Terminator (Oblivion, Two.)

Sarah Connor: [she and Reese have just snuck into a Cadillac] Reese. Why me? Why does it want me?

Kyle Reese: There was a nuclear war. A few years from now...all this...this whole place, everything...it's gone. Just gone. There were survivors. Here, there. Nobody even knew who started it. It was the machines, Sarah.

Sarah: I don't understand.

Kyle: Defense network computers. New... powerful... hooked into everything, trusted to run it all. They say it got smart, a new order of intelligence. Then it saw all people as a threat, not just the ones on the other side. Decided our fate in a microsecond: extermination.

Sarah: Did you see this war?

Kyle: No. I grew up after. In the ruins... starving... hiding from H-K's.

Sarah: H-K's?

Kyle: Hunter-Killers: patrol machines built in automated factories. Most of us were rounded up, put into camps for orderly disposal. [pulls up his right sleeve, exposing a mark] This is burned in by laser scan. Some of us were kept alive... to work... loading bodies. The disposal units ran night and day. We were that close to going out forever. But there was one man who taught us to fight, to storm the wire of the camps, to smash those metal motherfuckers into junk. He turned it around. He brought us back from the brink. His name is Connor. John Connor. Your son, Sarah... your unborn son. [Sarah gapes in amazement.]

~From The Terminator.

...

If there is anything I have learned in my travels across the Planes, it is that many things may change the nature of a man. Whether regret, or love, or revenge or fear - whatever you believe can change the nature of a man, can. I’ve seen belief move cities, make men stave off death, and turn an evil hag's heart half-circle. This entire Fortress has been constructed from belief. Belief damned a woman, whose heart clung to the hope that another loved her when he did not. Once, it made a man seek immortality and achieve it. And it has made a posturing spirit think it is something more than a part of me. ~The Nameless One, from Planescape: Torment.

...

Rotta the Hutt: [sees Grogu] Who is he?

The Mandalorian: [to Grogu] Don't stare.

Rotta the Hutt: It's okay. [to Grogu] What's your name?

The Mandalorian: He doesn't talk. Who do you have to pay?

Rotta the Hutt: Can I feed him?

The Mandalorian: Sure. Who do you have to pay?

[Rotta takes some food and throws it to Grogu]

Rotta the Hutt: Lord Janu.

The Mandalorian: I don't know the name.

Rotta the Hutt: You should. He runs the syndicate on all the moons of Shakari. [throws another piece of food to Grogu] He signed me to his stable, he bankrolled my board and training.

The Mandalorian: He keeps you in a cage.

Rotta the Hutt: He treats me well. And after tomorrow night, I'll be my own man. And with the following you got me as a promoter, not only will my debt me paid, but I'll be rich by the solstice.

[Grogu squeezes through the bars of Rotta's cell, and approaches Rotta as Rotta is about to give him another piece of food]

The Mandalorian: Grogu! Heel!

[Rotta holds Grogu]

Rotta the Hutt: Don't worry. I'm not my father. You know how hard it is to be your own man when your father is Jabba the Hutt? You see them cheering for me out there? For me. It's the first time I'm not living in his shadow. That's why I fight in the pits. They feared him, but they cheer for me.

~From the Star Wars film The Mandalorian and Grogu.

I saw this last night.

Trump posted a bunch of AI slop pictures of him at the head of an army of Terminators. Or maybe he saw The Mandalorian and Grogu and thinks he wants a Droid army like the Hutts have in that movie.

I don't really give a shit which it is.

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

Well, then I saw this video of some old German person that lives in the state of Saxony-Anhalt in Germany. The motherfucker was literally saying if Russian troops marched through the Brandenburg Gate he'd be at a field kitchen ready to feed them. First, I was like "The fuck kind of person is not loyal to their own country?" Well, I looked on the map to see where that state was. It's in what used to be East Germany and my next thought was, well, East German Commies are gonna East German Commie. 

And don't tell me that's not exactly what's going on there. Nostalgia for East Germany...which was never properly De-Nazified by the Soviets nor rehabilitated from Communism by the German government...has a weird nostalgia for the Communist days.

Fucker's loyal to Russia, it doesn't matter if Russia is currently pretending to be left-wing or right-wing, I guess??

I served in the military, on a deep level I cannot imagine not being loyal to one's own country.

But more than that, watching the video and seeing all the stuff around this guy...much of it old, I'm just thinking, well, Miserable Bastards are going to be Miserable Bastards. 

It's not like we don't have whole states full of mostly pinch-faced assholes represented by know-nothing Republicans in our own country.

 And back before Russia invaded Ukraine and proceeded to get the Ass Whuppin Of The Century a fuck-ton of these "Conservative" shitheads were big Putin stans, too. 

Why would Germany be any fucking different??

I mean, it absolutely doesn't make any sense to me because my formative experience of all this shit was the 1980's and it was abundantly clear at that point that, whatever was going on over there, the Russians and a bunch of other people in the East Bloc countries were just about done putting up with it.

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

Now, almost two generations later, some of those same people who were there want the Jackboots back?? Sorry, but I even as a teenager I could see that Communism sucked. 

Now? Capitalism itself seems to be slowly morphing into the same kind of bullshit, mostly because people who were all too glad to throw off the shackles of Communism have gotten comfortable and fat and bored and they don't want anybody else to get any of whatever they think they have.

Which mostly isn't all that much, but ya know, other people coming up or getting a slice might offend the narcissism that seems to be born of the relative affluence of some of these countries.

I'm really, really goddamn sick of this fucking bullshit. I say that as somebody that spent a few years of his life serving in the shadow of the Cold War.

Communism hasn't been a thing since 1989. Democrats are not Communists. Judging solely from actions it looks to me like it's Putin and Trump that are trying to bring that garbage back. I mean, the Russian Army literally is flying the Hammer and Sickle, the Russian government flies it outside of government buildings. Putin is/was KGB. 

You cannot tell me Republicans don't know all this shit.

They just hope that you don't.

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

And I feel like Republicans Red-baiting Democrats while doing Commie shit themselves is pretty damn insulting to all the people who served, or died, in the Cold War.

 Republicans used to be the people who cared about government, history, religion, doing things properly, and all type of shit. Now? I tell some CHUD something I was specifically taught, by Republicans of previous generations, as a Republican of previous generation myself to point out that they're wrong and they look at me like I'm from Mars. 

And/or they wanna argue with me and try to qualify their previous stance even though they know I'm right.

I don't even try to argue with the young ones, let 'em find out the hard way. The ones my age or older should fucking know better, though.

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.

Or at least, that's the theory.

The truth is that, as Russell Moore said in his book RE: The Southern Baptist Convention, is that a lot of these people didn't even believe in what they said about themselves, or taught, or whatever. 

A lot of These Fucking People Seem like they were in some kind of a holding pattern, waiting for Trump or somebody like him to give them permission to be Bad People.

I think, looking back, that a lot of these fucking people...or those eras equivalents of them, anyway, were hoping Richard Nixon or Ronald Reagan was gonna be That Guy. Neither was, despite both being, in modern terminology, problematic.

And, well, now a lot of these motherfuckers are wondering why their friends stopped being their friends, or their kids won't talk to them or whatever. Action/Consequence. This isn't that hard.

But if there's anything I've learned in the last eleven years, with particular emphasis on the last year and a half, it's that some people are just Bad People.

And one motherfucker of a lot of them don't want to be anything else.

I say on a regular basis that you either believe in freedom or you don't.

Some people, I'd say between a quarter and a third of us...don't.

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

And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.

Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six. ~Revelation 13:16-18

There was a line from Full Metal Jacket that always stuck with me, where Private Joker says to one of the other Marines, regarding the Vietnamese, that they'd "Rather be alive than free, I guess."

Well, I'm gonna modify that and say that some people would rather have a spot in a pecking order than be free. Hierarchy matters more than freedom. They don't love Christ because His Word resonates with their soul...they look at the Bible as a bunch of excuses and rules to follow, if they bother with it at all.

And increasingly they don't.

I think it's worse than that they'd rather be alive than free, or even rather be part of a hierarchy than free.

I think they think Trump gives them a "god" that they can see.

Which tells me, really, that a hell of a lot of "religious" people were more Atheists than the most Atheistic rationalistic Atheistic non-Believer that I know.

Or worse, if they did believe in some God or demon or spirit or whatever they thought it was an angry violent narcissist they needed to appease.

Which (now) is why they can't stop (metaphorically) blowing the narcissist now. They literally seem to think if they appease this guy enough they'll go to Heaven or some shit.

Sorry, but in my opinion, going anywhere in the Afterlife with Donald Trump in it sounds like Hell.

I mean for fuck's sake they are even willing to throw the Epstein files victims under the goddamn bus for Trump, not to mention all the people for whom bringing the people in the files to justice was a big thing. And not only that, but they talk about people who really did believe in that (like MTG or Thomas Massie) like they're crazy or something.

Cassian Andor: What? To steal from the Empire, what do you need? A uniform, some dirty hands, and an Imperial toolkit. They’re so proud of themselves, they don’t even care. They’re so fat and satisfied, they can’t imagine it…

Luthen Rael: Can’t imagine what?

Andor: That someone like me would ever get inside their house, walk their floors, spit in their food, take their gear. 

~From the Star Wars series Andor, S1.E2 "That Would Be Me."

And mind you I burned through a lot of ink mocking both Marjorie Taylor Greene and Thomas Massie over the years but now I have to respect both of them, simply for doing the human thing.

For not believing that Putin or Trump or some other shitty potentate is "god."

For not choosing Miserable Bastardy for its own sake.

Seems like a low bar, but it's where we're at, and that disgusts former Republicans like me.

But the truth is, if they can't have the Totalitarian Power that they think they want right now, they'd rather not only they but everyone else too, have the Oblivion.

However they philosophize or rationalize it, that's what this shit comes down to.

And if they really did believe all this End Times stuff, they gotta know they're picking the wrong side. I think they just don't care.

Some of these people literally wanna build Skynet, and Terminators.

I guess they didn't watch the movies and see how that worked out.

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

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

It's going to come down to a fight.

Soon.

Слава Україна!

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

One

Nameless One: “Shadow of this life?”

Dhall, Dustman scribe: “Yes, a shadow. You see, Restless One, this life is not real. Your life, my life, they are shadows, flickerings of what life once was. This life is where we end up after we die, and here we remain. Trapped, caged, until we can achieve the True Death.”

Nameless One: “True Death?”

Dhall, Dustman scribe: “True death is non-existence. A state devoid of reason, of passion, of sensation.” [Dhall coughs] “A state of purity.”

Nameless One: Sounds like oblivion, why would anyone would want that? 

~from Planescape Torment

Shadow Of This Life (Oblivion, One.)

Nameless One: “Shadow of this life?”

Dhall, Dustman scribe: “Yes, a shadow. You see, Restless One, this life is not real. Your life, my life, they are shadows, flickerings of what life once was. This life is where we end up after we die, and here we remain. Trapped, caged, until we can achieve the True Death.”

Nameless One: “True Death?”

Dhall, Dustman scribe: “True death is non-existence. A state devoid of reason, of passion, of sensation.” [Dhall coughs] “A state of purity.”

Nameless One: Sounds like oblivion, why would anyone would want that? 

~from Planescape Torment

...

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

...

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

I saw this earlier.

Apparently Trump is trying to undercut Birthright Citizenship (Again) and the courts told him "No" (Again.) And no, Marky Mark, you ain't an attorney.

Honestly I don't understand why These Fucking People want to give everything, including their own basic human rights and freedoms to *Checks Notes* Donald Trump. and do it basically on the off-chance that somebody they don't like who isn't even involved or making this transaction comes out worse in an exchange they were not party to.

I mean, I get it. It's a cult and cultists do shit like that all the time. But I have eyes to see and ears to hear, I had the imagination to know this would turn out badly and the life experience to know what happens when you hand your life over to a narcissist. 

People who's only dream is having an ass above them that they have to kiss and somebody below them that they can kick and who literally dream of a life of miserable bastardy and religiosity in between the two will never understand that. And of course nothing is ever their fault.

It seems like a hell of a way to live, and I couldn't and wouldn't do it.

But then too many of these idiots don't seem to understand that we all have to have an Earth to live on, and that God might have a thing or two to say about their willful destruction of it.

Or if they do understand that, they want the destruction as some kind of a sacrifice to the Oblivion or their personal nihilism or something something Gazpacho. And again, if I thought that way I wouldn't still be here.

Hell I guess I just don't understand the willful "Conservative" disregard for all type of knowledge at this point that was literally written in the blood of generations.

Unless what it all comes down to is purely their immediate social standing and temporal wealth and all this shit that I was taught and actually believed is just bullshit to cover up what's really going on.

Then spoke Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that follows me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. ~John 8:12

These motherfuckers say they believe in Jesus, but then they want to walk in the darkness like it's some kind of a flex anyway. Honestly I'm nowhere near nihilistic enough to want to live in that kind of world.

Like, I can't even imagine if you want "Population control" and to constantly keep fucking up the planet, why would you also want kids to be having kids??

Is it just cruelty, a fetish for seeing people in poverty and at the mercy of the State as to whether or not they get to eat that day, for lives being destroyed before they even get a proper start??

Again, I couldn't live that way.

Not as the worker, not as the functionary handing out a loaf of bread for a Denarius. Yeah, the world we live in is kind of shitty but it's still infinitely preferable to these motherfuckers inflicting all the torments of Revelation upon the World for shits and giggles and political power.

Like what the fuck do you think the "Data Centers" the "Flock Cameras" and the probably-prototyped computer chip they want in people's bodies for their next step is??

Can't say I know very many people who'd want to live in that world, either. Maybe my partner's idiot relatives would, I don't know.

Indeed the whole fucking point of a very wide swath of Christian belief is escaping exactly that. I'm not saying it's right, that is simply what is. You'll note Republicans and their preacher hangers-on are increasingly pretending big parts of End Times Prophecy and Revelation simply don't exist at this point.

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

And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.

Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six. ~Revelation 13:16-18

And no, none of these assholes doing this shit really believe a single word that's in the Bible, or at least not in the way they say they do.

They seem to like and believe in the parts about concentrated wealth and inflicted suffering, for sure. The rest, not so much.

Like, come on, what the fuck is wrong with these people?

I mean, it's like I said, these fucking people approach their Demon-worship, evil, greed and perversion at this point with the same single-minded "religious" fervor that led their grandparents to be dour Calvinist shitheads 50 years ago, or their parents to be weird Pentecostal narcissists 25 years ago.

It's a joyless "religious" mission. And no, don't you forget that's exactly what it is. Being religious is not a good in and of itself. There was and is such a thing as evil gods. 

They're just not very powerful and they were beaten because they got their Power from some historical iteration of These Fucking People, rather than from the infinity of Creation itself which is supposedly the claim to fame of the God of Abraham, Isaac/Ishmael and Jacob. 

I mean, fuck, even Aphrodite, Thor or Zeus seems to get a hell of a lot more recognition if not actual worship today than (for example) Baal-Haddad. Moloch remains synonymous with Evil, etc. 

But I suppose it's actually hard to be a joyless shit and worship Aphrodite or Dionysius.

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 these fucking people seek out gods, real or imagined, that confirm their dour, joyless nature and feed their evil narcissism. Most of these people are such bitches that, yes, they basically need a god or some kind of "Daddy" figure, "Sky daddy" or otherwise, to tell them it's OK to be like that. Which is exactly why this Trump-cultism is a thing. Baal is apparently still sleeping or whatever, the same as he was when Elijah called that shit out on Mount Carmel.

The sad part is there's a whole damn world out there trying to show These Fucking People a better way than that. They keep refusing it.

Being small and mean and self-focused in The Shadow Of This Life is a hell of a drug, I guess??

Republicans would rather face Oblivion than see everyone have freedom.

I'm so tired of this bullshit.

You either believe in freedom or you don't.

Слава Україна!

[Caprica-Cavil and Galactica-Cavil are in an airlock, about to be executed]

Caprica-Cavil: Is there a Resurrection Ship within range?

Galactica-Cavil: Yes, brother. But first we're gonna die in a vacuum.

Caprica-Cavil: There's a 170 foot long launch tube in front of us. We might die of our injuries before we get to the vacuum.

Galactica-Cavil: I don't like you.

Caprica-Cavil: I understand that.

Galactica-Cavil: Do you really believe it was a mistake to attack the humans?

Caprica-Cavil: Rather intensely, yes.

Galactica-Cavil: You know that when we download amongst the others your strange ideas will be shouted down.

Caprica-Cavil: Ideas always seem strange until you try them on, brother. We had a temper-tantrum in the form of a cataclysm because we wanted them to treasure us, the Ones, more than humanity. More than their own history and blood.

Galactica-Cavil: We didn't want to be loved. We wanted to be treated fairly.

Caprica-Cavil: We wanted to be held to a bosom. To be petted and perfumed and told we were the princes of the universe.

Galactica-Cavil: Yes, well if the humans were gone-

Caprica-Cavil: Our parents would mourn them. They'd love them more anyway.

Galactica-Cavil: I'm going to see to it that you get boxed. And then I'm going to prepare to wipe out humanity once and for all.

Caprica-Cavil: The anticipation is very unpleasant.

Galactica-Cavil: Yes.

[Caprica-Cavil offers his hand, Galactica-Cavil looks at it and accepts it. Galactica-Cavil closes his eyes while Caprica-Cavil keeps looking. They are then airlocked.]

~From Battlestar Galactica: The Plan

Last Post

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."

FAFO.

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

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

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

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

Hess: Burnin Konn?

Mayfield: Mmm.

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

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

Hess: Yep. All heroes of the Empire.

Mayfield: Yeah. And all dead.

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

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

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

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

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

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

...

[Caprica-Cavil and Galactica-Cavil are in an airlock, about to be executed]

Caprica-Cavil: Is there a Resurrection Ship within range?

Galactica-Cavil: Yes, brother. But first we're gonna die in a vacuum.

Caprica-Cavil: There's a 170 foot long launch tube in front of us. We might die of our injuries before we get to the vacuum.

Galactica-Cavil: I don't like you.

Caprica-Cavil: I understand that.

Galactica-Cavil: Do you really believe it was a mistake to attack the humans?

Caprica-Cavil: Rather intensely, yes.

Galactica-Cavil: You know that when we download amongst the others your strange ideas will be shouted down.

Caprica-Cavil: Ideas always seem strange until you try them on, brother. We had a temper-tantrum in the form of a cataclysm because we wanted them to treasure us, the Ones, more than humanity. More than their own history and blood.

Galactica-Cavil: We didn't want to be loved. We wanted to be treated fairly.

Caprica-Cavil: We wanted to be held to a bosom. To be petted and perfumed and told we were the princes of the universe.

Galactica-Cavil: Yes, well if the humans were gone-

Caprica-Cavil: Our parents would mourn them. They'd love them more anyway.

Galactica-Cavil: I'm going to see to it that you get boxed. And then I'm going to prepare to wipe out humanity once and for all.

Caprica-Cavil: The anticipation is very unpleasant.

Galactica-Cavil: Yes.

[Caprica-Cavil offers his hand, Galactica-Cavil looks at it and accepts it. Galactica-Cavil closes his eyes while Caprica-Cavil keeps looking. They are then airlocked.]

~From Battlestar Galactica: The Plan

I saw this a couple days ago.

Some MAGA, three-time Trump voter, angry and upset at *Checks Notes* the perfectly obvious, stuff that anybody with a brain in their head or any awareness of how Donald Trump conducts himself or ever has, tried to tell this bitch for over a decade. Trump started another pointless forever-war, Trump sold out the country to tech-bro billionaires who wanna put their personal 666 on everything and fuck America into being a post-Apocalyptic hell-scape like something out of the book of Revelation, one data center at a time. Trump fucks up everything he touches, blah blah blah. Yeah, I get it. Welcome to the party, lady. I believe I personally tried to point this shit out to a fuck-ton of people my damn self.

Trump was always gonna have to pick between the Red Hats and the Billionaires and he was always gonna pick the tech bro Billionaires because their "Libertarian" sociopathy was always going to make his utterly amoral ass the most fucking money. And that's all he cares about. What the fuck kind of a dumbass do you have to be to think that Donald Trump gives a fuck about you??

Meanwhile, the Republicans got nothing and are going with their two standard pitches: "Everything is terrible, we made it that way, vote for us" and "Cheat Like Crazy."

Still thinking of my fellow janitor at the casino who, when asked why he liked Trump said "I don't know. I guess I like the shit he says." Said with a stupid, simpering expression on his face.

I think of all these old white guys in my department, who pretty much went full zombie-eyed ADHD kid watching cartoons the second somebody turned one of the breakroom TV's on to FOX News.

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.

Yeah how's that working out now, bros??

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

And these Republicans, they all think we're that fucking stupid, or that we're against them just to be against something, like they are or have the only truth or valid belief system. Which is of course "Grab what you can while you can with no thought for any other people or the future" followed by "Fuck you, I've got mine" when the bill comes due.

They're either so insane or out of touch that it's effectively a mental illness unto itself or they're lying and they know it (and very likely all of the above.)

And I said it in November of 2024 that the only medicine that was gonna cure whatever addles regular people on this shit was FAFO: Fuck Around and Find Out.

Well here we are. About the only things making the situation any different than what I expected was that something like 70% or 75% of Americans are against this bullshit, along with almost the whole rest of the world...and the situation here at home hasn't spiraled into outright violence yet.

Despite Republicans trying to instigate exactly that.

Well that and for the most part these idiots have neither the manpower nor the money to implement their dystopian fantasies even if they had the public support.

Doesn't help that these guys are so incompetent they make Mussolini look like Machiavelli by comparison.

And their own coalition is falling apart like Woodstock 99 on Saturday night. It's the Fyre Festival of Fascism.

I mean, fuck, just the fact that Trump has gotten 70% of Americans to agree on anything should be one for the history books, even if it is "He sucks."

And the people running this fucking shit-show are so goddamned backwards they're trying to argue in favor of *Checks Notes* more teenage pregnancy.

Now like I said :

This bullshit infuriates me.

As a teenager I was basically required to carry rubbers, in my wallet, in my truck, etc. My Mom didn't want me getting somebody pregnant and her and my high school girlfriend were very much on the same page with this.

I quite literally was taught until you are capable of being financially responsible for a kid either practice safe sex or abstain. Like the slogan they use in Africa to combat AIDS, ABC: Abstain, Be faithful, Condomize. We were Republicans

To me that's *Checks Notes* Basic morals, let alone Christian morality.

I'm glad the kiddo is gay and me and my partner don't have to worry about this shit.

I was taught not to associate with Welfare people. Yes, you know the type, even if you don't admit it. The people who live by working (and cheating) the system, and who never make any effort to get off it. A hell of a lot of those people here in Northern Michigan (or down where I used to live, also where my partner is at now) are "Conservatives," Fundamentalist Christians, MAGA. An absolute raging fuck-ton of those people are on Welfare. I don't know any Black or Latino people on Welfare, but I know my ex-wife basically lived by working the system. I don't understand from either a logical or political standpoint why those people are Republicans. Hell, They don't know why, they just like the shit that Republicans say, or something.

I mean, fuck, given their rhetoric on the subject for basically my entire life I don't know why Republicans tolerate it! Republicans increasingly hate poor people and are actively trying to kill them.

And here they are, trying to push for more teenage pregnancies, presumably among White girls. 

Again, if anybody goes with this bullshit, you get more generational poverty, more Welfare People. I hate to be that guy, but when you hit a certain level of poverty and your life generally being shit, conventional morality much less self-respect, let alone the kind of priggish Christianism Republicans demand as public behavior pretty much goes in the shitter along with everything else.

Worse, it gets replaced all too often with scammy shitty bullshit because, among other things as Eminem once famously rapped "These goddamn food stamps don't buy diapers."

And while I'm at it, especially at the moment EBT cards aren't big business because our government is compassionate; They're big business because they're a huge subsidy for American farmers and ranchers.

When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory:

And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats:

And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.

Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:

For I hungered, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:

Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.

Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink?

When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee?

Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?

And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.

Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:

For I hungered, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink:

I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not.

Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee?

Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me.

And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.

~Matthew 25:31-46

And nobody gets left behind, or left out of getting any help at all, faster than decent people who don't want to live like that, or whose first goal once they get into the system is to get out of it. And again, the more independent or "Liberal" a person actually is, the less likely they're going to stay in that kind of mess any longer than they have to.

People like my partner's redneck relatives, not so much. She's long out of that crap now, and struggles but she's doing a lot better. I still help, and I'm glad to do it.

Morals, like about everything else, are a luxury in Republican-land because the conditions that create or incentivize them in real terms got sold to rich people for bullshit lies and magic beans and parted out for profit, but Republicans got their cut first, so fuck you.

And like I said the only way a lot of people are going to get this is to be reduced to bare survival their damn selves and have things be bad enough that they have to face it, and who caused it. And yes, Republicans are the problem here.

FAFO.

We're probably going to get there soon, certainly some parts of the country will. Sucks, because as I've been saying for years the Republican ideal future is basically the Killing Fields, but with a mall. And their only real "Value" if you want to call it that, is Slavery. What's worse, is if they can't have the total power of the Slaver, they'd rather have Oblivion.

A lot of people thought they were gonna be the ones holding the whip. Now they're the ones getting lashed by it, because of course Republicans are gonna eat their own first. Simply put, it's easier.

You either believe in freedom or you don't.

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

Слава Україна!

Nameless One: “Shadow of this life?”

Dhall, Dustman scribe: “Yes, a shadow. You see, Restless One, this life is not real. Your life, my life, they are shadows, flickerings of what life once was. This life is where we end up after we die, and here we remain. Trapped, caged, until we can achieve the True Death.”

Nameless One: “True Death?”

Dhall, Dustman scribe: “True death is non-existence. A state devoid of reason, of passion, of sensation.” [Dhall coughs] “A state of purity.”

Nameless One: Sounds like oblivion, why would anyone would want that? 

~from Planescape Torment

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