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starring-movies · 4 years

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Killing Eve: Episode Analysis

*SPOILERS*

Season 3, Episode 7 - Beautiful Monster

We begin the episode with Villanelle, who is waiting to meet with Hélène, after the sloppy kill in Romania. As she’s waiting, we get some close-up shots of Villanelle and a suit of armour, which she tells Hélène “was really staring at me”. The close-up shots are repeated from S2E5, where they portrayed the ‘watcher’ and the one ‘being watched’. In S2E5, Villanelle was the one who was ‘the watcher’ (i.e. the one with the power and in control); whereas in this scene, Villanelle has now become the one ‘being watched’ (she has now lost the control in her life and job that she previously had).

As we see Villanelle waiting for Hélène, within the shot of Villanelle we can see 8 swords behind her, the imagery of which invokes the tarot card, the ‘Eight of Swords’. After looking it up here, the ‘Eight of Swords’ card is “a symbol of the limiting thoughts, beliefs and mindset that prevent her from moving forward in her life. However, look closer: if the woman removed her blindfold, she would quickly realise that she can escape her predicament by letting go of her limiting beliefs and establishing a new, more empowered mindset. The water pooled at her feet suggests that her intuition might see what her eyes cannot”.

This imagery is very apt for Villanelle’s current situation; as she’s feeling the limitations due to the lack of freedom that she’s realised she has, together with her entrapment in working for The Twelve. The spears are also positioned to look like they’re coming out of Villanelle, which illustrates to us how she’s on the mental offence and trying to protect her current vulnerabilities and fragility from what happened in Russia, from Hélène.

A song (most likely an unreleased Unloved song) with the repeated lyrics, “into the fire”, is used in this scene. Paired with the suits of armour and weaponry in the scene’s shot, we are shown how Villanelle is metaphorically going “into the fire” and beginning a battle against The Twelve for her freedom.

When Villanelle goes in for her meeting with Hélène, there are more swords and suits of armour around the room and behind Villanelle, further emphasising the entrapment she’s in. A Dutch tilt angle is also briefly used, and it’s only used on Villanelle. The Dutch tilt was last used for Villanelle in S3E2, to show her disorientation and shock after finding out that Eve was alive. However, it’s used in this scene to reflect Villanelle’s unease at having to attend this meeting with Hélène.

We also get a call back to S1E7 in this scene with Hélène. Hélène commandingly tells Villanelle to “sit down”, just as Anton repeatedly did back in S1E7. With Anton, Villanelle refused to sit down and disobeyed his orders; however with Hélène, Villanelle knows that she is outmatched, and so reluctantly has to comply with the command.

Hélène then proceeds to press on the wound on Villanelle’s arm, but then quickly embraces her. This is Hélène’s attempt both at a power play and at manipulating Villanelle. She does this as an act, to show Villanelle that she’s more powerful than her and can easily hurt her if she wants to; but also wants to give the impression that she can provide the ‘motherly’ protection and care that she knows Villanelle is in search for.

Villanelle responds to this act in typical Villanelle fashion, by appearing like she was going to reveal what happened (“I did something bad to my mother”), but then deflecting (“I took a shit in her shoe when I was three, a really big one”). She does the exact same thing as this with the psychologist fromThe Twelve in S1E2, when she is confronted with a picture of ‘Anna’ she says it’s not Anna but her mother, but then says she was joking because her mother had “really thin, shitty hair”; and she also does it in S1E5 when Eve asks her what happened and she agrees saying “okay”, but again diverting by saying “can we get one thing clear before we go on with this? Is that a sweater attached to a shirt?”.

Villanelle uses her comment to Hélène, where she thanks her “for the inappropriate touching” and tells her “god, you’re sexy”, to try to maintain her facade to Hélène that nothing’s wrong with her and also that she saw through her ‘caring mother’ act.

This is the second episode of Season 3, the other being S3E2, where different title cards are used. In S3E2, the title cards were on a red background (the colour of Villanelle’s outfit in Rome), but this time they’re on a green background (the colour of Eve’s outfit in Rome). The red colour for Villanelle was used in S3E2, as that episode was the liminal one for her character development. It was in that episode where she began to try to climb the ladder to becoming a Keeper in The Twelve, subsequently becomes discontented from the realisation that she’s been tricked and also that she doesn’t have the freedom she thought she had. Whereas it’s this episode that is the liminal moment for Eve, where she finally fully accepts and embraces her “monster”.

The title cards are also emblematic in showing us the progress of Eve and Villanelle’s journey to becoming “the same” as each other. From S3E2 to S3E7, the black circle with Sandra Oh’s [Eve] name in it becomes slightly larger, symbolising Eve’s “darkness” becoming more prominent. From S3E2 to S3E7, the black splodge with Jodie Comer’s [Villanelle] name in it becomes significantly smaller, symbolising her growing humanity and her receding “darkness”. In S3E7, the black circles with Sandra Oh and Jodie Comer’s names in them have also become the same size as each other, indicating that Eve and Villanelle have finally come to a point where they are “the same” and managed to reach an equilibrium.

The song ‘Look What You Made Me Do’ by Jack Leopards & The Dolphin Club (thought to be an alias for Taylor Swift to righty release the song under her own ownership), is played during the title cards. The lyrics we hear are:

“I don’t like your little games,

I don’t like your tilted stage,

I don’t like you,

I got smarter, I got harder, in the nick of time,

Honey rose up from the dead,

I do it all the time,

Look what you made me do,

Look what you just made me do,

Look what you made me do,

No, I don’t like you”

The song is appropriate for Villanelle, as it emphasises her feelings and struggle against The Twelve. She doesn’t like the “little games” they’re playing with her and she “got smarter” in realising how she was being manipulating by them.

In the next scene we see Eve having a meting with Carolyn to discuss their progress with finding out what happened to Kenny. As usual Eve brings the focus back around to Villanelle and Carolyn retorts that Eve should “do well to remember heroes only get the girl in Hollywood”. It’s clear that everyone else can see Eve’s obsession and attraction to Villanelle, except Eve herself. Kenny calls Villanelle “your girlfriend” to Eve in S1E8 and Hugo picks up on it, asking Eve “what’s the deal with you and Villanelle... why is it? Do you like watching her, or do you like being watched?”.

We then get a scene of Eve, Bear and Jamie in the Bitter Pill office, as they try to track down Villanelle. Eve starts speaking to the bakery that Villanelle ordered the bus cake from, to try to get her personal information. Before Bear tells Eve he’s found the information that she was looking for, she was about to use Niko’s pitchforking to pity the bakery worker into giving her the information. This shows us how, although Eve does have love Niko, he has always been disposable and able to be pushed aside in Eve’s life, in favour of the things she values as more important (like her job or in this case, Villanelle). It also shows us how Eve just uses Niko, she was using him before to maintain her facade of having a normal life and now she’s using his tragic maiming to find Villanelle. This additionally shows us Eve’s relentlessness and how she has no moral boundaries for what she is willing to say or do to try to track down Villanelle.

When Villanelle and Dasha are in the hotel in Aberdeen, they have a conversation in the hotel lift. Just like Hélène did at the beginning of the episode, Dasha presses on Villanelle’s wound, as a power play. However, unlike with Hélène, Villanelle knows that she can ‘one-up’ Dasha and they start trying to take digs at one another.

Villanelle tells Dasha - who we know, from her tracksuits, her necklace with a ‘D’ on it, and the fact that she refers to herself in the third person, that she is incredibly self centred - that Russia has changed since she lived there and that there will no one waiting for her to return home, but she will only be greeted by “indifference”. Hélène told Dasha in S3E4 that “people would be dancing in the street and chanting your name, ‘Dasha, Dasha, Dasha’”; so Villanelle telling her that people will be indifferent about her returning to Russia would dent her ego a little bit.

In response to this, Dasha bites back by saying that she doesn’t care about a “hero’s welcome” and if she wants stroganoff, she says “my son can make it”. We then suddenly get extreme close-up shots of Villanelle and Dasha, because Villanelle “didn’t know [Dasha] had a son”. The extreme close-ups continue as Dasha continues to push the knife in further, by saying that she will die with her feet up and holding her son’s hand, but that Villanelle will die alone because she destroyed her family.

Although Villanelle and Dasha don’t get along (and Dasha tried to kill Villanelle once), Villanelle still most likely views Dasha as a mother figure of sorts. Dasha mentioned that Villanelle was “dumped” on her when she had “mosquito bites for breasts”, which tells us that they’ve known each other for a very long time and that Dasha (just like Konstantin) would have had a part in raising Villanelle. In S3E4, Dasha starts cleaning up Villanelle’s things telling her “you don’t deserve nice things if you don’t look after them”, just as a mother would. Also in S3E1 Dasha also makes a big deal about how proud she is of Villanelle, saying “you’re so talented, you’re the best I ever trained, you’re destined for greatness”; and telling Eve in S3E6 how “I created her, I took raw shit and moulded it into steel, I broke her back, I give her wings”.

Villanelle will be aware that she’s like Dasha’s prodigy. So for Villanelle to suddenly find out that Dasha has a son, and she’s not like the child that Dasha never had, it’s yet another disappointment and loss of a maternal figure and/or family for Villanelle. The sudden use of the extreme close-ups just accentuates and draws our attention to Villanelle’s emotional reaction to this realisation and Dasha’s enjoyment in her suffering.

However, Villanelle hides any hint that she’s been effected by what Dasha has told her and instead comments, unfazed, about Dasha’s halitosis (which is bad breath) - again another remark that knocks Dasha’s ego.

We then see Villanelle and Dasha on the golf course in Aberdeen, observing the target they’ve been sent to kill. Villanelle is wearing the green hairy outfit, literally embodying the “beautiful monster” that Hélène said she was. However, although Villanelle fulfils the role of the “beautiful monster” on the outside; by deciding to not kill the target and letting him run away instead, she doesn’t actually end up fulfilling the role of being the “monster” that Hélène said she was.

Dasha also comments to Villanelle about how she will miss “that feeling you get when you snuff out a life, when you can see your own eyes reflected in dilated pupils, when you can count the number of breaths they have left on one hand”. This is something that we’ve seen Villanelle enjoy a number of times: the Greco kill in Tuscany S1E1, the Carla De Mann kill in Paris in S1E2 and the Fat Panda kill in Berlin in S1E3.

When Eve finds Dasha on the golf course while in pursuit of Villanelle, Dasha makes a comment about Niko’s moustache being “like Stalin”, which prompts Eve to kill Dasha by crushing her chest. We see the same expression from Eve, which we saw from Villanelle at the Tuscany kill in S1E1, as she revels in “that feeling you get when you snuff out a life” that dAsha was describing. Similarly, we also see Dasha’s enjoyment as she watches Eve and vicariously feels her experience “that feeling”, from killing her.

After Villanelle hit Dasha with the golf club and is waiting for Konstantin to pick her up, the song ‘Watch Your Back’ by The Coathangers. The lyrics:

“I’m stuck here,

No way out,

Back, you can never go back,

You can never go back,

No, no, no”

The lyrics of the song demonstrate how Villanelle now has “no way out” and “can never go back”. By ‘killing’ Dasha she’s now made her choice and will never be able to return to working for The Twelve and has to find a way to move forward now instead.

The song also relates to Eve, who similarly “can never go back”, after having a hand in killing Dasha and finding enjoyment in the act of doing so (unlike when she killed Raymond). Once Eve has fully released and embraced her “monster”, she can never return to the life of normalcy she once had.

Just like how Eve was about to use Niko’s pitchforking to get the information she wants, she also does it again when the American target tries to get help from her. The American man asks for help to escape from Villanelle, but Eve just repeatedly asks him what the girl looked like, and then proceeds to push him out of the car so that she can peruse Villanelle. It shows us Eve’s frenzy and focus on trying to find Villanelle and not caring about anything, or anyone else, at all.

‘I See Darkness’ by Red Mecca also starts to play as Eve crushes Dasha’s chest. The lyrics we hear are:

“Just as time,

Wonder why,

I see darkness in you,

Lose my breath,

Alone with you,

I see shadows of you”

The last time this song was used, was for Villanelle’s mother in S3E5. The song is used in this instance, to again show how Eve has come to a turning point and a point where her “darkness” is fully rearing it’s head. As the song is used for Eve’s darkness while she kills Dasha, the use of the song for Villanelle’s mother to connect the two scenes, supports the thought that Tatiana may have also been a killer (and most likely killed Villanelle’s father).

When Villanelle and Eve narrowly miss each other at the train station in Scotland after Konstantin had his heart attack; an unreleased song, presumably by Unloved is played over the scene. The lyrics we can hear are:

“I once had a love,

Or did love have me,

It set me free,

It set me free”

The song encapsulates Villanelle and Eve’s relationship: do they love each other or are they at the whim of Love, being consumed and controlled by it? Whatever the answer may be, they can both say that the love they have for one another put them on a journey that has “set [them] free”. Eve has come to accept her “monster” and Villanelle’s eyes have been opened to the lack of freedom she has in her life.

In the final scene of the episode, at Liverpool Street train station in London, Eve gets a phone call from Villanelle. We get a wide shot of Eve as the camera pans away from her, which is a shot that is repeated with Villanelle in the tea dance scene in S3E8. The wide shots are used to highlight Eve and Villanelle’s isolation when they’re not together; when Villanelle and Eve aren’t together, they have no-one else who is there for them. The shots are also used to illustrate to us how everything else in the work pales into insignificance when they’re together; there can be so many other people around and so many other things happening, but their sole focus is on one another - the rest of the world continues to turn but their worlds’ stop when they’re without the other.

You can read my previous Killing Eve posts here:-

First Introduction to Villanelle

First Introduction to Eve

S1, E1 - Nice Face

S1, E2 - I’ll Deal With Him Later

S1, E3 - Don’t I Know You?

S1, E4 - Sorry Baby

S1, E5 - I Have a Thing about Bathrooms

S1, E6 - Take Me to the Hole!

S1, E7 - I Don’t Want to Be Free

S1, E8 - God, I’m Tired

S2, E1 - Do You Know How to Dispose of a Body?

S2, E2 - Nice and Neat

S2, E3 - The Hungry Caterpillar

S2, E4 - Desperate Times

S2, E5 - Smell Ya Later

S2, E6 - I Hope You Like Missionary!

S2, E7 - Wide Awake

S2, E8 - You’re Mine

S3, E1 - Slowly Slowly Catchy Monkey

S3, E2 - Management Sucks

S3, E3 - Meetings Have Biscuits

S3, E4 - Still Got It

S3, E5 - Are You From Pinner? [Part 1]

S3, E5 - Are You From Pinner? [Part 2]

S3, E6 - End of Game

S3, E8 - Are You Leading or Am I? [Part 1]

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freedom-of-fanfic · 6 years

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an unfunny joke about antis

the funny thing about bullies - especially self-righteous bullies that travel in packs, such as antis - is that 99.8% of the time they come out on top of any conflict they get into.

and holy hell, it’s fucking infuriating when it’s not completely exhausting. we all like to see clapback at people who don’t play fair and treat others like shit. when someone is really nasty and abusive - when they’re chronically mean and dangerous and seemingly untouchable - it’s easy to yearn for their comeuppance and want to see them know they’re beat. we want the fear and shame and guilt bullies and abusers spread around revisited on their own head so they understand how awful a person they’ve been.

but realistically: you’ll never see a bully/abuser/anti doubt or question themselves. you’ll never see them backtrack with sincerity. you’ll never successfully shame them out of their behavior or devastate their confidence with your logic and consistency, because successful bullies - by definition - will always be less empathetic, more shameless, and more self-serving than anyone they have the power to abuse.

you will never beat a bully at the shame game. bullies live that game. shaming others is the source of their social power; they know (at least subconsciously) that flinching is game over. when someone points out their behavior is something shameful, they have to excuse or deflect or dismiss it: else, they lose. They deserved it. they hurt me first. who cares what you have to say?

and if you don’t have the direct authority to punish a bully, why should they care? abusers thrive in this world because they’ve decided the ethics and empathy that guide social rules don’t apply to them. Ethical people have lines they cannot cross without violating their sense of what’s right: abusers trample those lines, doing whatever serves them best, because they’re not obligated to care.

maybe it seems unthinkable they’d get away with it … but in general, our social networks have an inbuilt ‘get out of jail free’ card for abusers. we have to trust others are following the same social rules we are. when we don’t trust that, it’s actually worse. (we get … well, present-day tumblr, probably.) but that very trust makes society blind to behavior that crosses lines - it’s too unthinkable that anyone would do that. innocent until proven guilty. and that doubt protects abusers who are willing to pretend they too are trusting, caring people who follow the rules.

in fact, bullies care more about setting down social rules than anyone because they limit the behavior of everyone other than themselves. Rules set boundaries for ethical people. trust that those rules will be followed blinds people to all but the most blatant rule-breaking behavior. and when bullies lay down the rules, the rules themselves are often designed to encourage and shelter abusers.

I believe this is why the worst abusers so often turn out to be the most vocal activist, the most upright churchgoer, the politician with the anti-abuse platform. Such bullies do, in fact, truly advocate for everyone following the standards of behavior they support … except themselves.* These abusers are free to jump in and out of bounds whenever it suits their needs, making them all but impossible to call out. They harass and threaten and torment their targets, exploiting the victims’ trust and sense of obligation to protect the bully from exposure. but the moment a target retaliates, abusers are the first to call them out for bad behavior, damaging the victim’s reputation and improving their own without compunction, sympathy, or remorse.**

Perhaps the most ironic part is that the higher the standard of behavior the bully advocates for, gatekeeps, and regularly violates, the more powerful and invulnerable they become and the more blatant and open their two-faced behavior can be. Their hypocrisy is only remarkable to people who know what standards they supposedly uphold and demand of others. To everyone else the standards themselves are absurd. so what if a person falls short sometimes? why do you care? why are you surprised?

This is the social loophole that bullies and abusers in the anti-shipping movement exploit - and there are a lot of abusive anti-shippers. As the self-declared fandom/shipping police, tasking themselves with creating rules of conduct and aiming to enforce them by shaming, guilting, and threatening dissenters, anti culture by nature attracts the best shame game players - bullies and abusers - and draws them into its ranks.

unhampered by social obligation or a need to play fair, abusers rapidly rise to the top of policing communities like anti-shipping. already governed only by their own convenience, an abuser will never suffer from concerns of going ‘too far’; therefore, the loyalty of an abuser to a cause that gives them licence to abuse will never come into question. their gleeful eagerness to punish, lack of sympathy for their targets, and their willingness to come down hard even on other antis is both admired and feared. everyone wants to be their friend to insure their inevitable slip-ups due to self-conflicting rules are forgiven, unwittingly putting themselves in debt to a person who will never let them forget it.

so who’s left to call a hypocrite out, even when their hypocrisy is open and blatant? at least subconsciously aware that the the only real tethers on behavior in spaces where authority is nonexistent - tumblr, twitter, etc - are empathy and shame, abusers do their level best to evoke those feelings in everyone around them while being completely free of those feelings themselves. they cannot be shamed by anyone; they don’t play fair and they don’t show sympathy if it doesn’t serve their needs.

In short: as long as a bully’s opponent gives even the slightest fuck about playing fair, being kind, and giving the benefit of the doubt, they will never out-bully a bully.

the point of this long-winded post is this:

if you’re hoping for some creator to smack antis down; if you’re sitting in front of your computer, jaw dropped, as antis flock to the dmcb fandom and set up their absurd rules despite the source material being in conflict with everything antis supposedly stand for; if you see anti-shipper victims sharing how they were driven to suicide attempts and think ‘surely this time antis will be conscience-striken’: the reality is that anti-shippers will never apologize, will never admit to hypocrisy, and will never take ownership of the consequences of their actions.

bullies always come up smelling like roses because they know social rules are actually nigh-unenforceable. They only apply to the abuser if the abuser chooses to abide by the rules, and why would they limit themselves like that?

and if you don’t like it, there’s nothing you can do about it.

that’s the joke. (i’m not laughing either.)

*and the louder bullies support the cause of vulnerable people, the more unthinkable it is that they would ever exploit vulnerability themselves.

**this is a wildly successful technique abusers use for self-protection. it accomplishes many things at once:

it feeds the abuser’s deluded worldview wherein their target is the badguy and the abuser is their hapless victim. (this is how abusers justify abuse most of the time: they have to act outside the rules to protect themselves!)

puts the spotlight on the victim, magnifying their errors and minimizing/erasing the effect of the abuser’s provocation

the victim feels ashamed for their behavior; even if they realize they wer provoked, they are ethically bound to acknowledge what they did was wrong (and the abuser will hold it against them for eternity)

the victim may be successfully gaslighted into doubting that their actions were provoked or warranted

if the victim attempts to act against their abuser’s interest in the future, their credibility is now damaged/doubtful

if the abuser can’t pull off looking squeaky-clean to others, tarnishing their target’s reputation makes outsiders less likely to come to their aid, excusing the abusive dynamic as ‘mutual.’

#anti shipping is a form of control #anti shipping is abusive #why antis do the thing #antis are cyberbullies #cyberbullying #shame culture #anti culture

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jthelmsdeep · 7 years

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An election post-mortem. Don’t confuse me with the facts!

The US Presidential elections are long over, and from the rubble of the vitriol, deflection, and lack of substance during the debates has emerged the de facto President-Elect of The United States. Barring a catastrophic revelation such as, say, the late discovery that Donald J. Trump was born in Russia, he will be sworn in as the 45th President of these United States. To say this election was fractious might qualify as the understatement of the year. Relationships were sorely tested and many failed the test.

We are a culture of “adjectives,” and we’re terribly fond of labels. Our tendency is to classify people as one thing or the other, but maybe even more shocking was how so many Christians declared other Christians unfit to be Christian simply because of their political leanings. Facebook and its social media ilk became the unwitting arbiters of disseminating fake news more than truth.

And the mainstream media?

Well, completely out of touch with the masses, and focused on promoting their own agenda, they were shockingly reminded that the people and not they, control the cultural narrative as well as the impact of political discourse.

So now, on the eve of the inauguration of the 45th POTUS, is as good a time as any to perform a necropsy on the state of our country following the recent elections. Obviously (at least to me), the primary purpose of this exercise is to, in general, understand why our political differences caused so much dissension and vitriol, dissect the reasons for which Christians became as divided as we did; and in particular, to find out how Christianity has emerged from this erstwhile battle.

Let’s begin by reminding ourselves that Donald Trump won the Electoral College vote by a significant margin, while Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by more than two million votes (Yes, I’m aware that conspiracy theorists suggest that the popular vote was rigged, but that contention is hardly worth the rabbit trail built by such divisive and unproven theories). Whatever the case, this divided result points to a nation sharply divided evenly down the middle, at least among the voting populace.

Talking about voter fraud, let’s begin this conversation with the idea of fraud. What’s really fraudulent is this notion that our political system is a binary party system. That’s the biggest fraud of all, and I heard it perpetrated by Evangelical Christians numerous times during the election cycle. It became the primary reason for getting behind Trump in spite of all his, shall we say, inadequacies.

To excuse the stench of his blatant excesses which clearly reflected a departure from Scripture, the popular Christian refrain became, “I’m voting for President not for Pope.” But why were Christians willing to overlook his shortcomings when confronted with options other than his candidacy?

Seeing as how so many of us interpret our party system as a binary system, the answer to that can be explained by two primary ideas:

It would appear that, as far as Christians were concerned, Liberals and Democrats were assiduously working to ridicule and delegitimize their faith, while apparently seeking to cloak themselves in a garb of spirituality that was, at best, a pretentiously thin veneer of pseudo-spirituality. Hillary Clinton’s suggestion that the Christian faith was going to have to catch up with the current times, arrogantly demonstrated that—at least in her opinion—the Bible isn’t as authoritative and infallible as Christians hold it to be. She miscalculated the fact that many of the issues that Christians hold sacrosanct are indeed mountains-to-die-on, and so to dismiss them as cavalierly as she did rubbed many Christian Black, White, and Hispanic voters the wrong way. In that gross miscalculation, she fatally underestimated the power of the Evangelical voting block.

The Democratic Party has an ideological disconnect with Evangelicals. The manifesto of the Party would seem to suggest that only people with liberal and “progressive” ideologies need apply. As a friend of mine put it, “There is no room in the Democratic Inn for Conservative Christians.” This disconnect in large part gave rise to the “vote for a party platform even if you don't like the candidate” ideology.

While these two reasons would largely explain the Evangelical voters support for Trump, ultimately culpability for the vitriol surrounding the elections lies with ideologically and intellectually arrogant Democrats, racially prejudiced and misogynistic Republicans, and theologically illiterate and intolerant Evangelicals.

But were these reasons, in all good conscience, reason enough for Christians to vote for Trump? Weren’t there more than two political parties platforming candidates for the Presidency? The answer to those questions would be ‘no’ only if you believe that our system isn’t binary.

Truth 1: The Fallacy of a Binary-Party System

A so-called two-party system is a subterfuge that derives its strength from the lemming-like following of political ideology. How can it possibly be a binary system if there are five party candidates on the ballot sheet and a space to fill in any name your heart desires? While it’s true to say there are two major party candidates, if the majority of the electorate decided to vote for a third party candidate because they found the two main party candidates ill-suited for the position of POTUS, then that groundswell of support at the polls would undoubtedly carry the third party candidate into office thereby making nonsense of the claim of a binary party system.

The truth lies somewhere closer to the fact that too many Evangelical Christians are inexplicably tied to a party platform more than they are to the qualifications of a given candidate. To read some of the illogical postulations expressing why “real” Christians must vote for a political party even if you aren’t particularly enamored by that party’s candidate, would seem to suggest that if Hitler, or even Satan himself ran on the platform of said Party, he would be a shoo-in for their vote based on the party platform principle.

Look friends, this tired rhetoric of voting for a party platform borders on the absurd. As Christians we don’t apply such logic to any other area of our lives, yet in politics it seems to hold sway against all wisdom to the contrary. Might I remind you that it wasn’t possessing the ten commandments—the platform upon which a Godly nation was built—that made Israel holy and righteous before God, it was their observance of said commandments.

They weren’t better off than the pagan nations because they possessed or believed in the ten commandments, they were better off only if they observed them, as succinctly pointed out in the Scriptures in Deuteronomy 11. After all, how many of us pick what church to attend based on the political beliefs of the pastor? In other words, how many of us have had conversations with a pastor about his political party platform before we make the decision to embrace the Biblical beliefs he espouses (which, unlike a political allegiance, are actually relevant to our salvation and wellbeing)?

Many Evangelical Christians would have us believe that supporting something as inanimate as a party platform determines whether or not one is a true Christian, but in the same breath they turn around and suggest to gun-control advocates that guns are inanimate objects and don’t kill people, other people kill people. But, much like a gun is an inanimate object—and according to those who support gun ownership—doesn’t kill people, the same must be said about political party platforms. A platform doesn’t govern, nor does it promulgate regulations and laws, people do…for better or for worse, regardless of what party they belong to.

Proof?

Truth 2: The Fallacy of Roe v. Wade and The Lesser of Two Evils

Republican appointed Justices have been a majority in the SCOTUS since 1953 and did in fact vote in support of Roe v. Wade by a majority of 7 — 2 in favor of the decision. Of the 7 Justices who voted for the decision, 5 were conservative Republican appointees with only one dissenting voice. That’s an inconvenient truth for Republican “party platform” Christians who’d much rather sweep those facts under the rug by deflecting attention to the Democrats as pro-abortion-baby-killers, even though there is an entire movement of Democrats against abortion. Again, party platforms don’t establish legislation or belief systems, people do.

Is it reasonably possible to believe that people can belong to a particular political party without subscribing to everything that the party stands for? Arnold Schwarzenneger was the Republican Governor of California, yet only his fiscal policies made him a moderate Republican. His social platform was more in line with liberalism (he actually officiated at the wedding of a gay couple). President-Elect Donald Trump, and former Florida Governor, Charlie Crist (among many others) have both switched political parties in recent years. Why? Did the party manifestos suddenly change, or did they wake up one morning and suddenly realize that, like a sail boat drifting in the undertow of the current, they’d drifted away from the party platform they once so strongly believed in? I think not my friends. I’d suggest that it’s simply political expediency.

But these politicians aren’t the problem that concerns me, we Christians are!

You see, it would be fine if we’d simply suggest that we’re supporting a candidate because we believe he or she will work to serve our best interests. But when we attempt to couch our support in spiritual garments and suggest that others who don’t see what we see are either not “real” Christians or not “hearing” God clearly enough, that is deceitful and monumentally arrogant at best. To imply, as has been done on numerous occasions, that one candidate’s sin is more grievous than another’s is selective morality. And make no mistake about it, a selective morality that suggests that going with the lesser of two evils is the better option, is in itself deadly. It is the very definition of moral relativism, which evangelical Christians decry and detest in everyone else.

I like how a friend of mine puts it:

“It is this same moral relativism that conservatives condemn among liberals that made evangelicals support a thrice-married, serial adulterer with a precariously tenuous prior relationship with Scripture and wafer-thin pedigree in Kingdom issues over a well-qualified Methodist woman married for over three decades to one man and had no history of adulterous conduct.” ~ Gbenga X

While I don’t personally believe that Hillary Clinton would have made a better POTUS for the majority of Americans, I can’t help but agree with his contention that to point out one of the candidates’ shortcomings as being more egregious than the other’s—based primarily on the party platform they represent—is moral relativism, which, in a very real sense confers on Christians the self-attributed authority of ‘gods’ dispensing judgment and our own brand of justice as we see fit.

If Daniel and the three Hebrew Boys had exercised a choice between the lesser of two evils instead of restricting themselves to vegetables and water, they would have opted for some of the fare from King Nebuchadnezzar’s table—which the king had expressly requested be given to his servants—so as to avoid falling into disfavor with the king and possibly face death for repudiating his authority. If Daniel had opted for the lesser of two evils when Nebuchadnezzar instructed that everyone in Babylon bow down and worship the giant image of him, he would have kept the doors to his room closed and prayed to his God secretly so as to avoid the death penalty. Instead he opted to spend a night using lions as pillows.

If Joseph had opted for the lesser of two evils he could surely have justified acquiescing to the advances of Potiphar’s wife knowing that a good word from her to Potiphar would make life better for him and potentially elevate him to a position of authority so that his prophecy of being honored by his parents and brothers would come to pass (He was smart enough to also know that a negative report about him from her to Potiphar could potentially end his life). Instead he honored his covenant with God and opted for prison for two years under the unjust shadow of false allegations. I’m sure by now you get the point.

Truth 3: The Deceiving Allure of Political Power

I would boldly assert that we Christians hold political power and expedience above our witness as Christ followers to outsiders! Why else would we want to impose our beliefs and lifestyle on everyone else, especially through gaining political dominance? Why else would we think that imposing legislation against abortion would ever stop those who don’t believe as we do from getting abortions? There is grave danger in trying to build a “Christian” state by legislation in spite of the fact that not every American believes the way we do.

While one might argue that radical Islam is on a rampage globally, terrorizing the innocent and attempting to forcefully impose their beliefs on others, if we Christians attempt to impose our beliefs on others under the guise of political expedience, how are we any different? After all, history shamefully brandishes the terrible crimes against humanity that have been committed in the name of Christianity, all under the guise of protecting the faith. Consider the Spanish Inquisition of 1478 established for the following stated reason:

King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella wanted an all-Catholic kingdom as a tool with which to Unite Spain. They did this by forcing people to admit to being heretics and then publicly killing them or imprisoning them for life. Those accused who did not admit to being heretics were still found guilty by a tribunal and publicly executed. The tribunal was established with authority from the Pope (by definition, a heretic was anyone who didn’t embrace catholicism). http://www.thenagain.info/WebChron/WestEurope/SpanInqui.html.

While you may be tempted to argue that radical Islam is still worse because, as a religion it is fundamentally violent, I would counter that logic by simply asking, is one crime more heinous than another because the perpetrator of one crime wears $5000 suits, lives in a Manhattan penthouse, and drives the car of your dreams, while the other is poorly educated, raised-in-poverty, and is a never-do-well petty thief who broke into your house and robbed you at gunpoint?

If the answer to that question is no—and I’m confident that it is—then we must recognize that we cannot impose our way of life on anyone simply because they view life through a different prism than we do. The only proven way to win the outsider isn’t by legislating and imposing our version of morality, but by loving them into the Kingdom.

So how does it look for the Church post-election?

I imagine the answer to this question will largely depend on how much humility we’re willing to model. Whether we consider the outcome of the recent elections a victory or defeat, we must resist the temptation to name call, label, denigrate, and deride other people’s interpretation of their faith, as if we have a monopoly on wisdom and are the only ones capable of hearing God distinctly.

All too often, we’re quick to unsheathe our verbal swords as soon as we perceive that our interpretation of faith is under attack, and this makes it difficult to listen to the other side of the story. I realize that abortion, gay rights legislation, immigration, terrorism, the economy and a myriad of other issues are all hot-button topics of the moment, but consensus will never be reached by any side attempting to insensitively impose its will on the other.

As Christ followers we must remember that our fight isn’t against “flesh and blood” but against “principalities, powers, rulers of darkness, and wicked spirits in the heavenly realm.” If we can keep this big idea forefront in our minds, then we will ultimately always come back to the most important idea there is…Christ and Him Crucified for the sake of the whole world! After all, that is the Good News of the Gospel, isn’t it?

Finally, I’ll conclude this lengthy dissertation by reminding us that the Church always does better when we’re on our knees than when we carry arms (Acts 12:5). It’s time to faithfully and fervently pray for the 45th President of the United States of America, whether you voted him into office or not. That is what 1 Timothy 2:2 demands of the professing Christ follower. Just my Dos Centavos!

#politics #election 2016 #united states #christianity #donald trump

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New Post has been published on http://drubbler.com/2017/02/09/trump-aide-kellyanne-conway-wrong-over-ivanka-plug/

Trump aide Kellyanne Conway 'wrong' over Ivanka plug

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The standards chief of the US Congress says a senior Trump aide was “wrong, wrong, wrong” to promote Ivanka Trump products on live television.

Retailer Nordstrom earlier this month dropped the US first daughter’s clothing line, citing a lack of sales.

But Kellyanne Conway told Fox News on Thursday: “Go buy Ivanka’s stuff.”

Jason Chaffetz, a Republican who heads the oversight committee in Congress, said the promotion was “clearly over the line, unacceptable”.

Federal ethics rules prevent White House employees giving an “endorsement of any product, service or enterprise”.

Mr Chaffetz said the White House should notify the Office of Government Ethics so it could initiate an inquiry. There have been numerous concerns over possible conflicts of interest for White House staff.

He said he and his Democratic counterpart would write to President Donald Trump.

“It needs to be dealt with,” he told the Associated Press. “There’s no ifs, ands or buts about it.”

What’s the context?

Nordstrom became the fifth retailer to drop the Ivanka Trump clothing line, citing lack of sales.

The move comes amid a boycott of all Trump products, which activists have dubbed #GrabYourWallet, in reference to a 2005 comment Mr Trump made about women’s bodies.

Nordstrom said the decision was based on the brand’s performance, which is what the firm repeated on Wednesday.

“Sales of the brand have steadily declined to the point where it didn’t make good business sense for us to continue with the line for now,” the company said in a statement, adding that Ivanka Trump was personally informed of the decision in early January.

However, in a tweet on Wednesday, the president attacked the company, saying: “My daughter Ivanka has been treated so unfairly by Nordstrom. She is a great person – always pushing me to do the right thing! Terrible!”

The tweet, which was sent by Mr Trump’s @realDonaldTrump account, was then retweeted by the official @POTUS account.

Shares in the retailer briefly fell 0.7%, before rising later in the day.

Ivanka Trump does not have a fixed role in the White House, but has been a regular fixture since her father’s inauguration. Her husband, Jared Kushner, is a key Trump adviser. Ivanka Trump gave up operating control – but not ownership – of her businesses after her father’s election.

Melania sues Daily Mail for ‘lost brand value’

Trump and brands: An uneasy relationship

What did Kellyanne Conway say?

“Go buy Ivanka’s stuff,” Ms Conway told the Fox and Friends show in an interview from the White House briefing room. “I’m going to go get some myself today. I’m going to give a free commercial here: Go buy it today, everybody.”

Her comments came only days after she was lampooned for citing the “Bowling Green massacre“, which never happened, while trying to justify the president’s controversial immigration ban.

A list of Trump’s potential conflicts

Analysis: Anthony Zurcher, BBC North America reporter

Kellyanne Conway is definitely in hot water. Her comments about buying Ivanka Trump clothing – seemingly a light aside at the end of a television interview – are being treated as no joking matter by angry Democrats, concerned government watchdogs and even some in her own party.

Traditionally, this would be a matter handled by supervisory staff, with discipline possibly including reprimands and docked pay. Complicating the situation in this case is that the Trump White House itself would be responsible for imposing the sanctions.

Ms Conway has been the very public face of the Trump administration and the Trump campaign before it. She has earned the trust of the president as an aide of unquestioned loyalty. Will the president be willing to punish such a transgression?

This also raises the possibility of a strategic benefit to Ms Conway’s involvement in this growing conflagration. Like a destroyer taking a torpedo to save an aircraft carrier, she has deflected the political blast from the Nordstrom controversy away from her president, whose questionable tweet set everything off.

While Ms Conway’s remarks were ill-advised and very likely a violation of the law, Mr Trump’s use of presidential power to protect his family’s business interest is of greater national concern.

What has been the response?

White House spokesman Sean Spicer said Ms Conway had been “counselled” after her remarks.

But the calls for further investigation or sanctions are growing. “It’s a violation of the rule,” Norman Eisen, a former ethics adviser to Barack Obama, told MSNBC. “It’s a serious matter.”

Two liberal lobby groups have filed complaints with the Office of Government Ethics.

“Conway’s action reflects an ongoing careless disregard of the conflicts of interest laws and regulations by some members of the Trump family and Trump administration,” Craig Holman, government affairs lobbyist for one group, Public Citizen, told AP.

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#World News

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