Evil Empire (American Reformation II, Three.)

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.

...

The clocks stopped at one seventeen. There was a long shear of bright light, then a series of low concussions. By day the dead impaled on spikes along the road. I think it's October but I can't be sure. I haven't kept a calendar for five years. Each day is more gray than the one before. It is cold and growing colder as the world slowly dies. No animals have survived and all the crops are long gone. Soon all the trees in the world will fall. The roads are peopled by refugees towing carts and gangs carrying weapons, looking for fuel and food. Within a year there was fire on the ridges and deranged chanting. There has been cannibalism. Cannibalism is the great fear. Mostly I worry about food. Always food. Food and the cold and our shoes. Sometimes I tell the boy old stories of courage and justice - difficult as they are to remember. All I know is the child is my warrant and if he is not the word of God, then God never spoke. ~The Man, from Cormac McCarthy's "The Road" (Film.)

...

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

So I saw this earlier today.

George W. Bush's brother voted for James Talarico.

And rightly so, probably.

I've had it with this shit, Republicans apparently don't believe anybody who isn't a billionaire should have any rights, or for that matter, any money or anything else.

The only right they seem to think anyone should have, and the only thing they want to give anybody, is hate. Meanwhile, everybody that I know is just barely getting by. We're all angry and tired, and tired of being angry and tired, while chuckle-fucks like Elon Musk sit there and lie about guys like James Talarico. 

While he also lies about Ukraine and Volodomyr Zelenskyy and whether or not it was him or Trump that ordered the Starlink slowdown (And meanwhile Europe is backing away from relying on us for anything defense-wise at this point, and rightly so.)

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.

I'm sorry, but Ken Paxton is a scumbag and should never have been allowed to be anywhere near public service. It's not just that I know people that went to jail for way less than what he's done...It's that I've been to jail and I didn't do anything even close to all that.

As long as Republicans are going to include and support men like this, and America is going to allow any Republicans to hold office anywhere, nobody (including most Americans) should ever trust America ever again. We are a very short distance from the whole damn country falling apart simply because the full faith and credit of the Federal government and America's standing in the world has been completely trashed, by malicious, rabidly stupid men who thought it was funny to shit all over everything.

These motherfuckers consider the vast majority of Americans (and yes, most conservatives, that means you too) to be their enemies, and they consider people like Vladimir Putin to be their friends. I mean, what the hell kind of stupid person does that??

Apparently Republicans believe if Power wants what you got, you're supposed to just bend over, hand it over, whatever. You have no right that Power or Wealth is obligated to respect. I wonder if they realize that means them, too, when somebody bigger or meaner shows up??

Vladimir Putin (Russians in general) don't care about your privilege.

In fact the Russians don't believe you have it, or that you should.

They basically think if you're not a Russian you're supposed to be their n****r. I've heard people from former-Soviet countries that are now free (like Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) say this. I've seen video of Ethnic Russians saying that kind of shit about other people.

When men stop believing in God, it isn't that they then believe in nothing: they believe in everything. ~Umberto Eco

There is a reason Ronald Reagan called these people the Evil Empire.

I'm not sure why Steve Whack-It-Off thinks he's gonna be any different. Russians have a long history of murdering their own political types, much less those who they used to gain power in subject countries.

I've conversed with people who've lived in Russia or visited long enough to get to know some people and honestly, the only people I know who've been there who ever said they felt welcome or entirely comfortable, let alone safe were, basically, a very specific kind of dude-bro. Not all of them were Republicans at the time, a fair number of them aren't or never claimed to be MAGA (some of them are/were Leftists and I'll bet you can guess what kind) although those that are far-right or Trump Supporters often are so to a ridiculous degree. A former SNCO from my squadron is an electrical engineer and worked on the grid in Sochi before the Winter Olympics there. After that he became very weirdly pro-Russian and in 2015-2016 he went full weird MAGA. It pretty much wrecked our Facebook KI Sawyer AFB veterans group. 

The group is still there but no one posts on it regularly anymore.

Hess: So what shall we toast to, boys? I can blather on about “To health” or “To success,” but I’d like to do somethin’ a little less rote. Where you from, Brown Eyes?

Migs Mayfield: How ’bout a toast to Operation Cinder?

Hess: Now there’s a man who knows his history.

Mayfield: No, I don’t just know it. I lived it. I was in Burnin Konn.

Hess: Burnin Konn?

Mayfield: Mmm.

Hess: That was a hard day. I had to make many unpleasant decisions.

Mayfield: Yes, you did. Entire city gone in moments, along with everybody in it. We lost our whole division that day. Man, that was like 5-10,000 people.

Hess: Yep. All heroes of the Empire.

Mayfield: Yeah. And all dead.

Hess: Well, it’s a small sacrifice for the greater good, son.

Mayfield: Depends on who you ask, don’t you think?

Hess: [irritated] What you gettin’ at, trooper?

Mayfield: All those people, the ones who died, was it good for them? Hmm? Their families? The guys I served with? Civilians, those poor mud scuffers, died defending their homes, fighting for freedom. Was it good for them?

Hess: But we’ve outlasted them, son. They’re eating themselves alive. The New Republic is in complete disarray, and we grow stronger. You see, with the rhydonium you’ve delivered, we can create havoc that’s gonna make Burnin Konn pale by comparison. And then they’re gonna turn to us once again. You see, boys, everybody thinks they want freedom, but what they really want is order. And when they realize that, they’re gonna welcome us back with open arms. Ah. To the Empire.

[Mayfield chuckles, then fires a blaster at Hess' chest, killing him instantly. He and Mando then shoot their way out of the mess hall] ~From The Mandalorian, Season 2, Ep. 7 "The Believer"

Of course, it's a really safe bet that people who believe in testing *Checks Notes* Energy Weapons on human beings probably don't believe in Human Rights, not even their own. There are international laws and treaties against that kind of shit being used on the battlefield. The real world ain't Star Wars and there's a fucking reason for that. And, more, you don't want it to be.

And of course privilege and racism and Whiteness and Just World fallacies convince a lot of dipshits that such things won't be used against them.

Until they are. How has any of this crap worked out the last couple of years??

People who are willing to platform an enabler of sex abuse just to hurt a political opponent in a democratic election will absolutely shoot you in the face with a crude real-world version of the E-Web heavy blaster cannon from Empire Strikes Back or The Mandalorian, for kicks.

And the really stupid part of this is These Fucking People are okay with that, as long as they think some other person is gonna get shot in the face with it twice.

If you don't smoke Tarryton's, fuck you! ~Sign, Idiocracy.

I get that Negative Partisanship can be a hell of a drug but are you fucking kidding me?? 

Let's have some basic survival instincts here, shall we?? It doesn't matter if Black people or Mexicans are somehow gonna be more dead than you are. 

Dead is still Dead.

Traumatized for life is still, in fact, traumatized for life. PTSD, etc. etc. doesn't actually care about the color of your skin or your political affiliation. Like a virus, or Russians for that matter, it'll kill you or wreck your shit just the same as it will the people you don't like. I don't understand why people keep playing around with this shit when it'll all kill you just the same.

Yeah, stupidity, I get it.

I mean, come on, when Osama Bin Laden was killed, Abdul Al-Sayed was finishing up his doctorate in public health, which likely meant he was working a shit job while busting his ass in a demanding program while being the "Funding apparatus" for Ramen Noodles.

But these idiots never let reality get in the way of a bald-faced blatantly obvious lie.

Or there's always Argle Bargle Bargle, Unga Bunga Bunga "Own The Libs!" or some such dumbass bullshit.

Anybody else tired of this shit yet??

I'm tired. My Mom is tired. My partner is tired. None of us asked for any of this garbage.

For a long time I said that Republicans, most specifically Republican Men all would be fine with being the Emperor's catamite, so long as they thought they were gonna get to boss around some of the servants once in awhile.

Well, I think it's rather worse, or maybe it always was.

Barbara: With a cute little rear end like that, you'll be the belle of the ball. Your dance card'll be filled every day. You'll be so popular, making all kinds of new, close friends. Big, ugly, hairy friends! Not that you'll ever see what they look like, 'cause you'll be facing the other way.
- Ken Kessler: You're very good at this. You should write children's books. 

~From the film Ruthless People 

These Fucking People would just as soon be the bitches of the petty illiterate local warlord, strapped to the rusty tailgate of his favorite Toyota Hilux Technical next to the .50 Caliber BMG ammunition until he wants them. 

Such is their desire for "Proximity" to "Power" that they don't care if they're stuck facing the other way the whole damn time.

I couldn't do it. But from what I hear maybe Tim Scott would.

But then I couldn't and wouldn't get so much plastic and silicone and whatever the fuck else put in my face that I look like a Star Wars alien either.

I mean, what's the fucking point, Laura??

You look like a damn mutant and you're pushing the same abuse-platforming bullshit that's pretty much turned Vivek RamaRamaDingDing into a radioactive political mutant in a day or so, too.

May These Fucking People all have to deal with each other, day in and day out for Eternity, in Hell.

Honestly Hell is too good for these people.

The Holy Quran says it, "Pilgrimage to the House [of God built by the prophet Abraham] is a duty men owe to God; those who are able, make the journey." (3:97) Allah said: "And proclaim the pilgrimage among men; they will come to you on foot and upon each lean camel, they will come from every deep ravine" (22:27). Every one of the thousands at the airport, about to leave for Jeddah, was dressed this way. You could be a king or a peasant and no one would know. Some powerful personages, who were discreetly pointed out to me, had on the same thing I had on. Once thus dressed, we all had begun intermittently calling out "Labbayka! (Allahumma) Labbayka!" (Here I come, O Lord!) Packed in the plane were white, black, brown, red, and yellow people, blue eyes and blond hair, and my kinky red hair -- all together, brothers! All honoring the same God, all in turn giving equal honor to each other. . . .That is when I first began to reappraise the "white man." It was when I first began to perceive that "white man," as commonly used, means complexion only secondarily; primarily it described attitudes and actions. In America, "white man" meant specific attitudes and actions toward the black man, and toward all other non-white men. But in the Muslim world, I had seen that men with white complexions were more genuinely brotherly than anyone else had ever been. That morning was the start of a radical alteration in my whole outlook about "white" men. ~Malcolm X.

When is enough going to be enough, America??

You either believe in freedom or you don't.

But you have to be smart enough to know what that word means.

The Reformation happened because among other things people died horrible deaths for the right to read the Word of God at all, and then in their own languages. And now you're telling me that people in supposedly the greatest country that ever was can't be bothered to read or know what words mean??

The fact that politics and religion are OK with this murderous bullshit tells me we need an American Reformation, Republicans lust after both the Power of the medieval Catholic church, and the bloodshed of the wars of religion. They forget how that worked out for the Church. Or maybe they just don't care. We have to stop this shit, lest America itself become the next Evil Empire.

If you're stupid enough to think you can have some kind of a social contract with an autocrat that thinks your freedom, your rights, your stuff is some kind of infinitely moveable goalpost and he can do whatever he wants? Let alone some billionaire cranked out on drugs who's convinced himself he's more powerful than nations. If you think that? You deserve whatever you're gonna get from them.

But the rest of us...don't.

So get after it.

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

Two

Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: ~John 11:25

Bottomless (American Reformation II, Two.)

Hear ye this word which I take up against you, even a lamentation, O house of Israel.

The virgin of Israel is fallen; she shall no more rise: she is forsaken upon her land; there is none to raise her up.

For thus saith the Lord God; The city that went out by a thousand shall leave an hundred, and that which went forth by an hundred shall leave ten, to the house of Israel.

For thus saith the Lord unto the house of Israel, Seek ye me, and ye shall live:

But seek not Bethel, nor enter into Gilgal, and pass not to Beersheba: for Gilgal shall surely go into captivity, and Bethel shall come to naught.

Seek the Lord, and ye shall live; lest he break out like fire in the house of Joseph, and devour it, and there be none to quench it in Bethel.

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

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

That strengthens the spoiled against the strong, so that the spoiled shall come against the fortress.

They hate him that rebuketh in the gate, and they abhor him that speaketh uprightly.

Forasmuch therefore as your treading is upon the poor, and ye take from him burdens of wheat: ye have built houses of hewn stone, but ye shall not dwell in them; ye have planted pleasant vineyards, but ye shall not drink wine of them.

For I know your manifold transgressions and your mighty sins: they afflict the just, they take a bribe, and they turn aside the poor in the gate from their right.

Therefore the prudent shall keep silence in that time; for it is an evil time.

Seek good, and not evil, that ye may live: and so the Lord, the God of hosts, shall be with you, as ye have spoken.

Hate the evil, and love the good, and establish judgment in the gate: it may be that the Lord God of hosts will be gracious unto the remnant of Joseph.

Therefore the Lord, the God of hosts, the Lord, saith thus; Wailing shall be in all streets; and they shall say in all the highways, Alas! alas! and they shall call the husbandman to mourning, and such as are skilfull of lamentation to wailing.

And in all vineyards shall be wailing: for I will pass through thee, saith the Lord.

Woe unto you that desire the day of the Lord! to what end is it for you? the day of the Lord is darkness, and not light.

As if a man did flee from a lion, and a bear met him; or went into the house, and leaned his hand on the wall, and a serpent bit him.

Shall not the day of the Lord be darkness, and not light? even very dark, and no brightness in it?

I hate, I despise your feast days, and I will not smell in your solemn assemblies.

Though ye offer me burnt offerings and your meat offerings, I will not accept them: neither will I regard the peace offerings of your fat beasts.

Take thou away from me the noise of thy songs; for I will not hear the melody of thy viols.

But let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream.

Have ye offered unto me sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness forty years, O house of Israel?

But ye have borne the tabernacle of your Moloch and Chiun your images, the star of your god, which ye made to yourselves.

Therefore will I cause you to go into captivity beyond Damascus, saith the Lord, whose name is The God of hosts. ~Amos 5 (KJV)

...

The Holy Quran says it, "Pilgrimage to the House [of God built by the prophet Abraham] is a duty men owe to God; those who are able, make the journey." (3:97) Allah said: "And proclaim the pilgrimage among men; they will come to you on foot and upon each lean camel, they will come from every deep ravine" (22:27). Every one of the thousands at the airport, about to leave for Jeddah, was dressed this way. You could be a king or a peasant and no one would know. Some powerful personages, who were discreetly pointed out to me, had on the same thing I had on. Once thus dressed, we all had begun intermittently calling out "Labbayka! (Allahumma) Labbayka!" (Here I come, O Lord!) Packed in the plane were white, black, brown, red, and yellow people, blue eyes and blond hair, and my kinky red hair -- all together, brothers! All honoring the same God, all in turn giving equal honor to each other. . . .That is when I first began to reappraise the "white man." It was when I first began to perceive that "white man," as commonly used, means complexion only secondarily; primarily it described attitudes and actions. In America, "white man" meant specific attitudes and actions toward the black man, and toward all other non-white men. But in the Muslim world, I had seen that men with white complexions were more genuinely brotherly than anyone else had ever been. That morning was the start of a radical alteration in my whole outlook about "white" men. ~Malcolm X.

I saw this bullshit yesterday.

Republicans are calling George W. Bush a traitor for not riding to the rescue and campaigning for and/or endorsing Ken Paxton, who apparently made a point of throwing a Black Republican influencer out of one of his events just recently.

(Yeah, I think that's Republicans telling on themselves a little too much.)

And their only answer for *Checks Notes* Everything is "Hate Trans People." No, fuck you, I don't hate them and I'm not going to. I'm tired of this crap.

Well, that or wanting to kill people for basically no reason. What happened to the Ten Commandments??

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.

I'm sick of These Fucking People and I'm sick of This Fucking Garbage.

Apparently Trump has basically appointed himself the Antichrist and thinks he knows better than Jesus and is going to take Christianity "Where it has never been before." Yeah, I don't think that means what the dumbass Evangelicals in the crowd at that rally thought it meant.

When the fuck is enough gonna be enough with this evil, silly bullshit??

I'm tired.

And I say that as a former Republican and if you don't understand why? Fuck YOU too!!!

I Have Spoken.

Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting.

Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hates: they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them.

And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you: yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood.

Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil;

Learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow.

~Isaiah 1:13-17

What God wants of us is pretty simple, and it's not this crap. He's not even subtle about it! The Bible is full of statements to that effect!

Love Thy Neighbor, and Love God. And these fucking monsters wanna do anything but either one.

These fucking people want it to be "Be Republican, hurt women, oppress other people, support the rich and act 'religious.'" Oh, fuck off. No. No. NO!

The Same fucking people told me for the first 40 years of my life that being "Conservative" or "Religious" wouldn't get me into Heaven. Now they won't shut up about either one. I have said for 20 years that the Truth is simple, and Man makes it complicated because he does not want to obey it.

They think God does not see their manifold transgressions or their mighty sins. 

Or worse, they think He is fine with that, is in on it all, or that He simply doesn't exist. 

When men stop believing in God, it isn't that they then believe in nothing: they believe in everything. ~Umberto Eco

I'm not sure which it is, and honestly it's really hard to tell at this point and I can't fit my head far enough up my own ass to start looking at these fucking people's point of view.

When I say we need an American Reformation, this kind of shit is why.

Vivek Ramaswamy ran an ad platforming Amy Acton's estranged mother, who back in the 1970's allowed her husband to abuse Amy and her brother and it was to the point where she had the kids taken away, he was indicted, but skipped out out on his bail, fled the state and spent the rest of his life as a fugitive.

And Vivek ran an ad with this bitch.

It's kind of rare, when I don't like somebody, that I can honestly say I hate a man more today than I did yesterday but Rama Rama Ding Ding fucking managed that shit.

And here he is doing a town hall in a church. Seriously, what the entire fuck??

Republicans are running on their immorality at this point, and basically calling Evil good, and Good evil, and hoping America will buy it. Last I checked, this shit only had about 30% support as it was. I mean These Fucking People have lost Karl Rove...

[Kuiil and Mando have successfully repaired the Razor Crest with the parts recovered from the Jawas]

The Mandalorian: I can't thank you enough. Please allow me to give you a portion of the reward.

Kuiil: I cannot accept. You are my guest, and I am therefore in your service.

The Mandalorian: I could use a crew member of your ability. And I can pay handsomely.

Kuiil: I am honored. But I have worked a lifetime to finally be free of servitude.

The Mandalorian: I understand. Then... all I can offer is my thanks.

Kuiil: And I offer mine. Thank you for bringing peace to my valley. [leaves the ship and mounts his Blurrg; to Mando] And good luck with the Child. May it survive and bring you a handsome reward. I have spoken.

~From the Star Wars series; The Mandalorian, S1.E2 "The Child."

I'm tired.

Everyone I know is tired.

Everyone I care about, certainly, is tired.

But if you think that means we're giving up? No, fuck that.

I mean, as it is most of us can't fucking afford to give up.

And if you don't understand that all this crap that is going on is not right, I can't help you, or maybe I just don't want to. I have enough to worry about.

I've got a partner and a kid to think about. If you think I'm gonna support a political party that runs adulterers and corrupt politicians, and then calls former Presidents traitors for guarding their peace and not wanting to support that, or that platforms abusers when both my partner and the kid have been abused?? No. I'm not. I'm gonna vote for the other guys. Fuck You.

From daydreams on the road there was no waking. He plodded on. He could remember everything of her save her scent. Seated in a theatre with her beside him leaning forward listening to the music. Gold scrollwork and sconces and the tall columnar folds of the drapes at either side of the stage. She held his hand in her lap and he could feel the tops of her stockings through the thin stuff of her summer dress. Freeze this frame. Now call down your dark and your cold and be damned. ~From Cormac McCarthy's The Road (Book.)

At this point, you have eyes to see and ears to hear, figure it out your damn self.

You either believe in freedom or you don't.

And you're either willing to fight for it or you're not.

Pick a side.

Because it's going to come down to a fight.

There is no Bottom. Unless we stop this shit.

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

One

[As the four newly-revealed Cylons aboard Galactica struggle to deal with the information, the call to action stations sounds]

Lieutenant Felix Gaeta: [over the loudspeaker] ...Inbound Cylon fleet! I repeat: action stations, action stations. Set Condition One throughout the ship. This is not a drill.

Tory Foster: Oh gods... what're we going to do?

Saul Tigh: The ship is under attack. We do our jobs. Report to your stations!

Chief Galen Tyrol: Report to stations?

Saul Tigh: My name is Saul Tigh. I am an officer in the Colonial Fleet. Whatever else I am, whatever else it means, that's the man I want to be. And if I die today, that's the man I'll be. ~From Battlestar Galactica (2003) S3.E20 "Crossroads, Part 2."

There is only one sin, only one. And that is theft. Every other sin is a variation of theft....When you kill a man, you steal a life. You steal his wife's right to a husband, rob his children of a father. When you tell a lie, you steal someone's right to the truth. When you cheat, you steal the right to fairness. ~Baba, from The Kite Runner.

No Kings (American Reformation II, One.)

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.

...

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

I saw this last night, a Russian data center in St. Petersburg hit by Ukrainian drones, burning and sparking like some kind of mutant love child of Mordor and Skynet.

And then I saw an ad for Indiana congresswoman (and Ukrainian-American pro-Russian stooge) Victoria Spartz, that used her two daughters, and tried to say she hadn't made a bunch of money off of being in Congress, and was meant (presumably made with AI) to look like it was filmed with a 1980's VHS type camcorder or some bullshit. 

No, you know what, nobody uses that kind of shit anymore, give it up.

The video also featured Victoria's husband (and the girls' dad) working on his $300K Combine and featured the kids standing in front of a couple of very expensive semis. So don't try to tell me these fucking people don't have money. I know exactly the type of people these are, and I'm here to tell you if they're farming the main thing they're growing is subsidy checks and they wouldn't be caught dead dead using anything that's less than a couple years old and top of the line. 

Also, the ad made a point of insinuating that wanting to protect Transgender kids was somehow bad.

The Holy Quran says it, "Pilgrimage to the House [of God built by the prophet Abraham] is a duty men owe to God; those who are able, make the journey." (3:97) Allah said: "And proclaim the pilgrimage among men; they will come to you on foot and upon each lean camel, they will come from every deep ravine" (22:27). Every one of the thousands at the airport, about to leave for Jeddah, was dressed this way. You could be a king or a peasant and no one would know. Some powerful personages, who were discreetly pointed out to me, had on the same thing I had on. Once thus dressed, we all had begun intermittently calling out "Labbayka! (Allahumma) Labbayka!" (Here I come, O Lord!) Packed in the plane were white, black, brown, red, and yellow people, blue eyes and blond hair, and my kinky red hair -- all together, brothers! All honoring the same God, all in turn giving equal honor to each other. . . .That is when I first began to reappraise the "white man." It was when I first began to perceive that "white man," as commonly used, means complexion only secondarily; primarily it described attitudes and actions. In America, "white man" meant specific attitudes and actions toward the black man, and toward all other non-white men. But in the Muslim world, I had seen that men with white complexions were more genuinely brotherly than anyone else had ever been. That morning was the start of a radical alteration in my whole outlook about "white" men. ~Malcolm X.

I know farmers. I have farming people in my family, conservative, middle-of-the-road and liberal. My partner has farm people in her family, they skew more conservative ranging from sensible but Republican (like her parents when she was a kid) to the MAGA welfare people I've written about. 

About the only thing those people grow is a subsidy check (and weed, illegally, on the back 40, no trust me they are not all living off grandma's SSI check) by the way. But judging from the wrecked Motor Home in the yard, somebody in that side of the family had money once.

You know, these are the people that basically tortured my partner and the kiddo for 4 months and I had to drive down there and pull off a rescue in the middle of a fucking blizzard. Yes, I'm still mad about it, and not at her.

My uncle on my Mom's side of the family that was a GM employee and did some farming to go with that (Conservative-type Union Democrat, Trump '16, Biden '20, grudgingly Harris '24) had a new truck about every year, but that was about it. Most of their farming equipment, he maintains himself, because they can't afford new.

His kids are one conservative-not-MAGA (Marine veteran married to a still-serving Marine) and one liberal (Social worker or some such.) His wife, my aunt, has never been especially political either. The only year I know of that she even bothered to vote was in 1992 (Perot.)

(My uncle was all in for Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996 plus for Gore in 2000. We had some pretty epic arguments that year.)

My Aunt and Uncle (Super-liberal)  on my Dad's side of the family have a small farm on a few dozen acres in the Upper Peninsula and still have the same 1993 Ford F-150 that my uncle bought used and got a deal on while I was staying at their house when I was in the Air Force stationed at KI Sawyer Air Force Base. That's how far back they go. My aunt has a new small SUV (because my-Air Force Veteran-Lawyer cousin bought her one.) My uncle's tractor is newer, but only because my cousins (all of whom have 6-figure jobs and support their parents) bought him one. He's still using most of the same farm implements (that can be towed by a tractor) that he had when I was a kid. The girls hooked him up with all the tools for the new tractor, though, so there's that. Most of their produce gets sold at local farmer's markets during the season, mostly around Marquette.

Down around the Reservation in Mount Pleasant where I used to live and work, there's this one farmer that owns a whole bunch of fields off one corner of the Rez, that guy's fields wrapped around the apartment complex I lived in for 8 years (where my partner was my roommate and where we lived when we were a couple the first time.) That guy has new everything, all type of new gear, every damn year just about. In 2016 and 2020 he also had big Trump signs on any unused patch of land that he owned that was visible from a road.

So think about that.

AI is all these fucking people have for their bullshit dream-world.

When men stop believing in God, it isn't that they then believe in nothing: they believe in everything. ~Umberto Eco

No Kings was also yesterday, and I note that with all the Russian bots gone, META directly made the decision to suspend the organizers' accounts for the day, then claimed it was a "Mistake."

I'm of the opinion that Republicans as they are now should be formally renamed as "Royalists" only they don't seem to give a damn what the "King" actually is, whether it's Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin or some kind of dumb ass AI Machine God or CHUD-Skynet or what the fuck ever. There's nothing at all Republican about any of this BS. A Republic is, by definition, a country that doesn't have a King. Republics are most often democratic, at least to some degree.

That's not the world today's "Republicans" want to live in.

The clocks stopped at one seventeen. There was a long shear of bright light, then a series of low concussions. By day the dead impaled on spikes along the road. I think it's October but I can't be sure. I haven't kept a calendar for five years. Each day is more gray than the one before. It is cold and growing colder as the world slowly dies. No animals have survived and all the crops are long gone. Soon all the trees in the world will fall. The roads are peopled by refugees towing carts and gangs carrying weapons, looking for fuel and food. Within a year there was fire on the ridges and deranged chanting. There has been cannibalism. Cannibalism is the great fear. Mostly I worry about food. Always food. Food and the cold and our shoes. Sometimes I tell the boy old stories of courage and justice - difficult as they are to remember. All I know is the child is my warrant and if he is not the word of God, then God never spoke. ~The Man, from Cormac McCarthy's "The Road" (Film.)

And they don't even care if whatever it is fucks them over too, or if their lives are basically Cormac McCarthy's The Road, so long as they think somebody else is getting it worse. 

Like, last night I saw this shit, some dumb old bitch trying to say the world was only a couple thousand years old. Listen, you old bag, we have written, dated records that are older than that! None of this stuff is legends or myths, the Greeks and Romans wrote shit down.

Sorry but I'm a former Conservative Christian. It takes a lot to not be able to Creationist properly. And more to the point as a former Baptist and an End Times Prophecy guy, Biblical exegesis and study is what we lived by, how we even justified ourselves. It was 100% the rationale for everything.

30, even 20 years ago, in that world you lived and died by the Word and a slew of interpretations that, yes, might be a bit hokey but for fuck's sake you could go back through it and explain yourself at least.

I ain't saying it was right, but that's how it was. 

Study to show thyself approved. 

I don't like it, but I can still quote a lot of this shit basically in my sleep.

The scholarship, such as it is/was, used to in fact be the rationalization for everything else. I'm fully aware that a lot of it was horseshit and most of that has simply been thrown by the wayside because they think they don't need it anymore because of Trump.

That's painful for those of us that really believed in any of this stuff to whatever degree.

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

Apparently MAGA doesn't even bother with any of that anymore. Their "Rationalization" such as it is...apparently is Trump. They think he gives them some kind of protection and superpowers or some such bullshit.

Seems like a hell of a way to run a railroad if you ask me. 

These fucking people don't care about Republicans, they don't even think Trump is a "King" or understand Power one damn bit. Oh hell no, it's way worse than that.

They've appointed Trump their God just cuz he makes them "feel good" and no, they don't care if they go to Hell.

If you don't think Republicans' current hostility towards Islam, any Christian denomination they deem insufficiently "Right-Wing" and non-Zionist Judaism won't eventually spread to Evangelicals, Zionists and every other damn thing, you would be wrong.

Even Trump will fall by the wayside, especially after he's dead but very likely before. I'll note that it really seems like in the last year whatever demonic "Aura of Protection" he had is gone. 

Eventually they'll just cut out the middleman and worship the Demons directly.

Doesn't matter to them that they can't exactly find regular people to do stuff for them anymore. Gee, I wonder why?

Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen. ~Ezekiel 16:49-50 (NIV)

Some kid tried to pull a "Gotcha" on Al-Sayed yesterday, only it turns out he's the son of some Republican staffer, connected to another who's connected to Josh Hawley, and friends with Sean Feucht. 

There ain't very many regular people left who are down with all this shit, I guess.

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.

Like I've said, I can't even talk the way these people talk.

But I can for damn sure tell you they're enraged by the fact that between 70% and 80% of America is against this shit.

And doubling down infinitely.

It's going to come down to a fight.

And that's a fight Republican are gonna lose. You don't start shit, or keep pushing, when you've got up around 3/4 of the population against you and you're losing your own voter base. They're trying to smash and grab what they can now.

These guys aren't helping Putin because they think he's actually gonna win. Vlad knows Trump is gonna die and he's calling in whatever favors he can now while he can. 

Russia is cold and shitty, not bad if you're an Oligarch but they won't be such over there. Still, it's a damn sight better than dead or in jail. 

Follow the Moskva
Down to Gorky Park
Listening to the wind of change
An August summer night
Soldiers passing by

Listening to the wind of change
The world is closing in
Did you ever think
That we could be so close, like brothers

The future's in the air
Can feel it everywhere
Blowing with the wind of change.

~Scorpions, Winds Of Change

And the rest of these motherfucking old ass White Republicans know they ain't all gonna be able to go to Argentina. Hell, a fair number of them probably don't want to go to Argentina because, the country's pretensions aside, it's generally not considered "White."

They are likewise enabling Israel for the same reason, but again, it's a specifically non-Christian country in which outright Christian Nationalism would not only not be welcome, but it gets people arrested.

But they gotta go somewhere, I don't think their plans for a civil war here are gonna go in their favor nor would said war if it happened. They might get Florida...but their numbers are so bad even that's questionable. Still, they are gonna want somebody to protect them from the rest of us.

The game is up, the party's almost over. They know it, we know it. They know we know it.

The Empire isn't "going" to fall...it's falling.

That's usually when somebody does something really stupid.

You either believe in freedom or you don't.

No Kings.

American Reformation Now.

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

Last Post

[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."