Itching Ears (World War Q, Part VII.)

Blood that has soaked into the sands of a beach is all of one color. America stands unique in the world: the only country not founded on race but on a way, an ideal. Not in spite of but because of our polyglot background, we have had all the strength in the world. That is the American way. ~Ronald Reagan

So, there seems to be a general agreement that the Russians aren't going anywhere and this Ukraine thing isn't over.

I keep feeling things, and seeing things, that worry me.

I don't really know how to explain this, except to say that the feeling is there.

Just a feeling in my bones, like before a storm or sudden weather change, that something is coming.

But it's more than that, too.

There's something seriously wrong with a large percentage of our population, a quarter up to maybe a third of us, I think. That's going to make those people have a hard time dealing with reality.

Fundamentally, privilege has eaten one hell of a lot of people's brains.

I'm serious. Privilege has eaten these people's brains, they don't want rights guaranteed to everyone by something like the Constitution. They want a system that privileges their small clade, so that they can feel special.

But that's not actually America...I mean, it's a part of America but it's not the whole of it. It's like some idiot who works in a casino thinking the free soda in the breakroom or the smoke break they sneak when they're taking out the trash is the point of their work.

And that, obviously, is a problem.

Or as my friend Aaron used to put it, COVID-19 was a lot of people's first crisis and we saw how badly so many people failed that test. 

So, what happens when we find ourselves in line for another major crisis?

Some of these far-right idiots seem to think we should offer asylum to Canadian antivaxxers or some shit.

This seems to overlap strongly with the people who think that Australia's COVID-19 restrictions amount to some kind of totalitarianism...but these same people are suspiciously silent about the same in China or the Philippines.

I have to wonder, how an actual refugee crisis coming from countries like Belarus or Ukraine might go over with these people...and there is no shortage of talk that Belarus is effectively under an open-ended Russian occupation....worse, with the permission of the country's President.

These fucking people seem to be longing for some sort of (White) refugee crisis, but only if it fits their narrative.

And it won't. 

Hell, the Russians will make sure of that by setting these people's narrative for them.

And I'm quite willing to bet that these fucking people will be hostile to Ukrainian refugees, if any show up, just like they were to Afghan refugees last year.

Because the cruelty is the goddamned point.

Among other things.

Like I have said before, there will come a day when it's impossible to be either "Conservative" or "White" enough for these motherfuckers. The vast majority of Ukrainians are, at least in the sense of appearance or genetics, White.

But what do you want to bet that the Ukrainians aren't "White" enough for the Trump Supporters?

I'm serious. 

We're heading toward a major conflict with Russia, at the very least a second Cold War.

The old game of sending aircraft to test other nations air defenses and shit have been ongoing for awhile now, but seem to be ramping up lately.

I remember some years ago, back in 2015 I think it was, reassuring some weird lady from one of the ferret groups that Oregon Air National Guard F-15C Eagles intercepting a Russian Tu-95 Bear bomber off of the West Coast was a thing that was, or at least used to be, entirely routine.

Certainly, it's nothing to freak out about, which is what she had been doing.

Note: I also had to explain to her that all the Jade Helm conspiracy theories were also complete horse shit. I mean, seriously, why the fuck would the Federal Government feel the need to invade territory that it already by definition owns?

But some people just want to be afraid. That's all.

Never mind there's plenty to actually be afraid of, fears that must be faced rationally, and then conquered, so that we can win.

But that's not the world these fucking people even want to live in. 

They want to be afraid all the time because that fear is what they imagine gives meaning to their lives.

And then they want to codify that fear into hierarchy so they can feel "protected" mostly by having someone below them that they can kick. Does this by any chance sound fucked up to you?

It's not even so much just that "Facts don't matter" although the facts, in fact, don't.

It's that These Fucking People...many of whom own and occasionally even read copies of the Bible, are completely used to the thought process of TV preachers saying shit like "I know the way to Jesus and if you send me $20, so can you!" 

It doesn't matter that each of them has, in their backpack or on their bookshelf or sitting on the coffee table, a book that already contains all the information that they need and all the preacher is going to do is change the words around some and repeat it back to them.

These idiots literally think they're getting something for that $20 that somebody else isn't getting. The Gnosticism inherent in this is the fucking point.

I saw this bit earlier today. "Truth Social" Trump's new social media network is basically Fake Twitter that costs $5 a week. Plus, people apparently think they'll be able to say racist shit on there, or something.

On the one hand, that's the point.

On the other hand these people don't give a damn if they're paying for something that is or should be free, just so long as the paid subscription, as it were, tells them what they want to hear.

Never mind that reading the Bible is free, it's the having to make their own conclusions about it that is the cost these people cannot bear.

Even though, in real terms, that costs nothing but one's own mental energy and time, and reverence if you're a Believer.

That's not what they want to have..

And with these fucking people, that translates over into everything else, too.

They don't want the Truth, they want some carny show that costs money to get into, but only if somebody else doesn't have the money to get in. These idiots would be perfectly fine with "Pay for Play" Salvation, rather than the free kind that Jesus actually offered, and still does.

Because the whole point is, heaven isn't heaven to them if everybody gets to go.

America is free, but they want the Putin/Trump version or the divided civil war version of America because they imagine this will impose costs on other people.

They don't want to win, unless the game is zero-sum and they get everything. Otherwise, they're fine with losing so long as other people lose, too. And then they'll rank the order of losers.

Don't be these fucking people.

If they can't handle basic things like immigration, human rights, or what constitutes a valid refugee claim...how are they going to fight a new war, be it hot or cold?

One of these things is not like the other one.

There's going to be a question or three on the test about that.

I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom;
Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long suffering and doctrine.
For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.

~2 Timothy 4:1-4

Part VI