Missing The Damn Point (One Of Us... Five.)

Then spoke Jesus to the multitude, and to his disciples,

Saying The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat:

All therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do; but do not ye after their works: for they say, and do not.

For they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men's shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers.

But all their works they do for to be seen of men: they make broad their phylacteries, and enlarge the borders of their garments,

And love the uppermost rooms at feasts, and the chief seats in the synagogues,

And greetings in the markets, and to be called of men, Rabbi, Rabbi.

But be not ye called Rabbi: for one is your Master, even Christ; and all ye are brethren.

And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven.

Neither be ye called masters: for one is your Master, even Christ.

But he that is greatest among you shall be your servant.

And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased; and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted.

But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in.

Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows' houses, and for a pretense make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation.

Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves.

Woe unto you, ye blind guides, which say, Whosoever shall swear by the temple, it is nothing; but whosoever shall swear by the gold of the temple, he is a debtor!

Ye fools and blind: for whether is greater, the gold, or the temple that sanctifies the gold?

And, Whosoever shall swear by the altar, it is nothing; but whosoever swears by the gift that is upon it, he is guilty.

Ye fools and blind: for whether is greater, the gift, or the altar that sanctifies the gift?

Whoso therefore shall swear by the altar, swears by it, and by all things thereon.

And whoso shall swear by the temple, swears by it, and by him that dwelleth therein.

And he that shall swear by heaven, swears by the throne of God, and by him that sit thereon.

Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cumin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.

Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel.

Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess.

Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also.

Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchers, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness.

Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.

Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchers of the righteous,

And say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.

Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets.

Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers.

Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?

~Matthew 23:1-33

I saw this the other day.

Joel Webbon literally said "Christian Nationalism Or Bust."

Bust, alright, as in Imma bust you right in the mouth.

I'm a Christian, if a fairly agnostic one at this point. I have a church background, I'm a former Republican, I'm a veteran. I can tell you without looking that my priors as a Christian are better than Joel Webbon's. I'm a Believer and I'm tired of these goddamn Calvinist freaks.

Christian Nationalism is not Christianity, it does not follow Jesus nor want to; This is the same old same old Imperialistic Religiosity that worshiped Ahura Mazda, Baal, Moloch, Jupiter, Zeus, and a host of other "gods" that are now little more than mythological curiosities for most people, and also various "religious" figures like Saint George. The "faith" of Empire is not the Faith of or in Jesus. It's what killed Him.

This is the same bullshit religiosity that Christians spent my whole life telling me wouldn't get me into Heaven. But Joel doesn't care if you go to Hell.

He just gets off on the idea of forcing people to act a certain way in public, he doesn't even really care what the fuck people do behind closed doors so long as it fits within this current ideal of paternalistic, patriarchal cruelty.

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.

For all Joel and people like him care, people could worship demons, so long as the demons tell those people to abuse women, be miserable bastards and maintain a rigid right-wing aesthetic.

I already know for a fact that current "Republicans" (Because let's face it, even though MAGA is also falling by the wayside, the Republican Party as I knew it was already dead-dead) would rather tolerate vicious scumbag welfare people so long as they get in the way enough and screw things up for decent working folks that are trying to do something...than actually make anything better for anybody. The secret sauce of understanding today's Republicans is "They don't want to do anything, but they don't want anybody else to do anything either."

Part of it is they figure they have to make the machinery of modernity jump the tracks to bring back feudalism for their Billionaire masters, part of it is a lot of these idiots are just plain miserable bastards and shitty little narcissists with raging cases of medieval peasant-brain.

Now they're pouring out Diet Coke.

I don't think the Coca-Cola Company gives a shit, considering they had to buy it first.

Seriously, a lot of these idiots (including people like Dale Partridge, Joel Webbon and Nancy Mace) do a lot of the shitty things they do for three reasons; Bigotry, Internet "Clout" and straight-up self-worship.

Seriously if she had to, I bet Nancy Mace would do the worst imaginable porn if it got her the attention that she craved. And if you could convince him it'd boost his woman-abusing, shitty-drunk Calvinist brand it's not hard to imagine Doug Wilson being behind her holding the camera.

As long as no one has any fun and they feel their values of Control and "Manly" "Power" and Slavery are furthered These Fucking People would rather watch gross-ass Porn than something like The Passion Of The Christ or Veggie Tales, don't fool yourself.

Vern Schillinger: Come over here and ask me if you can fuck your wife. Come on, ask me! Now!

Tobias Beecher: Can I be with my wife?

Vern Schillinger: Fuck my wife.

Tobias Beecher: Fuck my wife.

Vern Schillinger: Louder, and say "please" and "sir".

Tobias Beecher: Please, sir, may I fuck my wife?

Vern Schillinger: Louder.

Tobias Beecher: Please, sir, may I fuck my wife!

Vern Schillinger: When you ask me like that, I can't deny you anything. 

~From the HBO Series Oz, S1.E2 "Visits, Conjugal and Otherwise."

I knew that when I read Tia Levings' book and it turned out her abusive husband was just an abusive drunk, and then I did some research and found out a bunch of these Calvinist Theo-bros also do Alcohol-related podcasts and shit. I can remember when something like...well, any of this stuff...would get somebody run out of [public life in] Christian Fundamentalism on a fucking rail.

I have a partner and a kid to think about, I can't afford to tolerate any of this garbage!

And These Fucking People would rather force a fourteen-year-old girl to chop wood for ten hours than see her go to church!

As I've said many times all these creepy theocratic Beard-o's might as well worship Baal for as much as they ever actually show the values even of the God of the Old Testament. It's literally ANYTHING but "Love Thy Neighbor."

How the fuck do people get this involved in religion and somehow not read the source material or otherwise Miss The Goddamn Point??

Cuz this is exactly how you go to hell, bro.

I am the way into the city of woe.

I am the way to a forsaken people.
I am the way into eternal sorrow.
Sacred justice moved my architect.
I was raised here by divine omnipotence, primordial love and ultimate intellect
Only those elements time cannot wear are beyond me,
and beyond time I stand.
Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here.'
~Sign above the gates of hell (variant translation) Canto III, Dante's Inferno, the Divine Comedy.

Like it's not even a question.

Not that any of the people doing this shit care. They want to have their "reward" now...and have it specifically in the form of whatever petty Earthly Power each of them can get.

And honestly part of why These Fucking People keep trying to wreck everything is they want to screw things up so bad that their nasty little churches are the only recourse people might have.

Not that they would actually help anybody after forcing them to grovel before their shitty, mean little Calvinist idols.

They just want to see other people grovel. They just want to have their boot on somebody else's neck before they die and go to Hell.

They either don't understand or just don't care that when Jesus said "They have their reward now" regarding people with religiosity...it meant that those people were going to Hell later.

And people are fucking getting tired of this bullshit. 

I believe I have been pretty explicit on this exact point.

Hell, people are running for office on a platform of "I'm tired of this shit!" now!

And by the way, even other countries Calvinist assholes that they've tried to import are seeing this mess, turning around and going back home!

That, right there, should tell you something; At least the Afrikaners know if they go back to South Africa they'll have health care and rights.

Even they know the people trying to sell you this pie-in-the-sky-when-you-die crap while they fuck up the Earth in the here and now for ideology and profit are full of shit.

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 goddamn simple.

And again, what if God is as tired of this bullshit as we are??

That These Fucking People never stop to consider that suggests to me that either they actively believe in and follow the demons...and we're gonna find this out...or that these motherfuckers are even bigger atheists than Richard Dawkins and just hope the hell we don't figure it out.

Bare minimum, the truth will out that they believe in Donald Trump (or Vladimir Putin) way more than they ever believed in Jesus Christ.

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."

Last Post

We bow our heads in worship on this day and give thanks to the Almighty for the bounty He has bestowed upon us over the past year. We raise our voices in holy gladness to celebrate the victory of the risen Christ over the terrible forces of death. Easter is a joyful festival! It is a celebration because it is indeed a festival of hope! Easter marks the renewal of life! The triumph of the light of truth over the darkness of falsehood! Easter is a festival of human solidarity, because it celebrates the fulfilment of the Good News! The Good News borne by our risen Messiah who chose not one race, who chose not one country, who chose not one language, who chose not one tribe, who chose all of humankind! Each Easter marks the rebirth of our faith. It marks the victory of our risen Saviour over the torture of the cross and the grave. Our Messiah, who came to us in the form of a mortal man, but who by his suffering and crucifixion attained immortality. Our Messiah, born like an outcast in a stable, and executed like criminal on the cross. Our Messiah, whose life bears testimony to the truth that there is no shame in poverty: Those who should be ashamed are they who impoverish others. Whose life testifies to the truth that there is no shame in being persecuted: Those who should be ashamed are they who persecute others. Whose life proclaims the truth that there is no shame in being conquered: Those who should be ashamed are they who conquer others. Whose life testifies to the truth that there is no shame in being dispossessed: Those who should be ashamed are they who dispossess others. Whose life testifies to the truth that there is no shame in being oppressed: Those who should be ashamed are they who oppress others. ~Nelson Mandela, Speech at the Zion Christian Church Easter conference, Moria, South Africa, 1994.

If God had a name, what would it be?

And would you call it to His face

If you were faced with Him in all His glory?

What would you ask if you had just one question?

And yeah, yeah, God is great

Yeah, yeah, God is good

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

What if God was one of us

Just a slob like one of us

Just a stranger on the bus

Tryna make His way home?

~Joan Osborne "What If God Was One Of Us?"

Medusa

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.

...

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.

And of course it escalated last night.

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.)

But there's a particular point I'd like to address.

I'm a democratic voter.

Former Republican, but I've been out of that shit for 20 years. Voted D in 2006, re-registered as an Independent in 2008, switched to being a Democrat in 2016 because of Trump.

Let's look at this; Like somebody said, Abdul Sayed and his wife look like they actually like each other.

Mike Rogers and his wife do not.

These fucking people supposedly have all this money and political power, they've got every vapid boob-fluencer imaginable shilling for them spewing anti-Islamic crap. Supposedly, Republicans got the whole world by the balls. (LOL no, but that's what they're trying to convince their voters of.)

And they look like this.

Every damn day.

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."

People who are winning don't look this way.

People who are even happy don't look like this.

A Good man, a real man, don't have his wife sitting next to him looking angry like he came up short on her money. with a side of "Why the fuck did I marry this Wank-Muppet??

Bitch is glaring at the world like Medusa...except she gonna turn you into Potato Salad with raisins instead of Stone.

Pro tip: First, Clean the stank off your face first. If you gotta go to the bar and do a couple shots to crack a smile, fuckin' do 'em.

Second, don't go around looking like you got shit on your upper lip, just had to gargle razor blades and lemon juice and you don't wanna be there before you go on camera.

You're one... ugly motherfucker! ~Dutch, to the Predator, from the film Predator.

You don't ever wanna look like you don't wanna be there when addressing the public.

I get that Republicans are positively in love with the idea of miserable bastardy, but come on.

If my partner was looking like that sitting next to me, I wouldn't figure I was in big trouble, I'd know I was. 

And I'd probably deserve it.

I know what These Fucking People think would make them happy, oh yes I do. But if we've learned anything from the last couple of years it's that these CHUDs can't make the rest of us hate like they hate.

They wanna live in a world (again) where they think they can ban shows like Sesame Street and do so for 22 days before they have to cave to overwhelming public pressure...because they think it'll work out different this time.

What a fucking thing to aspire to, eh??

I hope these idiots think about that and see if they can still feel proud of themselves.

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

These fucking people cannot even defeat the Iranians, anymore than Russia can defeat Ukraine, and they've fucked us over on everything from high altitude ballistic interceptors to precision-guided munitions to basic supplies and working toilets for the troops on the front lines and if you don't think that's a worse problem than it looks like, as a veteran I'm here to tell you, you're wrong. People can die from the unsanitary conditions created when the toilets on a ship all get backed up.

And if you think Republicans are bad now?? Wait until reality kicks them in the teeth a few more times. The angry sullen loser-culture with a serious AI addiction that they've created will only get worse as they continue to lose. And when Trump dies? You ain't seen nothing yet. Stop listening to these people or putting up with this shit...but first, deprive these motherfuckers of any power over your life. At this point, it's a goddamned safety issue. They probably wouldn't be able to pull off a full-on civil war at this point, not with pretty much 70% of the country against them...but they can still kill people.

It's probably still going to come down to a fight somewhere. You have to fight that fight.

The alternative, pretty much...is imagine Mike Rogers and his wife glaring at you like that...forever.

You either believe in freedom or you don't.

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."

Four

We shall abolish the orgasm. Our neurologists are at work upon it now. There will be no loyalty, except loyalty towards the Party. There will be no love, except the love of Big Brother. There will be no laughter, except the laugh of triumph over a defeated enemy. There will be no art, no literature, no science. When we are omnipotent we shall have no more need of science. There will be no distinction between beauty and ugliness. ~George Orwell, 1984

Hellfire III (One Of Us... Four.)

Vern Schillinger: Come over here and ask me if you can fuck your wife. Come on, ask me! Now!

Tobias Beecher: Can I be with my wife?

Vern Schillinger: Fuck my wife.

Tobias Beecher: Fuck my wife.

Vern Schillinger: Louder, and say "please" and "sir".

Tobias Beecher: Please, sir, may I fuck my wife?

Vern Schillinger: Louder.

Tobias Beecher: Please, sir, may I fuck my wife!

Vern Schillinger: When you ask me like that, I can't deny you anything. 

~From the HBO Series Oz, S1.E2 "Visits, Conjugal and Otherwise."
...

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

...

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

So, apparently, Missouri Republican senator Josh Hawley got caught making out with a male escort behind a restaurant by the busboy. 

Seriously are ALL of these Republicans *Checks Notes* Gay??

Oh, right, regarding Hawley in particular I called this one four years ago.

And that would in fact explain how he kisses his wife.

Seriously, What's even the damn point??

I mean, for one thing, I don't know how the hell any conservative women would put up with this crap?

For another, If you're gay, just go be gay, be yourself. It's 2026, nobody but a certain kind of Republican even cares. Repressing your desires just makes things worse.

Keep that shit going long enough, you end up like Dennis Prager, I guess?? His ass got caught trying to say animated child porn was somehow not evil. Bullshit, I have a partner and a kid to worry about. Fuck you.

And then of course Dale Partridge tried to say that Nazis were just a "form of Christian Nationalism."

Is that before or after the Nazis forced their bullshit Black Magic and Neo-Pagan rites on the German churches??

I'll save you some time. Evil is exactly what the fuck is going on here.

Worse, These Fucking People are not even decently-written villains.

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.

These are the kind of fucking guys that, having gotten themselves drummed out of Congress, get themselves caught in an embarrassing position with a guy in a Ronald McDonald costume and then try to say they were looking for a good time and great taste (as my buddy Gary often jokes about) and instead of having the common decency to slink off into obscurity like the disgraced Republicans of past eras, these assholes then try to monetize the fucking scandal.

And you know what else pisses me off??

There's a species of alleged-"Liberal" that, given the choice between this fucking Malicious-Idiocracy Republican garbage and voting for a Democratic Socialist, demands the right to not choose.

By not-choosing, you have chosen.

These Fucking People, the Chuck-and-Hakeem and Haley Stevens crowd are why I've stopped identifying as a liberal.

For one thing I'm probably ideologically closer to Bill Kristol than to Bill Clinton, anyway.

For another? When old-school Never Trump Republicans, people like Bill Kristol and Rick Wilson are saying bring out the damn Guillotine and "Centrists" and/or "Liberals" of a certain class want to send a sternly-worded letter (To Abdul Sayed or Mayor Zohran Mamdani, not even to Donald Trump) you know, you people have a fucking problem.

These particular fucking people are fine with the idea of living in a murderous Idiocracy so long as they can afford to hire security and still get to feel superior to the masses.

Never mind those of us stuck having to defend ourselves, let alone the people who cannot do that.

I thought the whole damn point of liberalism was compassion for other people as political philosophy. I thought the point of being a centrist was to be able to pull moderate views from either side of the spectrum and craft something that works? Apparently, for some people, that shit is their political belief because it's their friends' political belief, or the "right" belief to have to be in whatever clique or level of society they think they're in.

White "Moderates" are not living down MLK Jr's allegations anytime soon. Some people demand the "right" to go through life unhearing and unseeing of the struggles of others and then call themselves "Liberals" because they care about Something Something Gazpacho or some other people in another damn country.

This crap, for some people, is just a different shade of the same narcissism that led to MAGA and is now metastasizing into far worse things than that. It's the same horseshit that leads some dude who naturally should be Queer and Out and happy about it to be a Republican and preach against that type of shit because that's what their parents did, or what their friends do, and then privately they're snorting enough cocaine to kill a horse and hooking up with male escorts on the down-low while creating misery for everybody around them.

I mean, what's even the goddamn point??

Some of us couldn't live like that. Addiction, depression or other mental health issues would kill us before we'd get anywhere.

There's people in this world who can't be who they want to be for far more mundane and terrible reasons that "They can make an ass-ton more money pretending to be a rabidly anti-gay rich Republican" if they aren't their true selves in public.

I'm fucking tired of this garbage and I say that as a former Republican myself!

Some people just straight-up deserve the Hell-fire.

And it ain't the gay people or the Muslims or any of the groups that These Fucking Assholes say it is.

You either believe in freedom or you don't.

What if God simply asked you to give a damn, or to Love your neighbor?

Because He did.

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

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.

If God had a name, what would it be?

And would you call it to His face

If you were faced with Him in all His glory?

What would you ask if you had just one question?

And yeah, yeah, God is great

Yeah, yeah, God is good

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

What if God was one of us

Just a slob like one of us

Just a stranger on the bus

Tryna make His way home?

~Joan Osborne "What If God Was One Of Us?"

One Drop Of Blood (One Of Us... Three.)

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

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

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

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

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

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

And I said, “Here am I. Send me!”

He said, “Go and tell this people:

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

Then I said, “For how long, Lord?”

And he answered:

“Until the cities lie ruined
and without inhabitant,
until the houses are left deserted
and the fields ruined and ravaged,
until the Lord has sent everyone far away
and the land is utterly forsaken.
And though a tenth remains in the land,
it will again be laid waste.
But as the terebinth and oak
leave stumps when they are cut down,
so the holy seed will be the stump in the land.”

~Isaiah 6 (NIV)

...

Vern Schillinger: One of these Muslim m**keys was trying to tell me that Jesus was a n****r. He even quoted from the Bible trying to back his shit up.

Tobias Beecher: Well, Jesus was from Judea so he was probably of an olive-colored skin.

Vern Schillinger: Look at that picture there. Does that look like a n****r to you?

Tobias Beecher: No.

Vern Schillinger: You're getting awful mouthy, aren't you, prag?

Tobias Beecher: No, sir. I am not, sir.

Vern Schillinger: Yeah, I think I'm gonna have to teach you a lesson. Polish my boots.

Tobias Beecher: Yes, sir.

Vern Schillinger: With your tongue.

~From the HBO series Oz, S1.E3 "God's Chillin'"

...

During the past eleven days here in the Muslim world, I have eaten from the same plate, drunk from the same glass, and slept in the same bed (or on the same rug) -- while praying to the same God -- with fellow Muslims, whose eyes were the bluest of blue, whose hair was the blondest of blond, and whose skin was the whitest of white. And in the words and in the actions and in the deeds of the "white" Muslims, I felt the same sincerity that I felt among the black African Muslims of Nigeria, Sudan, and Ghana. We were truly all the same (brothers) -- because their belief in one God had removed the "white" from their minds, the 'white' from their behavior, and the 'white' from their attitude. I could see from this, that perhaps if white Americans could accept the Oneness of God, then perhaps, too, they could accept in reality the Oneness of Man -- and cease to measure, and hinder, and harm others in terms of their "differences" in color.

With racism plaguing America like an incurable cancer, the so-called "Christian" white American heart should be more receptive to a proven solution to such a destructive problem. Perhaps it could be in time to save America from imminent disaster -- the same destruction brought upon Germany by racism that eventually destroyed the Germans themselves.

They asked me what about the Hajj had impressed me the most. . . . I said, "The brotherhood! The people of all races, color, from all over the world coming together as one! It has proved to me the power of the One God. . . . All ate as one, and slept as one. Everything about the pilgrimage atmosphere accented the Oneness of Man under One God. 

~Malcolm X, Letter following the Hajj.

I keep seeing shit like this.

Massively wrong, AI-generated Slop.

Exhortations to (alleged) Fundamentalist Christian religious extremism, also AI-generated.

Here am I, Send me?

For what? The Machine God??

For Donald Trump's racialized, fake-Christian-Nationalist Prosperity Gospel vision of America?

For Pete Keg-breath's alcohol-soaked, sexually-harassing Calvinism??

For "Whiteness?"

(And worse, their AI bullshit ain't even going to send them to the right place!)

Whiteness is, historically, something that very few people have actually given that much of a shit about when push came to shove. Fight for it? Sure. Do war crimes? Yeah. Move? Naturally. 

But very few people ultimately want to die, themselves, for some notion of Whiteness. It's hard to lord your petty chunk of Power over somebody else when you're dead. Historically they'd rather lose the war, surrender, and then play political games and commit racially-based terrorism from an ethnically-stacked deck later. AKA that's the backstory of the modern American "Conservative" movement.

The funny part is that the whole basis of the thing rests on absolutely bullshit mythology, some idea that God or Jesus was "White."

Except that the Bible doesn't say that.

I did happen to see confirmation of something I'd heard before when I was looking up African Christianity in response to some idiot post by Joel Webbon though, and that's that a lot of African Christians (starting with the Ethiopian Orthodox) believe that Zipporah, the wife of Moses, was Ethiopian (and thus, Black.)

By the way, according to the statistics per the Wikipedia article on Christianity in Africa, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Namibia and Zambia and Zimbabwe, among others, are more Christian than the USA by percentage of population.

And this fool thinks we're gonna "Christianize" the place.

Every African Christian that I've ever met is a more serious Believer than most of the Americans I've ever met.

I'm serious.

But Joel doesn't care about that, he just wants to kill people.

The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.
Abraham begat Isaac; and Isaac begat Jacob; and Jacob begat Judas and his brethren;
And Judas begat Phares and Zara of Thamar; and Phares begat Esrom; and Esrom begat Aram;
And Aram begat Aminadab; and Aminadab begat Naasson; and Naasson begat Salmon;
And Salmon begat Booz of Rachab; and Booz begat Obed of Ruth; and Obed begat Jesse;
And Jesse begat David the king; and David the king begat Solomon of her that had been the wife of Urias;
And Solomon begat Roboam; and Roboam begat Abia; and Abia begat Asa;
And Asa begat Josaphat; and Josaphat begat Joram; and Joram begat Ozias;
And Ozias begat Joatham; and Joatham begat Achaz; and Achaz begat Ezekias;
And Ezekias begat Manasses; and Manasses begat Amon; and Amon begat Josias;
And Josias begat Jechonias and his brethren, about the time they were carried away to Babylon:
And after they were brought to Babylon, Jechonias begat Salathiel; and Salathiel begat Zorobabel;
And Zorobabel begat Abiud; and Abiud begat Eliakim; and Eliakim begat Azor;
And Azor begat Sadoc; and Sadoc begat Achim; and Achim begat Eliud;
And Eliud begat Eleazar; and Eleazar begat Matthan; and Matthan begat Jacob;
And Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ.
So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations; and from David until the carrying away into Babylon are fourteen generations; and from the carrying away into Babylon unto Christ are fourteen generations.
Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost.
Then Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not willing to make her a public example, was minded to put her away privily.
But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost.
And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus: for he shall save his people from their sins. Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying,
Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.
Then Joseph being raised from sleep did as the angel of the Lord had bidden him, and took unto him his wife:
And knew her not till she had brought forth her firstborn son: and he called his name Jesus.
~Matthew chapter 1 (KJV)

So, according to the viewpoint of all too many White American Evangelical Republican "Conservatives" (who aren't actually trying to conserve anything about America, Christianity or Jesus) If it's true (and we already know for certain from study of the cultures and history of the time, that if Jesus was actually real, He would not have been White, anyway) that the wife of Moses was Black and per the generations of Jesus as laid out in the King James Bible itself, wouldn't that, by itself, by These Fucking People's own logic of "One Drop" rules... 

Wouldn't that make Jesus Black??

Go ahead and think on that, I'll wait.

Funny how in a spiritual sense, One Drop of blood is enough to Save all of Humanity, should they want it, but in another, all it takes is one drop of blood to damn a man to a life of misery inflicted by these same fucking people. I bet if you simply combine the two...and make it stick in enough people's minds, it destroys the entire concept.

You'd think somebody would notice how fucked up that is.

What if God was Black?

Everything, including the eternal soul, is racialized to at least some of these motherfuckers.

I suspect these idiots would de-convert en masse.

Not that I think any of these people Believe in any conventional or meaningful sense of what that word means. But, I think it needs to be said. I also think, if this could be proven...that a lot of "Christians" would rush out and convert to some other religion.

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.

Unfortunately, Trump keeps trying to offer himself as a substitute-Christ anyway.

And don't think These Fucking People wouldn't go for it, all day.

Because the truth is they're opposed to any religion that says everybody should have a bit of dignity and human worth, let alone God-given rights that they or any State they control cannot take away.

Which is pretty much all religion, unless you want to count Atheistic Randian Objectivism as a religion.

These fucking people hate America, they hate God, they hate anything that doesn't boost their narcissism and selfishness and the implicit claim that they are "god." Even the Christians who keep ending up on the Republican side of things are basically just all weird narcissists who think they're holy prophets and little gods and have weird meltdowns on YouTube and shit, like that Whitney chick who got kicked off the Alaska Airlines flight.

There's no religion that exists that could actually suit these people enough.

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)

That's why I think Evangelicalism in general is no longer a Christian religion, if it ever was. It's about selling Jesus, not obeying Him. It's about Self and Selfishness and Anything but "Love Thy Neighbor." Some of this Pentecostal garbage is right behind that in being so heretical I think that the time to "Bear with it for a season" is long past.

"Ever hearing, but never understanding, ever seeing but never perceiving, their hearts calloused, their ears dull, their eyes closed" very much describes a large plurality of Americans, and not just Republican voters, either.

And they don't see or hear or understand because they don't want to.

And they are too damn comfortable being that way.

This crap is gonna call God's judgment down on this nation.

What do you want to bet these fucking people will deny that, too, just like they did COVID-19?

At the end of the day, you either believe in freedom or you don't.

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

And I'll add, it ain't freedom if everybody doesn't have it.

Слава Україна!

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

Two

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.

...

 [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."

If God had a name, what would it be?

And would you call it to His face

If you were faced with Him in all His glory?

What would you ask if you had just one question?

And yeah, yeah, God is great

Yeah, yeah, God is good

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

What if God was one of us

Just a slob like one of us

Just a stranger on the bus

Tryna make His way home?

~Joan Osborne "What If God Was One Of Us?"