For By Thy Sorceries Were All Nations Deceived (American Revelation XVI, Eight.)

And after these things I saw another angel come down from heaven, having great power; and the earth was lightened with his glory.

And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird.

For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies.

And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.

For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities.

Reward her even as she rewarded you, and double unto her double according to her works: in the cup which she hath filled fill to her double.

How much she hath glorified herself, and lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her: for she said in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow.

Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire: for strong is the Lord God who judges her.

And the kings of the earth, who have committed fornication and lived deliciously with her, shall bewail her, and lament for her, when they shall see the smoke of her burning,

Standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Alas, alas that great city Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour is thy judgment come. ~Revelation 18:1-10

...

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

I know I'm old school.

Outdated, planned obsolescence, even. I get it. I'm Okay with that, even though I know it's not always a good thing. Things must change, from time to time. 

But come on, people.

I'm a former conservative Republican, who was taught a certain way of doing things that is completely nonpartisan and not up for debate, and which I've always at least tried to live up to. I'm a Democrat now because like it or not, that's the side that gives a shit about America, and that represents Democracy and actually listens to the common people like me now and then.

And they've become the side that represents things I can at least recognize as values, even if I don't personally agree with their particular take on that stuff, I can at least shrug and say Okay, I'll be over here minding my own business because I don't think I have some magical right to tell other people what to do. For me, "Power" in and of itself, is not a value.

But it's more than that, for me at least.

Democrats in general, and Joe Biden in particular, seem to at least have a modicum of self-respect, they actually believe in what they say, and believe what they say about themselves. 

Joe Biden himself has more than once looked at some goofy-ass thing Republicans were doing and said "Come On, Man!"

Everything is not some kind of naked, stupid power calculus where everybody on that side just ignores the blatant, bullshit-ass hypocrisy in the name of bowing and scraping for profit, for the sheer joy of doing so.

(Because that's what Republicans think is "Right." This is what they think the world is supposed to be.)

But again, that's not all there is to it.

The modern Democratic Party of 2024 does NOT both #1 Consist of some of the most ridiculously over the top, pop-cultured, privileged, puffed-up and wealthy people who've ever lived, and #2 Permit those fucking people to constantly go around asking people like me for money.

But of course, there's more to it than just money.

Donald Trump, whether you think deservedly or undeservedly, lives the kind of life a whole hell of a lot of Americans...much less people in the wider world...can't even imagine. 

I'm talking in terms not so much of power and wealth here but in terms of literally getting to spend his time...and I mean, like, all of it aside from very recently, when he's on trial for crimes...enjoying himself in terms of everything from attention to drugs to material comforts to sex and whatever the fuck else we don't even know about, never will, and wouldn't want to.

And for all that, he's still a miserable bastard! Worse, the motherfucker wants me to feel sorry for him??

I mean, doesn't any of this seem wrong to you??

Let me put it another way; According to how I was taught, if your ass is hanging around with, sharing secrets with, or otherwise seriously being involved with a skeevy looking dude who's literally named Pecker, you need to go home and seriously start rethinking your life choices.

I have a hard time understanding how these fucking people don't get that. 

Stuff like that was never presented to me as a choice, apparently with good reason. In fact, I don't know that my Grandpa or anybody else ever actually told me to avoid skeevy-looking dudes with funny names, I just sort of got that. Republicans (and Trump) apparently did not.

And these super-comfortable people, who literally act like they are not and never will be under threat, act like it's some kind of betrayal that other Republicans, led by Mike Johnson, sided with Democrats in approving aid to Ukraine so that those people over there can keep fighting for their country and for their culture and their literal right to exist as a People.

And these Republicans, even though the Ukrainians are protecting them, too, and making it so they and people like them or people that they represent don't have to go and fight, think they're too good to have to help out.

And that's before you even get to the fact that a whole bunch of these motherfuckers are actually in bed with the goddamned Russians. If you want the truth, I'm not sure that Republicans like Donald Trump or Thomas Massie would defend America if we got attacked...at least, not if we got attacked by the fucking Russians.

Never mind that the Russians don't give a shit about them, either.

I'm tired of this bullshit.

I'm tired of these fucking people and their priggish religiosity.

I'm tired of their Christ-less Christianity.

I don't want to live the kind of joyless, loveless existence they would gladly prescribe for people like me if they were given that kind of power.

Their entire bit, the whole goddamned thing is literally anything but them living in a civilization to which they must contribute.

Anything but America.

Anything but "Love Thy Neighbor."

Anything but Freedom, if anybody else gets to have it.

I'm tired of these fucking people and their bullshit.

Because for these idiots, it's Anything but doing the work of life and taking responsibility for yourself and maintaining and protecting the society that gives them life, too.

It's literally any old damn thing besides "Having to give a shit about other people, simply because they're other people."

(And America gives selfish-ass clowns like this cop authority and access to weapons? WTF??)

I'm sorry, but I was taught that keeping all that shit up was exactly what being a conservative was. Giving a shit, whether it's convenient or it's not.

These motherfuckers would rather be slaves to somebody like Donald Trump than be free.

And then they're miserable, and they want me to feel sorry for them because of it.

No.

Grow the fuck up, Republicans.

Because if you don't, sooner or later the rest of us are going to have to start treating you like the stupid, violent children you act like you are...not only for our own survival, but for yours too.

And then these idiot wannabe Nazis who've never taken a punch in their lives think they're going to threaten people like me?? Okay, we'll see how that works out for you. I'm a veteran, bro. I faced down people like you in Bosnia...and they pissed themselves and surrendered. If you're so "White" and "Western" what kind of a name is "Gaad Saad" anyway?? I'm a just call you "Saad Sack" 'Cause that's what your ass is.

And when I say stuff like that, remember I was raised with the Ass Whuppin.' Learning to be a person, much less an adult, responsible person wasn't always pleasant in my day. Whether it's right or wrong, that's just how it was when I came up. I had to take the hits when I fucked up.

Note: I looked him up. Bro is an Arab, Lebanese-Canadian marketing professor. Please note, in all seriousness that not a bit of that scans as either "Western" in the way he thinks he means it, or as "White." Let alone macho or to be taken seriously in the kind of (Yes, very White and Male) moral universe that I was originally taught, let alone the one he proposes that we all live in. Yes, Middle Eastern people, both Christian and Muslim...not to mention all those Black Africans and Afro-Caribbean people who speak The King's English, French and other European languages are as Western as old Saad Sack is, or even more so.

There's a reason I say that:

Part of the goddamn point was that Western culture originally was designed to go around hoovering up and incorporating and absorbing the strengths of other cultures and people groups. That's what Rome did, for fuck's sake! During the Islamic Golden Age, plenty of philosophers and scholars were as conversant with the writings of Aristotle as they were with those of the Holy Quran. This is how this is/was supposed to work.

(And if Saad Sack thinks I don't like him, wait until he has to deal with actual Nazis. And remember, the Nazis had a fascination not only with lots of non-Western religions but with Occultism. And I've known that since I saw Raiders Of The Lost Ark as a kid.)

The old white WASP-y shit Elks Club Republicans I used to drink and golf with when I was a teenager and young man wouldn't have let this motherfucker in the goddamn door, and they'd have called him worse than Saad Sack! They'd have laughed at him, to his face. These were guys who cheerfully called people from places like Lebanon all type of shit! And remember, in going out into the real world I had to go from keeping up with these guys to first working with a bunch of [Black] Jamaicans and shit working a summer on Mackinaw Island and I had to have nothing but respect for those people and how hard they worked. Then I worked the kind of hard-ass factory job, working with a bunch of redneck white dudes, that sucked so bad I thought the military might be an upgrade. And then, after I enlisted, I was serving with and learning, sometimes the hard way, the worth of people of all colors and races and walks of life. 

One of my best friends in the Air Force (and my roommate in the Airman's Dorms at KI Sawyer AFB) was an African American convert to Islam who was as Black as a night in the desert. Eventually, we were both Senior Airmen, then Sergeants, Squad leaders. Disobedience of authority in that sort of context or that one didn't like the "Look" of wasn't an option, nor was not liking the look of it. (Per regulations) But, trust me, when That Guy (Probably "That Person" more properly today) gives you an order, you'll obey and you'll like it. You ain't got time to care what Color (or what anything else) they is.

But you know what else those people that I served with and before them, my elders and in fact, those people I worked with and even the shitty old Republicans, taught me??

You either believe in freedom or you don't. Freedom ain't free. 

Understanding that is why I did shit like serve in the Air Force in the first place. It's why I write and try to educate people now. 

Here's the thing, freedom and rights come with responsibilities, too. 

Freedom is neither a given, nor self-perpetuating, a lot of people around the world don't have it. You have to do the work to keep it, and yes, sometimes you have to fight for it. Like I said yesterday, if the Ukrainians can understand that, why can't so many privileged Americans??

Non Nobis Solum Nati Sumus. (How's that for "Western" eh, Saad Sack?) We are not born for ourselves alone.

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

And this?

This ain't it.

Citizenship is what America is based on, not Privilege. America is based on what you can be, not what you're born as. I've known that since I was five years old, and we'd best get back to it.

Because if we don't, privilege is going to kill us. Dominant ethnic groups and incestuous nobilities and privileged performative foolishness was exactly what turned Europe into the kind of soup sandwich our Founders wanted to get away from.

How's that for an understanding of Western Civilization, motherfucker?

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

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

Seven

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 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, letter written following the Hajj.

No Sympathy For The Devil (American Revelation XVI, Seven.)

No sympathy for the devil; keep that in mind. Buy the ticket, take the ride...and if it occasionally gets a little heavier than what you had in mind, well...maybe chalk it up to forced consciousness expansion: Tune in, freak out, get beaten. ~Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

...

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

So, Trump's trial officially started this morning, and he's already calling for his supporters to riot because of the trial.

Aren't these fucking people the same ones who ruthlessly connect "Rioting And Looting" to Black people and others that they don't like at every available opportunity?? It's funny how that, too, is just projection. It's an endless, relentless attempt by the complexionally-challenged to pawn off their own wrongs on other people and use that as an excuse to persecute them. 

Fuck that shit, I'm tired of it.

You know what else I'm tired of??

I'm tired of all these vapid ass-kissers and fluffers and shit, who just can't stop blowing the goddamn narcissist.

People keep trying to make it sound like the whole goddamned economy somehow depends on Trump and/or Republicans or something something Gazpacho...

But the truth is, they're the ones who've created an entire goddamn industry around feeding Trump's narcissism and shoveling this shit at the public.

Meanwhile the truth is, after his ass lost the election in 2020 he went and sulked at Mar-A-Lago for like a year and a half, nobody fucking cared, and the world moved on just fine without him.

But it was the ego of all the MAGA's that appeared to be most harmed by this. These fucking people have made Trump their identity, and they can't stand it if he's not front-and-center of every goddamn thing. So of course amoral Ghouls like Rupert Murdoch latch onto that shit for profit.

And thus, Mike Johnson and the pro-Ukraine Republicans now aside, the goddamn "Conservative" movement as a whole is stuck in a doom loop with a fucking narcissist.

Think about that, for a second. Take all the time you need.

I was married to a woman who has a Personality Disorder. It's not just that I can tell you how this ends. It's that, looking at what's publicly known about the current internal workings and financial situation of the GOP as a whole and the near destruction of my state's Republican Party in particular...it's already about 90% of the way there. And there's no money.

But again, having been in a much smaller version of this mess myself, I'm sure the reality of it is worse.

I'm serious, the constant, ridiculous forays into religiosity are a huge tell that this whole mess is going to end badly, and probably soon. When she saw the writing on the wall, my Ex got the Jesus, like, really bad.

And I'm here to tell you people like Lauren Blowbert and their transparently fake religiosity are the rule, not the exception, going forward. Whether he loses his Speakership, resigns or Republicans lose the majority in November (or for that matter, before that, which is a real possibility) and he's simply relegated back to obscurity...this shit is only going to get worse.

And that's how Republicans want it.

Unless We, the People, stop putting up with this bullshit and vote these fuckers out.

And then they'll try a right-wing Insurgency, that too will end badly, they don't care.

It'd be funny if they weren't threatening to start shooting at the other two thirds of America and trying to burn down the whole damn country.

The thing is, sooner or later these fucking people probably are going to break off a chunk of America for their own shitty little Banana Republic. It won't be the kind of place anybody wants to live.

Like, these fuckers think charity is a bad thing.

In fact, that shit will basically be Turkmenistan, but for White Evangelical Christian People, and there probably will be even more corruption and a lot less freedom, in whatever part of the USA they get. And they'll probably only get it if we let them have it.

And when it sucks, that'll somehow be our fault.

These idiots see stuff like what Elon has done to Twitter, what Putin has done to Russia and what Trump has done to the GOP and they whack off to the idea of making the whole damn world like that.

"Everything is bad, vote for us" or some such bullshit, as if everything sucking justifies how shitty they are.

I mean, it's so bad that even Republicans are sick of Republicans.

But here's the thing, America isn't based on some imaginary Pyramid Of Suckage that exists only in the Republican mind, it's based on citizenship. Of course, that's why these motherfuckers hate America. We're not shitty enough, or something.

I thought the point here was to make things better, not worse.

Of course, what Republicans are really thinking is "Better for whom?" And if the answer isn't "Them" they don't want to partake of it, like at all.

I'm not 100% sure what the answer is here, America, but what I can say is if we go with "Be The People That Republicans Don't Like" we'll probably end up better off.

Don't take my word for it, even Rupert Murdoch, of all fucking people, basically is saying just that. Think the NY Post prints any damn thing without his say-so?? Even the paymasters and the string-pullers are sick of these people's bullshit.

I'm serious, and as bad as things are, Republicans want them to be worse.

You want things to be better?? Don't be these motherfuckers.

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Osman Ali Atto: I see not catching Aidid is becoming routine.

General William Garrison: We're not leaving Somalia until we find him. And we will find him.

Atto: (scoffing) You've been here, what, six weeks? Six weeks, you tried to catch the General. You put up reward posters. $25,000. What's this, gunfight at K.O. Corral?

Garrison: It's O.K. Corral.

Atto: Don't make the mistake of thinking because I grew up without running water I am simple, General. I do know something about history. See all this? It's simply shaping tomorrow. A tomorrow without a lot of Arkansas white-boys' ideas in it.

Garrison: Well, I wouldn't know about that. I'm from Texas.

Atto: Mr. Garrison, I think you should not have come here. This is civil war. This is our war, not yours.

Garrison: Three hundred thousand dead and counting. That's not a war, Mr. Atto. That's genocide. ~From The Film Black Hawk Down.

Six

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

Crazy people walkin' round with blood in their eyes
And all she wants to do is dance, dance, dance
Wild-eyed pistol 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

On Fire, For Trump (American Revelation XVI, Six.)

Fear keeps us focused on the past or worried about the future. If we can acknowledge our fear, we can realize that right now we are okay. Right now, today, we are still alive, and our bodies are working marvelously. Our eyes can still see the beautiful sky. Our ears can still hear the voices of our loved ones. ~Thich Nhat Hanh

....

We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world. ~Gautama Buddha

...

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

I'm tired of living in a world where the Christian church is literally turning into a church of Donald Trump.

I'm tired of Trump, period.

And then I saw this on Friday, some nut literally self-immolated outside of Trump's trial in NYC. The person was later identified as Max Azzarello, an apparently-far-left conspiracy theorist (and strangely enough, registered Democrat) from Florida.

Without really learning much about the person until I looked him up when I got home after work Sunday morning, just bits and pieces here and there because I was working, I spent the whole weekend wondering how somebody could set themselves on fire for Donald Trump.

I mean, what's even the damn point, right??

Dude ain't exactly Thich Quang Duc, I'm just sayin.'

And I saw it pile up over the weekend, there's an awful lot of weird shit going around, this is more than just one guy's fatal mental breakdown.

I saw this yesterday morning, some preacher got kicked out of a Christian "Men's conference" for criticizing the fact that the opening act was a male stripper and sword-swallower. Now, full disclosure, I went to a fair number of those things back in the day, and I've never even heard of anything like that being on the program.

Well then, I started researching what happened and it turned out that the preacher in question was Mark Driscoll, the disgraced former Pastor of Mars Hill Church in Seattle, WA. I saw him speak once, when he was just at the start of his fame, and I was at the tail end of my involvement with the last church I went to. I didn't like him. I was not impressed. In this particular case he was right but his own arguments that I saw were peppered with a strange combination of harsh legalism that seemed almost right out of Paul's letters and Word Of Faith mumbo jumbo.

I got my answers, I shook my head, I very much felt like there were no good guys there.

And that seems to be by design.

Likewise, last week a bunch of Columbia University students got arrested and suspended from school for protesting the war between Israel and Hamas, and the University leadership responded by sending NYPD riot police to arrest them, and then kicked them out of school and threw their belongings in an alley all because Congressional Republicans were demanding they "Do Something."

Fuck all that.

While I don't much agree with the pro-Palestine protesters or their tactics, and I despise their frequent antisemitism, I also think the University's response sucked. This  apparently has generated real blowback within the campus, which is probably a good thing. 

You either believe in freedom or you don't.

I mean, when you do a thing and the worst people in the world start acting like they've won a great victory because they got you to do it, it's probably a good time to start rethinking your life.

And there's a segment of American "Liberalism" that'd rather let the Far-right burn freedom to ashes than lose their Cocktail Party friends. See Also; Stephen Breyer.

Again, fuck all that.

To "Conservatives" Antisemitism and Israel and Palestine and all this stuff, it's all nothing but wedge issues they can use to advance their own increasingly shitty agendas. They don't give a shit about Israelis or Palestinians, they just want to spank the monkey to the "idea" of kicking all the "Leftists" out of universities...as if there'd be enough people left to run the place or enough students left to justify their existence without said Leftists??

I mean, who else even wants to go to an Ivy League university in New York City??

(I sure didn't, and some people thought I might be that smart back in the day.)

If these fucking people (by which I mean both far-right Republicans and the squishy "Liberal" cowards who keep enabling them) could bow before the Hammer and Sickle and get their power fix by being Communist Zampolits and turning Universities into nothing more than ideological indoctrination centers, they'd fucking do it.

Because nothing else matters to them but getting to go to all the "right" parties and shit.

And yeah, I know, sometimes free people do shitty things with their freedom. Taking it away ain't the answer.

I mean, come on, Leftists and protests and shit are...whether I agree with them or not...things I associate with Ivy League schools, and I always have. I don't say that as it's meant to be a negative. It is what it is. I've always seen it as those people have their place in the world, and that's frankly another reason their administrations toadying up to far-right bullshitters like Chris Rufo lately makes my skin crawl.

Debate and education and learning are the damn point, otherwise, what are you doing in a school, at any level?? I know right-wingers see everything as ideology, but sooner or later somebody's got to learn something. You can't fly a jet...or maintain it...on nothing but Political Science. 

And by kowtowing to these shitheads, the Ivy League administrations have basically created a Campus Civil War that they're going to end up losing while Chris Rufo and Marjorie Taylor Greene slink out the back door, turned something that would have blown over in a few weeks into a national issue that's going to keep on going and create further confusion, division and drama and the only people who profit are people like Chris Rufo and Vladimir Putin whose entire intention is to burn American (if not global) civil society and higher education to the ground for their fascist beliefs.

Again, there's no good guys here, and that's how the Right wanted to set it up. I think that's why Putin put Hamas up to attacking Israel on 10/7 in the first damn place.

So it would cause this kind of mess, and fire up the American "Radical Chic" Far-left in a way that would be useful to the neo-Soviets of Putin's regime...and inspire the absolute worst from nearly everybody else, too.

And Putin did it so he could distract the US and the West from helping Ukraine, and so that he could go on persecuting Christians in both Russia and Ukraine. See, in Russia, the Russian Orthodox Church is an arm of the State, effectively controlled by the KGB (Face it, there's no sense in calling it the FSB anymore.) The Russians can't imagine religious belief anywhere else is any damn different, 'cause they're stupid intellectually incurious pricks who think everybody else longs to be a harness bull or a spy for Power because that's what they aspire to be and do.

I'm not kidding, go ahead, read the article.

Freedom doesn't even exist, as far as those motherfuckers are concerned.

Because they're Motherfuckers.

And what does it tell you, that American Evangelicals can't even see this shit and side with Putin??

We are absolutely looking right at who'd be the people joining the False World System of the Beast of Revelations and who'd be lining up 'round the block to take the Mark Of The Beast and of course it's the same goddamned people who violently denied they'd ever do any such thing for almost my whole life.

For no better reason than they automatically assumed the "Antichrist" and his beliefs would be some variant of Liberalism, and they reacted accordingly, per their shitty worldview. But when it turns out the one aspiring One World Potentate is far-right?? 

O Ho! That's different! Not only are they fine with it, but all he has to insinuate (not even say) is "Own The Libs" and suddenly the Mark Of The Beast isn't so bad. Hell, Elon Musk even has a prototype! (And he's apparently not the only one.)

These fucking people would gladly light the world on fire, for Trump or someone like him.

And the worst part is, they can't even see what they're doing. Ring the bell, the dog drools, it doesn't even matter if he gets food anymore.

The incentive structure of people is so massively out of whack it makes no sense to me.

As a human being that God endowed with a mind; It wouldn't even occur to me to light myself on fire for conspiracy theories and/or Donald Trump.

As a pragmatic, barely-a-liberal former conservative, it'd never cross my mind to call in the jackboots on protesting students who are, like it or not, simply exercising their Constitutional rights. 

It'd wouldn't be a thing I'd even think about doing; To try to sell America to Vladimir Putin for nothing more than cheap internet fame.

You can't reason with this shit. You can only fight against it. It's funny how Ukrainians understand that and so many privileged Americans don't.

And more to the point, being fought against is basically the only thing the motherfuckers understand.

But we're gonna have to, Somebody's gonna have to stand up. 

Otherwise the sole message of this time, were it up to the elites, is "Be Motherfuckers. It's profitable and it gets you so much glory that people will light their own ass on fire for you."

And they want to create a world in which there's no "Good Guys" simply to justify themselves and their evil deeds.

I don't want to live in that kind of world.

Do you??

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

Remember that, because it's going to be on the test.

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There are times, however, and this is one of them, when even being right feels wrong. What do you say, for instance, about a generation that has been taught that rain is poison and sex is death? If making love might be fatal and if a cool spring breeze on any summer afternoon can turn a crystal blue lake into a puddle of black poison right in front of your eyes, there is not much left except TV and relentless masturbation. It's a strange world. Some people get rich and others eat shit and die. Who knows? If there is in fact, a heaven and a hell, all we know for sure is that hell will be a viciously overcrowded version of Phoenix — a clean well lighted place full of sunshine and bromides and fast cars where almost everybody seems vaguely happy, except those who know in their hearts what is missing... And being driven slowly and quietly into the kind of terminal craziness that comes with finally understanding that the one thing you want is not there. Missing. Back-ordered. No tengo. Vaya con dios. Grow up! Small is better. Take what you can get. ~Hunter S. Thompson, Generation Of Swine.

...

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

Bottomless Pit (American Revelation XVI, Five.)

Hospitaler: One may stare into the light, until one becomes the light. I've done it many times.

Balian of Ibelin: [throws a rock at a bush that catches fire by the spark] There's your religion. One spark, a creosote bush. There's your Moses. I did not hear it speak.

Hospitaler: That does not mean that there is no God. Do you love her?

Balian of Ibelin: Yes.

Hospitaler: The heart will mend. Your duty is to the people of the city. I go to pray.

Balian of Ibelin: For what?

Hospitaler: For the strength to endure what is to come.

Balian of Ibelin: And what is to come?

Hospitaler: The reckoning is to come for what was done one hundred years before. The Muslims will never forget. Nor should they.

[the Hospitaler slowly walks away as a second bush several yards from the burning one catches fire. The Hospitaler is nowhere to be seen in the clear and open desert]

~From the film Kingdom Of Heaven.

...

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

I saw this yesterday.

Trump is having to sit there and listen to mean social media posts and see mean memes about himself from like 75% of the potential jurors. I guess it's not "Fuck your feelings" now, eh??

Suck it, motherfucker.

I'm tired of these fucking people and their cruelty and ignorant racist bullshit and that's all there is to it.

I'm tired of the conspiracy theories and the racism and the religious fanaticism that now seems shorn of anything I can even recognize as belief in God. 

And I'm tired of these ass-clowns accusing other people of the shit they do, and then flat out doing it right in front of our faces. Like they think we're stupid, or some shit.

Like this idiot, says Trump isn't a racist, and then launches right into the old Birtherism bullshit.

And I'm assuming it just doesn't register, as these fucking people have all the self-awareness of an old dog licking its balls in the front yard on a Sunday morning.

Motherfuckers need to hear of some Mean Tweets, I think.

Meanwhile Trump continues to strip the GOP for parts, now he wants down-ballot candidates to give him money if they use his image, name, etc.

And the reason he can do it is, again, because of all this same fucking bullshit! Trump gives them some kind of "permission" to be racist and be their worst possible selves and to buy into any old woo woo bullshit that tickles their ears...and to paraphrase Lyndon Johnson's quote, they'll empty their pockets, pull their pants down and bend over for the son of a bitch!

They have achieved their goal of a Christ-less Christianity, only to find out that even that doesn't go far enough, and on top of that, now they find out they're in thrall to far darker powers than their most inflated visions of their own selves. I have no goddamn sympathy, None. Zero. Fuck You.

They're the ones who can't stop blowing the goddamn narcissist.

And not only is Trump robbing them blind, but Republicans fucked around with all these MAGA fanatics and now they're gonna find out. See, I knew a lot of these people back when they were Fundamentalist Christians and shit, and nothing is ever going to be good enough for these fucking fanatics.

These fucking people have appointed Donald Trump to be their fucking God.

Like, how fucked in the head do you have to be, and what kind of sad-sack goddamned life do you have to be living to even have this thought process enter your brain-pan??

I couldn't do it, and I used to be a Republican.

I. Couldn't. Fucking. Do. It.

Like, I've always known Trump was a liar and a piece of shit.

And like, maybe all the bankruptcies and divorces and failed casinos were a fucking hint, people. I worked in a casino for almost 20 years and I'm serious...it must be some kind of perfect storm of goddamned incompetence that Trump could make a casino lose money.

But Republicans won't stop blowing the goddamned narcissist.

And now he's going to do the exact same thing to the Trump Republican Party that he did to the Trump Taj Mahal and a bunch of other casinos in Atlantic City.

And as things spiral out of control and they start to lose their ass, these fucking people are only going to get meaner. Here's Tom Cotton, who thinks it's funny to demand that his supporters do war crimes against their fellow citizens.

Note: This will only last until one of these Beard-O dude-bro crybabies who drives around in a big truck covered in right-wing rage-stickers and skeletal motifs gets a bullet hole in their big truck. None of this shit is taking into account that it's human nature to fight back, to resist, so do it.

These stupid idiots couldn't even be bothered to do something simple like stay their ass home in the middle of a deadly global pandemic. I highly doubt all that many of them are going to be Tom Cotton's Civil-War shock-troopers or right-wing Death Squads...at least not with any degree of effectiveness.

Not that Tom Cotton actually cares.

And the thing that pisses me off, is he's an Army veteran, he should know better than this shit. I had to.

I wrote about that.

For one thing too many of these shitheads don't know the difference between their penis and their rifle, and it'll be kind of awkward when some of them get caught charging into battle with their pants around their ankles, each with their hands clenched firmly on the wrong "gun."

If I had to guess, we're not too far from Darwinian evolution simply thinning the fucking herd.

Like I said, I used to be a Republican.

I used to be a Christian, too.

I'm a veteran.

And all my life, I've been hearing about how Republicans were still mad about this thing that happened years and years ago, in some cases, before I was born.

Vietnam.

Jane Fonda.

Watergate.

The Iranian Revolution.

Well, just so ya know, I'm 50 years old. This year I'll be 51. Vietnam and the whole Jane Fonda thing were before my time. I was less than a year old when Nixon resigned.

And of course, that's not an exhaustive list of all the shit that Republicans be mad about, it goes on...

But ya know what, Republicans? It's 2024, not 1974.

People can't make it on what you want to pay us, and don't want to (nor are we required to have to) live under your Domination. That's why that whole "Great Resignation" thing happened after COVID-19.

I mean, what was even the damn point??

A hell of a lot of the rest of us are moving on, adapting, changing, organizing.

And while you're busy blowing Trump and shoving every last dollar you got down that bottomless pit where Trump's fuckin' soul was supposed to be...we've gotten sick of your bullshit.

I can't say "Anything but America" because I live here and I've already contributed to this country.

I can't say I won't Love My Neighbor because I used to be a Christian and I remember what the Lord's Word says about that.

Either you believe in freedom or you don't.

Either you're willing to fight for it, or you're not.

Either you believe in endlessly fellating Donald Trump or you believe in, well, pretty much anything else.

You idiots decided to make Trump your God.

Well, to dip back into my old school church background...

Time's coming where you better be right, 'cause if you're wrong there's literally going to be hell to pay when the bill comes due.

And it's coming.

And you fuckers emptied your pockets.

And gave everything to Trump.

You've poured everything you had down this Bottomless Pit of a small man.

And he still wants more.

Think about that for a second.

Come on, man, what the fuck are we even doing here.

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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.

Note: The Maori Haka Ka Mate, is the story of a Maori chief named Te Rauparaha who hides in a well, fleeing from pursuing enemies of other tribes. He evades his enemies and is rescued by an unnamed man who puts a ladder down the well so he can get out. Made world-famous thanks to its use by the New Zealand All Blacks Rugby team, Ka Mate is a story of the triumph of life over death. You can get out of the Bottomless Pit.

Four

Bonus Content

When ye therefore shall see the Abomination of Desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (who so reads, let him understand)

Then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains:

Let him which is on the housetop not come down to take any thing out of his house:

Neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes.

And woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days!

But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the sabbath day:

For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.

And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened.

Then if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or there; believe it not.

For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect.

Behold, I have told you before.

Wherefore if they shall say unto you, Behold, he is in the desert; go not forth: behold, he is in the secret chambers; believe it not.

For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shines even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. ~Matthew 24:15-27

American Abomination, Or Lazy-Ass Bitch? (American Revelation XVI, Four.)

When ye therefore shall see the Abomination of Desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (who so reads, let him understand)

Then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains:

Let him which is on the housetop not come down to take any thing out of his house:

Neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes.

And woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days!

But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the sabbath day:

For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.

And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened.

Then if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or there; believe it not.

For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect.

Behold, I have told you before.

Wherefore if they shall say unto you, Behold, he is in the desert; go not forth: behold, he is in the secret chambers; believe it not.

For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shines even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. ~Matthew 24:15-27

I saw this yesterday.

Trump, at his Election interference/Hush money trial, falling asleep and looking like shit.

#1 I don't want to hear the words "Sleepy Joe" ever again, at least not in regards to Joe Biden.

#2 Seriously? At the rate Trump is going, he's gonna spend a night or two on Riker's Island just for Contempt Of Court alone, he's already being charged with it.

#3 Hey, Republicans, this is the dude you effectively have appointed to be your god.

This whole time...actually, for more of my life than I care to have, since long before Trump ever went into politics...I've been hearing about how on-the-ball, how smart and how tough Trump was.

I always knew it was bullshit, and he did enough dumb shit during his first campaign or while he was President that it basically became a meme along the way...but Trump still had that cult of fluffers and while he looked stupid plenty of times, and looked like shit more than once, he didn't necessarily look frail or weak, or...yes, human. Indeed the exaggerated inhumanity of Trump's cast of Mar-A-Lago ghouls, his menageries of freaks and his own personal lifestyle did seem perversely geared toward that end. Bumptious and preposterous? Absolutely! Did he look pathetic at times? Yes. Mentally or morally weak? Yeah, but the MAGA's didn't care about that.

But he usually managed, at least in public, to not look like a doddering old Grandpa-man who takes like seventeen naps in the course of the average day. Now I'm wondering how much of his Rally-image of vigor, virility and rapid-fire insult-"comedy" was just one hell of a lot of Adderall and Cocaine??

Now he's in court, for a criminal trial, and falls asleep in the first couple of hours, and then a couple more times, besides?? Not only is that "So much for the public image of Trump's mental acuity, but I know if it'd been me, I'd have been sleeping it off in a cell if I pulled that kind of shit.

And then I saw this, that Trump has some flunky following him around with a laptop and a portable printer, and has her print out bullshit happy stories from the internet. I mean, what the fuck??

Like seriously, the whole point of Fascism is that fundamentally unbelieving people want to be able to reach out and touch some kind of a transcendent State embodied in some Leader and a bunch of marching soldiers...and this is the best they could come up with?? LOL.

So much for Trump being the Antichrist, or otherwise having some kind of superpowers other than being rich and shameless. Kind of tells you what these idiots' real priorities are, doesn't it??

There's nothing Great about this dude. He's just a simple-minded lazy-ass bitch who can talk real big, and you fell for it.

Stop blowing the narcissist, Republicans.

He's a Narcissist, by definition you're not going to get anything out of it.

We live in a chaotic, messed-up world that's under some very real threats, but there are actually a hell of a lot of real heroes out there. People who are trying to make things better, or, ya know...just to survive.

And you're telling me Americans want to worship Donald Trump??

Speaking of real heroes; There's a 12-year-old Ukrainian girl who'll be running the fuckin' Boston Marathon with prosthetic legs, and there's people in America who'll try to tell you that Trump is tough??

LOL, fuck you. No.

Trump needed a golf cart to traverse a distance of like 800 feet. I don't wanna hear how tough he is when there's a kid, who shouldn't be in that kind of position, running a goddamned marathon using prosthetic legs because she lost hers in a Russian missile attack.

Yana Stepanenko is far more of a hero than Donald Trump ever will be.

And it you support the Russians who maimed her, rather than Ukraine, which is fighting for its right to even exist...fuck you.

As I've said before, if Russia can just spontaneously decide that Ukraine shouldn't exist, what's to stop them from deciding the same thing about America or any other country?? A whole shitload of weapons? Bro you have to have the guts to use those weapons and I'm not even sure all these Republicans who love the taste of Russian boot-leather would even fight back if the Russians came at us.

Especially when these fucking people basically believe in pretty much anything but America.

Well, I suppose it tracks, they already cast aside Jesus Christ for this punk-ass wannabe Antichrist.

The thing is, the problem here isn't Trump.

He's just a shitty opportunist who took advantage.

The real problem is we got a whole boatload of people who are so desperate to have something to believe in that they'll believe in any old thing, be it conspiracy theories, racism, or Trump.

Ya know, I think if America really was a "Christian Nation" or even wanted to be that or was trying to be that...or even had any other belief system or religion besides shitty, base greed and materialism, we wouldn't have this problem.

The thing about Trump isn't him, it's all these fucking people who were literally looking for any excuse, no matter how bogus, to be their worst possible selves...and Trump gave them that.

And when he falls...and he will, and I think we're looking at it...they'll just find another one.

When the Cult Leader falls and doesn't get re-elected or goes to prison or dies and fails to be swept up to Heaven on the Wings of Angels or some shit, they'll just rationalize. When this dude fails to be God, they'll just rationalize it and find another one, because motherfuckers wanna believe, and more to the point, motherfuckers wanna be motherfuckers.

You know how you beat that??

Be a goddamned Citizen, do your duty to the Republic, and vote these people the fuck out.

And when they come at you because they all mad about it, you fucking fight.

You either believe in freedom or you don't.

This is America, we're a secular nation. We're not required by anyone's politics or religion or any other bullshit to just let our own country or the world fall to the Antichrist and assorted False Prophets.

Remember that. Because it's going to be on the test.

'Cause if ya don't? We live in a world where all that the Beast of Revelations would have to do to win all the White Evangelicals over is spew a bunch of racism and "Socially Conservative" talk and promise to oppress LGBT folk and women and they'd be lining up 'round the block to take the Mark Of The Beast.

And yes, it really is that fucking simple.

These fucking people don't really believe in anything.

That's why the rest of us are gonna have to.

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The martyrs of history were not fools, and our honored dead who gave their lives to stop the advance of the Nazis didn't die in vain. Where, then, is the road to peace? Well, it's a simple answer after all. You and I have the courage to say to our enemies, "There is a price we will not pay." There is a point beyond which they must not advance. This is the meaning in the phrase of Barry Goldwater's "peace through strength." Winston Churchill said that "the destiny of man is not measured by material computation. When great forces are on the move in the world, we learn we are spirits — not animals." And he said, "There is something going on in time and space, and beyond time and space, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty. ~Ronald Reagan

Three

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

The Red Horse And The Orange Shitgibbon (American Revelation XVI, Three.)

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.

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 (King James Version.)

At midnight on Saturday, Iran attacked Israel, launching around 170 Drones, 120 Ballistic Missiles and 30 Cruise missiles at various targets. There wasn't a lot of damage, because most of the weapons were intercepted or shot down by the IDF, plus the French Navy, Royal Air Force, Royal Jordanian Air Force, US Air Force and US Navy. Also, the Saudis and the UAE apparently provided support.

Which seems weirdly contradictory to the various and assorted End Times narratives I've been hearing most of my life...and actually became a student of while I was in the military.

Arabs and Israelis working together to resist an attack on Israel? Hey, fuck you, Jack Van Impe.

That's pretty impressive, more to the point it ain't exactly caused Revelation, or WWIII, and since Biden has said we're not going to support an Israeli counterattack, maybe we'll get lucky and there won't be one.

In point of fact, there was only one person (a 7-year old Israeli Arab Bedouin girl) seriously injured. That really sucks for her, but as wars go, it could have been way worse. There were a few other minor injuries, and apparently a parked aircraft was also damaged.

My feeling is that the Russians put the Iranians up to this, because they need House Republicans to keep stalling on aid to Ukraine...not that the Russians have accomplished much despite a tenuous Ukrainian supply situation and assorted lags in the delivery of supplies and weapons. 

And I guess my thing about that is, the Russians have to know the Israelis could have gone all out in terms of their own response...they didn't, but they easily could have and I doubt a lot of their population would have minded a mushroom cloud or two over a couple of Iranian Air Force and/or Islamic Revolutionary Guards bases all that much.

Not to sound that way, but I for one would not have blamed them too much for hitting back, they apparently haven't yet...but one has to assume that option remains on the table.

So, the Iranians should know that the Russians consider the US Republican Party to be a more useful, valuable ally than they are...because let's get real, Israel could have responded in kind.

And, shall we say, certain Republicans would have gladly helped, if it'd been up to them. I bet John Bolton was up all night practicing his war-bluster and waxing his mustache.

No Red Horse and Beast with a sword for you, motherfucker!

(Also, since Trump, Republicans are just as willing to be Iran's bitch as they are to be Russia's bitch. That's why Bolton quit.)

So yeah, despite half the world being mad at Israel because of the Gaza war, Israel isn't an isolated pariah now and most of the world is looking at the Iranians like "Dude, what the fuck??" 

And while you could argue that the Iranians have mapped out Israeli air defenses and this and that, it seems like this was an awfully expensive way to go about doing it, if that is so.

In the end, I think it just comes down to one more attempt by the Russians and the rest of Authoritarians Incorporated to use some kind of big apparent action to try and distract and manipulate people so they don't do what it takes to help Ukraine.

And it's funny how money seems to be no object, since Iran and Russia are relatively poor countries, there's money for 120 ballistic missiles coming from somewhere, who's funding this shit??

(I get it, this crap is about Power, not money, and we're dealing with people-from little MAGA idiots to up to Putin himself-who'll piss away everything for some kind of relative status.)

While I'm at it, since Trump's hush money trial in the Stormy Daniels case has started today (and I'm getting ongoing updates on that) and he seems to be a keystone of all these fucking people's schemes, I have to wonder what other crazy shit is going to happen this week to try and distract from that and protect his ass.

I mean, the "Anything But America" crap seems to have taken a break, and they can't have that, can they??

Whether it's the Beast on the Red Horse with the great sword, or the Orange Shitgibbon with the Toad-Stool dick, somebody's going to try something.

The Price Of Liberty Is Eternal Vigilance.

Remember that, because it's going to be on the test, later.

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We welcome change and openness; for we believe that freedom and security go together, that the advance of human liberty can only strengthen the cause of world peace. There is one sign the Soviets can make that would be unmistakable, that would advance dramatically the cause of freedom and peace. General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization, come here to this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate. Mr. Gorbachev...Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!
~Ronald Reagan

Two

There are times, however, and this is one of them, when even being right feels wrong. What do you say, for instance, about a generation that has been taught that rain is poison and sex is death? If making love might be fatal and if a cool spring breeze on any summer afternoon can turn a crystal blue lake into a puddle of black poison right in front of your eyes, there is not much left except TV and relentless masturbation. It's a strange world. Some people get rich and others eat shit and die. Who knows? If there is in fact, a heaven and a hell, all we know for sure is that hell will be a viciously overcrowded version of Phoenix — a clean well lighted place full of sunshine and bromides and fast cars where almost everybody seems vaguely happy, except those who know in their hearts what is missing... And being driven slowly and quietly into the kind of terminal craziness that comes with finally understanding that the one thing you want is not there. Missing. Back-ordered. No tengo. Vaya con dios. Grow up! Small is better. Take what you can get. ~Hunter S. Thompson, Generation Of Swine.