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Friends of Padre Steve’s World,
Tonight I draw my line in the sand and I will not stand down against people who threaten to use violence or intimidation against me, and what I believe to be true. I don’t flee, I fight, especially when it comes to the ideals enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and its Amendments, which I have for nearly four decades pledged my life, honor, and integrity to defend, and follow to promise of Abraham Lincoln in the Gettysburg Address to create a more perfect Union.
Over the past month I have been experiencing a significant number of ad hominem attacks by White Nationalists, Neo-Nazis, Holocaust deniers, Right Wing Race baiters, and Christian theocrats. Sadly, I am so well acquainted with their intentions and lines of attack that dealing with them is now like shooting fish in a barrel because they are so ignorant of history, science, philosophy, reason, and even their own self proclaimed Christian Faith. Willful ignorance is painful to see in action, especially when it is used as a weapon, because it always ends up in the death and defeat of its proponents. The attacks are like suicide charges which always end up in the deaths of the attackers, so long as the defenders don’t stand down or panic.
I had my first attack back in 2010 not long after I started the blog. I learned early on to be suspicious of such comments and subscribed to a site that helps me identify and track down these people. The first guy used a couple of Nazi related screen names and he made very specific threats against me even describing my home. He had a number of websites and had many racist and Neo-Nazi posts, as well as instructions on how to build IEDs. I tracked him down to Eastern Tennessee and made an identification which since his treat was coming from across state lines I reported him to the FBI. Now at the time I was still in the beginnings of the worst part of my PTSD/TBI ordeal, and my reaction to threats like this is not flight, it is fight. A couple of weeks later the man’s web presence disappeared.
After that I would get the occasional troll, but depending on what they said I either immediately blocked them or tore their arguments apart and then blocked them after I figured out who they were. This has been my normal practice.
In 2014 I even had a Troll attacking my faith with a fake yahoo email address from the 754th Electronic Systems Group located at Gunter Annex, Maxwell Base, Alabama. I tracked the IP address to a specific building and the unit. I reported it to the Maxwell AFB Criminal Investigative Department who checked into it and told me that the IP address was that of the 754th, but that the command said that it would be impossible to determine who did it. I knew that was a lie because the “754th Electronic Systems Group provides and supports secure combat information systems and networks for the United States Air Force (USAF), the Department of Defense and other Federal Government Agencies.” This is according to what they say of their organization. According to their mission statement the mission is:
“The 754 Electronic Systems Group provides technical and customer service support as well as acquisition and program management oversight of more than 160 Combat Support Information Technology systems. The 754 ELSG also manages the Air Force standard desktop environment, and serves as the Air Force lead for software program management under the auspices of the DoD Enterprise Software Initiative. Additional activities include managing the Air Force single enterprise-wide license contract with Microsoft Corporation, executing the Chief Information Officer’s Information Technology Commodity Council Strategic Sourcing program and administering the Network Centric Solutions contract valued at more than $9 billion. The 754 ELSG also manages more than 50 Air Force contracts and Basic Purchasing Agreements with a total value of $15 billion.“
The fact is that this organization has been reported hacking US and Allied agencies and private citizens. It was obvious to me that one of their civilian employees or contractors did this because it happened at 0837 hours on November 18th 2014. I should have reported to Congress, what the man did was nothing related to national security it was simply harassment by a supposed Fundamentalist Christian working for the Air Force, and protected by an organization that runs the IT oversight and service of the entire Air Force, but he was an outlier. I could never find out who he was, and he never commented again unless he was using another alias. One can understand why I don’t trust and even fear many Fundamentalist Christians who use their access to government power without accountability. That is why I oppose every one of them trying to make the religious freedom clause of the First Amendment to Trump the Establishment Clause in order to turn the United States into a Fundamentalist Christian Theocracy. Sadly, I believe that there are many more going up to the Vice President with the same goal. Mine is a cautionary tale. If you don’t believe me just google the organizations that IP addresses owned by the 754th and it’s command Headquarters, the former 554th Electronics Systems Wing, which was de active duty and renamed the Program Executive Office Enterprise Information Systems of American and Allied organizations have hacked. The Air Force Program Executive Office Enterprise has its hands in almost everything to do with IT and other Air Force electronic systems, intelligence, and warfare systems.
Of course that was a one time occurrence. When I wrote an article about the death of David Wilkerson, a beloved Evangelical and Pentecostal missionary and pastor who wrote the book The Cross and the Switchblade, as a suicide I was flailed by some of his cult like followers for weeks. I had the accident report, the photos, and the autopsy reports as well as his last blog which read like a suicide note, and inside information from church members of Wilkeron’s Times Square Church, and the fact I was trained by the Army to investigate motor vehicle accidents , and had practical experience doing so, in horrible crashes. I tried to reason with them, sympathize with their loss only to be called to most horrible things imaginable. I finally blocked comments on the post. I received the compliments of Wilkerson’s son who not only agreed Ed with me but gave me more inside information at how Wilkerson had been betrayed and deposed by his closest ministry associates at Times Square Church and the terminal illnesses he and his wife had been diagnosed. Wilkerson had been betrayed, he and his wife were both dying, and his real friends had already died of old age. But his cultists didn’t have the compassion or sense to believe a man who had done so much good, and who had even written s small book against suicide could take his life. I had one of his admirers contact me yesterday. She shared her story and she was graceful and displayed real Christian virtues. We had a wonderful chat, and she responded gracefully to my respectful and genuinely heartfelt response. We don’t have to agree on everything to pray for, care for, and respect each other. She showed the heart of Jesus, and I respect her and care about her though we have never met. You see, Christian relationships really come down to simple humility, respect and care.
but going back to what I began with, over the past few months I have been assaulted verbally by White Supremacists, racists, Neo-Nazis, Christian theocrats, and Trump Cultists. Almost all of them have attacked me on my articles about the BLM and Holocaust, Nazi War Crimes, and the actions of the Nazi Einsatzgruppen. It is interesting because when you break down their comments they expose themselves as such, and worse. Their comments are devoid of facts and full of innuendo, falsehoods, and ad hominem conspiracy theory based attracts.
One, at least until today was a subscriber to my blog, and his comment was so laden with untruths and libelous claims against so called liberals that I schooled him and invited him to leave, letting him know that auch comments would not be allowed and that he would be blocked if he ever did so again. Then there were several Holocaust deniers and anti-Semites who made allegations found in the leading Holocaust Denier Organization, the Institute for Historical Review. I have followed their lying bullshit for four decades, and I know when it is being repeated. For them it is all about conspiracy theories, moral equivalence, and blaming Jews for all that is wrong in the world to minimizing the Holocaust. At one time I used to simply trash their comments and block them. Now I take their arguments, which are really not arguments but propaganda points with no factual basis, backed up by salacious and libelous comments about me, when they don’t even know me. So instead of ignoring them I rip their guts out with facts and real data. Historic, scientific, and medical. Then I tell them to either support their arguments with facts or never come back. It seems that the lack of facts prevents them from further harassing me.
but I have to mention this. Many of these racist and Jew baiting trolls uses their business email addresses in their comments. Some are the owners of their business, mostly agents, but then some work for respected corporations. Every time that happens I expose them to their employers, or those corporations whose banner they operate under. I do have to admit that I take a perverse pleasure in exposing what they are to their employers or sponsors. I actually enjoy their stupidity not even to create a fake user name and email address to expose them to ruin, especially since every single one of them has beat their chest about their so called Christian Values when attacking me. Since I am humble enough not to claim that I teach the Almighty theology lessons, it will be interesting to see, if there is a literal heaven or hell, which even the early Fathers of the Christian Church disagreed about, as do many Jewish theologians, as to where we fall when all is said one done. As for me heaven will be much more expansive and full of the grace of God to all his children and creation than those that attack me suggest. If they have a problem with me, then they can go to a different bar than I go to in heaven. If not then we can fight it out in purgatory until God let’s us in.
But the key lesson I have learned is to be truthful. To treat people as I want to be treated, and whenever possible treat them with respect and decency so long as they are not condemning people to hell because of their race, religion, ethnicity, gender, political stance. or supposed sins, when according to the Christian Scriptures, the blood of Jesus covers all sin, or imperfection, and that God and the entire Creation look forward to its redemption at the hands of the people of God.
So I will call it a late night or early morning and wish you all the best, except the Neo-Nazi Scumbag racists and Holocaust deniers. I hope YAWEH Himself gets his hands on your pathetic necks.
As for what happens to me in the afterlife it is irrelevant so long as I am faithful to love God and my neighbors, and remain honest, speak the truth and have a modicum of personal integrity, trusting that Jesus the Christ will have my back.
So until tomorrow or Monday,
Peace,
Padre Steve