Sunday Strip

My first time in Thailand was around when the US government invaded Iraq and formally launched its never ending War on (of) Terror. This was deeply unpopular in the broader global community and in Thailand specifically, to the point where my ex Joe, when asked where he was from, often said that he was from Canada. I began telling people that I was from Ohio, which was not a lie. It turned out 80% or more of those who inquired had no idea where in the world Ohio was. Was this some island country in the Mediterranian Sea, or perhaps somewhere in the Middle East? Maybe it was a former USSR satellite nestled between some Stan countries? I do often get mistaken for being Russian.

“Is this close to Georgia?” One Indian shop owner on Koh Samui asked me.

“Yes. It’s not that far from Georgia.” I answered back. There’s only Kentucky and Tennessee seperating them.

I suppose my short answer to the poll above is that I am proud to be an American while simultaneously being horrified at most of the policy decisions that have been carried out under my country’s banner. I suspect that this is the case for many people in countries all over the world. My substack poll was meant for everyone regardless of where you are from or where you are currently living. Around 2/3rds of my substack subscribers with trackable IP addresses hail from somewhere in the USA. Last I checked North Dakota was the only state not represented.

This had me pondering the various ways in which we’ve come to be controlled by the worst amongst us. Being a Sunday I decided to revisit some Bible studies, specifically Exodus chapters 19 through 22. Most people remember this section for God laying out the Ten Commandments to Moses, but few read ahead to God’s other proscriptions.

Like there’s this one from Exodus 21:

²⁰ “Anyone who beats their male or female slave with a rod must be punished if the slave dies as a direct result, ²¹ but they are not to be punished if the slave recovers after a day or two, since the slave is their property.

This is from Exodus 22:

“You must give me the firstborn of your sons. ³⁰ Do the same with your cattle and your sheep. Let them stay with their mothers for seven days, but give them to me on the eighth day.

³¹ “You are to be my holy people. So do not eat the meat of an animal torn by wild beasts; throw it to the dogs.

I have difficulty believing that the almighty creator of Heaven and Earth concerned himself with the exact proscription for the treatment of slaves, under what circumstances you can sell your daughter into slavery, or what should be done if you borrow an oxen from a neighbor which is then stolen. These Biblical texts read like law books with plenty of loopholes to keep a priestly class in charge while the rest get looted, raped and sold into slavery. But of course it is all in the name of God.

Sometimes I think that what really happened is that an alien race descended to the Earth many thousands of years ago, who then intermarried and bred with the native human population. These bloodlines might be identifiable through human specific antigens such as rH negative blood or blue eyes. Regardless of how they came to be this priestly class employed dark rituals to keep themselves in power and steered or subverted key religious texts to serve their own ends. Thus the global population was balkanized and divided through subconscious programming.

“Hey I know what we’ll do!” They seemed to agree as Satan is many. “We’ll run tests on how much enslavement the God created population will put up with! Like with this one religion over here, force the women to cover everything except their eyes in public, even in the hottest desert sun! And then if they don’t do it put some proscriptions on modesty in there so that the men are allowed to rape them and their husbands and fathers are allowed to kill them!”

“That’s a great idea!”

“Now to keep our foot soldiers motivated to enforce our edicts, we need a lot of stuff in there codifying rape and plunder. Say that God says it’s okay because the others are subhuman and stuff and he commands killing them all! Except the little virgin girls under three or any young ones they might want to keep as slaves.”

“We’re going to need to divide up this Christianity thing. I think we should have some sects that don’t even celebrate the birthday of Jesus Christ!”

“Do you think they’d really be dumb enough to fall for that?”

“Let’s see if they are. Ban coffee from this one, ban pork and alcohol from that one. Ban dancing and singing over here. Ban astrology, birthdays and tarot from these guys over here. Tell this group that they cannot achieve enlightenment without being celibate. Come up with any number of stupid rules that outsiders can see clearly are stupid just to keep the people from coming together. Now over here I think we should do a caste system, so that anyone born of a lower class due to past life mistakes is stuck in that station their whole lives. But we’ll tell them that if they are good in this life they can come back next time in a higher station. Preach fire and eternal damnation over here and salvation through penance to the State over there. Make sure they know that those born as Kings or who have acquired many worldly goods are being given blessings from God and have a higher station in his eyes. Make sure they know that they can only achieve this higher station through the acquisition of worldly goods which we will control all access to.”

“But surely some people will turn away from all this nonsense? So what then?”

“That’s easy. Burn all the witches at the stakes and steal all of their treasure. Pillage and crucify the peacemakers to send a message to others. For others we will provide them with an almighty being in the name of science and the progress of mankind. For access to the higher realms of money and power, they will have to sell their soul to Satan. Many will not even realize that they are doing it at the time.”

“It seems like you’ve got it all covered.”

This morning I read about a Buddhist monk in Phuket who shot and killed another monk last Sunday. I know a lot of Buddhist monks in Phuket so I opened that notification immediately. I do not know this one nor I have I been to this particular temple, but I pondered how deeply screwed up the world seems with this statement from the killer and why he did it:

“Phra Niwat went into the bathroom without locking the door and played something loudly on his phone. It irritated me,” he said. “So I took the gun from my room, shot him, and reloaded another six rounds.”

This sounds like a mental breakdown.

Police detained Phra Jaruek and escorted him to the ecclesiastical district governor of Muang Phuket, who formally expelled him from the monkhood. He is now facing legal prosecution.

Well yes getting expelled from the monkhood would be a wise first step. I was pondering Buddhism and its relationship to sexuality, which had me digging for Buddhist sects in which the monks or nuns were not celibate. That led me to an infamous Japanese zen master named Ikkyu. This is from Wikipedia, though I will admit that there are some conflicting tales from other sources, including that a blind woman was the love of his life:

That Ikkyū regarded sex as a religious rite is also exemplified by his insistence on wearing monk's robes when entering brothels.^[14] Ikkyū wrote that sex was better than sitting in meditation and working on koans:

Rinzai's disciples never got the Zen message,
But I, the Blind Donkey, know the truth:
Love play can make you immortal.
The autumn breeze of a single night of love is better than a hundred thousand years of sterile sitting meditation . . .

Stilted koans and convoluted answers are all monks have,
Pandering endlessly to officials and rich patrons.
Good friends of the Dharma, so proud, let me tell you,
A brothel girl in gold brocade is worth more than any of you.^[15]

We seem to have many religious disciplines which people are dying for.

Tucker Carlson eviscerated Ted Cruz in a recent interview. It was an Emperor has no Clothes moment of realizing that we have really let the stupidest and most bought off lead us close to total annihilation. I have difficulty imagining a five year old US child thinking about this on the Forth of July.

Buy me a ko-fi