Twice More The Child Of Hell (End Times In The Idiocracy, Six.)

Then Jesus spoke to the multitude, and to his disciples,

Saying The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat:

All therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do; but do not ye after their works: for they say, and do not.

For they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men's shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers.

But all their works they do for to be seen of men: they make broad their phylacteries, and enlarge the borders of their garments,

And love the uppermost rooms at feasts, and the chief seats in the synagogues,

And greetings in the markets, and to be called of men, Rabbi, Rabbi.

But be not ye called Rabbi: for one is your Master, even Christ; and all ye are brethren. And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven.

Neither be ye called masters: for one is your Master, even Christ.

But he that is greatest among you shall be your servant.

And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased; and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted.

But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in.

Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows' houses, and for a pretence make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation.

Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves. ~Matthew 23:1-15

I saw this last night.

Byron Donalds, Black MAGA Republican from Florida getting attack swarmed by DeSandroids for (very mildly) criticizing Florida's "Benefits of Slavery" history program.

And the attacks appear to have started with Christina Pushaw, who compared him directly with Kamala Harris, and others called Byron a "RINO."

I don't agree with Byron about much, but even he gets how fucked up this whole mess is, so I have to give him credit for pointing out the obvious.

But you can't do that in Republican-land anymore. Any sense of self-interest, self-preservation, anything less than lockstep marching to the demands of Power and the vicissitudes of the Mob...and you're out. Question one thing...once...and you might as well be a Democrat, if not a 1960's Communist "Radical."

I guess, somebody insults you, demeans your people, and so on...if you're a Republican you're just supposed to say "Thank You, Sir. May I have another??"

Goddamn, in a party that used to prize individuality and individual rights, now you can't even stand up for yourself?? The fuck?!

Oh, right. Republicans aren't that guy anymore.

And then not too long after that, I saw this bullshit. Some preacher from Booty Poke, Indiana, trying to say that it's "Gay" for women to be in the military, and it's "Gay" to support women who serve in the military.

Well, as a lifelong straight man, former conservative and United States Air Force veteran who just fucking wrote about this yesterday. When I served, nobody made a big deal about women being in the military. Certain roles, yeah, but women serving...not so much. In fact I was serving when a lot of combat roles were opened to women. We all cheered Martha McSally saying that women had the capability...and every right...to be fighter pilots. I also served during the implementation of Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Is that "Gay" too?

Shit, I was a conservative and a Republican at the time. Diversity and progress were still expected. (If not always exactly liked, but it was a societal expectation.) 

I've got something for you, motherfucker.

I will sodomize you and face-fuck you, Bottom Aurelius and Catamite Furius You who think, because my verses Are delicate, that I am modest. For it's right for the devoted poet to be chaste Himself, but it's not necessary for his verses to be so. Verses which then have taste and charm, If they are delicate and sexy, And can incite an itch And I don't mean in boys, but in those hairy old men Who can't get their dicks up. You, because you have read of my thousand kisses. You think I'm a sissy? I will sodomize you and face-fuck you. ~Catallus 16

I'm sick of these fucking people and their bullshit.

I can safely glean two things from what I observed on this guy's feed.

#1 He probably doesn't look like that in real life, and he's probably the kind of Pastor who cares more for the glory of his Self than he does about serving God, much less his congregation. 

#2 One of his Tweets was "It's not OK to be Gay." So yeah, Theo-Bro here knows the location of every Glory Hole within 100 Kilometers of his residence, and has them all categorized on a list somewhere.

Guys like this don't talk up this kind of bullshit because it's what they really believe...they do it because, at the end of the day, in person they're the kind of religious weirdos who give off the vibe that what they really want to do is watch another dude take a shower...and they wanna cover that up. 

Lest anybody be confused about what this constantly-escalating extremism wants, pecker-breath here lays it all out.

They bind up heavy burdens, too grievous to be borne...and they know it. But they don't give a damn because what they're really looking for is ways to exploit the situation.

They don't give a damn that nobody...least of all themselves...can live up to their bullshit. 

Mostly, they're just looking for ways to sacralize whatever it is that they do while denying even the ability to even do it to other people. Sex, for example, is usually all about power, as far as these kind of guys are concerned. What kind of sex you get to have depends on how much power you have.

And then they want to weaponize the Scriptures and shit against everybody else.

That's all any of this shit is even about, really; Power.

For modern Republicans, something is only as good as the stick it makes to beat other people with.

And these fucking people hate anybody and anything that stands up to Power...or at least their idea of it. 

It doesn't matter to them whether it's Byron Donalds saying "Hey, wait a minute, this is wrong" or LGBT folk living openly and with pride, or Ukrainians fighting for their culture and nation and right to exist, or if it's women serving in the military. LOL, Nothing Matters, not even the [espoused] cause.

In their ideal world, if some White Man of Power says you don't have a right to exist, you'd just wander off and die somewhere, or something. Personally, I don't know how anybody thinks any person could live like that, but what the fuck do I know??

That's not America.

That's not Christianity as I was taught that religion.

(Or any other religion I've ever studied, or even heard of.)

Hell, Jesus railed against the worldly powers of His day.

These motherfuckers don't want that...which tells me that eventually, they'll come for the Christians too. 

In the world they want there's only two rules:  The first being that "There are no rules" except "Show a decorous face to Power. [appear to] Obey, Pay and Pray" The second being that they don't give a good goddamn if the Proles are shooting each other in the streets, so long as nobody dies in their backyard and it doesn't disturb the wants of the Powerful or their assorted fuck fuck games, or reduce the amount of money the Preacher gets.

And all the stupid God-talk is just a distraction from that shit. They want a Godless theonomy of Power.

But this is America, and we're citizens here, not slaves of the Caesars.

In case you wonder why this extremism that's now spiraling out of control hates this country so much.

These motherfuckers have taken the Church of Jesus Christ and the doctrines of Ronald Reagan and turned both into nothing but the abodes of devils and unclean spirits. They want to sing Lee Greenwood's "Proud to be an American" and wave the Hammer and Sickle while doing it, and then have everybody else be forced to pretend that they're still righteous.

We don't have to put up with this bullshit, so Don't.

Be a better Citizen, and don't vote Republican.

Слава Україна!

We have become a Nazi monster in the eyes of the whole world, a nation of bullies and bastards who would rather kill than live peacefully. We are not just Whores for power and oil, but killer whores with hate and fear in our hearts. We are human scum, and that is how history will judge us. No redeeming social value. Just whores. Get out of our way, or we'll kill you. Who does vote for these dishonest shitheads? Who among us can be happy and proud of having all this innocent blood on our hands? Who are these swine? These flag-sucking half-wits who get fleeced and fooled by stupid little rich kids like George Bush? They are the same ones who wanted to have Muhammad Ali locked up for refusing to kill gooks. They speak for all that is cruel and stupid and vicious in the American character. They are the racists and hate mongers among us; they are the Ku Klux Klan. I piss down the throats of these Nazis. And I am too old to worry about whether they like it or not. Fuck them. 

~Hunter S. Thompson.

Five

You get freedom by letting your enemy know that you'll do anything to get your freedom; then you'll get it. It's the only way you'll get it. ~Malcolm X.

The Florida Lies (End Times In The Idiocracy, Five.)

Every one of the thousands at the airport, about to leave for Jeddah, was dressed this way. You could be a king or a peasant and no one would know. Some powerful personages, who were discreetly pointed out to me, had on the same thing I had on. Once thus dressed, we all had begun calling out "Labbayka! (Allahumma) Labbayka!" (Here I come, O Lord!) Packed in the plane were white, black, brown, red, and yellow people, blue eyes and blond hair, and my kinky red hair -- all together, brothers! All honoring the same God, all in turn giving equal honor to each other.

That is when I first began to reappraise the "white man." It was when I first began to perceive that "white man," as commonly used, means complexion only secondarily; primarily it described attitudes and actions. 

In America, "white man" meant specific attitudes and actions toward the black man, and toward all other non-white men. But in the Muslim world, I had seen that men with white complexions were more genuinely brotherly than anyone else had ever been. That morning was the start of a radical alteration in my whole outlook about "white" men. 

~Malcolm X, letter written following the Hajj.

...

You get freedom by letting your enemy know that you'll do anything to get your freedom; then you'll get it. It's the only way you'll get it. ~Malcolm X. 

I've been seeing stuff like this for awhile now.

Ron DeSantis trying to get Florida schools to say that slavery benefitted Black people.

And I'm sick of this fucking bullshit.

There's this kid I used to work with, Dre. Dre was a Black kid from Detroit, finance major at Central Michigan University...held two different positions in my department at the casino in five years of working there, and one night when I was pushing a trash can through the Steak House emptying cans and passed by where he was working...we were both Custodians at that point...he walked up to me and he said "You know, bro, it occurs to me that my ancestors didn't ask to be here. Think about that for a second."

I did. 

That's what Slavery was, my friend's ancestors literally didn't ask to be here, or to come to this country...or to be used as basically farm equipment and exploited for every other purpose the debased minds of rich men could think up.

I've been a student of Civil War history...including the causes and events leading up to the Civil War...for my whole life. Slavery was so damn bad there was an entire social movement built around ending it, and an entire insurgent operation largely composed of Pacifist Quakers and other Christians...the Underground Railroad...dedicated to helping escaped Slaves to get to freedom.

Pretty much every Civil War movie I've ever heard of, most of the books I've ever read...and I've read quite a few, counting in my collection a Regimental History of the 54th Massachusetts Regiment of Volunteers...the first regiment of Black troops in the United States Army...says, in so many words "Slavery was bad."

Slavery was bad enough we fought a war to end it.

And the only fucking people who've ever said anything otherwise in my lifetime have been the descendants of Slavers, those who sought to curry favor with such people, and a very small number of religious nuts. It's not even a goddamn question.

Not to be outdone, the House Freedom Caucus and the usual suspects in "Professional Conservatism" you know, the Family Research Council, the Heritage Foundation and the Susan B. Anthony List, are trying to derail reauthorization of the PEPFAR AIDS program because something something abortion, or some shit. PEPFAR which has saved millions of lives in Africa and throughout the world...and bought not only America in general but Republicans in particular a great deal of goodwill from Africans...was a signature issue of the Bush 43 administration.

The Cruelty is the goddamn point. 

The Racism is the goddamn point. 

These fucking people's fantasies about why AIDS is a problem in Africa (and here's the thing, there it primarily is transmitted by straight sex) are the goddamn point. These motherfuckers could give a shit about reality. They'd rather judge people about whom they know nothing.

And this is where you learn that all their other justifications are crap. I've been to churches that had a large Black African demographic and I'm here to tell you...you wanna see some absolute rock-star passion for The Lord...go to a church that has a bunch of Nigerians or Ugandans in it!

But see..."Conservatives" don't really care about that.

Hurting Black people is more important.

Well, not just Black people. 

The edge-case "Conservatives" want to shit all over women in the military next.

I was serving when a lot of stuff was opened up to women in the early 1990's. But women had been in my particular AFSC (Air Force Security Police) since 1973 (That's right, thank you Richard Milhous Fucking Nixon) and nobody gave it a second thought by the time I graduated Tech School in the fall of 1993.

Hell, my LT in the 410th Security Police Squadron at KI Sawyer Air Force Base was female. Not only could she do the job the same as the rest of us (of either sex) but she did it better than most of us. As a Sergeant, a squad leader myself...I had to keep up with the goddamn Terminator and I said as much many times. You know what I got told? "I saw that movie, if you're smart you'll run faster than me."

Because she saw it as her job...as her duty...to be a leader, to lead by example, to set the fucking tone.

You're either that person or you're not. It's just that simple.

You either get it or you don't. If you don't get it, I can't explain it to you...nor do I want to try.

Some things just are what they are.

Facts. Truth. The nature of a person. That there is a power in the Universe greater than your Self.

And we don't have to know what it is, only that it is. There's no point and no purpose in constantly trying to re-litigate reality.

To question certain things is a disgrace and a dishonor, and usually done in bad faith anyway.

I'm tired of waking up every goddamn day and having to argue with these ass-clowns about whether the sky is blue or not. Some things are just observable facts and do not require "Belief" in any form whatever.

Like the fact that Communism hasn't been a thing since 1989.

Barack Obama was born in the United States and had every right to be President, certainly he was better at it than a lot of people.

Joe Biden is a Christian, a good President and perhaps more importantly a decent man.

Vaccines, etc. wouldn't be a thing if they didn't work.

Small-L, small-D liberal democracy works better than any authoritarian system, and is more fair than most others...no less of a conservative than Winston Churchill had a memorable quote on this subject. 

And facts, laws, and truth give people...all people...a floor to even stand on to push back against Power.

You wanna know why the Right wants everything to be a subjective "Belief" that's why.

Because they don't want you and me to have that.

But my annoyance with this shit doesn't even go that far. I'm just tired of arguing with morons who are trying to do nothing better than waste my time.

Just because motherfuckers wanna believe doesn't make something true. What's true and what's false can be tested. We have ears to hear, eyes to see, minds to think, imaginations to dream of something better.

And in my experience the only thing modern "Conservatives" care about or think is true is their own shitty belief system.

All this Idiocracy bullshit really does trace back to racism, in one way or another.

But the world doesn't work like that, not really. As I was taught, God made all people...and who are we to say that one is better than another based on something like appearance or skin color? Did God...the perfect all knowing Creator according to Christianity...make a mistake when he created Black or Brown or LGBT people? Did He only get it "Right" with White Conservatives??

Folks, either he's God or he's Not.

The fact that people keep trying to argue and re-litigate shit our ancestors already decided tells you that when these people say they're "Conservatives" they're lying. "Things as they are" is not what These Fucking People even want.

The Sky is Blue and we've the means to know why, anybody wants to argue with that is either a fool or a liar.

And don't you forget it.

Don't listen to the Florida Lies.

If you want a better country, you have to be a better citizen...and this ain't it, folks. This ain't it.

Слава Україна!

Four

We welcome change and openness; for we believe that freedom and security go together, that the advance of human liberty can only strengthen the cause of world peace. There is one sign the Soviets can make that would be unmistakable, that would advance dramatically the cause of freedom and peace. General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization, come here to this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate. Mr. Gorbachev...Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!
~Ronald Reagan

...

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

Burning Times (End Times In The Idiocracy, Four.)

Hess: So what shall we toast to, boys? I can blather on about “To health” or “To success,” but I’d like to do somethin’ a little less rote. Where you from, Brown Eyes?

Migs Mayfield: How ’bout a toast to Operation Cinder?

Hess: Now there’s a man who knows his history.

Mayfield: No, I don’t just know it. I lived it. I was in Burnin Konn.

Hess: Burnin Konn?

Mayfield: Mmm.

Hess: That was a hard day. I had to make many unpleasant decisions.

Mayfield: Yes, you did. Entire city gone in moments, along with everybody in it. We lost our whole division that day. Man, that was like 5-10,000 people.

Hess: Yep. All heroes of the Empire.

Mayfield: Yeah. And all dead.

Hess: Well, it’s a small sacrifice for the greater good, son.

Mayfield: Depends on who you ask, don’t you think?

Hess: [irritated] What you gettin’ at, trooper?

Mayfield: All those people, the ones who died, was it good for them? Hmm? Their families? The guys I served with? Civilians, those poor mud scuffers, died defending their homes, fighting for freedom. Was it good for them?

Hess: But we’ve outlasted them, son. They’re eating themselves alive. The New Republic is in complete disarray, and we grow stronger. You see, with the rhydonium you’ve delivered, we can create havoc that’s gonna make Burnin Konn pale by comparison. And then they’re gonna turn to us once again. You see, boys, everybody thinks they want freedom, but what they really want is order. And when they realize that, they’re gonna welcome us back with open arms. Ah. To the Empire.

[Mayfield chuckles, then fires a blaster at Hess' chest, killing him instantly. He and Mando then shoot their way out of the mess hall] ~From The Mandalorian, Season 2, Ep. 7 "The Believer"

I saw this yesterday.

Ben Shapiro decided to burn some Barbie dolls because he doesn't like the new Barbie movie.

Bro, a quick Google search of box office numbers says Barbie has grossed $155 MILLION over its opening weekend. Perversely...IMO...a lot of matinees paired it with the new Oppenheimer movie and the two combined topped $302 *Million* this weekend.

It's a safe bet nobody gives a damn what you think.

But if history tells us anything, it's that those who would burn books and children's toys will eventually attempt to burn people. 

That's how it works every time anybody's allowed to run this experiment all the way through. We'd best not play on this shit. Keep slapping these fuckers down until they get the message.

Also, the Far-right lost badly in Spain's general election yesterday, badly enough that even with Spain's basic center-right party doing quite well, even were they to work together (though, I suspect, having looked at both parties' platforms, such a coalition would collapse rather quickly, forcing a snap election) conservatives and far-rightists would not have a majority in government. 

And of course, I found this out because the MAGA freakout ended up in my British friend's feed somehow.

I have a confession to make.

I'm tired of these people. 

I'm tired of their fascism, their misogyny, their racism, their transphobia, the list goes on.

But perhaps most of all I'm tired of their endless goddamned whining. Like my Grandma and my Mom both used to say, keep whining and I'll give you something to whine about.

I'm here to tell you, if I'd got it into my head as a kid to light a couple of Barbie dolls on fire and say that I was making some kind of political statement, the very next thing that would have got lit on fire was my own ass. Or at least that would have been what the resulting, and likely immediate, spanking would have felt like. 

I didn't manage to get my butt whupped all that often, but my Dad really didn't play. Neither did my Mom nor especially my Grandma. The words "Go pick a switch" still make me cringe a little.

I was never given the option to hate Black or Brown people...and in my neighborhood, well, there was a retired Black couple that lived two doors down from my parents. All us kids were terrified of them, not  because they were Black, but...I kid you not...being old and retired, they looked out their windows all the time and they saw everything. We were always told that Mr. and Mrs. Green were authority figures like any other adult besides a few outcast white trash we had around (Who everybody hated because they stole shit.) Mrs. Green would walk her Golden Retriever around every morning and talk to whoever was out and about and we were all, always, afraid she was gonna tell on us about whatever shit we'd been doing. And she pretty often did.

I've often heard that it takes a village to raise a child.

Now, I want you to consider something.

I'll be 50 this year, and Ben Shapiro is a bit over ten years younger than I am.

You want my honest opinion?

It takes the Internet to raise an Idiot.

I was an adult by the time the internet became a major thing. Hell, by the time Windows 95 came out and turned the Internet into something we'd seen a few bits about on TV to something that was comparatively easy for anybody with a current computer to access and use (and I knew it was coming and had a current PC ordered ahead of time, which I'd saved up for previously) I'd been serving in the United States Air Force for two and a half years already...and I was a Security Forces squad leader because somebody thought I'd demonstrated that kind of sustained, superior performance.

I'm here to tell you...28 years later...that thought, and the idea of being (and that I was) responsible for other people still terrifies me...and that's before the possibility of combat and shit.

But I learned a few things from that experience.

#1 Respect is earned, by every action, every day, all the time. You make a mistake, you have to own it and you have to fix it. If you want people to follow you...at all, much less when you're stormed at with shot and shell...Respect Is Earned. Whether you're at their head or (God forbid) just a voice on the radio, you have to be That Guy. 

#2 You have to be a leader. You have to be worthy of those men and women for whom you are responsible. None of this is negotiable.

#3 You get what you tolerate.

(On a side note, which I'll probably write more about later, it looks like some shit is about to go down in Israel. When the IDF and the Netanyahu administration are no longer talking to each other, plus protests, strikes etc. That seems bad.)

And "Conservatives" on a global scale are not That Guy. 

They've lost that understanding of life, and it seems like anybody who does know it either gets chewed up and spit back out or gets captured by the shitty political movement culture pretty quickly and forgets.

I'm sick of these fucking people, their bullshit "Nationalism" which somehow never gives a shit about the actual nation. I'm tired of their fucking petty hatreds and their vast, endless grievances...especially when you consider that their "grievance" basically always boils down to "Other people exist and are not forced by some Omnipotent State to be our slaves."

And when they don't get their way, they're going to start wars over it...and they'll lose. These fucking assholes seem completely impervious to paying attention to how badly that's worked out for Putin and his new Red Army in Ukraine. Or maybe they just don't care.

These motherfuckers don't want to live in civilization, they want the Killing Fields of Khmer Rouge Cambodia, but with a mall, regular internet access and some online platform that does everything for them. Yeah, in yet another move right out of Idiocracy, Muskrat-X wants to be your bank, too.

This all is going to end badly. They don't care. They seem to want it to.

If they can't handle a damn movie what makes these motherfuckers think they'll win wars?

They think if they fuck shit up bad enough, "God" or some Deus Ex Machina in the Universe will "Save" them...and not save the rest of us. End Times in the Idiocracy is exactly what they want.

And until we, as a people, stop tolerating this bullshit and step up and smack these fucking people right in the mouth until they stop doing it...the bullshit's gonna continue.

This global "Authoritarian" movement is about nothing more and nothing less than concentrating authority, power and wealth in the hands of a certain kind of "Man." Be it Netanyahu, Putin, Trump, Xi...it doesn't even matter who. It's not the individual, it's that certain people just get a hard-on from the idea of being ruled over by some dictatorial jackass, who they invariably think is gonna hurt their "Enemies."

And when they get hurt too, they never understand why.

Fuck that shit.

You get what you tolerate, America.

Remember that because there's going to be a test, soon.

Слава Україна!

Every one of the thousands at the airport, about to leave for Jeddah, was dressed this way. You could be a king or a peasant and no one would know. Some powerful personages, who were discreetly pointed out to me, had on the same thing I had on. Once thus dressed, we all had begun calling out "Labbayka! (Allahumma) Labbayka!" (Here I come, O Lord!) Packed in the plane were white, black, brown, red, and yellow people, blue eyes and blond hair, and my kinky red hair -- all together, brothers! All honoring the same God, all in turn giving equal honor to each other.

That is when I first began to reappraise the "white man." It was when I first began to perceive that "white man," as commonly used, means complexion only secondarily; primarily it described attitudes and actions. 

In America, "white man" meant specific attitudes and actions toward the black man, and toward all other non-white men. But in the Muslim world, I had seen that men with white complexions were more genuinely brotherly than anyone else had ever been. That morning was the start of a radical alteration in my whole outlook about "white" men. 

~Malcolm X, letter written following the Hajj.

No Sympathy For The Devil (End Times In The Idiocracy, Three.)

There are times, however, and this is one of them, when even being right feels wrong. What do you say, for instance, about a generation that has been taught that rain is poison and sex is death? If making love might be fatal and if a cool spring breeze on any summer afternoon can turn a crystal blue lake into a puddle of black poison right in front of your eyes, there is not much left except TV and relentless masturbation. It's a strange world. Some people get rich and others eat shit and die. Who knows? If there is in fact, a heaven and a hell, all we know for sure is that hell will be a viciously overcrowded version of Phoenix — a clean well lighted place full of sunshine and bromides and fast cars where almost everybody seems vaguely happy, except those who know in their hearts what is missing... And being driven slowly and quietly into the kind of terminal craziness that comes with finally understanding that the one thing you want is not there. Missing. Back-ordered. No tengo. Vaya con dios. Grow up! Small is better. Take what you can get. ~Hunter S. Thompson, Generation Of Swine.

...

No sympathy for the devil; keep that in mind. Buy the ticket, take the ride...and if it occasionally gets a little heavier than what you had in mind, well...maybe chalk it up to forced consciousness expansion: Tune in, freak out, get beaten. ~Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

I saw this the other day. RFK Jr. claimed (in a Congressional hearing, mind you) that "Trusting the experts" is "a function of religion and totalitarianism. This from somebody who has, whole hog, embraced the modern Right's belief that basically everything (except itself) is a "Religion" (the modern Right itself being, in its own mind, a Truth higher than God Himself.) 

(And then we wonder why this shit has turned into a Cult?)

And these people functionally seek to impose their religion, their totalitarianism, their bullshit-ass "Truth" on the rest of the world. But ya know, it's theirs, so "That's Different."

Facts, Freedom, Science and what anybody else wants be damned. And they propagated this bullshit with endless appeals to base greed, racism and sexism. I'm here to tell you, they're going to abandon Trump because he didn't go far enough.

Well, guess what? I think we got a peek at what they want during that hearing the other day. The one thing I have to say I was kind of impressed with was that DWS actually did something useful for once in questioning RFK Jr.'s bullshit.

RFK Jr. is a Democrat about like I'm a goddamned toaster oven. Fuck you, dude. You're not even appealing to Democrats nor trying to. The only people that I've seen like this drugged out motherfucker are edge-case MAGA's and really old wealthy people who might've been Democrats for the five minutes that they were eligible to vote before Civil Rights and ultimately the 26th Amendment. 

But they've been voting Republican for 50+ years because they resent the fuck out of both.

You know, the kind of people who pull up at a gas station with their redonkulous motor home, block both Diesel pumps and then spend an hour fueling their bus, generally farting around, and perusing the markdown snacks while making damn sure they get their ten cents off per gallon of fuel from the rewards program and like $200 worth of scratch-off lottery tickets. 

You know, the kind of old people who spend six months out of the year in Florida and think Ron DeSantis should be President.

Same pinch-faced angry assholes that be losing their shit about my governor, Gretchen Whitmer.

That's the kind of people what ultimately define where Republicanism goes and that's the kind of people who like them some RFK Jr. enough so that they chime in when they hear people laughing about that hearing and say they think DWS did him dirty.

And when Republicans destroy themselves or otherwise go down...and that's what we're seeing, particularly here in Michigan where I live...these same people are gonna try to jack the Democrats the same way as they did the Republicans from the 1960's until they got Newt Gingrich into power.

Thing what gets me is, I've seen these people's world, and it's not even interesting. These are the same goddamn morons who pound the table about how "moral" they are, but when nobody else is watching they're perfectly fine with jacking off to AI-produced porn...in fact they can't get it up for anything else.

These are the same people who say "Thank you for your service" to my face, and then vote for Republicans who've publicly said they want to cut (or get rid of) my veterans benefits.

Fuck that.

These are the same fucking people who, by and large, think "Business" should run everything, even though "Business" typically does nothing but run shit into the ground while trying to maximize its profits, even at the expense of the product and the people who make it. See also the many and varied reasons for the SAG-AFTA strike.

It's all these drug- and ideology-addled rich motherfuckers who've done their level best to turn America into an Idiocracy and who tried like hell to send it lurching into fascism and mass murder because they thought it would lower their taxes.

Note: And then the same people were shocked when Russian Dictator Vladimir Putin looked at how much bank his oligarchs were making, and said "Give me half or I throw you out the window." 

And yet for some reason, a hell of a lot of the money motherfuckers looked at Putin and said "Sign me up!"

So it's not really just about money. It's also about concentrating authority in the hands of a certain kind of person. And there's a certain kind of White People what don't care if they have to die to get that done.

Ya know, maybe it's just me but I can remember when people like that at least had some sense of self-preservation, if not exactly self-respect.

Goddamn it, I'll take Democrats like Gretchen Whitmer over that type of shit all day, every day. 

Why? Because I'm aware of history and I know what regimes like that tend to mean for most people...not least of all people like me who at least try to have principles that supersede the In-Group politics and petty resentments of the moment and who know a thing or two.

 It's not about religion, Bobby.

At least it's not, to those kind of people. 

It kind of is to me, and because of the beliefs, doctrines and values I was taught I'm 100% against this shit!

Or at least, it stopped having even one damned thing to do with religion once religion stopped being a sufficiently-bootlicking adjunct to "Will To Power." These same people who spent decades banging on about how everybody needed to get the Jesus and have a stricter moral code could give a shit now!

See Also: Americanism, the Bush Doctrine, Capitalism, [Reaganite] Conservatism, Militarism and pretty much every value otherwise that Republicans claimed prior to 2015. 

And more to the point, these fucking people can and will get worse, they're doing so on the daily right where we can see them. And they don't care that they're being seen.

Well, maybe it's just me, but I think these people have fucked around long enough, and they're about to find out.

You bought the ticket, assholes, now you get to take the ride.

You're why America is stuck dealing with End Times in the Idiocracy. Seriously bro, when is enough, enough??

People like me are tired of this shit, and I say that as somebody who used to be a Republican.

No Sympathy For The Devil.

Half the problem, America, is that we have seen The Enemy. And he is, indeed, us.

And then about a third of us militantly refuse to check themselves.

Two

Слава Україна!

Every one of the thousands at the airport, about to leave for Jeddah, was dressed this way. You could be a king or a peasant and no one would know. Some powerful personages, who were discreetly pointed out to me, had on the same thing I had on. Once thus dressed, we all had begun calling out "Labbayka! (Allahumma) Labbayka!" (Here I come, O Lord!) Packed in the plane were white, black, brown, red, and yellow people, blue eyes and blond hair, and my kinky red hair -- all together, brothers! All honoring the same God, all in turn giving equal honor to each other.

That is when I first began to reappraise the "white man." It was when I first began to perceive that "white man," as commonly used, means complexion only secondarily; primarily it described attitudes and actions. 

In America, "white man" meant specific attitudes and actions toward the black man, and toward all other non-white men. But in the Muslim world, I had seen that men with white complexions were more genuinely brotherly than anyone else had ever been. That morning was the start of a radical alteration in my whole outlook about "white" men. 

~Malcolm X, letter written following the Hajj.

Try That In A Small Town? (End Times In The Idiocracy, Two.)

Well, I was born in a small town
And I live in a small town
Probably die in a small town
Oh, those small communities
All my friends are so small town
My parents live in the same small town
My job is so small town
Provides little opportunity, hey
Educated in a small town
Taught to fear of Jesus in a small town
Used to daydream in that small town
Another boring romantic, that's me
But I've seen it all in a small town
Had myself a ball in a small town
Married an L.A. Doll and brought her to this small town
Now she's small town just like me
No, I cannot forget from where it is that I come from
I cannot forget the people who love me
Yeah, I can be myself here in this small town
And people let me be just what I want to be.

~John Mellencamp, Small Town

...

"The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride."

~Volodymyr Zelenskyy, allegedly 25 February 2022, Associated Press

Early this morning, I saw this controversy brewing about Jason Aldean's new song "Try that in a small town." Shit, I commented on it myself, making an effort to give the artist the benefit of the doubt.

I'm a veteran, I'm a former Republican, I'm a White Guy in a small city in a remote area.

(And where I live is no less diverse than anywhere else in the country.)

Here's the lyrics, seemingly innocuous enough in a redneck sort of way. I'm old enough to remember when a basic level of morality was enforced by average people, for one thing. 

Well, then I actually watched the goddamn music video, which is full of video clips of crimes, shots of out-of-context civil strife, cops and flags. When somebody shows you what they are, believe them the first time. People policing themselves ain't even close to what he's talking about.

This motherfucker doesn't give a shit that, as I said "Some people aren't allowed to have the same feeling of community" that he did. It's the fucking point.

Guys like Jason Aldean could give a fuck that, as my old Air Force bro once told me, the cops are too often just another gang. Hell the whole damn song is about a bunch of "Good Old Boys" (a term that's a lie if I ever heard one, you have no idea, LOL) acting exactly the same way. 

As if a cop couldn't or wouldn't defend themselves...?

(*Glares in Security Forces* That's not my personal lived experience and, having been an Air Force cop, I know more about this than he does. I got Tazed, and that was just in training, fuck you.)

Meanwhile: This shit is what Republicans are busying themselves with today, I'm serious.

Republicans, be they Jason Aldean or Ted Cruz, could give a good goddamn that America isn't working out for a lot of Americans, be We The People Black, Brown, White or Other...or Poor...Straight, LGBTQ, you name it. Indeed, that's the point! 

As long as, that is, things are working out just fine for them and their buddies. 

Republicans could give a shit about America, since most of it doesn't fit their jingoistic idea of what it "Should" be. Since we're not a nation of rich white people who are all giving them money, their attitude is basically "Fuck America."

Republicans are effectively on record saying the rest of the USA outside of whatever rural White People bubble they thinks they're in could burn to the ground (or is burning down if you believe the typical FOX News broadcast) for all they care and they're all damned sure they think they know who's gonna do it and the entire thought process regarding that is usually pure Racism. 

Note: Jason Aldean only tried to say anything to the contrary once his song attracted negative attention.

Also, that's not usually how this shit works out in real life. Vanilla ISIS usually spends a lot of time preying on its own, too. 

Like, who the fuck do you think is gonna hold up a liquor store in the Small White Town? (And it happens.)

The answer is *Ding Ding Ding* White People!

As my friend said, "I wonder if this is that small town that Jason Aldean was singing about?"

And trust me, back in the day when my friend said "The cops was just another gang, bro" he wasn't just talking about cops in big cities like Detroit or Lincoln Park that he'd lived in.

America doesn't work out for Americans in a lot of places, and we used to know this, and actually try to care and even do something about it other than otherize and villainize the poor. Hell, none other than Country Music icon Johnny Cash led a big push for prisoner's rights and shit in the 1960's. Hell, I remember when conservatism and small towns in general had better attitudes about life.

Folsom Prison Blues wasn't just a good song, he actually sang it at Folsom Prison in central California. This shit used to be about something that mattered on a regular basis. I'd say I wonder if people like Jason Aldean even know what happens to people like Amber Jones but the simple truth is they don't care. 

Hell, they literally never care!

The "Conservative" mantra has become "If bad things happen to you, it's because you're a bad person and you deserve it. Fuck You!" 

I was there when this really started to become a thing. In my opinion, this really started with the rise of Newt Gingrich and the prominence of Evangelical groups like "Focus On The Family" in the 1990's. Just as a reminder, James Dobson literally wrote in a book about beating a dog.

These people's Gospel is basically the Prosperity Gospel (with or without all the holy roller shit) and if you don't have health and wealth and all the various social statuses to guarantee protection from the predators, fuck you. The American Church has become an Idiocracy where "I like money too!" is its defining characteristic.

It literally doesn't matter to them if you're Christian or conservative or not. If you run afoul of "What Conservatives Want Right Now" they'll throw you under the bus, or at least try to. This is true for individual people and for whole countries, like Ukraine.

It happened in my church in 1998 when a lady who was important in the church (Her family had been in that particular church for a couple generations) had to have an abortion so she didn't die. Mind you we're talking a conservative family with five kids here. It wasn't an easy choice or one anybody wanted to make. 

Within a matter of a couple months (only took that long because her health did not permit them coming, for awhile) they got ran out of the church. Her husband lost his job (Construction, company owned by another church person) because he supported his wife's right to be alive. And they both ended up going back to school, him to get a degree, her to get a better one. A year later, both this lady and her oldest son were in one of my classes at North Central Michigan College.

I was one of the people who switched to a different, smaller Baptist church because of this, a place I've written about once or twice on here.

If they'd do their own people that dirty 25 years ago, I suppose it's easy to see now why they'd try to throw Ukraine under the treads of Soviet tanks, despite the fact that Ukraine is mostly Christian and conservative. The Ukrainians decided they believed in democracy.

And the Ukrainians fought for each other and their own freedom and right to exist, without asking certain Republicans if they could first. In all honesty, that's probably the important part, right there. 

Never mind that Republicans will often say no, simply because they can. I remember a story from 2016 about a lesbian Republican who quit the RNC because they wouldn't even agree with the statement that she had a right not to be killed for being gay. 

The cruelty is the point.

The being seen sticking a giant middle finger up at the world is the point.

I suppose it ends up being easy to see why Evangelicals support an incest-desiring perverse traitor like Trump despite the fact that he rather loudly and publicly isn't even a Christian.

I suppose it's easy to see why they prostrate themselves before the Hammer and Sickle and suck Vladimir Putin's cock now.

And these fucking people feel cheated and get mad when whatever bullshit they're up to isn't given an audience and treated as valid. Hell, they're still mad about the obvious-bullshit "Hunter Biden's Laptop" fake-October-Surprise that didn't go anywhere in 2020 because it was obvious bullshit you didn't really have to have familiarity with rules of evidence to see how obviously it was bullshit.

It never caught on, and Oh My Lord how these motherfuckers are mad about that!

Now I see it's basically escalated to creepy stalker tactics and revenge porn, with oh-so-Christian Marjorie Taylor Greene leading the charge? Yeah, it tracks.

I've seen what happens when people try that in a small town, too.

I've seen what happens when individual people, let alone groups, get so crazy or high on the smell of their own farts that everything is a conspiracy against them.

And if you wonder why this series is titled "End Times in the Idiocracy" that's why.

You can't reason with this shit. There comes a point where the proper response becomes "If you do that again I'm going to smack you right in the mouth."

And then do it.

Freedom isn't free, and sometimes you have to defend your freedom if you want to keep it.

And the goddamned fascists will sing songs railing against that then, too.

I can tell you what would've happened if somebody would've tried that 30 years ago in my small town, but Jason Aldean ain't going to like it. 

As I said to a friend of mine in 2017, if somebody would've showed up in my hometown in 1993 introducing themselves as "Milo Yiannopoulos, Gay Nazi" would have automatically got beat up for two reasons.

I'm all for supporting LGBT people, myself, but this toleration of Nazi bullshit has got to stop.

One

Слава Україна!

Every one of the thousands at the airport, about to leave for Jeddah, was dressed this way. You could be a king or a peasant and no one would know. Some powerful personages, who were discreetly pointed out to me, had on the same thing I had on. Once thus dressed, we all had begun calling out "Labbayka! (Allahumma) Labbayka!" (Here I come, O Lord!) Packed in the plane were white, black, brown, red, and yellow people, blue eyes and blond hair, and my kinky red hair -- all together, brothers! All honoring the same God, all in turn giving equal honor to each other.

That is when I first began to reappraise the "white man." It was when I first began to perceive that "white man," as commonly used, means complexion only secondarily; primarily it described attitudes and actions. 

In America, "white man" meant specific attitudes and actions toward the black man, and toward all other non-white men. But in the Muslim world, I had seen that men with white complexions were more genuinely brotherly than anyone else had ever been. That morning was the start of a radical alteration in my whole outlook about "white" men. 

~Malcolm X, letter written following the Hajj.

Day Of The Lord (End Times In The Idiocracy, One.)

And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six. ~Revelation 13:16:18

(But it's funny how it's Okay when Elon Musk suggests it.)

...

Woe unto you that desire the day of the Lord! to what end is it for you? the day of the Lord is darkness, and not light.

As if a man did flee from a lion, and a bear met him; or went into the house, and leaned his hand on the wall, and a serpent bit him.

Shall not the day of the Lord be darkness, and not light? even very dark, and no brightness in it?

I hate, I despise your feast days, and I will not smell in your solemn assemblies.

Though Ye offer me burnt offerings and your meat offerings, I will not accept them: neither will I regard the peace offerings of your fat beasts.

Take thou away from me the noise of thy songs; for I will not hear the melody of thy viols.

But let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream. ~Amos 5:18-24

I saw this the other night, but I was at work.

It's a United Nations building in Dakar, Senegal.

But some idiot thinks it's suggestive of the "Mark Of The Beast." Granted if there was only one wing on the building it might look like a six, but depending on how you look at it there's anywhere from five to eight arms radiating out from the building, some at clearly different elevations since the structure looks like it was built on a hill.

But sure, "666" whatever. Maybe it tracks, until you realize Senegal is a Muslim country where very few people are going to be familiar with the End Times narrative of American-style Evangelical Protestant Christianity. 

Then I suppose if you ask people there, they're going to tell you it looks like something else, more relevant to their cultures.

But no, American "Conservatives" have to try and insert their privileged stupid bullshit into everything, as if theirs is somehow the "Default" world-view everywhere and everybody else is just faking it or pretending otherwise to spite them, or something.

(Yes, I've actually heard grown-ass adult human beings say this, out loud, with a straight face.)

It's also a fun fact that these motherfuckers think other of their shitty, selfish beliefs are equally universal. This is so they can pretend that everybody else is out to get them, too.

[Yes, think about that as much as you need to.]

There's places in the Middle East right now, that are perilously close to literally cooking to death (Which is also, if you actually read Revelation, one of the later Judgements) but yeah, sure, let's focus on some made-up bullshit instead of the start of the Anthropocene and having to deal with a bunch of self-inflicted damage because humans were short-sighted and stupid.

If only multinational bodies like the European Union, the United Nations, and so on, or relatively toothless international agreements like the Paris climate change accords or memoranda like "Agenda 21" had even close to the amount of power Christian End Times Nuts think they do. 

Fun fact; There's no "Communist" or "United Nations" plots to end capitalism. You have to look at the Christian-Fascists for that...because in spite of all this Climate change shit, income inequality, redlining, etc. etc. they think Capitalism doesn't hurt enough people.

Meanwhile, real people are actually dying out there. 

My own state...hell, much of my own country has been blanketed by smoke from Canadian wildfires. I have seen this and, hell, written about it already.

(And guess what? The conspiracy nuts think that's some kind of a conspiracy too!)

Meanwhile, their own self-appointed political leaders plot shit that, if ever enacted, would dwarf anything imagined by John of Patmos or by the writers of Revelations.

I have to wonder how people who thought it the World's Greatest Sin that they should take a couple minutes out of their life to get vaccinated for some deadly virus that's ravaging the planet think anybody else is going to react to them assuming totalitarian control of the world via somehow jacking the electoral processes of United States? Oh yes, there will be blood, and it will not go the way the right-wing Evangelicals think it will.

Seriously, if Russia...these fucking people's favorite country for quite some time, led by their golden boy Vladimir Putin...cannot even defeat Ukraine, how do these idiots think they're going to defeat Americans or Europeans who don't want to be enslaved by whatever Techno-horrors they're cooking up? 

(But these fucking people think it's Okay, if only because they'll studiously avoid calling them Techno-horrors. It's not the Mark Of The Beast when we do it!)

Not to mention, just how does anyone think the people who are, by definition, fine with the idea of West Africa being (in their minds) subjected to the "Spiritual Bondage" of the New World Order, or OK with the Middle East (presumably including Israel) getting fried to death by 150 degree-plus heat indexes, or even worried about Canada burning down only insofar as it affects their possibilities of a day at the beach...would run the world, if given the opportunity??

Well, if we're being honest, the answer is that aside from the fact that Conservatives are basically all competing to be the guy in the Imperial prison who goes around shouting "On Program!" at all the other guys...the answer is...not very much. 

More like, not at all.

Operational planning just isn't these people's thing. They tend to go about as if, having stockpiled and then squandered political power, they can do as they will by dint of sheer Whiteness.

And they're going to start by attacking the Intelligence agencies and the military, you know...those entities they regard as damned near omnipotent on the one hand, and as demonic on the other hand, as if Stevie The World Conqueror Nosferatu wouldn't need these people, and need to keep them happy, on their terms?

This, after they've spent decades teaching their own voter base to be afraid of literally everything??

More to the point, they're going to continue to regard Donald Trump...fancier of incestuous perversions and fearer of stairways, who rather infamously shits himself in public, and who couldn't defeat Joe Biden...as some kind of world-conquering "God-Emperor? And then they're going to act like this wouldn't run afoul of the Lord's Word?? 

One of these things is not like the other one, Conservatives.

You used to know that, what the fuck happened?

When did you fuckers start treating Orwell's 1984 not as the warning that it actually was, but as some kind of instruction manual for how to do human interaction and politics??

Trying to bullshit the universe *Cough* "Speak things into being" as my ex-wife used to say, might work on smooth-brained "Conservative" voters addled by fear and racism, who are inclined to believe you no matter what...but reality is a lot harder to fool.

And it doesn't give a shit about you, or whatever you're trying to pull.

Maybe it's just me but I think it looks like the whole False World System of the Beast that y'all trying to build (while blaming it on the other guy) is shaping up to be more Idiocracy and less Rome the HBO series. It's less Rome: Total War than it's that sad attempt at a video game by the "Bored Ape Yacht Club" people...and for the same damn reason. These fucking people don't want to rule the world, they want to grift in perpetuity.

And they think somebody like Trump is their key to doing that, as if he'd allow the competition.

Don't play with these fucking people, don't vote for them, for God's sake don't fuck them. 

Their idea of the Kingdom of Heaven really is an Idiocracy.

And they think we're all idiots.

It's time to stop playing around with this bullshit, vote them out of public office, run them out of public life, if their idea of inner life or "Thought process" is the mental equivalent of sitting on the couch eating a Fudge-sickle while mumbling about hating [Racial Expletive Deleted]'s or thinking women should be chained to the goddamn bed or the kitchen stove, fuck you, bro. 

You don't need to be making decisions for the rest of us and it's that goddamn fucking simple.

Get the fuck out, go try and play yo bullshit somewhere else. You'll find the rest of the world less forgiving by a mile. 

The Proof, as they say, is in the pudding.

I'm sick of this bullshit and I'm sicker of the people who tolerate it.

If "Somebody else will get it worse" is your thought process, well that's a shitty rationalization. If you'd rather live under a tyranny than see Black people or LGBT people be equal in truth rather than only by law or in theory...well, that still ends up with you living under a tyrant, doesn't it?

I don't think it ends up being the flex you think it is!

Make no mistake about it, sooner or later the rest of us are going to have to fight these people. There's going to be a test, later.

They're stupid, so it mostly only ends one way, but the rest of are going to at least have to all push in the same direction if we want things to not get worse.

Because given the chance, they would make the world far worse, and call themselves righteous for doing it.

Because that's what they think their End Times beliefs...in their minds the ultimate seal of righteousness, even are.

You can fight back, or not, but if ya don't, there ain't gonna be no Extra Big Ass Taco.

And it's the "Conservatives" who revel in the idea of other people starving to death, suffering and dying while they get to watch, because the cruelty is indeed the point, to them. They really do think the "End Times" are the rest of the world adopting liberal democratic values...and the truth is they're determined to prevent that while inflicting their vision of Revelations on the rest of us.

If you can't stand up against that, what the hell are you??

Like I said, you're gonna have to.

American Revelation is out of date. This is End Times In The Idiocracy.

I've seen these fucking people's god, and I want no part of it.

"The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride."

~Volodymyr Zelenskyy, allegedly 25 February 2022, Associated Press

Last Post

Слава Україна!

Every one of the thousands at the airport, about to leave for Jeddah, was dressed this way. You could be a king or a peasant and no one would know. Some powerful personages, who were discreetly pointed out to me, had on the same thing I had on. Once thus dressed, we all had begun calling out "Labbayka! (Allahumma) Labbayka!" (Here I come, O Lord!) Packed in the plane were white, black, brown, red, and yellow people, blue eyes and blond hair, and my kinky red hair -- all together, brothers! All honoring the same God, all in turn giving equal honor to each other.

That is when I first began to reappraise the "white man." It was when I first began to perceive that "white man," as commonly used, means complexion only secondarily; primarily it described attitudes and actions. 

In America, "white man" meant specific attitudes and actions toward the black man, and toward all other non-white men. But in the Muslim world, I had seen that men with white complexions were more genuinely brotherly than anyone else had ever been. That morning was the start of a radical alteration in my whole outlook about "white" men. 

~Malcolm X, letter written following the Hajj.