Raining Fire From A Woke Sky (Glory To Ukraine II.)

His palms are sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy There's vomit on his sweater already, mom's spaghetti He's nervous, but on the surface he looks calm and ready
To drop bombs, but he keeps on forgetting
What he wrote down, the whole crowd goes so loud He opens his mouth, but the words won't come out
He's chokin', how, everybody's jokin' now
The clocks run out, times up, over, blaow
Snap back to reality, whoop there goes gravity
whoop, there goes Rabbit, he choked
He's so mad, but he won't give up that easy? No
He won't have it, he knows his whole back's to these ropes It don't matter, he's dope, he knows that, but he's broke
He's so stagnant, he knows, when he goes back to this mobile home, that's when it's
Back to the lab again, yo, this whole rhapsody
Better go capture this moment and hope it don't pass him

You better lose yourself in the music, the moment
You own it, you better never let it go
You only get one shot, do not miss your chance to blow
This opportunity comes once in a lifetime. ~Eminem, Lose Yourself

 I saw this early this morning. Some dumbass Putin shill posting a picture of a bunch of people with Pride flags on top of a pink-painted FV101 Scorpion 90 with the caption "NATO tanks arrive in Kyiv to fight Russians."

Seriously? Like Melo said, one could best describe the pronouns of Russian Tankists at this point as "Was/Were" or "You're/Dead" and "You/Lose.: On the other hand, those of Ukrainian Army soldiers, particularly the Javelin teams could best be described as "We/Win."

And at least the Pink Tank isn't broke down, or sitting there having run out of fuel or burned out and dead with a big smoking hole in it, the insides reeking of burned-off fuel, gunpowder and human remains. So, there's that.

I'm tired of this kind of bullshit, this idea that some kind of hyper-masculine attitude and homophobia should be a requirement for military service. It's horse shit. I served in the United States Air Force during the implementation of Don't Ask/Don't Tell, the original compromise legislation that allowed bisexual and gay people to serve in the US Armed Forces.

But they couldn't be themselves while in Uniform. You had to really want to be there, and so the results of that were quite predictable, usually translating into sustained superior performance (the gold standard of any military unit) from such people. Trust me, gay people can fight just as well as anybody else can, and given that in a lot of places they're used to having to fight for even basic respect, in my experience that translates into better performance, personal courage and work ethic because they're already used to having to do it better than the other person just to get their foot in the door.

I served with this one dude, he was Tongan American...from Utah, of all places, but we all called him "Hawaii." Fiercely Fundamentalist Christian and a politically conservative Republican, one of the hardest-charging dudes I ever met, always strove to be the best, and he was absolutely fearless. He was also gay, his parents' culture saw no contradictions or issues with any of that.  We knew, none of us cared. He came out to me and my ex-girlfriend at a mutual military friend's wedding in 2003. When dude retired from the Air Force in 2014 he did so as a married man, married to a fellow NCO he'd met along the way, and with adopted children. In 2016 and after, he was a Never Trump Republican, and so far as I know he still is, though we've not spoke in a couple years.

You want my opinion? If Zelenskiy wants to win this war? If NATO is serious about helping him? Train up a whole bunch of LGBT folks and send them in. Teach the Russians a hard damn lesson, too.

Fuck the damn haters, and you know what? Fuck the goddamned idiots who have a creepy obsession with other people's "Pronouns" I mean come on, we're all people, ain't we?

Isn't the ability to define ourselves a human right?

Also, Fuck the people who think you have to live under some kind of horror to be a real person and that future generations should not have it better than you did. As Jim Wright of Stonekettle Station put it, some of the people where he's at think contempt for others, ignorance and poverty are some kind of a virtues. 

Fuck all that. 

I remember the latter days of the Cold War. There was a point, even in the 1980's, where things could have got very bad. Would the Red Army have choked and had shitty logistics and no training like the modern Russian Army? I don't know, possibly, but until 1991 and watching Soviet-trained Iraqi troops using Soviet doctrine get slaughtered by US and Coalition troops for all their lavish collection of firepower, we didn't know that was even an option. 

In the 1990's, sure, it became accepted wisdom that the Russian Army was junk and I can tell you from the info I saw that they lost 65% of their combat power after the Soviet Union fell, and they didn't get paid, pilots didn't get to fly a lot, all type of stuff like that...but of course most people assumed, especially after 2008 and 2014, that they'd gotten better.

Now of course, just shit like the fact that if they get captured the Ukrainians are letting them call home seems to be taking the fight right out of these people.

And with all the airspace closures, sanctions, SWIFT disconnection and shit like that, I hear lots of Oligarchs are bailing, getting out now, and those who know this stuff are expecting one motherfucker of a run on the banks tomorrow morning.

I saw an estimate that something like half of the value of all of Russia's currency has simply disappeared in the last couple of days, and even shipping of goods to Russia seems to be getting stopped at this point. 

Meanwhile, the Ukrainians are still arming and mobilizing more troops, 

I mean, when the Ukrainians said to the Russians "Welcome to hell" they weren't fucking kidding. Jesus. This shit has got to be about like fighting Murlocs in World Of Warcraft, but the Murlocs have Javelin missiles and Kalashnikovs.

Like, at this point if I were a Russian soldier I'd be afraid to ask what the Aggro rate on a Ukrainian is.

And I think that's starting to show. Hell, it was yesterday, too.

And of course, the Ukrainian troops that are already on the line are just...my God. I mean, I get that these people are, if anything, probably more steeped in the Greek facets of Western culture because of Orthodox Christianity predominating but...fuck...mythology about the subject aside, I'm not sure Spartans with modern training could be doing any better. 

I mean, I get that the Russian Army is a soup sandwich, but it's big, and quantity usually makes a quality all its own, that in fact being their entire military strategy going all the way back to Czarist times. But I don't think Putin's new Russian empire is going to get very far. 

Maybe they can get Belarus to join peacefully, that'll be about it.

And while the Russians are worrying about if they're even going to be able to use their credit cards and shit, Zelenskiy just gave the Ukrainian soldiers one hell of a raise, combat pay for the duration of the conflict. Now, I don't know what they were getting paid before, but you give something like that to people who already believe in what they're fighting for? Let them know not only is their President right out there on the line with them pretty damn often, but that the whole country has their back and they're getting paid the way they fucking ought to for what they're doing? There's times when "Every Man A Tiger" ain't just an expression. 

Especially considering a lot of Ukrainians would give, hell, are giving, the Russians a very bad time of it for free, because "Y'all here/"

So what happens when suddenly, your society treats you as the Michael Jordan of making sure the Russians have a bad night? 

And you know, that's a thing I'd think any American, but especially any American from the South would understand...but it's funny how the ones you'd think would get it the most not only don't...but they're the ones cheerleading for tyranny the hardest, even when most of the rest of the world is against it. This is a thing that I, as a former conservative who actually believed all this stuff, will never understand. 

It was all a lie.

But it's a lie that a little country like Ukraine is defeating...with their own truth.

And the EU is up to giving the Ukrainians major assets like Mig-29 fighters now. Think about that, for a second.

Speaking of things that piss me off, the Russians destroyed the Antonov AN-225 Mriya (which means "Dream" in Ukrainian) a unique...A second aircraft was never finished....and originally Soviet super-heavy airlifter that was designed for the Soviet space program, but was actually built as a regular jet transport, thing could carry six tanks...as well as super-heavy cargoes like generators and locomotives that normally can only be shipped by sea. The AN-225 has been a fixture of humanitarian missions and even COVID-19 relief, and now it's gone. The people fighting to bring back the Soviet Union destroyed one of its greatest lingering achievements. Think about that for a second. Think about the kind of carelessness and cluelessness...all in the service of one man's ego...that this implies. You can't negotiate with that kind of bad faith, willful, nihilistic stupidity.

You cannot reason with willfully unreasonable people.

You can only defeat it. 

And the Ukrainians are doing one hell of a job of that.

I have no respect for people who would destroy something irreplaceable like that, just because they thought it might break the other side's morale or to prove some kind of a bullshit point or something. 

The Dream may have been destroyed, but if the Ukrainians are smart they'll take one of those incoming Mig-29's they're getting and rename it "Nightmare" before they point it at the enemy and use it to rain fire on the Russians out of Clay Higgins' woke shy.

The Russians...and their "Conservative" allies had one shot at getting all this right. Not only did they blow it, but they appear to have blown it so badly that now they've got enemies and problems coming out the woodwork like those carnivorous Scarab beetles in The Mummy.

And the sad, scary part of this shit is that the American Right just keeps doubling down infinitely on what they've been doing all this time. The only catch is, all the sudden it's not working anymore. 

But of course, Conspiracy theories, false religious doctrines, political tribalism and racism are these fucking people's drugs of choice, and they're not going to give any of that shit up until it destroys them...and maybe not even then.

And a lot of people will die because of it. Hell, a lot of people are dying now, and there was never any need for this war. Except, of course, that it was something one of them just had to have. 

And the "Conservatives" will keep pushing this shit at the rest of us and trying to drag this out no matter how much the people of Russia or Ukraine suffer, because to them, this shit is some kind of political proxy war...and it's one that their side is losing. Putin...and Russia the way he runs it...were These Fucking People's Great White Hope.

And now it's all falling apart. It was stupid to start with.

War sucks, and it's kind of good to see the world uniting against one for a change.

But it's time for the rest of us to stand up and start telling these people "No" just like the Ukrainians have done.

It's really that simple, and that complicated.

If you want a better nation, you have to be a better citizen. If you want a better world, you have to make it better.

And prejudice is no good for that kind of thing.

When you get one shot, try and take it for something better than this, and then not screw it up that bad.

That's all.

Part I

Слава Україна!

...

Two days past eighteen
He was waiting for the bus in his army green
Sat down in a booth in a cafe there
Gave his order to a girl with a bow in her hair
He's a little shy so she give him a smile
So he said would you mind sittin' down for a while
And talking to me, I'm feeling a little low
She said I'm off in an hour and I know where we can go
So they went down and they sat on the pier
He said I bet you got a boyfriend but I don't care
I got no one to send a letter to
Would you mind if I sent one back here to you

I cried
Never gonna hold the hand of another guy
Too young for him they told her
Waitin' for the love of a travelin' soldier
Our love will never end
Waitin' for the soldier to come back again
Never more to be alone when the letter says
A soldier's coming home

~The Chicks, Travelin' Soldier.