Reading Amos In Satan's House (Sick, One.)

 If we lose freedom here, there is no place to escape to. This is the last stand on Earth. And this idea that government is beholden to the people, that it has no other source of power except to sovereign people, is still the newest and most unique idea in all the long history of man's relation to man. This is the issue of this election. Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves. ~Ronald Reagan

...

Hear ye this word which I take up against you, even a lamentation, O house of Israel.
The virgin of Israel is fallen; she shall no more rise: she is forsaken upon her land; there is none to raise her up.
For thus saith the Lord God; The city that went out by a thousand shall leave an hundred, and that which went forth by an hundred shall leave ten, to the house of Israel.
For thus saith the Lord unto the house of Israel, Seek ye me, and ye shall live:
But seek not Bethel, nor enter into Gilgal, and pass not to Beersheba: for Gilgal shall surely go into captivity, and Bethel shall come to naught. Seek the Lord, and ye shall live; lest he break out like fire in the house of Joseph, and devour it, and there be none to quench it in Bethel. ~Amos 5:1-6

I had to work this morning, and I'm not working either of my usual night shifts at work this weekend, of course I'm also going to be working nights all week now, but I'll trade that for getting to sleep at night on a weekend...which I haven't got to do in like a year. That's been alright, it just feels good to have a bit of a change.

Here's the thing, the other night shift guy is in the process of getting fired. When the dude first started, he made a real big deal about being conservative and religious and not being able to work on Sundays, yet strangely (for one of those fucking people these days) he usually didn't want to talk to anybody about any of that kind of stuff...which in a way is odd, because in spite of where I work I've got one or two co-workers who speak of Trump as if he is Jesus. But given my experience of the sullen MAGA's at my last job who got real quiet by about the spring of 2017 I'd say it tracks.

Saw this dude and his...girlfriend, I think...out and about in town a couple weeks ago. He was wearing a worn Trump 2020 hoodie and a crucifix necklace, paying for groceries with an EBT card. I didn't say anything, It's not my right to judge. The last few days, hearing people talk about that guy, though, I've been shocked at how little respect anybody has for him, and by the weirdness of his behavior at work as it's been described to me (I mean, I don't disagree, but I don't know the dude as well as they do, either.) Also where I work is a union shop and per training, even more "Woke" than my last job...I've seen management tolerate far more in the way of shenanigans and do it for a lot longer than would have been the case at the casino. It's...hard...to just fire people, in a way, that's Okay.

He's getting fired for calling in too much...among other things, I sort of gather, but no one will say and I don't want to know. Again, that's...sort of how it's supposed to work.

But...observing some of this stuff the last few days (and nights) made me reflect a bit on how I was taught to conduct myself, I was originally a Baptist and thus I was taught that a certain standard of personal conduct is just expected of anybody claiming to be a Believer. As I was taught it "Avoid even the appearance of Evil" among a bunch of other straight-up bullshit that goes with that. (All too often, actual Evil is fine, so long as it does not appear to be so to those people's sensibilities.)

But, among other things, I was taught one should show up for work and do one's job...and that living off of the State (Welfare, etc.) was shameful.

I served in the Air Force, and rose to the rank of Sergeant. Integrity Above All, Service Before Self, Excellence In All That We Do. These aren't just words to me.

Respect is earned, by every action, every day.

And yeah my examples and experience are anecdotal, blah blah blah. I get that, but it's been my experience that actual hard core MAGA's are a lot more Mike's Hard Lemonade than they are Mike Johnson. (And no, traditional Republicans are never going to win back the narrative. It's just not going to happen. I'm a traditional Republican and I vote Democratic!) There's a lot more "Welfare Check" to these assholes than there is any concern for the health and welfare of the Nation. That's been my experience since the whole mess with my ex-wife. 

In my experience, everything from these fucking people's political conservatism to their disingenuous religiosity is about either getting Man's approval for their shitty beliefs, about fucking over somebody else for no good reason, or about conflict-oriented people having a ready argument to get into. Shit, I've personally seen poor White Trash Pentecostals "testify" that "God blessed them" because they got their child-tax-credit/Earned Income Credit tax refund from XYZ low income job, or this-that-and the other thing via social services. I get it, we need to have that kind of thing...but the way things too often get done in America, those people working the system often means somebody who's legitimately trying to do the right thing didn't get help. (Too often, they didn't even ask.)

It's all a scam, and it's not even a good one. Increasingly all this bullshit seems to be more about hurting people...and trying to find ways to make money off of that...than anything else.

It's a scam that bad actors exploit the fuck out of, especially considering that lots of immigrants and migrants...often/usually People of Color...who may not even be eligible for welfare benefits at all if they're not citizens or haven't been so or been in the country for X amount of time...end up doing those "There will be no call-offs accepted" kind of jobs that the White people just won't do.

(Or, for that matter, it's also the Brown people and the immigrants that are getting the educations that the White People don't want to get...because then the White People would have a harder time believing in Creationism or Q-Anon...and doing the professional jobs, too. All too often, somebody in their family has to bust their ass and they have to get the grades or the kid has to serve in the military and get GI Bill benefits to even make that possible, also.)

It starts to fall apart if you even demand a plausible lie.

Trust me, if there were "Massive caravans" of migrants...the "NO CALL OFFS ACCEPTED" employers cannot wait for them to get here, or to exploit their labor.

And the tweaked-out poor White schmuck with the food card and the mix of conspiracy theories and faux-populist "Conservative" beliefs who's sitting on their couch watching FOX News can't wait for them to get here either, so they have someone to hate.

White Americans, and some others of us lately, demand that others do the work of life, maintain the engines of Capitalism and keep America going and then we have the balls to resent both Capitalism and those people for it? Worse, then demand to be able to discriminate against and persecute those people?

How the hell does that make any sense??

One of these things is not like the other one, but you can't make people see that.

Lots of Americans are bored and debased, and when they were faced with exactly the kind of existential crisis...in the form of COVID-19...that their alleged boredom basically asked for...too many people threw tantrums and refused to give a shit about anybody else at all. 

If you think civil war or half of America falling to fascism or any other goddamn thing is going to work out any differently, you have another thing coming.

We are, fundamentally, a Sick society.

Look at the economy, even by the simple metrics the "Conservatives" claim to go by like gas prices, we're doing really good right now...I'm certainly doing better than I was during the Trump years and I don't have quite as good of a job right now, Union or no Union. I absolutely have a feeling that a majority of us will...sullenly, perhaps, but we'll do it...vote for Joe Biden next November.

The thing is, at least a quarter of the population simply does not want to be a part of that economy or this society...no matter how well it's doing. So that's very likely when it's gonna go down.

We're headed for some kind of a crackup, for our own bloody "Two state solution" and it's not going to go how MAGA thinks it will. Despite their own beliefs in a kind of American Israelism and Manifest Destiny, etc. They're going to be the ones with the banana republic equivalents to the Gaza Strip and West Bank...but they'll build their own wall, and think they're coming out ahead. I have a feeling that, ideologically at least, fascism won't even begin to describe it. Imagine a Social Credit system designed by Christopher Rufo and Stephen Miller.

More to the point, and I know a lot of people probably won't like me saying this but a hell of a lot of liberals and moderate/remaining conservatives and "Nones" will be like "Bye, Hoe, see you later!"

And as for the part that does fall into fascism...don't expect these fucking people will show up for work for that shit, either. 

And when the ever-hungry ghouls like Stephen Miller make not showing up for your new-and-downgraded Fascist-approved No Call Offs Accepted job into some level of offense that the bullies and the bastards can eventually throw people into death camps for...the people who want to sit on the couch in their MAGA hat and smoke weed all day will get feasted on by the ghouls, too...and they will die in numbers too terrible to contemplate, and those who don't get eaten by the ghouls will laugh about it. It'll be the level of soup sandwich that'll make Russia look like Iceland.

Will they care? 

The evidence (again mostly from the COVID-19 pandemic) suggests not. It suggests that these fucking people believe so strongly in their shitty ideologies that if nobody else volunteers and they can't legally find somebody else to throw into the volcano to appease their shitty vengeful little gods and are denied the nonjudicial means to do it to somebody else...they'll sacrifice themselves.

And will they even think about it??

I honestly don't think so, No. That's what their ideology is. In fact, the fascist politicians and "No Call Offs" corporate types will likely find a way to profit off of mass homicide of their "Anal Glaucoma" (Can't see their ass coming to work) base. And that kind of scares me, because sooner or later the world isn't going to be able to ignore it and somebody's kids are going to have to pick up rifles and go to war to stop the "Killing Fields with a Mall" bullshit. And yes, somebody's gonna have to.

I don't even want to consider the level of PTSD and soul-scarring pain (plus the "normal"-as if it's not a travesty to use such a word here-horrors of war) that will result from that.

That's where we're headed, unless we start addressing this sickness within ourselves and getting a grip, because the bad guys here are just plain Evil and they don't even care whether they appear to be so or not. Their mob is hooting and hollering and baying for blood all the same, probably even more now that it's all out in the open.

They don't care about making the world better, even for themselves.

You want a better nation? You have to be a better citizen.

And this? This is Unsat, period.

Me? I'm just tired of reading Amos in Satan's House. Either you believe in right and wrong or you don't.

"The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride."

~Volodymyr Zelenskyy, allegedly 25 February 2022, Associated Press

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Ye who turn judgment to wormwood, and leave off righteousness in the earth,

Seek him that maketh the seven stars and Orion, and turneth the shadow of death into the morning, and maketh the day dark with night: that calleth for the waters of the sea, and poureth them out upon the face of the earth: The Lord is his name: ~Amos 5:7-8

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The martyrs of history were not fools, and our honored dead who gave their lives to stop the advance of the Nazis didn't die in vain. Where, then, is the road to peace? Well, it's a simple answer after all. You and I have the courage to say to our enemies, "There is a price we will not pay." There is a point beyond which they must not advance. This is the meaning in the phrase of Barry Goldwater's "peace through strength." Winston Churchill said that "the destiny of man is not measured by material computation. When great forces are on the move in the world, we learn we are spirits — not animals." And he said, "There is something going on in time and space, and beyond time and space, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty. ~Ronald Reagan

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Series based on the theme, too.

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