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Jarret condemns the burnings, but does so in such mild language that his people are free to hear what they want to hear. As for the beatings, the tarring and feathering, and the destruction of “heathen houses of devil-worship,” he has a simple answer: “Join us! Our doors are open to every nationality, every race! Leave your sinful past behind, and become one of us. Help us to make America great again.”
Interesting that they fear Edward Jay Smith’s supposed incompetence more than they fear Jarret’s obvious tyranny.
Raids and gangs are dangerous because they kill outright. Peace is dangerous because it encourages complacency and carelessness—which also kills sooner or later.
Love quiets fear. And a sweet and powerful Positive obsession Blunts pain, Diverts rage, And engages each of us In the greatest, The most intense Of our chosen struggles
Olamina believes in a god that does not in the least love her. In fact, her god is a process or a combination of processes, not an entity. It is not consciously aware of her—or of anything. It is not conscious at all. “God is Change,” she says and means it. Some of the faces of her god are biological evolution, chaos theory, relativity theory, the uncertainty principle, and, of course, the second law of thermodynamics. “God is Change, and, in the end, God prevails.”
Its promise is not of mansions to live in, milk and honey to drink, or eternal oblivion in some vast whole of nirvana. Its promise is of hard work and brand-new possibilities, problems, challenges, and changes.
“The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked; his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire.”
Beware: At war Or at peace, More people die Of unenlightened self-interest Than of any other disease.
They say detailed news doesn’t matter. Since we can’t change the stupid, greedy, vicious things that powerful people do, they think we should try to ignore them. No matter how many times we’re forced to admit we can’t really hide, some of us still find ways to try.
A collar, my brother was saying, makes you turn traitor against your kind, against your freedom, against yourself.
Choose your leaders with wisdom and forethought. To be led by a coward is to be controlled by all that the coward fears. To be led by a fool is to be led by the opportunists who control the fool. To be led by a thief is to offer up your most precious treasures to be stolen. To be led by a liar is to ask to be told lies. To be led by a tyrant is to sell yourself and those you love into slavery.
They will strip us. They’ve made that all too clear. They will break us down, reshape us, teach us what it means to love their country and fear their God.
Beware: Ignorance Protects itself. Ignorance Promotes suspicion. Suspicion Engenders fear. Fear quails, Irrational and blind, Or fear looms, Defiant and closed. Blind, closed, Suspicious, afraid, Ignorance Protects itself, And protected, Ignorance grows.
These were God’s people come to bring the true faith to the cultist heathens. I suppose if some of the heathens died of it, that wasn’t really very important.
“Learn your lessons or you’ll suffer like this for all eternity!” How can they do what they do if they believe what they say?
None of us is decently married, it seems. We were not married by a minister of the Church of Christian America. Therefore, we have been living in sin—“fornicating like dogs!” I heard one Crusader say. That same Crusader dragged Diamond Scott off to his cabin last week and raped her. She says he told her it was all right. He was a man of God, and she should be honored.
We’re feeding livestock and cleaning their pens. We’re turning compost, we’re planting herbs, we’re harvesting winter fruits, vegetables and herbs, clearing brush from the hills. We’re expected to feed ourselves and our captors. They eat better than we do, of course. After all, we owe them more than we can ever pay, you see, because they’re teaching us to forsake our sinful ways. They keep talking about teaching us the meaning of hard work. They tell us that we’re no longer squatters, parasites, and thieves.
Some of us were being made to cut down both the mature live oak and pine trees and the saplings that we had planted. These trees not only commemorated our dead and provided us with much protein, but also they helped hold the hillside near our cabins in place. Somehow, our “teachers” have gotten the idea that we worshipped trees, thus we must have no trees nearby except those that produce the fruit and nuts that our “teachers” like to eat. Funny how that worked out. The orange, lemon, grapefruit, persimmon, pear, walnut, and avocado trees were good. All others were wicked temptations.
“We walk the highways and scrounge and scavenge and ask for work, and all of that reminds people that what’s happened to us can happen to them. They don’t like to think about stuff like that,
If Christian America still wants the land it stole from us, it will have some serious rebuilding to do.
The religious poor who are ignorant, frightened, and desperate to improve their situations are glad to see a “man of God” in the White House.
