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