​You may consider today’s blog post a sort of manifesto. A sort of going out, rather than coming out party.
 
The last straw.
 
As any visitor of this site knows, I was never a tRUMP fan. Right from the start I was utterly disgusted by the man and all those who jumped on the insane and immoral tRUMP train. He was then, and is still today, America’s version of the mad Caligula. Who knew there were so many other psychotic little boots lurking in America’s underbelly only waiting for a Fuhrer to give them permission to slither out of the dark into the light of day?
 
So, I am not coming late to the never-tRUMP party. I am an original.
 
Even so, the madness that has followed the 2020 US election has risen to whole new levels of mass psychotic breakage. Every day sees fresh insults to all things rational. Every day sees fresh attacks on all things good and true. But, this week’s “presidential pardons” represent a new low.
 
This week America’s Caligula has carried out the latest and greatest mafioso crime spree of his four-year reign of terror in the form of a mass jail break he has organized and carried out—a crime spree that will go down as one of, if not the greatest and most corrupt act of organized crime in American history. All of this is saying too little. I am being too temperate.
 
So, we come to the manifesto aspect of today’s post.
 
Every legislator, judge, or attorney who remains cowardly silent in the face of this latest avalanche of putrid corruption and profane lawlessness forfeits every right to draft criminal justice legislation, pass judgement upon any matter of criminal law, or prosecute any individual of any crime. Being accomplices to the destruction of the republic and co-workers in the creation of chaos, they will lose all authority. Until such time as they stand up against such gross wickedness—gross wickedness that is against all that is good and upright and law abiding—I will not acknowledge their authority or acquiesce in their having any legitimate role in my life. I will not, under any circumstances, pledge allegiance to their defiled flag.
 
Furthermore, every Protestant minister, pastor, or priest; every Catholic priest, bishop, cardinal, or pope; every Mormon bishop, president, apostle, or prophet who remains obsequiously quiet in the face of this vile affront to God, angels, and every individual who has ever witnessed for truth; yea, those  shepherds, who thereby abandon their flocks to ravenous wolves, will forfeited every right to lecture, sermonize, preach, proclaim, or otherwise admonish any one of their abandoned sheep about any moral matter. They too will be named as accomplices in Caligula’s defilement of American society. But, far worse, they will also be judged as accomplices in his blasphemy against the God of Heaven and every righteous principle He has ever revealed. All appeals such wicked and blind watchmen make to my allegiance will go unheeded, rebuffed with utter faith and conviction that I am in the right to reject them as legitimate messengers of a just God.
 
This is another moment of testing for all who would claim to lead in either secular or sacred spaces. Over the past four years, I have watched with growing alarm and contempt as too many secular and religious leaders have failed one test after another. Let’s hope they are up to this latest, but, likely, not last test.

   introduction

“Let them eat cake.”
 
Whether Marie-Antoinette ever really said such a thing or not, the saying does capture the contempt that the French ruling aristocratic class had for its less advantaged fellow citizens.
 
 But today’s American aristocratic ruling class sneers a far more grotesque and wicked variation on the theme: “Let them eat bullets.”
 
What do I mean? Well, let’s see.
 
 

   defending the indefensible…

After months and months of squabbling over whether and how to offer even a few measly crumbs to Americans financially suffering as a result of the purposefully uncontrolled pandemic, the U.S Senate, controlled by the pro-death Republican party, and the House, controlled by the corporate Democratic party, recently passed a veto-proof $740 billion annual “defense” spending bill—and this is only the portion of spending that will be accounted for (if we are lucky); there will be much more under-the-table defense spending. Keep in mind, now, that the aristocrats of these two plutocratic parties can agree on nothing—not even democracy itself. Yet they find concord when it comes to committing murder and mayhem in every corner of the planet—rather like the Herodians, Romans, and Jews, who could agree on nothing but the need to murder Jesus.
 
Yes, this nation’s ruling plutocracy can agree to commit 740 billion dollars to indefensible military “defense” spending even though the nation possesses not one damn enemy on any one of its four utterly secure borders. This warmongering nation can agree to spend 740 billion dollars on military “defense” when its instruments of war are already so numerous and powerful that it could destroy three quarters of them and still possess more military hardware than any other country on the planet. This murderous nation can agree to spend 740 billion dollars on military “defense” when it spends more in “defense” spending than the next ten countries combined.
 
But, it isn’t like we weren’t warned. Satan warned God that he would “buy up armies and navies and reign with blood and horror on the earth.” I am not sure that even in his wildest dreams Satan could have ever imagined that he would have as agreeable a companion or as faithful a disciple in his planned rebellion against the God of heaven as the United States of America has proven itself to be.
 
Yes, it is satanic. It is positively obscene. Pornography of the worst kind.
 
 

   while refusing to defend the defenseless

But it isn’t simply America’s ruling class’ willing commitment to Satan’s militant plan that is so obscene and pornographic. While these “patriotic” spend-thrifters shell out “defense” dollars like a drunken corporate CEO tipping his latest long-legged high-end“ escort,” they have, for months, refused to spend a single penny in defense of millions of individual Americans who are, under the threat of pandemic, suffering under the worry and actuality of having too little food and losing safe shelter.
 
Every single study, both private and public—including those conducted by federal, state, and local governments—report the same tragic conclusions. People are going hungry and being evicted from their homes. Their children are going hungry and suffering homelessness. And it will get worse unless congress acts… now and “bigly.”
 
“Although various federal and state moratoriums on [mortgage and rent payments], as well as on evictions and foreclosures, were enacted, such protections will eventually end. And the moratoriums don’t negate renters’ or homeowners’ obligations to settle accounts with their bankers and landlords somewhere down the line (which for many Americans may, in the end, prove an impossibility)...”[1]
 
“Analysts say nearly 12 million people are thousands of dollars behind on rent. Between 30 million and 40 million renters are at risk of losing their homes when an already flimsy moratorium on evictions set by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) expires at the end of the year…”[2]
 
“Despite a nationwide moratorium ordered by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and a few remaining state and local restrictions, evictions are ticking up across the United States. If Congress does not approve emergency rental and other assistance before the end of the year, today’s trickle of displaced tenants will become a flood that would be unprecedented for its size and speed….
 
“‘The eviction crisis we are facing right now is historic,’ says Diane Yentel, head of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, a social-policy organization in Washington. ‘If government doesn’t intervene, we’re looking at the very real possibility of tens of millions of people losing their homes this winter during this height of the coronavirus spread.’” [3]
 
“Just before the coronavirus struck, 35 million Americans, 11 million of them children, experienced food insecurity, the lowest figure in two decades. This year, those numbers are projected to reach 54 million and 18 million respectively. In 2018, 4% of American adults reported that at least some members of their family did not have enough to eat; by July 2020, that figure had hit 11%...
 
“The SNAP increases… now under discussion in Congress would add less than one dollar to a four-person family’s maximum daily benefit.”[4]
 
“In what is traditionally a season of celebration, less than half of US households with children feel ‘very confident’ about having enough money to afford the food needed over the next month, according to the US Census Bureau’s latest pandemic survey. A staggering 5.6m households struggled to put enough food on the table in the past week.
 
“Overall food insecurity has doubled since last year due to record unemployment and underemployment rates. For families with children, hunger is three times higher than in 2019, according to analysis by Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach, director of the non-partisan Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University….
 
“Hunger is not new in America. Even before the pandemic, 35 million people relied on food banks every year, according to Feeding America. But the pandemic has been catastrophic – despite initial lauded federal interventions such as the stimulus cheques and enhanced unemployment benefit. As many as 54 million people could experience hunger this year, including a quarter of all children.”[5]
 
This is only a miniscule sampling of the true and godly witness we can bring against America’s wickedly guilty ruling elite.
 
Congressional and Senatorial purveyors of murder and misers of charity, along with their anti-Christ followers, will often dress up their persecution and hatred of their vulnerable fellow citizens in the garb of anti-socialistic dogma[6] and “fiscal responsibility.” But, even if such dress were not obscenely see-through, exposing their naked selfishness, the lie of their fake expressions of virtue are revealed through their immoral and active labors to “buy up armies and navies and reign with blood and horror on the earth.” They can’t declare themselves virtuous anti-socialists by refusing to care for the vulnerable, and, at the same time, spend hundreds of billions of dollars on military procurements that are unnecessary for national defense and serve only to murder vulnerable, defenseless non-American peoples the globe over.
 
If they wish me, for one, to buy the faux virtue of their anti-socialism and fiscal conservatism, they will need to strip off their harlot’s little black dress of violent and murderous deeds. If they can find nearly a trillion dollars to defend a nation with few viable enemies, they can find a few hundreds of billions of dollars to defend their own nation’s vulnerable citizens. Otherwise, they become butchers, cannibals slaughtering and devouring not only of the world’s innocent, but their own. Such deviants are only worthy to be damned to hell.
 
 

   bullets for bread

In my series of homilies on the “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse,”[7] I argue that, rather than representing a single, one-off individual or era, each horse and its rider represents a pattern of human attitudes and behavior that has been repeated many times by many individuals and nations over every age of world history.
 
To be brief, this pattern[8] demonstrates how individual and national desires to “conquer” or dominate other individuals and nations (first horse, white, and rider) leads to the breach of peace and the propagation of war and killing/murder (second horse, red, and rider). The absence of peace that is the result of unholy desires for dominance, and the attending war and killing/murder leads to economic disruptions—disruptions that disproportionately impact vulnerable populations (third horse, black, and rider). The absence of peace, the propagation of war and violent death, and the consequent economic disruptions they bring lead to the spiraling out of control of violent death and the damning of the souls of both perpetrator and victim of the predictable chaos (fourth horse, pale, and rider).
 
For the purposes of this Mad State post, we limit our comments to the third seal’s horse, black, and its rider. Here the rider measures out wheat and barely (the latter an inferior grain for making bread) at severely inflated prices. The cost for these basic necessities is so high that survival, especially for the poor, is most uncertain if not unlikely. The reason food prices are inflated is to be found in the nature of war, especially in the ancient world. Attacking forces maraud and destroy crops. Food producers and distributors leave farms and business for the safety of secluded areas. Opposing troops trample crops to the ground as they wage battles. Innocent, non-combatant civilians suffer.
 
All of this familiar to ancient populations. It is familiar today in many parts of the world. More often than not, it is humans themselves that cause famine and hunger rather than too conveniently blamed climatic factors. In addition to the proceeding factors leading to economic disruption brought on by war, one other should be mentioned. Defending forces must be provisioned and fed. Such provisioning and feeding draws additional resources away from the general population.
 
This latter cause of vulnerable populations going uncared for by their own government is at work in today’s America. Even if America’s wrong Right cared a lick about and wanted to assist the nation’s most vulnerable citizens—which it does not for the fake dogmatic reasons mentioned above—it is unable to do so because of the resources it so unwisely and wastefully devotes to defending the most naturally secure nation in the world history—a “defense” that, it turns out, is nothing but institutionalized murder and violent mayhem the globe over.
 
 

   conclusion and execration

But, just as Satan warned us about his intention to buy up armies and navies to reign with blood and horror on the earth, the Revelator warned us about the consequences of the sort of unremitting warmongering in which America has engaged itself over the past seventy years. Not only is the nation’s militarism guilty of murder and mayhem the globe over, but the political leaders who fund the satanic enterprise commit violence against its own citizens as they waste resources that might have been used to care for their own citizens on murderous pursuits.
 
Given the fact that America’s political class have been warned, both by the power-hungry Satan and the inspired Revelator, one questions whether there is any retribution upon them that could be sufficiently harsh in either its character or duration.
 
Make no mistake about it, that day and that retribution will come.
 
Until that day, I will hope and pray that the faithless government officials who, in lieu of defending the vulnerable poor whom they despise, persecute, and abandon, fill the already stuffed oversized wallets and feed the insatiable appetite of America’s military industrial complex choke on the metallic bullets they produce. I will pray that Mary’s insight into the meaning of the babe that grew in her womb will finally and happily come to pass.
 
“He hath shewed strength with his arm;
   he hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
He hath put down the mighty from their seats,
   and exalted them of low degree.
He hath filled the hungry with good things;
   and the rich he hath sent empty away.”[9]
 
Yes, Lord, let America’s political leaders eat and choke on the bullets they needlessly produce to starve their own people.
 
Even so, come, Lord Jesus.


[1] “54 Million Americans Are Projected to Be Food Insecure by End of Year,” Ramon Menon, truthout.org

[2] “The Senate’s Latest COVID Stimulus Won’t Solve the Hunger and Housing Crisis,” Mike Ludwig, truthout.org

[3] "'Am I going to be evicted?' Answer now may hinge on Congress," Belsie and Roll, csmonnitor.com

[4] “54 Million Americans Are Projected to Be Food Insecure by End of Year,” Ramon Menon, truthout.org

[5] “‘No end in sight': hunger surges in America amid a spiraling pandemic,” Lakhani and Singh, theguardian.com
 
[6] They can also dress it up by appeal to the “founding fathers” and their constitution. This, of course, is not so nakedly false, as the founders’ constitution was meant, above all else to safeguard the wealth of a few white men and keep wealth from being too widely distributed. So much for their “inspiration.”

[7] The reader can find these in the homily archive located at the bottom of the “Homily” page of this site.

[8] Found in Revelation 6.1-8

[9] Luke 1.51-53

It is almost impossible to find language strong enough to describe and condemn the GOP’s lunatic response to tRUMP’s loss in the most secure election in US history. Here is a recent GOP response to the righteous rejection of their deadly, vile, obscene, wicked, ungodly, and blasphemous candidate, the most powerful and dangerous anti-Christ since the 20th century’s Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin.
 

“I sent out an SOS because, frankly, I need help in sorting out this atmospheric craziness that is going on. The Arizona Republican Party posted several inflammatory tweets early Tuesday morning amid President Donald Trump’s corrupt efforts to subvert the 2020 election results. The party’s official, official Twitter account retweeted a report from a pro-Trump ‘Stop the Steal’ organizer declaring, quote, ‘I’m willing to give my life for this fight.’  He is. The GOP account responded: ‘Are you?’ asking all of the people who read this official site.
 
“About an hour later, the party posted a clip from the action movie RAMBO in which the titular character threatens to shoot another character in the face with an arrow. The state’s GOP account quoted Rambo’s line in the clip, quote, ‘This is what we do, who we are. Live for nothing, or die for something.’ In other words, are you people willing to risk your life to change these election results? Something is going on collectively in the psychology of apparently millions of people in this country. What is it? What’s happening to us?”[1]
 
​
We will offer Amlici and Amalickiah, of Book of Mormon fame, as parallels to what we are seeing “in the psychology of apparently millions of people in this country.” But before doing so, we should just take a moment to answer Mr. Moyer’s question, “Something is going on collectively in the psychology of apparently millions of people in this country. What is it? What’s happening to us?”
 
Mass psychosis.
 
That’s what’s happening to us. Psychosis is, by definition, “losing touch with reality.” The illness is often brought on by trauma. Psychosis at such a mass level is not easily treated. There is no medication for it. So, I have no expectation that this mass psychosis will be healed any time soon. Indeed, this psychosis is so powerful that it is more akin to demon possession than illness. Unfortunately, I lack the faith and power to cast out evil spirits. I suspect Joe Biden, for all his hope to reverse our national psychosis, lacks the power as well. But we are in desperate need of an exorcist. Otherwise, we may find ourselves suffering the same insults from America’s massive psychotic infatuation with tRUMP that the Nephites suffered as a result of their mass psychotic infatuation with Amlici and Amalickiah.
 
So, first to Amlici. Amlici is described as “a very cunning man,” “a wise man as to the wisdom of the world.” He “had, by his cunning, drawn away much people after him; even so much that they began to be very powerful; and they began to endeavor to establish Amlici to be a king over the people.”[2] When the “voice of the people came against Amlici, he “did stir up those who were in his favor to anger against those who were not in his favor.” Amlici “commanded them that they should take up arms against their brethren; and this he did that he might subject them to him.”[3] Unable to check this coup, Nephite society endured a deadly and destructive civil war that only ended with Amlici’s death.
 
Amalickiah, who arose a little more than a dozen years after Amlici, is described in terms very similar to those of Amlici. He was “a large and a strong man” who was “a man of cunning device and a man of many flattering words.”[4] “By his fraud, [he] gained the hearts of the people” and “led away the hearts of many people to do wickedly.” Tragically, the deceived included “many in the church who believe in the flattering words of Amalickiah.”[5]
 
His followers are described as growing “proud, being lifted up in their hearts.” Many of them were “lower judges [politicians] of the land, and they were seeking for power.”[6] Like Amlici, Amalickiah and his followers sought to overthrow the will of the people and establish a monarchy with Amalickiah as king. When this failed by peaceful means, they resorted to violent means “to destroy the foundation of liberty.”[7] This rebellion result in war that lasted some twenty years.
 
Thus, editorializes the Book of Mormon chronicler, “we also see the great wickedness one very wicked man can cause to take place among the children of men.”[8]
 
This was true of Amalickiah. It was true of Amlici. And it is true of America’s Caligula, so named because of his madness. One hopes and prays that we will not have to work our way out of our mass psychosis or “great wickedness” by the same violent means as the Nephites. But the sort of GOP messaging as that found at the beginning of this Mad State does not portent a happy future. One hopes that an even better parallel between Nephite and American societies is not to be found later in the Book of Mormon.
 
But behold this my joy was vain, for their sorrowing was not unto repentance  because of the goodness of God; but it was rather the sorrowing of the damned, because the Lord would not always suffer them to take happiness in sin… and I saw that the day of grace was passed with them….”[9]


[1] “Bill Moyers discusses what Trump will do next as Biden’s victory drives him barking mad,” rawstory.com
[2] Alma 2.1-2
[3] Alma 2.7-10
[4] Alma 46.4, 10
[5] See Alma 47.30; 46.7, 10
[6] See Alma 45.24 and 46.4
[7] Alma 46.10
[8] Alma 46.9
[9] Mormon 2.13, 15

​“Wo unto you rich men, that will not give your substance to the poor, for your riches will canker your souls; and this shall be your lamentation in the day of visitation, and of judgment, and of indignation: The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and my soul is not saved!” (DC 56.16).
 
It is no longer enough to quote such passages and then let listeners and readers figure out what they mean and how they are to be applied to modern life. Modern day examples must be brought to bear. In the case of the American cankered capitalistic system and the cankered souls of its practitioners, sorcerers of dark magic all, examples are far from difficult to find. They are everywhere and all the time.
 
Here is but one snapshot in time.
 
“As the coronavirus pandemic devastated small businesses and plunged millions of Americans into poverty this summer and fall, executives at some of the country’s largest corporations sounded surprisingly upbeat…. 
 
“‘These are times when the strong can get stronger,’ Nike chief John Donahoe told analysts in September….
 
“With few exceptions, big businesses are having a very different year from most of the country. Between April and September, one of the most tumultuous economic stretches in modern history, 45 of the 50 most valuable publicly traded U.S. companies turned a profit…
 
“Despite their success, at least 27 of the 50 largest firms held layoffs this year, collectively cutting more than 100,000 workers…
 
“The data reveals a split screen inside many big companies this year. On one side, corporate leaders are touting their success and casting themselves as leaders on the road to economic recovery. On the other, many of their firms have put Americans out of work and used their profits to increase the wealth of shareholders….
 
“Companies sent thousands of employees packing while sending billions of dollars to shareholders. Walmart, whose CEO spent the past year championing the idea that businesses “should not just serve shareholders,” nonetheless distributed more than $10 billion to its investors during the pandemic while laying off 1,200 corporate office employees.”
 
“Wo unto these rich men” is much too light a condemnation. Even better,
 
Let “their torments shall be as a lake of fire and brimstone, whose flame ascendeth up forever and ever.” Let them “be chained down to an everlasting destruction, according to the power and captivity of Satan, he having subjected them according to his will” (Alma 12.17)—“you can have anything in this world for money.”

Well, it’s official.

COVID lying and ignoring tRUMP and his moronic hordes of mask-defying COVID terrorists are now killing more people per day than the nineteen 9/11 terrorists--today, the number of murders committed by these treasonous souls of poisonous falsehoods was 3,055...


19 9/11 terrorists killed 2,977

To date, the obscene tRUMP and his false, fake, fraudulent, and traitorous Americans have killed 291,024 Americans, making him and his maskless mass murderers 98 times more lethal than the 9/11 terrorists were with their box cutters & airplanes.

So, you tell me, who are the most lethal terrorist to ever terrorize America? Which group is the greatest threat to America? It’s not even close: tRUMP and his seditious hordes of barbarians.

In light of this, I continue to pray the Psalms against this phalanx of wickedness. Here is today's Psalm of execration

“For the sin of their mouth   
and the words of their lips  
let them even be taken in their pride:   
and for cursing and lying which they speak. 
Consume them in wrath,   
consume them, that they may not be... 
And at evening let them return;   
and let them make a noise like a dog,    
and go round about the city. 
Let them wander up and down for meat,   
and grudge if they be not satisfied” (59.12-15).​

​Even so, come, Lord Jesus.