Atheist Meditations

Currently the sun is shining brightly and pouring rain threatens to flood the street. Strange weather we've been having up here in Minnesota. Just three weeks ago we got 18 inches of snow in one weekend, yesterday it was 81. Ah, life in the exact center of a continent.

So we've got the Republican National Convention coming to my home town of Saint Paul in about a year. I'm saving up my vacation time already, cuz I'm sure I'll be illegally detained trying to participate in some form of civil disobedience or another. To amuse myself at work lately I've been brainstorming up various signs that I'd like to wave in the face of their delegates.

"No Habeas Corpus? FUCK YOU!!!"

Well, that's really all I've got so far. The whole removal of habeas corpus by our legislature lately has really gotten under my skin. I just keep thinking about it. We've lost, without a whimper from the masses, the most fundamental lynchpin of Western Civilization. Sure, a white guy like me in the midwest can probably still demand some recourse if detained for political reasons - no, maybe not. If the Fuhrer deems you an 'enemy combatant', if the corporate bitch media takes Bush's balls out of their mouth long enough to call you a 'terrorist'; then you are done.

All my life I've had this pride deep in my heart that in America, all are equal under the law. Sure their have been a few special exceptions in our nation's great history: Native Americans, Blacks, Women, Communists, Japanese Americans, 'Guest Workers', gays . . . etc. etc., but for the most part the Constitution be a noble document, and as our society progresses more and more are included under its protections.

We don't have Habeas Corpus anymore! They fucking chucked out Habeas Corpus! We're fucking not free. We don't have a fundamental, fucking rudimentary protection from the Police State.

I've got a neighbor with a bumper sticker that reads, 'The NRA: Freedom's Frontline'. I drive past that rusting truck every day when I run home on my lunchbreak (cuz the fucker's probably unemployed) and it just pisses me off. When's the last time the fucking National Rifle Association ever protected anybodies fucking freedom? Sure, you had the rifle clubs organized by black communities in the 50's and 60's, but that's not really the same fucking thing as the NRA, now is it? Let's be honest here. The NRA's core membership is reactionary fifty-somethings who live in denial that they could never resist an assault by a twenty year old male, and want to pretend that having a gun would give them power and make their dick get hard again. Just a bunch of delusional dumbasses. In their dreamland everybody has a gun, how fucking stupid is that?!? A fifty year old with a gun still can't beat a twenty year old with a gun, you lose on reaction time and sheer youthful impetus. Your fat, fucking sweaty fingers just can't deal with four home invaders with crowbars, let alone .38 specials. The utopia of the NRA don't make any fucking sense.

Freedom's fucking frontline is the ACLU. When those candyass lawyers spring into action to protect a member of some minority or gay community; it's like that famous poem about coming for people during the Nazi regime - first they came for the blah, blah, blah, but I said nothing cuz I was a WASP, blah, blah, blah.. As long as the ACLU is racing to Jose Padilla's defense, I don't have to burden my beautiful mind (Barbara Bush's phrase) with cruel imaginings of being fucking tortured cuz I have the cajones to disagree with someone in power.

It sounds inhumane, but how many honest Liberals can deny that they supported the Civil Rights movement for those very reasons. Not trying to be offensive here, just evaluating a hard truth. If the blacks get equal rights, that just adds one more buffer between me and the gas chambers. If you can't deny employment to someone because of the color of their skin, that just makes it harder to fire me cuz I won't pretend there is a man with a beard in space who loves me. Hopefully, all the minorities who finally get to enjoy the protection of our constitution become eager and stalwart defenders of it. One more line of defense.


The rain has stopped. The setting sun has filled my room with groovy colors, a nuthatch is singing in the blue spruce outside the window. Good as place as any to disengage.

Being the culture maverick, I find myself with one of the new Ninetendo Wii's interfacing with my life. In just twenty minutes, we'll be enjoying the game system that folks have been scrambling over for the last few months. Where you wii at?, eh, where you wii at?!?

Sure as Bush is the worst president in modern history, a porn surfing trojan is going to keep coming back. Finally, we decided that the best solution was just to reinstall windows and start over. Thus the hunt for my OS disk, along with the laborious process of tracking down every driver, app, and scrap of worthwhile writing. All my life's written work does not make 10 megs. My PC still can't seem to find the damn Network Neighborhood, but at least I'm back on the internet and completely 100% malware free.

I sure did take the instant access to the internet for granted.

What motivates someone to create a nasty virus that goes out and damages others peoples property?

I used to just consider all that stuff on the internet as something similar to a natural phenomenon. Devices have to have immune systems for the same reason organisms do. But the Porntastic Trojan had an author, some prick with nothing better to do with his life than sit around and code something that will hijack my media player and start downloading large files of hardcore.

At least it was no more harmful than that. I didn't lose any files, and tales of my tribulations have amused many. Like my friend said last night, 'when are you not in the mood for porn?,' or 'is the picture quality good?'

It all sounds so funny, until your mother is visiting and suddenly the sound of sado-masochistic hardcore starts pouring from your bedroom. . .

Didn't get to do much blogging this weekend. My computer was infected with a horrible chunk of malware that constantly opened up Windows Media Player, then began downloading and playing hardcore pornography. I'm lucky my woman is so progressive and laid back, cuz I'm sure some of the 'porn destroys marriages' crowd would have freaked at a frozen scene of three on one sex on my computer screen every morning. A lot of animated stuff too. I've seen some carnal acts committed by blue haired sailor-moon chicks that I'll never get out of my head. Never.

I've never had a virus or anything like that before. Cindy claims that I must have downloaded something somewhere, but like Jimmy Buffet says: 'and I know, . . . it's nobody's fault.'

We were off line for most of the weekend. Ran an AVG scan and one by Spywarre Doctor, hopefully my pc's porn addiction has been cured!

In a moment of Fancy, I've begun contemplating renaming the blog Atheist Meditations. Since Marcus Aurelius is so obviously my hero, and the habit of keeping a daily journal in which I transcribe my philosophical thoughts of the does fall into the pattern of Meditations. A blog is quite a bit like Marcus Aurelius' multi-volume work. His daily entries were often short. He sometimes took long absences from writing in his journal. He didn't go back over past entries and spell check them; develop them into more complete forms of prose. A day is a day, and a meditative journal entry is the same.

My meditations today began with me backing into the living room to attempt retrieval of the remote while avoiding the siren of T.V. Paused at the end of Stargate: Atlantis, the TiVo sputtered forward to prevent screen damage, Mad TV (is that fucking show always on?) In the four lines of ambiguous dialog, laugh lines, and brightly flashing screen; I can get sucked into that shit in seconds. I'll come downstairs to ask Cindy something, see a brightly stroboscopic car commercial and just slur into a slack jawed exhibit of primate fixation. My intellectual ego wrestles with the shame of it, but I am not the only one who has this flaw.

What a cruel, shitty thing Television is, and how tragic is it, that so many of our species revels in their subjection to it. Indeed, how many among us - if we had the fucking time for introspection - would not see themselves as horribly under-socialized. Interacting with strangers and acquaintances can be so damn tedious. Trying to anticipate their purpose, figure out where they are coming from, try to choose words that will engage them without requiring more explanation, avoiding postures and phrases that make you look stupid or weak. T.V. is the opposite. Energetic and stimulating (how different from so many of the human interactions we have) with the pleasant covenant that the focus of the attention will never suddenly turn on you.

Watch the fight without ever having to consider the bully turning to demand your milk money. Laugh at the ostracized girl without the nervous knowledge that you ain't cheerleader material either. You will never get betrayed in the boardroom, or have to produce witty chatter with a Love Interest in an elevator. Observation without trial. The stimulations of socialization without the learning curve.


I'm 32 years old now. Not a young pup, but with a fair amount of race and stamina left. I've wasted so much time on 'entertainment.' I've got so much more that I want to do. I need to be more productive.

Marcus Aurelius was in the blissful ignorance that his thoughts would ever be published and read. Yet their public distribution has been to the world's advantage. We bloggers sure have massive egos.

Chris Hedges latest book, American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America, is a helluva book. I've been absolutely engrossed since I got it over the weekend, drawn into a compelling set of arguments that read with the potency of thriller fiction. The author makes seemingly hyperbolic statements-'the Christian Right has completely infiltrated the Republican Party'-then follows with a merciless hammering of facts-this percentage of republican senators received over 90% approval ratings from the top three Christian Right groups, this politician ran for office promising the death penalty for doctors who perform abortions, this senator is a creationist. The many deeds of the various actors on the Christian Right are laid out in a framework that demonstrates the deliberate parallels with other fanatical fascist groups in history. I believe that wherever one lies on the 'political spectrum', this book is a must read for concerned citizens.

Mr. Hedges is a Christian. Within his first chapter, 'Faith', he makes the dangerous choice to include a fair amount of his own beliefs and personal experience while criticizing the type of 'Christians' who are somehow not offended by the use of mass media by their leaders. This tactic often fails authors, (I'm thinking of Daniel Dennett's Breaking the Spell, where he indulges in so many attempts to beg the evag not to close the book and their mind -- I had to close the book, or at least skip ahead a few chapters) but Mr. Hedges is proud of his faith, and discusses the subject in a way that I haven't seen since Kierkegaard. I found his first chapter to be a fair balance between subjective personal experience and objective insight into the world of the Christian Right.

While the tone of American Fascists can often flirt with the inflammatory, Mr. Hedges' honest compassion for the individuals he sees as trapped in the clutches of this false religion easily moves this book up beyond the jeremiad. Dozens of men and women from within the movement that he criticizes are breathed into life by his written word. The tales of personal and economic tragedies are interwoven with an insight into how fascist manipulators consciously exploit the sense of hopelessness and desperation in people whom society has cast aside. He lets these individuals speak for themselves, rarely with a disparaging aside. For readers who have seen the film 'Jesus Camp,' or are familiar with this group; their shocking openness with others about their inner lives can be agonizing for those of us who disapprove of such a paradigm. One cannot help but feel terrible empathy for the poor souls caught up in the propaganda of the Christian Right.

I don’t believe books like this one come around all that often. The technical details of
propaganda - the how not the why- of how it was done in Germany, Serbia, China, of how
a small, radical, fanatical group seizes power; these details are not often found in a small,
well-written, mass distributed book. Mr. Hedges gives some excruciating insight into what goes on at a 'Conversion Conference,' where eager evagelikals have their own personal stories of finding Jesus honed and corrected by leaders to maximize their effectiveness at seducing converts. The techniques of 'Love Bombing,' where a lonely target is selected by recruitment leaders and then suddenly the recipient of extravagant attention by multiple cult members, a technique first used by Chinese Communists back in the day - The Christian Right has added it to their bag of tricks. Free societies have been overcome and destroyed by fascist groups on sundry occasions. The tactics they used are surprisingly similar. Any patriot who loves America will want to understand them better.

Since we began this article with the crude comparison between Mr. Hedges’ book and
thriller fiction, we must conclude with a point; the resonance of which can be felt on many
levels. Is there a pattern to fascist takeovers of democracy, and is the current leadership of
the Christian Right deliberately following that patten? Or is he a conspiracy nut, drawing
us into his titillating world where zombies with guns and bibles are about to destroy over
200 years of American Liberty? The Archetype of the Society on the Brink of Peril be
always seductive. Is his world a conspiracy theory fantasy or has he correctly described a
sub culture within our society that is shamelessly employing the organization and
propaganda models of fascists? Ultimately, Mr. Hedges attempts to reinforce his allegations with facts, quotes, a bibliography, and logic. We can engage his book on its intellectual merits, we are free to assess the peril to our beloved homeland at our own leisure. The fact that those he criticizes, that they are unswayed by facts, quotes, references, and logic, that they pride themselves on never questioning the statements of their Leaders; read this book.


Besides, every true radical's gonna want to own it just to know on their bookshelf resided a favored tome; the index of which held sixteen entries for ‘God’, located shortly after ‘Global Warming, denial of’, and just preceding ‘Goebbels, Joseph.’

Just saw this headline! Looks like Mr. Hawking's getting ready to experience a zero g flight in a 'vomit comet.' For 25 seconds he'll get to experience weightlessness. I think that's great. A man who has overcome so much and who has done so much for our understanding of the universe deserves something like this.

Groove on!