Not Legends, Facts (American Revelation XXII, Twelve.)

Hawkeye: My father's people say that at the birth of the sun and of his brother the moon, their mother died. So the sun gave to the earth her body, from which was to spring all life. And he drew forth from her breast the stars, and the stars he threw into the night sky to remind him of her soul. So there's the Cameron's monument. My folks' too, I guess.

Cora Munro: You are right, Mr. Poe. We do not understand what is happening here. And it's not as I imagined it would be, thinking of it in Boston and in London...

Hawkeye: Sorry to disappoint you.

Cora Munro: No, on the contrary. It is more deeply stirring to my blood than any imagining could possibly have been. 

~From the film The Last Of The Mohicans.

...

Ira Hayes

Ira Hayes

Call him drunken Ira Hayes
He won't answer anymore
Not the whiskey drinking Indian
Or the marine that went to war
Gather 'round me people
There's a story I would tell
'Bout a brave young Indian
You should remember well
From the land of the Pima Indian
A proud and noble band
Who farmed the Phoenix Valley
In Arizona land
Down the ditches a thousand years
The waters grew Ira's peoples' crops
'Til the white man stole their water rights
And the sparkling water stopped
Now, Ira's folks were hungry
And their land grew crops of weeds
When war came, Ira volunteered
And forgot the white man's greed
Call him drunken Ira Hayes
He won't answer anymore
Not the whiskey drinking Indian
Or the marine that went to war.

~The Ballad of Ira Hayes, by Johnny Cash.

...

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

I saw this garbage last night.

So-called "Christian" "Conservative" Eric Metaxas trying to say that the Founding Fathers were all some kind of "Fire-breathing" Fundamentalist Christians.

No, They were not. This stuff is not legend, it is not mythology. It's not Religion! These guys wrote down what they believed, and there's whole groups of people and government agencies that have preserved it, books upon books of this history all written down. It can be read and investigated and measured and tested and compared with other historical documents from the time.

God endowed you with a mind, you can look at that and decide based on the evidence, for yourself.

I've read a hell of a lot of it. 

Whatever these idiots are trying to "Conserve" it ain't America.

Also I think what he really means when he says we'll do it like they did it in the Sinai? I think that's the part where they worship the Golden Calf, Moses throws down the Ten Commandments and storms out and then smites them with plagues called down from the Lord.

But there's more to it than that, way more.

Disgraced "Pastor" Mark Driscoll tried to say that the Founders were all young men in their 20's and shit (They were not) and say that "Young men need to marry Girls, build businesses and fight."

So Mark here idolizes sex, money, violence and youth? Sounds creepy. Also "Girls" not "Women." Creepy. Check The Hard Drive Creepy. These guys look like they've all seen each other naked creepy.

But more to the point, it's a lie. It's a lie that I know is a lie because of my own experience with the history. For one thing, as a kid I went to Christian schools and Christian schools love them some colonial-era history. While I'm at it, I've been to Fort Necessity. It's an actual, still-extant place, preserved and restored by the US National Park Service. I went there in 2009.

I had a Native American roommate for like five years (2008-2013) a US Navy veteran and member of the Ogitchedaw Warrior Society, and because for a decent chunk of the time he was my roommate, he didn't have a car...well when the Ogitchedaws were invited to participate in a historical event at Fort Necessity along with the Warrior Societies of some of the other Great Lakes Anishnaabe tribes and he was trying to figure out transportation. 

I was like hell, why don't we both go?

Event happened to be on a Sunday. It got me a 3-day weekend my boss couldn't argue with, at least.

See, back when George Washington was a junior officer serving in the British Army fighting against the French in the Seven Years War in 1754 (22 YEARS before the Declaration of Independence!) the ancestors of today's Great Lakes Tribes, then called the Three Fires Confederacy, were allied to the French and sent warriors to fight the British. Among those who went to fight were actual ancestors of some of the guys I knew. The Tribe I worked for sent guys to fight George Washington, stop and think about that for a second.

The Three Fires still exists, less as a nation then as a compact between a bunch of tribal governments. This is a living history, I've written about some of these men that I knew, although in my own life it tended to affect my job specifically a few times a year because Serve Safe and all the other training we had to do was conducted jointly through some of these inter-tribal orgs.

And there's a reason I used the Ballad of Ira Hayes, US Marine and Iwo Jima flag-raiser, whose mother was a Sunday School teacher in an Assembly Of God church and whose father was a WWI US Army veteran who literally bought Citizenship for his people with his own blood, sweat and tears.

Guys like Donald Trump, Eric Metaxas and Mark Driscoll don't give a fuck about that.

The Founders were not young men, most were middle-aged, experienced Combat Leaders, diplomats, soldiers, statesmen, in the ways of the time...they wouldn't have been there otherwise. 

This is not mythology. I have been to places where these men walked, I've visited the church George Washington attended. I have touched the walls of that reconstructed colonial fort with my own hands. I've carried a weapon in the service of my country my own self! This is not legend, you can test it!

I get what guys like Eric Metaxas and Mark Driscoll are trying to do. They want to take what is literally Our story and steal it and make it about themselves.

But because I have a fucking conscience and I have read the Lord's Word and I've walked in some of these same spaces and served my damn self, I also know why what they're trying to do is Wrong.

A free person has a duty to the Truth.

Period.

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

Remember that.

Because if they'll lie to you about this crap, what else will they lie to you about??

Either you believe in freedom or you don't.

Either you're willing to fight for it or you're not.

And you need look no further for the inspiration to do this than our own literal, preserved history.

They have to make up fables and legends to convince people of their point of view.

We. Don't.

Remember that, too.

Because the day's going to come, soon, where it isn't a choice anymore and we're going to have to fight.

These are not legends, they are not fables, they are facts.

They sure do, and that's why they're lying about it.

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

Eleven

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

...

You get freedom by letting your enemy know that you'll do anything to get your freedom; then you'll get it. It's the only way you'll get it. ~Malcolm X.

No! (American Revelation XXII, Eleven.)

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 am Andrew Ryan, and I'm here to ask you a question. Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow? "No," says the man in Washington, "it belongs to the poor." "No," says the man in the Vatican, "it belongs to God." "No," says the man in Moscow, "it belongs to everyone." I rejected those answers; instead, I chose something different. I chose the impossible. I chose... Rapture. A city where the artist would not fear the censor; where the scientist would not be bound by petty morality; where the great would not be constrained by the small! And with the sweat of your brow, Rapture can become your city as well. ~Andrew Ryan, Bioshock

...

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

So, Republicans are apparently shocked that they're catching hell for complaining about their salaries while refusing to do anything about Congressional stock-trading.

I'm here to tell you as an American voter, not least as a former Republican, I'm entirely sick of Elon Mush and Peter Thief and their gang of closet-cases, pedophiles and stupid performative know-nothings, and I'm really tired of them telling people like me we need to "sacrifice" for their shitty agendas that don't benefit anybody who isn't a multi-billionaire at this point. But then, If Jim Jordan or Mike Johnson had ever had to get or do a real job, if you didn't patronize the same local rest area after dark as them you wouldn't have the slightest fucking idea who any of these idiots even were, these broken creatures would be in jail (certainly, in Jordan's Epstein-implicated case) or rotting in middle management somewhere trying to talk about Jesus around the water-cooler.

In a phrase "Fuck These Motherfuckers."

I already wrecked my body serving in the Air Force, a good part of my mind doing the Church thing after that thanks to some bad experiences, and further wrecked my shit on both counts working in food service for 25 years. Sooner or later, homie, the Public ain't got anymore sacrificing to give. And we are in fact running out of patience being asked to "sacrifice" for Donald Trump's vainglory. 

No. Fuck You.

Worse, While these jerkoffs get paid $175K for having a goddamned part-time job that they don't even bother to do most of the time. 

If I worked like a member of Congress does, especially but not exclusively a Republican, my ass would be out of a job tomorrow.

But then, motherfucker, if my "job" consisted of wearing a suit, going to meetings all day and getting my ass kissed by lobbyists? #1 I'd be the goddamned Employee Of The Month, every month. I'd have a goddamn kitchen timer sitting on my desk for lobbyists and I'd have a goddamn trapdoor installed in my office with a motherfucking Rancor Pit under it, and Imma find me a goddamn Rancor even if I have to deal with Dark Force Witches or The Hutts to do it. 

Can't be any worse than owing my ass to some rich motherfucker, at least I'm reasonably sure Jabba The Hutt isn't gonna find me attractive.

As for policy or regulation? If you can't fit your pitch and your proposal each on a 3x5 Index Card or be honest with me, I'm not interested. 

You have 60 seconds.

It's not a time limit, it's an ethic. I don't have time for bullshit. I learned that one the hard way, too.

If my ass ever has to do a bullshit job like serve in Congress I am not there to make life easier for L3 Harris and Raytheon. I am sure as fuck not there to promote any kind of bullshit religion or manipulate in favor of such things. Note I say that as somebody who was an End Times Prophecy guy.

But it's how I learned about that stuff that's the operative factor here;

I swore an Oath to a Constitution that puts religious freedom before all the others, not "above" just "before" and I had to live by a set of Core Values once; It was "Integrity Above All, Service Before Self, Excellence In All That We Do." It wasn't "Get Rich Or Die Tryin.'"

Among other things I'd at least try to look out for my fellow veterans and working people and to be a good example for others, because that's what one is supposed to do in a job like that. 

When I was a Senior Airman, my LT was relentless about it was our job to set the standard and she damned well made sure she set the standards we had to follow, by example, by sustained superior performance, by her being out in front, every day or night, in the same battle rattle humping the same ruck and carrying the same rifle as the rest of us, on her own merits every fucking time, not just sitting behind a desk or over the radio. Fuck That.

Part of why I became a Believer in End Times Prophecy was the conduct and example of my brothers and sisters and senior NCO's who believed in that stuff. Yes, it was a different time.

Respect is earned by every action every day. It only takes fucking up once to lose it, too.

And the reason America is a soup sandwich right now is too many of us have forgotten that.

Well, we're about to learn the hard way, if you haven't noticed.

And they don't care, or want to.

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 hate to point out reality to some people but I think sooner or later their end result is going to show that fact.

They're going to lose, and they don't care about that either, just so they think they're gonna drag a bunch of the rest of us to Hell with them.

Again, just pointing out the theological reality that according to what I was taught, God determines that, not some rich weirdo.

But, time's coming where if you want to actually believe that, you're gonna have to fight for it. These fucking people get their way? What the fuck do you think all the "Data Centers" are really for??

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. ~Revelation 13:16-17

There was a time when men (and women, but most of the combat deaths were men) died horrible deaths from torture or were killed by the thousands in wars for daring to want to read the Lord's Word at all, much less in their own language. I was raised with that history, that we have forgotten it is why so many of these idiot rich pastors covet the Power of the Medieval church without even the slightest interest in learning the history of why that didn't work out...which perversely created the very religious stream of thought the vast majority of these motherfuckers claim to be a part of. 

It's not just the Billionaire Capitalists, yo.

You either believe in freedom 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

Ten

[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."

Bitterness (American Revelation XXII, Ten.)

Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! ~Isaiah 5:20

...

Some people say the Bible is the greatest story ever told. Uh-uh. The best story is "Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl." Yeah. Boy meets girl. That first moment when every corpuscle in your dick is percolating. Of course, not everybody has the same impulse. 

~Augustus Hill, from the HBO series Oz, S2.E4 "Losing Your Appeal."

...

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

I saw this earlier.

Apparently the Idiot "Christians" are going after Miss Rachel now, the YouTube and Netflix star that's mostly known for kid's songs and shit like that who became massively popular during the COVID-19 pandemic, because she supports LGBT people and marginalized people in general. I barely know who Miss Rachel is, The Kiddo freaking loves her. 

That's all *I* really need to know, educating kids and helping marginalized people is good with me. Hell, my family is marginalized people, as both my partner and the kid ARE LGBT. My partner is also a Christian, and the kid has at least given it some thought.

Wait, isn't "Supporting marginalized people" literally something Christians are supposed to be doing, in fact required by the express command of their Savior, if you go by what it says on the side of the can??

Well, the Truth is a lot of These Fucking People believe that "Hating LGBT People" is way more important than "Love Thy Neighbor." 

In fact they're so anti-"Love Thy Neighbor" that they've basically dispensed not only with the Word of Jesus but pretty much every aspect of Christianity or the Bible that they can't use as a bullshit tautology or a "Gotcha" against somebody else...or otherwise weaponize...because they much prefer to simply make an idol out of political "Conservatism" that is in reality not even organized Fascism but simply a desire to use politics to hurt people while worshiping Golden Idols, to feel sanctified in their hatefulness and narcissism and not interested one bit in "Conserving" anything.

Hell, my partner's idiot relatives punished the kid for wanting to go to Church. Isn't that *Checks Notes* Persecution??

Nor do they "Love Everyone" nor do they "Want Everyone to be Saved." I mean, sure, if you make a big show of trying to act like them they might let you in. Literally the entire point of their False Religion is that Heaven isn't Heaven if everybody gets to go! Watching other people suffer down here on Earth or in Hell or whatever is literally presented as a Perk of going to their "Heaven." 

This is why this type of stuff isn't up to Man, well, not if you read the Lord's Word it's not.

Bitterness is what these people dwell in, to a great extent that's how they justify themselves.

And These Fucking People? They don't read the Word.

Or want anybody else to, either. 

Their "god" is worldly Power.

Oh sure, they'll claim God or the Holy Spirit or whatever "Told" them something...but that's ever and always to justify their own impulse or try to manipulate you into agreeing with them.

In my experience, 99 out of 100 times they didn't even ask anybody else, spiritual entity or otherwise.

In the other one example they were told to go pound sand and then decided to try to do what they wanted anyway.

That's pretty much the only reason these idiots bring up or even claim God or the Bible or any of that stuff...it's a vector to get what they think they want.

They don't believe in Jesus Christ.

They believe in Donald Trump and the Republican Party and their own bigotry.

In fact, the Truth is they don't really care about anything else.

Remember that.

It's going to be on the test later.

You either believe in freedom or you don't.

Слава Україна!

There is only one sin, only one. And that is theft. Every other sin is a variation of theft....When you kill a man, you steal a life. You steal his wife's right to a husband, rob his children of a father. When you tell a lie, you steal someone's right to the truth. When you cheat, you steal the right to fairness. ~Baba, from The Kite Runner.

Nine

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

What Happened? (American Revelation XXII, Nine.)

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."

...

There is only one sin, only one. And that is theft. Every other sin is a variation of theft....When you kill a man, you steal a life. You steal his wife's right to a husband, rob his children of a father. When you tell a lie, you steal someone's right to the truth. When you cheat, you steal the right to fairness. ~Baba, from The Kite Runner.

I saw this earlier.

Tea Party Joe Walsh, asking "What happened to Bill Maher?"

My answer was "Nothing, he was always That Guy."

And I have receipts on why that is.

See, back in the day, like 15-20 years ago when I worked Third Shift in a casino kitchen, I was a fan. Hell, a lot of us who worked there in that time and place were.

In fact, 20 years ago it was little things like that, that drove my current partner nuts, well, except that she liked to argue about stuff like that, so I don't know if she really minded all that much.

Her and I, we'd have arguments about stuff that'd go on for days at a time, I'm serious.

The thing was, we also loved each other, although we were also very competitive with each other and, like I said, constantly arguing and bickering back and forth. It's just every once in awhile we'd end up doing stuff...and for a few months out of that first year, we were quietly a couple.

Now, a hell of a lot of the crew we worked with was a bunch of dude-bros for whom Bill Maher fandom as it was at the time just...fit. Likewise Howard Stern, WWE, and a whole bunch of other Bro-coded shit. My partner was infamously regarded as a bitch at work. (She wasn't, really, but they thought she was.)

We didn't broadcast our relationship status, she's never been big on public affection, we worked with a bunch of dumb guys and they never figured it out until a couple years later.

Then we broke up, she got with the next guy a few months later, moved out, got married, then moved out west, that didn't last for very long. She landed in Tennessee with her parents, and by early the next spring we were talking a lot again, and flirting quite a bit, too.

Now, in the summer of 2008 I transferred over to being a line cook, but since I was almost always on the employee buffet line or the grill I was still always working around the same people and I tried to take my breaks at the same time as them.

Anyway, one of those nights, on my lunch break I was talking to her while I was sitting at the table with my crew, nothing racy, nothing even special so far as I can recall. Just normal stuff a couple of very close friends talk about at four in the morning, part of the conversation on speaker, too.

But anyway, I got up, signed off with her and went back to work. I had to go to the employee dish area and wash a rack of knives and utensils, so I got after it. Run the stuff through the dish machine...

And walk straight into a wall of bros, literally pressing flesh, physically blocking my way out of the dish area, four of them. So I'm like "What?!"

"You F****d her, didn't you?"

"Who?"

"Don't give us that shit, we figured it out. Werewolf Lady that you was just on the phone with. (It's still a running joke between her and I that she's a Werewolf.) Out with it, or we're seizing the Man Card."

"Okay yeah, we did, so? What's it matter to you??" I paused for effect "I'm trained to kill, yo, rack of knives and I gotta get back out there but ya'll in the way" They let me pass, but grudgingly. I think they thought I was gonna argue. Surprisingly they didn't give me too much shit until we formally started dating in the winter months of 2009. At that point it was generally assumed that she was the Man in the relationship.

(The joke was on them, she was, we didn't care.)

The four guys in question were my late best friend, my other best friend that I had to shit-can last summer, my Roman-obsessed coworker and a current friend of mine who was then going through his Libertarian Bro phase. We were all deep into video games like BioShock and God Of War, too, at the time.

It never really occurred to me until last summer that they had heard us talking, heard the love in our voices, and then with malice aforethought treated her like a goal for dude-bros to score on, not like a person.

What happened, he says?

In a temporal sense? One of those guys died, a couple of 'em drifted Leftwards like I did, and the other one? 

Well, I wrote about what happened with him.

Spiritually? Nothing much at all happened.

Only thing I can figure is that MAGA or the Manosphere crap got to that guy in particular, or he let all the gaming bullshit go to his head. He didn't talk like that 20 years ago. 

Oh well, nothing of value was lost. 

But at that point in time, back in 2008, we were all That Guy. Some of us, apparently more than others.

Fuck, I look at pictures of myself from back then and I'm amazed at how angry I looked all the time.

Some of us grew out of it, some people stayed that way.

What happened to Bill Maher? 

What happened to my surviving best friend? What didn't happen to me??

Some of us made, and kept to, the choice to give a damn about other people.

Some of us made the choice to be small and mean and selfishly hedonistic, and to not give a shit about other people. Some of us very likely were that way all along, but chose not to broadcast it because they thought their peers would give them shit about it or that it would hurt them to show their true selves.

You can call it Christian Nationalism, Narcissism, Patriarchy, Privilege or Relative Status or whatever psychological, religious, social or Unga Bunga shit you want, but it basically comes down to selfishness, to literally not giving a shit about the hearts and minds of other people.

Seems like women in particular are catching a lot of that kind of crap right now, but *Who* those other people are doesn't really end up mattering, it's just that a lot of These Fucking People think they gotta discriminate against somebody or treat somebody like crap...or they'll die or something...and especially somebody they are required to be Close To in some way. And all of these idiots are terrified that they're next because they can't imagine a society where somebody isn't being abused, or where love itself isn't treated like some kind of sport-ball bullshit.

That love outlasts death never occurs to these motherfuckers.

And until we reckon with that, as a society, and figure a way to stop doing it, problems are gonna continue.

Again, you either believe in freedom or you don't.

Слава Україна!

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

Eight

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 24:10-13

...

[Caprica-Cavil and Galactica-Cavil are in an airlock, about to be executed]

Caprica-Cavil: Is there a Resurrection Ship within range?

Galactica-Cavil: Yes, brother. But first we're gonna die in a vacuum.

Caprica-Cavil: There's a 170 foot long launch tube in front of us. We might die of our injuries before we get to the vacuum.

Galactica-Cavil: I don't like you.

Caprica-Cavil: I understand that.

Galactica-Cavil: Do you really believe it was a mistake to attack the humans?

Caprica-Cavil: Rather intensely, yes.

Galactica-Cavil: You know that when we download amongst the others your strange ideas will be shouted down.

Caprica-Cavil: Ideas always seem strange until you try them on, brother. We had a temper-tantrum in the form of a cataclysm because we wanted them to treasure us, the Ones, more than humanity. More than their own history and blood.

Galactica-Cavil: We didn't want to be loved. We wanted to be treated fairly.

Caprica-Cavil: We wanted to be held to a bosom. To be petted and perfumed and told we were the princes of the universe.

Galactica-Cavil: Yes, well if the humans were gone-

Caprica-Cavil: Our parents would mourn them. They'd love them more anyway.

Galactica-Cavil: I'm going to see to it that you get boxed. And then I'm going to prepare to wipe out humanity once and for all.

Caprica-Cavil: The anticipation is very unpleasant.

Galactica-Cavil: Yes.

[Caprica-Cavil offers his hand, Galactica-Cavil looks at it and accepts it. Galactica-Cavil closes his eyes while Caprica-Cavil keeps looking. They are then airlocked.]

~From Battlestar Galactica: The Plan

Zombies (American Revelation XXII, Eight.)

Glenn Rhee: [Over the radio to Rick] Hey, you. Dumbass. Hey, you in the tank. Cozy in there?

Glenn: Hey, are you alive in there?

Rick Grimes: Hello? Hello?

Glenn: There you are. You had me wondering.

Rick: Where are you? Outside? Can you see me right now?

Glenn: Yeah, I can see you. You're surrounded by walkers. That's the bad news.

Rick: There's good news?

Glenn: No.

Rick: Listen, whoever you are, I don't mind telling you I'm a little concerned in here.

Glenn: Oh man. You should see it from over here. You'd be having a major freak-out.

Rick: Got any advice for me?

Glenn: Yeah, I'd say make a run for it.

Rick: That's it? 'Make a run for it?

Glenn: My way's not as dumb as it sounds.

~From The Walking Dead S1.E2 "Guts."

...

When the earliest settlers poured into a wild continent there was no one to ask them where they came from. The only question was: Were they sturdy enough to make the journey, were they strong enough to clear the land, were they enduring enough to make a home for freedom, and were they brave enough to die for liberty if it became necessary to do so? And so it has been through all the great and testing moments of American history. Our history this year we see in Vietnam. Men there are dying; men named Fernandez and Zajac and Zelinko and Mariano and McCormick. Neither the enemy who killed them nor the people whose independence they have fought to save ever asked them where they or their parents came from. They were all Americans. It was for free men and for America that they gave their all, they gave their lives and selves. By eliminating that same question as a test for immigration the Congress proves ourselves worthy of those men and worthy of our own traditions as a nation. ~Lyndon B. Johnson.

...

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

I saw this yesterday.

"Christian" Nationalist "Pastor" Joel Webbon ranting against *Checks Notes* Republican candidate Vivek Ramaswamy simply for being a Hindu and saying he should "go home."

Then Tommy Tube-Steak (naturally) trying to say immigrants should "Assimilate or go home" to India. Last I checked, right or wrong, like it or not, "home" for Vivek (both by birth and inclination, apparently) is Ohio.

And, same day, I saw that Seb Gorka (of all people) himself an immigrant, is trying to call Tucker Carlson a "Domestic Terrorist." Personally, I think we should send Seb back to Hungary where his British accent alone ought to make sure he has loads of fun in the jail that the new government is almost certain to throw his Nazi ass in because he's an Orban stooge, too.

The thing is, for a lot of these MAGA's and people like Trump, it's a game.

But there's a hell of a lot of under-the-radar or up-and-coming weirdos in this shit for whom it isn't, and most of those freaks would make the average MAGA/Tribal Republican type at even this point look like European Socialists by comparison.

Their ideal world is basically The Walking Dead, but with idiots instead of Zombies.

Cassian Andor: What? To steal from the Empire, what do you need? A uniform, some dirty hands, and an Imperial toolkit. They’re so proud of themselves, they don’t even care. They’re so fat and satisfied, they can’t imagine it…

Luthen Rael: Can’t imagine what?

Andor: That someone like me would ever get inside their house, walk their floors, spit in their food, take their gear. 

~From the Star Wars series Andor, S1.E2 "That Would Be Me."

I feel like two things are about to happen:

#1 The country is very likely going to go full Sunday Night At Woodstock '99 on these motherfuckers, in November at least, but very likely before that, people are tired of this shit, and some of these idiots want to make it worse.

#2 MAGA and Republicans are very, very likely to get attacked from their Right by fanatics who see their agenda as not progressing fast enough or "Too weak."

And, as an addendum #3 Republicans going after Republicans has always been my cue to start worrying about Civil War.

Meanwhile Trump and the Billionaires have pretty much came right out and said they don't give a shit about how the average person is doing.

Historically, that's a good way to piss off even your own voters.

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.

This is going to end, soon, and very likely extremely badly.

I mean, it's The Walking Dumb out there, but people are pissed off.

Especially for people like Trump and his lackeys like Seb Gorka.

Billionaires like Elon and Peter Pan Thiel will just bunker up and if they've managed to piss off enough of the rest of humanity (also likely) there's a non-zero chance their bunkers will each take a JDAM right down the stovepipe and that'll be the end of that, real quick.

And everybody, including the US government, has some kind of a half-ass plan for when everything comes flying apart. Or they think they do.

Most of them will suck at it.

Not the religious nuts (and certain corporations that they inflect or own.) No, they have a whole-ass plan to carve out shitty little fiefdoms for themselves and their cults. I mean, it'll probably be as badly executed and shitty as everybody else's but it is a plan and if nothing else these CHUDs have been working on that kind of shit since at least the 1970's that I know of.

Elisabet Sobeck: I remember yelling that I didn’t care. And that’s when my mother took my face in her hands and…spoke.

GAIA: Query: What did she say?

Elisabet Sobeck: She said I had to care. She said, “Elisabet, being smart will count for nothing if you don’t make the world a better place. You have to use your smarts to count for something, to serve life, not death.”

~From the video game Horizon Zero Dawn.

The problem, in terms of survival instinct, is that some of these dusty old morons think a kid writing a letter saying they should keep the tax credit for electric vehicles and wishing to participate in society is (get this) "Propagandized."

Just sayin' I know from personal experience that gas depends on a functioning distribution network vs. anybody with a solar panel and the right power cord can charge an EV. And the Sun is free, no one owns it.

Which of course is the goddamn problem from a Republican standpoint.

These fucking people started putting ideology and profit over basic human survival instinct a long-ass time ago.

The problem with that, at the end of the day, is that when push comes to shove people like Joel Webbon don't care about money and they regard idiots like Seb Gorka and Tommy Tuberville as little more than ridiculous cosplayers. I know a lot of MAGA's that talk this shit real good, but fundamentally they still expect society to progress as normal, at least for themselves, and for things like their Social Security check (or their government paycheck in the case of people like Seb Gorka, Tommy Tube-Steak or Virginia Fox) to deposit on time.

The genuine religious fanatics out there, people like Doug Wilson or Joel Webbon (or to a lesser extent my ex-wife) not so much.

Whether they, in a logistical or physical sense, have an actual plan or not I don't know...although I'm betting they have more of one in real terms than Trump and the billionaires do. But mentally, certainly theologically, they have a plan and some idea of what they think is going to happen.

It's wrong, let's start with that. I've read the Bible and none of this works that way. At minimum it's no more accurate than Vladimir Putin thinking he was gonna conquer Ukraine in 3 days. But in terms of justification and intent to hurt people, they have a plan, it exists.

And the truth is the actual objective is simply hurting people, they don't really care about the rest, or how they get there, call it the Underpants Gnome theory of politics.

The only Republican elected officials with something likely resembling a plan that doesn't amount to conspiracy theories and dorm-room pot-smoke talk are almost certainly the Neo-Confederates. They're also wrong, but in the moral rather than empirical sense. That's just pattern recognition at this point.

Their plan, such as it is, is that these fucking people have been getting told all their lives about the sumptuous lives of those who serve the Beast in the End Times, and they've decided they want a taste of That Antichrist Life.

The rest of us, not so much. The rest of us get shit. The rest of us get whatever God gives us to survive on. The Bad Guys are taking that not as hope of survival in an Apocalypse but as their excuse to suck up all the rest of the resources, what the fuck do you think all the "Data Centers" are really for??

(Aside from turning most of America into the Aralkum, but I digress.)

These Fucking People have forgotten there's a whole massive sub-sect of various nominal "Christians" AKA also These Fucking People with an entire infrastructure of thought concerning what to do about computer chips and data centers, and fundamentally, these two sides are gonna fight.

Their idea of the Future is a blend of Idiocracy and Revelations, but considerably more malicious.

In fact I think there's more chance of the End Times nuts and the Tech nuts actually fighting than there is of the Baal-worshipers and the Christian Nationalists actually fighting it out (rather than just talking a bunch of crap at each other while quietly pursuing their shared goal of the abuse and exploitation of women and girls.) The End Times Christian phobia of technology runs deep and wide.

When the Christian Nationalists and the Demon-worshipers finally fight, the Christian Nationalists will probably melt like the Afghan National Army did when it came time to fight the Taliban by themselves, and for the same exact reason.

They mostly believe in all the same shit.

Same goes for at least a large enough plurality of idiot Republicans to matter when it comes to the Joel Webbon types (or people like my partner's idiot relatives.) Even Trump will find out he's just a different species of "Globalist" or "Liberal" to them.

These fucking monsters are just as cannibalistic and ravening as any undead Zombie out of ancient or modern legend.

Basically for the rest of us, it goes like this;

Either you believe in freedom or you don't.

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

For myself, I've got a partner and a kid to think about. I don't want to live in These Fucking People's world. 

The question is why are you tolerating this shit??

Слава Україна!

Brawndo the Thirst Mutilator had come to replace water, virtually everywhere. Water, the basic component of all life, had been deemed a threat to Brawndo's profit margin. The solution came during the budget crisis of 2330, when the Brawndo Corporation simply bought the F.D.A. and the F.C.C., enabling them to say, do, and sell, anything they wanted. ~Narrator, Idiocracy

Seven

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

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

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

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

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

Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six. ~Revelation 13:11-18