Feargasm (Eater Of Souls I)

"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.

Tom Cotton says the Winter Olympics should be "moved somewhere safe, free and democratic."

Well I guess that rules out a hell of a lot of Republican-dominated states now, doesn't it?

It's a terrible thing to live in fear. 

And it's all the worse once you realize that Tom Cotton isn't actually talking about Communism or repression against China's Muslim minority or against pro-Democracy activists in Hong Kong, he's talking about China's version of COVID-19 protections and the fact that they're building quarantine facilities.

Are you fucking kidding me with this fucking bullshit?

Republicans could absolutely give a damn about democracy, freedom or safety here in America but when it's some other country they want everything top notch and to a standard they'd never demand here. Because of course the whole damned point is, as usual, having something to beat somebody else over the head with. They're not really afraid for the freedom, safety or self-determination of anyone, much less Olympic athletes.

The truth is, here at home they wallow in fear, egged on by conspiracy theories and all manner of woo woo bullshit. It's almost like they derive some kind of perverse pleasure from all their imagined fears, but then these same fucking people utterly ignore things that are real threats, like the COVID-19 virus.

And then they expect a cowardly bullshitter like Donald Trump is going to somehow protect them from their fear, or at least preserve their mostly-imagined social status.

Which their imagined losing of seems to dominate their every waking thought.

I absolutely don't get how anybody could look at Trump and think he's "Godly" given how he really conducts himself. 

The fucking Orange bloat said live on CNN that he didn't think he needed God's forgiveness. I saw this with my own eyes. According to how I was taught Christianity, all human beings need God's forgiveness. Trump might as well have been trying to say he wasn't a human being, as I said at the time. 

And I remember being endlessly taught "Study, to show thyself approved." Show me one damn bit of evidence that Trump knows the first damn thing about Christianity besides Norman Vincent Peale's 1950's-style "Power of positive thinking" garbage. 

You go ahead, I'll wait.

"Godly" my fucking ass.

And let me tell you another thing. I've heard that "I like what he says" garbage plenty of times too.

From morons.

Of course, the actual issue here is that these fucking people have replaced any level of Biblical knowledge, Christian tradition, even Fundamentalist dogma with...endless conspiracy theories...most of which are basically obvious bullshit. "Gavin Newsom is a clone?"

Cloning isn't that advanced yet, Q-Ball. Scientists just managed to clone a ferret last year. We're probably decades, if not centuries out from the ability to clone a human being and no matter what one does, it's not possible to replicate the experience of life that makes us, us. A clone of a person...would just be a person that looked like them, It wouldn't have their specific memories, nor interpret them the same way. 

If you believe in God, or gods, or whatever...well, I think there's, for lack of a better way to put it a 'Divine Spark' that makes each of us, well, us. The Bible says we are all individually known by the Creator.

According to what I was taught, nothing exists in this world that God does not create or allow to be created, by that logic a clone...be it a ferret or a human or a sheep...would still get some level of "Divine authorization" as it were. Now I'm not sure I believe that anymore...but it makes more sense than what this idiot is saying. At least it implies some kind of consistency.

Of course, this simpleton isn't thinking about any of that. He just wants something to be afraid of and somebody to hate so he can get his daily or hourly hits of fear and rage. Literally any random combination of words will justify anything, in his mind.

"Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn." ... "In his house at R'lyeh dead Cthulhu waits dreaming."  ~HP Lovecraft

But I digress, excuse me...

Because the truth is, he doesn't really have anything to be afraid of, fear for this little white punk ass is an affectation, a diversion, a hobby, maybe something that gives some sense of illusory "meaning" to his life. 

He's not worried about gun violence, or terrorism, let alone being murdered by Nazis or racist thugs. He sure as fuck isn't worried about not having enough food to eat or if he can find a job.

This is the dude sitting there zombie-eyed in the break room watching FOX News like an ADHD kid cranked out on watching cartoons...which is disturbing enough. But the truth is, in his own mind he's looking at Jesse Kelly or Tucker Carlson and he's thinking "Harder, daddy, harder!"

Because the whole perverse issue with these fucking people is they're mainlining fear like fucking drug addicts because on some level, they get a high off of it, like an orgasm, or some sense of perverted enjoyment. Even their fear is bad faith, and self-serving. It's about control...and being controlled...because some people want that type of shit.

It's not that way for everyone in America.

For all too many of us, fear is not for enjoyment.

Lots of people have very real fears of violence or want that have nothing to do with how "special" they think they are or thinking they're entitled to something, but are founded on real physical problems and threats...which our government in general and the Republican Party in particular does too little to address.

Remember that part.

There'll be a test, eventually, out there in the real world...if we don't stop these motherfuckers.

There always is

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