FACEBOOK CONFESSIONS
Confession #1:
Forgive me Father for I have sinned. It has been forever since my last confession, at least in this lifetime. Here goes: I re-troll trolls all the time. I totally batter them with publication links, of which I always have a ready supply, mine and others’. Then I progress to their own page and post stuff.
If that’s not an option, if their page settings don’t allow posts from non-friends, I add links and well-worked out comments into the comment threads on their posts, or their friends’, never mind if they’re apropos of the thread topic or not. That really pisses them off and then sometimes they block me, obviating their ability to troll me.
I also pursue them in private FB messaging. By that time they’re pretty much on the run and are trying to hide from me. They always surrender one way or another (I consider them blocking me a form of surrender). I’ve got the goods and they don’t. I’ve so much more ammo and can always outlast them, at least until or unless i get tired or bored, at which point I just say something dismissive and ignore them.
That pisses them off too. But I’m an Aries with Mars in Scorpio and Leo rising, and just I love a righteous fight from the undisputed moral high-ground. I keep my barrage civil and high-toned, and if they resort to profanity, personal insult or abuse, I shame them with that too.
Sometimes, if they get really obscene, threatening or profane, I report them. I’ve managed to get whole pages and profiles shut down. That’s fun too.
Confession #2:
Bless me Father for I have sinned. It has been about 9 months since my last confession (about trolling trolls as I recall), here on Facebook.
From time to time, about every other day or so, I comment on Donald Trump’s more stupid Tweets on his official Twitter account at “realDonaldTrump.” I take these opportunities to insult him in the most profane ways I can come up with in the moment, so as to add to the voices of the Resistance in the most direct way I have access to, expressing my disapproval in no uncertain terms.
After months of this, a couple of weeks ago, Twitter finally suspended my account (on account of my use of obscenities in a Tweet, I presume). Specifically, it went like this, after he Tweeted from:
Donald J. Trump, Verified Account
@realDonaldTrump
Jul 1
“The Liberal Left, also known as the Democrats, want to get rid of ICE, who do a fantastic job, and want Open Borders. Crime would be rampant and uncontrollable! Make America Great Again”
I replied from:
Yvonne Owens
@yewtree2
Replying to realDonaldTrump
“Fuck off, you piece of shit pig.”
4:05 PM — 1 Jul 2018
How do we know the balance of attitudes of Twitter administration concerning Donald Trump?
All I did was sign out, as directed, and sign back in again, and all was immediately right as rain. I was no longer suspended, but fully reinstated, and a few people had even liked the comment. Since then, I have posted quite a bit more verbal abuse to @realDonaldTrump, without incident.
Incidentally, I am followed on Twitter by, among others, Jim Carey, Anthony Scaramucci, Alan Ishaac, and a delightful expatriot Russian lesbian living in London, whose name I will not mention here, because she regularly says insulting things about Putin and I don’t want to get her killed.
Confession #3:
Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. My last confession was a couple of weeks ago, here on Facebook. I was not sincere in my last confession. More to the point, I consciously abused your contrived confession format to work my own sovereign creative will, and not yours. I used it to frame some powerful declarative magic, in effect publicly proclaiming a sort of homeopathic word spell. Since that Act of total non-Contrition, I have not been trolled again, not even once.
I felt absolutely no guilt about this. I did no kind of penance. Nor did I feel even a flicker of divine or corporeal chastisement — no shame or remorse. In fact, I felt really great. Confession IS good for the soul (as long as we keep the guilt, shame, fear, and contrition out of it, as I’m sure you’re bound to agree if you truly think about it even briefly). It has often been said that expressing your true intent incrementally affects the entire universe — that the universe then conspires to make it happen. When you decide what is true for you, the universe will not contradict you, but will instead bring it into clear manifestation.
I should further confess, since we’re here, that I am using this confession to send out a powerful subterranean, subconscious message to Fundamentalist Catholics who have flocked to the Evangelical Trump banner, like Steve Bannon, Kellyanne Conway, Gen. John Kelly, and crazed Hollywood actor, James Woods: You’re fucking up badly. This is a Faustian bargain you can’t afford. You’re really, really on the wrong track here, and the Pope thinks you’re being stupid. Get a grip.
So, these are my sins. I am not even remotely sorry for my sins, and stand by them with all my heart. In choosing to do ‘wrong’ by your twisted standards, and failing to do what you erroneously define as ‘good,’ I have sinned only against your constructed edifice of control, which I should obviously resist and decry above all things. I firmly intend, with the help of true grace (not your faux, contrived fake grace), to ‘sin’ in this fashion with my every breath, and until my last breath, and to avoid falling into mortal error by falling for your fear tactics and toxic shaming.
You tell me Jesus Christ suffered and died for our ‘sins,’ attempt to somehow hold it over my head, and browbeat me with guilt and personal culpability (‘Mea Culpa,’ ad nauseum). But I believe each of us is responsible for saving themselves.
So, to close, I do not need your absolution. Any other-identified, abstracted, out-sourced pronouncements of my value, worthiness, or lack thereof are unnecessary.
I really enjoyed our conversation. Until my next confession, Adieu.
(PS: It goes without saying, I won’t be doing any penance this time either, thanks all the same.)
