The Glorious Revolution? (American Revelation IX, Nine.)

They're pickin' up the prisoners

And puttin 'em in a pen
And all she wants to do is dance, dance
Rebels been rebels
Since I don't know when
And all she wants to do is dance

Molotov cocktail, the local drink
And all she wants to do is dance, dance
They mix 'em up right
In the kitchen sink
And all she wants to do is dance.

~Don Henley, All She Wants To Do Is Dance.

Saw this last night. Just a small selection of the stuff the FBI retrieved from Mar-A-Lago.

Shit. 

And that's my take as a former United States Air Force Security Forces Sergeant.

If I'd done 10% of what Trump did, I'd still be in prison. This is probably the biggest security breach in US history.

And people keep making excuses for this shit??

"Who gives a rat's ass about National Security, I've got ideological points to score" is a hell of a take on anything, there, media pundits. 

If you MSM fuckers don't know by now that the Republican Party would gladly let the MAGA mob literally eat you, I don't know if you can be saved, either.

And that's before we get to the people who've pretty much declared this treasonous jackass to be their God.

Seriously it seems like 40% of the damn country is either so politically fucked in the head or so committed to false equivalency that, well, we'd be in some real shit if Trump wasn't so goddamned incompetent.

And he has the support of the Russians up to and including Uncle Vlad Dracula his own self? 

Are you shitting me, here???

A real leader with half a brain could turn all this into some kind of successful secessionist movement...if not the Glorious Revolution...and have themselves elected President For Life of El Republique De Texas by acclaim of the mob or something. Then after we have to bug out, get the Russians to put a couple wings of Flankers at Carswell and Dyess, a squadron of Kilo-class Boats at Ingleside, a division of Airborne troops at Fort Sam with a wing of IL-76 Candid transports at Kelly to make sure they can go places and hurt people if needed. Throw in a couple of Motor-Rifle divisions at Fort Hood, just because it's there.

Assume Fort Bliss, El Paso and a decent chunk of the Rio Grande valley are this scenario's Guantanamo.

And with Texas in his pocket, Putin could "safely" back off from his misbegotten adventure in Ukraine. Who needs Ukraine, when you have Texas? I mean, it's a hell of a bet that the Ukrainians don't just...and successfully at that...follow they ass all the way to Moscow at this point, but still...

And while we're stuck sorting out basing, logistics and training issues...not to mention economics and transport...Trump could have settled his ass down to being the Fidel Castro of the 21st Century. If not with Russia as his patron, then China, or Saudi Arabia.

Except Trump is not that fucking guy. 

Fidel Castro started out with 82 fucking guys and a leaky boat and won the goddamned war. Trump was handed every advantage imaginable, 70-some million followers, Russian support, and he still fucked it up every which way.

Fidel, right or wrong, bullshitted and fought and harangued his way into the history books. The place where Fidelito and his guys landed in Cuba with that leaky boat? It's a national park now. Trump? He's going to end up sitting in a cell...and everyplace with his name on it now won't have it anymore. 

Trump is going to go down in history as a damn disgrace, as literally what the fuck not to do.

And yet his mob still roars. That's the damn problem.

The fact that US "Conservatives" are so debased, fat and bored that this looks like anything revolutionary should speak volumes about what the goddamn problem really is.

And the reason they do this shit, is he gets away with going around talking like he's still the goddamn President, spreads all these big lies and crazy stories and feeds the conspiracy shit...while actively trying to provoke a civil war. And the government has only just recently made public its efforts to bring Trump to justice?

On one level, I get DOJ's reasoning, but I'm honestly not sure they realized how bad things were. I think they should have started moving as aggressively on this shit as they are now all the way back in January of last year. At least we'd have known how bad the shit was.

And of course, the Republican Party collectively has the leadership capability God gave a garden slug. Instead of denouncing Trump like the traitor he is, they defend him, while "privately" expressing disgust and hoping somebody "takes care of the son-of-a-bitch" for them. They're scared shitless of Trump's base...but I guess they ain't scared enough to protect themselves? Or are they Okay with Trump undermining the entire damn country, just so they can hold power in one small chunk of it (or the ruins of the whole thing?)

Reagan Fucking Wept.

The Republican Party has become a fascist Idiocracy dominated by the kind of people Republicans didn't used to want to be around...and they're too chickenshit to do anything about it?

These fucking people almost took America down with them!

You know what the worst part of it is? Instead of thinking "Oh shit, what did we do?" or "What the hell are we even doing here?" The modern Republican Party is actively scheming to gain from the chaos of the current situation, convinced that they can turn what increasingly looks like a looming electoral defeat, financial ruin, and ultimate Trumpian disgrace into some sort of insurgent victory carried on the backs of a few thousand armed peasants and a small band of intrepid guerillas.

The problem here ain't just Trump. The media ecosystem that created him and the Party that he ate from the inside out and wore like a goddamn bad suit are both rotten to the fucking core.

Rotten enough, that apparently some of the rich motherfuckers who made it that way think the situation as it is, would cost them too much money, so they're not giving the Republicans anymore.

Fuck you, Yertle, have fun. 

Maybe you fuckers shouldn't have put Medicaid fraudster Rick Scott in charge of the till?

If Trump gets charged with espionage and ends up going to prison...an outcome I see as unavoidable simply because the government has no other choice, and the GOP implodes because 99.98% of Republicans are nothing but a bunch of thieves...

Well, I guess all that leaves these fucking people is to attempt their Glorious Revolution on their own?

Good luck with that.

Eight

Crazy people walkin' round with blood in their eyes
And all she wants to do is dance, dance, dance
Wild-eyed pistols wavers who ain't afraid to die
And all she wants to do is
And all she wants to do is dance
And make romance
She can't feel the heat
Comin' off the street
She wants to party
She wants to get down
All she wants to do is
All she wants to do is dance.

~Don Henley, All She Wants To Do Is Dance.

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War Dance! (American Revelation IX, Eight.)

Colonel: Marine, what is that button on your body armor.

Joker: A peace symbol, sir.

Colonel: Where'd you get it?

Joker: I don't remember, sir.

Colonel: What is that you've got written on your helmet?

Joker: "Born to kill", sir.

Colonel: You write "born to kill" on your helmet, and you wear a peace button. What's that supposed to be, some kind of sick joke?

Joker: No, sir.

Colonel: What is it supposed to mean?

Joker: I don't know, sir.

Colonel: You don't know very much, do you?

Joker: No, sir.

Colonel: You better get your head and your ass wired together, or I will take a giant shit on you.

Joker: Yes, sir.

Colonel: Now answer my question, or you'll be standing tall before the man.

Joker: I think I was trying to suggest something about the duality of man, sir.

Colonel: The what?

Joker: The duality of man; The Jungian thing, sir.

Colonel: Whose side are you on, son?

Joker: Our side, sir.

Colonel: Don't you love your country?

Joker: Yes, sir.

Colonel: Then how 'bout getting with the program? Why don't you jump on the team and come on in for the big win?

Joker: Yes, sir.

Colonel: Son, all I've ever asked of my Marines is for them to obey my orders as they would the word of God. We are here to help the Vietnamese, because inside every gook, there is an American trying to get out. It's a hard-ball world, son. We've gotta try to keep our heads until this peace craze blows over.

Joker: [salutes] Aye-aye, sir.

~From the film Full Metal Jacket.

Last night, I saw this.

Various videos of  "Patriot Front" Nazis and others "training" for the Civil War they imagine is coming.

It won't turn out the way they think it will. If the soundtrack is "YMCA" by the Village People, at least it'll be slightly entertaining what happens to them.

Seriously, a bunch of guys dancing around in a field with shields? I didn't know Gilbert And Sullivan did military training on the side.

I am the very model of a modern major general.

I've information vegetable, animal and mineral.

I know the kings of England and can quote the fights historical

From Marathon to Waterloo in order categorical!

(Sorry, song stuck in head.)

Then there was one where these two guys were doing some sort of 'leapfrog' move with the front one shooting, which was kind of funny until the second guy shot the first guy's ballcap right off his head, an act of negligence that could've just as easily blown the top of dude's head off.

That part made me cringe, do something like that in an FTX and you're going to wish you hadn't.

Now, I'm a United States Air Force veteran. I've been through Basic Military Training, Security Forces school, and Military Operations in Urban Terrain training, among other things. I'm not afraid of these fucking people and their "Civil War."

My ferret's weasel war dance is more coherent than these people's "tactical training."

I'm scared shitless of what these idiots will do out of ignorance, negligence, or stupidity...and that's before we get to homophobia, misogyny and racism. 

In the field against trained soldiers, these fucking idiots will get massacred, I mean this, seriously you have no idea.

But they're tailor-made to abuse noncombatants.

Hell, even slightly-disciplined and somewhat-trained civilians will kick these fucking people's ass up between their shoulder-blades.

Sending these fucking people into the field, as they are, is basically a war crime itself, simply because they'll march in thinking they're going to immanentize the eschaton, "Own The Libs," or something something gazpacho and get fucking slaughtered.

Which is exactly why Republicans...the people now letting large cities like Jackson, MS go without potable drinking water...will do it. 

In fact, they'll gleefully send these people into battle just as they are, cackling as they chuck these fools into the meat grinder. I can easily imagine Lindsay Graham and all these other rich old Republicans giggling as they watch their followers get shot down by Army National Guardsmen who are equal parts amused, confused and horrified...until these idiots keep coming or some dumb ass fires a shot and then it's on like Donkey Kong and that only ends one way.

Lots of 5.56mm NATO bullet holes in shields, for one thing. Lots of dead Nazis, and no one will have any sympathy.

And then Republicans will try to craft some media sob story just like they did with the J6 mob. If you can't win the fight, much less the war, try and win the media narrative. 

Hey, It worked for the FLN in Algeria.

Didn't go so well for the poor schmucks humping an AK-47 and a ruck out there in the battlespace, though.

But those trying to sell the "Glorious Revolution" don't care. Hell, they never do.

The cruelty is the fucking point.

These fucking idiots...like ethnic Russians in Putin's New Soviet Union...seem to think they're the ruling class of some kind of a caste system where they can tell other people what to do...but they cannot be told what to do themselves.

(And then these idiots don't know why Eastern Europe hates them, and is so overwhelmingly supporting Ukraine?)

How did that work out for you in 1989, Comrades?

(Hell, how's it working out in Ukraine now?)

Seems to me that everywhere from Stettin on the Baltic to Varna on the Black Sea gave the middle finger to the Ghost of Joe Stalin and the Hammer and Sickle and there wasn't a damn thing you could do about it.

This is America, not Sparta. (And seriously, Patriot Front, those of you that the Spartans didn't kill, they'd use for sexual slaves.)

This is America, not ancient India. (And seriously, didn't white conservatives once upon a time regard caste systems as a sign of backwardness?)

And this sure as hell ain't the Antebellum US South. (And seriously, how did that whole Civil War thing work out for you fuckers the last time?)

This is America, we don't do caste systems or kings or nobles here, you're not supposed to be what you were born as...but what you have it in yourself to be.

And if this is what you are, LOL. Seriously, "Conservatives" you're not going to win any wars this way, civil or otherwise.

You can't just bullshit your way through out in the field. What you are is going to shine through, loud and clear.

Respect is earned, by every action, every day. People aren't going to fight and die for a good bullshit game, but they might for an actual leader.

Remember that part, there's going to be a test later.

Seriously, the point of a war dance is to scare the enemy, not cause them to die from laughing at you.

Seven

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

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Ka mate, ka mate! ka ora! ka ora! Ka mate! ka mate! ka ora! ka ora! Tēnei te tangata pūhuruhuru Nāna nei i tiki mai whakawhiti te rā Ā, upane! ka upane! Ā, upane, ka upane, whiti te ra! ~Ka Mate, Maori Haka (main body)

...
'Tis Death, 'Tis Death, 'Tis Life, 'Tis Life
'Tis Death, 'Tis Death, 'Tis Life, 'Tis Life
This is the hairy man
Who caused the sun to shine again for me
Up the ladder, up the ladder!
Rise! The Sun shines.
~Ka Mate, English translation.

Here's this post's grandfather.

Eye Of The Needle (American Revelation IX, Seven.)

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

Apparently, at least some Americans are flying blackened US flags, because they think they're "At War" and it's a sign that No Quarter shall be given. 

Just one problem, a No-Quarter order is a fucking war crime, explicitly prohibited under the rules of war, Federal and international law, and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. 

Not that these fucking yahoos give a shit about that...until they face consequences, of course, as we've learned from all the J6 Prosecutions so far. Except the penalties for war crimes, especially when there's a breakdown of civil order, tend to veer towards summary execution, at least until outside authorities step in and restore some sort of order...and then they're still pretty stiff.

Of course, it should go without saying that this current round of War Criminal Chic is because of Trump. Because Americans collectively rejected their cult. Because whatever magic mojo these people thought Trump had...well, it was all bullshit to start with. So, of course it wasn't enough to save him. I don't know how the hell these idiots thought they were going to get anything out of it except getting conned out of their money and getting their national security fucked over by some stupid Orange fucker who thought he literally owned the United States of America now and could do whatever the hell he pleased with it. 

Fuck, it's a wonder things didn't turn out worse than they did.

But the whole damn problem here, with our whole system, is that people had to be that bad for somebody like Trump to rise up in the first place. 

And as this whole argument over a piddly ass $10K-$20K Student Loan forgiveness program shows, there's a lot of us that are simply despicable people, mostly uneducated themselves, and opposed to education on general, shitty principle, for anybody except people they think will help them or their ideological side...or generate a profit for something something gazpacho. 

I don't know. I'm not flexible enough to shove my head up my own ass that I might see these people's point of view.

And yet the same goddamned people are fine with Republicans being forgiven for hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars in loans that they (apparently) mostly just used to buy themselves shit. The Paycheck Protection Program was about keeping businesses afloat and thus, long term, normal people working. It sure as hell wasn't for buying Tom Brady a yacht.

And the same goddamn people who want to bitch about some Gender Studies major...or plumber or welder...getting a small amount of help with their student loans think it's just fine and dandy for rich people to just basically steal the taxpayers...their...money.

In fact, these assholes think that those assholes have a right to it, and they'll get something for it somehow argle bargle unga bunga.

Because the Prosperity Gospel, or some stupid shit.

Well, I'll tell you what. Don't get me wrong, it's a good thing that it's looking like Trump is going to be held to account, indicted, put on trial, etc. and that no decent lawyers will work for him...because he finally became too great of a national security threat to ignore or just hope he'd go away.

But when are going to deal with the national security threat of the false doctrines, heresies, racism, vapid stupidity and vain religiosity that created this son of a bitch??

When are we going to deal with the threat of a set of cultural memes that shuns education and knowledge but says that some gold-plated rich asshole can do literally whatever they want, even if they're stealing from us personally or undermining the defenses of the civilization and nation we all have to live in?

Especially when the one group of people that Jesus Christ had nothing good to say about was rich people?

Again, "Christian Nation" my ass.

And why the hell would you go to war for somebody who has nothing but contempt for you, who steals from you and sells your country's secrets to your enemies??

Go ahead, I'll wait.

Six

And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God ~Matthew 19:24

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Oil And Wine (American Revelation IX, Six.)

And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard, as it were the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts saying, Come and see.
And I saw, and behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer.
And when he had opened the second seal, I heard the second beast say, Come and see.
And there went out another horse that was red: and power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another: and there was given unto him a great sword.
And when he had opened the third seal, I heard the third beast say, Come and see. And I beheld, and lo a black horse; and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand.
And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say, A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine.
And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, Come and see.
And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth. ~Revelation 6:1-8

I Saw this yesterday.

Bunch of conspiracy theorists posting about how The Mark Of The Beast is coming, basically because of electric cars, environmentalism, social change and technology, or something something Gazpacho.

I always find this garbage vaguely funny, simply because I have a church background, so I've been hearing shit like this for somewhere around 40 years.

Still hasn't happened yet, and in many ways the world as it is now is beyond what the science fiction of my youth imagined things would be like 300, 500 or a thousand years from now. We don't have faster-than-light space travel or giant mechs replacing tanks, but otherwise, the future is now...hell, the future was damned near 30 years ago, really.

And you know what? I've yet to see any evidence of any of this End Times conspiracy stuff at all in real life, or anything backing this shit up besides conspiracy theory woo woo, online or otherwise.

And there's a very, very important key difference in this tranche of conspiracy woo from all the other ones...

No Jesus.

It all starts and ends with Antivax bullshit and the same old same old about liberalism, social change and technology.

This is the Christless Christianity I've been warning people about for-basically-ever.

This is the conspiracy-theories-instead-of-Jesus bullshit that I've been screaming about since the spring of 2020, and it will bear bitter fruit in the real world. Hell, it's already doing that. There's a polio outbreak in New York State, and there hasn't been one of those since I was five years old.

And I just saw that Lauren Blowbert is crowing about some idiot conservative federal judge blocking the Marine Corps from discharging unvaccinated troops.

I'm a veteran. What the fuck is the difference between this shot and all the other ones we had to get, except for a bunch of made-up conspiracy woo?

It's hard enough to social distance in garrison, on base. In plenty of situations it's damned near impossible. And it's straight-up impossible aboard an aircraft, on the inside of some armored vehicle, or aboard a ship. This is why something as simple as a flu shot is required...because if one person gets sick, it's very easy for everybody else to as well.

That said, I hate flu shots and I haven't gotten one since I was in the Air Force because I always got sick from them. Milder symptoms, yes, and only for a day or two...but still irritating. 

And I'm here to tell you it's not much fun humping an M60 on an FTX because you just got like ten shots and your arms are sore as hell.

Beats being dead, though, and especially beats having gotten a bunch of your bros sick first.

Which is why I signed up to get the shot as soon as it became available.

And I've been asking since April of 2020 just how the hell you "Social Distance" when you've been shot. Still no answer on that one.

And that's aside from the fact that "Conservatives" in 2020 were transparently hoping the virus would kill a whole lot more people than it did, because eugenics and greed and racism.

The "Conservative" reaction to Biden's effort to get Student Loan Forgiveness (up to $20K if you make below a certain amount of money and have Pell Grants) today, has been instructive.

Apparently Republicans think only the wealthy should get to go to college in the first damn place. Hmm.

And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say, A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine. ~Revelation 6:6

These fucking people look at Revelation, and they take this verse as an assurance that they're going to be OK...and you're not.

The government can give trillions to corporations and the rich, and these assholes are OK with that. But a piddly $10,000 off some normal person's student loan interest? That's too much!

The Bible treats Oil and Wine here as symbols of wealth and power.

And these bastards have literally always, openly, transparently equated liberal...or even pragmatic moderate conservative...economic and social policy with the Antichrist and the End Times, Christian fiction is rife with this garbage, I'm 100% serious.

But in the real world, who are the ones who for much of the last couple thousand years have sometimes held world-spanning levels of power, privilege and wealth? Right-wing Christians!

Yet in terms of income inequality, mass death from disease, starvation and war, and state surveillance, these same motherfuckers would gladly, purposefully and with malicious glee build the World As Described In Revelation complete with mass sexual immorality among the elite...I guess they think it'd somehow be different, if done in the name of their Christless, Graceless version of Christianity. "Their" World-system isn't the false one, no...it's those people, over there.

If Jesus showed up tomorrow, these sons of bitches would try to crucify Him again. 

But, If Vladimir Putin arbitrarily declared himself some kind of world-emperor tomorrow...these fucking people, especially the rich "Conservative" Republicans...would fall facedown in worship of him. 

That's what these fucking people are already doing and saying when they bitch about our government sending too much money to Ukraine. They're obviously worried that other people might see the Ukrainians resisting assimilation, colonization, cultural and national destruction...the exact things "Conservatives" themselves would have described as Revelation-like tyranny as recently as 2014 their damn selves.

And here's the thing, religious believers...particularly Evangelical Christians, Jews and Muslims...are one of the main forces of Ukrainian resistance, because their communities have not forgotten what Soviet repression was.

American Evangelical Christians on the other hand, are just fine with the re-Sovietization of Russia, so long as Putin pretends to put a right-wing "Christian" mask on it. I wrote about this awhile back.

In fact, they're actively seeking to use viruses and wars to bring about a small, hateful, impoverished world where they own everything...or where those they "Identify" with do, at least.

Heaven isn't heaven if everybody gets to go. America isn't America if everybody gets a slice. Shit, it's not even blanket White Supremacy they're after...no, you have to be the right kind of white person to be supreme.

Fascism, or Putinist neo-Soviet neo-Communism, it doesn't matter...so long as the system that conquers America and the West hurts The Other more than it does them.

If there's anything in the world more anti-Biblical or Antichrist than that, I've yet to find it.

But when consequences come, or their movement decides to go out in a blaze of glory and civil war, and some other religious believers get taken out in the inevitable retaliation for their actions, these fucking people will gloat about it and take it as an example of their "rightness" like the internet contrarians and trolls that they fucking are.

Fuck this stupid bullshit, I'm tired of it.

Five

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And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held:
And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?
And white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellow-servants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled.
And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood;
And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casts her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind.
And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places.
And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains;
And said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb:
For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand? ~Revelation 6:9-17

Blaze Of Glory (American Revelation IX, Five.)

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volleyed and thundered;
Stormed at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of hell
Rode the six hundred. 

Flashed all their sabers bare,
Flashed as they turned in air
Sabering the gunners there,
Charging an army, while
All the world wondered.
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right through the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian
Reeled from the sabre stroke
Shattered and sundered.
Then they rode back, but not
Not the six hundred.

~Alfred Lord Tennyson, The Charge of the Light Brigade

"Democrats are trying to take everything from us, but they can never take our FAITH!"

Bitch, do you know what, and who it was that made me lose my belief in organized religion?

Want to take a guess?

It was right-wing political religion and people like yourself. Democrats didn't have one damned thing to do with it.

But of course, this guy knows that. He just doesn't care. 

His faith is in right-wing politics, which is fast being boiled down to nothing but White Supremacy...they are leaving themselves nothing else, this isn't something I said but it's demonstrable by their actions...and he calls this "Faith?" They are taking something else and calling it faith and religion. I'll admit I don't study the Word much these days but I seem to recall that it has a thing or two to say about that kind of stuff.

I used to be part of a big clique of people at my old job, the religious crew, basically. Christians of various sorts, Native American traditional practitioners, others came and went through the years. 

You know what? Almost none of the Christians in that group are still identifying as Christians these days. Broadly speaking, it was the hate, the hypocrisy, and the politics that wrecked it for every last one of them. 

It was the constant, ginned-up feeling of being under attack by basically everything, when in reality nothing and no one was coming at almost all of them.

For most people, at least those of us who aren't conflict-driven assholes, drama-mama psycho-bitches and foaming-at-the-mouth religious fanatics, the constant culture war drama is simply not sustainable. We burn out, we get tired, we shut off the goddamn TV and go the fuck outside.

We can see with our own eyes that we're not under attack, and sooner or later it sets in that nothing of the sort is happening. Sooner or later, we all have to interact with Other People.

But the Admiral here? He knows that too.

Motherfucker just hopes that you don't.

He hasn't been recalled to duty to patch up wounded grunts in some existential fight to the death. Hell, his ass got elected to Congress! He's more of a goddamned fat cat living large than most of us will ever be, and he knows it!

Again, he just hopes you, don't. 

No one has more contempt for the Republican base than Republicans do, and that is not a joke.

And the world is changing, sorry, not sorry.

I saw this in the paper last weekend. Front page of the Detroit Free Press, article about some New Age woo woo 'Academy' in Detroit.

OK, whatever. I could care less if somebody wants to eat psychedelic mushrooms, lick poisonous toads or smoke weed in search of enlightenment...and I could've cared less 20 years ago when I was a conservative Christian with a pocket-size Bible in my back pocket. I've done my share of that stuff since. Hell, I had then.

Sometimes those people actually have a point, and as a younger man I worked with enough Rastafari to know...if you're going to talk Bible with them and debate theology, you better bring your A-game, facts, and snacks. They know their stuff, and so do the Toad Poison people, more often than not, simply because such people are by nature seekers and they've likely been through some sort of a Bible-thumper phase already. 

Hell a lot of Voudoun and other afro-Caribbean faiths already incorporate heavy elements of Christianity because they were syncretic faiths created by enslaved Africans so those people could preserve some elements of their culture and traditional faiths.

Fuck, while I'm at it, good old-fashioned American Pentecostalism is a syncretic faith incorporating many elements of such traditional religions...particularly African and Afro-Caribbean ones, albeit with the serial numbers filed off...and nobody has more rock-star passion for Jesus than some dude in Zambia who might well have an appointment with the local medicine man after church.

I'm serious.

But you can't explain that to these fucking people.

Well, not the American ones, anyway.

They simply won't hear you.

I'm sure some asshole somewhere is freaking out about Witchcraft being on the front page of the Detroit Free Press. You know, that supposed icon of liberalism that spent much of the mid-1990's breaking a strike by its unionized workers.

The simple fact is, these fucking people simply see difference as an attack. The existence of the Other and the fact that even a relatively (small-c) conservative newspaper sees a need to acknowledge such is exactly what Ronny Jackson is saying he "Will never surrender" to.

Winston Churchill, he fuckin' ain't.

These fucking people long to be embattled, persecuted, stuck in a fight to the death against all type of crazy shit that exists only in their own whacked-out imaginations.

More to the point, they long to claim for themselves the historical mantle of righteousness they think goes with all that.

And they want to inflict real pain and trauma on real people, on the scale of generations, because of it. 

Never mind who, historically, just who it is that's often the one doing the persecuting of the Other...

And these same fucking people, who are terrified of interracial couples or LGBT people...are perfectly fine with children having children. I'm sorry, I can't make that shit make any sense. 

But then if you'd have told me 20 years ago that Republicans would run a vapid Instagram star named "Tudor" for governor of my state, I'd have laughed at you, because that shit doesn't make any sense either, and I'd have told you so when I was a Republican, too.

But the internal logic of American conservatism has fallen apart, and they kept going anyway.

Other people's aspirations, dreams, futures, and lives simply don't matter to them. Contempt not only for the Other, but even for those like themselves is a driving force for these fucking people. 

What? You don't think Trump having 300+ classified documents in his possession without authorization, with no chain of custody, and likely selling secrets to foreign powers puts White Conservatives in danger, too? 

We're all Americans, ain't we? The blast effects of a Russian nuclear weapon don't stop to ask one's political affiliation before they burn one to ash, you know.

These motherfuckers will keep this up until images of Black medics patching up White grunts, Soldiers of different Colors dying in each others arms while trying to shield each other from concussion and shrapnel, and the image of a violently severed arm and the remains of a Corps tattoo, with a strangely undamaged Pride bracelet on the wrist are seared into all of our minds. It's hard to keep being angry, hateful or racist towards the people who might've saved your life or the lives of people you love.

It's hard to keep hating people, when they're the rough men (and women) standing ready so that you can sleep safe at night. Sooner or later, somebody's going to pin the Congressional Medal of Honor on a transgender person.

That's not "Wokeness" it's simple statistical probability.

Whether they realize it or not, that's the direction "Conservatives" are pushing things in. We're all going to have to stand up against this shit sooner or later.

And if these assholes keep this shit up, they may well get their wish of being embattled and persecuted, except it's more properly labeled "Consequences" and nobody but 'Conservatives' ever felt sympathy for the fucking Nazis.

I'm going to be honest, that's a thing that's starting to worry me. I think the Republican Party is going to violently self-destruct, if not during this election cycle, certainly after it. But I think it's looking to go out in a blaze of glory like some radical Islamic suicide bomber and take other people with it rather than overdose like some coked out rich kid.

And considering just how many Republicans I've seen complaining about aid to Ukraine lately, I'm starting to wonder if they're being paid to destroy themselves...and if something infinitely worse will rise from the wreckage.

As it is these fuckers can't make a dig against Dr. Fauci without also working in classist and racist comments, apparently. (Never mind that there's plenty of advanced countries that don't extradite people to the US.)

These are people who love the idea of fighting some kind of war like the French Revolution...or the October Revolution...against liberalism, science and, well, basically reality at this point.

But here's the thing, who wins the war is to a great extent determined by...science. Sure, it's not as hard as it used to be where some Centurion had to eyeball the terrain and do the math in his head real quick about where to site the catapults...but how bullets, explosives, missiles and all that kind of stuff works is still something that comes down to math and science, and that was as true in our Civil War as it would be in the right-wing insurgency these fucking people think they want to fight. Nowadays somebody just punches a few commands into a computer, the solution downloads to the warfighters, whose fingers pull the triggers, and there you have it. 

The people who see the existence of Black people as an attack? They're not going to have all that.

And for months now, we've had the ongoing example of the Ukrainian Army...which fights according to reality...kicking the shit out of the Russian Army, which is all hopped up on ideology.

It's not going well for the people who thought they were fighting some glorious war against reality's apparent liberal bias, now is it?

But you can't tell these fucking people any of that.

They simply won't hear you. 

They think the bad shit will only happen to other people. They get that people die in war, they just don't imagine it could ever be them. And they won't like how any of this is going to turn out. But when it doesn't they'll double down and keep fighting anyway, because the cruelty is the point.

When the murder of a Black man by a police officer seared the conscience of our nation a couple years ago, they got mad that other people had consciences.

Actions have consequences, and we're in such a time again. We need to do something about this shit before these fucking people and their privileged stupidity kill us all.

They only want to go out in a blaze of glory because they think it'll somehow hurt other people more.

And there's plenty of more-rational bad actors looking to take advantage of it.

Four

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

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Crazy Eyes (American Revelation IX, Four.)

At length did cross an Albatross,
And through the fog it came;
As if it had been a Christian soul,
We hailed it in God's name.
It ate the food it ne'er had eat,
And round and round it flew.
The ice did split with a thunder-fit; The helmsman steered us through!
A good south wind sprung up behind; The Albatross did follow,
And every day, for food or play,
Came to the mariner's hollow!

In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud,
It perched for vespers nine;
Whilst all the night, through fog-smoke-white,
Glimmered the white Moon-shine.'
God save thee, ancient Mariner!
From the fiends, that plague thee thus!—
Why look'st thou so?'—With my crossbow
I shot the ALBATROSS.
~From the Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Tuesday night in Wyoming, Liz Cheney lost her primary.

Liz's sole sin, of course, was being on the 1/6 Committee and thus, against these fucking people's Mad Orange Wannabe King.

She lost it to a relative unknown named Harriet Hageman, a crazy-eyed loon whose sole qualification insofar as I can tell (even in the eyes of her voters) is that she's a crazy-eyed loon who doesn't know anything and will simply do whatever Trump says.

I'm going to warn you now, any of you Republicans that aren't MAGA Cult members...between these people's fanaticism and their paranoia, no one is safe. Somebody is trying to primary Matt Gaetz, apparently for not being MAGA enough. But, if he isn't, who the fuck is? He's never been anything but a pro-Trump fanatic and some nut is accusing him of being a traitor? Republicans have been eating their own in the service of their Golden Idol for a long time now, and it's going to get a lot worse.

The thing I'll never understand is...why are Republicans doing this shit to themselves in the service of a total fucking loser like Donald Trump?

Oh, That's Why.

Apparently, there's some Rapture stupidity going around again. I wonder how they'll try and move the goalposts when it doesn't happen?

And it doesn't happen...every single time. You can run this experiment as often as you like and nothing will be any damn different.

How many of these sons of bitches bought heavily into the End Times Prophecy movement in the 1990's (and didn't leave when it turned out to be all bullshit?) The post-9/11 religious mania, Harold Camping in 2011, the 2012 Mayan Calendar bullshit? I'm still at a loss as to how the hell Christians thought the calendar of an indigenous people, which had nothing to do with Christianity or Christ and simply had an arbitrary end-date had anything to do with...well, anything?

When you believe in one impossible thing, and elevate belief above rationality, and do so simply for its own sake...anything becomes possible. When the sole criteria for "Salvation" becomes believing in something hard enough...without any care for what that thing is...well, how many people sold everything they owned, gave the money to Harold Camping, and then felt really stupid afterwards?

Do this enough times, I guess, and you end up with eyes like that.

And I will die on the hill that yes, a lot of these people know what the actual Truth is, they simply do not want to follow it because it won't get them enough money or something.

A lifetime of cognitive dissonance like that is how you end up with crazy eyes like Harriet Hageman.

How many of these fucking people will follow Donald Trump straight to hell, despite the Bible's many and rather explicit prohibitions against the worship of golden idols?

And the worst part of it is, these people will do it, fanatically believing that they're going to end up with something special that nobody else has.

As if a cooler spot in hell is something to aspire to?

I think in the end, we're all going to end up feeling Cheney's loss...but none more so than Republicans. Someday they're going to realize what all they traded in for...Trump...and then they're going to beg to get their shit back.

Just like all the willing marks that followed Harold Camping and every other fucking scammer who set a date for the Rapture.

In the end, this Trump thing won't be any different.

And I'm here to tell you, the next round of defections, heretic hunting and insanity will be even worse. Apparently, Trump has lost Alex Jones. 

For whatever that's worth, I guess.

And "Nuclear MAGA" was trending tonight.

The fanaticism is getting worse, and will get worse still. There's people who've based their whole damn lives on Alex Jones...but they'll drop him in a heartbeat for endorsing somebody other than Trump. Same will happen to FOX News, and so on and so forth.

Until these fucking idiots essentially demand that all things be given to their fake Orange god.

Shit, if I was still up in this mess I'd probably have crazy eyes too, just from trying to keep up.

Seriously, don't be these fucking people.

Three

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

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Dicks (American Revelation IX, Three.)

Ye who turn judgment to wormwood, and leave off righteousness in the earth, Seek him that maketh the seven stars and Orion, and turneth the shadow of death into the morning, and maketh the day dark with night: that calleth for the waters of the sea, and poureth them out upon the face of the earth: The Lord is his name: ~Amos 5:7-8

I saw this earlier, a friend of mine sent it my way.

Some idiot trying to sell their own semen *Cough* I mean "Unvaxxed Sperm" for $3500 per, uh, "Load." 

Good work if you can find it, I guess, $3500 for, what? A minute's work? 

But I shouldn't laugh too much. My own life experience tells me that if you can put it out there, some idiot somewhere will buy it. Doesn't actually matter what "It" even is.

And that seems to go double for conspiracy theorist types, ad infinitum.

I mean, this is functionally the entire basis of Donald Trump's brand, extending back to well before his political life as we now know it, correct?

But, I don't know. I'm seeing way too much...and increasingly stupid amounts of...stuff like this these days.

These fucking people, in fact, seem like they're increasingly obsessed with dicks.

Whether it's their own or other people's doesn't seem to matter.

Dude, don't ask me. I only work here.

For example, Arizona governor candidate Kari Lake claimed that Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis have "BDE." Big Dick Energy, whatever the fuck that means. 

Maybe it's just me. Note I say this as an Air Force veteran, and as the grandson of a Naval officer; If you don't even have the guts to swear, I'm not going to respect you. In fact, I'm going to have a hard time even taking you seriously. More to the point, I doubt you're even going to fight a civil war, much less win such a thing against the rest of us.

And perhaps more to the point, both as an Airman and in the civilian world...in my church background and in secular everyday life, also...I've had to deal with plenty of leaders in one capacity or another. Some of them, that's exactly what they were. Others just took up space, and left it to people like me to fill in the gap.

I never once cared about their "Dick energy" or even if they had such a thing. Indeed, many of such leaders (or non-leaders) were women. So yeah, "Dick Energy?" It's not only not even in my top 100, but I'm a basic straight white man. The absolute last thing I want to think about in the course of my day is some other dude's dick.

Nothing in particular against it, I just don't care. Among other things I'm not some sex-obsessed freak. Right or wrong, I'm getting too old for that kind of shit.

And that's just basic conservative worldview 101 right there.

Which is, of course, not what these fucking people are.

Like, seriously? These people seem obsessed with dicks lately, in fact, with all things sexual and the more creepy and weird the better...but they don't have the guts to say "Dick" in public?

How do you have a fertility cult...especially a Roman-style fertility cult (given that the Romans could be a fairly earthy and profane people, and that Latin has a hell of a lot of words concerning sexual acts) considering that Latin words and Roman practices are essentially the root of the very concept of 'Fascism' (literally named for a Roman means of execution, a bundle of sticks and an axe) when you're afraid to say "Fuck" in the company of your own people??

And of course, their idea of "Mr. Big Dick" not only lost the election, but...thanks to Stormy Daniels and presumably others, we know that regarding the whole "big dick" thing, there's simply no there, there. A few years ago we all spent months hearing jokes about Trump's "Toad stool dick."

I mean, I get it. These fucking idiots are trying to sexualize fascism (This has been going on for a long time, actually) in the same way that Ayn Rand tried like hell to make unregulated Capitalism and plutocracy look sexy, and for the same reason...and of course it's pretty much the same people buying into it, too. Funny thing is, Ayn Rand herself wasn't the least bit of a prude.

A lot of these people are just plain lost, and absolutely in the very sense of that word that Christians themselves use.

It's been my experience that, at the end of the day, dudes that are in cults a lot of the time basically end up literally or metaphorically worshiping their own dicks.

And more to the point, a lot of these same sex-averse yet sex-obsessed people used to moral-panic about that shit, too, on a regular basis.

Seriously, don't be these fucking people.

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Two

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

Rubicon (American Revelation IX, Two.)

Look at your young men fighting
Look at your women crying
Look at your young men dying
The way they've always done before
Look at the hate we're breeding
Look at the fear we're feeding
Look at the lives we're leading
The way we've always done before
My hands are tied
The billions shift from side to side
And the wars go on with brainwashed pride
For the love of God and our human rights
And all these things are swept aside
By bloody hands time can't deny
And are washed away by your genocide
And history hides the lies of our civil wars

~Guns & Roses, Civil War

So, I woke up last night to get ready for work and found out that, among the various things retrieved from Mar-A-Lago by the FBI were Top Secret nuclear documents.

And all night at work I was just, like, are you fucking kidding me?

I'm not kidding when I say that I'm so angry that I'm having trouble finding the words to express it.

The general consensus among people is that the only reason Trump had those documents was that he was selling the secrets therein. I hope not, but I'm afraid something like that was indeed what was going on here. Seriously...just the fact that he had this stuff, unauthorized, is a major crime. That he refused to give it back when asked or even subpoenaed makes it even worse. They had to come get the shit.

And other people presumably on both sides of the political divide allowed this situation to exist, for months, knowingly.

And it's very likely that one of the countries Trump sold information to was Saudi Arabia. You know, the home of Osama Bin Laden, among other things. Think about the potential risks there, for a second, will you? A country De Jure dominated by a fundamentalist strain of Islam. A country where a member of the military becoming a radical Islamist is about as unremarkable as Senior Airman Mattson in Security Forces or Technical Sergeant White in Munitions getting the Jesus, and for the same damn reasons...as long as he doesn't try to overthrow the government, that is. 

If this shit leads to Saudi Arabia becoming a nuclear power, I'm honestly going to be worried, because the chances that some Takfiri nuts could end up with weapons of mass destruction becomes a real possibility.

And we may well have Donald Trump to thank for this.

When I was a young Security Policeman in the field with a rifle...well, let's just say if I'd done 1/10th of the shit that Trump may well have done here, I'd still be in prison and I'd deserve it.

But here's the fucking thing that bothers the shit out of me. FBI agents, Federal Judges and members of Congress have been subjected to death threats and verbal abuse because Trump got raided....again, apparently for stealing nuclear secrets.

These Fucking People...the ones making the threats...they hate America, they hate the very concept of freedom. They want to burn down America because they can't stand the idea of living in a country where everybody's free.

Just to throw out a completely made-up scenario, say some Islamists were to seize a launch control center or two at a Royal Saudi Air Force missile base in the middle of the Rub-Al-Khali sometime in 2034 and launch some Badr-5 Ballistic Missiles, causing hundreds of thousands to millions of casualties in Baghdad and Tehran...or New York City and Washington D.C. Sure, RSAF Security Forces recaptures the base and kills the terrorists, but hundreds of thousands of people somewhere still end up dead with countless more people wounded. And people blame the radical Islamists, not the society and system that created them and allowed for their radicalization and that was all too happy to point them in a safe direction...for themselves.

For other people, not so much.

And there's people who will cheer about that shit, I'm 100% not joking.

All the more so if it's their neighbors, their fellow Americans, the people here that they don't like.

Republicans like Donald Trump can pal around with Saudi Royals...in the same way that Republicans of a generation ago did...and get away with it precisely because a hell of a lot of their voter base here is so backward and parochial that a place like Saudi Arabia doesn't really exist to them.

And the right-wingers are threatening Civil War because it very much looks like Donald Trump finally did something that he absolutely has to be held accountable for.

But everybody else is the bad guys for holding him to account?

Fuck that.

Donald Trump will likely end up making Julius and Ethel Rosenberg look like pikers.

These motherfuckers are just fine with Trump betraying America, his oath and the Constitution, though. And they don't give a shit how many people die because of it. Because none of that stuff really matters to them. In fact, they hate America. Or at least, these fucking people hate any idea of America where they aren't the only ones who get to have anything.

Aren't they Americans too? That's the part that gets me. But that's just it. They don't want to be Americans too. They want to be the only ones and if they can't be that, then they would rather burn down civilization, destroy America and end the civilization that sustains us all. These assholes would rather see America destroyed and form some white supremacist neo-Confederate theocracy, or be conquered by Putinist neo-Communism or hell, radical Takfiri Islam, than live in a country where Black people, LGBT people and women get to be free.

Again, fuck these motherfuckers.

And that really is all that I have to say.

Lock him the fuck up. Lock up Trump and anybody who says they'd go to war for his fucking ass, they're all traitors, every goddamned one of them.

The oath I swore almost 30 years ago says that the Constitution and thus America are to be defended from all enemies, foreign and domestic.

We are a nation of citizens, citizen-legislators, citizen-soldiers, not serfs to a nobility, not subjects to a king. If you want a better country, you have to be a better citizen. We, the People have to hold these motherfuckers to account...and hold to account any who will not do what needs to be done.

You're either an American or you're not. Either you believe in freedom or you don't. You cannot have both the Cross of Christ and the Hammer and Sickle....or the Swastika. 

Fascism and freedom simply cannot coexist, one must win out over the other. It's that simple. 

One of these things is not like the other one. And for anybody who believes in freedom...losing is not an option here.

If you would fight a war against your fellow Americans to save a traitor who betrayed all of us, that makes you an enemy of America by definition. And it makes you a fucking idiot.

Speaking as a United States Air Force veteran here, personally, I'd recommend getting your affairs in order first.

It's time to pick a side.

Choose. Choose wisely, because once you've chosen there's no going back.

I feel like a line has been crossed here. This mess has crossed the Rubicon and we as a people have no choice but to deal with it and put a stop to this bullshit.

Now.

One

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

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