Thinking about the MAGA Christian Nationalists. The more you look at it the stranger it becomes to understand what it is actually supposed to mean? The church is to many an identify and a social club and for some a way to do good work, where it gets messy is little things like faith and doctrine. For some it provides a warm fuzzy place of comfort unchallenged by the quite radical teachings of man from nazareth that are not particularly compatible with capitalism or nationalist notions of freedom. Hell as described in popular literature is not in the Bible. The Bibles hell is to be estranged from God’s love(cast out). If you believe judgment is from God not man. Charlie Kirk from his own reported words seems to have judged many and that’s not what following Christ is about is supposedly about. I am no theologian so I don’t claim to be any sort of informed voice, simply another person in the crowd listening. We fear others, we fear what we don’t know, we fear our feelings about who we are quite often. Much in the carpenters teachings appeals to me but the sin no more bit might be hard. The Bible has some great lines in it too. Some of my MAGA Facebook ‘friends’ are deeply Christian in the sense that it seems they attend the church of straight white capitalist Jesus, but I haven’t found him in the new testament yet. Maybe I am reading the wrong edition?

Disclaimer:
I am a sort of an agnostic atheist: I don’t believe but who knows for sure… If there is any sort of higher benign power though I suspect it might not be particularly concerned with deliberately cruelty or the petty squabbles of humans. I rather hope it would simply say ‘Do no harm’

Also while we are on the subject of the right generally I notice people trying to normalise the recent flag march. The thing is not that it took place but who it was organised by and who the speakers were,

Yaxley-Lennon: After losing his job as an engineering apprentice for assaulting a police officer, Robinson moved into activism in 2009 by founding the English Defence League (EDL), an Islamophobic organisation forged on the football terraces in Luton before spreading nationally.

The EDL was involved in frequent displays of violence, including at a demonstration in Birmingham that led to 50 individuals receiving criminal convictions, but fizzled out shortly after Robinson left in 2013.

Elon Musk:

He has thrown his weight behind several far-right figures. He was the largest donor in the 2024 US presidential election, backing Donald Trump. He also urged Germans to vote for the far-right party Alternative für Deutschland.

In the UK, he has pledged support for the populist party Reform UK, led by Nigel Farage (who was not at the rally), although Musk’s support has been inconsistent.He has been consistent, however, in his repeated attacks on the UK government under Keir Starmer

Éric Zemmour:

A French far-right politician who came in fourth place in the first round of the 2022 French presidential election. He addressed the “unite the kingdom” rally from the stage.Zemmour, 67, has been convicted for inciting racial hatred, attacked by historians for claiming the Nazi collaborator Marshal Philippe Pétain saved French Jews rather than aiding their deportation to death camps, and was described by a French justice minister as a dangerous racist and Holocaust denier.He spoke at the rally about “the great replacement of our European people by peoples coming from the south and of Muslim culture” and said: “You and we are being colonised by our former colonies.”

Ben Habib previously served as a co-deputy leader of the Reform UK political party and now leads the far-right Advance UK party.

He addressed the “unite the kingdom” rally and said he and his party stand for “our constitutional Christian roots”, adding: “We will stand against the indoctrination of our children who we taught to be ashamed of our forefathers.”

Habib, 60, was born in Pakistan to a Pakistani father and British mother. He moved to the UK in his teens and attended a private school before attending the University of Cambridge.

He was a supporter of and donor to the Conservative party until 2019 when he stood for the Brexit party in European elections. He was made co-deputy leader of Reform in 2023 but quit over differences with Farage. In April 2024, Habib suggested in a broadcast interview that some migrants travelling to the UK by boat should be left to drown.

So if you marched did you intend to align yourself with these people and their beliefs?

Hell is Empty all the Devils are Here

So I have been playing around with image manipulation in AI a bit this week. Or if you have a vivid imagination I have been time travelling. It is very addictive, though I have also managed to fit in a gig at an old venue and written some music and started recording it as well. I got a migraine possibly triggered by too much screen time as well. Not fun at all.

I survived the gig at the Red Lion, everybody in the band was going at it full on. Never seen them light up like that before. Slight dodgy sound on the first couple of numbers but I sorted that. First time I have played with a full band at the Red Lion in about 10 years. Shame we couldn’t have filmed it. Felt fucking intense! like being back in Elephant Shelf though quite possibly a tad too loud. Blew all the Charlie Kirk and SC Judgement shit clean out of my mind for a while. I do wish they would repair the door locks in the ladies though. Still busted since 2015. That’s Rock and roll.

The moon landing deniers make me laugh. They rode in a tin cans (like the bowie song)on top of some fireworks and used a lot of maths to make sure they got there and got back with aid of more fireworks. Navigation was much like it would be on ship at sea with a sextant and taking position from the stars. The computer only displayed number codes so they had to look up what the numbers meant in a big bound manual to see what it was telling them when they pressed buttons. The slightest bit of bad maths and they would have died. It was a fantastic achievement but any kid with a slight interest in science and able to do basic maths who saw it on TV live could have made a good stab at explaining how it was done in the 60s and 70s. It was incredibly high risk, but they boldly went and it matters.

Here is a jazz tune from me.