Missing The Damn Point, Again (Left Behind Is A Lie VI, Five.)

Brothers and sisters, please quiet down. Thank you.

We come here time after time and we talk about the same old same old.

Hey, quiet down.
- We talk about Jesus. - That's right.
Jesus said and Jesus wept.
Jesus heard and Jesus walked over.
I don't wanna talk about Jesus.
Cos as the big man teaches us, there's two sides to every story.
Not one but two. A story is not one-sided.
A story has duality. There's two sides to every story.
Which brings to mind the phrase "necessary evil".
I know many of you hear that phrase and say,
"That don't even make no sense to me.
"Can't be no such thing as necessary - how's evil necessary?
"That don't match. That's plaids and stripes, evil and necessary."
You see, because without bad, there is no good.
Without light, there is no dark, you need both these things.
You hear what I'm saying?
If every day is a sunny day, well, then, what's a sunny day?
Well, the bottom line, what I'm trying to tell you tonight,
is that evil...evil... is necessary.
Evil is necessary, thereby, if it's necessary, evil...
- Evil... -must be good.
Evil is good.
That's what I think. Evil must be good, must be good.
- Let me hear y'all say it... - Evil is good.

Evil is good. Take Brother Brown, one of our strongest deacons, pillar of stability.
Brother Brown was on Bushwick Avenue last night with a two-dollar ho.
When you tell your wife, "I'm going to see Mama," then you go get you a two-dollar ho, that's evil.
But Brother Brown had a good time with that two-dollar ho.
You can push a two-dollar ho and she don't have no limits!
Evil and good walk hand in hand. - Evil is as evil does. 

I know many of y'all may be saying, "How can he say ass is good?"
How y'all think y'all got here?
Ass is good! Evil's good and ass is good.
And if you get you a piece of evil ass...Woo!

~Maximilian The Vampire (As Preacher Paulie) from A Vampire In Brooklyn.

I saw this when I got home from work. James Talarico with his girlfriend.

LMAO.

Now compare those two, their apparent difference and diversity, their obvious happiness, and the smiles on their faces...with the fucking Republicans who are trying to talk shit about James, trying to say he's gay or trans or some bullshit. He's not, and it wouldn't matter to anybody but then if he was.

I mean, come the fuck on, people, when is enough, enough with this BS?

And when is enough going to be enough with the disingenuous fake moralism by the fucking Republicans who are all too happy to start these kind of fights but suddenly have glass jaws and the performative moralism of old uptight Western Michigan Dutch Reformed Calvinist church people when Democrats respond as Men...as people...should to this kind of garbage??

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

Some arguments should not be taken seriously and are best responded to with a punch in the face. That's why I say that Democratic Party secular Liberalism as currently constituted ain't gonna solve this damn problem on its own.

Emperor Palpatine: At last. Snoke trained you well.

Kylo Ren: I killed Snoke. I'll kill you.

Palpatine: My boy... I made Snoke. I have been every voice... [as Snoke] ...you have ever heard... [as Darth Vader] ...inside your head. [breathes] The First Order was just the beginning... I will give you so much more.

Ren: You'll die first.

Palpatine: I have died before. The dark side of the Force is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be... [lightning flashes, revealing Palpatine's decaying face] ...unnatural.

Ren: [raises his lightsaber at Palpatine] What could you give me?

Palpatine: Everything. A new Empire. [raises his decaying hands, with electricity surging between his fingers. Suddenly, multiple Xyston-class Star Destroyers rise from the ground] The might of the Final Order will soon be ready. It will be yours if you do as I ask: Kill the girl, end the Jedi, and become what your grandfather, Vader, could not. You will rule all the galaxy as the new Emperor. But beware: She is not who you think she is.

Ren: [turns his lightsaber off; a bit confused yet intrigued] Who is she? [Palpatine smiles sinisterly.] ~From Star Wars: Episode IX, The Rise Of Skywalker.

That said, if you would have told me 30 years ago that I would be emphatically agreeing with Hillary Clinton about much of anything, I'm not sure if I would have laughed at you or punched you in the face.

I couldn't help but notice that Trump's weird Death Star-looking UFC fighting ring is complemented by *Checks Notes* Legions of port-a-shitters, a rather different take on this mess than the legions of Imperial Stormtroopers that George Lucas and Disney conjured up, but Okay.

These motherfuckers have literally turned the grounds of the White House into a fucking toilet.

And this is supposed to be a symbol of Empire, of a thousand years of MAGA?

LOL, No.

For people that believe themselves to be so macho and manly and strong, they sure seem to have a weird obsession with making sure they can get to the bathroom on time. 

I'm just sayin.'

And, speaking as an old guy here, there's nothing especially manly about that. 

Start minding your health a little bit if you got a problem, start watching what you eat or otherwise put in your body! I had to, but when I did life got better. Y'all should've seen me when I started following my doctor's instructions and looking at the ingredients in things...

These corporations and shit do not put all these chemicals in food because they care about us, and if you live on fast food and other assorted garbage (let alone by choice?!?!) sooner or later you have nobody to blame but yourself for why you need a Port-O-John every ten feet!

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.

Same extremely "hyper-masculine" men have an equally weird obsession with the uh "aesthetics" and bodies of other men, just sayin.'

In fact, as several people have pointed out the restrictions on military personnel who might be theoretically attending this shit seem primarily geared towards preventing old Generals and women from attending...

And obviously Trump doesn't meet his own requirements. Have to wonder why this dude wants to be surrounded by young muscular men, don't you?? That doesn't seem very conservative, Christian or *Checks Notes Again* Straight.

And the obsession with toilets doesn't seem to be for actual Roman-style militaristic purposes like preventing disease outbreaks in camp, or they'd be doing this shit a lot differently.

(Yeah, I've actually studied this, the Romans put as much thought into waste disposal as they did into engineering and military tactics, which appears to be something that the US Navy for example has forgotten all about. The Romans, a couple thousand years ago, made their Legionaries carry pipes and tent stakes as much as armor and sword for a damn reason.)

But ya know it's not like 300 (a very Fash-coded movie, if you think about it) isn't also dripping gay subtexts throughout the whole damn film. That said...

Even people like Frank Miller still fucking get it more than Trump and his goons do. A lot more.

[Xerxes has advanced to meet Leonidas, seated on a solid gold throne carried on the backs of many slaves.]

Leonidas: Let me guess... you must be... Xerxes?

Xerxes: Come, Leonidas. Let us reason together. It would be a regrettable waste, it would be nothing short of madness, were you, brave King, and your valiant troops to perish... all because of a simple misunderstanding. There is much our cultures could share.

Leonidas: Oh, haven't you noticed? We've been sharing our culture with you all morning.

Xerxes: Yours is a fascinating tribe. Even now, you are defiant, in the face of annihilation and the presence of a god. It isn't wise to stand against me, Leonidas. Imagine what horrible fate awaits my enemies when I would gladly kill any of my own men for victory.

Leonidas: And I would die for any one of mine.

Xerxes: You Greeks take pride in your logic. I suggest you employ it. Consider the beautiful land you so vigorously defend. Picture it reduced to ash at my whim! Consider the fate of your women!

Leonidas: Clearly you don't know our women. I might as well have marched them up here, judging by what I've seen. You have many slaves, Xerxes, but few warriors. It won't be long before they fear my spears more than your whips.

Xerxes: It is not the lash they fear, it is my divine power. But I am a generous god. I can make you rich beyond all measure. I will make you warlord of all Greece. You will carry my battle standard to the heart of Europa. Your Athenian rivals will kneel at your feet... if you will but kneel at mine.

Leonidas: You are generous as you are divine, O King of Kings. Such an offer only a madman would refuse. But the, uh, the idea of kneeling, it's... You see, slaughtering all those men of yours has, uh, well, it's left a nasty cramp in my leg, so kneeling will be hard for me.

Xerxes: [incensed at what Leonidas just said] There will be no glory in your sacrifice. I will erase even the memory of Sparta from the histories. Every piece of Greek parchment shall be burned, and every Greek historian and every scribe shall have their eyes put out and their tongues cut from their mouths! Why, uttering the very name of Sparta or Leonidas will be punishable by death! The world will never know you existed at all!

Leonidas: The world will know that free men stood against a tyrant, that few stood against many and, before this battle is over, that even a god-king can bleed.

~From the film 300.

Stop and think about that for a second, too.

These Fucking People have either forgotten or just plain missed the point, even of the stories they tell themselves to justify themselves.

Like, fuck, I couldn't do it.

But then I have some level of intelligence and reading comprehension, or something.

And seriously, most of the musicians and shit that've been touted as being part of Trump's America 250 event have backed out (Some, apparently being dead such as Milli Vanilli's Rob Pilatus, were not consulted at all) with most claiming they were lied to about the nature of the event or even not told what it was.

A few right-leaning artists cited safety concerns in their declinations, but the truth is I imagine their real issues with the whole thing are the same as anybody else's, not wanted to attach Trump's name to their career for entirely obvious ETTD reasons. 

Everything Trump Touches Dies, Yo.

Well, she seemed all right by dawn's early light
Though she looked a little worried and weak
She tried to pretend he wasn't drinkin' again
But daddy left the proof on her cheek
And I was only eight years old that summer
And I always seemed to be in the way
So I took myself down to the fair in town
On Independence Day

Well, word gets around in a small, small town
They said he was a dangerous man
But mama was proud and she stood her ground
She knew she was on the losin' end
Some folks whispered, some folks talked
But everybody looked the other way
And when time ran out there was no one about
On Independence Day

Let freedom ring, let the white dove sing
Let the whole world know that today
Is a day of reckoning
Let the weak be strong, let the right be wrong
Roll the stone away, let the guilty pay
It's Independence Day

Well, she lit up the sky that fourth of July
By the time that the firemen come
They just put out the flames
And took down some names
And send me to the county home
Now I ain't sayin' it's right or it's wrong
But maybe it's the only way
Talk about your revolution
It's Independence Day ~Martina McBride, Independence Day.

Most of these the reaction was kind of "Meh" but there seems to have been a general freak-out that Martina McBride told Trump "No."

Thanks to the women in my life, funny enough both my ex-wife and my partner, I have probably a bit more familiarity with Martina and her lyrics and how she conducts herself as a person and I don't know why anybody's surprised that she wouldn't want anything to do with Trump.

But, again, missing the point is the whole damn point for these fucking people. They want to do what they want to do anyway and they don't think little things like good character, law, logic, reality or ya know, simply having to give a shit about other people should get in the way.

Well they're gonna have to. As much for these people's defense as anybody else's, because just like back during the COVID-19 pandemic there's no way these idiots following this shit down the rabbit hole to its logical conclusions only affects said idiots.

They want a future that's the Killing Fields with a mall and apparently a weird UFC fighting ring and a bunch of portable toilets, because they think that will continually stroke their Narcissism.

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

And that, at the end of the day, is what this whole thing is about, Narcissism and Selfishness.

Hell, even American Christianity has gotten jacked by this, all that Left Behind crap back in the 1990's was a thin cover for not much more than theologized sadism and the idea that Heaven simply isn't Heaven if everybody gets to go.

And then the same damn people today act like they know it's all a lie and there's no God that will judge them. It's easy to miss the point of everything when you can't see past the end of your own schwantz. It's easy to forget about Eternity when you're privileged and rich and focused on the here and now. The Bible itself spent a lot of ink warning about the perils of exactly that.

Decent government isn't a donkey show, freedom isn't relative status, and a worldview centered on the Self still doesn't make one a god. We're all still gonna have to answer to God as we understand it to be, or to the Universe or whatever someday.

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)

Remember that, because you either believe in Freedom or you don't.

And if these people are lying to you about the shit we know they've lied about? What else are they lying about?

A free people have a duty to the Truth, remember that, too.

Слава Україна!

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.

Four

[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."

America, WTF?? (Left Behind Is A Lie VI, Four.)

The drafters of the Constitution had made one simple but far-reaching error. They'd assumed that the people selected by The People to manage the nation would be as honest and honorable as they'd been. One could almost hear the "Oops!" emanating from all those old graves. The people who'd drafted the Constitution had sat in a room dominated by George Washington himself, and whatever honor they'd lacked he'd probably provided from his own abundant supply, just by sitting there and looking at them. The current Congress had no such mentor/living god to take George's place, and more was the pity, Ryan thought. ~Tom Clancy, from the novel The Bear And The Dragon.

...

Hilary Faye: In the name of Jesus Christ, I command you, leave the body of this servant of God ...

Mary: You're performing an exorcism on me?!?!? Get off me! [she shoves Veronica aside and gets out of the van]

Tia: Where are you going? Get back here!

Hilary Faye: Mary, we've gotta get rid of the evil in you.

Tia: [holding up a picture of Jesus] It's God's will!

Mary: God's will?

Tia: Christ died for your sins!

Hilary Faye: OK, wait a second. [pushes Tia aside] So are you not gonna accept our intervention here?

Mary: You mean kidnapping? No!

Hilary Faye: You are backsliding into the flames of hell.

Veronica: You've become a magnet for sin! We've all witnessed it.

Mary: Sure, Veronica acting all pure--what about last spring break at the Promise Makers' rally, huh?

Hilary Faye: Oh my God ... you are making accusations as we're trying to save your soul? Mary, turn away from Satan. Jesus, he loves you.

Mary: You don't know the first thing about love.

Hilary Faye: I am filled with Christ's love! [throws her Bible at Mary] You are just jealous of my success in the Lord.

Mary: [Mary hands Bible back to Hilary Faye] This is not a weapon, you idiot.

~From the film Saved!

...

"I didn't want to do it,'' he hears himself saying. "I didn't want to leave them behind.''

The void laughs at him. There are miles of empty air beneath his dangling feet. "You had no choice.''

"Yes I did! I didn't have to come here.'' He pauses. "I didn't have to do anything,'' he says quietly, and inhales another lungful of death. "It was all automatic. Maybe it was inevitable.''

"-- Evitable,'' echoes the distant horizon. Something dark and angular skims across the stars, like an echo of extinct pterosaurs. Turbofans whirring within its belly, the F-117A hunts on: patrolling to keep at bay the ancient evil, unaware that the battle is already lost. "Your family could still be alive, you know.''

He looks up. "They could?'' Andrea? Jason? "Alive?''

The void laughs again, unfriendly: "There is life eternal within the eater of souls. Nobody is ever forgotten or allowed to rest in peace. They populate the simulation spaces of its mind, exploring all the possible alternative endings to their life. There is a fate worse than death, you know.'' 

~From A Colder War, a novella by Charles Stross.

I saw this shit last night and this morning.

FOX News, naturally, going full high-school CHUD against James Talarico, because apparently they have to do about anything to get their Pedophile-excusing corrupt freak-show of a Texas AG into the US Senate, apparently well aware that even that might not work, so there literally is no bottom.

I said what I said, if anybody's got Soy Milk coming out of their veins it's Jesse Watters and Stephen Miller, at least James Talarico looks and talks like a real damn person, although he's probably too much of a Minister for my tastes.

These guys don't need an apologetic as a response, or a stern pastoral talking-to, they need an offering plate broke on they ass like shitty little kids who got caught being shitty little kids in church.

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.

Don't worry, Susan Collins will stand there glaring Bumboclaatically in the opposite direction, ignoring this shit like she's ignored every second of her Party's descent into Barbarism, outright Baal-worshiping perversion and Trump-cultism...but god forbid some random Democrat "Use Profanity."

Let alone call out some freak like Stephen Miller with a well-placed "Shut up, you ugly fuck!"

No matter how much his ass deserves exactly that and more.

Yes, the next "Moral Panic" these idiots try and push will be about the fact that Democrats are talking like normal goddamn people.

Bitch, in this equation we are the normal goddamned people! The excessively-HR-speak types and the Consultant Class have either been sidelined...or right along with Chuck and Hakeem they're hanging out with Republicans and not listening to the rest of us anyway!

Like what the fuck causes this shit? Drugs??

Are the cocaine parties just that damn good??

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

Luthen Rael: Can’t imagine what?

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

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

And then when these fucking people have to face the consequences of their own actions the whole rest of the world has to hear about it for 100 years until their goddamned narrative wins out just because everybody else either gave up out of exhaustion or simply had, ya know, a life to live.

If Republicans didn't have politics, they wouldn't have anything at all. Or want to.

I'm sorry but that is a sad goddamn existence, to make politics (let alone Trump) your freaking god? Especially since in most of these cases "Politics" is just an increasingly ill-fitting cover for Racism.

Like, these goddamn people's whole thing is they're basically fine with either living in bunkers eating survival taco meat while clutching their Bibles and guns and peering suspiciously at the world through the firing ports and a rifle sight...

Or with being the goddamned slaves their own selves.

Just so they can keep anybody else from getting any light.

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)

Just so they can preserve the "ideal" of Slavery. And then, These Fucking People will plot for generations against anybody they think betrayed or questioned it...let alone the people who actually took it away.

Like, what the fuck is wrong with you??

Fuck these people.

When the hell is enough of this shit, in fact, going to be enough??

I'm tired of this garbage, and I say that as a former Republican. My red line was the conspiracy theories and racism against Obama.

Now consider that plenty of Bush 43 Republicans, Tea Party people and even Trump first-term folks are Democrats now, or basically might as well be, without ever having changed much.

Makes one wonder what the next "thing" is and where the line is, doesn't it??

Well, my guess is that considering their half-ass pogroms against Black folks and Latinos haven't done very much (and aren't really intended to do anything besides create fear, which they think will lead to favor for White men) their next target is Women.

To do that, they have to go after us guys who give a shit about the ladies in our lives first. Stuff like that is what all these weird comments against James Talarico are really about, and trust me, they cannot stand any ideal of Christianity that doesn't treat women (especially non-Right-Wing women) like pieces of meat.

And oh yes, Republicans, up to and including people like Susan Collins, will employ all their fake moralism to try to make that seem OK too.

And yeah, that'll go about the same way, badly. It already is. The whole anti-Transgender thing was seeing if they could get their foot in the door to go after women in general and their rights full-bore and if people would just shrug and yawn and ignore that shit. A lot of people did, but mostly just the same people who always do that.

Like, it's a good thing I have a partner because a hell of a lot of women in general just aren't interested anymore (and she wouldn't be either except it's me and we have a history in which I'm historically a safe space.)

Women are increasingly opting out and just doing their own thing. Good.

And that is a direct result not only of bad behavior, creepy bullshit, patriarchy and politics...it's simple survival instinct and desire for basic human freedom.

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

A lot of this bullshit from "Men" a lot of the whole Trump thing, and a hell of a lot of These Fucking People's belief in slavery basically boils down to they want to have somebody to have sex with and to do their work, who can't say "No."

The only "Power" these idiots really want is the endless power to enjoy themselves.

What do you think the AI and Robots are really for?? Why do you think these idiots are all but demanding the Mark Of The Beast?? 

Worse, They don't care how fake their Patriarchy is. Actually, most of these guys don't want to run anything either, let alone their family or household. They just want everybody to think they do.

And when that doesn't work out the way they think, they'll do it to each other.

This is less "It'll get worse" than "I've already seen it getting worse."

The thing is, "Republicanism Is A Hell Of A Drug" is working on fewer and fewer people by the day (especially because of Trump and the fact that Everything Trump Touches Dies) but of those who are still Republicans...the level of addiction basically is approaching dystopian Science Fiction drugs levels.

These idiots would rather get high, especially off an endless narcissistic hummer, than do the work of life.

And they're basically making it so the Crash-Out and the Detox end up killing America and probably taking down much of Christianity with it, too. It's less "Left Behind was a Lie" than "The Truth is even dumber and more perverse than you could possibly imagine."

Because these same fucking people have effectively spent 60 years making themselves politically indispensable, mostly as some bizarre kind of fetish.

They thought the Whore Of Babylon was somebody they were gonna get to sleep with.

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

Reagan Wept.

Actually, that doesn't even begin to cover it. Pretty much anybody who actually did believe in anything during this time Wept. 

Techno-"Idiocracy" doesn't even begin to cover it.

America, WTF??

Like I said, fuck these people.

And if you have a problem with me saying that, fuck you too.

Enough is Enough.

You either believe in freedom or you don't.

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

Remember that, because it's going to be on the test later.

Слава Україна!

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

And he exercise all the power of the first beast before him, and cause the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed.

And he doeth great wonders, so that he makes fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men,

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

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

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

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

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

Three

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.

Light And Darkness (Left Behind Is A Lie VI, Three.)

Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand! ~Matthew 3:2

...

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

GAIA: Query: What did she say?

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

~From the video game Horizon Zero Dawn.

...

The Cylon War is long over, yet we must not forget the reasons why so many sacrificed so much in the cause of freedom. The cost of wearing the uniform can be high ... [after looking at crowd] but sometimes it's too high. You know, when we fought the Cylons, we did it to save ourselves from extinction. But we never answered the question, why? Why are we as a people worth saving? We still commit murder because of greed, spite, jealousy. And we still visit all of our sins upon our children. We refuse to accept the responsibility for anything that we've done. Like we did with the Cylons. We decided to play God, create life. When that life turned against us, we comforted ourselves in the knowledge that it really wasn't our fault, not really. You cannot play God then wash your hands of the things that you've created. Sooner or later, the day comes when you can't hide from the things that you've done anymore. ~William Adama, from the Battlestar Galactica (2003) Miniseries, Part One.

I saw this the other day.

Pope Leo wrote an Encyclical, apologizing for the Church's role in legitimizing the Slave Trade, but also connecting that with AI and other modern drives to create slaves or slavery-like conditions (What, after all, is AI but an attempt to create Techno-Slaves that billionaires don't have to pay to do work?) and saying that AI should be used for the good of ALL of Humanity not just for the profits of the Few.

Makes sense.

And Imma say it again, MAGA and what "Republicans" are now is not what I was taught.

Way the fuck too many Republicans have become the bad guys in their own damn stories and I say that as the guy who just started listening to the Audible version of The Hunt For Red October this morning.

But I mean, technically, screw that; These motherfuckers been working on being the bad guys in the Left Behind books for a while now.

Which is pretty blatantly the point of all the AI crap and Data Centers and you bet their next move is gonna be to dig up some hyper-Calvinist chuckle-fuck who'll write some bullshit counter-argument to the Pope basically saying "It's not the Mark Of The Beast when we do it!"

Yes, yes it is.

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.

They know, they just hope that you don't.

And they think because they and their voters are sickeningly *Willfully Ignorant* that everyone else must be, too.

Worse, they think they can find some kind of Magic Words And Phrases that'll get everybody on their side, because they think everybody else is really amoral, bigoted, cynical douchebags just like them and that nobody really believes anything, because they don't. These Ass-Clowns honestly think things like that "Racist" is just other people's slur against them.

That's why whenever they get ahold of something like Twitter, or the US Government in Trump's second term, they immediately start ripping all the copper wire and shit out of the walls cuz they trying to find the switch that makes all those other people "Liberal." Never mind that anymore you can be pretty much Hard Right but NOT Fascist and these jackoffs will still think that's "Liberal."

These Fucking People hate America and its diversity of culture and people and thought.

They hate Christianity and Christ and "Love Thy Neighbor" and any other belief or religion that doesn't thrive on Hatred of some Other, real or imagined.

They want slaves. They don't care if it's AI and robots or every other human being on the planet.

They don't care that this ends badly no matter how you run the experiment and it always has.

These Fucking People see Law and Religion and every other damn thing as little more than cudgels to use to beat other people into acting Like Them.

And they hate and resent that Law, and Religion, and all type of other shit doesn't do that, and certainly doesn't do it automatically and break their way every time.

Fuck is a four letter word. Rape is a four letter word. Wife is a four letter word. So is love. Fuck is a curse. So is love. ~Augustus Hill, from the HBO series Oz, S1.E2 "Visits, Conjugal and Otherwise."

Worse, These Fucking People, who tend to not even like each other, don't understand why other people don't "like" them or think they're cool.

I mean, when your whole bit is constantly, obsessively trying to establish a complex hierarchy of who can do what to whom like all the overlap between slavery and homosexual culture in the Roman Empire...purely as a diversion from being a Miserable Bastard (TM) all the time?? 

Yeah, that kind of tends to suck the joy out of everything and make everybody from conservatives who aren't that way, to liberals, to regular gay people, to women and just plain people that don't see "Who you can have sex with" as a mark of Power or political status (and don't want to see it like that) not want to participate in your bullshit.

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.

Ken Paxton gave some fuckin' bullshit-ass Lawyer in Waco a one-day jail sentence for sexually abusing a boy for years. The local judge found that so egregious that he imposed a 60-day sentence instead (Still nowhere near enough) and the dude ended up serving half of that for "Good Behavior."

I'm old enough to remember when this by itself would have been a national political scandal that went on for years, that prompted imposition of all type of new Federal laws to prevent that shit from ever happening again, and which would have meant that anybody involved couldn't find a job as a public toilet attendant in Liberia if they wanted to, not without waiting 30 years like Jim Bakker had to before he even started to make a comeback.

Stop and think about that for a second.

I'm old enough to remember when anything that even implied homosexual behavior or orientation (especially if the person was a Republican) or tolerance for it was a scandal all by itself.

Fuck, I can remember when even the absolute worst of the Bad Guys on shows like Oz were portrayed as being violently against pedophilia...and honestly that was generally American culture at the time.

And it pretty much was that way until Trump ran for President.

I have a partner and a kid to think about, the hell with this bullshit!

The difference now is that what modern "Conservatives" have come around to having a problem with is Consent. They no longer care about child abuse or rape. In fact, They think you can do whatever you want, pretty much, as long as the other person doesn't want you to do it!

And these fucking people are mad that they can't make Americans start hating Muslims but stop hating Pedophiles.

Again, think about this shit!

Like, I literally grew up in church, in the 1980's, when all the Don't Talk To Strangers, Satanic Panic stuff was on pretty much every bulletin board and newspaper and TV screen in the whole damn country.

And now these same motherfuckers are giving child molesters one-day jail terms?? 

The hell with that. If that's what "Christian Nationalism" is?? 

Fuck That. You know what happens to dudes that do that type of shit in Muslim countries??

They cut that shit off, if they don't just kill 'em.

And yes, especially a lot of the more gender-segregated Fundamentalist Islamic countries have a hell of a lot of situational bisexuality going on. 

It's not generally officially tolerated, though.

But the Truth is that's what stuff like Patriarchy and religiously-dominated cultures end up being.

Because people are people and most other people don't share American Republican beliefs about the alleged supremacy of ideas over living beings, not that Republicans really believe in this.

It should be said that Islamic preservation of Greek Classics is pretty much 90% of how most of us know who Plato even is much less the story of Plato's Cave. Not that "Conservatives" really believe in that shit anymore either. They only believe in taking advantage.

Republicans are already (and fairly openly) working their way around to a degree of Man Love Thursdays that makes the Ottoman Empire at the height of its debasement, power and sloth (where if you had "Sir" in front of your name you didn't wanna get captured by them) look like Thomas Road Baptist Church by comparison. 

This keeps up, you won't wanna be a Republican intern by, say, 2028.

There needs to go back to being zero tolerance for fuckery or stupidity again, sexual or otherwise.

Before this gets worse.

If that means not as much sympathy when shit happens? Too Bad. That's Unfortunate. Shit Happens.

You're still out of luck.

Sorry, I think we erred TOO much on the side of "empathy" and got taken advantage of.

By Republicans not immigrants. 

It's not LGBT folk or POC or the Undocumented immigrants screwing this shit up, it's Republicans.

And most of their prejudices simply project their Sin onto other people who don't deserve that. But the only way to stop this shit at this point is going to be to SLAM the door in their face, without understanding, without explanation, Fuck You. Go Away.

Way the fuck too many of these people are abusers. You don't play with that.

There's some things modern liberalism isn't much good for, and dealing with evil shameless people who will not respect anything short of a violently-drawn hard line and a "No" backed up by a credible threat of force is one of those.

I'm divorced, I've learned this the hard way.

But, in our defense, at least on the liberal/mid-conservative/pretty much anything but MAGA side of the fence, the well is running dry.

People are sick of this fucking garbage.

Taking the high road all the time does not work.

Meanwhile, Republicans are either all-in on it, infinitely forgiving to a degree that makes Obama-era Democrats look like the people who ran Dan Quayle out of politics for misspelling "Potato" or desperately trying to ignore it, not least because doing anything about it increasingly means voting for the Other Team.

Sooner or later it comes down to either you're sitting at the Nazi table or you refuse to sit at the Nazi table.

Sooner or later it comes down to "Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand" or "Don't." But you have to pick one, because all that Left Behind shit was a lie you don't get to go to Heaven without dying, you don't get transcendence without the fire. The Universe does not exist for your convenience.

Sooner or later, you either believe in freedom or you don't, and you're willing to fight for it or you're not.

Make up yo damn mind.

Light has no fellowship with Darkness.

Слава Україна!

I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I've watched c-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those ... moments will be lost in time, like tears...in rain. Time to die. ~Roy Batty, Blade Runner.

Two

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."