Babylon (Where the hell are we? Three.)

Thou, O king, saw, and behold a great image. This great image, whose brightness was excellent, stood before thee; and the form thereof was terrible.
This image's head was of fine gold, his breast and his arms of silver, his belly and his thighs of brass,
His legs of iron, his feet part of iron and part of clay.
Thou saw that a stone was cut out without hands, which smote the image upon his feet that were of iron and clay, and brake them to pieces.
Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, broken to pieces together, and became like the chaff of the summer threshing floors; and the wind carried them away, that no place was found for them: and the stone that smote the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth. ~Daniel 2:31-35 (Link)

I just saw this.

Picture from the Trump rally in PA over the weekend, with a whole bunch of Trump supporters showing a raised middle finger to something-or-other.

In case you wondered what the whole damn point of all this stupid bullshit for all these years now has been. The most important fucking thing to these fucking people is that they be able to stick their middle finger up at the whole damned world, and more importantly, that they be seen doing it.

This is why they put up with whacked-out loons like Mike Lindell, or perverted elitists like Mehmet Oz or why they're willing to let Donald Trump sell nuclear secrets or try to break America apart, so that he can sell whatever pieces of it he ends up controlling for parts and a couple of $10 Crack rocks for Junior.

Because the whole goddamned point, to these fucking idiots, is being able to say "Fuck you" to somebody. And it's telling that even with the "cover" of somebody like Donald Trump, most of these cowardly shits don't have the guts to actually swear. 

Do you think, if somebody invaded the United States, that these fucking people would fight for their country like the Ukrainians are doing?

Shit, if we got invaded by the Russians half of these motherfuckers would try to join the enemy, and when they got thrown into Gulags for resettlement and russification they'd cower before their jailers and obediently start trying to learn Russian.

And if they got to see some Black person or gay person get murdered by Putin's neo-Communist Chekists, they'd cackle in simpering glee.

Because it's not the Russians they hate, it's other Americans who have different beliefs or opinions, or who are of different races or religions.

Apparently, these fucking people have been having a fit because the new Lord Of The Rings has Black characters...and why wouldn't it? Tolkien wrote of a fairly diverse world. If there's elves and hobbits and orcs and shit, why wouldn't there be people of different colors?

Seriously, these fucking people have the balls to wonder why others consider them uncivilized...and then they demand the right to sort humans by color?? And there is no damned difference other than skin color.

All these Republicans ranting about "Crime?" They don't give a good goddamn that Trump stole nuclear secrets and just left that shit laying around. When they say "Crime" they mean "Lord Of The Rings has Black People." 

And they've come to hate America because Americans decided that it was wrong to discriminate or hurt people for no reason other than the color of their skin. That's what Republicans mean when they rant about "Crime" or "The Border." 

There's no crisis. The "Crisis" is that Republicans have become the party of White Superiority if not White Supremacy and they see their chances of having that being eroded simply by the fact that so many of us are simply used to dealing fairly with other people, not on some basis of novelty but simply because they're people and why should they be treated as anything else? 

Fuck these motherfuckers.

Some idiot federal judge in Texas ruled that companies shouldn't have to pay for anti-AIDS drugs if it offends their "religious beliefs."

Now hold the fuck on.

I study this stuff, and I don't know of any religion that says disease should be allowed to spread unchecked.

Except maybe for Dr. Oz's assorted woo woo New Age beliefs...and hold on, this guy's a Republican?

I can remember when Republicans thought that shit was The Devil.

Yes, I understand that some of these idiots still think HIV/AIDS is some kind of "gay disease" but it's not, and in fact globally it never was that. HIV/AIDS is not even exclusively a sexually transmitted disease. That's why things like bloodborne pathogen training are a big deal most places now.

People who hate and fear other people for no reason, or for stupid reasons, should not be allowed to be in government. People who hate and fear science or sexuality should not be allowed to be in government. People who believe in and seek to profit from woo woo bullshit definitely shouldn't be allowed in government.

Government of, by, and for the people cannot be based on what's good only for one financial clade, or group or ideology let alone someone's ego, and it has to be based on what's real, in good faith, or it's not going to work.

And perhaps more to the point, Republicans don't want anything to work, unless they're the only ones who benefit from it.

People keep calling these motherfuckers 'Fascists' but that's not quite right. Fascism is based on the power of the State, and Republicans want to destroy the State if they cannot have complete, totalitarian control over it. Their desired methods may be fascistic, but that doesn't tell the whole story.

What they desire is worship of the Self, not the State.

They think the State...or for that matter their "god"... should only exist to be used as a club to beat the people they hate.

And every last one of these fucking people thinks they're the center of the goddamned universe.

Chuck Colson called it an idolatry of self and selfishness.

And they would break America to pieces, collapse it to an anarchy, a failed state, in the service of their own vainglory.

I found it telling, awhile back, when the "Christians" started trying to cast Trump as some sort of modern Nebuchadnezzar, based off of how that ancient Babylonian king is portrayed in the Bible.

They didn't really believe that Trump was some sort of unbeliever being used by God. No, that would require believing in God themselves...rather than "God" simply being something they talk about so people will think they're righteous. 

They idolize Trump because they want to be him. So these people were telling on themselves with that Biblical comparison. They all want to be that ancient, vain Babylonian god-king who could have all the wise men killed when they didn't tell him what he wanted to hear.

It must be a hell of a way to live, this Babylon Of The Self.

And what do you think is going to happen when Trump gets indicted and charged and put on trial, or when Republicans get their ass handed to them in the next election by a pissed-off public or reality otherwise continues to refuse to cater to these idiots and their delusions?? We're already dealing with mass psychosis.

What the fuck happens when a quarter of the country has a mass psychotic break?

Don't be these fucking people.

Two

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

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House Of Bondage (Where the hell are we? Two.)

I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.
Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.
Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; ~Exodus 20:2-5

I saw this last night.

Nick Adams said that Mar-A-Lago is "Sacred hallowed ground" and that the FBI should not be able to raid any Trump properties.

Excuse me? As a former President, Donald Trump is a private citizen, he's subject to the law the same as everybody else. Listen here, bitch, I know enough about how they do things in Australia to know it's the same way there. If anything, probably more so than it is in America.

I looked it up. This motherfucker is here because he got kicked out of Australian politics for bad behavior and corruption, and was apparently told to leave the country. So of course he's going to be a boot-licking cultist to anybody who'll let him in the game pretty much anywhere and I suppose sucking Trump's withered old balls (in his mind anyway) beats being an advisor to the king of Tonga.

(Actually, I'm fairly sure the first time he called a golf course sacred ground in Tonga, Nick would get fired, likely arrested and probably laughed at. Tonga is such a Christian country that the airport is closed on Sunday. Also I've met people from there, they don't fuck around.)

Nick is another one of those people who nobody would know who he was if it wasn't for Trump.

So of course he'll bow down before the Golden Toilet.

Apparently he thinks it beats having to get a real job. I mean, I wouldn't hire this moron to shovel shit, but there you have it.

Now, look here:

If you're a Christian and you want to go straight to hell, listen to these fucking people.

Mar-A-Lago isn't a goddamned sacred space or hallowed ground, it's a golf club!

Donald Trump isn't some divine figure. Love him or hate him, he's just a man. Donald Trump is not a god. Man cannot Save Man, only God can do that, if you really believe in that sort of thing you shouldn't have to have this explained to you.

The Bible says that God created the Earth in six days. Donald Trump created a cult by calling Mexicans rapists. One of these things is not like the other one. Fuck you. That spell it out for you or do I have to use smaller words?

Seriously what the hell kind of stupid, weak ass person looks at a loser like Donald Trump and then says "There's my God, yo. I want to bet my soul on that guy." I mean, seriously??

I mean, come on, the core basis of Christianity (and of the other Abrahamic religions) is belief in the God of Abraham and being sorry for your sins. Love thy neighbor as thyself and love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, all thy soul and all thy might. That seems pretty simple to me. The Jews basically say "Keep the ten commandments and you're good, bro." The Muslims likewise say that if you believe in God and the Last Day you will see Paradise.

Likewise, Buddhism pretty much boils down to practicing kindness and right action.

I mean, really, that's most religions. Seems like that's fairly easy to me.

As opposed to "Unga Bunga Own The Libs devote my entire existence to fueling this narcissistic asshole and hating basically everything??"

Sooner or later these Trump idiots are going to start burning themselves out and destroying themselves, oh, wait, the Republican Party is doing that already.

It's become a cult, and it's headed for a Jonestown moment or Kamikaze-ing itself for it's "God-emperor" probably sooner, rather than later.

These fucking people don't want a President, they want a Pharaoh, some ridiculous looking god-king that fucks his own relatives. They don't want a free country, they want the house of bondage, because they think they'll get to be a better class of slaves than all the other slaves.

And they don't want the Creator of the Infinite Universe and an afterlife of eternal wonder, they want a god and an afterlife that's small and mean, like them.

Seriously if your idea of a blessed afterlife is to have to sit there and praise Donald Trump for all of eternity, you're an idiot.

Don't be these fucking people. Is that really so hard?

So, folks, let’s remember who in God’s name we are — I really mean it — what our values are, what we believe.

“We the People” — that how our Constitution starts — or the Declaration. “We the People.” It’s who we are.

And, by the way, no one expects politics to be a pattycake. It sometimes gets mean as hell. But the idea you turn on a television and see senior senators and congressmen saying, “If such and such happens, there’ll be blood in the street.”

Where the hell are we?

~Joe Biden

One

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Feet Of Clay. (Where the hell are we? One.)

So, folks, let’s remember who in God’s name we are — I really mean it — what our values are, what we believe.

“We the People” — that how our Constitution starts — or the Declaration. “We the People.” It’s who we are.

And, by the way, no one expects politics to be a pattycake. It sometimes gets mean as hell. But the idea you turn on a television and see senior senators and congressmen saying, “If such and such happens, there’ll be blood in the street.”

Where the hell are we?

~Joe Biden

Last night, President Biden gave a speech calling Republicans out for their shitty, fascistic behavior, for, basically everything.

And all these fucking capering, simpering fascists who've been counting on everybody to continue to politely ignore their fascism lost their shit.

Good.

Maybe it's just me, but if you don't want to be called out for being a fascist, don't be one??

I mean, the absolute butthurt from people like Lauren Boebert, who Tweeted "This is 1776" on January 6th, 2021, has been absolutely off the hook.

Again, maybe it's just me but if you're going to play at being some kind of fascist revolutionary (While trying to act like you're an Instagram star) maybe you should expect some level of resistance or retaliation? That's the thing that gets me about these idiots. 

They want to play at all this stuff, talk all tough, even call themselves "Domestic Terrorists" in private because it feels smart and transgressive. But if somebody calls them out for it they get all soggy and hard to light and need to go cry on their Waifu pillows?

I mean, what the fuck??

Given her actual demonstrated maturity level, Lauren Boebert damned well needs a lecture, and to be sat down and given a good talking to, a smack in the mouth, and being told to go stand with her nose in the corner for a couple hours.

This person is nothing more than an overgrown, bratty child who thinks bullshitting her way into Congress makes her some kind of celebrity. You ask me, bitch should be forced to actually complete high school and a couple years of community college...and do it with a decent grade-point average...before being allowed to continue to participate in public life.

It's not so much the lack of proper education, though, as the utter dedication to willful ignorance that's the problem, in her case. I've honestly known a number of people from here in America as well as around the world who lack much formal education at all but are very intelligent, because they applied themselves.

Hoebert doesn't want to do that, for the simple reason that she's afraid she might have to change.

Which is really, modern conservatism in a nutshell. They pretend like bombs and bullets are nothing to worry about but show a ravening fear of the existence of Black folks, LGBT people and Muslims?

Bitch if you're afraid of the fact that a transgender person is alive and free (and not doing anything to hurt you) you're going to shit yourself when you find out that the United States Air Force can whack your ass with a drone and an AGM-114 Hellfire Missile that shoots knives.

I mean, seriously??

If you're going to try to overthrow the government, or install some sort of fascist regime, doesn't that require...I don't know...a modicum of courage?? 

If you're going to try and be some kind of 21st century Nazis, don't you think you should expect to get bloody and dirty and have people hate you or talk shit about you??

American fascism will be defeated by the fact that, instead of focusing on the titillating minor details of the latest scandal, We The People, including a large group of disgusted military veterans who've held security clearances...focused on what was actually fucking happening.

We don't care that Trump was using top secret documents as, basically jerkoff porn...but that he had them in the first fucking place.

Like, I get that a lot of this Republican fascist stuff has been shaped by decades of comment sections and internet contrarianism and cosplay but...Jesus...you want this fascist bullshit, you're going to have to come out from behind the keyboard or the desk or the comfortable anonymity of monetary policy and fight sooner or later...and no, you can't rely on the cops to do it for you, that's literally the opposite of the military's job and as far as all these wannabe militias go...LOL. 

Gilead will be defeated by the lack of blood pressure medications, and the unsuitability of the people who need them to functioning as light infantry.

And another thing, if "Conservatives" are so right, or so righteous, why does Jeanine Pirro always look like she's drunk? I'm sorry but if somebody who's always half in the bag starts talking at me about "Violent retaliation" well, I've got a few things for that. But you ain't going to like it.

This fascist movement is full of gun nuts who don't know how to shoot, right-wing policy wonks who can't organize a two-car motorcade, shit-talking tough guys who can't fight, and a whole bunch of various "leaders" who couldn't lead a toddler to the bathroom.

And these fucking idiots want to threaten the rest of us?

Fuck You!

Seriously, if These Fucking People come at the rest of us at this point, there's going to be blood in the streets, alright.

Theirs.

These fucking people have taken the tolerance of the rest of us and their decreasing ability to game the system as evidence of their own toughness and political acumen, and confused the ability to stockpile large amounts of civilian grade weapons with some kind of military strength.

If y'all want to come out and fight the rest of us, fine. I know how to use a rifle well enough, they taught me that in the Air Force and I learned it from my Dad before that.

But maybe first you fuckers might want to practice "Not melting down in the presence of harsh language" or "Avoiding feeling guilty when somebody points out what you've done. Whatever else it is, conservatives, war IS a serious business. It's not a game, or for fun or profit. People die, and civil wars in particular tend to be a really dirty, nasty business.

Oh, all the Lost Cause romanticists who propped up Confederate sympathies and southern Segregation for a hundred years didn't tell you that part, did they?

If you want a better country, you have to be a better citizen. You. 

Somebody like Donald Trump sure as hell ain't going to get it for ya. Republicans won't do it, but they'll sure help themselves to your Medicare, your Social Security, your wages, and your young daughter, won't they? And then they'll get some preacher to call that shit "Righteousness."

People need to grow the fuck up.

I've looked across a field that was nothing but mass graves.

I've seen that perpetually haunted look in the eyes of a Bosniak Muslim woman who was the victim of Serb rape camps.

This is the world some "Conservatives" have decided that they want, the Killing Fields, but with a mall. I guarantee you, though, they expect some other poor schmuck to go out and get it for them, and do the dying part.

I've also seen the quiet resolve of Bosniak soldiers who sometimes fought fully armed Serbian soldiers armed with Soviet weapons, IFV's and tanks with nothing but hunting rifles and improvised explosives.

I've also seen what those Serb fighters became once you took away that AK-47, nothing but a bunch of drunks with a bottle in one hand, stumbling around talking about how tough they are because they could shoot women and children, all while they got piss running down their legs at the sight of fully-armed US soldiers and some British and German cops or UN officials telling them to go home.

That's what Republicans have decided they want to be.

Choose your next move wisely, Republicans. 

We see you.

It's hard to do a ruck march with feet of clay.

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

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Last post

Fallen (American Revelation IX: Postscript.)

Well the government bugged the men's room
In the local disco lounge
And all she wants to do is dance, dance
To keep the boys from sellin'
All the weapons they could scrounge
And all she wants to do is dance
Yeah, but that don't keep the boys from makin' a buck or two
And all she wants to do is dance, dance
The still can sell the army
All the drugs that they can do
And all she wants to do is
All she wants to do is dance
And make romance. ~Don Henley, All She Wants To Do Is Dance

I saw this last night.

Sarah Palin lost the special election to replace Don Young-who had recently met the True Death after so many years of Vampiric undeath-in Alaska. I remain uncertain...especially given that he pulled a knife on John Boehner...whether Young was a Brujah or a Gangrel but I'm fairly sure he was a vampire. I mean, how the fuck does even an old white man be in Congress longer than I have been alive and still always look the same?

Anyway....

L...and I cannot stress this enough...OL.

How the mighty are fallen. LOL.

14 years ago this week, I was still a Republican. 

Sarah Palin's nomination as John McCain's running mate had added a whole new level of disgusted to how I felt about things. I...an Air Force veteran who had two friends who'd been wounded over there...was tired of the Iraq war. I was tired of the conspiracy theories and racism. I was tired of the "But who would you rather have a beer with?" ethic of the Republican base at the time...which isn't a lot of fun to be around if you're a recovering alcoholic. And I, recently a declared Agnostic, was sick and tired of the religious bullshit from the Evangelicals. 

Now, don't get me wrong, I'd voted for Bush twice...and I figured Bush himself...or Cheney for that matter, seemed to have absolutely nothing to do with any of this crap.

And I quite literally had lost friends over my response to all the Birtherism bullshit, which simply was to point out thus: 

If you're anywhere in the nuclear chain of command or custody from the President on down to the Security Forces troop guarding the ALCM Structures, the CIA, FBI, whatever-the-fuck-branch-Office Of Special Investigations and the goddamned military industrial complex will know what kind of cereal you ate as a kid, at what age you started jerking off, and with which hand. 

Considering that a lot of the people I'd said this to were your basic uptight non-veteran conservative Christian, you can imagine how well that went over.

As of August 29th, when Palin was announced as VP-nominee-presumptive I still leaned slightly in favor of McCain...in contrast to my grandfather, a staunch conservative Democrat and retired Naval Aviator who'd been in the twilight of his career when he'd at some point encountered John McCain at the start of his own. I never did get the details. 

Anyway, my Grandpa...a swing voter for obvious reasons, he'd voted for Reagan twice...was already leaning toward voting for Obama. He didn't like it, but his literal words to me were "Yeah, I'll vote for a Black before I'll vote for that son of a bitch and you can tell him I said so" followed by a spit on the garage floor. 

My Grandma on the other hand, voted for McCain/Palin, just to cancel him out. They almost always did that.

Perot in 1992 was the only exception.

I liked Barack Obama, but I wasn't sure I thought he had enough experience for the job.

And then along came Sarah...my thought, and a running joke about this shit that I cracked at work...was that she had to have sucked on somebody's wrinkly old balls to get the nomination and every dumbass vapid utterance I heard confirmed this in my head. I spent like a week being like "What the actual fucking fuck!" 

And that was before Saturday Night Live and Tina Fey got ahold of Sarah.

More to the point, I'm looking at John McCain like "The fuck you thinking, Captain Queeg?" Except that McCain, himself was starting to sound all to much like that same character from the Herman Wouk novel The Caine Mutiny, sounding a lot like Bogie's performance in the eponymous film, and looking rather unhealthy to boot! And then he wants to put this dumb bitch a heartbeat away from the Presidency?

No. Fucking. Way.

The shit I heard from those idiots that week was prequel to all that's come and gone since, and I could see it. I knew voting for the crazy was death. Most people couldn't see this, even many of those who voted for Obama.

And by the time it was official at the Republican National Convention, the religious nuts...including my ex-wife, mind you...were coming out of the woodwork calling Sarah Palin the reincarnation of several different Biblical heroines. I'm just like "What? One of these things is not like the other one! Christians don't believe in that stuff!" But there it fucking was. And Palin herself is Pentecostal, so I knew pretty much any false-doctrine arglebargle would be up for grabs.

(And remember, as bad as Peter Meijer is he voted to impeach Trump, he voted for aid to Ukraine, LGBT rights and post-Uvalde gun control. His presumed replacement will be much worse. Remember, it's an actual articulated viewpoint of MAGA that America-as-it-is isn't worth defending, and that our decisions should be made for us by perverted old Catholic men in foreign countries, or by Russian dictators, whichever gives MAGA Republicans more money.)

So the following Friday...at that point, a day off because I had my days switched to Fridays and Saturdays for about a year...I went down to the Secretary of State and changed my voter registration to Independent. I voted for Obama and I never looked back.

And the more the Republican Party goes off the rails crashing like a train full of POL tank cars through a small Quebecois town...the happier I am that I made that decision.

To even be a standard, "moderate" Republican these days, you've got to hold some pretty monstrous views, have no pride or self-respect and be more concerned about "Owning the Libs" than even defending America or our allies...or you're out.

Even one deviation, like believing that Ukrainians have the right to defend themselves with weapons from the Russians who want to destroy their culture, erase their nation and kill them...is too much. Ironic, considering that Republicans as a whole think they want to go out and fight the whole world.

And, given the very real, very likely threat of war with Russia and threats by Russian media of terrorist attacks against Americans, that's a hell of an ideological stance for the Republican Party as a whole to take. 

They can't wait to be poodles to every dictator that comes along, and for America to be the same.

Have to wonder how they'd feel about Russification?

And this is America?

Reagan fucking wept.

Well we barely make the airport
For the last plane out
As we taxied down the runway
I could hear the people shout
They said, "don't come back here Yankee"
But if I ever do
I'll bring more money
'Cause all she wants to do is dance
And make romance
Never mind the heat
Comin' off the street
She wants to party
She wants to get down
All she wants to do is
All she wants to do is dance
And make romance
All she wants to do is dance.

~Don Henley, All She Wants To Do Is Dance

Nine

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I met a traveler from an antique land,
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

~Ozymandias, Percy Bysshe Shelley

The Glorious Revolution? (American Revelation IX, Nine.)

They're pickin' up the prisoners

And puttin 'em in a pen
And all she wants to do is dance, dance
Rebels been rebels
Since I don't know when
And all she wants to do is dance

Molotov cocktail, the local drink
And all she wants to do is dance, dance
They mix 'em up right
In the kitchen sink
And all she wants to do is dance.

~Don Henley, All She Wants To Do Is Dance.

Saw this last night. Just a small selection of the stuff the FBI retrieved from Mar-A-Lago.

Shit. 

And that's my take as a former United States Air Force Security Forces Sergeant.

If I'd done 10% of what Trump did, I'd still be in prison. This is probably the biggest security breach in US history.

And people keep making excuses for this shit??

"Who gives a rat's ass about National Security, I've got ideological points to score" is a hell of a take on anything, there, media pundits. 

If you MSM fuckers don't know by now that the Republican Party would gladly let the MAGA mob literally eat you, I don't know if you can be saved, either.

And that's before we get to the people who've pretty much declared this treasonous jackass to be their God.

Seriously it seems like 40% of the damn country is either so politically fucked in the head or so committed to false equivalency that, well, we'd be in some real shit if Trump wasn't so goddamned incompetent.

And he has the support of the Russians up to and including Uncle Vlad Dracula his own self? 

Are you shitting me, here???

A real leader with half a brain could turn all this into some kind of successful secessionist movement...if not the Glorious Revolution...and have themselves elected President For Life of El Republique De Texas by acclaim of the mob or something. Then after we have to bug out, get the Russians to put a couple wings of Flankers at Carswell and Dyess, a squadron of Kilo-class Boats at Ingleside, a division of Airborne troops at Fort Sam with a wing of IL-76 Candid transports at Kelly to make sure they can go places and hurt people if needed. Throw in a couple of Motor-Rifle divisions at Fort Hood, just because it's there.

Assume Fort Bliss, El Paso and a decent chunk of the Rio Grande valley are this scenario's Guantanamo.

And with Texas in his pocket, Putin could "safely" back off from his misbegotten adventure in Ukraine. Who needs Ukraine, when you have Texas? I mean, it's a hell of a bet that the Ukrainians don't just...and successfully at that...follow they ass all the way to Moscow at this point, but still...

And while we're stuck sorting out basing, logistics and training issues...not to mention economics and transport...Trump could have settled his ass down to being the Fidel Castro of the 21st Century. If not with Russia as his patron, then China, or Saudi Arabia.

Except Trump is not that fucking guy. 

Fidel Castro started out with 82 fucking guys and a leaky boat and won the goddamned war. Trump was handed every advantage imaginable, 70-some million followers, Russian support, and he still fucked it up every which way.

Fidel, right or wrong, bullshitted and fought and harangued his way into the history books. The place where Fidelito and his guys landed in Cuba with that leaky boat? It's a national park now. Trump? He's going to end up sitting in a cell...and everyplace with his name on it now won't have it anymore. 

Trump is going to go down in history as a damn disgrace, as literally what the fuck not to do.

And yet his mob still roars. That's the damn problem.

The fact that US "Conservatives" are so debased, fat and bored that this looks like anything revolutionary should speak volumes about what the goddamn problem really is.

And the reason they do this shit, is he gets away with going around talking like he's still the goddamn President, spreads all these big lies and crazy stories and feeds the conspiracy shit...while actively trying to provoke a civil war. And the government has only just recently made public its efforts to bring Trump to justice?

On one level, I get DOJ's reasoning, but I'm honestly not sure they realized how bad things were. I think they should have started moving as aggressively on this shit as they are now all the way back in January of last year. At least we'd have known how bad the shit was.

And of course, the Republican Party collectively has the leadership capability God gave a garden slug. Instead of denouncing Trump like the traitor he is, they defend him, while "privately" expressing disgust and hoping somebody "takes care of the son-of-a-bitch" for them. They're scared shitless of Trump's base...but I guess they ain't scared enough to protect themselves? Or are they Okay with Trump undermining the entire damn country, just so they can hold power in one small chunk of it (or the ruins of the whole thing?)

Reagan Fucking Wept.

The Republican Party has become a fascist Idiocracy dominated by the kind of people Republicans didn't used to want to be around...and they're too chickenshit to do anything about it?

These fucking people almost took America down with them!

You know what the worst part of it is? Instead of thinking "Oh shit, what did we do?" or "What the hell are we even doing here?" The modern Republican Party is actively scheming to gain from the chaos of the current situation, convinced that they can turn what increasingly looks like a looming electoral defeat, financial ruin, and ultimate Trumpian disgrace into some sort of insurgent victory carried on the backs of a few thousand armed peasants and a small band of intrepid guerillas.

The problem here ain't just Trump. The media ecosystem that created him and the Party that he ate from the inside out and wore like a goddamn bad suit are both rotten to the fucking core.

Rotten enough, that apparently some of the rich motherfuckers who made it that way think the situation as it is, would cost them too much money, so they're not giving the Republicans anymore.

Fuck you, Yertle, have fun. 

Maybe you fuckers shouldn't have put Medicaid fraudster Rick Scott in charge of the till?

If Trump gets charged with espionage and ends up going to prison...an outcome I see as unavoidable simply because the government has no other choice, and the GOP implodes because 99.98% of Republicans are nothing but a bunch of thieves...

Well, I guess all that leaves these fucking people is to attempt their Glorious Revolution on their own?

Good luck with that.

Eight

Crazy people walkin' round with blood in their eyes
And all she wants to do is dance, dance, dance
Wild-eyed pistols wavers who ain't afraid to die
And all she wants to do is
And all she wants to do is dance
And make romance
She can't feel the heat
Comin' off the street
She wants to party
She wants to get down
All she wants to do is
All she wants to do is dance.

~Don Henley, All She Wants To Do Is Dance.

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War Dance! (American Revelation IX, Eight.)

Colonel: Marine, what is that button on your body armor.

Joker: A peace symbol, sir.

Colonel: Where'd you get it?

Joker: I don't remember, sir.

Colonel: What is that you've got written on your helmet?

Joker: "Born to kill", sir.

Colonel: You write "born to kill" on your helmet, and you wear a peace button. What's that supposed to be, some kind of sick joke?

Joker: No, sir.

Colonel: What is it supposed to mean?

Joker: I don't know, sir.

Colonel: You don't know very much, do you?

Joker: No, sir.

Colonel: You better get your head and your ass wired together, or I will take a giant shit on you.

Joker: Yes, sir.

Colonel: Now answer my question, or you'll be standing tall before the man.

Joker: I think I was trying to suggest something about the duality of man, sir.

Colonel: The what?

Joker: The duality of man; The Jungian thing, sir.

Colonel: Whose side are you on, son?

Joker: Our side, sir.

Colonel: Don't you love your country?

Joker: Yes, sir.

Colonel: Then how 'bout getting with the program? Why don't you jump on the team and come on in for the big win?

Joker: Yes, sir.

Colonel: Son, all I've ever asked of my Marines is for them to obey my orders as they would the word of God. We are here to help the Vietnamese, because inside every gook, there is an American trying to get out. It's a hard-ball world, son. We've gotta try to keep our heads until this peace craze blows over.

Joker: [salutes] Aye-aye, sir.

~From the film Full Metal Jacket.

Last night, I saw this.

Various videos of  "Patriot Front" Nazis and others "training" for the Civil War they imagine is coming.

It won't turn out the way they think it will. If the soundtrack is "YMCA" by the Village People, at least it'll be slightly entertaining what happens to them.

Seriously, a bunch of guys dancing around in a field with shields? I didn't know Gilbert And Sullivan did military training on the side.

I am the very model of a modern major general.

I've information vegetable, animal and mineral.

I know the kings of England and can quote the fights historical

From Marathon to Waterloo in order categorical!

(Sorry, song stuck in head.)

Then there was one where these two guys were doing some sort of 'leapfrog' move with the front one shooting, which was kind of funny until the second guy shot the first guy's ballcap right off his head, an act of negligence that could've just as easily blown the top of dude's head off.

That part made me cringe, do something like that in an FTX and you're going to wish you hadn't.

Now, I'm a United States Air Force veteran. I've been through Basic Military Training, Security Forces school, and Military Operations in Urban Terrain training, among other things. I'm not afraid of these fucking people and their "Civil War."

My ferret's weasel war dance is more coherent than these people's "tactical training."

I'm scared shitless of what these idiots will do out of ignorance, negligence, or stupidity...and that's before we get to homophobia, misogyny and racism. 

In the field against trained soldiers, these fucking idiots will get massacred, I mean this, seriously you have no idea.

But they're tailor-made to abuse noncombatants.

Hell, even slightly-disciplined and somewhat-trained civilians will kick these fucking people's ass up between their shoulder-blades.

Sending these fucking people into the field, as they are, is basically a war crime itself, simply because they'll march in thinking they're going to immanentize the eschaton, "Own The Libs," or something something gazpacho and get fucking slaughtered.

Which is exactly why Republicans...the people now letting large cities like Jackson, MS go without potable drinking water...will do it. 

In fact, they'll gleefully send these people into battle just as they are, cackling as they chuck these fools into the meat grinder. I can easily imagine Lindsay Graham and all these other rich old Republicans giggling as they watch their followers get shot down by Army National Guardsmen who are equal parts amused, confused and horrified...until these idiots keep coming or some dumb ass fires a shot and then it's on like Donkey Kong and that only ends one way.

Lots of 5.56mm NATO bullet holes in shields, for one thing. Lots of dead Nazis, and no one will have any sympathy.

And then Republicans will try to craft some media sob story just like they did with the J6 mob. If you can't win the fight, much less the war, try and win the media narrative. 

Hey, It worked for the FLN in Algeria.

Didn't go so well for the poor schmucks humping an AK-47 and a ruck out there in the battlespace, though.

But those trying to sell the "Glorious Revolution" don't care. Hell, they never do.

The cruelty is the fucking point.

These fucking idiots...like ethnic Russians in Putin's New Soviet Union...seem to think they're the ruling class of some kind of a caste system where they can tell other people what to do...but they cannot be told what to do themselves.

(And then these idiots don't know why Eastern Europe hates them, and is so overwhelmingly supporting Ukraine?)

How did that work out for you in 1989, Comrades?

(Hell, how's it working out in Ukraine now?)

Seems to me that everywhere from Stettin on the Baltic to Varna on the Black Sea gave the middle finger to the Ghost of Joe Stalin and the Hammer and Sickle and there wasn't a damn thing you could do about it.

This is America, not Sparta. (And seriously, Patriot Front, those of you that the Spartans didn't kill, they'd use for sexual slaves.)

This is America, not ancient India. (And seriously, didn't white conservatives once upon a time regard caste systems as a sign of backwardness?)

And this sure as hell ain't the Antebellum US South. (And seriously, how did that whole Civil War thing work out for you fuckers the last time?)

This is America, we don't do caste systems or kings or nobles here, you're not supposed to be what you were born as...but what you have it in yourself to be.

And if this is what you are, LOL. Seriously, "Conservatives" you're not going to win any wars this way, civil or otherwise.

You can't just bullshit your way through out in the field. What you are is going to shine through, loud and clear.

Respect is earned, by every action, every day. People aren't going to fight and die for a good bullshit game, but they might for an actual leader.

Remember that part, there's going to be a test later.

Seriously, the point of a war dance is to scare the enemy, not cause them to die from laughing at you.

Seven

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

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Ka mate, ka mate! ka ora! ka ora! Ka mate! ka mate! ka ora! ka ora! Tēnei te tangata pūhuruhuru Nāna nei i tiki mai whakawhiti te rā Ā, upane! ka upane! Ā, upane, ka upane, whiti te ra! ~Ka Mate, Maori Haka (main body)

...
'Tis Death, 'Tis Death, 'Tis Life, 'Tis Life
'Tis Death, 'Tis Death, 'Tis Life, 'Tis Life
This is the hairy man
Who caused the sun to shine again for me
Up the ladder, up the ladder!
Rise! The Sun shines.
~Ka Mate, English translation.

Here's this post's grandfather.

Eye Of The Needle (American Revelation IX, Seven.)

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

Apparently, at least some Americans are flying blackened US flags, because they think they're "At War" and it's a sign that No Quarter shall be given. 

Just one problem, a No-Quarter order is a fucking war crime, explicitly prohibited under the rules of war, Federal and international law, and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. 

Not that these fucking yahoos give a shit about that...until they face consequences, of course, as we've learned from all the J6 Prosecutions so far. Except the penalties for war crimes, especially when there's a breakdown of civil order, tend to veer towards summary execution, at least until outside authorities step in and restore some sort of order...and then they're still pretty stiff.

Of course, it should go without saying that this current round of War Criminal Chic is because of Trump. Because Americans collectively rejected their cult. Because whatever magic mojo these people thought Trump had...well, it was all bullshit to start with. So, of course it wasn't enough to save him. I don't know how the hell these idiots thought they were going to get anything out of it except getting conned out of their money and getting their national security fucked over by some stupid Orange fucker who thought he literally owned the United States of America now and could do whatever the hell he pleased with it. 

Fuck, it's a wonder things didn't turn out worse than they did.

But the whole damn problem here, with our whole system, is that people had to be that bad for somebody like Trump to rise up in the first place. 

And as this whole argument over a piddly ass $10K-$20K Student Loan forgiveness program shows, there's a lot of us that are simply despicable people, mostly uneducated themselves, and opposed to education on general, shitty principle, for anybody except people they think will help them or their ideological side...or generate a profit for something something gazpacho. 

I don't know. I'm not flexible enough to shove my head up my own ass that I might see these people's point of view.

And yet the same goddamned people are fine with Republicans being forgiven for hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars in loans that they (apparently) mostly just used to buy themselves shit. The Paycheck Protection Program was about keeping businesses afloat and thus, long term, normal people working. It sure as hell wasn't for buying Tom Brady a yacht.

And the same goddamn people who want to bitch about some Gender Studies major...or plumber or welder...getting a small amount of help with their student loans think it's just fine and dandy for rich people to just basically steal the taxpayers...their...money.

In fact, these assholes think that those assholes have a right to it, and they'll get something for it somehow argle bargle unga bunga.

Because the Prosperity Gospel, or some stupid shit.

Well, I'll tell you what. Don't get me wrong, it's a good thing that it's looking like Trump is going to be held to account, indicted, put on trial, etc. and that no decent lawyers will work for him...because he finally became too great of a national security threat to ignore or just hope he'd go away.

But when are going to deal with the national security threat of the false doctrines, heresies, racism, vapid stupidity and vain religiosity that created this son of a bitch??

When are we going to deal with the threat of a set of cultural memes that shuns education and knowledge but says that some gold-plated rich asshole can do literally whatever they want, even if they're stealing from us personally or undermining the defenses of the civilization and nation we all have to live in?

Especially when the one group of people that Jesus Christ had nothing good to say about was rich people?

Again, "Christian Nation" my ass.

And why the hell would you go to war for somebody who has nothing but contempt for you, who steals from you and sells your country's secrets to your enemies??

Go ahead, I'll wait.

Six

And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God ~Matthew 19:24

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Oil And Wine (American Revelation IX, Six.)

And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard, as it were the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts saying, Come and see.
And I saw, and behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer.
And when he had opened the second seal, I heard the second beast say, Come and see.
And there went out another horse that was red: and power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another: and there was given unto him a great sword.
And when he had opened the third seal, I heard the third beast say, Come and see. And I beheld, and lo a black horse; and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand.
And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say, A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine.
And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, Come and see.
And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth. ~Revelation 6:1-8

I Saw this yesterday.

Bunch of conspiracy theorists posting about how The Mark Of The Beast is coming, basically because of electric cars, environmentalism, social change and technology, or something something Gazpacho.

I always find this garbage vaguely funny, simply because I have a church background, so I've been hearing shit like this for somewhere around 40 years.

Still hasn't happened yet, and in many ways the world as it is now is beyond what the science fiction of my youth imagined things would be like 300, 500 or a thousand years from now. We don't have faster-than-light space travel or giant mechs replacing tanks, but otherwise, the future is now...hell, the future was damned near 30 years ago, really.

And you know what? I've yet to see any evidence of any of this End Times conspiracy stuff at all in real life, or anything backing this shit up besides conspiracy theory woo woo, online or otherwise.

And there's a very, very important key difference in this tranche of conspiracy woo from all the other ones...

No Jesus.

It all starts and ends with Antivax bullshit and the same old same old about liberalism, social change and technology.

This is the Christless Christianity I've been warning people about for-basically-ever.

This is the conspiracy-theories-instead-of-Jesus bullshit that I've been screaming about since the spring of 2020, and it will bear bitter fruit in the real world. Hell, it's already doing that. There's a polio outbreak in New York State, and there hasn't been one of those since I was five years old.

And I just saw that Lauren Blowbert is crowing about some idiot conservative federal judge blocking the Marine Corps from discharging unvaccinated troops.

I'm a veteran. What the fuck is the difference between this shot and all the other ones we had to get, except for a bunch of made-up conspiracy woo?

It's hard enough to social distance in garrison, on base. In plenty of situations it's damned near impossible. And it's straight-up impossible aboard an aircraft, on the inside of some armored vehicle, or aboard a ship. This is why something as simple as a flu shot is required...because if one person gets sick, it's very easy for everybody else to as well.

That said, I hate flu shots and I haven't gotten one since I was in the Air Force because I always got sick from them. Milder symptoms, yes, and only for a day or two...but still irritating. 

And I'm here to tell you it's not much fun humping an M60 on an FTX because you just got like ten shots and your arms are sore as hell.

Beats being dead, though, and especially beats having gotten a bunch of your bros sick first.

Which is why I signed up to get the shot as soon as it became available.

And I've been asking since April of 2020 just how the hell you "Social Distance" when you've been shot. Still no answer on that one.

And that's aside from the fact that "Conservatives" in 2020 were transparently hoping the virus would kill a whole lot more people than it did, because eugenics and greed and racism.

The "Conservative" reaction to Biden's effort to get Student Loan Forgiveness (up to $20K if you make below a certain amount of money and have Pell Grants) today, has been instructive.

Apparently Republicans think only the wealthy should get to go to college in the first damn place. Hmm.

And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say, A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine. ~Revelation 6:6

These fucking people look at Revelation, and they take this verse as an assurance that they're going to be OK...and you're not.

The government can give trillions to corporations and the rich, and these assholes are OK with that. But a piddly $10,000 off some normal person's student loan interest? That's too much!

The Bible treats Oil and Wine here as symbols of wealth and power.

And these bastards have literally always, openly, transparently equated liberal...or even pragmatic moderate conservative...economic and social policy with the Antichrist and the End Times, Christian fiction is rife with this garbage, I'm 100% serious.

But in the real world, who are the ones who for much of the last couple thousand years have sometimes held world-spanning levels of power, privilege and wealth? Right-wing Christians!

Yet in terms of income inequality, mass death from disease, starvation and war, and state surveillance, these same motherfuckers would gladly, purposefully and with malicious glee build the World As Described In Revelation complete with mass sexual immorality among the elite...I guess they think it'd somehow be different, if done in the name of their Christless, Graceless version of Christianity. "Their" World-system isn't the false one, no...it's those people, over there.

If Jesus showed up tomorrow, these sons of bitches would try to crucify Him again. 

But, If Vladimir Putin arbitrarily declared himself some kind of world-emperor tomorrow...these fucking people, especially the rich "Conservative" Republicans...would fall facedown in worship of him. 

That's what these fucking people are already doing and saying when they bitch about our government sending too much money to Ukraine. They're obviously worried that other people might see the Ukrainians resisting assimilation, colonization, cultural and national destruction...the exact things "Conservatives" themselves would have described as Revelation-like tyranny as recently as 2014 their damn selves.

And here's the thing, religious believers...particularly Evangelical Christians, Jews and Muslims...are one of the main forces of Ukrainian resistance, because their communities have not forgotten what Soviet repression was.

American Evangelical Christians on the other hand, are just fine with the re-Sovietization of Russia, so long as Putin pretends to put a right-wing "Christian" mask on it. I wrote about this awhile back.

In fact, they're actively seeking to use viruses and wars to bring about a small, hateful, impoverished world where they own everything...or where those they "Identify" with do, at least.

Heaven isn't heaven if everybody gets to go. America isn't America if everybody gets a slice. Shit, it's not even blanket White Supremacy they're after...no, you have to be the right kind of white person to be supreme.

Fascism, or Putinist neo-Soviet neo-Communism, it doesn't matter...so long as the system that conquers America and the West hurts The Other more than it does them.

If there's anything in the world more anti-Biblical or Antichrist than that, I've yet to find it.

But when consequences come, or their movement decides to go out in a blaze of glory and civil war, and some other religious believers get taken out in the inevitable retaliation for their actions, these fucking people will gloat about it and take it as an example of their "rightness" like the internet contrarians and trolls that they fucking are.

Fuck this stupid bullshit, I'm tired of it.

Five

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And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held:
And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?
And white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellow-servants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled.
And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood;
And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casts her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind.
And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places.
And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains;
And said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb:
For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand? ~Revelation 6:9-17