Murder-Publicans (Left Behind Is A Lie V, Seven.)

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"

...

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 yesterday.

70 Christians were murdered (mostly beheaded) in a church in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Remember this the next time you hear some pampered, privileged American "Christian" claim that they're being persecuted.

They're not.

The average American Evangelical Fundamentalist dumb fuck wouldn't know what persecution was if it fell out of the sky, landed on their face and started swinging a cat-o'-nine tails about.

They will be completely unprepared, piss themselves and surrender when they are, in point of fact, actually persecuted, and it will happen. Trump's narcissism demands that he alone be worshiped.

Also, JD Vance is going around threatening Ukraine again.

Not for any actual reason, but because Zelenskyy and various European leaders haven't kissed Trump's ass enough.

And again, as I've said before, Ukraine is a Christian, traditional-conservative country, of course, being one that chose Democracy. If these Republicans ever had been who they say they are, Ukraine would have goddamned F-35 Lighting II jets and more money and weapons than they knew what to do with.

But of course, that's not what they are, and they have not been that for about 17 years, at least. They started being this 30 years ago...but it took the election of Obama and the rise of Trump...and more to the point, the continuation of Trump for the Conspiracy theories and Hate infection to fully take over.

Our former European allies (including Ukraine and most of the NATO countries) have already started seeing Trump's America-2.0 as a threat. And well they should. Oh, sure, they recognize that there's plenty of corporations that'll still deal with them and plenty of Americans and US orgs that will back them, but the American government itself? Under Trump Europe (including Ukraine) sees the USA as their enemy. Hell, if you're an American (even if you're a MAGA who actually voted for Trump and thought your vote mattered or was the point) these motherfuckers absolutely are your enemy, too.

But the truth is, current Republicans are just shitty nihilistic fucks who want to kill and steal from people, including Americans. Hell, especially Americans. They aren't even subconsciously telling on themselves, they're openly saying this shit. 

They don't care if people see them for what they are.

In fact, they want it, they want to be seen. They think being seen as the monsters they are will make them feel mighty. That's all they want or understand. Yes, that right there.

Why? Because they think people will be afraid of them rather than horrified or pissed off. 

They think they're going to get to revel in that fear, rather than be finding somewhere to hide when people that they've screwed over shoot back.

They don't really care who it is that they fuck over or kill, either. 

They want Wealth Without Work and they've decided murder and theft are how they're going to get it. They've decided Trump is going to give it to them. 

And they think they're going to use State Power to do it, right before they crash the State so nobody else can do it right back to them. Historically, this tends not to actually work, because other people who you've pissed off can grow or take that power themselves. These Trump fucks have literally dropped too much of America's power on the ground because they didn't want it. They would literally rather be Vlad Putin's butt-slaves than be equal and free citizens of an America that has Other People living in it. Thing is, History, Nature, and Power alike abhor a vacuum. Crash America, and something else will grow in its place. 

Break off a piece, and other parts get to react to that, too.

If you don't think those pimply-assed DOGE Nazi hacker kids are just stealing whatever they can get their hands on from all those government agencies, you have another thing coming.

I just...tend not to think this will work out the way that they think it will.

The truth is that this garbage is the natural result of all that American radical-individualism crap, and the Randian idea that Man is the center of a godless world where self-satisfaction is the moral purpose of his life.

Get money, and then you die, basically. (Seriously, who the fuck wants to live like that?)

There's a reason the core MAGA sales pitch has always basically been that sure, everything sucks, but at least if you follow us you'll get to have your boot on somebody else's throat before you, too, die a horrible death. They seem to have decided that they want to drag as many people as they can into the Void with them.

The catch is that this crap always depended on the rest of the world tolerating it.

And maybe it's just me, but it's starting to look like the rest of the world's tolerance for this bullshit...not to mention the toleration of the rest of America...is starting to wear thin and doing so very fast. 

(More to the point, even and perhaps especially the Chinese and the Russians are just waiting to fuck these craven idiots over, too. That they're too stupid to realize this is their problem.)

They were always going to be like this, win or lose, electorally, it was always gonna be this.

It's just that the American voting public was dumb enough to give them access to the big switch, again.

And if you think these motherfuckers won't do all the mass murder they can to try to keep that shit, you're wrong.

The main difference between Congolese revolutionaries and American fascists is very likely simply that the American body-count will be higher. That these fucking people are small, weak men will make them worse.

You either believe in freedom or you don't.

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

They aren't going to give us a choice but to make those decisions.

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

Six

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?

Cassian 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."

Bonus Content

Brain Rot (Left Behind Is A Lie V, Six.)

[ISB director Col. Wulf Yularen addresses Major Partagaz and all ISB officers in the wake of the Aldhani raid]

Col. Wulf Yularen: The criminals responsible for last night's atrocity on Aldhani think they've taken the Empire by surprise. We know better. We know the real shock will be when they discover how ready and eager we are to respond, to be prepared, to be here this morning and know that the only question we need to answer is how tight to close our fist. This is why we plan. This is why we work so hard when we're at peace. This is why we recruit so carefully and demand so much. The following measures will be adopted Empire-wide as of today. A tribute tax equal to five times the amount stolen from Aldhani will be levied on any sector harboring partisan activity. We will make it clear that no one steals from the Empire. The use of any local custom, festival, or tradition as cover for rebel activity will trigger permanent revocation of Imperial tolerance. I spoke with Emperor Palpatine last night, and he's assured me that the ISB will be taking the lead going forward. No one in this room should have trouble accessing Army or Naval resources in future. The Emperor will be convening an emergency session of the Senate to propose a legislation package of bills and amendments that will free our hands in all matters of surveillance, search, and seizure. We will be invoking the Public Order Resentencing Directive later today. P-O-R-D. Any criminal act, with even indirect effect on the Empire, will henceforth be branded a Class One Offense. All prison sentences are immediately re-evaluated. All outstanding fines and levies are to be paid in full. 

~From the Star Wars series Andor, S1, E7 "Announcement."

...

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 as soon as I finished my last blog post.

I have to admit I didn't have "Biden administration as Jacobin terror" on my bingo card.

I quite suspect if that's what These Fucking People really think, the revolution will be short. Don't get me wrong, it'll probably still disintegrate America, and it'll be bloody as fuck, but it will be short. It won't work out how they think, but these assholes will get something simply because there's a subset of America that seemingly cannot wait to taste corporate boot-leather, you won't want to live there, though.

There's a whole hell of a lot of these corporate goons, Republican operatives and wannabe fascists that just scan (to me) as the most soft-handed, lacking in killer instinct and testicular fortitude, wannabe bitches imaginable.

Should note, that makes them a lot more dangerously stupid and very likely far more prone to using excessive force, especially when there's absolutely no reason to do so.

More to the point, 250 years of America and these fuckin' idiots still don't understand the concept that people have rights, whether you want to say those rights are Constitutional, or God-Given, or whatever.

(These fucking people never actually believed in the Constitution, except maybe as some kind of tribal totem, a leering Tiki at the edge of the camp meant to scare off intruders they think are just as fearful and primitive as themselves.)

Some fucking people commit war crimes because they're angry, or because they hate their enemies, or out of vengeance because a particular enemy troop shot one of their buddies, or something. 

It sucks and it's wrong but it's still understandable in the heat of the moment.

It stops being understandable real quick after half a decade.

These fucking people will commit war crimes because they're still mad about COVID-19 and the Great Resignation. 

They're angry because we, being the people they depend on for their profits but also the people that they hate and resent for just plain existing, did not all go out and get sick and then lay down and die while leaving them our personal stuff in our wills, they're mad because we masked up and protected ourselves, and also because during the Pandemic and for most of the last five years or so, damned near anybody who was dissatisfied with their job could just go out and get another one in fairly short order.

I know, I was one of those people.

They see workers having freedom as some kind of bullshit-ass "Communist Aggression" or "Jacobin Terror." These assholes don't want citizens, or workers. They want slaves.

They don't want intelligent, reasonably functional and independent leaders like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. They want some bloated sad-sack like Trump that they can buy off with a Kilo of cocaine and some fancy suck-ass words or some bullshit and just get whatever they want.

These Motherfuckers Do. Not. Want. A. Better. Nation. They want Culture War crimes.

They don't want a more conservative nation on some kind of principle, they want a more manipulable environment for the wealthy.

They don't understand things like that we have enemies who absolutely do not give a shit about the money, who have no better nature or goodness to appeal to, or that the Russians (for example) see us as just as much of an enemy as they see the Ukrainians.

They don't understand that those enemies can't be bought off or reasoned with and don't actually share (their kind of) social conservative beliefs.

And half of America proved itself real damn easy to fuck over, too.

I mean, shit, they wanted to be fucked over, because they thought it might be "entertaining."

They want destruction and loss and The End Times so bad they're willing to be the Beast of Revelation their own damn selves, if that's what it takes, but they wanna make money off it, too.

And when these motherfuckers see a whole goddamned piss-pot full of Chinese or Russian soldiers coming at them with blood in their eyes, all these Mr. Big Balls Fascists will basically just shit themselves, drop their weapons, and either run away or surrender.

And those enemies don't see Trump as a strong leader or a threat, they see him as a toady, as an easily-manipulated punk with a cult of self-contradictory chucklefucks behind him, who'll never really be part of their club.

And this is what America sold itself out for??

Think about that for a second.

And then rethink your priorities.

Because you either believe in freedom or you don't.

There's going to be a fight. Soon.

But if they think the last five years has been some kind of a "Terror" they ain't ready for an actual fight. They're gonna lose, I think their goal is to take us down with them, honestly.

Seriously, they think the best economy (for them in particular) in a generation was a "Terror" against them?? Just because somebody else got a little, too??

So, freedom is terror for the privileged?

Fuck off.

Privilege rots your goddamned brain, and I don't think our sick country will survive it because too many of us are too far gone, but at least for those of us who aren't Okay with this crap we can decide where we land with the breakup.

We get to decide who we want to be, not these motherfuckers. 

Remember that, because it's what this whole damn country was based on. A majority of what comes after will be based on it as well, because that's the culture of the people who live here. Elon Musk ain't from here.

We're the ones who know how to build the Guillotines, do not forget this.

And remember, too, that these fucking people's wannabe tyranny has a glass jaw.

Слава Україна!

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?

Cassian 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."

Five

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

Killing Fields (Left Behind Is A Lie V, Five.)

Bob Rebadow: I'm sorry that you're ill.

Kareem Said: And who told you that I was ill?

Bob Rebadow: God.

Kareem Said: Oh, yes. You talk to God.

Bob Rebadow: When he's in town.

Kareem Said: Well, in Islam, we believe that only two people spoke to God directly. Mohammad, and peace be upon him, and Moses. So, you see, you are in excellent company.

Bob Rebadow: You think I'm lying or deluded.

Kareem Said: Oh, yes.

Bob Rebadow: I may well be. I do know sometimes I can see inside men's souls.

Kareem Said: And can you see into mine, old man?

Bob Rebadow: Yes.

Kareem Said: And what is there?

Bob Rebadow: Anger.

Kareem Said: Yes, I am angry. I am angry at a society that cripples my people and infects their bodies.

Bob Rebadow: No, you're angry at God.

Kareem Said: I am not. My illness is Allah's will and I accept the bad as well as the good that God gives me.

Bob Rebadow: Still, you're angry at him and afraid. Afraid of dying.

Kareem Said: That is not true.

Bob Rebadow: You watched Jefferson Keane die, die gladly. Keane embraced death like a lover, like a traveler going home. You saw that and you were afraid. You realized you aren't as willing to go. ~From the HBO Series "Oz" S1, E5, "Straight Life."

...

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

...

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

I saw this a couple days ago.

RFK Jr. says he wants to put people "addicted" to Antidepressants in camps for "Re-parenting."

There's a few problems with all that, besides the glaringly obvious Constitutional, human rights, legal, medical and privacy issues (and of course, the concept of right and wrong) but you'd have to have at some point been an actual conservative to understand what those are.

Although being just a person who is not consumed by ideological madness bordering on mental illness might help:

#1 I'm 51 years old. No, really. I'm a grown ass man, this is not up for negotiation.

#2 I already have parents, although only one of them is still living. 

I do not need and am not in the market for anything else to fill that role. Least of all, the fucking State. If I have to explain why that is to you, odds are you will never understand it. My own experience of State power is serving in the military. 

Fuck you, if you think that kind of shit should be inflicted on depressed people or anybody who didn't specifically volunteer for it.

#3 I'm a former conservative Christian, taught by people who were conservative Christians, although what that stuff was then vs. what it is now are, to a great extent, very different animals. I was taught a certain way of believing and living, and though I've since lost my religion and updated various social beliefs so that I can live in the goddamn 21st Century, the basic framework is still there. 

If you think I'm cool with any of this crap, or with it happening to anybody, you're wrong. It's not just that this is not what I was taught, it's that I was taught this is wrong.

Totalitarianism is totalitarianism, and it doesn't get any better because you think the (wannabe, as yet, in this case) Dictator is somehow "Your" guy.

He's not, and he doesn't give a fuck about you.

#4 I'm an actual, no shit addict, I started out with alcohol, cigarettes, got into drugs later starting with pain meds. I've done worse, loss of everything you wanted up to that point in life multiple times will do shit like that. I've since kicked all my habits, I don't even smoke weed anymore. 

Antidepressants were not a thing I was addicted to, although I was on them for about a year. That's why I'm sitting here alive and able to type out these words. That's all. The shit kept me alive and gave me time to rebuild my own mental health.

#5 If you think the government is or should be anyone's parent, for any goddamned reason whatever, you are a Lost person and I mean that entirely in the Biblical, Christian sense of the term. 

That's not the State's job, that's demonstrably not something governments are historically good at or even do for any damn reason a sane person might consider to be appropriate, and when it's been tried (usually that's due to either Communism, Fascism or some kind of idiotic, narcissistic goddamn insane Personalist authoritarianism) results have been uniformly and predictably monstrous and it usually boiled down to some freak trying to generate unquestioning cannon fodder for the State and/or uncritical drones who'd worship some narcissistic dumb-fuck who got too high on huffing the smell of his own farts. 

And that's exactly what this "Daddy Trump" bullshit is.

When you're finding yourself in the same fucked up category as Hitler's Germany, Ceaușescu's Romania, North Korea under the Kim family or a jumped-up tin-pot thug who styled himself Emperor Bokassa I in Central Africa, you probably want to go home and rethink your life.

Is it just me, or is this bullshit starting to look like the absolute dumbest, most incurious fucking people humanly possible are trying to lay the groundwork for some kind of totalitarian ideology that goes far beyond even MAGA as it currently. conventionally exists??

Like, it's the Mark Of The Beast but they got it wrong so it's 665 and the chip is (poorly) made in some Russian sweatshop by an Elon Musk subsidiary that conveniently forgets to pay the workers (adjust quality control appropriately) and they don't want to give you no anesthetic when they put it in. 

You have to do breathing exercises and Chi bullshit and mindfulness to dull the pain, and they don't stitch you back up, you have to stop the bleeding yourself because it's cheaper.

And the fucking kid who put it in there didn't even know what he was looking at, like some DOGE CHUD-kid looking at COBOL-programming language older than his grandma without Raj from Tech Support to walk him through it. So if something goes wrong, you get an infection, or the shit doesn't work...that's your fault!

So then they call the Angkar if you complain, and you too will be forced to confess your sins against The People.

(The People, in this case, being three dumb Republican congresspersons and RFK Jr's brain-worm.)

Like belief in the Lord's Word unfiltered through Prosperity Gospel zampolits, or medicine, modernity, and any idea of Western Civilization that wasn't thought up by idiot Brogrammers and rabid racists during a drug bender, I guess??

I'm serious when I say this fucking shit is rapidly morphing into a murder cult, and something like 60% of Democrats in Congress and about half of your basic street-level "liberals" think they can wait the shit out and win in 2026 and 2028 because that's how America rolled in Trump's first term?? 

These ain't the same people and they are deliberately trying to cut all the strings that hold America together, not least a nonpartisan government, military, and social safety net.

These motherfuckers are deliberately trying to make sure that America isn't here in 2026 because they know that in America, as it's currently culturally, politically and socially constituted, you cannot just throw millions of people in death camps without there being some pretty deadly repercussions for you. And it's hard to do mass murder in a country with damn near half a billion guns.

And if they cannot get things to the point where they can do that, they want to break America up so that they can at least kill or drive out all the people they don't like in whatever space they can claim, and do it in the name of creepy far-right religious-extremist "Purity culture" to create some kind of "Great American Republic" or "Pure American Nation" with Donald Trump's name on it.

Because these fucking people cannot stop blowing the narcissist.

If you want to know why all the Left Behind end times crap is a lie, look at that.

Because somehow people got so fucking Lost that Donald Trump became the only thing they ever believed in, and even retroactively ever had.

It's not just that nobody acts more like the Bible is a lie and it's all crap than the Christians do, it's that these motherfuckers actually seem to think Donald Trump is Jesus Christ.

Because deep down, there's a part of American "Conservatism" that has always had "The Killing Fields of Khmer Rouge Cambodia, but with a mall" as its dream-ideal for a society. Remember, it's America and our treatment of Black people and Native Americans that gave Hitler ideas for how to treat the Jews.

And now these fucking Colonizers wanna do that shit to the rest of America.

You stop and think about that shit, take as long as you need.

Either you believe in freedom or you don't.

You're either willing to fight for your own life or you aren't.

There is no middle ground, and there cannot be.

Not least because they don't want it, and they do want to fight the rest of us.

And unfortunately America has a history of giving idiots what they want for awhile, and only fixing it after they run the train right off the tracks. That is exactly the only thing that people so addled as to think that Donald Trump or the State (but only under Republican rule) are their parents are going to even be capable of, wrecking shit for no good reason because they're stupid.

We need to stop this shit.

It's going to come down to a fight, Soon.

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

Four

Karis Nemik: I'm struggling to understand why my faith doesn't calm me. I believe in something. Why am I so unsettled? I mean you have nothing, you sleep like a stone. I write when I can't sleep. Wrote about you last night. Not you specifically, not "Clem." Although I'm assuming that's not your real name, anyway. "The Role of Mercenaries in the Galactic Struggle for Freedom." My conclusion is simple. Weapons are tools. Those that use them are, by extension, functional assets that we must use to our best advantage. The Empire has no moral boundaries, why should we not take hold of every chance we can? Let them see how an insurgency adapts.

Cassian Andor: [sighs] Well, you're half right. The Empire doesn't play by the rules.
Karis Nemik: And how am I wrong?
Cassian Andor: They don't care enough to learn. They don't have to. You mean nothing to them.
Karis Nemik: Perhaps they'll think differently tomorrow.
Cassian Andor: Be careful what you wish for.
Karis Nemik: So you think it's hopeless, do you? Freedom? Independence? Justice? We should just submit and be thankful? Just take what we're given?
Cassian Andor: [Inhales deeply, leans toward Nemik and glares] Do I look thankful to you?

~From the Star Wars series Andor, S1, E6 "The Eye."

Destroying The Village (Left Behind Is A Lie V, Four.)

Karis Nemik: I'm struggling to understand why my faith doesn't calm me. I believe in something. Why am I so unsettled? I mean you have nothing, you sleep like a stone. I write when I can't sleep. Wrote about you last night. Not you specifically, not "Clem." Although I'm assuming that's not your real name, anyway. "The Role of Mercenaries in the Galactic Struggle for Freedom." My conclusion is simple. Weapons are tools. Those that use them are, by extension, functional assets that we must use to our best advantage. The Empire has no moral boundaries, why should we not take hold of every chance we can? Let them see how an insurgency adapts.

Cassian Andor: [sighs] Well, you're half right. The Empire doesn't play by the rules.
Karis Nemik: And how am I wrong?
Cassian Andor: They don't care enough to learn. They don't have to. You mean nothing to them.
Karis Nemik: Perhaps they'll think differently tomorrow.
Cassian Andor: Be careful what you wish for.
Karis Nemik: So you think it's hopeless, do you? Freedom? Independence? Justice? We should just submit and be thankful? Just take what we're given?
Cassian Andor: [Inhales deeply, leans toward Nemik and glares] Do I look thankful to you?

~From the Star Wars series Andor, S1, E6 "The Eye."

...

In Natal, apartheid is a deadly cancer in our midst, setting house against house, and eating away at the precious ties that bound us together. This strife among ourselves wastes our energy and destroys our unity. My message to those of you involved in this battle of brother against brother is this: take your guns, your knives, and your pangas, and throw them into the sea! Close down the death factories. End this war now! ~Nelson Mandela, speech at a peace rally, February 25th, 1990.

...

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

So, apparently Trump's followers are spanking the monkey to the idea of...I don't know, violent revolution against the rest of America, or something?

(And Trump is feeding this crap with what appears to be fake Napoleon quotes.)

As I've been saying since the height of the COVID-19 Pandemic, I get that These Fucking People's ideal world is basically the Killing Fields of Khmer Rouge Cambodia, but like, with an Applebee's and a mall or something.

I'm just...increasingly skeptical of the idea that any of these dumbass motherfuckers are smart enough to get there unless the rest of us just lay down and die for them.

(And no, Congressional Democratic leaders, you don't get to make that call for the rest of us, fuck off.)

For the record, I'm going to remind you that it's been awhile since the United States Navy...you know, the actual sea service of our legit armed forces...could conn a ship without having one smack into some unfortunate merchant vessel a couple times a year (A set of circumstances that was once Career Death for everyone in a position of responsibility that was involved.) 

So, that's clearly not what it used to be. 

Also, since I'm a US Air Force veteran, I'll also point out that we're trained #1 That we cannot be used domestically against our own people, and #2 That we're supposed to avoid civilian casualties, and #3 that we are supposed to be apolitical by actual law and tradition. Trump (or at least somebody around him) knows this, which is why he seems to be making grunting noises in the general direction of militia movements lately, concerning some half-baked idea that these motherfuckers have of some kind of "Great Purge" against the "Left."

*Note: "Left" appears to mean anything up to and including most traditional Republicans and anything short of Monarchist "Conservatives" now.*

Well, I'm here to tell you that the militia movements make the current failing-to-meet-professional-standards, undertrained US Armed Forces in all its messy soup-sandwiched glory look like infallible gods of war by comparison. I've known these fucking people, and they suck at anything more than stealing chemicals out of their workplace or your garage with which to cook Meth.

I mean, most of those guys look like they haven't run ten meters since they almost got busted shoplifting 2-for-$1 packs of King Edward little cigars from the goddamn corner store back in the 1990's.

But then "Right" nowadays seems to include the fact that Elon Musk got a "Conservative Influencer" *Cough* I spelled "OnlyFans Ho" wrong *Cough* pregnant (Apparently by IVF, rather than doing it the old fashioned way) and bought her off with some cash and a Cybertruck or some BS. Now they're not talking, or something.

I guess Eugenics and Technology create a poor basis for relationships and could be said to undermine the traditional family unit, or some shit??

Like seriously there was a time when shit like...whatever Ashley and Elon are up to...would have itself been the basis for weeks of Congressional hearings and wrinkly old Republicans (plus a smugly grinning Newt Gingrich) waxing eloquent about the decline of the American family and demanding that somebody do something!!

And there's also the fact that CPAC and a bunch of other Republican conventions are wretched hives of scum and villainy not only in the sense of the freaks that go to them, it's that they are apparently also buzzing with activity when it comes to shit like gay prostitution.

I'm confused, I used to be a Republican, and none of this is supposed to work that way, either.

(And didn't These Fucking People decide they didn't like IVF and wanted to go back to rabidly hating all LGBT people just a few months ago?)

Kamala Harris calling these motherfuckers "Weird" didn't go far enough.

Not. Even. Close. If you ask me.

This crap isn't just weird, it's sick.

And now apparently JD Vance is trying to tell our European allies that they don't respect Democracy because they're not letting the Russians take them over by bribery and bullshit-ass political manipulations, and accusing the British of arresting people for "Thought Crimes" because some nut got arrested for harassing women inside the exclusion zone around an abortion clinic (A thing Trump just pardoned a bunch of religious nuts for here.)

These fucking people missed the entire goddamned point of George Orwell, among other things.

European governments are currently convening emergency meetings and, presumably, planning to do whatever they figure they need to do without us, because we got stupid.

This crap will end with a united European Union (as one country) and a divided America. By the way, it's worth pointing out that this sort of thing entirely fits with the End Times Prophecy narrative that I learned in the latter half of the 1990's.

I guess I just never thought it would come about by...Idiocracy...let alone by an Idiocracy being enthusiastically adopted by conservative Americans in particular.

Seriously if you'd told me this shit would happen back when I was a serious twenty-something Baptist, I'd probably have punched you in the face while screaming about Donald Trump being a Democrat.

Because believe it or not, there was a time when Republicans were not like this.

America is falling apart and getting Oligarch-raided at home, and we've effectively taken ourselves off the board and surrendered to the fucking Russians abroad...and no, the psyche of the average American Idiot will not handle the United States ceasing to be a World Power very well at all...but that's not "Where we're headed" it's where we already are and that wound is entirely self-inflicted.

Some bullshit idea of being mean to their neighbors and relative status will not replace a hell of a lot of the intangible (and entirely taken for granted) things a lot of These Fucking People are about to lose.

Much less what we've already lost, a lack of childhood diseases like Measles, for example.

Antivaxxers and Eugenicists do not give a shit about public health.

Conspiracy nuts do not (successfully) build starships, regressive fanatics and religious nuts do not invent the future.

Nations and peoples who let this shit get a foothold do not keep Superpower status or the wealth that goes with it.

And I'm here to tell you, that in and of itself will be enough to break America, were we not already like, half a crisis away from complete disintegration based on Republican divisiveness and Trumpian incompetence alone.

Not to mention the greed of Billionaires.

Well, that and Republicans have been attacking the social cohesion of America right down to the family unit for a good long time now.

Like, where the fuck do these assholes think they're going to get their money or even have it be worth anything without *Checks Notes* Civilization??

These Fucking People aren't "Saving America" not even for themselves. 

They're trying to burn America down because all these fuckin' idiots want to be the guy who gets his face on the One Credit note for some kind of far-right New World Order that names Vladimir Putin "Tsar Vladimir I, the World-Conqueror."

And America, as she is currently constituted and as a whole country, stands in the way of that.

As does Ukraine, and so will the rest of Europe if they do what I think they will. If all those people want to remain free...they're going to have to stand up and fight.

As for those of us over here who still believe in the stuff we say we do??

We're gonna have to fight to get to a point where we can contribute to resisting these fucking Antichrists. All that "Left Behind" shit was a lie. The Evangelical Christians were the goddamned Enemy (in the sense that they themselves use that word) the entire time.

So yeah, if you really believe in Christ, that ain't the way.

You either believe in Freedom or you don't.

Yes, it really is that simple.

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

Three

Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple.  “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written: “‘He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.”

Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’

~Matthew 4:5-7

Bonus Content

Faith without deeds is worthless.
~Warhammer 40K Dawn Of War, Imperium Thought For The Day.

It became necessary to destroy the town to save it.
~Attributed to an unnamed US Major by war correspondent Peter Arnett following the US bombing of Ben Tre, South Vietnam, in 1968.

Crazy Bitch (Left Behind Is A Lie V, Three.)

[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."

...

There's a reason for this, there's a reason education sucks, and it's the same reason it will never ever ever be fixed. It's never going to get any better. Don't look for it. Be happy with what you've got... because the owners of this country don't want that. I'm talking about the real owners now... the real owners. The big wealthy business interests that control things and make all the important decisions. Forget the politicians. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don't. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own and control the corporations. They've long since bought and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the state houses, the city halls. They got the judges in their back pockets and they own all the big media companies, so they control just about all of the news and information you get to hear. They got you by the balls. They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying. Lobbying to get what they want. Well, we know what they want. They want more for themselves and less for everybody else, but I'll tell you what they don't want. They don't want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don't want well-informed, well-educated people capable of critical thinking. They're not interested in that. That doesn't help them. That's against their interests. That's right. ~George Carlin

I saw this the other day.

Some idiot Republican in Congress is trying to propose a law to enable Trump to annex Greenland and rename it "Red, White And Blue-Land."

As if nobody else gets to have an opinion??

As if not one other country, but two (Greenland is a constituent country of the Kingdom of Denmark) would somehow have to obey This. Domestic. American. Law?

As if the fucking EU isn't already working on contingency plans to deploy a garrison there in case this stupid shit continues.

As if Greenland doesn't already have a name.

Speaking of which I have to wonder how many of these fucking idiot Republicans know why Greenland has that name or who gave it that name or why? 

For the record the first European contact with the place was a Norse explorer named Erik The Red, who'd been banished from Iceland along with his family because his father (who was also part of the travel group) had killed a man. They named it Greenland, hoping that giving it such a name would attract more settlers.

Hell, if they were who they say they are, the story of why Greenland is Greenland sounds like something Republicans should get behind, doesn't it?? Murder and bullshit, it's kind of what they do.

My ancestors, the Norse, discovered North America. Christopher Columbus was just a self-promoting asshole. Again, think about that for a second.

Why would you make laws, or teach a history, that's utter bullshit and serves no purpose??

(Unless your actual ideals are colonization and slavery, but now it's White Americans that are the ones being colonized by Elon Musk. Think. About. That. For. A. Second.)

All this stuff that's going on, it's all bullshit. Too many people are OK with this.

And more to the point, this simply isn't reality. You might as well propose a law that says the sky is Green or 2+2 = 5. Law as an instrument of "Power" not reflecting reality only works as long as people put up with that shit.

People need to stop blowing the goddamned narcissists. Screwing around with people that have personality disorders rarely ends well. It might occasionally be fun, but they tend to wreck everything.

Trust me, when it stops being fun screwing around with somebody that has a personality disorder, it stops being fun in one big goddamn hurry, and just gets very tedious, if not actively dangerous, real fast. We are fast approaching that on a national level.

Trust me, I know this from experience. There was a point where I was still playing around with my ex-wife, when she was newly my ex-wife, because on the one hand I was angry and on the other hand, toying with her and watching the early stages of the religious horseshit trip she was on was kinda fun in a revenge-based sort of way.

Until over the course of a couple days, it wasn't.

It started small, weird creepy "Christian" shit, notes left with people, things left where I could see them, etc. People warned me what she was up to. Complaints were filed. Some of the people in my ex-wife's orbit came at me. Some just acted out, in the way that Pentecostals do. Things escalated incredibly rapidly. It's one of the few times I've really been scared, 'cause I knew she'd flipped her lid and was No-Shit crazy.

One young dude very aggressively tried to preach at me, another attempted to assault me (on campus, in public, in front of witnesses) apparently not having been informed that I had actual training (which he did not.) He went to jail (for longer than he expected, as he had active warrants, yes, plural.) I went to the clinic at the insistence of the Dean of Students because while I gave better than I got, I was still bleeding. 

My ex, who'd provably set the whole thing up (and according to multiple people in the cafeteria later, had bragged about it) and done a bunch of other creepy shit over the course of two days was expelled from the college and banned from campus along with the "Christian Counselor" whose services she'd engaged for whatever bullshit reason. 

Public Safety went to question my ex (She was ultimately charged with stalking, though less came of that than I or the college administration would have liked) and when sent to make their initial assessment the cops (who doubled as firefighters and thus had the power to make the following call) conveniently discovered her apartment building was not up to fire code. 

Just sayin' the universe does not exactly bask in justice, but sometimes the stars align just right. Sometimes, you (literally) have to fight back for that to happen, though

A lot of people had my back, but I'm still not sure they'd have backed me as strongly as they did had I not defended myself when pushed. (Although for the record, I was told had I not gotten law enforcement involved, the college would have done so to whatever extent they were able.)

Sometimes people have to feel safe enough to be brave, that's just a fact of leadership.

What I want to know is, especially when these fucking wannabe fascists are as bumptious and stupid as they obviously are, why are so many Americans, of all the fuckin' people in the world, still outsourcing as much of the moral courage as they fuckin' possibly can to other people.

We're either who we say we are as a people or we're not.

Why is "Freedom" so often only a big word that we use when we can beat somebody else over the head with it, and not so much otherwise?? Why is America willing to go full Crazy Bitch on a bunch of raggedy Afghans and Arabs forever because of one successful terrorist attack, but when we get terrorized by white billionaires, we just take it, to the point of many of us being fine with giving up our freedom??

And I'm serious, writ-large, this whole Trump thing is a lot like my marriage and subsequent divorce, and the healing from it will be just as long and painful, and it will probably involve PTSD.

It's not for nothing that the title of this multi-installment series is "Left Behind Is A Lie." My ex-wife literally tried to cast me, herself, and the children she imagined us having as the Prophets of Revelation. She spewed forth so many False Prophecies and lies (and yet was very easily bullshitted herself, as I've written about a couple times on here) that to this day I cannot count them all.

Nor do I even want to try, anymore. Lies are just lies. They pervert the purpose of speech.

And much of religious dogma is a flat-out lie. If somebody's lying to you about the meaning of this Bible verse, or that one...who's to say what else they're lying to you about?? Also, people like this seem not to care if they go to hell, so long as they take you with them.

That's a big part of why I'm no longer religious and openly state that I'm not a born-again anything.

It's also not for no reason that I say there is ultimately going to be a split up of this country, functionally between those who support Trump and the kinds of things he represents (or is willing to involve himself in, for example Trump playing fuck-fuck games with the Christian Nationalists even though he isn't a Christian) and those of us who do not, and who are not willing to live with that kind of shit. It'll probably break more than that, but that will be the initial Cassus Belli.

And at the end of the day, everybody is gonna have to make a decision one way or the other.

It's not just that elderly Democratic leadership does not understand this fact, they appear not to want to. So, somebody else is gonna have to.

These fucking people aren't going to let you just live your life and pretend this isn't happening, they're fanatics and narcissists.

You're either willing to say "No More" or you're not.

And it you don't stand up and say that and mean it, and put some force behind it, this crap will never stop.

Half-measures will result in full slavery.

If other people end up having to save us, like if this Trump crap gets defeated in a war with the Chinese or the EU, we'll never get ourselves back.

If America just falls apart out of lack of interest, likewise. I've been saying for months now that the ideal of "America" as it previously existed is like a rescue ferret in a cage right now.

People are gonna have to step up to find it a home, or give it one. If we do, things might still never be quite the same, but they will be better than they are right now. If. We. Stand. Up.

Or it can live out its days supported only by those who collect things like discarded ideals or old, abandoned ferrets. We'll do what we can, but we can only do so much by ourselves.

You either believe in freedom or you don't.

Light has no fellowship with Darkness.

Make your choice.

Words Have Meaning.

Слава Україна!

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

Two

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