God Damn It, White People (American Revelation XV, Eight.)

You were just babies then!" she said.
"What?" I said.
"You were just babies in the war— like the ones upstairs!"
I nodded that this was true. We had been foolish virgins in the war, right at the end of childhood.
"But you're not going to write it that way, are you." This wasn't a question. It was an accusation.
"I — I don't know," I said.
"Well I know," she said. "You'll pretend you were men instead of babies, and you'll be portrayed in the movies by Frank Sinatra and John Wayne or some of those other glamorous, war-loving, dirty old men. And war will look just wonderful, so we'll have a lot more of them. And they'll be fought by babies like the babies upstairs." So then I understood. It was war that made her so angry. She didn't want her babies or anybody else's babies killed in wars. And she thought wars were partly encouraged by books and movies.
So I held up my right hand and I made her a promise: "Mary," I said, "I don't think this book of mine is ever going to be finished. I must have written five thousand pages by now, and thrown them all away. If I ever do finish it, though, I give you my word of honor: there won't be a part for Frank Sinatra or John Wayne.
"I tell you what," I said, "I'll call it The Children's Crusade." She was my friend after that.

~From the novel Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut

...

"The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride." ~Volodymyr Zelenskyy, allegedly 25 February 2022, Associated Press

So evidently there's a "Protest convoy" headed to the southern Border and they're calling themselves the "Army Of God."

Hold on, now. This bullshit has not one damn thing to do with God (or at least, the Christian God, in any Biblical sense.) 

If it did, Why would these people have any problem with Latino migrants who are *Checks Notes* overwhelmingly Christian??

Considering that more of the migrants are from smaller Central American countries like El Salvador and Guatemala these days, and at least a solid plurality of them are Protestant (i.e. the same denominations that most of these White People allegedly follow) with a better chance than average of ending up on the conservative side of things, should they become American citizens...you'd think that would be Okay, that they come here, right?? 

What's wrong with (Hispanic) Bible-thumpers and likely future Republican voters, after all??

(But that's what you'd get for actually thinking. Also, none of this is really about any of that, and you know it as well as I do. These fucking people could give a shit about Christianity or conservatism as either has ever been traditionally understood. I'm serious.)

In fact, their entire belief system is really centered on conflict with some bad-faith, bullshit idea of "Liberalism" that exists only in their own heads. (And by the way, what that was 20 years ago isn't what it is now, so I just find all this crap confusing and contradictory as fuck.)

They see anything that's not centered on them, on their dismissal of civilization and society, their ideas of racial purity and relative status, and their petty, small-minded egomaniac of a God (or anything that suggests people have a right to not have to listen to their bullshit) as self-evidently bad no matter what it actually does, or is.

In their minds, Christians who are from other countries or who aren't White just aren't Christians, and conservatives from other countries sure as hell aren't Conservatives...unless they're Putin-worshiping far-rightists...no matter how big of a deal they make of signing onto American-style "Conservative" political and social priorities. 

You know, Like Nayib Bukele, the President of El Salvador, has done. Motherfucker built the world's biggest prison, made Bitcoin a co-official currency (along with the US Dollar) has used the Salvadoran military in an anti-gang crackdown and in general makes a big deal of doing Trump-style edge-lord type of stuff (and for all that, he's massively popular in his own country and less-popular but still well-regarded throughout Latin America. Even Latin American liberals have initiated smaller-scale, less-militant but still similar anti-crime policies. I'm not making a value judgment here, it's simply what is.) 

But American "Conservatives" could give an absolute shit about him. and don't even seem to notice that he exists most of the time. 

Until he's beefing with a Democratic congresswoman from California, anyway...and then he's promptly forgotten about again.

And that, right there, is a tell.

Also for a more historical example, see Stephen Harper, Conservative former Prime Minister of Canada, dude basically tried too hard to be the Maple-Leaf George W. Bush and most of our Republicans didn't even notice.

And increasingly, these fucking people don't see anything less than constant Rush Limbaugh-style crap and endless conspiracy theory bullshit as even "American."

Hell, even Trump has run afoul of this and gotten booed by his own people for not being nuts enough (like when he said that vaccines work at a rally in 2020.)

These fucking people are basically outright saying they want to kill or enslave everybody else in America, and they think their "Macho White Dudes With Guns" bit will somehow be sufficient for this, they think they've got some kind of magical mojo that nobody else has or some shit...but none of this actually works that way, and when it comes down to a fight, these fucking people are going to lose.

I mean, shit, these motherfuckers couldn't handle nor react properly to something as simple as a virus...what makes them think they'll even be able to fight the United States Armed Forces??

How many of them will surrender when they find out you can't get no Wi-Fi in the field, or the power's out because of a drone strike, or they're hungry and mad because food has to be rationed (and they're too lazy to grow their own or do any of the logical stuff to supplement that.) This will happen on both sides, but it'll be worse on theirs.

But these people, along with complicit media and Russian propaganda, will spin images of military defeat, of the glorious "Army of God" degenerating into a debased right-wing insurgency and ultimately into mere criminality...as some kind of war against Yankee Colonialism in Texas.

And when a negotiated settlement means they get a banana republic somewhere, when cheap Chinese crap and Russian Oligarch-money pours into it to restore the conveniences of the right-wing Petit Bourgeoise (but not anybody else who's there) they'll call it a win, and spend however long they can get away with basically jacking off their egos and trying to reinvent the wheel in terms of government. Think of it as the Tesla Cyber-Truck of countries, and the results will suck exactly that much.

But Whypipo can get a haircut during a pandemic there, so it'll be Okay.

And yes, as I've said, the failure to deal with this crap is going to be entirely political. Anything they ever get will result from a negotiated settlement, and the reason that will happen is Republicans (or at least, the ones who remain seated at the negotiating table) will ultimately roll over for a radicalized, secessionist voter base. And Democrats (especially their safe Blue State voters) will ultimately see the opportunity to give these fucking people the finger and tell them "Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out." Too few of our own leaders will have the guts to point out, that letting these people have their way somewhere is a bad idea. To his credit, Joe Biden is probably one of the people with the guts to do exactly that.

But how many liberals have been willing to give Joe the finger over far less??

There's no way this doesn't degenerate into a Bosnia-style ethnic conflict somewhere. There's no way this doesn't ultimately make everything worse, everywhere. (And that's the idea.)

And there's literally no way, along the way, that "Armies of God" don't engage in the kind of atrocities that would shame the damned Devil.

Not least because the political and social accelerant that's brought us to this point is Donald Trump.

And either he, or his sons, when he is no longer with us...will demand some kind of bullshit "Jihad" in his name...and one hell of a lot of White People have made Trump their entire identity. People keep trying to say that conservatives are getting more conservative...but by the metrics I was taught, no. I'm not seeing it.

They keep doubling down on their current self-destructive path, though. That ain't the same thing.

Goddamn it, White People.

We as a people have the right to say "No" to all this crap.

Whether we, collectively, have the force of personality and the moral authority to tell these fucking people to sit down and shut up, and the will to make them do it, let alone are willing to expend the effort to make these people give a shit again??

That's an entirely different question.

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

Слава Україна!

My black face fades,
hiding inside the black granite.
I said I wouldn't
dammit: No tears.
I'm stone. I'm flesh.
My clouded reflection eyes me
like a bird of prey, the profile of night slanted against morning.

I turn this way—the stone lets me go.
I turn that way—I'm inside
the Vietnam Veterans Memorial
again, depending on the light
to make a difference.
I go down the 58,022 names,
half-expecting to find
my own in letters like smoke.

I touch the name Andrew Johnson; I see the booby trap's white flash.
Names shimmer on a woman's blouse
but when she walks away
the names stay on the wall.
Brushstrokes flash, a red bird's
wings cutting across my stare.
The sky. A plane in the sky.
A white vet's image floats
closer to me, then his pale eyes
look through mine. I'm a window.
He's lost his right arm
inside the stone. In the black mirror
a woman’s trying to erase names:
No, she's brushing a boy's hair.

~Facing It, by Yusef Komunyakaa, US Army Veteran

Seven

Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple.  “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written: “‘He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.”

Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’

~Matthew 4:5-7