For Want Of A Nail (American Reformation I, Six.)

 [Luthen receives Dedra at his antiquities store, where she presents him with something familiar - the N-S9 Starpath he was looking for in Ferrix]

Dedra Meero: A vintage Imperial Starpath unit. What do you think? A little damaged, perhaps... But I'd say it's held its value. [Luthen breathes deeply] I have dreamt of this. Too many versions to remember. And here you were... all that time, hiding in the shelter of Imperial peace and quiet.

Luthen Rael: And I've known you all along. Hardly seems fair.

Dedra: You disgust me. Do you want to know why?

Luthen: Everything you stand for. Freedom scares you.

Dedra: "Freedom"? You don't want freedom. You want chaos, chaos for everyone but you. Ruin the galaxy and then run back to your ridiculous wig and little workshop.

Luthen: How confident you are.

Dedra: We're done here.

Luthen: Confident and terrified.

Dedra: The building is surrounded. You're finished.

Luthen: And you're too late. The rebellion isn't here anymore. It's flown away. It's everywhere now. There's a whole galaxy out there waiting to disgust you.

~From the Star Wars series Andor, S2.E10 "Make It Stop."

...

We've got to take the neighborhood back. We've got to go in there. Just forget telling your child to go to the Peace Corps. It's right around the corner. It's standing on the corner. It can't speak English. It doesn't want to speak English. I can't even talk the way these people talk. "Why you ain't where you is go." I don't know who these people are. And I blamed the kid until I heard the mother talk. Then I heard the father talk. This is all in the house. You used to talk a certain way on the corner and you got into the house and switched to English. Everybody knows it's important to speak English except these knuckleheads. You can't land a plane with "why you ain't…". You can't be a doctor with that kind of crap coming out of your mouth. There is no Bible that has that kind of language. Where did these people get the idea that they're moving ahead on this? Well, they know they're not, they're just hanging out in the same place, five or six generations sitting in the projects when you're just supposed to stay there long enough to get a job and move out. ~Bill Cosby, the "Pound Cake" speech.

I keep seeing this bullshit all the sudden.

ICE Agents acting like 'cause they shot one lesbian, everybody else should just bow down, or something.

None of this works like that, it's human nature to resist, among other things.

And somehow "Organized Gangs of Wine Moms" became some kind of a bullshit talking point?

I mean come on, what the fuck?? Read that again and think about how ridiculous it sounds, conservatives.

Not for the first time, it sounds like these fucking people are trying to use Magic Words And Phrases, spell components or some shit, trying to use magic to cheat the Universe while shouting "Unga Bunga!"

That's half the fucking problem, basically half the country is illiterate or nearly so, and doesn't want to think.

And they want you to be afraid of everything. I can't do that, yo. I was in the military, I've been taught better than this.

I've also been shot at, by people who as evil as they clearly were seemed at least marginally competent. ICE and MAGA, Putin and Trump don't scare me. In fact, I think America needs better enemies.

The truth is these idiots think any dissent or protesting is "Crime" or "Disorder" or "Insurrection" or "Violence" it doesn't matter what's actually happening. Movement "Conservatism" functionally thinks itself God no less than Soviet Communism did.

They don't see a difference of belief or opinion or even a lack of interest in their crap as what it is, they see it as heresy and think what they "Believe" is pretty much the One True Everything. Increasingly these CHUDS see the very existence of Other People or even of those who might be a little or even a lot like them but have some difference from the rest of the Hive as a Crime against themselves.

Everything is some kind of Khmer Rouge-style Year Zero bullshit.

These Fucking People's idea of the Future is the Killing Fields, but with a mall.

They have no idea how to get there, but they feel themselves entitled to it anyway.

This crap is basically Nazi shit, and it's actively trying to become something else even worse.

But, naturally, it's both entitled and squeamish in that uniquely American sort of way, like that "Enhanced Interrogation" bullshit from the Bush 43 years. They pretty much expect that just by saying this shit they should be able to get what they want, now.

Like, my dudes, the vast majority of your opposition out here in the World ain't gonna be Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries.

And it's not just that These Fucking People have no idea how anything works, it's that they don't care, either.

When men stop believing in God, it isn't that they then believe in nothing: they believe in everything. ~Umberto Eco

When is enough, enough?

Every one of the thousands at the airport, about to leave for Jeddah, was dressed this way. You could be a king or a peasant and no one would know. Some powerful personages, who were discreetly pointed out to me, had on the same thing I had on. Once thus dressed, we all had begun calling out "Labbayka! (Allahumma) Labbayka!" (Here I come, O Lord!) Packed in the plane were white, black, brown, red, and yellow people, blue eyes and blond hair, and my kinky red hair -- all together, brothers! All honoring the same God, all in turn giving equal honor to each other.

That is when I first began to reappraise the "white man." It was when I first began to perceive that "white man," as commonly used, means complexion only secondarily; primarily it described attitudes and actions. 

In America,"white man" meant specific attitudes and actions toward the black man, and toward all other non-white men. But in the Muslim world, I had seen that men with white complexions were more genuinely brotherly than anyone else had ever been. That morning was the start of a radical alteration in my whole outlook about "white" men. 

~Malcolm X, letter written following the Hajj.

American "Conservatism" and the Republican Party has basically come down to illiterate thuggery.

Reagan Wept.

Sorry, but I literally was raised, taught, trained to have actual opinions and thoughts on things that were something other than grunting and cultic devotion to somebody like Donald Trump. I mean for fuck's sake I was by inclination and philosophy a conservative, theologically educated as a Christian, and I've watched every step of the way that idiotic American "Pop Culture" and creepy-ass ungodly "Reality TV" bullshit dismantled all of that over the last 25 years and that's what got us here. Worse I saw too many "Christians" embrace every step down the ladder of this shit and I'm fucking sick of it!

Like I said yesterday these people have stripped themselves of any basis for being in any of the positions that they're in, and they wonder why the tide is turning against them and why people aren't content to wait for the next election anymore??

For Want Of A Nail the horse was lost, etc.

These fucking people wanted hate and raw Power to be their own (and only) justifications, like Russia.

It frankly disgusts me that the "Conservatives" were the ones who became so enamored of Russia and the memory of the Soviet Union anyway.

But America isn't Russia and doesn't work that way despite these fucking people having spent like six out of the last ten years trying to sell the American public on the idea of being Russian Peasants. I do think I know when I first saw something like this coming, though. It was just after the 2000 election when I saw that first blue and red map of which areas voted Democrat or Republican, I remember in fact being pissed off that Red was the color chosen for the Republican side because it literally made me think of the Soviet Union and shit. I was like "What the fuck??"

Most people quickly seem to have embraced that way of looking at the world, though

We've been gradually ground down by elite malfeasance and divisiveness and media manipulation  and the totalistic marketing of bullheaded religiosity and purposeless hate until we're not so much one nation anymore, but a collection of competing tribes and special interests.

Which is exactly why I see America collapsing like the Soviet Union did, likely within the next year or so if We The People can't get our shit together fast enough.

I do think the tide is turning against all this bullshit, whether it's doing so fast enough to save the whole unified country or simply enough to hem this bullshit down into a small-ass Banana Republic or two remains to be seen. Personally, I think it'll be the latter.

And I think that simply because there's a plurality of "Conservatives" who've simply decided that they don't want to live with anybody else, and I thought that before the Trump cultism and they were already starting to be that way before he showed up.

Even so, there's going to be a point in our near future where if you want to be free, you're going to have to fight for it.

Like I have said, we need an American Reformation because too much of American Christianity is simply a propaganda tool for the Republican Party and/or MAGA and seems to like it that way, never mind the Devils and the Idols of Gold.

You either believe in freedom or you don't.

Слава Україна!

We welcome change and openness; for we believe that freedom and security go together, that the advance of human liberty can only strengthen the cause of world peace. There is one sign the Soviets can make that would be unmistakable, that would advance dramatically the cause of freedom and peace. General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization, come here to this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate. Mr. Gorbachev...Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!
~Ronald Reagan

Five

Whether true or false, my opinion is that in the world of knowledge the idea of good appears last of all, and is seen only with an effort; and, when seen, is also inferred to be the universal author of all things beautiful and right, parent of light and of the lord of light in this visible world, and the immediate source of reason and truth in the intellectual; and that this is the power upon which he who would act rationally either in public or private life must have his eye fixed. ~From the Allegory Of The Cave, Plato's Republic.

Walling Off Plato's Cave (American Reformation I, Five.)

Whether true or false, my opinion is that in the world of knowledge the idea of good appears last of all, and is seen only with an effort; and, when seen, is also inferred to be the universal author of all things beautiful and right, parent of light and of the lord of light in this visible world, and the immediate source of reason and truth in the intellectual; and that this is the power upon which he who would act rationally either in public or private life must have his eye fixed. ~From the Allegory Of The Cave, Plato's Republic.

...

Never have I witnessed such sincere hospitality and the overwhelming spirit of true brotherhood as is practiced by people of all colors and races here in this ancient Holy Land, the House of Abraham, Muhammad, and all the other Prophets of the Holy Scriptures. For the past week, I have been utterly speechless and spellbound by the graciousness I see displayed all around me by people of all colors...

You may be shocked by these words coming from me. But on this pilgrimage, what I have seen, and experienced, has forced me to rearrange much of my thought-patterns previously held, and to toss aside some of my previous conclusions. This was not too difficult for me. Despite my firm convictions, I have always been a man who tries to face facts, and to accept the reality of life as new experience and new knowledge unfolds it. I have always kept an open mind, which necessary to the flexibility that must go hand in hand with every form of intelligent search for truth.

During the past eleven days here in the Muslim world, I have eaten from the same plate, drunk from the same glass, and slept in the same bed (or on the same rug) -- while praying to the same God -- with fellow Muslims, whose eyes were the bluest of blue, whose hair was the blondest of blond, and whose skin was the whitest of white. And in the words and in the actions and in the deeds of the "white" Muslims, I felt the same sincerity that I felt among the black African Muslims of Nigeria, Sudan, and Ghana. We were truly all the same (brothers) -- because their belief in one God had removed the "white" from their minds, the 'white' from their behavior, and the 'white' from their attitude. I could see from this, that perhaps if white Americans could accept the Oneness of God, then perhaps, too, they could accept in reality the Oneness of Man -- and cease to measure, and hinder, and harm others in terms of their "differences" in color.

With racism plaguing America like an incurable cancer, the so-called "Christian" white American heart should be more receptive to a proven solution to such a destructive problem. Perhaps it could be in time to save America from imminent disaster -- the same destruction brought upon Germany by racism that eventually destroyed the Germans themselves.

They asked me what about the Hajj had impressed me the most. . . . I said, "The brotherhood! The people of all races, color, from all over the world coming together as one! It has proved to me the power of the One God. . . . All ate as one, and slept as one. Everything about the pilgrimage atmosphere accented the Oneness of Man under One God. 

~Malcolm X, Letter following the Hajj.

...

When men stop believing in God, it isn't that they then believe in nothing: they believe in everything. ~Umberto Eco

I saw this shit the other day.

Apparently Plato, or at least large sections of his writing, have been banned from Texas A&M university for too much "gay stuff."

And I've been conversing with my British friend about that shit.

Plato is, to a degree a lot of people don't realize, a large part of the basis of both Christianity and conservatism. Hell, Plato is a massive chunk of the basis for Western Civilization itself in a general sense!

I'm not saying that's right or wrong, I personally think it's a bit problematic, but it is simply what is.

But anyway, yeah, that "Western Civilization" certain "Conservatives" are always banging on about.

Plato. You know, The Republic?

Our Founders all knew and valued this stuff! They had to! At that time in our history until well up past the Civil War, you weren't anybody if you didn't have or couldn't quote enough of the Classics to make people think you had some kind of a Classical education. A lot of people who didn't have money but could get a book or two were actually self-taught on this stuff!

And the State of Texas doesn't want current college students to know that.

Of course then my friend pointed out (correctly, unfortunately) that a lot of These Fucking People simply can't read to start with.

And American "Conservatives" who loudly and openly do not currently value longstanding alliances or relationships, who proudly are cruel and obviously untrustworthy, and who very often seem to value anything based on "can they steal it" or "what can they get out of it" wonder why no one trusts them?? 

These Fucking People who seem to view any other people as pretty much fit only for killing...are starting to wonder why so much of the rest of the world...including mind you a lot of other Americans...doesn't want to look at them except through a rifle scope or a set of iron sights??

I know why.

Pro tip, guys, when you think that the existence or freedom or rights of Other People are something that can or should be debated, sooner or later the rest or the world has a right to wonder just what they fuck you're doing here or why they're putting up with you.

The rest of the world gets a vote.

And if we ourselves have reached the point where we don't even know our own beliefs or even the basis for anything...what the fuck are we even doing all this for??

When I say these motherfuckers are proud of being cruel, untrustworthy, and generally assholes, that also includes in their interpersonal relationships and (most especially lately) in how they treat women.

I've seen men do and say shit in the last six months, to me and my partner, that would have got somebody beat up 30 years ago. Of course this shit invariably happens online where the immediate response is unlikely to be a punch in the face. 

Although in one case, I know where the dude lives and reminded him to behave accordingly. This was a friend of over 25 years, who instantly started acting creepy at the prospect of a vulnerable woman, and he was extremely inappropriate to my now-partner. 

Like, I can't even talk how these people talk and that is not a joke.

I hear he wondered why I got the girl and he didn't.

I know why, I treated her as a person.

Honestly I think a hell of a lot of this shit boils down to a lot of "Conservatives" somehow think they're Donald Trump now, too. 

Or as I said in the case of my former friend, he seems to think he's the same as one of his characters from our gaming group back in the day.

I literally said to him, dude, you ain't the same as your damn Vampire, and I know I taught you better than that type of shit when it comes to talking to a lady. I mean, if you want to be That Guy there's a lot of ways to do so without being creepy about it.

My joke on here for a long time is that current Republicans think it's HELLA funny to be drawing dicks on the walls of Plato's Cave.

As with so many things, that's simply not destructive or transgressive enough anymore.

Now these fucking people, so-called "Conservatives" want to fill Plato's Cave in with dirt and brick it over, not out of any ideological imperative or because they think the conceit that ideas are better than people might be actively harmful, but because they don't like ideas at all, much less ancient writings that provide windows into cultures and times not our own might make people think too much.

And honestly?

A lot of this crap is just simple-assed narcissism.

Might as well just call it what it is.

We've got to take the neighborhood back. We've got to go in there. Just forget telling your child to go to the Peace Corps. It's right around the corner. It's standing on the corner. It can't speak English. It doesn't want to speak English. I can't even talk the way these people talk. "Why you ain't where you is go." I don't know who these people are. And I blamed the kid until I heard the mother talk. Then I heard the father talk. This is all in the house. You used to talk a certain way on the corner and you got into the house and switched to English. Everybody knows it's important to speak English except these knuckleheads. You can't land a plane with "why you ain't…". You can't be a doctor with that kind of crap coming out of your mouth. There is no Bible that has that kind of language. Where did these people get the idea that they're moving ahead on this? Well, they know they're not, they're just hanging out in the same place, five or six generations sitting in the projects when you're just supposed to stay there long enough to get a job and move out. ~Bill Cosby, the "Pound Cake" speech.

Narcissism...and stupidity.

And somehow these two things always seem to combine into a lust for Power on the part of some dickhead.

And people are getting tired of it.

Not only does it feel like there's a revolution brewing here but there's already one going on in Iran.

Russia looks to be on thin ice economically and otherwise.

Nobody wants to live on the bottom of somebody else's boot but These Fucking People and I don't know how to put it any other way than that. 

There's only so many "Politically correct" ways to say "Fuck You, Asshole."

And maybe it's just me but I think people have a right to be tired of this shit and tell people like Ayatollah Cockamamie or Donald Trump or Vladimir Putin to go fuck themselves.

The only reason these freaks have Power is because somebody somewhere lets them. Nearly all governments or rulers, in one way or another, derive their power from the consent of the governed.

And when people start hacking away at things like *Checks Notes* the philosophical basis for why they claim they have some kind of a right to be there in the first place.

Eventually, people forget how they got there or what the fuck they were supposed to be doing in the first place I guess. It's not much of a switch to see them becoming antagonistic towards the Source of their power because they'd prefer to use Force, or simply expect to be worshiped for their narcissism or they think people are just that stupid.

Of course to use Iran itself as an example, about the only thing the Glorious Revolution seems to have accomplished at long last is making Iran less Islamic.

Raw Power turned out to be a hell of a lot more of a drug than the Hashish that the Assassins used, I guess??

And of course, people got sick of it.

And like medieval Germans tired of the Church handing out "Indulgences" to perverts, I think we've had enough here, too.

That's why I think an American Reformation is necessary. Somebody's gotta nail the list to the door first, though.

How long?? How long here before enough is, in fact, enough??

You either believe in freedom or you don't, America.

Слава Україна!

Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins, which took their lamps, and went forth to meet the bridegroom.

And five of them were wise, and five were foolish. They that were foolish took their lamps, and took no oil with them: But the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps.
While the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept.

And at midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him.

Then all those virgins arose, and trimmed their lamps.

And the foolish said unto the wise, Give us of your oil; for our lamps are gone out. But the wise answered, saying, Not so; lest there be not enough for us and you: but go ye rather to them that sell, and buy for yourselves.

And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came; and they that were ready went in with him to the marriage: and the door was shut. Afterward came also the other virgins, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us.

But he answered and said, Verily I say unto you, I know you not.

Watch ye therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh. ~Matthew 25:1-13

Four

Elisabet Sobeck: I remember yelling that I didn’t care. And that’s when my mother took my face in her hands and…spoke.

GAIA: Query: What did she say?

Elisabet Sobeck: She said I had to care. She said, “Elisabet, being smart will count for nothing if you don’t make the world a better place. You have to use your smarts to count for something, to serve life, not death.”

~From the video game Horizon Zero Dawn.

Worshiping The Dragon (American Reformation I, Four.)

The bow of God’s wrath is bent, and the arrow made ready on the string, and justice bends the arrow at your heart, and strains the bow, and it is nothing but the mere pleasure of God, and that of an angry God, without any promise or obligation at all, that keeps the arrow one moment from being made drunk with your blood. Thus all you that never passed under a great change of heart, by the mighty power of the Spirit of God upon your souls; all you that were never born again, and made new creatures, and raised from being dead in sin, to a state of new, and before altogether unexperienced light and life, are in the hands of an angry God. However you may have reformed your life in many things, and may have had religious affections, and may keep up a form of religion in your families and closets, and in the house of God, it is nothing but his mere pleasure that keeps you from being this moment swallowed up in everlasting destruction. However unconvinced you may now be of the truth of what you hear, by and by you will be fully convinced of it. Those that are gone from being in the like circumstances with you, see that it was so with them; for destruction came suddenly upon most of them; when they expected nothing of it, and while they were saying, Peace and safety: now they see, that those things on which they depended for peace and safety, were nothing but thin air and empty shadows.

The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked: his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire; he is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in his sight; you are ten thousand times more abominable in his eyes, than the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours. You have offended him infinitely more than ever a stubborn rebel did his prince; and yet it is nothing but his hand that holds you from falling into the fire every moment. It is to be ascribed to nothing else, that you did not go to hell the last night; that you were suffered to awake again in this world, after you closed your eyes to sleep. And there is no other reason to be given, why you have not dropped into hell since you arose in the morning, but that God’s hand has held you up. There is no other reason to be given why you have not gone to hell, since you have sat here in the house of God, provoking his pure eyes by your sinful wicked manner of attending his solemn worship. Yea, there is nothing else that is to be given as a reason why you do not this very moment drop down into hell.

 ~Sinners In The Hands Of An Angry God, Jonathan Edwards, 1741

...

There's a man goin' 'round, takin' names
And he decides who to free and who to blame
Everybody won't be treated all the same
There will be a golden ladder reachin' down
… When the man comes around
The hairs on your arm will stand up
At the terror in each sip and in each sup
Will you partake of that last offered cup?
Or disappear into the potter's ground
… When the man comes around?
Hear the trumpets, hear the pipers
One hundred million angels singin'
Multitudes are marchin' to the big kettledrum
Voices callin' and voices cryin'
Some are born and some are dyin'
… Alpha and Omega's kingdom come
And the whirlwind is in the thorn tree
The virgins are all trimmin' their wicks
The whirlwind is in the thorn tree
… It's hard for thee to kick against the pricks.

~Johnny Cash, When The Man Comes Around

...

"I didn't want to do it,'' he hears himself saying. "I didn't want to leave them behind.''

The void laughs at him. There are miles of empty air beneath his dangling feet. "You had no choice.''

"Yes I did! I didn't have to come here.'' He pauses. "I didn't have to do anything,'' he says quietly, and inhales another lungful of death. "It was all automatic. Maybe it was inevitable.''

"-- Evitable,'' echoes the distant horizon. Something dark and angular skims across the stars, like an echo of extinct pterosaurs. Turbofans whirring within its belly, the F-117A hunts on: patrolling to keep at bay the ancient evil, unaware that the battle is already lost. "Your family could still be alive, you know.''

He looks up. "They could?'' Andrea? Jason? "Alive?''

The void laughs again, unfriendly: "There is life eternal within the eater of souls. Nobody is ever forgotten or allowed to rest in peace. They populate the simulation spaces of its mind, exploring all the possible alternative endings to their life. There is a fate worse than death, you know.'' 

~From A Colder War, a novella by Charles Stross.

I'm warning you.

And I'm not going to repeat myself a lot with this one.

I keep seeing shit about ICE agents and other Trump Regime people arresting or assaulting Pastors.

These fucking Trump people are about five seconds away from becoming about the most Antichrist, anti-Christian and in general anti-religion regime in the history of Humanity, I think. Less out of any particular philosophy of Atheism than being violently reactionary against anything that might constrain their behavior or make anyone not fear them. If there's any "philosophical" element to it, it's basically that These Fucking People think they are God.

But then I see shit like this, too.

Some kind of "Beef Tallow lotion" that's not even subtly insinuated (in CHUD terms it's a fucking air raid siren) to claim to make a dude's dick bigger or some such bullshit.

Yeah, like that matters if you smell like old fryer grease. These dudes ain't lonely enough by half.

But it's more than just that.

I know from personal experience how dependent on emotional and sexual manipulation even the supposedly "Christian" element of all this modern "Conservative" bullshit is. The entire damned point is to get people to turn their brains off, permanently.

After awhile of dealing with this shit, your schwantz ends up being your god.

(Or worse, somebody else's does, which is kind of the problem with the whole Trump thing. Not least 'cause according to Stormy Daniels his ain't that big.)

But it's worse than that, really. At least that idea had the gravitas of Roman fertility cults behind it, I guess??

Obey, Pay, and Pray...it's pretty much the entire point of Prosperity Gospel or Spiritualist Pentecostalism. It's rent-seeking oligarchic capitalism as a religion, with all the distraction build right in.

People are easier to manipulate when they're just a bundle of brain chemicals and urges that's walking around. There's no study or theology, you basically just end up worshiping your own Endorphins after awhile.

Next move is gonna be to try and file the serial numbers off of even that and simply change it to "Trump."

AI Jesus is just a test run to see if they can get away with that crap.

The fact that this is even thought of is why we need an American Reformation.

The people doing this bullshit are not your friends.

And I shouldn't even have to say this but if you think any of these monsters actually believe in Jesus Christ you have another thing coming.

Yeah I get it, historically America  doesn't have that great of a human rights record and overall the history of Christianity is far worse that way.

These fucking Trump people want to match or exceed any of the worst excesses of the past in either case, not because they think they can or think they'll get away with it but because on a very deep level they don't, nor do they believe in anything. And, as much because of that as anything else, these freaks crave destruction.

Not only their own but yours too. They just wanna watch you go first, preferably while enjoying themselves before they get destroyed by the Evil Elder Gods, too.

"Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn." ... "In his house at R'lyeh dead Cthulhu waits dreaming."  ~HP Lovecraft

They know they're shit, being shit is the point, the entire Republican program since at least 1994 (and debatably 1968) has been "Were shit, everything is shit, you suck, everything is terrible, vote for us!"

These fucking people are Hell-bent on living like this!

And they've consistently gotten a large enough plurality of the American electorate to go for this that they're in power as often as not.

In Biblical terms, as Revelation puts it, these people are Worshiping The Dragon...and they're doing it because they think it hurts you, not them.

I don't think that says anything good about our society.

But however bad it is, they wanna make it worse. In fact they think that's their divine right. I think that might be why Republicans like Putin and Russia, because everything sucks there and Russians seem to like it that way so long as they can get drunk and have relative status over somebody.

But this is America, we're supposed to be better than that.

You either believe in freedom or you don't.

And you're either willing to fight for it or you're not.

Слава Україна!

Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins, which took their lamps, and went forth to meet the bridegroom.

And five of them were wise, and five were foolish. They that were foolish took their lamps, and took no oil with them: But the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps.
While the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept.

And at midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him.

Then all those virgins arose, and trimmed their lamps.

And the foolish said unto the wise, Give us of your oil; for our lamps are gone out. But the wise answered, saying, Not so; lest there be not enough for us and you: but go ye rather to them that sell, and buy for yourselves.

And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came; and they that were ready went in with him to the marriage: and the door was shut. Afterward came also the other virgins, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us.

But he answered and said, Verily I say unto you, I know you not.

Watch ye therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh. ~Matthew 25:1-13

Three

When men stop believing in God, it isn't that they then believe in nothing: they believe in everything. ~Umberto Eco

The Virgins Are All Trimming Their Wicks (American Reformation I, Three.)

"It is not enough for me to stand before you tonight and condemn riots. It would be morally irresponsible for me to do that without, at the same time, condemning the contingent, intolerable conditions that exist in our society. These conditions are the things that cause individuals to feel that they have no other alternative than to engage in violent rebellions to get attention. And I must say tonight that a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the negro poor has worsened over the last twelve or fifteen years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice and humanity". ~Martin Luther King Jr.

...

Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins, which took their lamps, and went forth to meet the bridegroom.

And five of them were wise, and five were foolish. They that were foolish took their lamps, and took no oil with them: But the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps.
While the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept.

And at midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him.

Then all those virgins arose, and trimmed their lamps.

And the foolish said unto the wise, Give us of your oil; for our lamps are gone out. But the wise answered, saying, Not so; lest there be not enough for us and you: but go ye rather to them that sell, and buy for yourselves.

And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came; and they that were ready went in with him to the marriage: and the door was shut. Afterward came also the other virgins, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us.

But he answered and said, Verily I say unto you, I know you not.

Watch ye therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh. ~Matthew 25:1-13

The more I see of this shooting in Minneapolis, the more it looks like just straight-up murder.

For no reason, because that ICE "Agent" thug wanted to shoot somebody.

He wanted to murder for amusement, or simply to see if his pistol worked yesterday.

There was a time not so long ago when professions of arms actively sought to weed out people like that as early as possible in the selection process and training pipeline.

Now?? Fox News chuds like Jesse Watters are openly trying to say it's Okay that she got murdered because she was a Lesbian, or because she had a kid from a previous relationship, or because she had "pronouns" in her bio on social media.

Bro, everybody has pronouns, even God.

I don't give a fuck what you think about any of that stuff. This is not right. What part of "Thou Shalt Not Kill" or even "Thou Shalt Not Commit Murder" don't you understand??

I get it, I really do. 

These fucking idiots spank the monkey to the idea of living in a world where Power can do whatever it wants, or kill anybody for any reason, even if it's them because the Meme of Power, the imagination that being "Conservative" and "White" (all of which are social constructs revocable at any time, especially in their kind of world) will somehow "protect" them (but not other people, even other White people) is more important to these ass-clowns than their own shitty lives.

And they're utterly ignorant, by choice, of how shitty that kind of world was for the vast majority of people in it. There's a reason that way of life ended in blood and fire, wars of religion, and Guillotines in the city squares. 

These Fucking People simply don't care because they think they'd either be in or live by sucking up to the "Ruling Class" and they'll get to enjoy themselves in the most debased ways possible before the Revolution kicks in the door.

And that shit is all they really care about.

Also, they figure if they make the world bad enough, Jesus will come back and somehow either "Save" them or be Okay with all the Sins they've committed, or in the worst cases they think they'll get to go to Heaven and you won't.

None of this is Christian or conservative, it is however extremely narcissistic.

This shit is exactly why I say an American Reformation, a fundamental redefinition of how we do religion, is necessary.

Either God is on the Throne or the Self is on the Throne, it cannot be both.

This is all going to blow up, soon. Pick a side.

You either believe in freedom or you don't.

The Virgins are all trimming their wicks.

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There's a man goin' 'round, takin' names
And he decides who to free and who to blame
Everybody won't be treated all the same
There will be a golden ladder reachin' down
… When the man comes around
The hairs on your arm will stand up
At the terror in each sip and in each sup
Will you partake of that last offered cup?
Or disappear into the potter's ground
… When the man comes around?
Hear the trumpets, hear the pipers
One hundred million angels singin'
Multitudes are marchin' to the big kettledrum
Voices callin' and voices cryin'
Some are born and some are dyin'
… Alpha and Omega's kingdom come
And the whirlwind is in the thorn tree
The virgins are all trimmin' their wicks
The whirlwind is in the thorn tree
… It's hard for thee to kick against the pricks.

~Johnny Cash, When The Man Comes Around

Two

Blood that has soaked into the sands of a beach is all of one color. America stands unique in the world: the only country not founded on a race but on a way, an ideal. Not in spite of but because of our polyglot background, we have had all the strength of the world. That is the American way. ~Ronald Reagan