Their Own Soviet Jesus (War Dance, Ten.)

From Stettin on the Baltic to Varna on the Black Sea, the regimes planted by totalitarianism have had more than thirty years to establish their legitimacy. But none — not one regime — has yet been able to risk free elections. Regimes planted by bayonets do not take root....If history teaches anything, it teaches self-delusion in the face of unpleasant facts is folly....Our military strength is a prerequisite to peace, but let it be clear we maintain this strength in the hope it will never be used, for the ultimate determinant in the struggle that's now going on in the world will not be bombs and rockets but a test of wills and ideas, a trial of spiritual resolve, the values we hold, the beliefs we cherish, the ideals to which we are dedicated. ~Ronald Reagan

...

Reach out, touch faith

Your own personal Jesus
Someone to hear your prayers
Someone who cares
Your own personal Jesus
Someone to hear your prayers
Someone who's there

Feeling unknown
And you're all alone
Flesh and bone
By the telephone
Lift up the receiver
I'll make you a believer

Take second best
Put me to the test
Things on your chest
You need to confess
I will deliver
You know I'm a forgiver

Reach out, touch faith
Reach out, touch faith.

~Personal Jesus, Depeche Mode.

...

"The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride." ~Volodymyr Zelenskyy, allegedly 25 February 2022, Associated Press

Last couple days, I've been seeing this kind of shit from Mercedes Schlapp...you know, the CPAC dick-grabbing guy's alleged wife. I'm sorry, but I'm tired as shit of these fucking people and their goddamned First World problems.

The Daily Beast is a lot of things, but I'd hardly call it an instrument of Christian persecution...or call Matt or Mercedes Schlapp a Christian, for that matter.

Meanwhile, the front page of a student newspaper in that hotbed of anti-gun liberalism in *Checks Notes* North Carolina, posted text messages from students on the front page, that were sent during the recent active shooter incident at UNC Chapel Hill, in which at least one person was killed.

Not that I'd expect such a thing to prick the consciences of North Carolina Republican legislators, much less narcissistic, self-involved faux-Christians like Mercedes Schlapp...who probably knows exactly the shit her "husband" does, but ya know, meal ticket and she gets to be a little bit internet-famous so she has to at least pretend to buy into all this garbage.

I couldn't do it.

Not when people are getting murdered for no damned reason because "Conservatives" hate education and People of Color.

I mean, shit, I got a lot of problems...don't even get me started...but I ain't Dead yet.

And while I'm still here, I'm going to do what I can.

And I'd imagine that "Conservatives" see that as a problem.

Considering I'm old enough to remember the last decade-plus of the Cold War, I'm a former Republican who remembers when...whatever they were at the time, Republicans at least weren't dirty Commie Russia-stans...and I'm a United States Air Force veteran. 

But more than any of that, I'm an American.

I have a reasonable level of loyalty to my country simply because, well, I live here, not there...and wherever "there" may be, there might be nothing wrong with it but it's not home. Also, being that I'm a former conservative of a certain generation, such things were instilled in me on an unconditional basis by people who actually cared whether I learned a thing or two...or not.

And not learning it...came with consequences.

Thus, from that and having been a few places, I know a little about the world we live in...and I cannot imagine these fucking people who consciously choose Russia over America...

Or choose tolerating mass murder over responding to the cries of the bereaved, of the survivors, and of the wounded...and do it every time and don't even bother with whatever-pious-sounding-mumbo-jumbo anymore.

And then they have the nerve to claim persecution when somebody calls out their hypocrisy, sexual immoralities and treason?

But when the time comes to trash-talk anybody who's fighting for their own freedom, who gives a shit, or who wants a better world...that's when modern "Conservatives" simply cannot wait to stand up and be counted.

You either believe in Right and Wrong, or you don't.

You believe in democracy, you believe in freedom, or you don't.

There simply are no half-measures here.

And these motherfuckers are standing up and choosing "Wrong" every time, with malice aforethought, even...especially...if that means not choosing America. 

They're simply not rooting for their own side.

And not only do they not care that we know it...

These clowns think they can do whatever they want because they see themselves as gods.

In fact, They think it's funny.

I saw one of these motherfuckers extolling the virtues of the Communism and the New Soviet Man today.

Yes, that's right...alleged "Conservatives" literally praising what Ronald Wilson Reagan called the "Evil Empire" in a speech to the *Checks Notes* National Association of Evangelicals, in *Checks Notes* 1983.

Yes, let us pray for the salvation of all of those who live in that totalitarian darkness—pray they will discover the joy of knowing God. But until they do, let us be aware that while they preach the supremacy of the State, declare its omnipotence over individual man, and predict its eventual domination of all peoples on the earth, they are the focus of evil in the modern world .... So, in your discussions of the nuclear freeze proposals, I urge you to beware the temptation of pride—the temptation of blithely declaring yourselves above it all and label both sides equally at fault, to ignore the facts of history and the aggressive impulses of an evil empire, to simply call the arms race a giant misunderstanding and thereby remove yourself from the struggle between right and wrong and good and evil. ~Ronald Reagan

It's 40 years and a bit over four months later, and now Republicans can't wait to get themselves some of that...Communism...that they keep trying to accuse the "Left" of, and to be the boot-licking East German communist apparatchiks under the boot of a Red Army contingent, the "Western Group of Forces" stationed in-country that was literally far larger (and better armed) than their own military.

The Soviet Union was, by its own law, an atheistic state, based (again, by law) on Communism and "scientific socialism." The Party was the State. The State was the Party and by the time there was any daylight between the two the whole system was falling down.

Republicans don't want to ape that system because they think it'll be good for you.

I never in my lifetime thought I'd see even an alleged-"Conservative" saying that Communism was actually a good thing...so long as the New Soviet Man cosplayed at being a Social Conservative for five minutes before invading somebody under color of the Hammer And Sickle.

But here we are.

Reagan Wept.

And when it comes time for the War Dance, these same motherfuckers are going to get their asses kicked up between their shoulder blades and then cry for the Russians...and for Vladimir Putin, their own Soviet Jesus...to save them. But Russia cannot even defeat Ukraine (and is now facing drone-equipped counterattacks against its strategic airlift assets) so I can imagine how that's going to work out.

If Russia wants to support a revolution somewhere else, the IL-76 "Candid" will be one of the main tools for doing so...and the Ukrainian Air Force just took out a whole bunch of those jets.

The Far-Right is in for multiple rude awakenings.

Anywhere these fucking people do take over here, it won't be much and it'll only be a thing because liberals and the rest of us declined to come in after them, and walked away with a shrug and an upraised middle finger saying "Bye, whore, you have fun with that!"

And that's "Winning." 

Losing just means they all end up dead and nobody cares.

But, then, if they "Win" they'll still claim "Persecution" because their own bad life choices left them stuck in a Banana Republic, the vast majority of them poor and totally dependent on people that anybody with the good sense God gave a common domestic Ferret would never trust with anything, all because they traded the Cross of Christ for the Hammer and Sickle and for literally worshiping a dude that looks like Jabba The Hutt with a murdered Snuffleupagus on his head.

And they'll claim persecution because the rest of the world treats them like a joke, instead of treating them like the "gods" they believe themselves to be.

Just like the rest of the world treated America like a joke when Trump was president, and for the same damn reason.

America is based on a Constitution, freedom, and inalienable rights...rather than being based on anyone's "god" for a damned reason.

Because every single fucking time, the "God" people align themselves with Power and whatever Bread And Circuses jackass Donkey Show, Survivor-type, weapon of Mass Distraction bullshit they can...just so they can practice more cruelty and steal more stuff while engaging in sexual debauchery that'd shame a troop of Ecstasy-addled horny Bonobos.

And more to the point, it happens that way every time you run the experiment. The Founders knew it as sure as we do because the record of this religious theocratic horseshit wasn't any cleaner back in the day.

In fact, they were so disgusted with that mess, that they made their own alternative basically from scratch. 

They had to, there effectively wasn't much else to even work with. and there's some deeply serious and specific reasons why Freedom of the Press was literally in the First Amendment to our Constitution.

Remember that. 

Yeah, it's some goddamned fool like Mercedes Schlapp talking up a bunch of ignorant shit right now because somebody wrote about her husband grabbing dudes dicks...but how long will it be, before they simply brand other people's Constitutional Rights and freedom as "Persecution of Christians" and react violently??

It's going to end badly, but that's never stopped these assholes before. Oh yes, there will be blood.

Freedom isn't free, and the time's coming when we're going to have to pay that cost again.

Nine

Слава Україна!

Never have I witnessed such sincere hospitality and the overwhelming spirit of true brotherhood as is practiced by people of all colors and races here in this ancient Holy Land, the House of Abraham, Muhammad, and all the other Prophets of the Holy Scriptures. For the past week, I have been utterly speechless and spellbound by the graciousness I see displayed all around me by people of all colors...

You may be shocked by these words coming from me. But on this pilgrimage, what I have seen, and experienced, has forced me to rearrange much of my thought-patterns previously held, and to toss aside some of my previous conclusions. This was not too difficult for me. Despite my firm convictions, I have always been a man who tries to face facts, and to accept the reality of life as new experience and new knowledge unfolds it. I have always kept an open mind, which necessary to the flexibility that must go hand in hand with every form of intelligent search for truth.

During the past eleven days here in the Muslim world, I have eaten from the same plate, drunk from the same glass, and slept in the same bed (or on the same rug) -- while praying to the same God -- with fellow Muslims, whose eyes were the bluest of blue, whose hair was the blondest of blond, and whose skin was the whitest of white. And in the words and in the actions and in the deeds of the "white" Muslims, I felt the same sincerity that I felt among the black African Muslims of Nigeria, Sudan, and Ghana. We were truly all the same (brothers) -- because their belief in one God had removed the "white" from their minds, the 'white' from their behavior, and the 'white' from their attitude. I could see from this, that perhaps if white Americans could accept the Oneness of God, then perhaps, too, they could accept in reality the Oneness of Man -- and cease to measure, and hinder, and harm others in terms of their "differences" in color.

With racism plaguing America like an incurable cancer, the so-called "Christian" white American heart should be more receptive to a proven solution to such a destructive problem. Perhaps it could be in time to save America from imminent disaster -- the same destruction brought upon Germany by racism that eventually destroyed the Germans themselves.

They asked me what about the Hajj had impressed me the most. . . . I said, "The brotherhood! The people of all races, color, from all over the world coming to gether as one! It has proved to me the power of the One God. . . . All ate as one, and slept as one. Everything about the pilgrimage atmosphere accented the Oneness of Man under One God. 

~Malcolm X, Letter following the Hajj.

Bloodbath Nation (War Dance, Nine.)

Thou Shalt Not Kill.

~Exodus 20:13

...

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

...

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

~Volodymyr Zelenskyy, allegedly 25 February 2022, Associated Press

On Saturday night, I woke up and got ready for work, to find that there'd been a racist mass shooting in Jacksonville, FL. Some racist loser ass-bag who lived with his parents had painted Swastikas on his weapons and went to the city to shoot Black people...motherfucker literally left a manifesto to that effect. 

He killed three innocent African Americans at a Dollar Tree before committing suicide.

Tonight, after sleeping all day because I had to work last night, I wake up and the first thing I see is that there's been an active shooter incident at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, with at least one person dead.

For the love of God, I'm telling you...if We The People want to keep our Second Amendment rights...or even want to want to do so...or have any rights worth mentioning because none of the theoretical rights granted in the Constitution matter a damn if you're dead. We are going to have to step up, control ourselves and govern ourselves...and stop this shit...cause if the government or somebody has to do it for us that'll almost certainly mean the party's over.

And right now, there's an entire generation of young people already sick and tired of getting shot at. They're already voting accordingly...and I may be a gun owner, a veteran, and otherwise a person whose life guns have been a significant part of, but goddamn it I can't blame them.

As of awhile ago, I've met kids who've survived multiple shootings.

You want to make somebody anti-gun, that's the way.

Especially considering that if the Right gets its Civil War...when the time comes for the War Dance, and it will...these kids will also be in the position of being the ones who have to put down said insurrection.

And that's not a proposition calculated to increase one's love of any personal "right" to own ridiculous amounts of firepower. War is a horror, I've never known anybody who's been in a battlespace who's really wanted to be in another one.

Black folks, LGBT people, other People of Color, students, teachers...are already looking at these fucking people and wondering "Why the hell do they hate us so much" and "Why does these people's claimed 'Right' to own military-type weapons so often seem to be treated as a permission-slip for violence against us??"

Fuck, I'm wondering the same thing. 

At Walmart last week, across the street from where I work, a friend's brother had a gun pulled on him while he was at work.

The police were called, the person who did it ejected from the store and banned and the cops walked him out, but nothing more was apparently done.

When I was a kid and first learning this stuff, as a hunter, as an Airman in the United States Air Force, and since...I've always had and I was always taught strict rules for weapons handling and use. A firearm is not an expression of one's anger or ego, a totem against some "Evil" or a toy. It's weapon. Its purpose is to kill things.

And quite honestly I think one hell of a lot of people have forgotten...if they ever knew in the first place...that these things are serious matters. Like, whatever even happened to "Thou Shalt Not Kill?" 

Do churches even teach the Ten Commandments anymore??

'Cause it sure looks like all this "Christian Nation" stuff has nothing to do with Christ or Christianity but is instead code for a whole bunch of shit both Christ and any observant Christians would, in any kind of normal sense, want nothing to do with!

Tucker Carlson's preaching that Hungary is a Christian country?? Bullshit, rates of religious observance are low there, devoutness is typically lower. Same with Russia. Both countries have about 14% to 15% rates of church attendance and that's before one gets to the abysmal treatment of immigrants, LGBT people and migrants in Hungary or Russia's genocidal war against Ukraine and persecution of LGBT people!

In point of fact, Ukrainian Evangelical Christians, Jews and Muslims are some of the people fighting hardest for their freedom, and for their nation's right to exist. I've met Baltic State and Ukrainian Evangelicals, I know why that is.

They're fighting against Putin's New Soviet Union not because it's "Christian" but because it isn't.

They know that the original Soviet Union persecuted their ancestors and a new one would certainly do it to them, too.

This isn't an abstraction, a baseless fear or an idea. The kids from former Soviet states that I met both when I was in the Air Force and when I was in college told me the stories that their parents told them.

I've been to Latvia...the detritus of the former Soviet Union was still pretty much everywhere in 1995. Doesn't seem like it was much of a place to live in.

And it's like now that they've had a taste of Trump, the American far-right wants to punish those people for the fact that they or their parents turned toward Democracy and the West and wanted freedom.

It's almost like these fucking people here in America think "Christianity" conservatism or white Americanism or something something Gazpacho must be about discriminating against, murdering, othering or persecuting somebody...otherwise, they think, what's the point??

No, wait, it is that. It's exactly that. 

Otherwise...they don't want it. It doesn't matter what "It" is. If their obsession with relative status doesn't result in someone's death...then these assholes don't feel like they're a person.

And these fucking people think Putin and Russia are going to give them that world where their personhood is literally based on the persecution of some Other, for no reason, or just because they feel like it. 

The Cruelty really is the goddamn point for these goons, all the better if some motherfucker wraps it up in religiosity so they can feel holy and special while hurting people for no reason.

And unless you want to live in their world, the time to stand up and do something about it is Right The Fuck Now.

I don't want to live in Bloodbath Nation, do you??

Eight

Never have I witnessed such sincere hospitality and the overwhelming spirit of true brotherhood as is practiced by people of all colors and races here in this ancient Holy Land, the House of Abraham, Muhammad, and all the other Prophets of the Holy Scriptures. For the past week, I have been utterly speechless and spellbound by the graciousness I see displayed all around me by people of all colors...

You may be shocked by these words coming from me. But on this pilgrimage, what I have seen, and experienced, has forced me to rearrange much of my thought-patterns previously held, and to toss aside some of my previous conclusions. This was not too difficult for me. Despite my firm convictions, I have always been a man who tries to face facts, and to accept the reality of life as new experience and new knowledge unfolds it. I have always kept an open mind, which necessary to the flexibility that must go hand in hand with every form of intelligent search for truth.

During the past eleven days here in the Muslim world, I have eaten from the same plate, drunk from the same glass, and slept in the same bed (or on the same rug) -- while praying to the same God -- with fellow Muslims, whose eyes were the bluest of blue, whose hair was the blondest of blond, and whose skin was the whitest of white. And in the words and in the actions and in the deeds of the "white" Muslims, I felt the same sincerity that I felt among the black African Muslims of Nigeria, Sudan, and Ghana. We were truly all the same (brothers) -- because their belief in one God had removed the "white" from their minds, the 'white' from their behavior, and the 'white' from their attitude. I could see from this, that perhaps if white Americans could accept the Oneness of God, then perhaps, too, they could accept in reality the Oneness of Man -- and cease to measure, and hinder, and harm others in terms of their "differences" in color.

With racism plaguing America like an incurable cancer, the so-called "Christian" white American heart should be more receptive to a proven solution to such a destructive problem. Perhaps it could be in time to save America from imminent disaster -- the same destruction brought upon Germany by racism that eventually destroyed the Germans themselves.

They asked me what about the Hajj had impressed me the most. . . . I said, "The brotherhood! The people of all races, color, from all over the world coming to gether as one! It has proved to me the power of the One God. . . . All ate as one, and slept as one. Everything about the pilgrimage atmosphere accented the Oneness of Man under One God. 

~Malcolm X, Letter following the Hajj.

Слава Україна!

47% (War Dance, Eight.)

First off, fuck a girl named Tomi

You a Klansman in a girl's body
Common sense, we can tell you ain't got it
And legal rights, you don't know nothing 'bout it.
Always trying to talking down on the Blacks
Dodging all the evidence and the facts
When you out in public, better watch your back
You gon' run into the wrong bitch and get your ass slapped.
Heard you were selling pussy in Dakota
Central High School, them boys bent you over
Steady running game on ya like a Trojan
Young ass getting crushed like an empty can of soda.
Then the hoe went to college out in Vegas
Fucking all the little football players
After all the games, you were giving favors
Hit her with a touchdown dick, bye, see you later!
Fuck Tomi Lahren and her show, too
You a racist-ass bitch and a hoe, too
Everything you talk about has no truth.
Close your mouth, we don't wanna see no tooth
Little bitch really think she is so cute
But you a clown-ass bitch and a joke, too
Don't let the KKK revoke you
Bitch, that's dumb, like swimming in some snow boots.

~StaRR Lyfe, Shut Up Bitch [On Tomi Lahren] 

I saw this yesterday.

While all these white Trump co-conspirators are getting bonded out, the "Black Voices For Trump" guy is still sitting in jail.

Black conservatives, the MAGA's don't give a fuck about you.

In fact, when Byron Donalds tried to point this out, Jenna Ellis crashed his Tweet with "What about the [White] Lawyers, Byron?"

Yet Republicans still trying to act like all these white people who tried to overthrow the government having mugshots now makes them all Biggie and Tupac or some shit.

Republicans still trying to claim to be both the rulers and the cultural rebels at the same time. It doesn't work like that.

You can't be both the Country Club and the Hood. It just don't work that way.

Again, both much of the cultural "status" (for lack of a better term at the moment) of African Americans and a fair amount of their culture including both the Black Church and Rap Music (which are more deeply connected than one might think, where do you think all those rappers learned to sing?) came about specifically because of the shit rich white "Conservatives" did to Black people. 

This is what Republicans are trying to culturally appropriate for themselves.

Because, Republicans, being racist shits to the end...think there's some special secret mojo to cultural relevance here and they're desperate to try and claim it somehow...without doing any of the stuff that might actually help them do that.

For fuck's sake, I saw yesterday that Anthony Oliver, the guy who sang "Rich Men North Of Richmond" commented in response to his song being played at the debate that "I WROTE THAT SONG ABOUT THESE PEOPLE!"

Now, I have a whole analysis of that too, but that's likely a whole separate post and I don't want to detract from the mug shot issue.

Republicans aren't just dangerously out of touch, they're stupid.

These people make Mitt Romney in 2012, 47% comment and all, look like a man of the people by comparison.

I was there, I saw that change the minds of people who would've otherwise voted Republican, and that scares me for that reason. What happens when these people lose even more of us?? They're already hell-bent on rejecting Democracy. What happens if Democracy kicks them to the curb first?

And they have so much contempt for you, that they think you're stupid and don't know it.

Or maybe they just don't care, because they base the companies elsewhere, and they play their political fuck fuck games with the Russians now (while somehow being unaware that it's not actually a game for Ivan, but a deadly serious operation) and run the companies they use for their financial "Pump And Dump" schemes out of places like Bermuda. 

Like, most of these assholes in Congress have safe districts or safe states where most people vote for them...and it takes either a serious fuck up by Republicans or dedicated action and long-term effort by other people (or both, see my home state of Michigan) to roll that shit back. 

So it can be done.

But Domestic Abuser type logic is already the standard go-to for "Conservatives."

If they lose, if they're rejected, they're going to try and literally physically hurt people.

Republicans see problems, and think throwing force and/or money (but mostly money) at it is how you solve them. In fact, they think it's the only way.

When they see an actual, existential threat that they can't bully or buy off like COVID-19 or Vladimir Putin's New Soviet Russia, they want to bargain or conciliate with it, or sacrifice a virgin by throwing her in the volcano so maybe the Fire Gods will make the Earth stop shaking and the sacred mountain stop smoking.

And, being rich assholes, they perpetually think they'll get away with it.

For all their money and red power-ties and suits...these motherfuckers are one step up from dancing around the fire shouting "Unga Bunga."

Fighting back is too hard. There's no concept of actual resistance to real threats. That might mean they had to spend less time grifting and shit, or understand something besides reactionary bullshit.

And if anybody else fights back, that's like "Offending the gods" or some shit.

In their world, no one should ever dare resist Power. It doesn't matter if they're on the losing side of it or not...unless they lose to somebody who isn't cruel.

They're functionally incapable of seeing that there's third and fourth, much less expensive options like not being assholes or actually standing up for something.

The reason these fucking people hate the Ukrainians and those of us who support their fight for freedom is because they see what their ancestors would have done, or what they should be doing, and they don't like that.

Because the cruelty's the point, and they've decided it's easier to get by being weak-ass bootlickers.

They fundamentally misunderstand even the meaning of the words "War Dance."

Because understanding that might mean they would have to change, or something.

But the world changes, either change with it or be broken by it.

The problem with that, too, is that by and large these fucking people have adopted a religious mindset that the "World" is Evil but they are Good...and that, thusly, the World should be dominated by them.

They can't actually be both the cultural rebels and the rulers. They really cannot be both God and the Devil. These are wholly different spiritual archetypes that arose out of the human condition for reasons.

But these motherfuckers don't understand that, and they're absolutely going to try and have their cake and eat it too. It doesn't work like that.

But these fucking people's next step is going to be to try to beat the rest of us into submission enough that they can keep trying...as if they genuinely think their own gods and philosophical constructs don't exist and there's no afterlife in which they're going to be judged.

And when they can't have it, they'll kill more people.

We either stop this now, or humanity faces an eternity of abuse by people who think hurting others makes them righteous and who have nothing but contempt for any political system other than "Because I said so."

So get after it.

Because I'm tired of this bullshit already.

You get what you tolerate, America.

Seven

Never have I witnessed such sincere hospitality and the overwhelming spirit of true brotherhood as is practiced by people of all colors and races here in this ancient Holy Land, the House of Abraham, Muhammad, and all the other Prophets of the Holy Scriptures. For the past week, I have been utterly speechless and spellbound by the graciousness I see displayed all around me by people of all colors...

You may be shocked by these words coming from me. But on this pilgrimage, what I have seen, and experienced, has forced me to rearrange much of my thought-patterns previously held, and to toss aside some of my previous conclusions. This was not too difficult for me. Despite my firm convictions, I have always been a man who tries to face facts, and to accept the reality of life as new experience and new knowledge unfolds it. I have always kept an open mind, which necessary to the flexibility that must go hand in hand with every form of intelligent search for truth.

During the past eleven days here in the Muslim world, I have eaten from the same plate, drunk from the same glass, and slept in the same bed (or on the same rug) -- while praying to the same God -- with fellow Muslims, whose eyes were the bluest of blue, whose hair was the blondest of blond, and whose skin was the whitest of white. And in the words and in the actions and in the deeds of the "white" Muslims, I felt the same sincerity that I felt among the black African Muslims of Nigeria, Sudan, and Ghana. We were truly all the same (brothers) -- because their belief in one God had removed the "white" from their minds, the 'white' from their behavior, and the 'white' from their attitude. I could see from this, that perhaps if white Americans could accept the Oneness of God, then perhaps, too, they could accept in reality the Oneness of Man -- and cease to measure, and hinder, and harm others in terms of their "differences" in color.

With racism plaguing America like an incurable cancer, the so-called "Christian" white American heart should be more receptive to a proven solution to such a destructive problem. Perhaps it could be in time to save America from imminent disaster -- the same destruction brought upon Germany by racism that eventually destroyed the Germans themselves.

They asked me what about the Hajj had impressed me the most. . . . I said, "The brotherhood! The people of all races, color, from all over the world coming to gether as one! It has proved to me the power of the One God. . . . All ate as one, and slept as one. Everything about the pilgrimage atmosphere accented the Oneness of Man under One God. 

~Malcolm X, Letter following the Hajj.

Слава Україна!

Mug Shot Trumpy G, and other lies (War Dance, Seven.)

[A group of new prisoners is being processed into Shawshank State Prison.]

Norton: This is Mr. Hadley, he's captain of the guards. I'm Mr. Norton, the Warden. You are convicted felons. That's why they've sent you to me. Rule Number One: no blasphemy. I'll not have the Lord's name taken in vain in my prison. The other rules, you'll figure as you go along. Any questions?

Inmate: When do we eat?

[Norton nods to Captain Hadley, who gets right in the new inmate's face]

Byron Hadley: You eat when we say you eat! You shit when we say you shit, and you piss when we say you piss! You got that, you maggot-dick motherfucker?! [slams his baton into the new inmate's stomach, causing the man to fall to his knees, gasping for breath] On your feet.

Norton: I believe in two things: Discipline and the Bible. Here, you'll receive both. Put your trust in the Lord. Your ass belongs to me. [smiles] Welcome to Shawshank.

...

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.

So, yesterday evening Trump was arrested, indicted and posted bail (using a bail bondsman) in Georgia.

So far, the results of this crap have been...amusingly predictable.

Yet also supremely unfunny at the same time.

By which I mean, Republicans are trying to act like they're all Biggie and Tupac now. I mean, seriously?

No!

*Glares in 1990's Rap Guy and I was a Republican.*

Like, are you fucking kidding me?

Rap grew out of, for the most part, the shit conservatives and Republicans did to urban Black folks. 

I've had this conversation with, ya know, actual urban Black people who in some cases had to join the military to even get out...and then had it explained to me years later in far more educated and technical terms by social workers that were Black, Native American and White. You stupid motherfuckers and your first-world problems with Third World coup aspirations and your unwillingness to see the fucking around all the way through to the finding out phase don't get to claim that mantle.

More to the point I keep seeing the Republican idea of "Art" and seriously, I'm like fuck that.

Note I say this as a fan of old-school, Outlaw Country.

Being musician enough to be considered an iconic symbol of anything usually requires giving a shit about other people...think Johnny Cash, or Tracy Chapman...even, perversely, Kanye West has been enduring despite going full MAGA.

I've had that conversation with a black dude also.

So don't try and tell me, Republicans, that you need Trump to be some sort of "Ultimate Gangsta."

No, bro. Just...No.

You got actual people that have actually done shit already. This is just the Republican political class trying (and failing) to make itself "Cool" and seem victim-y while also trying to bogart its failing hegemony and Power and push that high on forever. My dudes, the entire point here is that one of these things is absolutely not like the other one.

Nobody gets to be both cultural rebel and ruler. Nobody gets to be both High Priest and iconoclast.

Nobody has that kind of power. No one can, something must lose.

You cannot be both a god and the Devil.

It simply does not work like that, by definition, it cannot. These are entirely different spiritual archetypes.

The Lord's Word says one cannot serve both God and Mammon.

There was a reason for that. 

Jesus knew.

You have to pick a fucking side.

And you have to be aware there's tradeoffs.

Like, cultural rebels or those seen as such might get shot for no reason by the cops, because classism, racism, resentment...or just plain old shitty politics.

I mean, really, you ask me? 

A lot of this bullshit is just aging Boomers in Red Hats becoming painfully aware that they ended up being bad caricatures of all the shit they accused their parents of being.

And I'm here to tell you, Republicans are more than willing to take that shit and run with it.

And make it a hell of a lot worse.

Like apparently Marjorie Taylor Greene showed up in Georgia to support Trump and she got chased off by Laura Loomer and a bunch of mentally-ill fanatics.

And Sarah Palin, of all fucking people, is openly calling for Civil War.

Bro if that's your leadership...if even current Republicans like Kevin McCarthy and MTG cannot go far enough...if we all gotta get our War Dance on...it'll be a short war. 

More to the point, the only way your civil war is gonna cause anything other than a whole bunch of dead people (and it'll be worse for your side, trust me) is if you get your ass kicked bad enough to claim real international sympathy and get the United Nations to back you...but I find that massively unlikely.

Anti-American Tankie Twitter ain't gonna save you.

FLN in Algeria could pull it off specifically because they were an anticolonial movement in the anticolonial 1950's. 

You idiots want to colonize your fellow Americans. 

Again, one of these things is not like the other one.

And I've reasons to doubt both the competence and good faith of your backers.

You cannot have both the Cross of Christ and the Hammer and Sickle. The methods of one side or the other, usually the worse of the two by way of being more expedient to Power, will win out...and that's what happened in Russia. The Red Banner won.

Something's always going to lose.

And it's a safe bet, that something is you.

Trump can either be the leader of a conservative political party, or he can be Mug Shot Trumpy G. He cannot be both...unless neither he nor the movement he leads is anything it says it is, and that creates its own special set of problems. 

Again, something has to lose here.

Probably, you.

Trump and a lot of rich Republicans can afford (or borrow or grift or steal) enough to buy off reality, if only for a time. Most of the rest of us cannot.

(Evidence also suggests that time is running out.)

America, hell, civilization...is based on citizenship. The answer to how do we get a better nation is "Be a better citizen." All that defiant "Up yours" crap generally got old for most of us by the time we graduated from high school. Sticking a giant foam-rubber middle finger up at the rest of the world ain't fixing shit.

And I'm tired of it, fuck off with that garbage.

Six

Слава Україна!

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.

(Ka Mate is a resurrection story, a triumph of life over death, as I've mentioned before. Remember that.)

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

~Volodymyr Zelenskyy, allegedly 25 February 2022, Associated Press

Losing Yourself (War Dance, Six.)

Look, if you had one shot, one opportunity
To seize everything you ever wanted-One moment
Would you capture it or just let it slip?

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

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

~Eminem, Lose Yourself.

I was hoping to avoid having to comment on the ravening shit-show that was the GOP debate last night. But, in surveying the wreckage...I'm like, wow, what the fuck happened??

This ain't your Dad's Republican Party. Hell, this ain't even what's left of the 2016 Republican Party.

I'd be embarrassed to be one of these people now.

I used to be a Republican, I'm a veteran. I volunteered for Bush's campaign, door-knocking in Cheboygan, MI. If you'd told me in 2003 that twenty years hence, Donald Trump would be literally the best they got, I'd have punched you in the face, Time Traveler.

And I'd have been screaming "He's a fucking Democrat" when the cops hauled me off to jail.

I mean...when Trump...the presumptive front-runner without even so much as getting off his fat ass don't even bother to show up and he still dominates the goddamn show, I mean, what??

Except it gets worse, way worse.

Whatever members of the Republican Base that CNN found to poll about this shit-show decided that Vivek Ramaswamy, AKA Ramascammy, Wanna-scammy...you know...the Plant-based Trump. The Hindu motherfucker who thinks 9/11 was an inside job, thinks he gonna bring the Caste system to America, says he'll fire the Federal Government and wants to sell Ukraine to Putin so that he can pay for bombing Mexico...won the goddamn debate.

The Plant-Based Trump...it's good for ya (George Carlin Voice.)

Except the motherfucker really isn't even that. He's a wannabe Rap Guy who couldn't swing it, so No Money G had to go into "Business" instead...and went from there to politics, which in real terms means he's running his campaign off David Sacks' and Peter Theil's money.

Now...what an actual devout Hindu would likely say about No Talent V here taking money from a racist South African Commie-wannabe whose fondest wish is to suck Vladimir Putin's shriveled old balls and a German heretical Christian gay dude who literally drinks the blood of teenagers...I'd hesitate to tell you. But I think I can reasonably well extrapolate that it wouldn't be that much different from what a devout, practicing Christian would say about such people...if there were any of those left on the "Right."

And there aren't, it's as simple as that.

I'm here to tell you, if somebody like Vivek Rama-Rama-Ding-Ding would've run for President in, say, 2004...and dared to invoke "God" on a stage somewhere...the Evangelical world would've collectively been like "What god is that, cupcake?" 

If the motherfucker wasn't just straight laughed out of politics (or far more likely, chased with pitchforks and torches) he'd have been facing Evangelicals lined up 'round the block wherever he went, looking to correct the various errors of his belief system and share the "Good News" of Jesus Christ.

Jesus said unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. ~John 14:6

It was a different Party, hell, it was a different world. The "Compassionate Conservatism" of George W. Bush was losing out at the street-level to Evangelicals who were expecting the Republican Party to impose some kind of an Evangelical theocracy on America. 

Not that atheistic Neoconservatives like Dick Cheney, the Koch Brothers, or their assorted potentates like George W. Bush and John McCain had any intention of ever doing so, or ever thought they'd get away with it if they tried.

(And, deep down, the Evangelical base knew it, too.)

Until, that is, these fucking people foisted Sarah Palin on the rest of us...as a result of this same exact under-the-radar struggle that you almost had to be an ex-Christian with specific knowledge and life experience of Dominionism and Pentecostal Whackadoodle-ness to even be aware of at the time. 

I tried to warn people, I did.

I cannot stress it enough, knowledge of this shit is commonplace now, in 2005, not so much.

And almost everything I know...shit I put vast amounts of my life and time into studying so I'd know how to fight it...is completely obsolete...replaced by Sedevacantist medieval Catholicism, Trump-cultism and an utterly vapid, areligious Prosperity Gospel so full of entirely secular Whack-a-nut conspiracy theories that the collective lot is so fucked in the head, they've about kicked Jesus Christ right the fuck out of his own religion.

So I mean, technically if you think about it the political rise of a Hindu grifter like Rama-scummy who's about half a step up from buying a call center in Mumbai and running gift-card scams is probably not actually the worst thing that could come out of this shit-fest.

And the legit worst thing is, none of this shit will matter. In about two hours Rama-smarmy will be reduced to just another punk-ass wearing a "Free Donald Trump" T-shirt and shouting he'll burn down the American legal system to free Trump if elected.

Republicans have, truly, lost themselves.

Reagan Wept.

And then these same motherfuckers are content to outsource how conservatives should be acting in these times (let alone the things they should be fighting for) to...well, other people.

Then they'll continually disrespect those other people, threaten not to help them, and demand the whole rest of the world sell out to Vladimir Fucking Putin, late of the KGB.

I remember when Republicans thought somebody like Putin could conjure devils. Oh yes, I do.

It's a whole goddamn party of Manchurian candidates now.

And if we want to get rid of these motherfuckers, long-term, it's going to come down to a fight.

So be a better citizen, and be prepared to get your War Dance on.

But if these motherfuckers keep being...well...these motherfuckers, it'll be a short war.

Слава Україна!

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.

(Ka Mate is a resurrection story, a triumph of life over death, as I've mentioned before. Remember that.)

Five

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

~Volodymyr Zelenskyy, allegedly 25 February 2022, Associated Press