Trump

[F-ZeroOne]

Well, more than a few would answer: "Putin".

[snaff]

Well, turns out Kanye West announced he was running for President and didn't even bother to file any of the necessary paperwork. Trump was bad enough, but a self-serving, self-promoting rapper would make an even worse President...

What puzzles me "clearly both of them know nothing about politics" .. even less of international politics .. so who's actually telling them what to do and what to say ?

Who's really "the president" ???

That's part of the good work that Trump has done. He's shown that his predecessors were basically doing nothing the whole time.

[merman]

Bullshit.
Trump was totally unprepared and unqualified for the job.
He didn't even know he had to HIRE staff to run the White House.

The end result is that he tried to run the country like he runs his (multiple failed) businesses - through threats and bluffs, favouring people who cosy up to him and flouting the law because that is how he has always acted.

All the books - John Bolton, his niece Mary Trump - paint the picture of a dumb narcissist.

Obama was a leader and achieved a lot. Clinton had his flaws but left America better off.
W was a moron in a suit.

[tufty]

Yeah, but Trump's played a lot of golf. That counts, right?

[Foozwah]

I'd first thought Kanye was being run as a spoiler on behalf of Drumpf, to drain off younger voters that might otherwise have voted Dem, but now I'm pretty sure he's just another egocentric narcissist with no fucking clue.

[Harlequin]

I'd first thought Kanye was being run as a spoiler on behalf of Drumpf, to drain off younger voters that might otherwise have voted Dem, but now I'm pretty sure he's just another egocentric narcissist with no fucking clue.

I see no mutual exclusivity. He is young, black and another popular media star, so could be seen as viable for that demographic (he had apparently intended to run in 2024). He also loves the DT's so much that he could possibly be easily manipulated by Agent Orange's people.

[Foozwah]

I'd first thought Kanye was being run as a spoiler on behalf of Drumpf, to drain off younger voters that might otherwise have voted Dem, but now I'm pretty sure he's just another egocentric narcissist with no fucking clue.

I see no mutual exclusivity. He is young, black and another popular media star, so could be seen as viable for that demographic (he had apparently intended to run in 2024). He also loves the DT's so much that he could possibly be easily manipulated by Agent Orange's people.

Yeah, you're probably right. And as the last four years have proven, there's no shortage of useful idiots.

Kanye West takes anti-vaccine, anti-abortion stance in US presidential bid

Regarding the development of a Covid-19 vaccine, he said: “It’s so many of our children that are being vaccinated and paralysed … So when they say the way we’re going to fix covid is with a vaccine, I’m extremely cautious. That’s the mark of the beast.

“They want to put chips inside of us, they want to do all kinds of things to make it where we can’t cross the gates of heaven.”

West added that Covid-19 was “all about God. We need to stop doing things that make God mad.”

I fucking give up.

[KlaxonCow]

Yeah, unfortunately, Kanye is another example of that most cruel irony of African American hyper-religiosity to "the white man's god".

Still mentally enslaved, even when the physical chains of enslavement were broken.

African slaves being traded to America were not Christian at their point of origin, they were made so - forced into it - by the so-called "civilising" influence of their slave masters. And I guess it gelled, and got stuck in African American culture, because Jesus is all about "blessed are the weak and vulnerable and poor", as they're easy prey for the "collection plate god" to scam.

It's also, of course, a terribly confused picture, as "American Jesus" has very little to nothing to do with the bloke you find in the Bible.

"American Jesus" backs the death penalty, while his Biblical counterpart infamously stopped a stoning with "let he who is without sin cast the first stone". "American Jesus" is armed with a gun for self-defence, while Biblical Jesus tells us "turn the other cheek". "American Jesus" loves neo-liberal profit-making, while Biblical Jesus was whipping - actually the only occasion where he got physically violent - those thieves out of the temple.

"American Jesus" is a conservative. While Biblical Jesus, though somewhat apolitical, was definitely a left-leaning radical - conservation of the status quo was, like, the polar opposite of what he was trying to do and he very explicitly says "fuck money" repeatedly throughout.

It's all bollocks, of course. But even within its own fictional canon, none of this makes any sense and it's just a cruel, cruel irony that African American culture is still so enamoured of "the white man's god". Because he definitely ain't the god in the Bible, he's a re-written deity that praises all the systems of profit and oppression that the white man built, in defiance of anything Jesus ever said.

And then, cruelly forced into it, the black man has been enthusiastically backing up the god of their oppression - see Exodus for more details on God's rules for owning slaves, as he was totally okay with that (and those rules include selling your own daughter into sex slavery!).

(To echo Gandhi: "I like your Christ but I don't like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ".)

[gilesgoat]

... "American Jesus" ...

It should be NOTED that American Christianity has LITTLE to do with Roman Catholic Christianity .. .. even Italian Mafia with all the shit they do "they know is wrong" but they believe in those principles you listed as "what Jesus really said".

What is funny is that things like "let he who is without sin cast the first stone" ARE in the Bible .. so how comes those people "following the Bible and Jesus SO MUCH" can negate/twist those principles.

Aslo .. about "money and capitalism and all that stuff" .. some studious could say that "Jesus was fundamentally a socialist, certainly not a believer in capitalism"

If it's all so "a nation by God" it should be "in principle" "the most socialist nation of all the planet" .. and how comes it's all the contrary and yet claims to be "so close to Jesus ?" ..

Does not make much sense huh ?

As you say it's not "Jesus" it's "American Jesus" ...

[gilesgoat]

Yeah, unfortunately, Kanye is another example of that most cruel irony of African American hyper-religiosity to "the white man's god".

Still mentally enslaved, even when the physical chains of enslavement were broken.

African slaves being traded to America were not Christian at their point of origin, they were made so - forced into it - by the so-called "civilising" influence of their slave masters. And I guess it gelled, and got stuck in African American culture, because Jesus is all about "blessed are the weak and vulnerable and poor", as they're easy prey for the "collection plate god" to scam.

It's also, of course, a terribly confused picture, as "American Jesus" has very little to nothing to do with the bloke you find in the Bible.

"American Jesus" backs the death penalty, while his Biblical counterpart infamously stopped a stoning with "let he who is without sin cast the first stone". "American Jesus" is armed with a gun for self-defence, while Biblical Jesus tells us "turn the other cheek". "American Jesus" loves neo-liberal profit-making, while Biblical Jesus was whipping - actually the only occasion where he got physically violent - those thieves out of the temple.

"American Jesus" is a conservative. While Biblical Jesus, though somewhat apolitical, was definitely a left-leaning radical - conservation of the status quo was, like, the polar opposite of what he was trying to do and he very explicitly says "fuck money" repeatedly throughout.

It's all bollocks, of course. But even within its own fictional canon, none of this makes any sense and it's just a cruel, cruel irony that African American culture is still so enamoured of "the white man's god". Because he definitely ain't the god in the Bible, he's a re-written deity that praises all the systems of profit and oppression that the white man built, in defiance of anything Jesus ever said.

And then, cruelly forced into it, the black man has been enthusiastically backing up the god of their oppression - see Exodus for more details on God's rules for owning slaves, as he was totally okay with that (and those rules include selling your own daughter into sex slavery!).

(To echo Gandhi: "I like your Christ but I don't like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ".)

Also .. "could not be is the same people behind Mr Toupee ?" .. I mean let's say someone says "Ok Mr Toupee now is burned, we need a representative of a different colour" .. out Toupee, in Kayne, who's really BEHIND them telling them what to say and what to do ?

[KlaxonCow]

If it's all so "a nation by God"

Which it simply isn't.

The words "under God" were added to the Pledge of Allegiance in 1954.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pledge_of ... der_God.22

During the Cold War era, many Americans wanted to distinguish the United States from the state atheism promoted by Marxist-Leninist countries, a view that led to support for the words "under God" to be added to the Pledge of Allegiance.
[...]
In 1951, the Knights of Columbus, the world's largest Catholic fraternal service organization, also began including the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance.
[...]
He noted that the Pledge's sentiments could be those of any nation: "There was something missing in the pledge, and that which was missing was the characteristic and definitive factor in the American way of life." He cited Lincoln's words "under God" as defining words that set the US apart from other nations.
[...]
President Eisenhower had been baptized a Presbyterian very recently, just a year before. He responded enthusiastically to Docherty in a conversation following the service. Eisenhower acted on his suggestion the next day and on February 8, 1954, Rep. Charles Oakman (R-Mich.), introduced a bill to that effect. Congress passed the necessary legislation and Eisenhower signed the bill into law on Flag Day, June 14, 1954.

Just to be clear that "one nation under God" simply did not exist in the Pledge of Allegiance before 1954.

It's not some great American heritage, going back to the Forefathers. It's actually, in my view, a flat-out violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment:

The civil rights of none shall be abridged on account of religious belief or worship, nor shall any national religion be established, nor shall the full and equal rights of conscience be in any manner, or on any pretext, infringed.

Because we're not just talking about atheists here. Buddhism is a godless faith. Hinduism, and others, are polytheistic.

Making children of non-Abrahamic faith recite "under God" - in the singular - by legal decree, is abridging their civil rights on account of their religious belief and it is, sneakily, establishing a national religion (because, you know, if it's "one nation under God" then if you're not "under God" then you're not part of the nation - and it explicitly says that there is only "one nation", therefore if you're not "under God" then you are implicitly rejected from the nation - shunned).

It's bullshit. And they only got away with it because it was the Cold War and being all religious-like was a middle finger to the state atheism of the Communists, and because, by lucky coincidence, President Eisenhower had just had been baptised and, you know, was still full of that "Holy Spirit" and could spunk his new religiosity all over everything.

And we find a similar story for the words "IN GOD WE TRUST" on American money, which was introduced in 1956. This, in fact, replaced the actual historical motto of the United States, which was "E pluribus unum" (Latin: "Out of many, one"), so it's not just a violation of the Establishment Clause, in my opinion, but an attempt to rewrite American history.

Many of the Forefathers were deists. Believers in some kind of god or higher power, but not that it was necessarily any of the available options presented by organised religion.

Thomas Jefferson very deliberately uses "their Creator" in the Declaration of Independence. He's very purposefully not naming what or who created men, but that - by self-evident biological fact - he created them all equal by act of birth. If you believe your "Creator" is Jehovah then he's the one that did that. But if you believe your "Creator" is the Big Bang, then it's the laws of physics and evolutionary biology that did that instead. Purposefully non-specific.

Indeed, Jefferson had many a pop at organised religion and, of course, he created "the Jefferson Bible" - first with "The Philosophy of Jesus of Nazareth" and then "The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth" - which gives you Jesus the philosopher, with all the supernaturalism and miracles (and all the duplication) removed. Just a bloke with some interesting philosophies and wisdoms to give, like Confucius. Not magical, not a god, but another philosopher in humanity's long line of wise thinkers. Got wrapped up in superstitious mythology, so Jefferson attempted to extract the underlying person back out of the fairy tales, as best he could.




(Nice reference, Whedon. I spotted the underlying schizophrenic "old America vs. new America" that underlies Firefly. The Wild West vs. the nation that put men on the Moon. River also faces a "witch trial" at one point too. Yeah, I might have to write an essay on it one day, he's scattered references and metaphors throughout. Yes, I'm a browncoat.)


This is the thing. It's evolution, but backwards.

Folks were already deists and such by 1776. Jefferson was editing the Bible to remove the mythology. Thomas Paine had successfully argued for democracy and the Revolutions - French and American - and then moved onto "the Age of Reason", which was "the God Delusion" of its day. Not so much atheism, as we'd know it today, but definitely that organised religion, particularly the Christian church, was a big load of shit that we'd be better off unceremoniously dumping over board.

America was not founded on religion - it was founded, in fact, to be anything but that. Hard-wired law against any attempts at theocracy.

Modern America has gone horribly backwards on this. Against the threat of "godless" communism, God's name was taken in vain all over the place. Stuff him in the pledge, stick him on the money. It all came out of nowhere in the '50s to fight off "the red scare" - to wave God as a big middle finger at the godless commies, with their state atheism. The Republicans needed the votes, so they courted religion and religion wanted to gain relevancy again and they formed their unholy pact.

By the way, I am absolutely 100% sure that Trump isn't really a Christian. The stuff he says, the way he behaves. It's complete bollocks. He's far too narcissistic to believe in anything beyond the end of his own nose. He's just lying. Lying through his teeth for votes. Just like he was funding and supporting Democrats happily, until he wanted to be President and then made out - against all previous evidence - that he was Republican through and through. Total bullshit. He knows what lies to tell to make people think he's on their side, but he doesn't actually believe a single bloody word of it himself.

[Harlequin]

It's also, of course, a terribly confused picture, as "American Jesus" has very little to nothing to do with the bloke you find in the Bible.

I have often considered starting a Web site, with a U.S. domain, declaiming Jesus as an anti-American socialist.

There are still a great many Christians in the States, however, who follow the New Testament instead of just cherry-picking the Old as the right extremists do. There are even quite a few Catholic churches (which may have their own problems but still mostly focus on turning cheeks rather than exacting vengeance).

[(o)(o)]

[venusian]

The comments on that video

[Deckard]

I just find it incredible that a president can just pardon who he likes.....