Two Moments That Changed How I See Authority

There are experiences that don't announce themselves as formative while they're happening. You don't feel the ground shift. You just notice, months or years later, that you are standing somewhere different than you were before -- and you trace it back.

Two things happened to me in the late 1970s at Fairchild Air Force Base in Spokane, Washington that I have written about separately over the years. A book I couldn't finish. A church I couldn't get out of fast enough. I've been thinking lately that they belong together, because they were teaching me the same lesson from opposite directions.

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The Book

Picture the young man who would read that memoir.

I was a parachute rigger in the Strategic Air Command, working with B-52 bombers at a nuclear alert base in Spokane, WA. Fairchild AFB. I had a secret security clearance. I also had the longest hair on the base -- kept in something approaching regulation shape by a daily application of Dippity-Do hair gel, worn under my service cap until I got home and showered, mostly to wash off the JP-4 jet exhaust from packing drag chutes all day, partly to get my hair back to something resembling human. That annoyed my friends to no end as they had gotten $50 ticket for hair out of regs and had to -- and this really annoyed them -- pay for the haircut. 

To put this in perspective, I got awards for my work in the survival equipment shop, the parachute shop, which came with a three-day pass (not attached to the weekend -- WHY?), I received a Good Conduct medal. I wasn't a rabble rouser, but I questioned authority. At least internally. I got away with a lot. How? I read the manual. Literally. I knew what I could get away with and how far to go. When questioned, I'd state the regs and, I was always right (or I wouldn't do whatever it was). 

Think, when higher ups give you grief, and you say, "Fine, I'm packing these chutes 100% by the T.O." Technical Manual, which they knew would take forever. I wasn't a wise guy. I had a sense of humor, I was likeable. I made other people look good. I played the game. I think when I got out of the service, it broke our Shop Sergeant's heart, seriously. He told me he saw me as a son. I miss the guy. But I wasn't staying in. I got out and went to college.

When I turned twenty-one I bought my first legal handgun -- a Walther PPK/S .380, from a department store in Spokane. Great firearm. I'd had a .357 Magnum since I was eighteen, acquired from a friend in circumstances that were not exactly textbook legal (see The Teenage Bodyguard, an award winning screenplay). But the Walther was mine -- properly. The older gentleman in a suit looked at me across the store counter at -- a young guy, hair tool long for regs -- and said he didn't believe I was actually in the service. I showed him my USAF ID with security clearance. He said, "Okay, I believe you. But, how--? He spent a moment marveling at the hair while he completed the paperwork.

That was who picked up Westmoreland's book. Not a naive kid. Not a credentialed analyst. A young man who read the newspaper, watched the evening news, carried a concealed weapon legally, worked with nuclear weapons delivery systems, and had been listening for years to his older brother's friends -- seven years his senior -- who had come back from Vietnam with stories that often bore little resemblance to official accounts. 

Not My Lai level atrocities, but close enough to the edges of things to make a person skeptical. The Pentagon Papers had been public for several years by then. I hadn't read them cover to cover, but I had absorbed what they meant: that military leadership had been systematically misrepresenting the war to the American public while privately knowing better.

So, when I picked up General William Westmoreland's memoir when it came out, A Soldier Reports (Doubleday, 1976), I came to it with genuine respect. He was the commander of U.S. forces in Vietnam from 1964 to 1968. Whatever you thought of the war, the man had carried an enormous burden. I gave him every benefit of the doubt a young reader could give.

I signed up Vietnam era service. Delayed enlistment until there was a job opening for Law Enforcement. September 1975. That summer the war ended. I got all the war benefits on the G.I. Bill but they eventually recategorized me, Post Vietnam Era. 

So I got into Westmorland's book. And for a while, it worked. He wrote with authority and precision. He knew things I didn't. He was, by any measure, a subject matter expert.

But somewhere somewhere around the midway point, something shifted. The book began to construct a world I didn't recognize.

Westmoreland's argument, laid out with great confidence and considerable detail, was essentially this: the military had a sound strategy; the war was winnable; what went wrong was the failure of civilian leadership, the interference of politicians, the distortions of the press, and the damage done by the antiwar movement. 

The military, he contended, had been betrayed from within and from without. Victory had been stolen.

I remember the feeling of reading that and thinking: but I was there for this. Not in Vietnam -- but alive, paying attention, reading the news, talking to guys who just came back from there, mostly -- messed up guys. I knew about the body count metrics that Westmoreland had built his entire strategy around, already widely exposed as manipulated and strategically meaningless. I knew that the same Pentagon Papers documenting civilian failures also documented military leadership providing falsely optimistic assessments to Washington while privately knowing the picture was far darker. I knew what those B-52s I worked with had been doing over North Vietnam and Cambodia. I knew the guys who had worked on them other there. I worked with them every day.

Westmoreland wasn't lying in the way a con artist lies. I don't think he was cynical. I think he genuinely believed his version. That was almost scarier. He had taken the enormous complexity of a failed war -- a war with deep strategic contradictions, moral catastrophes, and institutional failures at every level -- and recast it as a story in which he and the military were the heroes, and everyone else was the villain. He hadn't written history. 

He had written mythology, dressed in the uniform of history.

I didn't have a word for it then. I do now. It's the stab-in-the-back thesis -- the same narrative structure that German militarists used after World War I, blaming civilian betrayal for military defeat, which fed directly into the conditions that produced Nazism. Applied to Vietnam, it became the founding myth of a certain kind of American right-wing grievance politics that is still very much with us.

What I knew, in my bones, before I had any of that language, was simpler: this doesn't add up, and he's asking me to forget what I already know in order to accept it. I wondered about the leadership above me at the time in the service, who were the same guys who were in Vietnam.

I put the book down.

That was when I discovered a theory. Conspiracy theory. Now when you have a theory of a group doing something unknown openly, and they are doing something bad, it may well be a conspiracy. They happen. Usually, they are uncovered for a variety of reason. One I noticed in the military. It doesn't run perfect, except through a lot of effort and determination. That's doing good things. If those were bad things? Different animal altogether. 

THAT'S what the conspiracy theorists of today don't seem to comprehend.

I started studying not the conspiracy itself, but the nature of conspiracy thinking. Rather than diving into Westmoreland's specific claims and trying to refute them one by one -- which is the rabbit hole -- I started asking: how does this kind of argument work? What are the structural features that tell you something has gone from analysis to mythology? My older brother, encountering the same kind of thing, tended to defer to the expert. I went the other direction. Trust but verify. I became interested in the architecture of false certainty. 

Also, it explains a lot about how I think. How I later ended up at university getting a psychology degree as what my department advisor professor had said (and I questioned him on this, but he thought about it and said that, yes, he was sure), I was one of the top psychology undergrads at any university in the nation. Damn. I mean, cool.

Anyway, that mental divergence has shaped everything I've written about politics since.

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The Church

About a year or two after I set down Westmoreland's book, I was at the base gym as my friend in the shop with me and I did daily. One day racquetball. Next day, weightroom. We'd gotten friendly with the equipment room attendant over borrowing equipment from the gym (don't remember now, what?) -- the usual slow accumulation of gym friendship, guy talk, nothing remarkable. We made one another laugh. He seemed, cool. Normal. Mostly was.

Then one day he asked if I wanted to come to his church. He said I could bring my wife. My friend could come too (he begged off immediately). He also said later, I could bring my gun.

That last part was odd enough that I decided to actually bring it, obviously to carry concealed -- the Walther PPK/S -- which I was legally entitled to do. Something about the invitation had put me on alert without quite articulating why. Go to church -- with a gun. Not the old Slovak Catholic church I had grown up going to, had been head altar boy at. 

He picked us up at my house and drove us out of Spokane on a Sunday morning, his wife with him, my wife and me in the back of his, what passed back then for an SUV. We crossed the state line into Idaho. I got nervous and asked about it. He said not to worry -- no concealed carry permit required in Idaho, and where we were going it wouldn't be an issue. Crossing the state line was only peripherally on my mind, why were we leaving the STATE?

But still. I held a secret security clearance. I worked with nuclear weapons delivery systems. I was crossing a state line carrying a weapon, heading to an unknown location. The math on that was not comfortable. Being in the service changes things legally for a military person. Breaking any law with a secret clearance is worse, with nuclear weapons clearance, much worse. he didn't have that. It never occurred to me about that disparity, honestly, until right now -- as I write this.

The compound was in the hills of Idaho. Locked gate. He had to call on a phone out of a box by the gate. Someone came down, unlocked the gate, let us drive and, locked the gate, and followed us up. We saw a traditional church with a steeple. A well in the center of the property. Several men in grey uniforms designed to look just different enough from Nazi uniforms that you technically couldn't call them Nazi uniforms -- except for the salute, which was identical. When I noted the resemblance, they were offended. "We're not Nazis!" (no, neo-Nazis, maybe)

The name of the organization was the Church of Our American Christian Heritage. I'll never forget it. I have since learned to treat any church name containing the words "American" or "Heritage" as a yellow flag. A church that has all the answers is another. I'm reminded of the last episode of The Boys, on Amazon Prime, where head sociopathic superhero Homelander has gone off the deep end and started the "Democratic Church of America." With Homelander himself as head, not as leader, literally as -- God.

But I digress... 

Their national leader had come up from Georgia specifically to speak that Sunday. He didn't know my wife and I were there as complete outsiders. Newbies. He didn't filter himself. He let loose -- a full accounting of their beliefs, their grievances, their vision of a purified nation, their contempt for nonwhites, their specific disgust at Vancouver, B.C., which apparently represented for him a kind of living offense against nature and civilization. The old ladies of the congregation were the most virulent true believers in the room.

Let me be clear about Vancouver, British  Columbie, Canada. I've been there and Victoria, on Vancouver Island since I was a kid, with my family. I love it there. Love Canada, like a cousin, or a brother even. I was OFFENDED, right off. 

My wife spent the entire service sitting close to me, gripping my sleeve hard enough to nearly tear it from the shoulder, occasionally leaning close to whisper urgently: Get us out of here. 

I heard my sleeve rip twice by the shoulder seam. Once in church, once as we were headed out of church.

The older woman in the back surrounded us and oh my God, I'd never met old people, anyone that racist. The national leader came up and introduced himself. Big smile. He apologized for cutting loose like that. He was just told we were new. 

I smiled and shook his hand and said, "No, I'm glad you did. Good to hear exactly what you believe." I braced myself for his reading my meaning, if not sarcasm. I mean, I was being honest. The next second was interminable. Then he broke into a huge smile (it worked). He had decided he liked us a LOT.

We got out as soon as we could. Services were over. We all made out goodbyes, and my "friend" drove us home. We made small talk along the way, did all we could to keep him and his wife at ease -- he talked about getting together again. He dropped us at home and drove off smiling and waving. 

The next day I considered reporting him and his group to the base authorities. They needed to know about this. I told my racquetball friend in the shop that day. He said he'd drop by after work at my house. 

When he stopped by that afternoon, he had thought about it. He got me alone and talked to me about what he had come up with. He did his best to talk me out of telling anyone on base anything. I wasn't having it. 

Until. He pointed something out, reasonably and chillingly. "They picked you guys up here yesterday morning?" "Yes." "They dropped you off -- here." "Yes." "So Those people know exactly where you both live. And when your wife would be home alone?" "Uh, yeah..."

I never went back to that window at the gym to get equipment. Neither did he. From then on, we brought our own. We never spoke to him again. Not long after, we noticed he wasn't around the gym anymore and we wondered about that, for a very long time.

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What They Had In Common

It was a general construction of an alternate history -- of a war. They were a quasi-military white nationalist congregation in the Idaho hills. On the surface, very different things.

But the underlying structure was identical.

Both were communities of people who had taken real grievances -- about the war, about social change, about lost certainty -- and converted them into a sealed explanatory system that could not be falsified. In both cases, the complexity of the actual world had been replaced by a story with clear heroes and villains. In both cases, outside information was not evidence to be weighed -- it was enemy propaganda to be rejected. In both cases, belonging to the group meant accepting the story, and the story protected the group from reality.

The difference was one of degree, not of kind.

Westmoreland's version was respectable, credentialed, published by Doubleday, reviewed in major newspapers. The Idaho congregation's version came with grey uniforms and a compound with a well and a sheriff who wouldn't come onto the property. They passed newsletters about their grievances; there was no internet back then to help a subculture such as they were explode upon the American psyche. 

But they were running the same cognitive operating system. Wounded certainty, calcified into mythology, defended against all comers.

I didn't know then that I was watching the seedbed of what would eventually become the American political landscape of the 2010s and 2020s. The stab-in-the-back Vietnam narrative fed directly into a politics of grievance and betrayal that never fully went away. The Christian nationalist militia movements of the inland Northwest were not anomalies -- they were early iterations of something that would eventually find mainstream political expression. 

I didn't know at the time about the confederates who after the Civil War had migrated up to the Pacific Northwest and made a new home free of the government for the most part in the east of Oregan, the east of Washington state, and in Idaho. Especially in the back hills, the back roads, the roads less travelled certainly by government officials. 

My late older right wing MaGA brother now gone about a month (miss ya big guy, sad as our interactions were this last decade of the Trump infection), had moved years ago to Home, across Puget Sound via the Narrows Bridge, the other side of Highway 16 from Gig Harbor. It's a community on the Key Peninsula and borders the waters of Carr Inlet, an extension of Puget Sound.

He had told me that those citizens who had enough of the "bullshit of Tacoma government" had moved there and called it "Home" because it wasn't Tacoma, it was, home.

What protected me about this kind of mind worm dynamic, I think, was not superior intelligence or education -- I was a young enlisted man without a college degree, smelling of JP-4 jet fuel exhaust by mid-morning after packing B-52 drag chutes, with my longish hair shellacked under my service cap, "white walls" of shaved skin surrounding my ears to put on a good show for the annoying "lifers", but not so much the "career enlisted" (who we differentiated, as they were just trying to get through to retire one day but not thoroughly "ate up" like some old codgers were). 

What protected me was a combination of things: a grandmother who taught me that books demanded honesty, and to finish one when you started it; an older brother's friends who told me what Vietnam actually looked like from the ground; a willingness to trust my own perception when it told me something didn't add up; and the crucial decision to study the form of bad thinking rather than just the content of any specific claim.

You cannot fact-check your way out of a mythology. The mythology has already inoculated its believers against facts. 

What you can do is recognize the architecture -- the sealed system, the designated enemy, the unfalsifiable narrative, the group that has all the answers -- and decline to enter.

I learned that from a book I couldn't finish and a church I couldn't leave fast enough.

Both were trying to sell me a story in exchange for my grip on reality.

I kept the grip.

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Related posts: - A Book I Couldn't Finish – And How It Taught Me About Truth, Authority, and Conspiracy Thinking (January 2026) - Church and Guns (May 2016) - Conspiracy Theories – Incompetence More Than Insight? (April 2014) - America's Dezinformatsiya and компрометирующий (August 2019)

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Cheers! Sláinte! Na zdravie!

JZ Murdock is a filmmaker and author based in Bremerton, Washington. His novel Death of Heaven was honored with the New York City Big Book Award for Horror. His film Pvt. Ravel's Bolero has been lauded worldwide with many international festival awards. The film companion book is forthcoming.

If this work means something to you, you can support it at Ko-fi.

When Moral Authority Dissolves

Look at Trump's recent Iran post! THIS, was presidential?

Just really look at it:

"Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the Fuckin' Strait, you crazy bastards, or you'll be living in Hell - JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah. President DONALD J. TRUMP"

A sitting president threatening to destroy civilian infrastructure -- power plants, bridges -- in a sovereign nation, signing off with an Islamic devotional phrase as mockery or punchline, apparently unable to distinguish between the two. This is what moral collapse looks like when it goes fully public. Eighty words. No filter. No advisor willing or able to stop it. No institution with the standing to say: this is wrong.

How sad is it that to find moral leadership today -- in government, in the military, in corporate life -- one has to turn to religion? And how much sadder still when religion itself has been so thoroughly weaponized that even that refuge is compromised?

This administration did not invent the hollowing out of American institutions. But it has accelerated it past any previous threshold. What we are watching is kakistocracy -- rule by the least competent and least principled -- fused with plutocracy, the whole apparatus running on the fuel of toxic capitalism, where every decision, including war, is ultimately a business calculation dressed in apocalyptic costume. Throw in the technocrats who believe systems can be optimized without ethics, and you have the full picture: power without wisdom, force without conscience, religion without faith.

The Strait of Hormuz is about oil and shipping and global capital flows. The moral framing of this conflict -- whatever scraps of it exist -- is performance. The actual drivers are leverage and money and the interests of people who will not be anywhere near the explosions. "Praise be to Allah" is not diplomacy, not faith, not even coherent provocation. It is a man coming apart in public, with the launch codes nearby. That is the situation stated plainly.

And the institutions that should be able to say stop? Congress has abdicated. The cabinet is captured. The Joint Chiefs are navigating a minefield of loyalty tests. The press is managing access. So moral authority, when it surfaces at all, comes from the margins -- retired generals writing open letters, some clergy, some academics, the occasional senator willing to lose a primary over it. People drawing on frameworks that predate this administration and will, one hopes, outlast it.

The military's written code is largely secular -- the UCMJ, the officer's oath. But its moral culture runs deeper than its paperwork. When officers push back, they speak in language that sounds almost devotional: duty, honor, oath, service. It is not religion exactly, but it is the same impulse -- an appeal to something that transcends the moment and the man currently occupying the office.

That is what we are left searching for. Not a pastor, not a general, not a party. Something that holds when everything built to hold it has been deliberately dismantled.

The darker question underneath all of this: what does it say about secular democratic institutions that they have become so hollowed out that pre-Enlightenment frameworks are now doing more ethical heavy lifting than the entire apparatus of the American government?

"Praise be to Allah."

Trump thought that was funny. Or threatening. Or both. He cannot tell the difference anymore. Neither, it seems, can the people around him.

Watch out for what this petty little autocrat pulls next on Tuesday.

We can make America great again...just not with this mob boss style leadership.

Cheers! Sláinte! Na zdravie! 

Corporate Thought - The Corporation, 14 Years Later: The Thought That Ate the World

Back in 2011, I wrote a blog (Occupy Your World - 2011) that “The Corporation” — or more precisely, Corporate Thought — had infected our culture like a cancer. I first started talking about it when I graduated university in 1984. My older brother asked me, "OK, so what did you learn? What should I be watching out for?" I thought it an odd question as I'd learned so much. But I thought about it said, "The corporations. More than countries, start watching them closely." 

A decade later he reminded me of that conversation and said I had been correct.

I warned that what began as a legal fiction designed to organize production and protect owners had metastasized into something more insidious: a mindset. A way of thinking that valued profit above all else, even above life itself.

Fourteen years later, I wish I’d been wrong.

Corporate Thought: The Quiet Religion of the 21st Century

In 2011, “Corporate Thought” was still something you could name without being laughed out of the room. Now it’s simply the default. Governments are run by CEOs or those who want to be one. Schools teach “personal branding” before civics. Healthcare is optimized for shareholders, not patients. The human being — that messy, emotional, unquantifiable thing — is now a data point, a “user,” a metric to be mined.

When I said Corporate Thought had infected our culture, I didn’t realize how fully it would colonize our language. We don’t even talk like citizens anymore — we talk like middle managers. “Scalability.” “Monetize.” “Brand loyalty.” “ROI.” We talk about people like products, and about products like people.

The result is a society incapable of moral imagination. Everything must perform. Everything must scale. Even compassion must show “impact.”

It didn’t stop at business. Corporate Thought crept into our schools and our churches — the very places meant to nurture minds and souls, not markets. Education now functions like a corporate training pipeline, producing “career-ready” workers instead of critically thinking citizens. Metrics replaced curiosity. Creativity got labeled “disruptive.” Children learn early that compliance earns approval, and questioning the system is a liability.

Religion fared no better. Many congregations now resemble franchises more than faiths, with branding strategies, merchandise tables, and “growth targets.” The gospel of compassion has been quietly repackaged as the gospel of prosperity — salvation by way of quarterly performance. Even worship feels algorithmic: lights, music cues, applause. It’s Corporate Thought wrapped in stained glass, a business model disguised as belief.

And from that corporatized faith grew something even more dangerous: the merger of evangelicalism with nationalism, a branding campaign that sold political power as divine right. What began as moral language twisted into a management strategy for control — a way to sanctify hierarchy and erase dissent. Christian nationalism has invaded government, law enforcement, even the military, wrapping political ambition in the language of salvation. It’s not faith guiding policy anymore; it’s ideology masquerading as religion, a corporate hostile takeover of the sacred and the state alike.

The 2011 Blog Was Right About Healthcare

I wrote in 2011 that the healthcare system wasn’t “broken” — it was working exactly as designed: for profit. That’s still true. Only now it’s turbocharged by private equity, algorithmic triage, and “wellness metrics” that rank you as a risk before you’ve even sneezed.

Corporate Thought turned medicine into a business plan, and that plan has eaten the doctor’s soul.

Work, Life, and the Vanishing Dream

I also asked in 2011 why we couldn’t have four-day workweeks, long vacations, early retirements. The answer came, loud and clear: Because there’s no profit in it. 

Government should work not just to protect but to better the lives of its citizens.

Today, “work-life balance” is a marketing phrase for apps that track your pulse while you sleep. The same corporations that stole our time now sell it back to us as “wellness subscriptions.” The dream of retiring at 50 has become the nightmare of gigging at 70.

And About Cannabis…

Here, at least, there was progress — partial, imperfect, but real. Cannabis is now legal in most of the U.S. and globally normalized. You called it in 2011: the end of prohibition was inevitable. It just took a few more waves of economic desperation and corporate co-opting.

But even this victory has a shadow. The “Green Rush” was quickly absorbed by — yes — corporate thought. Weed is now a billion-dollar commodity owned by the same conglomerates that lobbied to criminalize it decades ago. The revolution was branded and sold back to us in recyclable packaging.

2025: The Year of Reckoning

We are now watching hopefully the final stages of Corporate Thought — its own self-consumption. The planet, the workforce, and the markets are exhausted. Climate lawsuits are coming for Big Oil. Antitrust is back in political vocabulary. Unions are rising again, not because of ideology but necessity. The machine is running out of parts.

And yet, people are remembering what you hinted at in 2011: that it’s not corporations themselves that destroy us, but our obedience to their logic. The quiet surrender of our humanity to “efficiency.”

Maybe, Just Maybe…

In 2011, I ended by saying, “Maybe, lighten up. Better times may be just ahead.” At the time, we had President Obama — and another term to follow in 2012. Democracy felt steady, even hopeful. But beneath that optimism, darker forces were gathering. 

Those shadows finally erupted under Trump as POTUS45, were held at bay during the Biden years, and have now returned under a criminal Trump POTUS47 administration — a test of whether American democracy can survive the very forces it once empowered. 

In 2025, I’d say: maybe wake up. Better minds may be just ahead. With the election of November 5th, 2025, hope springs up as the authoritarian, the Corporate Thought, is being restrained and hopefully made more aware in the general populace and we'll finally get this all under control. The old guard is too old, their beliefs outdated. 

We need to let younger minds rise and give them space to lead — to move forward where we’ve stalled. The goal isn’t to turn government into communism or socialism, but to finally let it become what it was meant to be: not a servant of toxic capitalism, cronyism, or broken conservatism, but a true instrument of democracy and the common good.

The same revolution we needed then. back in 2011 — moral, cultural, not merely economic — is still waiting. 

The question is whether we’ll take it before Corporate Thought finishes digesting its host. US.

Cheers! Sláinte! Na zdravie!

Compiled with aid of ChatGPT

Author Signing - Port Orchard, Washington, Olympic Peninsula - Halloween - October 31, 2025

Happy Halloween!

Have a fun, safe and sane holiday!

Today, I have an author event in Port Orchard, Washington. This is the next town over from me here in Bremerton. I prepared something to say…but as it turned out, it's going to be just an author signing. Still, I wasn't sure at first, so I prepared something to say just in case I was asked to...

Deity, Dogma, and Misperception in Death of Heaven

2024 New York City Big Book Award Winner for Horror

Cover art by Marvin Hayes

When I wrote *Death of Heaven* in 2012, my intention — other than simply to entertain — was to explore how we as human beings misunderstand reality. This is something that goes back to my university degree in psychology, concentrating in phenomenology.

How, when we encounter something beyond our understanding, we invent stories about it. We build beliefs, and from those beliefs we construct entire systems — religions, moral codes, even ideas of good and evil — all to make sense of what we’ve seen or felt, even when we don’t truly understand it.

To very poorly paraphrase what someone once said:

“Given enough time, humans will turn almost anything into a religion.”

Thus, Longevity + Repetition = Institutionalization, or Religion.

In 1769 Voltaire said:

“If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.”

Hanif Abdurraqib (said more recently):

“With enough repetition, anything can become a religion.”

Terry Pratchett, in Small Gods more or less said:

“If enough people believe, you can be god of anything,” i.e., belief over time/in numbers begets religion.

Eric Hoffer, American moral and social philosopher best known for his book The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements published in 1951, is often cited when discussing how long-lived movements harden into institutions:

“Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.”

Finally, the great Doug Adams of Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy fame:

“I am fascinated by religion. (That’s a completely different thing from believing in it!) … What is it? What does it represent? Why have we invented it? How does it keep going? What will become of it?”

He also said:

“Religion doesn’t seem to work like that; it has certain ideas at the heart of it which we call sacred or holy or whatever … really what it means is ‘Here is an idea or notion that you’re not allowed to say anything bad about; you’re just not.’ Why not? Because you’re not!”

For millennia, we humans believed the heavens revolved around us. That misperception wasn’t just an error — it became the organizing myth of civilization. From it grew:

-astronomy and mathematics (as early cultures tried to predict divine “movements” of the stars),

-architecture and art (temples and cathedrals aligned with celestial bodies),

-philosophy and theology (Aristotle, Ptolemy, Aquinas), and

-a moral worldview placing humanity at the center of creation.

Leaving that belief was painful. We murdered people over questioning it.

Every time humanity sheds an old illusion, it feels like dying a little. We fought to keep the Earth at the center of the universe; we silenced people for saying otherwise. But the truth didn’t care. It just waited. And that’s the same struggle my characters face in Death of Heaven — when reality refuses to match belief, but rather than belief fighting back...reality wins. And it’s horrifying.

This book wasn’t about denying religion, it wasn’t an attempt to destroy religion, rather it simply tries to point out just how often we misperceive reality.

That’s what *Death of Heaven* is really about. It’s horror, yes — to be sure, it’s adult horror, but not just in the sense of monsters or the supernatural.

It’s about the horror of realizing how fragile our understanding of existence might be... while reality is attacking us and allowing us no time to assimilate the new paradigm of reality.

The story follows people who experience things far beyond what they or anyone, can comprehend, and rather than accept the unknown, they interpret it through the only framework they have through their lived experiences: belief.

They assign meaning. They have to. And so they create gods out of confusion and terror, as humans have always done.

To me, that’s what’s fascinating — and frightening. We think of dogma as something ancient or religious, but it’s actually a very human reflex. We do it constantly, even today: we fill in the blanks when reality doesn’t make sense.

Both to our benefit and detriment.

The universe, in its enormity, doesn’t explain itself — and that silence is intolerable to us. We are pattern recognizers and so we assign the most obvious pattern to what we do not understand.

So we name it. We worship it. We fear it. We give it purpose, even when that purpose may never have existed.

In *Death of Heaven*, that instinct to explain — to create meaning — becomes both the source of our strength and the root of our tragedy. Because if our gods and our certainties are born from misunderstanding, then what happens when the truth finally arrives and refuses to fit those stories? What happens when heaven dies — not in the sky, but inside us, in the collapse of our own convictions?

So while I wrote it as a piece of speculative horror, it’s really an exploration of perception. Of how much of our reality is shaped by the stories we tell ourselves to survive. And maybe, just maybe, what we call divinity — or evil — isn’t divine or evil at all, but simply the way the universe looks when we see it through human eyes.

But what might happen in the sequel to the book? Once the entire world cannot deny that reality is not what we believed? Many will continue on. Some will not be able to and perhaps mass suicides will ensue. But many will not be able to deny what they had just lived through and will have to reinvent their perceived universe.

That’s the world I wanted to explore — not to deny belief, but to question how belief begins.

How much of what we hold sacred comes from something real, and how much from our own inability to accept what’s truly unknown? For me, that’s where both the horror and the wonder live — in that fragile space between what we think we know and what reality might actually be.

So, we can talk about that. You don’t need to have read the book — I’m more interested in people’s thoughts.

What do *you* think heaven is — or perhaps more appropriately...what happens when we realize it isn’t what we thought, and never was?

So there it is…Have a great and safe Halloween!

One more comment...

Happy Halloween, Creatures of the Night! 🩸

The veil’s thin, the moon’s high, and somewhere a chainsaw just revved for its final time.

Tonight isn’t about candy...It’s about carnage, creativity, and the macabre stories that keep our hearts pounding long after the lights go out.

Not just the terror of anticipation, or the horror of the moment—
but the lingering echo of tales gone dark and disturbing.

The kind that crawl back into your mind when the night’s gone quiet.

The kind that makes you check the lock… twice. 🔪

Whether you’re covered in fake blood or hiding behind your screen watching your favorite final fight back, remember: horror isn’t just a genre but a lifestyle. When you hear that click in the distant dark while reading, while watching...it's not real, remember, it's not real... just keep reading, just keep watching.

Stay twisted, my friends, stay safe...but if you hear that knock after midnight…

Well... maybe just don’t answer. 👀

Cheers! Sláinte! Na zdravie!

Trump and the Spirit of Antichrist

Every era, it seems, summons its own Antichrist. Ours has our own, Donald Trump.

Image above from: The Conversation Australia + NZ May 9 · In casting himself as supreme leader and pope, Donald Trump inadvertently invoked the Christian understanding of the Antichrist.

Not always the horned figure of Revelation, nor the apocalyptic destroyer feared by televangelists, but something quieter — the spirit of Antichrist that Scripture says has already entered the world. The apostle John warned that there would be “many antichrists,” each one a distortion of Christ’s message disguised as a savior or a patriot.

The cleverest of them doesn’t curse Christ — he claims Him.
He invokes faith, family, and freedom while inverting their meaning.
He holds up the Bible as a totem while breaking its core tenets in deed.

That is how an Antichrist works — not through open rebellion but through counterfeit devotion.

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The Clever Antichrist

When Jesus warned of “false prophets” who come “in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves” (Matthew 7:15), He wasn’t describing atheists or pagans. He was warning about the charismatic deceiver who cloaks his hunger for power in righteousness.

The Antichristos is not merely against Christ — the Greek prefix “anti” also means in place of.
Thus the Antichrist is the substitute Christ, the counterfeit who stands where holiness should stand, commanding allegiance not to God but to himself.

And in our time, that archetype has found a disturbingly clear expression.

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Trump’s Faith in Himself

Donald Trump’s rise to power and his relationship with religion is unlike any in modern American history. He speaks of divine favor, waves a Bible for cameras, calls himself “the chosen one,” and inspires followers to believe his survival and success are proof of God’s will.

Yet his words and deeds consistently betray the very Gospel he invokes.
He mocks the meek, scorns the poor, celebrates cruelty, and prizes vengeance.
He lies reflexively, often to the cheers of those who claim to follow the Truth incarnate.
And he wraps these contradictions in the banner of Christianity itself.

This inversion — calling evil good and good evil, invoking faith to justify sin — is precisely the pattern described in Scripture for the Antichrist spirit: deception under divine pretense.

---

The Scriptural Parallels

Below is a concise comparison between traditional Biblical descriptions of the Antichrist and Trump’s observed behaviors and rhetoric as cited by historians, journalists, and theologians.

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Biblical / Theological Trait	Trump Parallel Often Cited	Scriptural Reference
Self-exaltation and blasphemous pride – magnifies himself above all, demands adoration.	Calls himself “the Chosen One,” says “Only I can fix it,” seeks loyalty pledges, enjoys near-worship from followers.	2 Thessalonians 2:3–4 — “He exalts himself above every so-called god… proclaiming himself to be God.”
Deceives through lies and false wonders	Habitual falsehoods; alternate-reality politics accepted as truth by followers (“fake news” inversion).	2 Thess 2:9–11 — “The coming of the lawless one… with every deception of wickedness.”
Lawlessness while claiming righteousness	Frames himself as law-and-order champion while undermining rule of law, seeking immunity from prosecution.	2 Thess 2:7–8 — “The mystery of lawlessness is already at work.”
Mocks humility and mercy	Ridicules the weak, refugees, and opponents; promotes cruelty as strength.	Matthew 5:5–7 — “Blessed are the meek… merciful…” (inverted by conduct)
Uses religion as political tool (“in the temple of God”)	Bible-holding photo-ops, church backdrops, Christian-nationalist rhetoric.	2 Thess 2:4 — “He takes his seat in the temple of God.”
False prophet aura / messianic claims	Surrounded by pastors calling him God’s anointed; followers speak of him in salvific terms.	Matthew 24:24 — “False christs and false prophets will appear and deceive many.”
Pride replacing worship of God	Cult of personality eclipses faith; “Trumpism” replaces Gospel for many.	Exodus 20:3 — “You shall have no other gods before me.”
Creates division and hatred under banner of faith	“Us vs. them” nationalism presented as Christian duty.	Luke 12:53 / John 13:34 — Christ’s call to love turned to strife.
Wounded-then-restored leader revered as invincible	Survives impeachment, criminal trials, assassination attempt — seen as proof of divine favor.	Revelation 13:3 — “One of its heads seemed to have a mortal wound, but its mortal wound was healed.”
Delusion of followers believing lies	Loyalists dismiss all evidence, treat criticism as persecution.	2 Thess 2:11–12 — “God sends them a strong delusion so that they may believe what is false.”

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Judgment: Archetype or Reality?

By these measures, Trump matches almost every behavioral and symbolic pattern historically linked to Antichrist figures.
Whether he is the Antichrist of Revelation is unknowable — prophecy resists calendar dates and cable news soundbites.
But it would be disingenuous to ignore how tightly the shape of his power fits the scriptural mold.

He stands as a man who:

• Claims divine sanction while practicing deceit.

• Preaches strength while mocking compassion.

• Elevates himself as savior while dismantling justice.

• Uses religion not to heal, but to divide.

That is not a mere political profile; it’s a spiritual one.

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The Spirit of Antichrist in Our Time

In Christian theology, the “spirit of Antichrist” is any force that replaces love with power, truth with manipulation, and service with domination.
It’s the perversion of faith into an engine of self-worship.
It’s when a nation kneels not before God, but before its own reflection — or its leader’s.

Trump’s genius, and his danger, lie in that inversion.
He made millions believe cruelty is patriotic, vengeance is justice, and that moral decay is strength.
He convinced Christians to bless Caesar while believing they serve Christ.

That, more than prophecy, is the measure of deception.

---

The True Test

If the Antichrist’s work is to make people cheer for what Christ condemned, then we are already living in the echo of that revelation.

It doesn’t matter if Trump knows what he represents.
Evil rarely knows itself.
It just smiles, raises a Bible, and says, “Only I can fix it.”

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Postscript: What the Mirror Shows

Whether one views Trump as the prophesied Antichrist or simply an Antichrist-like figure, the real question is what his rise says about us.
Scripture never tells believers to hunt for the Antichrist.
It tells them to watch for themselves — for the ease with which they’ll trade conscience for comfort, or truth for tribe.

If democracy falls not to armies but to applause, it will not be the Antichrist who destroyed it.
It will be those who confused worship with obedience, and faith with idolatry.

Obviously, this is theistic nonsense. 

But the odder issue at large is, his supporters, more than him. How they have deluded themselves, selectively become ignorant of the obvious, and just how easy it was in many ways to accept a career criminal, convicted felon, adjudicated sexual abuser, malignant narcissist, and just obvious low life kind of person as some kind of "great man" or Christian idol". It's truly bizarre, and exactly the kind of person who might fit the label of "Antichrist".

Cheers! Sláinte! Na zdravie!

Compiled with aid of ChatGPT

Echoes in the Temple: Thought, Deity, and the Hollow Mind

It struck me—like a whisper sliding through the ribs of silence—we don’t just have thoughts. We hear them. As if something is speaking in that cavern behind our eyes. Our own voice, yes, but distant. Not quite tethered. Like it came from a room down the hall that shouldn’t exist.

That alone might explain God.

Not the God of stained glass and parental commandments. I mean the idea—older than names, older than fire—of something vast and watching. The invisible presence in the trees, in the dark, in the folds of our own breath. We think we looked out and found God. But what if the first real encounter was inward? What if the divine began not in the heavens but in the hollow theater of the human skull?

Because if you sit long enough with your own mind, if you listen without distraction, the space inside doesn’t feel small. It expands. It echoes. It responds. We tell ourselves this is normal—this inner narrator, this unseen scribe. But anyone with even a cracked sense of self knows how strange it really is. Thoughts appear fully formed, dressed in voice and timing. Insights arrive like gifts from behind the curtain. Sometimes they shout. Sometimes they whisper. Sometimes they warn.

That eerie duality—of being both the speaker and the spoken-to—might be the oldest haunting we know. Before we carved gods into stone or sketched stars into myths, we already had a voice in our heads. It wasn’t always kind. It wasn’t always sane. But it was there. And when the dark pressed in at the edges of the firelight, what else could it have been but something more?

Maybe that was the first altar: the quiet inner chamber of thought, echoing with something too complex, too alien to be merely "me."

It’s not hard to see the roots of cosmic horror in that. The unknowable pressing in—not from galaxies far beyond, but from within the skull. A presence that isn’t separate from us, but generated by us. Or worse, residing in us. An invader mistaken for a conscience. A parasite that speaks in familiar tones. The divine not as savior, but as stowaway.

Perhaps God was never in the sky. Perhaps the real abyss is between our thoughts.

And many of us have been praying into it ever since.

But perhaps there are no gods at all—only the mind, inventing echoes to fill the silence. Maybe the divine is merely the byproduct of our terror at being alone in the dark. Something banal, draped in the sacred. Something hollow we mistook for holy, going all the way back to when we clung to branches in the blackness of a moonless night, staring into the void between trees and praying—not that something was out there, but that if there was, it meant us no harm.

Much of this line of thought has echoed through my own writing in speculative fiction and horror. The idea that what we fear most might not be what lies beyond us, but what originates within—that the divine, the monstrous, and the imagined might all share a single root in the architecture of our minds.

It's a rich, unsettling territory I've returned to again and again: the hollow space we fill with gods, ghosts, and meaning, just to silence the echo.

Compiled with aid of ChatGPT

One Motto, One People: Reclaiming E Pluribus Unum to Heal America

E Pluribus Unum, "Out of Many, One."

With the concern of Christian Nationalism and the recent orientation of forcing "God" into our government, we have to start looking at what the problem is, where it started, why it started, and how to end it. Another concern is how Donald Trump has weaponized things like religion to regain power and get re-elected.

Worries over him and his desires for autocracy, power, greed, and kleptocracy with people like Elon Musk are a serious concern now more than ever.

From the Center for Religion in Public Life - Why E Pluribus Unum Is a Better Motto for Today than “In God We Trust”

1. Embracing True Diversity and Unity

The motto E Pluribus Unum was chosen by the Founding Fathers as an ideal that would unify a country of people from various places, backgrounds, and beliefs. The phrase encapsulates the American experiment: a diverse group of individuals coming together to form a stronger whole. It tells us that every American, no matter where they come from or what they believe, is part of that “One.”

Today, with even greater diversity in the United States than in the past, the meaning behind E Pluribus Unum is as relevant as ever. It serves as a reminder that our differences don’t divide us but make us stronger when they’re harnessed for a common purpose.

In contrast, In God We Trust doesn’t convey the same inclusivity. It implies a shared faith in a single religious concept, which isn’t true for everyone. America is home to a wide array of faiths, as well as people who don’t adhere to any faith at all. While “God” has different meanings for different people, In God We Trust is often interpreted as favoring a specific monotheistic view, alienating those who don’t share that view. In short, E Pluribus Unum brings people together, while In God We Trust can unintentionally create distance between them.

2. Reflecting the Constitution’s Religious Neutrality

One of the cornerstones of American identity is the freedom of religion enshrined in the First Amendment. This amendment ensures that individuals are free to practice any religion or none at all, and that the government doesn’t endorse any particular faith. By choosing In God We Trust as the national motto, the government has unintentionally aligned itself with a specific religious sentiment, creating tension with the very freedoms our Constitution is built to protect.

E Pluribus Unum, on the other hand, doesn’t favor any one religious belief. It’s a motto that respects both religious and secular viewpoints equally, making it a better fit for a country founded on the principle of religious freedom. Returning to E Pluribus Unum would reaffirm our commitment to a government that serves all its citizens, regardless of their personal beliefs.

3. Avoiding Division and “Othering”

Sadly, In God We Trust has sometimes been used to define what it means to be a “real” American, creating an “us vs. them” mentality. This mentality has led to a pattern of "othering" fellow citizens who don’t identify with that phrase—whether they are atheists, people of minority faiths, or those who interpret “God” differently. This approach risks dividing us along lines of belief when what we need, especially now, is unity.

The language of E Pluribus Unum shifts us away from viewing people as “insiders” and “outsiders.” It reminds us that we’re all part of one nation, and even when we disagree, we still share a commitment to one another. As a motto, it leaves no room for creating enemies out of fellow citizens. Instead, it creates a sense of common purpose that helps bring people together.

4. A Return to American Values

E Pluribus Unum has deep historical roots, representing the original vision of the Founding Fathers. It reminds us of what they hoped America would be—a united country formed by people of all backgrounds. Adopting In God We Trust as the motto in 1956 was a Cold War move to distinguish the U.S. from the atheistic Soviet Union. While it served a purpose at the time, the Cold War is over, and today we face different challenges that call for a more inclusive approach.

By returning to E Pluribus Unum, we can return to a motto that reflects the diversity and openness our country was built upon. It’s a step back toward the founding principles that united people from all walks of life in the first place, and it can help us create a national identity that’s positive, inclusive, and forward-thinking.

5. Promoting a Motto for All Americans

In a nation that prides itself on democracy, a motto should be for everyone. A motto that only reflects the values of certain groups isn’t fully representative. While In God We Trust speaks to a large portion of Americans, it does not speak to everyone. There are millions of Americans who don’t connect with it and may feel left out or excluded from the national identity it represents. This isn’t just a minor concern; feeling excluded can lead to greater disillusionment with government, less civic engagement, and a more fractured society overall.

In contrast, E Pluribus Unum speaks to every American. It focuses on our common humanity and the shared commitment to creating a unified nation from many backgrounds, cultures, and perspectives. This kind of unity is essential to strengthening our democracy and ensuring that all citizens feel valued and included.

6. Focusing on Civic Values Over Religious Identity

E Pluribus Unum emphasizes civic unity, not religious unity. It doesn’t ask us to believe the same things or see the world the same way, but it does ask us to work together as one people. In times when polarization is high and public trust is low, a national motto that focuses on our civic values rather than our religious identity could help to bring people back together.

It would encourage Americans to see themselves, first and foremost, as citizens who are in this together—not as people divided by religion, politics, or ideology. At a time when we need less division and more common purpose, E Pluribus Unum offers an ideal that transcends our differences.

Did you know the first U.S. coin said “Mind Your Business”?

Before “In God We Trust,” America’s very first official coin — the 1787 Fugio cent — carried Benjamin Franklin’s motto:

 “Mind Your Business.”

Franklin designed it himself.

At the top is a sun and sundial with the Latin word “Fugio” (“I fly”) — meaning time flies.

Together it reminds us to use our time wisely and tend to our own affairs — a classic Franklin virtue.

But look closer and you’ll see what’s really interesting…

The design is filled with Freemason-style symbolism:

•  The radiant Sun — light, truth, and reason.
•  The Sundial — time, discipline, and industriousness.
•  The 13 linked rings — unity and brotherhood of the original states.
•  The phrase “We Are One” — a Masonic echo of fraternity and unity.

While not officially a Masonic coin, it reflects Franklin’s dual passions for Enlightenment ideals and Masonic philosophy:

Light, time, virtue, and self-mastery.

A far cry from “In God We Trust,” the first American coin told us something simpler and more timeless:

“Time flies. Mind your business. We are one.”

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In sum, returning to E Pluribus Unum would help us refocus on the importance of unity across diversity, respect religious freedom, avoid divisive “othering,” and foster a civic identity that includes all Americans. It reminds us that no matter who we are or what we believe, we’re stronger when we’re working together as “One.”

Compiled with the aid of ChatGPT

10 Commandments - If Enlightenment Were Involved

If Jews and Christians had attained a higher level of spiritual or philosophical enlightenment, the 10 Commandments could have been interpreted to embody universal principles of compassion, interconnectedness, and self-awareness. But they weren't. Why? 

IF they came from "God", why were they so...as they are?

A therapist might describe the personality who gave us the 10 Commandments as someone deeply concerned with moral boundaries, authority, and communal harmony, yet possibly struggling with guilt, rigidity, and a strong need for external validation.

Why is slavery being bad not mentioned? Why aren't many important moral issues not mentioned? Was it communicated from a "God" through a man, to his followers? Was it the ramblings just of the man who gave them to his people? At a time when they needed something like this to hold them together as they were drifting into unfocused popular beliefs?

Here's a possible interpretation of the 10 Commandments with a more enlightened viewpoint to them:

1. Honor the Unity of All Life

Recognize the interconnectedness of all beings and the divine spark within every aspect of existence.

2. Cultivate Compassion and Kindness

Practice empathy, understanding, and kindness towards all living beings, striving to alleviate suffering wherever it is found.

3. Seek Truth and Wisdom

Pursue knowledge and wisdom with humility, always questioning, learning, and growing.

4. Respect the Earth and Its Resources

Honor the Earth as a sacred home, using its resources with care and gratitude, and working to preserve it for future generations.

5. Live with Integrity

Be honest and true in your words and actions, aligning your life with your deepest values and principles.

6. Honor the Diversity of Beliefs

Respect and appreciate the different paths that others may take in their spiritual or philosophical journeys, recognizing that there are many ways to seek truth.

7. Foster Community and Cooperation

Work towards building strong, supportive communities that uplift all members and promote peace and cooperation.

8. Practice Forgiveness and Reconciliation

Let go of grudges and anger, seeking to heal and reconcile with those who have wronged you, and encouraging others to do the same.

9. Encourage Creativity and Self-Expression

Support the free expression of creativity in yourself and others, recognizing it as a vital aspect of the human spirit.

10. Live with Gratitude and Mindfulness

Approach life with an attitude of gratitude, being mindful of the present moment, and appreciating the beauty and wonder of existence.

These commandments would focus on universal values that transcend specific religious or cultural boundaries, aiming for a harmonious and enlightened way of living.

Good Citizens – Creating Enlightened Society
Thich Nhat Hanh July 29, 2021 

Buddha Mind, Buddha Body Walking Toward Enlightenment

Thich Nhat Hanh

Generating the Mind for Enlightenment

The Dalai Lama

Cheers! Sláinte! Anicca!

What IS the "MaGA Mind"?

What IS the "MaGA Mind"? First, it's got to go.

[By the way, the "a" is in lowercase for "america" because of the dishonesty and disrespect Trump and his contingent offer to our America.]

There's also a poll on X (Twitter) about Donald Trump being tried for his actual crimes and what his punishment should be upon conviction. Life? Death? Too soon?

The 'MaGA Mind' refers to the mindset cultivated by Donald Trump and his supporters, characterized by a distorted perception of America, grounded in fear, authoritarian tendencies, and binary thinking.

The internet was built as a place where everyone could have equal footing.

What a fucking mistake THAT was! Because we are NOT equal.

Too many of us are delusional, mentally, or socially ill (racist, MaGA, etc.).

To give equal footing to THAT, was a HUGE mistake.

AS we're seeing now! THEN? We added in algorithms to skew it further, and with autocrats with billions purchasing our social media, altered our realities, with an agenda.

Sigh...

So, there's a lot to cover. I'll be jumping around a bit. For more hit my previous blogs. Also, Rachel Maddow's podcasts should be required for ANY and ALL Americans before they think all is hopeless or fall into MaGA-type nonsense.

We have two "Americas" here. One that is real and seen by the world. The other, is believed to exist by the MaGA supporter. One that is dark and terrible, crumbling and awful, filled with enemies and fear.

See also, Donald Trump's mental defect and TOC for the authoritarian (oddly same as Christian's "AntiChrist"!). Also: Humans default psychologically to "binary thinking" and sociologically to autocracy. Thus in the fight or flight (or freeze) mode to fear cliquishness, tribalism, and emergency protocols are all initiated by authoritarian triggers. 

Also this:
Marc E. Elias @marceelias
“I think we are going to see mass refusals to certify the election” in November, says Democratic election lawyer Marc Elias. “Everything we are seeing about this election is that the other side is more organized, more ruthless, and more prepared.”

It’s not that everyone who is a binary thinker falls for those things, but the "scripts" we run in our mind are. " Rolling Sone article

OK then...

Humans are susceptible to "sloppy thinking" and Donald Trump/autocracy uses that to his advantage. Autocracy itself uses many interesting techniques I've spoken to many times. Aside from logic traps or binary thinking ("this or that" when the offer OF "this or that" is disingenuously stacked).

One is what magicians call "forcing techniques":

Forcing Techniques: A variety of methods to make a participant believe they have freely chosen an option when the choice is actually predetermined. This can include:

Classic Force: Making the participant choose a specific card through practiced timing and technique.

Equivocation: Also known as the magician’s choice, where the magician guides the participant to a specific outcome regardless of their choices.

Timing Forces: Creating a sense of urgency or distraction to make the participant choose a specific option.

But that is not our America. That's not our democracy. That's not our democratic Constitutional Republic. These are messy things that appear dysfunctional and broken because of so many voices and beliefs that come together and iron out progress as we all see it. Not just as one group sees it believing they know best. That is an autocracy, a theocracy, a monarchy, a kleptocracy, or an oligarchy. 

US Government: While often categorized as a democracy, the United States is more accurately defined as a constitutional federal republic. What does this mean? “Constitutional” refers to the fact that government in the United States is based on a Constitution which is the supreme law of the United States. The Constitution not only provides the framework for how the federal and state governments are structured but also places significant limits on their powers. “Federal” means that there is both a national government and governments of the 50 states. A “republic” is a form of government in which the people hold power, but elect representatives to exercise that power.

Yes, the US is a constitutional federal republic: governed by a Constitution, power shared between federal & state govs, and led by elected reps. While not a direct democracy, it embodies democratic principles through elections and citizen participation.

Saying it is a democracy is still correct and others saying we're just a "Constitutional Republic" are using a phrase long used in the seditionist underground of Ultra Right Wing extremists. It's "cool" by their thinking to differentiate. But it's just a whistle call.

What we have is far better, messy as it can be, easily claimed to be broken by more "perfect" forms of social management. As Winston Churchill so aptly put it:

‘Many forms of Government have been tried and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.…’ - Winston S Churchill, 11 November 1947

Or as Ben Franklin put it before him. Monday, September 17, 1787: The Convention Today. The day began with a prepared speech from Franklin (PA) who, eighty-one years old and painfully afflicted with gout and kidney stone, was unable to read it himself and delegated that task to Wilson (PA)

“In these sentiments, Sir, I agree to this Constitution, with all its faults, if they are such; because I think a General Government necessary for us, and there is no form of government, but what may be a blessing to the people if well administered; and believe further, that this is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and can only end in despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic government.”

Donald Trump is here, now to be that despot, to tear down what Franklin and the other frame for us, a new country, a "Great Experiment" of states under a federal system. One we should not "game" or play against our best interests to despoil into a "despotic government", such as Trump and his MaGA GOP intend.

The Trump America is a horror fantasy manufactured by a Republican Party that was ripe for an authoritarian to overtake it and plunge it into darkness and disrepute. 

"MaGA Mind"? Well? It is not what you think. You likely think it is a label for a group that supports Donald Trump and the propaganda and bizarre things he propagates out to his masses, to our media he discredits so brazenly, all in his inimitable, dumbed down, juvenile, and droll-like way.

But it IS just a brand. 

Donald Trump is a branding agent. He is branding and selling...Donald Trump. He is "selling" authoritarianism, he is "selling" Christian nationalism, he is "selling" authoritarianism and Fascism. 

All of which are pushing our "over there" and what is "right here" in front of us all. It is a kind of "magic", social engineering, manipulation, and mass hypnosis.

I have to refer back to my short sci-fi dystopian story I wrote in 1984 first published in a horror quarterly on the east coast of America in 1990. "In Memory, Yet Crystal Clear". You may have seen me mention this story before. It's a good example of how insidious what Donald Trump is doing. 

It offers the feeling of what I'm intellectually trying to say. Especially those in the MaGA "cult" who can understand better by reading such things, rather than in a rational assimilation. Which is never going to happen They cannot turn on their "tribe', their "cult", their "political" party, their 'brothers in arms", or their fantasy they "see" as their and all of our, reality.

The MaGA mindset conflates, obfuscates distracts, and outright lies. It actuates a stage long previously set up by grievance, religion, and an ability to believe through faith what does not exist. Or is unseen, or disbelieved by others. Nothing offers strength to the fantasy as much as a force to push again, an "Other" who are disbelievers. Or as Islam considers them as, "infidels". 

It's a brand that builds within one's mind a barrier that demands it not be infiltrated with knowledge, information, or facts, All reality served up by media or non-believers must be lies by the "Others". Thus we hear of "alt facts". Something so ludicrous that it openly displays the damage and delusion. But not to the "believer", not to the "MaGA Mind".

Here are some additional basic elements and labels of MaGA Mind:

1. Centralized Power: Concentration of power in the hands of a single leader or a small group, often bypassing democratic institutions.
2. Suppression of Dissent: Limiting freedom of speech, press, and assembly; punishing or silencing political opponents and critics.
3. Propaganda: Use of media to spread the regime’s ideology and to manipulate public opinion.
4. Control Over Judiciary: Undermining judicial independence to ensure legal outcomes favor the regime.
5. Erosion of Democratic Norms: Disregard for rule of law, checks and balances, and electoral integrity.
6. Surveillance: Monitoring and controlling the population through extensive surveillance programs.
7. Militarization: Increased use of military and police forces to maintain control and suppress opposition.
8. (Christian) Nationalism: Promoting a strong nationalistic sentiment, often at the expense of minority rights and international cooperation.
9. Scapegoating: Blaming societal problems on marginalized groups or foreign entities to unite the populace against a common enemy.
10. Economic Control: State intervention in the economy to maintain power and control over resources.
11. Censorship: Controlling information by restricting access to non-state-approved media and suppressing critical voices.
12. Manipulation of Elections: Rigging or undermining electoral processes to ensure the regime’s hold on power.
13. Patronage: Distributing state resources and benefits to loyal supporters to maintain their allegiance.
14. Cult of Personality: Elevating the leader to a near-mythical status through state-sponsored adulation.
15. Legalism: Using laws to give an appearance of legality to actions that subvert democratic principles.
16. Fear: Instilling fear in the populace through threats of violence, imprisonment, or other reprisals against dissenters
17. Undermining Civil Society: Weakening independent organizations and institutions that could challenge the regime's authority.
18. Criminalization of Opposition: Labeling political opponents as criminals, terrorists, or enemies of the state.
19. Religious Manipulation: Exploiting religious beliefs and institutions to legitimize the regime's authority, justify policies, and suppress opposition.

This can involve:

• Religious Nationalism: Promoting a specific religion or religious identity as central to the national identity, often marginalizing other religions or secular viewpoints.
• Clerical Alliances: Forming alliances with religious leaders to gain their support and influence over the population.
• Divine Justification: Claiming divine right or support for the regime’s actions and leadership.
• Suppressing Religious Dissent: Persecuting religious groups or individuals who oppose the regime.
• Legislating Morality: Enforcing laws based on religious doctrines to control personal behavior and societal norms.
• Religious Propaganda: Using religious rhetoric and symbols in state propaganda to invoke a sense of moral righteousness and loyalty.

These tactics serve to consolidate power by aligning the regime with religious authority and using it to influence or control the populace.

Now, tell yourself that you do not see how Donald Trump and his MaGA mindset are not what is described above. See what is right there laid out plain and simple before us. Reality is not fun, not easy and it can hurt. Especially when leaving a cult or cult-like group for the bright sun of reality. 

But are we children, as Trump wishes, easily led, pliable for his own purposes to suppose his narcissism, his deepest pleasures? Or for us, for ourselves, not himself?

It is the formula for an authoritarian state.

Read Timothy Snyder's "On Tyranny". 
And just try not to see Donald Trump all through it. You will fail.

But you can succeed, we all can, just by clearly seeing the "Emperor's New Clothes" of Donald Trump, have never ever existed.

He is the charlatan we can all see.

The "MaGA Mind" is not just a political stance; it represents a dangerous shift toward authoritarianism that threatens the very fabric of our democratic society. It leverages fear, binary thinking, and manipulative techniques to create a distorted view of reality, undermining the principles of our democratic constitutional federal republic.

We can keep our country but as Franklin said, it will take Effort.

Educate yourself and others, read and share, and stay informed. VET your information. Check and double-check it. Dig deep when it sounds either too good to be true, or just simply ridiculous.

Engage in our political process, vote, contact your representatives...share.

Support our Democratic institutions, join organizations, and speak up to protect our free speech before it's gone

Foster community and dialogue by building bridges and combatting disinformation.

Advocate for accountability by demanding justice and promoting transparency.

We all have a role to play. The future of our democracy depends on our collective efforts to uphold our values and principles. By staying informed, engaged, and active, we resist the slide toward authoritarianism and ensure that our government remains of the people, by the people, and for the people. The People. US. ALL of us.

Let us not be swayed by the illusions and disillusions of the "MaGA Mind." Instead, reaffirm our commitment to a just, fair, and democratic society where every voice is heard and respected.

Together, we can indeed preserve this great experiment of democracy that our founders envisioned.

Stand up. Speak out. Act now.

Certainly Vote, it's the least any of us can do. However, this time we may have to take other action if Trump's claims of subverting our electoral process play out.

Our government has to start acting now about this new, but also old threat. 

This conservative activist Republican Party has created an overbalanced activist conservative SCOTUS that is going to require a reset of some short, a correction to balance the court. Liberal and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans, need to work together and for decades Republicans have pushed for this situation hoping for, and working toward minority rule. 

I touched on this indirectly in my horror sci-fi novel, "The Unwritten", Vol. II of my Anthology of Evil series. In that universe, there is a horrendous Religious War where Science won. There was then a huge Science War where again, science won. We don't want to go through that here.

Let's...not.

But that is where we're headed if America doesn't correct these illiberal imbalances back to where both sides can once again work together

We must let them know we demand action. So that on that day of swearing in, next January 2025 of our new POTUS, America will continue on from the point of our founding over 200 years ago, rather than begin a new day of Trump-led authoritarianism. Losing our right to vote so many died to protect and not simply be left by the fascist wayside of the road once known as America.

Cheers! Sláinte!