Some Bishops and the President.

I started this post yesterday, early in the morning.  I didn't finish it, however, as I was mostly waiting for it to get a little later so that I could pack up and go deer hunting.  By today, the following day, the story has already significantly moved on, showing I guess how quickly the news cycle moves.

Anyhow, let's start here:

57. Building a world of respect for human life and dignity, where justice and peace prevail, requires more than just political commitment. Individuals, families, businesses, community organizations, and governments all have a role to play. Participation in political life in light of fundamental moral principles is an essential duty for every Catholic and all people of good will.

58. The Church is involved in the political process but is not partisan. The Church cannot champion any candidate or party. Our cause is the defense of human life and dignity and the protection of the weak and vulnerable.

59. The Church is engaged in the political process but should not be used.We welcome dialogue with political leaders and candidates; we seek to engage and persuade public officials. Events and photo ops cannot substitute for serious dialogue

60. The Church is principled but not ideological. As St. John Paul II wrote in his encyclical,Sollicitudo Rei Socialis,The Church’s social doctrine is not . . . an ideology, but rather the accurate formulation of the results of a careful reflection on the complex realities of human existence, in society and in the international order, in the light of faith and of the Church’s tradition. Its main aim is to interpret these realities, determining their conformity with or divergence from the lines of the Gospel teaching on man and his vocation, a vocation which is at once earthly and transcendent; its aim is thus to guide Christian behavior. It therefore belongs to the field, not of ideology, but of theology and particularly of moral theology. (Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, no. 41)We cannot compromise basic principles or moral teaching. We are committed to clarity about our moral teaching and to civility. In public life, it is important to practice the virtues of charity and justice that are at the core of our Tradition. We should work with others in a variety of ways to advance our moral principles.

61. In light of these principles and the blessings we share as part of a free and democratic nation, we bishops vigorously repeat our call for a renewed kind of politics: 

•Focused more on moral principles than on the latest poll 

•Focused more on the needs of the weak than on benefits for the strong 

•Focused more on the pursuit of the common good than on the demands of narrow interests

62. This kind of political participation reflects the social teaching of our Church and the best traditions of our nation.

FormingConsciencesFaithfulCitizenshipforA Call to Political Responsibility from the Catholic Bishops of the United State

My heart just sank when I check my computer the other morning and saw this:

I have traditionally been extremely careful about criticizing Bishops on this site, and not just Catholic bishops.  I don't know if I've ever criticized any bishops at all.  Perhaps those of the English Church at the time of Henry VIII, sort of. That's about it, and I don't think I really even did that.  Catholics owe deference to their Bishops, and for the most part we probably owe deference to Orthodox Bishops on most things as well. So, suffice it to say, this is unusual.

The Church does not  hold, however, that we can never do so.  Respect to the Bishop and the Bishop's office is owed when we do, however.  

Recently I've seen a lot of criticism aimed at one particular Bishop, the Bishop of Rome, which has been made by right wing Catholics which is simply shocking in nature.  Probably sinful as well.  Pope Francis received that sort of criticism all the time from the Catholic right.  I never openly criticized either and certainly have not Pope Leo.  I was not a huge fan of Pope Francis, but I'm also not in his shoes in any fashion so my criticism, when it was made, was fairly muted.  There was a little, however.

Here I fear I must offer some criticism.  I'm not the only one who  is doing so.  I'd note the reaction to his photo and event, which was organized reportedly by somebody from The Heritage Foundation, has been pretty severe. The White House itself issued a statement saying from its Faith Director stating that the meeting was:

 [N]ot politics. This is policy in action ending with meaningful Prayer with & for the President. He welcomes prayer in the Oval Office regularly- on and off camera.  People of faith have a VOICE @potus @whitehouse Faith Office.  This is not just a ‘photo op’ These are Catholic Archbishops and Bishops who spent time talking with us about important issues on religious freedom, school choice, family tax credits, religious visas, and life. They are leaders within their communities and have a seat at the table

It's surprising, really, to see the White House try to say something isn't political, which shows how much upset there must be.

The furor caused Archbishop Golka, who delivered the prayer at the meeting, to issue a statement, which said:

Archbishop Golka and other bishops meet with President Trump

Archbishop James R. Golka joined fellow Roman Catholic bishops in meeting with President Trump and led a prayer in the Oval Office, asking God’s blessing upon the president and our nation. His prayer expressed gratitude for “our beautiful nation” and asked the Holy Spirit “to surround our country to protect us against any influence of evil.” With respect for the office of the president, the Archdiocese of Denver welcomes continued conversation on the sanctity of life, from conception to natural death, and the God-given dignity of every person. We invite the faithful to pray for our nation and its leaders, trusting in Christ’s mercy and guidance.

Praying for those in public office is a longstanding Catholic practice, rooted in St. Paul’s instruction to pray for all who hold authority (1 Tim 2:1-2). It is not an endorsement of any specific candidate or party.

The Bishop's statement is completely correct in what it says.  The problem is that every single thing that the White House does is political, and is designed to serve the politics of Donald Trump.

The Church is engaged in the political process but should not be used.

FormingConsciencesFaithfulCitizenshipforA Call to Political Responsibility from the Catholic Bishops of the United States.

I think the Archbishop's appearance at the White House was sincere and not intended to be political.  I also think it was naive.

Certain Catholic and Orthodox Bishops have been seen regularly in the presnece of Donald Trump during this administration.  I've held back any commentary on it, but it bothers me enormously.  There is no evidence whatsoever that Donald Trump is a Christian of any kind.  The evidnece is that Trump will use Christians in order to advance his cause, which is principally Donald Trump.  As we've noted here there are two Christian camps in hte Trump orbit, one being far right Evangelicalism and the other being the very conservative more traditional, and indeed at least somewhat Apostolic Church influenced, National Conservatism/Christian Nationalism.  

The Catholic mainstream is not really part of any of this.

People of faith have in many instances voted for Trump because of their deeply held views, which again differ enormously in the case of Apostolic Christians and Evangelicals.  A lot of the Evangelicals see Trump as a Divinely appointed figure, a latter day Cyrus the Great, who will lead the United States into a position as a new Israel.  

Catholics think nothing of the sort.

What a lot of Catholics think is that Trump has been uniquely effective on a selection of moral issues that are of deep concern to Catholics, abortion being one, but the fable of transgenderism being another.  And frankly he has, although the role of Southern Baptist Mitch McConnell in creating a Supreme Court that eliminated Roe is seemingly underappreciated.  Trump has taken on transgenderism this go around.

At the same time, he's interestingly pretty much lost interest in the other moral issues that are in the air.  Homosexual marriage is something the Church condemns, but Trump's been silent on it and indeed one of the principal cabinet members, Scott Bessent, is in such a purported union.  Trump's administration from time to time embraces the weirdness of pronatalism and as part of that even Catholic J.D. Vance came out for IVF, which the Church condemns.

And this two years has been a parade of horrors on other moral fronts.  The administration clearly favors the death penalty, which is immoral.  It's launched wars without a declaration which cannot possibly square with the Just War Theory.  It's murdered people on the high seas under suspicion that they're drug runners without giving them the benefit of a trial.  And it's been abusive to immigrants no matter what you think of their legal status.

And even at this late date, it seems to escape a lot of people that Trump's administration is not just odd, as Trump is odd, but that backing Trump have their own, very radical, agendas.  The Evangelical far right, in quite a few instances, wants a Calvinist nation and see Trump as a vehicle to get there.  National Conservatives see liberal democracy as a failure and are quasi Francoist in their outlook.

Catholics really haven't seen anything like this since the 1930s.  When they last did, the Church ultimately acted against it. Pope Pius XI condemned Action française in 1926.  The Church condemned the Belgian Rexist movement as a danger to the Church and the nation in 1937.  Fr. Coughlin was famously silenced in 1942.  It's no wonder, therefore, that a lot of people, including a lot of Bishops, are not aware of the back currents in this administration.

And they may also simply not be aware that everything Trump does is political, or perhaps more accurately, self promotional.  They likely sincerely believed that this wouldn't turn into an odd photo op, but somebody should have informed them. There was no way that a gathering like this wasn't going to be used by the Trump Administration to try to suggest that Catholic Bishops are in his corner, with the suggestion being that Catholics should keep that in mind as they head to the polls.

At any rate, this seems to have already passed.

Which is a good thing.

When the Trump era ends, and it's drawing to an end now, Evangelical Protestantism is going to be very badly damaged, even perhaps beyond the point of recovery.  The ignorant and scrivener lazy like to claim that Trump has "Christian" support, which is far too broad of claim and very inaccurate.  Those Christians not part of the Evangelical far right do not want to be tarred with the Trump brush.   The Apostolic Faiths, which have been growing as they are catholic (small c) in nature, particularly do not wish to be.

A Day for Spatting.

Today is October 12, 2026.

Department of Defense logo from 2000.

It's also officially Columbus Day, which has a long history of introduction in the U.S.  It was first celebrated, on this day, set to always occur on a Monday, in 1792 by the Columbian Order of New York, better known as the Tammany Society, which evolved into the famous New York political machine.  Italian Americans picked it up as a day of Italian pride as Columbus was an Italian.  It was recognized annually by the Federal Government starting in 1934, and then officially made a Federal holiday in 1968, to be first on the calendar in 1971.

It's still there.

Native Americans have never been particularly keen on the day, for obvious reasons.  This lead to protests over the years and eventually the day was recognized in some areas as Indigenous People's Day.

Taking the guns at Standing Rock.

Columbus Day was the source of increased agitation by Native Americans dating back into the 1970s, which was the height of power of the American Indian Movement, although if you look at today's entry for 1911, you'll see that it was on this day that the first national organization for Native Americans convened.  That probably wasn't an accident.  Some Native protests against the day have verged on violence, so deep is the opposition to it in those quarters.

Wyoming doesn't officially recognize either day, thereby avoiding taking any kinds of stand, but it does recognize Native American Day, which is in May.  Laramie and Jackson recognize Indigenous People's Day on this day, however, those two municipalities being the most "liberal" in Wyoming (which makes Rebecca Bextel's campaign being headquartered in Jackson ironic).  Casper doesn't recognize either day but usually finds a means of making the day a municipal holiday.

This year, Casper found a way to recognize both:

City of Casper Releases Indigenous Peoples’ / Columbus Day Services and Hours

City of Casper releases Indigenous Peoples’/Columbus Day services and hours

Garbage collection, water, sewer, emergency services and more will operate as usual.

Casper, Wyo. (October 8, 2026) – The City of Casper administrative offices will be closed for the observance of Indigenous Peoples’/Columbus Day 2026 on Monday, October 12, 2026.  Normal water, sewer, 911 dispatch, police, fire, and metro animal control services will maintain their regular schedules.  Solid waste crews will collect garbage as usual on Monday, and other crews will be on call to respond as needed.

The following is the complete list of services and hours.

• Trash collection will run on the normal schedule.
• Casper Regional Solid Waste Facility: Open 7:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.
• Police Patrol, Fire-EMS, and 911 Dispatch: Regular hours.
• Water and Wastewater Treatment Plants: Regular hours.
• Water distribution, sewer, streets, parks, fleet services, and public facilities crews on call for emergencies.
• Metro Animal Services Patrol Officers (APOs): Available 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.by calling non-emergency dispatch at 307.235.8278.  Outside those regular hours, APOs are on call for emergencies by calling 911.
• Fort Caspar Museum: Closed (closed on Mondays for winter hours)
• Casper Municipal Golf Course: Open normal hours, 1st tee time is 8:30 a.m., the Golf Shop will close at 6:00 p.m.
• Highland Cemetery: Grounds open dawn to dusk with burial search map signs.
• Casper Area Transit, operated by the City of Casper: limited services on Monday. LINK transit services will be unavailable. ASSIST services will run limited services from 7:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. for scheduled medical-only appointments and for ADA complementary paratransit services.
• Metro Animal Shelter: Closed.
• Casper Ice Arena: 6:30 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. (Open Figure Skating), 6:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. (Open Figure Skating)
• Casper Family Aquatic Center: 6:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.
• Casper Recreation Center: 5:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m.

Donald Trump, who loves a good cultural spat, spoke in Columbus, Ohio last week, which took down its statute of Columbus some time ago.  While there, he stated; “We demand that Christopher Columbus be put back into the heart of Columbus, Ohio,”

Well, we demand the dumb ballroom be taken down.  

Anyhow, Trump loves to troll in racist waters, which this is an example of.  It feeds into the far right belief that "whiteness" is some sort of inherent quality, and that it's being attacked.  If you want to polish that up, it would be that the country's European heritage is being attacked.

Yesterday was National Coming Out Day, which always occurs on October 11.  It's set by some homosexual rights organization.

I don't pay much attention to this as I largely do not care if people with same sex attraction come out.  I don't think that people have to make social martyrs of themselves.  But Adam Kinzinger made an observation that no GOP members of Congress came out.  Well, I wouldn't have expected any to, but he's suggesting that there's at least an appreciable number, or perhaps a number who are significant, in the GOP in Congress.  That might actually matter for a party that takes a position, sort of, on social issues in this arena.

There are consistently rumors to this effect.  Hunter Biden, who may very well not be the most reliable witness on this topic, claims there's a Republican "closeted gay mafia".  There are some figures whom rumors circle around continually.  I was once told by a very inside member of the state's GOP that a certain Republican figure was a homosexual, which is the first time I heard the term "beard" used to describe a female spouse of a male homosexual, married to camouflage the attraction.  The marriage, in that context, made sense to me.  I've been told the same thing about the same person by an openly homosexual politician, but that person is sort of wildly unreliable.  And there are questions that circle about others simply due to their state in life, I suppose.

None of these people may actually be homosexual, and if they are, that doesn't make them "gay" or "queer".  Still, it matters because if you are holding yourself out as a defender of traditionalism in all sense while engaging in homosexual liaisons, you are being hypocritical.

Back to Trump, or rather the Trump Administration, Scott Bessent, who is a homosexual in a homosexual union, sent Elizabeth Warren this letter last week.

I've never been a fan of Warren's, who is one of those Democrats that cause people to avoid the Democratic Party, but this letter is just mean and snarky.  Warren legitimately is an expert on economics.  The final handwritten line recalls Warren's claim to have Native American heritage.  And she actually does, as her DNA tests revealed.  It is, however, remote.  Trump repeatedly lampooned her for this, calling her Pocahontas, which is mean, but Warren should have avoided the entire topic in the first place.

So should Bessent who perpetually comes across as scared when he's interviewed.  Maybe he isn't, but that's how he comes across.  And Bessent has been press ganged into the Trump ongoing excuse machine.  Some of his own claims have been lampooned, as in "I'm a farmer".

But the point here is that, once again, the MAGA Hypocrisy is at work.  Trump's supporters claim to support him due to his traditionalism and his loyalty to Christian values.  Bessent is an unapologetic homosexual in a same sex union, which is not traditional to say the least.  Trump's a serial polygamist himself.  The administration won't release the files on Epstein whose island was an epicenter of child rape.

So, like Festivus on Seinfeld, let the airing of the grievances begin.

CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist 158th Edition. How the Internet Emphases the Absurd and Marginal and Make it seem Significant. Pastor Brian Sauvé

Holy Women at Christ's Tomb, Annibale Carracci.

One Brian Sauvé, senior pastor at Refuge Church in Ogden, Utah, has been much on the net recently due to some comments he made on vlog or some sort of web based video show providing for all to see how the net has served to emphasize the absurd and marginal, serving to make it seem like a big deal.

Refuge Church is a "Reformed Protestant" Church and Sauvé  describes himself as "Reformed and Protestant, Paedobaptist, Postmillennial, and Patriarchal".  The church describes itself as basically a solo scriptura group holding to 66 books of the Bible, rather than 73, which means that the don't believe in the 66 books of the Bible as the New Testament itself describes how sola scriptura is invalid and the omitted books that a German monk, who should never have been that, took out were done so based on his prejudice and a misunderstanding on what books of the Old Testament the Apostles were referring to.

Patriarchal Sauvé certainly is.  And extremely so.

Sauvé in a September 18 podcast stated the following:

Women either shouldn't be on social media or any social media they have should be kind of a walled garden situation where some competent man is curating and blocking and directing and taking a look at what's going on.  I have access to my wife's social media accounts and I have blocked—this is not an exaggeration—thousands of accounts. Thousands of them. She generally has very little idea of what is going on in the real social media because I've created a walled garden of cute goat videos.

We have normalcy bias in a certain direction.  We consider normal what is actually insane. We consider normal women having unsupervised access to one another all the time. That's not normal.

We consider normal women having political rule. We consider normal women living unattached from a male—like a father, then a husband—for lengthy periods of time. You could fill in the blank with all of these modern feminist outworkings of the original feminist vision and what they've done is they've made women anxious, psychotic, depressed, miserable, and genocidally evil. And we just go, "Oh, that's normal.'"

People are going to hear me talking about, as my wife's head, monitoring her social media, and they're going to be like, "Brian is such a tyrant." You have normalcy bias for insane world. You're living in an insane asylum and you think it's the normal world and I'm saying, "No, we don't live in the insane asylum. We do what people did for thousands of years before today."

The interview went on and discussed how "crazy" it was to allow women to vote, something Hegseth fan boy has said of Doug Wilson in Idaho.

Unlike Wyoming, the least religious state in the country, Utah is the most religious state in the Union, and its religious landscape is dominated by the Latter Day Saints.  It's not as Mormon as it once was, however, with about 55% of the residents of the state being in that faith.  Culturally, however, they dominate it.  Catholics are about 5%.  About 25% claim no particular faith.The rest are mostly some sort of Protestant but there are, of course, Jews, Muslims, etc.

About 63% of the residents of Ogden are LDS.  Catholics make up almost 9% of the population there.  The rest would mostly be some sort of Protestant.

We'd note that Mormons, which Sauvé is not, are extremely socially conservative generally.  That's important to note as while, at least in my experience, Mormons and some conservative Protestant religions do not get along, the overall cultural conservatism of Mormonism heavily impacts the Jello Belt.  I'm not saying that to be mean or critical.  Utah has some of the most well kept towns, including small towns, in the country and as a rule Mormons don't go in for the weird cultural silliness that is part of the current zeitgeist.  Without condoning the tenants of their faith, their faith also causes them to have what some folks refer to as "nice families", as other conservative religious groups sometimes to.  You'd probably have to get into Traditional Catholics in order to find a similarly family oriented well kept group of people.

The Culture of a People reflects upon the place they live.  The views that Sauvé are not all that radical in the locality in which he is speaking them, as they reflect sort of broadly on the LDS, and specifically on some of the LDS, although most LDS would not hold them to the extreme that he does.

Now, as should be obvious, Pastor Sauvé is extremely socially conservative.  Why should we care?

We shouldn't.

The church is indicated as having a "mid sized" congregation.  His congregation ought to care what he thinks, and chances are they believe exactly what he does.  This sort of extreme patriarchal view is quite limited and goes way beyond what even very conservative members of various other Christian faiths typically believe.  It's also ironic in that women more than men were the foundation of the early Faith.  Women brought men to it. There's a reason that Mary Magdalene is the "Apostle to the Apostles".  And there's a reason that St. Brigid is so closely associated with St. Patrick.

But then, I'm an Apostolic Christian where strong women are the norm.  Protestants can keep John Calvin, we'll take Joan d'Arc.

And Protestants can keep telling us that we shouldn't ask Mary for help, we're going to keep doing so.

Virgin Mary at Zetum

Such a diminished view of women is odd, and sad.

It's also cultural and malformed.

But here's the thing.  It's the Internet that has given voice to stuff like this. But for that, Sauve would be an unknown Protestant Pastor in the Jello Belt.  Probably a lot of people in his own city wouldn't be able to tell you anything about him.  I couldn't tell you anything about the two large warehouse type churches' pastors here.  I'm sure that there are Protestants around here who hold the same beliefs.  I just don't know who they are, and there aren't many of them.

The Internet is really giving voice to a lot of things, ideas and people who shouldn't have one.  I don't know if Sauve was known before, but there's a whole host of like minded Protestants who show up on blogs all the time and spark Internet outrage. That outrage then circulates their message.

It's the same with people like Nick Fuentes, whose message is political and not religious, although there is some of that mixed in.  But for the Internet, he'd just be a barely employed oddball.  

It's one of the real challenges of our time.  We need to ignore these people.  They don't deserve a national audience.

Last edition:

CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist 157th Edition. Press Revolt and other matters.

Labels: 1780s, 1789, 2020s, 2026, Abolitio nominis, Dancing, Donald Trump, Food, John Barrasso, Lies, Petroleum, The Press, The Second Trump Administration, Trump, Trump War Inflation, Washington DC Vandalization

Death's Head

 

Imperial German Totenkopf.

This election has been a reminder about being careful about getting tattoos.

Maine Democratic Senatorial candidate Graham Platner, in addition to other skeletons (no pun intended) in his closet, has, or at least had, a large Death's Head tattoo on one of his breasts.  Not one like the one above, but one more or less like this:

Shown here:

Well, I say, had, now its this:

We're informed that's a Celtic knot and a dog.

Well, anyhow, this has caused quite a flap, as the design he had is pretty clearly the same one used by the SS during World War Two.

He says he didn't know that.  Frankly, while people are incredulous about that, he may very well not have known that.

Indeed, one of the things that's interesting about this, as an (amateur) historian is that suddenly everyone is an expert on World War Two German insignia.  I doubt that many people, anymore, were before the last couple of weeks.  Indeed, I can recall Walmart getting in trouble some years ago has had a t-shirt it was selling with some Nazi symbology on it, if I recall correctly SS ruins.

Anyhow, the Totenkopf has an interesting and weird  history.  It's been around for a very long time, and is famously associated with pirates from the 18th Century, who flew various variants of death's head flags, nicknamed the "Jolly Roger", to warn a ship they were approaching that that's what they were.  Death's head on a flag threatened death, and the hope was accordingly that the opponent would give up without a fight.  Because of the pirate association, legitimate navies coopted the symbol and you can still find it in use to some degree in navies.

The crew of the HMS Utmost showing off their Jolly Roger in February 1942.

The Prussians started using it as a military symbol under Frederick the Great, when it was introduced to hussars. That use was distinct enough that one US state militia unit, formed as hussars, was still using it with a distinctly Prussian style uniform at the start of the Civil War.  It also spread to other units in the various German states prior to German unification, and to some other European nations.  One Spanish unit, for example used it.

Field Marshall August von Mackensen in 1914 in his full dress hussars uniform.

Infante Fernando wearing the uniform of Spain's 8th Light Armoured Cavalry Regiment "Lusitania" in 1915

After German unification following the Franco Prussian War the pre unification units that used it continued to, with some German units and even individuals adopting it informally.  After the German defeat in the Great War, some Freikorps units used it and it carried on in use in German cavalry units.

After Hitler's rise to power, the SS co-opted it almost immediately at the time of their formation, but that didn't actually cause the German Army or the Luftwaffe from using it as well.  German panzer troops wore a black uniform with the Totenkopf early on, with the design aat first being identical to the SS in that regard. The SS later changed its design, which Heer panzer units never did.

German panzer soldier, wearing a 1939 black flat cap, with a feldgrau shirt, black tie and black jacket with Totenkopf lapel badge. The first version of the panzer uniform featured a very large black beret.

This actually created some confusion at the time and still does, although the confusion was more of a problem to German troops during the war.  By 1944 the Totenkopf was associated with the SS as was the color black, which actually was not worn by most Waffen SS troops.  Tanker POWs were easily mistaken for members of the SS and risked being shot out of hand to some degree.  By 44, however, black was being phased out for tankers, both in the Heer and SS, in favor of feldgrau.  They retained the Totenkopf, however.

As sort of a rough rule of thumb, every member of the SS wore a uniform with a Totenkopf device, including auxiliary units.  Armored units of the Heer wore it also, as did the one oddball Luftwaffe armored unit.  One Luftwaffe bomber unit used it as a symbol as well.  Black uniforms were worn by tankers of all branches early on, and as regular SS dress uniforms, but not as Waffen SS dress uniforms.

This doesn't get into the concentration camp system uniforms, which I don't know anything about, and which were often staffed by auxiliaries. They all wore the deaths head, however.

One Nazi organization that didn't wear the Totenkopf or a black uniform was the Gestapo.  Movies and television shows constantly show them doing that, but they didn't.  For example, an SS dress uniform is shown being worn by a Gestapo member in both Where Eagles Dare and Hogan's Heroes.  In reality, the Gestapo didn't have any uniform at all.  The depiction given in Von Ryan's Express is the correct one. They favored civilian dress clothes and trench coats, often leather ones.  They were, after all, secret police and were dressed like civilians.

Marine Corps Raiders' insignia.

One US ground unit used it too, the Marine Corps Raiders, which took it from Naval use.

By the war's end the death's head, except in naval use, was hopelessly associated with the SS, although amazingly some use continues on.  The South Korean 3rd Infantry Division, the British Army’s Royal Lancers and Brazilian Military Police use it officially.  Some Ukrainian units controversially use it which seems to be an intentional effort to associate themselves with the World War Two era Ukrainian National Army which fought both the USSR and the Germans, but the Germans rather late.

Various navies keep using it, but the Nazis didn't taint the pirate association it had on the seas.

One place it oddly saw use was in civilian groups that wanted to cultivate an edge look after the war.  All sort of Nazi paraphernalia became associated with motorcycle gangs.  And heavy metal bands affected the look as well.

Ian Fraser Kilmister, "Lemmy" of Motörhead who notoriously sported German military and German SS paraphernalia constantly, and who did know what it meant.  He claimed to have no Nazi sympathies.  His father had been a chaplain in the RAF.

The interesting thing there, I suppose, is that the predecessor to the SS was the SA.  The SA didn't use the Totenkopf, but it was comprised of thugs, so in a way the Nazi paraphernalia returned to a demographic that had first used it.

So, what of Platner? 

Darned if I know.  He says he didn't know what it meant, and I suspect a lot of Americans under 70 years of age don't know what it means.  World War Two is simply too long ago for a uniform detail to have much in the cultural memory.  Those younger people who do know what it was used for are likely students of history, members of prison gangs, or white supremacists.  History students don't get tattooed with the Totenkopf.  The other two groups likely do.  That doesn't mean that Platner was a white supremacist, however.

It does require some sort of explanation, however.

While on the topic of the tattoos, let's discuss Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of Defense.

Pete Hegseth is festooned with tattoos.

Pete has a variety of them, which seem to be the following:

• Jerusalem Cross, a type4 of Christian cross associated with the Crusades, rightly or wrongly.
• "Deus Vult", Latin for "God wills it", a phrase claimed to be associated with the Crusaders.
• Kafir, the Arabic for infidel, but also Afrikaans slang for blacks.
• Cross & Sword, apparently referencing Matthew 10:34
• Yahweh, the Hebrew lettering for the name of God, added near his cross and sword tattoo.
• "We the People", The opening phrase of the U.S. Constitution.
• American Flag & AR-15. 
• Roman numerals (1775) & Stars: The year the U.S. Army and the Revolutionary War began.
• "Join, or Die" Snake, the Benjamin Franklin cartoon depicting a severed snake, symbolizing colonial unity during the American Revolution.
• Infantry Patch.

It's really a bit much.  Hegseth is an example of how people become addicted to getting tattoos and won't stop.

So what of it?

Well, the top two tattoos are offensive to some Catholics, myself included.  Hegseth is a member of the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches, he has stated., which is a collection of Evangelical Churches.  The Crusades are a Catholic thing, grossly misunderstood, and for which Catholics have taken heat from Protestants for five hundred years.  Moreover, the Crusaders would have regarded the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches as heretical.

"Kafir" is a flat out weird thing to tattoo on yourself, and for Sub-Saharan Africans its highly offensive, being the Afrikaans equivalent of the n word.  I suppose its supposed to be a taunt at Muslims.

Tattooing Yahweh on yourself is just weird, and potentially offensive to Jews, as well as others.  Leviticus 19:28 prohibits tattoos themselves, although this is not regarded by most Christians as applicable to Christians and many modern day Jews do not follow that as well.

The point here is this.  Tattooing the Totenkopf on your chest is bound to be offensive to the historically aware.  Tattooing Crusader phrases on your body is no doubt offensive to Muslims, although I'm not particularly concerned about that, but it's a cultural appropriation that is offensive to some historically aware Catholics.  Kafir, as a tattoo, is outright calculated to be offensive to Muslims, and it's highly offensive to Sub Saharan Africans.  And the Yahweh tattoo is disturbing.

I suppose the lesson is to be careful about tattoos.  Hegseth is so tatted up its frankly absurd, but he comes across as disturbed.  Platner comes across as just sort of messed up.

Of course, you don't get to vote for or against Hegseth, no matter where you live.  Your view of him has to weigh into your view of the administration.  If you live in Maine, you can weigh the tattoo in your opinion on whether to vote for him or the ancient Susan Collins.

Showing the spirit our age, I suppose, Donald Trump called Platner a pig.  Pigs have a highly hierarchal pecking order, so I suppose that's the big pig reacting to a younger one in the pen, if you accept the analogy.  

Donald might look to have a Porky tattoo. . . 

Lex Anteinternet: Sunday Morning Scene. Religion in the military. A resolution?

Lex Anteinternet: Sunday Morning Scene. Religion in the military.: The Department of Defense scaled back its list of recognized religions.   There were 211, now there are 31.  Here is the full list: Agnostic...

And a happy ending, or at least an ending, occurred to this story when the Pentagon redid its classifications to read as follows:

It's actually not a bad reclassification, although a person does hae to wonder why, in order to make a non Christian religion happy, the Christian identification was taken away from actual Christian religions.

One of the major newspapers ran statistics for the various religions in terms of the what percentage of the military is comprised of them. While there are Mormons in the military, the percentage is infanticidally small.  As noted earlier, however, there would be units in the military that would be heavily made up of Mormons, principally Guard and Reserve units in Utah.  Their spiritual needs would be different than those of Christian religions, however, which would gain importance in a large scale war.

According to exit polls form the last general election, 64% of Mormons voted for Trump in the last election.  20% voted for Harris.  56% of Catholics did, with 41% voting for Harris.  Catholics are a much larger demographic than Mormons and Trump has interestingly shown little concern about enormously offending them.  68% of Southern Baptists, the largest Protestant religion in the country, went for Trump.  Southern Baptist, I suspect, are probably the largest Christian denomination to be upset by the reclassification, if they are.

I don't know that I have a strong opinion on the list being reworked to address Mormon concerns, but I would note a couple of oddities about it.  One is that that the U.S. Government didn't define them as Christian, although they seem happy with the result.  The second is that what Trump may say aside, he doesn't love Mormons anymore than he loves anyone else.

Lex Anteinternet: Sunday Morning Scene. Religion in the military. Paring the list, much ado about nothing?

Lex Anteinternet: Sunday Morning Scene. Religion in the military.: The Department of Defense scaled back its list of recognized religions.   There were 211, now there are 31.  Here is the full list: Agnostic...

The big flap over the Pentagon's new list of religions, mostly focused on the LDS insisting it be recognized as a Christian religions which at least conventional Christianity holds that it is not, is obscuring the fact that frankly the list may not matter all that much.

All the list does is to provide some guidelines on anticipating the patrol needs of troops.   T/he prior list was so large there was no way that it was useful.  The original list, Protestant, Catholic and Hebrew, was probably too narrow, in the modern world, to be useful.

Arguably the current list is too big.  It'd make more sense, actually, to have Mainline Protestant, Evangelical Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox, Judaism, Islam and Other.  Every one of those categories, it might be noted, has various groups within it.  Probably only Catholic expresses a singular religious group, but even there, there are a lot of Catholic rites.  The Orthodox are a collection of Orthodox churches and have a major division between Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox.  

Anyhow, that's probably more useful.

Of note, listing religions isn't an endorsement of them.  

About 70% of all service members are some sort of Protestant.  20% are Catholic.  I've given the figures already, but the number of LDS troops is very small, although in National Guard units from Utah the opposite would be true.  At least one religion on the list discourages its members from joining the military and last had any presence in the military when there was conscription in place.  

Goldberg on "book bans". (Handmaid's Tale)

 I'm so sick of hearing about this book it isn't even funny.

Jonah Goldberg

@JonahDispatch

·

1h

They are! None of her books have been banned — as in made illegal to sell. 99.9% of the “banned book” b.s. is about a book being removed from a some local school library — because of parental objections, new acquisitions, age restrictions, etc. People *want* there to be censorship so they can demonstrate their transgression and courage in protesting a straw man problem. The fact that book store chains market “banned books” gives the game away. It’s all marketing. A century ago, one of the best things that could happen to your book was for it to be banned in Boston (they really banned books there) because it made the book cool and subversive everywhere else. This all a con.

Frankly, what Goldberg notes on The Handmaid's Tale is true of a lot of "banned books".  They aren't banned, it's what Goldberg describes. Some of the "bans" are simply books being moved from one section of the library to another.