The Revolution Will Be Livestreamed (Five.)

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.

...

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

I saw this last night.

But more to the point, around Threads at least, I saw that things were relatively quiet.

Turns out in the last few days, the Ukrainians took out several Russian data centers, which appears to have eliminated a lot of the Russian bots and Trolls that usually infest the Internet. Kind of puts a new spin on all these tech bros wanting to build so many of the damn things here if taking out just a few overseas cleans things up that much, eh?? 

I was an End Times prophecy guy. It all feels very Revelation 13 to me.

So yeah, if you're going around getting your talking points from this shit, or using a bunch of AI, don't try to tell me how much of a "Believer" you are. Your bigotry and religiosity has delivered you straight into the camp of Antichrist and you're not even going to care until you find yourself lined up on Christ's left side.

Because the Hate is more important to you.

I said what I said. I Have Spoken.

You don't like it? That's a YOU problem.

And I'll note, with the Clankers gone there's still a lot of the genuine idiots left, but there's not nearly as many of them as there is of the rest of us.

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.

Funny that apparently Facebook and Twitter and shit could have apparently done something about this bullshit this whole time, but didn't. These fucking people are trying to manufacture Idiocracy, although one that's far more malevolent than the one in the movie.

And for no better reason than to keep Power in the hands of a few old Republican fossils who have no business still even working, much less being in government or wielding political power. People like Chuck Grassley or Mitch McConnell existing tells me we need term limits for everything. Most of these old Boomer Republican shit-bags should have stepped aside 30 years ago and let people like (for example) my generation step up.

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 Planescape Torment

There ain't no fucking reason somebody who's gonna be 101 years old at the end of their term even needs to still be in office. I don't give a fuck.

I mean, among other things I don't even feel like I need to live that long, I don't care about the money.

These fucking people seem to desire, and exist, only to hold up progress for the rest of us, mostly out of a rabid, pants-shitting fear that a Black person might get some of it. I'm tired of this crap, I don't give a damn, and I can honestly say I've never hated anybody (let alone a group of people) that much.

Although lately Republicans are sorely testing that conviction and I say that as a former Republican.

And since they won't step aside voluntarily, we need to start making laws about it. 

All the senior leadership in this country is either old and outdated or so fucking fascist and reactionary that they can't even talk to regular people. IF they haven't found some kind of way to be both at the same time!

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.

Worse, it's looking more and more like they're headed for a political wipeout for the ages, and the only thing they seem to be capable of doing is shrugging and saying "Well, everybody's gotta die sometime."

Bro if that's how you look at life, if you have no interest in making anything better and just want to take up space until you die, while creating negative units of work that somebody else will then later have to clean up, why are you even in government??

"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, someone's iPhone rings, the ringtone "It's Raining Men." The man, a middle-aged Republican in a suit, silences his phone. Sheepish Silence.]

"Please clap."

~Jeb! Bush, February 2nd, 2016

And mind you, the next generation of alleged "Conservatives" is so far from anything I'd recognize as Republican that I don't even have words for it. At least Chuck Grassley looks the part.

Way too many of these motherfuckers like this guy I ended up getting pulled into the ratio on Threads for basically look like they're just using a bunch of fake religious and right-wing talk and maybe a bodybuilding bit to build up engagement for their Grindr profiles.

I'm pretty sure if you look at things in a cultural, historical and technological sense...Jesus was a working man in his day. A carpenter, which in ancient Israel meant working with stone as much as or more than wood. He would have been a physically powerful man and He didn't act like this!

I can't stress this enough, people are TIRED of this crap. I see it every day.

You either believe in freedom or you don't. You're either willing to fight against those who would take it away from you, or you're not.

The Revolution Will Be Livestreamed.

Слава Україна!

My black face fades,
hiding inside the black granite.
I said I wouldn't
dammit: No tears.
I'm stone. I'm flesh.
My clouded reflection eyes me
like a bird of prey, the profile of night slanted against morning. 

I turn this way—the stone lets me go.
I turn that way—I'm inside
the Vietnam Veterans Memorial
again, depending on the light
to make a difference.
I go down the 58,022 names,
half-expecting to find
my own in letters like smoke. 

I touch the name Andrew Johnson; 

I see the booby trap's white flash.
Names shimmer on a woman's blouse
but when she walks away
the names stay on the wall.
Brushstrokes flash, a red bird's
wings cutting across my stare.
The sky. A plane in the sky.
A white vet's image floats
closer to me, then his pale eyes
look through mine. I'm a window.
He's lost his right arm
inside the stone. In the black mirror
a woman’s trying to erase names:
No, she's brushing a boy's hair.

~Facing It, by Yusef Komunyakaa, US Army Veteran

Four

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

The Revolution Will Be Livestreamed (Four.)

Ripley: Ash, can you hear me? Ash?!

Ash: Yes, I can hear you.

Ripley: What was your special order?

Ash: You read it. I thought it was clear.

Ripley: What was it?

Ash: Bring back lifeform. Priority One. All other priorities rescinded.

Parker: You and the damn company. What about our lives, you son of a bitch?!

Ash: I repeat: all other priorities are rescinded.

Ripley: How do we kill it, Ash? There's got to be a way of killing it. How – how do we do it?

Ash: You can't.

Parker: That's bullshit.

Ash: You still don't understand what you're dealing with, do you? A perfect organism. Its structural perfection is matched only by its hostility.

Lambert: You admire it.

Ash: I admire its purity. A survivor...unclouded by conscience, remorse, or delusions of morality.

Parker: Look, I don't... I've heard enough of this, and I'm asking you to pull the plug.

[Ripley moves to turn Ash off, but he interrupts]

Ash: Last word.

Ripley: What?

Ash: I can't lie to you about your chances, but... you have my sympathies. [smiles]

Ripley: [turns Ash off] We're gonna blow up the ship. We'll take our chances, and blow up the ship. ~From the film Alien.

I saw this when I got home this morning.

Somebody pointed out that the same fucking people who 20 or 30 years ago were ranting about the Antichrist publicly executing people are *Checks Notes* all excited about an upcoming public execution arranged by Keg-Breath and Trump.

And I'll note that last night I saw this, a dude claiming to be "married" to his AI-girlfriend that he created himself.

Like that's not about a million levels of creepy. Dude has an AI daughter-wife?

And how does that work when it's also the same people who've spent decades ranting about the Mark Of The Beast and the ungodliness of too much reliance on technology??

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

I mean, first off it's pretty much Babylon and the Mark Of The Beast all in one, isn't it??

Second, not to be crude or anything but I'm confused as to the, uh, physical and other mechanics of this. Generally speaking one gets a girlfriend and later on, wife in order to not end up polishing one's own little red rocket. Come on, dude.

Sorry but I know my partner is real, we provide each other companionship and support. Girlfriend.Exe isn't going to do that. And there's probably a subscription you have to pay! 

It's not just that I don't think I could do this shit...I can't imagine why anybody would want to.

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 Planescape Torment

Oh, right.

It's the same people who "Traditionally" think ideas are better than people anyway, who also historically crave The Oblivion out of a perverse philosophical desire for "Purity" and who can generally be trusted to find the least humane solution to about any problem.

And they'll usually provide Religion as an excuse.

No, fuck that. 

These motherfuckers just want to kill people, or try to intimidate the public. Whatever they think will work, if they can't hypnotize everybody into voting Republican.

"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, the pendulum swings as Bush speaks in a curious monotone, Silence.]

"Please clap."

[The Crowd bursts into thunderous applause.]

~Jeb! Bush, February 2nd, 2016

Well, it's not working. 

Never mind the Ten Commandments or anything else, political power is more important, or some such bullshit. 

Fuck, is these people's idea of "Heaven" the Nine Hells of Baator with its endless hierarchies of Devils right out of Dungeons & Dragons?? I kind of feel like it's exactly that. That's what these assholes want.

And if they can't have it, they desire Oblivion...not only for themselves but for everybody else. It's a Death Cult.

Some of us don't wanna live in that kind of Multiverse. No, Too Bad, Fuck You.

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

Unless of course you're Benny Johnson, he doesn't get the Death Cult aesthetic, he gets Nero-as-theater-kid because "Fuck You, That's Why."

While wearing a "The Left Can't Meme" T-shirt??

Bitch, if we've learned anything from the war in Iran it's that the Right can't FIGHT.

Not without the deck completely pre-stacked in their favor. And ya know? I think that's a little more important.

And again, if they can't have that totalitarian control...and get everybody else to roll over for it...they don't want anybody to have anything at all, they'd rather blow up the Universe than not imagine themselves as gods.

It's not just that they aren't that, or can't be it...it's that These Fucking People don't deserve anything of the sort. They deserve the kind of Ass Whuppin that is literally the primordial example of what an Ass Whuppin is.

No small part of these fucking people's problem is that while they were hoarding Political Power like the little scratchy dude from Ice Age hoarding nuts, the world changed, and they didn't even notice.

And the way American culture and society are structured, they can't change it back. There's nothing to change it back to. The past is gone.

I'm tired of this bullshit. The question is, why aren't you??

You either believe in freedom or you don't.

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

It's really that simple.

The Revolution Will Be Livestreamed.

Слава Україна!

My black face fades,
hiding inside the black granite.
I said I wouldn't
dammit: No tears.
I'm stone. I'm flesh.
My clouded reflection eyes me
like a bird of prey, the profile of night slanted against morning. 

I turn this way—the stone lets me go.
I turn that way—I'm inside
the Vietnam Veterans Memorial
again, depending on the light
to make a difference.
I go down the 58,022 names,
half-expecting to find
my own in letters like smoke. 

I touch the name Andrew Johnson; 

I see the booby trap's white flash.
Names shimmer on a woman's blouse
but when she walks away
the names stay on the wall.
Brushstrokes flash, a red bird's
wings cutting across my stare.
The sky. A plane in the sky.
A white vet's image floats
closer to me, then his pale eyes
look through mine. I'm a window.
He's lost his right arm
inside the stone. In the black mirror
a woman’s trying to erase names:
No, she's brushing a boy's hair.

~Facing It, by Yusef Komunyakaa, US Army Veteran

Three

[Kuiil and Mando have successfully repaired the Razor Crest with the parts recovered from the Jawas]

The Mandalorian: I can't thank you enough. Please allow me to give you a portion of the reward.

Kuiil: I cannot accept. You are my guest, and I am therefore in your service.

The Mandalorian: I could use a crew member of your ability. And I can pay handsomely.

Kuiil: I am honored. But I have worked a lifetime to finally be free of servitude.

The Mandalorian: I understand. Then... all I can offer is my thanks.

Kuiil: And I offer mine. Thank you for bringing peace to my valley. [leaves the ship and mounts his Blurrg; to Mando] And good luck with the Child. May it survive and bring you a handsome reward. I have spoken.

~From the Star Wars series; The Mandalorian, S1.E2 "The Child."

The Revolution Will Be Livestreamed (Three.)

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:

All mimsy were the borogoves,

And the mome raths outgrabe.

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!

The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!

Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun

The frumious Bandersnatch!”

He took his vorpal sword in hand;

Long time the manxome foe he sought

So rested he by the Tumtum tree

And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,

The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,

Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,

And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through

The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!

He left it dead, and with its head

He went galumphing back. ~Jabberwocky, by Lewis Carroll.

...

For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears. ~2 Timothy 4:3

...

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.

I saw this shit yesterday.

A whole bunch of Trump supporters being interviewed, no fucking idea what's going on, not a goddamn clue what's happening in the world. But oh boy, you betcha, they're sure Trump's going to fix it! I'm sorry, but I've never been capable of fitting my head that far up my own ass.

There's nothing conservative about any of this bullshit.

I'm a conservative. These fucking people are just idiots.

Twenty years ago, when my partner and I were just a couple of third-shift food service workers, part of the same gaming group, and the sort of friends who were so close everybody else assumed we were a couple before we did...we had intense, passionate arguments about politics, and we were in fact mostly representing different parts of the same side. I was more old-school Reaganite, she was more Bush 43 Neoconservative. As the Republican Party lost me...a process well underway at that point, the arguments just got more interesting. But, we worked with opinionated, very smart people for the most part. You had to keep up or you didn't last very long. Lots of 'em didn't.

"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, you can hear the braincells draining from the crowd, Silence.]

"Please clap."

~Jeb! Bush, February 2nd, 2016

By the time I left that place a bit over five years ago now...it wasn't that way anymore.

As a custodian, I worked with this guy, let's call him Jim.

Jim was a Trump Supporter, Capital T, Capital S, and by his own admission, no fucking idea why. I mean, not that I'm interested in being fair to this ass-clown but in fairness to him, he didn't seem to have any kind of idea about anything else either. No military service, no life experience or work-experience outside of jobs like the one he had, cleaning kitchen equipment and mopping floors. Never seemed to be or said anything religious either. He'd been a janitor at Dow Chemical in Midland or somewhere like that. 

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

You know, the kind of $20-an-hour-for-grunt-work jobs that pretty much died off in the 1990's...until they outsourced the job to Service Master and he'd mucked around with bullshit jobs ever since. The one thing he had that I ever saw was a nice 1995 Chevy Silverado extended-cab 4x4, just a slight update on the red truck I'd had. That shit was immaculate. That was about the only good point this fool had.

Dude had pretty much spent 40 years using his head for a hat-rack. In his defense he never appeared to be or said anything overtly racist. And unlike (for example) my partner as she was when we met, he was not obviously political except for a general dislike of liberals and his media choices. He didn't really argue. If you had knowledge about something, dude would stand there, let you talk and basically let that shit go in one ear and out the other. He was the last known addition to the crew on my custodial shift that would stare at the TV when FOX News was on it, zombie-eyed like ADHD kids binging cartoons.

It was one thing when it was my ex-wife's young son doing that. It's quite another when it's a 60-year-old man.

I found it massively creepy.

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

So one day, I straight up asked him WHY he supported Trump. He thought about it for a second, like visibly crunched...I don't know, chicken bones, numbers, old stale cornflakes, a tuna can, various janky porn films he bought on VHS when they were cheap...I don't know, whatever was in that empty-ass head...and came back up with "I like the shit he says. I don't know, I'm a dumbass or something."

Hey, at least he was honest. That was a statement I never saw anything to ever contradict 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.

By contrast, my partner...along with most of the conservatives I've ever known who ever gave their beliefs or anything else any thought at all...fucking hates Trump, if for slightly different reasons.

And it got worse after dealing with the leech MAGA relatives.

Deservedly so.

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

The thing is, a lot of these fucking people were not like us. 

We were expected to know stuff, to learn things, to read books and stuff like that. It wasn't a choice. I had a teacher in Elementary school. Mrs. Nitz from rural Iowa, a gray-haired old lady who'd retired from teaching there, moved to Southern California and started teaching again. There was a whole massive shit-ton of books that later became films like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, James and the Giant Peach and Where the Wild Things Are that I knew as books first because we read them in her class, with her reading out loud and making sure we followed along. 

There were quizzes and shit with smart-ass trick-questions.

My partner? Different books, different location, similar scenarios. Same result, too. Her stuff, running a little later than mine, is a little heavier on 1990's Disney and janky aughts vampire fiction. But in both of our cases, imagination was encouraged, intelligence expected, you had to read and understand the material.

Hell, Trump doesn't do that.

We grew up with expectations of diversity and progress, with the idea that the world should get better, not worse.

I for one always expected to live in a country that wanted to make something more than money, internet content, political power or some bullshit like that.

I don't preach a social Gospel I preach the Gospel, period. The gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ is concerned for the whole person. When people were hungry, Jesus didn't say, "Now is that political or social?" He said, "I feed you." Because the good news to a hungry person is bread. ~Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

We, like our Founders and a lot of people down through this country's history, understood knowledge is also power and you have to be at least a little bit smart to remain free...and then you have to do something with it.

Today's Republican Party doesn't want to do anything but roll back the clock to something approaching the Dark Ages, immiserate everybody else and then act like misery is some kind of bullshit religious duty, and then sit on its ass collecting checks and letting *Checks Notes* Donald Trump do its thinking and work for it, and their voter base isn't much better. And Republicans somehow thought that everybody else would trade their life and standard of living for Republican BS, perversion and shareholder value they never get any of. I couldn't do it.

Now? Republicans are in panic-mode because for all their attempts at cheating and trying to put their whole ass on the scale, the numbers are still terrible and it looks like the midterms are going to be a Republican bloodbath.

Kuiil and Mando have successfully repaired the Razor Crest with the parts recovered from the Jawas]

The Mandalorian: I can't thank you enough. Please allow me to give you a portion of the reward.

Kuiil: I cannot accept. You are my guest, and I am therefore in your service.

The Mandalorian: I could use a crew member of your ability. And I can pay handsomely.

Kuiil: I am honored. But I have worked a lifetime to finally be free of servitude.

The Mandalorian: I understand. Then... all I can offer is my thanks.

Kuiil: And I offer mine. Thank you for bringing peace to my valley. [leaves the ship and mounts his Blurrg; to Mando] And good luck with the Child. May it survive and bring you a handsome reward. I have spoken.

~From the Star Wars series; The Mandalorian, S1.E2 "The Child."

Whatever, you asked for it, FAFO.

Trump is pulling crowds of a few hundred where he used to get thousands. He's campaigned everywhere from Bull Shit, Oklahoma to (Wait, what?) Syracuse, New York. Now, having been to Syracuse I'm not exactly sure what even Trump thought he was gonna accomplish by going there. Convenience, maybe? There's an Air National Guard base in that city which I suppose made security and transport easier. But it's a Blue freaking area in a Blue freaking state.

The crowds against are bigger than the crowds for him.

The thing Republicans forgot is it's not just American politics that's small-D democratic, it's American culture that'll try to put almost anything to a vote...almost to a ridiculous degree. Even when it's something like "Other people exist" or "Science is real" that shouldn't be up for debate. Republicans know this and have been happy to exploit it. Then they decided to overplay their hand and shit all over the American people and the world.

And they're panicking now that the voting public seems intent on saying "Fuck All That."

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

And along the way they assumed everybody else as as cynical and murderous and selfish as they were. No, most of us have people and things we care about.

Then they trusted in Political Cultism and Trump to save them, "Praying" that the Atheism-minus-one mentality of the American Evangelical...a belief system so deeply cynical that anything you can't see or indeed anything outside of what the Preacher said last Sunday or what they saw on NEWSMAX last night can be argued as not real...and yet then they wanna turn around and tell you to have "faith" in "God?"

For people that are so religious, they sure don't seem to believe in any Higher Power than themselves. Maybe when your voters have unseasoned mashed potatoes for brains and will believe about anything, you can do that. But we ain't all that way.

It's nonsense.

And I'd argue that as a result of this bullshit...which starts in churches with preachers that are little more than Zampolits for the Republican Party...that America is an increasingly and violently Atheistic and Materialistic country. I'd argue as much or more so as the old Soviet Union ever was. In fact, it's rather evident that unfettered Capitalism has done everything to us that Republicans ever accused Communism of. I was wrong, even Trump couldn't overcome Ayn Rand at being Republican Jesus.

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

This mess is completely spiritually empty, and it's gradually emptying our lives of material things, also. America is being Oligarch-raided just like the Soviet Union was in 1990. They're being too obvious about it.

They're being too obvious in hoping that most American people, like Russians, will just wallow in alcohol and miserable bastardy and accept this bullshit. It's not an accident a lot of the media elites are pretty much trying to talk to Americans like we're Russian peasants.

Fuck You, No. I've heard how things went over there, even got to see a little of it in the military. And in Bosnia I saw a lot more of the mess These Fucking People made of Eastern Europe. That's what Trump wants for America.

Like I said during COVID-19, the Republican ideal of the Future is the Killing Fields of Khmer Rouge Cambodia, but with a Mall.

That's Trump's idea of "Great Again."

The hell with that.

People are tired of it.

And we're going to vote the fuckers out. 

God forbid they try anything stupid. The country is going to explode if they do.

You either believe in freedom or you don't.

The Revolution Will Be Livestreamed.

Слава Україна!

My black face fades,
hiding inside the black granite.
I said I wouldn't
dammit: No tears.
I'm stone. I'm flesh.
My clouded reflection eyes me
like a bird of prey, the profile of night slanted against morning. 

I turn this way—the stone lets me go.
I turn that way—I'm inside
the Vietnam Veterans Memorial
again, depending on the light
to make a difference.
I go down the 58,022 names,
half-expecting to find
my own in letters like smoke. 

I touch the name Andrew Johnson; 

I see the booby trap's white flash.
Names shimmer on a woman's blouse
but when she walks away
the names stay on the wall.
Brushstrokes flash, a red bird's
wings cutting across my stare.
The sky. A plane in the sky.
A white vet's image floats
closer to me, then his pale eyes
look through mine. I'm a window.
He's lost his right arm
inside the stone. In the black mirror
a woman’s trying to erase names:
No, she's brushing a boy's hair.

~Facing It, by Yusef Komunyakaa, US Army Veteran

Two

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

The wind whispers of fear and hate. The war has killed love. And those that confess to the Angkar are punished, and no one dare ask where they go. Here, only the silent survive. ~Dith Pran, The Killing Fields.