The Believers (Scenes From The Fall, Eight.)

I used to want to save the world. To end war and bring peace to mankind; but then I glimpsed the darkness that lives within their light. I learnt that inside every one of them there will always be both. The choice each must make for themselves – something no hero will ever defeat. And now I know that only Love can truly save the world. So now I stay, I fight, and I give – for the world I know can be. This is my mission now. Forever. ~Diana Prince, from the film Wonder Woman.

...

Maximus: You sent for me, Caesar?

Marcus Aurelius: Tell me again, Maximus, why are we here?

Maximus: For the glory of the empire, sire.

Marcus Aurelius: Ah, yes. Ah, yes, I remember. Do you see that map, Maximus? That is the world which I created. For 25 years, I have conquered, spilt blood, expanded the empire. Since I became Caesar, I have known four years without war, four years of peace in twenty. And for what? I brought the sword. Nothing more.

Maximus: Caesar, your life...

Marcus Aurelius: Please. Please, don't call me that. Please, come sit. Let us talk together now, very simply, as men. Maximus, talk.

Maximus: Five thousand of my men are out there in the freezing mud. Three thousand of them are bloodied and cleaved. Two thousand will never leave this place. I will not believe that they fought and died for nothing.

Marcus Aurelius: And what would you believe?

Maximus: They fought for you and for Rome.

Marcus Aurelius: And what is Rome, Maximus?

Maximus: I've seen much of the rest of the world. It is brutal and cruel and dark, Rome is the light.

Marcus Aurelius: Yet you have never been there. You have not seen what it has become. I am dying, Maximus. When a man sees his end... he wants to know there was some purpose to his life. How will the world speak my name in years to come? Will I be known as the philosopher? The warrior? The tyrant...? Or will I be the emperor who gave Rome back her true self? There was once a dream that was Rome. You could only whisper it. Anything more than a whisper and it would vanish... it was so fragile. And I fear that it will not survive the winter. Maximus, let us whisper now, together, you and I. You have a son. Tell me about your home.

Maximus: My house is in the hills above Trujillo. A very simple place. Pink-stones that warm in the sun. A kitchen garden that smells of herbs in the day, jasmine in the evening. Through the gate is a giant poplar. Figs, apples, pears. The soil, Marcus- black. Black like my wife's hair. Grapes on the south slopes, olives on the north. Wild ponies play near my house. They tease my son. He wants to be one of them.

Marcus Aurelius: Remember the last time you were home?

Maximus: Two years, 264 days, and this morning.

Marcus Aurelius: I envy you, Maximus. It's a good home. Worth fighting for. There is one more duty that I ask of you before you go home.

Maximus: What would you have me do, Caesar?

Marcus Aurelius: I want you to become the protector of Rome after I die. I will empower you to one end alone: To give power back to the people of Rome, and end the corruption that has crippled it. Will you accept this great honor I have offered you?

Maximus: With all my heart, no.

Marcus Aurelius: Maximus, that is why it must be you.

Maximus: But surely a prefect, a senator, somebody who knows the city, who understands her politics?

Marcus Aurelius: But you have not been corrupted by her politics.

Maximus: And Commodus?

Marcus Aurelius: Commodus is not a moral man. You have known that since you were young. Commodus cannot rule. He must not rule. You are the son that I should have had. Commodus will accept my decision. He knows that you command the loyalty of the army.

Maximus: I need some time, sire.

Marcus Aurelius: Yes. By sunset, I hope you will have agreed. Now embrace me as my son, and bring an old man another blanket.

~From the film Gladiator.

I've been seeing a lot of shit like this in the last couple days.

Dudes coming out the woodwork trying to defend the Cornell 7, Frat-boy rapists who drugged a girl with Ketamine and then abused her for seven hours back in 2024.

Like, I don't give a damn what the girl did or didn't do, first off, somebody should be catching drug charges just for drugging her. Enough Ketamine to incapacitate her for that long?? It's probably a felony charge by itself. Second, Nobody deserves to be raped, and I don't give a damn what you think.

I'm tired of this attitude, mostly from White Republican men that basically everything exists for them to abuse or exploit, that they should exploit whatever they can and that self-satisfaction from doing so is the moral purpose of their lives and, on the other hand, that caring about other people is somehow "Satanic."

These Fucking People believe in Ayn Rand way more than they ever believed in Jesus Christ. 

Trump is little more than the current debased figurehead for that belief system, Atheistic Objectivism.

I've honestly hit the point where I believe America is a violently Atheistic and Materialistic nation, and there's nowhere that proves the point more than a lot of American "Churches."

Right-Wing America has built a "god" in its own image, a god of death and wealth. I use the name of the Roman god Dis Pater (later re-appropriated as a Demon in Christian cosmology) for a fucking reason.

And at the end of the day, one has to also remember that Rome was never Christianized, Christianity was Romanized. Like it or not, Empire sidelined Christ and replaced Him with Caesar. Constantine did this for a reason. Keep the Christians sozzled on the deliciousness of Empire and Imperial Power and after awhile they won't even bother to follow Jesus anymore. 

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)

Why should they?? If they can feel all Holy and be narcissists and shit, with the Self on the Throne, and not ever have to deal with the inconvenience (among other things) of actually following Christ, isn't that just, I don't know, easier?? (Well, until you get to the Afterlife, anyway, then it sucks.)

I mean, who needs Jesus when you can convince yourself that you're your own god??

(And yet somehow, historically, even the most Imperialized understandings of Christianity until the American kind have had the sense to be like "Hey wait a second, maybe we should stop here?)

I get it, trust me, I do.

I spent a few years wrapped up in all this bro-culture nonsense myself.

Yet somehow, I still understood that shit like Pedophilia and Rape was wrong. Way too many of these fucking people have lost that understanding if they ever had it in the first place.

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.

America is currently aggressively trying to make up its mind if it wants to be Babylon or Sodom.

It turns out Rome had social welfare of a sort, grain rations and shit, and that's too "Woke."

And as debased as it was, homosexuality in the Roman Empire had many rules. That's not the world These Motherfuckers want to live in.

This is the only reason Evangelicals would prefer an adulterous, criminal shit-bag like Ken Paxton over John Cornyn (Or James Talarico for that matter.)

And Republicans want to be both the ancient Babylon of Nebuchadnezzar and the ultra-modern-high-tech massively technologically controlled Babylon that the End Times Prophecy Movement prophesied about 30 years ago. They have long since lost the understanding that those were the bad guys in the story, or maybe it's just that the Tech Bros kept giving them money.

And deceives them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast; saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live.

And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed.

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

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

Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six. ~Revelation 13:14-18

But they're about half a step from trying to say "It's not the Mark Of The Beast when WE do it!"

Trust me, as long as they can make money and use drugs and stick their junk wherever they damn well please, most of these white Republican men won't care if that means they're going to Hell.

American Evangelicalism (which I steadily and increasingly refuse to call Christianity at this point) convinced itself that the Prosperity Gospel and stern religiosity were all that mattered, that the world God gave us to live in was somehow Sinful and fit only for destruction, that being a terrible person, living in a terrible world and acting like a miserable bastard because you think that's a flex was somehow "Holiness." Oh, and you have to keep spending money and working yourself to death to "Prove" that you are somehow worthy. Well unless you own a bunch of shit, good luck with that.

But if you just own a few things, at this point you have to fight not to get snapped up by people who already have way more than that.

I don't preach a social Gospel I preach the Gospel, period. The gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ is concerned for the whole person. When people were hungry, Jesus didn't say, "Now is that political or social?" He said, "I feed you." Because the good news to a hungry person is bread. ~Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

Unless you're somebody like Donald Trump or one of these elites that's somehow entitled to have Wealth Without Work and then you can do whatever the fuck you want.

This is unsustainable for most of us.

And it's not that These Fucking People don't care...

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

It's that they're actively trying to collapse the system so they can build their own flesh-pot paradise for themselves out of the wreckage, and their weird worship of politics and religiosity is just an excuse.

Like I don't give a shit what you think, religion isn't the first thing that comes to my mind when anybody mentions Mel Gibson. And that's the key here, isn't it?? Religion is just what these assholes use to try to get feeble-minded people to tolerate their shitty behavior. No, it's not even about the Empire anymore. Well, Okay, late-stage Western Roman Empire maybe, where those fucking people were so obsessed with politics and religion that they couldn't be bothered to fight for themselves and couldn't avoid pissing off the German mercenaries that had become the majority of the Roman armies, either.

But there are some things politics and religion are no good for unless they are tempered with humanity. Without some level of common sense, ideology just becomes another death trap.

We're trying to pick fights where there's no reason to pick fights and trying to manipulate allies where there's no damned reason to do that either, this for little more reason that people like Donald Trump and Marco Rubio are demented drama queens trying to settle old Republican grudges before they die. 

Never mind how many new ones they create...against them.

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"

You start mixing narcissism and religiosity with right-wing bullshit, sooner or later it ends up the same way every time, with people destroying themselves and then ranting about how the Commies are coming while they're hiding under the bed with a pistol in hand. I've seen people go down rabbit holes like that and it always ends badly.

Especially when people choose evil, exploitation and Sin. Especially when we, as a country, let them.

I have a family to think about, a partner and a kid, but I wasn't down with choosing this before.

Sooner or later everybody else gets tired of your bullshit.

The enemy, the Other, the People, always gets a vote sooner or later.

It's going to come down to a fight.

You say you're a "Believer?" Well what are you a Believer *In?*

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

Nebuchadnezzar spake and said unto them, Is it true, O Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, do not ye serve my gods, nor worship the golden image which I have set up?
Now if ye be ready that at what time ye hear the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, and dulcimer, and all kinds of musick, ye fall down and worship the image which I have made; well: but if ye worship not, ye shall be cast the same hour into the midst of a burning fiery furnace; and who is that God that shall deliver you out of my hands?
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, answered and said to the king, O Nebuchadnezzar, we are not careful to answer thee in this matter.
If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king.
But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up.
~Daniel 3:14-18

Hypnotize (Scenes From The Fall, Seven.)

Ha, sicker than your average
Poppa twist cabbage off instinct
Niggas don't think shit stink
Pink gators, my Detroit players
Timbs for my hooligans in Brooklyn (that's right)
Dead right, if the head right, Biggie there e'ry night
Poppa been smooth since days of Underoos
Never lose, never choose to, bruise crews who
Do somethin' to us (come on), talk go through us (through us)
Girls walk to us, wanna do us, screw us
Who us? Yeah, Poppa and Puff (hehe)
Close like Starsky and Hutch, stick the clutch
Dare I squeeze three at your cherry M-3 (take that, take that)
Bang every MC easily, busily (take that, haha)
Recently, niggas frontin' ain't sayin' nothin' (nothin')
So I just speak my piece, keep my piece (come on, now)
Cubans with the Jesus piece, with my peeps (thank you, God)
Packin', askin', "Who want it?" (who want it?)
You got it, nigga, flaunt it
That Brooklyn bullshit, we on it

Biggie, Biggie, Biggie, can't you see?
Sometimes your words just hypnotize me
And I just love your flashy ways
Guess that's why they broke, and you're so paid (uh)
Biggie, Biggie, Biggie (uh-huh), can't you see? (Uh)
Sometimes your words just hypnotize me (hypnotize)
And I just love your flashy ways (uh-huh)
Guess that's why they broke, and you're so paid (ha)

~Notorious BIG, Hypnotize.

...

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

...

"I will not trash talk. I will not be a divider in chief or an agitator in chief. I won't be out there blowharding, talking a big game without backing it up. I think the next president needs to be a lot quieter but send a signal that we're prepared to act in the national security interests of this country — to get back in the business of creating a more peaceful world."

[Silence. A muted TV plays FOX News in the background behind him Silence.]
"Please clap."

~Jeb! Bush, February 2nd, 2016

I saw this yesterday.

Trump is basically trying to hypnotize people now.

And yes, that's exactly what he's doing.

There's an ad running on FOX News; The ad features hundreds of quick-cut pics of Trump, the military, and Trump's voice says "Together we will defeat Communism, Socialism and Marxism in America" mixed with praise of Trump while the backing singers sing "love me, love me". A GOP campaign message and the video taxpayer funded. 

That's also supposedly illegal.

Or it would be for anybody else, even another Republican.

And all these Republican politicians, "Influencers" and shit are basically trying to gin up Fear Of Basically Everything. Tommy Tuberville gave a speech freaking out about *Checks Notes* Furries. Hey Tube-steak, I used to work with a couple people like that. Nobody's doing that shit at work and hell, if they were, the average "Fur Suit" is about 70 pounds or more; If somebody can work with all that gear on, that's actually impressive. The vast, vast majority of these people are weird but harmless younger folks. They're not hurting anybody. 

The entire thing appears to have come from an in-joke on the radio between a couple members of a civil Aviation club (You know, people with enough money they can afford to fly a Cessna 172K Skyhawk as a hobby) in Alabama that was deliberately and maliciously taken out of context by *Checks Notes Again* local and now national Republicans. Homie, in Alabama if somebody can afford to be in a local flying club...they're probably a Republican.

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

More to the point if this is the promised Capitalist Republican Utopia they've been threatening us with since Reagan, I can't afford to live in it. My Mom can't afford to live in it, my Partner and the Kid can't afford to live in it. My Mom is retired with a pension, my partner works 2 jobs, I work and get military disability.

If these idiots are really afraid of "Communism" well we've got nobody  who ain't rich being able to afford to get by, a government overrun with right-wing authoritarian horseshit, and an elite class whose basic attitude is "Let Them Eat Shit!" on both sides of the figurative political aisle (Even from Democratic leadership.)

Motherfuckers have set up the standard historical Communism Origin Story and I'm pretty sure they do actually know this.

Or at least both Democrats and (in particular) Republicans used to.

And deceives them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast; saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live.

And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed.

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

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

Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six. ~Revelation 13:14-18

And again, Trump is literally trying to hypnotize people.

The mental image that I had was of all those Left Behind books that I read back in the late 1990's with Nicolae Carpathia (the Antichrist) constantly hypnotizing everybody but certain End Times Prophetic Christians who'd been supernaturally protected. 

As if those books themselves weren't basically just Christian Nationalist Slop, which they at least became after the first six books or so when Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins looked at that shit and simply said "That's a lot of damn money" and just started mailing it in.

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

I was reminded of my ex-wife going all constant eye contact and sultry-voiced like she was trying to hypnotize me the first time we got together.

Hell, as the thread on Blue Sky where I first saw this shit progressed, I was reminded of when my Mom and I watched the Berlin Wall fall, live on CNN, while bringing in the groceries and eating a Supreme pizza from Dominos after we got home from an appointment I had over here, and going to the grocery store and the mall.

I watched that shit fall live on TV when I was 15 years old but sure, okay "Communism is forever" If you say so.

Until it isn't.

I watched ordinary Germans tear it down when I was 2 weeks out from getting my driver's license.

People cannot possibly not know this, it's all bad faith.

But of course, none of this crap is ever really about what they say it's about. It's really about fake "Conservatives" trying to protect their imagined "right" to be nothing but bigoted filth.

Because none of that other shit is happening either.

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)

But you know what is happening??

Trump literally rolled out the red carpet for Xi and gave Chinese state media the run of the White House because the US media pool is still not covering him in solidarity with CNN, MSNBC etc.

And just to make it more creepy, I guess they literally took Monica Crowley out of the pic and AI-slopped Natalie Harp in her place. That says some things that are really fucking creepy as far as I'm concerned. 

You can't be servile enough to please Trump unless you're some broken creepy religious nut that's 100% obsessed with him, I guess??

Even a lot of MAGA's have figured out now that Trump doesn't give a fuck about them, and they're fucked and stuck paying too much for everything and they didn't get whatever they thought they all wanted and too damned bad, I say.

But the motherfucker can sure roll out a literal red carpet for Commie Xi.

Trump doesn't hate Communists, he wants to BE them.

Trump isn't a Christian, he wants to usurp the place Christ allegedly held in these people's hearts.

And when Cometh Hell's Legions?? Trump ain't gonna even try to protect ya'll. He'll be egging them on.

Anything but America.

Anything but "Love Thy Neighbor."

Loretta Smith: I'm Loretta Smith. You killed my son. You're a handsome fellow.

Donald Groves: Thanks.

Loretta Smith: You broke God's law: Love thy neighbor. I wanna hate you but I can't. I feel pity, tears, but no hate. I didn't realize that until this moment. You are my neighbor and I love you. And I forgive you with all my heart. That's all.

~From the HBO series "Oz" Season 1, Episode 7 "Plan B."

These Fucking People all hate each other and are all using each other.

And they aren't even subtle about it.

Everything sucks, unless you're a rich Republican, and the Wall Street Journal is trying to say that telling the truth about that is a "Risky Bet."

Fuck these motherfuckers.

Truth is the only floor most people have to stand on to push back against Power. 

I can't call up some idiotic Super PAC and scream and yell into my phone until somebody produces an ad to vent my grievances. 

My partner or the kid ain't got some dipshit lawyer on retainer to stand up for them, they have an issue? I'm that guy. And we had a late night last night cuz she locked the keys in her car, we got it resolved and she got to work this morning, but fuck.

When is enough, enough with this bullshit??

What we have to stand on, in politics, in the world, with each other and with God above...is the Truth.

If I had to pick between that or a bunch of money, I'm gonna take The Truth every time, because then my Salvation doesn't depend on *Checks Notes Yet Again* Donald Trump.

And I don't have to hypnotize nobody to get what I want.

Worse, for all their absolute bullshit and all the money these motherfuckers are pouring into trying to influence the election, 40 days out their bleak numbers remain unmoved. Things are so bad even Karl Rove is voting Democratic. I guess he doesn't like actually having to be a miserable bastard, either.

You either believe in freedom or you don't.

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

It's really that damned simple.

Слава Україна!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Six

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

...

And so tomorrow, as we take the campaign South and West, as we learn that the struggles of the textile workers in Spartanburg are not so different than the plight of the dishwasher in Las Vegas; that the hopes of the little girl who goes to a crumbling school in Dillon are the same as the dreams of the boy who learns on the streets of L.A.; we will remember that there is something happening in America; that we are not as divided as our politics suggests; that we are one people, we are one nation. And, together, we will begin the next great chapter in the American story, with three words that will ring from coast to coast, from sea to shining sea: Yes, we can. ~Barack Obama

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

Vain Oblations (Scenes From The Fall, Six.)

Brothers and sisters, please quiet down. Thank you.

We come here time after time and we talk about the same old same old.

Hey, quiet down.
- We talk about Jesus. - That's right.
Jesus said and Jesus wept.
Jesus heard and Jesus walked over.
I don't wanna talk about Jesus.
Cos as the big man teaches us, there's two sides to every story.
Not one but two. A story is not one-sided.
A story has duality. There's two sides to every story.
Which brings to mind the phrase "necessary evil".
I know many of you hear that phrase and say,
"That don't even make no sense to me.
"Can't be no such thing as necessary - how's evil necessary?
"That don't match. That's plaids and stripes, evil and necessary."
You see, because without bad, there is no good.
Without light, there is no dark, you need both these things.
You hear what I'm saying?
If every day is a sunny day, well, then, what's a sunny day?
Well, the bottom line, what I'm trying to tell you tonight,
is that evil...evil... is necessary.
Evil is necessary, thereby, if it's necessary, evil...
- Evil... -must be good.
Evil is good.
That's what I think. Evil must be good, must be good.
- Let me hear y'all say it... - Evil is good.

Evil is good. Take Brother Brown, one of our strongest deacons, pillar of stability.
Brother Brown was on Bushwick Avenue last night with a two-dollar ho.
When you tell your wife, "I'm going to see Mama," then you go get you a two-dollar ho, that's evil.
But Brother Brown had a good time with that two-dollar ho.
You can push a two-dollar ho and she don't have no limits!
Evil and good walk hand in hand. - Evil is as evil does. 

I know many of y'all may be saying, "How can he say ass is good?"
How y'all think y'all got here?
Ass is good! Evil's good and ass is good.
And if you get you a piece of evil ass...Woo!

~Maximilian The Vampire (As Preacher Paulie) from A Vampire In Brooklyn.

...

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

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

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

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

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

~Isaiah 1:13-17

...

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 a couple hours ago.

Evidently a bunch of Evangelicals, and Republican candidates like Victor Marx in Colorado, think if they make a big show of religiosity before the election, they'll win or something.

God doesn't give a fuck about that. This stuff is not of God. God is not in these fucking people.

There's nothing "Christian" about any of this garbage. Victor Marx has been going around for years saying he killed a man. Does that sound Christian to you??

There are literal wannabe-Nazis arguing cases for our government and if you want to know how "Christian" that is, look up how the Nazis treated the Christian church in Germany. The first thing those fucking people did was take control of churches and force Nazi neo-pagan rites on them.

Honestly, not that the average American Evangelical megachurch is any fucking different, not at this point. There's churches out there that are basically the Republican equivalent of the Communist Chinese "Three Self Patriotic Church." Certainly, no better than that. And I fucking dare somebody to try and argue about that shit. 

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)

I mean, I've had people who weren't Christians who went to such places tell me they didn't understand who or what was actually being worshiped. And then I had to explain, to (for example) Muslim people from countries like Egypt and Saudi Arabia that all these American Idiots are basically worshiping themselves or worshiping the idea of worldly Power and Wealth.

This was 25 years ago and it's orders of magnitude worse now. There is a reason I say these fucking people worship Devils and Idols of Gold and might as well be bowing down to Dis Pater for all the good their religiosity will do them in the end.

I have spoken.

These fucking people know they're losing, that like 75% of the country is pissed off at Republicans and Trump and they think they're gonna use religion to bullshit people. It's not working.

Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it on to our children in the bloodstream. The only way they can inherit the freedom we have known is if we fight for it, protect it, defend it, and then hand it to them with the well fought lessons of how they in their lifetime must do the same. And if you and I don't do this, then you and I may well spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it once was like in America when men were free. ~Ronald Reagan

And they don't care, because their religion isn't even about other people. The rest of us might as well not exist to these assholes, except as an inconvenience or something to exploit.

And they want to abuse people and harm their families for *Checks Notes* daring to want to join the Marine Corps and make this country better, and perversely enough the kid still wants to enlist and do his bit to make America better.

"Conservatives" do not want to make a better world. They think everything should be terrible like it's holy writ, because they think that crap somehow justifies themselves. America isn't America if everybody really gets a shot. Heaven isn't Heaven if everybody gets to go.

When all these fucking ICE Agents get rounded up and carted off to jail, I hope that kid is one of the ones staring these cowardly chuds down and hoping the fuck they try something stupid. They won't, though.

Because the truth is, like cowardly Bosnian Serb paramilitaries 30 years ago the ICE agents will be drunk or high when arrested, piss their pants on the way to jail while crying the whole time and they'll all want the cute little Leftist lady defense lawyer who has a reputation as a courtroom bulldog to try to keep their ass from ending up in a British or Dutch prison where they'd also have to fear dropping the soap in the shower room. 

These assholes have been being taught to be cowardly bullies their whole lives. They will not be able to flip a switch and fight with real courage when it matters. Let alone when them having courage might keep their political masters from suffering fates worse than death. Go ahead, look up what happened to Mussolini. Look up what happened to Radovan Karadzic. There ain't much honor or much of a pension plan in the autocracy business or in "Ethno-Nationalism." 

[Cassian plays Nemik's audio diary]

Karis Nemik: There will be times when the struggle seems impossible. I know this already. Alone, unsure, dwarfed by the scale of the enemy. Remember this. Freedom is a pure idea. It occurs spontaneously and without instruction. Random acts of insurrection are occurring constantly throughout the galaxy. There are whole armies, battalions that have no idea that they've already enlisted in the cause. Remember that the frontier of the Rebellion is everywhere. And even the smallest act of insurrection pushes our lines forward. And then remember this. The Imperial need for control is so desperate because it is so unnatural. Tyranny requires constant effort. It breaks, it leaks. Authority is brittle. Oppression is the mask of fear. Remember that. And know this, the day will come when all these skirmishes and battles, these moments of defiance will have flooded the banks of the Empire's authority and then there will be one too many. One single thing will break the siege. Remember this. Try. 

~From the Star Wars series Andor, S1.E12 "Rix Road."

Worse, These Fucking People, like all the ethnic "Nationalists" before them, never had any serious intention of fighting anybody who could fight back. When that time comes (and it will come) this will be evident.

Real faith is not even what's going on here. It's not what the Evangelicals and the Trump Worshipers (although I repeat myself) even want. These fucking people are trying to impress or intimidate others so they can keep their bullshit going. I'm not impressed, I'm not intimidated, I'm not changing for these motherfuckers.

Fuck That.

Most of the rest of us are just trying to get through this, trying to make the world better, and not interested in bowing down before this bullshit. And that is what all these weird narcissists think is the worst crime of all.

Existence Is Resistance.

Loretta Smith: I'm Loretta Smith. You killed my son. You're a handsome fellow.

Donald Groves: Thanks.

Loretta Smith: You broke God's law: Love thy neighbor. I wanna hate you but I can't. I feel pity, tears, but no hate. I didn't realize that until this moment. You are my neighbor and I love you. And I forgive you with all my heart. That's all.

~From the HBO series "Oz" Season 1, Episode 7 "Plan B."

Meanwhile, my partner found and rescued a loose dog today, and drove to town to take the dog to the animal shelter even though it would cut into her gas to get to work tomorrow. I sent her some gas money because stuff like that is what faith or faithfulness even is or means to me. If you don't care about others, what the fuck are you doing any of this for??

Anything but America.

Anything but "Love Thy Neighbor."

The list goes on.

A lot of these fucking motherfuckers would rather be living bullets in some kind of ethic or racial conflict than free citizens or Saved Christians. It's really that simple.

And this whole mess is going down, they can't even keep the most committed Republicans of Committed Republicans onboard now. Welcome to the Rebellion, Karl.

If you think that Donald Trump is going to get you into Heaven, you deserve what you're going to get and you deserve to get it good and hard and hot and fast. Even if that were true, spending eternity with *Checks Notes Again* Donald Trump sounds like it's own special kind of Hell.

You either believe in freedom or you don't.

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

Bring no more vain oblations, everybody's sick of that crap.

Слава Україна!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Five

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

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

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

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

Chief Galen Tyrol: Report to stations?

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