In which the pond gets into crusader mode ...

It's time for a serious discussion of foreign policy, so the pond wanted to get the right tone-setting image at the top, to get the discussion going in good form ...

While the Oreo has an anxiety attack about Syria, fresh from his junket to check out the Italian subs, the bromancer is feckless and fancy free …

Uh huh, so the Donald has taken out chemical weapons in Syria and has a consistency of serious strategic purpose, and reports of a chirpy Assad swanning around wondering if that's the best they've got are just RT propaganda, and the pond is supposed to take it as seriously as the Three Amigos, or the bromancer's sales pamphlet for an Italian sub manufacturer? Apparently so ...

Each day the pond yearns to get a sample of whatever it is they put in the bromancer's drink, because it might help it get through this weekend outing by the eternally crusading Pipes ...

The pond was drawn to it by the grotesque use of the word "civilisationism", though it turned out that the grotesque word was no match for the grotesquerie of the thinking ...

Ah yes, it's Pipes blathering on about the Islamic peril yet again, and naturally he's ready to lie down with the most unholy of allies if that will get the job done … talking down the peril of ragbag right wingers, giving them fancy names and a mix of missions, because that's what dissemblers and fellow travellers do...

Here's the thing. As soon as the crusaders start talking about a pro-Christendom agenda, the pond has the same flush of nausea as it gets when listening to fundamentalist Islamics and barking mad Jewish fanatics.

Which brings the pond to an aside. On the weekend, it caught up with a Netflix financed documentary One of us, about three New York Jews, who, bravely and with immense emotional pain, decided to step outside the Hasidic community.

The pond was so engrossed that it just had to check out what had happened to the trio after filming, and what do you know, The Times of Israel ran a story back in March headed Woman's sexuality cut from hit Netflix documentary about leaving Hasidic Judaism.

Yes, she was a lesbian, and Netflix instructed the documentary team to cut any trace of that from the film, so that Etty Ausch wasn't just made an outsider by the Hasidic community, she was done over all over again by Netflix. An outsider coming and going, neatly detached from her sexuality, in much the same way as her religion had once done it ...

The pond's loathing of Netflix cranked up to 11, and if it didn't come for free, the pond would have been out of there.

Well there's a point to this anecdote, which is that religious fundamentalism of all kinds, and corporate soft-shoe tapping of the Netflix kind, is offensive, and typically your right wing Christendom types in Victoria are talking up gay 'conversion' therapy,  just as it seems to be fading in the United States …

In short, and not to put too fine a point on it, fuck Christendom and fuck Islamic fundamentalism, and fuck the new trend to right wing authoritarian dictatorships and fuck all the Pipes' blather about civilisationalism, which, when you boil it down, is just more of the same sort of bullshit.

There's a trend in the land, for the far right to admire and forgive far right loons and refuse to call them by their correct fundamentalist names, be it fascist-leaning, or authoritarian, or patriarchal or pure plain old fashioned hate filled bigots …a bit like Pipes …

The same applies to fundamentalist lefties, always keen to impose their views on others,  and the pond is tired of it and all the fear-mongering, which in consequence, allows all the usual excuses to be trotted out …

You know, the sort of line "despite his serious flaws as a democratic leader and his alignment with dictators of the Vlad kind", there's a lot to be said for incipient dictators, crypto-fascists, outright fascists and head-kicking authoritarians, provided that they get Pipes off by stroking his hate of Islamics and immigrants ...

Well the pond did it, and got through it, even though three amigos suddenly seemed like more fun, but after being in company with such a cheesehead, the pond suddenly felt the need of a cartoon or two from the golden times when other fellow travellers and sycophants were still doing the rounds...