Feeding The Beast (Image Of The Beast, Nine.)

And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.

And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority.
And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast.

And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him?

And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months.

And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme his name, and his tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven.

And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations.

And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.

If any man have an ear, let him hear.

He that leads into captivity shall go into captivity: he that kills with the sword must be killed with the sword. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints.

And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he speaks as a dragon.

And he exercises all the power of the first beast before him, and causes the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed.

And he doeth great wonders, so that he makes fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men,

And deceive them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast; saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live.

And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed.

And he caused all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:

And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.

Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six. ~Revelation 13, King James Bible.

...

[Cassian plays Nemik's audio diary]

Karis Nemik: There will be times when the struggle seems impossible. I know this already. Alone, unsure, dwarfed by the scale of the enemy. Remember this. Freedom is a pure idea. It occurs spontaneously and without instruction. Random acts of insurrection are occurring constantly throughout the galaxy. There are whole armies, battalions that have no idea that they've already enlisted in the cause. Remember that the frontier of the Rebellion is everywhere. And even the smallest act of insurrection pushes our lines forward. And then remember this. The Imperial need for control is so desperate because it is so unnatural. Tyranny requires constant effort. It breaks, it leaks. Authority is brittle. Oppression is the mask of fear. Remember that. And know this, the day will come when all these skirmishes and battles, these moments of defiance will have flooded the banks of the Empire's authority and then there will be one too many. One single thing will break the siege. Remember this. Try. ~From the Star Wars series Andor, S1.E12 "Rix Road."

I want you to stop and think about one verse in particular, Revelation 13:3: "And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death and his deadly wound was healed and all the world wondered after the beast."

And consider that level of adulation probably still wouldn't placate Trump's endless narcissism or salve his infinite ego.

A problem, this is.

I can't even talk the way these fucking people talk anymore; Or maybe I just don't want to.

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.

And it's getting worse.

One of the main reasons it's getting worse is people like this dude, "Pastor" Doug Wilson. He evidently has no religious education, no credentials other than having been a worship director in his Dad's church and he was apparently kicked out from that. Judging from the amount of utterly base misogyny this freak spews, there was likely a woman somewhere in the decision-making chain that got him shit-canned and he blames her rather than his own actions.

Seriously, fuck this guy. He's not a preacher, just a religious narcissist with a bunch of feeble-minded followers, and nothing deserving of even basic respect.

This is the dude that has his followers ritualistically beat their wives after they watch weird porn and shit. I remember telling my partner about this crap back in August and it about made both of us sick. 

I can't even imagine hurting her, nor that she wouldn't immediately swing back, let alone having (or even having the time to have) this damn much of an obsession with male "authority."

Just so we're clear on things I was a conservative Christian Republican in the 1990's. I'm not unfamiliar with the basics of Christian Nationalism although I never signed onto that shit myself, as a conservative, I never wanted to.

That's not what this is. This is the creepy obsessions of some old misogynistic asshole, sanctified.

For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears. ~2 Timothy 4:3

The thing is, I believed in (still do!) America and the Constitution as written. You don't have to like it, but that's as close to Holy Writ as American culture and society will generally allow.

Likewise I believed in the Bible, at the time in a considerably more literal and far less agnostic or historical or theological way than I do now.

And nowhere in that text does it say anything that backs up the weird, very modern politicized bullshit that comes out of Doug Wilson's mouth.

He doesn't believe in Christ, he believes in hierarchy and slavery, and he'd worship and preach for Demons if he thought that's who'd get it for him.

That's the whole bit with Putin and Trump and all this far-right shit; "Conservatives" act like a bunch of criminals all invested in these assholes for no better reason than they think that's "Who can get it for 'em."

It never works out that way, there's no honor among thieves and by the time these fucking guys realize that they've been scammed their money and the dude that took it are usually gone.

I have a feeling that in the case of Trump in particular all that's going to be particularly egregious, America in general and Republicans in particular are gonna end up spending decades clawing back not only the money but the credibility that this dude stole, if our country as a united entity even survives this fucking bullshit.

And I'm gonna be honest, especially in the case of Republicans like Lindsey Graham, I have not the least goddamned bit of sympathy. 

Fuck these people.

Lindsey Graham in particular could have come out of the closet a decade ago, governed accordingly since, while still being a Republican, and I don't think anybody but a few homophobic religious nuts and gay people who won't vote for him anyway would've even cared.

These fucking people have let Trump eat their political movement, their entire philosophy, and hell, he's eaten up who they were as people! What's worse is Trump is still not done and a whole bunch of these narcissistic idiot Billionaires he's enabled are apparently even worse.

If you can't see the Image Of The Beast in the world people like Alex Karp want to build, you ain't looking.

You either believe in freedom or you don't, and if you wanna stop this bullshit, it's going to come down to a fight.

Слава Україна!

Some say finding God is a glorious thing. They're wrong. It's dangerous. You spend your whole life in a world of men. But when you finally see his power, his greatness, other men fall out of view. Because you're so focused on him, you can barely see them from the corners of your eyes. You lose sight of them. 

~Augustus Hill, from the HBO series Oz, S1.E3 "God's Chillin'."

Eight

Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it on to our children in the bloodstream. The only way they can inherit the freedom we have known is if we fight for it, protect it, defend it, and then hand it to them with the well fought lessons of how they in their lifetime must do the same. And if you and I don't do this, then you and I may well spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it once was like in America when men were free. ~Ronald Reagan