Greek mythology has some really great gay stories… the Bible only has a guy who falls in love with a prince and marries his sister, a woman who falls in love with an older woman, and a whiny self-righteous jewish cock-tease who leads on 12 guys, a fag hag, has a dinner party; never puts out and in the end the true tragedy is that he was really well hung.

Apparently according to the Daily Mail, over a courthouse in Benghazi, a “well-known symbol of al Qaeda” (a black flag stating that “God is Great” in Arabic) is flying atop a Libyan national flag. Before I go into my thoughts, I can figure that this may be called a media misappropriation and sham. That this is put up by government sources as a red herring in order to distract. I can see criticism that this may be just one court house, in one portion of the city. I can see that this may have been a short window in which a flag similar to al Qaeda’s branding has been raised….

Let’s assume for a moment that it is not. Let us assume for a moment that the transitional authority has allowed the flying of a terrorist organization’s flag. That is entirely possible as well. No one can reasonably attest that the results of the Arab spring will hold anything more than the momentary release of steam in the transfer of power from on megalomaniacal murderous lunatic to a cadre of religious oligarch’s whose primary legitimacy lay in their recognized scholarly achievements in the interpretation and study of a (now pragmatically obsolete) repository of the thoughts and writings of a 7th century Arab people. What does this mean for the rest of us, for civilization as a whole?

We can look at the nature of revolutions. A revolution has happened even before a bullet pierces someone’s skin. A revolution has occurred even before the the body of the recently deposed is hung on a meathook to serve as the angry mob’s spitting post (e.g., Mussolini). Revolution manifests itself when the hearts and minds of the people are ignited by the separation of self from the subjugation of a specific social order.

So from Tahrir Square to Tallahassee, the quiet has been shattered. The Arabic Spring, the Tea Party, the Greek Austerity Protesters, the British Student revolts, and Occupy have at different levels and from different-but seemingly parallel motivators- have exhibited that in our Facebook world we have globally engaged in revolution. The revolution has happened. Somewhere along the way, the method and manner of popular sovereignty has changed. We are now rehashing the workers revolts of the 19th and 20th Centuries, we are reenacting the American Battle for self-determination.

I suppose that it wasn’t unexpected. In a way, the internet is allowing us to return to how we operate best (small groups of up to about 200 people). The average person has about 200 friends. I also suppose that the nation state is now a jingoistically odious hovering noxious gas. The nation state emerged at a time of technological reform. So in a weird vindication of Marxian political thought (i.e., The German Ideology), our technological evolution has produced the foundations for a new socio-political superstructure. From before when capitalism allowed a handful to rise to a level of power and force alloying them to decapitate divinely appointed hereditary kings; that capitalism eventually produced a global communication channel (the net) which has now situated the global population to (literally or figuratively) decapitate our new masters. These new masters (corporate and banking oligarchs) may not see themselves as divinely instilled (more likely as mortal gods among men); these oligarchs who once used their means and influence to have a say (who now have generated the arena where they have not just A say, but nearly all of the say), are now being forced to contend with the roving throngs who elevated them to their neo-regal positions. We are knocking on the palace doors that they once banged on four hundred years ago.

The difference is that today, the roving throngs: as we were once equals, then their subjects, then their serfs, then their citizens, then their customers, are now their inconvenience. Bank of America has proven that recently by their new $5 a month fee to use their debit card services. The difference is that now, those who they once towered over are now banding together in decentralized segments to demand more than being a cog. More than a component in the maintenance of certain obscene luxury.

This of course leads to the conversation of punching success. Should we punish those who have accomplished more than others simply because others are “lazy.” I do not think so. Should we make wealth a crime, and thus disincentivize those who produce? No I don’t think so. At the same time is it necessarily right that there are certain individuals who participate in society who start and are maintained (sustained) by privileged and advantageous wealth and means, while others must compete for the meagerest-pittance in order to subsist? In other words is it right to sustain the perennially widening wealth-chasm for the privilege of the few? No.

So what is the right answer to these volatile economic arguments that seem to be the fuel of the Arab Spring and the homespun tea party and occupy movements respectively? I don’t know that either. I am not an economist, and I sit there dumbfounded.

I would like to examine the Tea Party and the Occupy movement, at least how I see it in my limited capacity. I have been really busy getting my two bachelors degrees in the last couple of years and I have neglected being completely engaged in investigating either movement. So this is (like most of my posts) is just mere opinion based upon my liberal-biased perspective.

We have the Tea Party and the Occupy movements. One looks more conservative and libertarian, and the other looks more liberal and progressive. The Tea Party seems to be a set of small business owners who are unhappy at government regulations that inconvenience them or adversely effect their business practices and growth. The Occupy movement seems to be working people and academics. Neither (with the exception of the traveling carnival of pundits and politico-freaks: i.e., Michael Moore, Sarah Palin etc) seem to have substantial wealth behind them inherently. One movement (Tea Party) seems to be co-opted by the Republican Party in the way that they GOP created an evangelical Golem out of conservative Christian’s hatred of gays, blacks, and uppity women in order to wet the appetite of those whose GOP anti-regulatory policies have economically-fucked to make these folks eager to vote against their best-fiscal-interest as a trade off to keeping Jesus safely resting atop a federal pedestal.

The Tea Party seems to represent an anger at the government for their predicament. In their “patriotic” parlance, they seem to neglect the contributions that their chosen major party has given to their current state of affairs. They disproportionate focus their anger on the Presidency rather than Congress. They portray Obama as a socialist (which he has clearly not demonstrated himself to be), the focus on claims that he was born adverse to his office’s criterial qualifications, and that his chief goal is to destroy the nation which has been nothing but good to them.

This seems rather unsound. I would say that they come off as being against the government and ignore their role in it-but they run so many candidates. They are angry. I think that the tea partiers are rightfully angry. Things suck right now, they suck for all of us (Well nearly all of us). However, they are angry, and taking to the streets in their rightful expression of peaceable assembly and association. I think that instantly calling them racist is naive. At the same time, as someone who has heard some of the rhetoric, I wouldn’t say that it would be uncommonly inaccurate. 

Then we have the occupy protest. They have been accused of an absence of a clear message. I don’t know if that is absolutely true. Occupy seems to be angry at the disproportionate gap between the rich and poor. Like the Tea Party, they too are expressing their anger at their economic lot. Perhaps the “lack of message” stems from the sophistication of the problem and its precipitants. Perhaps the problem of poverty and financial crisis is so multilayered that a greeting card sound byte would inherently fail.  Unlike the Tea Party, the Occupy people are focusing their anger at a situation rather than a government. 

Regardless, these movements stem from the manifestation of a revolution that has already happened. It is happening globally. Diderot once said that man will not be free until the last king is strangled by the entrails of the last priest. So perhaps this is just a recalibration of the extent of defining the extent of force and intrusion-and even nature of authority. Looking at the al Qaeda flag, I would say that that calibration is falling back to the initial problem. The initial problem is the obsolete manner of social control based upon illegitimate authority. God is no longer a legitimate authority, might-makes-right physical force rule by fiat is no longer legitimate authority. Perhaps this is the sign that the legitimate authority of our combined interests steeped in the foundations of appealing to human dignity as our source, rather than supporting idea. Perhaps it is this medium through mobile devices that can finally ensure that the throat with the meekest whisper is taken into account alongside the loudest megaphone holder. 

This new revolution has so much potential, but I doubt that those who have the most to liquidate are not those with the most to lose. Let’s hope that this is more than just a flash in the pan, more than the dying gasp of true liberty and freedom.

“An agnostic is not someone who says that they do not know, but someone who says that you do no know.”-Ingersoll

One thing that strikes me, is this thought of arguing about religion, and whether I am an Atheist or an Agnostic. In one breath, I would say Atheist-as someone who is comfortable saying that there is no God, but on another breath, I am not chauvinistic to disbelief enough to say that I am either smart enough to know, or have all of the information to make a full decision. At the same time I doubt that my religious friends can either.

I feel more like someone off the grid entirely when it comes to whether a god exists or not. As someone studying religious studies, I find it more of a situation of asking what and why someone believes what they do-rather than asking them why they are too stupid to agree with me (though i used to have fun with this).

It seems now that it is just a different articulation of a question (or series) of common interest. Faith-responses seem to be a pop-up book of basic logical fallacies, and it seems that the Atheist movement is too busy arguing with the crazy cat lady that her tin-foil hat won’t necessarily hide her thoughts from aliens, rather than saying that there probably isn’t an alien intelligence in communication with her (and it probably some kind of dissociation between her brain and recognizing her inner monologue).

The question that we should ask, is not why she is so apparently gullible to believe in it-but to understand why she believes in it. It’s more useful, and as people of reason sounds more in tune with our claims to reason.

If you don’t like me talking shit about Mohammed, don’t talk about Mohammed as if he were the shit.

(feel free to replace Mohammed with any sacred cow of your choice).

I had a thought today, just a short one. If you claim that the Bible or Qur’an is sacred, infallible, and the inerrant word of God-

if you put your religious heroes out into the world, if you claim that you have the truth, and the truth is encapsulated in your mythos; then it is now an idea that is before the world to judge. It is now owned by us all. It is now in general circulation free for joint admiration and admonition.

I am thinking about this idea of cultural relativism, and creating an insular arena for religious protections from challenge or removal from syncretism.

I am no longer satisfied with the idea that cultures need to be protected from intrusion. It seems rather condescending to preserve one way of life that we feel as “special”, simply because we find ourselves sufficient more sophisticated than their cultural traditions.

We are all of one blood, one race, one people. Our cultures and skin tone is never pure. Our ways of lifer emerged from sharing other habits and mores. Our souls are never forged in the flame of one fire.

So when you say that it is a “wrong interpretation” of a faith that you are a part of. That you shuffle in the line of adherents to. That you profess to know the one way; I will fervently disagree with you. Your ideas are only immune if kept in your head. But as long as we breathe together. As long as we exchange our essences with our interactions and brief brushing of shoulders, I will forever give you the respect to say that what you think is valuable enough for evaluation.

Blasphemers are not disrespectful. They may be harsh or of diminished tact. But blasphemers are those who care enough about what you think to spend five seconds of their mental energy to make your ideas theirs, to play with your proffers.

When we satire, when we critique-we do so out of finding each other (though through disagreement) of a mindset worthy of our time. If i didn’t care I wouldn’t ignore. To ignore would require a deliberate mental filter. When we do not care, we are oblivious.