The Revolution Will Be Livestreamed (Two.)

 Proctor: Sir, Mahoney says this restaurant has the best salad bar in town. [They're walking down an alley, still in their police uniforms.]

Harris: Well, it damn sure better have! 

[Inside, they walk through curtains of beads and past a Bud Light neon sign.]

Harris: Proctor, I don't see a salad bar. 

Proctor: [Noticing the sign "The Blue Oyster."] Look, sir, maybe they serve seafood. 

Harris: [Slowly realizing he's in a gay bar] That's not funny, you idiot! [To Leatherman] What are you looking at, you PECKERHEAD?! 

Leatherman: Nice uniform, makes me wish I'd worn my sailor outfit. 

Harris: I'm getting out of here! Move it! Move it! [Starts to push through the crowd of gay men.]

*El Bimbo begins to play*

Harris: [Being forced to dance with Leatherman] Proctor! 

Proctor: I don't think cutting in is allowed, Sir. 

Proctor: [Being noticed by second Leatherman] Nice collar!

~From Police Academy 4: Citizens On Patrol

...

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

Apparently, Republicans are getting desperate.

Weirdly so, and even in Texas. Like, apparently Trump thinks he's Davy Crockett now??

I'm old, I remember the old Disney Davy Crockett movie where the climactic scene was the fight at the Alamo. 

It wasn't some great victory, everybody died. I saw the movie and listened to the LP version enough times to still remember a fair bit of the lines all this time later.

It was the battle of Scarif from Rogue One, but for the Mexican War.

That's about the most sympathetic view I can manage. And it's really not deserved.

And if we're being honest, I'll take Disney now over Disney when the Alamo movie got made, or even in the late 1970's and early 1980's when I was watching that crap, all day and twice on Sundays.

Honestly, to me a Coonskin Cap was only ever the sort of weird of junk somebody might buy at a place like Knott's Berry Farm.

[Jyn proposes to the Alliance Council a raid on Scarif to get the Death Star plans, but runs into objections]

Tynnra Pamlo: If the Empire has this kind of power, what chance do we have?

Jyn Erso: What chance do we have? The question is what choice? Run? Hide? Plead for mercy? Scatter your forces? You give way to an enemy this evil with this much power and you condemn the galaxy to an eternity of submission. [Rebel personnel grumble in agreement] The time to fight is now! Every moment you waste is another step closer to the ashes of Jedha. ~From the film Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.

I hate to sound sympathetic to that garbage, but at least back in those days conservatism had something that looked like standards. But then I'm the kind of guy who inwardly shuddered in 2000 when people said they'd rather have a beer with George W. Bush. That was never the sort of trait I gave a damn about in a leader.

"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 the headboard of a bed repeatedly hitting a wall somewhere. Sheepish shrug. Silence.]

"Please clap."

~Jeb! Bush, February 2nd, 2016

And again, I'd like to point out that, right or wrong...there's no way somebody like Scott Pressler (the openly gay MAGA activist) would ever have been allowed within 100 yards of a Republican Speaker Of The House at any point in the conservatism I was raised with. In fact he'd pretty much have been told to go be a liberal or something because Republicans in them days wouldn't have wanted him.

Of course, that was (so far as I know, anyway) before GOP conventions were hives of illicit gay sex. Of course now my only objection to that is, it's 2026, why not just be open about it and accept yourself?? 

I mean so far as I'm concerned that's about the only thing Scott Pressler gets right.

But I still find it more than a little weird that Mike Johnson, of all people, is trying to claim he's some sort of a "secret weapon."

Not least because more than one local GOP gathering wouldn't let Scott in the door.

We're eventually going to find out that all these freaks are in the Epstein files, aren't we?

And that the rot goes way further down than we expect.

It's a big enough problem that even with all their power they can't hide it.

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

And honestly, it's really starting to seem like they'd rather not since these assholes are trying to "Normalize" everything from the Cornell 7 to outright pedophilia, and they have the balls to be surprised that nobody's cool with this.

I have a partner and a kid, of course I'm gonna have a problem with that crap.

A lot of these freaks seem like they'd rather flaunt their perversions and Sin openly, because they think of that as some kind of sign of political power or some shit. 

Please, nobody tell them how that kind of thing historically works out...especially in societies where a lot of people are religious. I'd like it to be a surprise, if that's OK.

But then, a weirdly out-of-touch detachment from basic reality or conventional morality seems to be the price of admission to the GOP these days. 

It's bad enough that Karl Rove, you know...the guy who originally pitched exactly that like it was some sort of a flex...is voting for the Democrats now.

Welcome to the Revolution, Karl.

Way too many of these fucking people never actually gave a damn about any of the things they said they did.

You either believe in freedom or you don't.

The Revolution Will Be Livestreamed.

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

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

The Revolution Will Be Livestreamed (One.)

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

~Ronald Reagan

...

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

...

You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. ~John 8:44

I saw this earlier.

A couple of old idiot Republicans, saying they voted against "Communism."

They're older than me, they of all people should know Communism isn't a thing anymore. And I saw it fall.

But it's the "Vote Red" line that jumped out and grabbed me. Red was (Still is!) the color that various Communist governments and parties prefer to associate themselves with.

I'm here to tell you when I first saw the original Blue State/Red State map, I was sitting in the computer lab at North Central Michigan College and checked my E-mail while I was finishing up my homework and I was like "What the fuck??" When I saw that red was the color they used for Republicans.

I was married, we had slow dial-up at home, it was all we could afford and my ex-wife tended to monopolize using the computer anyway.

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

[Silence, a distant radio plays "Winds of Change" by the German band Scorpions. Silence.]
"Please clap."

~Jeb! Bush, February 2nd, 2016

Oh, and speaking of Republicans from the Y2K era, Dennis Hastert died. To quote Balthazar from Constantine "Finger-lickin' good." Fuck that guy. I hope he has fun in Hell.

My high-school girlfriend is a Math teacher, she teaches in the same school district where Hastert taught, and committed his crimes. We spoke the day he was indicted, and that was a little heavy for her and the kids and other teachers. She said that was a pretty somber day for everybody. Crimes like sexual abuse have a generational effect and can reach across place and time to keep hurting people.

This Trump shit will be the same way.

Fun fact, though, back in the late 90's and early-to-mid aughts when Dennis Hastert was the face of the Republican Party, nobody gave a shit about Communism because it had been relegated (rightly) to the dustbin of history where it belonged.

And despite Putin's (functionally) attempting to bring Communism back, and Trump's Kowtowing to Commies like Xi, actual Communists in Russia are apparently opposing Putin, who is the architect of so much of this shit.

Follow the Moskva
Down to Gorky Park
Listening to the wind of change
An August summer night
Soldiers passing by

Listening to the wind of change
The world is closing in
Did you ever think
That we could be so close, like brothers

The future's in the air
Can feel it everywhere
Blowing with the wind of change.

~Scorpions, Winds Of Change

Trump doesn't care about that, I'm sure he doesn't notice. That motherfucker doesn't hate Communists, he wants to be them.

Communism isn't even the real issue; Authoritarianism is.

Any talk to the contrary is just lies meant to rile up semi-literate old Republicans. But then, Communism not being a thing anymore ain't the world such people wanted to live in. The people in my header photo look like they might've been old enough to vote for Reagan in 1984 or Bush 41 in 1988. To paraphrase what my buddy the Media Warrior says about MAGA's, I'm sure Trump makes them feel like High School Seniors again, dipshits who thought they were on top of the world, or whatever.

Sure, some of them might've been well on their way to joining the Army and glaring Bumboclaatically across the lines at the Iron Curtain, or joining the Air Force and spending long cold watches at KI Sawyer or Minot or Wurtsmith Air Force Bases guarding bombers on alert duty. Or joining the Navy and playing that high-stakes game of cat-and-mouse on the High Seas against the Red Banner Northern Fleet.

Some of them were off to college. All too many were going nowhere, though, and those are most of the ones who became MAGA. King Shit in High School...but basically nobody after.

And they hate that once they got out into the real world, they weren't All That anymore. This despite the fact that 1980's pop culture about hit you over the head with "Hey, you're about to grow up and go out into the real world; Fuck, the Cosby Show had a whole-ass episode about exactly that. And you know what? Most of us wanted to grow up!

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.

These Fucking People didn't want to grow the fuck up.

And in my own lifetime, Republicans have gone from opposing Saddam Hussein to being at war with him, to overthrowing him and now to slavishly following the American version, who even has similar tastes. Don't tell me Trump wouldn't have an AK-47 gilded if the thought crossed his mind, either.

And then, they have the fucking balls to be trying to moralize about being against such a person.

Reagan (And George HW Bush) wept.

You know what? Fuck Republicans.

Republicans are the damn problem here.

I hate that I can't say it any other way.

And I used to be a Republican, back when they were something other than this.

You either believe in freedom or you don't. 

It's going to come down to a fight.

The Revolution will be livestreamed.

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

Intro

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

[Cassian plays Nemik's audio diary]

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

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

The Revolution Will Be Livestreamed (Intro.)

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

~Volodymyr Zelenskyy, allegedly 25 February 2022, Associated Press....

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.)

I saw this stuff overnight, while I was at work.

And I reached a rather disturbing conclusion.

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.

It will not be Facebooked, Instagrammed, Threaded or Twittered. There's a very excellent chance it will be Blue Sky'ed though.

The Revolution Will Be Livestreamed.

Imagine, you're sitting at home, where you're at things might be a bit rough, but they're livable. People are working together, they have to. Communications are patchy but an old guy like me can still text his girlfriend who lives 3 hours away, although we're both a bit busy, older people with skills having been drafted by the powers that be to teach those skills to others.

Elsewhere, things are not so livable. Some things changed when the "Culture War" and all this political Cold War shit went hot.

But, Scrolling? Scrolling didn't change. Not in our off-hours at least. 

Maybe what we're watching...

Scrolling. 

Following a squad of soldiers, as once things fell apart, once regions and states and even whole countries were forced to make the call, which side they were on, things got bloody conventional, hybrid-conventional but still conventional real fast.

Brussels and Ottawa and Washington DC vs. Moscow, Miami, some shithole bunker in the Urals and some gilded techno-fuck-state where Gaza used to be, where anybody that can dig up enough money becomes a citizen no questions asked. Turns out a ravening shit-ton of them that did were rabid Christian Nationalists. It turns out the Israelis liked their new neighbors even less than the old ones. People hanged over there for what they called the "Great Betrayal." 

In Europe the line is somewhere in what used to be Belarus and well north of the Ukrainian border. Turns out you don't wanna start a war with a major power-bloc when you can't even defeat one country you've spent several years trying to conquer, but there's been an offensive going against Moscow so long that even the new Free Media just let it fade into the background. Even both sides using tactical nuclear weapons only got the scatter-brained attention-economy to look for a day or so.

Men and women surge forward, standard two-by-two cover formation, hitting the deck or finding cover as gunfire splatters down the alley, and then returning fire themselves, including the trooper whose bodycam provides the current perspective.

One can flip from helmet-cam to helmet-cam. Their gear is a hodgepodge of whatever, Old US Army BDU's and ACU's, Canadian, British or EU Multicam, their weapons? wide variety of NATO and US-standard arms, but at least a few AK-101's, that's what they call the classic Kalashnikov, chambered in 5.56mm NATO standard.

The accidental protagonist of the moment is carrying one of those. Old School is the best school, even here.

Military Operations In Urban Terrain, as the term of art goes, are a bitch.

"Clanker!" someone shouts, meaning there's a robot in the battlespace. A sputtering sound like a zipper from the rear tells me that a C-Ram Gatling gun is active, explosions above and forward suggest it's engaged a drone swarm, with mostly good effect on targets.

A volley of 40mm grenades lands around the robot, just visible through the haze and smoke, the enemy gathering their forces behind the Big Metal Brother, until a Javelin missile puts it out of commission. The squad's moving again and overhead there's the Thwack, Thwack, Thwack of rotors in the heavy air, and the sound pickup on the cam garbles some indistinct radio chatter even further.

Turns out there aren't very many of the enemy and they aren't very motivated, and the firefight is over quickly. doesn't seem to matter, because they can always find more and for the other side it's more that even they can't quit the Infantryman. But the Reds went all-in on technology.

Too much.

Even with the cannon-fodder. A quick visual inspection reveals every last one of them is White, and has an implant in their forehead or right hand, that's the new thing, even for the Enemy, convince the troops they're going to upload into some AI heaven so they can be with AI Jesus when they die.

Axes, Machetes and various blades come out and implanted hands are severed or visible chips gouged out, even (especially) from the still-living. 

Can't upload if you ain't on the network, Beastie. 

It's savage, but it's the only thing these motherfuckers understand.

The squad's female medic, machete in hand, checks to make sure they're dead, she stops and looks in the direction of our viewpoint, her eyes an utterly emotionless thousand-yard-stare.

"Cornell!" a Ukrainian-accented voice yells "Move your American ass, Rally point is close!"

She sheathes the blade and our camera-viewpoint turns away as the squad sprints down a side-street. There has been action here, also. Parked cars are pocked with bullet holes, tires flattened, window-glass broken.

There are helicopters landing two at a time in a park up ahead, a horribly damaged green space in the middle of Hell.

The squad sprints past a decapitated, pulled-down gilded statue of Donald Trump. The head is five meters in the other direction, gouged and pockmarked but still recognizable.

There's some kind of improvised, shouted conclave of officers and senior NCO's, with riflemen fanned out to protect the LZ. The choppers still have their rotors running. Clearly, something is going down somewhere.

Someone waves our protagonist/perspective towards them, and he runs up the rear ramp of one of the helicopters, a Leonardo AW101 Merlin, only with the noise of the outside muffled a little do we hear he's breathing hard, his camera pans over the rest of the team, apparently a diverse group of young to middle-aged troops led by a grizzled, bearded apparently Ukrainian veteran with Sergeant's stripes on his chest and sleeves.

====End Transmission===

Always remember that what These Fucking People do to inanimate (or even, apparently, animate) objects, they at least want to do to people if given the chance.

Assholes have gotten way too comfortable in the United States Of America and some other places.

The reckoning is brewing, remember that.

We can put the fear of God and the People back into these motherfuckers, we're gonna have to.

If Republicans are so damned sure they're going to win why are they in panic-mode and yet still managing to do the worst possible thing for if they actually wanted to win anything.

These people don't want to win.

They think they want to provoke Armageddon.

They may well be successful, but I don't think it'll go the way they think it'll go and it sure as hell won't end up the way they think it will for themselves.

They're going to lose.

But that doesn't mean it's not gonna come down to a fight to stop this shit from getting worse.

You either believe in freedom or you don't.

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In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphim, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. And they were calling to one another:

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty;
the whole earth is full of his glory.”

At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.

“Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.”

Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. 7 With it he touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.”

Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?”

And I said, “Here am I. Send me!”

He said, “Go and tell His people:

“‘Be ever hearing, but never understanding;
be ever seeing, but never perceiving.’
Make the heart of this people calloused;
make their ears dull
and close their eyes.
Otherwise they might see with their eyes,
hear with their ears,
understand with their hearts,
and turn and be healed.”

Then I said, “For how long, Lord?”

And he answered:

“Until the cities lie ruined
and without inhabitant,
until the houses are left deserted
and the fields ruined and ravaged, 

until the Lord has sent everyone far away
and the land is utterly forsaken.
And though a tenth remains in the land,
it will again be laid waste.
But as the terebinth and oak
leave stumps when they are cut down,
so the holy seed will be the stump in the land.”

~Isaiah chapter 6 (New International Version.)

Last Post

[Cassian plays Nemik's audio diary]

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

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