The Believers (Bropocalypse Now, Three.)

 [Yuri has convinced his uncle Dimitri, a major general on the former Soviet, now Ukrainian Army, to show him the armory of Dimitri's military base.]

Yuri: How many Kalashnikovs do you have?

Uncle Dimitri: Forty thousand.

Yuri: [glancing at the paper on Uncle Dimitri's clipboard] Is that a four? Doesn't look like a four to me. Looks more like a one.

Uncle Dimitri: No, it's a four.

Yuri: It's whatever we say it is, because no one else will know the difference. Ten thousand Kalashnikovs for a battalion... your stocks are badly depleted, Dimitri. You should order more from the factory.

Uncle Dimitri: Someone will work it out. What happens then?

Yuri Orlov: We'll cut them in. ~From the film Lord Of War.

...

Valin 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"

I'm gonna put this as simply as I can. From 1995 to 2000 I was a member of the End Times Prophecy Movement.

It started when I was in the Air Force.

The Evangelical "End Times Prophecy Narrative" says that if this is what THEY'RE trying to say it is: All human political power or wealth will be destroyed. It will, through the Judgments of the Almighty God, cease to exist or have any meaning over the next seven (7) chronological 365-day years from date [Something Something Gazpacho] which they claim to have already activated somehow and on a (thus set) date, Human Power be replaced by the TOTAL direct monarchial rule of Jesus Christ that will last for exactly 1,000 years before being directly physically and spiritually challenged by the Devil himself.

Do any of These Fucking People, these alleged Believers, sound like they REALLY believe that?

If ANY of these motherfuckers REALLY thought the World was about to End in seven years-minus a few days now, would all this Project 2025 bullshit about enslaving women even be necessary?? (Let me put it another way as a guy with a lady partner and a daughter here; "No." and "Over My Dead Body."

The truth is the only thing these assholes really believe in is some kind of a social meme of Slavery, and they want that shit back.

Whether it's Putin trying to enslave Ukrainians or Americans trying to enslave each other in petty little country fiefdoms.

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."

You notice none of these fucking people are ramping up efforts to *Checks Notes* Evangelize anybody. And according to their "religion" that's supposedly the most important thing; In fact it's the ONLY thing. So either it's all a fucking lie, or there's some new "narrative" these fools are following that they clearly haven't released to the public for fear of actual consequences, or they actively believe they're gonna be the bad guys in Revelation.

And somehow, get away with it.

In fact I think that they think they're somehow gonna cut Jesus in on the deal and live happily ever after while the rest of us don't.

And "They'll be surprised when THEY get shoved into Hell (while still alive) by Jesus FIRST."

The truth is so far this year I've seen the worst people imaginable actively try to hit me over the head with their Christianity while trying to run the most horrible petty, shitty power plays imaginable on people that I love.

In fact, if anything, the total opposite of Evangelism or anything I was taught in the End Times narrative seems to be occurring.

They only want to preach Jesus if they think they're gonna hit the Bar after!

They ONLY want all the religious crap if they're also getting sex, For fuck's sake I'm not even sure they know, let alone understand, the difference.

All this base religious Unga Bunga shit, all this talk of "Male Loneliness Epidemics," all the racist and "Red Pill" shit going on is all pushing a narrative of Male Power that thinks it's gonna bend over the Whore Of Babylon. 

Like they haven't even read Revelation chapter 18.

Because that's literally what it says the Kings Of The Earth even do.

And she still gets the better end of the deal. Like, Duh.

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

It's all Antichrist, and it's getting profoundly stupid.

Like I don't even identify as a Born-again anything, I'm a pretty agnostic Christian. But, I have basic reading comprehension skills and I know what I read.

Trump's America is Babylon, and it's already destroying itself.

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.

More to the point, Trump's America is destroying itself with all the single-minded monomaniacal dedication and ferocity of something that has (Again, per how things work in the Evangelical End Times Prophecy Narrative) been scripturally ordained to do exactly that, and nothing else.

And These Fucking People can't even see it.

Because they do not want to.

These guys are, for the most part, not terribly bright. Things have gotten out of hand, and they still think they can bullshit their way through.

But they are mostly focused on what they think the fleshpot rewards of the Power they're seeking will be.

Never mind that, metaphorically, per Revelation 18 that is exactly what brings them down. In other words; I suspect the Epstein Files, or at least what we know so far, ain't the half of it. Not by a long shot.

And whatever that crap is...that endless fucked up perversion in the service of *Checks Notes* Baal is what these Monsters think that LIFE is gonna be once they figure out how they can bullshit God into giving them the total power they think they want.

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.)

Basically, yet again all they see is Power and they think God and Jesus and the Demons are all basically the same.

In fact, I'd bet money that these freakish morons are trying to figure out how they can bullshit their way into double-dipping and stealing from both.

Again, one of these things is not like the other one. None of this bullshit works that way. 

We have too many men of science, too few men of God. We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon On The Mount. The world has achieved brilliance without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living. ~General Omar Bradley

You shouldn't need me to tell you this.

But apparently people got stupid or something.

Because if they don't know anything, they think they can believe whatever they want.

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

The perverse, total Truth here is that these motherfuckers have not just abandoned but inverted the conservative beliefs of the past and they would, indeed, rather be Animals than Spirits.

For no better reasons than they simply believe that will let them have their addictions and sexual perversions and practice them in peace while floating on an endless sea of dopamine and narcissistic fuel while never having to look at the rest of us.

Among other things it's a lot easier to enslave people if they believe they are animals, meant only to sate bestial wants, and not spirits meant for greater things than that.

True to form, the people doing exactly this shit want to believe that They are God.

Which, again, is what both Scripture and their own Evangelical End Times Prophecy Narrative specifically said that they would do.

Fighting against this shit in whatever way you can isn't even about stopping it anymore.

It's about being on the right side of both God's Judgment and History.

You either believe in freedom or you don't.

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For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shines even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. ~Matthew 24:27

Two

Proclaim ye this among the Gentiles; Prepare war, wake up the mighty men, let all the men of war draw near; let them come up: Beat your plowshares into swords and your pruning-hooks into spears: let the weak say, I am strong. Assemble yourselves, and come, all ye heathen, and gather yourselves together round about: thither cause thy mighty ones to come down, O Lord. Let the heathen be wakened, and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat: for there will I sit to judge all the heathen round about. Put ye in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe: come, get you down; for the press is full, the fats overflow; for their wickedness is great. Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision: for the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision. ~Joel 3:9-14

The Idiot On The Red Horse (Bropocalypse Now, Two.)

And when he had opened the second seal, I heard the second beast say, Come and see.

And there went out another horse that was red: and power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another: and there was given unto him a great sword. ~Revelation 6:3-4

...

Valin 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"

So, Kristi Noem got herself fired and the likely replacement is Mark Wayne Mullin? That's not an improvement. In fact, it's probably worse.

Or as my buddy, the gun-happy gay dude from Oklahoma, would say "It's a normal day where I'm from."

Like, dude, from what he says that state is so fucked it makes the people in the movie Idiocracy look smart. And worse everybody in that place has guns, hates each other and is fucked up on drugs all the time, including, perhaps especially all of the White Christian Nationalist Republicans. Dude has specifically said all the extreme (and yes, often closeted) anti-gay Christian Fundamentalists he knows from back home are meth heads.

His previous (and apparently, future but here if things keep going like they are) career?? His field was apartment maintenance and property management.

So I've heard things about guys like *Checks Notes* Mark Wayne Mullin, and how they actually run shit vs. what comes out of their mouths in places like Congress and if what old Murky Mark has done and said in public is any indication...Shit, I don't even want to think about the shit dude says or how he conducts himself when he thinks nobody who's not like him is listening.

You take a drug, right? The chemicals, they rush through your body, rush through your brain. And the sensations, you want the sensations again and again and again, but let me tell you, you can also get addicted to grief, to guilt, to hate. Because when you feel dead inside, even bad sensations make you feel like you're alive! ~Augustus Hill, from the HBO series Oz, S1.E5 "The Straight Life."

And then College Republicans just had themselves another Nazi scandal, this time, in Florida.

And These Fucking People are goat-eager to kill a bunch of people in Iran and think doing so will spark off the End Times.

I'm a former End Times Prophecy Guy.

 I've written beyond extensively about exactly that. 

I lost my belief in the Evangelical/Fundamentalist-dominated "End Times Prophecy Narrative" after Y2K.

Because it's all bullshit.

Eli Sunday: Daniel, I'm asking if you'd like to have business with the Church of the Third Revelation in developing this lease on young Bandy's thousand acre tract. I'm offering you to drill on one of the great undeveloped fields of Little Boston!  

Daniel Plainview: I'd be happy to work with you.

Eli Sunday: You would? Yes, yes, of course. That’s wonderful.

Daniel Plainview: But there is one condition for this work.

Eli Sunday: All right.

Daniel Plainview: I'd like you to tell me that you are a false prophet. I'd like you to tell me that you are, and have been, a false prophet, and that God is a superstition.

~From the film There Will Be Blood.

Not Revelation itself...that's not bullshit...it's These Fucking People's interpretation of it that's bullshit.

Massively so. The End Times Narrative is designed to basically promote Republican politics in a very circle-jerkish way with a certain very specific kind of Christian Nationalism and corrupt corporate war profiteering with a side of Prosperity Gospel lies and Pentecostal Spiritualist confusion while also terrifying the Evangelical masses into stupefied compliance.

Proclaim ye this among the Gentiles; Prepare war, wake up the mighty men, let all the men of war draw near; let them come up: Beat your plowshares into swords and your pruning-hooks into spears: let the weak say, I am strong. Assemble yourselves, and come, all ye heathen, and gather yourselves together round about: thither cause thy mighty ones to come down, O Lord. Let the heathen be wakened, and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat: for there will I sit to judge all the heathen round about. Put ye in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe: come, get you down; for the press is full, the fats overflow; for their wickedness is great. Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision: for the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision. ~Joel 3:9-14

I've done the scholarship both towards the narrative and later deconstructing and unpacking it. The thing with the Bible and a lot of the interpretations is once you start comparing notes and cross-referencing with other people (even other Christians) other religions, etc. If you actually Believe you might end up still believing in something like this shit but it won't be this shit.

Among other things, the Rapture is complete bullshit.

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.

At best it's escapism.

At worst it's the sort of terror weapon that'll have a kid freaking out every time they can't find their parents. Trust me, that carries over into a hell of a lot of anxiety when they're adults too, even if they don't believe in that shit anymore.

These motherfuckers do that shit on purpose.

Because abuse (both emotional/spiritual and physical) is the glue that holds all this Christian Zionist White Nationalist "Conservative" horseshit together and the fuel on which it actually runs.

Shit like this is why my partner is basically stuck rebuilding herself (again) in her 40's.

And now?? NOW?!?! 

These Fucking People...the *Checks Notes* Biblical *Literalists* are starting to rely on AI to do their Biblical Exegesis for them???

I can tell you exactly how that ends but you ain't gonna like it.

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 causes 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 13:15-18

Except motherfuckers like Trump and the AI Bros will try and say it's not the Mark Of The Beast when they do it.

Yes, Yes, it is.

If you're in it and you don't want to end up like that, get the fuck out, now.

I've lived to see enough people become the villains in their own fucking stories.

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

Stop and think about that for a second.

Or as my British friend would say I think I've seen this movie before.

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

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

That spell it out for you??

Слава Україна!

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

One

"I didn't want to do it,'' he hears himself saying. "I didn't want to leave them behind.''

The void laughs at him. There are miles of empty air beneath his dangling feet. "You had no choice.''

"Yes I did! I didn't have to come here.'' He pauses. "I didn't have to do anything,'' he says quietly, and inhales another lungful of death. "It was all automatic. Maybe it was inevitable.''

"-- Evitable,'' echoes the distant horizon. Something dark and angular skims across the stars, like an echo of extinct pterosaurs. Turbofans whirring within its belly, the F-117A hunts on: patrolling to keep at bay the ancient evil, unaware that the battle is already lost. "Your family could still be alive, you know.''

He looks up. "They could?'' Andrea? Jason? "Alive?''

The void laughs again, unfriendly: "There is life eternal within the eater of souls. Nobody is ever forgotten or allowed to rest in peace. They populate the simulation spaces of its mind, exploring all the possible alternative endings to their life. There is a fate worse than death, you know.'' 

~From A Colder War, a novella by Charles Stross.

Rabbit Hole (Bropocalypse Now, One.)

Valin 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"

...

Proclaim ye this among the Gentiles; Prepare war, wake up the mighty men, let all the men of war draw near; let them come up: Beat your plowshares into swords and your pruning-hooks into spears: let the weak say, I am strong. Assemble yourselves, and come, all ye heathen, and gather yourselves together round about: thither cause thy mighty ones to come down, O Lord. Let the heathen be wakened, and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat: for there will I sit to judge all the heathen round about. Put ye in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe: come, get you down; for the press is full, the fats overflow; for their wickedness is great. Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision: for the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision. ~Joel 3:9-14

...

We have too many men of science, too few men of God. We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon On The Mount. The world has achieved brilliance without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living. ~General Omar Bradley

I saw this earlier and was reduced to cough-laughing about it, twice.

How the fuck is this so much of the rest of the world and countries like Iran and the United States Of America have so many fucking uptight-ass religious nuts? 

Yeah, Okay, Iran has sometimes-insane violent Islamic Fundamentalism. Apparently those people can still plan things and fight an insurgent hybrid war competently.

America has *Checks Notes* Atheistic selfish hyper-Capitalism often working in concert with increasingly fanatical and violent Christian Nationalist weirdos who make the occasional violent Calvinist from back in the aughts much less the basic ass bog-standard Christian Fundamentalists or whack-a-nut Pentecostals of a generation ago look like Bill Maher by comparison.

Again, one of these things is not like the other one.

Others who are far better at this than me have pointed that out.

And the day is coming when These Fucking People are going to try and fight everybody else starting with other Christians and conservatives who don't buy into their crazy bullshit. We're lucky that they apparently suck at this whole war thing and even with massive profligate expenditure of lives and munitions, they're not winning. I guess, and maybe I'm glad, that I have to care about life.

Like, I'm sorry, but among other things I was raised Christian and conservative when those words meant different things, apparently, These Fucking People's entire thought process is completely alien to me.

And honestly, I would not want it to be anything else.

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

I can't even talk the way these people talk.

And if I was capable of talking it, I wouldn't want to, my God.

I've seen These Fucking People both advocate for and tolerate shit that absolutely sickens me.

I have a daughter to think about, whether I want to or not. I cannot even imagine thinking the kind of shit that comes out of Doug Wilson's mouth on a regular basis. "Friend to pedophiles?" What the fuck is wrong with you dude?

Her mother, my partner, is Christian, strong and independent and I wouldn't want her to be any other way, even though this doesn't always (or even necessarily often) work out in my favor. No, it doesn't have to make sense to you.

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."

Also, when we were not together she and the kid were horribly traumatized for ten of those years by *Checks Notes* exactly these kinds of fucking people.

That people are putting up with this shit much less these fucking freaks are building churches in our national centers of Power is even a question fills me with an absolute fiery rage.

They're not looking to build the Kingdom of Christ, they're looking to consolidate power for the Cult of Baal.

How do I know?? I've read the Lord's Word.

It's pretty simple, honestly.

Christ's Kingdom is NOT of This World. He said so Himself.

Why is this so fucking hard for some people??

Because the Truth is they'd rather go down endless Rabbit Holes of endless Manipulation, freakish perversion and stupid shit in search of political power, sexual perversity and wealth without work.

And they've figured out that Jesus Christ isn't gonna help them with that, not really, or at least not enough. Even the most skeevy interpretation of the Prosperity Gospel, as interpreted and written in the context of Christianity...Just Doesn't Do It For Them Anymore.

It's not hitting right, they can't mainline their own goddamned narcissism well enough, it's not a big enough high to simply preach Jesus while mocking Him with their every action anymore.

And that's what they really want, a bigger High.

Damaskinos: It has been said, "Be proud of your enemy and enjoy his success." In that regard, I should thank you.

Blade: For what?

Karel Kounen: Eliminating Deacon Frost. You did us a favor. Karel Kounen.

Blade: [noticing vampire tattoo] You're human.

Karel: Barely. I'm a lawyer. European Health Consortium.

Damaskinos: As you may know, Vampirism is... a horrible virus, carried in the saliva of predators. In 72 hours, it spreads through the human bloodstream, creating new, parasitic organs.

Blade: Like cancer.

Damaskinos: Cancer with a purpose.

Karel: Unfortunately, viruses evolve, too. We've encountered a new one. We dubbed it the Reaper Strain. And like any good pathogen, it appears to have found a carrier.

[Karel places a disk into a computer. Nomak's first attack plays via a recording]

Karel: There. [Points to an image of Nomak] Jared Nomak.

Damaskinos: Born a vampire, but an anomaly like you. Unlike the rest of us, however, he feeds on not just humans, but Vampires as well.

Blade: Looks like he was doing me a favor.

Nyssa: You're missing the point. Their vampire victims don't die. They turn. They become carriers.

Asad: You've got to understand. These things are like crack addicts. They need to feed daily. Nomak's been up for 72 hours. By our estimates, there are already a dozen Reapers. There'll be hundreds before the week is out. Thousands within a matter of months. Do the math.

Blade: Wait. Let me get this right. You want me... to hunt them... for you?

Damaskinos: Once they are finished with us, who do you think they'll turn against next? Your precious humans. Not one of them will be left.

Karel: We spent two years training a small tactical unit: the Blood pack. We want you to lead them.

Blade: Two years?

Nyssa: We've been training to hunt you.

~From the film Blade II.

And no, they don't care what they break or who they kill or what they wreck in the search for it, including themselves.

Doesn't matter if it's America.

Doesn't matter if it's Civilization, or the Earth itself. I'm fucking serious.

Anything but "Love Thy Neighbor."

Anything but America or Freedom.

Worse, these jerkoffs want to take the same joyless fundamentalist religiosity their fathers applied to Christianity and turn it to Baal worship. It's about the addiction, the high. They don't even want to enjoy the fruits of their greed or their perversity, they just want the Dopamine hit that shit generates. The damn Dopamine has become their fucking Jihad. Like broken-ass hardcore addicts, they'll do anything for the shit and it's not even fun anymore. They simply consider it the same dour joyless "Religious" duty that their fathers and grandfathers applied to Calvinism and hatred of spicy food.

They are ruled by their dicks not because they enjoy the pleasure or even want to but because to them that shit represents Power and the accumulation of Power and Control and place in the hierarchy is a ravening Addiction and a total freakish Compulsion to these absolute weird motherfuckers.

"Winning" isn't "Everything" or even for a purpose anymore. Power is the ONLY thing these freaks want or understand. It's like what Red said to Andy Dufresne about the Bull Queers in the Shawshank Redemption.

Red: The Sisters have taken quite a liking to you. Especially Bogs.

Andy: Don't suppose it would help any if I explained to them I'm not homosexual.

Red: Neither are they. You'd have to be human first. They don't qualify. Bull queers take by force. That's all they want or understand. But if I were you, I'd grow eyes in the back of my head.

Andy: Thanks for the advice.

To them the Epstein cult victim sexual slave from god-knows-where who hasn't been taught anything and is forced to participate in ecstatic rites to Baal and made to do shit that no one should ever have to is more "Christian" to these monsters than a professing, theologically-educated Believer like James Talarico.

Hell, a cult-slave to ancient Demon-gods fits These Fucking People's worldview more than the two basic Christian church-camp teenagers literally born and raised in a small-town American Pentecostal church-community who keep dry-humping because they like each other and have every intent to get married, be a family and have kids eventually, with their literal professed faith in God and Jesus Christ as the glue that holds it all together.

Because that's not what "Christianity" even is to these Monsters.

Because those Believers in my example (as evidenced by their simply liking each other) might not do what Power wants every time, and if pushed the wrong way or asked to do something they don't want to do those Believers might fight against Power with the faith that God will back them up. Why do you think these fucking beasts really hate the Ukrainians so much, even though so many Ukrainians are both Christian and (small "C") conservative??

Because it's not about any of that. Not at all. Not even close.

Being in a gang is a lot like being in a religion. You got rules to follow, a leader to obey, and at the heart, it's about love. "Love thy fellow man" becomes "love thy brother gangster." But what if you stop believing the religion you've been preaching? You come to see that the hole is still in your soul, that the God/love you thought you had is nothing but a hologram. ~ Augustus Hill, ~From the HBO series Oz, S1.E3 "God's Chillin.'"

Because simply by caring about something other than Cultic Power and devotion to a given Narcissist, simply by liking each other, simply by believing that they have a right to defend themselves from the extinction some powerful authoritarian narcissistic ruler decreed for them...whether it's the church teenagers in my example or the Ukrainian soldiers in the field or angry American Airmen, Marines, Sailors and Soldiers reporting on Christian Nationalists trying to tell them to fight in the name of bringing about Armageddon, or just basic Americans who don't support or vote for any of this fucking bullshit, people break the framework and the narrative and the endless Power-seeking Rabbit Hole that these assholes demand...not just by actively resisting but by simply existing.

Remember that.

Because they sure will.

And sooner or later the monsters whose main problem is simply that "Other People Exist" are going to try to do something about that.

Bropocalypse Now, Yo.

You either believe in freedom, and in your own right to have a life, or you don't.

Слава Україна!

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

Prequel

And Jesus went out, and departed from the temple: and his disciples came to him for to shew him the buildings of the temple.

And Jesus said unto them, See ye not all these things? verily I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.

And as he sat upon the mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?

And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you.

For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many.

And ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.

For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.

All these are the beginning of sorrows.

Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name's sake.

And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another.

And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many.

And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.

But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved. ~Matthew 24:1-13