Crab Bucket (Not Legends, Not Myths, Facts. Six.)

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

...

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

Ellen Tigh: No.

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

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

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

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

...

Nameless One: “Shadow of this life?”

Dhall, Dustman scribe: “Yes, a shadow. You see, Restless One, this life is not real. Your life, my life, they are shadows, flickerings of what life once was. This life is where we end up after we die, and here we remain. Trapped, caged, until we can achieve the True Death.”

Nameless One: “True Death?”

Dhall, Dustman scribe: “True death is non-existence. A state devoid of reason, of passion, of sensation.” [Dhall coughs] “A state of purity.”

Nameless One: Sounds like oblivion, why would anyone would want that? 

~from the D&D video game Planescape Torment.

I saw this earlier.

The National Swamp is already falling apart.

But wait! There's more...

Apparently, JD Vance and Ross Douthat got into an argument about the Trump administration being "Unchristian" and "Uncharitable."

Duh. For once, Ross ain't wrong. Even if it's a case of Captain Obvious being promoted to Admiral Of The Fleet.

And of course all JD has is to try to talk about the "Tone" of somebody's "Communication" as if that justifies all this evil bullshit.

America, Republicans don't care about you; Except that they have a way they think the Universe is supposed to be, and that they're too good to have to explain themselves, and you, America, happen to be where they live and the place they think they were handed to hammer into the shape that they want.

No, none of this shit is based on reality anymore than Soviet Communism was.

So, therefore, they keep trying to impose their idea of reality on the world. How did that work with the Iranians??

Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen. ~Ezekiel 16:49-50

For good measure, throw in that Republicans absolutely hate their own voters.

And Republicans hate that they have to ask anybody if they can have power, in any fashion no matter how pro forma or propagandized. They just want to do what they want to do, period, and the higher up the chain you go the worse it gets. The Republican mentality is basically that of a 13-year-old boy who thinks he knows everything...before his grandma gets ahold of him and beats the arrogance out of him with a wooden spoon one Sunday afternoon.

We need to bring back the Ass Whuppin. These fucking people feel too safe to do their shitty behavior.

And they know, yes, they know none of this stuff is going to work. It can't, the world does not work like that, at least not anymore, and you cannot put the Progress genie back in the bottle no matter how many rural white racist dipshits or white Suburban crunchy Yoga moms you infect with Medieval Peasant Brain.

There's a whole rest of the world that first will laugh at you, then stop doing business with you, and eventually stop talking to you altogether and wait for you to wreck yourself, until it gets so bad that UN peacekeeping forces have to get involved and then things get rebuilt on the rest of the world's terms and whatever some dipshit Calvinist from Idaho or Sedevacantist Catholic weirdo from New Jersey thinks about that, they can write on the pad of paper that prison in the Netherlands gives them and call it a Manifesto. Yes, there is a certain class of Republicans who think their shitty beliefs make them next to God.

In fact, to paraphrase Brother Cavil from BSG, they don't want to be human, they think this world is dirty and fallen...they think they know better.

While at the same time people like JD Vance apparently are iffy on the idea of whether or not us mere working people can be "Christian." Fuck you, bro. I don't need your stank ass to talk to the Lord, I can do it myself.

But, far from the higher thought processes of 40 or 50 years ago, modern Republican "Libertarianism" has basically just reduced a lot of people to being basically crabs in a bucket for no good reason, while higher up, privilege and religiosity have turned a lot of "Conservatives" into dumbass narcissists. 

Well, that and there's always the racism, that's the only glue that holds all these assholes together.

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.

Like I keep saying, I can't even talk the way these people talk anymore, and I used to be a Republican.

Seriously though, nobody has to put up with this shit. Not in America, and not in the rest of the world.

They know their ideas suck, and that the vast majority of people even here will never agree to most of this shit.

Social Security, for example, is something most of us have to pay into and thus expect to get, it's part of the social fabric of this country and pretty much nobody but idiot Libertarian teenagers and the most Miserable Bastard old Republicans out there expects or wants anything different.

There's a reason I say that their real Big Plan sooner or later is going to be "Break Off A Piece Of America For Themselves and hope like fuck that they can get all the people that do agree with them to move there." And there's a reason I say these guys are going to try to turn Florida into their own personal Banana Republic. Even that's not ideal, because there's Other People that live there, but it's what they have.

So they'll immediately start trying to price living there out of most people's income range while trying to lure in more rich people. 

Never mind who does the actual work.

I believe in no God, no invisible man in the sky. But there is something more powerful than each of us, a combination of our efforts, a Great Chain of industry that unites us. But it is only when we struggle in our own interest that the chain pulls society in the right direction. The chain is too powerful and too mysterious for any government to guide. Any man who tells you different either has his hand in your pocket, or a pistol to your neck. ~Andrew Ryan, Bioshock

Cuz whoever that is, the person doing the work, making lunch, taking out the trash?? 

it sure as fuck ain't gonna be no Little Mike Johnson.

The real issue here is that the whole basis of the current "Conservative" thing is disrespect. Disrespect from people that ain't got no self-respect. 

It's why these motherfuckers literally shit all over everything the first chance they get.

And then they wanna talk shit and use religion to cover their asses? Idiots like MAGA wannabe-rapper Forgiato Blow.

Being Black, or Down's Syndrome as "Punishment from God??" Sorry, bro, but God does not work that way and pretty much every Black person I've ever met is an observant Believer in something. 

More, *Every* person with Down's Syndrome that I've ever met was exactly that, but specifically Christian. My ex-girlfriend's disabled sister was very active in our church. She was the one who wanted to go to the camp meetings and all that type of stuff. She did nothing wrong.

She was the kind of person that if she tried to tell a lie her tongue would probably break off.

And I repeat, God does not work that way.

More to the point, sorry to be especially "Politically Incorrect" about things but I can tell you exactly what a guy with a name like "Forgiato Blow" would have got from basically everybody who wasn't some kind of politically correct liberal 30 or 35 years ago, and longer than that, it would've been worse! Probably the only people I knew who wouldn't have made fun of a first name that Italian would have been the Black people, and a last name like "Blow?" 

The jokes write themselves...and that's before you realize he sucks. Dude could (okay, just hypothetically speaking) have been good at something and back in the day people would've still been relentless. I ain't saying it's right, I'm saying that's how it was. You either rolled with the punches and gave back as good as you got (and probably got very tired of shitty people and tried not to be that way yourself, or you turned out to be a monster and ended up in jail) or you were considered a bitch and probably had to move away and change your name to make that shit stop.

I get that a lot of people thought they were doing the right thing changing the culture but the meanness just went online and if anything the bad people actually got worse due to lack of consequences and too many of the good people ended up in their own bubble and didn't start realizing they had to defend themselves until shit was already starting to get really bad. 

There's a reason I say bring back the ass whuppin.

You wouldn't have somebody like Andrew Tate or Elon Musk...certainly wouldn't have them being open about being how they are let alone famous...with the societal standards that I grew up with or the fact that they were backed with a little more force. Not to mention Trump was Tabloid fodder that pretty much everybody hated. I mean, come on.

I shouldn't even need to say this shit!

Instead, I saw Republican standards in particular decline throughout the 1990's and the Aughts while they bitched about moral relativism and situational ethics (even as they became the primary practitioners of that stuff) and ultimately way too many people reordered their moral universe to accommodate men like Donald Trump!

And along the way, they flushed everything else and turned our country into a moral and later literal swamp, and now they'd rather mythologize that crap than fix it. If they can get you hooked on the idea of Aphrodite springing fully formed from the seafoam it's easier to manipulate you into being the crab in the bucket pulling other crabs down so nobody gets out. They don't want sound doctrine, they want excuses.

Sorry, but way too many of these secular liberals didn't do shit about that. I hope that guys like James Talarico might be able to accomplish something, but clearly going high all the time doesn't work.

You either believe in freedom or you don't.

And sometimes, to defend freedom, you gotta get dirty.

But the idea is not to be a crab in a bucket, not to stay in the swamp. Sooner or later you have to reach for the stars.

But you have to get the small things right first. My partner and I had a conversation about that today because she's dealing with idiots at work. That's the part these fucking people don't understand.

And worse, they don't want to.

We get out of this mess, this crab bucket, and reach for the future Together.

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

Five

 [The Mandalorian brings together the entire Mandalorian covert after Carson Teva makes a surprise visit and asks him to help Greef Karga's situation on Nevarro when the New Republic won't lift a finger]

Mando: Now, many of you don't know Greef Karga. And those that do fought against him when you rescued me from his ambush many cycles ago on the streets of Nevarro. Since then, he's had a change of heart and has risked his life to save mine as well as the Foundling in my charge. [Grogu coos] I stand before you to petition an intervention. To help rescue Nevarro before it's too late. I am in no position to ask any more of you. However... However, the enemy that decimated this very covert were Imperials, not Greef Karga's bounty hunters. Greef Karga is now a High Magistrate and has offered me a tract of land on his independent world. Perhaps it is time for us to live in the light once again on a planet where we are welcome. So our culture may flourish and our children can feel what it is to play in the sunlight.

Armorer: Does anyone else wish to speak?

Mando: It's up to them now.

Paz Vizsla: I do. I was there on Nevarro that night. I fought against Greef Karga and his hunters. I saw my brothers and sisters fall at the hands of the Imperial butchers that hunted us in the sewers. I saw many die to save the life of [gestures to Grogu] this one, tiny Foundling. And now we are asked to sacrifice yet again. The question we should be asking ourselves is, "Why? Why should we lay our lives down yet again?" Because we are Mandalorians! I have had my disagreements with this man, but he risked his life to save my son. And Bo-Katan Kryze did not give up on my child's life even when the rest of us did. These two are asking us to take up arms in the name of a brighter future, and I for one will take up arms to fight by their side. [Mandalorians agree] This is the Way!

Mandalorians: This is the Way.

Armorer: This is the Way.

~From The Mandalorian S3.E5 "The Pirate."

Survivor: Republican Politics 2026 (Not Legends, Not Myths, Facts. Five.)

Daniel Plainview: I did what your brother couldn't. I broke you and I beat you. It was Paul who told me about you. He's the prophet. He's the smart one. He knew what was there. He found me to take it out of the ground. You know what the funny thing is? Listen, listen, listen! I paid him $10,000 cash in hand, just like that. He has his own company now — prosperous little business — three wells producing $5000 a week. Stop crying, you sniveling ass! Stop your nonsense! You're just the afterbirth, Eli —

Eli Sunday: No...

Daniel Plainview: — that slithered out in your mother's filth. They should have put you in a glass jar on a mantelpiece. Where were you when Paul was suckling at his mother's teat, eh? Where were you? Who was nursing you, poor Eli? One of Bandy's sows? That land has been had. There’s nothing you can do about it. It’s gone, had.

Eli Sunday: If you would just —

Daniel Plainview: You lose.

Eli Sunday: — take this lease, Daniel!

Daniel Plainview: [yelling] Drainage! Drainage, Eli, you boy! Drained dry. I’m so sorry. Here: if you have a milkshake, and I have a milkshake, and I have a straw — There it is. That's a straw, see? Watch it. Now my straw reaches across the room, and starts to drink your milkshake. I drink your milkshake! [slurping noise] I drink it up!

Eli Sunday: Don't bully me, Daniel!

Daniel Plainview: [throws Eli to the floor] Did you think your song and dance and your superstition would help you, Eli? I am the Third Revelation. I am whom the Lord has chosen. [throws bowling balls at Eli]

Eli Sunday: [dodging the bowling balls] Daniel!

Daniel Plainview: Because I'm smarter than you! I'm older!

Eli Sunday: I'm your old friend, Daniel! Help me! Help me, please!

Daniel Plainview: I'm not a false prophet, you sniveling boy! I am the Third Revelation! I am the Third Revelation! I told you I would eat you!

Eli Sunday: We're family!

Daniel Plainview: I told you I would eat you up!

~From the film There Will Be Blood.

...

Joe: For the last time, I'm pretty sure what's killing the crops is this Brawndo stuff.

Secretary of State: But Brawndo's got what plants crave. It's got electrolytes.

Attorney General: "So wait a minute. What you're saying is that you want us to put water on the crops.

Joe: Yes.

Attorney General: Water. Like out the toilet?

Joe: Well, I mean, it doesn't have to be out of the toilet, but, yeah, that's the idea.

Secretary of State: But Brawndo's got what plants crave.

Attorney General: It's got electrolytes.

Joe: Okay, look. The plants aren't growing, so I'm pretty sure that the Brawndo's not working. Now, I'm no botanist, but I do know that if you put water on plants, they grow.

Secretary of Energy: Well, I've never seen no plants grow out of no toilet.

Secretary of State: Hey, that's good. You sure you ain't the smartest guy in the world?

Joe: Okay, look. You want to solve this problem. I want to get my pardon. So why don't we just try it, okay, and not worry about what plants crave?

Attorney General: Brawndo's got what plants crave.

Secretary of Energy: Yeah, it's got electrolytes.

Joe: What are electrolytes? Do you even know?

Secretary of State: It's what they use to make Brawndo.

~From the film Idiocracy.

I'm so tired of this crap.

RFK Jr. talking shit about Autistic people again, saying they won't work, go on dates, make art or even get to the bathroom on their own.

Excuse me? (Does this lady look like she can't take care of herself?)

My partner is Autistic, she works two jobs, she does art, she's never been a sports person but we played Pickleball a few times last summer if that counts. The Kiddo is Autistic, honor student, played sports last year, wants a job something fierce...and more than that, ferocity defines her. 

So what if she geeks out and hyper-focuses on Anime or video games once in awhile?! 

I'm sick of this garbage and I'm sick of these idiotic liars who are constantly talking shit about, for all intents and purposes, my family.

From daydreams on the road there was no waking. He plodded on. He could remember everything of her save her scent. Seated in a theatre with her beside him leaning forward listening to the music. Gold scrollwork and sconces and the tall columnar folds of the drapes at either side of the stage. She held his hand in her lap and he could feel the tops of her stockings through the thin stuff of her summer dress. Freeze this frame. Now call down your dark and your cold and be damned.

~From Cormac McCarthy's The Road (Book.)

Note I say this as a former Republican. My partner is in the same boat. I mean, goddamn, how can you have any humanity and be a goddamned Republican at this point? These Fucking People have let Trump become their identity and take over their minds to the point where they're Okay with Trump (or anybody else) torturing kids??

It's all dishonest, it's all a lie. To call it a cult at this point is to understate the matter, unless you're calling it a Murder Cult like the cult of Moloch in ancient Carthage or the Thugees in India. These Fucking People want so very badly not only to discriminate against other people for no good reason, they want to pretty much create whole classes of people that they can do whatever they want to whenever they want. Like Orcs in some of the older D&D editions.

How "Christian" of them.

And if you haven't noticed there's a already a constant stream of sick shit coming out about *Checks Notes* These Fucking People. And there's a lot of these White, supposedly "Christian" freakish idiots who would let them torture even their own kids. Obviously, I have a problem with that.

And I'd have a big problem with that even if I didn't have a partner with a kid, come on.

It's called being human.

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 mean, the simple fact is a lot of these "Republicans" have forgotten what that word even means, and basically turned it into a cult of their own "Identity" which is itself largely founded in racism and simple ass being oppositional to Other People for no reason. I can't even talk the way these people talk.

And they're apparently expanding this cult shit. I mean, I could have told you years ago that Cory Booker was not a good guy, I just got that kind of vibe about him when I saw him on Roland Martin's show on CNN back in the day, but nobody wanted to listen at the time. He's butt-buddies with Peter Pan Theil. Stop and think about that for a second.

Cuz like it or not, you're probably looking at the list for the next Epstein Cult right here.

America needs an Elijah to call this Baal-worshiping bullshit out.

Sorry but I'm increasingly of the opinion that if you go to cocaine parties or get wrapped up in weird shit with creepy billionaires you not only shouldn't be in government or public life, you should probably be investigated like a common criminal. I want the bullshit stopped, the cliques and secret societies and weird shit broken up, term limits for everything, I don't give a shit if you're some bullshit-ass policy staffer or the Senate's fucking doorman.

And we have Representatives and Senators that have been in office until they died. Don Young represented Alaska for the entire first 45 years of my life. This should not be the case here. And Don Young isn't the worst one. Chuck Grassley has been in Iowa politics since 1958 and Federal politics since 1974. I was less than a year old when Chuck Grassley ran for office at the Federal level the first time and he was already middle-aged!

Nobody that's 92 years old and still has the values of 1958 or before needs to still be employed in 2026, much less be a Senator, dude should have retired 30 years ago...and easily could have.

America was not designed to have a noble or political class, let alone one full of demon-worshiping perverted murderers who keep trying to enslave everybody else!

And yes, that's exactly what all these attacks on women's rights are. I have a problem with this. Most of the people important to me at this point are women, because I'm a man and *I* pick the fucking Bear.

That's what all the eugenics crap and racism and rich people's secret "debate" society bullshit is.

If you're not there to do the job like it says on the side of the can, if you don't live where you represent, if you're just there to get rich or be buddy-buddy with rich weirdos...get the fuck out! Go work in the private sector. If you're older than the concept of the jet aircraft you should have to retire (and why you refused to quit should also be a subject of investigation. Call it ageist, I don't give a fuck, holding up progress is not a valid reason to do anything.) 

And if you're one of these freaks that, for all intents and purposes believes in Slavery? We had a war about this. You should be gone and so should everything your racist self-serving ass ever voted on. We'll start over without you and your creepy horseshit. Fuck You. And fuck these fucking people's voter-base that somehow thinks they're not on the list.

Because I'm here to tell you, White People, Republicans want to colonize and enslave you first, because you're the ones they haven't got to yet.

Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen. ~Ezekiel 16:49-50

And however bad you think it is, it's worse.

Because while these people play their fuck-fuck games, steal money and try to enact their prejudices into law, they've let America go to shit. 

These fucking idiots have turned the reflecting pool in Washington DC into a rather green National Swamp that looks very little damned different from the lake in front of my Mom's house. 

More to the point it only took a couple weeks to go to shit and turn green. And too much of America thinks that crap is funny, somehow.

These assholes have turned a place at the supposed center of our national life into a fucking swamp.

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

Too much of this shit ain't working and America is heading for, I believe, a Fyre Festival-like collapse if we don't turn things around, and quickly.

More to the point I think that's exactly what Republicans want to happen, so they can have a little banana republic somewhere and throw out all the people they don't like...which will in fact include a shit-ton of other Republicans.

There's a reason too many of these assholes saw shit like Survivor when "Reality TV" first appeared on scene in like 1999 and said "Ook! Ook!"

As I've said on here before I thought it was ungodly and wrong at the time.

My ex-wife watched that shit with an expression of absolute joy on her face. It was creepy, I still can't explain it.

Not legends, not myths, facts. I was there.

And they're already voting people off their own island. It'll be worse now.

You think the "Purity" Leftists were bad? You have no damned idea how much worse the Purity Republicans are gonna be.

Nameless One: “Shadow of this life?”

Dhall, Dustman scribe: “Yes, a shadow. You see, Restless One, this life is not real. Your life, my life, they are shadows, flickerings of what life once was. This life is where we end up after we die, and here we remain. Trapped, caged, until we can achieve the True Death.”

Nameless One: “True Death?”

Dhall, Dustman scribe: “True death is non-existence. A state devoid of reason, of passion, of sensation.” [Dhall coughs] “A state of purity.”

Nameless One: Sounds like oblivion, why would anyone would want that? 

~from the D&D video game Planescape Torment

America was not intended to be a Cult.

You either believe in freedom or you don't.

And either you're gonna fight for it or you're not.

Pick a fucking side.

Слава Україна!

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

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

Andor: Is that the best you got?

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

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

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

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

Four

We are a nation that has a government — not the other way around. And this makes us special among the nations of the Earth. Our Government has no power except that granted it by the people. ~Ronald Reagan.

Beyond Chunderdome (Not Legends, Not Myths, Facts. Four.)

Auntie Entity: And what did you do before all this?

Max: I was a cop, a driver.

Auntie Entity: Well, how the world turns. One day cock of the walk, next a feather-duster.

~From the film Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome.

....

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

...

We are a nation that has a government — not the other way around. And this makes us special among the nations of the Earth. Our Government has no power except that granted it by the people. ~Ronald Reagan.

I saw this last night. 

Some ignorant racist motherfucker of a UFC fighter standing there first saying "Jesus is his Savior" and then in the next breath trying to say Michelle Obama is a "Man" or Transgender or some bullshit.

And Joe Rogan just stands there grinning like a goon. Fuck off, dude.

Yeah, couple things about that. These idiots were trying to say Obama was gay or paint him as some kind of sexual pervert for eight years and all I ever saw was the obviously-happy, normal-as-fuck wife and two happy, well-adjusted daughters that looked very much like their parents and I learned a long time ago to trust in what the Mark One Human Eyeball tells me over what comes out of the mouth of some idiot whose job is to get hit in the head for a living.

And compare and contrast that to the Trumps, father and son both obviously Coked Out Of Their Gourds, Wife very clearly trying not to look like a Wife or a Mom. 

I mean, Come the fuck on.

The fuck is wrong with you??

I mean, basically the first time I saw anything about that UFC dude, it was a video of him throwing up all over himself. So, perhaps we should have been calling this event Beyond Chunderdome?? I didn't even learn dude's name until last night!

And on top of that These Fucking People have turned the White House into nothing but the White Trash-A-Palooza complete with fights that the Capitol Police are having to break up and shit.

If these fucking people are so right, or so righteous, why are they all drunk or on drugs all the time and why are they ALL so fucking angry??

And if these people Believe? Why are they so desperate for something to believe in, for a "god" that they can see...that they'll tolerate this fucking garbage??

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.

Now, I don't know if you've noticed this, but the Anti-Black or Anti-Transgender rhetoric clearly isn't stopping in either place, not that it ever has before either.

That shit is getting used against any woman that doesn't fit some bullshit-ass patriarchal stereotype and since my Other Half clearly doesn't fit that and never has, I have a problem with that bullshit.

And, like my partner 20 years ago when ignorant motherfuckers we worked with used to call her a man, I'm just gonna go there and say that while Michelle Obama isn't a man, she's still more of a man than Joe Rogan or Josh Hokit is.

I mean, both are technically biologically Male. But neither has the conduct or mentality of a Man as I was taught that. I'll note that none of these fucking people works for a living or seems to care much for others or wants to protect anything but their own damn ass.

And about every word out of These Fucking People's mouths is a lie.

Again, this isn't how I was taught, and I started out as a Christian and a conservative.

Apparently those words meant different things back then.

If this is "Christian Nationalism" well then both of those words are lies.

None of this shit does anything in the service of either. This isn't conservatism, it's just bad behavior.

And I think it says some pretty bad things about modern American "Conservatism" that the whole edifice falls apart without all this garbage.

Imma say it again.

You either believe in freedom or you don't.

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

I'm sick of this bullshit.

Y'all need Jesus, America.

Again, not legends, not myths, facts. Not bullshit-ass secularized Trump Tent-Revivalism, sound doctrine and theology and care for the poor and needy and other people in general. Love Thy Neighbor.

And this? This ain't it.

Слава Україна!

 [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."

Three

Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen. ~Ezekiel 16:49-50