Sessions in Hell.

It wasn't at all what he'd expected. There was no fire. No brimstone. Instead of sulfur he smelled magnolias. Instead of a blazing inferno it was just a regular June day in Alabama. Hot, to be sure, but certainly not enough to cause him to wail and gnash his teeth. It wasn't dark and gloomy, either. The sun was shining, the birds singing, the bees a-buzzing, and everywhere around him was the sound of laughter. Their laughter burned him up faster than any hell fire ever could.

One might not think this was damnation, he thought bitterly, if not for the company,

"Boy, why are you standing there staring at the clouds? Ain't you got work to be doing?"

The voice startled him. The sudden fear that rose up inside him at the sound of it filled him with hatred, for them and himself, but he dared not give it a voice. "Yessir." he squeaked weakly, shuffling off to get another tray of hors d'oeuvres, as peals of laughter lashed at his bent, scarred back.

The kitchen hummed as usual. There was no shortage of food or drink to be taken out to the party guests, who had endless appetites, but he was the only server here. The cook, his only collaborator in this endless and goalless endeavor, glanced at him with desperate, bloodshot eyes as he entered and was immediately scolded by the kitchen master.

"Get back to work!" her overseer, a monster of a woman with skin like mahogany that loomed over her always, bellowed at once. She jumped visibly at the shouted command and, returning her attention immediately to her monstrous sixteen burner gas range, continued to stir her many pots.

"You see this here, Jeffy?" The overseer said to him in a mockingly conspiratorial tone, "Paula thinks she's special. Maybe this kitchen isn't hot enough for her. What do you think?"

"I don-"

"Shut the fuck up, you little elf looking bitch!" She screamed at him immediately. "No one cares what you think! Get the fuck out of my kitchen!"

He grabbed another of the large silver serving platters and exited the kitchen quickly. Her cackles seeming to physically push him from the room. 

Outside again, Jefferson Beauregard Sessions the Third began to move from one group of party goers, seated in groups of six or so and scattered across the gigantic lawn, to another so that they could graze from his tray. Most of them ignored him completely. He preferred that. It stung him a little when they waved him away without looking at him, dismissing him as though he were an animal, but he said nothing. Any protest would be followed swiftly by all manner of harsh punishments. 

Sometimes they put him in the stocks. Other times, he was flogged. Once, when he'd struck a party goer for tripping him and sending his tray flying onto another, he'd been forced to wear an iron collar with three long sharp prongs that protruded from it. They'd engraved a big "J" on the front of it just for him, they'd said with glee as they'd fastened it around his neck, because he was their special guy. Once they'd removed the collar, some weeks later, they had hung it up above his bed in his quarters. It was the first and last thing he saw each day. 

"Come here, boy!" That voice again. He broke out into gooseflesh immediately. He knew who it was even before he turned to look upon the speaker. He stared hard at Jeff over his steepled fingers. 

"Y-yessir!" Sessions replied in a meek voice as he rushed over to offer up his tray.

"Mmm! These look good!" The man said approvingly as he plucked a fried green tomato slider from the tray. "You ever try these, boy?" The question was followed by giggles from the other guests at the table.

"No, sir." 

"Aw! That's too bad." He replied, mockingly. This exchange happened in one way or the other every single day. Or what seemed like a day to Jeff. Time was funny here. "Why not, boy? Why can't you eat?" More chuckles followed.

"Because this food is for people, sir."

"That's right, Jeff. This food is for people. And what are you?"

"I'm just a pasty little savage. A white devil that deserves nothing but hatred. A rabid cloven hoof animal that is no better than a cow, goat, or pig." Jeff knew the words now. They'd been hard to learn, at first, but he couldn't forget them now. They were as seared onto the surface of his brain as their brands were on the surface of his skin. 

"Run along now, boy." He said, as the chuckles turned to roars of approval and amusement.

"Yessir, Mister Malcolm, sir." He said, relieved to be dismissed, and turned to leave. Suddenly, the air was pushed from his lungs as a heavy fist drove up into his diaphragm with impossible force. The punch lifted him high into the air and sent his tray spinning through the air. As he crashed to the ground at a sickening, bone crushing velocity his vision dimmed and he almost rejoiced at the loss of consciousness that was surely coming. Alas, it did not. Gasping for air, tears streaming down his face, his every bone and muscle screaming in horror, Jeff looked up at his assailant.

"I'm a bad man!" He yelled down at him, throwing back his head and howling with glee. 

"As much as I abhor violence in all it's forms, that shit right there is pretty damn funny."

"You're not wrong, Martin." Malcolm said.

"I don't know, man. It just seems so heavy. Like, is this guy really that bad?" 

"You're smoking entirely too much grass, Jimi." Martin replied. "This man is the very scum of the earth. His entire existence was spent making life harder for our people and easier for his own. He trampled the very freedom that we all fought for, that we all lived for, and that we all died for. As far as I'm concerned, he deserves every torment, trial, and tribulation that the after life can provide."

"Ok, man. Whatever. He's bad. But look. This is heaven, man. Heaven, you dig? And we're spending it being mean? It just seems wrong." Jimi ended his short speech with a long drag of the joint that was forever in his hand.

"Pffft. Man, fuck that. Punch that bitch ass motherfucker again, Ali."

"Of course, you would say that, Pac!" laughed Malcolm. "What about you, Jesus? What do you think?"

All eyes turned to the bearded, dark-skinned man at the far end of the table. He'd been quiet during the entire exchange, neither talking nor laughing, and he looked at them now as if seeing them all for the first time. Jeff looked up at him, hopefully.

"Brothers," Jesus said, "This is your heaven and his hell. Everything you see here is for you to enjoy. That includes the suffering of this evil creature that lies here before us. He was cruel, wicked, spiteful, and vicious. He lacked all kindness, honesty, and empathy. He loved nothing but wealth and cherished nothing but power. He served false gods and worshiped false idols. His damnation has been commanded by my father and yours." Jesus reached out and snatched the joint from Jimi's fingers. He took a long, thoughtful pull from it, and, smiling broadly down at Sessions, said "Punch that bitch ass motherfucker again, Muhammad."

Grinning, Ali lunged at Jeff, who was still prone, and planted a devastating right hook in his dumb, shocked face. This time the darkness did take him. He let it slide over him like a warm blanket and drifted into oblivion. 

HITLER WAS NOT A SOCIALIST.

An oft repeated right wing lie that must be debunked whenever possible.

Firstly, I'm not a Marxist. I'm not especially a socialist, either, although I do believe that healthcare should be socialized. That's another post entirely, though. One, now that I think of it, I may write later. But I digress...

The Nazis outlawed socialism. They were imprisoning, and killing, socialists and communists before they were killing Jews. 

There were socialists in the Nazi party initially. They were represented mainly by the Strasser brothers and Strasserism. Guess what happened to them? Otto Strasser was expelled from the party in 1930 after a disagreement with Hitler over Hitler's disregard for socialist ideals during which Hitler repeatedly called Strasser a "liberal". He later went into exile in Czechoslovakia. The other brother, Gregor Strasser? Murdered during the Night of the Long Knives. 

Hitler didn't even believe in socialist economic principles nor did he institute them.

“Hitler was never a socialist. But although he upheld private property, individual entrepreneurship, and economic competition, and disapproved of trade unions and workers' interference in the freedom of owners and managers to run their concerns, the state, not the market, would determine the shape of economic development. Capitalism was, therefore, left in place. But in operation it was turned into an adjunct of the state."

            - Hitler 1936 – 45: Nemisis, by Ian Kershaw.

“We have to strip the terms ‘Nationalism’ and ‘Socialism’ of their previous meaning. Only that man is a nationalist who stands by his people, and only that man is a socialist who stands up for the rights of his people both internally and externally.”

            - Adolf Hitler, November 16, 1928.

There are so many articles that have been written on why Hitler was not a socialist that I honestly don't understand how anyone could fall for a lie so blatant.

Here is Reddit featuring many, many people debunking this nonsense. 

Here is a youtube video debunking the claim as made by Steven Crowder, a well known lying piece of shit -

Here is Professor David Klein of California State University, Northridge debunking the same myth.

Here's a Guardian opinion piece about this continually repeated lie. 

Here's a piece written by Albert Einstein on socialism.

Here's the definition of socialism itself for the people that are confused. 

When you search google for Hitler's links to left wing socialism you'll find yourself all but drowned in a murky green soup of right wing propaganda sites that try to distance themselves from this obviously right wing fascist dictator. Infowars, CNS, TheRebel, TheNationalReview, etc. The target of this fallacy is obvious, right wingers that don't check sources.  It's intended goal is equally obvious – Fear mongering.

“Look how the left is the enemy!” They scream. 

Ironically, this is exactly why Hitler sometimes claimed to be a socialist. It was a way to win over the workers with words while he acted in whichever way suited him best.

If he was such a left winger and a socialist then why was he supported by the right and by big business? Big business which, by the way, flourished before, during, and even after the war.

This shit is basic as hell and I feel like I shouldn't even have to write it... but I clearly do... So here it is.

Have a great day.

Who said I had any valor?

Whenever I tell people that I'm a veteran on the internet I'm attacked. I'm told that I'm not a real veteran; "Stolen valor!" is the usual cry. I'm told that if I am a veteran then I'm definitely not an infantryman because infantryman aren't black. I'm told that I'm not a hero.

Let's do this backwards, shall we?

Firstly, I've never claimed to be a hero. I'm a veteran, sure, but not a hero. Have I done things that people might deem "heroic"? Sure. I've got some medals. Lots of veterans do. That doesn't make me a hero and I would never claim that it did. It's a cliché for a reason; All the heroes I know are dead. A hero throws himself on a grenade to protect his squad, steps in front of a bullet for a friend, charges towards a vehicle-born improvised explosive device to save the men at his checkpoint. Plenty of those to laud and applaud. I'm not among their number. I did none of those things. I am not a hero.

Second, while it's true that black men are under represented in the infantry and, indeed, across the board within US military combat arms positions, we do exist. Black infantryman aren't fucking unicorns for Christ's sake. One in five soldiers in the US Army are black and 22% of that number are combat arms. So, of around half a million soldiers, one in five is black and, of that one hundred thousand, one in five is combat arms. 20,000 soldiers. How unlikely is it that I'm one of those soldiers? Are these impossible odds? I think not.

Third, "Stolen valor!". This comes up usually because of my reluctance to post pictures of myself on social media. The amusing thing about this is that it's almost always invoked by people that would use my personal information to hurt me in some way. Really, in any way that they can. These pigs, these swine, will no doubt use any personal information that I post on Twitter or any other social media to track me down and harass me. Not just me, of course, but the people that I love and that look to me to keep them safe. So what do I do? Bow to my ego, post pictures of myself, and put my loved ones at risk so that people won't call me names on the internet? I think fucking not. Having "Stolen valor!" screamed at me over twitter is the absolute least of my worries. Having someone attack my family on Facebook, at best, or in the street, at worst, is a much more concrete concern. These people are certifiably insane. I would never subject those that i care about to the abuses that they'd wish to perpetrate. Call me all the fucking names you want, I can take it, but you will never get to my people. That's a level of the game that no one wants to take it to with me. This I can promise you. Some would call me a feral, an animal, and a savage. Trust your own assessment. Maybe I am all of those things and, if that's the case, then you should not attempt to corner me.

I'll continue to say that I'm a veteran, because I am, and they'll continue to attack me. It's ok by me. I can hack it. I used to load my weapons and fight terrorists for my country; fascist swine on the internet doesn't scare me. These days my weapons are my words, and the terrorists domestic, but the fight is the same. I'm ready for it.

Read the name of the fucking blog, man.

I'm ready for a dirty game.

Happy birthday Jesus.

A Christmas message.

As we all are, hopefully, enjoying this time with our families I just wanted to send some love out to everyone. Remember that today is supposed to be about other people and not what you get or want. You're meant to be giving smiles and not just getting them.

Atheists... We know. Jesus was born in the summer, if he existed at all, and it's not really his birthday. We get it. Still, when someone says it's Jesus's birthday we do not require you to correct them. Give it a rest for one day? It's fucking Christmas.

Christians... Stop short-circuiting when people say "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas". Not everyone celebrates Christmas. Why not just be happy that it's the time of year where people feel like being nice and not be so focused on their words? After all, it's Jesus's birthday.

Conservatives... Can we give it a rest on Obama being a Muslim for one day? Even if he were, which he isn't, Jesus would have accepted him as a friend regardless. I thought you guys were trying to be like Jesus. What would he do?

Liberals... Take a break from Trump. Eat some turkey. Drink some alcohol. Hug your families. Hope. Maybe we're wrong about him (we aren't) and he'll surprise us (he won't). It'll be good for your soul to get away from that argument for a day. I'm going to try myself but I'm sure I'll end up being a hypocrite before the day is out.

Anyone that is combating racism and bigotry... Do not stop. Especially today. Always call it out. Always stomp it out. Apathy is the warm, dark place in which the deadly fungus of racism grows.

Racists and bigots... Fuck you.

Merry Christmas to all and keep up the good fight.