#i only put on labels when i find them to be politically expedient

[hymnsofheresy]

you aren't obligated to ever label your sexuality btw. you can just have sex, hang out with people, and fall in love. labels can be useful, for both navigating what kind of relationships you desire as well as political organization. but if identifying yourself as something is debilitating, you are under no obligation to use that label even if you definitionally "align" with that label. nor are you obligated to tell everyone (or anyone) about your sexuality. you can also wear labels like a fun hat, and put it on & take it off whenever.

[coughlinsylvest79]

Cheap Flights - Top 3 Destinations In Asia This Holiday Season

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[all-things-are-nothing-to-me]

From Politics to Life: Ridding anarchy of the leftist millstone

From the time anarchism was first defined as a distinct radical movement it has been associated with the left, but the association has always been uneasy. Leftists who were in a position of authority (including those who called themselves anarchists, like the leaders of the CNT and the FAI in Spain in 1936–37) found the anarchist aim of the total transformation of life and the consequent principle that the ends should already exist in the means of struggle to be a hindrance to their political programs. Real insurgence always burst far beyond any political program, and the most coherent anarchists saw the realization of their dreams precisely in this unknown place beyond. Yet, time after time, when the fires of insurrection cooled (and even occasionally, as in Spain in 1936–37, while they still burnt brightly), leading anarchists would take their place again as “the conscience of the left”. But if the expansiveness of anarchist dreams and the principles that it implies have been a hindrance to the political schemes of the left, these schemes have been a far greater millstone around the neck of the anarchist movement, weighing it down with the “realism” that cannot dream.

For the left, the social struggle against exploitation and oppression is essentially a political program to be realized by whatever means are expedient. Such a conception obviously requires a political methodology of struggle, and such a methodology is bound to contradict some basic anarchist principles. First of all, politics as a distinct category of social existence is the separation of the decisions that determine our lives from the execution of those decisions. This separation resides in institutions that make and impose those decisions. It matters little how democratic or consensual those institutions are; the separation and institutionalization inherent in politics always constitute an imposition simply because they require that decisions be made before the circumstances to which they apply arise. This makes it necessary that they take on the form of general rules that are always to be applied in certain types of situations regardless of the specific circumstances. The seeds of ideological thinking — in which ideas rule the activities of individuals rather than serving individuals in developing their own projects — are found here, but I will go into that later. Of equal importance from an anarchist perspective is the fact that power lies in these decision-making and enforcing institutions. And the leftist conception of social struggle is precisely one of influencing, taking over or creating alternative versions of these institutions. In other words, it is a struggle to change, not to destroy institutionalized power relationships.

This conception of struggle, with its programmatic basis requires an organization as the means for carrying out the struggle. The organization represents the struggle, because it is the concrete expression of its program. If those involved define that program as revolutionary and anarchist, then the organization comes to represent revolution and anarchy for them, and the strength of the organization is equated with the strength of revolutionary and anarchist struggle. A clear example of this is found in the Spanish revolution where the leadership of the CNT, after inspiring the workers and peasants of Catalonia to expropriate the means of production (as well as arms with which they formed their free militias), did not dissolve the organization and allow the workers to explore the recreation of social life on their own terms, but rather took over management of production. This confusion of management by the union for workers’ self-management had results that can be studied by anyone willing to look at those events critically. When the struggle against the ruling order is thus separated from the individuals carrying it out and placed into the hands of the organization, it ceases to be the self-determined project of those individuals and instead becomes a external cause to which they adhere. Because this cause is equated with the organization, the primary activity of the individuals who adhere to it is the maintenance and expansion of the organization.

In fact, the leftist organization is the means through which the left intends to transform institutionalized power relationships. Whether this is done through appeal to the current rulers and the exercise of democratic rights, through the electoral or violent conquest of state power, through the institutional expropriation of the means of production or through a combination of these means is of little importance. To accomplish this, the organization tries to make itself into an alternative power or a counter-power. This is why it must embrace the current ideology of power, i.e., democracy. Democracy is that system of separated and institutionalized decision-making that requires the creation of social consensus for programs put forward. Although power always resides in coercion, in the democratic framework, it is justified through the consent it can win. This is why it is necessary for the left to seek as many adherents as possible, numbers to tally in support of its programs. Thus, in its adherence to democracy, the left must embrace the quantitative illusion.

The attempt to win adherents requires the appeal to the lowest common denominator. So instead of carrying on a vital theoretical exploration, the left develops a set of simplistic doctrines through which to view the world and a litany of moral outrages perpetrated by the current rulers, which leftists hope will have mass appeal. Any questioning or exploration outside of this ideological framework is vehemently condemned or viewed with incomprehension. The incapacity for serious theoretical exploration is the cost of accepting the quantitative illusion according to which numbers of adherents, regardless of their passivity and ignorance, are considered the reflection of a strong movement rather than the quality and coherence of ideas and practice.

The political necessity of appealing to “the masses” also moves the left to use the method of making piece-meal demands to the current rulers. This method is certainly quite consistent with a project of transforming power relationships, precisely because it does not challenge those relationships at their roots. In fact, by making demands of those in power, it implies that simple (though possibly extreme) adjustments of the current relationships are sufficient for the realization of the leftist program. What is not put into question in this method is the ruling order itself, because this would threaten the political framework of the left.

Implicit in this piece-meal approach to change is the doctrine of progressivism (in fact, one of the more popular labels among leftists and liberals nowadays — who would rather leave behind these other sullied labels — is precisely “progressive”). Progressivism is the idea that the current order of things is the result of an ongoing (though possibly “dialectical”) process of improvement and that if we put in the effort (whether through voting, petition, litigation, civil disobedience, political violence or even the conquest of power — anything other than its destruction), we can take this process further. The concept of progress and the piece-meal approach that is its practical expression point to another quantitative aspect of the leftist conception of social transformation. This transformation is simply a matter of degrees, of one’s position along an ongoing trajectory. The right amount of adjustment will get us “there” (wherever “there” is). Reform and revolution are simply different levels of the same activity. Such are the absurdities of leftism which remains blind to the overwhelming evidence that the only trajectory that we have been on at least since the rise of capitalism and industrialism is the increasing impoverishment of existence, and this cannot be reformed away.

The piece-meal approach and the political need for categorization also leads the left to valorize people in terms of their membership in various oppressed and exploited groups, such as “workers”, “women”, “people of color”, “gays and lesbians” and so on. This categorization is the basis of identity politics. Identity politics is the particular form of false opposition in which oppressed people choose to identify with a particular social category through which their oppression is reinforced as a supposed act of defiance against their oppression. In fact, the continued identification with this social role limits the capacity of those who practice identity politics to analyze their situation in this society deeply and to act as individuals against their oppression. It thus guarantees the continuation of the social relationships that cause their oppression. But only as members of categories are these people useful as pawns in the political maneuverings of the left, because such social categories take on the role of pressure groups and power blocs within the democratic framework.

The political logic of the left, with its organizational requirements, its embrace of democracy and the quantitative illusion and its valorization of people as mere members of social categories, is inherently collectivist, suppressing the individual as such. This expresses itself in the call for individuals to sacrifice themselves to the various causes, programs and organizations of the left. Behind these calls one finds the manipulative ideologies of collective identity, collective responsibility and collective guilt. Individuals who are defined as being part of a “privileged” group — “straight”, “white”, “male”, “first-world”, “middle class” — are held responsible for all the oppression attributed to that group. They are then manipulated into acting to expiate these “crimes”, giving uncritical support to the movements of those more oppressed than they are. Individuals who are defined as being part of an oppressed group are manipulated into accepting collective identity in this group out of a mandatory “solidarity” — sisterhood, black nationalism, queer identity, etc. If they reject or even deeply and radically criticize this group identity, this is equated with acceptance of their own oppression. In fact, the individual who acts on his or her own (or only with those with whom s/he has developed real affinity) against her or his oppression and exploitation as s/he experiences it in his or her life, is accused of “bourgeois individualism”, in spite of the fact that s/he is struggling precisely against the alienation, separation and atomization that is the inherent result of the collective alienated social activity that the state and capital — so-called “bourgeois society” — impose upon us.

Because leftism is the active perception of social struggle as a political program, it is ideological from top to bottom. The struggle of the left does not grow out of the desires, needs and dreams of the living individuals exploited, oppressed, dominated and dispossessed by this society. It is not the activity of people striving to reappropriate their own lives and seeking the tools necessary for doing so. Rather it is a program formulated in the minds of leftist leaders or in organizational meetings that exists above and before people’s individual struggles and to which these latter are to subordinate themselves. Whatever the slogan of this program — socialism, communism, anarchism, sisterhood, the African people, animal rights, earth liberation, primitivism, workers’ self-management, etc., etc. — it does not provide a tool for individuals to use in their own struggles against domination, but rather demands individuals to exchange the domination of the ruling order for the domination of the leftist program. In other words, it demands that individuals continue to give up their capacity to determine their own existence.

At its best, the anarchist endeavor has always been the total transformation of existence based on the reappropriation of life by each and every individual, acting in free association with others of their choosing. This vision can be found in the most poetic writings of nearly every well-known anarchist, and it is what made anarchism “the conscience of the left”. But of what use is it to be the conscience of a movement that does not and cannot share the breadth and depth of one’s dreams, if one desires to realize those dreams? In the history of the anarchist movement, those perspectives and practices closest to the left, such as anarcho-syndicalism and platformism, have always had far less of the dream and far more of the program about them. Now that leftism has ceased to be a significant force in any way distinguishable from the rest of the political sphere at least in the West of the world, there is certainly no reason to continue carrying this millstone around our necks. The realization of anarchist dreams, of the dreams of every individual still capable of dreaming and desiring independently to be the autonomous creators of their own existence, requires a conscious and rigorous break with the left. At minimum, this break would mean:

The rejection of a political perception of social struggle; a recognition that revolutionary struggle is not a program, but is rather the struggle for the individual and social reappropriation of the totality of life. As such it is inherently anti-political. In other words,it is opposed to any form of social organization — and any method of struggle — in which the decisions about how to live and struggle are separated from the execution of those decisions regardless of how democratic and participatory this separated decision-making process may be.

The rejection of organizationalism, meaning by this the rejection of the idea that any organization can represent exploited individuals or groups, social struggle, revolution or anarchy. Therefore also the rejection of all formal organizations — parties, unions, federations and their like — which, due to their programmatic nature, take on such a representative role. This does not mean the rejection of the capacity to organize the specific activities necessary to the revolutionary struggle, but rather the rejection of the subjection of the organization of tasks and projects to the formalism of an organizational program. The only task that has ever been shown to require formal organization is the development and maintenance of a formal organization.

The rejection of democracy and the quantitative illusion. The rejection of the view that the number of adherents to a cause, idea or program is what determines the strength of the struggle, rather than the qualitative value of the practice of struggle as an attack against the institutions of domination and as a reappropriation of life. The rejection of every institutionalization or formalization of decision-making, and indeed of every conception of decision-making as a moment separated from life and practice. The rejection, as well, of the evangelistic method that strives to win over the masses. Such a method assumes that theoretical exploration is at an end, that one has the answer to which all are to adhere and that therefore every method is acceptable for getting the message out even if that method contradicts what we are saying. It leads one to seek followers who accept one’s position rather than comrades and accomplices with which to carry on one’s explorations. The practice instead of striving to carry out one’s projects, as best one can, in a way consistent with one’s ideas, dreams and desires, thus attracting potential accomplices with whom to develop relationships of affinity and expand the practice of revolt.

The rejection of making demands to those in power, choosing rather a practice of direct action and attack. The rejection of the idea that we can realize our desire for self-determination through piece-meal demands which, at best, only offer a temporary amelioration of the harmfulness of the social order of capital. Recognition of the necessity to attack this society in its totality, to achieve a practical and theoretical awareness in each partial struggle of the totality that must be destroyed. Thus, as well, the capacity to see what is potentially revolutionary — what has moved beyond the logic of demands and of piece-meal changes — in partial social struggles, since, after all, every radical, insurrectionary rupture has been sparked by a struggle that started as an attempt to gain partial demands, but that moved in practice from demanding what was desired to seizing it and more.

The rejection of the idea of progress, of the idea that the current order of things is the result of an ongoing process of improvement that we can take further, possibly even to its apotheosis, if we put in the effort. The recognition that the current trajectory — which the rulers and their loyal reformist and “revolutionary” opposition call “progress” — is inherently harmful to individual freedom, free association, healthy human relations, the totality of life and the planet itself. The recognition that this trajectory must be brought to an end and new ways of living and relating developed if we are to achieve full autonomy and freedom. (This does not necessarily lead to an absolute rejection of technology and civilization, and such a rejection does not constitute the bottom line of a break with the left, but the rejection of progress most certainly means a willingness to seriously and critically examine and question civilization and technology, and particularly industrialism. Those who are not willing to raise such questions most likely continue to hold to the myth of progress.)

The rejection of identity politics. The recognition that, while various oppressed groups experience their dispossession in ways specific to their oppression and analysis of these specificities is necessary in order to get a full understanding of how domination functions, nonetheless, dispossession is fundamentally the stealing away of the capacity of each of us as individuals to create our lives on our own terms in free association with others. The reappropriation of life on the social level, as well as its full reappropriation on the individual level, can only occur when we stop identifying ourselves essentially in terms of our social identities.

The rejection of collectivism, of the subordination of the individual to the group. The rejection of the ideology of collective responsibility (a rejection that does not mean the refusal of social or class analysis, but rather that removes the moral judgment from such analysis, and refuses the dangerous practice of blaming individuals for activities that have been done in the name of, or that have been attributed to, a social category of which they are said to be a part, but about which they had no choice — e.g., “Jew”, “gypsy”, “male”, “white”, etc.). The rejection of the idea that anyone, either due to “privilege” or due to supposed membership in a particular oppressed group, owes uncritical solidarity to any struggle or movement, and the recognition that such a conception is a major obstruction in any serious revolutionary process. The creation of collective projects and activities to serve the needs and desires of the individuals involved, and not vice versa. The recognition that the fundamental alienation imposed by capital is not based in any hyper-individualist ideology that it may promote, but rather stems from the collective project of production that it imposes, which expropriates our individual creative capacities to fulfill its aims. The recognition of the liberation of each and every individual to be able to determine the conditions of her or his existence in free association with others of her or his choosing — i.e., the individual and social reappropriation of life — as the primary aim of revolution.

The rejection of ideology, that is to say, the rejection of every program, idea, abstraction, ideal or theory that is placed above life and individuals as a construct to be served. The rejection, therefore, of God, the State, the Nation, the Race, etc., but also of Anarchism, Primitivism, Communism, Freedom, Reason, the Individual, etc. when these become ideals to which one is to sacrifice oneself, one’s desires, one’s aspirations, one’s dreams. The use of ideas, theoretical analysis and the capacity to reason and think abstractly and critically as tools for realizing one’s aims, for reappropriating life and acting against everything that stands in the way of this reappropriation. The rejection of easy answers that come to act as blinders to one’s attempts to examine the reality one is facing in favor of ongoing questioning and theoretical exploration.

As I see it, these are what constitute a real break with the left. Where any of these rejections are lacking — whether in theory or practice — vestiges of the left remain, and this is a hindrance to our project of liberation. Since this break with the left is based in the necessity to free the practice of anarchy from the confines of politics, it is certainly not an embrace of the right or any other part of the political spectrum. It is rather a recognition that a struggle for the transformation of the totality of life, a struggle to take back each of our lives as our own in a collective movement for individual realization, can only be hampered by political programs, “revolutionary” organizations and ideological constructs that demand our service, because these too, like the state and capital, demand that we give our lives to them rather than take our lives as our own. Our dreams are much too large for the narrow confines of political schemes. It is long past time that we leave the left behind and go on our merry way toward the unknown of insurrection and the creation of full and self-determined lives.

[crimethinc]

A Century since the Bolshevik Crackdown of August 1918: Tracing the Russian Counterrevolution

Following up on our book about the Bolshevik seizure of power, The Russian Counterrevolution, we look back a hundred years to observe the anniversary of the first time that the Bolsheviks used the Russian military to crush protests from the workers and peasants who had helped to put them in power. If we don’t want tomorrow’s revolutions to turn out the same way, it’s up to us to learn from the past.

August 2018 marks the 100-year anniversary of a bloody milestone in the evolution of the Bolshevik counterrevolution: the suppression of the rebellions in Nizhny Novgorod and Penza. Both of these were protest movements spurred by the Red Army’s policy of “requisitioning” food and other materials they deemed necessary from the common people. The protests and subsequent mass executions carried out by the Bolsheviks took place in a context of growing clashes that saw the Russian Revolution shift into the Russian Civil War. It was the first time the Bolsheviks used mass executions and terror not just against their political opponents, but against the peasants and workers as a class. This terror came to characterize their relationship with peasants and workers over the following years.

Bolshevik apologists justify their actions by citing the extreme violence on all sides, as the White Army sought to reimpose the brutal tsarist regime. Some even go so far as to claim that the peasants who were protesting in the Penza region were White agents. A hundred years after their murders, we have to examine these claims. In order to do so, we must begin by studying what the Bolshevik strategy—their obsession with controlling state power—had done to the Revolution after ten months.

War Communism

The peasant protests were sparked by “requisitioning,” a central part of the policy of “war communism” adopted by the Bolsheviks in June 1918, just two months earlier. “War communism” was a cruel euphemism for wholesale theft by bureaucrats and commissars of everything the peasants had. In theory, the Red Army and Bolshevik commissars were allowed to take the “surplus,” but there were no mechanisms for accountability, and many Bolsheviks had no experience with farming and no idea what constituted a surplus and what constituted the food supply of peasant families. Essentially, party members were given absolute power and impunity to enrich themselves at the cost of the peasants.

What’s more, ignoring the pleas of his erstwhile comrades, Lenin signed a peace treaty with the German and Austro-Hungarian Empires in March 1918, ceding them what had been the breadbasket of the Russian Empire in Ukraine, Poland, and the Baltics. This almost guaranteed a famine in Moscow, Petrograd, and other cities, forcing the Bolsheviks to squeeze the countryside to the east even harder. To stomp out dissent and cement his hold on power, Lenin effectively pitted the cities against the countryside, putting the former in acute danger of starvation and forcing the latter to accept total subjugation even worse than what had occurred under the tsarist regime.

To fan the flames and motivate the Red Army to requisition pitilessly, Lenin and his party apparatus spread the myth of the kulak, the wealthy peasant who acted as a rural capitalist, exploited landless laborers, and condemned city residents to starvation. In reality, peasants in a wide range of different circumstances were punished under war communism. A tiny minority of peasants had amassed lands and wealth after the end of serfdom, but the Bolsheviks systematically labeled landless, impoverished peasants “kulaks” to justify arresting and executing them. Lenin himself was largely ignorant of peasant life—he was financed by his wealthy mother throughout his first decades of activism, even in Siberian exile, where he spent the time translating, swimming, and hunting. In his writings, he used the “kulak” as a politically expedient scapegoat.

Unlike the anarchists and Left SRs, the Bolsheviks did not effectively support land redistribution in the countryside, so peasants of all stripes had cause to protest against their rule. And when the “requisitioning” began, these protests only spread. The peasants of Penza and elsewhere had a realistic understanding of their own interests. In just a few years of war communism, millions of peasants starved to death as a direct result of Bolshevik policies. By the time war communism ended and the New Economic Policy was inaugurated in 1923, bringing capitalism back to Russia, the peasants had been effectively crushed as a social force; this is one of the reasons Stalin was able to reorganize them in state “collectives,” essentially a plantation system with forced labor not so different from the ones that provided the basis for value extraction in the American and British models of capitalism.

The peasants were right to protest against war communism from the beginning. In hindsight, we can see that the policy was justifiable neither as an end nor as a means.

Bolshevik anti-kulak poster.

The Revolt

On August 5, 1918, protests against the requisitioning gained momentum among peasants in the Penza region. This movement quickly spread to neighboring areas. Penza had also been a theater of the Pugachev Rebellion in the 18th century, a multicultural peasant and indigenous uprising against serfdom and Russian imperialism. It was a region with a history of standing up to oppression.

Accounts vary as to the nature of the movement. The Bolsheviks referred to it as a revolt, whereas many other sources merely refer to protests. There were certainly armed peasant revolts against Bolshevik power over the following months. It’s likely that the events of August 1918 constituted nothing more than a rowdy protest movement, but that after the Bolshevik response of mass murder and terror, the peasants got a look at the true face of the new state and realized that if they wanted to change things, mere protest wouldn’t suffice.

In any case, the chairman of the Penza soviet, Kurayev, wasn’t particularly concerned about this revolt. He thought that the Bolsheviks should respond with propaganda, not armed force. Lenin disagreed. By August 8, just three days later, Bolshevik troops had crushed the protest movement in Penza. Not content with simply regaining control, Lenin sent a telegram on August 9 to Nizhny Novgorod, perhaps the largest city in which protests had broken out. Claiming that the protests were a clear sign of a “White Guard” conspiracy, and thus denying any agency or claims to survival of the peasants themselves, Lenin wrote:

“Your first response must be to establish a dictatorial troika (i.e., you, Markin, and one other person) and introduce mass terror, shooting or deporting the hundreds of prostitutes who are causing all the soldiers to drink, all the ex-officers, etc. There is not a moment to lose; you must act resolutely, with massive reprisals. Immediate execution for anyone caught in possession of a firearm. Massive deportations of Mensheviks and other suspect elements.”

On August 11, three days after the protest movement had been suppressed, Lenin sent a telegram to the Central Executive Committee of the Penza soviet:

“Comrades! The kulak uprising in your five districts must be crushed without pity. The interests of the whole revolution demand such actions, for the final struggle with the kulaks has now begun. You must make an example of these people.

(1) Hang (I mean hang publicly, so that people see it) at least 100 kulaks, rich bastards, and known bloodsuckers.

(2) Publish their names.

(3) Seize all their grain.

(4) Single out the hostages per my instructions in yesterday’s telegram.

Do all this so that for miles around people see it all, understand it, tremble, and tell themselves that we are killing the bloodthirsty kulaks and that we will continue to do so. Reply saying you have received and carried out these instructions. Yours, Lenin.

P.S. Find tougher people.”

Only on August 18, after these instructions went out, did an actual armed uprising break out in the Penza oblast, in the town of Chembar. The uprising was led by Left SRs. It was also crushed.

Lenin’s message demanding the public hanging of at least 100 people.

The White Threat

Communist apologists today justify Bolshevik mass murder on the grounds that imposing “discipline” on the masses was necessary in the face of the far worse White threat. It is true that from early on, the White Army executed anarchist and Bolshevik prisoners and massacred villagers suspected of supporting the revolution. However, the claim that White violence forced the Bolsheviks’ hand is an excuse for a Bolshevik strategy that had already been in progress for a long time. Bolshevik political repression against their opponents dates to the very first months of the Soviet government. Already in April 1918, the Bolsheviks attacked 26 anarchist offices and social centers in Moscow, killing dozens and arresting hundreds, in response to anarchist propaganda critical of Bolshevik power. They also carried out raids and arrests in Petrograd and numerous cities in the interior, such as Vologda, where anarchists had growing support from peasants and railroad workers.

What’s more, the White threat cannot justify Bolshevik repression in Penza in August 1918 because at that time, there was not really a White Army to speak of. In June of 1918, the White Army only numbered less than 9000 troops, and they were based over 1000 kilometers away, having fled to Kuban after losing nearly every battle. Even their supreme commander, Kornilov, had been killed. In August, they were in disarray and on the defensive, rearranging their chain of command and desperately trying to recruit more troops. Until the end of 1918, when Great Britain, France, and the United States began providing significant material support to the White Army and General Denikin began an offensive in the Caucasus after having gained the support of numerous cossack fighters, the chief threats to Bolshevik power came from the Left. Lenin speaks of a “White Guard” organizing the protest movement, but as he well knew, it was the Left SRs, the enemies of the White Army, who were most active among the peasants in the Penza region.

Another major force on the field was the Czechoslovak Legion, which contained as many as 60,000 veteran fighters who had been recruited during World War I to fight against the Austro-Hungarian Empire (occupier of Czechoslovakia). Caught in Ukraine when the October Revolution broke out, they stayed on the front to stop multiple German advances, while negotiating with Soviet authorities for safe passage to the port city of Vladivostok, so they could be transferred back to Europe and continue fighting on the Western Front.

In May 1918, three months after they had been granted permission to ship out from Vladivostok, the Legion was spread all across the Trans-Siberian railroad. None of them had been evacuated, as Soviet authorities had obstructed the process and requisitioned the Legion’s weapons. A dispute broke out when trains taking Hungarian POWs to be repatriated were given priority—Hungary being one of the countries occupying Czechoslovakia, and, as an ally of Imperial Germany, one of the countries with which Lenin had signed a peace treaty. The repatriation of Triple Alliance troops and the stonewalling of the Czechoslovak Legion’s return to the war via Vladivostok substantiated their suspicion that Lenin was still working on behalf of Imperial Germany, the same accusation made by the Left SRs when they quit the government in March 1918.

Lenin ordered the arrest of the Legion, at which point they rebelled and took over the railroad, constituting an autonomous armed force in Siberia. Only several months later did the Czechoslovak Legion join the White Army, though they consistently supported the democratic factions of the Whites (the ones in favor of the Constituent Assembly) and occasionally opposed the tsarist faction. Their chief political goal was to achieve independence for Czechoslovakia, which led them to follow the directions of the Entente powers and support the Whites.

The Czechoslovak Legion was one of the most effective fighting units to oppose the Bolsheviks; they seized nearly every city in Siberia at some point in 1918. Yet the conflict with them was provoked almost entirely by Bolshevik policies. It was either Lenin’s paranoid distrust of autonomous forces or his secret collusion with Germany that caused him to order the arrest of the legionaries, which is what sparked their rebellion in the first place. The rebellion was spontaneous, going against the orders of Legion leadership and the plans of the Entente to ship them back to Western Europe. Lenin’s use of repression as a first resort helped the White Army to recruit, furnishing them with their most potent force in the first year of the Civil War; this, in turn, encouraged the Entente powers to intensify their interventions in the Russian hinterland.

In any case, the Legion did not get any closer to the Penza uprising than Samara, about 400 km away—at that moment, they were focused eastward on Vladivostok, not attempting to break through to Penza.

Neither the White Army nor the Czechoslovak Legion posed a threat anywhere near Penza at the time of the peasant protests, as Lenin well knew. His claims of a “White Guard” conspiracy represent demagogic manipulation designed to cover up the fact that the demonstrators in Penza were common people protesting Bolshevik authority.

The Left SRs

The presence of Left SRs in Penza after the peasant rebellion had already begun makes perfect sense in context. They were a socialist party that had long championed land reform, retained strong support among the peasants, and had recently been suppressed in Moscow after an unsuccessful uprising.

Whereas the chief objective of the Bolsheviks was to seize power, the SRs had some basic principles they stuck to, although this probably made them less effective as a political party. It could be said that they had maintained a principled opposition to the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, the disastrous peace treaty with Imperial Germany. When it was signed in March, they quit the Soviet government; in July, Cheka units in Moscow controlled by Left SRs assassinated the German ambassador Mirbach and tried to take over government and telegraph buildings. They hoped their action would sabotage the peace with Germany, and that in the process they could replace the Bolsheviks at the head of the Soviet government. Their revolt was not designed to suppress the Soviets, but to set the revolution back on what in their minds was the right course.

Of course, the SRs were just another political party trying to control the revolution. No one should not romanticize them. Their suppression simply illustrates that the Bolsheviks were more adroit at power plays: they did not hold back from using any tactics to stay in power, nor did they remain loyal to principles that were not politically expedient. If the SRs had come out of the revolution on top, it probably would have been as a result of using tactics similar to those of the Bolsheviks.

In any case, as far as the Penza uprising is concerned, the involvement of Left SRs confirms the falsity of Bolshevik claims. Far from being White sympathizers, the only organized element among the Penza peasants were Left SRs, who had always stood on a platform of agrarian reform for greater peasant autonomy. They were committed opponents of the Whites.

The Red Army

It is also possible that the Left SRs decided to rebel in July 1918 because the preceding month, the Bolsheviks had solidified their control over the Red Army by bringing back an aristocratic hierarchy (led overwhelmingly by ex-tsarist officers), ending any vestige of self-organization, and appointing political commissars as well as a vast network of spies and snitches to ensure political obedience.

For nearly a year already, the Bolsheviks had taken action against revolutionary elements in the military. Foremost among these was the Dvinsk Regiment. To tell their story, we have to go back to 1917.

The Dvinsk Regiment was comprised of tens of thousands of soldiers on the Eastern Front who had engaged in mass disobedience against the war. Alongside the guerrilla resistance in Ukraine, this provided one of the principal examples of the kind of revolutionary warfare with which anarchists proposed to topple both the Russian Empire (whether under the tsar or Kerensky) and the imperial states on the other side of the battle lines.

Cossacks refused to execute the resisters; instead, thousands were imprisoned. The prisoners were released in September 1917 after major public protests. At this point, they constituted a revolutionary regiment. The Bolsheviks tried to take control of the regiment, but instead, the regiment elected Grachov, an anarchist, as its leader. In the October Revolution, which saw fierce fighting in Moscow, the Dvinsk Regiment was at the front of the fiercest clashes, seizing City Hall, the Hotel Metropole, and the Kremlin.

Grachov was critical of the authoritarian direction of the Bolsheviks. He began carrying out a plan to arm the workers on nonpartisan grounds, sending weapons and munitions to factory committees. At the end of November, the Bolsheviks summoned him to Nizhny Novgorod, supposedly to discuss military matters. Away from the rest of the regiment and the anarchist bastion in Moscow, he was shot to death inside the military commissariat. The Bolsheviks claimed it was an accident. Subsequently, Lenin and Trotsky disbanded the Dvinsk Regiment and all the other revolutionary units that had taken part in the fighting in the October Revolution.

Over time, it became clear to the Bolsheviks that eliminating individual figures would not be enough. In June 1918, the Bolsheviks were preparing to introduce war communism. They would need a military fully under their control, capable of carrying out any atrocity—much like the tsarist army that had upheld the old system. So they abolished of worker control, canceled the election of officers, re-instituted saluting, drastically increased the pay and privileges for the officers, imposed top-down discipline, carried out a massive recruitment of old tsarist officers, and fully integrated the Cheka—the political police—with the military. By the end of the Russian Civil War, 83% of Red Army officers had served under the tsar.

While the Bolsheviks convinced many tsarist officers to serve in the Red Army by blackmail, holding their families hostage, others served voluntarily, realizing that tsarism was dead and the Bolsheviks were to become the new defenders of privilege. After 1917, the surest way to hold onto their privileges was by becoming communists.

The revolution did not need tsarist officers to succeed. All the prominent leaders of the anarchist formations in the Civil War—Maria Nikiforova, Nestor Makhno, Fyodor Shchuss, Olga Taratuta, Anatoli Zhelezniakov, Novoselov, Lubkov—were chosen by their comrades according to their abilities. They were workers or peasants, but they were among the most effective on the battlefield, frequently defeating White armies that fielded several times more troops. Trotsky repeatedly called Zhelezniakov and Makhno to the front when the White Army was gaining ground against the Red Army.

Considering the authoritarian changes to the Red Army, it is not surprising that in August 1918, the Bolsheviks sought a military solution to the peasant protests. In June, Lenin and Trotsky had decided to make the basis of their power a hierarchical military and a policy of forced requisitioning and mass starvation. This established them as the enemy of the peasants of the workers, provoking a conflict they could only win through force of arms.

When you topple the monuments, be sure to take down the pedestals as well.

Conclusions

If we are to be charitable and believe that Lenin was a sincere revolutionary, we can only conclude that the problem was his Jacobin theory of revolution—in which it was necessary to seize the state in order to impose the revolution through mass terror. Unless we to take the view of many of his contemporaries, who believed that he was simply a power-hungry dictator, the only explanation for his actions is that, conflating the success of the revolution with the seizure of state power, he was willing to put principles aside in order to do whatever was necessary to increase the power of the Soviet government. Yet the more power his government amassed, the more enemies he made, and the more violence was necessary to preserve his position.

Lenin made an alliance with Imperial Germany as a political expedient to free up the Russian army for domestic deployment against the supporters of the Constituent Assembly, but it caused the Left SRs to rebel. The Bolsheviks had to crack down on anarchists in April 2018 because anarchist propaganda and criticisms of the Bolshevik government were mobilizing increasing numbers of supporters, but this caused anarchists to redouble their efforts. After the Bolsheviks gave Ukraine away to Germany, they need war communism in order to feed the cities without giving concessions to the peasants. But war communism provoked more peasant protests. To stop the protests, Lenin crushed them with military force, and this catalyzed actual popular uprisings against the communist state.

An iatrogenic condition is an illness caused by medical treatment. As the song goes, “I know an old lady who swallowed a fly…”

At the end of August 2018, SR Fanny Kaplan carried out the first attempt on Lenin’s life. Immediately thereafter, the Bolsheviks instituted the policy of Red Terror. They claimed that the Terror was necessary to defend the revolution from a White conspiracy—but in reality, the White Army had not yet begun any effective offensive. The immediate causes of the Terror were the criticisms, protests, and attacks that the Bolsheviks were facing from anarchists, SRs, and the ordinary workers and peasants whose interests Lenin claimed to represent.

The purpose of the Terror was to defend the Bolsheviks from the Revolution. The authoritarian political character of their project becomes clear from a statement in the Bolshevik press: “Anyone who dares spread the slightest rumor against the Soviet regime will be immediately arrested and sent to the concentration camps.” This was a reference to the gulag system, already established after just ten months of Bolshevik authority, part of the apparatus of Bolshevik repression that would eventually claim millions of lives.

Today, one hundred years after the Bolsheviks turned their newly consolidated military might against protesting peasants, we can reflect on the folly of their strategy, and any similar belief that the state has revolutionary potential as a tool for liberating the masses. The state can only preserve its existence by controlling and repressing the masses. By very nature, it is a counterrevolutionary instrument.

The Bolshevik party contained many sincere revolutionaries, but they surrendered their free will to the dictates of a hierarchical party. In obeying their leaders, in believing in the revolutionary potential of the state, they became torturers, censors, jailers, and executioners. Those who refused, those who opted for more peaceful approaches or for tactics based in solidarity, were pushed out of the way. Only the bloodiest and most ruthless could rise in the party ranks, egged on by Lenin himself. Just ten months after seizing power, the Bolsheviks already had a functioning system of hit men, secret police, and concentration camps for revolutionaries who refused to accept their authority, and they were ready to use mass murder against the peasants and workers who did not bow down before them.

From there, it only got worse.

Bibliography

Paul Avrich, “Russian Anarchism and the Civil War,” The Russian Review. Vol.27 No.3: 296–306. July 1968.

Paul Avrich, The Russian Anarchists. Oakland: AK Press, 2006.

Nick Heath, “Bolshevik Repression against Anarchists in Vologda,” libcom.org October 15 2017

Nadezhda Krupskaya, “Illyich Moves to Moscow, His First Months of Work in Moscow” Reminiscences of Lenin. International Publishers, 1970.

George Leggett. The Cheka: Lenin’s Political Police. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986.

Lenin, “Telegram to the Penza Gubernia Executive Committee of the Soviets” in J. Brooks and G. Chernyavskiy, Lenin and the Making of the Soviet State: A Brief History with Documents (2007). Bedford/St Martin’s: Boston and New York, p.77

James Ryan. Lenin’s Terror: The Ideological Origins of Early Soviet State Violence. London: Routledge, 2012.

Voline, The Unknown Revolution, 1917-1921. New York: Free Life Editions, 1974.

Nicolas Werth, Karel Bartosek, Jean-Louis Panne, Jean-Louis Margolin, Andrzej Paczkowski, Stephane Courtois, The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999.

Additional Reading

Ilyich Moves to Moscow, His First Months of Work in Moscow, from Krupskaya’s “Reminiscences of Lenin”

Bolshevik repression against anarchists in Vologda

April 2018: One Hundred Year Anniversary of the Beginning of Bolshevik Terror

Lenin Orders the Massacre of Sex Workers, 1918

[xtradonaire1]

KILLING CHRIST

Jesus himself warns us: “Beware of false prophets who come disguised as harmless sheep but are really vicious wolves” (Matthew 7:15 NLT).

To compare great leaders to Christ is concerning, but to compare Donald Trump to Jesus Christ is downright blasphemy.

Conservative pundits get extremely defensive about their unyielding loyalty to Trump. Fox News and Conservative Talk Radio may not have compared Trump to Christ overtly, but they have created and given a platform to people who do.

Billy Graham, was once a household name, he was the largest religious figure in America. Although he’s no longer living, his name lives on. Graham’s son, The 700 Club, Paula White, Kenneth Copeland, and other widely known religious leaders, have given their support to Trump. These religious leaders preached that Trump was sent by and from God to save us, much like Christ.

Thirty pieces of silver was the price for which Judas Iscariot betrayed Jesus, according to an account in the Gospel of Matthew 26:15

I often wonder, how much money did Trump pay these so-call religious leaders to support him and to trick their congregation to support him?

Major News networks would not give these religious zealots a platform, but they were always welcome on Fox News and Conservative Talk Radio without any push back or corrections.

Conservatives and most Southern Baptist preachers, teachers, and leaders have done a disservice to America and to millions of faith believing Christian, by shoving Trumpism as Christ-like.

Before he was crucified, Jesus was scourged. Romans would strip a man of his clothing, and flog his back, buttocks, and legs. A Roman soldier would have used a flagellum, a whip of several strands, perhaps 3 feet long, and each strand would have jagged pieces of lead and/or sheep bone in them to rip open the flesh. Romans were not limited by the Jewish law of 39 strokes. And the Roman soldiers didn’t just flog Jesus. They added a crown of thorns: they put it on his head and put a reed in his right hand. And kneeling before him, they mocked him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” 3And they spit on him and took the reed and struck him on the head. Matthew 27:29-30

Some people will do almost anything for money, Judas Iscariot turned over Christ, today-some are doing the same thing for political expedient, and of course for money. It’s really sad and painful to watch. Must Christ be crucified again today for the same things he already died for yesterday?

New Living Translation He was despised and rejected— a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief. I don’t recall seeing this side of Trump. On the contrary, I have seen Biden suffer from grief and sorrows; Biden lost twice running for President.

Luke 6:35 Verse Concepts But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for He, Himself is kind to ungrateful and evil men. Can anyone honestly say, these values resemble Donald Trump?

When I think of all the hateful words and things Trump has said and done, I find it irresponsible for anyone to possibly confuse and connect Trump’s values to that of Christ.

What are you willing to ignore about Trump? Hundreds and thousands of Americans dying from the Coronavirus? Children placed in cages separated from their families? Calling Africa and other Countries Shit-hole-countries? Promoting White Nationalists, “Good on both sides” …the list is endless, which is why I’m deeply disturbed by the Christ they see in Trump.

This Presidential election has revealed a great deal of information to us all. Conservatives are exceedingly happy to have received over 71 million American voters. The rest of us, 75 million and more, are happy and sad at the same time. We’re sad because racism is still too strong in our country-we’re happy because we have a new President and the first woman (woman of color) as vice president.

Unlike the Right, we do not see Joe Biden as a Christ, but we are hopeful that he will strive to be a character of principle and truthful.

The Bible teaches that Christ was crucified for our sins, that we may live. This powerful teaching gets harder to preach and teach when others keep bringing Christ down to become equal to men like Trump. The thought is despicable and is driven by greed. Nonetheless, prosperity preachers did their best to manipulate not only Americans, but Christ, his Angels, and the weather to reelect Trump.

Trump’s so-call spiritual advisor (Paula White), tried to send Angels from Africa to help Trump win the Presidency. Apparently Minister White is suffering from amnesia because the Bible clearly states that God is a spirit, and they that worship Him must worship him in spirit and truth (John 4:24). Place the word truth next to Donald Trump and let that soak in for a moment.

Paula Michelle White-Cain; April 20, 1966) is an American preacher, author, televangelist and exponent of prosperity theology, a controversial religious belief which claims that material prosperity is a sign of God’s grace.

When the death and resurrection of Christ is reduced to Prosperity theology, it opens the door for some to promote Trump as God’s chosen one. This kind of teaching is sacrilegious, but fake preachers are getting rich from this kind of teaching. The thought of Killing Christ’s teaching is irrelevant to these prosperity preachers. These types of preachers are more similar to Trump than they are to God. They pretend to care for the poor, while they live in mansion, their real love is money and power which is why they love Trump. Their teaching is perverted, it’s impossible for them to save the lost, when they are lost.

Trump has done a lot of bad things to this country, the hatred between the two parties has escalated to the verge of eruption- we need healing.

Manipulating the gospel of Christ for one’s wealth is not only diabolical, it’s dangerous. If we allow these types of teachers to continue, normalcy will become abnormal, and our democracy will fail, because a house divided cannot stand.

The Paula White’s of this world will lie to you to get your money. Had she read the good book, she would have learned that money cannot save you or buy love. Paula’s teaching is powerless and destructive, we don’t need a spiritual advisor Killing a Christ, rather, resurrecting a Christ, for democracy’s sake. Since the election is over, hope is renewed. The possibilities of coming together as Americans again, finding a cure to the virus, dealing with systemic racism, all this and more are now possible since Donald Trump is no longer President.

The election is now over and Trump is refusing to accept the fact that he lost. Perhaps he believed Paula White, when she said, “I hear the sound of rain” (the only sound she heard was money falling in her bank account) perhaps he believed she could bully God to save his presidency- or maybe he had forgotten Paula is much like him, places greed over humanity. To take advantage of the most vulnerable is like Killing Christ’s reasons for existing. Many of these prosperity preacher’s congregation are made-up of poor people and people of color. It’s clearly understandable why so many Americans are skeptical about religion and Christ.

Televangelist Kenneth Copeland laughs off media report of Joe Biden as U.S. President

On January 20, 2021, Donald Trump will no longer be Commander-in-Chief and Paula “crooked” White (with all the rest of those so-call religious leaders supporting Trump) will longer be the nation’s spiritual advisors, the resurrection of a better America will rise, thus, it is written.

No more Killing Christ, from lying “Spiritual advisors” Preachers, no more…Killing Christ

The Blazing Center by, Mark Altrogge, April 16, 2019

Wikipedia on Paula White

We all like to save a dime or two when we purchase, I think Rakuten is a great way to do both. https://bit.ly/3mkRdXS

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[jthelmsdeep]

An election post-mortem. Don’t confuse me with the facts!

The US Presidential elections are long over, and from the rubble of the vitriol, deflection, and lack of substance during the debates has emerged the de facto President-Elect of The United States. Barring a catastrophic revelation such as, say, the late discovery that Donald J. Trump was born in Russia, he will be sworn in as the 45th President of these United States. To say this election was fractious might qualify as the understatement of the year. Relationships were sorely tested and many failed the test.

We are a culture of “adjectives,” and we’re terribly fond of labels. Our tendency is to classify people as one thing or the other, but maybe even more shocking was how so many Christians declared other Christians unfit to be Christian simply because of their political leanings. Facebook and its social media ilk became the unwitting arbiters of disseminating fake news more than truth.

And the mainstream media?

Well, completely out of touch with the masses, and focused on promoting their own agenda, they were shockingly reminded that the people and not they, control the cultural narrative as well as the impact of political discourse.

So now, on the eve of the inauguration of the 45th POTUS, is as good a time as any to perform a necropsy on the state of our country following the recent elections. Obviously (at least to me), the primary purpose of this exercise is to, in general, understand why our political differences caused so much dissension and vitriol, dissect the reasons for which Christians became as divided as we did; and in particular, to find out how Christianity has emerged from this erstwhile battle.

Let’s begin by reminding ourselves that Donald Trump won the Electoral College vote by a significant margin, while Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by more than two million votes (Yes, I’m aware that conspiracy theorists suggest that the popular vote was rigged, but that contention is hardly worth the rabbit trail built by such divisive and unproven theories). Whatever the case, this divided result points to a nation sharply divided evenly down the middle, at least among the voting populace.

Talking about voter fraud, let’s begin this conversation with the idea of fraud. What’s really fraudulent is this notion that our political system is a binary party system. That’s the biggest fraud of all, and I heard it perpetrated by Evangelical Christians numerous times during the election cycle. It became the primary reason for getting behind Trump in spite of all his, shall we say, inadequacies.

To excuse the stench of his blatant excesses which clearly reflected a departure from Scripture, the popular Christian refrain became, “I’m voting for President not for Pope.” But why were Christians willing to overlook his shortcomings when confronted with options other than his candidacy?

Seeing as how so many of us interpret our party system as a binary system, the answer to that can be explained by two primary ideas:

It would appear that, as far as Christians were concerned, Liberals and Democrats were assiduously working to ridicule and delegitimize their faith, while apparently seeking to cloak themselves in a garb of spirituality that was, at best, a pretentiously thin veneer of pseudo-spirituality. Hillary Clinton’s suggestion that the Christian faith was going to have to catch up with the current times, arrogantly demonstrated that—at least in her opinion—the Bible isn’t as authoritative and infallible as Christians hold it to be. She miscalculated the fact that many of the issues that Christians hold sacrosanct are indeed mountains-to-die-on, and so to dismiss them as cavalierly as she did rubbed many Christian Black, White, and Hispanic voters the wrong way. In that gross miscalculation, she fatally underestimated the power of the Evangelical voting block.

The Democratic Party has an ideological disconnect with Evangelicals. The manifesto of the Party would seem to suggest that only people with liberal and “progressive” ideologies need apply. As a friend of mine put it, “There is no room in the Democratic Inn for Conservative Christians.” This disconnect in large part gave rise to the “vote for a party platform even if you don't like the candidate” ideology.

While these two reasons would largely explain the Evangelical voters support for Trump, ultimately culpability for the vitriol surrounding the elections lies with ideologically and intellectually arrogant Democrats, racially prejudiced and misogynistic Republicans, and theologically illiterate and intolerant Evangelicals.

But were these reasons, in all good conscience, reason enough for Christians to vote for Trump? Weren’t there more than two political parties platforming candidates for the Presidency? The answer to those questions would be ‘no’ only if you believe that our system isn’t binary.

Truth 1: The Fallacy of a Binary-Party System

A so-called two-party system is a subterfuge that derives its strength from the lemming-like following of political ideology. How can it possibly be a binary system if there are five party candidates on the ballot sheet and a space to fill in any name your heart desires? While it’s true to say there are two major party candidates, if the majority of the electorate decided to vote for a third party candidate because they found  the two main party candidates ill-suited for the position of POTUS, then that groundswell of support at the polls would undoubtedly carry the third party candidate into office thereby making nonsense of the claim of a binary party system.

The truth lies somewhere closer to the fact that too many Evangelical Christians are inexplicably tied to a party platform more than they are to the qualifications of a given candidate. To read some of the illogical postulations expressing why “real” Christians must vote for a political party even if you aren’t particularly enamored by that party’s candidate, would seem to suggest that if Hitler, or even Satan himself ran on the platform of said Party, he would be a shoo-in for their vote based on the party platform principle.

Look friends, this tired rhetoric of voting for a party platform borders on the absurd. As Christians we don’t apply such logic to any other area of our lives, yet in politics it seems to hold sway against all wisdom to the contrary. Might I remind you that it wasn’t possessing the ten commandments—the platform upon which a Godly nation was built—that made Israel holy and righteous before God, it was their observance of said commandments.

They weren’t better off than the pagan nations because they possessed or believed in the ten commandments, they were better off only if they observed them, as succinctly pointed out in the Scriptures in Deuteronomy 11. After all, how many of us pick what church to attend based on the political beliefs of the pastor? In other words, how many of us have had conversations with a pastor about his political party platform before we make the decision to embrace the Biblical beliefs he espouses (which, unlike a political allegiance, are actually relevant to our salvation and wellbeing)?

Many Evangelical Christians would have us believe that supporting something as inanimate as a party platform determines whether or not one is a true Christian, but in the same breath they turn around and suggest to gun-control advocates that guns are inanimate objects and don’t kill people, other people kill people. But, much like a gun is an inanimate object—and according to those who support gun ownership—doesn’t kill people, the same must be said about political party platforms. A platform doesn’t govern, nor does it promulgate regulations and laws, people do…for better or for worse, regardless of what party they belong to.

Proof?

Truth 2: The Fallacy of Roe v. Wade and The Lesser of Two Evils

Republican appointed Justices have been a majority in the SCOTUS since 1953 and did in fact vote in support of Roe v. Wade by a majority of 7 — 2 in favor of the decision. Of the 7 Justices who voted for the decision, 5 were conservative Republican appointees with only one dissenting voice. That’s an inconvenient truth for Republican “party platform” Christians who’d much rather sweep those facts under the rug by deflecting attention to the Democrats as pro-abortion-baby-killers, even though there is an entire movement of Democrats against abortion. Again, party platforms don’t establish legislation or belief systems, people do.

Is it reasonably possible to believe that people can belong to a particular political party without subscribing to everything that the party stands for? Arnold Schwarzenneger was the Republican Governor of California, yet only his fiscal policies made him a moderate Republican. His social platform was more in line with liberalism (he actually officiated at the wedding of a gay couple). President-Elect Donald Trump, and former Florida Governor, Charlie Crist (among many others) have both switched political parties in recent years. Why? Did the party manifestos suddenly change, or did they wake up one morning and suddenly realize that, like a sail boat drifting in the undertow of the current, they’d drifted away from the party platform they once so strongly believed in? I think not my friends. I’d suggest that it’s simply political expediency.

But these politicians aren’t the problem that concerns me, we Christians are!

You see, it would be fine if we’d simply suggest that we’re supporting a candidate because we believe he or she will work to serve our best interests. But when we attempt to couch our support in spiritual garments and suggest that others who don’t see what we see are either not “real” Christians or not “hearing” God clearly enough, that is deceitful and monumentally arrogant at best. To imply, as has been done on numerous occasions, that one candidate’s sin is more grievous than another’s is selective morality. And make no mistake about it, a selective morality that suggests that going with the lesser of  two evils is the better option, is in itself deadly. It is the very definition of moral relativism, which evangelical Christians decry and detest in everyone else.

I like how a friend of mine puts it:

“It is this same moral relativism that conservatives condemn among liberals that made evangelicals support a thrice-married, serial adulterer with a precariously tenuous prior relationship with Scripture and wafer-thin pedigree in Kingdom issues over a well-qualified Methodist woman married for over three decades to one man and had no history of adulterous conduct.” ~ Gbenga X

While I don’t personally believe that Hillary Clinton would have made a better POTUS for the majority of Americans, I can’t help but agree with his contention that to point out one of the candidates’ shortcomings as being more egregious than the other’s—based primarily on the party platform they represent—is moral relativism, which, in a very real sense confers on Christians the self-attributed authority of ‘gods’ dispensing judgment and our own brand of justice as we see fit.

If Daniel and the three Hebrew Boys had exercised a choice between the lesser of two evils instead of restricting themselves to vegetables and water, they would have opted for some of the fare from King Nebuchadnezzar’s table—which the king had expressly requested be given to his servants—so as to avoid falling into disfavor with the king and possibly face death for repudiating his authority. If Daniel had opted for the lesser of two evils when Nebuchadnezzar instructed that everyone in Babylon bow down and worship the giant image of him, he would have kept the doors to his room closed and prayed to his God secretly so as to avoid the death penalty. Instead he opted to spend a night using lions as pillows.

If Joseph had opted for the lesser of two evils he could surely have justified acquiescing to the advances of Potiphar’s wife knowing that a good word from her to Potiphar would make life better for him and potentially elevate him to a position of authority so that his prophecy of being honored by his parents and brothers would come to pass (He was smart enough to also know that a negative report about him from her to Potiphar could potentially end his life). Instead he honored his covenant with God and opted for prison for two years under the unjust shadow of false allegations. I’m sure by now you get the point.

Truth 3: The Deceiving Allure of Political Power

I would boldly assert that we Christians hold political power and expedience above our witness as Christ followers to outsiders! Why else would we want to impose our beliefs and lifestyle on everyone else, especially through gaining political dominance? Why else would we think that imposing legislation against abortion would ever stop those who don’t believe as we do from getting abortions? There is grave danger in trying to build a “Christian” state by legislation in spite of the fact that not every American believes the way we do.

While one might argue that radical Islam is on a rampage globally, terrorizing the innocent and attempting to forcefully impose their beliefs on others, if we Christians attempt to impose our beliefs on others under the guise of political expedience, how are we any different? After all, history shamefully brandishes the terrible crimes against humanity that have been committed in the name of Christianity, all under the guise of protecting the faith. Consider the Spanish Inquisition of 1478 established for the following stated reason:

King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella wanted an all-Catholic kingdom as a tool with which to Unite Spain. They did this by forcing people to admit to being heretics and then publicly killing them or imprisoning them for life. Those accused who did not admit to being heretics were still found guilty by a tribunal and publicly executed. The tribunal was established with authority from the Pope (by definition, a heretic was anyone who didn’t embrace catholicism). http://www.thenagain.info/WebChron/WestEurope/SpanInqui.html.

While you may be tempted to argue that radical Islam is still worse because, as a religion it is fundamentally violent, I would counter that logic by simply asking, is one crime more heinous than another because the perpetrator of one crime wears $5000 suits, lives in a Manhattan penthouse, and drives the car of your dreams, while the other is poorly educated, raised-in-poverty, and is a never-do-well petty thief who broke into your house and robbed you at gunpoint?

If the answer to that question is no—and I’m confident that it is—then we must recognize that we cannot impose our way of life on anyone simply because they view life through a different prism than we do. The only proven way to win the outsider isn’t by legislating and imposing our version of morality, but by loving them into the Kingdom.

So how does it look for the Church post-election?

I imagine the answer to this question will largely depend on how much humility we’re willing to model. Whether we consider the outcome of the recent elections a victory or defeat, we must resist the temptation to name call, label, denigrate, and deride other people’s interpretation of their faith, as if we have a monopoly on wisdom and are the only ones capable of hearing God distinctly.

All too often, we’re quick to unsheathe our verbal swords as soon as we perceive that our interpretation of faith is under attack, and this makes it difficult to listen to the other side of the story. I realize that abortion, gay rights legislation, immigration, terrorism, the economy and a myriad of other issues are all hot-button topics of the moment, but consensus will never be reached by any side attempting to insensitively impose its will on the other.

As Christ followers we must remember that our fight isn’t against “flesh and blood” but against “principalities, powers, rulers of darkness, and wicked spirits in the heavenly realm.” If we can keep this big idea forefront in our minds, then we will ultimately always come back to the most important idea there is…Christ and Him Crucified for the sake of the whole world! After all, that is the Good News of the Gospel, isn’t it?

Finally, I’ll conclude this lengthy dissertation by reminding us that the Church always does better when we’re on our knees than when we carry arms (Acts 12:5). It’s time to faithfully and fervently pray for the 45th President of the United States of America, whether you voted him into office or not. That is what 1 Timothy 2:2 demands of the professing Christ follower. Just my Dos Centavos!

[thecoroutfitters]

Written by Wild Bill on The Prepper Journal.

Pat Henry knew five (5) years ago. His anger directed at the Supreme Court and the power these nine (9) justices hold over every one of us in their execution of interpreting the constitution. It could have been when Justice Roberts cast the unexpected swing vote that labeled Obamacare a tax and that Congress was within its right to levy taxes. That shook many of us to the core as this was a major blow to the Republic and a validation that imposed totalitarian rule was indeed sanctioned by the American left and now stamped as approved by the branch of government specifically put in place to protect us from such acts.

Fast forward 5 years.

While status quo has been replaced by the swamp, while agenda’s are now masked by fake news, where the roots of facts can be directly traced to slanted or manufactured opinions as opposed to the other way around, the political shifts of the political “parties” are something that preppers can not afford to follow, keep up with, understand. Survival demands it.

Our “representatives”, for lack of a more defining term, have long since turned in their campaign promises for cash from and sworn obedience to the donor class. While the media and pundits claim they have drifted farther apart, and I can see their point, the drift has been in the same direction. It isn’t exclusively a Democrat or Republicans thing, the smaller parties have followed the trend as well.

The “Republican” Koch brothers are only different from the open border socialists in their ultimate goal. While the former seeks an uneducated and cheap labor force the latter seeks an uneducated and easily controlled voter block. Each to prop up their elitist positions, to keep them in power. Only Americans lose in either of their scenarios.

Sociologists have long predicted and philosophers have long pondered that it is a natural progression of democracies to morph into socialist forms of rule (Greece, Spain). Try finding an unbiased article on the subject with a Silicon Valley search engine. Alas a trip to a real library, replete with physical books, or picking the brain of a true scholar is required to find works such as The Road to Serfdom by F.A. Hayak. Of course once you know the author and title you can find relative works of interest within these same search engines. However their algorithms are designed to promote the items they want presented as news or information. Google always gives me the New York Times, Washington Post and CNN as the lead on any news item I search.

As preppers we plan and we plan based on the information we can obtain and filter through the lens of our life experience and common sense.

Have the News and the Truth Divorced?

I honestly do not know when reporting facts became optional, expedient to agenda. It is not new, it has been going on for decades if not throughout history. History, after all, is written by the victors. Perhaps the speed of the world has made it so omnipresent in our lives. I can send a text to a friend in Malaysia in little more than a heartbeat. Have we become so accustomed to the speed of information that the constant bombardment of new information is expected? Depended upon? Demanded?

And of course accurate news is still reported, every day. Not everything you see, hear or read is skewed and twisted for an agenda, a political gain. Not the lesser things. I still believe most weather forecasters, working in a difficult science and basing projections on constantly changing models. Local news mostly trips over getting the facts for local news, but I believe their efforts sincere. However, when it comes major news stories most of the locals are simply reading the feeds from the main stream media, which includes not only the alphabets (ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox, MSNBC, and NBC) but the main stream services  Reuters and AP, the BBC and their ilk. I have visited 68 foreign countries and if English is not the native language their English-language newspapers and English-language internet services are all built with the materials from those news services. The world is poisoned by the American media.

So, for preppers, reading the news anymore is akin to solving math problems with the wrong numbers. Like it or not we have to work with the information we get.

Socialism’s Rebirth

Of course socialism is envied by the younger generation. That is always where it has been seeded. It was droned into their skulls all through the latter stages of their education process and it is, after all, the easy way out. Competing is hard. Competing takes real work, dedication and effort. You have to be able to deal with failure and criticism and setbacks and those are scary. They are stressful. There is disappointment in not getting a participation trophy. The only real safe spaces are the ones we build and defend ourself and again that takes work, they can fail. But this is really only the portion of the generation that the media pushes to support its agenda. High schools and colleges and our military and our younger workforce are full of people who believe in themselves and their individual abilities. Of people who step up when the occasion presents itself.

As preppers we are people who make the effort because we know the stakes. Like Pat Henry 5 years ago it has been a long time since I have voted a party line as opposed to an individuals. Want proof that it never works, look at Arizona, the two Republican Senators could not be more left of center, more open-borders globalist. At least California can say they knew what they were getting in their two Senators, sadly.

But that dynamic changed on November 8, 2016 and the separation of the parties has widened to a chasm. One that grows with every passing day, every event of note. Civilized debate ended on that day. Listening became subjecting yourself to being lectured and any praise immediately put you on an enemies list, subjected you to verbal and even physical abuse. Look at the stupidity circling the Mayor of Somerville (where?) and Samuel Adams Brewing. Another example of a politically corrupt big fish in a small pond throwing a fit – over a compliment. I really do wonder if America has become too fractured to survive.

But, step back and what is the reality? A childish mayor being blown out of proportion by, wait for it, the media. The stupidity is just one of the endless examples we are bombarded with constantly.

Looking at what Pat wrote 5 years ago, looking at the swamp today I believe we are faced with Sophie’s Choice in November. I will admit that I am a fan of the non-politician in the White House. I am a deplorable in my belief of America and it’s founding principals and I will tend to vote against the left as they have become more and more unhinged in their opposition. I will never vote for guaranteed higher taxes, open borders, the abolishment of ICE, the limiting of free speech, infringement of my rights under the 2nd Amendment, taxpayer-funded abortions, and universal health care as a method to socialize medicine and limit free markets and impose oppression on peoples labors, just to name a few. One reason is I frankly do not know how to PREPARE for these changes. Do you?

Tuesday November 6th, 2018 is a very important day.

Be safe out there but get out there.

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