No (Scenes From The Fall, Four.)

Commodus: "Maximus... Maximus... Maximus..." They call for you. The general who became a slave. The slave who became a gladiator. The gladiator who defied an emperor. Striking story! Now the people want to know how the story ends. Only a famous death will do. And what could be more glorious than to challenge the Emperor himself in the great arena?

Maximus: You would fight me?

Commodus: Why not? Do you think I am afraid?

Maximus: I think you've been afraid all your life.

Commodus: Unlike Maximus the invincible, who knows no fear?

Maximus: I knew a man once who said, 'Death smiles at us all. All a man can do is smile back.'

Commodus: I wonder, did your friend smile at his own death?

Maximus: You must know. He was your father.

~From the film Gladiator.

...

And after these things I saw another angel come down from heaven, having great power; and the earth was lightened with his glory.

And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird.

For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies.

And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.

For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities.

Reward her even as she rewarded you, and double unto her double according to her works: in the cup which she hath filled fill to her double.

How much she hath glorified herself, and lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her: for she said in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow.

Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire: for strong is the Lord God who judges her.

And the kings of the earth, who have committed fornication and lived deliciously with her, shall bewail her, and lament for her, when they shall see the smoke of her burning,

Standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Alas, alas that great city Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour is thy judgment come. ~Revelation 18:1-10

...

The Holy Quran says it, "Pilgrimage to the House [of God built by the prophet Abraham] is a duty men owe to God; those who are able, make the journey." (3:97) Allah said: "And proclaim the pilgrimage among men; they will come to you on foot and upon each lean camel, they will come from every deep ravine" (22:27). Every one of the thousands at the airport, about to leave for Jeddah, was dressed this way. You could be a king or a peasant and no one would know. Some powerful personages, who were discreetly pointed out to me, had on the same thing I had on. Once thus dressed, we all had begun intermittently calling out "Labbayka! (Allahumma) Labbayka!" (Here I come, O Lord!) Packed in the plane were white, black, brown, red, and yellow people, blue eyes and blond hair, and my kinky red hair -- all together, brothers! All honoring the same God, all in turn giving equal honor to each other. . . .That is when I first began to reappraise the "white man." It was when I first began to perceive that "white man," as commonly used, means complexion only secondarily; primarily it described attitudes and actions. In America, "white man" meant specific attitudes and actions toward the black man, and toward all other non-white men. But in the Muslim world, I had seen that men with white complexions were more genuinely brotherly than anyone else had ever been. That morning was the start of a radical alteration in my whole outlook about "white" men. ~Malcolm X.

I saw this last night.

Trump, threatening Europe over the invitation to Canada to become a member of the European Union.

If you haven't figured it out now, the Canadians will tell him to get fucked, as will the Europeans, as a rule.

Then I saw Trump, literally threatening his own voters in North Carolina if Republicans don't win the midterms. Homie, I'm not thinking the people who are still showing up at Republican political rallies at this point are the people you need to even be talking to.

Because it's everybody else in the state who's sick of this horseshit that's going to tell Republicans to go pound sand.

Then earlier today I saw this, some idiot Trump supporter, begging Trump to do something about the price of Diesel fuel, because this guy basically can't afford to work at this point since his costs are about totally eating his previous profits.

And you know who Trump, and Republicans, will do absolutely fuck all for, or about, and are not afraid of?

The guy that's begging, that's trying to appeal to their (nonexistent) better nature. The moron that thinks political loyalty (or any other kind) is some kind of a currency or even matters to These Fucking People.

And by the way, it's the utter abandonment of loyalty, of any sense of social contract, their reliance on conspiracy theory and division and racism...that's how Republicans lost me in the first place. Note I say this as both a previous Republican volunteer and a Veteran. That was in *Checks Calendar* 2008.

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

These are not my grandparents or my parents' generation of Republicans, or even my generation.

Current Republicans, even the older ones, the ones who should know better...have had their mentality shaped by 30 years of consequence-free shitty behavior on the internet, by 20 years of social media, by the ability to bloviate and make vain pronouncements...and then curate who the hell can even respond.

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

Yes, I get it, some of these fucking people are older than dirt and have been in politics since my Mom was in Elementary school.

But the mental age, the maturity level, of Republicans is about that of the 13-year-old Internet CHUD.

And, if anything, other places, countries that really should know better, have it even worse.

These motherfuckers, period, do not care about other people, period.

It's not like nobody was warned, by all type of people who saw exactly this kind of crap coming before all this technology was even a thing.

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.

It's all just words on a screen to them, some kind of a giant video game; They do not give a fuck about other people or how their evil acts might affect anybody else.

A lot of these people were pieces of shit before.

But a lot of them simply have never had to give a damn. They've been curated by the algorithm and by social class to never have to interact with anybody who is unlike themselves, or for whom this stuff isn't a game.

And genuine emotions or feelings are a mystery to them because they're narcissists, or sociopaths, again because they've never had to face real consequences for anything.

I Have Spoken.

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)

And...this is the part that should bother everybody...now These Fucking People are taking their bullshit and the violent ideation of a comments section out into the world, thinking everything is clicks and "likes" and horseshit.

And they're surprised when regular people beat the shit out of them, or tell them to get fucked and they end up in jail for a hate crime.

Sorry, but (and I've had this argument) free speech absolutism without immediate, very loud and public consequences (by peers rather than the government) for bad behavior was always going to come down to people thinking "Freedom" was the ability to say the N-Word and some kind of sexual perversion. It was always going to result not only in violence but particularly idiotic violence.

Not just free speech absolutism, but American-style conservatism in general actually working was always way too dependent on #1 People having a better nature, on having principles and #2 on people having the guts to enforce that shit.

Our system has always had way too much faith in its people, I've known this since I was a kid.

"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. Sound of scuffling in the background. Single gunshot. Silence.]
"Please clap."

~Jeb! Bush, February 2nd, 2016

And more to the point, there's way too many people that bank on our people not being the people that our Founding Fathers expected them to be...and then they bank on everybody maintaining the polite delusion that all these folks are decent people or rational actors despite blatant evidence to the contrary.

And it's getting so These Fucking People have to be met with violence, because it's coming down to self-defense or defense of another for way too many of us already.

And the desire of the Mob for blood, depravity, murder and slavery is becoming such that even the goddamn idiot conspiracy theorists running our government cannot...literally cannot because now they're chasing after Chemtrail bullshit that simply isn't real...ever meet the expectations of.

So they will end up being targets of these internet-sozzled weirdos too. Yes, even Trump and Co. will be targeted by them, if they haven't already. I mean, fuck, it should tell you something that everybody who's tried to assassinate Trump is apparently even further-Right than he is. Same with whoever killed Charlie Kirk.

The system cannot be crazy enough for these fucking people because it's a system and it needs certain rules to even work.

It all started with, and will come down to, the kind of people who thought using racial slurs in the comments section on Yahoo News in 2006-2008 was funny. No one can ever please those people. Their whole bit is escalatory bad behavior to try to provoke a reaction, right up until somebody has to defend themselves or another person. 

"The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride."

~Volodymyr Zelenskyy, allegedly 25 February 2022, Associated Press

Trouble is, if you kill somebody or they end up in jail, chances become real good that they won't learn anything. 

The comments-section droolers will look at people like that truck driver that's begging for Diesel prices to go down, begging for some kind of relief before he goes under...as traitors.

And figure they're weak because their go-to was to appeal to someone's better nature and to beg.

And no, the oh-so-sophisticated Internet Cynicism of a hell of a lot of "Leftists" isn't going to help them either.

Because a lot of people are basically half a step up from being the fucking Taliban. 

Allah Akbar! *Hits Blunt*

You can't argue with that because that's two things that ain't supposed to go together to even start with. You cannot appeal to the better nature of people for whom contradiction and unreason are their whole fucking bit. 

If you're not willing to fight for it, take the word 'Freedom' out of your vocabulary. ~Malcolm X.

And you should expect criminality and terrorism and violence from such people when their bullshit gets challenged.

How dare somebody else call bullshit on their ideology, their tautology, their perfect Man-centered little small and mean self-contained world. Yes, the "Self on the Throne vs. God on the Throne" argument of my old life as that kind of Christian does not even begin to reckon with These Fucking People.

Yeah, Okay, the Bible offers some suggestions but modern Christianity has damned little in place to deal with masses of crazy idiots who, each and every one, think THEY are God. 

Maybe we shouldn't have farmed that out to the mental health profession and treated such people compassionately. Some people just need to be dragged off to Chop-Chop Square and dealt with in the old-school way. Yeah, okay, some people are genuinely insane and all that. But, there's not a lot of societal enforcement value in giving a certain kind of nut public housing and psych meds.

For the most part the narcissists and other personality disorder types will just sell their meds and be crazy anyway, my Mom is a retired social worker and has told me as much.

There are a lot of people with personality disorders who, one way or another, think somebody being nice to them is somebody to take advantage of. I don't think modernity has faced that issue yet.

And it's getting worse.

And until we start treating Narcissism as a Sin against God and dealing with it that way, it's gonna keep getting worse.

Some of us have other people we care about. We have to. It's how we even get through the day in this world.

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

And stopping this mess, telling these monsters to get fucked, is going to come down to a fight.

America needs to learn the word "No."

The rest of the world is clearly coming around to that idea and networking accordingly.

The rest of us in America that aren't monstrous assholes had better join them.

Either you 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

Three

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

[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."

The Southern Blasphemers Convention (Scenes From The Fall, Three.)

And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.

And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority.
And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast.

And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him?

And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months.

And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme his name, and his tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven.

And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations.

And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.

If any man have an ear, let him hear.

He that leads into captivity shall go into captivity: he that kills with the sword must be killed with the sword. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints.

And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he speaks as a dragon.

And he exercises all the power of the first beast before him, and causes the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed.

And he doeth great wonders, so that he makes fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men,

And deceive 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, King James Bible.

...

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.)

...

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 yesterday.

Al Mohler, the president of the *Checks Notes* Southern Baptist Convention, argued in his new book that "Blasphemy against the state" should be illegal.

Hold on, as a Christian here, in fact, as a former conservative Baptist, let's back the truck up.

Since when is the State *Checks Notes Again* God?!?!

Answer the question, I'll wait. Show your work.

Show me how a constitutionally secular democracy, currently led by an adulterous rich asshole who flouts the Lord's Word every second of every day and treats the Seven Deadly Sins like a "Honey-do" list is divine in any fashion what the fuck ever. I'll wait, I've got all night.

Show me how a nation whose current government is backed by billionaires, one of whom very much wants to institute the *Shuffles through notes again, what, are you fucking kidding me??* literal Biblical Mark Of The Beast straight out of Revelation in the same way that the 1990's End Times Prophecy Movement said it would be done is somehow "Baptist" let alone "Christian??"

Might as well just change the name to the Southern Blasphemers Convention at this point, according to what I was taught. The fact that this guy didn't automatically get fired and run out on a rail should tell you something. Fuck, I've read this guy's work. His own ass 20 years ago would've been having a cow about what he just said.

Without going down any theological rabbit holes, without Free Will, without separation of Church and State, almost all of Baptist (or Evangelical, for that matter) doctrine doesn't actually work. It has nothing to do with itself. You cannot compel Salvation. Literally the point of adult Baptism is that all this stuff is supposed to be a choice. I could go on about this for hours...

Or, ya know, I could save you the trouble.

The Holy Quran says it, "Pilgrimage to the House [of God built by the prophet Abraham] is a duty men owe to God; those who are able, make the journey." (3:97) Allah said: "And proclaim the pilgrimage among men; they will come to you on foot and upon each lean camel, they will come from every deep ravine" (22:27). Every one of the thousands at the airport, about to leave for Jeddah, was dressed this way. You could be a king or a peasant and no one would know. Some powerful personages, who were discreetly pointed out to me, had on the same thing I had on. Once thus dressed, we all had begun intermittently calling out "Labbayka! (Allahumma) Labbayka!" (Here I come, O Lord!) Packed in the plane were white, black, brown, red, and yellow people, blue eyes and blond hair, and my kinky red hair -- all together, brothers! All honoring the same God, all in turn giving equal honor to each other. . . .That is when I first began to reappraise the "white man." It was when I first began to perceive that "white man," as commonly used, means complexion only secondarily; primarily it described attitudes and actions. In America, "white man" meant specific attitudes and actions toward the black man, and toward all other non-white men. But in the Muslim world, I had seen that men with white complexions were more genuinely brotherly than anyone else had ever been. That morning was the start of a radical alteration in my whole outlook about "white" men. ~Malcolm X.

It's not. It's just NOT, and anybody who tries to tell you it is is a fucking liar. Any "Christian" movement that led to this crap is a lie, it's all bullshit. None of this is of God. Almost any other Christian denomination right now that's not infected with Calvinism or Evangelicalism, from the Catholics and mainstream Protestants on down to even a decent number of non-denominational churches and pretty much every other religion in America is opposed to this garbage and we're up to like 75% of people...of ALL walks of life...are against it. Do you have any idea how fucking difficult it is to get 3/4 of Americans to agree on *Anything?*

The only people who seem to actually like this mess are perverts and rich people. Maybe you can throw in the occasional racist who hasn't checked his bank account lately. Not only does the Constitution not permit this crap, American culture isn't cool with it either.

I'll note first off, that America doesn't have "Rulers" we have Presidents, who are supposed to be constitutionally beholden to the People and two other branches of government and restrained by, ya know, morality of some kind.

Second, that's a kid, standing next to Mr. Don't Curse The Ruler.

A Kid.

That's a little girl he's got his arm around. I don't give a fuck about any other details. That kid looks younger and is a lot physically smaller than my partner's kid. This guy should have law enforcement both here and in the Philippines pretty much rammed up his ass on general principle and if you think anything else, fuck you, too.

If it's a cult, it's a cult with malice aforethought and a lot of common purposes they can't tell the rest of us without getting arrested or just plain strung up by an irate public.

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.

Again, I think we pretty much safely can call this shit Baal-worship.

At a bare minimum These Fucking People have forgotten what they were supposed to be doing.

And it's far more likely that it was all a lie to start with. I don't know, I can't even talk the way these people talk.

And these fucking people suck so badly at this that they're bringing about exactly the world that they've said they were trying to stop for 50 years...except that I don't think based on what I've seen of it that the EU, not even with Canada as a prospective member now...is gonna try to put 666 on nobody nor try to push for the acceptance of pedophilia or anything super-evil like that.

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)

And if you don't think, in the likely case that America comes flying apart because of this shit, that parts of America will end up as parts of the EU, well, you're wrong. I live in one of those parts, and 1990's End Times Prophecy Guy me is pretty much facepalming himself to death in my head right about now. 

Thanks, Trump.

I think it's extremely possible that the next couple of years could see a United Europe and a disunited United States Of America.

I also still don't think that These Fucking People will get nearly as much of America as they thought they were going to.

That said, just going off the numbers if they get to keep 25% to 30% of America they still have many times over what they need to have their own weird right-wing dystopian country where the Party and the State are effectively "god." and where there's not only a Flock camera on every post but a microphone (put out by the same company but with a similarly dystopian weird name) to go with it, but there's a fucking computer chip in your hand or your forehead on top of that.

And outside of whatever territory those people end up controlling, I hate to sound that way but after a couple weeks and once everybody with the ability, the guts or the money to get out has, nobody will care.

You think the American abandonment of Afghanistan was shameful?? (And yes, speaking as a veteran who had friends that died there, oh yes it was.) Wait until it's Oklahoma. And yes, if this blows all the way up, that could happen.

I think at least the Red parts of America, the people who are still on board with all this shit, are in fact about to find out that no, the rest of the world did not "Need us more than we need them." In fact, at the end of the day they were not necessary at all.

In fact I think as life gets better, gradually or quickly, for the rest of us there is going to be a lot of anger directed at these motherfuckers, I don't think they're prepared for that. Oh yeah, I think they think it's funny now.

[Cassian Andor and a number of men are sent to the Narkina Five prison complex]

Prison officer: Welcome to Narkina Five. This is an Imperial factory facility. You've all been assessed as labor-worthy. Now, following this introduction, you'll be transferred to your level assignment and workroom, where your floor manager will explain the details of our schedule and expectations. Your length of stay has been predetermined. The quality of that time will be up to you. Now, those who've been incarcerated before will be surprised by the calm, sanitary conditions, and our minimally invasive enforcement techniques. Well, I'm sure some, if not all of you, are wondering, how we risk standing before you without weapons? It's a potent question. And hopefully, one you won't need to have answered very often, but... [activates electric floor and the new prisoners are shocked to floor before he turns it off] You may stand. That was level one of three. Our floors are Tunqstoid steel. Do your time productively, keep to your lane, and this needn't be more than a memory. Good luck to you.

~From the Star Wars series Andor S1.E8 "Narkina 5."

But in a very, very short amount of time their narcissistic persecution-complex shit will kick in and I think their obsession with control, and guns, and walls and shit like that will probably leave them being the ones living in the kind of sterile, prison-like places one might associate with the Empire from Star Wars, where the main difference between prisoner and anybody else was simply a matter of what uniform one might be wearing.

And for people that don't see themselves or anybody else as people, who think belief systems and corporations deserve human rights, but humans don't, that's going to have some very seriously fucked up consequences.

Neither the Goats at the Judgement, nor the Souls Under the Altar are gonna look much like American Evangelicalism implied or said they would. The refugees streaming down the road might look as expected, for awhile. 

But that's only gonna last until all "Those" people leave. 

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.

After that it's all gonna be White People who thought the Rapture was gonna save them and that they were gonna get to watch, and you don't need to tell me a lot of those people won't make it, I already know. You think it's a crab bucket now, with civilization still mostly intact? 

You ain't seen nothing yet.

If the State (as they define it) cannot be God, and they cannot have the totalitarian unlimited Power they covet (and I use that word deliberately, there is no "higher" motivation here, it's as Base as the Lord's Word defines it, no more and no less) it's not just that these assholes don't want to have anything...they don't want anybody else to have anything either.

So no, JD, you don't get another chance. Fuck You.

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

And either you're willing to stand up against the fall of night or you're not.

These fucking people will each and every one blaspheme the Lord and go to Hell for it before they will genuinely love their neighbors or try to make a better world.

And there is no damn reason we the People should have to tolerate that, let alone give it a second chance.

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

Two

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

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

Andor: Is that the best you got?

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

[repeats it multiple times as he leaves the command center]

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

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

"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. Glass shatters, sound of a toilet flushing, distant scream.]
"Please clap."

~Jeb! Bush, February 2nd, 2016

Crab Bucket Religion (Scenes From The Fall, Two.)

The Nameless One: FALL-FROM-GRACE.

Fall-From-Grace: Your voice - so you have found yourself at last?

The Nameless One: YES. THE PRICE WAS... HIGH. THE COST WAS MANY LIFETIMES, MINE AND OTHERS.

Fall-From-Grace: The price of such thing is seldom measured in copper. Are you still...

The Nameless One: I AM STILL THE ONE YOU KNOW, BUT MY PERSPECTIVE HAS... CHANGED. I HAVE NOT FORGOTTEN YOU, IF THAT IS YOUR FEAR.

Fall-From-Grace: No, that was not my fear.

The Nameless One: I CANNOT REMAIN HERE FOR MUCH LONGER. MY PUNISHMENT CALLS, AND FATE AND TIME SHALL SOON BE HERE. I WILL RETURN YOU TO SIGIL IF YOU WISH.

Fall-From-Grace: That is not my wish. I *Will* find you again, no matter where in Lower Planes you will be - just as you shall be able to find me.

The Nameless One: IT MAY BE A LONG TIME. WHERE I AM BOUND, TIME IS NOT MEASURED IN YEARS, AND THE CRIMES I COMMITTED ARE STRONGER THAN ANY CAGE.

Fall-From-Grace: No cage shall separate us, and no Plane shall divide us. Keep thinking of me, and we shall meet again.

The Nameless One: I SHALL NOT FORGET ALL YOU SACRIFICED FOR ME.

Fall-From-Grace: Just do not forget me.

The Nameless One: TIME LAYS WASTE TO ALL THINGS. BUT I SHALL FIGHT IT AS LONG AS I CAN.

Fall-From-Grace: Time is not your enemy. Forever is.

The Nameless One: PERHAPS SO. FAREWELL, GRACE.

~From the video game Planescape: Torment.

...

And after these things I saw another angel come down from heaven, having great power; and the earth was lightened with his glory.

And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird.

For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies.

And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.

For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities.

Reward her even as she rewarded you, and double unto her double according to her works: in the cup which she hath filled fill to her double.

How much she hath glorified herself, and lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her: for she said in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow.

Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire: for strong is the Lord God who judges her.

And the kings of the earth, who have committed fornication and lived deliciously with her, shall bewail her, and lament for her, when they shall see the smoke of her burning,

Standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Alas, alas that great city Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour is thy judgment come. ~Revelation 18:1-10

I saw this yesterday.

People are starting to predict a major stock-market crash.

Actually, if we're being serious, people are starting to predict a general collapse. A collapse of MAGA, Trump, various levels of Republican Power and, if we're being honest, of America itself.

I'm gonna take the step of adding One More Damn Thing.

Yes, I know, nobody wants to hear One More Damn Thing right now, too bad.

Especially if it gets...well, honestly, even 10% as bad as some of the people I interact with are saying it might, you're gonna need to hear it, and listen.

I think there's going to be a great Apostasy in American Christianity, if there hasn't already been one 'cause of all this Trump garbage, that is.

I think, if the situation becomes such that in order to survive, people are gonna have to do, ya know, the Christian thing...like help and love their neighbors and shit, be accepting of other people, care for the poor, share what they have, etc. A lot of people just...won't. COVID-19 was a fucking prequel.

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.

And because, honestly, people (religious and otherwise) are going to have to band together and work together to maintain the shit they have, or even just survive...those churches that are communities and that care for people will naturally find ways to do better than the ones that are not and do not. Lots of churches are just entertainment or glorified social clubs. At the end of the day you can Jesus it up all you want...but if people aren't actually working together and feeding their neighbors, you still gonna be hungry.

And if shit gets really bad, well, hate and mental issues and narcissism will just get a bunch of people killed, I'm afraid things will weed out really fast.

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.)

If everything is a Crab Bucket, most of the crabs ain't going anywhere but the cookpot.

This is by design, designed by people like Billionaires and current "Republicans" who have nothing but bad intentions.

The McCarthy quote is there for a fucking reason, there's going to be a lot of those people, too, almost especially if things get really bad. The ones I call the Baal worshipers. Yes, I guarantee you that shit will become an "Organized Religion" very quickly, deranged chanting and all.

Crab mentality or crabs in a bucket (also barrel, basket or pot), is a way of thinking best described by the phrase "if I can't have it, neither can you." The metaphor refers to a pattern of behavior noted in crabs when they are trapped in a bucket. While any one crab could easily escape, its effort will be undermined by others, ensuring the group's collective demise.

And the thing you have to remember is for a lot of people it's already crabs all the way down.

Call it a century of ignorant Fundamentalist horseshit, call it 35 years of obnoxious-ass right-wing talk-radio. Call it generalized American arrogance and narcissism if you want.

The end result is the same.

Crab Bucket Religiosity.

America Is Babylon.

You can slap Jesus on that all you want. It don't matter.

I mean for fuck's sake a good portion of the Old Testament concerns observant Believers (such as they were at the time) in places like Babylon and Sodom.

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)

America under Trump has tried to become an Empire, failed, and become Babylon and Sodom. And it was because of the Republicans, not the Gay people. I've been writing this for literally the whole time.

And it's Falling.

Whether it's fire from the sky or collapse that's either gradual or rapid, or whatever, that's the Truth.

The title of this series is not an accident, nor I believe is my timing in writing it.

And when the shit hits the fan...

When being an Ameri-evangelical is no longer a source of narcissistic fuel or privilege, a lot of people just won't be.

If you don't think Those Fucking People won't start with whatever Devil or Idol Of Gold offers them their Fix first...you're wrong.

In fact I'd argue that's how we got Trump in the first place: A general lack of actual Belief. IN the Church. People wanted a "god" they could see.

Oh, sure, when it all goes sideways and survival comes down to rejecting this crap or not; Some will figure it out and play well with others just so they can eat or just play along and whatever in order to survive. Don't begrudge those people because at least they're not hurting anything and they're still just...people. That's not the problem.

Brother Cavil/Number One: In all your travels, have you ever seen a star go supernova?

Ellen Tigh: No.

Number One: No? Well, I have. I saw a star explode and send out the building blocks of the Universe. Other stars, other planets and eventually other life. A supernova! Creation itself! I was there. I wanted to see it and be part of the moment. And you know how I perceived one of the most glorious events in the universe? With these ridiculous gelatinous orbs in my skull! With eyes designed to perceive only a tiny fraction of the EM spectrum. With ears designed only to hear vibrations in the air.

Ellen Tigh: The five of us designed you to be as human as possible.

Number One: I don't want to be human! I want to see gamma rays! I want to hear X-rays! And I - I want to - I want to smell dark matter! Do you see the absurdity of what I am? I can't even express these things properly because I have - I have to conceptualize complex ideas in this stupid limiting spoken language! But I know I want to reach out with something other than these prehensile paws; and feel the solar wind of a supernova flowing over me. I'm a machine, and I can know much more. I can experience so much more. But I'm trapped in this absurd body. And why?! Because my five creators thought that "God" wanted it that way.

~From Battlestar Galactica (2003) S4.E17 "No Exit."

 

The problem is it'll come down to...call it 20% of America that, well, that's simply not the world they want to live in.

If we ever want things to go back to being at least somewhat decent, stopping those people is going to come down to a fight one way or another.

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

I have a partner and a kid, a family to think about. I already know which side I have to be on.

I bet a lot of the rest of ya'll do too.

Слава Україна!

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

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

Andor: Is that the best you got?

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

[repeats it multiple times as he leaves the command center]

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

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

One

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