The most violent element in society is ignorance. ~Emma Goldman

“I will veto every single beer” ~John McCain

PBS Special.

Wikipedia Entry. 

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. 

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.

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.

The beautiful thing about being atheist is the equal opportunity torture reserved for us in the afterlife. Sir Edmund Hillary, rather, I should just call him Edmund Hillary, as he would have preferred not to have been knighted, was simply another great human who now enjoys the endless discomfort of a torturous afterlife of whichever conflicting ideology happens to be true.

I sometimes wonder about it myself, having long ago been freed of the burden such a demonstrably evil concept held over me, it is a curiosity to me how normal people still believe wholeheartedly in myths of our ancestors to such a degree.

Hell, the concept, the word, is a weapon. Its power magnified by the intellect. No lay clergy could envision the hell of my nightmares, or the hell of Vonnegut’s nightmares, as the potential revelations of Einstein brings me to shudder… I may not be half as intelligent, but I understand enough. Hell is a mental ball of fire that feeds off of imagination. The least imaginable, the religious among us, fail to fully grasp the meaning of their construct, their greatest achievement, through mental anguish and torture, the servitude of man’s mind.

I will be joining Einstein, Vonnegut, Asimov, Hillary, Ingersoll, Russell, and the likes of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Paine, and Thomas Jefferson in whatever hell turns out to be the correct one. In fact, I can’t think of a single mentor of mine, a single hero from the past, Winston Churchill included, who won’t greet me at the gates of the one true hell.

Perhaps a real god is much smarter than those he allows to talk for himself/herself… suppose maybe, these people are the one’s who, in their stubborn rejection of false reality, actually obtain the greatest in love and respect from the creator…

Imagine, a God who creates the Universe, who then, after so many failed attempts to create a unique, autonomous creation, fully endowed with free-thought and a rational mind, creates humans. In the creation, he makes the entire world, so obviously devoid of any evidence of his existence, that the only truth that can be obtained by his creations is his lack of existence. As he observes, completely and utterly removed from their lives, he waits patiently for those who have honored him the greatest with their pursuit of knowledge, their love of the minds of men, the pursuit of justice and fairness and all that is truly good, the kind of good that fires all the right chemicals to create that warm glow… These people, at the end of nights, will be rewarded with the revelation of the creator’s true existence, and an opportunity to continue that pursuit to the moment of full satiation and satisfaction, to end the journey of life, with the final knowledge of all things…

That would be bliss. That would be heaven. This creator, this benevolent awesome power, is too wise, and too loving, and too careful to allow any sort of eternal punishment for his creation. The chance for life was an unrequested reward. The pursuit of knowledge, pursuit of all that there is to know would be the greatest gift his creation could give to him, and in response, these people would be rewarded with that which they seek. The only “punishment” that would exist would be the missed opportunity. The millions upon millions of people who go their whole lives getting others to regret theirs, and seeking an easy mental state, the worship of a god whose existence is hidden completely from them…

Throughout time, the free-thinkers and pursuers of knowledge are the only unmistakable mark of a creator. The only proof, in all of time, of the existence of any intelligent force, whatsoever, is the existence of those that don’t believe. As if, the Creator himself, intended that to be the truth, in order to find those most desiring the gift of this undeserved reward this short existence.

I’ve been bitching to my buddy Micah (Like, actually whining, I don’t know why he puts up with me sometimes) for the past few months about the abuse of the Middletown Police Department and the local government. I’ve avoided local politics, and for the most part, been keeping my nose clean with any local activism. I’m accustomed to being pulled over for one thing or another, in my mind usually for my “controversial” car decals (Two Darwin Fish…). Here, I’ve been pulled over twice for a “random” check. I’ve been asked in malls to remove my hands from my sweater, and I’ve had my keys confiscated by a police officer for not having my Environmental decal displayed, who then proceeded to lie to me about the suspension of my registration. I had to attend a Tribunal to argue in front of the judge that the suspension of my registration was against the law, seeing as I didn’t break a law. I wrote a lengthy and well written complaint to internal affairs about the whole ordeal, to which the local Middletown Police refused to acknowledge. I brought the issue with the local government, with no proper confirmation or acknowledgment that my complaints reached the right sources. Meantime, the cops are all driving brand new Dodge Chargers.

From Micah:

“Providence AP. Middletown School District. Wow. We are famous as privacy abusers. You are right Dane (Savor that, by the way), Middletown is fast becoming a police state.”

Scrolling across Faux News the last few nights has been the headline that here in Middletown, RI, our lovely local government and school board will place electronic tracking devices in Elementary School Students to test better communications between teachers and parents with students.

Ironic. I happen to be in the right place at the right time. This was actually my elementary school in the short time I lived here, almost 20 years ago. There is still a time capsule in the playground from my Kindergarten class, I’m sure, long forgotten.

No, it’s really not funny. The big guns (ACLU) are coming in for this one, and coupled with national attention, it won’t be an issue for too long. This has been Micah’s home for a lot longer than mine. We both have come to a fairly solid middle-ground, myself leaving behind the fetters of a Big Government economy, and Micah leaving behind the detritus of Big Government social values. Perhaps we should consider running for local government, if anything, to protect our neighbors and friends from abuse of the system, something that is clearly necessary.

As an epsilon of the “We”, noted as the first word of the preamble of the Constitution of the United States, my opinion on certain matters is relatively worthless. You should be aware that this of course has no bearing on my desire to spread my opinion, which I deem mildly superior to most. Undoubtedly, this will leave some to declare a nimiety of arrogance, for which I have no real rebuttal, save my disclaimer that I am always willing to change my mind when confronted with arguments coupled in deep intuition, operating within abstraction of concepts logically constructed. You can find me most often clashing with the shrinking “…pool of well-informed, clear-thinking Americans…” as the ever orotund Bill O’Reilly calls them, the clear contrast to academic professionals, scientists, writers, journalists, teachers, and the leaders in arts and entertainment. Indeed.

In the early dystopian literature of post 1905 we were introduced to the idea of totalitarian states, from Yevgeny Zamyain’s novel We (coincidental relation to the previous pronoun), Animal Farm , Brave New World, and Nineteen Eighty-Four, to Ayn Rand’s Anthem, and Vonnegut’s first novel Player Piano. In these novels the idea of socialism is brought to bear on the consequences of lost individualism. The industrial statehoods that rule the lives of people reflect the conformity, unity, and stability wrought from the stagnation of rational men and women. The endless message of devaluation, of depravity undefined, a common enemy built from the masses, and collective fears forged by the power of mass media, control better than any removed power or government ever could hope to dream. When the message is imposed, by mental coercion, and the threat of physical coercion, it is as uncontrollable as the fires of a tire yard. The message hides itself among the detritus of cleverly forged words and meanings. Associations are abstractions, and concepts are abused. Like liberalism turned suddenly, in the span of twenty years to an evil word, and conservatism, the concept of conservation and preservation of values, suddenly means the power to repel change, and stagnate progress, so has liberty, the most important word ever created by humanity, fallen to destruction of imposed definitions and meaning. Liberty is the “freedom” to obey. Liberty is the signing of your life over to someone or something else. Liberty is obeying the marching orders of dead men and dead concepts, defined and instructed by living “medians” as links between the two. The words that are missing from the intent are shockingly apparent, like exposed women in a sea of soldiers. We, the “links” are the only ones who understand the “real” meaning of the Constitution. We, the self-defined “leaders” are the only ones who understand and speak the “real” meaning of God’s word. Absolute ideals forged in stone, translated by fools, packaged to idiots.

And on target, Presidential Candidate Mike Huckabee delivers a sermon of servitude:

“When you give yourself to Christ, some relationships have to go,” he said. “It’s no longer your life; you’ve signed it over.”

Likening service to God to service in the military, Huckabee said “there is suffering in the conditioning for battle” and “you obey the orders.”

I’ll simply and unequivocally not stand for it. I’ll not be told what my life means to me, or what I will do with it. This is beyond my restive spirit, beyond my own frustration at the forces of irrational thought. This is a man who understands the closing gaps, and means to choke the last vestals of sanity from our once proud Republic. This isn’t just a call for a theocracy, a tyranny, a totalitarian statehood. It is the call, as it has always been, for the end of dissent and free-thought. The values of the our society are seeped in the essence of true liberty, of free-thought, of true freedom, and the very real thirst for knowledge and desires and passions of the minds of men. Beware always the disclaimer on liberty, the prepositions. Men and women who desire such freedom from tyranny will inevitably rebel against any definition of freedom that contains the words “always”, “must”, “for”, “from” and “through”.

Freedom is you. It is YOUR ability to establish YOUR values, with the respect and acceptance of OTHER’S values.

If we cannot define freedom, we must recognize what it is not:

Freedom must not include _______
Freedom is only from _______
Freedom is always ________
Freedom is for _______
Freedom is only _______

And you will hear it spoken, as a finality, and the stamp of your slavery, and your servitude in one way:

Freedom is only through_____ always for _____ and only from ______.

Your life truly is yours. You are autonomous, and you are the only master of your own person. Stand against the people who tell you otherwise. Stand against them or lose your only chance for freedom, the one freedom that hasn’t been taken from you… the freedom to fight for liberty’s very meaning.