Signals (American Revelation, Explained, Ten.)

Reporter: Mr. Said, how do you feel?

Kareem Said: How do I feel? I feel joyless. My brothers remain behind. Imprisoned, suppressed. I don't just mean my Muslim brothers, I mean every single man that will sleep in here tonight, that was cut off from everything that he loves. Cut off from his own self. You know, as the word went around that the Governor was gonna give somebody clemency, I saw a rift develop as each inmate wished himself to be the chosen one. The longing to be free became as palpable as the food that we eat. But it is a meal that I am being served right now. And I am Muslim. And Allah does not allow me to swallow certain things. Allah does not allow me to take scraps from the hands of a man such as this. A man who is corrupt and immoral. A man who denigrates the gift of clemency just as he violates the principles of justice. A man that gave the order that caused the death of eight people. And so, Governor Devlin, because even the cost of freedom can be too high, I refuse your pardon!

 ~Kareem Said, from the HBO series Oz, Season 2, Episode 8 "Escape From Oz."

...

If we lose freedom here, there is no place to escape to. This is the last stand on Earth. And this idea that government is beholden to the people, that it has no other source of power except to sovereign people, is still the newest and most unique idea in all the long history of man's relation to man. This is the issue of this election. Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves. ~Ronald Reagan

...

To me belongs vengeance and recompense; their foot shall slide in due time: for the day of their calamity is at hand, and the things that shall come upon them make haste. ~Deuteronomy 32:35

I saw this a few days ago.

Now, I've been saying for a long time that I believe America is sleepwalking itself into a Revolution and ultimately a breakup and that's in part because America is crawling with bigots and narcissists, and literally refuses to get its shit together or reign in increasingly insane super-wealthy motherfuckers or to even try to elect politicians that actually give a shit about anything other than staying in office.

I think, though, that I've hit on the causative factor of when.

It's all going to blow up the second that the average bigoted, narcissistic White American chucklefuck realizes that, as far as the insane super-wealthy are concerned, they are no better, and in point of fact, no different, than some gay Venezuelan barber that got renditioned to El Salvador for no better reason than being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Because if they can do this shit to one of us, for whatever alleged reason, they can do it to any or all of us. 

I used to be a conservative and I was taught that things like Habeas Corpus, Rule of Law, etc. as much as freedom of speech or the right to bear arms were a maximally absolutist point, a Principle Of The Thing not to be violated because it's Law with roots ancient enough that anybody (especially conservatives) should be able to respect. And yes, We The People that are supposed to be the ultimate line of defense against Tyranny.

Why else do you think these motherfuckers have put so much effort and money into bamboozling conservatives in particular? 

In fact, that's pretty much the only thing they've put a bunch of money into besides their own pockets.

But now, we're up against people who didn't do the work and don't want to, who think they're going to build some kind of artificial intelligence "Machine God" that's somehow programmed with some kind of Christian Nationalism filtered through Oblivion Cult, rule forever, and kill anybody that stands up to them with magic drones. 

Why? Because Bunga Bunga, something something Gazpacho.

I can't fit my head far enough up my own ass to see Curtis Yarvin's point of view. I've read some of it, unfortunately, and it all comes off as something written by a 13-year-old boy who thinks he knows everything and he ain't got enough ass whuppins yet for it to sink in that he doesn't.

And they think they're gonna have all this in place by next year. while going to war with basically the whole rest of the world. For the record it legit can take anywhere from several months to a couple of years to lay on any kind of serious military operation, so they're not preparing for that either.

(And that's before you factor in how long it can actually take to develop any kind of legit "Silver-bullet" weapons system. Stealth and modern precision-guided weapons were 20+ years in the making, and these people ain't smart enough to hide that shit.)

It's all bullshit, but it's dangerous bullshit and any war these idiots get us into, we're going to lose.

And if you call bullshit on that, they'll call you some kind of "Left-Wing Activist."

You saw that line from Comer's spokes-muppet? *Checks Notes* Kentucky, the home of the Ark Encounter, the Creation Museum, and insane rates of incest and Opioid addiction, where Skoal is pretty much considered the fifth food group and you can actually rent a submachine gun to shoot at some gun ranges, is positively flooded with "Left Wing Activists." 

Yeah, right, spare me, bro. I've been to Kentucky.

Even Democrats in Kentucky are generally a lot closer to George W. Bush than they are to George Soros.

The thing is, Republicans (not Trump, Republicans) have their program and this is it (and I, along with other people, have been warning motherfuckers about this forever, too.) 

I used to be a Republican and my kind of Republican (you know, the ones that are mostly Democrats/Never Trumpers now) has always had a problem with these nuts, 'cause they wanna kill us too.

As I've said before and I'm a keep saying, these fucking people's guiding ethos is basically the Killing Fields of Pol Pot's Cambodia, but with a mall.

And they think they're too good to have to listen to you, America. They don't wanna hear what you have to say, White MAGA Bro. Same for you, Republican Business Chud.

All you are is a means to an end. But that end, in their minds, doesn't include you.

For the record, while Republicans jerk off, loot the country, and pose for the Fox News cameras, the rest of the world is preparing and it's starting to look like a bipartisan majority of us is sick of their bullshit already. 

The enemy gets a vote, guys.

And the enemy, or some of them, anyway, can read and very likely is reading your Signal chats.

Good God, the whole thing with Mike Waltz and Pete Hegseth and all these Jabronis talking all this crap on Signal (and also openly smack-talking and planning to extort our European allies) reminds me yet again, if I'd done anything even close to this as a young Air Force Sergeant 30 years ago, I'd probably still be in prison.

And by the way, whatever he claims to believe now, I'll bet you money that JD Vance's animus towards Europe is founded in Christian Fundamentalist basic End Times bullshit from like the mid-1990's.

But, ya know, it gets worse.

Like, why did we go to all this trouble to develop all this technology and OPSEC standards and this and that and the other thing just so some drunk racist frat-bro wannabe-macho CHUD with his dick in one hand and a tallboy of Steel Reserve in the other can be SECDRUNK and ignore all that shit while going ass-backwards into the unknown??

What the fuck are we even doing here, America??

Just for the record, other countries militaries have standards.

Other people do not, for the most part, have or want Reality TV government nor to be beholden to anybody who has such.

They sent that Signal awhile back.

And you can bet whatever the Chinese are planning, they're not discussing it on some dipshit social media app. The Russians might be drunk, but they're not shouting their plans to fuck us over into the ether. You can fully expect that, whatever defense the Canadians, all the Commonwealth countries and the EU are working up against Trump's bullshit, they ain't going to CC us on the chat or the E-mail chain or any of that kind of shit.

Funny thing about Europe in particular, lately. 

They'd rather be free than be entertained.

Think about that, for a second.

You fucked up, America.

It's time to start getting with the program and doing something about it.

You either believe in freedom or you don't.

Слава Україна!

My black face fades,
hiding inside the black granite.
I said I wouldn't
dammit: No tears.
I'm stone. I'm flesh.
My clouded reflection eyes me
like a bird of prey, the profile of night slanted against morning.

I turn this way—the stone lets me go.
I turn that way—I'm inside
the Vietnam Veterans Memorial
again, depending on the light
to make a difference.
I go down the 58,022 names,
half-expecting to find
my own in letters like smoke.

I touch the name Andrew Johnson; I see the booby trap's white flash.
Names shimmer on a woman's blouse
but when she walks away
the names stay on the wall.

Brushstrokes flash, a red bird's
wings cutting across my stare.
The sky. A plane in the sky.
A white vet's image floats
closer to me, then his pale eyes
look through mine. I'm a window.
He's lost his right arm
inside the stone. In the black mirror
a woman’s trying to erase names:
No, she's brushing a boy's hair.
~Facing It, by Yusef Komunyakaa, US Army Veteran

Nine

The wind whispers of fear and hate. The war has killed love. And those that confess to the Angkar are punished, and no one dare ask where they go. Here, only the silent survive. ~Dith Pran, The Killing Fields

Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows. ~George Orwell, 1984.

Dumbpocalypse Now (American Revelation, Explained, Nine.)

Cassian Andor: Kino. Tell them what to do. It has to be you. Come on, Kino. You do this every day. Tell them what to do.

Kino Loy: [presses PA system] My name is Kino Loy. I'm the day shift manager on Level Five. I'm speaking to you from the command center on Level Eight. We are, at this moment, in control of the facility.

Andor: Is that the best you got?

Loy: How long we hang on, how far we get, how many of us make it out, all of that is now up to us. We have deactivated every floor in the facility. All floors are cold. Wherever you are right now, get up, stop the work. Get out of your cells, take charge and start climbing. They don't have enough guards and they know it. If we wait until they figure that out, it'll be too late. We will never have a better chance than this and [looks at Cassian, knowing he said it] "I would rather die trying to take them down than giving them what they want." We know they fried a hundred men on Level Two. We know that they are making up our sentences as we go along. We know that no one outside here knows what's happening. And now we know, that when they say we are being released, we are being transferred to some other prison to go and die, and that ends today! There is one way out. Right now, the building is ours. You need to run, climb, kill! You need to help each other. You see someone who's confused, someone who is lost, you get them moving and you keep them moving until we put this place behind us. There are 5,000 of us. If we can fight half as hard as we've been working, we will be home in no time. One way out! [repeats it multiple times as he leaves the command center]

Andor: Come on! Let's get out of here!

~From the series "Andor" S1 E10 "One Way Out."

...

If we lose freedom here, there is no place to escape to. This is the last stand on Earth. And this idea that government is beholden to the people, that it has no other source of power except to sovereign people, is still the newest and most unique idea in all the long history of man's relation to man. This is the issue of this election. Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves. ~Ronald Reagan

I saw this last night, when I got up.

Apparently these Tech Bro idiots think they're just going to indiscriminately murder people all over the world with suicide drones for being "Woke." 

Uh, A few things about that: 

Like I said, they try this crap, even a little bit, they're going to find out the hard way not only that America has half a billion guns in the hands of We The People, but that other countries have their own Air Forces, Armies and Navies...and that a Canadian CF-18 Hornet piloted by a White Dude, a Portuguese F-16AM piloted by a Woman, and South African Air Force Saab Gripen piloted by a Zulu all can shoot that shit down the same way. If that's 2026, well, there'll be War Crimes trials in 2027 and the whole world will get to see some Broligarch cry like a bitch in the courtroom.

The thing about Other People's Countries is, well, they're other countries, and it's their sky, too. You have to get permission to be there. I highly doubt Canada or the European Union, let alone China, Iran, North Korea, Russia and especially security-obsessed places like Israel and Singapore would be as accommodating as, say, Pakistan to these idiots and their plan to Drone-strike the world.

America, you're fast wearing out your welcome on the world stage with this garbage.

It's like the Terminator movies, but with idiots instead of cyborgs met all those dipshit Evangelical End Times movies and had some kind of mutant love-child where the Antichrist was the hero??

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

And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. ~Revelation 13:16-17

Also, it's March, I'm not seeing some WWII-scale drone production ramp-up going on. I suppose they think if they just WILL it hard enough, fleets upon fleets of Bullet Drones and the logistics and all of the technology to deploy them (not to mention trained operators somehow proofed against getting PTSD or switching sides?) will simply appear?? It's like Magic!

Gee, why didn't every autocrat, dictator and petty monarch going all the way back to Hammurabi think of that?? You just have to wish for it hard enough!

LOL, fuck you, NO. None of this works that way.

Guys, stick to coding and money, you suck at everything else.

Wish in one hand, shit in the other, see which fills up faster.

I'm a United States Air Force Security Police veteran, and I'm a Bomb Wing veteran specifically. I can't really say much all that specific about the security end of this stuff but I do know what a Permissive Action Link (PAL) is and that they do not work that way. Suffice it to say that an AK-47 or and M16A2 is not fired electrically or networked via SATCOM and aimed at a set of coordinates like an AGM-86B ALCM nor would there be a cheap or easy way to slap an electronic lockout on every gun in circulation...if you could even find them all, if the owners of such said anything other than "Fuck you, No" while bringing their weapons to bear.

And even if all that shit was true, well, I have basic counterinsurgency and MOUT training thanks to a couple of deployments and I'm here to tell you, if this was true? It isn't, but let's say it was: People are, in fact, people. Motherfuckers get drugs and weapons every day in every prison in the world.

You think these fucking idiots are going to somehow put the final kibosh on the Human tendency to resist??

Among other things, it's like these Jabronis have never seen any of the Star Wars movies.

There'd be a booming trade in 19th Century Muskets, AK-47's made in 1965 and Unlocked modern firearms (not to mention knives, Samurai swords and worn boards full of rusty nails) in a hot minute, they'd sell hotter than drugs or porn, and I'd bet you money Moldbug his own damn self would find some way to get his own ass in on that action, all the while cheerfully fucking over all his co-conspirators.

There will, indeed, be blood.

Your opposition out there in the real world ain't gonna be Chuck Schumer.

That's the thing with these guys, they have no leadership skills, loyalty, principles, self-respect or souls. Otherwise, they wouldn't be this way.

And say they got their "Sovereign Corporation." Okay, what's to stop King's Holdings, Ltd. or Tsarprom or Princess Peaches from doing the usual corporate Venture Capital fuckery and ending up owning their ass??

These fucking dudes melt like the Wicked Witch Of The West in a room full of water buckets at the least bit of resistance to their bullshit! Elon is bent all out of shape because his Trans daughter gave an interview yesterday or something.

The revolution will be short, and not in their favor.

You guys are really telling me y'all think you're gonna take on the world with knockoff Shahed drones manufactured out of Fascist Willpower, fairy dust and magic beans that've somehow (inexpensively?) been rigged to read people's minds?? (How would that even work?)

These fucking people think they've found some kind of a cheat code to World Domination but they're apparently unwilling to even do the work of typing it in, if that would reduce the amount of time they get to spend spanking the monkey while fantasizing about having totalitarian Power to protect their Venture Capital.

There's just one problem:

Well, other than they think their Cheat Code is gonna be Donald Trump.

Smoking marijuana, eating Cheetos, and masturbating do not constitute plans in my book. ~Walter White, Breaking Bad.

Again, you either believe in freedom or you don't.

You're either willing to fight for it or not.

You're going to have to pick one, 'cause these dudes ain't gonna give the rest of us a choice.

These fucking people are morons.

But the thing is, you're still going to have to stand up.

Otherwise, it really is gonna be Dumbpocalypse Now.

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

Слава Україна!

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

~United States Declaration Of Independence.

...

My black face fades,
hiding inside the black granite.
I said I wouldn't
dammit: No tears.
I'm stone. I'm flesh.
My clouded reflection eyes me
like a bird of prey, the profile of night slanted against morning.

I turn this way—the stone lets me go.
I turn that way—I'm inside
the Vietnam Veterans Memorial
again, depending on the light
to make a difference.
I go down the 58,022 names,
half-expecting to find
my own in letters like smoke.

I touch the name Andrew Johnson; I see the booby trap's white flash.
Names shimmer on a woman's blouse
but when she walks away
the names stay on the wall.

Brushstrokes flash, a red bird's
wings cutting across my stare.
The sky. A plane in the sky.
A white vet's image floats
closer to me, then his pale eyes
look through mine. I'm a window.
He's lost his right arm
inside the stone. In the black mirror
a woman’s trying to erase names:
No, she's brushing a boy's hair.
~Facing It, by Yusef Komunyakaa, US Army Veteran

Total Depravity Of Man (American Revelation, Explained, Eight.)

And after these things I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree.

And I saw another angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the living God: and he cried with a loud voice to the four angels, to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea,

Saying, Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads.

And I heard the number of them which were sealed: and there were sealed an hundred and forty and four thousand of all the tribes of the children of Israel.

Of the tribe of Juda were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Reuben were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Gad were sealed twelve thousand.

Of the tribe of Aser were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Nephthalim were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Manassas were sealed twelve thousand.

Of the tribe of Simeon were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Levi were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Issachar were sealed twelve thousand.

Of the tribe of Zebulon were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Joseph were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Benjamin were sealed twelve thousand.

After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands;

And cried with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to our God which sits upon the throne, and unto the Lamb.

And all the angels stood round about the throne, and about the elders and the four beasts, and fell before the throne on their faces, and worshipped God,

Saying, Amen: Blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honor, and power, and might, be unto our God for ever and ever. Amen.

And one of the elders answered, saying unto me, What are these which are arrayed in white robes? and whence came they?

And I said unto him, Sir, you know. And he said to me, These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. ~Revelation 7:1-14

...

[Shaw enters the quartermaster's office while some of his soldiers guard the door]

Quartermaster Kendrick: Good afternoon, Colonel. Change your mind about that bottle I was talking about?

Colonel Robert G. Shaw: I want 600 pairs of shoes and 1200 pairs of socks...and anything else you've been holding out on us, you piece of rat filth.

Quartermaster Kendrick: I'd love to help you, Colonel, but we just don't have any.

Colonel Robert G. Shaw: Not for n*ggers, you don't!

Quartermaster Kendrick: Not for anybody.

Colonel Robert G. Shaw: I see. Pity. I'll just look around to see if you haven't misplaced them, hmm? [starts smashing up the place, throwing items off shelves and onto the floor]

Quartermaster Kendrick: HEY!

Colonel Robert G. Shaw: [over the noise] Where are they, you son of a bitch?! [throws items off another shelf]

Quartermaster Kendrick: Damn it, you can't-!

Colonel Robert G. Shaw: Can't I?! I'm a colonel, you nasty little cuss! You really think you can keep 700 Union soldiers without proper shoes because you think it's funny?! Now, where would that power come from?! ~From the film Glory.

So, we've been down the list of the initial judgments of Revelation. The question remains, how the fuck did we get this way??

Well, a lot of it is outright bigotry and racism, stupidity, willful ignorance. But, the question is...how is any of this OK??

Well, as a former Christian myself, more than half of whose school-age education was in Christian schools that freaking loved to teach Colonial American history I think I can give you at least a short answer.

Calvinism is buried deep in America's DNA. You know, Reformed Theology, the same shit that powered and in the minds of the Afrikaner leadership, justified Apartheid South Africa. Well, America got a big damned dose of that shit thanks to the Pilgrims and their Puritan horseshit. There's a reason that Malcolm X specifically said of Black people "We didn't land on Plymouth Rock! Plymouth Rock landed on us!"

And by the way, these weren't brave explorers or some shit. They'd got ran out of the Netherlands because the famous tolerance of the Dutch didn't extend to letting these fucking people murder other people for rejecting their religion.

Calvinism was started by a French Protestant theologian, Jehan Cauvin, (name usually Anglicized to John Calvin in Switzerland in the mid-16th Century.

Calvinism is the idea that YOU were specially selected BY GOD, to the point where you can basically do whatever evils you want to do and still go to Heaven...and that somebody else WASN'T. In real life this shit has been an excuse for everything from slavery to colonialism to various wars, not to mention Apartheid in South Africa and Segregation in the United States.

It's a real short leap to say that the people you deem Unsaved or "Unregenerate" in Calvinistic parlance can be abused and exploited and subjected to Hell in this life. And GOD told you to persecute them.

(Bullshit.)

It's also the basic excuse for why Republicans glorify and valorize being mean, miserable and miserly.

It's why rural hick-ass white people everywhere from the Deep South to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan basically justify not doing much of anything with themselves and why so much of America's White "Culture" is basically alcohol, cow shit, and racism. It's why people from little towns like Skandia in Michigan's Upper Peninsula get mad when their kids move into Marquette to get a job or go to college, as if a career at the local Dollar General is somehow so much more rewarding?? And by the way, when I was there in the early-to-mid-1990's it wasn't "Cool" to be in the military either.

Like, these fucking people believe shit like that if God wanted them to be a lawyer, for example, they'd have been born rich.

It's basically why America has an unofficial, largely voluntary and self-enforced caste system.

And it's why when push comes to shove, the Democratic gerontocracy will work with Republicans, if they have to, to keep people like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez from ever getting the damned ball.

Fuck all that. 

And the worst part is, most Americans nowadays lack the religious education to even know what this bullshit is, although its bastard children, Pentecostalism and the Prosperity Gospel, loom far larger these days than actual Calvinism or Reformed Theology...but I suppose that's because those beliefs at least at one time required maintaining a certain conservative and religious aesthetic, at least publicly.

Now, you don't even have to be a Christian to buy whole-hog into the Prosperity Gospel, you just have to be a Trumper.

Theologically, the basic premise follows thusly:

Calvinism, in a nutshell, is "Fuck You, I've got mine" Christianized.

Total Depravity of Man: Humans are basically Evil, and can do nothing about it, because God, that's why. Unless...
Unconditional Election: ...You're actually Not Evil, again, because God. That's why. Technically, through...
Limited Atonement: ...Jesus dying a bloody and horrible death so your wretched, sinful ass could go to Heaven, because of His...
Irresistible Grace: Yep, and even if you're cursed to grow up among these people with enough empathy to worry about what might happen to all those inconvenient other people, there's not a damned thing you can do about it. This is also the basis for that uniquely American idea of "Once Saved, Always Saved." Which again, basically says you can do whatever you want, because Jesus and the..
Perseverance of the Saints: Because God is Sovereign and cannot be frustrated by Human actions and (according to this mentality anyway) only follows His own rules (as set forth in the Bible) or expects Humans to follow them when it's convenient.

Does any of this seem fucked up to you, yet??

Well, it should, and it's likely about to get worse.

When your mental starting point is that you are a Totally Depraved man somehow sealed and selected by God in the middle of a "Lost and Dying World" that right there is a recipe for Atrocity.

And it'll get worse yet.

Like I said, so much of Christianity is so badly dumbed-down in America nowadays that...years ago, not even recently but over a decade ago I would ask people if they knew what [Basic Thing from Christian history, for example "What was the 95 Theses" or "Who was Martin Luther?"] And the most Evangelical of the Evangelicals I knew would draw a complete damn blank. (And yes, it's a safe bet the same applies to John Calvin or even something more recent like the Azusa Street Revival.)

Think about that, for a second.

Then think about how Donald Trump, of all fucking people, has usurped all that shit and claimed it for himself and his cult's beliefs without even knowing the proper names of Books of the Bible.

And people don't know why and can't tell you why they believe this bullshit!

But they do believe it, more so than Red Letters in an edition of the King James Bible or anything Jesus or any of the ancient Prophets ever did or said.

And people wonder why I say it's literally going to come down to a fight if us regular secular Americans ever want to get our country back.

You either believe in freedom or you don't.

Слава Україна!

My black face fades,
hiding inside the black granite.
I said I wouldn't
dammit: No tears.
I'm stone. I'm flesh.
My clouded reflection eyes me
like a bird of prey, the profile of night slanted against morning.

I turn this way—the stone lets me go.
I turn that way—I'm inside
the Vietnam Veterans Memorial
again, depending on the light
to make a difference.
I go down the 58,022 names,
half-expecting to find
my own in letters like smoke.

I touch the name Andrew Johnson; I see the booby trap's white flash.
Names shimmer on a woman's blouse
but when she walks away
the names stay on the wall.

Brushstrokes flash, a red bird's
wings cutting across my stare.
The sky. A plane in the sky.
A white vet's image floats
closer to me, then his pale eyes
look through mine. I'm a window.
He's lost his right arm
inside the stone. In the black mirror
a woman’s trying to erase names:
No, she's brushing a boy's hair.
~Facing It, by Yusef Komunyakaa, US Army Veteran

Seven

If we lose freedom here, there is no place to escape to. This is the last stand on Earth. And this idea that government is beholden to the people, that it has no other source of power except to sovereign people, is still the newest and most unique idea in all the long history of man's relation to man. This is the issue of this election. Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves. ~Ronald Reagan

Silence In The Heavens (American Revelation, Explained, Seven.)

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 sits 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 6:12-17

...

If we lose freedom here, there is no place to escape to. This is the last stand on Earth. And this idea that government is beholden to the people, that it has no other source of power except to sovereign people, is still the newest and most unique idea in all the long history of man's relation to man. This is the issue of this election. Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves. ~Ronald Reagan

I saw this last night. Yesterday, there were massive protests in Budapest, Hungary, demanding the resignation of PM Victor Orban.

There were also protests against Russia in Romania, and protests Stateside against DOGE, Elon, and Trump.

And then, I saw this.

Some Chinese "Conservative" crowing about, I guess, DOGE attempting to defund the Voice of America, which, by the way, is an international network in which we are neither the only people doing the funding nor the only people doing the work.

My guess is, bro, that when there's that Silence in the Heavens, you probably ain't gonna like it as much as you think you will.

And what the fuck is it, with guys like this?? First off, Communism hasn't been a thing since 1989. In America, Communism hasn't really existed since 1939 when the Soviets dropped improving race-relations as a plank in their platform 'cause cozying up to the Nazis was more important.

And oh, hey, how'd that work out, anyway??

Like, what's even the damn point, if you're just constantly looking for a different color of boots to lick?

I'm really tired of certain people's attitude that it's "Trump or...Aaargh!" Especially when the "alternative" they provide is "Communism." 

I find that extremely funny because the only person they seem to wanna go down on more fervently than they wanna suck off Donald Trump...is Vladimir Putin, KGB Agent. And yes, Putin is a Chekist, most of his Oligarchs were Chekists, and he explicitly has stated he wants to rebuild the East Bloc and the Soviet Union, preferably by force.

Like, Trump tried to make peace and as I understand it, the Russians basically told him to go fuck himself.

Need I remind you that the Russian Army has flown the Hammer and Sickle in the war zone in Ukraine? If Communism is still a thing it seems like these guys can't wait to suck up to it, too.

These sons of bitches spent 42 years (from when Hal Lindsey wrote The Late Great Planet Earth in 1973 until Donald Trump slithered down the Golden Escalator in 2015 fearmongering about "Liberalism" somehow being the Beast of Revelations.

But when somebody decided to volunteer to be an Antichrist, these fucking people fought about it for a few months and then basically decided they wanted that kind of totalitarian Power for themselves, and whatever God thought about it be damned. Somehow it's not the Beast Of Revelations when it's "theirs."

Like, I'm serious. The world These Fucking People want to live in isn't an Americanized version of Putin's Russia, it's not a bigger version of Viktor Orban's Hungary, and it's not some Sedevacantist Catholic schismatic religious state in opposition to the Vatican, either.

What These Fucking People basically want is to keep going until they create the Eye Of Terror from the Warhammer 40K franchise.

They want to wreck shit so badly that it fundamentally destroys the fabric of reality and leaves people with basically three options: Die, Fight, or Worship At Their Feet. These motherfuckers are conspiracy nuts, narcissists and religious fanatics...and very often literally all three rolled into one.

I've gotten myself involved with people like that, more than once. The only thing you can do is get away, kick them to the curb, or make sure they get locked the fuck up.

And then you see something about them 20 years later and it turns out they're still doing the same shit to somebody else and haven't learned a damn thing in all that time.

Or maybe they just didn't want to.

Like, these fucking Antivaxxer nuts especially will run the truck smack into the wall of Reality, back up and hit it again, and keep going until the truck is a pile of slag and shrapnel that can't move anymore and has to be dragged onto a goddamned flatbed...and then they'll just go get another truck. Conspiracy theories and quack medicine are either a hell of a drug...or more often, as it seems to be out there now...a really, really damned obvious fig-leaf cover story for Eugenics.

We tolerate this bullshit at our peril, America.

And the thing is, there's plenty of empty-headed notionally Right-wing "Populists" that'll keep cheering this crap on literally whatever the fuck actually happens because they're morons who think it's all some kind of Football match.

And they'll gladly sacrifice everybody from American kids to Ukrainian soldiers, cheering the whole damn time until the only freaking sound is them cheering, and the rest of the world is naught but the silence of a graveyard. And by the time they see what they've done and realize they're gonna go next because there's nobody to grow food anymore, it'll be too late.

We really need to stop platforming ideological loudmouths, obsessive sports fans, and village idiots, people. Hate is bad enough when it's not a political ideology or a team sport.

At the end of the day, it doesn't actually matter if you believe in "Right" or "Left" if you don't believe in Freedom along with it, it's all the same shit.

The Bible is as good for making up excuses to kill people as Mao's Little Red Book. Any belief, ideology or religion, stripped of compassion, empathy and humanity, can very easily become nothing more than another excuse for mass murder.

Americanism ain't no damn different.

These fucking people's entire ideology is basically the Killing Fields of Khmer Rouge Cambodia, but with a mall.

They cannot be reasoned with, only fought against.

You either believe in freedom or you don't.

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

The time for half-measures is done.

Слава Україна!

Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows. ~George Orwell, 1984.

Six

To me belongeth vengeance and recompense; their foot shall slide in due time: for the day of their calamity is at hand, and the things that shall come upon them make haste. ~Deuteronomy 32:35

Bonus Content I

The wind whispers of fear and hate. The war has killed love. And those that confess to the Angkar are punished, and no one dare ask where they go. Here, only the silent survive. ~Dith Pran, The Killing Fields

Bonus Content II

My black face fades,
hiding inside the black granite.
I said I wouldn't
dammit: No tears.
I'm stone. I'm flesh.
My clouded reflection eyes me
like a bird of prey, the profile of night slanted against morning.

I turn this way—the stone lets me go.
I turn that way—I'm inside
the Vietnam Veterans Memorial
again, depending on the light
to make a difference.
I go down the 58,022 names,
half-expecting to find
my own in letters like smoke.

I touch the name Andrew Johnson; I see the booby trap's white flash.
Names shimmer on a woman's blouse
but when she walks away
the names stay on the wall.

Brushstrokes flash, a red bird's
wings cutting across my stare.
The sky. A plane in the sky.
A white vet's image floats
closer to me, then his pale eyes
look through mine. I'm a window.
He's lost his right arm
inside the stone. In the black mirror
a woman’s trying to erase names:
No, she's brushing a boy's hair.
~Facing It, by Yusef Komunyakaa, US Army Veteran

Souls Under The Altar (American Revelation, Explained, Six.)

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 sits on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb:

For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand? ~Revelation 6:9-17

...

The 54th Massachusetts Brigade lost over half its number in the assault on Ft. Wagner. The supporting white brigades also suffered heavily before withdrawing.

The fort was never taken.

As word of their bravery spread, Congress at last authorized the raising of black troops throughout the Union. Over 180,000 volunteered.

President Lincoln credited these men of color with helping turn the tide of the war.

~End-credits placard, from the film Glory.

I saw this last night.

Trump's Department of Defense is actively erasing and trying to hide the history of non-White people in the US Army. That's up to and including units with such storied histories as the 442nd Regimental Combat Team AKA "Go For Broke" a unit composed mostly of Japanese Americans recruited right out of the internment camps. Men who served in that unit included Senator Daniel Inouye and a who's who of others in postwar Asian-American political life. 21 Congressional Medals of Honor were won by men serving in that unit, many posthumously. They saw some of the worst fighting imaginable in Italy and central Europe so those guys fucking well earned all that. Don't take my word for it, Look It Up Yourself the 442nd is still an active unit in the US Army Reserves with elements in American Samoa, Guam, Hawaii and Saipan. This isn't "DEI" to those people serving in that unit today, it's their actual history.

And it gets worse, these fucking people are also trying to erase deceased veterans in military cemeteries. I'm sorry, but that's some bad mojo there, you don't disrespect the dead...especially in a military context. This affects people that I served with, my best friend in the Air Force was an African American convert to Islam. He died of COVID-19 in 2020, mostly because he also had heart trouble, otherwise he probably would have made it.

But also, many of those that I served with...white and otherwise...were Christian, as was I at the time. I started out pretty lapsed, by the time I had my accident, I was a fire-and-brimstone member of the End Times Prophecy Movement. I'm not kidding. I used the bit about the Saints under the altar from Revelations chapter six for a damned reason, here.

We as a nation are bringing some bad shit on ourselves.

And I mean just with this and that's altogether separate from all the other bad shit.

And mark my words carefully on this; If this crap isn't reversed, or stopped, we deserve whatever the unquiet dead do to us.

You honor those who've gone before, period. The color of their skin or the creeds they held in their hearts or their gender or sex should have not one goddamned thing to do with it!

A Black or Female Airman, Coastguardsman, Marine, Sailor or Soldier stops a bullet just as good as a White Man does, and if you don't like that?? Fuck You.

I've written about this stuff many times.

ALL of those who have served their country deserved to be recognized. There's nothing political about this, it's just a fact. I'm tired of these fucking people attacking literally everything about America that's supposed to be nonpartisan.

If Republicans want to make everything political, they need to be reminded that when the other shoe drops, when they end up OUT of power...that WILL be used against them, too.

And I'm a tap the sign and ask one more fuckin' time. Why is it, that Hegseth and Trump are disrespecting and gutting the military while picking all type of unnecessary fights with our allies?? Do they WANT us to lose a goddamned war??

Because this shit right here is how you lose the goddamn war.

I'm a remind you that, historically, neither Canada nor South Africa is the kind of country you wanna fuck with. Canada has its own impressive military history but South Africa in particular contains Warrior Cultures, plural. As in the Afrikaners and the Zulus, among others.

And it's a non-zero chance, while I'm at it, that our next war will be against ourselves.

In fact, I think that's specifically what these assholes are counting on, that there won't be an America to backlash against them, and they think they'll be able to count on China or Russia or somebody else to protect them and whatever part of America they get. 

Oh sure, they might lose a war or two...but they're trying to set things up like it was back in the feudal days where if a King lost his kingdom the other rulers would work something out like they did for Guy of Lusignan after the fall of the Kingdom of Jerusalem.

The other European rulers ransomed him from Saladin after a few years and made him King of Cyprus.

Kind of puts Trump's Gaza bullshit in a new light, doesn't it??

And yeah, that kind of Crusades-coded horseshit is exactly the world a lot of these "Conservatives" think they want to live in.

It gets worse.

Republicans...not specifically Elon and Trump...Republicans in general are trying to create an ethnic and political monoculture. As I wrote in November, that was one of the specific causes of the Balkan Wars and one of the reasons I got to spend some time in Bosnia. 

I wrote about that too.

And they're trying to pick all these fights while wrecking America and reducing our place and stature in the world?? 

What the fucking fuck??

Like I also said, I think they're trying to beat the record of 771 Days established in the time between the fall of the Berlin Wall and the fall of the Soviet Union.

None of this makes any sense unless destruction itself is the goal.

And honestly? I'm really glad that Canada and Europe and Mexico and presumably most of the rest of the world is uniting against this crap and not indulging these motherfuckers. All we're succeeding at doing is removing ourselves from play for no good reason, at best...and destroying ourselves at worst.

And we'll suffer for that idiocy as well.

As for those of us, Americans, who aren't onboard with this shit, who unlike Chuck Schumer are not content to connive at our own destruction??

You either believe in freedom or you don't.

You're either willing to fight or you're not.

And for the record nowadays from what I'm seeing it's liberals, moderates and Never Trump Republicans that are cheering the possibility of a government shutdown and freaking arming themselves and "Conservatives" who are the ones whining and threatening to call the cops on everybody for every damned thing. For too many of those fucking people it was never about Freedom.

It was about Fascism, and now that they think they've got the government they thought they wanted, they'll give all that up! I mean, why not?? Republicans have already in the last decade given away everything they said they believed or thought they were...for Donald Trump.

And yes, their next move will be persecuting religion, including any Christians that won't bow down to the golden idols of Donald Trump that have already been made.

I can't make it make sense.

But I know these fucking people are playing at dice with powers and principalities...to use a Biblical term here...that they cannot even begin to understand.

Or maybe they just don't want to.

These motherfuckers want to kill a lot of people, for no better reasons that bigotry, politics and shitty grievance because they think the whole rest of the world done them wrong just by existing.

I don't know what the fuck is wrong with these people and I say that as a former Republican.

But do I know is the Lord's Word says that when the Saints cry out for vengeance, that call will be answered.

I'm not a Born-Again anything, anymore...but I've read Revelation.

God's vengeance against this country for its many sins will be terrible.

(And no, I'm not talking about the gay people, or any people's sexual preferences or whatever, I'm talking about greed and hate and idolatry and murder, specifically by the White "Conservatives." Literal golden idols to that shit, now, among many other things.)

Donald Trump thinks he's on some kind of narcissistic revenge tour.

These people have forgotten, Vengeance is mine, Says the Lord.

To me belongeth vengeance and recompense; their foot shall slide in due time: for the day of their calamity is at hand, and the things that shall come upon them make haste. ~Deuteronomy 32:35

And it is coming.

Because these fucking people keep smacking the buffalo right on the nose, on purpose.

Do Not Pet The Fluffy Cows, Yo.

You ain't the Supreme power in the Universe, Republicans.

Remember that.

Because it's absolutely going to be on the test.

Soon.

Слава Україна!

Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows. ~George Orwell, 1984.

Five

Never have I witnessed such sincere hospitality and the overwhelming spirit of true brotherhood as is practiced by people of all colors and races here in this ancient Holy Land, the House of Abraham, Muhammad, and all the other Prophets of the Holy Scriptures. For the past week, I have been utterly speechless and spellbound by the graciousness I see displayed all around me by people of all colors...

You may be shocked by these words coming from me. But on this pilgrimage, what I have seen, and experienced, has forced me to rearrange much of my thought-patterns previously held, and to toss aside some of my previous conclusions. This was not too difficult for me. Despite my firm convictions, I have always been a man who tries to face facts, and to accept the reality of life as new experience and new knowledge unfolds it. I have always kept an open mind, which necessary to the flexibility that must go hand in hand with every form of intelligent search for truth.

During the past eleven days here in the Muslim world, I have eaten from the same plate, drunk from the same glass, and slept in the same bed (or on the same rug) -- while praying to the same God -- with fellow Muslims, whose eyes were the bluest of blue, whose hair was the blondest of blond, and whose skin was the whitest of white. And in the words and in the actions and in the deeds of the "white" Muslims, I felt the same sincerity that I felt among the black African Muslims of Nigeria, Sudan, and Ghana. We were truly all the same (brothers) -- because their belief in one God had removed the "white" from their minds, the 'white' from their behavior, and the 'white' from their attitude. I could see from this, that perhaps if white Americans could accept the Oneness of God, then perhaps, too, they could accept in reality the Oneness of Man -- and cease to measure, and hinder, and harm others in terms of their "differences" in color.

With racism plaguing America like an incurable cancer, the so-called "Christian" white American heart should be more receptive to a proven solution to such a destructive problem. Perhaps it could be in time to save America from imminent disaster -- the same destruction brought upon Germany by racism that eventually destroyed the Germans themselves.

They asked me what about the Hajj had impressed me the most. . . . I said, "The brotherhood! The people of all races, color, from all over the world coming together as one! It has proved to me the power of the One God. . . . All ate as one, and slept as one. Everything about the pilgrimage atmosphere accented the Oneness of Man under One God. 

~Malcolm X, Letter following the Hajj.