God Mode (On The Dark And The Rolling Sea, Two.)

Peace is not the product of terror or fear.
Peace is not the silence of cemeteries.
Peace is not the silent result of violent repression.
Peace is the generous, tranquil contribution of all to the good of all.
Peace is dynamism.
Peace is generosity.
It is right and it is duty. ~Saint Oscar Romero.

...

When I was sixteen I won a great victory. I felt in that moment that I should live to be a hundred, now I know I shall not see thirty. None of us know our end really, or what hand will guide us there. A King may move a man, a father may claim a son. That man can also move himself. And only then does that man truly begin his own game. Remember that how so ever you are played, or by whom, your soul is in your keeping alone. Even though those who presume to play you be kings or men of power. When you stand before God, you cannot say "but I was told by others to do thusly" or that "virtue was not convenient at the time." This will not suffice. Remember that. ~The Leper King, from the film Kingdom Of Heaven.

...

Oh you set your course for the furthest shores

And you never once looked back
And the flag you flew was a pirate cross
On a field of velvet black
And those landsmen who you but lately knew
Were left stranded on the lea
Don't call on them when the storm clouds rise
On the dark and the rolling sea

Oh I have no need of a chart or creed
You told your waiting crew
For the winds of chance, they will bear us straight
And you spoke as though you knew
So you paid no mind to the warning signs
As you gave your words so free
Don't change your tack when the timbers crack
On the dark and the rolling sea

Now the thunder rails in the great mainsails
And the stars desert the skies
And the rigging strains as the hands of rain
Reach down to wash your eyes
And your oarsmen stands with his knife in hand
And his eyes spell mutiny
Don't call my name when your ship goes down
On the dark and the rolling sea.
~Al Stewart,
On the dark and rolling sea.

So, apparently awhile back some idiot Trump flunky at the Department Of Defense got the Vatican's ambassador to come to the Pentagon and tried to tell the Catholic Church to fall in line behind the United States Armed Forces, or else.

Predictably, they were told "No."

The Pope has canceled a planned US visit.

The fuck did these jerkoffs think was gonna happen??

And again, this has nothing to do with religion in real life:

Brawndo the Thirst Mutilator had come to replace water, virtually everywhere. Water, the basic component of all life, had been deemed a threat to Brawndo's profit margin. The solution came during the budget crisis of 2330, when the Brawndo Corporation simply bought the F.D.A. and the F.C.C., enabling them to say, do, and sell, anything they wanted. ~Narrator, Idiocracy

Uh, maybe it's just me and yeah I'm an old, still-kinda-conservative former Republican and honestly at my most Conservative I probably looked like George McGovern next to these motherfuckers, but goddamn. One simply does not tell an organization like the Catholic Church what to do, period.

More to the fucking point, said idiot flunky apparently threatened the Church with some kind of American version of the Avignon Papacy. This started when agents of King Philip IV of France had the Pope kidnapped and then appointed a French Cardinal as his successor, and the successor, rightly fearing being seen as illegitimate, refused to go to Rome.

I'm gonna guess even most conservative American Catholics won't go along with this idea. Not even Opus Dei, and there's some reasons for that. Among other things, Opus Dei is a global organization, and in most of the world a Sect specifically of the Poor. They can't go along with an idea like this or be seen as doing so.

Also, Fun Fact: Due to the looser nature of French society and the conduct of the hierarchies of the various Avignon Papacies (There were a few different lines of them, most of which are regarded as illegitimate today) Avignon was referred to as the "Babylon of the West" and the Avignon Papacies are called the "Babylonian Captivity Of The Papacy." It was not a good time for the Church, wars were fought over this shit. By the way, I knew this in the 5th Grade.

So, naturally, the Sedevacantists and the Theo-Bros would love the shit out of the idea. The rest of the world, or even American Catholicism, not so much.

Even if these motherfuckers did manage to pull this off somehow or created a MAGA Anti-Papacy that didn't get instantly blackballed by the rest of the world and the majority of American Catholics...unlikely to the point of impossibility but for the sake of argument OK...and in the very likely event that these idiots try to appoint some kind of MAGA Antipope?? Not one damn thing they do will be considered legitimate by most of American Catholicism, much less the rest of the world, which will just keep doing what it does.

As well they should, this shit is Antichrist.

Note that would include plenty of pretty conservative to even ultra-conservative people basically just ignoring that shit.

Because it's not about Jesus. Basically they'd either appoint Baal or Trump as "God." It's just more Antichrist bullshit.

These fucking people are trying to create their own religion, out of Republican bullshit.

Throw in the fact that most of these MAGA Catholics are basically just warmed over Evangelicals and Fundamentalists (a lot of whom are probably closeted or deluded Baal-worshipers already or in denial about being such) who "Like" the Liturgy, the solemnity, and the capability to get drunk with less moral judgment or scrutiny?? Yeah, I'm just gonna go out on not-much-of-a-limb here and call this idea the South Beach Papacy.

Albert: Maybe it is great to introduce me as his mother on the first visit. Could you tell him I was a relative who dropped in? Val's uncle, Uncle Al!

Armand: What's the point? You'd be Val's fucking Uncle Al.

Albert: Oh, I could play it straight!

Armand: Oh please, look at you! Look at the way you're holding your glass! Look at your pinky! Look at your posture!

Albert: What? What about you? You're obviously not a cultural... whatever it is. You've never been to a museum, and you eat like a pig!

Armand: Albert, these people are right-wing conservatives. They don't care if you're a pig, they just care if you're a f_g! 

~From the film The Birdcage.

I mean, look at what's happened to Florida in general as it's gotten allegedly more "Conservative." You can't tell me that wouldn't result in some MAGA "Priest" being caught in a compromising position with a goat and at least two male escorts in fairly short order.

Or, as I told my partner awhile back, I think the reason all these idiot right-wingers have moved to Florida and the reason the South is the way it is, is if you do something stupid and end up out on your ass, you won't freeze to death half the year like you might here in Michigan. She didn't even attempt to argue with the damned point, LOL. That's unusual for her. We had entire arguments about this when she lived in Tennessee.

Note: My partner is Catholic. She was raised that way, and she did in fact do the "Conservative" Evangelical Protestant thing for a long time. But the thing is, unlike JD Vance (for example) she has a lot of the little moral squicks that go with that sort of thing, with being raised Catholic and with having done the conservative Church thing, just like I do. Because right or wrong, we really did believe in this stuff at some point and it wasn't just a Power game to us. We rarely talk politics by text and she brought up the Avignon thing tonight! I hadn't been on most of the afternoon so she's where I first heard about it.

She gets, and always has gotten, a little thrill when she knows more about shit like this than me, when she's right about something or when she can one-up me on shit that I follow more actively than she does. It's a game to us, I let her have the point.

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

But she too has reached the point where she's realized These Fucking People are 1000% not her friends, that all they care about is cheating, and perpetuating cheating, in financial matters, politics and relationships between people alike...with a goal of having slaves of some kind eventually.

And that all they're ever going to try to do is keep rigging the game until they "Win." 

Sorry but if you have to play the game on God-Mode to win, you fucking suck at it.

In the best of times, which these most certainly are not, These Fucking People are basically a collection of cheaters, ninnies and religious fanatics (Most of whom are also narcissists and thieves) who think they know better than everybody else.

My personal experience says they don't. In fact, they will steer you wrong just for the fun of it or to "prove" some crackpot "Point" that only exists in their own dumb heads.

And then you factor in how many of these fucking Trump people are mixed up in the Epstein files bullshit, and you go ahead and tell me just how bad the sexual abuse scandals issuing from a theoretical South Beach Papacy would, in fact, be.

[Albert walks ridiculously, trying to imitate John Wayne]

Albert: No good?

Armand: Actually, it's perfect. I just never realized John Wayne walked like that.

~From the film The Birdcage.

Most likely it'd be enough to make a couple thousand years of skeevy shit done by the Catholic Church pale by comparison and they'd set a land speed record to fucking do it.

Think about that when these ass-clowns start off by saying that they only want Manosphere CHUDs to vote!

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.

Not only do These Fucking People have no idea what they're doing; They don't want anybody else to either! They're actively aiming for the monstrous result in ALL things! More, they want a "religion" that actively valorizes all this horseshit and makes them gods!

And then they want to fight Wars Of Religion against basically everybody else, starting with all the Christians and Jews that don't agree with this crap.

I keep saying this, but you either believe in freedom or you don't.

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

The alternative is to let these assholes create a world where All Is Trump.

Remember, that still wouldn't be good enough. You could pour the whole damn world down the hole where this guy's soul is supposed to be and he'd still want more.

I've had to live with somebody that had a personality disorder. You don't want to live in that world. These motherfuckers want to turn Everything into the Image Of The Beast, speaking Blasphemies and Lies for Trump.

When they get this creepy and controlling, that's usually a sign it's all about to come crashing down.

And this is less about preventing that than about taking the rest of us down with them.

Remember that.

Слава Україна!

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.

One

So Ahab sent for all the children of Israel, and gathered the prophets together on Mount Carmel. 

And Elijah came to all the people, and said, “How long will you falter between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow Him; but if Baal, follow him.” But the people answered him not a word. 

Then Elijah said to the people, “I alone am left a prophet of the Lord; but Baal’s prophets are four hundred and fifty men. 

Therefore let them give us two bulls; and let them choose one bull for themselves, cut it in pieces, and lay it on the wood, but put no fire under it; and I will prepare the other bull, and lay it on the wood, but put no fire under it. 

Then you call on the name of your gods, and I will call on the name of the Lord; and the God who answers by fire, He is God.”

So all the people answered and said, “It is well spoken.”

Now Elijah said to the prophets of Baal, “Choose one bull for yourselves and prepare it first, for you are many; and call on the name of your god, but put no fire under it.”

So they took the bull which was given them, and they prepared it, and called on the name of Baal from morning even till noon, saying, “O Baal, hear us!” But there was no voice; no one answered. Then they leaped about the altar which they had made.

And so it was, at noon, that Elijah mocked them and said, “Cry aloud, for he is a god; either he is meditating, or he is busy, or he is on a journey, or perhaps he is sleeping and must be awakened.” So they cried aloud, and cut themselves, as was their custom, with knives and lances, until the blood gushed out on them. And when midday was past, they prophesied until the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice. But there was no voice; no one answered, no one paid attention.

Then Elijah said to all the people, “Come near to me.” So all the people came near to him. And he repaired the altar of the Lord that was broken down. And Elijah took twelve stones, according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob, to whom the word of the Lord had come, saying, “Israel shall be your name.” Then with the stones he built an altar in the name of the Lord; and he made a trench around the altar large enough to hold two cords of seed. And he put the wood in order, cut the bull in pieces, and laid it on the wood, and said, “Fill four water-pots with water, and pour it on the burnt sacrifice and on the wood.” Then he said, “Do it a second time,” and they did it a second time; and he said, “Do it a third time,” and they did it a third time. So the water ran all around the altar; and he also filled the trench with water.

And it came to pass, at the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice, that Elijah the prophet came near and said, “Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known this day that You are God in Israel and I am Your servant, and that I have done all these things at Your word. Hear me, O Lord, hear me, that this people may know that You are the Lord God, and that You have turned their hearts back to You again.”

Then the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt sacrifice, and the wood and the stones and the dust, and it licked up the water that was in the trench. Now when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces; and they said, “The Lord, He is God! The Lord, He is God!”

And Elijah said to them, “Seize the prophets of Baal! Do not let one of them escape!” So they seized them; and Elijah brought them down to the Brook Kishon and executed them there. 

~2 Kings 18:20-40

And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth: and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit.

And he opened the bottomless pit; and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit.

And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth: and unto them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power.

And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree; but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads.

And to them it was given that they should not kill them, but that they should be tormented five months: and their torment was as the torment of a scorpion, when he strikes a man.

And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them.

And the shapes of the locusts were like unto horses prepared unto battle; and on their heads were as it were crowns like gold, and their faces were as the faces of men.

And they had hair as the hair of women, and their teeth were as the teeth of lions.

And they had breastplates, as it were breastplates of iron; and the sound of their wings was as the sound of chariots of many horses running to battle.

And they had tails like unto scorpions, and there were stings in their tails: and their power was to hurt men five months.

And they had a king over them, which is the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue hath his name Apollyon.

One woe is past; and, behold, there come two woes more hereafter.

And the sixth angel sounded, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God,

Saying to the sixth angel which had the trumpet, Loose the four angels which are bound in the great river Euphrates.

And the four angels were loosed, which were prepared for an hour, and a day, and a month, and a year, for to slay the third part of men.

And the number of the army of the horsemen were two hundred thousand thousand: and I heard the number of them.

And thus I saw the horses in the vision, and them that sat on them, having breastplates of fire, and of jacinth, and brimstone: and the heads of the horses were as the heads of lions; and out of their mouths issued fire and smoke and brimstone.

By these three was the third part of men killed, by the fire, and by the smoke, and by the brimstone, which issued out of their mouths.

For their power is in their mouth, and in their tails: for their tails were like unto serpents, and had heads, and with them they do hurt.

And the rest of the men which were not killed by these plagues yet repented not of the works of their hands, that they should not worship devils, and idols of gold, and silver, and brass, and stone, and of wood: which neither can see, nor hear, nor walk:

Neither repented they of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornication, nor of their thefts. ~Revelation 9, King James Version.

And what do they want to do with this "God Mode" bullshit?? Well, look at it.

You Better Start Believing In The Future (On The Dark And The Rolling Sea, One.)

Oh you set your course for the furthest shores

And you never once looked back
And the flag you flew was a pirate cross
On a field of velvet black
And those landsmen who you but lately knew
Were left stranded on the lea
Don't call on them when the storm clouds rise
On the dark and the rolling sea

Oh I have no need of a chart or creed
You told your waiting crew
For the winds of chance, they will bear us straight
And you spoke as though you knew
So you paid no mind to the warning signs
As you gave your words so free
Don't change your tack when the timbers crack
On the dark and the rolling sea

Now the thunder rails in the great mainsails
And the stars desert the skies
And the rigging strains as the hands of rain
Reach down to wash your eyes
And your oarsmen stands with his knife in hand
And his eyes spell mutiny
Don't call my name when your ship goes down
On the dark and the rolling sea.
~Al Stewart,
On the dark and rolling sea.

...

Brawndo the Thirst Mutilator had come to replace water, virtually everywhere. Water, the basic component of all life, had been deemed a threat to Brawndo's profit margin. The solution came during the budget crisis of 2330, when the Brawndo Corporation simply bought the F.D.A. and the F.C.C., enabling them to say, do, and sell, anything they wanted. ~Narrator, Idiocracy

...

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.

The bottom appears to be dropping out of the whole Trump thing, finally.

First he was shouting "Praise Allah" on Easter.

Then he was threatening to kill a civilization (most people assumed this was a threat of nuclear attack.)

Then apparently, finally, enough people declined to carry out this fucking idiot's orders.

Now magically, out of nowhere, there's a ceasefire.

And apparently we're finally reaching the point where enough people are getting tired of this bullshit.

My money is on Pete Keg-Breath gets fired next.

People will keep plugging away. 

Everybody's gonna try to get their last little slice of the grift.

I honestly think at this point Trump has lost about anybody that actually believes in anything, or at least anything other than abusing people.

Lt. Daniel Kaffee: I WANT THE TRUTH!

Col. Nathan Jessup: You can't handle the truth! Son, we live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Who's gonna do it? You? You, Lieutenant Weinberg? I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You weep for Santiago and you curse the Marines. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know: that Santiago's death, while tragic, probably saved lives. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives! You don't want the truth, because deep down in places you don't talk about at parties, you want me on that wall. You need me on that wall. We use words like "honor", "code", "loyalty". We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something. You use them as a punchline! I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide, and then QUESTIONS the manner in which I provide it! I would rather you just said "thank you", and went on your way. Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a weapon, and stand a post. Either way, I don't give a DAMN what you think you are entitled to!

Kaffee: Did you order the Code Red?

Jessup: I did the job that—

Kaffee: DID YOU ORDER THE CODE RED?!

Jessup: YOU'RE GODDAMN RIGHT I DID!!!

~From the film A Few Good Men.

The legit problem here is that 30% of America is still all in, just on that.

And the thing is for every person out of that group that thinks it won't happen to them, there's another one that thinks "Tread on me harder, Daddy."

I'm so fucking tired of this shit.

The question is, why aren't you??

And don't tell me this is about making money, for a lot of fucking people for a long damned time, Trump has basically been nothing but guilty-pleasure entertainment.

Pretty much everybody except Trump and the billionaires stopped making money off this garbage a long damned time ago.

For a lot of shitty right-wing manipulators, he became a battering ram to try to use to get what they wanted, and all they did was end up showing their ass way too much and causing even more people to become disgusted.

But it's pretty clear that once things revert to something approaching normal, half the country won't have learned anything. Oh, don't get me wrong, Republicans are cooked in the fall, probably Trump is too. Like I said, people are apparently done with him.

But that still leaves open the possibility that the next big liar will come along and win an election and it won't just be Republicans anymore. The political ascendency of Gavin Newson almost entirely off of trolling Trump is a perfect example of this.

So, at the rate things are going? Get rid of Trump and the problem perpetuates itself anyway.

But, for the moment? Markets have predictably rallied.

Wall Street, as usual, hasn't learned a damn thing. Rich people haven't learned a damn thing.

When are we going to start realizing that These Fucking People have no credibility at anything other than making money??

Make them pay their fair share and leave them to it, after awhile they won't even notice it's gone, trust me.

Half of why America has a national attention span of 2 weeks is these motherfuckers, because they're all that way.

While China and Iran are thinking 100 or 1,000 years down the road these idiots are thinking about the next billing cycle or quarterly profits, and that's literally it.

Well that and all the cocaine they're going to snort at the next party.

Duh.

Can't forget that.

Because it's probably the most important part.

Nobody's giving a damn how we look to the rest of the world.

Either you believe in freedom or you don't.

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

Because if this continues long enough, we're going to get hit.

Certainly the Iranians and the Russians, and very likely the Chinese also, are probably thinking if they give America a good kick the whole mess will probably come flying apart. Certainly some parts of it will come together and resist effectively, and form smaller nations, but the people currently in charge of organizing this whole mess don't know what they're doing and too many of those that do are literally aging out and dying off, either way they won't be able to handle it, and it's going to take time for new people, and likely new systems, to rise up.

America spent way too long not believing in the future, because Republicans didn't.

Look! The moonlight shows us for what we really are! We are not among the living, and so we cannot die. But neither are we dead! For too long, I've been parched of a thirst with nothin' to quench it. Too long I've been starvin' to death and haven't died. I feel nothin'. Not the wind on my face nor the spray of the sea, nor the warmth of a woman's flesh. [steps out into the moonlight, revealing his skeletal form] You best start believin' in ghost stories, Miss Turner. You're in one!

~Hector Barbossa, Pirates Of The Caribbean; Curse Of The Black Pearl.

You better start believing in the future, 'cause you're in it.

And whether that future involves us or not is probably going to depend on convincing the rest of the world that we, as a people, are not insane.

We're going to have to be what people like Ronald Reagan said we were. 

We are a nation that has a government — not the other way around. And this makes us special among the nations of the Earth. Our Government has no power except that granted it by the people. ~Ronald Reagan

But sooner or later, if we want to do that, we're going to have to get off our ass, turn off the TV, take an interest in our own lives and set about doing the work of life. Maybe you can't change the world, maybe you can just fix or help maintain your little corner of it. I've gone all in on helping my partner and maintaining our little family for a reason, it's what I can do to stay sane.

But you have to do something.

Not wait for Jesus or somebody else.

You have to do something.

Why is that part so damned hard for people?

Слава Україна!

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.

Last Post

[In the Preox-Morlana planet of Morlana One, Deputy Inspector Syril Karn is confused his superior won't open an investigation into the murder of two Pre-Mor officers]

Chief Inspector Hyne: Tough case. Bad timing.

Deputy Inspector Syril Karn: I'm sure that in several days, with the proper resources, I can bring this case to a-

Hyne: Stop! And I don't just mean the talking. I mean stop. [closes his office door] This case appears to bear all the hallmarks of what I like to describe as regrettable misadventure.

Karn: Sir?

Hyne: Two dedicated Pre-Mor employees caught in the sad orbit of a rare calamity.

Karn: I don't understand.

Hyne: I want you to conjure a suitable accident, and let's make sure it's on the far side of the plaza. Let's get it outside the Leisure Zone.

Karn: But they were murdered!

Hyne: No, they weren't. They were killed in a fight. They were in a brothel, which we're not supposed to have. The expensive one, which they shouldn't be able to afford. Drinking Revnog, which we're not supposed to allow. Both of them supposedly on the job, which is a dismissible offense. They clearly harassed a human with dark features and chose the wrong person to annoy. I suspect they died rushing to aid someone in distress. Nothing too heroic. We don't need a parade. They died being helpful. Something sad but inspiring in a mundane sort of way. [regards Karn] You look stricken, Deputy Inspector. Are you absorbing my meaning here?

Karn: Trying to, sir.

Hyne: When I said bad timing, I wasn't referring to the fact you spent all night worrying this. I mean that I am on my way this very morning to an Imperial Regional Command review, where I'll be asked to make a report about our crime rates, and the goal of that speech, should you ever be asked to deliver it, is brevity. Minimizing the time the Empire spends thinking about Preox-Morlana benefits our superiors and, by extension, everyone here at the Pre-Mor Security Inspection team, which at the moment includes you. [dons his coat, picks up his briefcase and moves to leave] Don't put your feet on my desk in my absence, and let's have an accident report waiting when I get back.

~From the Star Wars series Andor, S1.E1 "Kassa."

Bottomless Pit (Easter 2026, Postscript.)

[In the Preox-Morlana planet of Morlana One, Deputy Inspector Syril Karn is confused his superior won't open an investigation into the murder of two Pre-Mor officers]

Chief Inspector Hyne: Tough case. Bad timing.

Deputy Inspector Syril Karn: I'm sure that in several days, with the proper resources, I can bring this case to a-

Hyne: Stop! And I don't just mean the talking. I mean stop. [closes his office door] This case appears to bear all the hallmarks of what I like to describe as regrettable misadventure.

Karn: Sir?

Hyne: Two dedicated Pre-Mor employees caught in the sad orbit of a rare calamity.

Karn: I don't understand.

Hyne: I want you to conjure a suitable accident, and let's make sure it's on the far side of the plaza. Let's get it outside the Leisure Zone.

Karn: But they were murdered!

Hyne: No, they weren't. They were killed in a fight. They were in a brothel, which we're not supposed to have. The expensive one, which they shouldn't be able to afford. Drinking Revnog, which we're not supposed to allow. Both of them supposedly on the job, which is a dismissible offense. They clearly harassed a human with dark features and chose the wrong person to annoy. I suspect they died rushing to aid someone in distress. Nothing too heroic. We don't need a parade. They died being helpful. Something sad but inspiring in a mundane sort of way. [regards Karn] You look stricken, Deputy Inspector. Are you absorbing my meaning here?

Karn: Trying to, sir.

Hyne: When I said bad timing, I wasn't referring to the fact you spent all night worrying this. I mean that I am on my way this very morning to an Imperial Regional Command review, where I'll be asked to make a report about our crime rates, and the goal of that speech, should you ever be asked to deliver it, is brevity. Minimizing the time the Empire spends thinking about Preox-Morlana benefits our superiors and, by extension, everyone here at the Pre-Mor Security Inspection team, which at the moment includes you. [dons his coat, picks up his briefcase and moves to leave] Don't put your feet on my desk in my absence, and let's have an accident report waiting when I get back.

~From the Star Wars series Andor, S1.E1 "Kassa."

...

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 last night.

Keep in mind, Erick Erickson is one of the "smart" Republicans who's made a big point of sticking to a bunch of the old school mores of the Party and called out MAGA and Trump and fellow Republicans more than once, hell, I've quoted him, sometimes favorably and others not so much.

Dinesh is, well, Dinesh. If you expect anything more from Dinesh that he'll drop to his knees in front of Trump (for no reason) faster than a $2 ho for a crack rock, well, you're nuts.

Given the choice between "Bigotry" and "Doing The Right Thing" there's a certain type of asshole Republican that will always pick Bigotry. It don't even matter what it's about. Erick would rather have Trump praising Allah on Easter than have the Transgender day of Remembrance be on Easter. 

Ya know, aside from a general level of human decency and empathy for the lost and those they leave behind, I've never given the Transgender day of Remembrance a bit of thought.

But then, I've never had to, although as I've written about I've lost LGBT people that I cared about. My partner is bisexual, our kid is a lesbian. It's like I said back in 2015 when all this anti-Trans shit got going, I didn't understand it because I'd not even met enough such people to really form an opinion.

That has since changed and at this point I'll gladly take the side of the Transgender folks, especially if it's Erick Erickson and Donald Trump making common cause against them.

These fucking people aren't happy, unless they have somebody they can bully, hate and pick on for no good goddamned reason. It's not just racism, it's every other "Ism" too and every petty hatred, social ill, societal Fentanyl or bit of woo woo that you can imagine, with a side of misery.

Doesn't matter whose misery, their own will do in a pinch. The average Republican of a certain age or social classes is just fine being a miserable bastard their own damn selves. They'll fuck their own shit up or make up something to be mad about if they have to. They don't feel right, if they ain't going around mad all the time, but doing it with a "Conservative" aesthetic.

We've got to take the neighborhood back. We've got to go in there. Just forget telling your child to go to the Peace Corps. It's right around the corner. It's standing on the corner. It can't speak English. It doesn't want to speak English. I can't even talk the way these people talk. "Why you ain't where you is go." I don't know who these people are. And I blamed the kid until I heard the mother talk. Then I heard the father talk. This is all in the house. You used to talk a certain way on the corner and you got into the house and switched to English. Everybody knows it's important to speak English except these knuckleheads. You can't land a plane with "why you ain't…". You can't be a doctor with that kind of crap coming out of your mouth. There is no Bible that has that kind of language. Where did these people get the idea that they're moving ahead on this? Well, they know they're not, they're just hanging out in the same place, five or six generations sitting in the projects when you're just supposed to stay there long enough to get a job and move out. ~Bill Cosby, the "Pound Cake" speech.

And they expect to be able to mistreat anyone they damn well feel like while they're at it.

Like I said, I've lost friends over this shit. Nothing of value was lost, apparently.

Doesn't matter who, LGBT folks, non-Christians, People of Color, poor people, Women, of course. Their own who somehow are insufficiently "Conservative" are more of a guilty-pleasure favorite than something that'll do in a pinch. I say that as somebody who perpetually fell into that category on account of using my head as something more than a hat rack, and my partner gets that shit even more than I do...on account of being a right-leaning person working in a professional job where you have to do things right, the first time, every time. All the more so because she cares about people (and animals) and is reasonably intelligent.

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

The modern Right's whole thing is, somebody has to be abused, or it's somehow not worth getting up in the goddamn morning. And they don't give a fuck who they hurt, kill or traumatize in the process.

For all of these fucking people's fake-Jihadism against the "Left" the big war is, naturally, right-wing "Conservative" regime vs. right-wing conservative regime of a far older type. Unlike Dinesh, I'm not stupid. It's not even about God, not really, as it's the same God and anybody who can fucking read who isn't willfully ignorant knows that. These fucking people fundamentally agree on like 90% of things. It's mostly the combination of that other 10% and one has something the other thinks it wants. The funny part is Mullahs who would be perfectly well at home in the 12th fucking Century are adapting better to the 21st than "Christian" wannabe-Crusaders who like to cosplay what they think are the attitudes of the 12th Century (but in truth they're a massively modern innovation, even within the century-long history of Protestant Fundamentalism.)

And like I said, at this point I think it could be successfully argued that Trump is one of the Prophets Of Baal. Erick and Dinesh don't care, so long as the demons eat somebody else first.

You don't argue with that shit, you don't negotiate, you don't do politics as usual. You go the full Roman and you burn that demonic shit down, you kill it, you smash it, and you salt the Earth so it can't grow again. If you're smart you'll sow distaste, distrust and a lack of tolerance for that shit as deep and hard and across as many theological streams as you possibly can.

And if you don't know why that is, do I really need to repeat myself concerning what I've heard of or seen from the Epstein files??

There isn't a Bottom to Human Evil unless humans make one.

How do people like Erick Erickson think they're gonna go to Heaven when they carry the Bottomless Pit around in their hearts??

And I submit to you that These Motherfuckers would rather Cancel Christ than Love Their Neighbors.

At this point, you either believe in freedom or you don't.

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

Слава Україна!

So Ahab sent for all the children of Israel, and gathered the prophets together on Mount Carmel. 

And Elijah came to all the people, and said, “How long will you falter between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow Him; but if Baal, follow him.” But the people answered him not a word. 

Then Elijah said to the people, “I alone am left a prophet of the Lord; but Baal’s prophets are four hundred and fifty men. 

Therefore let them give us two bulls; and let them choose one bull for themselves, cut it in pieces, and lay it on the wood, but put no fire under it; and I will prepare the other bull, and lay it on the wood, but put no fire under it. 

Then you call on the name of your gods, and I will call on the name of the Lord; and the God who answers by fire, He is God.”

So all the people answered and said, “It is well spoken.”

Now Elijah said to the prophets of Baal, “Choose one bull for yourselves and prepare it first, for you are many; and call on the name of your god, but put no fire under it.”

So they took the bull which was given them, and they prepared it, and called on the name of Baal from morning even till noon, saying, “O Baal, hear us!” But there was no voice; no one answered. Then they leaped about the altar which they had made.

And so it was, at noon, that Elijah mocked them and said, “Cry aloud, for he is a god; either he is meditating, or he is busy, or he is on a journey, or perhaps he is sleeping and must be awakened.” So they cried aloud, and cut themselves, as was their custom, with knives and lances, until the blood gushed out on them. And when midday was past, they prophesied until the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice. But there was no voice; no one answered, no one paid attention.

Then Elijah said to all the people, “Come near to me.” So all the people came near to him. And he repaired the altar of the Lord that was broken down. And Elijah took twelve stones, according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob, to whom the word of the Lord had come, saying, “Israel shall be your name.” Then with the stones he built an altar in the name of the Lord; and he made a trench around the altar large enough to hold two cords of seed. And he put the wood in order, cut the bull in pieces, and laid it on the wood, and said, “Fill four water-pots with water, and pour it on the burnt sacrifice and on the wood.” Then he said, “Do it a second time,” and they did it a second time; and he said, “Do it a third time,” and they did it a third time. So the water ran all around the altar; and he also filled the trench with water.

And it came to pass, at the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice, that Elijah the prophet came near and said, “Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known this day that You are God in Israel and I am Your servant, and that I have done all these things at Your word. Hear me, O Lord, hear me, that this people may know that You are the Lord God, and that You have turned their hearts back to You again.”

Then the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt sacrifice, and the wood and the stones and the dust, and it licked up the water that was in the trench. Now when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces; and they said, “The Lord, He is God! The Lord, He is God!”

And Elijah said to them, “Seize the prophets of Baal! Do not let one of them escape!” So they seized them; and Elijah brought them down to the Brook Kishon and executed them there. 

~2 Kings 18:20-40

Four

Captain Raymus Antilles: Your Highness, the transmission we received. [hands Princess Leia the Death Star schematics] What is it they've sent us?

Princess Leia Organa: Hope.

~From Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.