the Bush Administration and Congress, as if it were the job of the Federal Government to decide what should be accepted in Academia. This is beyond madness, beyond transcending insanity, and beyond putrescence. This is ass.

This does not just pertain to organizations like the American Accrediting Association of Theological Institutions, American Association of Bible Colleges, and the World Online Education Accrediting Commission, all battling in a tight race for most absurd and ridiculous organizations on the planet, no no no, this also includes Department of Education toilet bowl floaters. The golden turds of worthless creditors. This includes the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools and The Association for Biblical Higher Education.

This country continues to revere ignorance. If a University in its mission statement excludes, as a badge of honor, basic science principles, why on Earth do we honor anything produced by that school, students included? These Universities do not believe in academic freedom. They do not believe in a battlefield for social and cultural ideas. They believe in one way of life only, and that this way ought to be honored to the highest degree in a system that was meant to reward higher education standards.

How long before we have completely revised science and history? With the combination of Frank Luntz-like punditry and degree-mill universities, why do people even ask why this country is getting dumber?

This is your list of the top ten things literally destroying this country:

1. Science education is confused with philosophy. Philosophy no longer rejects false logic and claims. Teaching that a “theory” is just a conjecture, a bit of possible explanation that has no backing, that Global Warming and Evolution is debatable.
2. Home-schooling. One person or group of a very specific one-minded world view can better teach a person over hundreds of teachers with varying degrees and expertise.
3. Fox News, in order to combat perceived liberal bias, has created an actual bias divide between once honorable media outlets. Tabloid news as legitimate. Highly biased conservative spin. The Banner. O’Reilly. Hannity.
4. Federalist controlled judicial system. They have fought to get power in the courts, and they have. Congratulations America, you are no longer free.
5. Push polling, loaded questions, loaded spam, loaded hoax emails.
6. Liberals not voting and “liberal”, the belief in limited government and maximized social freedom, as a bad word.
7. Talk radio monopoly. Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin, and Sean Hannity, unlettered and uninformed loud-mouths with nothing to add to the debate except one-liners on perceived ideologies that don’t promote a fascist state.
8. The revision of history, including false quote mining and poor sourcing. Examples include the belief that this was a Christian Nation and was founded as such…
9. Out of control powerful executive branch. Powerful corporatism, free market allowance of pure monopolies, lobbyist and fear politics to manufacture votes. War powers, and the breach of the separation of church and state.
10. Last, but most important, the inexcusably uninformed citizenry and social conservatism.

NPR had a fascinating discussion this morning about the apparent increase in religious fervor around the world. Alan Wolfe with the center for Religion and Public Life at Boston College on the show made the case that the idea that religion was increasing is false. In fact, the world is becoming far more secular, which is not only good for economic and social wealth, but also good for peace. Of course, America is an open sore of an exception. Increase of wealth usually means a decrease of religion, but in America the increasing religion is in extraordinarily divisive, although it is not a revival, it may be a sign of a real religious death.

It gets me thinking.

As America moves closer towards a fascist state, liberal democracy has been turned into almost a swear word. No longer is it important if prosperity exists as an opportunity for all, no longer does equality of opportunity matter, no longer does civil rights and basic freedoms matter. Our country glorifies corporatism on the corporate owned venues of media and literature, (DaneAndrade.com is owned solely by me, Dane Andrade fyi) our country promotes strong militant nationalism and a national religion. It scoffs at violation of basic freedoms like privacy and freedom of association, one national language, one style of culture, and one desired ethnicity, and it wills a strong federal government. This is called, ironically, Conservatism.

Conservatism can’t be dying, but perhaps it is the cause of dying religion. Of course, by dying, I don’t actually mean that it is dwindling… rather, the highest producers, largest educated minority of this country, the most charitable and giving factions of this country are quickly turning away from dogma and the fetters of Christian hegemony.

There is a worrying trend however… Some have argued that where the open economy and free market exists, old world religion will also die.

This is where the flaw exists. Prosperity may kill religion, especially in the early stages., but the evolving religion will find a way to inject itself into free systems, like a tree killing vine. Here, the most prosperous country in existence, religion is killing us.

Prosperity Gospels.

The religious answer to the free market. The religious answer to growing secularism. Brand the faith under Joel Osteen and mega-church, and watch it flourish. Now, rampant monopolistic corporatism coupled with faith-guided politicians is destroying any residual essence of free market culture, ideas, and will ultimately cripple the economy.

What does Christianity offer Americans? Overpowering federal legislation that allows the government more power in the churches and the churches more power to enact powerful freedom destroying laws.

I’m done insulting benign faiths. My target remains forever, till the day I die, the fundamentalism of evangelical faiths in America and other countries. I have eternally sworn that it will be over my carcass that any words of the Bible are ever put into law in this country. As a member of Americans United I have found religious allies in this… people who understand that basic religious freedom starts with preservation of your own enemy’s faith.

America is the most powerful country in the world, and it is becoming a theocratic fascist state. This is undeniable. There is no compelling argument against it. Nothing. The only argument there is, by some, is that this is an acceptable path for this country.

I beg to differ.

I have graduated from school and inherited a world devoid of the promises of liberty and  the freedoms I read about in school. Instead of fighting for new freedoms, instead of marching down the streets as a new generation, new knowledge, better understanding, I find myself fighting unbelievable regression. Backwards. I can’t fight for new things, I have to fight for things that were once already decided. Things as simple of as the basic religious freedom of the citizenry. I did not inherit a free country. I walked into the scene as the destruction of law and the understanding of history were beginning. Instead of fighting for the rights of others, I have to fight for basic rights away from people who should know better… We have never regressed before… we have never gone backwards, towards darkness, like we are doing today.

This is an open cry to my ruling countrymen and women. You fucked things up for us. And you better believe we are pissed. Baby-boomer generation has royally ass-raped this country and my generation. Never before can I look back at a past generation and decide with such anger and bitterness, that they have failed their sons and daughters. This country is not safer. This country is not freer. This country is not more prosperous. What the fuck were you people doing this whole time? Worrying about what other people were doing in their bedrooms, worrying about fetuses, worrying about growing a massive military while stripping basic infrastructure growing programs to shreds, worrying about who was the sexiest actor in Hollywood, worrying about what people injected into their bodies… In the name of the things that offend you personally, you have crippled the people you meant to save. Damn you.

Everyone in my generation should be PISSED. These aging morons in Congress, on both sides, are living in age of personal self satisfying, while acting like they are giving anything back to us. An entire generation has raped for itself, leaving us with a dying planet, a dying ecosystem, a dying economy, and dying freedoms.

Their own system of self-preservation is also going to fail under them… What happened to the desire to leave this world a better place for your children? Overweight, television watching, moron voting, failures.

We don’t owe you anything. What have you given us? An opportunity to succeed? An opportunity to create? Massive national debt, limited freedoms, never-ending wars, terrorism, dogmatic religious fervor… Those are wonderful things. Thank you.

This doesn’t include them all. There are many people in my life, including my parents, who are superb exceptions. But they are outnumbered by the Fox News watching zombie horde.

You are even voting against us… as if you know better at this point. Why is my generation so against yours? Why are we voting so differently? Greedy bastards.

We are voting this time. Maybe I’m a cynic. It just seems like we’ve been lied to…

All I can say, I promise you my generation will be voting this year… and you will be seeing a change.

I couldn’t have said it better.