The insanity we're facing
One image. It only takes one image.
The above photograph was sent to me this morning.
It was taken two nights ago, outside the headquarters for the Capo Unified School District. The image depicts a dozen or so right-wingers gathering in prayer alongside a dude (in the blue suit jacket on the left) named Frank Rodriguez, better known for his time as a founder/kingpin of the (awesomely self-owning named) hate group, “Gays Against Groomers.”
Which, plugged into Chat GPT, makes for a kick-ass time …
I digress.
Frank Rodriguez is a disturbed dude, and all it takes is a scan of the ol’ Internet to see what I mean. The Southern Poverty Law Center deemed “Gays Against Groomers" to be a hate group. It’s Instagram page was suspended by Meta. Hell, read the Wikipedia page. It’s some jarring shit.
But somehow, some way, in the lead-up to a school board meeting where right wingers would be defending the usage of the n-word by a Judy “Don’t Fuck with the J.B.” Bullockus, the people felt they should gather in prayer with … the Gays Against Groomers dude.
Think about that.
Really think about that.
You’re a Christian. You’re a Mormon. You attend church every Sunday. You don’t merely read the Bible. You know the Bible. Passage by passage. You have devoted much of your life toward its teachings and principles. Love thy neighbor. We are all created in God’s image. We are all sinners. On and on and on. It is your life calling to be as kind and decent and whole as humanly possible. Then, when your time here is complete, you will join Jesus Christ in a forever afterlife.
For you have followed his teachings.
And here you are, Wednesday evening, your arm touching the back of … the Gays Against Groomers bruh.
Seriously, what happened to you people? I ask that in all earnestness: What happened to you people? How did you get so swept up in it all? When did you stop giving two poops about clean air and healthcare and compassion, and trade the whole lot in for trans athletes and grooming librarians? Do you not worry about keeping God’s gift to you (earth) in good shape? Do you not worry about expressing empathy toward LGBTQ+ kids?
Do you not see yourselves how so many see you?
As hypocritical?
As ignorant?
As cruel?
As crazy?
I mean this not as a liberal or a writer or a liberal writer, but as a human being who actually loves and admires faith. Do you not recognize all the damage you have done to your own viewpoints? Like, why should I join your church if you fail to practice the very teachings of said church? Why should I love my neighbor if the people regurgitating, “Love thy neighbor” display zero compassion toward their neighbors?
Do me a favor: Visit the “Gays Against Groomers” dude’s Instagram feed. Take a look around. Absorb the messaging. Recognize that he’s nothing more than a chaos-to-chaos mercenary, anxiously exploiting the open wounds of communities he neither resides in nor gives two shits about. Recognize the opportunist before you. Here today, gone tomorrow. Spewing cruelty. Spewing vile. Driving wedges into the ground.
Then ask yourself: Is this the message God wants me to share?
Is this who I want to be?
PS: Thug life.
You can tell this guy's favorite thing in the world is attention from his Instagram page.
Jeff wrote "I ask that in all earnestness: What happened to you people? How did you get so swept up in it all? When did you stop giving two poops about clean air and healthcare and compassion, and trade the whole lot in for trans athletes and grooming librarians?"
In my comment about the school board meeting, I told how discouraged I got because the MAGA crowd controlled both the question to be considered and the discussion of said question. Clean air, health care, compassion, empathy - all traded in for trans athletes and grooming librarians.
My wife likes the cast on Good Day LA, so she puts it on in the morning, before I, in retirement mode, get up around 9:30. Today, the show gave me a present. At 10:02, the normal programming switched to a car chase currently under way. It was a car chase only in the academic sense, in that it was 6-10 police cars following a pickup truck at 3-6 miles per hour. The conga line of police increased during the chase to what looked like 20 or so cars. The stolen pickup had been involved in a hit-and-run (never elaborated on by the announcers). The chase was on city streets - Mulholland Drive, Cold Canyon Road. I sat in my chair and made snarky comments - they should have a food truck in the pursuit line; the driver was just looking for an address, they had a work order; when the truck was stopped and barricaded in by police cars, with 20 officers out with drawn weapons, wouldn't be easier just to send someone up to the driver with a coffee and maybe a cupcake; the traffic was so backed up that I could hear the mom in the van, about 300 yards behind the stop, screaming that they better hurry up, she had ice cream in the car; that Stephan, in the house next to the stop, was major pissed because he had a coffee meeting he missed because of the activity...
Suddenly, I had an epiphany! The MAGA crowd has a plan for how they capture everyone's attention. MAGA is a slow-speed car chase! MAGA is something that grabs your attention, captures the media, has way more fluff than substance, doesn't really impact anyone's life beyond the handful of cops and the pickup driver immediately involved, and can demand that everything else is put on hold while "IT" is happening. MAGA. Everyone's daily dose of slow-speed car chase.