When I was Growing Up I was told Cartoons are not real.

 

"Yeah, our missions trip to California was cool. We slept on the floor of an old Russian Pentecostal church. It was fun." 

"Russian Pentecostal? Okay, I'm assuming they're Christians? I thought Russians were mainly Communist." 

[From an actual phone conversation with a young lady back when I was in my early 20's.]

When I was a young whippersnapper, I got big into the Superhero thing. The Batman TV series was riding high, Marvel had a couple of animated programs on Saturday mornings.  I went around with a towel around my neck like a cape & called myself "Wonder Boy." Probably nicked from Batman's sidekick "Robin, the Boy Wonder."

At one point, I remember asking my mother "There's no such thing as... me, right?" Well hey, those guys running around saving the world in spandex - That's what was said about them. "There's no such thing as... Superman" [or substitute your favorite character.] Well, I thought that's how you get into the "elite" of super-powered do-gooders. Nobody believes you're real!

Anyway, I digress. Over the years I've heard the following "canards" being bandied about [and the older I get, the less I give them the time of day.]:

• All Russians are Communists.

• All Communists are authoritarians who would murder the people the are leading in mass numbers at the drop of a hat.

• China? They got where they are by stealing technology and manipulating their currency. Nobody else does those kind of things.

• All Arabs or residents of the Middle East are at best scheming, conniving autocrats and at worst out-and-out terrorists.

• The men who brought "Law & Order" to the unsettled US territories [read "The Old West"] - Those were the good guys. It's those Indigenous folk ["Savages"] that caused trouble and got in the way of progress. Someone always has to die in conflicts like that, sad to say.

• Most if not all scientists & qualified medical experts are spinning yarns about the danger of things like Climate Change or going unvaccinated during a pandemic. It's all about the Benjamins, don'cha know? 

[The Scientists & experts who aren't lying? Those are the ones that tell me what I want to hear.]

• Wealthy Billionaires are that way because they earned every penny. Oh, and they don't mind sharing with you the secrets of how they got to where they are today. So be sure to vote how they say to because that's what's best for the economy.

• People are streaming across the US Southern border because they want to invade our nation and vote in our elections. It has nothing to do with bad circumstances created by US imperialistic motives.

• 
  The United States was founded as a "Christian Nation" based on Biblical principles. So lining up the Country against principles founded in the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible will get things back on track and the country in good working order!

Riiiight.

Now having gone over some misconceptions - ones that oddly enough are held to by adult Men & Women - all the while the children are expected to put away their childish things and outgrow Santa Claus & Spiderman, this begs the question...

How are today's youth expected to do that when adults won't grow up and reason with their prejudiced way of looking at certain aspects of life?

At the time of this writing, the headlines are chock full of stories related to LEO crackdowns on Students protesting the Israel-Palestine war at college campuses across the U.S. with growing accusations of Antisemitism being thrown around.

The plight of the Palestinians has been around for over 3/4 of a century now, and it's become a global entanglement - involving several Western governments, but by and large the United States which has repeatedly bankrolled Israel's war against the people of Palestine ever since the Oct 7, 2023 Al-Aqsa Flood uprising.

But with emotions riding high and opinions divided, charges of Antisemitism are being thrown around, particularly by Israel's staunchest supporters who feel that opposition to Israel's handling of the situation in the occupied territories constitutes hatred for Jews as a people. 

So we need to add one more Bullet point to the above list of misinformed misconceptions of youth held over at the Box Office:

• Opposition to Israel's governmental policies, as they are carried out both domestically & internationally, are "Anti-Semitic", which puts the holder of such views on a level with the government of NAZI Germany. 

And because we have a Congress beholden to the Israeli lobby, and a Mainstream media beholden to Big Oil and the Military-Industrial complex, they [the Media] tend to fall in line in reinforcing such Childish misconceptions; Check out how the spin doctors re-worked what was a headline sympathetic to the students valiant attempt at calling attention to the gross, murderous injustices in Gaza by the Israel Defense Force, which they are committed to by doctrinal decree - Into one raising suspicions about people's motivations for being involved in these protests. Found these just this morning on 04/27/2024:

The 1st headline brings up the sympathy these students are receiving from their college faculties in the midst of their effort to call attention to ongoing injustices in Palestine.

The 2nd headline sees the Students' identity erased and replaced with the generic "Anti-War Protestors," no mention of how the faculty feels about it, and the dreaded "Anti-Semitism" smear tactic rears it's ugly head.

Much virtual ink and many, many podcasts have been made to discuss the current conflict in Israel-Palestine [yes, I refuse the buzzword inclusion of Israel-Hamas.] But let's add insult to injury, shall we? Remember the bullet points above about Communism & about China, respectively?

How often would you guess protests happen in the People's Republic of China?  That's a good one to talk about, because in these discussions about repression of dissent in the US some Gaslighting Gus well chime in with "But think of how you'd do attempting the same thing in China!

So how many protests in the PRC do you think happen?

Would 180,000 a year surprise you?

According to the Journal of Civil Society:

"Yet authoritarian China was, and continues to be, a country brimming with social protests. The estimates vary, but every year as many as 180,000 protests may take place. This staggering number of outbursts of collective action indicates that serious challenges to the ruling party and its political legitimacy exist, be it in the form of socio-economic inequality, environmental degradation, endemic corruption, or problems of accountability and abuse of power—especially at the lowest levels of the formal political system."

The previous quote is taken from an article in the Journal of Civil Society titled The Unknown Terrain of Social Protests in China: ‘Exit', ‘Voice', ‘Loyalty', and ‘Shadow’ authored by one Johan Lagerkvist of the Department of Asian, Middle Eastern and Turkish Studies, in Stockholm University.

Furthermore, Protests against the government's Zero COVID policy were instrumental in getting China to drop the Lockdown restrictions and reopen inter an intra state travel. Not bad for an "Authoritarian" regime run by an alleged thug according to the current US white house occupant.

How is it that the People's Republic of China appears to be tolerating protests within it's own borders against it's own policies better than the US seems to be able to do so in regards to US policies regarding a region there seems to be little or no reason to be involved in, and what involvement there is doesn't seem to make anything better?

But an even better question: One that should haunt us deeply: How are cartoonish caricatures of people groups among the hoi polloi being responded to by those in education, government, and faith-based positions of respect? Are they helping to clear the air... or are they making matters worse? Our two main choices in the upcoming fall elections for POTUS would seem to render a negative verdict, for certain?

Thanks should go to the Jerry's Take on China blog for the two China-related articles shared in this post.

 

I'll never have a Holiday in my name [And I'm okay with that]

by Kevin Wayne

"Jesus, Gandhi and Martin Luther King" 

 At one point in time, maybe still is far all I know - It was common among Socially aware secularists to say those three names in tandem with each other. It was sort of a "Virtue Signalling" tactic [as if extolling virtue is a bad thing?] It's a way of saying "I aspire to the kind of greatness in Peacemaking efforts that these men are associated with. I admire them for that and want that kind of association to be indicative of my life."

To the consternation as I recall, of many of my fellow Christians.

Now I'm by no means unaware of the reasons for this. I've got a Minor in Biblical Studies at the undergraduate level and 2 years of seminary under my belt, plus years of various service, most recently with a church that existed as an outreach to the homeless & mentally ill. I know who Jesus was, or how he's meant to Christians throughout history, particularly as "our Saviour" who redeems the hopeless sinner from his or her bondage to darkness, and reconciles us to God almighty through the Cross. Oh, and he's God himself come in the flesh as well. The other 2 men on the list have a bit of homework to do in order to catch up to that kind of resume'. Those are big shoes to fill. Better get started on it tonight 😜

At the same time, paradoxically these 3 men have something in common that many Evangical Christians don't seem to share - Or that they aspire to: 

As far as I can tell, Jesus, Gandhi & Martin Luther King, Jr. were never mouthpieces for the war 
 machine or regime change efforts fostered by their particular nation's government. Whereas todays mainstream evangelicals have fallen for pretty much every clarion call for the US Military-Industrial Complex including [in my lifetime] Vietnam, Nicaragua, Iraq, Venezuela, Russia/Ukraine, Israel Palestine. 

• Jesus never played into the fever dreams of himself as a Nationalistic Messiah, and though one of the Zealots was part of his inner circle, never adopted their politics as his own. His "politics" were and are the coming and present Kingdom of God.

• Gandhi tried to model his life and his work on the Nonretaliatory love he saw Jesus representing in the Gospels. This he attempted to employ in his quest for his people, the citiens of his native India - to be liberated from the oppression of the British empire.  Supposedly he was famous for saying "I like your Christ, but not your Christianity. You Christians are not very much like your Christ."

• Martin Luther King, Jr began his work in pursuit of liberation for the African in the US - his fellow Black citizens suffering in a post Jim Crow world that seemed to want to forget about those people whose ancestors were brought here by force. Eventually he would add a campaign against poverty and opposition to the Vietnam War to his Gospel-inspired agenda.

And each one of these great men were honored with a National Holiday wherein people hopefully can take time out to reflect on their contributions to society on the whole. India celebrates Gandhi's Birthday as such, the US has marked Martin Luther King Jr day for several years now. And although not believed to be historically accurate, December 25th has long been the marking of the "Christ mass" or the Birthday of God's only Son.

Now for the present time, a word about the name of this, my newest attempt at a Socially Conscious blog  from an Independent perspective. ;-)

I've heard supposedly I'm "not a good person" because of my unwavering stance in favor of the Palestinians in the Israeli Occupied territories. Or implying who am I to represent myself as a "Good Christian" in light of some aspects of my past.

So let's get this out of the way right now: I am not claiming to be a "Good Christian."

But I know I serve a very, very very good God.

So if you think that might shut me up to point out where I might fall short of certain lofty ideals, guess again. It hasn't succeeded in the past, and it's not about to. In fact, it's to better my own life at this time with mediations and writings on Truth. Which I take no credit for, but aspire to put it - truth - above partisanship. 

It's what Jesus would do, after all. Here's a meditation on what that's all about;