I think that this time alone during the quarantine has been the best blessing I could have ever asked for. It's been like a universal "time-out" from the strange absurdity that life became for a moment. A great deal of breathing room, and reconnecting with some of the reasons that I enjoy life. A remembrance of what life truly means.
I've been working on a few things that are all seeming to run together, and then wondering if it is all even worth it. I mean, as far as I'm concerned, history will be on my side and all it should paint me as is a man who tried to remind us of some old fashioned values before we consumed the world in blood and fire. As far as I'm further concerned, I earned my rank as a Staff Sergeant in the USAF, was officially discharged as, and the only thing I'm really proud of achieving in the military. I worked my ass off after being sabotaged by "office drama". I was one of the best workers that they ever had in the drone community, and they know it. One of the reasons that I have no fear of the consequences of my actions is because I've literally done nothing but tell the truth. And it is better to face that truth now, instead of then. Otherwise our legacy as a nation will be one of histories greatest jokes.
I've heard it said that those who don't study history are doomed to repeat it, and those that read history are doomed to watch it repeat. I honestly don't know what anyone really expects my part to be. All of this Whistleblower stuff came about by almost complete accident. Like, I was the fly on the wall of the most inner actions of all military operations. I have no idea what was decided behind closed doors. I was just the atomic tip of the spear. The vision to where the spear must be poked into. The will to which once that spear is released places it to where it needs to go. And I was treated very poorly by my military leadership. What has happened is the consequence of the organization of the United States Air Force in mismanagement of it's core values. Of saying one thing then doing another, training people to value "integrity, service, and excellence", then betraying those values in themselves.
I don't look upon my time in the drone program with any sort of pride other than the amount of work I put in and how well I did it even though I hated doing it every day. I wasn't even afraid to tell people of it. I really really told people, every fucking day I was in how much I hated drones. When I first got into the program, I told the commander of the 11th TRS that I didn't sign up for a job to hunt and kill people and he called me a pussy and a coward, then belittled 2 people in front of the entire squadron for claiming to be conscience objectors. I do not and will never ever glorify anyone whatsoever who was with me in the drone program either. I was shoved into the program because of my moderately high achievements, and my miraculous ability to retreat inward because I couldn't handle the belittlement.
I could handle being yelled at for my mistakes. Basic Training was easier than Wrestling Camp. I couldn't handle belittlement of my character because of something I could hardly express in words but felt strongly of. He got me on the Oath part, I know the power of oaths and the word. My grandfather told me that the only thing a man has of worth is his word, and if you cannot fulfill it then you have no worth. I did my duty with diligence despite the office drama and slovenly politics involved. I don't know how else to express it. I don't know what anyone expected of me.
I can tell you what I expected. I expected my "brothers and sisters" to realize the dishonor that we bring upon our selves in the partaking of the actions involving the war on terror. I realize that I'm not rich or famous, and I don't intend to be. But I have direct experience and knowledge of the deep set of morals that are violated through the use of this technology and the mindset that runs behind it. All I can do is hold up the mirror of truth in front of us and have you look directly into it. I can't change your mind of how you see it or what you accept in what you see, I just have to shine a light and show you the mirror.
In the little brown book the USAF gave me called the "enlisted force structure" it says in the opening paragraph that each rank is not a discarding of the responsibilities of the previous rank but in addition to. It was the thing that saved me in the arguments I had with a few of my supervisors and those higher ranking individuals who found themselves in the program using the younger airmen to make their lives cushy office day jobs so they can spend time with their families and have their base social activities.
Let's not forget the time that I spent 4 months of flying in the year 2009, with no days off because my supervisor at the time "just felt like it." Let's not forget the time when my dog was stolen and I showed up to work in tears and I was told that if I went to go search for my dog I would be reported as AWOL and that I should just forget about it. Let's not forget the time my leave to go say goodbye to my great grandfather, on his deathbed, was take away because they "let too many people go on leave and he isn't immediate family so he's not important." Let's not forget the fact that I treated pretty much everyone kindly regardless of how they treated me. So I will never sing the praises of anyone with whom I worked with, but I will remain silent on what their characters were to me. Your embarrassment can be your own.
There is a quote from Gandalf that I really love, "Saruman believes it is only great power that can hold evil in check, but that is not what I have found. It is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay. Small acts of kindness and love. Why Bilbo Baggins? Perhaps because I am afraid, and he gives me courage." In my reflections of how my life has gone these last 13 years, I would definitely say that it has been the smallest things that guided me through to where I've been. I've had my own misadventures, like a certain hobbit from the Shire, and maybe not as great a deed as he had for himself, one that was more real than any book could explain.
All I've done, really, is take responsibility for my own deeds, and tried to explain the struggles and changes these interactions have had on me. What I've tried to do is warn people of the consequences of our actions if we don't take that responsibility head on. This goes beyond fable, this goes beyond mythology, or theory, this is direct in-your-face experience and reflection. This isn't about ego, it's about reaping what you sow. So, no, I will not be the leader in any sort of movement or face of any sort of campaign. I have played my part in the world stage, and I really desire nothing further in it. I did everything I did to find peace in my soul, which I have, I didn't come to save the world. Who would want to save our wretched society? I will separate myself from it as much as possible so that when everything does fall apart I will not fall to karma's scythe.
In every era of history there are people that warn the world societies and the societies rarely listen. It seems that we're of the category of not listening. The smallest and least of us are treated horribly. The wealth of our country is paid with the blood of innocents. The debt of the nation is placed upon our children and our children's children's children. We've the sick and tired and hungry and have done nothing to comfort them. We dishonor the spirit of Liberty, Freedom, and War for the sake of the comfort of a few.
Look upon yourself, America, and weep for lost potential, despoiled by evil men who parade about in the Emperor's New Clothes, under the banner of religion and false prosperity. Who have led the world to war and ruin simply to pad their own pockets with wealth. Look upon what we have brought forth since our birth. I weep for you, for the lies you had me believe. You could have been the chosen one, but instead, you're retarded. I mean that in the most derogatory of senses. As in a plant that was given poison instead of nutrients and still grew, but not to it's potential. As in a child not learning discipline and self-control then given the powers of an adult. But who is to promote your growth if not yourself? With media in our faces every day, and the ability to have direct-live information fed to you, can we make that leap of faith in maturity? Can we finally be everything that we can be and more, because we have the power to simply do it? Turn my weeping from sorrow and grief to joy and exultation. Let me be a witness to your humbling and rise, instead of your crumbling and fall. Help us, oh Spirit of America the Beautiful. Save us from ourselves.
20 April 2020
12 April 2020
Easter Review
As we come upon the Easter Holiday, once a tradition of Mother Earth bringing forth to life again at the turn of the season, now a tradition of worshiping the killing of the Youngest Son of God meant to redeem mankind for his bloodshed and subsequent resurrection, I've given a lot of thought to the perversity that has run rampant through mankind. I spent the first 16 years of my life ignorant to the ways of man, and the next 16 years trying to deeply understand whether a person can correct those horrible mistakes made in that ignorance. Is the story supposed to bring us joy or remorse for making him pay for the sins of mankind?
I honestly find the whole story terrifying, demonic, in fact, that there is so much focus on death in the modern Christian Church. Instead of pointing fingers let me just tell the story as how I see it.
At somewhere in the world's religious history, there came about some sort of messiah or chosen one that would redeem mankind for some sort of super-sin, or unspeakable behavior that somehow taints the soul within all mankind. It greatly disturbs me to see many people focused on the things said in "prophecy" that says this guy is the messiah, rather than the teachings he espouses, and also instead of focusing on this guys teachings they await his return as some super hero straight out of the comic book movies that has entranced our society for almost a decade. As if just believing in a thing let's one behave like a fool discarding the very mind that our creation processes have given us.
This covid-19 virus has certainly come at an interesting time. Here it is that I wish to convey to anyone of any faith, religion, belief, understanding, or creed, as somebody who has had direct exposure to pretty much every layer of our society as some sort of paraded witness to the lost virtues given to us through a particular school of thought or belief, that these are mere stories and they hold a tremendous power over the hearts and souls of mankind. I can't even say that placing them into the realm of mythology hasn't given them any less power but greatly increases Man's ultimate understanding of himself. But only leads me to more questions than any solid answer.
Why is it that we have a Church that celebrates the murders of God's messengers before making them saints? Why is it they celebrate the killing of the Son of God on the day of Celebration of the Season of Birth in Nature? I'm honestly terror stricken when I think about the gross display of what I had learned early in life as demonic. In my interactions with members of my previous community, and members of the Dying God's Church, I'm in shock that they don't recognize the eating of the bread and drinking of the wine as the body and blood of "Christ" as purely necromantic as you can get. Transubstantiation is what they call it. According to all the ancient texts that I have read and all the stories that I've been told, that's demonic ritual. I don't care if it produces actual magical results, the practice of it, even just going through the motions of it, is the ritual part, and in ritual practice: demonic.
Even the reactions of the rich are completely anti-Christian as you can get and they run the western world, publicly claiming practitioners of Christ's teachings but certainly they're as ungenerous as one can get, staking the actual lives of people for the digital footprint of a dollar. Where in the Bible does Christ say that's cool? My aunt tells me that people just read Christ's teachings differently, but never have I seen such disregard for his actual words. In jail I reread them, the first time since leaving the Christian faith in 2009, and openly doing so since 2013. I remember really liking Jesus as a dude, and believing him and I could be friends growing up. Even though I turned my Way towards the Tao (which means Way), doesn't mean that I liked the man any less. He spoke of the Way, the Truth, and the Light as a means to self discovery. Even though the spice of the details was purposely put in to detract from the meat, the actual substance of the teachings are still profoundly wonderful. While I was in jail I remembered the conversations I'd have with my grandfather on what He would mean by what had been said.
Just like the Baghavad Gita sang to me in my first readings, so did these once again. I pictured my grandfather teaching me about the scriptures once again and me seeking those video games and books that echoed his platitudes of facing the demons of the world because King David walked with God, Christ showed us how to walk with God, my great-grandfather walked with God. But in my own walk I have felt that I have been further from God and I've tried to seek him again through everything. When I was younger I walked blindly into the military because of misplaced faith in the words that had been given to me.
I'm unsure who God really is, only that it's the highest supreme absolute thing that I could think of, which is All things, including us, so I'd very much like to meet the thing that did engender us and bring us into this cosmos. Why are we murdering ourselves and taking pleasure from it? Why do we not spend Easter in Grief that those wicked men murdered "God's only begotten Son" instead of just celebrating his "rebirth". I feel that we forget about those that killed the Christ all survived and probably set watch for his "prophesied" return. That's why they celebrate his death, under the guise of the "rebirth." But in that same sense we have the "death sandwich" which is Birth, death, "rebirth", much like the Tarot deck places Death, the card of transformation, into the center as the 13th in the Manor Arcana.
I find that as I study more and more of the poetic and mystical portions of the Old Faiths I find them incredibly different in degree they are from the monothiestic traditions of that one Desert Tribe. For some reason, they developed a person that was going to save them and prove to the world that they're the best, better than anyone else, and punish those that didn't believe in the supremeness of their own lord. With the stories and persecution that these people have experienced, it sounds like the mentality of an abused child wanting rescuing from their abusers. Which is understandable, I've directly seen the destruction one society can do to another through war and the searching for a way to fight back against your oppressors.
I fear they have been puppets used by the Church because it is the mentality of a slave's god. The belief that somebody is going to come and rescue you in your desperate time of need, is indeed a slave's mentality. We wonder why Christianity caught on so wonderfully in the South of the United States, it was because Christ offers sanctuary from the pain that you are experiencing beyond the physical and that the he can set you free. But on this earth you shall obey your masters and not permit a woman to teach over you, hear?
I've spent a lot of time criticizing my old religion and pursing what is actual truth, these last few years. People have criticized me for revealing what I've done and making up a wide array of my own degree of weaknesses, but I'm not sure they're even looking deeply into why I've made my own story known. It's all conjectures based on whatever their own belief systems are, and I've done my best at discarding any mythology but what attracts my own inner compass, so my job is to show you what I stand for, and reveal the disaster that can happen to one's own life by blindly following orders and being afraid of standing up for the truth until the end.
My own injury and my recovery has been an 8 year endeavor at this point and never had I made it a point in any of my talks of what has happened. I was ashamed that I had trained and studied for 4 years for something and fucked it up because I was trying way way way too hard. I had a dream of being something good for my military because the drone program was as gross an abuse of power as any in our history of the World. In essence my injury killed that person. When I was in the Hospital I had a dream of meeting the people I killed. They were standing around my bed, just waiting. I was terrified, I knew how much of a cowardly thing it was to kill people with drones. Each death I felt as if it were a fracturing of my soul. I find that those that mock me for trying to explain this have never experienced anything difficult in their life or life shattering. I would say that those in charge knew what they were doing when they made us do those things. They were not blind as we were pretending to be.
But I saw no god nor a devil, just the results of my own life's poor choices and the pitiful losses. Where was the Christ to redeem me or to chastise me? Nothing there but my awareness and dead of those I had helped cut off from this world. An eternity of shame. I had met Korean and Vietnam war vets who understood. They know what I'm saying and sometimes they ask me why I'm trying to say it out loud. It's because I don't want to be thinking about this 60 years in the future when history is trying to look back at why the Dystopic States of America did what they did in the early 2000's. I don't want to be lost in my head at a memory or a dream of what I had done. How horribly detached we actually were, and how much of a political game it was for those seeking fast track to higher rank.
It is this and these experiences that turn me away from all the religious nonsense, but allows me to see them from a perspective that is very rarely discussed. I question the displaying of the "passion of the Christ" as a mockery of his death rather than a celebration of his life. In the Ancient Faiths, before the Christ, this was a day of new love and new life. Mankind was a part of Nature's cycle as much as anything else in her repartee. In the modern faith this day is about murder and "rebirth." Seeing the apparatus from the inside and the outside has't made living any easier, in fact it just makes me feel more and more powerless.
I find a special comfort in my own self, in that when push came to shove, I would actually do the right thing and truth is the best weapon in the world. I love that everything that I've said can be held in a light and be shown as truth, because that's how I lived my whole life. I never shied away from following my own heart. No religion could chain me, or degrade what I see as purity in the Soul. I'm just very sad that our society lives under religion's name but doesn't follow any of it's doctrines. As one sergeant kept telling me when I would say that something isn't "right", he would say, "well, that's just how it works in the real Air Force."
Even the Christ says this whole thing against hypocracy and the "teachers" of the time.
Now hold that up to what is happening in the world today and ask yourself, What would Jesus Do?
Pray the end of this horrible monstrosity of whatever has a hold on our society and the spirit of mankind. Especially in this crisis we cannot have the hypocrites and the liars run our world. They will be the end of us all.
I honestly find the whole story terrifying, demonic, in fact, that there is so much focus on death in the modern Christian Church. Instead of pointing fingers let me just tell the story as how I see it.
At somewhere in the world's religious history, there came about some sort of messiah or chosen one that would redeem mankind for some sort of super-sin, or unspeakable behavior that somehow taints the soul within all mankind. It greatly disturbs me to see many people focused on the things said in "prophecy" that says this guy is the messiah, rather than the teachings he espouses, and also instead of focusing on this guys teachings they await his return as some super hero straight out of the comic book movies that has entranced our society for almost a decade. As if just believing in a thing let's one behave like a fool discarding the very mind that our creation processes have given us.
This covid-19 virus has certainly come at an interesting time. Here it is that I wish to convey to anyone of any faith, religion, belief, understanding, or creed, as somebody who has had direct exposure to pretty much every layer of our society as some sort of paraded witness to the lost virtues given to us through a particular school of thought or belief, that these are mere stories and they hold a tremendous power over the hearts and souls of mankind. I can't even say that placing them into the realm of mythology hasn't given them any less power but greatly increases Man's ultimate understanding of himself. But only leads me to more questions than any solid answer.
Why is it that we have a Church that celebrates the murders of God's messengers before making them saints? Why is it they celebrate the killing of the Son of God on the day of Celebration of the Season of Birth in Nature? I'm honestly terror stricken when I think about the gross display of what I had learned early in life as demonic. In my interactions with members of my previous community, and members of the Dying God's Church, I'm in shock that they don't recognize the eating of the bread and drinking of the wine as the body and blood of "Christ" as purely necromantic as you can get. Transubstantiation is what they call it. According to all the ancient texts that I have read and all the stories that I've been told, that's demonic ritual. I don't care if it produces actual magical results, the practice of it, even just going through the motions of it, is the ritual part, and in ritual practice: demonic.
Even the reactions of the rich are completely anti-Christian as you can get and they run the western world, publicly claiming practitioners of Christ's teachings but certainly they're as ungenerous as one can get, staking the actual lives of people for the digital footprint of a dollar. Where in the Bible does Christ say that's cool? My aunt tells me that people just read Christ's teachings differently, but never have I seen such disregard for his actual words. In jail I reread them, the first time since leaving the Christian faith in 2009, and openly doing so since 2013. I remember really liking Jesus as a dude, and believing him and I could be friends growing up. Even though I turned my Way towards the Tao (which means Way), doesn't mean that I liked the man any less. He spoke of the Way, the Truth, and the Light as a means to self discovery. Even though the spice of the details was purposely put in to detract from the meat, the actual substance of the teachings are still profoundly wonderful. While I was in jail I remembered the conversations I'd have with my grandfather on what He would mean by what had been said.
Just like the Baghavad Gita sang to me in my first readings, so did these once again. I pictured my grandfather teaching me about the scriptures once again and me seeking those video games and books that echoed his platitudes of facing the demons of the world because King David walked with God, Christ showed us how to walk with God, my great-grandfather walked with God. But in my own walk I have felt that I have been further from God and I've tried to seek him again through everything. When I was younger I walked blindly into the military because of misplaced faith in the words that had been given to me.
I'm unsure who God really is, only that it's the highest supreme absolute thing that I could think of, which is All things, including us, so I'd very much like to meet the thing that did engender us and bring us into this cosmos. Why are we murdering ourselves and taking pleasure from it? Why do we not spend Easter in Grief that those wicked men murdered "God's only begotten Son" instead of just celebrating his "rebirth". I feel that we forget about those that killed the Christ all survived and probably set watch for his "prophesied" return. That's why they celebrate his death, under the guise of the "rebirth." But in that same sense we have the "death sandwich" which is Birth, death, "rebirth", much like the Tarot deck places Death, the card of transformation, into the center as the 13th in the Manor Arcana.
I find that as I study more and more of the poetic and mystical portions of the Old Faiths I find them incredibly different in degree they are from the monothiestic traditions of that one Desert Tribe. For some reason, they developed a person that was going to save them and prove to the world that they're the best, better than anyone else, and punish those that didn't believe in the supremeness of their own lord. With the stories and persecution that these people have experienced, it sounds like the mentality of an abused child wanting rescuing from their abusers. Which is understandable, I've directly seen the destruction one society can do to another through war and the searching for a way to fight back against your oppressors.
I fear they have been puppets used by the Church because it is the mentality of a slave's god. The belief that somebody is going to come and rescue you in your desperate time of need, is indeed a slave's mentality. We wonder why Christianity caught on so wonderfully in the South of the United States, it was because Christ offers sanctuary from the pain that you are experiencing beyond the physical and that the he can set you free. But on this earth you shall obey your masters and not permit a woman to teach over you, hear?
I've spent a lot of time criticizing my old religion and pursing what is actual truth, these last few years. People have criticized me for revealing what I've done and making up a wide array of my own degree of weaknesses, but I'm not sure they're even looking deeply into why I've made my own story known. It's all conjectures based on whatever their own belief systems are, and I've done my best at discarding any mythology but what attracts my own inner compass, so my job is to show you what I stand for, and reveal the disaster that can happen to one's own life by blindly following orders and being afraid of standing up for the truth until the end.
My own injury and my recovery has been an 8 year endeavor at this point and never had I made it a point in any of my talks of what has happened. I was ashamed that I had trained and studied for 4 years for something and fucked it up because I was trying way way way too hard. I had a dream of being something good for my military because the drone program was as gross an abuse of power as any in our history of the World. In essence my injury killed that person. When I was in the Hospital I had a dream of meeting the people I killed. They were standing around my bed, just waiting. I was terrified, I knew how much of a cowardly thing it was to kill people with drones. Each death I felt as if it were a fracturing of my soul. I find that those that mock me for trying to explain this have never experienced anything difficult in their life or life shattering. I would say that those in charge knew what they were doing when they made us do those things. They were not blind as we were pretending to be.
But I saw no god nor a devil, just the results of my own life's poor choices and the pitiful losses. Where was the Christ to redeem me or to chastise me? Nothing there but my awareness and dead of those I had helped cut off from this world. An eternity of shame. I had met Korean and Vietnam war vets who understood. They know what I'm saying and sometimes they ask me why I'm trying to say it out loud. It's because I don't want to be thinking about this 60 years in the future when history is trying to look back at why the Dystopic States of America did what they did in the early 2000's. I don't want to be lost in my head at a memory or a dream of what I had done. How horribly detached we actually were, and how much of a political game it was for those seeking fast track to higher rank.
It is this and these experiences that turn me away from all the religious nonsense, but allows me to see them from a perspective that is very rarely discussed. I question the displaying of the "passion of the Christ" as a mockery of his death rather than a celebration of his life. In the Ancient Faiths, before the Christ, this was a day of new love and new life. Mankind was a part of Nature's cycle as much as anything else in her repartee. In the modern faith this day is about murder and "rebirth." Seeing the apparatus from the inside and the outside has't made living any easier, in fact it just makes me feel more and more powerless.
I find a special comfort in my own self, in that when push came to shove, I would actually do the right thing and truth is the best weapon in the world. I love that everything that I've said can be held in a light and be shown as truth, because that's how I lived my whole life. I never shied away from following my own heart. No religion could chain me, or degrade what I see as purity in the Soul. I'm just very sad that our society lives under religion's name but doesn't follow any of it's doctrines. As one sergeant kept telling me when I would say that something isn't "right", he would say, "well, that's just how it works in the real Air Force."
Even the Christ says this whole thing against hypocracy and the "teachers" of the time.
A Warning Against Hypocrisy
1Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples: 2“The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. 3So you must be careful to do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach. 4They tie up heavy, cumbersome loads and put them on other people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.
5“Everything they do is done for people to see: They make their phylacteries a wide and the tassels on their garments long; 6they love the place of honor at banquets and the most important seats in the synagogues; 7they love to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces and to be called ‘Rabbi’ by others.
8“But you are not to be called ‘Rabbi,’ for you have one Teacher, and you are all brothers. 9And do not call anyone on earth ‘father,’ for you have one Father, and he is in heaven. 10Nor are you to be called instructors, for you have one Instructor, the Messiah. 11The greatest among you will be your servant. 12For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.
Seven Woes on the Teachers of the Law and the Pharisees
13“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to. [14] b
15“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when you have succeeded, you make them twice as much a child of hell as you are.
16“Woe to you, blind guides! You say, ‘If anyone swears by the temple, it means nothing; but anyone who swears by the gold of the temple is bound by that oath.’ 17You blind fools! Which is greater: the gold, or the temple that makes the gold sacred? 18You also say, ‘If anyone swears by the altar, it means nothing; but anyone who swears by the gift on the altar is bound by that oath.’ 19You blind men! Which is greater: the gift, or the altar that makes the gift sacred? 20Therefore, anyone who swears by the altar swears by it and by everything on it. 21And anyone who swears by the temple swears by it and by the one who dwells in it. 22And anyone who swears by heaven swears by God’s throne and by the one who sits on it.
23“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. 24You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.
25“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. 26Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean.
27“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean. 28In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.
29“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You build tombs for the prophets and decorate the graves of the righteous. 30And you say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ 31So you testify against yourselves that you are the descendants of those who murdered the prophets. 32Go ahead, then, and complete what your ancestors started!
33“You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell? 34Therefore I am sending you prophets and sages and teachers. Some of them you will kill and crucify; others you will flog in your synagogues and pursue from town to town. 35And so upon you will come all the righteous blood that has been shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Berekiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. 36Truly I tell you, all this will come on this generation.
37“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing. 38Look, your house is left to you desolate. 39For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’ Now hold that up to what is happening in the world today and ask yourself, What would Jesus Do?
Pray the end of this horrible monstrosity of whatever has a hold on our society and the spirit of mankind. Especially in this crisis we cannot have the hypocrites and the liars run our world. They will be the end of us all.
04 April 2020
World of Warcraft Review no spoilers
Because I've got a ton of free time on my hands at the moment, I decided to start playing World of Warcraft again. I played it during my military service, with quite a few of my co-workers, and it was a way for many of us to play in war while dealing with the reality of what we were doing in our type of warfare. It was an escape for most.
With the quarantine up and ready, I decided to play through the storylines on both sides of the battle through the last 3 expansions. Warlords of Draenor, Legion, and the Battle for Azeroth. I missed out on Cataclysm and Mists of Pandaria due to my previous account being hacked at the end of my active duty service and me sacrificing it because it gave me an excuse to just focus on my training for SERE. By the time I left active duty, I was sick of most everything electronic, seeing the web of information everywhere I walked.
But now I'm back, and I decided to walk the roads my old self had once walked. I grew up playing the original WarCraft, along with my favorite WarCraft 2: beyond the dark portal. With the failed release of WarCraft 3, completely below any decent standard of promise/delivery, I got to thinking of "what would I have done had I been the one making the decisions?" Since getting my desktop back after having it in storage since 2011, I built it in 2010 to play Skyrim at max setttings, I put Unity's free program on it to give it a go and see what it is that I would create, given the chance. The WarCraft story is the first to be broken apart and digested. Since WarCraft is a mishmash of so many other science fiction/fantasy/mythologies, I'll review it as a player and a mythology and history scholar.
While I will get into what World of WarCraft has done wrong, mainly not giving every expansion it's own set of parameters and boundaries that interact with another as a part of evolution instead of taking away something that we already have and giving it to us in a different skin. Though I have been impressed with the streamlining and qualities of life, there is so much content to be explored and chances for growth that it would be a failure of Blizzard as a company to not utilize all the knowledge at its disposal to create a playable "museum of blizzard" kind of Game for the WarCraft series.
To reference the failure of the WarCraft 3 Remake, it was barely an upgrade in character models. One of the laziest money grabs that I had ever seen by a once respected company. I say that not to belittle them but to recognize that a good product is the sign of a good company. A poor product is the sign of a greedy and lazy company. We're only here for a small amount of time and there is no reason for us to not put our effort into all that we create on this earth. I had really hoped for an updated map creator, much like the game for ps4 Dreams. The way that the stories went in my head is so different than the ones that played out it would be like creating my own "What IF?" When I had made that decision I got arrested and spent 31 days in the county jail. Much of these ideas are what I was thinking about pre-arrest, and what I've been dwelling on since the quarantine began.
Warlords of Draenor:
Okay, I played through Warlords as a Worgen Guardian Druid. I loved the idea of the classes that can play all roles, and since I had played a Blood Elf Paladin in the Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King, I decided to play one from either goblin or worgen as I missed their introduction and I really don't like the pandaren, so it turned me off to Monk. Since neither goblins or worgen can be monks I chose the druid.
There are two things that I learned from this, that I didn't play any of the Alliance quests in either Burning Crusade nor in Wrath, and the ability to shape change while falling is amazing. In my playtime I got to finally make a character that I got to look however I wanted in this world. I didn't level up this character from level 1, as I hated low leveling in Classic-Wrath, and I wanted to get straight into the story. I did also remake a Blood Elf Paladin but I only got him to 60 before I decided that I didn't want to level up anymore and I wasn't really into remaking a toon that I lost. Getting to Draenor was like going through the portal again in the WarCraft 2 expansion, Beyond the Dark Portal. Not seeing it in it's science-fantasy broken world, but seeing it fresh and green and full of primitive life. I felt it was a hearken to Conan and the savage fantasy worlds. For the most part I enjoyed it. The Garrison felt only halfway done. I felt that they could have expanded the alt system by allowing you to share the Garrison on each realm, as they had made the upkeep super tedious for each character. They could have also done missions as standard WarCraft RTS story missions where you send a team into a map for certain accomplishments. The current way is just sending your recruits on a percent chance auto complete missions.
I would keep that option, but the reward is only the standard. Taking personal control of the missions would allow one to find extras as well as making those recruited characters more than simple paper dolls. It would also break the monotony of the game type, adding more depth rather than taking away anything. Sea missions would have been amazingly fun!
I do very much dislike the Talent system. The 3 pillars are not organized in any way shape or form. There is no, attack, defense, or support options, they're just things that were previously given in the past and then placed into a strange array of choices. Even the weapons that they added in Legion, only gave us back things that we already had in the guise of "weapon progression" It was not fun to grind out and it was not a fun part of the game. it could have been done automatically for how well it was implemented.
I did enjoy the story in both Warlords and Legion, though I only played it on my Druid, and when I unlocked the Void Elf race, I made a hunter because I played a Survival Hunter in Classic and I had always wanted a melee hunter character. I didn't play my Druid much anymore in Battle. I got halfway through the story before I gave up and went through it on my Blood Elf Paladin, then to get the other side of the story I completed the Battle story I with my Void Elf Hunter. I leveled up through player versus player (PvP), and did the Mists of Pandaria story on my hunter, which, after completing I'm really sorry that I missed that Expansion. It is very beautiful.
I did not enjoy the Battle story. It seemed too rushed and holds very little depth. I have enjoyed the PvP. While I was unlocking the Vulpera, a small fox like race, I was thinking of creating a monk for the first time. While I was grinding out the reputation I made an Undead monk and decided to go through the Forsaken storyline for the first time. I realized how much I missed out. In WarCraft 3, they were humans that had been unwillingly raised into the state of undeath. Not really my favorite story, but they had broken free to decide their own fate. I had never played one and they finally got the golden 3 of a class. I went for it and I really regret not making one before. It reminded me of why I like this game. I had preconceived notions of all the other classes. Not knowing what to expect with this class made me appreciate the mechanics a lot more, I believe.
So for the rest of the game I decided to go back and complete everything I missed on my monk, The Draenor and Legion horde story, first. After putting time into those with my Druid, doing it again on my monk was not something that i wanted to do since it was the same thing. In Legion, I got my druid the "hidden weapon" skins, I have no interest in doing that with my monk, as I don' t like the skins for the WindWalker specialization. I have no interest in dungeons or anything else in Battle, except for the PvP, and that is extremely fun. I do not like the gear level making the difference between a win and a loss, and it is easier to gain gear levels in the Player versus Environment side of the game.
Though I might be under geared, I think I got the hang of it. The chat environment is pretty bad in World of Warcraft, toxic and demeaning, though I do my best to be encouraging during a match. Most people don't dedicate time to this stuff and have quite a lot of other things to do. I've had a history with the game so I could dive right in and just putz around without a care to complete anything or race to have something done. I don't have an attachment to anything, just a chance to explore and check out the evolution of the game.
I've gone through some of the old stories in some zones to make connections with some of the stuff going on in Battle/Legion/Warlords, and I'm not sure I would have continued in the direction that they went. Warlords was huge and streamlined, but Legion and Battle seemed to be rushed. And not in a "you played to fast" rush through, but everything is go go go go go go, emergency, emergency, emergency and you're the only person that can stop it. Here is where I would have made the case for alternate toons affecting the same world as your main character. There is so much to do that one character cannot handle it all, and if we're going to be gaining in power levels to destroy old gods, then we're going to run into the Raymond Feist dilemma of once you've defeated everything the only one left to defeat is Chaos itself.
Not to rag on the RiftWar Saga, I just would like a different direction for the World of WarCraft. Even if we keep the idea that there is one main hero, the ability to do other things and affect the same state of the world with other toons allows for more interaction with the world. I thought that is what world quests were supposed to simulate, but having to redo parts of the game on other characters can be too much for those not dedicated to the game. It would allow me to enjoy more of the story instead of the same over and over again.
My only complaints are the repetative nature of the games leveling mechanics/story and the gear level monstrosity that once you fall behind in the game you can never truly catch up, and in PvP that's an ender for anyone new wanting to enjoy the game and try to get better at it, until, like the highlander, there will only be one.
With the quarantine up and ready, I decided to play through the storylines on both sides of the battle through the last 3 expansions. Warlords of Draenor, Legion, and the Battle for Azeroth. I missed out on Cataclysm and Mists of Pandaria due to my previous account being hacked at the end of my active duty service and me sacrificing it because it gave me an excuse to just focus on my training for SERE. By the time I left active duty, I was sick of most everything electronic, seeing the web of information everywhere I walked.
But now I'm back, and I decided to walk the roads my old self had once walked. I grew up playing the original WarCraft, along with my favorite WarCraft 2: beyond the dark portal. With the failed release of WarCraft 3, completely below any decent standard of promise/delivery, I got to thinking of "what would I have done had I been the one making the decisions?" Since getting my desktop back after having it in storage since 2011, I built it in 2010 to play Skyrim at max setttings, I put Unity's free program on it to give it a go and see what it is that I would create, given the chance. The WarCraft story is the first to be broken apart and digested. Since WarCraft is a mishmash of so many other science fiction/fantasy/mythologies, I'll review it as a player and a mythology and history scholar.
While I will get into what World of WarCraft has done wrong, mainly not giving every expansion it's own set of parameters and boundaries that interact with another as a part of evolution instead of taking away something that we already have and giving it to us in a different skin. Though I have been impressed with the streamlining and qualities of life, there is so much content to be explored and chances for growth that it would be a failure of Blizzard as a company to not utilize all the knowledge at its disposal to create a playable "museum of blizzard" kind of Game for the WarCraft series.
To reference the failure of the WarCraft 3 Remake, it was barely an upgrade in character models. One of the laziest money grabs that I had ever seen by a once respected company. I say that not to belittle them but to recognize that a good product is the sign of a good company. A poor product is the sign of a greedy and lazy company. We're only here for a small amount of time and there is no reason for us to not put our effort into all that we create on this earth. I had really hoped for an updated map creator, much like the game for ps4 Dreams. The way that the stories went in my head is so different than the ones that played out it would be like creating my own "What IF?" When I had made that decision I got arrested and spent 31 days in the county jail. Much of these ideas are what I was thinking about pre-arrest, and what I've been dwelling on since the quarantine began.
Warlords of Draenor:
Okay, I played through Warlords as a Worgen Guardian Druid. I loved the idea of the classes that can play all roles, and since I had played a Blood Elf Paladin in the Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King, I decided to play one from either goblin or worgen as I missed their introduction and I really don't like the pandaren, so it turned me off to Monk. Since neither goblins or worgen can be monks I chose the druid.
There are two things that I learned from this, that I didn't play any of the Alliance quests in either Burning Crusade nor in Wrath, and the ability to shape change while falling is amazing. In my playtime I got to finally make a character that I got to look however I wanted in this world. I didn't level up this character from level 1, as I hated low leveling in Classic-Wrath, and I wanted to get straight into the story. I did also remake a Blood Elf Paladin but I only got him to 60 before I decided that I didn't want to level up anymore and I wasn't really into remaking a toon that I lost. Getting to Draenor was like going through the portal again in the WarCraft 2 expansion, Beyond the Dark Portal. Not seeing it in it's science-fantasy broken world, but seeing it fresh and green and full of primitive life. I felt it was a hearken to Conan and the savage fantasy worlds. For the most part I enjoyed it. The Garrison felt only halfway done. I felt that they could have expanded the alt system by allowing you to share the Garrison on each realm, as they had made the upkeep super tedious for each character. They could have also done missions as standard WarCraft RTS story missions where you send a team into a map for certain accomplishments. The current way is just sending your recruits on a percent chance auto complete missions.
I would keep that option, but the reward is only the standard. Taking personal control of the missions would allow one to find extras as well as making those recruited characters more than simple paper dolls. It would also break the monotony of the game type, adding more depth rather than taking away anything. Sea missions would have been amazingly fun!
I do very much dislike the Talent system. The 3 pillars are not organized in any way shape or form. There is no, attack, defense, or support options, they're just things that were previously given in the past and then placed into a strange array of choices. Even the weapons that they added in Legion, only gave us back things that we already had in the guise of "weapon progression" It was not fun to grind out and it was not a fun part of the game. it could have been done automatically for how well it was implemented.
I did enjoy the story in both Warlords and Legion, though I only played it on my Druid, and when I unlocked the Void Elf race, I made a hunter because I played a Survival Hunter in Classic and I had always wanted a melee hunter character. I didn't play my Druid much anymore in Battle. I got halfway through the story before I gave up and went through it on my Blood Elf Paladin, then to get the other side of the story I completed the Battle story I with my Void Elf Hunter. I leveled up through player versus player (PvP), and did the Mists of Pandaria story on my hunter, which, after completing I'm really sorry that I missed that Expansion. It is very beautiful.
I did not enjoy the Battle story. It seemed too rushed and holds very little depth. I have enjoyed the PvP. While I was unlocking the Vulpera, a small fox like race, I was thinking of creating a monk for the first time. While I was grinding out the reputation I made an Undead monk and decided to go through the Forsaken storyline for the first time. I realized how much I missed out. In WarCraft 3, they were humans that had been unwillingly raised into the state of undeath. Not really my favorite story, but they had broken free to decide their own fate. I had never played one and they finally got the golden 3 of a class. I went for it and I really regret not making one before. It reminded me of why I like this game. I had preconceived notions of all the other classes. Not knowing what to expect with this class made me appreciate the mechanics a lot more, I believe.
So for the rest of the game I decided to go back and complete everything I missed on my monk, The Draenor and Legion horde story, first. After putting time into those with my Druid, doing it again on my monk was not something that i wanted to do since it was the same thing. In Legion, I got my druid the "hidden weapon" skins, I have no interest in doing that with my monk, as I don' t like the skins for the WindWalker specialization. I have no interest in dungeons or anything else in Battle, except for the PvP, and that is extremely fun. I do not like the gear level making the difference between a win and a loss, and it is easier to gain gear levels in the Player versus Environment side of the game.
I've gone through some of the old stories in some zones to make connections with some of the stuff going on in Battle/Legion/Warlords, and I'm not sure I would have continued in the direction that they went. Warlords was huge and streamlined, but Legion and Battle seemed to be rushed. And not in a "you played to fast" rush through, but everything is go go go go go go, emergency, emergency, emergency and you're the only person that can stop it. Here is where I would have made the case for alternate toons affecting the same world as your main character. There is so much to do that one character cannot handle it all, and if we're going to be gaining in power levels to destroy old gods, then we're going to run into the Raymond Feist dilemma of once you've defeated everything the only one left to defeat is Chaos itself.
Not to rag on the RiftWar Saga, I just would like a different direction for the World of WarCraft. Even if we keep the idea that there is one main hero, the ability to do other things and affect the same state of the world with other toons allows for more interaction with the world. I thought that is what world quests were supposed to simulate, but having to redo parts of the game on other characters can be too much for those not dedicated to the game. It would allow me to enjoy more of the story instead of the same over and over again.
My only complaints are the repetative nature of the games leveling mechanics/story and the gear level monstrosity that once you fall behind in the game you can never truly catch up, and in PvP that's an ender for anyone new wanting to enjoy the game and try to get better at it, until, like the highlander, there will only be one.
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