Forever War (Reason For The Season 2025, Two.)

 And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed. (And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.) And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; (because he was of the house and lineage of David:) To be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child. And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered.

And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn. And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.
For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.
And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men. ~Luke 2:1-14

...

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

...

[At the Maltheen Divide, Director Krennic convenes an off-the-books conference of Imperial officers and Ghorman government officials]'

Director Orson Krennic: No notes. No records. None of you were ever here. Nobody puts this in their calendar. All service and transport droids will be data-wiped once we're done. Your colleagues, superiors? If they're not in this room, they're not cleared for the project. Colonel Yularen, Governor Tarkin? All senior commanders will be notified by the Emperor at the time of his choosing. Now, the group in this room is, as of this moment, the tightest of closed circles. Any security violation will be brought to the Emperor's personal attention.

[A tourist film about Ghorman has been shown at Director Krennic's secret conference]

Director Orson Krennic: I doubt anyone here is unaware of the difficulties we've had making the Emperor's dream of energy independence [Cover story for the Death Star] a reality. Now, I hear the rumors. I know the stories. Delays. Setbacks. Groveling for Senate funding. I met with the Emperor yesterday. And he suggested, I remind you that the Energy Initiative remains the centerpiece of his agenda. Access to stable, unlimited power will transform the galactic economy and solidify Imperial authority. And it turns out, spiders are not the most unique thing in Ghorman. There's a mineral underground. Doctor?

Imperial Science Officer: Deep substrate foliated Kalkite.

Krennic: Kalkite. Synthetic Kalkite. Kalkite alternatives. Kalkite substitutes. I mean, the amount of time spent pondering this grubby little bit of rock is sadly astonishing. Now, we've promised delivery in three years. That delivery is dependent on some version of Ghorman Kalkite to coat the reactor lenses. Now... should we fail to find any alternatives, we will have to control Ghorman with a hand firm enough... to silence... any resistance, and you've been selected to help plan for that possibility. ~From the Star Wars series Andor, S2.E1 "One Year Later."

I kept seeing this type of shit yesterday.

There's a "WAR" (!!!) On Christmas.

It's Thanksgiving, Nobody's Welcome, Fuck You. Get Out.

WHY DOES NOBODY LOVE ME?!?!?! 

Note it was the Same Fucking People saying or implying all three of these things.

Every fucking time.

Well, if nobody likes you or wants to associate with you, have you tried not being an asshole??

Or maybe, you could try welcoming other people, in the hope that there'll be somebody who doesn't mind that you're an asshole, or who is a similar asshole??

Nah, that would be too hard, I guess.

Same old shit.

Basically anything but "Do what Jesus actually said" or "Love Thy Neighbor."

What's even the point of Christmas (or Thanksgiving?) If it's just one more thing to fight about??

And aren't these the "Family Values" people?

I mean I guess?? If you're the drunk uncle at the table whose only "Values" are being an asshole, conflict, and narcissism.

"Conservatives" in America are a total soup sandwich and cannot stop contradicting themselves.

Note I say this as a former conservative.

The only thing that matters to these idiots is bigotry, gatekeeping, and themselves.

These morons basically think of America (and Whiteness and increasingly, Masculinity for that matter) as their HOA.

One in which they do not want any new people.

Like especially with this time of year, which is supposed to be about shared joy, how does that even work??

(And then they wonder why increasingly fewer people want any part of all this??)

They're going to gatekeep both themselves and America right out of existence. 

Not only because they're stripping all meaning away from what it means to be an American. But also because they literally do not seem to believe that there should be such a thing as future generations. Or at least, not nobody who doesn't fit their exceedingly narrow view of what it is to be a person and subscribe on a paid basis to their joyless worldview.

I mean what else is it, really, when they describe "Patriotism" or religion, let alone religious "revival" solely in terms of buying shit??

By that metric, Christmas is winning the war on Christmas, despite the fact that Halloween refuses to surrender it's already well up into September.

Fuck this for-profit Forever War on Christmas bullshit!

Capitalism isn't what Christmas is supposed to be for.

If that's what it is, what's even the damn point?? Some of us have families to help support now and can't afford (and don't actually need or want) to buy a new device every fuckin' year. We have no interest in buying shit just for the hell of it.

What about those of us who don't measure our spirituality how much money we spend or in Podcast downloads?

OR who don't set our metrics based on consumerism, hate, and pornography??

It's in fact, a view and interpretation of personhood that before it's all over narrows out to exclude basically everybody but themselves...on an individual basis.

How's that even work??

Who dafuq wants to be a Society Of One?

I mean, even being happy with what one has seems extremely foreign to these motherfuckers.

So naturally, given their dumb shit obsession with ever more endless bigotry, exclusivism, objectification and reductive stupidity, of course they're gonna port that over into their relationships sooner or later.

Good luck with that.

I mean, I've only ever been told for my entire life "Don't be that guy who only thinks about sex."

And that people who talked or thought like that were crude, debased and Sinful and should not be allowed to be around the women in your life.

And last I knew, that was the conservative point of view.

Here's Nick Fuentes saying the only thing women are good for is Sex.

You know, I got beat up by a girl for saying less-shitty things than that *Checks Notes* 40 years ago. And I deserved it. 

I got in trouble, she didn't.

But ya know, that's back when the world made sense.

You can take a lot of things away from a man. Cigarettes, the gym. You can take his freedom, his legs, but not his feelings. Not his feelings. A man loves a woman. Don't matter what kind of man he is, if he loves her, he wants her. He wants her body. He wants her to want his. So you say to him, "you can never make love again. You will never touch her in that way again. This is the last time. The last time. Forever." If that's not cruel and unusual punishment, I don't know what is. ~Augustus Hill, from the HBO series Oz, S1.E2 "Visits, Conjugal and otherwise."

It's not even that all these motherfuckers don't like women, or LGBT folk, or whatever. It's that they LOVE NO ONE but themselves.

And then, even in the thrall of their selfish-as-fuck narcissism, they have the balls to wonder why they are lonely.

Not lonely enough yet, I think.

In spite of the fact that every last one of these idiots thinks they wanna be the last man standing, literally.

And of course the whole point of all this garbage in the first place is distraction while they strip America and as much of the rest of the world as they can for parts and (more importantly) for narcissistic fuel.

Nobody acts more like they know the Bible is all crap and lies and that they know there Is No God than the "Conservative" Christians do at this point.

What Nick Fuentes and Stephen Miller and Trump and War On Christmas random dude want isn't Christianity, it's Criminality with a huge heaping side-dish of Narcissism. Even the White Supremacy is only a means to an end, that end being Themselves.

Because they're White.

If they were something else the ideology would be different but still joyless.

Think Putinism or Soviet Communism, not that there's much of a difference, really.

And with that in mind, they want to demand that you celebrate Christmas in a fashion they approve of??

Yeah, fuck it, let's all be miserable shits like Republicans worship the idea of being.

And they can't even imagine that anybody else would really want to do anything different.

Like, their whole attitude is they hate everybody and everything, including themselves.

Praise Jesus.

How much fun does that sound, really??

I'm honestly surprised they're not demanding people put up Golden Idols for Christmas this year.

Maybe we should stop letting conflict-oriented narcissists and greedy capitalist Republicans and various joyless political and religious fanatics who believe WAR is the natural state of Man define the terms and just tell these fucking people to go fuck themselves?

Just sayin.'

Peace and love and yes, inclusion are supposed to be the reasons for the season.

Jesus wasn't born rich in a palace.

Jesus didn't preach exclusion and hate and try to turn every occasion into a fight.

Remember that.

If Christmas is just one more thing to fight about, let alone a scam for you to steal while getting other people to fight about it or some social status thing...you're already damned.

So yeah, just keep feeling special or making money or racking up imaginary culture war points.

See how far that gets you in the afterlife.

Christmas is supposed to be about Christ and love and family, not the Greater Glory of You.

Either you believe in freedom--for all people--or you don't.

Слава Україна!

I don't preach a social Gospel I preach the Gospel, period. The gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ is concerned for the whole person. When people were hungry, Jesus didn't say, "Now is that political or social?" He said, "I feed you." Because the good news to a hungry person is bread. ~Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

One

Come, they told me, pa rum pum pum pum 

A newborn King to see, pa rum pum pum pum 

Our finest gifts we bring, pa rum pum pum pum 

To lay before the King, pa rum pum pum pum 

Rum pum pum pum, rum pum pum pum. 

So to honor Him, pa rum pum pum pum 

When we come.

Little baby, pa rum pum pum pum 

I am a poor boy too, pa rum pum pum pum 

I have no gift to bring, pa rum pum pum pum 

That’s fit to give a King, pa rum pum pum pum 

Rum pum pum pum, rum pum pum pum. 

Shall I play for you, pa rum pum pum pum 

On my drum? Mary nodded, pa rum pum pum pum 

The ox and lamb kept time, pa rum pum pum pum 

I played my drum for Him, pa rum pum pum pum 

I played my best for Him, pa rum pum pum pum 

Rum pum pum pum, rum pum pum pum. 

Then He smiled at me, pa rum pum pum pum,

Me and my drum.

~The Little Drummer Boy, Christmas Carol.